This week: Two looks at a dead man, a recruiter, and the numbers revealed(ish). Spoilers below.
While the rest of the world celebrates the achievements of the world’s best athletes, that spirit of competition is anything but lost on our mysterious island and its sideways-reality doppelganger. You can keep your men’s combined nordic finals; I’ll take Good vs. Evil. (Seriously, though, nothing against men’s nordic combined.) Tonight’s episode, “The Substitute,” was for everyone who hated last week’s Kate-centric jaunt through the delivery rooms of alternate L.A. It’s as though the writers knew just how controversial their decision to take focus away from fake Locke would be and wanted to preemptively make up for it by crafting a story both compelling and emotional—as information-rich as it was head-scratching. John Locke has long been a favorite character for many fans (myself included). For two season finales in a row, we have been told that the Man of Faith’s journey on Lost is over. Try telling that to Locke. Even though the character as we knew him has now been laid to rest, a part of Locke lives on in two separate storylines—one on the island, and one over in La la LA X land, which is where we begin.
Picking up not long after LA X Locke’s chance meeting with Jack at the airline lost and found, John returns home—a home he shares with Helen, the woman he loved and lost many seasons ago. In this reality, not only are John and Helen still together, they are engaged with less than a month ’til the big day. And that’s not the only difference. We learn from an offhand comment that John’s father (the person who drove John and Helen apart) is still in the picture, and may not be the villain he was in the 815 timeline—begging the question: how did this version of Locke end up in his wheelchair? On the other hand, it’s possible that Locke and Helen just don’t know about his dad’s conning ways yet. Here’s hoping we find out more. Reformed fathers and reunited lovers aside, plenty about alternaLocke’s life is the same. John is still a frustrated man working for a box company owned by Hurley, and still answers to jerky boss Randy, though not for long. Randy greets Locke by telling him he knows John blew off a Sydney business conference to take his walkabout, and that he’s fired.
Box in lap, John heads out to his car, only to find it blocked in by Hurley’s hummer. After a little misunderstanding about who owns what company, Hurley takes pity on Locke and offers to get him a job through a temp agency, which he also owns. Locke goes to the agency with grand ideas about running a construction site from his wheelchair, a plan that gets shut down by the agency supervisor, who just happens to be Rose. Turns out she also works for Hurley (and also, sadly, still has cancer). She encourages John to stop living in denial and to embrace the life he has. The speech leads John to take a job he seems well suited for, as a substitute teacher in a school where (guess who?) Ben Linus teaches European History. Ben popping up in such a …well, normal job makes me wonder how much the bomb explosion affected this timeline. If the H-bomb sunk the island (as many fans are speculating), then how did Ben get off the island? He was already an Other, or on his way to becoming one. It would appear that in this timeline either his father was never recruited to Dharma, or he made it off safely with baby Ethan (who we saw last week) and the others. We’ll have to wait for a Ben episode for those answers. This week is about Locke, and it looks like LA Locke might be coming to grips with his own limitations—something island Locke could never do. If he’s actually able to make that change of heart, even if it means refusing Jack’s offer for a free consult, he might well be on a path to happiness with his wife-to-be, and as a substitute.
Speaking of substitutes…
Back in the island timeline, fake Locke is making an island flyover in patented Smokey Cam® mode, pausing briefly in Dharmaville before heading to a clearing where he has a captured Richard Alpert hoisted up into a tree. Letting him down and apologizing for, you know, the throat-punch, fake Locke asks Richard to join him. He questions Jacob’s fidelity to Richard with tales of false information and promises of real information. Alpert refuses Locke’s advances, choosing instead to high-tail it back to the safety of the Temple. Letting him go, the Man in Black returns to the ruins of Dharmaville to offer the job to someone else: Sawyer. He finds the broken con man in his old house, listening to Iggy Pop’s “Search and Destroy” and racing himself to the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Sawyer immediately pegs Locke as an impostor, but the promise of some real answers about why the 815 survivors were brought to the island is enough for James to set down the bottle, put on some pants, and follow his Smokey friend into the jungle.
During their trek, Locke and Sawyer are startled by the sudden appearance of a boy, dressed in original Other-style rags. Recognizing him, fake Locke chases the boy into the jungle, tripping on a vine and falling at the boy’s feet. The mysterious ghost boy gives fake Locke a warning: “You know the rules. You can’t kill him”—to which fake Locke belts out the real Locke’s famous catchphrase “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” (Perhaps when Smokey took over for Locke, he got more John than he bargained for?) Meanwhile, back in the clearing, Sawyer is waiting for his new friend when a bloodied Richard Alpert emerges from the trees, begging him to come to the Temple and warning that Smokey will kill him. Sawyer refuses to go, Richard runs away, and fake Locke returns to retrieve his recruit and continue their journey.
After a brief stop where Sawyer summarizes Of Mice and Men, threatens to shoot Locke, then changes him mind, the dour duo end up at an oceanside cliff with a series of rickety ladders leading down to a rocky outcropping. Sawyer follows fake Locke down the drop, but during the descent his ladder comes loose. Sawyer is kept from falling to his death by the Man in Black, earning enough trust to follow him into a cave filled with artifacts, including a scale balanced by two rocks—one white, one black. Fake Locke grabs the white rock and hurls it into the ocean (an in-joke, he says), and leads a puzzled Sawyer into an underground cavern that he promises contains the reason they ended up on the island. Torch in hand, Sawyer looks around the and sees that the walls and ceilings of the room are covered in names. Most are crossed off, but not all. Six names remain, each with a corresponding number: 23 – Shephard; 8 – Reyes; 16 – Jarrah; 42 – Kwon; 4 – Locke; 15 – Ford. All passengers aboard the doomed 815, all touched by Jacob at some point in their lives, and each paired with one of the infamous “numbers.” The Man in Black tells Sawyer that each person whose name has not been crossed off is a candidate to take over for Jacob as protector of the island. To protect it from what? asks James. From nothing, Locke replies, suggesting that, despite what Jacob and so many others might think, the island does not need protecting. This, he says, leaves Sawyer with three options: 1) do nothing and let the island take care of itself, 2) accept the job and become the new Jacob, or 3) leave the island… with the Man in Black, who has been trapped on the island and is, like Sawyer, desperate to go home. With nothing left to live for and nothing more to lose, Sawyer accepts the third option, joining the Man in Black and possibly kicking off “the war” that Charles Widmore warned the real Locke was coming.
Meanwhile, the Foot folks are still dealing with the aftermath of Jacob’s murder. Inside the statue, Ilana asks Ben what happened to the Ajirans. He tells her, blaming Smokey for the deaths while conveniently leaving out the part where he stabbed her man-god to death. Taking a handful of ash from Jacob’s fire circle, Ilana heads out to the beach to find that everyone has left for the Temple except for Sun, Frank, and Locke’s dead body (which is quickly on its way to becoming spider food). She tells them they need to head for the Temple as well. Sun refuses at first, finally agreeing with one stipulation: they must bury Locke first. So the foursome lug dead John up to boot hill, resting place of dead Losties of seasons past, where they dig a hole and put him in it. Ben says a few words, mostly about how John was a better man than him and that he regrets having murdered him. It’s a testament to how well the writers have built up Ben’s character that no one blinked an eye at his confession. Besides giving the real John Locke storyline some closure, this C-plot gave us several tasty tidbits, including revelation that the Man in Black is now “stuck” impersonating John Locke. Good news for Terry O’Quinn, and good for us. Now we know that any further island visions are not smoke-induced. More mysteries. Yay!
At least this episode answered one of the show’s biggest mysteries—sort of. Leave it to Lost to show us what the numbers refer to, without telling us anything about what they mean. The Numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42) are one of the oldest mysteries on the show, and remain one of the most enigmatic. We know that they were being broadcast by the Dharma Initiative, because (according the The Lost Experience alternate reality game) they are variables in something called the Valenzetti Equation, which predicts the exact date of the end of the world (one of Dharma’s stated goals was to change any of those values to forestall armageddon). Hurley heard about the numbers in an insane asylum and later played them in the lottery, winning him the money but cursing him in the process. On the island, the numbers reappeared not only on the outside of the Swan Hatch, but inside, where they had to be entered into a computer every 108 minutes (the sum of the numbers) to release pent up electromagnetic energy and prevent the kind of accident that dragged flight 815 out of the sky. Now, we know that each of those numbers represents an 815 passenger who was touched by Jacob. Well, six of them anyway.
Were you at all surprised by who wasn’t on that list? Kate was touched by Jacob as a child, but apparently didn’t rate a shot at candidacy. Maybe her destiny is just to play romantic foil for numbers 23 and 15. Wouldn’t that suck for her? Also of note: number 42 is simply marked “Kwon,” no indication of whether the Kwon in question is Jin or Sun. The rest of the candidates are men, which would suggest Jin is the man, but maybe Jacob was dabbling in workplace equality? I wouldn’t be surprised if Sun ends up being Ms. 42. She has proven herself to be one tough cookie when she needs to be. Then again, the cavern scrawlings look more like the work of prisoner than captor. The list could just as easily be Smokey’s, making it… what? A hit list? A list of possible jailbreak accomplices? If there’s one thing we should all know about Lost by now, it’s that nothing should be taken at face value—especially when the source of that information is a probably evil smoke monster man. I’m just as interested in the cave names that were already crossed off; keep an eye out for high-def screenshots to make the internet rounds.
A great return to form after last week’s mythology-light episode, “The Substitute” brought us closer to getting some dang answers, all while giving us more John Locke—which is a great thing considering he died two seasons ago. Of course, answers on Lost come bundled with even more questions. For instance (and please forgive the fire hose approach): Now that we know that Sayid, Jack, and Hurley are all on Jacob’s “real” list, what do the Temple folks have in store for them? Does Sayid’s resurrection and “claiming” mean his name should be crossed off the way Locke’s was? If so, does the fact that fake Locke didn’t cross off Sayid’s name mean he’s not the one doing all that claiming after all? And what about the creepy kid with the bloody arms? Who is the “him” he tells the Man in Black he can’t kill? Was he just chiding him for masterminding Jacob’s murder, or is he now forbidden to kill someone else? Sawyer, perhaps? Did the boy’s appearance prevent our con man from biting the big one George and Lenny style? But perhaps the biggest mystery raised by the ghostly ragamuffin is this: If there are “rules” by which the Man in Black and Jacob must live, there has to be a third party to enforce those rules. Maybe the source of those pesky “whispers”? It looks like Smokey doesn’t deserve nearly as much credit for the island’s myriad manifestations as he’s been given lately.
What did you think about this week’s episode? Did you appreciate the shift away from the LA X storyline and towards the deep mythology? Did Locke’s flash-sideways plot provide enough of an emotional punch, or did it leave you cold? Where do you think the sideways story is headed? With Jacob’s death, the candidate list, and the Man in Black’s active recruitment, it would appear that a substitute teacher is now in charge, meaning that as far as our collective “class” of characters is concerned, all bets are off. Get your spitballs ready, ’cause things are about to get interesting.
17. February 2010 at 9:54 am
Best episode of the season so far (IMO). The numbers mystery has been my favorite throughout the series, and I loved how the producers slipped them in again when we weren’t suspecting it.
I’m fairly certain that I understand where the series is headed at this point, with the notable exception of the “LAX/sideways” story. I can’t even guess how the two realities portrayed in the story are going to converge (if, in fact, they ever do). Oh well, that’s why Lost continues to be the best show on television.
17. February 2010 at 11:30 am
I second or third that this was the best episode so far this season. For some reason LOCKE-centric episodes have always been LOST at its most artful, and this was no different. It felt like the show finally hit a stride after limping for the first three hours.
I am still not wild about the idea of the “alternate timeline”, but it may mean that when the two do merge then John Locke could be back to being… well… John Locke. There is a shot anyways, and more interesting perhaps John Locke will have to kill his evil smoke filled twin. Imagine a finale where Locke has to take on Shadow Locke.
You see, Erich? Thanks to that writing on the wall my overheard crackpot theory last week about Jack may not be that far off. Jack Shephard is on the short list of candidates to become “protector” of the island. He really has no family back home to go back to, so he may be the best choice to take over. This is assuming Locke is dead, Sawyer is evil by association, Sayid is evil by claiming, and Hurley is not interested in staying. Jack has always struck me as the “hero” of the story, so I could see him staying on the island of mystery… on faith for a change.
Okay, the numbers are still not explained. This is just another time they are appearing. Certainly Jacob and the Man in Black could have the same Armageddon date as the Dharma folks. Although I will warn that often Carlton and Damon have said that alternate reality games are not cannon. We have a new association for the numbers, but how does one get assigned a number? And what does it mean really?
The bloody child. To me it looked like a very young version of Jacob himself. Would have been really fun if Walt had been with him. LOL!
My question of the week is this… what is up with all this Egyptian symbology? I mean I understand Man in Black or Jacob using it. They seem to be from that time era. But why in the hatch the counter the Dharma people installed… why is that in Egyptian writing when it reaches zero? Also, anyone notice when Jack was a janitor he was erasing a board full of Egyptian symbols. The kids of Dharma were learning to write it!
Okay, and why do the food drops continue? Is that a time displacement like Faraday’s incoming rock, or is Dharma still out there watching and offering supplies to anybody unlucky enough to be stranded on the island? Are they still running experiments without anybody knowing?
The whispers are the Others I tell you! We only hear them when they are around, like in the Temple sequence. Now there were whispers when Smokey first appeared in the pilot and ate the… well… the pilot. So were they bearing witness to Smokey eating Greg Grunberg?
So many questions… so little show left.
17. February 2010 at 1:32 pm
Consider the possibility that the Shepard on Jacob’s List is Christian, not Jack. Far-fetched, I know, but that’s how dizzy my mind is after this week’s episode. It’s very possible that Jack will take Jacob’s mantle (at least he wouldn’t have to change any of his monogrammed stationery). We’ll see. I certainly hope we’re not done with the real Locke yet. There may be hope for him yet in the LAX timeline.
I still think there are other Others on the island, like the ghost kid, who play referee to Jacob.Smokey’s cosmic chess match. That extra level of supernaturality seems necessary to explain the whispers.
The Egyptian symbology has always been pretty overt. Personally, I hope there’s some twist instead of the forces on the island ending up being displaced Egyptian gods. That said, the hieroglyphs on the Swan Hatch countdown timer translating to “death” or whatever it was may factor into Smokey’s identity. I guess we’ll know once we find out where “home” is for him.
17. February 2010 at 2:28 pm
I never thought about the monogrammed stationary angle! CREEPY! And Jack and Jacob are pretty close. It also feeds in to my theory about Jack’s tatoo “he walks among us but is not one of us!” I think it will be Jack who would have to take over for Jacob. Christian came to the island already gone, and I think you have to be a willing vessel for either Jacob or Smokey to lay claim to you. And remember Dogen has been giving Jack leadership tips such as his suggestion to speak Japanese to keep him apart from the unwashed masses that he leads.
I have to say Erich, I too have thought about the dynamic duo as potentially renegade Egyptian gods. That may be too much to take though, but there are some signs of that everywhere you look. I mean Jacob is living in the foot of a statue of one. But they do not look like Egyptian gods! OMG! Maybe this is just an extended episode of STARGATE! LOL!
Certainly there could be Other Others. I noticed the Temple people seem to dress far differently than our Lands End shopping people living in Dharmaville. Who knows who or what is on this island. We know Richard Alpert was on the Black Rock and in chains. Was he the only one? Anybody else have immortality and permanent eyeliner? Why was the kid showing bleeding arms? Was he in chains on the Black Rock as well?
The whispers have seemed like two things – either the Others or dead people. One time when Shannon was surrounded by whispers I heard Boone’s voice saying “HI SIS!” Is that a clue? But then other whispers have been what sounds like just a conversation or debate with the Others on what to do. Like in that one season finale where our core group was caught the whispers debated who to shoot first – Sawyer, Jack, or Kate. Still, 99% of the time whispers appear with the Others and no other time outside of when it was Walt appearing or when the pilot was eaten.
17. February 2010 at 6:48 pm
Hmmm… Any chance the whispers are the people who have been crossed off the list?
I’m with you on the Jack as Jacob thing, though that made sense during the first season, when he was more of a hero. It’s going to take a serious turnaround on his part to make his role as island savior feel satisfying.
Your comment makes me wonder whether being “claimed” doesn’t indicate a kind of mind control at all, but rather ending up on one side of the Jacob v. Smokey war. If Sayid is going to be aligned with Smokey, that’s a pretty good reason for Dogen to want him dead.
17. February 2010 at 8:53 pm
Well… one of the whispers at one point was clearly Boone. He wasn’t on the list as far as I know. But then I am going by literal translation of the whispers, and they do seem to morph from season to season. Your guess is as good as mine, but everything to me points to Others. They are around when the whispers happen usually.
I think it’s like THE STAND, being claimed could be the division of the two sides. Sawyer and the dark man are going to lead the bad ones, and I could see Sayid eventually going that direction. But who all would be good? Seems everybody is so deeply flawed. It’s not black and white, but black and gray.
18. February 2010 at 11:36 am
Okay, new theory: What if the one of the timelines is the “Jacob” timeline and the other is the “Smokey” timeline. Perhaps the event that set the LAX timeline in motion wasn’t the bomb; it was the murder of Jacob. Some people are speculating that the LAX timeline shows what would have happened to the passengers if they had never been touched by Jacob. I don’t know if that quite makes sense to me, but what if they exist in a reality where Jacob does not—–where Jacob was not around to protect the island and keep it from being destroyed (and sinking). I know there are a lot of holes in this little brainsqueak of mine, but maybe the two timelines are separate as long as neither Jacob nor his successor is in charge of things. Once the proper person comes to power, the timelines could slam back together, setting right what went wrong (like Locke’s death) and fixing whatever problems may have resulted from the split.
Also, perhaps the rules of the island dictate that the Man in Black can only escape if there is no “white rock” (Jacob or his successor) balancing his “black rock.” …As I wrote that it hit me that the ship being called the Black Rock might be more than just a clever name; its arrival might have set into motion the plan the Man in Black is carrying out right now. We did see its approach to the island in the last season finale, so it must be significant.
18. February 2010 at 11:56 am
Very awesome theories, Erich. Maybe we should apply to be writers for next season… D’oh!!!!
I am a little confused on how time works though. The events in 1977 like the H-Bomb, how do they effect the future events such as Jacob getting roasted up like a S’more by Ben and Man in Black? The time travel really creates some strange conundrums that I am not sure how they can resolve completely. Loops are being created, tangles that seem a little off.
But I like the idea perhaps Jacob’s murder created the “X” time split. And yes, THE BLACK ROCK is an ironic name given the war of angels/gods or monsters happening now. Don’t forget we saw another white and black rock in a cave with Adam & Eve.
I will bet you are right that once a “candidate” is chosen to replace Jacob then the world will “course correct”. I am almost imagining the ending of DONNIE DARKO where the fractured time line was fixed by an unlikely savior.
4 – Locke
8 – Reyes
15 – Ford
16 – Jarrah
23 – Shephard
42 – Kwon
Wouldn’t it be a kick in the head if 42-Kwon is neither Jin nor Sun but their daughter? Again, most likely savior is Jack. Locke is dead, Hurley is Hurley, Sawyer is evil now, Sayid is claimed as evil luggage, and the Kwons have to get back to their baby.
18. February 2010 at 12:11 pm
The bomb creating the timeline split just seems too “neat” to me. Plus, it doesn’t answer how Ben made it off the island and grew up to be (we assume) a normal guy.
I will append my Jacob-as-timesplitter theory with a couple more thoughts:
1) Jacob wasn’t just burned up in the fire. He flat out disappeared! Where did he disappear to? Was it an Obi Wan moment, or was he transported into the alternate timeline so he could manipulate his “variables” to get them back to the island?
2) Just before Jacob died, he told the Man in Black “They’re coming.” Could he, like Juliet, have had a glimpse before death of what happens in the alternate timeline?
18. February 2010 at 12:28 pm
But then what are the ashes that Ilana is collecting? I assumed that was Jacob’s remains. She put them in the leather bag, and they were a different color than the rest of the ashes. Course bodies don’t burn up THAT fast, and certainly not on a campfire. So yes, there did seem like some disappearing act was there in an Obi Wan move.
18. February 2010 at 1:19 pm
Something really subtle in this episode – well, that bit about Locke’s father was very direct, but still. The implication is that Locke’s daddy-o is actually an okay guy in the new timeline, and not a con man …which makes me wonder if he ever was. If he was never a con man, does that mean James Ford’s parents never got conned by a man named Sawyer?
In LA X, Sawyer certainly didn’t seem like a guy who had just killed a man – the WRONG man – in cold blood. He was smiling and easygoing…though he still had zero qualms about helping a chick in handcuffs. I was surprised how few people caught that Sawyer was clearly less sinister/angry in the new timeline; but I guess you can chalk that up to that line he tossed at Hurley about being taken advantage of.
I can see why you’d think the bomb-creates-the-split is “too neat” – since it’s going down more or less precisely as we were told it would, and that never bodes well on LOST. It fits the bill so well, though. There’s the basic idea: use an H-bomb to render the electromagnetic energy beneath the Swan inert; the Swan never actually gets built, a bunnnnch of people are blown away; and then, as we learned in LA X, that changed how everybody’s lives played out. There are some weird bits there, though, I’ll give you that – like Ben, and the fact that the island is now on the bottom of the ocean. Come to think of it – the last time we saw kid Ben was in Dead Is Dead, or at least I think so. We certainly didn’t see him return to Dharmaville, anyway, and in the S5 finale Roger didn’t look like a guy who’d been reunited with his son…
Whoops, I’m rambling. Well, look. In the LOST Podcast, I think, Damon and Carlton suggested that whether the bomb sunk the island, or something else did, was a question we OUGHT to be asking. So just because the bomb went off doesn’t mean everyone died right then and there; which leaves lots of room for Ben to have gotten off before it sank. And something else: Brett, the real gritty point of the time travel was to get us asking if you could change the future…the past…one of those. And they seem to be telling us that yes, yes you can. Kinda sorta. What brought the LA X timeline about was not just the bomb setting off, but the fact that they time traveled at all; that they took a huge dump all over the Island and seriously upset (and infiltrated) the Dharma Initiative. That’s what it seems like, but of course there are little quips everywhere that complicate that answer. For instance, ‘07 Richard claimed he did, in fact, meet everybody in the Welcome-to-Dharma ‘77 photo, and that he saw them die. So maybe they really did always time travel, and it’s a question of whether the bomb did or didn’t go off. Or it’s not. And the whole idea of John Locke being set up as the false martyr he eventually became was based utterly on his time travelin’ to ‘54 and tellin’ Richard Alpert that he was the bomb and he ought to lead – to facilitate not just Richard’s belief in Locke’s awesome, but Locke’s belief in it too, and even Jack’s belief in it (since it was Jack who urged Richard to keep up with Locke when he was ready to give up), and…and…oh, whatever. You get what I mean. They’ve been telling us one thing since Season 4 and in the subtext ever since there’s been various strong suggestions that go either way.
“Whatever happened, happened.” Maybe. Unless you’re Desmond, or maybe unless you’re anybody. Who the hell knows, right? The fun of it is we’re being duped, after all. I guess my point is it’s not the time travel that’s leading to all these strange conundrums, it’s the whole friggin’ show. Don’t you love it?
Also, jeez, I’m sorry. This was really long, lol.
19. February 2010 at 8:37 am
Brandon, good catch on Sawyer. If Locke’s dad isn’t a royal jerk, it’s very possible that he never became a con man, making his aside to Hurley more of an inside joke than foreshadowing things to come.
I agree that time travel was important to the show in more ways than just giving the writers something to do last season. It introduced the question of whether or not the characters can change their destinies. We’ve heard it both ways, and it seems like this flash-sideways structure is trying to figure out which is true.
So far it seems like everyone who landed in LAX is better off than they were in the alternate timeline, but I wonder if they’ll start to show us that there are clear “winners” and “losers” in this reboot. For instance, Sun and Jin didn’t seem to be all that happy. Neither did Charlie. Sayid is a question mark, as is Jack. He can’t be too happy about them losing his father, but whether that’s “better” or “worse” than before is hard to tell. I wonder whether, with the coming together of these two timelines, characters will be able to choose which version of their life they’d prefer to continue. Not sure how that works from a storytelling point of view, but I bet more than a few of them would prefer a life where the island doesn’t exist.
19. February 2010 at 9:09 am
I’ve now seen the HD screen captures of the top of the cave with the names. There were many names such as Troup, Pace, and a whole slew of other survivors from 815 as well as some Dharma people (caught Goodspeed up there!). And they were not assigned “the numbers”. Seems they get different less significant numerals by their names. So in all honesty perhaps Austen is up there, although she would not be crossed out since she is still alive.
I still don’t get why Kate would not be a “candidate”. Everybody else was “touched by a Jacob”, so if that was not why then why did he show up to talk to her about shoplifting? Is there some other purpose?
Brandon, great catch on Locke’s father and how that would impact Sawyer. But what about John Locke himself? Why is he in a wheelchair in this alternate timeline if he was never pushed out a window by his big bad daddy? So many dang questions for the new time line.
I truly hope they merge them both soon. I can’t imagine going a whole season with both of these rolling along. I thought I heard somewhere from team Darlton that it would only be 5 or 6 episodes. And yes Erich, I do hope some get to keep the happier circumstances of that brave new world. Helen and Locke make a great couple! But I can not imagine a John Locke without the island’s influence. So I would not be surprised to see him back on it at the end of the convergence. Course if that is in his own time he better have some scuba gear.
Another question about these divergent time lines…
One is 2004.
The other is 2007.
Will there be a point in 2004 where we get a “THREE YEARS LATER” title card?