My Serious, Logical Thoughts on The Lighthouse

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Refers to the lighthouse where Jacob apparently spied on the LOSTaway candidates. Also it should be noted that DHARMA had a location in a church known as the lighthouse which they used to find the island. This does not seem to be connected to this other lighthouse as their lighthouse was a room with a giant pendulum in it.

TRY NOT TO GET YOURSELF PETRIFIED
Hurley presents a theory about the bodies in the caves and mentions that they could have traveled back to dinosaur times and these could be their bodies. Actually these bodies have already been dated to about 50 years ago by the LOSTaways in a previous episode and if they had gone back to dinosaur times then these bodies would have been petrified by now so that could not be true.

NO LIGHT AT THE LIGHTHOUSE
Jacob set up the whole lighthouse scenario for Jack to help Jack along on his journey to whatever that may be. To become the next protector of the island perhaps? Jack “has what it takes” to become the new Jacob? I always thought Locke would get that job and he is dead now. The line Jacob gives to Hurley that someone is coming to the island may in fact be a lie just to get Jack to the lighthouse. In the lighthouse you can see more hieroglyphics on the wall above the head of Hurley and Jack. One of them looks like the flame that we have seen before. There was as DHARMA station called the flame and when the timer in the Swan hatch counted down to zero one of the glyphs that appeared in placed of a number was a flame.
Notice how Jack says that he would be a terrible dad yet in the alternate timeline Jack really is doing an ok job with his son. He does not over react when his son goes missing, and he does not yell at him. In the lighthouse Jack and Hurley do not seem nearly as shocked as they should be when they discover that the lighthouse can show them the house of Jack that he lived in when he was a boy. It is kind of like a mirror mirror on the wall like in the fairly tale. One would think you would be very shocked to see a mirror magically show you things that are not physically in front of the mirror. Perhaps it is because they have seen so many things on the island that they just are not surprised at anything anymore. In the mirror reflections you can also see a scene from Korea where Sun and Jin are from and also the church where Jacob met with Sawyer for the first time.
Jacob mentions that someone is coming to the temple and that someone is bad. This no doubt refers to the Locke-ness monster. And he will have Claire with him.

BIZZARO CLAIRE
Note the scars on Claire that indicate that she was given the same test that was given to Sayid. This was to diagnose her. She failed the test and surely would have been killed had she not escaped from the temple. So meet the new Claire. The new Claire is not afraid to kill people. The new Claire has killed at least two of The Others – one was brutally killed with an axe. She also threatened to kill Kate if it was true that Kate had been raising her son. Now think about old Claire. Would she have done that? Some kind of darkness has claimed and infected Claire. Claire in a way has become the new Rousseau. Let us examine the similarities. Both set traps, use guns and use dynamite. Undoubtedly Claire has been to the Black Rock. Both seem a little crazy and are not afraid to kill. Both are\were in a battle with The Others over their child. Two difference though. The Others really had the child of Rousseau but did not have the child of Claire. Also Rousseau openly acknowledged the infection of her own crew and killed her own crew because they were infected. Rousseau was not infected, but Claire however is infected. That makes Claire the anti Rousseau or the Bizzaro Rousseau. Claire and Rousseau epitomize the light the light versus dark theme which began in the series pilot.
The evidence for the insanity of Claire can be seen the mock child she made in the crib made from animal bones. Yeeech! Also her friend the Locke-ness monster (Smokey monster that looks like Locke or Smocke) may have been the one with her in the cabin when Locke entered to talk to Jacob. In the cabin he found Claire with Christian who said he was not Jacob but could speak on his behalf. Christian told Locke to move the island. Christian was most probably the Locke-ness monster in disguise who befriended Claire and claimed Claire as his own. But if the Locke-ness monster is an enemy of Jacob then how could he speak on his behalf? Because at that moment Jacob and the Locke-ness monster had a common enemy – the freighter people. Christian appeared again when Locke fell and hurt himself just before moving the island. Undoubtedly this was also the Locke-ness monster. Note also that the writers get close but never mention that actual name of the Locke-ness monster. Claire says this is not Locke this is my friend. Maybe even she does not know the real name of this person. I predict that when we finally hear the name of this individual it will be a name we all recognize.

SON OF A JACK
The big surprise in this episode is that Jack has a son in the alternate timeline! We know he did not have a son in the other timeline not just because they never showed or mentioned a son but because of the line Jack says “I would make a terrible dad”. This introduces yet another parent-sibling relationship which has been the source of several storylines in the show. Consider the relationship of Kate with her mom and now deceased stepdad. Kate killed her stepdad and her own mother turned her in. Still wondering why a federal Marshall would involve himself so heavily in a murder case in a small Iowa town. The revenge kick that Sawyer carried for years over the deaths of his parents. The stormy relationship of Jack with his father. Christian told Jack that he did not have what it takes and that hurt Jack. He carried that around with him his whole life. Note that Jack was on flight 815 after picking up his father. The relationship of Kate with her actual father who is in the military. That is how Kate learned to track. The relationship of Jin with his own father. He said his father was dead because he was ashamed of his upbringing. The relationship of Sun with her dad. She bought a large stake in his company to get back at him for putting Jin on flight 815. The Claire-father relationship. Christian was the father of both Jack and Claire. The Ben-Roger Linus relationship. Ben killed his own abusive father. And who can forget the Walt-Michael relationship? The Jack-David relationship has had communication issues but it looks like it is going to be ok unlike some of these other relationships. Jack does not want to be like his own father. To top it off we see, I think his name is Tugor, the Asian man who is the leader of The Others with his son in this episode.

I MISS YOU MY SCAR
Jack notices something odd about his appendix scar as though it is more pronounced now. Is this a coincidence or does this have something to do with injuries Jack suffered in the plane crash? Remember Kate had to help stitch Jack up just after the crash. Though this injury was not in the same place as this scar, it does show Jack was hurt in the crash.
Are Hurley and Miles really playing tic-tac-toe? I thought backgammon perhaps would be more suitable.

WHAT YOU MISSED
Look for the DHARMA logo on the cup that Jin drinks out of.
Hurley tries to set the lighthouse to 108 degrees and 108 is the sum of the Hurley numbers. Does he know this?
The son of Jack is named David just like King David in scripture. This name joins Aaron and Jacob as biblical names used in the show. I’m waiting for Moses.
Did you see the Alice in Wonderland book? This is not the first time this book has been referenced in the series. In fact one of the episodes in season one was called White Rabbit in reference to the large white rabbit character from the book. What does that mean for the series? Does that mean that our LOSTaways are trapped in a wonderland? Well in a sense. They are trapped on an island where scientific laws do not apply in the same way they normally do and you have things like a smoke monster and time travel which are out of the ordinary. So in that sense yes, our LOSTaways are in a wonderland of their own. The island is the wonderland.

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on the Substitute

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Refers to Locke being a substitute teacher. Another good title for this one would have been the candidates.

Notice how the LOSTaways keep finding each other. Locke meets Rose, Hurley and Ben in this episode. And he had already met Jack. It is as if these people are destined to meet each other in any timeline. Helen hints at this when she says that maybe it is destiny referring to AT Locke meeting Jack.
A big hole has been blown in my theory about things disappearing from the AT as the luggage of Locke makes an appearance. But the question still remains what happened to Desmond? He sort of disappeared on the flight while it was in mid-air. Another big hole in my theory about Jacob and Locke being warring gods is the admission by the Locke-ness monster that he used to be a normal guy before he came to the island. He must be very old since the book Of Mice and Men was way after his time. We know he has to be at least 160 years old and may even date back to ancient Egypt. Though Locke-ness said he read books, and unless he lived in Alexandria books were not as common back then like they are today. We also get a slight insight as to what Jacob and Locke-ness disagreed on. Jacob was the protector of the island. But Locke-ness does not think that the island needs a protector. When Jacob brought the Black Rock to the island, it could have been to try to choose who would be the next Jacob from among the viable candidates on the ship.
Notice that Richard has no idea about the candidate system though he has done the will of Jacob for a very long time. So the Others certainly are not all-knowing. Ben did not know who the smoke monster was or even that it was a who. Even though Ben summoned the monster before. Richard seems to know more than Ben as he seems acquainted with Locke-ness.
We learn that Locke-ness is a prisoner on the island and wants to leave. If so then why does he not just leave? Could he not build a boat or is some for keeping him there? Yet he offers Sawyer the opportunity to leave. Does taking Sawyer with him change the rules so he can leave now? I am reminded of the 1967 TV show The Prisoner.
Who was that blonde-haired boy? There must be people who are over both Jacob and Lock-ness. They may be the real ones in charge. Are they then the gods such as Apollo? And they have rules like Locke-ness is not allowed to kill him. I assume him refers to Richard. That is why Lock-ness does not kill Richard when he refuses to follow him.
Notice Locke-ness throw a white rock into the sea. There were two rocks one black and one white perfectly balanced on a scale. This represented Locke-ness and Jacob both on the island keeping each other in check so that no one side dominated. With Jacob gone now, the dark side reigns. Interesting that the crashed ship is also called the Black Rock just as the black rock in the cave represents Locke-ness. Much can be said about the dark-light theme dating all the way back to season one when Locke spoke about the rules of backgammon and the white and dark pieces. There was also a dream sequence in which Locke had a black eye and a white eye. When AT Locke is drinking in the bathtub his mug is black and white with a little green in it. Locke also mentioned how old backgammon was hinting that this conflict has been going on for thousands of years. This agrees with the ancient Egyptian symbols all over the place in the series. To name just a few:

a DHARMA member had an ankh, an Egyptian symbol for life
The guitar case had an ankh inside it
The large statue on the island once held an ankh in its right hand. Only a foot remains.
There are both ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek symbols inside the foot of the statue where Jacob lived
When the timer in the swan hatch hit zero the indicators showed Egyptian symbols
There are Egyptian symbols on the dilapidated building where the team member of Rousseau got his arm ripped off

What can be made of all of these examples? It is telling us that this conflict is very old and dates back thousands of years. Good versus Evil perhaps.
Now that Ben is a teacher he must have survived the H bomb going off? Where was Ben when the hydrogen bomb detonated that allowed him to survive? Was he on the sub or perhaps already transported off the island? In any case the bomb went off after Sayid shot him. But the Others said that the boy would not remember the events so it may be that Ben has no memory of ever being shot, however he should remember at least being on the island. If AT Locke questioned Ben would he recall the island?

Here are the numbers that Jacob wrote for each candidate:

4 Locke
8 Reyes
15 Ford
16 Jarrah
23 Shephard
42 Kwon

The cave is littered with other names that have been crossed off. I would have thought Kate would be 23 since there was a bounty on her head of $23,000. We have not seen a good example of the Hurley numbers for a while so this overt example is great to see. Does this mean that Jacob is behind the numbers? There is evidence to the contrary as DHARMA also used the numbers. Remember the Swan hatch had the numbers imprinted on it, and in a LOST video online it shows how scientists relate each Hurley number to catastrophes that could destroy the world.
A surprise in this episode was to see Helen in the life of AT Locke. The last time we saw Helen she was fed up with Locke and was leaving him because of his involvement with his father. He proposed but she said no. Obviously in the AT something has changed. It may even be that some of the events of the life of AT Locke are a little different that the life of original Locke (the one who is dead).
Richard obviously knows who Locke-ness really is, but they are coy about actually saying his name. Each time you think someone is going to say it; they do not.
Notice how Sawyer is able to tell that Locke-ness is not Locke. His years of being a con man have given him insight into people. Oddly he seems not to be alarmed by this. Perhaps he has been exposed to one crazy thing to many so that he no longer is shocked by this kind of stuff. After all he did travel back in time and then back to the future. And this was a man who was reading the book A Wrinkle in Time during I believe season one. That actually turned out to be a foreshadowing of the time travel he would actually do one day. Nice one.

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on What Kate Does

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What Kate does refers to more than just what Kate does in this episode. It is actually a play on words of a former episode entitled What Kate Did. In that episode we learned that Kate killed her stepfather.

To remind you AT = alternate timeline and allows me to reference the same character in the timeline where the plane landed. The alternate timeline gives us an insight into what would have happened to the LOSTaways had the plane landed. Though this timeline has been altered by the disappearance of certain objects such as coffins, knives and at least one person. We learn that the plan of Claire to give up her baby for adoption would not have worked because the marriage of the adoptive parents fell apart. Hey, try picking up a phone next time so AT Claire doesn’t have to travel across the ocean to find that out! I am reminded that Claire was warned by the psychic that she had to raise the child herself or something dreadful would happen. There was some speculation a few seasons ago by some that the psychic knew Claire would crash on the island and that there were no waiting parents in L.A. That theory was proven wrong by this episode, but that doesn’t mean that the psychic didn’t know about the plane crash.
In both timelines there is a definite Kate-Claire relationship. In the original timeline Claire asks Kate to watch her baby, and Kate goes back to the island to rescue Claire and bring her back to Aaron. AT Kate befriends Claire despite her felonious circumstances and the two become friends so quickly that Claire even covers for Kate when the cops show up. This may be because both can sense the other timeline in which they have a strong bond which involves Aaron.
Notice how AT Claire knew the name of the baby was Aaron. This indicates that the two timelines are not as separate as they may appear. This alternate timeline may in fact be slowly converging into the other timeline. When Kate is in the cab at the airport, for an instant she sees Jack and feels like she knows him. Look for more people and things to disappear as the episodes of this season continue. In the end only one timeline will remain. Notice that we see AT Ethan. To remind us, Ethan was the child of two members of DHARMA. In the original timeline after DHARMA was killed off the Others adopted Ethan. In the AT Ethan escapes on the sub off the island before it explodes. He is called doctor Goodspeed in the AT. In both timelines note that Ethan is a doctor though in the original timeline we have no info on any medical degree just that he is an excellent surgeon according to Ben. We have not seen AT Juliet yet. Wonder if we will. Will she be back with her sister, or will her sister be dead from cancer?

Since season one we have wondered about the mysterious sickness first mentioned by Danielle Rousseau. She of course had to kill her own team members when they became infected with something. During time traveling Jin actually sees her kill her own husband after he tries to fire a rifle at her not knowing that the firing pin has been removed. This sickness now appears to be not an infection in the conventional sense that you can treat with antibiotics. It appears to be a sickness of the soul and turns you into some kind of evil person. This also agrees with what Ben said when he said we are the good guys referring to the Others. We are told that you get this sickness when you are claimed. This implies that someone is doing the claiming. That may be the Locke-ness monster. He claims you as his own and then you turn into some kind of bad person. The sickness erases the old person. Whatever this thing is it changes your heart so much that you are a completely new person and for the worse. The Others know this and that there is no cure. Once you are claimed you are claimed. The test used to diagnose Sayid seems to be based on the reaction of the body to strong heat stimulus and electrical stimulus. But how does this test work? If Sayid had passed the test what would have happened differently? Notice that the tester spreads what looks like gunpowder across the chest of Sayid. Interesting that the part where Sayid says they tortured me and did not ask me any questions is a line straight out of the Empire Strikes Back and was spoken by Han Solo in the cloud city.

Claire has already been infected. This may have occurred on or before the day when she abandoned her baby in the jungle and went off. We find her later in a shack with Christian. But is Christian just another representation of the Locke-ness monster? Could be. And that lends credence to my idea that you get claimed by the Locke-ness monster. He claimed Claire and so she is with him now. That is a quote from Claire herself: I am with him now. There was some speculation a while back that Claire might be dead, but she turns up alive and well at the end of this episode and toting a gun in uncharacteristic Claire fashion. Ever see Claire shooting a gun? I did not think so. She seems to be a decent marksmen too. Could the evil have already infected her heart? If so then how will that affect her relationship with the other LOSTaways? Will she want to kill them help them or get them claimed like herself. By the way, how did the Others know that Claire was the sister of Jack? Even Jack did not know this when he got on the plane. The trap that Aldo, Justin, Kate and Jin almost fell into was set by Claire though it is mentioned that it looks like a trap Rousseau would set. So now Claire has become like Rousseau living on her own setting traps and such. She heard that trap sprung when Jin got caught in it and that is how she showed up so quickly.

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on LAX

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LAX refers to the three-letter designation of the Los Angeles airport. Every major airport in the world has a three-letter designation. For example, BRU is Brussells Belgium. Flight attendants are required to memorize all of them. I spoke to one flight attendant who said in her training she had to memorize them all in one day then take a test on it! Next time you are on a flight give your flight attendant a quiz. J

SPLITSVILLE

As you noticed when the hydrogen bomb went off it created what I call a bifurcation. See my book on time travel called chaotic planet (www.qcms.biz). There is a whole section in there that explains what is going on perfectly. I will give a short version of it here. Think of a straight tree branch coming out of a tree. Then at the end of this branch two other branches come out of that branch and go off in different directions. Time is like the tree branch. At first there was just one timeline, but then time got split in two so that there are two different time lines that now coexist simultaneously. In one timeline the plane crashes and in the other it does not. The two timelines are like the two branches that come off the end of the original branch. The splitting of time into different branches is called a bifurcation. To tell these two timelines apart, I will refer to those characters who landed in LAX at alternate timeline characters or AT characters. For example there is original Locke who crashed and there is AT Locke who did not crash. Same for the rest of the passengers.

Notice that even AT Charlie seems to think it was his destiny to die when he tells Jack that he was supposed to die referring to himself. Interesting. It hints that the other timeline where he did die is the correct one.

Now, for some reason the alternate timeline where the plane lands in LAX is unstable and appears to be slowly disappearing. The following items have now vanished from this timeline: Desmond, the knives of Locke, the Father of Jack. I predict the disappearing will continue until nothing remains of this timeline. I believe this because as Desmond has been told, the universe has a way of course correcting. It was the destiny of the plane to crash and therefore the universe has to erase the timeline where it did not crash. If you can find it, check out a Star Trek the Next Generation episode entitled “Remember Me”. In this episode, doctor Beverly Crusher is transported to an alternate reality when a warp core bubble expands and engulfs her. In her reality people keep disappearing, and when they do, no one remembers the missing person. Eventually she figures out that the entire universe is disappearing and that she is stuck in a shrinking warp core bubble. She escapes at the end. Though I do not believe the alternate reality is a warp core bubble, I do believe that it is disappearing with the one difference that people do remember those who have vanished. Note how Jack does recall Desmond sitting next to him on the plane before he vanished. There is also the faint possibility that the alternate reality is simply the imagination of someone ala Saint Elsewhere, but I doubt that.

THE LOCKE-NESS MONSTER

Finally it is revealed that the smoke monster is not a what but a who. I had previously theorized that the smoke monster was the one impersonating people on the island, and now my theory is vindicated. Feels good to be right folks. I figured it out when the brother of Eko appeared to him on the island, and when he spoke to Eko he said “you talk to me like I am your brother.” Just after that the smoke monster showed up and killed Eko. Now that we know the monster is a who, the scene when Ben meets his dead daughter makes so much more sense. His dead daughter appeared to him and told him to do whatever Locke said. In reality the smoke monster knew the he himself would be impersonating Locke later so this makes perfect sense. He knew that He impersonating Locke would ask him to kill Jacob. Having his daughter tell him to obey would really help persuade Ben to do it.

But this episode never tells you the name of the smoke monster so I will refer to him as the Locke-ness monster. But I have a theory. Here is what I think is going on.

The Locke-ness monster and Jacob are two brothers who are gods. They got into fights because they disagreed on how to get humanity to evolve. The Locke-ness monster thought humans should evolve on their own, but Jacob felt that they needed to intervene to force humans to evolve. Their fights were so severe that the two were banished to an island that the gods created that was shielded from the rest of the world. They were told to work out their differences there. And there was a rule that neither was allowed to kill the other. Though I do not know the real names of these gods, there is evidence that one of the gods may be the god Apollo from Greek mythology. I do not think Jacob is his real name. I present as evidence the candy bar Apollo that has appeared in more than one episode and in the season finale of last year, Jacob gets an Apollo candy bar out of a machine for Jack. One of the gods may be one of the Egyptian gods such as Hippophus. The most obvious Egyptian reference is the Ankh which is a symbol for life. We saw this when the followers of Jacob opened the guitar case Hurley had. Inside was a rather large Ankh which the Others broke apart to get to the secret message inside from Jacob. One member of DHARMA had an Ankh, and the original statue on the island was a crocodile-like creature holding an Ankh in its right hand.

For centuries Jacob would bring people to the island to test his theory on how to get mankind to evolve. At one point inhabitants of the island built a statue to Jacob, and he lived inside it.

Jacob brought the ship called the Black Rock to the island. One of the people on that ship was Richard who is kind of like a priest. I believe this because of a remark that the Locke-ness monster made to Richard when he said “you look good out of those chains”. I thought about all the time in the series where we have seen people in chains. The best example is when original Locke and others went on board the Black Rock. There they saw skeletons that were in chains. That would also fit in with the remark of Juliet when original Locke asked her how old Richard was and she replied “old”.

THE THREE FACES OF LOCKE

It is interesting to note that actor Terry Oquinn plays three different incarnations of Locke. There is AT Locke, original Locke (dead Locke) and the Locke-ness monster. That must be fun for him. How do you think he liked playing the dead guy?

PARDON MY RED SEA

The red healing waters seem very similar to one of the Egyptian plagues in the bible when the water turned to blood. Does the red water have anything to do with the recent death of Jacob? Again – another Egyptian reference and also biblical reference. The similarities are uncanny.

The hourglass reminded me a lot of the wizard of Oz when that witch turned over the hourglass. It was a giant hourglass too like the one in this episode. This movie has been referenced before in the series. Remember the balloon and Henry Gale?

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Why does Juliet say it did not work and then posthumously say that it did work? How would Juliet have knowledge of the alternate timeline?

In this episode the Locke-ness monster was motivated to kill the people who were shooting at him. But why did the Locke-ness monster kill Eko, the pilot of flight 815 Seth Norris, and one member of the team of Rousseau (the guy who got his arm ripped off seen briefly in this episode)?

The contents of the message contained in the Ankh are baffling. Why is everyone in trouble if Sayid dies? Especially if the followers of Jacob were ready to kill our heroes on the spot?

What happened to the rest of the statue?

Why cannot the Locke-ness monster cross a barrier of gray ash?

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