SPOILER ALERT – Lost Season 6 “The Substitute”

As is so often the case with Lost, “The Substitute” provoked some thinkings.

The Reality We are Familiar with

As I watched Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster attempting to tempt Richard and successfully tempting Sawyer, I exclaimed (out loud of course) at the TV, “You’re the devil!” and then I laughed. I sounded just like Mike Myers as Philip the Hyper-Hypo on SNL, when Nicole Kidman’s character (Grace?) tempted him with a Hershey bar.

The point is I think “The Substitute” provides more evidence that Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster is Satan (or Lucifer, or the Devil, assuming those aren’t all the same guy), and therefore, so is The Man in Black (Guy-in-Black, whatever), since I am still convinced that The Smoke Monster and Man in Black are somehow related.

Fake John Locke’s successful tempting of Sawyer into going with him to the cave and (presumably) leaving the island to “go home” brought to light a couple of alternatives or variations on the Jacob v. Guy-in-Black Dichotomies I spoke of in a previous blog posting, as well as some more evidence for a couple of the dichotomies I discussed there. It also brought to light evidence against one of my posited dichotomies, where I suggest that Jacob is the Protector of the People and Guy-in-Black is the Protector of the Island; I don’t believe that is likely anymore, since Fake John Locke claims that Jacob was the Protector of the Island, though anything is still possible.

There are two pieces of evidence for what I said before. First, Fake John Locke throws a white stone into the ocean that had been on a scale with a black stone, explaining it was an inside joke. Clearly, that inside joke referred to Jacob v. Guy-in-Black, regardless of what they represent, and Guy-in-Black’s indirect murdering and eliminating of Jacob. Obviously, that is the classic Black is Evil and White is Good…But then again, is that really so black and white? The other piece of evidence for things I’ve said came in the form of Guy-in-Black's statements suggesting that Jacob falsely makes people think they have a choice when the “reality” is they don’t. Thus, he emphasized the dichotomy I posited, Free Will (Jacob) v. Destiny (Guy-in-Black).

The first alteration or variation on dichotomies I suggested previously is:

Master, Evil, or possibly but doubtfully Good (Jacob) v. Some kind of enslaved being, therefore, either Good, Misunderstood, or Evil (Guy-in-Black via The Smoke Monster). If this is the case, Guy-in-Black and The Smoke Monster are trapped on the island, enslaved, or somehow held captive by Jacob or whomever the Master, or “Protector of the Island,” is (assuming Fake John Locke was being truthful in his explanation of our special characters being candidates to take over the Jacob job). To accept this possibility, we would have to take Fake John Locke’s statements at face value; we would have to trust Fake John Locke. Given my exclamations of “You’re the Devil!” regarding Fake John Locke, I have trouble doing that. However, the possibility remains, and if it is the case, then the poor Smoke Monster and Guy-in-Black just want to escape from that crazy island.

The other variation on the dichotomies I spoke of is:

Protector of the Island, or maybe still G-d, Good (Jacob) v. Dude who wants to usurp Jacob’s position by indirectly killing Jacob and driving away the candidates, Evil (Guy-in-Black via The Smoke Monster). Personally, I think this makes the most sense and while I’m no expert in Satany things, I imagine Satan probably wants to rule the world too, so Fake John Locke’s devilishness fits well with this. That is, assuming he really is being deceitful and devilishly tempting, as opposed to simply looking at things in different ways, being misunderstood, and having good intentions.

Speaking of evil people, how much did you want to hug Ben at Real John Locke’s funeral? Poor Creepy Ben, (possibly) feeling remorse for Real John Locke’s murder, maybe also for Jacob’s murder, and more importantly, for finally being able to verbalize his jealousy of John Locke in a more mature way, as we see when Ben eulogizes Real John Locke (“John Locke was a believer, he was a man of faith, a much better man than I will ever be. And I'm very sorry that I murdered him.”). Even though I wanted to hug him, he masterfully maintained his magnificent creepiness even there, which is not surprising, since Ben’s creepiness is only rivaled by (SPOILER ALERT – HOUSE M.D. SEASON 5) Creepy-Hallucination Amber in House M.D. Yeah, Ben is fabulously creeptastic; I love it.

New Reality

In a previous blog posting, I wondered whether the lives of our special characters are better, worse, or the same in the new reality compared to the reality we’re familiar with. “The Substitute” shows us (or begins to show us) how Locke and Ben’s lives have changed.

John Locke’s life is very different in the new reality. He is still disabled, in a wheelchair, and he still has the love of his life, Peggy Bundy…I mean Katey Sagal…I mean Helen Norwood in his life. In the new reality, Rose helps John Locke accept his disability and move on with his life. In the reality we are familiar with, his disability is gone, and so he never has to accept it. However, in that reality, he is trapped on an island, where arguably he is happy. However, in the new reality, perhaps it is a greater happiness to accept what can’t be changed, and freely move on with his life with the one he loves. In the new reality, he is still trapped in his wheelchair and by his disability, but in the reality we’re familiar with, he is trapped on an island, never to see his beloved Peggy Bundy – I mean Helen Norwood – again. We don’t know if Helen Norwood dies in the new reality as she does in the one we are familiar with, but even if she does, she and John Locke can now have up to three years together that they didn’t have in the reality we’re familiar with.

Ben Linus, shockingly, is a history teacher in the new reality! At the same school where John Locke gets a job (with Rose and Hurley’s help) as a substitute teacher (cute, how Locke is a substitute, and in the reality we’re familiar with, The Smoke Monster substituted for Real John Locke, and the name of the episode is “The Substitute”). I was very conflicted seeing Ben that way; I expected creepiness to ooze out of him as it usually does, but instead, he was understandably irritated in a way that most people would be, and he was polite, friendly, and not creepy.

Speaking of Ben, the man who plays him (Michael Emerson) was on Jimmy Kimmel Live (Part 1, Part 2). I’ve seen him not being Ben before, but it’s always fun to see how brilliant an actor he really is, since he is not creepy at all in real life.