Season 6: The Re-watch!

[doubleohfive]

Another question: Dogen goes to great lengths to convince Jack that "a darkness" is growing in Sayid at the beginning of the season, and it wouldn't be too far a leap to make the assumption that "the darkness" he refers to could be akin to the Smoke Monster. Whether or not this "darkness" is there because of the temple waters resurrecting Sayid, and whether or not this "darkness" is also inside Ben is still up for debate... but the question I have is simply, if Dogen thought Sayid had to be killed because of this darkness that would eventually consume him, and if it's also true that this same "darkness" consumed Claire, then it would seem to me that everything the Losties did to beat the MiB would be for naught as Claire got off the island in the end.

I guess the easy, convenient explanation would be that Dogen lied to Jack about Claire, in order to get him to let Dogen kill Sayid.

Now I've gone cross-eyed!

 

[Aeon]

That's a really cool thought about Claire.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Another question: Dogen goes to great lengths to convince Jack that "a darkness" is growing in Sayid at the beginning of the season, and it wouldn't be too far a leap to make the assumption that "the darkness" he refers to could be akin to the Smoke Monster.

The way I understood it was there is good and evil within everyone--it is just a matter of what that balance is between good and evil. Apparently Smokey somehow upset that balance tipping the internal scale to the dark side as evidenced in Rousseau's team, Claire, Sayid etc. We never learned how he achieved this--another unanswered question I would have liked answered.

Smokey's black smoke form resulting from whatever happened down in the Light was actually his disembodied soul. In his case his internal moral scale was tipped entirely over to darkness.

Apparently based on evidence presented in the actual episodes though some can overcome the imbalance like Claire and Sayid. However, I considered it sloppy writing and the whole redemptive arc for them and the back-and-forth characterization poorly handled with no real explanation--satisfying or otherwise. Even in the interview L/C gave regarding Sayid's behavior you could tell they were straining to rationalize it. I chalk it up to writer fiat.

 

[RoJoHen]

I think this may be a case of a difference that makes no difference. Jacob seemed to think that enough of MiB's personality was retained within Smokie that he treated Smokie (when embodied, in any case) as akin to MiB, and for pretty much everyone else who ever encountered Smokie/MiB, whether or not they were originally the same entity would be immaterial.

Oh, I agree that it doesn't really make a difference. It was just a thought I had. This came about mostly during "The End" when Jack and Flocke are staring down the waterfall as they lower Desmond into the cave. Flocke gets all nostalgic with Jack about how it reminded him of the Hatch, and for a moment he seems to be Locke, even though we know he's not.

So if he can believe he's Locke, even for a split second, why couldn't the same be true of MiB?

 

[McCoy]

My take is that when MiB went into the light, something happened to transform him into Smoky. It took the essence of him and left his body behind. Smoky was MiB. But when he took on the forms of others, he also had access to their memories. I think he'd been living as Locke much longer than any other form he took, to the point he was stuck in that form after Jacob's death, and the constant exposure to Locke's memories caused some momentary confusion. If he went on longer he may have had continued episodes of confusing Locke's memories with his own.

 

[DonIago]

Or, given that he was a master manipulator, he was just screwing around with Jack.

Especially given that Locke and Jack weren't the best of friends, Jack slamming Flocke for assuming Locke's identity was rather awesome.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I still think most of the evidence points to Smokey being MIB.

However...

There's that little matter of him seeing an apparition of himself as a child. He saw Jacob as a child and then himself -- MIB -- as a child. Was it the ghost of the real MIB? Was it the island f***ing with him?

 

[Aeon]

I thought the child apparition was always young Jacob...?

 

[RoJoHen]

I still think most of the evidence points to Smokey being MIB.

However...

There's that little matter of him seeing an apparition of himself as a child. He saw Jacob as a child and then himself -- MIB -- as a child. Was it the ghost of the real MIB? Was it the island f***ing with him?

The thing that gets me is that MiB's body was intact after he went into the cave. The Smokey/MiB was a separate entity from MiB's original body, and it was the same with Locke.

Now...what the hell happened to Christian's body?

 

[Aeon]

Maybe his body just fell out of the coffin during the crash and disappeared.

 

[DonIago]

Sun used it as fertilizer for her garden, of course.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I thought the child apparition was always young Jacob...?

No. When Flocke and Desmond were walking through the woods, they saw a different kid, with darker hair. Flocke told Desmond to ignore him. The boy smiled at Flocke. THis boy was revealed to be MIB (or the boy in black, if you will) in "Across the Sea."

 

[Jack Bauer]

I thought the child apparition was always young Jacob...?

Correct. The child apparition was played by Kenton Duty who played young Jacob in Across the Sea. I think when he appeared with dark hair it was just the lighting in the scene that made the hair dark.

 

[DonIago]

That would certainly make more sense...not that Lost always made sense.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Hmmm... maybe I'm wrong about the MIB apparition. Which means I'm right about everything else.

 

[RoJoHen]

Even though I just watched it on Sunday, I have decided to watch the finale again tonight. And I'm crying again.

I can never watch this episode with anybody else in the room!


Here's a random question about the finale: what is the deal with Boone? He clearly knows what's going on, but we never saw him "remember." Based on the previous flashes we have had of Ghost Boone over the years, I wonder what his role was in all of this.

 

[DonIago]

I'd tend to assume he remembered off-screen. Though I found it interesting and perhaps amusingly subtextual that at The End Boone and Locke are the only single people there...unless I'm misremembering?

It could be that Boone got to that point first because, thanks to Locke, he actually had worked out most or all of his issues before he died.

 

[RoJoHen]

But how did Boone remember? What would have woken him up? Did Hurley tie him up and rub peyote on his head? Did he stick him in a plane and then drop it off a cliff? What kind of memory did Boone have that would have made him remember the Island?

 

[DonIago]

Well, the first time we see SidewaysBoone he's talking with Locke about how if they crash on an island together he'll side with him...maybe that was enough to get the awakening going...

I admit I was happy enough just seeing him again (he was one of my faves) that I didn't really try to examine it too much.

 

[RoJoHen]

I was happy to see him again, too, but he seemed almost TOO comfortable with what was going on. It also makes me wonder if Locke's Boone hallucination from Season 3 was in fact the real Boone. Boone is one of the Island's greater mysteries.