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Note: This blog is counting down to the premiere of LOST's final season on Feb. 2 by spending the month leading up to it racing through every one of the previous 103 episodes. We're looking specifically at Christian/religious themes, other important or interesting concepts, literary references, and the theory that it's largely been about a game in which someone has won, and someone has... LOST. To follow us from the start, click here.

"See you in Los Angeles." 

These are Jack's parting words to Sawyer before he heads off to detonate the bomb at the Swan site. So now at long last all it comes down to is: do you think it worked? Are Jack and Faraday right, and everything will reset as if nothing ever happened? Was the old Faraday right when he preached "Whatever Happened, Happened?" Is Miles right? Is the bomb - and not necessarily Dharma's drilling - the thing that caused the Incident in the first place, to where our heroes are unwittingly creating the very history/future they're trying to change?

Here are all the details that lead up to that Revelation which begins tonight...

LOST Season Five, Discs 4-5: The One That's Gonna Win

Episodes: 5.13 SOME LIKE IT HOTH (Miles-centric); 5.14 THE VARIABLE (Faraday-centric); 5.15 FOLLOW THE LEADER (Richard-centric); 5.16 THE INCIDENT (Jacob-centric)

Things That Stuck Out

MILES'S FLASHBACKS

Miles's mother is renting them a small apartment in 1980s Southern California (Encino?). It's the day Miles first realizes he hears a dead body talking. Mr. Vonner's chest hurt, and he kept calling out for his late wife. "I can hear him! I can hear him!" he screams.

When Miles was slightly younger than he is now, he visits his mother - still in the same small apartment - who is dying. Before she goes, he needs to know why he's the way he is (what's the rush? Couldn't he also ask her after she dies?). When Miles learns his father has been dead a long time, he wants to know where the body is.

Miles scams someone again, but for what he thinks are good reasons. A man wants his son to know he loved him. Problem for Miles is, they cremated him rather than buried him. He requires a body (much like the Others and Smokey do, apparently). But he goes through the motions anyway to make some cash and give the guy what he wants to hear. Later, he goes back and gives Mr. Gray is money back, with this message: "If you needed your son to know that you really loved him, you should have told him while he was still alive." Amen, bro.

Naomi recuits Miles for the Widmore freighter team and puts him to the test at a restaurant nearby. She informs him that there are tons of dead bodies (most likely those in the pit) on the island who could tell a guy like Miles a lot about how to find Benjamin Linus. During the test Naomi gives Miles, he ascertains...

• Deceased's name is Felix
• Was delivering papers and photos of empty graves and an airplane purchase order to Widmore

Miles is offered $1.6 million dollars, and now we understand the significance of the $3.2 million he wants from Ben. Simple "double my price and I walk away" negotiating. Miles has ascertained that Ben has read their files, so he knows that Ben knows what price he's been promised.

Miles is pulled into a dark van by Bram, who will later be working with Ilana after the 316 crash. He warns Miles against helping Widmore. It occurs to me that both Bram and Ilana look just a bit like they might have Pacific Islands heritage in their backgrounds somewhere. Are these the remnants of Jacob's dispersed peoples? Or could they be New Dharma? Whatever they case, they appear to be separate from both Widmore and Ben.

Bram: Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue?
Miles: No. Can't say that I do.
Bram: Then you're not ready to go to that island.
(I'm suddenly intrigued by the use of the word "lies" in this important question, considering what an important theme lying has been to the plot of the show.)
Bram makes a promise to - one that definitely would have swayed Locke: If you come with us, all those things you've spent your life trying to find out? You'll know. Who you are, why you have a gift, and you'll know all about your father.

DANIEL'S FLASHBACKS

Young Faraday is a virtuoso at the piano. But Ellie tells him his destiny, his path, is not to play the piano. As good as he is, he's better at mathematics. He says he can do both because he can MAKE TIME.

Daniel graduates Oxford at a very young age. His mother is rude to Theresa. Over lunch, Hawking tells him the women in his life will only be terribly hurt - no time for relationships. Stick to work! She's stunned to find out Daniel just landed a large research grant from her old island colleague Charles Widmore. Who just happens to be Danny's daddy (but he doesn't learn this yet, nor do we). Leaves him with the gift of a journal inscribed, "No matter what, remember, I will always love you." She knows she kills her own son one day, but she - and then by extention him - are so conditioned to believe in destiny being unchangeable that they live in their prison of foreknowledge rather than having Hurley-ish hope to change it.

The day a very twitchy Daniel watched the 815 recovery footage while his caretaker asked what was bothering him, he was visited by Widmore. As we suspected the day Daniel arrived on the island, he's having a hard time remembering things. Widmore says they've never met previously, but one thing Daniel does remember is Widmore's name from the research grants. Before sitting down, Widmore removes a copy of Wired magazine with the headline, "The Impossible Gets Real!"

When Daniel continues to cry over the 815 wreck footage, Widmore comforts him by telling him it's a fake, most of the passengers are alive, and he staged it. He can safely mention this because Daniel - with his issues - won't remember it. Widmore promises the island - if Daniel will go there - will: further his research, show him things he's never dreamed of, and heal him (we should have realized that happened). His mother then tells him it's very important he say yes to this opportunity, yes to Widmore. And we still can't figure out who's side this woman is on, other than the one of destiny. If there is a game being played, she's like the referee or the clock keeper or the replay official. But how hard must it be for her to encourage Daniel to go, to even say she "wants" him to, when she knows she is sending him to his death at her hands? Now that's someone who is COMMITTED to unbreakable destiny.

JACOB'S FLASHBACKS

Kate - She and Tommy plan to steal the New Kids lunchbox, get caught, get rescued by Jacob. Kate promises never to steal again (she and Tommy bury their time capsule in this lunchbox). Jacob touches her (on the nose). Tells her to "be good."

James - After his parents' funerals, he sets to writing his letter. Jacob gives him the pen. Jacob touches him (on the hand). The preacher tells James that he shouldn't finish his letter, and that "what's done is done" (whatever happened...), and that revenge won't help him. So may we infer that since Jacob felt otherwise - encouraging the writing of the letter by providing the pen - that the truth is opposite to what the preacher says? Things can be changed, and James needs to finish the letter - which we know he goes ahead and does?

Sayid - He and Nadia are crossing La Brea (sometime in September 1995?) when Jacob asks for directions. As Sayid helps, a hit-and-run driver (was it really the guy working for Widmore who Ben said it was? Sayid is surely helped in this belief by the fact this was hit-and-run, and it occured during a clear "walk" signal). Sayid is touched by Jacob (on the shoulder) just as Nadia is hit.

Ilana - Her eye opens, with bandages all around her face. She's wounded and in a dingy hospital in Russia. Jacob talks to her in Russian, says he wishes he could have come sooner. She knows him, and is happy to see him. He asks for her help, she agrees to give it. Jacob DOES NOT touch her.

Locke - Locke falls from the window. He appears dead. Jacob touches him (on the shoulder). If he was dead, he is alive again now. Also a miracle that he landed on a tiny corner of grass and not the concrete around him on two sides. Jacob tells him: "Don't worry - everything's going to be alright. I'm sorry this happened to you." He's feeling more and more Christ-like...

Sun & Jin - Interesting that at their wedding, part of her vows state that she "loves the man you will become," and his say "We will never be apart." Yeah, not so much, really. Jacob is a wedding guest. He blesses them, touching them both (on the arm). Neither one knew who Jacob was, but "his Korean was excellent." He tells them never to take their very special love for granted.

Jack - It's the day as a young doctor that Jack cut the dural sac on the girl - the day he told Kate about where he learned to deal with fear. What he never said was that the count-to-five remedy was given by his father. The reason he never told that part is because Jack took it as a "timeout," and it embarrassed him -- even though he learned a great lesson in courage and leadership, and the girl was saved from paralysis! Poor Jack's had a problem with perception most of his life. After the surgery, he tries to buy an Apollo bar, but it sticks in the vending machine. Jacob gets it out, gives it to Jack. He touches Jack (on the hand). When Jack said the machine got stuck, Jacob says, "It just needed a little push." Like Jack.

Hurley - It's the morning before the Ajira flight. Hurley is being released from jail. He shares a cab with Jacob, offers him some cherry fruit roll-up. Jacob has the guitar case Hurley brings on the plane. Jacob knows Hugo's name, so Hurley assumes it's another ghost. Jacob says he is definitely not dead. He wants to know why Hurley won't go back. He still blames his "curse" for the crash, and the deaths of Libby and Charlie, who still haunt him. Jacob again flops someone's perception, and gets Hurley to see his "curse" as a blessing. This explains why Hurley's so calm and useful with Miles later on. Jacob tells him about Ajira 316, says it's Hurley's choice, and leaves. He touches Hurley (on the arm). Tells him it's not his guitar and leaves it with him.

Juliet - (NOT a Jacob flashback). Her parents inform her and Rachel they're getting a divorce. "Just because two people love each other doesn't always mean they're supposed to be together." Juliet can't buy this, and never wants to become mature enough to understand it. Me neither. But this is what's on her mind when she changes her mind about life with Sawyer and why they need to detonate the bomb after all. What little Juliet is right about without knowing it is it's not a matter of "supposed to be together" like her mom is saying... it's a CHOICE you make.

SOMETIME IN THE PAST (1845-1850? (As evidenced by that possibly being the Black Rock offshore?)

Jacob works on a tapestry in his chamber beneath the statue. There are Greek letters, and Egyptian symbols, and wings...

I find the "red snapper" Jacob catches interesting on a literary level, as we've often suspected this show of drawing a "red herring" across our path to throw us off the scent...

The Man in Black would rather not have some fish (and of course fish being a Christian symbol, such as in the very name of the site on which this blog appears). He also says he just ate. Um, what did you eat, dude? People?

Man in Black: They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.
Jacob: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that, is just progress.
And our time loop theory takes on more flesh. History can repeat itself over and over. But is it a circle - never-ending and pointless? Or a spiral, whick seems to take the same path from a certain point of view, but in reality is ultimately going somewhere either up or down, ending in a destination?

These men (are they men?) have a "fundamental disagreement," much like the one Sayid once said split up the Lostaways. It causes one to want to kill the other, and we can assume / make the connection to how Flocke is currently on his way to kill Jacob being part of that plan. But can we be certain we're assuming which of these players is good, and which is bad? Are they neutral, like the black-and-white playing pieces in chess or backgammon? Are we just conditioned to believe the guy in white and who doesn't want to kill the other guy is good? Entertainment Weekly's Doc Jensen has written some compellling theories on how we might have this good/bad, black/white thing all wrong between these two. Maybe MIB is good, or maybe they are both wrong for robbing and manipulating humans out of their right to free will to prove their own points or play their own game.

As the camera pulls back, we get a better view of the statue, with what looks to me like the head of a crocodile (would be the god Sobek - "in some Egyptian creation myths, it was Sobek who first came out of the waters of chaos to create the world. As a creator god, he was occasionally linked with the sun god Ra... Gradually, Sobek also came to symbolize the produce of the Nile and the fertility that it brought to the land" (Wikipedia)). I have to admit I've held mostly with those who believe - for obvious reasons - this is Taweret, the goddess of childbirth and fertility, and I won't dispute their arguments, because it's basically been confirmed this IS Taweret. But it looks more to me like Sobek. He's still associated with fertility, with power, creation, order-from-chaos.

1977

Miles is reading about Tommy Lasorda becoming the new manager of the Dodgers. 1977 was his first full season in the role.

As much as I love "Some Like it Hoth" for its humor and interplay between Sawyer and Miles, I hate it for the way everything starts to unravel for our heroes, starting with the way Sawyer tells Miles to erase one of the pylon security tapes.

Horace sends Miles into Grid 334 (in Hostile territory, where the Swan is being built) to make a covert exchange - take a body bag to Radzinski, return with a body in it. Radzinski's not talking about what happened, but he doesn't know Miles has his own methods. Miles is then supposed to take the body to Dr. Chang - his father - at the Orchid, but Hurley has signed out his van to deliver sandwiches.

When Roger finds out Ben is gone, Juliet knows it's "Well... here we go" time. The string has been pulled. Time to unravel.

Hurley find it easy to believe that Miles can talk to dead people, and says he will keep his secret because, "I can talk to 'em too."

BAD move by Kate - trying to comfort Roger Linus and tell him everything's gonna be alright. How would she know that, anyway? All she did was rouse suspicion. Is this what you get for trying to bring hope to the truly hopeless? When Jack tries to talk Roger out of suspecting Kate, he only makes things worse.

Hurley and Miles Debate the Nuances of The Sixth Sense:

Miles: You have conversations with them? Like they're your pals?
Hurley: Sure all the time. Sometimes we even play chess.
Miles: You actually see them?
Hurley: Of course - why wouldn't I?
Miles: Because that's not how it works!
Hurley: A-ha! You wouldn't know how it works, unless you can do it.
Miles: What I can do has nothing to do with chatting with ghosts. It's a feeling, a sense... There's just who they were and whatever they knew before they died.
But for Hurley, they can keep talking, and tell him about stuff that happened and will happen well after they died.

Hurley asks the question for us - is "Marvin Candle" like a stage name for Dr. Chang? But Miles doesn't want to talk about his dad.

While riding with Chang and Miles, Hurley is workin' it to find a way to get father and son to talk to each other. My guess on Miles' last name being Straume is a personal choice. As an angry teen and someone with a weird talent who advertises what he can do, "Miles Straume, or "maelstrom," would be a cool thing.

Hurley and Miles deliver Chang to the Swan site, where Hurley witness the security number for the hatch lid being dented on. This gives him an idea... "They're building our hatch... the one that crashed our plane..." Hmmm... Hurley tells Miles he knows there's gonna be an accident at the Swan, turning it from a study station into a place they'll have to install a button you have to push so the world doesn't end.

After Hurley uses a Star Wars analogy and his own personal testimony with his own father to get Miles thinking, Miles sees Dr. Chang reading Baby Miles a book, one about polar bears, looking happy.

Problem: Annoying Phil has the security tape that shows Lafleur and Kate took Ben. Lafleur invites him in... and cold-cocks him, making a bad situation worse.

The sub is docking - Dharma scientists from Ann Arbor are returning (Faraday later identifies this group as "The Swan Team")! The reason Daniel's come back is he saw a copy of the 1977 orientation photo with Jack, Hurley, and Kate in it. The minute he sees Jack he demands to know how they got back there, who told them to get on a plane?

Jack: As a matter of fact, Dan, it was your mother.
Daniel: And how did she convince you, Jack? Did she tell you it was your destiny?
Jack: Yeah, that's exactly what she said.
Daniel: Well I got some bad news for you, Jack. You don't belong here at all. She was wrong.

Faraday tells Dr. Chang he needs to order the complete evacuation of the island, because in 6 hours, the same energy release that just killed one person down in the depths of the Orchid is going to happen at the Swan site... only about 30,000 times more powerful. And what qualifies him to make that prediction is that he's from the future. To prove it, he hands him some mathematical equations that haven't been discovered yet... and tells him Miles is his son. Daniel says his goal is to make sure Chang does what he's supposed to do (paths of destiny and all).

Sawyer addresses his friends with two options: 1) commandeer the sub before anyone knows they're gone, 2) hide in the jungle and "start back from square one." Jin and Hurley vote No on 1 before Daniel comes in, letting everyone know his mother is one of the Hostiles, they must find her, and she can get them back where they belong.

Whoa! No sooner does Sawyer say, "Come with us, Freckles!" as he and Jack are debating whether to run or to pursue Daniel's option, than Juliet tells Jack and Kate the code for the fence.

So the split is:

Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley, Jin, Miles are headed to the beach ("right back where we started")
Jack, Kate, Daniel are headed into Hostile territory to find Ellie

Awww! Remember the last words Charlotte ever said as he brain was time skipping? "I'm not allowed to have chocolate before dinner"? She remembered that because those were her words to Daniel as she sat on the swing eating a candy bar right before he told her to leave the island and never come back. But this time? He takes great care not to appear scary. He would have avoided telling her this if he was 100% sure he couldn't change things. But at long last - he has hope. "Maybe I can."

Trigger happy Radzinsky shoots Daniel and a gun battle erupts as Jack's team tries to make for Hostile territory.

Daniel Explains to Jack Why Mrs. Hawking was Wrong

• In 4 hours, Dharma dudes at the Swan site will drill into the ground and release a massive quantity of electromagnetic energy
• Because of this, they'll have to pour concrete down there the likes of Chernobyl (this resonates with Jack, as it's what Sayid once told him)
• Because of this, people will spend the next 20 years (till 1997? actually, longer than that, Dan. Not like you to get your figures wrong. More like 27) keeping the energy at bay by pushing a button.
• One day, Desmond will fail to push that button
• Because of this, 815 will crash here
• Because of the crash of 815, a freighter will be sent to the island
• It's a chain that begins today... unless it doesn't, by something we do.
• What changed Daniel's mind? He'd been too focused on the constants (macro) that he forgot about the variables (micro). This is similar to the problem in the Matrix trilogy where Neo / choice / free will are variables that prove problematic for a system built on logic and strict cause-effect.

He remembered the bomb from 1954, and if he can locate that (with Ellie's help), he could negate the energy under the Swan site. Boom. All of this goes away. Instead of "whatever happened, happened," it will be "none of this ever happened." And that split possibility is precisely what we sit upon going into Season Six. Given that we know so many "killed off" characters will be returning to the show, I'm holding with those who say "none of this ever happened," and 815 lands safely at LAX. Our characters go about their lives, continuing to cross paths without knowing why, and feeling increasingly like they missed something, that their lives are lacking meaning, that they remain LOST - until they find some way to get back again. Could be way way off, but that's my working model.

Kate - during the hike - starts to talk some sense. It would be a mistake to erase everything that's happened to them. I agree. How will they have learned, grown, all they've gone through? Just throw that away? Like Locke once told Sawyer, he needed to go through that pain to become the better version of himself he became. On the flip side, reversing the past lets a LOT of people live who had to die. How would it be fair to them not to at least try to push the reset button? Jack's response to Kate is, "What if this is our last chance to put things back to where they're supposed to be?" You mean, like put your toys away or "clean up your own mess?"

Faraday never should have carried that gun into the Hostiles' camp and held it on Richard. His last realization is that his mother always lived with the knowledge she killed her brilliant son, but she set him on that path anyway, doing nothing to even try to change it.

As Jack and Kate are captured outside the Hostiles' camp by Charles, Ellie finds Daniel's journal and in it sees her own handwriting.

Eloise makes an impassioned plea to Jack to please tell her the truth and why they need the bomb, no matter how crazy it sounds. When she was 17, she took a man to the bomb. A few minutes ago, she shot that same man in the back. And now her handwriting is in his journal. Jack explains - she hasn't written those words yet. And just like those words, perhaps there's a way she can not have shot her son, too. Eloise asks Kate if Jack knows what he's talking about. Kate, looking broken, says, "He thinks he does."

Where's the bomb? Well, it happened to have been buried on the site where Dharma later built their village.

When Radzinsky's beating up Sawyer, Juliet pulls out her best Others voice: "Stuart, we have known each other for three years! We are NOT bad people! We are not here to hurt you!" Ew. I like that Sawyer tells her, "Don't." We just don't need to go down that road again. And anyway, as Sawyer says, whatever you tell these creepy Dharma folk who are acting out nothing but fear and suspicion - whether you tell truth or lie - it's going to be disbelieved.

Dr. Chang notices Jin, Hurley, and Miles getting ready to hightail it to the beach. He approaches them in the bushes...

Chang: Your friend Faraday said that you were from the future. I need to know if he was telling the truth.
Hurley: Dude that's ridiculous.
Chang: What year were you born?
Hurley: Uh, nineteen... thirty-one?
Chang: You're 46?
Hurley: Yeah. Yes I am.
Chang: So you fought in the Korean war?
Hurley: There's... no such thing?
Chang: Who's the president of the United States?
Hurley: [pause]... alright, dude, we're from the future. Sorry.
(one of the funniest dialogs in show history)

The biggest deal for Chang at that moment is realizing that Miles is really his son. Miles confirms for Chang that Faraday has been "right about everything so far." So if he said evacuate, do it.

Chang finds out Radzinsky and taken over from Horace. What's more, he won't listen to Chang about drilling at the Swan site (is this move and being wrong about it what leads to Radzinsky's "exile" to be shut up in the Swan for years? In any case, it seems to have helped him survive the Purge).

Sawyer agrees with Chang - evac the women and children, and if you let us get on the sub too, we'll tell you everything you want to know. Radzinsky forces him to draw a map, much like our gang forced Ben to do so long ago.

When Kate walks away from Jack, the Hostiles don't want to let her. One raises his gun to shoot, and... Kate's not hit! Instead, he's down, having been shot by... whom? That's when Sayid - who we had forgotten all about somehow - pops up from the bushes!

Sayid believes there is no need for Jack to execute his plan, because he's already changed things by killing Ben. Uh, no you didn't, Kate tells him. We're all still here because you didn't succeed. Me and Sawyer saw to that, haha on you.

Jack: I'm not wrong, Kate. This is why we're here. This is our destiny.
Kate: Do you know who you sound like? Because he was crazy too, Jack. You said so yourself.
Jack: Maybe I was wrong.
Kate: No, you were right (oh, well, that settles it. Why didn't you say so?)

Miles gets to see his father telling him and his mom to leave. He has to be a bit of a jerk to make it happen. Sometimes abandonment is what's interpreted from sacrifice, unfortunately.

Jack follows Richard through the underwater cavern into what Richard refers to as "the tunnels." Hawking is pregnant with Daniel at the moment. Sayid reads Daniel's journal about only needing to remove the plutonium core of the bomb.

Poor Juliet. Just as she and Sawyer are getting away... they dump Kate in the sub with them.

Radzinski spent six years designing the Swan in hopes of manipulating electromagnetism in ways never dreamed of. But Chang stops the drill when the temperature suddenly spikes. Radzinski says he came to this island "to change the world," and that's what he intends to do. Well, he does, alright. And then he spends what's left of his sad life "saving the world" from his changes.

Richard asks Jack about Locke, and how in '54 he came striding into camp claiming leadership. Richard visited Locke 3 times off island and he never seemed particularly special. But Jack knows him. Jack gives what is an amazing answer considering where he was a few seasons ago: "Yeah, I know him, and if I were you, I wouldn't give up on him." Just too bad the guy's not alive anymore, huh? I'm just hoping if there's indeed a reset in Season Six that one of the things we'll see is a TRUE rise to confidence, leadership, and destiny for John Locke.

Richard breaks through the tunnels into the basement of a Dharma house. He knocks out Ellie "to protect our leader," yet another example of violence being used "in service/protection of the island or for someone's own good." (Which is something that's been hard for us to swallow this whole series, as programmed as we are to think most violent acts show someone to be "the bad guy").

Roger Linus shoots Sayid. Good thing the plutonium wasn't hit.

After Sawyer, Juliet and Kate are let off the sub in a life raft and paddle ashore, they see Vincent. "Aw, hell no," says Rose's voice. She and Bernard aren't happy to be found. But we're happy to see them!

Sawyer tells Jack the story of what happened to his parents in 1976. Sawyer tells Jack if he wanted to, he could have taken the sub to the States, walked into his old house, and prevented his dad from killing anyone. But he didn't because "what's done is done." And here we go with the two-sided argument again. Time for Jack's story. It's not about having screwed up so bad. It's about what Locke told him about destiny and all of this happening for a reason. But Sawyer still doesn't know what Jack wants. Well, Jack wants Kate. He screwed it up and now it's too late. So even though if this works and Kate's in handcuffs and they don't know each other, it would still somehow work out if "it's meant to be." They fight, but Juliet stops Sawyer... because "Jack is right; we have to do this." HUH? We're as confused as Sawyer. She just told him to come back and stop Jack! So what changed her mind...

How does Jack talk Kate into his plan? He invokes her purpose for coming back, which was to save Claire. Tells her this is the only way to do it - to let Claire get to LA, and make her own choice on whether or not to give up Aaron for adoption.

THANK YOU, MILES! I've been patiently waiting for someone to bring this up ever since Faraday mentioned his little plan to Jack and Kate by the stream. "Has it occurred to any of you that your buddy's actually gonna CAUSE the thing he's trying to prevent?" Bingo. They've all been ASSUMING that the Incident is caused by the Dharma drilling. But what if it wasn't? What if it was caused by THE BOMB? Duh! And the radioactivity would ALSO be the reason they poured so much concrete there. Hello, McFly!

Chang's left arm gets injured in the Incident when the electromagnetism begins pulling in all the metal. Which explains how Chang's arm appears to not move in the Swan video, but not the Pearl video that was copyrighted the same year (1980).

For five seasons we though the love story centered around Kate. We were wrong. When Juliet finally lets go of Sawyer's hand to fall down the drill site, and he sobs, we see the love story was all about them.

At the bottom of the hole, Juliet takes a rock, and... WHITE LIGHT. And for the first time ever, the final "LOST" image is black-on-white instead of white-on-black. A negative of itself. Change. Reversal. End of this part of our journey. So...

What happeened? Tune in tonight!

2007

As Desmond lay in a hospital recovering from Ben's gunshot wound, Mrs. Hawking approaches Penny and says the shooting may be the fault of her son... Daniel Faraday (since he's the one who told Desmond to come to LA to find her).

Hawking tells Penny she doesn't know if Desmond will live. "For the first time in a long time, I don't know what's going to happen next." Whoa. So what's changed? Which is the variable that threw off your mojo, Ellie?

Widmore is, oddly enough, glad Desmond is alright. He's treated this man like crap and kicked him around like a dog for so many years, but now he's all happy for him? Hard to buy. Unless of course he - like Ellie - was only doing what needed to be done to keep the wheels of destiny and Desmond's path turning.

Here we learn that Faraday is the love child of the former leaders of the Others - Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking. Penny, however, appears to be the daughter of Widmore and an outsider, so she and Daniel are just half-siblings.

Richard has a hobby - he builds old sailing ships in bottles. Does he perhaps miss one on which he used to sail? He's interrupted from his work when Flocke arrives, bearing fresh boar as an offering. It's been three years since these men saw each other - the day Locke flashed out after Ben moved the island. Flocke knows Richard is looking at him funny. Richard says, "something different about you." UH-HUH! Run, Richard!

Flocke says he and Richard have to get somewhere by nightfall and don't have a lot of time. This is a crucial scene, because it's where Flocke (and whoever is controlling this entity) has Richard tell time-skipping Locke what his mission is: turn the wheel, leave the island, get your friends to come back, die. And Richard, of course, explains to poor Locke that this directive comes from... himself. Except it didn't. It all just accomplished a grand plan, I believe, of Jacob's Nemesis and/or Smokey.

Ben describes Richard to Sun as "a kind of... advisor. And he has had that job for a very, very long time." I think the word "spiritual" or a synonym could be placed into Ben's pause there. Richard is some sort of shaman or Temple priest, the religious side of the Others.

Sun asks Richard if he remembers the people in the 1977 photograph. He does indeed, very clearly. Because 30 years ago, he watched them all die. (sounds like they got the bomb to go off at the Swan site)

Flocke gives Sun his word - "If there's a way for you and Jin to be together again, a way to save our people," he'll find it.

Flocke seems genuinely surprised that Richard doesn't know where Locke has been the past three years (of course, Locke skipped over most of that time in the span of flashing to Tunisia).

Flocke, Richard and Ben arrive at the Beechcraft at night. Flocke gives Richard everything he'll need -- a script of what to say, instruments to get the bullet out, the compass. And Flocke sits back and admires his masterpiece of manipulation, and even Ben has to be awed. "You TELL HIM that he has to bring everyone who left back to the island, and that to do that, he's gonna have to die." It's almost genius. Locke will buy what Richard said, especially if Richard got the directive from Locke.

Ben truly was impressed. But when Flocke tells Ben the island never really told him things, and that he knows he's never really seen Jacob, Ben gets pissy. What Ben doesn't realize is HE'S now being manipulated by FLOCKE to do a job when the time is right, just like he used to do to John.

Richard assumes that the "gonna have to die part" didn't actually have to happen, because after all, Locke stands before him right now. But Flocke says, oh yeah, it did so have to happen.

There are some other Others up at the Temple, but Flocke calling himself "eager" (you might be too if you were on the verge of executing a plan you've waited hundreds or thousands of years to put into place), would like to address the group gathered there.

"I've been told that for some time, you all have been accepting order from a man named Jacob. And yet, oddly enough, it seems that no one has actually seen him (this sounds exactly like what the Devil might say rousing up aught against God). Now, I'm sure there are very good reasons why his existence and whereabouts are secret, I just don't know what they are. And to be honest with all of you, if there's a man telling us what to do, I want to know who he is (why? You'd just probably question his credentials and decisions even more than the invisible-but-not-necessarily-absent one). Richard has agreed to show us where we need to go. So I'm gonna go and see Jacob. Right now. And I'd like all of you to come with me."

Richard: I'm starting to think John Locke is gonna be trouble.
Ben: Why do you think I tried to kill him?

Yet ANOTHER Exodus -- Flocke leads his people from the beach to the statue. Richard admits to Locke - he's been on the island a long time, and he's never seen anyone come back to life. Flocke counters that he's never met someone who doesn't age - doesn't mean it can't happen. Richard then tells us he's that way "because of Jacob." Can we therefore deduce that Flocke's the way HE is because of anti-Jacob? Flocke also shows that he's very likely associated with the Man in Black when he says that after he's seen Jacob, it will be time to "deal with" the rest of the Ajira passengers. We already know which of the entities likes bringing people to his island... and which does not. Locke wonders why Ben hasn't told Richard of the real play to kill Jacob. Ben says he started feeling a bit differently about things when his dead daughter told him to do whatever Locke wanted. This actually seems to surprise Flocke, but that could just be a ruse. He uses this moment to tell Ben that he is the one who will kill Jacob.

Bram and Ilana's crew reach the island with Lapidus and the crate. They think Frank might be a "candidate," they call themselves friends, and do treat him kindly.

Frank is freaked about what's in the box (there's the box theme again, and you have to love how Desmond's old nickname for Locke of "box man" has come full-circle). Bram assures him that he has to show the contents to a group of people so they'll know that what they're up against "is a hell of a lot scarier than what's in this box." Amen.

Bram points out that the line of ash is broken around the cabin. This is obviously significant. And Ilana approaches the cabin armed - not something she would do if Jacob were legitimately inside. They find on the wall a tapestry pinned there with a knife, showing the statue. Here's my interpretation of this scene: Bram and Ilana are Jacobites. They stopped here first to see if their enemy was still imprisoned in the cabin. The broken ash line let him out, and once inside, this is confirmed. The enemy left the pic of the statue as a message, i.e. "you know where to find me." The time Locke visited the cabin and saw the man in the chair (who looks nothing like the Jacob we've now seen) and heard him say "Help me," it was probably the Enemy, who had been imprisoned here, somehow locked up and kept there with the ash circle. The other possibility is that this really is where Jacob used to reside, but "he hasn't been here in a long time," and "someone else has been using it" (that someone else being the Nemesis / Christian / Smokey. In this case, it's still pretty clear, though, that possibly the person saying "Help me," and clearly the Christian/Claire duo - were NOT Jacob. Locke was getting his instructions from the guy whose whole plan is to be using his likeness right now.

When Flocke leads his people to a rest stop at the Losties' old camp, Sun finds Charlies's DS ring while Flocke and Ben talk about the day Ben first took Locke to the cabin:

Ben: Obviously you know I was talking to an empty chair. Which is not to say I wasn't as surprised as you were when things started flying around in the room.
Flocke: Why would you go to all the trouble to make something like that up?
Ben: I was embarrassed. I didn't want you to know that I had never SEEN Jacob. So yes, I lied. That's what I do.
Flocke: All right, then.
Ben: Why do you want me to kill Jacob, John?
Flocke [really playing the demon whispering in his ear now]: Because despite your loyal service to this island, you got cancer. You had to watch your own daughter gunned down right in front of you. And your reward for those sacrifices? You were banished. And you did all this in the name of a man you'd never even met.
Whatever faith Ben ever had has now been flipped on its ear to bitterness. Which if you think about it is still ironic, because it's STILL belief. It's still acknowledging the unseen god exists. You're just really ticked at him now instead of trusting him.

Ben tells Sun he doesn't know what happened to the statue. "It was like that when I got here." But he also doesn't expect her to believe that.

Flocke and Ben enter Jacob's chamber without Richard, who says to tell him hello. Flocke hands Ben a knife, promising that things will change once Jacob's gone. (That sounds like a given if you kill God or the concept of him, sure.)

While Flocke and Ben are inside, Ilana's group arrives unthreateningly, asking to speak to Ricardos. She asks him "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" He answers in Latin, "He who will save us all." She then shows him what's in her crate - dead Locke. And we get this line from Sun: "I don't understand - if this is Locke, then who's in there?" Who indeed. Or what.

Jacob tells Flocke - looking towards Ben - "it looks like you found your loophole." He has indeed, and Jacob has "no idea what I've gone through to be here." Ben starts to suspect that might not really be Locke.

Richard was the one who would bring Ben slips of paper, instructions, lists. Ben never questioned them. So why start now? Because you weren't the priviledge Moses-like leader - the one who got to see him face-to-face? Regardless, Ben is through being PATIENT (which for 5 seasons has quietly been identified as the quality of a true leader), and stabs Jacob, who informs Flocke...

"They're coming."

• Appearances of the Numbers: 316 (Ajira flight number) on a microwave display; Room 4 is where Miles first hears a dead body talking; security camera 4 is the one Sawyer and Kate are seen on; Sawyer was 8 when his parents were killed.
• Deaths: Alvarez, a Dharma worker on the Swan site whose filling was pulled straight through his own skull like a bullet; Daniel Faraday, shot in the back by his own mother (I swear, sometimes this show is a Greek tragedy); a Hostile, shot by Sayid; Sayid (presumably), shot by Roger; an Other, shot by Jack in the escape; Phil, with rebar to the heart; Juliet? - and everyone else - if the bomb explodes, though if Jack's plan worked, they'd all actually live in the future, though they died in 1977(Remember, Richard DID tell Sun he witnessed all these people die 30 years ago).

Themes Established or Revisited

1. Trust. Horace has no choice but to bring Miles into the "Circle of Trust" (and suddenly it feels like Robert DeNiro addressing Ben Stiller).
   
   "You can trust me, I talk to lots of dead people." -- Hurley, to Miles.
   
   "What John, don't you trust me here with my former people? Afraid I'll stage a coup?" -- Ben, to Flocke, after merely being politely asked to join them on a hike.
   
   Jack tells Sayid he trusts Ellie because in 30 years she's the one who's going to tell us how to get back to the island.
   
2. Lies. Radzkinski lies to Miles about how the worker died ... Miles's mom lies to him about where he comes from, and has been lying to him about his father. She now tells him he's been dead a long time ... When Daniel asks why Widmore would give him such an opportunity to get healed and whole again, Widmore tells him a half-truth - so that he doesn't waste his gifts. But more than that, he's his son ... Hawking has to lie to tell Daniel the things he needs to hear (though it breaks her heart to do it) to get him on Widmore's boat.
   
3. Time.
   
   "Long time no see." -- Fardady to Miles. We've seen this line before, combining to important themes.
   
   A close-up of a metronome keeping time as young Daniel plays. He knows the exact count in his head. And he tells his mother he can "make time."
   
   Daniel makes another example out of the bullet graze he just took. He didn't have a scar on his neck when he and Jack first met. So things CAN happen to them (it just may be their environment and future universal events they can't affect). But he reminds Jack that this is their present time.
   
   "One of these days, sooner or later," the Man in Black is going to find a loophole.
   
   "Time is short. Let's go." -- Sayid.
   
   Bernard: You sure you don't want some tea?
   Juliet: Maybe another time...
   
   "It takes a very long time when you're making the thread. But I supposes that's the point, isn't it?" -- Jacob, to Ben and Flocke. He's talking directly about his tapestry, but he's also talking about his plan, time, past-present-future, and the grand design. I take it as a hint that whatever scheme the Nemesis cooked up and spent a lot of time preparing, Jacob's is better, has accounted for it, and is more involved.
   
4. Intersections. Feels like an odd time to bring it up - in the final Milepost, but there's been a recurring image in several episodes of LOST where the camera from above looks down on the streets that cross at an intersection. We get the black-white theme, and the idea of convergent paths all in one. Another of these images is used right before Sayid's flashback with Jacob where Nadia is killed.

The Game

Hurley tells Miles sometimes he plays chess with his dead friends.

Bram: You're playing for the wrong team.
Miles: Yeah? What team are you on?
Bram: The one that's gonna win.

Sawyer uses the term "back to square one," which has an etymology either in sports, board games, or playground games, depending on who you ask.

"Your husband has become a casualty in a conflict that's bigger than him, bigger than any of us." -- Hawking, to Penny.

"If I don't see you on the other side, I won't blame you." -- Jack, to Sayid.

Bram: WE are the good guys.
Frank: In my experience the people who go out of their way to tell you they're the good guys are the bad guys.
(but I believe Bram. And I believe Frank's quote can still be true because of how Ben and Widmore have all done that).

"I'm beginning to think you just make these rules up as you go along, Richard." -- Flocke.

Black-and-white: another white rabbit outside a hotel room, under which is a key; piano keys as young Daniel plays; Dharma is at "code black" when Jack and Sayid arrive at the barracks.

Religious References

Jack: What are you doing here at work?
Roger: What else am I gonna do? Sit around and pray that those idiot can find my boy?

"All the money in the world isn't gonna fill that empty hole inside you, Miles." -- Bram. They won't offer him any money. But they are offering him peace, answers, fulfillment, and purpose. And I think I

Daniel explains to Jack that "the variables" in all the equations of changing the past or of destiny are people. Us. And so it is that science arrives at a similar conclusion to fate. People having free will have always been able to effect changes on their environment, their future, and their eternal destiny. Even if that destiny is by and large predetermined. This is why we pray even if God is sovereign. This is how Christ could die once in one time period for the sins of people in any and all. So many things are explained. NOW... here's the problem as it relates to what Daniel is telling Jack and Kate -- they are all forgetting how LOST they were in their lives before they came to this island. They are forgetting that they found redemption, they found purpose, they found home. They are forgetting that when they left it, the hole inside them opened up again. Everything Daniel is selling sounds so hopeful and possible that they aren't stopping to ask whether it's practical or in their best interests!

"Sacrifice? Don't talk to me about sacrifice. I had to send my son back to the island knowing full well..." -- Hawking, to Widmore.

"If this works, you might just save us all. And if it doesn't, at least you'll put us out of our misery." -- Sayid. This is how he and Jack see the bomb plan. No real downside in their minds. Sayid might be the most likeable-though-unchanged (perhaps unredeemed) character I can think of in all the shows I've seen.

A character purposes to kill the unseen, unquestioned reigning deity of a people group's lives because he resents the ways of that leader and the indirect way in which he deals with people who do his will. The irony of course is that he no more disproved the God-character's existence in his address to the people than he will actually PROVE it by his efforts to kill him. A) he knows the "God" exists, B) you can't kill what isn't there.

Outside the church where Sawyer's parents' funeral was held, there is a debate about letting things go or holding on to them, with the implication that this depends on your road or destiny, and - ironically enough - whether the past can be changed so that you'd be ON a different road or destiny.

When Jack tries to assure Sayid that the plan will work and they can save him, he says, "Nothing can save me."

"He who will save us all." -- The answr to the statue riddle. Pretty obvious religious parallel there.

Mysteries or Questions Still Needing Answers

• What happened? Did the bomb work as they hoped, or didn't it? If it did, how will the show go on? Will the characters know each other?
• For a complete catalogue of all my unanswered questions heading into Season Six, check my follow-up blog.

Add to the LOST Library:

• "It Never Rains in Southern California," by Albert Hammond. Hurley and Miles listen to this in the van.
• "Love Will Keep Us Together," by The Captain and Tennille. Hurley and Miles also listen to this in the van.
• The Empires Strikes Back. Hurley wants to re-write the screenplay as his own version of changing the future from the past. It's 1977, so pretty soon George Lucas will be looking for the sequel to Star Wars. Hurley's seen Empire like 200 times, so he's going to make life easier and send George the script... with some improvements. Miles says this is extremely stupid. And maybe it is. And we definitely laugh at the part of Hurley's script we see. But as usual, Hugo has just given us the good side of the coin of this time travel business. A) whether you can or can't change the past, try, and try for the better. B) For the most part, stick to the script, but if you get the chance to make it better the next time around, take that chance. Hurley also uses the Empire story to explain how a twisted never-knew-my-father-and-then-found-out-he-was-a-bad-guy motif plays out, and how it could have played out even better for Luke.
• "Three Cigarrettes in an Ashtray," by Pasty Cline. Plays - of course - in a Kate scene, the one where she's going to steal the lunchbox.
• Everything that Rises Must Converge, by Flannery O'Connor. This is what Jacob sits reading when Locke is pushed out of an 8th story window by his father. The cover shows a rising dove and a rising arrow both going skyward... but the arrow pierces the dove. The book is a collection of poems and short stories. "In the story after which the work is titled, human weaknesses are exposed and important moral questions are explored through everyday situations." Ironic that Jacob reads a book about "rising" as Locke is "falling," but the suggestion could be that Locke is going to "rise again." As the dove is also emblematic of part of the Trinity, the book cover image is symbolic to the story of LOST as an attempt to kill God.

Excellent Lines

Humorous

Hurley: Dude, there's a body bag back here. With a body in it.
Miles: That's traditionally what you put in a body bag...

"You're just jealous my power is better than yours." -- Hurley, to Miles, about how ghost-conversing works.

Dr. chang: You better keep a secret, Hurley. How do you feel about polar bear feces? Because if you breathe one word of this I'll have you shipped to Hyrda Island so you can weigh turds for their ridiculous experiments.
Hurley: Gross.

Hurley: Dude that guy's a total douche.
Miles: That douche is my dad.

"Maybe your dad'll let you hold baby You, or you can change your own diaper, or..." -- Hurley, to Miles.

Hurley says if Luke and Vader and everyone on Star Wars had "just communicated," the following could have been avoided: Luke getting his hand cut off, Boba Fett being eaten by the Sarlac, and the Ewoks.
(and this is my complaint about most shows and movies - even LOST - if people would just tell each other stuff... instead of, oh, lying, or running, or fighting, or reacting, or...)

Sawyer [to Daniel]: Welcome to the meeting, Twitchy. [aside to Miles] He still crazy?
Miles: It's on a whole new level, man.

"You guys were in 1954? Like... Fonzie times?" -- Hurley.

"We'll buy Microsoft. Then we'll bet the Cowboys in the '78 Super Bowl. We're gonna be rich." -- Sawyer, getting used to the idea of going back to the mainland with Juliet on the sub.

Kate: Jack's got a bomb.
Rose: Who cares. It's always something with you people.

More Meaningful (and double-meaningful)

"Miles, I need you." -- Dr. Chang. And suddenly, Miles' cold heart towards his father is starting to thaw.

Faraday: You sound like my mother.
Widmore [chuckles]: That's because we're old friends.

"What's luck have to do with it? I thought you said whatever happened, happened?" -- Jack, to Daniel, who ironically says he is lucky about one bullet just having grazed him shortly before another will take his life.

"I thought I'd lost you." -- Penny, to Desmond.

Ben: This must be quite the out-of-body experience.
Flocke: Something like that.
(If Locke spent most of his life being a sheep, then this wolf (Jackal? Anubis?) in sheep's clothing is just creeping me out)

"Since when did shooting kids and blowing up hydrogen bombs become okay?" -- Kate.

"I'm sorry - I think I'm lost." -- Jacob, to Sayid.

"So we die. We just care about being together. That's all that matters in the end." -- Bernard.

Kate: Do you remember when I sewed you up when we first got here?
Jack: Seems like a million years ago.
Kate: Or 30 years from now.

Characterization

Hurley helps Miles understand the personal, character-driven side of changing the past. Miles says nothing he can ever do will change that his father was never around for him - that he never knew him, because he's dead now. "But he's not dead," says Hurley. Therefore, there's still time. And guess what, he's here. Talk to him, Miles.

Flocke isn't afraid of anything Ben can do anymore. Why not? Because he's not really Locke? Because he has first-hand knowledge that Ben has been threatened not to harm this guy he thinks is Locke in any way?

Kate looks about ready to kill Jack herself when he says that "enough of" their past together was misery. From where I sit, though, it was. And they were both to blame. And even during their "engagement" period it never felt like everything was just right. Especially not if you compare it to how Sawyer and Juliet looked in their time in the 70s sun.

Here's another something that's "different" in the variables this time. Where once Kate told Jack, "I have always been with you," at the stream with Ellie she tells Jack that this time, she can go no farther. She's going back to Dharmaville to find the others. "Kate, they tried to kill us," he warns about the Dharma folk. "And what are you trying to do?" she parts with.

"If I never meet you, then I never have to lose you." -- Juliet, to Sawyer. She changed her mind when she saw the way he looked at Kate. She knows he'd be faithful to her, and she loves him for it, but she can't stand knowing she wasn't his first real love.

Opening & Closing

5.13 Open - "316" - the Ajira flight number - appears on a microwave as a man demonstrates that an apartment comes "fully equipped."
5.14 Open - Hospital doors thrust open as a gurney carrying Desmond is rushed through.
5.15 Open - We just saw Faraday shot and killed at the end of the previous episode, but we pick up here with him still alive. "Where's the bomb, Richard?" We get the view from Jack and Kate's perspective.
5.16 Open - Clay pots, earthen vessels. Symbolic of our bodies. A spinning loom, symbolic of our time.

5.13 Close - Faraday emerges from the sub in some suave all-black Dharma gear. "Hey Miles. Long time no see."
5.14 Close - Daniel's face, as he dies. The last words he says, looking up at his mother, are, "I'm your son."
5.15 Close - Ben's stunned face staring after Flocke. He's just asked why they're going to see Jacob. "So I can kill him." And who is it that promised to find a way to kill Jacob?
5.16 Close - Juliet smashes the bomb, and... white light. And a reverse image of the closing "LOST" title card.

Probably Unimportant, But I've Always Wondered...

Seems like another time discrepancy. We know from the first episode of Season Five that the scene where Dr. Chang heads to the Orchid happens after 8:15 in the morning (because that's when he woke up - so probably close to 9). But when we see the scene from Daniel's point of view, it's only 6 a.m., which we know from Jack going to Sawyer's house and asking, "what are you busy with at 6 a.m.?"