The Quintessential Lost Post...or review of The Substitute.

[shadowkat]

I didn't know the title of last week's Lost episode was the Substitute until I read my flist's reviews of it. Rather good title, and far more interesting than the previous weeks.

This episode is one of those that gets better several days after you watched it, after you have time to ponder it and think it over. No, I haven't re-watched. I don't re-watch Lost. Actually I rarely re-watch tv shows in general. Only those that hit a certain emotional chord get rapid re-viewings.

Before I go into a lengthy review - an aside. I've realized something recently...or rather always knew it but was reminded of it this weekend, which is it is hard posting a perspective on the net, particularly controversial ones. It will get attacked. There are people for example, reading this journal, who despise the tv series Lost and do not understand how I can enjoy it. Just as there are people who read this journal who thought the Buffy/Spike relationship on that tv series was disgusting, sick, and the most self-destructive/anti-feminist thing ever and you'd have to be a nutjob to think otherwise (yes, I know some of you guys think that, but I love you anyways - as I guess or hope you love me, okay maybe love is too strong a word...like? tolerate? put up with??). I'm aware every time I write an entry that these folks are out there and may or may not read it and may or may not choose to reply or refer to the entry or things I stated within it. Just as I know that my co-worker, who I would do just about anything for, has political views that turn my stomach. The problem with life is we have wildly divergent tastes, interests, and perspectives on things for various reasons, most of which we do not know. There's so much we simply do not know about one another, that the majority of the time in our interactions with each other - we are playing guessing games and often step on the equivalent of a land-mine, which to us may seem like nothing more than just a normal bump in the road. All week long I fightnegotiate with people. I fought negotiated with my insurance company for most of this week to the point in which if I were queen of the universe I would get rid of all insurance companies. It's head-ache inducing. Damn it, people. I sometimes want to scream. I'm right, you're wrong! Can't you see that!!! But I know that's not true, well about 40% of the time at any rate (;-) and I know as herself_nyc once wisely stated in her lj, being right isn't always important, sometimes it gets in the way. So I'm working hard on that. It's not as easy as it looks. ;-)



In this episode, we get to follow Lock. The Islandverse and the SidewaysVerse. On the Island, Lock is actually Smokey (man in black). And in the Sideways verse - he's Lock, but not quite the Lock we came to know and love - there are differences. Due to the actions of the people sent back in time - Jacob was unable to influence the direction of the castaways lives in quite the manner that he had in the islandverse. Nor was the island. There were people who were on the island before the castaways crashed there that never made it to the island, or if they'd been born on the island, were evacuated and never returned. The Sideways verse asks the questions what if the island did not exist in these people's lives or what if, it did exist but then ceased to?

It's an interesting metaphysical question. How would our lives be different if something was removed entirely from them? In the case of the people on the island - it is the island.

In the Sideways verse - Lock does not do the things we'd expect nor does his life follow the same trajectory as it did prior to coming to the island. So we aren't seeing what would have happened to Lock if the plane had never crashed, we are seeing what would have happened if the island was sunk/destroyed and no longer a factor in his life - at all.

In this verse - he returns to Helene, played quite beautifully by the multi-talented Katey Sagal. In the Islandverse - Helene had left him years before his walk-about in Australia, his father caused his accident, and I can't quite remember, but I think the company knew about his trip and had fired him before he left? At any rate - in this verse - he is not only with Helene, they are happy and getting married. And his father is coming to the wedding. Also when he does get fired from the company by the annoying Randy, Hugo Reyes - Hurley - who owns the company, bumps into him literally, and refers him to Rose (of Rose and Bernard) who is with the company's placement office. She talks him out of working construction and gets him to accept his situation and make the best out of it. IslandLock would probably have taken Jack Shepard up on his offer and gotten spinal surgery. Sideways Lock tears up Shepard's card and tells Helene that he needs to accept his lot in life that there are no miracles. To which she replies there are miracles, John, just not always in the places we expect them to be. Her miracle was for him to finally realize what he had and to stop trying to reclaim some fantasy. It was an inspirational bit of story telling - the antithesis actually of his tragic arc in the islandverse. In the Islandverse - Lock is a tragic figure, here, in the sideways verse - he is not.

At the end of the Sideways verse - portion of the episode - we see Lock as a substitute teacher at a high school. He is coaching kids in P.E. and teaching math. A perfect fit. And in the teacher's lounge, he runs smack dab into Benjamin Linus - who is teaching European History.

The Sideways verse is the positive track. The Islandverse is the opposite.

In the Islandverse - Smokey/Lock goes off to find recruites, with Richard Alpert - who is afraid of him. Alpert, I'm guessing, is not human. But I don't know. Maybe they were all sent to the island as prisoners in the distant past?

At any rate, Smokey wants off the island. Alpert insists that Smokey wants to kill everyone on the island. I don't know if this is necessarily true or if it is necessary in order to escape the island. Not clear. But Smokey cannot kill certain people. He couldn't kill Jacob - he had to get Ben to do it. I'm guessing he also cannot kill Richard Alpert, not sure about Sawyer.
I think it's Alpert because the kid shows up when he is with Alpert both times and Alpert doesn't see the kid. While Sawyer does.

Sawyer is interesting. He knows right off the bat that Smokey is not Lock. He even tells him.
You aren't Lock. Smokey asks how he knows and tries to feign confusion. Sawyer states simply - because Lock was terrified and you aren't. You aren't scared of anything. That's an interesting assessment of Lock and on target. Showing that Sawyer is far more perceptive than people give him credit for. He saw who Juliet was and fell in love with her. He sees who Kate is, and he sees who Jack Shepard is. The people he friends and admires - are Hurley, Jin, Juliet, Kate,
and to a degree John Lock. He does not trust or like Sayid and he can't abide Jack. I have to say, I agree with him. The most dangerous guys on the island are Sayid and Jack - they've killed the most people with their good intentions.

What he states about Lock is also interesting - because it explains the character and the difference between Islandverse Lock and Sideways Lock. Islandverse Lock is terrified - and desperately needs to believe in something. While Sideways Lock isn't as scared and more willing to trust. Sideways verse Lock is far less destructive.

Smokey takes Sawyer to a cavern near the sea - where Jacob used to sit. The cave has a weight balance or scale with two stones in it - one black and one white. Smokey picks up the white stone (I think it was the white one) and tosses it. When Sawyer asks what he is doing, he states, private joke. I think it was their game about good and evil. The scale is not balanced, the black rock is pulling down the white one. On the ceiling there are a lot of names, several are crossed out and numbers are next to a few of them - Hurley's numbers. Smokey tells Sawyer that the names are candidates, Jacob's candidates for taking his place as caretaker of the island. That Jacob touched each of you and manipulated your path so that you would come to this island. You did not arrive here by chance - he pushed your buttons so you'd come here. At some point in your life, when you were at your most vulnerable or weak - he showed up and touched you - pushed you in a direction that you may not have gone otherwise - just so you would come to the island. And we get a replay of the people he touched and when. James Ford/Sawyer we're told was touched at the funeral of his parents, Jacob gave him a pen - the pen he used to write the letter that he later sent to the real Sawyer, the conman, whose name he took and whose footsteps he followed in, all in the name of revenge. Now, in 1977, we were told by James Ford that he could have gone back to the States and stopped the conman from destroying his life - that those events were happening at that moment. What would happen if Jacob never gave him that pen? That's the question that Smokey askes James Ford.

The options, Smokey tells Ford, regarding whether or not they get the candidacy and whether they get their names crossed off are: 1) do nothing and see how it plays out. You're name gets crossed off. 2) take over, guard the island, protect it. (Ford asks from what and Smokey states that's just the thing -from nothing, it is just an island. There's no reason to protect it.)
and 3) is to fight to get off the island, to get everyone off the island.

Sawyer/Ford who at this point has more or less lost all that he cared about - is ready to leave the island. Note he wanted to leave the island in Season 1 and 2, gave up in Season 3, wanted to stay in S4-and set up a life with Juliet in S5. Now, he thinks screw it - let's get off this friggin island. And he hates Jack - who he blames for Juliet's death.

Meanwhile - we are following Ben, Jun,and the plane's Captain. Ben and Jun bury IslandLock
and Ben says an odd bit above the grave. Apologizing to the man that he murdered. Ben's murder of Lock is reminiscent of Of Mice and Men - where one brother kills the other, by tricking him.
Ben states that Lock was a better man than he was, and a man that he shall miss. He also tells Illana that Smokey and NotLock are the same. We are lead to believe by this bit and by Alpert that Smokey is evil and Jacob is good.

But.

The Sideways verse is making me question this. Jacob interfered in others lives. If you recall at the beginning of the incident, the Man in Black asked why Jacob kept bringing people there, over and over, dragging or pulling or compelling them to this island. The speech leads us to believe that Smokey hates the people, but what if he is just tired of playing with them?
What if he is tired of Jacob's games?

I'm not sure Jacob is the good guy here. And I'm not sure that the Temple people are either - after all, they did torture Sayid and they did shoot Jin. Also how do we know Claire is evil?
Or dark? She's been claimed by the island, by Smokey?

The thing about Lost is you can't really trust the text. They often tell you one thing and show another - which is why it can be so head-ache inducing. My take is from the very beginning, Jack has consistently screwed up. He's at the point in which he no longer trusts himself and hates himself. Jack hates himself as much as Sawyer does. But, Juliet tried to tell Sawyer that it worked. Perhaps she was trying to tell him about the Sideways verse? The verse where Jacob doesn't exist and can't play his games?

If I'm right - this is also an interesting metaphysical question - are we the makers of our own fate? Is free will better than the alternative? It's a question Angel the Series played with as well - what happens when God or something else interferes with our choices and manipulate us?
When the characters are not pushed or manipulated in Sideways verse...they find their own way, it is a better outcome, then when they are in the islandverse. Is Jacob's interference a sign of arrogance - a master weaver controlling the thread, as opposed to someone who prefers to leave the thread alone, let it weave itself and solely supplies the thread and the means in which it can do so?

Comments

[hankat.livejournal.com]

Sawyer has that habit of looking like he's onboard for something while he's really got another agenda. With all his grief he looks like the easiest recruit for Smokey, Smocke, or whatever we can call him now. I can't totally judge either Jacob or Smocke as I don't know the point of their game yet.

Rufus

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I agree.

When Smocke (good word) laid it out for Sawyer, my immediate reaction was the same as Sawyer - "do I want off this island? hell yes!" The poor guy has tried four times. First the raft. Then the helicopter. Then the submarine. Each time he's thwarted. And he is wracked with guilt over keeping Juliet on the island, when he knows she kept trying to get off. (My wish is that Sawyer and Juliet hook up and live happily ever after in the Sideways verse, but I doubt it. )

Plus, Sawyer is a bit of a wild-card character, we don't really know which direction he'll go, and he changes his mind.

Agreed - that we can't judge either Jacob or Smocke until we know what game they've been playing. It's hinted that it has something to do with are people good or evil, but I'm guessing there's more to it than that, at least I hope so - because that's a rather boring premise and I could tell them the answer, which is obvious (both). ;-)

No, I think the big hint is the backgammon game Lock discusses with Boone or someone early on in the series. I just wish I remembered my backgammon, not to mention that episode.

A few things on Backgammon

[hankat.livejournal.com]

I found a few things on backgammon. I remember that the first time Locke mentions backgammon is with Walt in the series 2 part premiere.

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Pilot,_Part_2_transcript

LOCKE: Backgammon is the oldest game in the world. Archeologists found sets when they excavated the ruins of ancient Mesopotamia. Five thousand years old. That's older than Jesus Christ.

WALT: Did they have dice and stuff?

LOCKE: [nods] Mhhm. But theirs weren't made of plastic. Their dice were made of bones.

WALT: Cool.

LOCKE: Two players. Two sides. One is light … one is dark. Walt, do you want to know a secret?

We know that in the cave there seems to be a scale with a light and dark piece in it and Smocke tosses the white piece leaving an imbalance. What I'd like to know is whether the game is only relevant to Jacob and Smocke or if there is a larger consequence to the game play that could leak out past the island?

Rufus

Re: A few things on Backgammon

[hankat.livejournal.com]

As I know squat about backgammon I searched out this little comment:



http://backgammon.co.uk/lost-in-backgammon-and-the-other-way-around-.html


Backgammon in "Lost"

Lost follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island with each episode is depicted from a different character point of view. The reason for the plane crush, the specific passengers survivors, the nature of the island as well as other unnatural phenomena remain unexplained throughout the series four seasons (for now), and help to create an air of mystique around the award winning drama.

And that's where backgammon comes in. Backgammon has made its first guest performance already in the pilot, when a character named Locke, introduced backgammon game's history and rules to a character named Walt. What raises lots of questions and suspicious. Do they play the oldest board game in the world because they are not just plane crush survivors but the first humans created by god? Does the war between the light and dark pieces on the game board symbolize a good vs. evil battle? And the fact that backgammon is played with 15 checkers (to each player), while 15 is the second recurring number in the series, while 8, 16 and 23 appear on the doubling cube (in right or reversed order), must have a meaning too.

Re: A few things on Backgammon

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I vaguely remember that Backgammon is a game about counting or numbers. The strategy is regarding territory - you block off your opponent, capture him and then turn him into one of your players.
(eg. I grab your white piece and replace your piece with a black piece - in other words, unlike chess, your piece doesn't leave the table or die, it becomes one of my pieces - I've acquired it, it is now my piece, it has been replaced with a black piece.)
I think there's a Japanese game called Mot? Or something like that - which is similar. It's been a while since I played it - the last time was I believe in Turkey in 2000.)

I could be wrong. At work, can't follow the links.

Regarding the numbers? I forget but isn't Sawyer 15, Jack 8, and Sayid - 23, and Jin or Hurley 16??

Re: A few things on Backgammon

[hankat.livejournal.com]

4: Locke
8: Reyes
15: Ford
16: Jarrah
23: Shephard
42: Kwon

I'm going to say it again, Ilana seems to know about the game. When we see her in The Incident with Jacob she is in the hospital with 'burns' leaving her face wrapped up kinda like a mummy.

Also in The Incident Bram attempts to recruit Miles before he goes on the freighter for Whidmore. He says something that makes me wonder about a character, namely Miles father:

MAN IN VAN: [Amicably] Miles! My name's Bram.

MILES: You owe me a fish taco.

BRAM: Sorry about that, but your apartment's being watched. And we had to try our best to talk you out of working for Charles Widmore.

MILES: I have no idea who that is.

[Bram climbs out of his seat, positioning himself closer to Miles.]

BRAM: He's the man who chartered the boat you'll be getting on next week. And, my friend, you do not want to get on that boat. Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue?

MILES: No, can't say that I do.

BRAM: Then you're not ready to go to that island. But if you come with us--all those things you've spent your life trying to find out? You'll know. You'll know who you are, Miles--why it is you have a gift, and most of all, you'll know about your father.

MILES: I don't know where you've been getting your intel, but I stopped caring about my father a long time ago. What I do care about is money. So, I'll tell you what. You want me to pass on going to the Island? It's gonna cost you double what they offered--$3.2 million.
BRAM: We're not paying you anything. All the money in the world isn't gonna fill that empty hole inside you, Miles.

Re: A few things on Backgammon

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Well, out of curiousity, I googled backgammon and it turns out I was confusing it with another game.

Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backgammon

Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players in which the playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice. Players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits. Backgammon is a member of the tables family, one of the oldest classes of board games in the world.

The objective is to remove (bear off) all of one's own checkers from the board before one's opponent can do the same. The checkers are scattered at first and may be blocked or hit by the opponent. As the playing time for each individual game is short, it is often played in matches, where victory is awarded to the first player to reach a certain number of points.

Each side of the board has a track of 12 long triangles, called points. The points are considered to be connected across one edge of the board, forming a continuous track in the shape of a horseshoe, and are numbered from 1 to 24. Players begin with two checkers on their 24-point, three checkers on their 8-point, and five checkers each on their 13-point and their 6-point. The two players move their checkers in opposing directions, from the 24-point towards the 1-point.[1]

Points 1 through 6 are called the home board or inner board, and points 7 through 12 are called the outer board. The 7-point is referred to as the bar point, and the 13-point as the mid point.

See what I mean about the math and counting aspects? Which is why I'm not overly fond of it.

The history of Backgammon goes back approximately 5,000 years.

Board games have existed for millenia in Ancient Egypt and Southwest Asia. The ancient Egyptian game senet ,[34] was excavated, along with illustrations, from ancient Egyptian royal tombs. The Royal Game of Ur, played in ancient Mesopotamia, may also be an ancestor of modern day table games.

So, the game is about removing all your players, not who has the most standing. Also there's a Jacoby rule.

The Jacoby rule allows gammons and backgammons to count for their respective double and triple values only if the cube has already been offered and accepted. This encourages a player with a large lead to double, possibly ending the game, rather than to play it to conclusion hoping for a gammon or backgammon. The Jacoby rule is widely used in money play but is not used in match play.

Note - Jacob is taken out of the game. The Jacoby rule encourages a player with a large lead to end the game. To push it. Also note - that Juliet did a Jacoby move by blowing up the hydrogen bomb which removed the island from the game.

Re: A few things on Backgammon

[hankat.livejournal.com]

Note - Jacob is taken out of the game. The Jacoby rule encourages a player with a large lead to end the game. To push it. Also note - that Juliet did a Jacoby move by blowing up the hydrogen bomb which removed the island from the game.

I like that one as I've felt that Jacob is strangely unworried about his being dead and all. Smocke is being arrogant and is feeling his oats thinking the main fight is over but I think that at any time there may be an exchange of power on the white side.

Rufus

Re: A few things on Backgammon

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Do you remember if he told Walt the secret?

What I'd like to know is whether the game is only relevant to Jacob and Smocke or if there is a larger consequence to the game play that could leak out past the island?

Possible. There's already a temporal anomaly - they managed to actually change the timeline and cause a splinter universe to split off from the existing one, which co-exists with the existing one. BUT - there is a rather controversial theory in parrellel string theory that I've read in sci-fi, which states that two separate universes based on the same one cannot co-exist, without one cancelling out the other or bleeding into the other. Can't remember which sci-fi theory/tv show stated this. (The problem with reading and seeing a ton of sci-fi stuff, is after a while it blurs together and you can't remember what you read, watched or where you got the info from. ;-) )

At any rate - it is altogether possible that by creating the splinter verse - they caused the original verse to become unstable or to begin to fall apart.

I.e - they broke a rule by changing time, while Smock broke a rule by killing Jacob (he found the loop-hole through Ben Linus).

I'm not sure. The story has become incredibly convoluted at this point. ;-)

Re: A few things on Backgammon

[hankat.livejournal.com]

Jacob didn't seem a bit worried about the loophole as I think he may have been working on one of his own. I just don't know what his loophole is.

Smocke is from Mo Ryan aka The Watcher.

Rufus