Locke 2.0 Sets LOST Season 6 Back to Zero
Killing Jacob, Detonating Jughead: A Return to LOST Origins
LOST's Season 5 finale, "The Incident", opened yet another can of worms before it picked up the wriggling plot lines from past cans. Yet, despite the writers' breaching laws of physics with time travel, their use of superhuman entities like Jacob and pouring a seemingly endless stream of coincidence into the show's main story line, the plot still has to follow a logical course for it to make sense. The answers lay between the fray and several irrefutable facts.
Fact: The finale introduces Jacob and the Man in Black (MIB) at the top of the show. They seem to represent opposing forces: good vs. evil; free will vs. destiny; dark vs. light.
Though these two forces are at odds, they don't necessarily represent "good and evil." Instead, consider this: MIB represents free will and Jacob represents a set destiny. Both could be good or bad. More on this later.
Fact: Locke never made it back alive. At the end of the show, the pseudo others roll his corpse out of the coffin as his impostor coaxes Ben to kill Jacob.
Jacob's death reveals the "loophole" MIB needed and, thus, the identity of Locke's impostor. Once the show reveals Locke 2.0 as MIB (from now on Locke 2.0 refers to MIB as Locke; all references to regular old Locke are ante mortem), the compass Richard gave to Locke as a child takes on new meaning. The compass that, if little Locke chose it would reveal he was "the candidate," the savior of the island so to speak, pivots on importance at this endpoint in the story because Locke 2.0, in effect, gave the compass to himself (creating his own destiny).
How did he do this? Remember when the island kept "skipping" off its space-time axis?
Locke 2.0 capitalized on that opportunity when he gave the compass to Richard to then give to an Ethan-lamed Locke helplessly fluttering through space-time (Locke and Locke 2.0 occupied the same point in space-time in Part I of "The Incident" when Richard was leading Locke 2.0 and Ben through the woods to Jacob). When Locke sees his next flash of light, he finds himself in the 1950s, compass in hand, and tells the then Richard Alpert to go to his boyhood home and see if young Locke will pick the compass.
Locke 2.0 utilized the compass to create his loophole and lift himself out of this endless cycle that Jacob had set by "choosing" himself as the candidate. Jacob had said, "It can end only once, everything else is just progress." But progression to what? Locke 2.0, compass in hand, has ended Jacob's cycle once and for all.
Fact: The Dream Team (Jack, Kate, Juliet and Sawyer) succeed in detonating the bomb to prevent "The Incident." Did said detonation prevent or cause the incident, however?
The answer to this question lies with the assertion that Jacob represents destiny; MIB embodies free will. And there's evidence to support this. In Part I of "The Incident," the writers show Jacob weaving a tapestry. This symbolizes the threads of destiny intertwined in a "reality" fabric, one that Jacob is making as he sees fit. And some have said that the smoke monster is MIB, a puzzle piece that will fit into this theory. When Ben offers himself to the monster to be judged, it weighs all of his life decisions. The monster does not kill the wily eyed Linus because it finds his free will to be ultimately good.
Simmer on this assumption and, logically speaking, The Dream Team was destined to detonate this bomb and CAUSE "The Incident" (which would also explain why it says "Destiny Found" on a bright, white screen at Season 5's closing). If MIB capitalized on free will to kill Jacob, then Jacob used his knowledge of destiny to put all his pieces (the characters) in play and detonate the bomb, causing this endless cycle. Jacob dying (a win for MIB) and the bomb causing "The Incident" (a win for Jacob) happen simultaneously (in the show) and wash each other out. And the writers restore balance to begin Season 6.
Balance rings key because now the show will tune to its original focal point (the characters) and relay the noise of allegorical deities and time travel to the background. Throughout LOST's entire series the characters have made current decisions based on their personal histories. They seem to fail when they let history prevail and they win when they can overcome their scarred pasts (Charlie finally kicking his heroin habit, for example).
Season 6 begins anew.
"The Incident" will create a clean slate for all the characters. The key difference: a dead Jacob can no longer nudge the characters into his plan. The players in this LOST game will act on motives unfettered by Jacob's influence to decide their own fate. Yet they may still fall victim to their own idiosyncrasies at times, which is why much of what has happened will happen again.
Still, smoke (monster) and mirrors or fancy fourth dimensional leaps will not drive the LOST plot in Season 6. Just a subtle loving glance from Kate to Jack. Will Jack have the peace of mind to see it? Maybe Charlie will be there to play a Drive Shaft song for Claire and Aaron. Can Locke find purpose in his life or on the island? Where did Richard Alpert get all that eye shadow? And off in the distance, is that Mr. Eko?
Curtain up. Open on Season 6...
Is Locke 2.0 good or evil?
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