previously, on LOST

[psocoptera]

Ooh! Initially I was frustrated - "this is not the part of Richard's backstory we want to see!" - but it totally paid off. Good drama, nice summary of the conflict. Not a whole lot here we didn't already know or suspect, except for finding out how the statue got broken (!!!), but good confirmation. Well, and it's very interesting to hear Jacob's take on the whole "who here is actually good or evil" question. And to actually understand Richard as a character, his motivation, etc. I like the episode, I am saying.

Favorite moment: Richard's "hahaha!" at the beginning when Ilana asks him what they're supposed to do.

In light of the idea that Jacob is trying to prove that not everyone is bad and Richard is acting as his representative, I'd really like to know Richard's role in the Purge - did he give it the Jacob Seal of Approval?

Also, if Smocke is trapped on the island, how did he appear as Christian on the freighter to Michael right before the bomb went off?

Questions:
- who are Adam and Eve (the bodies in the cave)?
- what happened to Rose and Bernard and Vincent after the bomb went off?
- why did the psychic tell Claire she had to be on that plane? is there something special about Aaron? does who ends up raising him have any bearing on any of the big conflicts?
- Walt?
- haha. no, seriously, Walt? do his powers have anything to do with Jacob/Smocke? where is he in the new timeline? what made the Others interested in him, and did Ben really let him go because he was too powerful for him to control?
- Libby?
- why did flight attendant Cindy happily join the Others?
- will Sun and Jin ever make it back home to their little girl?
- why didn't Sun go back to 1977 with the rest of the Oceanic 6?
Answered:
- what happened to Claire, anyways, after she vanished on the island? (She's been living much as Rousseau did. Also, she's insane and in cahoots with Smocke.)
- why doesn't Richard Alpert age? who/what is he? (He was on the Black Rock, and he doesn't age because that's just something Jacob can do to people.)

Comments

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

The cork-in-a-bottle explanation suggests that the alternate timeline is heading to a very dark place — presumably the A-bomb let the Man In Black escape, no?

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

If I was writing the show, somebody's heroic act of self-sacrifice leads the Man in Black to a glorious epiphany that he doesn't have to be evil either, which somehow applies retroactively to the alternate timeline, in which he's gotten out but is making the world a better place rather than a worse one. Feel-good redemptive happy ending.

[allectofromlj]

Or it destroyed him -- since that's apparently what Richard has to lead everyone to do...

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

I thought about that, but if it were possible to kill the Man In Black by destroying the island I don't think Jacob would be protecting it. It would be easy enough for him to lure a nuke to the island.

[allectofromlj]

I have been hoping since we first heard about the concept of "candidates" that Hurley, not Jack, ends up taking over. I don't know that it's likely, since Jack is the "hero" of the show, but Hurley has always struck me as the most innocent, the kindest, the sweetest of the castaways. Possibly, as I start the think about it, the only one of the remaining castaways who never killed anyone (except possibly Sun, but who knows what she's been like since leaving the island, given that she was bad-ass enough to separate from her father, join forces with Charles at least temporarily, and be completely serious about her attempt to kill Ben.)

Mostly I think that Jack is going to end up as a reluctant new!Jacob, but that it's lazy writing and done largely because he's more physically appealing than Hurley.

[irilyth]

I wouldn't necessarily have thought that physical appeal would matter for this particular plot point, because the show's ending -- it's not like they need to worry about how much screen time new!Jacob is going to get.

[allectofromlj]

Yeah, but they want fans to want to buy the DVDs.

[irilyth]

Sure, but won't people by the DVDs to look at Jack for six seasons, regardless of whether he ends up becoming new!Jacob, returning to LA to make babies with Kate, or catching on fire and falling down a well? I'm not seeing a strong connection between Jack's eventual fate, and DVD sales...

[allectofromlj]

Because most people are shallower than us, and are going to want Jack, who is handsomer and the more stereotypical hero character, to be new!Jacob. And if he isn't, it could sour them on the series.

If Lost were a standard spec fic kind of show, with a standard spec fic kind of audience, I wouldn't be so nervous about it. But it took off as a mainstream phenomenon, and I worry about pandering to the lowest common denominator. I mean, frankly, Jack was supposed to die in the pilot episode, but focus groups reacted negatively and he essentially took over the whole show...

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely. Hurley is the moral center of the show, he's truly consistently heroically *good*. (It's not just that he's likeable; he saves 76 people by buying all the remaining seats on the Ajira flight, while Jack has been riding planes hoping they'll crash.)

Jacob, however, is a creepy ruthless bastard who doesn't care at all how many lives he ruins or how much misery he causes in order to continue his argument with the Man in Black. So one non-lazy-writing reason he might pick Jack over Hurley is that he doesn't *want* someone truly compassionate to take over, he wants someone whose head is just as far up their own ass. If he sets Jack up right, plays into his issues right so that it becomes All About Jack (taking advantage of the MIB using Christian's body, perhaps), Jack will keep fighting his little war for him indefinitely; Hurley would probably screw everything up and save everybody. ::grin::

(What I really want is for Hurley to assemble a coalition of other cool people - Walt, representing supernatural power, and Sun, representing mundane power - and tell Jacob that he's just as bad as what he's been opposing and that from now on, they should both stay the hell out of the rest of the world, but I may be thinking of a different show here. ::grin::)

Regarding Sun, she kills a woman when the Others try to take the sailboat - there's a whole thing with her funeral and grieving husband, making Sun's kill a much bigger deal (in the writing of the show) than other times they kill Others in fights.