SPOILER ALERT - Lost Season 6 “Recon”

In my last Lost-related blog posting, I was tempted to suggest that Richard had sold his soul to Jacob as Dogen had, however, I didn’t believe that was accurate. Jacob’s touching gifts are provided without any outright demand for payment and without the recipient asking for it, or even being aware that it’s happening, as we’ve seen when Jacob touched and gave his gifts to our special characters, and I think we can therefore assume the same to be true for Richard. However, it’s possible that Jacob could be more subtle and evil than the traditional view of the Devil; perhaps his requirements of payment come unbeknownst to the gift recipients. Something, probably destiny but possibly Jacob, draws the touched and gifted people to the island. Ben made note of this when he sated “the island got [Lapidus] in the end” after Lapidus mentioned that he was supposed to be the pilot for Oceanic 815 but overslept that fateful day. The fact that we never saw Jacob touch Lapidus is not necessarily evidence against this, because Jacob and/or destiny could still have effects without the touching, I would imagine. Additionally, just because we never saw it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen; maybe we’ve gotta have faith and believe without needing evidence.

Moving onto this week’s episode, “Recon,” the same differences and similarities between the two realities that we saw with the other characters also happen with Sawyer. His life is better in the new reality (flash-sideways), and he made better choices (becoming a cop rather than a con artist), but certain elements – perhaps the ones governed by destiny – remained constant (the need to seek vengeance on Anthony Cooper).

Miles seems happier and better adjusted in the new reality, where he is also a cop – Sawyer’s partner in fact. We don’t know if he has his special ability of hearing dead people, and come to think of it, we don’t know if Hurley has his gift of talking to dead people in the new reality either. Getting back to Miles, we do know that hearing dead people is not his profession, as it is in the reality we are familiar with. Perhaps Miles is happier and better adjusted because his father didn’t have to abandon him as he did in the reality we are familiar with.

This episode displayed some more ambiguity with Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster. He was acting so devilishly diabolical, gaining the trust of everyone, telling them exactly what they needed to hear, capturing just the right tone, to manipulate the people into trusting him. Unless he is not evil at all, and he really is trustworthy; after all, he promises to keep them all safe, and we believe him, don’t we? Hahaha, no, we don’t. But anything is possible…Remember that Jacob also tells people exactly what they need to hear, but Jacob’s purpose isn’t to get people to trust him – his purpose is to help or guide, and hope, sometimes in vain, that people make the choices he wants them to (we don’t really know if those are the “right” choices). Regardless, both Jacob and Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster know just what to say to get what they want, though it may be that they don’t always succeed.