Last week we learned from Smokey that the core survivors of Oceanic 815 have been brought specifically to The Island by Jacob to compete—Survivor-style—to be the new Island Protector. Moreover, we learned from Smokey that Jacob had been meddling in the lives of the O815ers for a long time, and may be responsible for nurturing the feelings of dissatisfaction that—in part—drove them all to get on that plane in the first place.
But is that right?
Well, this week, we got what appears to be corroboration. Ghost Jacob tells Hugo about a lighthouse on The Island, and tells Hugo that he needs to convince Jack to accompany him on a trip up to said lighthouse. Which Hugo does. And when he and Jack arrive at the lighthouse, they discover—as Sawyer did in the cave last week—a list of names with numbers beside them. Except that these numbers have a specific meaning: they’re degrees on a circle, and if the lighthouse mirror is turned to one of those degrees it appears to show scenes from the life of the person associated with that number. Jack orders Hugo to turn the dial to 23—the number for “Shephard”—and he sees the house he grew up in. And it pisses him off.
Later, Jacob comes to Hugo again, after Jack—in a total Jack move—goes all smashy-smashy on the lighthouse mirrors. And Hugo apologizes (in an accusatory tone) for failing to set the mirrors to “108” and call the next person to The Island. But Jacob shrugs it off, indicating that it was more important for Jack to know he’s special than for the mirrors to do their work. So here, yes, again, Jacob seems to be manipulating Jack. And Hugo. And everyone else. But it’s a soft kind of manipulation, nowhere near as malicious as Smokey seemed to make it out to be. It’s more about nudges and suggestions than demands.
As I’ve written probably too many times, I think one of the under-recognized strengths of Lost is how the structure of the storytelling reflects what the show is about. Long before the characters started traveling through time, we were traveling through time, via flashbacks and flash-forwards. And now it seems that this season—in which the story is split between two realities—is going to be devoted to alternate realities within the two realities. Choosing a side in the coming island conflict isn’t just a matter of allying with friends against enemies. It’s also about subscribing to a worldview. It’s about picking a reality to live in.
But more on that in a moment. First, let’s step sideways to the Alternate 2004, and perhaps the most poignant flash of the season to date. In “Lighthouse” we spend time with New Jack, who’s still dealing with the administrative headaches of his father’s death, and also dealing with—da-da-da-da!—his teenage son, David. This version of Jack, while less anguished than the old version (as seems to be the case with all the Alterna-815ers so far) apparently still had daddy issues, and now finds himself as a daddy who’s becoming an issue. David seems to resent him for the usual vague teenage reasons, and perhaps also because this Jack appears to be in a bit of a fog, uncertain about the details of his own life. For example, he had no idea that his son was auditioning for a prestigious conservatory—or even that the kid still played piano. After Jack shows up at the audition, they have a father-son chat, and David admits that he’s been afraid to tell Jack about his musical aspirations because his dad’s always been so intense about whether he succeeds or fails. And Jack acknowledges that fathers who put that kind of pressure on their kids—like his father did to him—basically suck. He promises to be more casual in the future. You might say—or I might say, anyway—that New Jack’s going to be more Jacob-like in his meddling from now on.
As for where New Jack goes next in the alternate reality, I see a meeting with Claire in his near future, if only because Christian’s will mentions Jack’s half-sister. If so, it’ll be interesting to spend a little more time contrasting New Claire with the Island version we see in “Lighthouse.” The one who’s, y’know, crazy. This Island Claire, who hauls Jin out of one her traps and cleans his wound because “if there’s on thing that’ll kill you around here, it’s infection” (ha-ha), has been tormenting Others for the past three years because she’s convinced that they’ve stolen Aaron. Meanwhile, she keeps some kind of skull-baby in a bassinet in her makeshift hut, and tells Jin that she gets frequent visits from her father and “her friend.” Jin, who’s not stupid, quickly figures out that his old pal is off the beam, and after trying (and failing) to save the life of a captured Other by telling Claire that Kate took Aaron, Jin backs off that claim, and says that he’s seen Aaron in The Temple, and that he can take her to him. Claire breathes a sigh of relief, then introduces Jin to “her friend:” Not-Locke. Ol’ Smokey himself.
I thought that overall this was another very strong outing for Lost. I didn’t even mind Jack doing the typical Lost thing of destroying a location/object/person who could help him find answers, because I’m starting to think that these kind of dumb moves aren’t just easy ways for the writers to prolong the story, but actions with their own thematic significance. These are characters—Jack in particular—who may not want answers, because confronting the truth about themselves could be deeply upsetting.
I did mind—just a little, mind you—what I found to be a mild case of The Cutes in the interactions between Jack and Hurley. But Jorge Garcia was so charming tonight that I’ll let pass the winking-at-the-audience moments: Hurley wondering (as fans have) whether Adam and Eve could be a time-traveling version of the 815ers; Hurley shutting down message board complaints in advance by speculating that they’d never noticed the lighthouse before because they weren’t looking; Hurley telling Jack that it’s “very old school, you and me, trekking through the jungle, on our way to do something that we don’t understand,” and so on. One moment like that would’ve been fine, but I thought Lindelof and Cuse (who wrote this episode) pushed their luck a little too far.