"I Hope You're Happy Now, Jacob"--The LOST Season 5 Thread

their wedding vows? xpost

Yeah, I'm not getting why people think Jacob was trying to stop Sawyer from writing the letter. He gave him a pen so he could finish it! Then he left! Do people think Uncle Doug was Jacob or something?

"What ABOUT you, Ben"

Dude was askin to get knifed.

Ha ha he didn't even say "Ben." Dude is cold.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-cirincione/jughead-is-real-the-truth_b_204061.html

- No Ben, what about you?
- Fuck you.
- No Ben, what about you?
- Fuck you.
- Ben, what about you?
- Fuck you.

john ben-der?

However, once Locke met up with Ben and visited Esau at the Cabin, Esau used this loophole - that Locke was destined to be the island's Leader and would hence be the one to be able to meet with Jacob (that seems to be one of the rules) and have him killed... it's still fuzzy.

Locke was being manipulate right from the start of his time on the island though ... you're right that Jacob brought him to the island but if we think the smoke monster is Esau (or his agent) -- Locke looked into the face of the monster in, like, episode 2 and immediately started doing stuff the smoke wanted him to do, right?

time loop stuff gets pretty hard to track when you realize that part of the loop is real Locke and part of it is the doppelganger. i.e. when time first starts skipping it's the "real" Locke who gives Richard the compass and says he should be leader but then in the recent episode it's fake Locke who takes Richard into the jungle to rescue real Locke who's shot in the leg?? yipes

sorry if any of this is a retread, didn't watch the episode till late last night and I can't go back to re-read everything yet

The tone of Jacob's 'What about you?' seemed be melancholic to me rather than 'What about you? You are teh suck, lol'.

who broke the magical ring of ash btw?

my guess is claire.

wait so is BEN maybe the loophole? he wasn't supposed to be able to come back to the island was he? also maybe he's the loophole because his whole schtick only happened because oceanic 815 um would come to crash on the island a long time later?

also maybe that's why not-locke wanted ben to kill jacob, because he couldn't.

Catching up here:

Why is everyone acting like a person has to be "the loophole"? A loophole would be a situation, correct? It's not "The Mole."

Hey, y'all, remember when Locke has the dream about Horace and Horace says "to find Jacob, you have to find Horace" or somethig like that? Maybe he meant HORUS, cause Jacob lives in an Egyptian foot amirite!!!!!!!!

Remember those jars of multicolored liquids in "Esau"'s cabin? Is this even notable in any way? I'm also wondering if there's something to Ben saying "once I open this door, there's no going back" when he takes Locke to the cabin, because tbh he seems clueless about Jacob and is admittedly bullshitting Locke with the entire trip to the cabin, but he's actually OTM that when they cross into there (and Locke presumably breaks the ash circle) something happens that can't be undone.

Also, something I was thinking about that may or may not be significant: when Hurley finds the cabin, it looks different, and appears in a completely different spot than it is in when other people visit it. Also, when Locke returns to it, he finds the circle of ash undisturbed, but no cabin. Is the cabin moving around, or immaterial, or what?

When Christian said he was "speaking on Jacob's behalf" -- are we to believe he was actually being inhabited/used by "Esau" at this time? It is interesting that Jack had to put something of Christian's on Locke's corpse to recreate the original flight as close to the letter as possible. Esau was, I guess, originally trying to use Christian's body?

surprised at the ppl who were disappointed by the finale, by far the best ep of the season i thought!

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Friday, May 15, 2009 9:59 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^otm

Lol @ this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/lolatlostpedia.jpg

And, in closing, i had (and still have) that exact NKOTB lunchbox that kate tried to steal.

Aw, you can't really read that jpg. It's too long anyway.

Thinking about this ep more, is the whole "it only ends once, anything that happens before that is just progress" line meant to mean that Jacob/Esau have seen this entire eternity of events (perhaps ending with the incident/explosion) happen over and over and over, and Jacob (like Faraday) thinks you can change the future but Esau thinks you can't, that people will fuck it up regardless.

I refuse to believe any loophole idea - because we wouldn't get a chance to see any of the loops with one season left, and just admitting that everything was looping with no actual episodes that show looping would be extremely corny. even more so if I'm wrong and we do see the loop being next season.

Since I hate loophole ideas I will only believe that the writers have something completely original planned for the last season.

Titus: "you are still trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?"
Jacob: "you are wrong" <Jacob is stubborn
Titus: "they come, fight, they destroy, corrupt. It always ends the same"
Jacob: "It only ends once, anything that happens before that is just progress" <he's looks up and to the left. he is lying AND mocking.

Titus: "you have any idea how badly I want to kill you"
Jacob: "Yes"
Titus: "One of these days sooner or later we're going to find a loophole my friend" <I think the loophole is so that Jacob can finally die (Titus too maybe) - living forever sucks.
Jacob: "But when you do I'll be right here" <Jacob being stubborn and basically saying you can't find a loophole.
Titus: "It's always nice talking to you Jacob"
Jacob: "nice talking to you to"

this entire eternity of events (perhaps ending with the incident/explosion)

don't see how it can "end" there, clearly Marvin Candle survived it and referred to it in his orientation video that they watched in the hatch in the future

"clearly"

wtf @ me

in one of the podcasts early on didn't the creators say they wanted to make sure the show had "stakes" when people died, consequential events happened, etc.

not so much anymore

it's kind of a bummer, I mean Juliet was a pretty good candidate for a semi-major character to kill off and yet they made her fall down a giant hole and set off a nuke and she's probably STILL not dead, she just hit the reset button. but past that anyone who dies on the show you don't even believe they're dead. makes it a little hard to care what happens sometimes when everyone can just reanimate

xpost up a bit: Maybe Ben couldn't meet with Jacob this whole time since Jacob knew that Ben would be the one to eventually kill him... Not-Locke, assuming he is Esau, is under some kind of law/force where he can't kill his rival, much like the Widmore/Ben rivalry (I don't think they're just going to drop that, even if it doesn't get resolved until the final episodes).

I definitely agree with the posters who say that Jacob was almost inviting Ben to kill him with the "What about you?" line, that's how I immediately interpreted it when I saw it. Feels natural, a Christ-like figure knowing his betrayers and eventual death...

All this is making me want to go dig up that Lost: Via Domus game. It's supposed to be pretty bad but I hear there's some (time)-trippy elements that were hinted at, and it came out while the fourth season was airing, I think.

I think Juliet will be a real sacrifice, though - not least because she'll be full-timing a new series next year.

i don't know if Juliet's fate is sealed yet - in her last interview on Kimmel, EM said she shot both shows at the same time and that she'd already finished shooting on V, which i'm assuming gives her time to go back to shooting Lost during the fall when V debuts (assuming ABC picks it up). I really hope she's dead though, that was a fantastic ending and performance from her.

(ps - watching her interviews is always weird - she's such a goony, perky blonde and completely unlike juliet).

I also thought this episode was great.

It was ok but I thought it was more interesting to think about than it was exciting to watch

On the subject of Juliet lols I just found out she was Angelina Jolie's girlfriend in "Gia"

Seems like after replaying events, both the Esau loophole and the Jacob-assisting variable now happened in the same iteration, the second probably canceling out the first.

Despite Miles spelling out the possibility that the bomb is the incident, I think the simpler explanation is that the drilling is and always was the incident; the bomb going off is the new event and this episode ended the exact same way as the S2 one-- same bomb and all-- only 30 years earlier.

Key is what always happened in this loop and what is happening for the first time: Young Charlotte/Miles always left, which means Faraday always came back, stirred up Jack, placed doubt in Chang's mind (who tried to stop Radzinski and hurt his hand), contacted his mother (who later pushed Faraday to excel in order to figure out how to save himself each time in the hopes it one day would work), and died. Jack, as usual, probably always screwed up, charging into the Swan and failing to detonate the bomb. They probably all in their 1977 present were then caught and died in some way-- in the incident or at the hands of Dharma-- just as Richard reported to Sun 30 years later.

Back in 77, after Jack's inability to neutralize the incident, between unseen post-incident conversations, Faraday's notebook, Chang's new belief in Daniel's plan, etc., etc., the hatch was built, Radzinski volunteered to push the button in the hopes that someday he could reconstitute his research, and the bomb (which Faraday surely believed would be better than a "cataclysmic" event, therefore isn't a cataclysmic event itself) was inserted into the hatch as the failsafe. In 2004, Locke smashes the 108 button computer and Desmond turns the failsafe key and the same bomb goes off. This finale is a parallel of that one-- we even saw the "quarantine" door on the beach for no good reason. What happened to the characters last time is likely similar to what has happened this time, though I don't have the brainpower to figure out what that is gonna be.

If that isn't enough crazy theorizing, I submit the variable is...Juliet. But maybe I'm giving her otherwise cheap flip-flopping too much credit, but when she stops Sawyer from wailing on Jack and says "I changed my mind" and then we cut to commercial-- that may be the "new" decision someone made with their free will. She then also of course was the one whose "live together, die alone" roused the others to join the gunfight and who detonated the bomb.

Erm, the S2 finale would have been 27 years later not 30. Math is hard.

Not sure about the loophole thing 100%, since obviously Jacob and the other dude had already played things out a bunch of times w/humanity before the Black Rock arrived. That said, events specifically involving Jack, Locke, Faraday and others in 1954, 1977, and 2004 surely impacted on things later, including Richard seeking out John, the handling of the bomb, John being convinced he needs to die, etc., etc. The opening scene suggests there is no loophole but the later ones do. The differences could simply be humanity's increased scientific knowledge, which also could be defined as "progress."

Can someone provide a YouTube link to the Locke's Horace dream? I don't really remember that bit.

Overthinking the whole thing has made me more confused than ever, but I'm finding the two bodies of Locke a bit intriguing. The simplest explanation for seeing two versions of the same person (other than it's his lol secret twin) would be that Not-Locke was a future version coming back -maybe he was waiting where the Ajira flight crashed - but as he has died, how could he carry on into the future to do this? Plus Jacob obviously recognises him as being not Locke but Esau/Anti-Jacob. I guess the obvious answer is that Not-Locke is not a physical body but an apparition, as most people seem to have assumed, but I don't know if this is good enough, considering he can move stuff etc.

given all the Christian imagery and Locke-as-jesus type stuff maybe he's both (father, son, holy spirit kinda thing ... both human and divine etc)

He does seem to have access to all of Locke's memories, but he seems to be interested/surprised by Ben's devotion to Jacob, the elaborate secrecy around Jacob's rule, etc. So while Esau knows what Locke knew, he's unaware of how the Others have been conducting business around Jacob.

Watching the episode again, I no longer think Jacob and Esau are stuck in a time loop - Esau asked how the Black Rock got there, he wouldn't have if he'd seen it before.

this may have been mentioned upthread already, but it's not the first time locke coerced someone else into doing the killing. see sawyer and the dad in "the box." was that non-locke back then somehow?

xp Matt DC

I think he was asking in a resigned way 'again with the visitors? what the fuck, man', which would work either if this is the Xth time the Black Rock's landed, or if it's just another bunch of people drawn to the island.

If as the producers say, season 6 'resembles' season 1, it would be wild to actually have a loop and have them relive season 1, with different choices made. Given the fact that so many actors are off the show, I don't know how they'd do that and I wouldn't expect them to, but it would be clever and/or insane.

andrew - killing the oppressor/daddy/the buddha is definitely a theme. I don't think it's as literal as not killing Dad = possessed by Esau though.

It's funny, if Esau is anti- island visitors, what the hell does he do with his time when he's not possessing people?

Er, dead people.

i think some of you are over-reading the word "loophole." it doesn't necessarily refer to a LOOP like a time loop.

Yeah, i took 'loophole' as 'the way I can finally toss you on the pyre, since I can't directly'. Still, the Jacob/Esau convo seems to point to some kind of reiteration, whether it's thematic or temporal, or both.

I'm betting the loop is out as that is way too Matrixy. 'You're the 10 billionth Jack ...'

I wonder what Jacob meant by "they're coming"?

Also, knowing what we know now, Locke talking to Richard about having to "deal with" the Ajira dudes is pretty chilling.

Whoever 'they' are, Esau looked to be shit scared of them

he meant that the forces he's been gathering - in order to stop Esau from exploiting the loophole - jack, kate, sawyer, sun/jin, hurley etc - are on their way.

Widmore's 'there's a war coming and you should be there when it happens' comment to Locke is interesting in this context

Jacob must be the devil

A loophole is just an unnoticed way of making it through the rules.

I'm going to have to deal with six months of people referring to beach dude as Esau before we get a real name, aren't I? This is really going to break my balls...

I know, should be Titus

When have we ever called someone on Lost by their real world name?

When has anyone on Lost had as cool of a real world name as Titus?

Nah come on guys, "they're coming"=shadow of the statue dudes 110 per cent. not jack etc...

hence the "deal with" referring to them too

yr probably right...

So we still haven't seen the explanation for the scene where Locke, Sawyer, etc. were in the outrigger being shot at by the people in the other outrigger, have we? For awhile we assumed that it was the Ajira/Shadow of the Statue people, but now that they've merged with the Others I wonder. Perhaps Ilana and the Others see John Locke (actual) in the boat and think he's non-Locke.

I thought that was given away when we saw the Shadow people arrive on the main island in the canoe with Lapidus having an arm wound in the finale (having been shot by Juliet during that time jump earlier in the season). It wasn't explicitly stated, but I think it fits, unless Lapidus got that wound sometime earlier and I forgot.... I doubt there's anyone else it could've been, unless they decide to revisit it in season 6.