Spoilers below!
This week was a Flocke & Locke episode – off the island we see Locke struggling to accept his disability at his job and with Helen. Meanwhile, Flocke is trying to recruit on the island and shares some info with Sawyer, his new recruit. Read our reactions and then leave your own – but, please, no spoilers for episodes that haven’t aired yet.
Oh boy! General reactions?
SALLY: I loved the episode for the return of the numbers, though I was annoyed that things dragged. The scene with Sawyer almost falling, the funeral for Locke, draaaaaag. But, I love the numbers so YAY!
CARA: It did drag a little bit, but overall I thought it was great! The final scenes were awesome.
LAUREN: Although the Locke episodes are usually among the best, some of the scenes with Locke and Helen contained some unusually bad writing, a shame since Katey Sagal is a criminally underused actor. That said, I fell in love with Sawyer all over again when we discovered him pantsless, drinking himself into oblivion to the sweet sounds of The Stooges (which says something about me I don’t feel like interrogating).
SALLY: Oh, that reminds me of my other general reaction which was, when the hell is Richard getting his own episode?! Can this happen already, please?
LAUREN: Word to that. I wouldn’t mind seeing Richard and Ben have it out.
CARA: A Richard episode would pretty much be the best thing in the world, because if there is one character’s backstory I actually care about at this point, it’s his.
SADY: I thought this would be the Richard episode! Did love the extended “and now I will explain the plot of a Steinbeck novel, in some detail, before shooting the crap out of you” moment with Sawyer. Does it matter, Sawyer? Does it MATTER IF HE KNOWS THE BOOK before you shoot him?
LAUREN: That was a little “on the nose” for me, as was (it pains me) the Stooges song. But “Search and Destroy” is totes Smokey’s theme song now.
Starting with the flash sideways: Locke’s getting married, his father’s around, his boss is still a jerk, he doesn’t believe in miracles… Thoughts?
CARA: I thought it was really interesting that Locke’s dad seemingly never pushed him out of a window, and Locke became disabled some other way. I mean, Locke and his dad’s relationship was always incredibly messed up, but if Anthony did try to kill him and then was still invited to John’s wedding … well, that’d be a whole new level. Also, I don’t think that Locke would have survived the fall without Jacob’s touch.
After what Flocke said last night regarding Jacob “manipulating” everyone, it’s my new theory that the flash sideways aren’t necessarily what happened if the bomb went off, but what would have happened without Jacob’s influence on their lives.
SALLY: Great theory! I love it!
SADY: Yes, precisely. And, I mean: I think looking at the parallels between Flocke and Locke (“don’t tell me what I can’t do”) are interesting, too. I think we’re meant to believe that Locke’s extensive pushing for things that are just out of reach is what got him killed, whereas if he actually starts living his life… he gets to be a substitute teacher. Which, really, is probably its own variety of Hell.
LAUREN: How much did you love Ben sans-island? Without his island, he’s just a regular variety control freak.
SADY: THE COFFEE MACHINE HAS CHOSEN YOU TO REPLACE ITS FILTER, JOHN. THERE IS A MAGIC BOX, CONTAINING COFFEE FILTERS, AND WHATEVER COFFEE FILTERS YOU NEED WILL BE FOUND THERE.
Hurley owns a temp agency and Rose works there. Are we surprised she’s the one who gets Locke to accept his disability?
SADY: Rose’s destiny is to dispense folksy wisdom at random to whoever needs it. These connections are starting to feel a little forced! I feel we really are heading toward an “Ana-Lucia likes chicken” moment! Or, like, Libby will show up at a laundromat, and Michael will be there, and then the washer will explode and kill her. Or something.
LAUREN: God, this sequence was painful. Rose and Bernard, Rose in particular, were a nice break from the self-important intensity of the other characters in early seasons, and to have her boiled down to the Wise Sage is frigging annoying.
Also, I was annoyed with the depiction of Locke’s coming to accept his disability, partially because the writing was so bad. This is a huge personal and spiritual moment for Sideways Locke! But between Pouty Locke and Sage Rose and Unquestioningly Supportive Helen (Red Flag: when the guy you’re marrying heads off to another country with a suitcase full of knives while lying to everyone about his whereabouts… Creepy!), it felt like we were watching an after-school special.
CARA: I will be honest: I talked over this scene, because I was so excited when I finally figured out that the first woman at the desk with Locke was the same con-artist “psychic” that Hurley was taken to by his dad.
LAUREN: I totally missed that!
SALLY: I noticed it on second watch and did giggle a bit.
On the island, there’s a little kid running around who tells Flocke “we can’t kill him.” Does this mean Jacob’s not dead? Anybody else think kid looks like mini-Jacob?
CARA: My first thought that it was young Jacob, certainly. Other folks are suggesting that he might be older Aaron, and a lot of people have been theorizing all along that Aaron was somehow special to this story. But young Jacob makes more sense to me, personally, than older Aaron.
LAUREN: I’m in the young-Jacob camp, too, but does anyone have any ideas why Sawyer could see him but Richard could not? And why he was bloodied in one scene but clean the next?
SALLY: Some comment I read today (can’t remember where) noted that Sawyer was also able to see Kate’s horse way back when, and suggested that maybe Sawyer has always been more special than we thought. I have to say, this hadn’t ever occurred to me before and my mind was kinda blown when I thought about that. Sawyer came into his own last season, but what if he is supposed to be the new leader or at least play a more significant role in the future of the island and the Losties? Now I’m just trying to remember everything he ever did on the island trying to see what I might have missed.
SADY: Or maybe only Candidates can see the little dude?
LAUREN: It’s interesting though that there are these “rules” that are being hinted at in these scenes. Who made the rules, and who enforces them? There’s a whole other entity out there with unseen power over the seen power struggles! WTF? But the “can’t kill him” rule is reminiscent of the rule that Widmore violated when he killed Ben’s daughter.
SALLY: I had actually never considered before who made the rules… damn, now I really want to know.
Flocke takes Sawyer to a cave with numbers and last names. This scene brings up several questions. For starters, Flocke says this is Jacob’s list of candidates. What’s going on here? Has Jacob always been planning for his own death? Is Flocke lying?
CARA: I don’t trust Flocke even remotely. After all, if Jacob is dead and needs someone to take his place, and there are numerous names left on the wall, why would Sawyer be the one who automatically gets the job? I think that the people on the wall were indeed candidates for something, but candidates for what Flocke said they were for? I’m highly suspicious.
In any case, I think this is why it’s so important to keep the Losties safe, to keep Sawyer there, to keep Sayid and Jack alive, etc. It also brings us back to my question from last week, I think, concerning whether or not Jin was “one of them.” I’m guessing that this is what the Others were referring to — one of the people on Jacob’s wall. And it’s entirely likely that when Aldo said “we think he’s one of them,” he meant the fact that they weren’t sure which Kwon Jacob wanted.
LAUREN: I keep questioning whether the island needs protecting. As it turns out, the island isn’t sentient, it’s just a place of battle between two warring semi-gods. I know if it doesn’t need intervention we don’t have a show, but so far all there is to protect are some religious artifacts and the ruins of a failed colonial hippie project. I need more convincing (because I am a woman of science).
SALLY: There’s a theory that what Jacob was really protecting was the outside world from the island, namely Smokey. That he was using the island to keep Smokey at bay and prevent him from entering the real world because of the havoc he might cause.
I myself can’t really figure out what the island needs protection from either, but I do think there’s more going on here than we realize. I’m also skeptical about Flocke, so it’s hard to figure out what’s true and what’s not. But the idea that Jacob knew he would some day die and need a replacement is an interesting one. Add to that the element of actively choosing those candidates and bringing them to the island and that’s just awesome.
Next point is, of course, that the numbers are back! We’ve got: 4-Locke, 8-Reyes, 15-Ford, 16-Jarrah, 23-Shephard, 42-Kwon. Kate’s not on the list even though we know he visited her, and we don’t know which Kwon Jacob wanted. How do we think Jacob chose these names?
SALLY: Considering all of these are men, I hope Sun is the one he wanted. But throughout the show, I feel she’s a stronger candidate than Jin for pretty much anything. As far as Kate not being there, maybe he was unimpressed by little Kate and didn’t sense any spark or something.
CARA: The fact that Kate wasn’t there really bugged me, and reading the blogs this morning, it seems that I definitely wasn’t the only one! I hope they address that. I love the fact that this is seemingly what the numbers mean, though. The fact that there were so many other names and so many other numbers, and these were the ones that were left, indicates to me that they weren’t specifically given those numbers because the numbers were magical or whatever, but that those numbers might have been referring to these characters all along. Maybe the radio transmission repeating the numbers was even supposed to summon them? Maybe they were the numbers that you pressed into the computer in the hatch to save the world, because these were the people responsible for saving the island? All of these ideas really, really excite me.
SALLY: My friend thinks Kate’s on there but we just weren’t shown, and somebody saw Claire on there with her name crossed off. And I keep switching back and forth between “what if this IS the meaning of the numbers?!” and “ok here are the numbers again, but what do they MEAN?!”
LAUREN: My first question is when and how the numbers were assigned. Some characters were “touched” — literally and figuratively — by Jacob before the crash, and some afterward. And since this is my theory for how someone was nominated for candidacy, what’s up with that? Also, does anyone else find it weird that none of the Others are candidates?
SALLY: I was wondering that too, though we have no idea who those other names are or why they were crossed off. First person I thought of was Ben. Was he ever a candidate or was he just doing Jacob’s dirty work?
LAUREN: Some are floating the idea that Kate wasn’t so much a candidate, hence her name missing from the wall, but a test for Jack and Sawyer to pass to BE candidates and this pisses off Feminist Lauren because sexism detracts from Fan Lauren’s fun. This is obviously an unconfirmed theory, but the idea that one of the central characters of the series, and arguably the female character with the most self-determination, is getting pushed off to the side because she’s a sexual agent? It’s offensive.
And Sally, I agree with you that Sun is the superior Kwon, at least as far as candidacy goes. I’ve been endlessly amused and impressed with her character arc, since Sun was one of the least empowered people on the show who has handily taken control of her circumstances on- and off-island. She’s turned into a total gangster, and it makes fun TV.
SADY: If I were to trust my magic island to one endlessly competent woman who can hand pretty much anyone their asses should the circumstance require it, it would be Sun. FACT. But does this mean that whoever isn’t the candidate is going to get, uh, “crossed off?”
After showing Sawyer the numbers, Flocke says he’s got 3 choices: do nothing, become the new Jacob, leave with Flocke and never return. He’s down to leave with Flocke, is it gonna happen? How?
CARA: I don’t think it will happen, but I think they’ll try. It’ll be really interesting to see what goes down if the “war” ends up having Flocke and Sawyer on one side, and all of our other Losties on the other.
SALLY: Hmm, I hadn’t even thought of Flocke and Sawyer teaming up against everybody else. I sort of just assumed that in another episode or two, Sawyer would not be down with Flocke anymore and join everyone else again.
LAUREN: You know, I have no idea how this is going to play out. I’d like to think Sawyer is going to tell Flocke to screw himself, but he seems awfully damaged by the trauma of time travel, being marooned on a island, and also seeing his friends get killed, killing people, and losing his beloved. Who knows? But if I were Sawyer, I’d have a serious case of the Fuck-Its. I’d be all suicide mission.
SADY: Am I the only one who is kind of thrilled to see the return of damaged reckless Libertarian Sawyer? Because I am! I am thrilled!
One of my pet peeves with the Christian god – thinking back to my Catholic school days here, I’m not a scholar on the subject or anything – is his neediness, the way he tests his subjects, makes them experience terrible things, etc. He’s kind of an ass, quite frankly. I have this alternative reality in my head where Satan is actually the ultimate revolutionary, and ending up in hell is preferable to ending up in heaven with the ego maniac who treats you like crap and then demands your eternal faith and love (see Job).
So, while I am skeptical of Flocke, I am drawn to the idea of him as the good guy, with Jacob being the one to be wary of. I keep thinking back to his comment about how everything before the end is progress. He may just like playing these games with humans, and Flocke is trying to stop him. Also, the heavy white/black theme strikes me as too obvious a parallel for good/evil, which is partly why I want the ultimate roles to be reversed.
And finally, we are assuming that being a candidate is a good thing. Maybe it’s not, and people are ruled out for being too smart/headstrong/skeptical.
WRT being a candidate, anony: ITA. And maybe it’s a “candidate” for some sort of human sacrifice thingy. Bah.
Also: I think the test and faith and such are all terribly passive-aggressive. Don’t question anything, don’t rebel, just believe and eat the shit I feed you. Um, no thanks. Didn’t work for me when I was raised as Catholic/Christian, and doesn’t work for me now.
Yes, you can put me down as “not a fan of Jacob,” LOL.
I loved seeing Sawyer as the responsible leader… especially showing that he could do it better than Jack. But reckless, damaged Sawyer is more fun! Right now I’m leaning toward the theory that Sawyer is conning FLocke and doesn’t trust him any more than we do.
I’m not a big fan of Kate because of the way she’s been written (and the smarmy comments about her in episode commentaries haven’t helped), but I will be pissed if she’s relegated to just a test for two men. Especially since she was originally intended to be the hero of the series.
My biggest reason for doubting that the Losties are candidates for taking over as Jacob is that aside for Sun and maybe Sawyer, they all seem like terrible choices!
And the question that’s nagging me is why Flocke said that Locke chose to do nothing. What did he mean by that?
anony, good point about assuming it’s a good thing. I guess because Flocke seemed to imply that it was a candidate for taking Jacob’s role, that’s where my train of thought went… but that’s also assuming Flocke knows what he’s talking about and/or isn’t lying.
And I’d also be really pissed if Kate was a test. I have to admit, though, that even though we know the show doesn’t exactly love women, I don’t find that particularly likely. It just seems like a really stupid way to test for anything really.
Oh, and with the whole Locke did nothing thing, the source for my confusion on that isn’t so much well, then what did he do (or not, as the case may be). I’m more confused because of the actual context: he was on Jacob’s list as a candidate, but it was Flocke (as Locke, through Richard, and possibly as Christian too) who told Locke what he had to do, and it was Locke doing it that brought us to this point with Ben killing Jacob because of Flocke.
So does he mean that Locke did “nothing” because he followed Flocke’s instructions? Did he do “nothing” because he had too much faith in the island? Did he do “nothing” simply because he died? Or did he do “nothing” because Flocke expected Locke to do more for Flocke (not Jacob) than he actually did?
I also paid attention to that scene with the scale. In Egyptian mythology, which seems to have a bearing on things, the heart of the deceased was placed on a scale and if found wanting was devoured and the soul ended up in hell. Flocke threw the white stone away while the black remained.
There was also the scene where Ilana saves some of the ash from the pit where Jacob presumably died. They keep scattering ash to protect themselves – is this the source of the ash?
I think the island needs to be protected from Charles Widmore who, as far as we know, is still out there wanting the island for his own probably nefarious purpose.
It’s interesting that those names have presumably been written in the cave for centuries and number in the hundreds yet the numbers assigned to our heroes are relatively low. Is it a countdown?
I agree, sally. It definitely seemed like Locke did what he could to protect the island, given the information he had at the time. He wasn’t given the multiple choice question but if he had been, he’d obviously choose to stay and protect the island.
I didn’t even realize that Kate wasn’t on the wall..maybe Jacob didn’t touch her like he did everyone else or maybe he was dissapointed in her cuz she said she would never steal again and she did..did he know she was lying at that moment?
I’m just hoping Jack doesn’t end up as the last candidate standing..that would suck! lol
Ah, Shakatany, thank you! I paid close attention to both of those moments while watching, yet somehow forgot about them during our discussion. I definitely think that the fire in Jacob’s statue might be the source of the ash that repels Smokey. As for whether or not the rocks actually “do” anything besides provide symbolism, though, I’m not sure.
I agree with you that things aren’t quite as they seem, and that being a Candidate may not turn out to be a good thing. Also, I’m not sure Jacob is totally benevolent and fLocke totally bad. If they’re more like humans than gods (remember fLocke saying he used to be a man, like Sawyer, and that he has felt and understands human emotions), then they are probably a mix of good and bad, just like the rest of us.
Also, I’d say the Christian God is less like some egotistic cosmic puppeteer, creating painful circumstances in our lives, for His enjoyment, but more like an author who knows that, for His characters to ultimately be the people He knows they can be, they must experience failure, pain, and setbacks, in order to grow. We can all look to our own lives as examples of getting better because of struggle. It’s the way we learn, as humans.
Also, God doesn’t demand our faith and love, He knows we’re better off with Him in our lives, than without. So while He has an intimate hand in our lives (like Jacob with the losties), He ultimately allows us to choose to love and follow Him, willingly. We’ll see what choices the losties make, as the rest of this story plays out!
And obviously, something bad can happen to the island, because in the sideways-verse it ends up under the ocean.
I don’t think Sawyer trusts or believes FLocke, I just don’t think he cares. He’s distraught and angry, and getting off the island sounds like a great idea, or if he dies instead, well, that would be okay too. (Not for me, though.)
I think that the difference between “if the bomb went off” and “if Jacob hadn’t interefered” doesn’t really exist: Jacob didn’t bother to interfere because, without the island being there, there was nothing to manipulate these people into doing.
With absolutely no in-show reason, I have decided that the island is still on the same physical planet as the other timestream, that there are in a sense two islands now (the timeline split at the explosion, but weird crap happened and so we have the island wherever it used to be, and also down at the bottom of the ocean), and that we will see convergence somehow soon, with people either getting on or off the island. This is almost certainly wrong and just what I *hope* happens instead of what I believe will happen.
i think sawyer is pulling his longest con yet…
i also think jacob’s ladder was literally interesting, for obvs reasons…as well as the cave….as in allegory.
I just read a theory that Kate wasn’t one of the numbers on the cave wall because she blew up a house with someone inside it.
To which I say: wait just one goddamn minute.
Sawyer was a con-man. He made his living ripping people off and betraying their trust, just for the fun of it. And he killed a man who he didn’t even know, without checking his facts first, only to have the guy turn out to be the wrong guy.
Sayid tortured people for a living. Then, after that, he killed people for a living, because Benjamin Linus told him to. Then he shot a 12-year-old.
Jack slams women up against walls and violently intimidates them into betraying their deeply held cultural beliefs. Also, he stalks and harasses women who break up with him. Oh, and this one time, he crashed his father’s AA meeting just so he could beat him up.
And someone wants to claim that Kate is unworthy because she killed the man who was abusing her mother? If this is even remotely true, I will be so fucking pissed I won’t even be able to see straight.
Now, as clarification to the above, I’m not saying that the other characters who have done awful things are necessarily irredeemable (well, maybe with Jack just a little, because I really hate that guy). I think the point of most characterization on the show is that not all actions are necessarily good or evil, some are a little of both, and doing an evil thing doesn’t necessarily make you a bad and permanently tainted person, and vice versa.
Which is all to say that I not only think this theory is wrong, but I find the fact that anyone even thought it up to be incredibly obnoxious and clueless, and also pretty sexist. And I felt the need to rant about it a little.
In Jack’s defense his dad sort of had that coming. (kidding! …mostly. Christian Shephard: more hateworthy than his spawn?? On the one hand, without him we’d never have Jack at all. On the other, if he hadn’t been such a shitty father, maybe Jack would have become a nice well-adjusted not-hateworthy person!)
I could actually envision a situation in which Kate was brought on as a test for Jack & Sawyer and that didn’t make me want to kill people – the fact that Jacob (or… whatever) would want to relegate her to sex object doesn’t mean that Kate herself lacks agency, and on a show I trusted more to be, um, well-written, I would actually be interested to see a situation in which Kate found out about this and got really pissed off (cf. Jasmine in Aladdin – “I am not a prize to be won!”), not least of all because it could be in the line of Rose, Bernard, Desmond, and this week to a certain extent Sawyer deciding to opt out of destiny or whatever (which I suspect might become a more prominent theme this season anyway). There are ways, I think, to make characters objectify Kate without making the show objectify her… that said I don’t really trust LOST with the nuance it would take to pull that off, so here’s hoping that’s not what this is about.
I also love Rose, and agree she (& Bernard) have provided a lot of welcome shifts in tone, but I don’t know if I agree with this because… hasn’t she always had a bit of Wise Sage in the writing of her? I’m thinking particularly of her prayer with Charlie way back in season one, not to mention the whole “I magically know my husband is not dead” thing. I agree that the writing in the scene was hamfisted, but in terms of actual content it was basically… the moral of her and Bernard’s flashbacks, no? Also: nice catch re: the faux-psychic!
As for Jacob/Flocke/rules: in addition to echoing back to the Ben/Widmore “rules,” I was instantly reminded of the season 5 finale – it was a rule that MIB couldn’t kill Jacob and would have to find a (pretty elaborate) loophole. And I am definitely not sold on the idea that Jacob is a good guy, though I have no doubt he (like the Others in general) sees himself that way.
Wow, I can’t figure out which is worse – Kate as a test or Kate as somehow worse than a torturer and a con man. Now I’m utterly depressed at the thought of this…
Maybe Kate isn’t a bad enough person to be on the list? If we assume it’s Jin, not Sun — but I can’t imagine how Hugo fits in there.
Kate as test would make me stabby.
Put me in the “Neither Jacob, nor Flocke is who we should follow” camp. I think neither is all good or all bad, but the Losties are going to stand up for making their own choices in life, and reject destiny. (Well, at least some will.)
I also think the “Flash Sideways” has something to do with Jacob never influencing them, and I think that there will be bleed through from one universe to the other (perhaps because there is no one in the “Jacob” role, right now).
Did anyone else notice little mini-flashes during the Sideways Locke bits? A couple of times it seemed to me that the screen sort of saturated with light – sort of the way the time skips went – but never reached full strength and didn’t result in shifts of perspective. No one else seems to have noticed this, so maybe it is just my old, beat up TV. :)
ITA regarding the “Kate is a test” theory and the “Kate did a very bad thing” theory. That just gets me super-pissed off. FFS, I like Lost, but I’m really. fucking. tired. of the disposable bitch syndrome on the show. Women are romantic complications/foils or cannon fodder–and if Kate did a bad thing, the other Losties did things just as bad, if not worse (at least her killing was semi justified).
Then again, I’m not really a Kate hater. I kinda like her character (though hate the way they wrote her in “What Kate Does.” FFS, DROP THE FUCKING LOVE TRIANGLE ALREADY. Or make them be polyamourous). I like the fact that she knows how to track and can use a gun and can throw down. And despite this, she’s not just “one of the guys,” she backs the women, too. I like the fact that she gets down to brass tacks and gets shit done.
But FFS, Lost writers–drop the love triangle BS. It’s tedious. Kate’s swinging back and forth, and Sawyer and Jack’s unshaven angst is freaking boring.
Regarding Kwon: is there any reason each name has to represent one person? Jacob touched Sun and Jin simultaneously, it could mean that they both are combined as a candidate.
I anticipate that Sawyer will get off island and meet sideways Juliette. What then, though?
Other rambling thought:
I think Flocke was manipulating Locke from the get go. Remember, season one, Locke is the first one to see the smoke monster and not be killed. When Locke goes into Jacob’s temple, it’s Flocke as Fchristrian who meets him. And of course getting Richard to talk to him. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were Flocke who gave Locke the use of his legs again – remember the only reason that Boone died was because suddenly Locke’s ability to walk was taken away from him, and then when Locke had his vision in season 3 it was Boone who met him, probably also Flocke. Furthermore it was Jacob who gave Locke life but it was Widmore’s man who convinced him to do the walkabout which ended up causing him to go on the island in the first place. So, was Widmore infected like Claire and Sayid?
I actually think Kate might not be on the candidate list because she’s the one who didn’t actually do what Jacob was trying to get her to do. When he gave her the lunchbox he made her promise she’d never steal again; we know she did, though. If she’d listened to his advice she might still have been on the plane (falsely accused, as in the AU), but it seems that her case is different than the other candidates’ in that she’s the only one who openly contradicted Jacob’s intervention.
I also have this theory about the AU being what would have happened had Jacob not touched anyone. If (as I saw over on TWoP) he exists outside time, killing him at one time might kill him at all times, so it would be like he never existed at all, not just that he died when he did in the original timeline.
as far as why kate wasn’t one of the numbers on the wall…its likely quite simple. esau/man in black/smokie/now taking the form of john locke…stated he used to be a man. its likely he just needs a man’s body.
or if it was jacob who wrote the names and numbers…same drill.
But who writes that as a plot device? Male writers. We’re not talking about a scientific fact of testes providing sperm and therefore being necessary for some reason. It’s fiction, not science.
Actually, Jacob said “You’re not going to steal anymore, are you?” to Kate. She didn’t. Also, he didn’t give everyone “instructions,” so it would be very inconsistent to assume that Kate’s name wasn’t on the wall because of this.