The season finale did not disappoint. I’ll sing its praises but first let me vent a complaint.
Jack’s decision to get the Oceanic six to lie about the island makes no sense. He justifies the decision by citing the strength of the conspiracy to create a false Oceanic crash site in which they are all supposed to be dead. But the first law of conspiracies is that you cease to be a threat once you tell as many people as possible as much as you know. If you’ve already spilled all of the beans, then the conspiracy gains nothing by killing you. Anyone trapped in a John Grisham novel would do well to keep this law in mind.
I hope they provide additional justification for this decision, but keeping the secrets of the island does nothing to protect them or the people on the island. Bad guys can and still do target them. And because they don’t know where the island is, keeping secrets is not needed to protect the people left there.
Now on to the good stuff. We now have some sense of why Jack wants to go back to the island — Locke has told him that his friends there are in trouble. And now that Locke is dead he feels responsible, both for Locke’s death (in all likelihood) and for those remaining on the island.
We also know why Kate does not want to go back. She’s having dreams of Claire warning her not to bring Aaron back. This is consistent with my earlier expressed theory that Aaron is supposed to be the next leader and there is a struggle about whether he should assume that role or not.
The struggle over whether they should return or not will likely be a main plot for next season. One other interesting angle on Ben’s declaration that they all need to return is that he may use that to find Desmond and then Penny so that he can take his revenge on Charles Widmore by killing his daughter. (hat tip to Greg for this observation)
The discovery that Charlotte was previously on the island and may have even been born there seems quite important, especially given the fact that pregnant women seem to die before they can give birth.
I’m assuming that Michael is dead and probably so is Jin (although he could have somehow been blown from the deck). Having Christian Shepherd appear to Michael telling him that he could go was meant, I think, to say that his purpose for the island was now done and he could die.
That vision strengthens the show’s reliance on mysticism, but the show also took steps to stay within the framework of sci-fi by revealing the negatively charged exotic material that moves the island (as well as bunnies). It’s like dilithium crystals on Star Trek. We don’t know how they work, but there is some physical substance that could account for a large chunk of the magic.
Now that the show is on hiatus for a few months, we’ll have to find some other distraction for Friday afternoons, but that shouldn’t be hard. We are chock-full of distractions.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
I saw one reviewer who commented that Locke being in the casket at the end was a shock because (according to this reviewer) the story was all along leading us to expect Desmond there. But I didn’t get that at all, and looking back, I still don’t see where this theory is coming from. Personally, I thought it was going to be Michael right up to the point where that possibility was ruled out (by Hurley’s conversation with Walt).
Another complaint (far less important than Jay’s) is that the scene with Sun rules out some of the more plausible fan theories to explain away the show’s embarrassing decision to pretend that Sun could buy her father’s company with the Oceanic settlement. Fan theories on this had speculated that she might be lying about where she got the money – that Hurley or Widmore might be backing her. But it could never have been Hurley (we knew already that he gave the money to his parents and wouldn’t have anything to do with it) and now we know it’s not Widmore. So we’re stuck on that one.
My other theory, besides the idea that Ben is manipulating Jack and Sayid in order to track down Penny, is that Sun has gone over to the other side – trying to team up with Widmore to take revenge for her husband’s death. Her comment that “we’re not the only people who made it off the island” could have many interpretations. Perhaps she’s offering to help Widmore find Penny and Desmond – or (as I prefer to imagine) Penny and Desmond are working in secret to sabotage Widmore and Sun is offering to help stop them – or threatening to help them if Widmore doesn’t give her something she wants.
Jay’s comments on the future direction of the show remind me of a good article Slate ran on Thursday looking back over the four seasons of the show (not including the fourth season finale). It was a little too harsh on the quality of the early seasons – the first two seasons were very good, even if the third was weak – but it’s smart and makes a number of good points.
Anyway, the article proposed that the first three seasons could be summarized as follows (I’m quoting from memory):
1. Are there other people on this island?
2. There ARE other people on this island!
3. Wow, the other people on this island are really mean!
Season four, of course, was “Are the visitors from off the island going to rescue us?” Season five looks set to be something like “Should the six go back to the island?”
I agree with Greg and others that Sun’s purchase of a controlling interest in her father’s company with the settlement money from Oceanic was ridiculous. Given the apparent size of Paik she would need at least hundreds of millions of dollars. No settlement is that large.
As to whether it was shocking that John Locke was in the coffin — I had assumed it was Michael before this episode. But within the episode I predicted that it was John based on three things: 1) Jack says early in the episode to Kate that he believed Jeremy Bentham when Bentham said they should lie, but he now believed that was wrong, 2) We saw Locke tell Jack to lie, and 3) we learned from Hurley that Bentham was just code for someone else.
Lastly, let me emphasize that Charlotte being born on the island is a big deal. The only other person that we know was born there is Aaron, and he is clearly a big deal.
I had assumed we would need to have another chosen one in between Locke and Aaron. C.S. Lewis (you all did pick up on that, right? She even has the same middle name as his – Staples) looks a lot like the next candidate.
During the episode I did pick up that Bentham was a cover name, but I had missed the part where Jack said he was wrong to believe Bentham when Bentham said to lie.
I wonder about the significance of Locke’s choice of cover name. Maybe the show is going to take a stand between the Straussians (who think Locke stands with Bentham in the Thucydedian/Hobbesean tradition) and the anti-Straussians (who think Locke is a natural moralist in the Ciceronian/Augustinian tradition – the furthest thing in the world from Bentham).
Or maybe not. 🙂 We’ll probably never hear about it again.
As for the theory of another chosen one between Locke and Aaron, there is also the possibility Locke was not intended to be the leader. Recall the ageless Richard Alpert seemed to think Locke (as a child) was the one, until he picked the knife. It seems he was looking instead for a scientific mind (see the other things Locke selected) – perhaps Jack? Hence when Jack leaves, and Locke takes over as leader, “bad things happen”.
It may be that the islanders assumed Locke was meant to be leader, since he crashed on the island and they had recruited him before – but they were wrong, as Locke just happened to be on a flight with the true “chosen one” (and had actually been persuaded to go to Australia by Abaddon – Whidmore’s man – perhaps as sabotage).
I think the main reason the Others think Locke is the chosen one is because “you’re in a wheelchair and I’m not.” And I think that, plus the various other ways the island has favored Locke (e.g. sending Walt to keep him alive after Ben shot him, sending Christian to give him instructions on how to save the island in Jacob’s cabin) pretty much indicate they’re right.
But the island has a healing power for others – i.e. Rose was healed of cancer (seemingly), Alpern never ages, Christian apparently was raised from the dead. This only proves the island rejected Ben, not that Locke is meant to be the leader.
Also note that Ben found it amusing that Locke couldn’t see or hear Jacob (other than the whispered “help me”). Granted, this could have been head games played by Ben, but it does seem that Ben gets orders from Jacob (or believes that he does). Locke only received orders from Christian – did Ben need an interpreter? And is Christian legitimately speaking for Jacob?
Finally, note that Locke’s test was to kill his father (as Ben did). When he couldn’t do it, Ben mocked him and the rest of the Others left him. While this may have just been Ben’s test, no one spoke up to say, “Killing your own father isn’t an accurate test of one’s leadership ability”. They later accepted Locke when they believed he had killed his father – though it had actually been Sawyer who had to do it.
Whether or Locke is the chosen one, he clearly is not cut out to be leader, hence “bad things happen” after Jack, Aaron and the rest left.
This is a great discussion. As always, the rules are not perfectly clear, so there is no way to fully resolve these issues. It seems that being a leader requires being raised apart from one’s Mom and perhaps killing one’s father. If that’s true, then Locke fell short. There may also be something special about being born on the island, which Aaron and Charlotte appear to have going for tem.
I think your memory fails you, Nathan. I rewatched that episode recently, and Ben doesn’t mock John for not being able to see Jacob – quite the contrary, he *kills* John because John *did* hear Jacob. Remember? He shoots John, John falls into the pit, Ben stands over him, John asks “Why?” and Ben replies “Because you could hear him.”
Yes, the island has healed others. But I only meant for that to be one example of the various ways in which the island has manifested its favor for him. Locke has received more than just healing from the island – he’s received marching orders. Jesus healed a lot of people, but it was only the twelve apostles to whom he said, “I give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.” No one is in doubt about the difference in status that implies.
Let’s keep this discussion going until the show comes back in the fall!