Episode:At the very end of episode 104 Jack sees Christian standing in the Ocean.
In 105 Jack sees Christian all over the Island, but never manages to talk to him. He also find his empty coffin.
This is essentially Christian’s origin story.
(I could also mention Christian’s first appearence in the Missing Pieces, but it doesn’t add much to the discussion.)
Episode:In Walkabout all we see is Locke looking up at something. We don’t see what he is looking at.
In White Rabbit he vaguely mentions it:
LOCKE: I’ve looked into the eye of this island. And what I saw was beautiful.
In The Cost of Living Locke, presumably, talks about that same experience during this conversation with Eko:
LOCKE: So, what exactly did you see back there? I saw it once, you know.
EKO: And what did you see?
LOCKE: I saw a very bright light. It was beautiful.
EKO: That is not what I saw.
AnalysisThe Walkabout scene is one of those completely mysterious scenes. We all makes assumptions about it, but the amount of info we don’t know about far exceeds what we do know. Even connecting these three scenes is presumptuous of me. The first two scenes are most definitely related. But I have no idea if the scene in Walkabout is the one that Locke is referring to in The Cost of Living. Perhaps he was talking about the implosion of The Swan, or maybe the time that Desmond turned on the light in Season 1.
But let’s just be presumptuous. For the sake of this post I’m going to assume these two scenes are connected.
The big question about this scene is, what did Locke see? In the back of all of our minds we think that he saw Smokey. Even if we don’t want to believe that we still have to consider it. Maybe Locke did see Smokey, maybe he saw a different side of Smokey that we’ve never seen. Perhaps when Smokey is in a docile mood he turns “bright” and “beautiful”. I find that very hard to believe. Locke doesn’t show any recognition of Smokey the next time he see him, in the finale.
I think that Locke stumbled upon something new in that scene, new, as in not Smokey. Many people have stated that they believe that Esau and Smokey are the same being(?)… individual(?)… power(?)….. the same.. thing. So, if that is true (I don’t really want to believe that) wouldn’t it logically follow that Jacob would have a similar non-corporeal form. There are very obvious distinctions between the Jacob and Esau characters, most notably the contrast of black and white, with Esau dressed in black and shown as a brunette, and Jacob wearing white and having blond hair(interestingness: the etymology of blond/blonde). Wouldn’t it make sense for their spirit forms to be similarly opposite? Couldn’t we expect Jacob’s version of Smokey to be the opposite of Smokey? Instead of Black oppressiveness he would be bright and shining.
– izi
Exactly six months ago Anon, a frequent commenter, posted a large-ish Annie theory on my blog. In the last six months many things have changed, so she revised here theory and sent it to me again.
Hold on to your hats everyone, this theory is a doozy (it’s actually more like a screenplay):
Episode:Walt approaches Locke who is fiddling with a Backgammon game. They talk about the game, and they both share some info about each other. In the end Locke has a potentially signifcant line.
Here’s the transcript:
WALT: What is it, like checkers?
LOCKE: Not really, it’s a better game than … checkers. You play checkers with your Pop?
WALT: No. I live in Australia with my mom.
LOCKE: You have no accent.
WALT: Yeah, I know. We move a lot. She got sick. She died a couple of weeks ago.
LOCKE: You’re having a bad month.
WALT: I guess.
LOCKE: Backgammon is the oldest game in the world. Archeologists found sets when they excavated the ruins of ancient Mesopotamia. Five thousand years old. That’s older than Jesus Christ.
WALT: Did they have dice and stuff?
LOCKE: [nods] Mhhm. But theirs weren’t made of plastic. Their dice were made of bones.
WALT: Cool.
LOCKE: Two players. Two sides. One is light … one is dark. Walt, do you want to know a secret?
(From: Lostpedia)
AnalysisThat last line could possibly be one of the most significant lines in regards to the Season 5 finale and also into Season 6. We’ve seen the two sides now, Jacob’s side and Esau’s side. It’s obviously up to you who you think is good or not, but the two do represent two opposing sides under two different colors or idealogies. I still think that Jacob is good and Esau (or whatever you want to call him) is evil.
What I find most significant about this scene is that it’s between Locke and Walt. Originally I thought this scene came across with a racist tone but it now turns out that Locke is the one who ends up on the “dark” side. So where does that leave Walt? My greatest hope for the final season is that Walt will come back. And if he does I think it would be epic if he had to face down Locke.
What do you think? Was Locke just being a creep or does this scene tell us what will happen in Season 6?
– izi
Episode(s):(parts 1 & 2) 104 – Walkabout
(part 3) 119 – Dues Ex Machina
I don’t know if I’m breaking one of my own rules, but I didn’t feel like writing three separate posts with the exact same point.
I’m analyzing three separate scenes here. The first one is in Walkabout when Locke officially gains the use of his legs. The second one is also in Walkabout but it’s when Locke is lying in the ground and he thinks he’s lost the use of hi legs. The third one is in Dues Ex Machina when Locke is following his vision (which I’ll talk about later) and he finds Yemi’s plane, at that point he could barely walk at all. Later in the episode, after Boone dies he recovers.
(I chose not to talk about Locke’s legs in Season 5. When he left the Island he was back in a wheelchair, and new “Locke” can walk too, I might come back to this later.)
I think what we’re meant to learn from these scenes is that Locke’s mobility is a gift that the Island; or maybe Jacob, or Esau, or Smokey; gave to Locke. It wasn’t a miracle of science or a coincidence. Locke’s legs work when he’s doing the right thing and fail him when he’s going against fate, or his purpose.
But let’s not leave it at that, what is the source of Locke’s recovery? I honestly don’t believe that it’s the Island’s healing factor, it’s far too significant for that. Therefore I think it must be one of the powers of the Island, Jacob, Esau, Christian, or Smokey. I think we can rule Smokey out, healing people is not his style. I don’t think it was Christian, or whoever it is possessing Christian’s body. Christian was too obsessed with Jack at this point to care about Locke. So that leaves our two favorite characters Jacob and Esau. It could be either of them, we have evidence for both.
Jacob was the one who apparently brought Locke back to life when his father threw him out the window. It is strange that he didn’t heal his legs at that point though. So it’s a matter of opinion there, you could see that as evidence for or against Jacob.
Esau, on the other hand, managed to get Locke’s body up and about even after Locke had died. This isn’t really a clear cut piece of evidence, because Locke is still officially dead. But it’s clear that Esau had some interest in Locke and he does possess powers.
If I were a betting man I’d put my money on Jacob.
What about you? How do you think Locke was healed?
– izi
Episode:Jack, Kate and Charlie find the cockpit of the plane. They make it to the front and find that the Pilot is still alive. The Pilot is quickly and thuroughly eviscerated by Smokey.
AnalysisThis is the first time that we see Smokey’s handy work. You could say that this is his first appearance. What I want to discuss here is his motives. It seems as though Smokey just randomly chose to kill the poor Pilot. But there must have been a reason, Smokey’s not an animal (ba dum dum tssh). I’ve always thought about this, Smokey must have some purpose that dictates all of his actions (I have a new half-theory that maybe Smokey is a paradox course-corrector).
We’ve heard that Smokey is a Security System, so perhaps he’s rooting out threats. So what kind of threat did the Pilot pose to the Island? Perhaps Mister Pilot person might have had more luck contacting the outside world, maybe he would have saved everyone, getting them rescued. It seems unlikely.
So here’s where I need your help. Why did the Pilot have to die?
Currently my best guess is that they had him there just to show the audience that Smokey is dangerous and unknown. It’ very possible that he died becuase he was just a guest star. This kinda makes this scene un-Vital, but I guess that’s part of the process, if we can manage to debunk these scenes then that helps us just as much.
– izi
Sorry for taking an impromptu almost two week break.
I’ve been thinking about what I want to write about over the hiatus. At first I considered rewriting all my Revlysis, I was going to join the ReWatching LOST thing that a bunch of the other Lost blogs are organizing. But that’s a lot of work. Last year I was thoroughly exhausted by it.
This year I want to streamline my posts. I don’t want to write a thousand words about an episode I mostly don’t care about. This year I want to write only about the important parts of the show. So I’m going to write about the “Vital Scenes”, those scenes in the show that still mean a lot. Perhaps they’ll be about unsolved mysteries, perhaps not. I wouldn’t mind going back and analyzing some of the solved mysteries. The purpose is to skip all the useless jungle running and relationship filler that separates the exciting mythology of the show.
I’ll start from the top, going though the first season scenes first, but I don’t want to limit myself, so I might jump around a bit.
Here’s the format I was thinking of doing.
(I’m going to attempt to name all the scenes in a clever way. We’ll see how that goes. Here’s an example, “VS – Wet Walt 1”. We’ll see how that goes, I just want to avoid giving them numbers, live VS95, or relying on the episode numbers.)
Episode number and name, with a link to my original revlysis.
A short description of what happens in the scene, who’s involved, what happens in a general sense. If necessary I will put in a transcript.
This is really what matters, this is where I try to apply it to Season 6, or connect it to other scenes in the past 5 seasons.
I don’t want to have the last word on things. I need you guys to help me. By the end of season 5 the comments were coming in fast and furious, it was great. So don’t stop that. I will be asking a lot more questions than I’ll be answering in these posts, so I want you guys to try to answer those questions. (They’re not all rhetorical.)
And that’s that. What do you think? Is it a good idea? Will you read this kind of thing? I think it will be far easier to read than my unnecessarily long Revlysis’.
– izi
I intended to do this a while ago. Here are all the links to the Season 5 Revlysis’. For a while halfway through the season I was writing separate Reviews and Analysis’. I’ve fixed that by combining those into a single post each.
507 – The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham
511 – Whatever Happened, Happened
– izi
Not Confused Just Lost 