SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, pour yourself a big old scotch, put some pants on and go watch last night’s Lost.
“The time for questions is over,” said an ABC promo for Lost tonight. I doubt that is, or ever will be, true for Lost, but this was an installment filled with more answers—of a sort, anyway. (We know that Jacob made a list of potential “candidates” to replace him, but we don’t know why, exactly, or what the connection is with the numbers, which IDed Locke, Sawyer, Jack, Hurley, Sayid, and one or the other of the Kwons.) But I don’t think answers were why this was a satisfying installment of Lost; I think that did have to do with the continued fine work of Terry O’Quinn and Josh Holloway, now positioned to team up in a particularly dark buddy movie.
“The Substitute” sent us hurtling into the action on the Island courtesy of the SmokeyCam, which gave us a smoke’s-eye view of the Island as the Smokester hustled out in search of Richard. Smokey’s motivation, which we’re learning more about, stems from being imprisoned on the Island under some arcane set of rules, and he’s looking for help in getting sprung.
Now, to be honest, I’m a little concerned about Lost becoming too much a show about the conflict between Smokey and Jacob. Whatever, they are, God or mortal–Smokey says he was once a man–they’re interesting, but we’re not invested in them as characters. (O’Quinn is compelling as Smokey, but in the end, Locke is still rotting in a hole.) If Lost is revealed to be some big chess game between two ancient Manichean archetypes, well, that’s intriguing from a mythology standpoint, but it only matters to the extent that it ultimately becomes the story of the central characters.
And in “The Substitute,” O’Quinn’s Smokey made that happen in two ways: By throwing into relief his performance as the alternate Locke in 2004, coming gradually to believe in himself and–unlike the Locke we came to know–to accept his limitations, and by playing the foil to Holloway as Sawyer hit rock bottom, listening to the Stooges.
As for the larger 2004 storyline, we’re still waiting to see how that plays out and why we should be invested in it. It’s certainly intriguing to see how the various characters can have become different or the same–Ben, as a kind of history-teacher version of Walter White, Rose, back at home and having come to peace with her uncured cancer. And with this episode, and the emerging differences in the two timelines, the alt-2004 story feels stronger as a thematic device. Where the Locke of 2004 is finally coming to terms with the fact that, yes, there are some things that he cannot do, Smokey, having claimed Locke’s body, has also seemed to have internalized some of his self-defeating rage and frustration. But without knowing how real it all is, how permanent, or how it relates to Island time, it’s still just an interesting exercise.
That’s all right. One thing I’m glad to see about the final season so far is that Cuse and Lindelof have decided that their audience is all in: you’re either along for the ride or you’re not, and if you are, the rules of that ride are that it will take 16 full episodes to see how it plays out. But it’s definitely gaining momentum.
Now to the hail of bullets:
* Smokey’s encounter with the mystery boy in the jungle (a “forgotten boy,” as in the lyrics of “Search and Destroy”?) raises a big question: just who all does “the rule” apply to? Is Smokey also not allowed to kill Sawyer directly? (Does the rule apply to all the candidates? Did Ben do Smokey a favor by killing Locke, allowing him to be claimed?)
* Speaking of claiming, just what kind of claim does Smokey have on Locke? He’s taken his form, but he’s taken others as well—Alex and Yemi, for instance. Can Smokey assume the form of all the Island’s dead?
* Conspicuously missing from Jacob’s list of candidates was Kate–conspicuous, in particular, because Jacob had visited her earlier. What, exactly, did Kate do (if anything) to get herself off the list?
* “You sure ain’t John Locke… Locke was scared, even when he was pretending he wasn’t.” It seems like the Locke we’re seeing in alt-2004 is getting closer to losing his fear, and becoming comfortable with himself too; is the pattern of alt-2004 that each of the characters somehow manages to work out the inner conflicts they could not resolve on the Island? And what happens then?
* While Locke’s funeral seemed a bit of a throwaway scene at first, I was struck by Ben’s remorse at killing him, which makes me believe even more strongly that Ben ends the series with some Anakin Skywalker-like act of redemptive self-sacrifice. Also, set up that great Frank line: “Weirdest funeral I’ve ever been to.” (The thing I love about Frank is that he seems like a character visiting from some other show–like the pilot of the plane from Fantasy Island or something–and yet though he’s weirded out by events on the Island, he also takes them oddly in stride.)
* The cave writings—recalling the hatch etchings from “?”—recall one of the older mysteries on the show: Jacob’s “lists” of persons of interest to be collected. But this raises the question: were the six names remaining the only Candidates to begin with, or has a larger list of Candidates been narrowed down over time?
* Speaking of the cave: the scales with a black stone, and a white stone that Smokey picked up and threw into the sea? I’m guessing it represented some dualism between Jacob and Smokey which has now been thrown out of balance? But I don’t know! The symbolism was pretty subtle!
* In alt-2004, John’s back with Helen (Katey Sagal), who left him in the original timeline because he couldn’t let go his obsession with his father. It would be interesting to know what exactly changed here: Was Locke still crippled by his father? Was he simply able to put his father’s betrayals behind him? Or was his relationship with his father changed entirely?
* Dept. of Loose Strings: Hey, remember Charles Widmore? He’s still a factor out there, right? Does he have a dog in the Jacob-Smokey fight?
* Back to vacation. Feel free to fill in any tidbits I overlooked—consider yourself my substitute.
