I love the Jacob-Richard/MIB-Sayid dynamic. Both Sayid and Richard came to the island in chains. Both had lost loved ones, and both were vulnerable as a result. MIB asked Richard to kill Jacob, and instead, Richard became Jacob's henchman. Ditto for Sayid. Dogan sent him to kill MIB, and instead Sayid became MIB's henchman.
With what may, or may not, have been the same knife. It struck me as being the same, but it may just have been symbolic. I'm VERY interested to find out what page the bible was opened to when the priest looked at it. Speaking of which, that priest was a dick. Chill the fuck out, Padre. Now we know how bad of a guy the Smoke Monster is. However... does he know how bad of a guy he is? That look Locke gave at the end indicates he does, but maybe there's more to it than he realizes...
The Ajira flight flashed to night when it was approaching the island. Could have just been another ship, though, considering that there weren't many other ways of getting to the island before hot air balloons and airplanes.
Richard's laugh at the beginning killed me. "So, Richard, what do we do next?" "HA!" Like, you've got to be fucking kidding me. Hurley speaking to someone dead in Spanish at the beginning, I was running through who we knew that was dead and spoke Spanish. Grandpa Tito? Ana Lucia? It was only after I saw the fake Isabella on board the Black Rock that it clicked. I was still surprised when Hurley stepped out of the jungle, though. Canary Islands, 1867. Assuming Richard was in his mid 30s or so there, he's getting real close to 200. Like, 180ish. Well, now we know what chains MiB was glad to see him out of. Also a very good way for FLocke to let Richard know exactly who he was at the beginning of the season. That must have been one whore-from-hell of a storm. The statue was at least 100 feet tall, and the Black Rock crashed through around shoulder level. I guess a wave that big, moving fast enough to put a ship through that statue, could indeed deposit the ship very far inland. So I was a little confused about how Smokey could be both Isabella AND making noise in the distance while conning Richard. I don't think we've ever seen evidence of him splitting himself before. That looked like the same knife that Dogen gave to Sayid. The wording was even the same. "He can be very persuasive... if he speaks to you, it's already too late." Jacob certainly took a rougher tack convincing Richard than FLocke did with Sayid, but it was the same story, with varying degrees of honesty by the targets. Jacob says he can neither bring back the dead or absolve sin, but he can (and obviously did) grant eternal life. FLocke offered anything at all, no holds barred. So the island itself is the cork holding in the Merlot of evil? And Jacob, it follows, is the physical manifestation/personification of the island. If the person is chosen to replace Jacob by forgoing their past and making right/righteous decisions in the face of adversity and evil, I think it's clear who is going to be the candidate that succeeds to the island foot/throne. Hurley. It was confusing that the Black Rock crashed in a heavy storm at night, while last season's finale showed a ship just off the coast in daylight and calm seas. I guess we were never told specifically that was the Black Rock, and I'm betting it wasn't the first or last ship Jacob brought. Oh, and when Richard said they were all dead and everyone was in hell, for about two seconds I thought, "Oh fuck no". Then I thought, "Well, he's already proven he doesn't really know much more than anyone else what's going on. And if they were in hell, how could anyone ever have left, interacted with the world, and come back." So, clearly, MiB is a liar, liar, pants on fire.
When Jacob was dunking Richard's head into the ocean, did anyone else imagine him yelling "WHERE'S THE FUCKING MONEY, LEBOWSKI"?
My initial thought was some sort of symbolism towards baptism. But then again I'm completely biased towards a God v. Devil theme.
I'm very confused as to the appearance of dead people on the island. For a while the thinking seemed to be that MIB could only take on the appearance of someone on the island who's body went unburied, but Isabella's body definitely wasn't on the island. I'm not entirely sure that was MIB imitating Isabella on the ship; for one, MIB actually seems a little surprised to hear about Isabella, then you can almost see the gears turning as he figures out a way to use this information to manipulate Richard into doing his bidding. Also, the sequence of events w/ the black smoke showing up, her running away and seemingly being taken by it, etc doesn't line up w/ what you would do if you were actually trying to make it look like Jacob had taken her. In fact, Richard makes this very objection and MIB basically says "errr, ya, no more talkie talkie, do you want to get your wife back or not"? Finally, the appearance of Isabella at the end to Hurley is definitely not MIB.
What ever happened to the man in black? Did he die or something, then take over Locke's body? I don't remember ever seeing what happened to the man in black. So Jacob brings people to the island to prove a point to the man in black, and then the man in black usually kills everyone except for people that he can manipulate to try and kill Jacob. And once Jacob is dead, the man in black can leave? How was the man in black expecting to leave the island in 1867 if Richard killed Jacob?
Didn't Smokey appear to Ben as Alex while also keeping a segment of black smoke around "her"? Or am I remembering that wrong?
Better yet, how the hell did Ben kill Jacob with an ordinary knife after a lengthy conversation? We know that Jacob is obviously capable of doling out an ass stomping so why didn't he beat the snot out of Ben and tell MiB to fuck off? Can we just go ahead and rename the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, Best Supporting Actor on a Lost Episode? Cause as of now, I'd be cool with Michael Emerson repeating for Dr. Linus, Nestor Carbonell for last night and Terry O'Quinn getting his second for the whole season.
I'm just really hoping they go through and tie all of this back into everything from seasons 1-5. Granted, I watched all of them pretty quickly so I may be missing a lot. Why is the island a fountain of youth essentially (for curing disease and health issues)? So it jumped in time, cool, how does all of that tie into Smokey and Jacob? Who built that fucking wheel at the orchid?
Well, I think it might work through Smokey "scanning" the memories of people in order to re-create the dead. Remember when he confronted Ricardo in the ship? It almost seemed like he was scanning him before he re-created Isabella. So, my theory is that Smokey can somehow 'read' the memories of people and recreate himself (or something) in that image.
One other question: At one point didn't the creators of lost say that all was explainable with "pseudo-science". [sarcasm]Yeah, that seems to be still going strong.[/sarcasm] I do think that Hurley will be the final candidate and take over. He's talking to Isabella, talked with Jacob once Jacob was dead, and has a boatload of other crap happen to him that separates him from the other candidates. Or, we can expect a typical Lost-style curveball and get a Kwon to take over. Who knows?
Remember Miles said something like "Right up until the end, he hoped he was wrong about you" and then last night Jacob said he was "hands off" and believed people would make the right choice on their own. I think Jacob was hoping that Ben would make the right choice and not kill him to prove Smokey wrong.
That the common line of thinking up to this point was that Smokey could only take on the form of people who's dead bodies weren't properly buried on the island (Locke, Christian, Yemi, Alex).