I think I could write an entire blog on this

LOST. SEASON 5 FINALE: "THE INCIDENT" PARTS 1 & 2.

DANGER! DANGER! THIS POST BE FULL OF SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE SEASON FINALE OF LOST DO NOT READ THIS POST. I AM MAKING NO EFFORT TO PROTECT FROM SPOILERS.

OK, now that is out of the way so we can get with it. The title of this post is definitely true and as such I am going to say from the outset what my game plan will be: (1) I will state the basic thematic elements that I always view the show through, (2) I will give a "review" of sorts on what I thought of this episode (teaser: It ranks up as one of the best), and (3) I will give my take on the biggest issue to arise...Jacob.


Matt's Key to Watching Lost

I've never actually written much about Lost and as such have never had the opportunity to really flesh this idea out as most conversations about the show revolve around recent plot developments and what new information we might know. To begin a discussion (and I am all for an extensive series of posts on this show, should you be up for it), I must first make clear the basic themes that I find dominate the show and from which every important element arises. They are ideas that started during the first season and are also the name of two significant episodes in the second season.

Man of Science, Man of Faith: I realize it might appear simple to say that I think a show is based on conflict. Wow! What a revelation! I would say, though, that there is a specific conflict on the show between elements of science/rationality and faith/mysticism. One of the reasons I find the writing on this show to be of such high caliber is that they find ways to weave themes through the entire run of the show and every development of them allows for the sometimes fantastic (re: Jacob) to make sense.

The episode bearing this name is the season premier of season 2, but the idea developed during season 1 as we first saw the conflict between the two men to whom if literally refers: Jack and Locke. The two men's first major conflict was over where to put the camp and our knowledge of Jack as a doctor and Locke as a man who was healed already put the two men at odds as leaders. In the season 2 premier, the conflict is over going into the hatch and, if memory serves me, it is then that Locke first begins the idea of his destiny being tied to the island. Every interaction I see between these two men, I view in relation to the conflict between science and faith. The actual, tangible idea of getting off the island compared to the idea that all of the survivors were meant to be on the island, for example. It just makes sense that Jack would lead the people off the island while Locke would remain on the island because of everything we know between the two of them.

There are other areas where this idea continues to flourish. The original battle was Jack vs. Locke but in seasons 4 & 5 we were being set up for a battle over the island between two other men: Ben vs. Widmore. We have Ben whom we see as connected to the idea of Jacob and leading the others. Definitely a man of faith. We have Widmore who runs a business off the island, pays for Daniel Farady's research and sends the scientist to the island. Man of science. I also find the basic structure of the show reinforces the idea as well with most episodes in the show's cannon mixing action with pathos, fantasic island developements with normal stories of a person's life. It is a bit of a stretch to include this as definite science vs. faith conflicts, but form seems to be following function if you connect the island vs. home scenes to what is becoming the ultimate manifestation of science vs. faith.

More on this at the end, but I see Jacob vs. the black-shirt guy (I will refer to him as Loophole for the sake of convenience) as the ultimate, cosmic manifestation of this science vs. faith conflict. It seems that the direction the writers are heading is setting up that conflict not necessarily as exploring a more cosmic interpretation of free-will vs. predestination. If you have not watched the show through the lens I have, it might seem like I'm trying to make a stretch but having watched every episode looking for this, I can tell you that everything makes sense as you watch it and I would frequently notice more additions to the theme in nearly every episode. I was thinking about your email (to those who might read this, I made sure Owen had watched the episode before bothering to write this) where you wrote you might call the episode WTF. What struck me as I read that was that it made me realize that although I was certainly not expecting to see Jacob take human form and get stabbed by Ben and thrown into a fire by a fake John Locke, I was not surprised. It seemed to fit in with the idea of this conflict as growing from an idea from Jack and Locke's conflict over destiny to this cosmic conflict over...destiny.

Live Together, Die Alone: This is the name of the season 2 finale -- an episode that happens to be especially pertinent to the season 5 finale, but the show reversing itself is probably an entire post on its own -- and if science vs. faith is a main conflict in the show (according to me), Live Together, Die Alone is a unifying principle for the interaction between the characters -- namely that there is a connection between them that seems to be much more than just having crashed together. Jack actually uttered the phrase "if we can't live together, we're going to die alone" in the the fifth episode of the show ("White Rabbit") in relation to surviving as they waited for what they expected would be rescuers. As you know, things have changed considerably but a truism for the show is that whether by choice or by destiny, these characters are all drawn together. No matter what happens, when I watch the show, I am always looking for how the characters are going to be reunited or joined together in some way. With all of the interweaving plotlines of the characters before they landed on the island, it became inevitable that they would have to live together and they would only be alone in death. The theme was only reinforced in this episode with Juliet actually uttering the lines before the group went on their mission to drop the bomb.

"The Incident" Parts 1 & 2

I will have you know, I watched this episode a second time to be prepared for this post. The first time I watched it was great, but there was some drinking of very good wine with our good friend Katie that did distract a bit from what was happening and so I wanted to have a firmer grasp of what happened. I also wanted to process everything that was happening because it was a dense episode. My conclusion after the second viewing was that it belongs on the list of the show's best. Lost is at its best when it mixes the action/science-fiction elements with the dramatic/character-driven stories. What first set the show apart from being a castaway show was how it would have the island and then flashback to how the character's past was informing his/her actions on the island. As the show has changed, I have still been most connected to episodes that find the right balance -- a fine example would be "The Constant", an episode focused on Desmond and Penelope, not my favorite characters, but I think would one of the finest episodes in 5 seasons. "The Incident" found that balance for me and although there are quibbles (I think Sun's storyline could have been more significant), it had significant plot development that moved the sci-fi elements of the story forward, significant new mythology, and moving character developments that brought everything that was happening down to a more personal, emotional level.

Like "The Constant", one aspect that made this episode stand apart was the directing. Usually on this and many other television shows, the director is forgotten and the writers get all the glory. But Jack Bender has directed all of the premiers (save the first one) and finales as well as a number of the most significant episodes of the series, including "The Constant." What he does on these shows is blend the different timelines so spectacularly and focus on pacing the show to drive the drama. This was evident in this show in how much information and how complex the plotlines were but how well they were blended together. The cuts and visual cues connecting the flashbacks of Jacob to the current situations were revealing without being didactic. He also was able to direct some great performances out of his actors.

Let me say that the Juliet and Sawyer plotline was heartbreaking and one of the more emotional developments that I can recall in the show, so props to lead writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, who penned the script. The show has been accused of being melodramatic at times and I think that is probably apt. It is also the case that some of what happened on the finale could have been a groaner. The line where she tells him if she never meets him then she will never have to lose him is a dangerous line as it is almost too raw to sound like something someone would say. But I would argue that the character Elizabethe Mitchell has created has always led up to that scene. The show has subtly showed Sawyer unable to avoid the lure of Kate since she came back and so even though he has never said anything about Kate, the line made sense to us from Juliet's point of view. During that show we saw Juliet's fear, concern, and ultimate heartbreak well before her confrontation with Sawyer. She made that line work. Juliet's character and Mitchell's acting really were one of the best after-pilot additions to the show. The scene where she was sucked into the hole was a bit cliche of a setup with the use of the loved one slipping out of someone's hand. But Mitchell and Josh Holloway both played that moment so well that I got a bit misty-eyed. Both times I watched it. Knowing so much about these characters, that scene was so significant and there was so much more going on than simply losing a lover and that made it so much more significant for those long-time fans. She represented Sawyer becoming the man he thought he could never become and it was, literally, slipping from his hand. That is what I mean when I say Lost is at its best: It brought the whole bomb/incident down to how it relates to people we care about and takes full advantage of the long-tail story we know about its main characters. Those flashbacks aren't gimicks -- they are just as important as the action on the island.

I will also contend that the developments with Jack was a great bit of character-driven action. A number of fans have grown annoyed by Jack in the last couple of years but I posit that the writers intended this. The season 5 finale to me showed both a collapse of Jack's adherence to science over faith (he said not to give up on John to Richard Alpert, even) and his acknowledgment of his failure as a leader. I do think he was sincere when he said he wanted to go back and never have to lost Kate, a similar sentiment to what Juliet would soon tell Sawyer. But even more so he was recognizing that he had failed -- he had been the one at fault in losing her. To me this showed him realizing that the Jack he had created on the island -- the one who Kate fell in love with -- was false and he could not be the man and, I think one will find, the leader he thought he was forced into by the survivors. Much of what the writers have done with Jack on the second half of the show's run is show his downward spiral from being a leader and in effect put questions in our mind about the nature of this role. From the beginning of season 4 (when he tries to shoot Locke), we see him slide into the eventual drunk who wants to go back to the island only to mope around and do nothing before deciding to blow up the whole experience. It's at time subtle and hard to follow because of the scattered timeline, but there is a definite trajectory toward Jack losing his moral leadership role that leads us to him wanting to erase everything that happened and try again and as he says, if it is meant to be then it is meant to be.

Notice he's also abandoning everything he stood for when he was the leader (also, free-choice vs. predestination, ahem). What spoke to me most in relation to Jack and helped me see the scene with him and Sawyer as Jack's ultimate defeat as a leader was his flashback scene, which I contend was the most significant one. Something I have not seen mentioned by anyone on the internet is that we found out that Jack lied about the story that he told Kate that bore such significance to him and how we came to see him as a leader (I think it was even the pilot where he first told the story). He conveniently leaves out the part when he tells the story that it is his father telling him to take the five seconds to let all of his fear out and instead casts it as his own revelation. To me this shows that, as Jack's dad says, he is the one who doubts his own leadership abilities -- he knows he's a fake from the beginning and when he starts to slide it is really him coming back to what he really is and he starts to see destiny as making sense because he was unable to break free from his own.

Ah yes, and then there is the 2007/Jacob plotline. But I think I will talk about that more in the next section. I would instead like to point out I also found there to be several items put in there that showed just how well plotted the show has been:

• Rose, Bernard, and Vincent arrived after a long absence. There were a lot of people questioning what happened to them and some thought they might just be gone for good. Instead their absence made the reappearance so much more significant and I know my heart leapt for joy when I first saw them. That couple has always been in my mind one of the better minor-role additions to the show.
• Speaking of Rose and Bernard, it is likely we got the answer to a long-ago mystery. All the way back in season 1 they found a male and female skeleton in a cave and dubbed them Adam and Eve as they died together (with, I read on Lostpedia, one white stone and one black stone and are guessed to have been there 40-50 years). Doc Jensen, who writes one of the more prolific Lost blogs, on Entertainment Weekly's site, of all places, I think nailed it by guessing the two skeletons are Rose and Bernard.
• Speaking of long-ago mysteries: the four-toed statue. At the end of season 2 we saw the statue and wondered what the heck it was and got absolutely no answer for a long time but knew it had to be significant because they obviously had to put in effort to create the odd piece of set. It became one of those mysteries that kind of went by the wayside but some, like my sister, were intent on finding out what was going on. Now we find out it has a lot of significance: It is the home of Jacob. An example of how the show leaves crumbs along the way only to circle back and use those to show something significant.

Where Are We Going Now?

I'm not going to turn this into one of those gigantic explorations of Lost theories. I could go on forever. I feel, though, like I should bring up the 2007 plotline from the episode and instead of just saying what I thought of it, it seems best to say where I see it taking us and give you my idea of where we're going as it relates to everything I've already discussed. As I mentioned, I think the show is going to turn into a battle between the forces of free-will vs. predestination and also the general idea of good vs. evil, as that dichotomy is another found extensively throughout the show ("We're the good guys," for example). I have listened to the two lead writers of the show discuss Stephen King's The Stand as the piece of literature that has the most influence on the show. I have not read the book (I actually bought the paperback today and the more than 1,100-page novel is going to be my summer reading), my understanding is that it is about the ultimate battle between good and evil on Earth. It seems like that is what is being set up for our castaways.

So first, just to make sure we are on the same page, it was fairly explicit that the John Locke of the island is not the actual Locke, who was instead in the cargo hold as we saw at the end of the episode. The person who we thought was Locke was the man in the black shirt from the beginning of the show looking for a loophole to kill Jacob. Jacob mentions to "Locke" that he has finally found his loophole, which was our cue to know who he was. That explains Locke orchestrating his own death (he tells Richard to tell his earlier self he has to die), acting differently (Richard notices this), wanting to kill the other people from the plane, and then at the end being much more menacing than the usual Locke, especially when he kicks Jacob into the fire. My guess is Loophole has been involved in much more than orchestrating Ben stabbing Jacob and has been manipulating others, even master-manipulator Ben, for quite some time. He was the other being inhabiting Jacob's cabin. My guess is also that he was the "Christian Shepherd" we saw walking around. Keep in mind that Jack was told Locke had to stand-in for Christian and that both Locke and Christian were not buried -- something the Others seemed quite insistent on happening to their dead before. My sister came up with that theory and it sounds correct to me. My theory is that Loophole is also the smoke monster, which we know manipulated Ben into following fake Locke in the form of Alex (who we also did not see buried). Behind the scenes the writers have always been building to this final battle between the two forces, which we are not so sure about.

So what happens now? The explosion happens and we have a negative version of the Lost ending followed by a shot of Jack's eye, mimicking the very beginning of the series. Jacob said after being stabbed that "they are on their way" and my guess is he didn't mean the other people from the 2007 Ajira flight 316. He meant our castaways, Oceanic flight 815. In the timeline of all of the characters, I think the two plotlines where running parallel in time and that the explosion Juliet created will bring them back into the correct moment in time and they will be on the island much like the beginning of the show. They won't be in Los Angeles, they will be on the island and nothing will have changed because as Miles said, perhaps what Jack was doing was exactly what he was attempting to prevent. Nothing will have changed. Those who Jack touched (notably not Juliet who had a flashback that conspicuously had no touch from Jacob, like the rest whom he physically laid a hand on) will be brought back, which is why he reached out to them in the first place. Where it goes from there, I do not know. I also do not know how Richard is connected to all of this as he does not seem to age, much like Jacob and Loophole. I am also not certain that we know yet whom we should be rooting for. The Jesus-like allusions bestowed upon Jacob are, in my view, likely head fakes trying to cause us to see him as the good one when we do not really have enough information and I don't see the writers as wanting to endorse a particularly Judeo-Christian reading of their show. Much like I still contend Ben's ultimate ends will be righteous, if not his means, if I were to venture a guess I would say that the same will happen with Loophole.

There is much more I could write about Lost and I would say my next thought would be to write about season 5 as a whole, which was originally my idea but there was too much in this two-part finale to cover. If you want to get into some theorizing, that's cool. I was avoiding it here so as to keep my post from being even longer than it already is. I hope you made it all the way through and there should be some sort of prize. Anyway, definitely write back because I'm curious to see what you thought.