directed by: tucker gates. wow. this was not just an episode of 'lost.' this was a full-on, unbroken, epic period drama, and almost completely successful on those terms alone. save for the pilot episode, this is the biggest, most ambitious episode of 'lost' to date. the show once again felt truly cinematic, it was a gift to the talents of actor nestor carbonell, and answered a plethora of mythological questions - a feat done through the prism of one man's personal, emotional story. this is 'lost' at its best. each scene of the 'film' was beautiful, and was a complete, mini story - i loved how the episode took time to focus on richard's struggle with both the miniscule (spending days digging a nail out of the wood), and the major (becoming instrumental in the ageless battle between good and evil with the fate of the world in your hands). also, the music in this episode was especially good, establishing yet another beautiful love theme for richard and isabella. the opening whoosh to ricardo's horseback-riding, buoyed by a new new musical theme, did a great job of establishing the period, urgency, tone, and mood for richard's story.
frankly: possibly the best episode of the season, certainly one of the best in the history of the show. if damon and carlton can adequately justify and explain the parallel timeline in a way that causes irritated fans to invest in it, then this season will stick the landing.
- rulebreakers
- heaven and hell
- good and evil
- ghost rules
- history of the black rock
- origin of the others
- origin of dharma
- some things
- preboomer
- next episode
only a few episodes in 'lost's' history have broken the rules in this way. desmond's 'flashes before your eyes' was structured this same way, with over half the episode taking place during a continuous flashback bookended by island story. desmond's story also broke the rules by having him 'conscious' during his flashback. richard's story remained unbroken, which really allowed me to invest in the story without having to bounce to another narrative. by keeping the flashback story linear, alpert's often-confusing timeline is made simple - which is another thing to love about this episode; the show is allowing itself to be simple again.
this episode is a perfect example of what damon and carlton mean when they say 'the only mysteries we will answer will be those mysteries that concern the characters.' there simply isn't time to checklist every minor story in the history of the island. remember when eloise hawking launched into a monologue about how the lamp-post station was built? - one of the worst moments of season 5. the thing the writers understand (thank god they do) is that though the audience clamors for answers, it's not actually answers that we want. what we want is closure. and that closure will come from explaining the origin and purpose of everything we, and the characters have endured. closure won't come from knowing where the food drop in season 2 came from (though they have promised we'll find out - if not in the show directly ..whatever that means..). i'll say it again: based on the strength of their 5 season finales, they know how to write endings. and now that we've crossed the halfway point of the final season, i have more confidence than ever that the show is going to give us a full-on catharsis of closure.
2. heaven and hell
this episode gave us the full-on religious interpretation of the island - it did this by plunging us deep into its past, and revealing it to us through the perspective of a deeply religious man. the episode also showed us how the two inhabitants of the island manipulated that man's religious devotion to their own ends.
3. good and evil
jacob says that nemesis believes that all people are corruptible, and we've seen evidence of how he operates, when he downloads information from his victims - he's looking for that person's moral breaking point. jacob says he can't interfere with people's choices, and that everyone he's brought to the island thus far to prove his point have all died. wow, how many people was that, and why does jacob keep trying? finally this explains some of his strange behaviour - he reminds people that they have a choice, sometimes bullys them into making certain choices, but the point of everything he does is to allow people to prove that they are 'good' by nature.
many people seem frustrated because they still don't know who to root for. 'who is good and who is evil!?,' they complain.
it's hard to argue for nemesis, who flat out murdered everyone who stayed behind at the temple, and also seems to recklessly murder anyone who isn't a candidate. but how different is he from jacob, who has also committed mass-murder. is jacob less guilty because he relied on the choices of other people to carry out his plans?
if jacob has been around since the time of the egyptians, it's apparently taken him thousands of years to figure out that using a proxy is an ideal way to work around his philosophy of non-interference. whether or not jacob is still playing within 'the spirit of the game' is another question - he's meant to represent the 'good' side, but clearly he's just as manipulative as nemesis is. jacob is pretty much the patron saint of passive aggressive behavior.
i will be über impressed if the show takes us even further back in time to the origin of the nemesis/jacob conflict. they are teasing us in this direction, and if they can pull it off.. man, then we haven't seen anything yet. i hope its an epic avatar style motion-capture extravaganza featuring nemesis' crazy hippopotamus-faced mother.
4. ghost rules
but no, i don't think so. isabella's body is not on the island - and season 6 isn't the time to start playing fast and loose with the rules smokey has abided by for 5 seasons. also, isabella's behavior in this ghost form isn't consistent with nemesis' motivations. she was terrified of the thing, felt it was confirmation they were in hell, and tried desperately to get richard out of the chains. the words she speaks to richard are also echoed in her final scene when she speaks through hurley. somehow i think this was a true ghost of isabella that was able to manifest physically in the same way that kate's horse appeared, and she was able to touch it.
in the last podcast, damon and carlton were asked a question about the ghost rules. their answer was encouraging. 'these are excellent questions. in the near future one of the charcters on the show will be asking these same questions, and they'll be asking someone who knows the answers, and that person will provide the answers.' wow. i mean, that's pretty much the convergence of three things we have almost never seen on this show:
- person asking questions the audience wants answered
- person being asked knows the answer!
- person being asked will give the answer!
5. history of the black rock
the fuselage is overflowing with nitpicky 'fans' berating greggory nations for placing alperts journey on the black rock at 1867, when the auctioneer selling the black rock ledger in 'the constant' had this to say about the ship:
i want to believe, that because this is an episode cowritten by gregg nations, that this kind of glaring discrepancy is deliberate. so much discussion must have gone into the setting of the period of this episode. shooting period is not cheap, and the decisions are not made arbitrarily. costumes are made, sets are built, tons and tons of research is done by skilled artists to make it happen. though, after the ultrasound date mixup and sayid's iranian passport screwups, i'm hesitant to once again place my once unshakable faith in the show's finer details, but hopefully this isn't a mistake. if it is a mistake, i would consider it a colossal script coordination failure.
i think it's possible that magnus hanso, owner of the black rock, discovered the island in 1845, and then 'stole' his own ship to be used as 'the sub' for jacob, to bring his candidates to the island. it would be much easier to keep a ship at sea hidden in a time before satellites and radar. it's also interesting that the eponymous blast door map itself has written 'final resting place of magnus hanso/black rock.'
the other weird thing, though is that in the season 5 finale, jacob and nemesis are sitting on the beach, looking at the black rock sitting on a perfectly calm, daytime ocean, just a few miles off-shore. how can this possibly be the same ship? did it suddenly turn from day to night and from calm to storm? or was that day on the beach in 1845, the first time the black rock came to the island?
6. origin of the others
when richard asked jacob what happened to all the people he brought over, jacob says 'they're all dead.' clearly some of them lived long enough to build the temple, the statue, the tunnels, and other egyptian ruins - but it appears that smokey was eventually able to infiltrate, corrupt, set them against each other, and wipe them all out. architecturally, it seems the only structures on the island are either egyptian or built by dharma in the 70's, so i think we can infer that 'the others' as we know them did not come into existence until jacob placed alpert as his right hand man. how did eloise and widmore first come to the island? how did they come to follow richard, and how was leadership established? it seems quite odd that a society based on jacob's faith in the goodness of man would require locke to publicly murder his father in order to become their leader. ..yeah, jury's still out on whether jacob is truly 'good.'
in 1954 alpert says that he was 'ordered' to kill the us army soldiers, and infers that jacob gave this order. by the same token, we can infer that jacob ordered the purge of dharma in 1982. what exactly is going on here? why does jacob bring groups to the island and then periodically purge them?
7. origin of dharma
sometimes you just need to lie down, wherever you are.
dharma's history goes way back, given that magnus hanso was captain of the black rock, alvar was his great grandson, alvar began the hanso foundation, and the hanso foundation funded dharma. many portions of the 'lost experience' have been confirmed by damon and carlton to be canon, so i think it's safe to believe that magnus is alvar hanso's great grandfather. did alvar start the dharma initiative in attempt to find his great grandfather's ship? or was the creation of the dharma initiative something more imbedded in jacob's plan? did jacob feel it was necessary to bring scientists so that the stability of the island's geological powers could be ensured? was jacob's plan always to allow dharma on the island, allow them to build their stations and set up shop, then once they've been established, wipe them out and replace them with his own people? is this why the truce between dharma and 'the hostiles' was established?
'the black rock set sail from portsmouth, england on march 22, 1845 on a trading mission to the kingdom of siam, when she was tragically lost at sea. the only known artifact of this journey is the journal of the ship's first mate, which was discovered among the artifacts of pirates on the ile sante-marie off the coast of madagascar seven years later. the contents of this journal have never been made public, or known to anyone outside the family of the seller, tovard hanso.'
so, why is there a 22 year gap in the history of the black rock?i want to believe, that because this is an episode cowritten by gregg nations, that this kind of glaring discrepancy is deliberate. so much discussion must have gone into the setting of the period of this episode. shooting period is not cheap, and the decisions are not made arbitrarily. costumes are made, sets are built, tons and tons of research is done by skilled artists to make it happen. though, after the ultrasound date mixup and sayid's iranian passport screwups, i'm hesitant to once again place my once unshakable faith in the show's finer details, but hopefully this isn't a mistake. if it is a mistake, i would consider it a colossal script coordination failure.
6. origin of the others
in 1954 alpert says that he was 'ordered' to kill the us army soldiers, and infers that jacob gave this order. by the same token, we can infer that jacob ordered the purge of dharma in 1982. what exactly is going on here? why does jacob bring groups to the island and then periodically purge them?
7. origin of dharma
dharma's history goes way back, given that magnus hanso was captain of the black rock, alvar was his great grandson, alvar began the hanso foundation, and the hanso foundation funded dharma. many portions of the 'lost experience' have been confirmed by damon and carlton to be canon, so i think it's safe to believe that magnus is alvar hanso's great grandfather. did alvar start the dharma initiative in attempt to find his great grandfather's ship? or was the creation of the dharma initiative something more imbedded in jacob's plan? did jacob feel it was necessary to bring scientists so that the stability of the island's geological powers could be ensured? was jacob's plan always to allow dharma on the island, allow them to build their stations and set up shop, then once they've been established, wipe them out and replace them with his own people? is this why the truce between dharma and 'the hostiles' was established?
8. some things
- nemesis gives alpert the same knife that dogen gave to sayid. did richard give this knife to dogen at one point, complete with ironic (and useless) instructions on how to 'kill' nemesis?
- richard gives nemesis a jagged white rock.
- when jacob sits down with nemesis later, the rock is smooth and polished. at last! it all makes sense! that cranking noise.. smokey is one of these, only eeevil.
9. preboomer
(boom)
10. next episode
there are some interesting things to toss about: without the island, it will be next to impossible for ji yeon to be born, since jin is sterile, and required the island's fertility boost for sun to conceive. in the parallel, we don't know yet if sun was lying about speaking english or not - is her reboot relationship with jin the same as before? sun's father is golfing buddies with charles widmore. in the parallel, if the island is underwater, is widmore even alive? if he is, how has the nature of his business changed, and how would that change ripple out to sun's father? is it possible that without the island, sun's father requires jin to be merely a tough guy bodyguard, and not a full-on murderer? how much has changed? how did jin end up in the meat refrigerator? is keamy still connected to widmore in the parallel? will keamy be making more eggs?
what i want to see, if the show reunites them finally, is the unspeakable joy of finding someone believed to be dead for three years. that should be the simple description of the episode's essence. it has to be a huge emotional moment, and if it's done right, yunjun kim will slay the performance. i want to feel like i'm being reunited with the characters, too.
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Um... wow! This has quite a few adjustments since the last draft! Very good! Has the muse come to sit on your shoulder? Clamp her down until for the next few weeks please.
i want more eggs!
excellent analysis! i do feel, however, that this is missing a bit of the biblical implications regarding jacob and nemesis. god, himself, had more than one civilization that he destroyed and/or let be destroyed all in the name of free agency. he often left his prophets in the dark and frequently lets his people suffer the worst. i view jacob as an analogy for "god" and richard one of his prophets - noah, perhaps - who was unknowing of the master plan, but acted as god's voice. so in response to your characterization of jacob as not all good, well, he fits the god mold and god is the "ultimate good". and who's to say murder can't be performed in the name of good or that death is inherently evil? richard, at this point, may be beginning to see the goodness in it.
Perhaps the ship seen in the Incident was meant to be a ship other than the Black Rock from around the same time period. Or remember how the Ajira flight went from flying at night to flying in daylight just before it landed? Maybe a similar time shift occurred as the Black Rock approached the island.
Also in reference to Isabella being a ghost rather than an MIB manifestation during the Black Rock scene. Remember in the Man from Tallahassee when Ben sees his mom in the woods? He later runs into Richard who asks if his mom died on the island. I think this is an example of MIB being able to take the form of someone not buried on the island. In this case I think he was setting Ben up to eventually join the Others.
It will be amazing if they actually clarify all these ghost rules.
oo christian, excellent point about ben seeing his mom on the island, and richard's very specific inquiry about it.. i still think that those particular ghosts aren't smokey.
darlton confirmed in a podcast that the ship from 'the incident' was the black rock. it's possible there was a time shift as it approached, though it seemed like it was already pretty close.. they also specifically addressed that strangeness in the latest podcast, so hopefully it's something that will be cleared up by the end..
l, it's true, jacob's position raises some interesting philosophical questions - if the fate of the world is at stake, what then, are the limits to what must be done to protect it? at what point does your 'protection' do more damage than the thing you're protecting it from? i guess that's the eternal question about good and evil. what exactly are they? how are they defined? how do *we* decide who to follow in our lives? the buddhist god is very different from the western one - awful things that happen under the buddhist god are part of a larger whole and must be accepted, whereas the western god is judgemental, punishing, all-knowing and an entity to be feared.. maybe jacob and nemesis are just two 'gods' duking it out!?
yeah, too much protection can be a not so good thing. but i don't necessarily see jacob as over-protective given his often-times aloof demeanor. and it's not like there isn't any evil in the world on lost with nemesis caged on the island, just not total evil. i guess at this point i could go with either storyline: nemesis could leave the island and we may find that he actually adds to the world rather than destroys it, or he must really be stopped to prevent total earth destruction. i mean, we are supposed to stop hitlers and charles mansons, aren't we? according to buddhist philosophy?
ooh, good idea about two gods duking it out. if that isn't darlton's story, you should file it away for your own use some day...