Antagonist: “They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.”
Jacob: “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”

Antagonist aka Smokey aka Fake Locke aka Dark Suit aka Esau—if the writers would just provide a name for the guy I would be pleased.

Are we making any progress at all here in terms of resolving this story?

(By the way, if you’re reading any further, there are SPOILERS!)

Tonight’s double episode was supposed to start providing answers, but all I found out was what was in the guitar case. And I didn’t care about the guitar case contents that much. I recognized the ankh, an Egyptian symbol. It’s supposed to symbolize eternal life. Interesting note from Wikipedia that may have nothing whatsoever to do with LOST: “the depiction of the Ancient Egyptian Ankh was preserved by the Copts in their representation of the Christian cross.” It does look like a cross to someone like me, bathed in Christianity and Christian symbols.

And then they went and “baptized” Sayid, practically drowning him in the process. I felt so sorry for Sayid in this episode when he was talking to Hurley about what would happen to him after death. He was so guilty, and I wanted to run in there and give him the hope of the gospel. “Yes, you’ve done horrible stuff. But you can be forgiven. You’ve been bought with a price! Jesus can redeem you!”

So has Sayid become Jacob? Or vice-versa? Sort of the way Smokey Guy has become a Locke twin? And what’s with Locke having two bodies? One dead and one alive. Was Jacob using Christian Shepherd’s body, and now he’s using Sayid’s?

I think we know for sure who the “good guys” are and who the “bad guys” are. If they’re with Jacob, even after Jacob’s death, they’re good, and if they’re with Mr. Fake Locke, they’re bad guys. And Ben’s so confused, he doesn’t know which side he’s on anymore.

Has Time itself split into two streams? The LOSTies at LAX are going from bad to worse as they pursue their not-so-merry lives. Did you notice that none of the Tailies showed up on the airplane, except for Bernard and that stewardess, Cindy. Where are Libby and Ana Lucia and Eko? And how did Desmond get on the plane? (Ha, Desmond is seeing Jack in another life, brotha!)

Meanwhile back on the island, they’re still alive even after the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. How can that be? And how did Juliet know that “it worked?”

I don’t want Juliet to be dead—again. In LOST no one is completely, totally, without a doubt, dead until they’re buried and Miles can hear them speak from the dead. Sayid wasn’t dead, and Miles knew it. Juliet is dead, at least in island time.

The book that Hurley picked up in the tunnels underneath (?) the temple was Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard. According to Eldest Daughter, who’s a fan of Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling is mostly about the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. For Kierkegaard, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac was an example of “faith” which is contrary to reason and even absurd. The Knight of Faith, against reason according to Kierkegaard, believes that with God all things are possible and works out his salvation “with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12)

Jack tells Locke in this episode that “nothing is irreversible” in reference to Locke’s paralysis. Could this statement also refer to Jack’s decision to detonate the hydrogen bomb and send them all back to their miserable pre-crash lives?

Also, Lostpedia says that Desmond was reading Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. It’s a novel about Indian history and the events leading up to India’s independence. I’ve never read anything by Rushdie, but this Booker prize-winning novel is said to feature “magical realism.” Give me magic or give me realism; magical realism confuses me.

No live blogging at Thinklings, but there are lots of comments.
Bill: “In this series we’ve done flash backs. Then we did flash forward. Now we’re doing flash sidewayses.”