Substitute This

Locke parks too close to the boss, Flocke recruits himself a con-man, and Jacob’s “got a thing” for Numbers.

LOSTaways-

We’re four episodes in to the 6^th and final season of the greatest show ever made by humans, and I’m loving the ride thus far. When you name a blog after an article of clothing worn by a particular character in a television show, you’re “fairly” excited to see an hour devoted almost entirely to that character (and the gaseous bad guy inhabiting his island body). This week’s episode, The Substitute, was one big step forward in terms of shining some light on the island’s mythology for us. We also got to see what the world of sideways-reality JL looked like after chatting with Jack in the LAX baggage claim terminal. Best of all: no Claire obnoxiously clamoring for that “baaaaaaaby” of hers.

Let’s get the less-cool, but still intriguing, stuff out of the way first and discuss the domestic life and times of John Locke in the alternate reality/sideways-flash world we’ve been introduced to in Season 6.

Thinking of the bigger picture for a moment, if we take what Juliet said (via Myles) in the first episode seriously (“It worked”), then it makes sense that when Jughead went off, it altered the timeline of the alternate reality we’ve been seeing this year. That means that missing the crash on the island isn’t what changed things for our loveable Oceanic 815-ers, but that Jughead’s detonation is what changed things. So while many of the characters seem to display similar characteristics to their original selves we met in Seasons 1-5, and have had somewhat similar experiences (i.e. Jack’s dad is dead, Locke can’t walk, etc.), these new versions of them are potentially different in more ways than we’ve seen so far.

For example, Jack seemed much more outgoing and faith-based in his conversations with Locke in the airport in that first episode. Locke seems much less faith-based, but also more willing to accept his limitations. He tried to do a bunny-hop off his car’s wheel-chair lift, which was sooooo Old Locke, but the rest of the episode he seemed to be having his resolve to fight circumstances and fate deteriorate. He seemed more willing to deal with the reality of his physical handicap. He seemed willing to finally embrace the Man of Science, farmer-instead-of-hunter moniker that Richard Alpert, the undercover cop who used John to spy on the weed-harvesting Commies he was living with, and his high school teacher all bestowed upon him in the life of the original Locke we knew. A strong hint that this is the case: what job did Locke up end up taking in this week’s episode?

Science teacher.

Helen-of-Troy, Locke’s sweetheart who ditched him when he couldn’t ditch his sadistic pops in Season 2, is still with John in this alternate reality, and it appears that Locke’s paralysis happened after the two met. She finds John laying in a heap on the front lawn with the sprinklers drenching him (which made me think of all the times Locke predicted rain storms in earlier seasons on the island, and now he can’t even remember when the timed sprinklers are going to turn on). She encourages John to call Dr. Jack, suggesting that perhaps their chance encounter was indeed “destiny.” Locke seems thoroughly underwhelmed by the whole prospect.

One character that hasn’t changed in our new reality is that egg-suckin’ boss of Locke’s at the box company: Randy. He still has it in for our bald-headed friend, and fires John for skipping out on the seminar he was ostensibly sent to Sydney for. Locke rolls himself out to his Astro van only to find that Boss-man Hurley’s phat Hummer is squeezing his ride. He again shows a flash of his old self when he yells at Hurley for suggesting that a handicap person should use the spot designated for handicap people, but then takes it down a thousand at the sound of another job from the chicken-eating CEO with disgusting mutton chop side-burns (that looked like amber-colored brillow pads).

That job opportunity brings him into contact with Rose, the wife of the least interesting character on LOST, and she gives him the what-for after he insists that he’s qualified for construction work. Hurley’s life has changed from unfettered bad luck to bold, confident good luck, but it appears that Every Rose Has Its Bernard still has cancer and plenty of her home-spun, suffer-no-fools wisdom (that she is only too willing to share).

I LOVED the scene when Locke finally came clean to Helen about his job-loss, his failed walk-about excursion, and his troubling knife addiction. You see a defeated John Locke who knows he’s run out of options, lied too many times to people he cares about, and has nothing but himself to offer to Helen. Earlier in the episode Helen mentioned the possibility of eloping to Vegas with just her parents and Locke’s dad (Anthony Cooper, who we last saw getting Jabba the Hut-ed by Sawyer in the brig of the Black Rock).

This suggests that perhaps Locke and his kidney-nabbing padre are on better terms than before. Might it be that this alternate-reality Locke is slightly more emotionally stable because he didn’t suffer the pain of having his own father con him out of a body part? Could it be that he sucks it up, accepts Helen’s love, and takes a job as a man/teach of science in part because Anthony Cooper hadn’t forever scarred his son?

What happened then between Locke and his dad? Or, better still, what didn’t happen? Look for this to be a big part of the alternate reality storyline.

The last point of note from the off-island story was of course the revelation that Benjamin Linus is a European History teacher at the same school Locke is “the substitute” at. Locke was the substitute for Christian Shepard, and it was the very man standing before him in this scene (Ben) who made that role possible for Locke to play. There’s nothing better than these two actors/characters on-screen together. I want the two of them to get a place together when this whole show thing blows over. I smell a spin-off!

The exciting stuff from The Substitute was obviously the on-island hijinx that focused primarily on Flocke and our boy Sawyer, but featured some interesting scenes with characters like Ben, Ilana, and Richard.

How great was that tracking shot from the perspective of the Smoke Monster? The Smoke-eye-view was spectacular, and at the end of his air-borne journey we learn where Flocke took Richard Alpert after their encounter back on the beach in episode one of this season. Alpert’s up in a tree, hanging like a sack of camper’s food during the night in the Boundary Waters, MN. This makes sense, what with bears being real threats in both places.

The most interesting thing divulged in the conversation between Flocke and Richard is that Alpert seems to know much less than we previously thought. He had no idea about the concept of “candidates” to take Jacob’s spot for him. Flocke makes his sales-pitch to have Richard join his “team”, but is rejected by the age-less wonder. It’s hard not to read devious motives and cunning lies into Flocke’s promises to Alpert (and later Sawyer) that he would “tell them everything” and “treat them with respect.” It had a very distinct “Serpent deceiving Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden” feel to it every time Flocke did his used car salesman routine. Are the writers just trying to set us up so we assume Flocke is bad, only to reveal that Jacob is really the jerk?

While talking to Alpert, a little blonde boy appears with blood on his hands. Richard couldn’t see the kid, but Flocke was visibly shaken and spooked. Later, when Flocke’s taking Sawyer to Jacob’s cliff-cave, the boy appears again and this time Sawyer (not an immortal) can see the young boy. Is Sawyer the “new Hurley” who can see things that others can’t? And if Sawyer now has special powers like that, does that mean all of the other “candidates” (i.e. Jack, Sayid, etc.) have powers too? Was Claire a candidate, but LOST out on the chance when she went over the dark-side like Dogen said last week?

And to really blow your mind…is that little boy in the jungle Claire’s son Aaron? Or maybe the grown-up son of Penny and Desmond? ( I believe they named him Charlie.) Or is it the new shape that Jacob has taken on the island?

Most likely we will find out that the little boy was either someone Flocke killed in his younger days or an island deity more powerful than Flocke or Jacobb. Sort of a rules-keeper/umpire for the island battle that has been raging for centuries.

Flocke said that the book Of Mice and Men (published in the late 1930’s) that Sawyer mentioned was “after my time.” He also said he used to be a man. These are some pretty distinct clues, even if they don’t fill in all the answers we’d like.

The scene in Jacob’s cliff-cave when Flocke takes the white stone off the scales of justice and throws it into the ocean was symbolic in many ways. Let me first say that the cave might not even be Jacob’s. It could possibly be Flocke’s. Or someone else’s. Maybe Flocke originally picked the candidates he wanted and Jacob’s been trying to protect them from Flocke’s devious ways.

But back to the cliff-cave scene…the scales were previously balanced, which implies that the Light and Dark were even-handed in their cosmic struggle for the soul of the island. Flocke takes the Light stone off and tosses it into the water, as if to say, “You are no longer my equal Jacob…what with the whole being stabbed thing…so now all the old rules we used to have to operate under no longer apply.” Now, what those “rules” are is another matter altogether, and we’ll get the answer to what those rules are when we learn who that little blonde boy in the jungle this week was.

Random thought before I forget it…When real Locke was being buried on the other side of the island, did anyone else see the shot where it looked like a spider was on Locke’s head? The same kind of spider that killed Nikki and Paulo in Season 3? A spider that only paralyzes its victim, and doesn’t fully kill them? Could this be a subtle foreshadowing of the Locke that is to rise once more? Of a Locke that isn’t fully dead? Or could I be up way too late right now, working on a blog about a fake tv show with flying clouds of smoke as one of its main characters?

Sawyer learns that he and the rest of his peeps were brought to the island because they were potential candidates to take over for Jacob. We did not see Kate’s name, but did see Sawyer, Jack, Locke, Sayid, Hurley, and one (or both) of the Kwon’s. All of the people that Jacob laid his magic hands on during the season finale last year. (Who called that the touching thing would be important last May?) Flocke tells Sawyer he’s got three options: 1)Do nothing and see what happens. 2) Take the position as island guardian. 3) Bolt back to the mainland.

The numbers associated with each “candidate” has to have some bigger or cooler meaning, but I do know that each of the numbers are retired Yankees jerseys. So there’s that. Jacob, we are told, has a “thing for numbers”, but what in the world that means is anybody’s guess. Were they Jacob’s numbers, or had they been passed down? I get the feeling that Jacob and Flocke are both beholden to some larger power. Flocke tells Sawyer that Jacob was basically an idiot for believing that the island was important and in need of protection. This was reminiscent of real Locke telling Desmond and Ekko that the button served no larger purpose and was a big con back in Season 2. Flocke also yelled “Don’t tell me what I can’t do” to that little blonde boy in the jungle who reminded him he couldn’t kill Sawyer.

It seems like “the rules” include a stipulation that if Jacob picks someone as a candidate, Flocke isn’t allowed to personally kill that person (or Jacob). He needs to get others (like Ben) to do his dirty work for him. I definitely think that Sawyer is in trouble hanging out with this goon.

Real quick, I loved the funeral Ben, Sun, and Lapidus held for real Locke. Ben’s “I’m sorry I murdered him” line was perfect. But more than that, it was nice to hear Locke eulogized so eloquently and kindly by his own killer who realized that Locke was a better man that he (Ben) ever could be. Original Locke had his problems, but he really did believe, and therefore was the biggest threat of all to Flocke because John would actually have wanted to stay and be the new Jacob. In the first episode of this season Flocke mocked John for being a sucker and loser, but I think it was all an act and really Flocke was terrified of John Locke and his fervent faith in the island and Jacob and the whole spiel. Real Locke was the biggest threat to Flocke, and that’s why he picked John as his victim.

Thoughts/Theories:

-This upcoming week’s episode is entitled “Lighthouse.”

-What is the significance of Ben being a European History teacher in the alternate reality, off-island, storyline? Is there any, or is that just what you would expect a nerdy, know-it-all person like Ben to be doing in the “real world”? The island (and really the whole show) is all about history and time and the past, so there’s that connection. Any theories from you guys?

-In the teacher’s lounge at the school Locke was subbing at, there was a banner that read: “Live in the present, plan for the future.” Do I even need to un-pack the implications of a sentence like that on a show like this?

-The argument that Flocke makes to Sawyer as to why he should want to just leave and hate Jacob is that Jacob directed the lives of all these characters and manipulated them to think that their actions were their own. Some have made this same argument against God. They say because the Bible teaches that God is the Creator of time (and therefore above it and privy to all of the events in it), they resent God and blame Him for making us all robots with no free will. It is akin to the determinist view that David Hume advocated in his philosophy, namely that we’re all set in our fates and we have no control over what happens to us next. I love a television show that gets into theological/philosophical issues this deep. Kind of like How I Met Your Mother.

-The ash that Jacob’s corpse left was white and Ilana put it in a small sack and brought it with her. She was also crying in Jacob’s bungalow. Will those ashes bring him back to life later? Was she prematurely crying like Lucy and Susan in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and we’ll see Aslan (Jacob) rise again in a little while?

-The song Sawyer was listening to in his Othersville house contained the lyrics “I’m the runaway son of a Nuclear A-bomb.” Pretty appropriate.

-Getting back to a little philosophy for a brief moment…did anyone else pick up on the Allegory of the Cave analogy with Flocke taking Sawyer into a cave to open his eyes to the truth of the world around him? Read the link I’ve attached here if you don’t know about Plato’s famous work. It was also noteworthy that Flocke and Sawyer used “Jacob’s Ladder” to descend into the cave of enlightenment. Jacob’s Ladder is an Old Testament reference you can read more about here. The key difference in this use of a ladder "belonging" to a dude named Jacob is that the original, biblical Jacob's ladder went up to heaven...could this one have led Sawyer down into a personal and proverbial hell?

-Richard was legitimately scared of Flocke and urged Sawyer to come to the Temple with him…why? What can Flocke do to someone who doesn’t age? Is Richard now vulnerable with Jacob gone? What was Richard doing that whole time if he didn’t even know that Jacob was looking for candidates to replace him?

I literally can’t write anything else right now. I might add some thoughts later this weekend, but until then…enjoy, and feel free to add your thoughts/theories as you see fit.

Namaste,

JLP’s