413 – There’s No Place Like Home (part 2)

Review:

A recap of this episode would be insanely long, and if you read the last one then you’ll know that it won’t really make sense anyways.  The problem I have with analyzing this episode is that I already did that.. for a month.  I referred readers to my coverage last time and I’ll do it again.  Go here if you want to see all that I said about this episode back in June.  (Note:  I wrote all that jazz way back in June, so I may have changed my mind about a lot of those ideas.  Just don’t hold me to any of the crazy things I said back then.)

But let’s get on with it.

Technically the most important things to happen in this episode are:

-The Oceanic 6 get away

-Ben moves the island

-and Locke is the man in the coffin

All great things, they’ll have a huge bearing on the rest of the show, and especially season 5.  But, to be completely honest the reason why I’ll give this episode a 10.0/10.0 is because Desmond got back with Penny.  I know that it would be just as good without that scene, but that’s the most significant thing in my mind

10.0/10.0

season 4 finale: Jack and co. getting back to the island (part 3)

Where & How

On to the where. Getting to and from the island is obviously hard work. The island could be anywhere or any..when(?) in the world. So first you have to locate it, which is notoriously hard, it took Charles who knows how long to find it. And the only reason Penny found it was because of the Swan implosion/explosion, and by tracking Desmond’s phone call.

There are some that we know did get on and off the island. We know Ben has been off the island, hence all the passports and the notoriety at the Tunisian hotel. We know Mr. Friendly (Tom) has been on and off the island. And Richard, Ethan went to pick up Juliet. Also Charlotte has apparently been looking for where she was born so she can be added to the list. Daniel too seems to have some insight as to whats happening with the island.

So here goes. I am having a very hard time coming up with a theory about this, and I’m sure I’ll have another go at this before season 5 starts. I propose that Ben needs the help of one of two other people to find the island. He might even need the help of both of them (and it just happens that these are two of my favorite characters).

He’ll need someone from the island, to invite him back. Since he turned the Frozen Donkey Wheel he won’t be able to find the island again, he’s essentially banished. I believe the person to invite him back is Richard. Richard, as you may recall, has been on and off the island in the past, he visited Locke as a child (I am assuming he lived on the island at that time). Richard also went to pick up Juliet. When he went to get Juliet, they said they went in the submarine, the same submarine that Locke supposedly blew-up (I don’t believe that he did, but I also don’t think that’s how they get on and off the island). We don’t know exactly how the trip went because Juliet was asleep during the journey, Ethan just said in a suspicious way that the last leg is always a little bumpy, maybe he’s talking about the fact that people usually go crazy when the come to the island, I’m supposing otherwise. The fact that we don’t know exactly how they get back leads me to believe something special happened. And I don’t think special things could happen on the submarine. So what I think is that they didn’t get to the island on the submarine, they only used that as a prop so as to not scare Juliet, and they used other, more exciting means to get there, why else would you sedate the person you were transferring. So let’s say there are paranormal means to get on and off the island, why not use such means with the man who has likely used them the most, Richard.

But what if the answer is more science than fiction. In that circumstance Jack and Ben will need someone smart. Someone who understands the phenomenon of the island. Maybe someone who seems to know a lot about Dharma and their experiments. A person who’s good at lateral thinking. Who could that be? You’re right! Good ol’ Daniel. I think that Daniel coming back in season 5 will be just what Jack and Co. needs to get back. If there is something that Ben can’t figure out, Daniel would be the ideal candidate to make sense of it. And if the island did move in both time and space it will be very hard to find, and likely it would take some serious calculations, calculations that someone like Daniel could do in a heartbeat. (Note: if Daniel did come back to find the island this would be a perfect chance for him and the writers to explain the Icosahedron Theory.)

The problem with these ideas is that the main characters in them are no where to be found. Richard was definitely on the island when it left, and I doubt he’s going to come running to Ben when he has Locke on the island. And poor Daniel is who knows where. Since it seems to me that the island has jumped in both time and space and Daniel was halfway out to sea when it happened, poor Daniel could be anywhere. I’ve talked about all of this in this post. It’ll be quite an undertaking to find the island but I’ll bet Daniel and/or Richard will be involved in the return.

Come back on Friday when I kick off my season 1 reviews.  After that I’ll have three reviews a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

– Izi

season 4 finale: Jack and co. getting back to the island (part 2)

Continuing on with those who got off the island.  Today I’m talking about much more exciting individuals.

Locke

I think Locke will be pretty easy to get to the island, and I’ve already said about what I think will happen to him in this post . But I’ll repeat it here. I think Locke will be reanimated in a similar fashion as Christian Shepard in the first season (it kinda makes me think of Darltons oft-referenced zombie season, maybe it wasn’t so far off).

Sayid

Sayid will apparently do anything for Ben, so I doubt we have to worry about much resistance from him.

Hurley

Hurley is a surprising one. When Sayid came to take him to a “safe place”, Hurley immediately asked “We’re not going back, are we?” in a frightened voice. If Hurley really is crazy, and I think that it’s just the island playing tricks on him, or his own mind fooling him (I guess that really does make him crazy), then I guess they might have some difficulty convincing him to go back . They might need some sort of motivation, although I can’t think of what… (Libby’s doppelganger).

Sun

Sun will be trouble, I figure that’s where Ben needs the most help from Jack. I mentioned this a long time ago in my post about Sun and Whidmore’s conversation, I think Sun blames Ben for Jin’s death, (for good reason, although I personally doubt Jin is dead). So I think she will be the most trouble, unless they can find Jin and calm Sun down a little. Perhaps news will come from the island, that Jin is there and she needs to go back there to find him. If Jin is off the island then I really have no idea what could motivate them to go back, I can see nothing on the island that would make them want to return, unless somebody is trying to kill them or something.

Kate

Kate, I think, will be easier to convince. Again, I’ve already talked about Kate in this post, in it I said how she’s happy and won’t want to go back. But perhaps she’s being convinced, not by Jack, but by the island. That phone call she received in the finale apparently said “The island needs you, you have to go back, before it’s too late.” You can hear it here. And in the next scene, after Claire tells Kate not to bring Aaron back, Kate goes into the room and sadly looks at Aaron, as if she knows, and has resigned herself, to the fact that she has to go back.

Miscellaneous People

As for the other people: I doubt Desmond and Lapidus will go back to the island, unless they really want to, or Ben decides the Oceanic crew needs them (I really hope that Desmond & Penny will go to the Island, simply to be safe from Whidmore and Ben, but he said he never wanted to go back, that seemed pretty significant. I wrote more about it here). And if I was correct in one of my theories about Daniel and Jin, and they are off the island, then I’m sure they’ll show up at some shocking moment and they too will go back to the island.

Tomorrow I’ll write about how I think how all (or some) of these people will get back to the island.

– Izi

season 4 finale: Jack and co. getting back to the island (part 1)

This is my last season 4 finale post that I plan to write.  It is focusing on season 5 a lot.  Again I used to have a huge long post but I’ve split it up for ease of reading.  I’ve tried to make these some of the most significant posts that I can, they almost touches every character on the show, the ones that I don’t talk about here I mention in my last few posts about Locke’s on-island problems.  After this I am going to get started on reviewing old Lost episodes.  So stay tuned.  I’ll also give you a few days to digest this post, so read on.

As far as setups go on Lost, that was a pretty satisfying one.  At the end of the finale the writers put in a scene in which Ben, the Mastermind, and Jack, the “Leader” (I still think he’s an awful leader, but that’s his favorite role), come together and join forces to accomplish one thing: Getting back to the island.  They have two obvious hurdles in doing this.  First they have to convince “all of them” to go back.  And then they have to find the island.  So we have to questions: Who? Where? & How?  (Where and How are very similar so I’m grouping them together)

Who?

I guess what they were doing here is leaving season 5 very open ended.  By saying all of you have to go back, Ben left the possibility that he was only talking about the Oceanic 6 (and Locke) or maybe everyone who left in the finale (The Oceanic 6 + Desmond, Lapidus, maybe even Jin, Daniel, & Walt).

I think having it open ended allows the show-runners to have more freedom with the casting.  For example Jeff Fahey the actor who played Frank Lapidus was a guest star all season (this actually led many people to believe that he would die).  But since he doesn’t actually have any serious commitments to the show it is unlikely that he’ll come back full time, there are a lot of actors like that.  I mentioned in an earlier post that Henry Ian Cusick might not want to come back full time either (Updated, see comments below, I was way wrong on this, luckily).  So who really knows what’s going to happen.  But who cares about the Hollywood side of Lost let’s get back into the mythology.

Why does everyone need to go back to the island?  does the island not accept single people back onto the island?  Do they really need to go back as a group?  And who are those that have to go back?  I tend to believe that when Ben says you all need to go back, he means only the Oceanic survivors.  That means Jack, Kate, Sun, Hurley, Sayid, Locke.  There are three other people who are in a sort of gray area for me: Ji Yeon, Walt and Aaron.  I’ll go through all of the characters separately (and backwards!).

Aaron

The stuff about Aaron is terribly confusing.  All paranormal signs advise guardians of that child to keep him in LA, and away from his blood relatives, I really don’t know what to make of this.  I think we should obey them simply beaus whenever signs appear it usually means that death is around the corner.  So I doubt he’ll be going back to the island, probably he’ll stay with Kate’s mom.

Walt

As for Walt, I believe it’s his destiny to live on the island.  And I bet Jacob really wants him to come back too, or else he really doesn’t want him to come back, in which case I think he definitely will go back (I like the way I think).  I’m not entirely sure what was happening with Walt in season 1 & 2.  I know there was some kind of brainwashing, that was shown in the Missing Pieces, but I don’t know if The Others kidnapped Walt because they just liked having slightly psychic children around or if it was because Jacob asked for The Others to take Walt, (maybe he was on Jacob’s List).  Who knows, I just want Walt to come back, as I mentioned in my earlier post.

Ji Yeon

I don’t think Ji Yeon will be coming back.  I think since she wasn’t conceived until they got onto the island and she wasn’t born until they left, she isn’t terribly important.  If you noticed, in the scene with Sun and Mr. Whidmore, Ji Yeon was said to be with Sun’s mother.  I think that was a setup to imply that Sun could easily spend time away from Ji Yeon.  Not that I think that’s a good thing, but it’s an important story element.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about more important people (namely adults), stay tuned.

– Izi

Reaction to Locke’s death

Remember in the past when people died on Lost there was always a lot of anger and a big deal made about it.  What’s happening these days?  I haven’t heard a single person say that they were angry that Locke is dead.  Do we all have enough faith that he’s going to come back alive in season 5?

I bleive that we all think Locke will come back, and this will all seem like a little obstacle in his life course.  But what if we’re wrong.  There’s a high chance that he’ll only be around for a few episodes next season.  And in my mind it seems unlikely that they’ll keep Locke undead for 2 whole seasons, so he may not be in season 6 at all.  Or what if my theories, and everyone elses, about Locke being reanimated ala Christian Shepard are wrong?  maybe he’s just plain dead.  Remember after Michael shot Ana Lucia and Libby, she was still alive in the next episode then she subsequently died, dashing our hopes like an overripe watermelon, maybe this is the same as that.  Perhaps all our hope is misplaced.

Or perhaps we’re all just sick of Locke and his mysterious ways, perhaps his death was subconsciously what we all wanted.  Have we all really stopped caring about Locke?  I certainly was relieved it was Locke in the coffin.  But I know Locke is some peoples favorite character.  For example the poor people/person who write the blog Long Live Locke were faced with a little dilemma, now that Locke is dead should they change the name of the blog.  They opted not to, but now it seems like they’re really stubborn Locke fans.  (By the way I recommend you go see that blog, if you think I write long posts wait until you see their season finale review, at least I broke it up a little.)  For a very vocal community we seem quite quiet about the death of the character that could arguably be the main character of the show (when I say arguably that means I don’t believe it at all).

So what do you think.  Are you angry about Locke’s death?  Are you ready to never watch the show again?  (if so who knows why you’re reading a Lost blog in late June)  Or are you suitably hopeful, maybe even certain that Locke will push open that coffin lid and walk again on the island?  (These questions might sound rhetorical, but they’re not.  Tell me what you think.)

– Izi

season 4 finale: Lockes on-island problems (part 3)

What happens on the Island?

 

This is the most puzzling part of the finale. What happened on the Island that prompted Locke to leave and come begging Jack to come back.

 

I figure there are three possible threats to the island and those on it.

 

1 – Smokey

I am constantly worried about Smokey wreaking havoc on the people on the island. He seems completely untamable. Me and my friend DT’s theory is that Smokey is a security system to protect and at the same time imprison Jacob. I think that Jacob is fighting against those bonds. Maybe my moving the island Jacob gains an advantage against Smokey. So by doing what Jacob wants Locke might have incurred the wrath of Smokey. Perhaps that picture that Locke drew as a child was foretelling what would happen in season 5. There is one time in the past that Smokey went around the island causing damage. That was when the plane first crashed on the island, I assume it didn’t like all of the pieces of plane hitting the island. Who knows what might happen to the island now that it is hurtling through space and possibly time.

 

2 – Missing the target

The island could travel somewhere bad. Perhaps it travels to the Sahara Dessert or maybe back to the North Pole. Or maybe anywhere bad, it’s actually hard to imagine a nice place where the island could land. If the island did go to a very bad place it would be Locke’s responsibility to get them back to safety, that would mean turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel again. If he was to turn it again he too would probably be sent to the middle of the desert and eventually he would find civilization, find out that the Oceanic 6 survived and he would beg them to go back, hoping that with their help, and money, they could find his island again. I don’t understand this theory much and it seems pretty crazy. But it fits so you never know. Also from a budget point of view this is insane. Drastically changing the weather would be impossible, especially in Hawaii, where it’s filmed.

 

3 – Locke vs. the volcano

This theory makes the most sense to me. We all know that the Hawaiian islands are volcanic. The Island is not supposed to be Hawaii but it too is clearly a volcanic island. The volcano is only mentioned once in the show, when Ben is at the Dharma school. So perhaps as the island moves (in time or space, in this theory it hardly matters) something shifts deep within the island and the volcano becomes active. Filming an active volcano on Hawaii wouldn’t be that hard to do. And it would cause a lot of panic. This could definitely be the problems that Locke mentions to Jack in the finale. Why he would need Jack to come back is confusing, but perhaps he just misses their conversations.

 

That’s what I have so far about Locke and the people still on the island. On Monday I’ll have a new post about those people who got off, and who I think will come back and how. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I talk about this.

 

How about you. What do you think will happen? Which one of my three possibilities do you think it more likely? Or do you have an idea of your own?

Next week I’m going to talk about the Oceanic 6 and the others who got off the island.

 

– Izi

season 4 finale: Lockes on-island problems (part 2)

Today I’m talking about the other people who were left on te island.  The ones that weren’t Oceanic 815 survivors.

Juliet

I think the results of the finale will hit Juliet the hardest. She wants to get off the island more than anyone else, she has been trying to get off for the longest time. It’s hard to even imagine what she’s feeling right now. She may have wished she got on the zodiac sooner, but if she did, she probably would have been killed. Her surprisingly self-sacrificing spirit saved her life, ironic. She probably thinks Jack and all the other people are dead. That would be pretty devastating. It’s pretty obvious that they are referencing Desmond’s return to the island in the end of season 2. When he comes back he is just as devastated, all he wanted was to leave and see Penny, but he couldn’t even get away from the island, so what he does is sit on the beach and drink Dharma rum. I think this might be a turning point in Juliet’s character, knowing that she stays on the island for three more years (I know if they jump in the future it might be less, but still it is a long time) and really bad things happen during that time makes me think that she’s going to have a hard time keeping it together. She’s not really a good leader, but who else on the beach could be a leader? Sawyer is the only other choice and I really don’t think he’s a good choice either. For quite some time it’s been obvious that Ben has been grooming Juliet to be like him, utilitarian in his use of other people. Maybe that “training” will be useful when the only other leader on the island is John Locke, and he leaves to beg the Oceanic 6 to come back. So I hope that she steps up and leads everyone, I think she’s ideal for the position, and frankly no one else can do it.

Richard

Richard seemed pretty happy to see Locke when he came to be their leader. He even welcomed him home. It was quite clear that he was chafing under Bens leadership. On a side note: something I disliked about the finale was that Richard appeared shocked and confused as the island was moving, during the flash of light. According to my theories Richard is completely aware of the islands ability to move. I don’t want to read too much into an actors reaction but could this mean that the move didn’t go as planned? Or has just never seen the island move before. I know after that part about Juliet being the leader you may be asking, why doesn’t Richard lead The Others and everyone else, I was asking that. I think that Richard lacks something, I don’t know what, possibly humanity, but something that means that he can’t make big decisions. It sounds really weird but I think the fact that he’s been a live for so long makes him too far above petty human concerns to be a good leader (this actually reminds me of Doc Manhattan from the Watchmen comics, don’t worry it’s being made into a movie soon, then you can get the reference).

Charlotte

So apparently Charlotte is looking for where she was born, and she has also been searching for the island for a long time, what does this mean? I assume that it means that she is a child of the Dharma folk. Perhaps this is how Ben knew so much about her, not because of his research but because of first hand knowledge. It is truly wonderful that they added the three new people to the show, all of them will have such insight into the island, and I’m sure we’ll find out a lot from them. Charlotte I assume will immediately start researching Dharma.

Miles

Miles on the other hand has a lot he can do as well. When he was first introduced he was a kind of minor villain. After we saw that all he wanted was money I think we dismissed him as unimportant. But what if he started doing some ghostbusting around a certain Cabin? Imagine a scene where Locke strolls into the cabin with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate ready to have a pleasant conversation with his good friend Jake, only to find Miles banishing Jacob to wherever ghosts go in Lost. That would throw Locke for a loop. My friend, Miss Scarlett, would also love if Miles would walk over Nicki and Paulo’s graves and say WTF, these guys were alive when you buried them.

Tomorrow I’m going to talk about what I think happened on the island after the Oceanic 6 left.  In particular what would have made Locke tell Jack that bad things happened to the island.

– Izi

season 4 finale: Lockes on-island problems (part 1)

So I originally had a huge long post, but because I doubt anyone reads my really long posts I split it up into three posts.  Today I’ll talk about Sawyer, Locke, Rose & Bernard.  Tomorrow I’ll talk about Juliet, Richard, Charlotte & Miles.  On Friday I’ll talk about what I think the bad things that happen on the island are.

In this post I want to try to figure out what happened on the island after the Oceanic 6 left. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot to go on.

First let’s just try to see the finale from their perspective. There aren’t actually that many people on the island anymore. Of the original Oceanic survivors we have: Sawyer, Locke, Rose, & Bernard (plus the people The Others kidnapped, but they aren’t important). We have some named Others: Juliet & Richard (plus Harper & The Sheriff lady, but they aren’t important either) I also wouldn’t be surprised if Mikhail was still out there. We also have two freighter folk Charlotte & Miles. I don’t count Claire because I think she’s dead, and who really cares what she thinks or what happens to her.

So we really just have 8 definite people: Sawyer, Locke, Rose, Bernard, Juliet, Richard, Charlotte & Miles. I’ll go through each person with what I think they are thinking and what I think will happen to them.

Sawyer

I believe Sawyer would be heart-broken. As far as he knows Kate and everyone else who left the island is dead. All he saw was that the freighter blew up, and when he last saw everybody they were headed to the freighter. Can you imagine what it that would be like. He may have resigned himself to stay on the island. In the past he had said that he had nothing waiting for him back home. Obviously he feels guilty about his daughter, Clementine, but I doubt he’s dying to pop into her life. So he’s left on the island with no one he really knows except for Juliet (I figure he’s had enough of Locke, and he doesn’t seem to like Miles or Charlotte, and I doubt he really wants to spend time with Rose & Bernard). So what’s he going to do? Probably he’ll be spending a lot of time with Juliet.

Locke

I’m sure Locke is just thrilled. The island just moved, Ben is gone, and he is now in control of The Others. Him in charge of The Others really reminds me other that flashback he had about that hippie forest group that he used to live with. That was one of the only times we got to see him happy in a flashback (the other time was when he was dating Katey Sagal, and who wouldn’t be happy dating Katey Sagal). So I’m sure he’s thrilled to be with The Others, and I’m sure The Others are thrilled to have Locke as their leader, they really seemed to like him in season 3 when he was hanging around.  So that’s where Locke stands right after the finale, I’ll talk about his troubles later on.  How he dies is another matter, I doubt he kills himself.  I’m betting that Mr Whidmore or Ben have something to do with it.  They probably think that by killing Locke they can get control of the island again.  Which one would do it is anyone guess.

Rose & Bernard

I think that they would feel that it was fate that they didn’t go to the freighter, it saved their lives. They’ll likely be very sad that all those people died, but something tells me they’ll be quite alright.  I think they are constants on the show, they will always be on that beach. organizing the Dharma cereal, or something like that.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about the other people on the island, Juliet, Richard, Charlotte and Miles.

– Izi

season 4 finale: Walt’s surprise appearance

I did not see that coming.

When teenage Walt showed up on the finale I was extraordinarily excited.  I have been waiting a long time for Walt to come back to the show.  It was obvious that there was a plan for Walt in the show.  You don’t create that much of a mythology about one character without some kind of plan.

Unfortunately the challenge of having a child actor on this show is that he ages.  We had three seasons take place over about 100 days.  So it was going to be challenging to keep the actor on the show as a regular.  Either they would have to feed Michael David Kelley gallons of coffee to stunt his growth or they’d have come sort of strange fragmented timeline to keep Walt on the show.  They chose the latter.

At one time I remember the producers saying that they had a plan for Walt.  This plan has clearly been in effect for the last three seasons, Walt has barely appeared on the show, so his massive growth spurts aren’t really very noticeable (also they used a lot of really awkward angles to keep him short looking whenever he did appear).  But to have Walt on the show they would have to implement some sort of leap in time, either with a time machine of some sort or with a BSG style time skip (At the end of season 2, Battlestar Galactica skipped forward… I actually don’t know how far ahead they skipped).  By skipping ahead the producers give themselves a huge amount of freedom, it allows them to flashback to major events during the skip and explain current situations.

I think that this skip was the plan to keep Walt on the show.  I also believe that they have a clearly defined plan for Walt.  His powers are unknown to us, but I’m sure that they are real and we will find out what they are soon.  (at this point I want any of you who haven’t already, to watch the Lost: Missing Pieces Webisodes, they are very important and it’s always fun to watch new Lost footage during the hiatuses (or is is hiati))

What I don’t understand is how much Walt knows.  Since he’s been gone for so long we have very little insight into what he’s aware of.  But although he has been gone, he’s still popped up occasionally.  Shannon saw him and so did Locke.  Locke even saw a taller version of him, implying that he’s from the future (when in the future is arguable, I would assume that it would be before the current flashforwards, sometime around 2006-2008).  So when Walt talks to Locke and Shannon is it actually him?  He seems to be aware of what’s happening on the island, so is he all knowing?  I seriously doubt that.  When he was talking to Hurley he appeared to be completely unaware of anything happening on the island.  This did surprise me, I had always thought of Walt as some all-knowing individual, now it appears as though he’s just a regular confused teenager.  Perhaps he only has powers on the island?  I wouldn’t be surprised about that.  That doesn’t explain how he appeared to Locke.  It would be a little disappointing to find out that when Walt appears it’s just a hallucination, but it’s very possible.

On a sad note, it appears that Walt has no idea that his dad is dead.  This may be a bad thing.  In my mind I always compared Walt to Jean Grey, and you really didn’t want to make Jean Grey upset.  In a similar way, they may think they are protecting Walt from being hurt, by not telling him his father is dead.  But they may just be setting themselves up for a serious bird attack or some other kind of Walt-related outburst.

(It just occurs to me that the only true power we know Walt has is his ability to control and summon birds, so perhaps Walt was the one who made the Hurley bird say Hurley.  I know many of you are scratching your heads, there are two times it appeared, here and here)

One thing I want to bring out about Walt is the fact that Juliet knows a lot about him, in the Missing Pieces, it’s shown that she was involved in the testing/brainwashing of him.  So perhaps, this one time, she might have some useful “Others” info.

I believe we have another thing to look forward to in season 5, the return of Walt.  This is the ideal time to bring him back, I doubt he’s going to grow up much more, (unless he turns into Shaq in the coming months) so I believe he’ll be back on the show.

– Izi

season 4 finale: who was in the coffin

I was surprised.  They tricked me, quite soundly.

As any of you who really know me will know, I was betting on Sayid being in the coffin.  I was so sure.  I thought that the producers were steering him that way.  We had very little proof of who it would be.  We knew Kate wasn’t to keen on whom ever it was and no one went to his funeral.  Also his funeral was in a dirty neighborhood.  Then there was that newspaper clipping, which I read but I thought it was a red herring, so I dismissed it as such.  My reasoning was that the producers wanted us to believe it was Michael.  I still think that was what they were trying to do.  So naturally I refused to accept the idea.  I thought it was Sayid because I believed the other Oceanic Six found out that Sayid was working for Ben, and hated him for it.  Also the fact that Nadia died, made me think that the writers were going for a tragic end to Sayid’s story.  There’s also the possibility that my boredom with Sayid’s character made me hope that he would die.

Needless to say, I was wrong.  But I wasn’t wrong just that once.  After Ben’s episode (409 – The Shape of Things to Come) in the back of my mind I started to think it would be Ben in the coffin.  I thought that his evil attitude would be the death of him.  Also I was hoping he would die before he got a chance to hurt Penny.  It was also pretty obvious that in the finale Ben was the person we were supposed to think was in the coffin.  I don’t know how you couldn’t think of Ben when you hear some one named Jeremy BENtham was traveling around trying to talk to everyone and convince them to do something.  And I really did believe it.

Then we heard Ben’s voice.

I was suddenly in a state of shock.  At that point I had no idea who it was.  My mind was racing.  I immediately thought of Sawyer.  All season, some of my friends had expressed anxiety that it would be Sawyer in the coffin, I reassured them that the writers would never end the Jack-Kate-Sawyer love triangle so abruptly.  But at that moment I was actually worried.  Then I thought of Richard, one of my favorite characters.  I also thought of what a let-down in would be to see Richard in the coffin.  I was so worried that it would be him that I never even stopped to think it would be Locke.

I was sure, as many of you were, that Locke was safe.  Even though, in retrospect, it seems so obvious that it was him.  I congratulate any of you who figured it out, my hat is off to you, please tell me how you did it.  I probably should have figured it out after Ben showed up in the funeral home, but I think I had a mental block.  I think the mental block was from a certain Emmy last year.

So what does this mean for poor ol’ John Locke?  I think it means that Locke will suddenly become cryptic again.  I’ll try to explain that.

Remember in the first season, Jack was flying back to L.A.  Do we all remember why?  (You probably should.)  It was to bury his father, Christian.  Christian was in a coffin in the plane.  During that first season Jack finds his fathers coffin with no one inside.  But Jack does see his father, and so do we, on the day of the crash Vincent finds an active and upright Christian (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to watch all the Missing Pieces Webisodes).  Jack continues to see his father in the jungle.  We have seen a lot of Christian this season.  I wouldn’t be surprised if John Terry was a cast regular this last season.  The important thig here is is that he pretty much came back to life.  I’m sure that we can attribute this to Smokey or Jacob, I’m betting on Jacob.  Another thing we know is that Christian isn’t actually Jacob.  He still has the memories and personality of Christian, even if doesn’t quite have free will.

Next season Jack will be bringing another corpse filled coffin around the world.  I submit that the same thing will happen.  The will get to the island and Locke will be re-animated.  He will, essentially, come back to life.  Maybe that was part of Jacobs purpose.  Perhaps John Locke wasn’t a good leader for The Others, maybe he would be a better follower of Jacob.  So when I say Locke will be cryptic again, I think he will be the new mouthpiece of Jacob, which will restore the original creepy status he had in the beginning of the show.

From a writers perspective, killing Locke was one of the most dramatic things they could do.  It has really got the Lost community riled up.  But at the same time, I doubt anyone is angry.  There is little doubt in anyones mind that that we will see Locke again.  And even if my theory is wrong and Locke does stay really dead, we’re sure to see some Island flashbacks with Locke or maybe some off-island flashbacks with “Jeremy Bentham”.  So there’s something to look forward to.

Hands up if you can’t wait for season 5.

– Izi