604 – The Substitute

Review:

See, this is why we should always trust the writers.  Can you imagine the headache we would have had if this episode was episode 303.  Without a Kate episode to bring things back down to Earth the show would have accelerated needlessly fast.  We need this alternating pace so our heads don’t explode.

But enough about last week, let’s get on with this review.

Off the Island Locke’s life begins to self-destruct.  But this time he’s not alone. Helen, Hurley and Rose are there to catch him and set him back on his feet (not literally).  Locke postpones his fated meeting with Jack, but we all know it’s coming, “it’s destiny”.  And right at the end we get a fun little reunion with surprising connotations: Ben is off the Island, and more importantly he’s a history teacher DUN DUN DUUUUN!!

Things aren’t as rosy on the Island.  It turns out “Locke” didn’t really need Richard, he just wanted to punch him and then try to convince him that he’s really a nice guy.  It didn’t work.

So “Locke” moves on to Sawyer, and has more success with him.  Or does he?  I’m convinced that our favorite con-man isn’t stupid enough to be conned by “Locke” and that he’s wise to his manipulations.

“Locke” does us a favor and tells us, in his very biased way, about Jacob’s scholarship program called Name on the Wall.  It turns out Jacob was looking for Candidates, and we have his Master List to prove it.  “Locke” thinks it was more of a hit-list and that these people were possible replacements for Jacob.  I’m not buying it.  I’m sure Jacob was watching these people closely, but I don’t think he was killing them, and I doubt he was hoping to die and get replaced soon.

I see this episode as a journey of discovery.  Sure it sounds ridiculous, but that really does sum it up.  It wasn’t a big flashy action episode, well besides that stressful ladder scene, it wasn’t an insane finale or a turning point.  But we learned a lot and many lines were drawn in the sand.  It’s one of those episodes like The Man Behind the Curtain and The Shape of Things to Come that is just a dream come true for theorists and mythologically obsessed fans.  8.5/10.0.

On a side note, I’ve noticed a pattern in the episodes so far.   First we get a two part episode about all of our characters with most people getting flashbacks, then we get a Kate episode, then a Locke episode.  Sound familiar?  It harkens back to Season 1.  We’ll see if I’m right next week, according to the pattern it should be a Jack episode next.  (Don’t correct me if I’m wrong.)

Analysis

Richard

-Was it necessary to keep Richard in a bear bag up in a tree?  I think I just answered my own question.  The bears would have eaten him.  Haha.

-“Locke” has always wanted Richard to “come with him”.  Richard seems like a valuable asset.  I wonder what makes him so special.  We know that Jacob made Richard what he is today.  I think we all think that means he just gave him a huge life-span.  But I wonder if he can do anything else.  He must be pretty important if “Locke” just let him go.  If “Locke” really didn’t need Richard he would have just killed him.

-I hate that I agree with “Locke” but I do feel bad for Richard.  He was apparently out looking for candidates, like young John Locke, without knowing what he was doing.  He had the whole Dalai Lama test but he didn’t know what it was about.  Or Richard’s just a good liar, and he knows when to lie.

-“Locke” tells Richard that he wouldn’t have “kept him in the dark”, he would have “treated him with respect”.  This after punching him in the throat for no reason and then tying him up in the jungle without food and water for a while.  Not a convincing argument.

Ilana

-Ilana grabbed some white Jacob ash.  That’s got to be important.

-I wish Ilana would get some better pants.  Those pants are really awful.  Come to think of it, all those people at the beach have terrible outfits.

-What does Ilana know about Jin?  That was a very odd line.  I don’t like it when these new people are partially omniscient, it always makes me over-estimate their knowledge.  In the next episode Ilana will be totally in the dark about something and I’ll be surprised.

Hurley

-You know you’re a crazy Lost fan when you see Randy, Locke’s boss, and you know that Hurley will be showing up soon.

-Happy Hurley is very hard to get used to.  I wonder if he’ll go home to Libby in a future episode.

-I’m enjoying this little Spot the Minor Character game that seems to be going on in these flash-sideways.  Throwing in Randy was almost necessary but having the crazy palm reader was just fun.  Having her act even loopier than before certainly added to the fun.

Ben

-Oh Ben, you and you’re lying ways.  Not that I blame him.  I wouldn’t want to tell Ilana that I killed Jacob.

-Ben admits that Locke was a better man than him.  Is Ben going to start improving himself, personality-wise.  That would be surprising.  This guy has gone through a lot since 2004, Cancer, being deposed, having his daughter shot in front of him, getting banished from the Island, trying to kill Penny and not succeeding, killing Locke, getting lectured by his dead daughter, killing Jacob.  And he seems to regret all of his murders and attempted murders.  I think it might be time for him to reevaluate his goals.

-My mind is reeling from the reveal of Ben off the Island.  He’d make a perfect history teacher, but that’s beside the point.  Up until now, all the people we’ve seen off of the Island have been people who either were on Oceanic 815 or left the Island on the submarine.  The last time we saw Ben before the Incident he was in the Others camp.  And I know Jughead probably didn’t sink the Island immediately, but I still assumed it killed all those people.  It looks like my theories have to be rethought (what an unusual predicament).

-It just occurred to me that now that Ben and Locke are teachers we’ll probably see Arzt again.  Great.

Sawyer

-Sawyer seems to have a very rare, extremely long version of Search and Destroy.

-Sawyer’s time capsule box thingy is sitting open on his bed.  The general consensus seems to be that all he had in it was the ring he was going to give Juliet.  That seems anti-climactic.  I still want to believe there was something else in there.

-Here’s how I see things.  Sawyer may not be a spinal surgeon, he may not be a multi-millionaire, or be an Iraqi torturer, but he knows how to play people and he knows when he’s getting played.  The vibe I got from him in this whole episode is that he knows what’s happening, he knows “Locke” is up to something.  I was very impressed with his reactions to all of “Locke”‘s tricks.  He’ll play along, but he’s not an idiot, he’ll get out when he can, or when he has to.
You can see what I mean in the scene when Locke first walks into Sawyer’s room.  Sawyer says, “I thought you were dead” and you can just see him slip into analysis mode

-Lost turned into an action show for a second there when Sawyer is falling.  I forgot how rare that is.

-“Locke” tries to tell Sawyer that he was conned by Jacob into coming to the Island.  Sawyer looks all distant for a second, as if he can remember him.  It was an important moment in his life.  I’m sure he remembers writing the letter.  But it would be almost unbelievable if he remembered Jacob.  Regardless, he stopped and thought about it.  I doubt he believed that Jacob was the one who guided his life.  If anyone is to be blamed for the way Sawyer’s life turned out it’s Anthony Cooper.  I’m confident that Sawyer can see through “Locke”‘s reasoning.

-Sawyer has no motivation for leaving the Island.  There’s still nothing left for him off the Island.

“Locke”/Smokey

-It seems like we were all moderately right about why “Locke”/Smokey chose Locke.  Locke was one of Jacob’s Candidates.  Smokey couldn’t get close to Jacob in his normal form, he needed to use Locke because he was chosen.  Of course we didn’t really know anything about the whole candidate program Jacob was setting up, but we almost knew.  We’re kinda like blind people trying to describe what a kangaroo looks like, it makes no sense when you’re first hearing it, but after you finally see a kangaroo it’s like ‘oh yeah, I get what they meant’.

-“Locke” knew about Sawyer living in the barracks for a while.  That was surprising.  See what I mean about the omniscience?  “Locke” knows all about Sawyer right now when it’s convenient, but in a few episodes he’ll be in the dark.

-In reference to Of Mice and Men, Locke says, “it was a little after my time”.  Cute.

-When “Locke” goes off on his speech about being trapped the sympathetic music comes on.  If “Locke” isn’t conning you then Michael Giacchino is.

-“Locke” was a man before he turned into a pillar of black smoke.  What a transformation.  I’m with Sawyer on this one, “I have a hard time believing that”.

-For no reason at all Ilana explained to us that “Locke” is stuck in Locke’s body.  But we know that’s not totally true, he showed up as Alex (I’m still a little perturbed at that bit of trickery).  Plus Locke can still turn into Smokey.  And who knows what’s moving Christian around.  I’m guessing that line was just to keep things simpler from now on.

-“Locke”‘s name is really driving me nuts.  Do the writers think they’re being cute by holding out on us?  This isn’t the same as HRG from Heroes.  At least with that people were unitedly calling him HRG, here in the Lost community we all have different names for him: The Monster, Smokey, the Smoke Monster, The Man in Black, Jacob’s Nemesis, Flocke, UnLocke, Locke-ness Monster, Smocke.  I myself have three separate names for him depending on the situation.  I”ve got Esau, for when he’s that other guy (I’ve pretty much stopped using this one); “Locke”, for most situations when he’s being Locke; and Smokey, for when he’s all smokey.  I don’t want to call him Smokey or The Monster” because he is partially Locke.  It’s really just a lot of trouble that could easily be remedied.  I hope they don’t wait until the end of the season to give him a dumb name like Justin or something.

-The rocks on the scale, very subtle symbolism.

The Little Boy

-First of all I’m pretty sure that’s Aaron.  He’s the new Taller Ghost Walt.  As far as I’ve heard it’s not the same actor that played Aaron while Kate had him, but there’s no doubt that this kid looks a lot like Claire and quite a bit like Aaron.

-On the other hand, this kid could be Locke as a child.  But at this point that seems useless.  Seeing Locke’s younger self wouldn’t really effect “Locke” too much.

-On another hand (a third, even less likely hand) this tyke might be a young Jacob.  I’m just covering all my bases.

-Seeing a random bloody kid in the jungle isn’t as scary as it once was.  I remember Walt scared me to death in Season 2 when he first appeared to Shannon.

-The blood on this kids hands is just to insinuate that Locke is guilty… I’m guessing.

-Sawyer could see the kid too, that was odd.

-“You know the rules, you can’t kill him.”  It’s a hard to interpret that line.  Did he mean you shouldn’t have killed him.  Or did he mean it was impossible to kill him and he’s still alive.  Judging from the fact that ghost Jacob told Hurley that he’s dead then I tend to believe that the kid meant that “Locke” shouldn’t have killed Jacob.  And he could have meant that it doesn’t matter whether you kill him or not because someone else, a Candidate, would step in and take over.

Locke

-The episode starts out with some physical humor involving a person in a wheelchair.  I did laugh, but I felt bad.
By the way, what happened to all of those neighbors?  They all went back in their house when they saw him fall?  That’s awesome.

-Locke didn’t go on the Walkabout, and he didn’t go to the conference.  I wonder where he went. I’m not totally shocked about the Walkabout lie.
I also wonder whether he originally went to Australia for a conference, in the other timeline.
(I have no doubt these questions won’t be answered, I just like asking questions.)

-This is probably a relatively big oversight, but I’ve never noticed Locke not having that eye scar in the flashbacks before this point.  The other timeline is the first time when I’ve seen that.

-Sawyer tells “Locke” that “Locke was scared, even when he was pretendin’ he wasn’t”.  That’s a good analysis of the character.  And it makes you feel even sadder about the poor guy.

-Frank’s right.  Locke’s body is getting very yellow.

-Here’s a fun little number, Locke was buried 36 episode after we first saw his coffin.  It’s been a long time coming.

-Locke and Helen deciding not to call Jack isn’t unexpected.  Jack fixing Locke wasn’t going to happen in the fourth episode.  But like Helen says, it’s destiny, those two meeting.

-It’s hard to be happy about Locke saying “there’s no such thing as miracles”.  But it is a happy moment.

-Hahah, The Substitute refers to two things!  Hilarious!

Helen

-At first I was thrilled to see Helen back.  I love Katey Sagal.  But then I thought about my theory that I want to see all the happy ending happen on the Island and then I wasn’t so thrilled to see her.  I really hope nothing awful happens to her… again.  But at the same time…

-Helen seems better with Locke’s lying in this universe.  Lucky Locke.  And she takes the discovery of Locke’s knife collection well.

Anthony

-What!?  Helen wants to invite Locke’s dad to their wedding?  Also Locke has a picture of him and his Dad in his box of stuff he takes home from his office.  I guess Anthony didn’t push Locke out of any windows then.  But that would mean that Jacob wouldn’t have needed to touch Locke.  I’m a little confused here. Now I have to decide whether or not the scenes with Jacob still happened in the past.  I’m going to say that they didn’t.  After all Jacob’s home is currently underwater, he might have other things on his mind at this point.  Or maybe he’s dead.

-Oh yeah, my little theory about Locke’s dad crossing over into the other timeline in Season 3, that theory is probably dead in the water.

Rose

-Rose is always the voice of reason.  She’s just here to bring people back to Earth.  Usually she’s helping Jack or Hurley.

-Did Rose have a better life on the Island or off of it?

Claire

-A few days ago MissScarlett told me that on Claire’s ultrasound it said October 24th or some other date in October.  That would push the flight of Oceanic 815 forward a month.  But now I’m suspecting that that date referred to Claire’s due date not the date of the ultrasound.  October was mentioned twice in this episode and it was always alluded to as the coming month, “in October”.  I don’t know why I felt the need to mention this moot point.

Frank

-Frank is evidently around to be our Hurley, the person we can relate to.  Without him things would be pretty grim, Ben, Ilana and Sun aren’t exactly charming.
That line about the funeral was pretty great.

Sun

-Sun insists on burying Locke but she has nothing to say at his funeral.

-“What makes you think I’m going with you?”  Oh Sun, you’re going with them, because nobody signed up for the Sun Kwon show.  You don’t have enough of a personality to be alone.

Flashes (what we know now):

Richard vs. “Locke”

Richard tells Sawyer that “Locke” wants everyone dead.  A bold claim coming from someone who was playing dumb moments earlier.  But believable since Smokey does seem to like to kill random people.
On the other hand “Locke” insinuates that Jacob was listing and killing people one by one on the Island.  I may be stretching the truth, but you get what I’m saying.
In one argument “Locke” is the bad guy who’s killing everyone, on the other Jacob’s the killer, or at least the person who’s letting all of these people die.  Who do you think is the baddie.  I’m sure you know who I’m choosing, but I think it’s possible that after this episode “Locke” may have swayed a few more people on to his team.

Candidates

It’s impossible to not read way too much into the Candidates thing and Jacob’s Master List.

One thing that I want to point out, at this point we’re relying on “Locke”‘s definition of a Candidate.  He thinks they’re prospective replacements of Jacob.  It seems weird that Ilana would wonder about a Jacob replacement or that Jacob himself would expect to die.  So I tend to think that being a Candidate was less a nominee for a leadership position and more of a consideration for a disciple.  Of course now that Jacob’s dead it probably is a replacement thing.

First of all, I checked the Oceanic 815 seating chart, that’s not where the numbers come from, unless there’s some retconning there.

I can never notice as much as the combined genius of the people who update Lostpedia so here’s the link to their list of all the names and numbers on the wall.
Here are the people corresponding to the Numbers.  Out of those people only Locke is dead.  That means any of these people could take over Jacob’s job.

4 – Locke

I doubt Locke is coming back to life any time soon.  I don’t think many people are holding out for a Locke revival.

8 – Hurley

I’ve got my money on Hurley.  He’s been groomed into a great character.  Like I said last week he’s turned into a very useful caring leader, not description you would use for many of these other characters.

15 – Sawyer

Of course Sawyer was a great leader too.  But I think we can all agree that it would be unlikely for him to settle into a role like Jacob’s.

16 – Sayid

Maybe, just maybe, this is what happened to Sayid.  Perhaps his resurrection was a resurrection into a position.  But I doubt it.

23 – Jack

Jack is the obvious choice for a Jacob replacement, mostly because he’s almost the main character of the show.  But I still think that Jack is going to die in the finale, so I don’t think it’ll be him.

42 – Jin or Sun

I don’t think these two will get a Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End type ending (possibly one of my worst pop-culture references).  The last season and a half has built up to an epic-ish reunion.  After that they aren’t going to just live on the Island without Ji Yeon, or be split up again.

Other Candidates

But these six weren’t the only Candidates on the wall

Claire and/or Aaron

Littleton was on the wall and it was crossed out.  After the last episode I can see why she’d be crossed out.  If she’s infected then there’s no way she’d be a candidate.  But if this is referring to Aaron then I’m confused.  Maybe he’s been crossed out because he left the Island.

Miles

The craziest thing I learned on Lostpedia was that Straume was on the wall but it was crossed out.  This opens some new and confusing possibilities.  The first thing that comes to my mind is that perhaps he’s a little dead already, hence the talking to dead people.
Or maybe it was a mistake or foreshadowing.

Frank

He wasn’t on the wall (that we saw) but Ilana wondered whether Frank might be a Candidate.

Non-Candidates

There were two noticeable exceptions on the wall.

Kate

After the last episode I’ll bet many people were happy to see this omission, but you can still agree that it’s odd.  Having a list with almost everyone except Kate is confusing.  Maybe you’re all right, maybe she’s a villain and she’s been one all along!  What?  You don’t like that either?  There’s no pleasing you Kate haters.

Walt

Even I’m getting sick of me and my constant raising of this issue.
If anyone should have had their name on that list and crossed out it should be Walt.  He was taken by The Others presumably under Jacob’s orders because he was Special and then he was deemed too Special so they let him leave.  As usual I’m going to fall back on my tried and true method of total denial and just assume that the Writers purposefully omitted him to make it all the more shocking when he shows up.

Three Choices

“Locke” gave Sawyer three choices as a candidate:

1. Do nothing and possibly get crossed out

Obviously doing nothing is a bad choice, but a lot of the time doing nothing on this Island means you get crossed out by Smokey.  So we can hardly blame Jacob for the crossing out.

2. Become the Protector of the Island

This is only an option because “Locke” killed Jacob, it’s not like that was a viable option for the last 300 years or so.

3. Leave the Island

Yeah, we all know how that turns out.  And I doubt “Locke” is just going to quietly leave the Island.  And if he is why does he need others to come with him?

– Izi