Hellmouth. The Lost island is like Sunnydale High, corking the f'ing Hellmouth. Hijinks ensue.

I hate subtitles. If I wanted to read, I wouldn't watch TV.

That said - this episode kicked ass. I think a key takeaway was when Jacob referred to the wine as evil, malevolance, darkness, and other names, which to me holds out hope for something a little more fundamental than Abrahamic pantheon MMA fighting.

What could be better than a LOST period piece? WHAT?

Oh, one containing Richard Alpert's back story, THAT'S WHAT!!

And with a mention of Hanso! The Black Rock!

HELL!

I like any LOST episode that has multiple stabbings. Not enough stabbing on TV these days.

I was also wondering why all those sticks of dynamite Locke and the guys used to blow the hatch, wasn't seen or referenced when they showed us the ship last night.
BUT SERIOUSLY! How did that ship break the statue and wind up in the jungle? Did I blink and miss something?

@Steve: At one point they showed the ship flying through the air. I think it was "Jacob magick".

The giant wave basically sent the boat into the top of the statue, the rest of the wave probably knocked everything down. successive waves probably washed it into the jungle deep. That's a lot of probably's, but I'll roll with it.

Not only is the Magnus Hanso connection really blatant now, but I thought it was interesting that the guy who came and got Richard had the last name of Widson or Widsmith or something similar to WidMORE. But that's probably just some grasping on my part.

The audience at The Bagdad actually applauded after the hard cut to black post smoke monster attack. That scene was ridiculously tense, and was probably the only time a commercial break wasn't greeted with groans and "Jesus Christ, ANOTHER ONE?" They of course, made up for that by shoehorning in 3 more commercial breaks after that, and a recap of V done by the same people who used to do the BSG recaps.

Anyone else think Hurley was lying/not being very truthful about Isabella's unheard final words (Which should have been where the episode ended instead of panning over to morose/sinister Smokey and then cutting to Jacob playing pass-the-wine) Because it looked to me like Hurley was being less than truthful, dipping his head, not making eye contact.

Anyway, I think I'm solidifying my theory regarding the alt-verse:

The Alt-Verse is what Smokey is promising to people in exchange for letting him go, and we're seeing the good parts. But he's probably not showing the shit side of things, because he's great at lying via omission. He promises Sayid he can be with Nadia - but only as a brother-in-law. Claire gets her baby...but now she's broke and alone in LA.

So as this rolls on, eventually he's going to show the Losties this alt-verse, that will turn to hell once he lets them inhabit it. They don't know this, so their choice will be to let him get off the island and pursue this alt-verse paradise, or fight him, and keep him there.

My guesses: Jack will replace Jacob. Hurley will replace Richard. Kate will die in the fight against Smokey, sacrificing herself for the island and for Sawyer, who, along with the other Losties, will be rewarded with entry into another Lost-verse, provided by Jacob, wherein Sawyer in fact DOES get to go dutch with Juliette on some coffee and live happily ever after, while Jack, Hurley, and Smokey stay on the island.

Another very interesting theory I heard: Desmond is Jacob and Smokey's BROTHER, and the island's constant. As in no matter what, he's constantly jumping time-periods, never having one of his own, never knowing that's what he's doing. Not quite sure how that one works out, but I really do like it.

This was my favorite episode of the season by far.

There are only a few of the chosen who would actually work as Island Keeper.
1) Hurley: He's loyal and straight forward, and has little if anything to drag him back off the island. Plus his ability to speak to dead people would allow Jacob to groom his for the roll.
2) Sayid: He appears to be reborn since dying earlier in the season, & his back story (pre the current season) mirrors Richard's quite a bit with the lost love angle. Maybe he is the new Richard instead?
3) Shepard: The constant yen to Locke's yang. It would make since that these two would remain at battle until the end of time. I also assume that "Island" Jack doesn't know that he has a son in "Non-Crash" Jack world, so is in no hurry to get back home.

The most of the other candidates all appear to have responsibilities back home (Sun, Jin & Kate all have kids to look after). Sawyer could be chosen, but he appears to be too interested with getting off the island himself to worry about protecting it.


My main question with all this candidate stuff is why did it take so long? It seems that if the man in black was on the island all this time he would have made his presence known & tried to play out the killing of Jacob a lot sooner. All the people who have died on the island, why did he wait for Locke's body to return before he took a familiar shape? Was he using Jack father's body before he got Locke's?
Also what the odds that they never bother to explain why no one but Claire was able to successfully squeeze out a tad pole on the island?
The more I think about the show the more I hate it, but only 7 more episodes left before I go through withdraws.

At the end of last season we saw the Black Rock cruising around the island on a perfectly calm sunny day, with Jacob telling the mensch in black that he brought those folks to the island. I submit that once the boat was in the island's orbit, both jacob and mib knew that it wouldn't be able to leave, and would definitely be landing (like how desmond couldn't escape the orbit on his boat, etc.). So! mib is like, if they're going to land, then I'm going to use my wizard powers to create a big storm, and thrust the boat at the statue (aka Jacob's lair), and then when they land I'll totally go all black smoke on them and rip out their guts. So that's what he did! And that's why the boat was magically thrust upward into the heavens by a big wave, smashing into the statue, breaking it, and then landing far inland. I mean, someone had to have been helping that boat air dunk into the statue.

Also, I don't think that jacob and mib are necessarily god and satan. That's xtian shit, and it probably won't stand, what with the statue and all the other non-christian icons we've seen. But those folks are something along those lines, obviously.

Anyway, I liked this episode. It was powerful, and presented me with emotions I could feel.

woah, three mega-comments in a span of 4 minutes. THIS SHOW.

I think this episode answered why it took Smokey so long - he tried the straightforward approach with Richard, and ended up getting Richard employed as Jacob's prophet. He basically created a hybrid Moses/Jesus/St. Paul.

Straightforward isn't going to work. So at some point, he decides he's gonna have to corrupt the guy working directly under/with Richard, by imitating Jacob. And then THAT undertaking is going to necessitate some subterfuge beyond "Here's your dead wife, now go kill the devil." In order to get Ben perfectly in place to murder Jacob, some Sawyer-esque long conning has to go down.

There's obviously some attempts at this we missed inbetween 1867 and 1977, but I'm pretty sure we're getting a Jacob/Smokey episode between now and the finale, and that might fill in the blanks between this particular attempt, and the evolution towards the successful attempt that necessitated the long, convoluted con.

So here's my dumb question... What's Smokey's motivation for killing every MF who comes to the island? He wants Jacob dead, why not recruit a whole legion of castaways and throw everything he has at him?

Team Hurley.



Was it just me, or did Richard get the eyeliner after his first meeting with BSM? He so did.

Nerdliness: I think because at that point, he'd just shut himself inside of the foot, and then crash a wave down on the beach or summon some polar bears or some shit and wipe everyone out.

Then he'd bring in a new ship/plane, and try it again.

I really liked this episode, especially since most of it involved Richard pulling out the Batmanuel accent. My big question from this episode is how did Isabella's spirit get to the island? It wasn't clear whether or not it was the MIB impersonating her when he was locked up. So far it seems that he only takes the form of dead people brought to the island (Christian, Locke).

I'm really hoping we get Mile-centric episode soon, which can cover the whole Sawyer arresting Kate thing, as opposed to another boring-as-hell Kate-centric episode.

@Fatty "All of this has happened before..."

There's more than a few tonal similarities with BSG at this point, and I don't think they're unintentional. For awhile there, most showrunners were taking time out of their day to watch BSG. Whedon got completely addicted to it, which you can see in the greater storyarc of Dollhouse.

BFiddy, maybe Isabella's spirit was in that cross?

Any episode where Kate doesn't die is a dissapointment. I'm still downtrodden at how close we came last week.

Better episode. Some plot advancement and a sufficient set-up for next week, hopefully.

Richard got to flex his acting chops, which was nice. He was great and for once I didn't mind the focus on just one character's story line.

That last meeting between Jacob and the MIB was very reminiscent of the old Wolf and Sheepdog Warner Bros. cartoon.

"Morning, Sam."
"Morning, Ralph."