LOST 6.15

Honestly, my brain hurts. It really does. I’m coming to grips this week with the fact that I’m never going to figure this out. I’m almost ready to stop trying. Almost. There’s so much to talk about, but I’m just dividing this note into four sections: Mother, the timeline, the dagger, and the rules. (And the 5th section, Other Random Questions). So here goes…. (and I apologize for the choppiness and less than fluid transitions. I really struggled with this one.)

Mother

I love Alison Janney, and she played this woman well – crazy as a… (I just goggled “crazy as a” and my favorite answer is this) …crazy as a shithouse rat!! Seriously, though, Whoa momma! Flocke wasn’t kidding when he told Kate that he had a mother once and she was crazy. This week’s episode was a study in bad parenting and the long-term effects. (Maybe Flocke was trying to save poor Aaron from the awful effects of being raised by a crazy woman!)

So we know now that Jacob and MIB are brothers. Young Jacob was quiet, obedient, and helpful. Boy in Black (BIB) was curious, insistent, a liar, and…. “special”.
Mother: “Jacob doesn’t know how to lie. He’s not like you.”
BIB: “Why? What am I like?”
Mother: “You’re…. special.”

What are we to learn from the fact that Jacob was a better person, but Mother loved BIB more? Mother picked BIB to be the protector, but settled for Jacob when she had no other choice. Is there anything that we can learn from that in thinking about our candidates and the next protector of the island?

Here’s my big question. Do you think Mother was the original smoke monster? The reason I ask is this: How could she have possibly killed all those Romans and filled in the wells? It really looked like the work of Smokey. What do you think?

When MIB stabbed her and she was dying, I thought she called him by the name, “Jose”. (Did anyone else hear that? Was anyone watching with closed captioning?) And then she said, “Thank you.” Has she been trapped all these hundreds of years? When she decided on Jacob as the protector, did she set up a situation in which MIB would kill her, so that she could be free?

The Timeline

(I’m still completely confused by the haircuts. Please someone figure this out for me. Why do these men look so different every time we see them?)

Ok, the timeline… We first met Jacob and MIB in the Season 5 finale. I think that scene on the beach happened after Jacob threw MIB in the light tunnel and he became Smokey. Is that what you think too? So, if that’s true, then the MIB in Ab Abterno (1860’s) who appears to Richard and interacts with Jacob is actually Smokey inhabiting MIB’s dead body. In that episode, MIB told Richard that Jacob had stolen his body.

What about never growing old? Mother didn’t seem to age at all during the entire 43 years that they showed in this episode. Did that have to do with drinking the wine? We know why MIB didn’t age. He was actually dead. Maybe Jacob became agelessness from the wine too. That doesn’t explain how Jacob was able to make Richard never age, because we have no indication that Richard ever drank the wine. Maybe Jacob is just able to set the rules however he wants (except that he can’t absolve Richard of his sins or bring back Isabella). One idea is that Jacob is able to stop aging with his touch, but some of the candidates were touched as kids. I wonder if there is any significance to the fact that Jacob touched Sawyer and Kate as kids, but not Jack, Sayid, Hurley and the Kwons.

Do you think that Mother had the power to bring ships and other vessels to the island, the same way that Jacob did? I wonder how long she’d been waiting for successor. Once she had the boys, maybe she stopped bringing ships, and then Jacob had to take up the practice once he was in charge and had to find his own replacement. (BTW, I'm still trying to figure out the number thing. Remember when I was obsessed with that? I really hope we find out how/why those numbers were transmitted to the island, heard by Sam Toomey, repeated to crazy guy in St. Rosa's and then used by Hurley to win the lottery. Those are the numbers of the last possible candidates. How did that happen???)


The Dagger

According to Lostpedia.com, the dagger came on Claudia’s ship. We see MIB throw the dagger against the well stones to show Jacob the electromagnetic force. MIB later uses that dagger to kill Mother.

The next time we see the dagger, MIB is giving it to Richard to use to kill Jacob. (Remember the “don’t let him speak” speech?). Jacob aborts Richard’s killing mission, and takes possession of the dagger.

Later we see the dagger in the Temple, where Dogen gives it to Sayid to kill Flocke (“don’t let him speak” again). Sayid’s attempt to kill Flocke is also unsuccessful, and we now assume that MIB (Flocke) has the dagger again.

We’ve seen that Smokey, in the form of Flocke, seems indestructible. If Mother is the Smoke monster, as I theorized above, I’m wondering if MIB was able to kill her because 1) She didn’t speak, and 2) He used the special dagger.

In the Season 5 finale, Ben stabbed Jacob, but it wasn’t with the special dagger (I know, because I rewatched that scene). If my timeline is correct, at the time when Ben killed Jacob, the dagger was in the Temple with Dogen. We know that MIB couldn’t kill Jacob himself, but there’s no indication that Jacob is indestructible like Flocke (Smokey).

The Rules

So, the protector of the island can just make up the rules? When young Jacob and BIB were playing Senet on the beach, Jacob complained that BIB was making up the rules. BIB responded with “One day you can make up your own game and everyone will have to follow your rules.” According to Mother, she made the rules that wouldn’t allow the boys to leave or to kill each other.

Why did young Jacob come to Flocke in the jungle and say, “You know the rules. You can’t kill him.”? Who did he mean? Was he talking about Sawyer, who was with him at the time? Maybe he was just reminding MIB that he can’t kill the candidates.

Also, why can young Jacob just appear? We know he’s not the Smoke Monster taking the form of Jacob. I can’t make sense of the dead appearing to some and not others. Why could BIB see his dead mother, but Jacob couldn’t? When BIB asked her, she said Jacob couldn’t see her because she was dead. Maybe BIB can see his dead mother because he’s “special.” Hurley sees dead people. We know Walt was special. What does this all mean? Arghh!

Ok, I’ve digressed. Back to the rules… We’ve seen Ben and Widmore reference the rules. When Creepy Keamy killed Alex, Ben said, “He changed the rules.” I thought at the time that he was referring to Charles, but maybe he was talking about Jacob. There are other references made by Ben and Widmore, but I won’t go into all of them now. I wonder if they all stem from Jacob, or if Ben and Widmore made up their own rules.

Other Randoms

*I’m interested in Jacob’s demeanor in all the episodes in which we’ve seen him. As a boy he seemed very conflicted in so many areas. He loved and wanted to believe his mother, but he also loved and wanted to believe his brother. When MIB killed Mother, Jacob got very angry (and we know what he did to MIB). When we saw him again in the Season 5 finale, his interaction with MIB was very calm and unfazed, although when we saw him first interact with Richard, he seemed a little confused about MIB and how to handle the situation. His interactions with the candidates off the island were very calm and seemingly caring, but not very emotional. Then when Ben and Flocke came into the statue, Jacob realized that it was MIB and said, “You found your loophole.”, leading me to believe he knew what was going to happen. He was teary-eyed and more troubled. Do you see what I’m trying to say? His emotional state really varied, and I’m wondering if there’s any significance to that. Maybe this is not important at all. I don’t know. With only 3 1/2 hours of LOST left, I have to think that many of my thoughts and questions will prove to me unimportant, or at least unanswered.

*I do wonder if Jacob was ready to die. Mother seemed to be peaceful about dying when her time came. Jacob knew that the candidates were coming. After Ben stabbed him, and before Flocke kicked him into the fire, he said, “They’re coming.” He hadn’t been able to have communion with anyone, the passing of the protection torch with the sharing of the special wine, but maybe Jacob was ready to give up the protector status.

*I was hoping to get some info. on Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore this episode. I really thought we would learn of a connection between the Romans, the original “Others”, and Eloise Hawking. I know she wasn’t alive in the 1700’s, but I was just hoping for something that would explain her connection.

*All three of the main characters in this episode seemed very conflicted to me. I talked about Jacob above, but BIB and Mother seemed that way too. Mother was crazy, but still constantly worried about everything. We know the stories of the candidates and they are all conflicted people too. Is that a requirement for protecting the island? Does it have to be someone who has a tragic life story?

Ok, that’s it. Let me know what you thought about this episode. I’m trying really hard not to feel disappointed in the lack of answers and just go with it. I’m really hoping that the last two episodes are jam packed with great stuff. I know we won’t walk away knowing everything, but I hope we’ll leave with a sense of satisfaction.