Lost with LOST: What If's and Bending Free Will

I've always felt that Jack Shephard was the most easy to relate to of all the characters on LOST. John Locke's father tried to kill him after stealing a kidney, Sayid was a torrrrtttturrrerrr, Hurley won the lottery, Kate killed multiple people, Jin beat up people for a living, etc. Basically, all their stories were beyond the scope of what normal people go through (except maybe Jack's sister, Claire, but more on her later on). But Jack was just a guy with daddy issues who followed in his father's footsteps but never felt he could live up to the expectations of his father. There's nothing abnormal about that. For as much as people don't like Jack (and I am not among them), the one truth everyone can feel is that you can somewhat relate to him. But as we look at the journey we've seen Jack go through, we're left with a lot of "what if's" and wondering if a helpful hand helped him get to this place or someone messed with his fate.

Jack is a foil for many characters in LOST (Locke and Sawyer, most notably), but the one character that Jack may be the biggest foil for as a "character" is Hurley. Jack is a skinny, serious, good looking man who is searching for things he can't see. Hurley is a fat, funny, not-so-good-looking man who feels cursed by all the things he can see. The one place it seems that both come to a common understanding is that they need to help out others and that they're both "cursed" in some ways. I think that Jack has always blamed this curse on his father and his search for Jacob in this past episode was just as much a search for answers from the man Jack felt he could never do enough to impress. Most of the time, the Shephard men run.

We have found out that this seems to be a family trait. We met Jack's grandfather, Ray, who seems to be one who likes to "run off" quite a bit from the nursing home he feels too confined by. Jack's father seems burdened by a lot but also seems to run away from all that from his "other" family to his end-of-life journey down under. Jack, too, seems to have this bug as he can't be satisfied in his relationship with Sarah and is also unfaithful and runs away from her in many ways. This week we find out that Jack's son, David*, also runs away from his father. The one constant seems to be that everyone who runs away is tracked down by Jack. Including himself.

*Side Note: This relationship didn't just echo the one of Jack and his father, but certainly echoed what happened between Michael and Walt. It also reminded us of other characters who tried to reunite with their father or their father tried to reunite with them: Locke, Claire, Jin, etc. It was a really touching ending to the Sideways World plotline.

Let's get to David, because I know there's the most questions about him (and I know the second question is bigger for most people than the first, but since this is my blog, I'll do it in the order I like...so deal with it!). My biggest one is: What if... David exists in both timelines. Meaning: if we look at the story we've been told about Jack's past from the beginning of the show, is it possible that he had a somewhat-estranged son the entire time? I think the answer is yes. Maybe Jack's problems with his dad are because he's grappling about what it means to be a father. Maybe his desire to get off the Island is about connecting with his son or making things right or telling him all those things his dad didn't get to say? It could be totally blowing steam, but wouldn't that be interesting if we found out that Jack's desire all along wasn't about finding his dad and getting answers, but stopping himself from becoming his dad? We get a sense of that with Jack already that I don't feel it's that far-fetched.

The other question (and, I assume, the more important question to most people) is who is the mother of Jack's child? Easy answer: Sarah, because we already know they get married and it's not so much of a stretch to assume she got knocked up Jack. Other possibilities: Libby, Ana Lucia, Cassidy Phillips* or one of the many other female characters we've seen on the show. My pick: What if... it's Juliet. I don't think that the reference to his appendix goes without knowing, but the woman who performed that procedure in Island World was Juliet. Is it so far-fetched to think that Jack and Juliet played house for a while in the Sideways World like the did in the Island World? Here's one more doosy I thought up as I was falling asleep last night: What if...that last line that Juliet spoke about "going dutch" (right before she died in Sawyer's arms) had to do with either her relationship with Jack or the man she ran away for the weekend with? Maybe right before you die, you flash to see this Sideways World and literally see another version of your life flash before your eyes. Or maybe I'm totally off.

*Side Note: Cassidy is an amazingly good guess, as well, especially the more that I think about it. In the Island World, she was a divorcee, she had a child that the father didn't see, she was easily conned into believing a man loved her, and she too, in many ways left her house open to be robbed, like that key under the rabbit showed. Wait, did I say rabbit? That was a rabbit wasn't it? Like in "White Rabbit", the episode where Jack chases after his father in the jungle and finds the caves...hmmm...

Back to Jack, Hurley and the rest of the Castaways: is the journey they have gone on at all because of "free will" or did they need someone to bend free will a bit and shove them in the right direction? I know the question is sort of oddly put, but it's a big one for LOST considering how last season ended. If Jacob has to play with Jack and Hurley like a puppeteer pulling strings, are they really exercising free will when they make a decision or are they just being shoved into the path that Jacob wants them to follow? We see how the Man In Black manipulates people to get his way and we think he's evil for doing this, but after seeing Jacob's actions this past episode, is he really any different? In some ways, the cryptic way he seems to do things almost seems worse. The Man In Black seems to be playing with people like backgammon pieces--methodically moving them from one side to another--but Jacob seems to be playing an entire game altogether: chess--where pieces need to get to a certain point but a series of different moves can get them there.

In some ways, "The Lighthouse" was a filler episode that did just that: get people where they needed to be*. Jack is sitting on the cliff, thinking about his future. Hurley is outside of the temple where Jacob says that everyone is going to get killed. Kate is off to find Claire and Claire is off to find Aaron. FLocke is with Jin and Claire. Everyone seems to be ready for something to finally happen which it looks like will occur next episode. I actually really like "The Lighthouse", but let's call a spade, a spade: it was filler for what's going to happen next which, according to Wikipedia is an episode called "Sundown" which features Sayid. Sounds ominous.

*Side Note: Speaking of "getting people where they need to be", let's remember the promotional photo from this season called "The Last Supper". We have Jack and Hurley on one side (they're now together) with Lapides, Sun and Ben all on that side (and they are all together). We have Sawyer and Kate on the other side (and they seem to be on a separate mission) with the infected duo of Claire and Sayid. I wonder if LOST is finally setting up that score they previewed in The Last Supper.

So what does that mean for the people left in the temple? I'm not sure we care all that much. The only two people left there among the Castaways are Sayid (who seems to be infected) and Miles (who has basically been forgotten about all season anyways). But for those two, they better start to get worried, because "Sundown" does not sound like the name of an episode in which good things happen to people.

As Adam Sandler sings in The Christmas Song, "so many presents, so little time"--meaning, there's a lot to get to from this episode and not enough time (I feel like another Jack saying that: Jack Bauer). I'm not sure what to think about the Jack appendix incident except to say that it fits the Sideways World idea of "things will happen to these characters anyways but the existence of The Island changes the time of that occurrence".  Kat and her handcuffs, Claire and her baby, Locke and his life breakthrough, etc all seemed to follow this pattern.

I loved and I "hated" the trek of Hurley and Jack through the jungle. Stopping at the caves and finding some old treasures and Jack talking about his "White Rabbit" was on the love side. The great dialog between Hurley and Jack and the brutal honest of Jack was a love. The big admission that Jack knew he was broken* and he came back to have the Island fix him was a huge love. The whole nod to the fans and the "we forgot about these skeletons" and let's discuss they're deal as a nod to the discussion boards and LOST-fandom was a "hate". The whole "should I pick up Kate...oh no we can't bring that baggage along" was a "hate". LOST, stay on the other side of the fourth wall, please.

*Side Note: I think the reason Jack is broken is because he's a Red Sox fan. @craigcalcaterra thinks that it's because he's a Nickleback fan. Both of those are ills I'm not even sure The Island, with all of its healing powers, can fix. Those two make Jack truly broken.

Why Shannon's inhaler out of all the things they could have found in the caves? I don't know. The inhaler came up big in the episode "The Confidence Man" from Season 1 where Sawyer is tortured by Sayid after Jack gives the go-ahead because Sawyer won't turn over Shannon's inhaler. In the end of the episode, Jack is forced to save Sawyer when Sayid goes a bit too far in the torture. I don't know if this has something to do with this episode (with Jack, the judge, mayor and doctor) or the next one with Sayid or maybe nothing at all. The weirdest part of all is that I can't remember that they ever found the inhaler...which makes me wonder why it showed up in the caves...hmmm....

The person who made the caves most famous, though, was Claire who is now living in her own little world* including a fake Aaron, dynamite and other toys. I said last week that Claire was channeling her inner Rousseau as a "substitute" for the dearly departed French woman. This week with the dynamite and odd persona proved the point even more. What if... Rousseau got infected like the rest of her team and the reason that Charles Widmore sent Ben Linus to kill her was that she needed to be killed? Ben taking her baby instead was "not part of the plan" said Widmore and I think we all felt that Widmore was playing the Jacob card too recklessly...but maybe there was a real reason to kill her?

*Side Note: Claire's "own little world" also contains her "father"--which probably is the same Man In Black who is inhabiting FLocke--who is telling her the Others took her baby and a "friend" who ends up being FLocke. The weird part is that while Jin recognizes him as the outer-bodied Locke, Claire already knows that this is a different dude. Whoa. I think we need a lot more explanation here. Especially if FLocke and Christian can appear at the same time...

Back to the lighthouse. Why didn't they find it? Well, probably for the same mystical reason people can't find The Island. Who was #108 on that list? According to Lostpedia, it was the crossed-out name of a guy with the last name of Wallace. If his name is crossed out, I think that means he's dead. And if he's dead, is this how the dead people show up on The Island to the Castaways? I really thought we'd find out 108 was one of the people missing from The Island: Walt, Aaron, Desmond (especially with the whole "this is a lighthouse and a lighthouse guides boats and Desmond is on a boat" thing), etc. but I guess this provides some intrigue as well as to who "Wallace" is. Wallace, I don't believe equals Walt...but wouldn't that be something? Jacob's point to Hurley (whose purpose and skill of seeing dead people is being shown in great detail this season) that "they'll end up where they're supposed to be anyways" is an interesting one because, well, I think that's the whole point of the Sideways World.

So let's conclude where we started--where the whole damn story of LOST started--with Jack. I said in my opening post for this season that this was all about Jack and his journey, and Jacob agreed with me this episode! What if... the idea of Jack's addiction recovery is correct, too. Remember, he only got one bottle from Cindy in the Sideways World in the premiere (The Island World he got two bottles) and he turned down the drink from his mother in this episode to the congratulations of "good for you." I think Jack's admission of his inability to heal his broken self is sounding like he's going through Alcohol Anonymous and their "Serenity Prayer":

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things that I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

There's Jack's journey (and maybe LOST's journey) in a nutshell right there. And I think that supports the idea of "free will", but free will also comes with some help. In the prayer, the help is serenity from God. In the Island world, maybe it is some prodding by Jacob. I don't think it's bending free will to help people along the path of discovery. I also think Jack (and Jacob's relations to him in this episode) show that Jack is at the top of the candidates list. I don't think his journey is done, though, and I'm excited to see how he gets there. As Christian Shephard told John Locke a few seasons back: "it's called sacrifice for a reason." Let's continue the journey to find out what all the Castaways sacrifice--and what all our sacrifice as fans of the show--is for. Until next week, namaste and good luck!

Thoughts? Comments? Theories? Grade on the Episode?