Ripples: Round and Round

Round and round/What goes around comes around
-RATT

Wow. What a few weeks it's been. We're down to the very end of Lost, after six long years. After much mystery and obfuscation, the secrets of Lost have mostly been exposed. In the end Jack, Kate, Hurley, Boone, Sayid, Locke, Jin, and all the rest were brought here because of one man's mistake.

Everything we've seen occur on the show was caused by one family - Jacob, his brother, and their "Mother". One way or another, they've been responsible for everything that's happened. Both by manipulating events directly, and by the psychic trauma their battles have left on the Island.

This week, Jacob chose his successor. Flocke came up with a new plan using Ben, who seems to have finally gone off the deep end. And in the sideways, our characters continue to converge, as Desmond puts all the pieces in place using his EM powers.


Let's start with the family. The Mother stole two twins and raised them as her own. She showed them a magic light, but she wouldn't tell them its secrets. Later, she found the Man in Black would not stop looking for the light. She destroyed the Man in Black's people, and in retaliation he killed her. Jacob was enraged, and threw his brother downstream into the golden light, to "a fate worse than death". These events were like a rock dropped into a still pool of water. They have rippled out and caused almost every event we've seen on Lost.


Somehow, because of the "scars" this family left on the Island, everyone else who came there was doomed to repeat their conflicts.

The black pillar of smoke that appears on the horizon



Ben's mother appears to him, just like Claudia to MiB



Why did Rousseau go crazy? And Claire the same after her? There's a Crazy Mother template. Mothers, stolen babies, and a fear of being raised by another.



Why were Ben & Widmore fighting? There's a Sibling Rivalry template. And why couldn't they kill each other? "Mother" said, "there are rules."



Why were the Others so creepy, mysterious, and violent? Because there's a creepy, mysterious, violent Others template.



Backgammon and Senet. It goes on an on.

Now, Jacob gave Jack some wine just like his "Mother" gave him. I guess it grants mystical powers, just because you believe in it. "Mother" says so.


I have to say, I'm not a big fan of this. We've long wondered why Ben and Widmore were feuding. Why there was a Purge of DHARMA. Why do the Others act so creepy? And the answer is "Because." They do it just because it was done before, and what happened, happens.

As for this episode, like the rest of season six, I would say the highlights were the performances - particularly Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson. As Ben X and Locke X, they had some nice scenes that were a bit moving. But what I hoped for from the end of Lost was not "nice", but earth shattering and mind blowing.

I guess I imagined something that would link up all the little details dropped through the series, like the many fan theories that have flooded the internet. Instead of mind blowing, I got merely charming - the scenes with Ben, Danielle and Alex were gold. But they were just tiny nuggets in what should have been an all-out gold rush.

Terry O'Quinn continues to amaze me with the depth of feeling and character he can invest in Locke. Especially because at this point, he's inhabiting an empty vessel. His "Let go" scene with Jack was excellent. He had to spit out a lot of exposition but he made it feel like a genuine moment. "Maybe this is happening for a reason." I also loved the nod to the repeated phrase, sometimes used by Locke, "Don't mistake coincidence for fate." And Locke's retort here, "You can call it what you like."


John Locke is still struggling to believe. I hope his struggle pays off.

Meanwhile, Ben X finally got to meet the mother of his favorite student. I was really touched by the scenes with them and Danielle, especially as it was placed just after Island Ben signed on with the evil Man in Black.

In the sideways, Ben gets to be a much better father figure for Alex, and instead of leaving her mother desperate and insane, he wins her gratitude. It even seemed like there might be a few sparks flying between Danielle X and Dr. Linus. I think he'll be coming back for dinner. This bit really won me over.



Ben was awesome all throughout the episode. I was so glad to see him back in the action. I've written about Ben often, and long thought he was like Job, being tested by Jacob and if he would only seize his destiny, he could be the one true Leader. As it turns out, I think that was right. But Jacob was doing that to a whole lot of other people too, and finally Ben went a different way.



I think the Monster's plan worked perfectly. He tricked John Locke into thinking he was special, fooled the Others as well, and used all of that to brutally undermine Ben's faith in himself. It seemed to work better than even the Man in Black would have guessed, as he was a little surprised by Ben's zeal.

But boy is Ben screwed. After being "the bad guy" for so long early on, Ben had been reduced to a whipping boy, and lately even seemed to tease redemption. Then he slammed the door on the light side, and went full-on into the hands of the Man in Black. I think he made a terrible mistake in going along with the "incarnation of evil" in the hopes of gaining control of the Island.

The Man in Black presents Ben with the Island as a bargaining chip. Ben "can have it all to himself." Unfortunately, right at the end of the episode MiB reveals his true plan (cliffhanger alert!!) he says "I'm going to destroy the Island."



Over in the "good" camp, Jacob has gathered the last of his candidates to finally give them some straight talk. Jacob's says he's going to tell them everything they need to know. So he sits down and begins, "I don't know where to start..." What? Hasn't he planned for this at all?

Jacob's brother has had a plan for over 140 years at least! I wish the writers of Lost had shown us they were planning for a hundred and forty years. I thought with the advent of time travel in season five, season six would present an opportunity to tie up all the loose ends. For instance: What about Horace Goodspeed, who suddenly appeared to deliver the infant Ben Linus even as his mother died in birth, then brought Ben the future Leader to the Island?


He once appeared in a vision to Locke, claiming to have built Jacob's Cabin, and delivered Locke instead into the hands of the Man in Black. He rescued Ben along with a teacher named Olivia Goodspeed, and maybe they were married. He was also married to a woman named Amy, who was widowed when the Others killed her husband. Horace and Amy had a boy named Ethan, who later kidnapped Claire and said his last name was "Rom" which made his name an anagram for "Other Man". At the end of the series does any of that even matter? Who were those people? No one I guess. Never mind the DeGroots, Alvar Hanso, or any of the rest. Hell, what ever happened to Daniel Faraday? There are far too many dead ends in this narrative.

So anyway, Jacob was apparently bringing people to the Island for a thousand years, and subjecting them all to misery, horror and death. He says he hoped he would find his replacement.


Jacob tells the last living four that, "I brought you here because I made a mistake." They died because he made a mistake? "Someone would have to replace me. And that's why I brought you all here."

Wow. Jacob never bothered to mention to anyone that his brother swore, if Jacob brought a replacement to the Island, "Well, then I'll kill them too." He couldn't have told Richard that? Maybe have the message sent to Ben? "Oh, by the way. The Monster is not just sort-of threatening, he actually promised to do everything in his power to kill every single one of you."

But, it's all apparently OK that he recruited them into this battle for their lives with no information, because they were "flawed" and "alone". It really feels like Jacob is the "Monster" here. How many thousands of lives has he ruined in the course of this mad struggle? And why is it that Jacob could not learn the lesson of "Across the Sea"? If you deny someone the answers they desperately crave - on purpose - then that person is likely to stick a knife in you. It's not all making sense to me.


Finally, there's the cut on Jack's neck in the sideways. Jack wakes up with a fresh wound on his neck. And it's in exactly the same place as the mysterious cut he had in LA X. What gives? Simply more repeated action? Or is the sideways starting to go backwards, like it's swirling down a drain (not to mix my water metaphors)?


But back to the idea of ripples. I think the sideways is like the ripples that hit the edge of the pool and reflect back. If they hit the right wavelength, they might cancel each other out. Whether this means merging the universes, or destroying one of them out right, I'm not sure. But I can't shake the feeling that the sideways is a form of "happily ever after".

We'll all find out on Sunday. I can't believe it all comes down to this. I'm almost afraid to watch!