5 Things – Lost Mysteries

With one season to go, there are still several mysteries for Lost to tackle and explain, and that’s not to mention that fact that “The Incident Part 1 & 2” unleashed at least two or three new ones to ponder as well. Submitted for you approval: 5 Things to think about, Lost-wise speaking, before next January.

5) Who are “Adam & Eve?”

In one of the first episodes of the series, Jack, Kate, Locke and Charlie discover a cave for shelter, running fresh water, and two skeletons of long dead island residents that Locke euphemistically called “Adam and Eve.” It confirmed that there were others on the island long before the survivors of Oceanic 815 got there, and it spawned one of the shows longest, lingering mysteries: who were this couple? Did we possibly get an answer in “The Incident?” We discovered the fate of the long lost Rose and Bernard (and Vincent the Dog), as it’s revealed that they’ve been living on their own in the jungle for the three years that Sawyer and the rest have been setting up shop in Dharmaville. Then, before chastising Sawyer, Kate and Juliet for going off and finding “new reasons to shoot at each other,” Rose and Bernard say that they’re retired and are content. So can we call this a mystery and solved? Well, accept for the part about how they ended up even further in the past?

4) What’s the deal with the Lists?

This is a vague though compelling question that is occasionally dredged up every once in a while. We know that The Others had lists of 815 survivors; “Nathan was not a good person. That is why he wasn’t on the list,” undercover Other Goodwin once told Ana Lucia. Later, as he was trying to convince Jack to operate on his spinal tumour, Ben was reminded by Pickett that “Shepard wasn’t even on Jacob’s list.” And in “Par Avion,” Mikhail tells Locke, Sayid and Rousseau that “You are not on the list because you are flawed, because you are angry, and weak, and frightened.”

So what’s the story with these lists anyway? How do you get on them and what are the criteria? The first, most obvious theory is that our castaways are just too personally defective to be of use to Jacob or the Island. But if that’s the case, then why did Jacob go out of his way to pay a visit to Jack, et al during key moments in their pre- and post-Island lives. We know that these characters have a special connection to the Island, and to each other, but why are they separately considered from those who are important enough to be listed by Jacob?

3) What’s Richard Alpert’s story?

Like Commander Riker it seems that Alpert is perpetually meant to be “Number One” in name only. It seems his role is to advise the appointed leader of The Others and take the position of acting-leader when there’s not. He seems to be perpetually ageless, looking the same in 1954 as he does in 2007. He seems to know the Island’s secrets, he communes with Jacob, and seems to answer to the forces that govern the Island, no matter what they may be, alone. He’s defied leaders on occasion and there seems to be no consequence for him. Perhaps the reason for this has been hinted at. Remember in “Dead is Dead” when Charles Widmore rode into the Others’ camp to chew out Alpert for saving young Ben?

Richard: He’s just a boy, and he was dying.
Charles: Then you should’ve let him die.
Richard: Jacob wanted it done. The Island chooses who the Island chooses. You know that.
Charles: Yes. Yes, of course.

Hmm, interesting that Widmore would back off so quick at Richard’s Jacob name drop. I wonder if that means that, like Ben, Charles had no direct contact with Jacob and got his orders through Richard. What would that mean for how the Others rule themselves, and beside the point, why was Ben leader of the Others if he couldn’t get orders directly from the Main Man in the statue’s foot?

2) Who’s the Man in Black?

In “The Incident Part 1” not only are we introduced to Jacob, but his never before heard of, and still nameless, nemesis. They sat on the beach watching an old sailing ship (The Black Rock?) from shore. “You brought them here. Still trying to prove me wrong, aren’t you?” said the Man in Black. “You are wrong,” replies Jacob.

Man in Black: “Am I? They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.”
Jacob: “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”

Does that mean that Jacob has been luring castaways to the island, for perhaps hundreds of years, to prove some kind of cosmic point to his grizzled colleague? Then we get this:

Man in Black Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?
Jacob: Yes.
Man in Black: One of these days, sooner or later… I’m going to find a loophole, my friend.
Jacob: Well, when you do, I’ll be right here.

So was the death of Locke the loophole the Man in Black needed to off his optimistic Island mate, and further, was that indeed the Nemesis using a John Locke suit in order to push Ben into killing Jacob? I think it’s pretty clear that Jacob and this new man (played by Titus Welliver) are the light side/dark side dynamic hinted at by Locke’s instructional words on backgammon in the pilot, but the implications are where things really get interesting. If the smoke monster ordered Ben to follow “Locke’s” every instruction, does it work for the Man in Black? Or maybe it is the Man in Black; remember the teasing “I just ate” line when Jacob offered him fish.

Another interesting tell is Jacob’s “I’ll be right here” line to the Man in Black; “right here” being at the foot of the statue, and we all know that’s where Richard took Locke, Ben and the others to see Jacob. We did see the cabin that Ben took Locke to, supposedly the home of Jacob, not dilapidated and uninhabited where as before it was merely rustic. My theory: the cabin was the home of Jacob’s nemesis: the Man in Black. When Ben took Locke to the cabin in “The Man Behind the Curtain” and we heard who we thought was Jacob say “Help me,” could that have been foreshadowing to dead Locke being used as a vessel, the loophole, for the Man in Black? And would this mean that the phantom Christian Shepherd is not a pawn for Jacob after all.

All this implies that there’s some kind of connection between the death of Locke, the ghost of Christian and the fact that Smokey can appear as dead people. If Ben is right and “dead is dead,” then the common denominator would have to be the Man in Black, using the dead as cat’s paws to bring his own agenda to fruition: the Death of Jacob. And finally, note that the cabin, as discovered by Ilana and her Cryptic Souls Crew from Ajira 316, was surrounded by a broken circle of ash. Could the Man in Black have been contained by this circle? And if so, when was he unleashed? What’s his end game and how will it be upset by Ilana/Richard/the returning castaways?

1) What happens next?

So in 2007, Jacob is dead, but “they” are “coming.” Meanwhile back in 1977, the incident at the Swan went off without fail, and the Jughead bomb detonated only after Juliet pounded it with a rock at the bottom of the drill hole. The bomb went off and the screen went white, so now what happens? Well, that depends on where you stand on this question: did Faraday’s plan change the future or ensure that it would come to pass? And Jacob’s parting shot to the Not-Locke that “They’re coming,” what was he referring to? The imminent return of the lost-in-time-aways? And why did Not-Locke look so worried?

For that matter, how much of what Ben says concerning his prior (non-) communions with Jacob were true? And on the subject of Ben, does he remember growing up with the castaways in the 1970s in the Dharma Initiative? And did Rousseau remember the amazing disappearing/reappearing Jin when she stumbled into the castaways’ camp in the season one finale? But aside from where they’ve been, the more pervasive question is where is it all going? Did time restart, or not? Will it resurrect certain deceased, or presumed to be deceased Losties like Juliet, Sayid and Claire? Answers are coming; eight months and counting now.

Lost Season 6 Teaser