The island wanted LOST SEASON SIX THREAD to happen (***CLICK CAREFULLY -- CONTAINS SPOILERS***)

Jack wasn't scared of his dad, just pretty freaked

doesn't eko say something to the effect that he knows it's not his brother?

Yeah, the working theory (haha) for now is that Smokey works for Titus Welliver aka Black Shirt aka Esau or whatever. This is mostly due to Smokey not killing Ben and telling him to do whatever Fake Locke wants right? Makes sense.

The cabin thing I think is explained but I'm a little confused on that. It's possible that everything with the cabin is Smokey/Black shirt-guy related, and he was trapped in the cabin until recently, the dead serving him, etc. all the way through season 3 when it was introduced.

What was that other thing? The one that took trees down and nearly sukced Locke underground... kinda thought it ws an early Smokey

that was smokey obv.

my theory would also be that whoever was inhabiting the cabin was smokey/black shirt guy all along, and he set up locke even at the stage of ben bringing them both to the cabin. ben didn't have a clue about who jacob was or wasn't anyway, as per the end of s5.

I think part of the problem was that the Locke episode in the last season was so badly written, ESPECIALLY the face-offs with Jack and Kate. They could have done so much more with those scenes than just "nyerr, you just want to go back to the island because you've never had a girlfriend".

Terry O'Quinn agrees with you, he said to a guy from Sky One that he thought Locke's attempts to talk everybody into coming back were 'pretty weak' ... and implied that Locke's being ineffectual made his attempted suicide scene work.

Given the fact that there have been a few scenes in which they're establishing that you never see Locke and smokey at the same time (latest example being Ben's confrontation with Alex), I think they're signalling pretty strongly that smokey, various dead folk, Locke, and Esau are all the same guy. Which is weird because sometimes the dead can touch you (Alex) and sometimes can't (Christian, Esau). And smokey seems to have no problem grabbing hold of people.

my theory would also be that whoever was inhabiting the cabin was smokey/black shirt guy all along, and he set up locke even at the stage of ben bringing them both to the cabin. ben didn't have a clue about who jacob was or wasn't anyway, as per the end of s5.

Yeah, agreed. Ilana pretty much confirmed this when she showed up at the cabin.

I'm having a hard time making all the details add up, but the impression I have is that Esau created the idea of Locke as 'special' or 'future leader of the Others', gave that idea to Locke, Locke wanders through time telling everyone that he's the leader of the Others, voila, he's the leader, and thus in a position to get close to Jacob. That's a hell of a long con, and I'm not even getting into the idea of Esau as pretending to be Jacob for years and years. It's dizzying!

locke is the first to actually encounter smokey, isn't he? and afterwards he seems almost euphoric - is that when the esau dude somehow connects with him?

Sorry, I should have said 'undead Locke and smokey aren't around at the same time' rather than 'Locke and smokey'.

I think your Esau long con theory works because of the time-travelling. Esau-Smokey-Locke only comes into existence post-2007 crash, after Real-Locke is dead in a box.

2007 Esau-Smokey-Locke simply tricks Alpert into getting Real-Locke, who's skipping through time, to go to the past and tell everyone he's the Others' leader... and voila, in the future, Locke is their leader.

i guess this is why the question of whether the bomb resets everything is pretty key - presumably all of Esau's plans hinge on Oceanic 815 crashing in the first place.

I think your Esau long con theory works because of the time-travelling. Esau-Smokey-Locke only comes into existence post-2007 crash, after Real-Locke is dead in a box.
2007 Esau-Smokey-Locke simply tricks Alpert into getting Real-Locke, who's skipping through time, to go to the past and tell everyone he's the Others' leader... and voila, in the future, Locke is their leader.

Exactly - you've got it. I think a lot of the setup for Locke as leader of the others comes in the last few eps of season 5. Richard seems really deferential to Locke in past episodes, but towards the end of season 5 he says that he didn't find anything special about Locke at all (the Dalai Lama selection scene in which Richard visits a child Locke). He's promoted to think of Locke as leader because Locke's told him he's the leader a few times in Richard's past. Richard follows through with this, and is also pretty amazed at stuff like the compass, etc.

The way I see it is that Locke and Esau had no connection at all until he reached the island. Once there Esau determines that this is the guy to usurp Ben's place as leader, nobody really sees why Locke is so great, but enough weird shit is happening around him that people like Richard say 'well, the island must have chosen you, okay'.

Jack, Kate and Charlie encounter Smokey in the very first episode, except we don't see him.

That long con theory definitely works apart from the question of why Jacob would bring Locke back to life when he falls from the building. But I don't suppose we know what Jacob wants with them all in the first place.

I'm not sure that Locke is necessarily completely dead, or entirely the man in black, he might be a new unaging Richard Alpert type. Locke didn't appear to recognise the statue foot when they arrived there in the last episode, which is a pretty big giveaway.

My own theory is that the Island is a prison and both Jacob and the other dude (I refuse to call him Esau) are trapped there but kind of cancel each other out. They can't kill each other for some reason. My guess is that the remaining survivors aren't there to save the Island at all, their destiny is to destroy it.

The Alpert/Ilana shit in the next season is going to be massively important, isn't it?

ooh i like the destroying the island theory.

Also what would have happened if Ben had pushed the wheel completely and not left it hanging? the people left behind would've just gotten stuck at the first timeline they travelled to.

More likely the island would have moved in space and there'd have been no time jumping at all.

i guess this is why the question of whether the bomb resets everything is pretty key - presumably all of Esau's plans hinge on Oceanic 815 crashing in the first place.

Jacob seems to be the guy who's interested in having people arrive on the island, so I don't see Esau working behind the scenes to make the crash happen. I think Jacob's 'they're coming' either refers to Ilana's crew or the 815ers (or both), both groups selected by Jacob off-island.

Jacob and the other dude (I refuse to call him Esau) are trapped there but kind of cancel each other out. They can't kill each other for some reason..

Same as Ben and Widmore. I assumed it was a timeloop thing - 'you can't kill me because I don't die' or something.

The Alpert/Ilana shit in the next season is going to be massively important, isn't it?

Yeah, not seeing how Jacob/OtherDude/Others communicate with each other for five seasons is kind of maddening. What the hell are their expectations of each other? What the hell do the Others think all day long?

The Others spend their time learning latin, honing their ninja skills and experimenting on pregnant women. Obvs.

If they drop the ball of explaining what the hell they were doing with kids and Walt I will be seriously bugged.

I thought they just wanted kids to raise as more Others as they couldn't have any of their own. Although they did say that most of the Others were 'recruited' rather than born on the island, but I have a feeling this is something they won't go into much further.

What's the significance of Ilana again? Still working through the end of S5...

I think Locke is one of the more interesting characters, on re-watch. I think first time round I was too influenced by him being a great boar-hunter, confident on the island etc that I thought there *was* an argument for him being genuinely "special".

However now it appears he's pretty easily manipulated and doesn't really understand the island at all - he believes he does, wants to and has been told he's special (because as mentioned above he later goes back and makes Alpert etc believe he is). There's a great scene that seems to illustrate this - Season 4 finale when Ben is chucking the stuff into the time machine thing down in the Orchid - he asks something like "so is this the magic box?" and Ben just looks at him like he's beyond stupid "...no!!"

The whole thing with him "realising" that entering the numbers in the hatch was an experiment... he sees a whole set of TVs in that hatch with one or two switched on and monitoring the Swan hatch, then sees a video saying that the hatch he's in can be used to monitor psychological experiments. Cue him trying to prevent the numbers being entered.
Later they go back to the monitoring hatch and someone else switches on the other TVs which are pointing all over the island. (IE *these* were where the experiments are, rather than the Swan? Never quite clear on that...) Locke: "well, now I feel stupid".

If he's really just a bumbling fool, I'm still not sure what the deal was with him hearing Jacob in the cabin first time round, though.

Jacob goes to see Ilana in hospital, she's covered in bandages, he says he needs her help for something. Next thing we know she's on her way to the island with Sayid in tow.

Maybe whatever was in the cabin wanted to be seen by Locke, and didn't want to be seen by Ben?

My thought was that Locke's not hearing Jacob at all, but MIB/Esau. It's important for Locke to be seen as having the hotline to the gods rather than Ben, so Ben gets cut out of the exchange.

Locke's a really tragic figure on rewatch because you used to think of him as becoming special by means of his own agency - now you see he's just a pawn. Kate makes the point that he's obsessed with finding meaning in his life rather than just living it and finding meaning that way. Both Ben and Locke are so messed up by their fathers being complete bastards that they have no ability to accept or forgive themselves for being what they are, so they think the only way for them to be worthy is to serve a higher power.

Season 4 finale when Ben is chucking the stuff into the time machine thing down in the Orchid - he asks something like "so is this the magic box?" and Ben just looks at him like he's beyond stupid "...no!!"

That just kills me every time. I think that's the funniest Ben reaction shot ever. 'I'm a Pisces' might be close second.

"This rabbit didn't happen to have a number on it, did it?"

Also "My mother taught me to read" and "Who cares?" on the plane.

Ben seriously cracks me up.

I don't think it will happen as the writers have set up his redemption arc very well but I really hope it doesn't boil down to Locke being a pawn his whole life cause that's a horrible cop-out for a great character.

I don't think it will happen as the writers have set up his redemption arc very well but I really hope it doesn't boil down to Locke being a pawn his whole life cause that's a horrible cop-out for a great character.

I don't know if it's a cop-out but a warning for what happens when you attempt to outsource your reason to live - Jacob's 'what about you?' sounds a lot like '... and couldn't you have been finding some other source of happiness rather than demanding it of me?' to me. At this point I don't know how you redeem Locke, him being dead and all. Unless his life and memories affect MIB in some way.

I'm thinking (or hoping) that both Locke and Jack - both having reached punishment for their stances on faith vs. reason, both find some kind of salvation in the final year, since supposedly that is one of the main themes for this eason. I don't think the showrunners are really going to just throw Locke down the well as far as being a total chump since Day 1, but even if they do it would fit the show as we've seen - but I don't think this show is inherently that pessimistic (though they love cruel irony and melodrama).

apologies if already posted: Final Season of Lost...

Nice, I am suitably chastised.

Love that the producers are in there ...

Government Modeling Efforts on Successful Containment of "The Wire" Fans

lol @ Onion video

There is absolutely no question that Locke is Esau in the last ep. At the v end Jacob says "you found your loophole" which pretty much makes it a certainty.

Indeed

sup frackles

plus you know...the small issue of the entire plot of that story arc in the finale being that locke was being controlled by dude in black because he wanted to find a way to kill jacob...

jacob didnt seem too worried about anything

yeah esau seemed more worried about the people coming than jacob did about getting stabbed

He wove his own kevlar vest one thread at a time

yeah jacob was super-relaxed...i bet he was still smiling beatifically even after locke threw him onto the fire

well, he was all "i'll be right here" when the guy said he'd find a way to kill him. kinda fits in with the whole "help me" thing of Jacob being trapped in the cabin or on the island (even if apparently that may have been the other guy all along, i guess).

Yeah, I was wondering that too. Also why MIB had no idea where Jacob might be, I thought that was strange that he didn't know and had to be led there.

Well he couldn't have said if he knew as how would Locke have known?

if i was esau i would've had some of jacob's fish you know. looked pretty good. "i just ate" - oh what you ate better than stone cooked fish on a leaf okay

human souls are probably tastier to egyptian aliens than fish.

xxp though i don't really get why he didn't just kill jacob himself instead of talking ben into it?

Well he couldn't have said if he knew as how would Locke have known?

Well, he's MIB with Locke's memories. And I was thinking that there was a point to Jacob's "When you do I'll be right here". Pretty minor point though. The 'I just ate' line will be referenced again, I betcha. I think MIB eats bowls of iron filings for breakfast.

No I mean more like...wouldn't they have got suspicious maybe if he knew stuff that Locke couldn't have known, like Jacob's whereabouts?

xxp though i don't really get why he didn't just kill jacob himself instead of talking ben into it?

yeah not sure...is this the "loophole"?

though i don't really get why he didn't just kill jacob himself instead of talking ben into it?

Maybe he needed a real live human to do it?

I still think it's more likely that Locke is possessed, or there's part of him in there as well as the dude in black. I don't think the writers would wipe him out completely and then leave his spirit form wandering around for ages.

The other flaw in the Long Con argument was that it depended on Ben, Jack, Ellie and the woman in the butcher's shop bringing Locke's body back in the correct way. We don't yet know what prompted Ben to take that course of action though.

the white flash reset everything so Locke is still alive but wheelchair-bound. So now there are three Lockes?

yeah possibly possessed...but then the dead body thing seems a pretty explicit way of saying "there's locke and here's this complete imposter". but yeah it would be weird if the real locke was just gone now for the entire rest of the show...

No I mean more like...wouldn't they have got suspicious maybe if he knew stuff that Locke couldn't have known, like Jacob's whereabouts?

Oh man, of course, you're right. Though he did charge around acting like he knew all sorts of things because 'the island told me', so what he's professing to know is pretty inconsistent.

The other flaw in the Long Con argument was that it depended on Ben, Jack, Ellie and the woman in the butcher's shop bringing Locke's body back in the correct way. We don't yet know what prompted Ben to take that course of action though.

Yeah, this kind of depends on who Ben/the Others were actually taking orders from - Ben says that he has to get Locke back there, and Widmore is very keen on getting Locke back there as well, which makes me wonder if MIB was ordering people around from the cabin as Jacob. But it is a pretty big hole.

xpost yeah if he'd really done his homework on locke he could have ranted on about anything!