UPDATE: Here's Doc Jensen's review of the episode. It's definitely worth reading.
So, they're all dead? Or did they save themselves? So much to ponder and break down.
Did Jack's plan work?
Will next season mirror season one? Will the plane still crash? Or will they board Ajira and crash later in time?
There's no way they're done with the island. Or that it's done with them. Of that, I'm certain.
And so now that guy in the beginning of the show is Locke or in Locke's body? Or has Locke always been that guy?
Will the hiatus, as Michael Emerson (aka Ben) predicted, make you eat your soul?
What do you think is coming in Season Six? Claire will return. We've already learned that.
Discuss!
Posts
26 comments:
I want more answers! Who's the dude in the black shirt. The anti-Jacob. Is this a battle of brothers like Cane and Abel in the Bible?
The very end was expected. That the bomb would go off.
The whole thing with Locke not being Locke was not.
I wonder if Stella is right about the Biblical brothers idea.
I'm racking my brain to figure out what this means for next season. Clearly, the bomb going off didn't cause the electromagnetic pull that crashes the plane. What we don't know is, did the bomb stop that pull?
Will season six begin with the plane crash?
And, I really thought Jin and Sun would reunite.
But how great was it to see Rose and Bernard. I love that they are retired and have essentially been hiding from Sawyer, Jin, Juliet and the rest.
I can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts.
Can anyone translate the answer to "What Lies in the Shadow of the Statue?"
Perhaps what Rose and Bernard told Jack, Sawyer, Juliet and Kate is the moral of the story. Why try to change things or prevent something from happening? Why not just leave it up to fate and enjoy life while you can?
Another observation: Last week I suggested that perhaps Locke was not really Locke. We see that play out tonight, but I wonder if the person that inhabit's Locke's body (or what looks like Locke) good or bad?
Could Aaron be New Jacob or somehow tied to the island like Jacob is/was?
Could the bomb going off in 1977change anything about what was happening in 2007?
Couple of things..
Who is this woman? who speaks, presumably a slavic language..
Haven't we seen the foot before?
I want to say that almost every great character actor from Deadwood had significant roles on Lost, Titus Welliver was the other man in the first scene with Jacob.
I think John Locke was John Locke until he was murdered by Ben. The loophole is on the Ajira flight, somewhere. I want to know more about Ellie. How will they answer all these questions in 22 hours? (or is it 24???)
Found this on another site about what stands in the shadow of the statue ...
"Ille nos qua servabit," which translates to "The one who will guard us."
I have another question. How can Richard be in two different times, 1977 and 2007? I thot 1977 was happening in parallel time with 2007...
In the Bible, Jacob has a twin brother named Esau. Jealousy deception ...
check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob
To answer your question, Stella, I think Other Guy is evil... but Jacob has a touch of that.. I wonder why they just showed Jacob in only some of the survivors' lives and in different time periods. And then we flashed back on others (Juliette) but no Jacob. And then Jacob prompts Nadya (sp?) 's death.
What's the deal with that..?
How funny was it for Jacob to show up everywhere. It cracked me up. I can see a SNL skit about this.
Sorry, Jennifer, thot the other guy question was Stella. My bad.
Was Jacob in the surgery room where Jack and Christian were working/fighting?
When I saw the two guys at the beginning of the ep, two things struck me: a) how male dominated this show is because b) there is always a struggle over time on the island between two men with two different philosophies. (jack v. john; charles v. ben; other guy v. Jacob)
So, what is not Jacob's cabin? Was it the other guy at the beginning? What was with the ashes?
Is Smokey that guy?
(actually, it's Rose and Bernard's cabin, but ...)
Does the bomb going off wipe out everything? Hopfully, it won't be like Bobby Ewing was in the shower and not dead or it all happened in a snow globe in the mind of an autistic child.
I really think we should probably be holding these discussions at the seminary instead of on the Internet.
Going with the biblical theme, I wonder if Ben and the Other represent the followers of Jacob, and Charles and his people represent the followers of Esau.
Wow. Just an amazing episode. And while we do have some answers (why Pierre Chang's got a prothetic arm in some Dharma videos; how Hurley knew about Ajira 316; how Nadia got killed), we have, as usual, even more questions.
How did Jacob's enemy (hmmm, could his name perhaps be Esau?) occupy John Locke's body when John Locke's body was still in a coffin? And how does he know everything Locke knew?
Why did Jacob show up at crucial moments in the lives of the Oceanic Six? In some cases (Hurley's and Sayid's), Jacob played a direct role in getting them back to the Island. But then, he also showed up at a crucial moment for young James Ford, who isn't one of the O6. He showed up speaking Russian to Ilana in a field hospital, and she seemed to know him and regard him as a friend. So maybe she and the Shadow crew really are good guys? The Thing That Was Locke sure doesn't seem like a good guy, now, does he?
Interestingly, of all the finale's flashbacks, I think only Juliet's did not involve Jacob. And she seems to be the "major" death of the finale, having fallen down the drilling well and then detonated the H-bomb. I really, really hate to think of Juliet not being around for the last season of LOST. She was so fatalistic about losing James, too, which bothered me. I wanted to see her fight more for him!
For a while I thought it would be Sayid who's the big death, because it's certainly not looking good for him. But as far as we know, he's still bleeding out by the VW bus when the H-bomb detonates.
And anyway, if the H-bomb goes off, shouldn't everyone on the Island in 1977 be dead? That seems rather problematic for a sixth season. I have no idea how they are going to resolve this cliffhanger.
PS: Was I sorry to see Phil get impaled by magnetized rebar or whatever it was?
Nope. Not even a little bit.
It's interesting that the show combines biblical parables along with Egyptian symbolism. One connection might be that the pharaoh Akhenaten was one of history's earliest known monotheists and some believe he was an inspiration to Moses.
Akhenaten and Moses
Further information: Moses and Monotheism
The idea of Akhenaten as the pioneer of a monotheistic religion that later became Judaism has been considered by various scholars.[35][36][37][38][39][40] One of the first to mention this was Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in his book Moses and Monotheism.[41] Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten's death. Freud argued that Akhenaten was striving to promote monotheism, something that the biblical Moses was able to achieve.[35] Following his book, the concept entered popular consciousness and serious research.
Other scholars and mainstream Egyptologists point out that there are direct connections between early Judaism and other Semitic religious traditions.[42] They also state that two of the three principal Judaic terms for God, Yahweh, Elohim (meaning roughly "the lofty one", morphologically plural), and Adonai (meaning "our lord", also morphologically plural) have no connection to Aten. Freud commented on the connection between Adonai, the Egyptian Aten and the Syrian divine name of Adonis as a primeval unity of language between the factions;[35] in this he was following the argument of Egyptologist Arthur Weigall, but the argument was groundless as 'Aten' and 'Adonai' are not, in fact, linguistically related.[43]
Akhenaten appears in history almost two-centuries prior to the first archaeological and written evidence for Judaism and Israelite culture is found in the Levant. Abundant visual imagery of the Aten disk was central to Atenism, which celebrated the natural world, while such imagery is not a feature of early Israelite culture,[44] Although pottery found throughout Judea dated to the end of the 8th century BC has seals resembling a winged sun disk burned on their handles, presumedly thought to be the royal seal of the Judean Kingdom.[45]
Ahmed Osman has claimed that Akhenaten's maternal grandfather Yuya was the same person as the Biblical Joseph. Yuya held the title "Overseer of the Cattle of Min at Akhmin" during his life.[46]
He likely belonged to the local nobility of Akhmim. Egyptologists hold this view because Yuya had strong connections to the city of Akhmin in Upper Egypt. This makes it unlikely that he was a foreigner since most Asiatic settlers tended to cloister around the Nile Delta region of Lower Egypt[47].[48] Some Egyptologists, however, give him a Mitannian origin. It is widely accepted that there are strong similarities between Akhenaten's Great Hymn to the Aten and the Biblical Psalm 104, though this form is found widespread in ancient Near Eastern hymnology both before and after the period and whether this implies a direct influence or a common literary convention remains in dispute.
Um, yeah, what Jeff said. JK. :-)
I'm posting a link to a Wikipedia entry on Esau for those of us with questions about what he represents if, in fact, that's who the black shirt dude is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esau
So I feel like I need to re-watch the entire five seasons over the summer and fall. January seems so far away!
Sorry to be late to the party. I watched with Stella and she posted some of my thoughts with hers earlier.
I'm convinced now that Jacob was never in the cabin. (See Locke's visit when Jacob supposedly says "Help me" and Hurley spotting the eye through the window.) I think anti-Jacob was imprisoned there by the ash circle (which someone conveniently broke through.)
I'm fascinated by Jacob's visits to the 815ers pre-crash. We also noted the touching. But what is the end-game? Why these people? I saw a comment on EW.com that posited that Jacob believes in humanity and redemption and anti-Jacob has no use for humanity because we destroy everything we touch. Hmmm.
And I'm confused about the "major" death in this episode. Are we certain about who in fact died?
I thought the lines at the beginning of the episode were interesting:
Dude with Jacob: They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.
Jacob: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.
Jeff, I just noticed that the statue was holding a cross so that's interesting too.
And Regina, I wondered about the parallels between all these rivals too. As for women, there is Ellie. I guess we learn tonight she was the leader of the Others.
One could argue that these male leaders were really all influenced by women. Juliet convinced Sawyer to leave the sub and let Jack do his thing.
Ben's daughter convinced him to follow Locke's lead. And Jack, well, Jack just did whatever the hell he wanted to do.
In case anyone is curious about what Jacob was reading when Locke fell from the window, here's a summary. The book's called Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor.
http://www.enotes.com/everything-rises
Just one year before her death in 1963, Flannery O’Connor won her second O. Henry Award for ‘‘Everything That Rises Must Converge,’’ a powerful depiction of a troubled mother-son relationship. In 1965 the story was published in her well-regarded short fiction collection, Everything That Rises Must Converge.
Most critics view ‘‘Everything That Rises Must Converge’’ as a prime example of O’Connor’s literary and moral genius. The story exemplifies her ability to expose human weakness and explore important moral questions through everyday situations. Considered a classic of the short story form, ‘‘Everything That Rises Must Converge’’ has been anthologized frequently.
The story describes the events surrounding a fateful bus trip that an arrogant young man takes with his bigoted mother. The mother insists on her son’s company because she doesn’t like to ride the bus alone, especially since the bus system was recently integrated. The tensions in their relationship come to a head when a black mother and son board the same bus.
O’Connor utilizes biting irony to expose the blindness and ignorance of her characters. The story’s title refers to an underlying religious message that is central to her work: she aims to expose the sinful nature of humanity that often goes unrecognized in the modern, secular world.
So many thoughts. The Jacob/Esau parallel is clear, but I'd offer another, that of Set/Horus -- Egyptian Gods who can represent order/Chaos or progress/chaos or maybe even faith/science. There's been a lot of discussion on the statue and some think it may be Set, guardian of chaos, or keeper of order, but the Egyptians also combined the two as sort of a duality/or struggling gods that kept the natural balance.
Now that balance is out of whack, and I have no idea what these people are going to do for season 6
From Wikipedia entry on Set:
The myth of Set's conflict with Horus, Osiris, and Isis appears in many Egyptian sources, including the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, the Shabaka Stone, inscriptions on the walls of the temple of Horus at Edfu, and various papyrus sources. The Chester Beatty Papyrus No. 1 contains the legend known as The Contention of Horus and Set. Classical authors also recorded the story, notably Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride.
These myths generally portray Osiris as a wise king and bringer of civilization, happily married to his sister, Isis. Set was envious of his younger brother, and he killed and dismembered Osiris. Isis reassembled Osiris' corpse and another god (in some myths Thoth and in others Anubis) embalmed him. As the archetypal mummy, Osiris reigned over the Afterworld as judge of the dead.
Osiris' son Horus was conceived by Isis with Osiris' corpse, or in some versions, only with pieces of his corpse. Horus naturally became the enemy of Set, and many myths describe their conflicts. In some of these myths Set is portrayed as Horus' older brother rather than uncle.
The myth incorporated moral lessons for relationships between fathers and sons, older and younger brothers, and husbands and wives.
It has also been suggested that the myth may reflect historical events. According to the Shabaka Stone, Geb divided Egypt into two halves, giving Upper Egypt (the desert south) to Set and Lower Egypt (the region of the delta in the north) to Horus, in order to end their feud. However, according to the stone, in a later judgment Geb gave all Egypt to Horus. Interpreting this myth as a historical record would lead one to believe that Lower Egypt (Horus' land) conquered Upper Egypt (Set's land); but, in fact Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt. So the myth cannot be simply interpreted. Several theories exist to explain the discrepancy. For instance, since both Horus and Set were worshiped in Upper Egypt prior to unification, perhaps the myth reflects a struggle within Upper Egypt prior to unification, in which a Horus-worshiping group subjected a Set-worshiping group. What is known is that during the Second Dynasty, there was a period in which the King Peribsen's name or Serekh - which had been surmounted by a Horus falcon in the First Dynasty - was for a time surmounted by a Set animal, suggesting some kind of religious struggle. It was ended at the end of the Dynasty by Khasekhemwy, who surmounted his Serekh with both a falcon of Horus and a Set animal, indicating some kind of compromise had been reached.
Regardless, once the two lands were united, Seth and Horus were often shown together crowning the new pharaohs, as a symbol of their power over both Lower and Upper Egypt. Queens of the 1st Dynasty bore the title "She Who Sees Horus and Set." The Pyramid Texts present the pharaoh as a fusion of the two deities. Evidently, pharaohs believed that they balanced and reconciled competing cosmic principles. Eventually the dual-god Horus-Set appeared, combining features of both deities (as was common in Egyptian theology, the most familiar example being Amun-Re).
Later Egyptians interpreted the myth of the conflict between Set and Osiris/Horus as an analogy for the struggle between the desert (represented by Set) and the fertilizing floods of the Nile (Osiris/Horus).
Whew! I just read Doc Jensen's recap and analysis of the finale. Good stuff...as always he picks up on things I missed or wondered about.
A lot of talk about Set as you mentioned Tim and Esau. Someone should seriously consider developing a college level class on Lost.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1550612_20245769_20278837,00.html
Post a Comment