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Prime Candidate:
Cultural Thoughts on LOST 6.04, “The Substitute”
by Pearson Moore

We know who he is.  We know his history and we understand his motivations.  The Prime Candidate was identified not only by name, but by number.

Carlton Cuse promised “illumination” in this episode, and he delivered:  illuminated integers, a child glowing in the jungle, and brilliantly coloured themes of balance, strength, and humanity.   “The Substitute” was a feast for the eyes and for the mind, and arguably the richest episode of the last six seasons.

Character Inversion

Episode Four continued the theme of instability, focusing on unexpected character inversions.  Last week we saw Claire going through a very bad hair day, adopting many of the same jungle survival techniques innovated by her French predecessor sixteen years before.  This week we experienced an inversion even more unexpected in the sudden emotional instability and physical frailty of the most consistently unmoved character of the series.

While the other Others wore dirty, dusty, grimy clothes and almost certainly had lice-infested hair and rotting teeth, Richard Alpert wore only immaculate, perfectly starched shirts and not a single hair was ever out of place.  He could have modeled for GQ, Eddie Bauer, or Pepsodent.  He was the Superman of the Banana Republic.  Now he’s bloodied, unkempt, and disheveled.  More than that:  he’s lost his emotional and psychological bearings.  Always cool to this point, even in the most dire circumstances, after coming face to face with Cerberus he seemed short steps away from complete derangement.

The change in Richard was more severe than anything we have so far seen in the other characters, and seemed to be qualitatively different as well.  Jack was disoriented in sideways spacetime over the last three episodes, but he was not in a panic.  Kate seemed distracted both on-Island and off, but  for all her scurrying about and tracking wayward friends through the jungle, she appeared to be returning to the more confident footing of her first days on the Island.

Richard’s reaction to the Man in Black signaled a sense of immediate danger, consonant with Ilana’s feeling that they were confronting an enemy unlike any they have so far had to face.  His warning to Sawyer was clear:  Smokey intended to kill all of them.

The sideways versions of Hurley and Locke, on the other hand, seemed up to any challenge, virtually unphased by even the most stressful events.  The extent of the change from the last five years was striking, but I found it within the bounds of acceptability for these characters.  These changes again had the feel of something deeper, amounting to a shift not only in personality, but in the very character of the story.  Hurley and Locke exhibited a kind of equilibrium in response to the slings and arrows coming their way, and that balance played out in one scene after another during the episode.

Balance

The predominant leitmotif tonight was balance.

The most important scenes were imbued with measured emotion and symbols of balance and equilibrium.  The changes were not subtle.  The writers confronted us from the very first scene with a different John Locke than any nuance of character we have seen in the past five years.  When the chair lift became stuck, John made the impetuous decision to attempt a jump.  That was an action we could have imagined the old John Locke taking, but what happened next was unforeseen:  Locke, landing face first on the grass, pelted by lawn sprinklers, didn’t become upset.  He laughed.  Later, with his wife-to-be, he was at ease, confident of their strong relationship, appreciative of her attention yet not cloying as he had been in the past.  This was a very new John Locke.

Just to be sure we understood the gravity of this change, Locke was faced with one of the most stressful of all life events, when his boss, Randy, fired him for lying about attending a conference in Australia.  He did show some mild signs of being upset, but as in the earlier scene, he accepted his lot with emotional poise.

Hurley showed off a new emotional playbook, too.  When Locke confronted him about parking his big yellow Hummer too close to his van, Hurley listened attentively and responded in a cool and reasonable manner.  This was not the Hurley we’ve come to know over five years.  Here was a man dans sa peau, sure of himself, and ready not only to listen, but to help.  The altercation could have ended in a yelling match-and would have, in the mainline spacetime-but in sideways spacetime, the two parted as friends.

The balance between the two players, MIB and Jacob, provided the introduction to the scene in the cave.  “Two players, two sides”; we’ve heard the phrase echo in our minds for six years.  In any meaningful commentary on LOST, the invocation of the equal pairing of the Dark Player and the Light Player must be given centre position.

While the motif of Balance was central to this episode, I am going to argue that this is not a central motif of the series.  Based on events over the last six episodes, I believe another theme carries stronger support, and I intend to demonstrate this support in the next several paragraphs.

I believe the intention in lifting Balance to the dominant theme of the episode was three-fold.  First, it became a means of registering character change in a most memorable way.  More importantly, it was the second in a series of virtues to which the characters are being held.  Last week, trust was at issue.  Four major characters-Jack, Sayid, Kate, and Claire-were thrown into situations in which trust became a vehicle for rapid cementing of relationships.  The topic of the week tonight was balance.

The aspect of balance and trust that I believe will have greatest effect is in the preparation of certain characters for important work in coming episodes.  As I noted in analyses of Episodes 6.01 to 6.03, I believe certain events could be interpreted as indicating instability or turbulence between the two spacetimes established by Faraday’s Boulder.  The characters have been experiencing this as fleeting connections or overlaps between the two realities.  The red mark on Jack’s neck, the sudden appearance and disappearance of Desmond to Jack on sideways Flight 815, Claire’s out-of-the-blue naming of Aaron in her womb, Kate’s feelings toward pregnant Claire, and so on, may be signs that the two streams will not long be separated, and will, probably at a time when no one is prepared, come crashing together again.

Some of the characters will herald the smashing of realities with activities banal.  Juliet and Sawyer apparently will do nothing more than go Dutch on a coffee date, if we believe her last words to Sawyer indicate her crossover to the other reality.  Other characters, I have to believe, are going to make full use of their new insights and strengths when they cross the spacetime barrier.  Arming these characters now means they will be all the more formidable when they confront the final and most difficult challenges of the story.

Limitations on Cerberus

The Smoke Monster revealed himself to be hemmed in by more rules and limitations that I would have guessed in previous episodes.  The twelve- or fourteen-year-old boy appearing in the jungle made a point of telling the MIB, “You can’t kill him,” probably referring to Sawyer.  When Cerberus tripped and fell and shouted, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”, I had to wonder if he had begun to absorb some of Locke’s personality.

The spontaneous recitation of Locke’s catch phrase surprised me, but the dynamic of the scene was governed by this truth:  Regardless of what happened to Jacob, the rules of the Island continued to apply in full force.  Smokey, in ways he considered of utmost importance, had no more freedom now than he did before he kicked Jacob into the fire.

Ilana believed the Smoke Monster to be “stuck this way.”  The MIB said he felt trapped, that he wanted to go home.  In his response to the boy, and in tripping and falling, he seemed less mature than even the teenager he was chasing.  Later, when he told Sawyer, “It’s just a damn island,” I thought of George Conway, the antagonist in James Hilton’s novel, Lost Horizon.

George saw the same miracles at Shangri-La that everyone else experienced, but he was ready at every turn to explain away even the most inexplicable of events.  Thieves, prostitutes, and hardened criminals were changed for the better by Shangri-La, but not George.  George refused to believe, and he came to despise everything about what he believed to be a false paradise.  When, near the end of the story, he discovered the place really was heaven on earth, he charged off a cliff, killing himself rather than accepting a place in paradise.

I don’t know if the MIB shares George’s obstinance,  but I am coming to think he suffers a kind of ignorance of the complete reality of the Island.  It’s not just “a damn island.”  The MIB is lying to Sawyer, or he has not the eyes to see what is clear to everyone else labouring to protect a unique and powerful place on Earth.  Either way, the Smoke Monster is more like a boy than a man.

This strong reminder of the MIB’s limitations served to reinforce yet another aspect of his relationship to Jacob:  For at least a couple of centuries, and probably for significantly longer than that, the two entities were in balance.  This notion was confirmed by the symbol of the equally weighted scale at the entrance to the cave.  The dark stone and the light stone had equal and opposite value.  Since Smokey seemed to suffer many of the same restrictions now as he did when his opposite lived, I have to wonder just what he accomplished in killing Jacob.  Was he kidding himself when he cast the light stone into the ocean?  Did he really think he had any more freedom than before, when Jacob lived?

Illumination

The mysterious boy in the jungle glowed.  The image of the boy flashed for only a split second, and it wasn’t really enough to make sense of the glow.  The still image showed unusual details.  The foliage around the boy was discoloured to a white or yellowish white.  Bright light shone down on the boy from above, but this light didn’t account for the discoloured plant life in his immediate proximity.  It’s as if the boy himself was radiating tremendous energy, wilting everything around him.  Did power emanating from the boy cause others, like the MIB, to become weak, or trip them up so they could not stand in his presence?

Why was the boy running?  Why were his hands and forearms covered in blood or red paint?  Why was he free of the blood or paint when we saw him later?  Who was the boy?  Aaron?  Jacob?  A young Locke?  Based on themes of the last several episodes, another possibility seems plausible, and I will discuss this shortly.

The numbers

Like the boy in the jungle, the numbers and names in the cave were also illuminated with bright light.  This was the big mythological revelation of the evening, and I believe the numbers/names connection will have significance to the endgame as well.  There have been several lists of names and several numbers, and I think a brief review will put the number/name connections into a more useful context.

The first list was the passenger manifest, and it allowed Hurley to determine that Ethan Rom was not on Flight 815.  The next list was compiled at the beginning of Season Two by Ana Lucia’s group, and was comprised of those who were abducted by the Others.

The Tail Section Nine:

Eli

Jim

Emma

Zach

Nancy

four others, unnamed

We didn’t see a list again until near the end of Season Two, when one of Ben’s people wrote down four names.

Bea Klugh’s List:

Jack Shephard

Kate Austen

Hugo Reyes

James Ford

The list at the end of Season Four was significant.

The Oceanic Six:

Jack Shephardd

Kate Austen

Hugo Reyes

Sayid Jarrah

Sun-Hwa Kwon

Aaron Littleton

The fact that Jacob touched nine individuals carries great moment.

Jacob’s Nine:

Kate Austen

James Ford

Jack Shephard

Sayid Jarrah

Hugo Reyes

Sun-Hwa Kwon

Jin Kwon

John Locke

Benjamin Linus (just after Ben stabbed him)

And now we have the Cave Numbers and corresponding names.

Cave Numbers:

4 Locke

8 Reyes

15 Ford

16 Jarrah

23 Shephard

42 Kwon

In Season Three we learned “Shephard wasn’t even on Jacob’s list” (Episode 3.06), Kate wasn’t on the list because she was “flawed,” Sayid’s name was absent “because he is weak and frightened” and Locke’s name didn’t appear because “he is angry.” (3.12)  Some of these statements didn’t make sense until Episode 5.16, when Ben indicated there was more than one list.

There are two nine-name lists and two six-name lists.  It seems fair to assume that the list of abducted tailies has lesser significance than the other lists.  Two of the people on that list, Emma and Zach, we now know to be safe in the Temple, and the other names have not been mentioned since the earliest days of the series.  Since the two most vulnerable members of the list (the two children) were shown to be unharmed, I am going to assume their survival indicates the others on the list were likewise given places in the Temple.

The Nine

The Season Five finale began with Jacob twisting fibres into yarn, turning yarn into thread, and weaving thread into a tapestry.  He was careful and deliberate, and his care was reflected in the meticulous preparations he made in weaving his way through time to touch nine individuals at precisely the correct instant to give them “a little push” toward the Island.  His tapestry was a kind of record of his efforts, depicting the nine individuals he touched, connected by unbroken lines to the Eye of Horus at the top of the tapestry.

The Seven

Below the Nine in Jacob’s tapestry was a group of Seven human figures.  While we have no list containing seven names, it seems possible that Jacob or some other name might be tacked onto a list of six to bring the number up to the required seven.  I believe great meaning attaches to the number seven, and I have posted detailed analyses of its possible significance.

One possibility that bears some contemplation:  The Cave Numbers prove seven players, not six.  Number 42, Kwon, could represent the combined strength inherent in marriage.  That is to say, perhaps number 42 represents both Sun and Jin.  This would constitute a most intriguing culmination of the Seven.

Four names were shared among the Oceanic Six and the Cave Numbers.  Kate and Aaron were absent from the Cave Numbers (though the name Littleton appeared, crossed out, on the cave ceiling), and Locke and Ford were not among the Oceanic Six.  If the Oceanic Six have any mythological value, the “Substitute” of the episode title could be Kate or Aaron or both of them.  Kate may be a replacement or substitute for Sawyer, if he dies or leaves the Island, and Aaron may be the replacement for the deceased John Locke.

The Candidate

I am not convinced that the MIB was telling the truth about the significance of the Cave Numbers, or that he understood their meaning.  It seems clear the Island was not “just a damn island.”  Also, the nature of the numbers and names, and the way they were recorded, seemed to contradict Cerberus’ statement that these were Jacob’s doing.

Jacob was careful, meticulous, and clean.  He did not scrawl graffiti all over the inside of the statue.  Except for his poorly supported idealism around the notion of “progress”, he seemed to have a mature outlook on life.  I have more than a little difficulty accepting the idea that the haphazard scrawling of names on the ceiling of a cave is anything Jacob would have contemplated doing.

The names and numbers are of different sizes, sometimes different sized letters even within the same name.  Some lines are dark, some are light and difficult to read.  The lack of uniformity in size and darkness indicates an unpracticed and uncaring hand.  Again, I don’t see Jacob being the agent behind this graffiti.

I don’t believe the Cave Numbers are the work of Jacob.  I believe they are the work of an impatient, sometimes immature man, like the MIB.  Or, they could be the result of an impatient youth-like the mysterious boy we saw twice in the jungle.

I believe the six Cave Numbers and names have greater significance than the MIB was willing to divulge.  Or the Smoke Monster may not have known what the true significance of the Cave Numbers was.  But I don’t think the Cave Numbers had anything to do with candidates for replacement of Jacob.  We learned at the end of Season Five, several hours before Jacob’s death, that Frank Lapidus might have been a “candidate”.  Ilana and Bram and their people were surprised to learn of Jacob’s death.  Thus, it seems unlikely they would have considered Frank a valid candidate to replace a man they were certain was still alive.  Frank may have been a candidate to replace Locke, or a candidate for joining their team, but not a substitute for Jacob.  When the MIB talked with Sawyer in the cave, he said Sawyer was a candidate to replace Jacob.  It seems likely the MIB was wrong, or he was lying.

The Prime Candidate

Only two names were shared among Bea’s List, the Oceanic Six, and the Cave Numbers:  8 Reyes and 23 Shephard.  Of the six Cave Numbers, only one is a prime number:  23.  Primes are significant if for no other reason than the fact that they cannot be evenly divided into smaller numbers.  They stand on their own, as they are, indivisible.  Jack Shephard is the indivisible, indispensable man.  He is the Prime Candidate, destined for some as yet unknown but singular, monumental task on the Island which he alone will be able to execute.  I believe his task may have been assigned not by Jacob, nor by the Man in Black, but rather by a force of destiny, by the Island itself or the Island’s rule maker, possibly as represented by the Boy On Fire.

Humanity

I don’t think six to ten key figures dropped ten thousand metres from the sky only to serve as police officers to enforce a centuries-old truce between equally opposed rival factions.  I think their task carries much greater significance.  I believe the essential message of the series is the ultimate goodness and practical efficacy of ideals, embodied in notions of culture or humanity, and expressed so far this season as two particular human virtues:  Trust (6.03), and Balance (6.04).  I think future episodes will highlight other important aspects of our common humanity, and that together these will be depicted as the true gifts of the Island, worthy of protection, even at the cost of certain of the characters’ lives.

A Strength sui generis

One man has so far been depicted as manifesting the full force of both Trust and Balance.  Although Locke was not highlighted in last week’s episode, he is unquestionably the character who has been most trusting, even to the point of gullibility, and he is the one who has most suffered because of his repeated willingness to trust just about anyone.

In tonight’s episode, we saw a strength of character given over almost entirely to a single person.  As I have stated in previous analyses, I believe John Locke’s infirmity has become a source of both physical and moral strength.  There are historical precedents for men of character rising to overcome paralysis.  In thousands of political cartoons in the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was depicted as a man of great physical strength.  Running faster than an airplane, boxing with Hitler and giving him a knock-out blow, shooting the rapids in a canoe, piloting the ship of state or the train of  the economy, and so on.  That the President of the United States could not move or even feel his legs and spent every day of his life in a wheelchair had no consequences for the country.  That he rose above the most difficult challenges ever faced by a country made him arguably the most important leader of the twentieth century.

Locke wasn’t going to let a frozen chair lift stop him, and even when he landed face-first in the grass, he took the momentary setback in stride.  By the time Rose gave her advice on accepting life as it was, Locke was ready to receive her wise counsel and apply it to the task of rising above.  The task Rose gave Locke was one I would not have accepted.  I taught high school for two years, but my assignment was in a French-speaking African country.  When I came into a classroom the students rose to their feet in respect, as they did for any of the professors on the faculty.  Teaching in an American high school is a whole different kettle of fish, and I have some experience in this role as well.  It is not a challenge to be taken lightly.  Yet Locke fulfilled his assigned task with poise and effectiveness.

The pivotal scene occurred in the bathroom, with his fiancée, Helen.  Locke called Jack Shephard’s office, but decided not to talk with anyone, and hung up the phone.  He told Helen, “I don’t want you to spend your life waiting for a miracle, because there’s no such thing.”  Helen had the last word, because as she said, the miracle of her life was Locke.  They had come to accept the limitations of their life together.  They recognised these limitations as inconsequential to everything they would share, and everything Locke would achieve.  They were not giving up hope in miracles.   Rather, they were shifting their focus to tangible, achievable goals, like teaching girls to play basketball.  In every one of their interactions during the course of the episode, Locke demonstrated unparalleled emotional balance.  He exuded confidence, the willingness and ability to overcome.  His disability was his source of strength.

The Substitute

Shangri-La, in Hilton’s masterpiece, Lost Horizon, is the place where miracles happen, but most of all, the place where the true nature of the world and the true nature of humanity can show through with full social and cultural ramifications.  Shangri-La is heaven on earth.  It is made possible by people of good will working together to make a society work for the good of all.

In Hilton’s novel, there was a Substitute, a replacement for the dying High Lama.  That Substitute was the great Robert Conway.  He was destined, years before fate and the High Lama pushed him across continents to arrive in Shangri-La, to become the leader of the perfect Tibetan community.

Robert Conway was the personification of the best aspects of our humanity.  He was the leader tested in the outside world and then chosen to lead Shangri-La, becoming the Substitute.

Something like this may be occurring on the Island.  But Lost is not a one-for-one recreation of Hilton’s Shangri-La, and I don’t think we can use the novel or Frank Capra’s cinematic masterpiece as an unerring guide in determining how the final chapters of the Island’s story will have to unfold.

The Candidate

For one thing, the structure of Lost Horizon did not impose a single antagonist as having a force equal to the High Lama in determining the fate of Shangri-La.  George Conway was the antagonist to his brother’s ascension to the post of High Lama and he had no other major effect on the community.  The structure of Lost is quite different, with Jacob and the MIB being portrayed as opposite and equal.

The Candidate could be Jacob’s Substitute, but this would achieve nothing more than continuity of the ongoing balanced struggle between the two immortals.  It is possible that Jacob’s Substitute could rise above, asserting herself as unrivaled leader of the Island, but this would be a different role than the one formerly enjoyed by Jacob, and really seems beyond his position description.  If the role changes, it would be open to a new player.  The position could be occupied by anyone able to fill it, and it doesn’t seem to me inherent in anything we have learned so far that Jacob is the only possible candidate.

It seems if there is a Candidate, she will  have to rise above the current stalemate, she’ll have to  offer something more than simple reconciliation of opposing forces.  If she is to become a Substitute, it is because she will substitute something greater than any force currently directing activities on the Island.

Infection, or On Being Clousseau

Erika (LongLiveLocke.com) claims not to have invented the term “Clousseau” to denote the Rousseau-like Claire of the Jungle, but I liked her use of the term.  I like the name because it implies something a bit off kilter.  I see the new mainline Claire as bringing up important questions about the nature of the Smoke Monster.

Dogen told Jack, “Your sister is infected.”  Since Claire is behaving in a manner quite similar to Rousseau (setting traps, shooting at people she doesn’t like, and so on), the natural conclusion is that Rousseau herself was likewise infected.  Since we have seen Claire with her dead father in Jacob’s cabin, and since the cabin was known to be under the control of someone other than Jacob, and since Christian has apparently been acting as the representative of the Smoke Monster (or Cerberus may have been taking Christian’s form), it seems possible that Rousseau’s infection was due to the Smoke Monster.  Now I recognise the syllogism is tenuous, so I don’t claim Rousseau’s infection by the Smoke Monster is the only logical conclusion.  But I think the possibility raises some level of valid concern that we may not know everything about the Smoke Monster necessary to understand his motivations or modes of action.

I write from a Tim Hortons in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.  Seems more than appropriate to write about our Island from a place that in these parts of Canada is often called simply “The Island.”

Over the main counter in front of everyone is a 1.2 metre flat panel television monitor flashing advertisements.  The most interesting one flashes the image of a steaming cup of coffee.  A second or two later the cup is flanked on both sides by the word “true” on the left side and “love” on the right side.  Coffee as true love.  Well, it works.  If you’ve ever had a cup of Tim Hortons, you’ll never go back to Starbucks.  But then a second or two later the character of the advertisement changes in a radical way, completing shifting the meaning.  Directly over the steaming cup the word “patriot” appears, and now the phrase crossing the monitor contains three words:  True Patriot Love.  It’s a quote from the Canadian National Anthem:

O Canada, Our home and native land,

True patriot love, in all thy sons command.

Suddenly, the command to drink Tim Hortons coffee is not an entreaty to express your true love, it is an invitation to express or enjoy the expression of patriotism, the love of country.

True Patriot Love is part of the Tim Hortons “A coffee all our own” campaign, possibly rolled out for the Vancouver Olympics.  The campaign includes complex and subtly constructed television commercials that portray “true love” between husband and wife or parent and child, but have the underlying context of devotion to Canada.

I think something along these lines may be occurring in the Clousseau sequences.  We understood Rousseau to have been saved from the clutches of Smokey.  But her behaviour in the jungle, Claire’s emulation of that behaviour, and the strong possibility that Claire has fallen under the spell or complete control of Cerberus may call for a careful re-evaluation of any conclusions we believe we might reasonably be able to draw regarding the nature of the Smoke Monster.

In particular, I feel the possibility that the Smoke Monster is a force for good on the Island must be kept in mind.  I have taken the position in some of my analyses that this is a useful conclusion that may help construct a more complete understanding of the final outcome of LOST.  Regardless of any theorising we may wish to offer, though, I feel the events of this episode and those of 6.03 ought to be taken as indication of Smokey’s possible intentions for the common good.

Tonight’s episode was rich in revelation and meaning.  I touched on only a few strands of the very complex proceedings, but I hope it was enough to stimulate thought and debate about the significance of events.  I would write more, but my extra large double-double is empty, and I’ve finished all my Timbits, and even more important, the Island calls…

I’m going to get a cup of True Patriot Love for the road, and I’ll see you next week!

PM
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
February 17, 2010

Related posts:

1. Magnificence: The Cultural Mythology of LOST 1.01 to 6.18
2. Impartial Risk: Cultural Musings on the Resurrection of John Locke
3. LOST 6.04 The Substitute Live Reaction/Recap Video

Tags: Jack, Jacob, John Locke, LOST Theories, man in black, Pearson Moore, recaps&reviews, Season 6, Smoke Monster