Category Archives: Opening Scene of Season 5 Finale

Official ABC Podcasts

I’ve been catching up on some of the official podcasts —

March 25 audio podcast

Darlton, punchy after having just finished writing a draft of the finale, rehashed Ab Aeterno, prehashed The Package, considered the possibility that Flocke was not evil — and revealed the title of the finale — on the March 25, 2010 audio podcast.

March 30 video podcast

In this short video podcast, Darlton answered a fan question about whether the fish that Jacob was cooking in the Season 5 finale, The Incident, was, ahem, a red herring.

I love the idea that it was a kind of visual pun, and in fact, someone left a comment on this blog back in September putting forth the “red herring” idea — an idea I found really funny at the time and still do. Alas, in this podcast, Darlton deny that was their intent. But the whole podcast is so jokey, I don’t know if they can really be believed:

April 1 audio podcast

Darlton briefly rehashed The Package, talked about who might win in a Flocke-Widmore showdown, prehashed Happily After Ever, and answered questions about Richard Alpert’s hair, the squirrel baby, and, of all things, grammar. April 1, 2010 audio podcast

April 8 video podcast

In this video podcast, Nestor Carbonell gave a tour of the set of the Black Rock. He talked about how they filmed the scenes there in Ab Aeterno — how they created the illusion of the smoke monster, and how they got the boar, who wasn’t hungry, to gnaw on a body (don’t worry, it was just a dummy). Very interesting!

Illustration of old microphone by Peter Suneson

The Enhanced version of “The Incident” (opening scene)

Some slightly belated thoughts on the pop-up hints in the enhanced version of “The Incident” shown on Tuesday:

Nemesis

The Man in Black

A pop-up hint said the Man in Black is Jacob’s nemesis. You’re probably all thinking, “duh, no kidding,” but I had my doubts. I had been struck by how Jacob didn’t seem to mind that the MiB wanted to kill him, and I thought that the black shirt/white shirt contrast might have been a trick by the writers to fool us. But I was wrong. The MiB is definitely, officially, inarguably the nemesis of Jacob.

That still leaves the question of why Jacob seemed so calm when the MiB said he wanted to kill him. Could it be that Jacob had heard the MiB say the same thing so many times before that it didn’t even really register any more? Or, perhaps, did Jacob believe that it was his fate — his destiny — to be killed by the MiB, and therefore it would be pointless to get all worked up about it? Or was he so blasé because he thought the MiB was incapable of carrying out his threat?

The Ship

The sailing ship

A pop-up hint said the ship was an early 1800s sailing ship. That would be consistent with it being a slave ship.

But another hint said the scene was taking place over 140 years before the present day. If by “present day” they meant 2010, rather than one of the many “presents” in LOST time, that would put the scene at approximately 1870. That’s a little later than the last known slave ship headed to the U.S.

Perhaps the ship was heading elsewhere, or perhaps it is meant to be the real last slave ship, unrecorded in the history books because it disappeared on the Island.

The Tapestry

Jacob's tapestry

Jacob's tapestry

The hints told us that Jacob’s tapestry contained the Egyptian Eye of Horus, and that surrounding it was a sun disk representing the sun god Aten — a name that was new to me. The hint describes Aten as the symbol of life and prosperity.

There is some connection between the two. Wikipedia says “There is a possibility that Aten’s three-dimensional spherical shape depicts an eye of Horus/Ra.” Don’t know what to make of any of that, except that life, prosperity, and sunshine are all very positive, and Jacob seems like a positive kind of guy.

The Feud between Jacob and the Man in Black

The hints say that Jacob and the MiB have a long history between them, and that the exact nature of their feud has yet to be revealed.

My guess is that they are brothers, and that the fans who dubbed the MiB “Esau” were really on to something.

A transcript of the pop-up hints is available on Lostpedia.

You can watch the entire enhanced episode on abc .com

High-resolution photo of Jacob’s tapestry

Jacob's tapestry (click for larger picture)

Jacob's tapestry (click twice for larger picture)

This is the tapestry that Jacob was weaving in the Season 5 finale. The photograph is another sneak peek from the Season 5 DVD set. I don’t know where the photo was taken — on the set? in the prop room? — but wherever it is, you can see the details on the tapestry very clearly if you click through to the larger picture.

The hieroglyphics are Egyptian, which is odd because the writing is Greek. Why does Jacob combine the two in a single tapestry? Is it possible he lived in both Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece during his supernaturally long life — and is now telling his own story through the tapestry, using weaving as a form of autobiography? Or is Jacob simply an inventive artist, the kind who likes to create something new by mixing bits of different cultures together?

For more info about what’s known, so far, about the tapestry, see Lostpedia.

Photo courtesy of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. ©ABC Studios. Season 5 DVDs go on sale tomorrow, December 8, 2009.

Author of the chessboard poem in the Spanish LOST promo

Hand placing four-toed statue on chessboard (Detail from Cuatro LOST Season 6 promo)

Hand placing four-toed statue on chessboard (Detail from Cuatro Season 6 promo)

The Spanish station Cuatro, which ran the hauntingly beautiful chess-themed LOST Season 6 promo, announced a contest earlier today based on that promo.

Here’s my translation of what Cuatro posted on its site, done with my semi-remembered high school/college Spanish, with a lot of help from Google Translate. It may not be 100% accurate, but I think it’s close enough:

Carlton Cuse, the creator and writer of LOST, just sent a Twitter message saying that the promo Cuatro made for the final season of the series is the best LOST promo he has seen.

We propose a game based on the promo. The original text was not written by Cuatro. Can you tell us who the author is and what work it is from? Answer the question here, and get a photo signed by the stars of the series. The first person with the correct answer will get the prize.

To participate in the contest, you must be registered on the Cuatro site with your full name, address, phone, and email.

At the time I saw this post on the Cuatro site, there were already 11 pages of answers! It’s too late to win, but if you are playing along at home, the answer is below:
Continue reading

Michael Emerson talking about “The Incident”

Ben, to Jacob: "What about me?"

Ben, to Jacob: "What about me?"

I’m still thinking about The Incident.

The last official audio podcast of Season 5, released May 16, 2009, has an entertaining interview with Michael Emerson. He made me laugh again because he appeared to be as amazed by the episode as we were.  He said when he first read the script and saw he would be killing Jacob, he was shocked.

Emerson and his interviewer also talked about the first scene, the one with Jacob and the unamed man I like to call Esau.  The interviewer said that Jacob wearing white and the other man wearing black was a return to the theme of black and white that has appeared in the show before, but that he thought it didn’t necessarily mean that Jacob was good and the other man bad.

Emerson emphatically agreed, and he said, “Our show delights in thwarting those equations.”

I agree also. I’ve seen a lot of theories online that posit that Jacob represents the forces of good, and Esau the forces of evil, and they will have an epic confrontation in Season 6. But I don’t think that’s where the writers are going. At least I hope not.

Emerson also talked about his plans for the summer (now over, alas!). He said he likes to be with his wife Carrie in New York during the summers. They have an enforced separation while LOST is shooting, “so I just like to follow her around during the summer. I like to hold her coat, and fetch her drinks, and be her personal assistant as much as I can.” So sweet! I hope he got a chance to do just that.

He also mentioned he had just finished shooting the character of a radical fundamentalist Puritan in a show for PBS. That should be interesting!

There’s a lot more in the podcast, which is available in the ABC archives:  Official audio podcast of 5/16/09

Jacob: It only ends once

Jacob and Esau watch the ship approach

Jacob and Esau watch the ship approach

I’m working on a new grand theory of almost everything (ha!), and when I think about that, I find myself drawn back again to the first scene of the Season 5 Finale. There’s so much packed into that scene which seems to provide critical clues to what LOST is really all about.

In particular, I wanted to look more closely at one bit of the scene, the part where Jacob and Esau (the Man in Black) talk about the approach of the sailing ship.

Jacob: I take it you’re here because of the ship.

Esau: I am. (Pause) How did they find the Island?

Jacob: You’ll have to ask them when they get here.

Esau: I don’t have to ask. (Looks at Jacob) You brought them here. (Pause) Still trying to prove me wrong, aren’t you?

Jacob: You are wrong.

Esau: Am I? (Pause) They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.

Jacob: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.

What conclusions can be drawn from that?

1. Jacob has the power to bring people to the Island — or at least Esau thinks that he does.

2. This is not the first group of people to come to the Island. Esau, sounding weary, says it “always ends the same,” which implies that similar scenarios have happened many times before.

3. Either Jacob and Esau are in a time loop, and the fighting, destroying, and corrupting groups that Esau refers to are groups from the future (the Others, the Dharma Initiative, the 815-ers), or else Jacob and Esau have been on the Island for a very long time, long enough to see many other groups come and go in the past. I’m betting on the second scenario.

4 There is some sort of linear progression. Jacob says “It only ends once.” Even if time loops are involved, we are still dealing with a story that has a beginning, a middle, and most importantly, an end.

5. Jacob believes that Esau is wrong about something, and though we don’t know exactly what, we know that Esau is cynical, world-weary, and resigned, and expects nothing but trouble from the many visitors to the Island. Jacob expects something more. But what is it that he expects?

I believe that LOST is a story about redemption and atonement. I think that is what Jacob is working towards, and that is why he keeps on bringing groups to the Island, over and over until some group finally gets it right. (I’ll be writing more about this later, as I work out my theory.)

Here’s a clip of the scene. Each time I’ve watched it, I’ve noticed something new:

Titus Welliver talks about his character

Titus Welliver

Titus Welliver

Titus Welliver played Man # 2, aka The Man in Black, aka Jacob’s Nemesis, aka “Esau,” in the Season 5 finale. In the last minute of this video from TV Guide (via latestlost), Titus talks about his character’s lack of a name. He also says that there is a greater power that he and Jacob answer to — which is something I had suspected earlier.

Photo from Lostpedia

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