After appearing only as a fleeting glimpse in Season 3, the mysterious Jacob finally gave Lost viewers the chance to get a good look at him during Season 5 finale. In addition to his scenes on the island, Jacob popped up in a series of pivotal moments in other characters’ lives — Jack’s “count to five” surgery, Locke’s crippling fall, Jin and Sun’s wedding — and touched each one of them at some point during their interaction.
But what was the purpose of these touches? Maybe Jacob was creating a connection between these people and the island, drawing them to it like the ship in the opening scene (which may have been the Black Rock.) Or maybe his touch has other magical properties — he seemed to bring Locke back to life after the fall.
That’s Not Locke
However, Locke was never resurrected on the island. Instead, it seems that his form was adopted by the man in dark clothes who threatened to kill Jacob by finding a “loophole.” And that loophole turned out to be Benjamin Linus, who stabbed Jacob after the man posing as Locke planted the idea in his head.
Like every death on Lost, Jacob’s raised a number of questions. Who was he talking about when he said, “They’re coming”? Who is the mysterious figure that assumed Locke’s form? Could he be the smoke monster? And what does he have against Jacob and his plans for the island — whatever those plans might be?
Lost viewers now know that the four-toed foot is Jacob’s home, but they’re still in the dark about Ilana and her followers. How are they — and Richard Alpert— tied to Jacob, and are the Oceanic 815 passengers on their way to joining that group? And what does it mean to be a “candidate?”
"The Incident" Arrives
Of course, the biggest questions raised by the Lost season finale surround the “incident” itself and the detonation of the hydrogen bomb. Did the castaways prevent the incident, or, as Miles suggested, did they actually cause it? Either way, will their actions change time and alter their destinies? And what about Juliet? By sacrificing herself to detonate the bomb, did she actually save her life by rebooting time?
Maybe whatever effects the explosion has will be limited to those who were visited by Jacob — a group that does not include Juliet. In her flashback, we saw her parents’ divorce laying the groundwork for her decision to give up on Sawyer because she was afraid of losing him to Kate. But Sawyer refused to give up on Juliet, staying with her to the very end, even if that meant following Jack.
Lost’s Love Connections
For all his grand talk of destiny, Jack revealed that his motive for wanting to change the past was a selfish one: He lost Kate, so he wants to erase their entire history together. As ridiculous as that reasoning sounds, it brings the audience back to the heart of Lost: the characters
Even in the face of time travel and supernatural occurrences, the main draw of this show has always been its characters’ relationships, and that was apparent even in this action-packed episode. The audience saw Rose and Bernard living an idyllic life on the beach, and Sayid’s spiral of self-destruction began with Nadia’s death and ended with his resigned declaration that nothing could save him after he was shot.
Desmond and Penny were notably absent from this episode, and viewers will surely tune in next season to see what happened to them — and to Kate and Jack, Juliet and Sawyer, and Sun and Jin. And the conflict on Lost has always been driven by adversarial relationships like Locke and Ben’s, or Jacob and his mysterious companion’s. Next season, the relationship between Lost and its viewers will come to an end, and that conclusion, while long-awaited, will surely be bittersweet.
