Act I of LOST’s final season ended this week with the glorious final sequence of “Sundown”. Before we get into Act II, I  wanted to hear your thoughts, comments, rants, theories, etc. about the first six episodes of this season. Please keep your comments spoiler-free!

Related posts:

1. LOST Episodes 6.01/02 “LA X” – Open Thread
2. LOST Episode 6.04 “The Substitute” [Open Thread]
3. LOST Episode 6.03 “What Kate Does” [Open Thread]

Spoiler Alert: This podcast contains minor spoilers for tomorrow’s episode.

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Click here to download this podcast.

Related posts:

1. The Official LOST Audio & Video Podcast: February 4th, 2010
2. The Official LOST Video Podcast: February 11, 2010
3. The Official LOST Audio Podcast – 02/12/2009

Official synopsis: Locke goes in search of help to further his cause.
Written by: Elizabeth Sarnoff & Melinda Hsu.
Directed by: Tucker Gates.
SL-LOST.com readers’ rating: 8.9/10.

Related posts:

1. Sundays LOST Rewatch: “What Kate Does”
2. Sundays LOST Rewatch: “The Constant”
3. Sundays LOST Rewatch: “Pilot”

[Via Sky1]

Related posts:

1. The LOST Initiative – “LA X”
2. The LOST Initiative – “What Kate Does”
3. LOST 6.04 The Substitute Live Reaction/Recap Video

Can I just say that this has got to be one of my all-time favorite episodes of LOST thus far? I can? Sweet.

And it is not only because this is a Locke-centric episode. We were privy to a slew of information that not only answered a few questions, but will keep us chomping at the bit until we get more next week. I have a feeling this is just the beginning for Darlton. And I’m certain this will be par for the course this season. The answers we receive in the upcoming episodes will be littered with gaps. Our questions will not be fully addressed and will not be answered clearly. It would not surprise me if this continues through the finale in May. And I, for one, love it. I love the cliffhangers, I love the suspense, I love the adventure and character development, I simply love LOST. And this episode just reinforced my addiction to what is being referred to as the “biggest phenomenon” on television. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

In episode 4, The Substitute, we again witness our Losties both on the island and in the flash sideways. As always, I have organized the following according to where it takes place, therefore, this is not the order in which the scenes aired. Hope you enjoy.

Off the Island:

When Locke arrives home from the airport, he runs into some trouble with the electric ramp in his van, which allows him to easily get in and out of the vehicle by himself. However, the ramp fails and he’s stuck. Trying to jump his wheelchair onto the ground, John falls out of his chair and onto the ground. Unfortunately for poor John Locke, the sprinklers kick on. As we begin to wonder how John’s going to get up and into the house, his old flame Helen (Katey Sagal) comes to his aid.

Yet another difference in our flash sideways. (For other differences, see my two previous recap posts here and here.) In previous flashbacks, we learned that Helen left John, seen in episode 2.17, Lockdown, and she eventually died, as seen in a flashforward in episode 5.07, The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham. John was sad and alone when he found himself on the island, having previously had an imagined relationship with a phone sex operator whom he called Helen.

And not only is Helen back in John’s life, they are getting hitched. Helen complains about caterers and fabric swatches and tries to convince John to marry her “shotgun style in Vegas.” John declines. Helen deserves better than that. Soon enough, Helen finds Jack Shepherd’s business card, noticing that he’s a spinal surgeon, she tells John that he should call him. John says he was just being polite in taking Jack’s card, but Helen insists that there’s more. She doesn’t think John’s accidental meeting was accidental at all. “Maybe it’s destiny.”

Now back from his walkabout, John Locke is back to work. He is soon approached by his boss, Randy, who calls John out on not attending the conferences in Sydney. John apologizes and tells him to just consider his trip to Australia his vacation time, which he was going to use in October for his wedding. But since the trip was on the company dime, and Randy’s a jerk, John Locke is fired.

After packing his things and heading to his van, John is halted by the familiar yellow Hummer parked a tad too close to his van, making it impossible to lower his ramp. Upset, John hits the back of the Hummer with his fist, which sets off the alarm. Hugo then strolls out and introduces himself to John. After hearing of John’s recent stint of bad employment luck, Hurley gives John the number to a temp agency he owns, instructing him to say that Hugo sent him.

Before heading to his new job, John contemplates calling Dr. Jack Sheperd, going as far as dialing the number, only to tell the receptionist that no, she can’t help him. Overhearing this, Helen inquires as to who John is calling. He admits he was calling Jack, but says that he’s not going to see him. Confused, Helen begins to protest, only to be told that John was fired. Their conversation is stopped short by the arrival of John’s lost luggage from an Oceanic courier. After signing for the luggage, Helen confronts John about his sudden unemployment. He tells her that he lied to Randy, that he didn’t go to the conference in Sydney. He then instructs her to open the luggage that just arrived, which is full of his knives. He comes clean about the walkabout and confesses to Helen that he knows he’s never going to get out of the wheelchair and he doesn’t want Helen to wait around, waiting for a miracle, because “there’s no such thing.” We are reminded of how the Island was John’s spiritual influence. The Island changed him into a man of faith. Or so it would appear.

Helen rips up Jack’s business card, illustrating that all that matters to her is having John in her life. A very touching moment, indeed.

Locke then heads to his new job through the temp agency, substitute teacher. We see him teaching P.E. and health class (human reproduction…poor Locke.) During lunch, he makes his way to the teacher’s lounge where he runs into none other than the infamous Benjamin Linus. European History. I have a feeling this is going to get VERY interesting. (Like it’s not already.)

On the Island:

At the statue, Ilana is mourning for the dead members of her team. Ben tells her that New Locke killed them, and Jacob. Ilana learns that Jacob’s body was ‘burned away’ in the fire. She promptly goes the fire pit and puts a handful of the white ash into a satchel. Ben asks her why New Locke took Richard. Ilana replies, “He’s recruiting.”

Ben and Ilana join Sun and Frank on the beach. Ilana recommends that they go to the temple, the safest place on the island. Before doing so, Sun believes they need to bury John Locke’s body. As they carry john Locke’s body to a proper burial ground, Ben asks Ilana why it was brought to the statue in the first place. Ilana explains that the people needed to know what they were up against. Ben argues that ‘what they’re up against’ can just change forms again. Ilana reveals that Smokey is now stuck with Locke’s body. He no longer has the ability to take a different form. Other than good ol’ Smokey that is.

Before they bury John Locke’s body, Ben says a few words over his grave.

Ben: John Locke was a…a believer. He was a man of faith. He was a much better man than I will ever be. And I’m very sorry I murdered him.

Meanwhile, New Locke is busy ‘recruiting’. We join him on a flight across the island, soaring across the land. We find ourselves outside of a Dharmaville house. Inside, the music blares. We see Smokey’s reflection in the window. But before Smokey sets his sights on Sawyer, he heads off through the jungle and transforms back into New Locke. Picking up a machete, he cuts down Richard, who was suspended in a makeshift bag high in a tree. He declares to Richard that it’s time to talk. He wants Richard to come with him, which is what he has always wanted. Richard asks why Smokey looks like John Locke, to which New Locke replies that John could get him access to Jacob, and “because John’s a candidate. Or at least he was a candidate.”

Richard has no idea what New Locke is talking about. Locke presses the issue, asking him if he seriously has been doing everything Jacob told him to do without knowing why. New Locke tells Richard that he would have “never kept you in the dark.” He promises to reveal everything to Richard, if he just comes with him. But Richard will go nowhere with New Locke. As Richard resists persuasion, New Locke sees a child standing in the jungle with blood all over his hands. He is obviously disturbed by this sight, and apparently Richard cannot see it. New Locke leaves Richard alone in the jungle and heads for Sawyer.

Sawyer is not at all disturbed by being confronted by a man he presumed dead. He’s persuaded into joining New Locke, even after realizing that he is not in the presence of the ‘real’ John Locke. Making their way through the jungle, the two men run into the boy New Locke saw earlier. Only this time, New Locke’s not the only one who can see him. Sawyer sees him too. The boys takes off and begins racing through the jungle, New Locke following close behind. After tripping and falling, the boy walks up to New Locke.

Boy: You know the rules. You can’t kill him.
New Locke: Don’t tell me what I can’t do.

With a look of disappointment, the child leaves.

Meanwhile, Richard finds Sawyer yelling for New Locke in the jungle. Richard tries to convince Sawyer to join him in going to the temple. Sawyer says he’ll take his chances with New Locke, regardless of it not really being Locke. Richard insists that all New Locke wants to do is kill everyone on the island. Before he can explain any further, he hears New Locke coming and flees into the trees.

Sawyer begins to have second thoughts about New Locke’s intentions. Sawyer wants answers and he’s not sure New Locke’s being sincere when he says he’ll provide those answers. He pulls out his weapon and threatens New Locke.

New Locke: What’s on your mind, James?
Sawyer: Wondering what would happen to you if I put a bullet in your head.
New Locke: Why don’t we find out?
Sawyer: What are you?
New Locke: What I am, is trapped. And I’ve been trapped for so long, that I don’t even remember what it feels like to be free. Maybe you can understand that. But before I was trapped, I was a man James. just like you.

New Locke tells Sawyer to shoot him, but that it would be a shame, because Sawyer is so close. Wanting answers, Sawyer continues to follow New Locke to the edge of a cliff. A series of ladders lead from the cliff down to a cave in the side of the cliff. They make it safely into the cave, but not before Sawyer nearly falls to his death, only to be saved by New Locke. Sawyer describes the cave as “a hole in a cliff with some rocks on a scale.” But New Locke leads Sawyer into a room deep inside the cave. We catch a glimpse of names written on the ceiling and walls. Some crossed off, others not. The surfaces include a few familiar names: 4 Locke, 8 Reyes, 15 Ford, 16 Jarrah, 23 Shepherd, 42 Kwon.

New Locke: That’s why you’re here.
Sawyer: Who wrote all this?
New Locke: His name was Jacob.

New Locke explains that ever since Sawyer met Jacob, his strings were being pulled. And choices that he thought he was making, weren’t really choices at all. He was being pushed to the Island to become a candidate.

Sawyer: Candidate for what?
New Locke: He thought he was the protector of this place. And you, James, have been nominated to take over that job.
Sawyer: What does that mean?
New Locke: It means you got three choices.

1. Do nothing and see how it all plays out. (And possibly have his name crossed off.)
2. Accept the job and become the New Jacob. (And protect the Island from nothing.)
3. Just go. Get off the Island and never look back.

New Locke: So what do you say James? You ready to go home?
Sawyer: Hell yes.

Thoughts on The Substitute:

Whew. That was a lot. I apologize. I always strive to have short posts, but it just never works out. For one, I’m really worried about leaving a significant part of the epsiode out of the recap. Can’t have that, now can we?

This week’s episode was brilliant. I loved every second of it.

Some thoughts…

Randy mentions that John wanted to use his vacation time for his wedding in October. But if we’re going on the ultrasound photo Claire held last week, it already is October. So….??? Is it September, or October, or what?

The ash created by Jacob’s body appears to be white. It’s clearly visible and this is the ash that Ilana puts into her bag. Does this mean that the ash used to keep Smokey away is the ash of MIB’s body? I’m thinking it’s very likely.

The Jungle Boy. Who is he? Is he a young Jacob? Is it Aaron? Is he a completely different character all together? Oh! The possibilities!!

In the enhanced version of season five’s finale, the transformed John Locke was referred to as New Locke (which is why I call him that.) In this week’s episode, New Locke mentions a New Jacob. Hmm…

The names. The numbers. What does it all mean? New Locke states that “Jacob had a thing for numbers.” But why just these six numbers? The highest number I noticed was either 337 or 387 (couldn’t really tell which number the second digit was…I think it was a 3) and I also noticed that next to the number 313 was the name Littleton (crossed out). Something else to ponder.

Favorite Quotes:

New Locke: Hello James.
Sawyer: I thought you were dead.
New Locke: I am.

Sawyer: You read?
New Locke: Excuse me?
Sawyer: Books. You read books?
New Locke: Sure. Who doesn’t?
Sawyer: My favorite’s Steinbeck. Of Mice and Men. You know that one?
New Locke: Nope. A little after my time.

Frank: This is the weirdest damn funeral I have ever been to.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s recap. Please feel free to leave a comment, I always try to answer any questions or engage in any debate.

Until next week, Namaste!

Related posts:

1. What Kate Does – LOST 6.03 Recap by Erin
2. The Beginning of the End – Recap of “LA X” by Erin
3. LOST 6.04 The Substitute Live Reaction/Recap Video

[Via LylyFord]

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2. The Official LOST Audio & Video Podcast: February 4th, 2010
3. New Official LOST Video Podcast

Holy crap, people, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover this week, what with the numbers reappearing, a mysterious Island boy playing havoc with MIB’s brain, another of Jacob’s “lists” and black and white stones that promise to take us alllll the way back to season one. So let’s get to it, shall we? I’ll warn you, though – this column is loooooooong.

HE’S MAKING HIS LIST, CHECKING IT TWICE
Okay, obviously the big mind scrambler that everyone wants to talk about this week is Jacob’s list of “candidates” scrawled on the cave wall. I downloaded a copy of this week’s episode at the highest resolution I could get my hands on, and went frame by frame through the whole cave scene, trying to pick out any familiar names or ones that might give us further clues as to what has transpired and what is to come. Here are the highlight screencaps I was able to take and enhance a bit. I’ll present a full list of names that I think I’ve extrapolated from the more obscure scrawls after the pictures.

42 – Kwon. We all know those two, and I’m betting that it’s Jin. We’ll get to why that might be in a second. 291 – Domingo. 10 – Mattingley. 222 – O’Toole.

A closer look at Kwon, O’Toole, Domingo and Mattingley. Also visible in this image are 317 – Cunningham, an unknown number – Reynolds, and down at the bottom, 71 – Straume. That’s Miles, crossed out.

16 – Jarrah. That’s Sayid, of course. 396 – Grant. 233 – Jones. 285 – Jenkins or Jennings.

8 – Reyes. Hurley, naturally. Number obscured – Goodspeed. That could be Horace, Amy or Ethan.

313 – Littleton. That could mean Claire, but it could also mean Aaron. Interesting that it’s crossed out. Also visible, but blurry, are 119 – Almeida, 90 – Troupe. I mentioned him earlier.

Some other names that I can make out in the wider shots are 115 – Dargas, obscured number – Henderson, and Garner, again with an unknown number. In the shot where we see 23 – Shepard, you can also make out a spot that says 20 – Rou? The question mark is part of that name, or at least it seems to be. It doesn’t look like any other letter, more like Jacob was questioning whether he should put this person on the list. Someone emailed me earlier today (with a spoiler, I might add – shame on you!) that they had spotted the names Linus and Burke on the walls, as well. It would make sense that Ben might be on there, but I’m not sure about Juliet. I’m not going to believe it until I see it, let’s put it that way.

If any of you have any more names – and have screencap proof! – send it my way. We’ll expand the list next week if I get some more in.

Now, other than the question of “what the hell does it all mean?” we’re also faced with the question of whether any of these peripheral names are significant. Other than the names of Goodspeed, Littleton and Straume, I don’t think so. None of those other names are tied in with any significant characters that we’ve encountered in the series, thus far. Could they all be part of the flight manifest of Oceanic 815? The addition of Goodspeed and Straume seem to indicate no, and that opens up the thought that these names could be people who were considered later by Jacob, and called to the Island separately from the Oceanic survivors.

Another thought is that the numbers could signify some inhabitants that were already on the Island, those from far in the past, since Jacob has obviously been on the Island for awhile. This doesn’t seem to correlate with the numbering scheme, as we see Locke up at number four, and most of the main candidates from the survivors still in contention being in the lower numbers. It would help if we saw names on there like “Widmore” or “Hawking” that would point to previous generations of candidates, but unfortunately I haven’t found visual evidence of such names, or any other names that would indicate other generations beyond those directly involved with the current influx of survivors on the Island.

The next big questions are how does Jacob determine a candidate’s validity, and how has he known so much about those on the list and been following their lives for so long? Well, I’ve been milling that over in my brain and it comes back to the quantum loop theory that I’ve been spouting off about for so long. Perhaps Jacob’s string is entangled with all of these people because they have all been through this together before. Jacob may exist outside of the loop because he has stayed on the Island, much like Richard and MIB. What if Jacob knew what names to put down and knew so much about each person because he was one of the survivors? In that I mean, what if this loop has had several iterations of which he has been aware, and when most of these people began their journey on the Island, they were all entwined?

When this group originally came to the Island – and I’m not talking about when Oceanic 815 crashed – Jacob was one of them. The rest got off the Island, but Jacob stayed behind, assuming a role in the Island’s service. Since the Island’s temporal and quantum properties are in a different state of flux beyond that of the outside world, a whole new set of survivors from another time or dimension were posited on the Island to begin this iteration of the loop again.

Am I going too fast here? I sound like a crazy person, I know.

Let’s say, for instance, that Sawyer was to assume Jacob’s job as “protector” of the Island. He stays behind, while the rest of his friends somehow are ejected from the system – propelled into the LA X timeline, for instance – and they all end up back at the Island, only when the Island is in another state of quantum flux. Basically, for lack of a better or more “scientific” way to put it, a doorway to another dimension opens and allows the survivors from the alternate timeline entry onto the Island during this flux. Time passes differently on the Island, just as Faraday stated in his observations, so to Sawyer who stayed behind, many years may have passed, possibly with previous generations of Island visitors, as well as Other Island visitors, arriving and starting another cycle.

The trick to this whole theory is MIB. If the Island is stuck in a loop of some sort, MIB became stuck along with Jacob. This may be in order for the Island to maintain some sort of balance, whether it be light and dark, or simply “quantum constants” – beings of the same quantum frequency across multiple dimensions. In other words, mirror images of the same person or entity. If this “loop” or balance equation exists, Jacob may be systematically eliminating the survivors in groups so that he can find the right candidate – the counterpart to balance out MIB. Counteractively, MIB has been striving to break up this candidacy and end the loop for however long this has gone on.

Sound complicated and far-fetched? It probably is. But these are the thoughts that run through the haunted chambers of my mind.

A far more plausible – and more biblical – approach to this candidacy has to do with Urim and Thummim, the divination stones of the Hebrew Old Testament. We’ll get to that in a second, but first …

BUT KATE WASN’T EVEN IN THIS EPISODE
Yes, yes, I know – Kate was absent from the episode, and it was glorious, but we’re still going to talk about her.

Kate wasn’t on the list, but she was one of the few whose lives were touched by Jacob, as shown in the season five finale. I guess she didn’t make the cut. Probably had something to do with blowing up a house with a man still inside. Still, Kate’s name wasn’t on the “candidacy” list, but Austin made the cut several times before, most notably when they were all brought to Ben and the Others by Michael at the end of season two. It seems as though Kate’s been groomed for some sort of role in the grand scheme of things. Personally, I think it may have something to do with maintaining balance on the Island.

It’s clear that balance is very important to the mechanism that drives and sustains the Island. From the very beginning, the duel between light and dark, black and white, good and evil has been an overarching theme. What we’ve seen over the seasons, however, is that the line between those dualities is not always a straight one. Let’s think back to season one and consider “Adam and Eve.” In “The House of the Rising Sun,” Jack and Kate come across the skeletons of a man and a woman in the caves into which most of them eventually retreated. Remember that? I’m sure you all do.

Jack remarks that they seem to have died at least 50 to 60 years prior, considering the state of decomposition.

Long, long ago, many theorized that these two could be Jack and Kate, even though everyone thought that the idea of bringing time travel into the show was extraordinarily far-fetched. Oh, the benefits of hindsight and six seasons.

Adam and Eve had a little bag, too. Inside that were two stones – one black and one white. It’s been a long time since those stones have been mentioned, but way back then the producers and writers claimed that this was proof that the show knew where it was going from the very beginning. That remains to be seen, but it’s a very intriguing corollary.

Even if Adam and Eve have nothing to do with the survivors, it seems fairly obvious that they had something to do with a previous iteration of the struggle for balance on the Island. The stones point directly to that.

Of course, another thought is that women can’t be candidates, and the Kwon on the wall is Jin. That would leave both Sun and Kate in the clear, as far as candidacy. That’d be the most obvious idea. And the most boring. *shrug*

(BIBLICALLY) SPEAKING OF ADAM AND EVE …
Let’s get back to Urim and Thummim, shall we? This topic hasn’t come up in a long, long time, but way back in season one, after the stones were discovered with Adam and Eve in the cave, a good friend of mine and I had quite a lengthy, days-long discussion on the ancient use of divining stones. I’m not going to go into a huge biblical explanation of the origins of Urim and Thummim here, but suffice it to say that these divine seeing stones or artifacts date back to pre-Babylonian times and were used to answer “yes” or “no” questions from the gods.

Of course, in the case of the Hebrews, this equated to word from the one God, and God would answer his servants by passing down either the words of Urim and Thummim, which would be interpreted by a high priest who wore the sacred stones – encased in a “Tablet of Destiny” – in a breastplate. There were many accounts of foes who had vanquished the carrier of these Tablets tearing them from the breastplate of the fallen chosen one and taking them for their own. All you biblical and ancient scholars out there can just save your time and energy, because I know I’m butchering all this by not writing a four-thousand page tome with the full explanations and accounts.

The exact translations and meanings of Urim and Thummim are varied, but for the most part one meant “yes” and one meant “no,” and were used to divine various sorts of messages from on High. The Urim and Thummim are mentioned in the Books of Samuel in the Old Testament in the context of discovering the sinners and the chosen amongst a group of people. Here’s where Jacob’s little rocks step in.

Some accounts of the use of Urim and Thummim describe the process as “casting lots” – in other words, casting objects that held certain meanings into a marked area and interpreting their resting states as the answer to a divine question. In most modern interpretations as to the physical make-up of Urim and Thummim, they appear as white and black stones, sometimes with the sacred names scrawled upon them, but most commonly with just the colors to allow the user to define the meaning. The stones carried in the bags of Adam and Eve very closely resemble the modern interpretation of these divining stones, and we see the same theme brought full circle with Jacob’s scale. They are placed there to signify the balanced state between the two stones, and Jacob may have used the scale to interpret which command he was receiving as to the chosen candidates and those who had sinned and fallen short.

When MIB picks up the white stone and casts it into the sea, his “inside joke” is to defy the judgment that came from a source higher than Jacob. Perhaps that source was the Island itself, or an even higher power. MIB is pretty much biting his thumb or giving the bird to the system. For those who want to take this into a larger biblical realm, at least in the context of the Christian Bible, Jacob was God’s servant and MIB is pretty much Satan. When he says he wants to “go home,” he’s speaking, of course, of Heaven, since he was cast down when he defied God’s will.

Or, this could be the age-old battle between brothers, as I’ve mentioned before when I started calling MIB “Esau” in the first place (want more? Consult ye olde text from last season in my analysis for “The Incident.”)

Is that what’s really going on here? I don’t know, I just watch a show about a bunch of whiny people trapped on a time-traveling Island.

JACOB’S LADDER
To complicate things further, biblically, I can’t help but at least mention Jacob’s ladder. The biblical ladder appears to Jacob in a vision in the Book of Genesis, chapter 28. This book details Isaac’s blessings upon Jacob, and Esau’s jealousy of Jacob receiving the family’s birthright. In this book, Jacob flees from his homeland, and from Esau, and stops in the wilderness to rest. While there, he has a vision of a great ladder that descended to the Earth from heaven, which allowed passage to and from God’s realm.

From Genesis 28:10-12
“Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”

Esau, on Jacob’s ladder. Now do you people see why I still call this dude Esau?

I’m not saying that this rickety, bamboo ladder is the biblical Jacob’s ladder, or that it signifies that the Island is heaven or something like that. I just wanted to show that at least the writers are having some fun with biblical significance, and this one was way too obvious not to point out.

LITTLE BOY BLUE

Alright, little boy – who are you?

We have the facts: this little boy appeared, scared the crap out of MIB, and only certain people can see him. Apparently since Sawyer is one of those people, only a candidate can see him. Is the boy a new iteration of Jacob? Perhaps he’s Jacob’s son? He’s blonde, so that narrows down our choices as to who he might be amongst the survivors. Sawyer looked a lot like this boy when he was young, but it doesn’t make much temporal sense to have young Sawyer gallivanting around the Island, talking about “the rules.” The boy could possibly be Aaron, from a little bit in the future.

Right now, I’ve got nothing concrete. The only thing that’s clear is that this little boy seems to be one of the only forces on the Island that could screw things up for MIB – and that’s going to be fun to watch.

MAD RAMBLINGS
The usual collection of afterthoughts and ponderings that I don’t have time to illuminate further:

In this episode, Ilana remarks that MIB can’t be anyone else – He’s stuck in John Locke’s form. Why, because he broke the rules, killed Jacob? Because he assumed the form of a “candidate”? What are everyone’s thoughts?

Jacob and MIB appear to have a very similar relationship to Jack and Locke. In the first two seasons, Locke sees purpose in the Island, and follows his “destiny” by blindly following directions, such as pushing The Button. Jack just wants to get the hell off the Island and isn’t buying all the Island mojo mumbo-jumbo that Locke had been spouting the entire time. Now Locke, in the guise of MIB, wants nothing to do with the Island’s crap and wants to go home. Meanwhile, Jack and some of the other survivors, have fallen back into Locke’s role of wanting to figure out what the heck to do with the Island, and even possibly protect it by taking up the mantle of candidacy. That’s a nice touch there by the writers.

So far, this season’s episode structure is just like that of season one – a two-part opener with many different flashbacks (flash sideways in current season), third episode focusing on Kate, fourth focusing on Locke. If it continues to follow this pattern, the next episode will be about Jack. Oh, goody.

The first two of the survivors to die were numbers 4 – Locke – and number 16 – Sayid. Take Sayid’s number and add the two and you get 7. Put those two together and you get 47, J.J. Abrams’ magical, favorite number. Of course, J.J. is off trying to save the galaxy right now and not that involved with the show, but I just got churning on numbers again. I’ve got a whole set of whacky number tricks I could show, but it’s all smoke and mirrors right now.

Finally, in a totally geeky aside, I watched this week’s episode on Hulu and half the show was covered with ads for the newest Warner Bros. animated film, DC Comic’s Crisis on Two Earths. I just thought it was a funny coincidence. Or was it? Cue the thonk!

The DVD goes on sale on February 23, and it looks pretty awesome. Maybe Joel Murphy ought to get on the stick and get to reviewing this sucker.

Whew, my brain is full and it’s definitely time to lay my weary head down. Until next week, keep thinking those crazy thoughts, and if you have an epiphany, tell me something good.

Namaste.

[Chris' detailed recap of this episode can be found at Hobotrashcan.com.]

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1. The X Factor – LOST 6.01/6.02 Analysis by Chris Kirkman
2. The French Connection – “What Kate Does” Analysis by Chris Kirkman
3. “Namaste” Recap & Analysis by Chris Kirkman

This week’s all new episode of LOST, The Substitute, was chock full of surprise appearances and semi-revelations. Do we finally know what the numbers mean?!

Check out my live reaction video from last night’s episode, guest starring my good friend Allison. (And make sure you watch till the end for her dramatic re-enactment of one of LOST’s most iconic scenes.)

Share your thoughts in the video comments and hit me up on Twitter.com/AdamRucker

Enjoy!

-Adam

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Lost held up very well with a 4.5/10 rating/share with adults 18-49 at 9pm against the games, dropping, but not too far, from last week’s 4.9/12.

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Official synopsis: Locke goes in search of help to further his cause.
Written by: Elizabeth Sarnoff & Melinda Hsu.
Directed by: Tucker Gates.

What did you think of tonight’s episode? Tell us in comments below!

Please, do NOT post any info about upcoming episodes in comments. This includes the preview shown at the end of this episode, episode titles, etc. If you post a spoiler, you’ll be permanently banned. If you see a spoiler, please flag it. Thanks!

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Hmm…

[Via @CarltonCuse]

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Fancast.com has a new interview with Terry O’Quinn:

If there’s been one knock on ‘Lost’s new season, it’s that the alternate reality where Flight 815 didn’t crash has left people a bit cold. Are those storylines going to get more compelling?
I have no way to read that kind of thing; I simply do my best when I’m performing it. But I’ve been told by one person who’s seen it that in the episode coming up, [the "sideways" storytelling] really kicks in.

I read that around midseason, you have a scene where you unload a lot of island history. Was it hard to grasp all of it as you said it?
It’s delivered so piecemeal, and I’m fed it the same way the audience is fed it, that it’s not hard to grasp. All I have to know is “What are my lines?” and “What is my character’s objective in this scene?”

Click here to read the full interview. (Beware of spoilers for tonight’s episode!)

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[Via ABC.com]

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You can watch the 2nd sneak peek after the jump.

[Via ABC.com]

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Posted by Helena

[Via Syclonefx]

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[Via @CarltonCuse]

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