Lighthouse: Choice and Fate

Wow. This week's Lost showed that the themes may be clear, but exactly how things are going to play out is anything but obvious. A lighthouse with magic mirrors, that can show the off-Island lives of our heroes! Who saw that coming? We also saw developments that shed interesting light on the status of Christian Shephard and Claire, the "infection", and life and death on the Island. Plus the sideways universe managed to turn up the heat a little bit.


Usually Lost episode titles are some sort of double entendre. For instance, "The Substitute" can refer to the Man in Black using Locke's form, and also Locke X's job as a substitute teacher. Plus, Jacob is looking for his substitute.This week we saw a lighthouse. It's hard to think of another meaning for that. I guess this is Jacob's Light house, while last week we saw the Dark house - the Man in Black's cliffside cave. I can't think of a moment from the sideways story that references "lighthouse".

As I suggested last week, this flash sideways did manage to tell yet another "Daddy Issues" story featuring Jack. And what a "twist" - this time Jack's the daddy! I'm not quite sure how I felt about this week's flash story. I had a hard time getting into Lost at first, and when I watched Jack's first flashback episode "White Rabbit" I hated it. I felt like I was being bludgeoned with clumsy writing. I was particularly frustrated with Christian's statement "Don't choose Jack. Don't decide." Because if Jack tried and failed... "you won't have what it takes." I decided I didn't want to waste any more time on this show, and I didn't watch it again until I caught "Maternity Leave" on TV, the episode that revealed Claire's missing weeks in the Staff Hatch. Season two of Lost drew me in with the crazy mythology Damon and Carlton developed after JJ Abrams left mid-season one, to direct Mission Impossible 3.

The story in "Lighthouse" is clearly designed as an extended reference to season one's "White Rabbit". This is the third flashback after the premiere and features Jack, just like "Rabbit". We saw that Jack's son is reading "Alice in Wonderland" and Jack says he read the book to David as a boy (as he did for Aaron in the original time line). Jack and Hurley return to the caves first discovered in "White Rabbit" and see Christian's empty coffin.

So, when we returned to that phrase "you don't have what it takes" early in this week's episode, I cringed. Then, seeing the payoff with Jack bonding with his sideways son David, I had a hard time connecting emotionally with the scene.


But the implications of what Christian said to Jack that day are huge. Lost has a major thing for using repeated phrases, and "choice" is a huge one. All through season six we are seeing a focus on choice. Aside from torturing Sayid, the Others want everything at the Temple to be done out of free will.

In "What Kate Does" the Others want Jack to come talk to them. Jack goes to Dogen's office to get answers, and Lennon says, "Good. We hoped you'd come here on your own." Dogen tells Jack that Sayid needs to take a pill, but he must choose to take the medicine himself. When Jack talks to Sayid, he looks at Jack pointedly and says, "If you tell me to take it, I will." (Sayid is "infected". Does this suggest the Man in Black represents the opposite of choice?)

You can actually see the importance of choice through the whole series. One key example is from season three, where Ben tells Locke, "When people join us here on this Island, they need to make a gesture of free will". John then engineers a situation where Sawyer will choose to murder Locke's father. (It's also interesting to note that Locke does this at the suggestion of Richard Alpert!)


Looking back, it seems very important that Jacob suggested Hurley should get on Ajira flight 316, but he touched him and said, "It's your choice Hugo. You don't have to do anything you don't want to". Later that same episode, Jacob tells Ben that no matter what the Man in Black told him, "I want you to understand one thing -- you have a choice." And this week, when Dogen confronts Hurley, Jacob says, "You can do what you want. Tell him you're a candidate." Jacob wanted Jack to go up to that lighthouse and destroy the mirrors. He couldn't just tell him to do it, Jack had to do it of his own will.

Now, think about how we've seen Christian Shephard on the show, and what it means that he told Jack, "Don't choose." Remember season four when Christian appeared to John, whose leg was broken, and told him to get up and turn the frozen wheel, but he could not help John do it. Christian claimed he could speak for Jacob, but he was a key figure in establishing the loophole to kill him. Based on all he said and did, it's very clear that the Christian we see on the Island was on the side of the Man in Black all along. (It even seems very possible what we think is Christian is actually the Smoke Monster.)


Flocke says to Richard, "You've been doing all this and he never even told you why? I would never do that to you. I would never have left you in the dark." And he tells Sawyer that Jacob has actually been manipulating them all. "Choices that you thought you made were never really choices. He was pushing you."

It's still very hard to figure out if there's a good side or bad side in this battle between Jacob/Light and his Nemesis/Dark. In some cruel way, they almost seem like two personalities of the same being, testing these people just to see what they will do. What is the end game here? I'm not quite sure what it all adds up to.

We did get a few more details about the dark side this week. I had speculated that Claire died in season four, and that's why she could see Christian and joined him in the Cabin. I also guessed that the Smoke Monster appeared in the form of those who die on the Island - and felt this was confirmed by the season three episode where he explicitly appears as Mr. Eko's brother Yemi. Maybe Claire was taken over by the Smoke Monster too?


Now we see that Claire is a physical being separate from the Monster, and she can touch (and kill) on the Island. She doesn't seem dead, as much as she is totally crazy (and channeling Rousseau.) She says she has a "friend" on the Island, and that she talked to her father. It turns out, her "friend" is none other than the Man in Black. So is Claire evil, or is she doing what she thinks is right? Think about how she must feel about the Others by now. They kidnapped her for weeks, and only Rousseau saved her. And the Others had taken Danielle's baby, and tried to kill Charlie, and any number of terrible things. Who knows what's happened the last three years...if Claire's really alive that is. Anyway, what Dogen tells Jack is that Claire's state is similar to Sayid, who apparently died and something came back in his body.

This is different from John Locke, whose dead body is on the Island and whose spirit seems to be gone - the Monster just uses his appearance. And I still can't tell if the appearances of Christian Shephard on the Island are MiB or not. What do you think?


Is Christian separate from the Smoke Monster or not? Am I just getting hung up on the fact that John's body remains, while the others (Yemi, Christian, maybe Claire) disappeared? What to make of the fact that the Island has multiple "Cerberus Vents" where the smoke emerges? Does the Man in Black have many "heads", so he's capable of controlling many different specters? Or could that refer to the fact that MiB and Jacob are like two heads of the same being?

Why does the Monster want everybody dead, but sometime he takes action while other times he spares people? What really happens to you when you "die" on the Island, and is it possible that it's not such a bad thing? Lots of people have turned up after they died - what if the Island can grant eternal life?

As we get close to the end of Lost, I find myself scratching my head just as often as ever. Despite ABC running ads that say "Questions will be answered" the show has continued to perplex even hardcore fans with its mysteries. The worst is fearing that there are too many mysteries left to ever get full answers. At this point, all we can do is hang on until the end.

Season six has been designed to reflect season one. We start with a two-hour premiere, then have episodes featuring Kate, Locke, and Jack. Next week's "Sundown" seems to continue that trend with a Sun/Jin episode. Sadly, we can't have a Charlie episode after that (I think?) so maybe they'll jump directly to Sawyer. If Locke gets along with his dad in the X universe, maybe Cooper was never a con man? Could it be that Sawyer's parents never died in the sideways universe? What would Sawyer do if he weren't a con man?