Lost season 6

[SpaceChampion]

I loved it. You could argue that spending so much time on Richard's back story was unnecessary to move the story along as a whole, I don't care. I enjoyed every minute of it. Of course I share Mya's view that having Carbonell on screen - dirty or not - is always a good thing. Always.

It is still ... sort of ... free-will (inherent goodness) vs. destiny (corruptible) but the focus swings much more to good and evil. I think that makes the conflict a bit less interesting overall. I thought it was too forced to have Jacob give Richard the job as his liaison. It's like Jacob had never thought about it before that moment, but I find that unbelievable. Perhaps that's what Jacob was steering him towards all along - manipulating people into making choices he wants them to is a specialty of his.

To the contrary, I enjoyed Richard's backstory and motivations. It's everything else I was underwhelmed by. By shoehorning the explanation of how the statue broke into the story of the Black Rock made it, as you said with Jacob giving Richard the job, too forced. To take the opposite view of yours though, who is to say Richard was the first liaison? Before the Black Rock everyone else who had come to the island were dead. Whoever might have been liaison before probably didn't asked for immortality.

I would have been happier had the crew of the Black Rock survived long enough so the story of the Black Rock actually had a story to it. I thought the point was that Jacob was bringing people to the Island to struggle and learn and have a chance to prove not everyone has to be corruptible. But MIB just killed them. I thought he WANTED to proved them corruptible or whatever. What's the point of killing them? Why didn't MIB let them live long enough to corrupt them? He didn't kill everyone from 815, who had no sonic fence or ash circle to protect them. And why didn't Jacob do anything to protect the BR crew when he brought them to the island to give them a chance to prove his viewpoint? Seems like epic story fail.

I would have also been happier if the statue broke during some struggle between the two sides picked by Jacob and MIB. For example, perhaps the statue protected Jacob in some way, so MIB used his half of the BR crew to wage war on Jacob's people, destroying the statue SINCE THEY HAD DYNAMITE and making Jacob vulnerable so that MIB could put his plan to kill Jacob into action with the Others first (failing) and then with the 815ers (succeeding). It would have showed MIB playing a very long game. In the process it would have been nice to see Richard earn the role as liaison instead of being offered it.

It's like Cuse and Lindelof threw away a really good story they could have told because they were running out of time. Writing about this I'm getting my feeling of being underwhelmed replaced with anger. I would have even been fine if I was left to imagine how the statue broke in a later or eariler round of the game, as long as something as pointless as a tsunami/Black Rock hitting it was not the cause. I think Cuse/Lindelof is letting the stress of the season get to them and it's made them forget things like the statue getting destroyed and the Black Rock landing in the middle of the jungle needs some emotional or story impact, otherwise it is a pointless detail. I am not in this for easter eggs.

I can say some good things about the episode. I liked that everything else about Richard's story did have emotional impact. He could not see Isabella again nor get absolution for his sins so going to hell when he died was his fate; asking to live forever was the only way to avoid that fate. Isabella saving him from making a bad choice to side with MIB at the end was also good with emotional impact. Bravo for that. We have a reason now for Richard to play on Team Jacob, or Team Jack as it may come to be.

The other thing was that when Jacob said Richardis would know what to do, I hoped his "start listening to someone else" was actually what Jacob meant -- not MIB, but to the next Candidate. So if Jack is the Candidate, then they better start listening to him. I nice bit of misdirection, but I wish someone like Ben would have realized it.

Back to the hate. So was MIB responsible for the tsunami, to bring the Black Rock inland and away from Jacob's protection, so he could kill them all? If so, I could be okay with that... But seriously, his plan was to kill all but one of them, hoping that one was the right one to kill Jacob? Or did he first decide to kill them all, then at the last minute before killing Richard thought up his whole killing Jacob plan? It's like Cuse/Lindelof had several storylines they considered, mushed them all together and stripped it down to focus on Richard, but then forgot to fix the logic of everything else. Epic story fail.

[Caligula_K]

Much better subtitle. I was going to suggest something about Jacob's magic cave where he touches children, but yours is more tasteful and true. I also like Demonblade's theory; Smoke Monster loose in the real world reminds me too much of Jurassic Park 2 (movie, not book), which is never a good thing.

And one more tiny thing: They really need to work on the cliffhangers. The MiB smashing the bottle would have been great, but they're trying too hard to make the cliffhangers super dramatic with "DUN DUN DUN" music and slow motion. Once again though, it's hard to complain even a little bit about such an awesome episode which I think will probably end up ranking in my top ten of this series.

[Foreverlad]

Not that time. I agree that was Smokey...but the end, with Hurley seeing her, and all that. That's really her, as far as I'm concerned. Especially since you see Flocke watching the scene from a hilltop.

Ooooh, my apologies, I understand what you were asking now.

I don't think there's any hard and fast rules about Hurley's ghosts. The ghosts of Ana Lucia, Charlie and Eko (and likely others) showed up for Hurley back on the mainland, despite having died on the Island. The cheesy answer "she was in Richard's heart" works, especially considering Richard thinking about death and dying, or switching teams and reuiniting with his love in one fashion or another.

[SpaceChampion]

And how cool is it that Hurley continues to be Jacob's ace in the hole? Hurley has always been dismissed as the fat guy, told to stay out of the way when Sawyer and Juliet went to confront the Others. Right now he's the most important person on the island.

I'm enjoying this too.

[Mya Stone]

Ooooh, my apologies, I understand what you were asking now.

I don't think there's any hard and fast rules about Hurley's ghosts. The ghosts of Ana Lucia, Charlie and Eko (and likely others) showed up for Hurley back on the mainland, despite having died on the Island. The cheesy answer "she was in Richard's heart" works, especially considering Richard thinking about death and dying, or switching teams and reuiniting with his love in one fashion or another.

Right...but then there's the whole fact that the ghost of Ana Lucia told Hurley he still had work to do (like the ?SmokeyWalt? that Locke saw), and the Charlie apparition told Hurley that he had to go back to the Island as well (the note on his hand in the police station). Ooh, and the Christian from the Lost Missing Pieces that told Vincent to wake up Jack because he "had work to do."

I guess I'm just trying to figure out why Hurley sees these ghosts, and what the significance was of Isabella showing herself to him. Is it a third Island party, or truly omniscient ghosts that are independently guiding the Losties in this epic battle?

Or am I just totally thinking out of the box here? (It's totally possible. :P)

[Slurktan]

Not that time. I agree that was Smokey...but the end, with Hurley seeing her, and all that. That's really her, as far as I'm concerned. Especially since you see Flocke watching the scene from a hilltop.

That's what I'm saying, Caligula. I will try and find a direct quote about it, but I am 99.9% sure they have said that Jacob is only ever Jacob.

Don't forget that ghosts can apparently be from anywhere and still interact with Hurley. Charlie and Ana Lucia died on island and yet still appeared to Hurley in LA. So I think it's plausible in the same vein that Isabella died on the Canary islands but can appear on the island to Hurley.

[ztemhead]

wow, I thought I tuned in to ABC's Lost tonight, but instead I found that the local cable operator had swapped the ABC channel with Univision. That being the case, we were short changed a serious amount of clevage in our Spanish chica; who'd have known that Univision chooses this night of all nights to go straight Victorian.

two things I took from this episode are that wow, look at the acting chops on Nestor Carbonell! And also, Jacob and Smokey weren't always enemies. That Smokey tried to kill Smokey sounds like a new thing, meaning they go back a bit. What this means for the future is that I can see there easily being a new Jacob and new Smokey from among the Losties. Maybe it'll be Jack and Sawyer or something. :)

[Gertrude]

I thought the point was that Jacob was bringing people to the Island to struggle and learn and have a chance to prove not everyone has to be corruptible. But MIB just killed them. I thought he WANTED to proved them corruptible or whatever. What's the point of killing them? Why didn't MIB let them live long enough to corrupt them?

I would have also been happier if the statue broke during some struggle between the two sides picked by Jacob and MIB. ... It's like Cuse and Lindelof threw away a really good story they could have told because they were running out of time. ... it's made them forget things like the statue getting destroyed and the Black Rock landing in the middle of the jungle needs some emotional or story impact, otherwise it is a pointless detail. I am not in this for easter eggs.

I agree with this and you put into words why my reaction to the statue being toppled by the Black Rock was "Seriously?" It had no story or impact to it. And yeah - I thought Smokie killing everyone outright was anti-climactic as well. We didn't see how he slaughtered the Black Rock crew, but is it possible that he scanned them before death and judged them as not worth saving?

Perhaps he spared Richard because he was the perfect tool - a soul at a crossroad who had not chosen yet. If any of the crew were firmly in the good or evil camp, they are no use in the experiment. Smokie saw the officer kill the slaves unprovoked for some possible future threat to him. He made his choice therefore of no use, so is ok to kill. Smokie scanned Richard and spared him. Perhaps part of the equation for killing Jacob is that the person doing the killing has to be balanced at that moment to go either way and that killing him or not is making that choice - Ben did, Richard didn't. I don't know what that means for Ben - he chose, but is he redeemable? Anyway, Richard is balanced (a murderer, but repentant, yet pretty hopeless for the future) and therefore ripe for corruption.

Smokie has also prominently scanned Locke, Ben and Eko. Locke and Ben have proven to be very useful tools for the MiB indeed. Eko was unrepentant, therefore unable to be easily manipulated and useless to MiB.

Sorry, that was a lot of rambling and I don't even know if it holds up.

[Mya Stone]

Where the fuck is Desmond?

On the sub, in the locked room. :P

I want to watch this episode again, now, and I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow afternoon.

Gertrude, are you, like me, even more in love with Richard now than you were before?

[Kat]

Gertrude, are you, like me, even more in love with Richard now than you were before?

I am. :leaving:

I accidentally deleted this episode just after watching it, so I can't go back in check, but in your rewatch, can you check to see if this is possible? Statue falls for some reason (high wind? Earthquake?) and falling pieces cause tsunami which washes ship into the middle of the jungle. It's a pretty big statue, so having it fall over would cause a big wave.

But it could also be a big wave like this! Which would be totally consistent with Hawaii The Island. (Otherwise, I am thoroughly unimpressed with the show's use of geologic disasters so far. Who needs random electromagnetic anomalies when you have Tsunamis of Doom?

[Kalbear]

Meh.

Gertrude, you mentioned in the other thread about how in the finale last year it was calm around the Black Rock and then Big storm now.... we've already been shown several times that the weather on the island can switch like that, most likely it is under MiB's control.

I can't imagine why MiB would do that. He has nothing but scorn for the people. It's Jacob that wants to bring them to the island, after all.

So Jacob...brought Desmond? And the Dharma group? And the military? And Yemi's plane full of drugs? And brought the Vajina plane too? If that's the case...how did Widmore find it? Heck, how did he find it the previous time? What was the import of Penny's little thing looking for the island after the big explosion? Very odd exposition, that.

The cork thing...is kinda dumb. I suspect that the MiB isn't the evil to be let loose on the world; the island is the cork, after all, and we know about all the energy that it's storing through the various dharma experiments.

I dunno. This ep would have worked significantly better had it aired in season 3 or 4. As it stands - we knew that Richard came on the Black Rock. We knew he was ageless, and that Jacob did this to him. We knew that Smokey wanted to kill Jacob. We knew that Jacob was about free will. We didn't know the cork thing, but we still don't know what the hell that is, so it's not a mystery. The only 'answers' we got were how the Black Rock got to the middle of the island (don't really care) and how the statue was destroyed (don't really care).

[Caligula_K]

I would have been happier had the crew of the Black Rock survived long enough so the story of the Black Rock actually had a story to it. I thought the point was that Jacob was bringing people to the Island to struggle and learn and have a chance to prove not everyone has to be corruptible. But MIB just killed them. I thought he WANTED to proved them corruptible or whatever. What's the point of killing them? Why didn't MIB let them live long enough to corrupt them? He didn't kill everyone from 815, who had no sonic fence or ash circle to protect them. And why didn't Jacob do anything to protect the BR crew when he brought them to the island to give them a chance to prove his viewpoint? Seems like epic story fail.

I thought the point was that at this point the MiB doesn't care about the game anymore- he wants to kill Jacob and whoever he brings and get the hell off. Alternatively, the MiB is in a sense a security system and seems to go into full attack mode whenever people come to the island- see 815, Rousseau's crew, etc... As for Jacob, he is not omniscient (he didn't seem to know that all of the Black Rock had been killed) and at this point was extremely laissez faire- I thought another point of the episode was that Jacob realizes that he has to start intervening, if only indirectly.

[Kalbear]

I accidentally deleted this episode just after watching it, so I can't go back in check, but in your rewatch, can you check to see if this is possible? Statue falls for some reason (high wind? Earthquake?) and falling pieces cause tsunami which washes ship into the middle of the jungle. It's a pretty big statue, so having it fall over would cause a big wave.

Uh, no. The ship was clearly going to hit the statue, as it was cresting on a giant wave. So unless the statue traveled back in time, took on the name LaFleur and then plunged itself into the ocean to create a giant wave that it used to destroy itself, thus preventing the wave from ever happening...it doesn't work.

[Gertrude]

Gertrude, are you, like me, even more in love with Richard now than you were before?

Of course. Then again, I have loved Nestor Carbonell since he was Batmanuel!

Kat - they showed the statue upright right until the moment the wave carrying the Black Rock crashed into it, so tsunami of doom it is. I have to look up a map of the island to see how far inland it is becasue it's bothering me now. And how convenient was it for a slave ship (that seemed pretty sparsely packed with cargo, human or otherwise) to be carrying dynamite. Those castaways are so lucky!

As an aside, I find it weird when people call me the full 'Gertrude'. I am used to the mafia people calling me Gert, so please feel free :)

[SpaceChampion]

We didn't see how he slaughtered the Black Rock crew, but is it possible that he scanned them before death and judged them as not worth saving?

I suppose it is possible. I would be down with that, if they had hinted at it in the episode -- perhaps the slavers saying something about how unrepentant they were about that whole slave trade thing. The priest though earlier said pretty much that repentance was not enough, Richard had to do penance. It could be that MIB is not allow to kill the repentant, and that Jacob gives them jobs to do their penance.

I think MIB is probably someone that Jacob originally picked for a job -- find the penitent and set them aside, all else destroy -- and MIB chose some ability that lead him to become a being of smoke. MIB did say that Jacob stole his body. I think that was Jacob's gift to him in exchange for doing the job. Which probably means no one taking on job on the island is allowed to leave -- not Dogen, not Richard, not MIB. The leader role is probably self-selected job, and comes with no gift, so leaders like Eloise, Widmore and Ben can leave.

[Gertrude]

OK, going by this map, the wave of doom is even more implausible that we thought. It is all the way across the island from the statue over 2 mountain ranges, maybe 9 miles or so. Fail. I'd rather the smoke dragged it for whatever reason.

[Gertrude]

I think MIB is probably someone that Jacob originally picked for a job

Hmm, this scenario parallels him to Lucifer. I was coming at it as Jacob and MiB being equals on opposite sides, but this is plausible too. So many things we still don't know and we are only inching forward each week. Isn't there supposed to be a big exposition episode coming up soon?

[Caligula_K]

OK, going by this map, the wave of doom is even more implausible that we thought. It is all the way across the island from the statue over 2 mountain ranges, maybe 9 miles or so. Fail. I'd rather the smoke dragged it for whatever reason.

Well, keep in mind that that map seems to be several seasons old and pretty inaccurate in places- Hydra island, for example, seems to face Otherville whereas on the map it is on the opposite side of the island. If you switch the statue over to the eastern shore of the island it makes a lot more sense. Then again, the geography on this show stopped making sense when it took a couple hours to go from the Temple to otherville to the caves to the invisible lighthouse.

[Slurktan]

I can't imagine why MiB would do that. He has nothing but scorn for the people. It's Jacob that wants to bring them to the island, after all.

Because he's pissed off at Jacob. He doesn't want the people from the black rock to land but Jacob clearly wants them to. So he is piqued. He can't kill Jacob but he can mess up his house and break his toys, so he makes the Tsunami to wreck the statue/house(don't forget Jacob is out eating breakfast when Tsunami presumably happens as well) and kills much of the crew of the ship. He moves in to kill everyone else and lo and behold finds someone he can use.

Seems logical to me.

[Slurktan]

Hmm, this scenario parallels him to Lucifer. I was coming at it as Jacob and MiB being equals on opposite sides, but this is plausible too. So many things we still don't know and we are only inching forward each week. Isn't there supposed to be a big exposition episode coming up soon?

Thus far the entire season parallels MiB to Lucifer. There's basically a Faust deal offered in most of the episodes. This episode was even more overt in it.