Lower Decks

Jack Shephard was one of my favorite characters from the first couple seasons of LOST.  And what wasn’t to like?  He was the reluctant leader who took charge because no one else would.  He did a lot of things for the good of the group, and despite his feelings, he respectfully stepped out of the way when it seemed Kate had made her Jack/Sawyer decision.  But since the shocking end to the third season, Jack has seemed off.  He is less focused, less of a leader, and less enjoyable to watch, and I can honestly say that I don’t like Jack as much as I used to.  But, in classic LOST fashion, “The Lighthouse” sheds new light on Jack, and all of the sudden, Jack is back at the forefront of everything.

This episode is a huge step into understanding what really happened when the bomb exploded in last season’s finale.  I think we all imagined that, if the plan was going to work, it would simply reset what had happened.  Everything that happened since the plane had crashed would be erased, but everything before the crash would be the same.

A couple of things in the premiere showed that to be false – Hurley’s luck, Jack’s fear of flying, and Charlie’s suicidal thoughts.  But outside of Shannon choosing not to come back with Boone, there didn’t seem to be any major changes.

Even Kate’s episode seemed to illustrate that the world wasn’t much different than we knew.  Kate was still a fugitive, and Claire was still going to give her baby up for adoption.  Other than Ethan showing up as a doctor in Los Angeles, things seemed to be going the way it would’ve gone in the original timeline.

Locke’s life was a little more different.  He was still with Helen, and without the Island, his faith was still in major jeopardy.  The biggest change seems to be with his father, but we were never really given any concrete details there.

But then came Jack.  No matter what you think of him, Jack Shephard is the star of the show.  He’s the first guy we met, and he’s the overwhelming leader in flashback episodes.  In a world of connected people, Jack seems to have the most connected threads – especially when you include Christian Shephard, Jack’s enigmatic father.

Jack was the first one to have a flash-forward, and he’s the first one to drop a huge bombshell in the alternate universe.  Because not only did the hydrogen bomb save the plane, sink the Island, and change Shannon’s travel plans – it created life.  Jack, in the alternate timeline, has a son named David.

And it starts to open up possibilities – I assume that the big differences in the timeline all stem from Jacob’s activity.  If the Island was destroyed, Jacob (alive or not) wouldn’t have a lot of reason to try and impact the Oceanic 815 survivors’ lives.  So I imagine that all changes would start from the moment Jacob was supposed to show up (when Sawyer wrote the letter to his parents’ killer, when Kate stole the lunchbox, and the moment after Jack’s first solo surgery…the famous “count to five” incident).

Now we don’t know enough to answer this question, but we have to ask if David was born before or after the “count to five” surgery.  If it was, my theory could be right.  If it was before, it doesn’t hold a lot of water.  I guess we’ll see.

But the bigger question is who David’s mother is.  Knowing LOST, it’s likely someone we have met before, but the writers, of course, keep the mother’s identity a secret.  But there are candidates – Juliet, Ana-Lucia, and Sarah (Jack’s ex-wife) are the major ones because it didn’t seem like Kate and Jack knew each other when they saw each other on the plane.  You’d also think, if David’s mother was a fugitive, that would’ve come up.

I’m going to lean towards Juliet as the mother.  I know she never met Jacob, but I just have a gut feeling.  But the mother could also be irrelevant – you never know with these writers.

The main storyline in the episode is Jack’s fear that he’s turning into his father.  Just like it was with Christian, Jack’s relationship with David is strained.  Jack’s mother explains that David could be just as scared of Jack as Jack was with his own father.  This causes Jack to do his best to make things right.

What’s interesting about Jack, as opposed to the Others, is that memories of the Island seem to be seeping through.  Jack doesn’t remember his appendix surgery (which happend to him as a child in the alternate timeline), and it might be because his appendix was taken out on the Island in the original one.

It’s interesting that only Jack seems to have any idea that the world was reset, and I’m interesting to find out when/if he figures out what really happened.

The story in the flash-sideways, itself, is nice – but the major payoff is David’s existence.  Dogen appearing off-Island continues to drive home that these people are connected, and it explains that even true Others had to find real lives off-Island.

In the real world, things continue to move forward.  Jacob re-appears to Hurley, sending him on a mission to a mysterious lighthouse in order to make sure someone is able to get back to the Island.  But, in typical Jacob fashion, Hurley is simply the tool to get Jack to the lighthouse.

Jacob has Hurley manipulate Jack into leaving the Temple, which has to frustrate Dogen.  He didn’t want to let anyone out of the locked-down Temple, but now the only people left are Miles and Sayid.  And if Dogen had his way, Sayid would be dead.  If you’d ask him, things aren’t really going according to plan.

On the way, Jack and Hurley stumble upon Kate (who lets them know that she’s looking for Claire), but the cool part is the return of the Caves.  The Caves were a major part of season one, but they were completely forgotten after the Hatch was opened.  It was cool to see Jack back there, and there was a lot of good continuity with the appearance of the smashed coffin and the return of Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve are still a mystery, and there have been a lot of theories surrounding them.  Ever since the LOST producers hinted at their significance in the overall mythos of the show, fans have been speculating on who they would be.  I’ve read theories that they are Rose and Bernard, Kate and Jack, and other combination of male/female characters.  Hurley even references these theories with his idea that time travel was involved.

But the white and black stones (found in the hands of the bodies) makes it seem like these were former “candidates”.  More on that later.

But that’s where the real meat of the episode lies.  When Jack and Hurley arrive at the lighthouse, they discover another place where Jacob kept track of various candidates.  Just like the cliff-side caves that the LockeMonster showed Sawyer last week, many names are written in the lighthouse, and each are assigned a number.  Someone more dedicated than me has put together a list of all the names and numbers, and with a couple of minor exceptions, the lists are identical.

And thanks to the wheel in the lighthouse, we learn that various other survivors (including Kate) were listed as candidates with other numbers.  What’s interesting is that some names are crossed out (Miles, for example) and some aren’t (Kate).  So being crossed isn’t necessarily connected to being dead.

The LockeMonster explained last week that Jacob was looking for his replacement.  But thinking about it, you have to wonder if the LockeMonster is also looking for his own candidate.  Is there a chance that the LockeMonster has to find a replacement before he’s allowed to “go home?”  It would certainly explain why he’s gone out of his way to find two potential candidates (Sawyer and, by the end of the episode, Jin).

And if the LockeMonster really is looking for the candidates, it would seem that Jin would have to be the person listed on the wall.  Because he didn’t seem terribly interested in taking Sun with him, and she would’ve been the first candidate he’d met.

Anyway, the idea of Jacob spying on Jack is enough to drive the good doctor a little insane.  And just like he did with his father’s coffin, Jack loses his cool and smashes the mirrors in the lighthouse.  A few minutes later, Jack is staring into the ocean, wondering what in the Hell he’s supposed to do.

And when Hurley, disappointed, tries to explain himself to Jacob – Jacob reveals his true plan.  I loved last year’s quote from Jacob to the Monster (“It only ever ends once, the rest is just progress”) and he offers another gem in this episode when he’s telling Hurley what he was trying to accomplish with Jack.

“Sometimes you can just hop in the back of someone’s cab and tell them what they’re supposed to do.  Other times, you have to let them lo0k out at the ocean for a while.”

And I just love that – he tells Hurley that Jack has to figure out what he’s supposed to do on his own. It’s a great symbol of what Jacob is trying to do. Unlike what the LockeMonster says, I don’t think Jacob is being manipulative – I think he’s simply guiding people to the right path.  Although I could also see the argument that such an action is just as bad.

What’s interesting is that Jacob tells Hurley that they had to get away from the Temple.  It’s obvious that the LockeMonster is on his way to the Temple, but I’m curious why he chose to only save Jack and Hurley.  And I’m also curious what the Monster plans on doing once he gets there.

The rest of the episode deals with the cliffhanger from a couple episodes ago.  Claire saves Jin, and she brings him back to her base camp.  She also brings the other Other, who pleads with Jin to turn against Claire.

Claire has obviously taken Rousseau’s place on the Island.  Being left alone on the Island hasn’t done a lot for her sanity, and she spends most of her time looking for Aaron (she keeps a fake baby in a crib inside her makeshift tent).

Claire is led to believe that the Others have her child, on the advice of her father and her “friend.”  By the end of the episode, it turns out that her “friend” is the LockeMonster.

And this is another sign that Christian Shephard is in league with the Monster.  Like I’ve pointed out before, it seemed like Christian was directly leading Locke to his death and return (so that the Monster could take his form).  But this is the first connection that isn’t speculated upon - Claire actually says that they both told her that the Others had Aaron.

Jungle Claire is an interesting character, and I think it’s an interesting dynamic.  But there’s something a bit odd about it – the Other claims that Claire has been killing his people for three years.  And that would imply that Claire has been in the “present” since the Island was moved.

Does that mean that Claire wasn’t involved in the time jumps?  We know that everyone on the Island wasn’t  (Richard and the Others didn’t jump with the Island), but Claire would be the first Oceanic survivor who didn’t jump.  There’s a chance she’s connected with Sun, who was the only Oceanic survivor who didn’t travel back to the 1970s during the Ajira flight (maybe it’s related to the fact that both were pregnant on the Island?)

And Claire’s line about killing Kate if she’d taken Aaron is interesting.  Kate came back to the Island to make things right, and there’s a chance that it could lead to her death.  When they fight, it will certainly be intriguing to watch.

It’s a little sad that sweet, little Claire is the survivor who’s done the worst.  Whether or not the rest of the Oceanic survivors are happy with their post-crash lives, none of them are as worse-off as Claire.  Like with Locke, I’m hoping things can turn around for her (in either timeline).

And there you have it - Jacob has a plan for Jack, someone is coming to the Island, and the LockeMonster has a growing group alongside him (Sawyer, Claire, and maybe Jin).  And in the alternate universe, it seems the rules are completely off.

More questions posed and more questions answered.  So far, I’ve loved this season, and I can’t wait to see what happens next week.  Until then…