The Incident, Initial Reaction

THAT'S JACOB?!?! SERIOUSLY? FINALLY! ROSE AND BERNARD! AND VINCENT!

Questions:

• Did the bomb actually explode?
• If it did, is that what caused the magnetic anomaly and caused the incident to begin with?
• Is Juliet dead? Come on, she has to be dead, right?
• So, was Richard on the Black Rock?
• How is he ageless? Why did Jacob make him that way?
• Is Jacob evil? Is his "friend" the good one?
• Why did he have to find a loophole to kill Jacob?
• Is this the end of Rose and Bernard? Are they Adam and Eve?
• Why did Jacob visit everyone? Why did he touch them?
• Did Jacob kill Nadia, or prevent Sayid from dying?
• What is in the guitar case that Jacob gave to Hurley?
• If fake John Locke is the smoke monster, or Esau, then how does he have all of his memories, and know that Ben was the one who killed him?
• Is Locke really dead?
• What the hell is Kate's purpose anymore?
• Is Sayid dead? Will the island heal him?
• How does Ilana know Jacob? Why was she covered in bandages?
• Who broke the line in the ash around the cabin?
• How did Locke's body get from the coffin into the crate that Ilana and Bram were carrying?
• What happened to the four-toed statue?
• They're coming? Who's coming?
• Were the people from 1977 flashed to present time?
• What the hell is going on? Where is this show going to be next year?

Notes:

• Absolutely loved the opening scene. Very symbolic, following the black and white theme, commonly seen throughout the entire series. Jacob, the hieroglyphs, the four-toed statue, the Black Rock arriving at the island, very well done all-around.
• People are saying that the two men in the opening scene are Jacob and Esau from the bible, who are brothers. People are also saying that perhaps Jacob, wearing the white shirt, is the evil one and "Esau," wearing the black shirt is the good one. I'm starting to really believe that. Considering that, obviously "Esau" is the smoke monster. and has been using John Locke's body in order to find the loophole to kill Jacob. Jacob is the one bringing all of these people to the island, causing conflict and people to be killed. Esau seems to disagree with it.
• Also, considering that Ben never spoke to or saw Jacob, therefore it wasn't Jacob who was in the cabin, but Esau, and Christian Shephard was speaking on his behalf, telling Locke to move the island. The smoke monster, as Alex, was also the one that told Ben to do everything Locke says.
• Cool, we finally got to see the full statue. Also, is has been confirmed that it is Tawaret.
• I cannot believe that not only did they make Juliet die in a completely campy way, but they totally betrayed her character by making her do things that didn't make any sense whatsoever, coughing her up to being nothing but some chick that died just because she thought she couldn't get some dude to love her. What was the point of putting her character through this whole season for that? From our very introduction to her character, she's wanted nothing more than to get off the island, then they give her the opportunity to do so, even if it was in the 1970s, and she doesn't take it. Then she leaves the island again, on the submarine, with Sawyer, and it looks like everything is going to be fine and well for her, but no, she has to go back to save everyone from Jack setting up the bomb, then to have her suddenly change her mind and be the one that "blows" the bomb in the end. What the hell? Come on, guys.
• Not to mention, they put us through the agony of her death, and watching Sawyer's heartache, while she's ripped down a hole by chains which was so stupid, not only, after all of that, she's still alive and blows up a bomb by hitting it with a rock.
• Speaking of which, a hydrogen bomb doesn't go off by throwing it several hundred feet, but hitting it with a rock does the job. Okay.
• Well, we actually don't know if the bomb went off or not. Nor do we know if Juliet is actually dead. I know, I know. But still. That really irked me.
• That was Jacob? Come on, the guy we've been hearing about since Season 2? Though I wasn't disappointed with him at all really. I thought the character and acting were really good, it's just not how a imagined him at all.
• Jacob is kind of a dick. I would've killed him too.
• I thought it was cool how Jacob visited everyone.
• The Juliet flashback was totally out of place, considering the flashbacks were Jacob-centric and Jacob didn't even visit her. The whole point of her flashback was to set up what happens between her and Sawyer. Lame.
• Rose and Bernard! Vincent! That scene was hilarious and pretty awesome. Rose saying "Oh, hell no!" and Bernard going "Son of a bitch!" Good closure on Rose and Bernie, really enjoyed that part, probably my favorite.
• Rose is right, everyone needs to stop trying to shoot eachother and have some tea.
• Where the hell were Penny and Desmond? If that was the end of their story, I'm not going to be happy about it.
• I'm also not going to be happy if everything I've watched for the past 5 years is going to be completely obsolete by the plane landing in Los Angeles and none of it ever happening.
• Although, it would be kind of cool if they had one episode where they showed us what everyone's lives would have been like if the plane never crashed, but just one episode.
• Jacob made physical contact with everyone that he visited.
• Jacob visited young Kate, who was with Tom, stealing the New Kids on the Block lunchbox, which the used as a time capsule, burying Tom's toy plane, among other things, inside, and later dug up together. Jacob touched Kate on the nose.
• Thank God Phil is dead, though I was kind of hoping Sawyer would kill him.
• Now, just for Radzinsky.
• Ben admitted that he's never met Jacob.
• Jacob visited young Sawyer at his parents' funeral, while he was writing the infamous letter, giving him a pen to borrow, touching his hand.
• That was totally Sawyer's uncle with the brain tumor.
• Jacob visits Sayid, asks him for directions, and causes Nadia to get hit by a car and dies, telling Sayid to bring her home, which is why she was buried in Iraq.
• I'm not going to be happy if Sayid is dead.
• The line in the ash around the cabin was broken.
• Jacob visited Ilana, asking her to help him. She was covered in bandages.
• Jacob visited Locke, was reading the book Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor, after Anthony Cooper pushed him from the window, Jacob touched Locke, appearing to heal him and make him come back alive somehow.
• Sun found Charlie's DS ring. Finally! Someone found that damn thing. Now, she just has to give the damn thing to Claire or Aaron.
• Jacob visited Sun and Jin on their wedding day, speaking Korean to them, telling them that their love is special, wishing them well.
• Jacob visited Jack at his infamous "count to five" story from The Pilot, Part 1, after which he was buying an Apollo candybar from the vending machine.
• Jack and Sawyer finally throwdown.
• Jacob visits Hurley after he's released from jail, telling him that he's blessed, and not cursed, touches him, gives him the guitar case.
• "Live together, die alone." Enough!
• Radzinsky tries to drive away in a damn Dharma Jeep. What an idiot.
• The tapestry was translated as "May Heaven grant you in all things your heart's desire," which is said by Odysseus, in The Odyssey, by Homer.
• Instead of the show ending with a "LOST" flash and a fade to black, it faded to white, which I thought was a nice touch.

Initially following this episode, I wasn't sure if I loved it or hated it, or felt somewhere in between the two. Now, after some thinking and watching it a couple of times, I'm still not sure. I guess it's somewhere in between. There are parts that I loved, but there are parts that I loathed. I've gone back and forth from it being one of the best final episodes of a season and the worst ever. I've heard tons of people say that Season 5 was the best season ever, and then alternatively, I've heard people say that they "jumped the shark" after ever single episode. I don't believe that either of those statements are true. But that still doesn't arrive me at a conclusion. I think I'm going to let it sit for the next 8 months and then decide, or maybe even until the very end. I'm just a little too confused right now.

Season 5 Finalé Expectations

This season has left me feeling kind of uneven. While I've liked a lot of things in it, I also haven't liked some things in it. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but this season it's felt as though some thing has been missing. Perhaps it could be that most of my favorite characters were hardly in it, especially for long periods of time. With no Desmond for most of the season, Sayid disappearing into the jungle, Rose and Bernard MIA, John Locke taking a nap in a coffin, I'm left feeling a little empty.

I've enjoyed the time travel and debating what works and what doesn't, what the paradoxes are, and how everything fits within it. I've also extremely enjoyed being back in Dharma times. It's made me learn to appreciate Season 2 so much more than I did the first time. So many questions have been answered from back then. However, this season has felt too predictable to me. A lot of things many people have seen coming from a mile away, and the dramatic reveals when you know something is going to happen is a little cheesy and tiring. It occurs to me that with the heavy mythology this season, which I have enjoyed, the characters have suffered immensely. There have been a lot of things that have seemed very out of character for me.

This season hasn't been exactly what I had thought or hoped for. One of the biggest things that has annoyed me about it is the sloppiness. The writers have been so smart in the past. Cleverly tying things in to something that happened seasons ago. But this year, the continuity has been off for me. While there have been a ton of call-backs to things in the past, even early on in the show, there have also been a lot of inconsistencies.

I have faith though. I have always believed in the creators and writers of this show. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they're going to make it all worth while in the end, that this season's finalé will allow everything to come together, while giving both a great character and mythological story. With that said, I've been mulling over some of my expectations.

• I want to see Rose and Bernard, and Vincent! Tell me where the hell they've been for the entire season, guys.
• Can someone please mention Claire? I know she got annoying and everyone wants her to die, but can someone just mention the elephant in the room? She's been missing for an entire season, and it would be notice if someone just paid some attention to it, especially considering she left her son motherless.
• If I don't see Jacob, I'm going to be seriously pissed off.
• I want to know Locke's mission and how he's getting so much information, if his fate is going to end up being good or bad.
• Please don't detonate Jughead and stop the plane from crashing to begin with.
• What exactly is going to be the ending to the Desmond and Penny story? If they were going to string their story along needlessly this season, they should've just ended it happily at the end of last season. I would be been satisfied never seeing them again, knowing their story ended appropriately. If you're going to keep it going, make it purposeful.
• Will Desmond go back to the island?
• What is the purpose of Hurley's guitar case? What's in it? Why did he get on the plane?
• Who is the real evil one? Benjamin Linus or Charles Widmore?
• Who are the new people on the island, from the Ajira plane? Are they the new Dharma Initiative?
• How exactly was John Locke resurrected or was he at all? Is he alive or some form of smokey? What exactly happened?
• What exactly was the purpose of them going back to the island?
• I want to know more about Richard Alpert for once. I want to know how he got to the island, if he was born there, if he came on the Black Rock, why he doesn't age, why he looked like a pirate when Ben met him for the first time in the jungle, how exactly he came to be the consiglieré for the leaders on the island.
• Was Desmond's vision real? Why did he see Claire and Aaron leaving the island on a helicopter? Please clear up that inconsistency.
• Was Hurley the voice that broadcasted the numbers?
• Enough with the relationship quadrangle crap.
• Lastly, but most importantly, please kill Radzinsky and Phil already. And don't bring Oldham back. He was lame.

Obviously I know that all of these won't be answered, but hopefully the most important ones will be, and the final episode of this season will be as amazing as it always is.

Follow the Leader, Initial Reaction

Questions:

• Does Jughead being under the barracks have something to do with Ben summoning the smoke monster from beneath his house?
• Are the tunnels the ones depicted in the blast door map? Do they lead to all the stations
• What's with Richard building the ship in the bottle? Is this foreshadowing for him being on the Black Rock?
• Can we just find out why Richard doesn't age, how he got to the island and what is purpose is already?
• If Richard watched Kate, Jack, etc. die, then why is he alive? What killed them if not Jughead?
• Why does Locke want to kill Jacob?
• When and why did Eloise leave the island?
• Does it not occur to Jack that if they stop the plane from crashing on the island, then Kate goes to jail and that may be why she doesn't want to detonate Jughead?
• Uh, how did they get Jughead down there?
• Where is young Daniel Faraday?
• Where is Locke getting all his information from?
• Has Ben ever seen Jacob?
• Are they going to blow up Jughead?

Notes:

• I'm really disappointed that Daniel Faraday is dead, especially since we didn't see him make the video with Pierre Chang.
• I'm getting sick of the closing of the eyes of a dead person scene. Where is the Life and Death theme, Giacchino? Though I did like hearing Hollywood and Vines.
• Okay, I don't get this. They send Juliet and Sawyer off the island, have Kate join them, make it awkward and everything, and then in the trailer (SPOILER ALERT) we see all three of them clearly back on the island. What exactly is the point of that and how they hell are they going to get away with that without it seeming ridiculous?
• Also, I was so sure that when Sawyer told Juliet to go ahead and get on the submarine, he was going to leave her behind.
• Uh, Kate, you save evil little Ben, but you don't want to help Daniel Faraday? Some things this season have just seemed so out of character to me.
• I still get giddy like a school girl when Jack gets his ass kicked. I can't help it.
• I seriously can't want for Radzinski to kill himself. Phil can join him. Also, Horace, grow a set already. You're supposed to be in charge.
• Hurley not knowing when he was born or the President in 1977 was awesome.
• So, Locke told Richard that he was shot and to go help him. This is getting pretty cool.
• Wow, they evacuated everyone off that island pretty damn quick.
• I totally thought they killed Kate at first. I was fooled.
• I'm glad Sayid is back. Now, just for Rose and Bernard, Desmond and Penny.
• Jack is the new Locke. He's talking about destiny and trying to blow things on the island up. Who was wrong now, bitch?
• The CGI when the sub leaves was terrible. Come on now, ABC.
• I'm really liking Locke as the new leader.

Totally psyched for the season finale!