Lost Finale Recap Extravaganza

So, I've had a week to mull over the two hour finale and while I have SO MANY new questions, we did get some answers. Sorta. Instead of recapping the episode, because if you're too lazy to watch it then I'm too lazy to save you the trouble by recapping, I'm breaking this down to What We Know/Learned and What We Do Not Yet Know. Onward my people.....

-So, we met Jacob. And apparently Jacob's brother? Friend? Other self? All are possibilities. I'm actually inclined at this point to go on a limb and say that the dude in black, who we will henceforth refer to as "other dude" or "OD," is actually Jacob, or at least a facet of Jacob's personality. He may be the good or bad version of Jacob, depending on how you look at it. Now, it could just as easily be his brother or whatever, but I think that we are learning that they are not only responsible for all the people we have known to be on the island getting there, but they are testing them. Interestingly, in the opening Jacob was cooking a red fish. One could surmise it was a "red herring,' which is used to divert the attention of the reader or watcher. Were we being diverted by this whole scene? To what? We were led to believe that Jacob was the good guy in white and OD was the bad guy in black. Were they throwing us off? Jacob is the one bringing all these people to the island, and as we've seen, none of it ends well. This could mean that Jacob is actually the bad guy, that he brings them here to keep this cycle of something going and the OD just wants him to stop. Through the episode, we saw Jacob visit all our losties at various times in their lives, all of them significant to their future. The only one that really stuck out was Hurley, simply because he was the only one visited by Jacob after he had already been on the island. How is this possible? How did he get there then? Didn't OD say Jacob brings them there? Is there something we haven't seen yet? Regardless, Jacob clearly has a purpose for bringing all these people there for all these years. Who is on the Black Rock that we saw in the opening scene and how did it end up in the middle of the jungle? I had thought that Richard was on the ship, but I think he's been there much, much longer. Like he knew Cleopatra longer. Bottom line is that by the end of the scene, we know that Jacob has been there for a looong time, he weaves, brings various people to the island who, in the words of OD, "they come and they destroy" to which Jacob replies "yes, and everything in between is progress" and OD wants to KILL HIM but he can't. He tells him that he'll find a loophole and kill him to which Jacob says fine, I'll be here waiting.

-As we knew from last week, Zombie Locke was on a mission to kill Jacob. Ben seemed unsure of this idea, especially after learning that he would be the one to do it. First I thought it was because Locke ain't no killa, but we eventually learn that the big metal trunk that Ilana and her crew have been so protective of actually contains Locke's body from the cargo hold. This means that Zombie John Locke is no John Locke at all. Is it Jacob or OD? Or smokey? Is this how we saw Christian on the island? His body became inhabited by...this thing? Does this mean Claire is for sure dead since we saw her in the cabin with Christian? Speaking of the cabin, let's talk about that. We thought the cabin was Jacob's home. Not so. We also know that when Ben took John there, it was all a fake out and Ben was full of shit. However, we do know that when they were there, whoever was in the cabin asked John for help and Ben did not hear it. Why John and who was it being held captive? OD? Jacob? When Ilana went to the cabin, presumably to help Jacob who had visited her off island, but when they got there the ash ring had been broken and she found it empty except for a piece of tapestry on the wall. She seemed very unnerved by this and torched the cabin when they left. First of all, we still don't know who this broad is and why she was asked to go there. She seemed scared of Jacob when he visited her and yet she is helping him. She is also the only one he visited that he did NOT touch. Why? Back to Zombie Locke. He convinces Ben to kill Jacob by pointing out that while Ben gave his whole life to protect the island and I guess Jacob, all Jacob did in return was give him cancer and kill his daughter. That fired Ben up enough to do it. We'll get to the final scene in a minute.

-Back in 1977, Jack, Sayid, Richard and Eloise get the bomb ready to go. I had no idea Sayid had so many useful skills! He's like the MacGuyver of Lost Island. Give him a rubber band, a tampon and a banana and he'll get you out of any jam! Richard busts them out of the catacombs and into one of the Dharma houses and, to protect his leader, knocks out Eloise and informs Jack and Sayid that they're on their own. Richard, why do you never seem to really know what's going on? You've been there for ages adn yet I am constantly surprised at how little you seem to be aware of. Anyway, the guys blend in and try to get to the Swan but another shoot-out happens, Sayid is shot in the gut and Hurley and the rest of the Scooby gang pick them up in the groovy Dharma van. Their plan is to drop the bomb, which has been made to go off on impact, down the hole Radzinsky is drilling. You know, the one that's about to cause it all to go KABLOOEY? Chang tries to stop the drilling because of the magnet and what he knows from Daniel but Radzinsky is hell bent on finishing what he started so they drill and drill. They get to the Swan and hide in the bushes, eventually running into Sawyer, Juliette and Kate. Jack and Sawyer finally go off to have the fight they've wanted to have since season one. Jeez dudes, get over it. There are mixed feelings amongst them all as to whether this is the right decision or not but they all decide that starting this whole shebang over is the only way to save them.

-Locke's group make it to the beach where Jacob resides. We also see the foot of the statue that towered over them in the opening scene. Popular belief is that it's a statue of Taweret, who was an Egyptian deity. She is important for three reasons. One, she is supposedly both the goddess of childbirth and fertility (and we know what happens to babies there), the wife of the god of evil (perhaps the entrance to hell?) and she is supposed to embody all that Egyptians fear in life. All of these make perfect sense. Perhaps the statue's demise is what caused the fertility problems. Her embodiment of all that they fear could mean she is still as such and manifests as smokey, who as we have seen, shows our losties all the crappy things in their lives. She also stands, or stood, at what is probably the entrance to the catacombs that we are now familiar with as Jacob's home. Is he her husband, the god of evil? Is it his tomb, perhaps? Anyway, Zombie Locke asks Richard to open the door and when he wants to bring Ben along to kill Jacob, Richard explains that there is only one leader and he/she is the only one who can see Jacob but Locke persists and ends up taking Ben anyway. While they're in the tomb, Ilana comes to the beach with the metal case full of dead John Locke and asks Richard, or Ricardus, "what lies in the shadow of the statue?" to which he replies (in Latin)," he who will protect us all." Is he referring to Jacob? OD? Or is it dead John Locke after they bury him there? Any and all would work at this point.

-Before they meet up with the gang, Sawyer, Kate and Juliette stumble upon Rose and Bernard, who have been living on the beach with Vincent since the flaming arrows incident. They are not happy to see them. Rose and Bernard can be taken two ways. One way is that the producers knew we wanted to know where they went off to. Another way is to show that they were the only ones who just went with it. They didn't try to change shit or get home or anything. They just lived their lives as they needed to. Is this significant? Perhaps. Back at the swan, the losties are discovered by the Dharma peeps, another shoot-out ensues, the drill hits the magnet and all hell breaks loose. As we saw in the station when the button wasn't pushed, everything metal starts getting pulled down into the hole. In the midst of this WACKNESS, Jack approaches the hole to drop the bomb which is supposed to detonate and start this whole thing over. If it goes to plan, they will all of a sudden end up in LA, having never gone to the island in the first place. The scene when he goes to drop it was really good because we saw them all looking both happy and sad that their lives will reset. All they've done in the last three years will be erased and they will not even know each other. He drops the bomb and.........nothing. No blast. They're like "huh?" and then Juliette gets wrapped in some chains and is pulled into the hole. Kate jumps to save her and Sawyer joins to try and pull her out. Now, I know there is a lot of hate for Juliette out there but I am not one of those people. I thought her character actually grew the most of anyone and I was really sad to see her leave. I wish Kate had gotten pulled down instead. OH SNAP. The magnet is too much for them and Juliette is pulled down the hole. Sawyer's anguish was very sad and he realized at that moment that he did love her and not Kate. Wah wah. Too late, sucker.

-Back on the beach, Ben and Zombie Locke enter Jacob's lair. Jacob is not surprised to see them. He looks at Locke and says "I guess you found your loophole" and we finally realize that this isn't Zombie John Locke at all, but OD disguised as such. Now, this whole scene had some interesting things about it. First off, Jacob knew this was a ruse. How and why? Second, he obviously knew that Ben was going to kill him and yet he didn't back off from him and even instigated him when Ben wanted to know why he wasn't special enough to be the leader. Now, Ben thought the OD WAS John, so he was probably cornfused by the whole thing but Jacob would have known this as well and still made Ben feel like he isn't really anything special, which drives Ben to plunge the knife into Jacob's heart. As he dies, he says to them "they're coming," falls over and then OD/Locke kicks him into the fire. Who is coming? Is he really dead? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE? Is Jacob now what lies in the shadow of the statue?

-The final scene is Juliette in the hole. She survived the fall (yeah right) and is lying in a pile of wet metal. She is PISSED that her Shakespearean death scene didn't work out. Juliette wanted Jack to drop the bomb because it would mean that she would never have known Sawyer and therefore would never have to love him and lose him. How sad. As we saw in her flashback, she knew from her parents that even if you love someone, it doesn't mean you are supposed to be together and that's how she saw her relationship with Sawyer. He was only really there because of the whacked out circumstances, not because she was his first choice in love. In her furor she looks over to see the dud of a bomb laying there. Stupid bomb. She is SO PISSED that she grabs a rock and starts to slam it into the bomb over and over and over and then.......................BAM............the screen goes white. What we now see is a white screen with the black Lost logo, which is the opposite of how it has been thus far. The game has changed.

So that's the finale in a nutshell. There are six million theories out there. I have one and here is it, although I'm making no claims to its accuracy. It is only MY theory so don't get your panties all in a bunch of you don't like it. I think that based on what Jacob and OD said in the beginning, they bring people to this island to basically test mankind. My sister and I have had many a talk about religion and it's role in society and I have maintained that religion was developed in some part as a means to keep people in line. If we fear eternal damnation, we might not be assholes. As civilization progressed, so did the fear. I have also maintained that we are unable to live without religion for this very reason. We would live in utter chaos. Perhaps Jacob brings these people there to see if they will live as good, kind people on their own accord, without the fear of eternal damnation, without religion. If you look at Rose and Bernard, they did just that. They lived the best life they could under their circumstances and they didn't try to fight or anything. Are they Adam and Eve? Now stay with me here, but it seemed like if Jacob and OD were basically trying to decided whether humanity was worthy enough to continue, this would be a good way to do it. Keep bringing people there, giving them the opportunity to change their lives for the better and see what they do in that situation. Will they always resort to power struggles and war? Is this a watertight theory? Hell no. It's just one of many but based on the types of symbolism we've seen and the kinds of struggles that the people all face, it seems plausible.

The suckiest part of this is that a) we have to wait until FREAKING FEBRUARY for the next season and b) it's the last season, which makes me sad. Lost has had its ups and downs but it remains one of the most interesting shows I've ever watched and I will miss it when it's over. I'm sure you'll miss my recaps for the next 8 months but my tired fingers won't.

Namaste.