That being said, this probably actually works out well for you guys, because reading this will hopefully A) be something of a refresher as to what I saw as being the highlights of the Season 5 finale going into the Season 6 premiere (in just about two weeks now, Feb. 2nd!) and B) just plain get you psyched up for LOST again!
Now, I want to go ahead and say, I will try to continue writing episode reviews throughout Season 6. I had been thinking I was going to give it up, but honestly, I enjoy writing them as much for my benefit I think as I do for those of you who happen to enjoy them. Anyway, seeing as this year of school has been even more tasking than last year, I want to go ahead and announce some changes in regards to my reviewing style.
Basically, I’m slimming down. Rather than going with a full plot recap and then addressing key narrative, mythological, and “bamf” points of interest, I think I may just compact my review to the latter three points of interest, or something like that…we’ll see how it turns out.
Anyway, this review of “The Incident” will be a synopsis of various details therein that I personally feel are of key importance in light of LOST as a whole and where I think the next season will be headed. So, without further ado, here are the main things I think you as a viewer ought to have taken away from last season’s finale (it may help to re-watch the Season 5 finale before reading this, and I’m sure it’d be a good idea in light of the Season 6 premiere which is quickly approaching!):
- The opening conversation between Jacob and his at-this-point-unnamed bearded nemesis was something of great importance, and, in my opinion, the first blatant, in-our-face glimpse of the big picture of events in which our beloved Losties are entangled. Jacob has repeatedly brought groups of people to the Island intentionally, down through the ages, and his nemesis feels that this is a meaningless or perhaps even erroneous endeavor. Clearly Jacob and this “Man in Black” we’ll call him hold different views toward man and his involvement with this ever-so-special Island. While the Man in Black, or MiB, views man as a self-destructive, corrupting presence that has no business being on the Island and ought not to be, Jacob views man as, yes, an undeniably flawed creature, but one that has the capacity to choose to be better and overcome his imperfections. In this scene of great big-picture significance, we also catch a glimpse of the Black Rock, the slave ship which came to the Island in the mid-1800s, which was apparently brought to the Island by Jacob! (My money’s on Richard being a passenger, for the record…) And some very enigmatic yet clearly important words are shared between Jacob and the MiB:
Jacob: “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”
- It seems to me that our Losties have been unwillingly brought into a sort of cycle of Jacob bringing groups of people to the Island and said groups essentially killing themselves and one another off, a cycle which is being repeated over and over with the aim of reaching some still-yet-hidden goal, a goal which Jacob is striving towards but the MiB doesn’t feel is worthy and therefore loathes Jacob for doing such a poor job of protecting and caring for this sacred Island. My guess as to the ending of LOST is that our Losties will break this cycle of attempts and failures and bring about this resolution that Jacob feels is so valuable... I’m just not sure what the big picture goal is yet. :P haha But we’ll see I’m sure!
- Moving on, I think it’s important next to address all the other flashbacks involving Jacob. It seems Jacob has been personally, directly involved in a lot of our beloved Losties’ lives, for whatever reason, and it is important to note, I think, that he makes a point to physically connect with each of them – touching Jack’s hand as he hands him his candy bar, bouncing his finger off young Kate’s nose in a playful gesture, etc. Was he in a sense “marking” them for some greater purpose? I’m not entirely sure… Jacob’s appearance at the scene of Locke’s freefall seemed to be of special significance. As he grasps John’s seemingly lifeless shoulder, John gasps and then begins to dart his eyes to and fro, bewildered and in shock. I’m not for certain, but I think we might be supposed to take away from this scene that Jacob healed Locke in a sense, or saved his life. Did he even, perhaps, revive him? Also, we finally found out why Hurley was moved to return to the Island and get on Ajira Airways Flight 316: Jacob expressed to Hurley that perhaps his gift was not a curse, but a blessing. “Well, you get to talk to people you've lost...seems like a pretty wonderful thing to me.” We also get confirmation from Jacob that Hurley is not truly crazy, and, for some reason, I’m moved to trust him. Aren’t you?
- In “The Incident,” we found out once and for all that Richard doesn’t age because, according to him, “I'm this way because of Jacob.” Richard then says he assumes Locke has also returned to life because of Jacob as well, but he’s clearly perplexed by it: “I have seen things on this Island that I could barely describe, but I've never seem someone come back to life.” (We really should’ve figured this out, especially by the first scene of this finale -- there’s so much foreshadowing!)
- Let’s now talk about Ilana’s group. We weren’t entirely sure who these people were, though Bram identified them in “Some Like It Hoth” as being on the side that’s “gonna win.” We find out that they are indeed followers, or servants, of Jacob, though there’s really no concrete indication that any of them have ever actually been to the Island. It seems this conflict is just getting bigger and bigger!
- Ilana seems to be very much in the know, and I suspect we’ll learn much more about her character in Season 6. She definitely is the leader of this Ajira-crashed, Jacob-following group, and she is in search of Ricardos (Richard! Again, pretty sure he came to the Island on the Black Rock). Her question for him is the same one we’ve heard before: “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” And the answer? “Ille qui nos omnes servabit,” or, “He who will protect / save us all.” A reference to Jacob? I think so. But wouldn’t it be weird if it was a reference to dead Locke who rolled out of the crate into the sand, perhaps figuratively “in the shadow of the statue”? They definitely want us to think it’s a reference to Jacob anyway, which I’m actually more partial to as correct...
- Anyway, in Ilana’s flashback, Jacob comes to her -- the two seem to know one another and definitely have a history of friendship, at least -- and asks her if she will help him, to which Ilana admiringly replies yes, she will. Is this why she came to the Island? To help Jacob?
- Ilana’s group, at any rate, first goes to the Cabin to find Jacob, but they discover that he hasn’t been there for a long time, that “someone else has been using it.” My guess is that someone else is the intriguingly undead Christian Shephard, and perhaps the MiB as well (assuming they aren’t one in the same, Christian merely being a manifestation of Jacob’s bearded nemesis).
- But, Jacob left them a sign: a piece of his tapestry depicting the statue, pinned up against the Cabin’s wall by his knife which we saw him use in the first scene of the finale. Ilana’s group knew where to go to find him. I’m guessing they were going to warn him, seeing as they knew that the seemingly resurrected John Locke wasn’t who he said he was.
- This begs the question, though: Why was Jacob in the Cabin in the first place? He told the MiB in the first scene, “Well, when you do [find your loophole], I'll be right here.” But he wasn’t? I think the significance of the circle of ash being broken around the Cabin is that Jacob was at the Cabin but that he was trapped there, by somebody, for a time but was eventually freed or escaped. I don’t think he stayed there willingly...or at least I should say I doubt it was his idea.
- Before we finally get to the statue, let’s take a moment and consider the whole business with Frank, before Ilana and her crew ever reached the Cabin. Ilana and Bram were discussing whether or not Frank might be a “candidate,” a discussion which was clearly not meant to be overheard by him. This was clearly meant to be ambiguous to us, the viewers, but I’m guessing Frank’s candidacy has something to do with being one whom Jacob may reincarnate, or work through, or accomplish his goals once he’s dead. That’s right: I think Jacob knew he would die and expected to. I think he wanted it to happen.
- Ben is moved to kill Jacob because of how Jacob has treated him all those years Ben was the leader. He never met Jacob. He was simply given lists and orders through Richard. I think Jacob intentionally treated Ben so poorly because he was molding him into being his eventual murderer. I think it’s an Obi-Wan Kenobi type situation. Jacob, once struck down, will become more powerful than he was before.
- Jacob’s last words are, “They’re coming.” The MiB looks slightly alarmed upon hearing this, definitely concerned, but he’s clearly also enjoying his (momentary?) victory and basking in Jacob’s defeat. The MiB’s loophole was found by assuming the image of John Locke to work his way into the Others as their leader and be led to Jacob so that Ben could kill him (because, for whatever reason, he can’t just kill him himself -- it seems there are bigger, overarching rules to their method of engagement against one another) and Jacob’s adversary could victoriously kick his dying foe into the fire pit.
- Also, sort of a side note, but did you notice upon seeing the real John Locke’s dead body how flabbergasted Richard looked? I think he totally realized right then how hard he had failed and that it was already too late. What has he done?! I can’t wait to see Richard’s reaction to this sequence of events and his realization about what really had taken place with Locke’s whole “resurrection” (hopefully in the premiere!).
- Now that the 2007 timeline of the finale is wrapped up, let’s rehash the events surrounding our other Losties that are living in 1977 amongst the Dharma Initiative.
- First, let’s start with Rose and Bernard. Now, I’m not going to lie: I really don’t give much of a crap what happens to them...at least not in a freaking finale! At any rate, we see that they have essentially been enjoying an amazing life the past three years, living together in their own little cabin and salvaging what they can. Sounds like a pretty amazing getaway indeed, and well deserved for the couple. That being said, I reeeaally hope the writers aren’t setting up Rose and Bernard to be our infamous Adam & Eve couple from way back in Season 1. To me at least, that would be a letdown.
- Anyway, there was some good character development going on with our Dharma Losties group in the finale: Sawyer and Juliet’s relationship is slowly unraveling, and it’s painstakingly apparent as the finale progresses...and it sucks, that too.
- Sawyer and Jack finally get a one-on-one showdown and, while my favorite of the two didn’t “win” by conventional means, Jack did manage to bypass the group made up of Juliet, Kate, and Sawyer that was attempting to stop him and even convinced them through the process to join his cause. By the way, Jack is a total badass in the finale, especially when he was shooting up those in the Dharma Initiative who opposed him after Sayid was shot by Roger Linus. His actions make it clear that he’s certain his plan will work; if it does, none of these people he’s shooting will ever end up dead. They would have never come to the Island in the first place; Oceanic Flight 815 would have never crashed.
- At the Swan site, a huge showdown occurs between our Losties and Radzinsky’s men (with Dr. Pierre Chang caught hopelessly in the middle of the squabble). This scene is probably the biggest shootout-type scene that LOST has ever filmed, and it was really pretty excellently written. Kudos to Director Jack Bender; he did a hell of a job.
- Eventually, everything comes down to the moment we’ve all been waiting for. There are no more Dharma Initiative cronies to deal with, and Jack approaches the drilling shaft. He approaches what he thinks to be his destiny. Everyone gives him the go ahead, and Jack steps up to the plate and drops the Jughead core into the shaft. Anticipation. And suddenly, effects of the electromagnetic pocket of energy being hit by the drill start to set in. Much like when the button wasn’t pushed in the Season 2 finale, metal objects start to be pulled towards the hole and as time passes get sucked in with increasing velocity. Those present at the site, our Losties and other Dharma Initiative members such as Radzinsky and Phil, etc., attempt to escape, and by that I really mean they more just try not to die. Phil is impaled by a flying rebar (in what he thought was his moment of triumph against “LaFleur”), and Pierre Chang’s hand(/arm?) is pinned. Now these injuries/fatalities, we were okay with. But then, Juliet is caught amongst a bunch of chains and dragged into the chasm. Kate does her best to help, and Sawyer comes and literally gives it his all, but Juliet falls in the darkness. :(
- I can honestly say back in Season 3 when we met Juliet I would not have cared one bit about her death. Sawyer is clearly completely devastated, and you can feel his heart being crushed.
- Then, we are treated to an image of Juliet, struggling in the final moments of her life, at the bottom of the shaft, in the mud and wreckage. She eyes the H-bomb core and takes a rock and with all her strength gives it everything she has, smashing it with the rock, and on the eighth time, it explodes with a flash of white light.
- Oh, P.S., the four-toed statue was confirmed by the writers to be of the Egyptian goddess Taweret. (Read all about the implications and what not here: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Tawaret) Could this have something to do with why there are pregnancy problems on the Island??
And that’s that. What a great finale. I hope I didn’t leave anything out! I also apologize for not at all making this short as I had hoped/promised. And no, I don’t plan on proofreading this, simply because it just took me so damn long, so I hope you can understand and be forgiving for any awkwardly worded sentences you may have stumbled through due to my negligence. :)
What did YOU think of the finale?!
Are you excited for Season 6?...or should I say: How excited are you for Season 6?!
Story/Narrative - 4.5
LOST Theory/Mythology - 5
BAMF moments - 5
Overall Score - (4.5 + 5 + 5)/(3) = 4.83
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