SPOILER ALERT – Lost Season 6 “Lighthouse”

I’m tempted to start logging the outbursts that I have while watching Lost. In my last Lost-related blog posting, I mentioned one such outburst (“You’re the Devil!”) that occurred during “The Substitute.” “Lighthouse” resulted in another outburst. At the end of the episode, when Claire said Fake John Locke isn’t Locke but rather is her “friend,” I exclaimed aloud, “Clair is friends with the Smoke Monster! Omg!” I watch Lost alone – I think you can understand why. Anyhoo, so I guess either Claire or Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster is the really “bad” person who is going to the Temple, according to Jacob.

Speaking of Jacob, I wonder why he is only protecting Jack Shephard (the shepherd-like leader of them all) and Hugo Hurley Reyes (whose surname means “kings”) from Crazy Claire or her bff the Smoke Monster/Fake John Locke. He stopped Hurley from trying to warn the others – or maybe he didn’t have to – maybe they’ll all escape anyway. After all, Kate and Sawyer certainly aren’t going back. Sayid is “infected,” so Jacob probably isn’t interested in saving (or isn’t able to save) him anymore. Jin tells Crazy, “Infected” Claire he wants to go back to the temple, but maybe he doesn’t really plan on such a thing. I don’t think Sun, Lapidus, and Ben made it to the Temple yet, and maybe Miles will just escape, or simply isn’t special enough for Jacob. Hmmm... or maybe all these non-Jack and non-Hurley people have already been crossed off Jacob’s list o’ candidates for Protector of the Island? If only I paid attention to who was crossed off…

Ah, but I didn’t have to pay attention, because someone else did! Most of the people I mentioned are the non-crossed off people (Jack, Hurley, Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, and Jin, Sun, or both). Interestingly, Kate is crossed off from the cave list but not from the lighthouse list, and there are a couple of other discrepancies you can read about there at that link I linked to. While there, you’ll also notice the special numbers make appearances in association with each of the non-crossed out special characters' names.

I also neglected to notice whether the handwriting on the list at the lighthouse and the handwriting on the wall of the cave in “The Substitute” were the same (the link above doesn’t mention whether it is or not). I say this because I can’t help but think that both Jacob and either Man in Black or The Smoke Monster/Fake John Locke could have a list. If that is the case, then presumably Jacob’s would be a list o’ candidates for Protector of the Island as they’ve been saying, and the “evil” list would be a list o’ potential recruits of some sort. “Evil” is of course in quotes because really, we still don’t know for sure who is good, evil, both, or neither.

I realize that there is a tremendous amount of evidence of the evil nature of the Smoke Monster, however, some of that evidence is ambiguous. The Smoke Monster, when not in the form of Fake John Locke but in the form of the pillar of smoke, seems to have a snake-like shape, as well as (what I think are) snake-like sounds. Humans are hard-wired to easily form fears of snakes, presumably due to their dangerous nature. Biblically speaking, of course snakes are the epitome of evil and represent evil temptation and the Devil. However, I saw something on the History Channel once, about The Garden of Eden and what might have really (historically) happened. I learned there that other religions that existed at the time of the formation of Judaism and monotheism viewed snakes as divine creatures, and it was suggested that those other religions and their gods were viewed as evil so that the new monotheism could begin to enjoy prevalence. In other words, if I’m remembering the History Channel program correctly and if it was accurate, then snakes were once viewed as divine, and therefore creatures that might represent “good,” but became perceived as evil by a different and new religion who needed to replace those gods with their one G-d, and who had a different view of what could represent divinity. Therefore, as I said before, perhaps The Smoke Monster is merely misunderstood; perhaps he was the good, the divine, before Jacob perhaps usurped him. This concept fits well with the dichotomy I spoke of previously, where Jacob represents evil via Biblical Jacob in tricking his blind father into giving him his good brother Esau’s birthright, where good Esau is represented by the Smoke Monster and/or the Man in Black – I mean Guy-in-Black (as I mentioned previously, this of course is contrary to the traditional belief of Jacob good, Esau bad).

Getting back to “Lighthouse,” I rather enjoyed this episode (let’s just pretend for a second that I don’t enjoy every episode even though I do), probably because it was so Jack-centric, and Jack is one of the two hottest people on the TV (the other is Seth MacFarlane, the Family Guy guy). In addition to being ridiculously hot, Jack is also one of my favorite characters because he is so deeply dark and complex and hot.

I wonder what they’re getting at with Jack not remembering something like an appendectomy from his childhood. Are memories from his alternate life mixing with his “flash-sideways” life? (Flash-sideways seems to be what people are calling that new reality). I also wonder who Jack’s ex-wife (or baby-mama (New Reality Jack has a son!)) is in the new reality. It can’t be Kate, but maybe it’s Juliet! We haven’t seen her around yet…

It occurs to me that in my pervious discussions of whether our special characters’ lives improved, became worse, or remained the same in the new reality and presumably without the touch of Jacob, I haven’t discussed Hurley. His life in the new reality thus far seems unquestionably better; rather than feeling he is cursed as he did in the reality we are familiar with, he feels that he is lucky in the new reality. Otherwise, he remains the genuinely sweet guy who will do anything to help a friend, even a friend from another reality/life. Hurley is awesome.