Let me start by saying that I LOVE John Locke episodes. He is not my favorite character but he is the lynch pin of the whole show, the LOST universe and his episodes always deliver.
Who could forget such past favorite episodes as John Locke was actually in a wheelchair! (Season 1-Walkabout), or my dad conned me and stole my kidney! (Season 1- Deus Ex Machina), or my father conned me AGAIN! by faking his death and then ruining my marriage proposal (Season 2- Lockdown), or I was a marijuana pot farmer commune inhabitant who got scammed by an undercover cop! (Season 3- Further Instructions), or the riveting my dad pushes me out of an 8th floor hotel room and cripples me episode! (Season 3- The Man From Tallahassee). I know I should stop but I can’t…you all remember the episode The Brig (Season 3) where we learn Locke’s dad is responsible for the death of Sawyer’s parents and Locke, locks Sawyer in a room with him and the aftermath is that Sawyer actually kills him completing his life long mission of revenge on the original Sawyer. Or how about the episode of how he was born premature and how he was monitored and tested his whole life…by Richard Alpert! (Season 4- Cabin Fever). But the fun doesn’t stop there as we can’t forget Locke’s teleportation from the island to Tunisia to try and bring everyone back to have it end up with him being strangled by Ben Linus (Season 5- The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham). I’m sure you recall the rest from here leading into this weeks episode which I found very telling and interesting.
I don’t bring up all of those past episodes just for fun, I bring them up because that trip down memory lane set the stage for this episode. Everyone can now realize the context of how and why Locke is so important. The first major fact to point out is that the real Locke is now dead and he has become the Locke-ness monster for lack of a better term or the LNM. So what’s ironic about that is that the living breathing Locke was the first person ever to see Smokey aka the smoke monster (Season 1- White Rabbit). He returns to Jack in that episode to tell him that, “I looked into the eye of this Island, and what I saw… was beautiful.”. That whole experience/encounter was shown through a first person point of view of the monster which returns this week in the episode as a nice piece of symmetry from the writers. So the amazing thing is that the initial survivor version of Locke who was the first person to see Smokey has literally… become the smoke monster. And it was in fact his continual interactions with Smokey that made him a devout believer in the island. In the end now that John Locke is dead we can look back on what we thought was his driven life of spirituality and redemption happening on the island only to discover that he was once again getting conned by an evil thing (Man In Black (MIB)/Smoke Monster) just like his father or Ben who was merely manipulating him for it’s own self gain. It’s almost depressing that his road to ultimate island redemption was just another in a long line of con jobs that ruined his ife.
In this episode we also see how much Richard Alpert fears the LNM. It was made clear in the season premiere that Richard was a slave on The Black Rock ship decades ago and that he has already been a chess piece in the game between Jacob and the MIB and what he also makes clear in this episode after his capture is that he will not side with the MIB/LNM.
We also see the reoccurring theme of the little boy who’s first presented standing in the woods, in Jesus pose with bloody arms. He later tells the LNM that, “You know the rules you can’t kill him.” To which the LNM replies, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do” to which the little boy shakes his head disapprovingly. I’m not sure who the little boy is…he looks like a young Jacob to me but it’s also unclear who he is referencing. I think the best guess would be Sawyer and the rules state you can’t kill a candidate once they’ve been touched by Jacob and their name has been written in the cave. However it’s no coincidence that the person controlling the whole dark vs. light battle/game on the island is a child as if you look back into the history of the series children have always been highly valued by the island as well by the Others as they used to kidnap them. So when Richard runs out of the forest and tells Sawyer that the MIB wants him dead and anyone he cares about, I believe him but I just don’t think the LNM can do it because of the “rules”. Remember there have always been references to the rules as when Ben’s daughter Alex was shot by Widmore’s mercenary he stated in shocked disbelief, “he broke the rules.”
When we end up in the cave after The Temple of Doom-ish/ Princess Bride-ish rope ladder sequence we learn that the mystery of “The Numbers” is actually that they are assigned to replacement candidate’s for Jacob that he has interacted with during hard times in their lives. According to the cave 4,8,15,16,23,42 corresponds to:
4 – Locke (John)
8 – Reyes (Hugo)
15 – Ford (James/Sawyer)
16 – Jarrah (Sayid)
23 – Shephard (Jack)
42 – Kwon (not sure which one)
Ru-Roh…where’s Kate? I’m not sure what her absence means beyond that she’s not a candidate. Also I’m not going to get into the significance of who’s assigned what number as I think it’s an endless game of conjecture at this point. ie. Jack is 23 which is the row he was sitting in when the first plane crashed! (yes that’s true ) BUT wait, Psalm 23 in the Bible which is one of the most read and quoted of all time is also know as The Shepard Psalm…and of course Jack’s last name is Shepard! I personally think the numbers were a fun thing the writers created and now they’ve pseudo explained them which gives them an out and they will leave it up to the viewers to create further definitions like I did above.
Speaking of the numbers what I’ve always found interesting is that they hold a Diophantine relation:
4+8-15-16-23+42=0
That simple formula has become what the show is about. The balance between light and dark at it’s most perfect level equals zero. When the LNM walks into the cave and throws the white stone from the scale into the ocean (which I found a bit heavy handed from a symbolism point of view) it’s clear with Jacob’s death that the scales are now unbalanced and he sees an opportunity to get off the island.
However the best part about all of this is how what happens in that cave is PERFECTLY constructed by the writers as it’s all character centric and tied deeply into the show…
John Locke the character who has been conned his entire life by everyone and everything he has ever believed has now transformed into the LNM. He is trying to get off the island by flipping the script to try and con Sawyer the man who has never trusted anyone and has always been the consummate con man. The beauty of it all is that these characters are bound by the fact that the smoke monster influenced the creation the John Locke post plane crash survivor and island evangelist while John Locke’s father influenced the creation of Sawyer by killing his parents. Throughout the entire the show we’ve always thought that it was Locke who would find redemption on the island but in actuality it was Sawyer who found it with Juliet and by being given a chance to rise through the ranks when he became head of security for Dharma. He was a Jacob experiment that apparently succeeded. Now will the redeemed Sawyer and former con man be manipulated into being the reason the ultimate evil/devil/demi-god (whatever LNM is) is set free from the island? What an amazing ying and yang of balance and a phenomenal juxtaposition of everything these characters have stood for throughout their entire existence on the show. It’s a whirlwind of circular character perfection.
Like I said, I LOVE John Locke episodes.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Luke – Thanks for this overview. This is very helpful. I’m impressed with how much time you’ve spent actually trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I’m way too lazy.
You said, “It was made clear in the season premiere that Richard was a slave on The Black Rock ship decades ago…”
How was it made “clear?” I totally missed it. Thanks! HH
Thanks Hilary. During the season premiere when MIB/LNM comes out of the statue’s foot cave after killing everyone, Richard says, “Don’t shoot!” to everyone on the beach.
LNM then looks him in the eye and says, “It’’s good to see you out of those chains Richard” right before he beats him up and throws him over his shoulder.
That moment ties back into The Black Rock being referenced as a slave ship in previous episodes and actually at one point in the series we see Charles Widmore purchasing the Black Rock Captain’s log at an auction (I assume to help him find the island).
Furthermore at the beginning of Season 5’s finale we see The Man in Black (MIB) and Jacob sitting on the beach looking at the Black Rock sailing in and that’s when they have their discussion about what will happen when the ship lands. Jacob states that he believes in goodness and free will and the ship’s inhabitants will make choices that may end up positive and the MIB says it will end up the same as always with them destroying each other. This is actually a conversation about the whole premise of the island and what the entire show has always been about.
I believe Richard was on that ship as a slave and has been kept alive as Jacob’s adviser/consigliere since his arrival. Most likely through the use of the fountain of youth in Episode 1 of this season or some other mystical way.
Great stuff as always Luke! Love the insight about Locke the lifelong dupe now flipping it on Sawyer the life-long con man who has never trusted anyone. So true and a great twist by the writers.
another great post, Luke. I didn’t even catch the reference to Richard and the chains in the premiere. makes total sense.
Luke, oh crazy one, ?-is there any relation between these numbers and the numbers Hugo won the lotto with/numbers on the hatch/etc.?
BTW-this is Piper as Mike…