OK, so I have a more than passing interest in the paranormal. So a new television show like Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files is going to, in the least, pique my interest for a few episodes. But can it hold it beyond that?

In my experience, paranormal TV runs the gamut from something very scientific and research-based like MonsterQuest (featuring actual tenured academics) to something more akin to a couple of guys running around in the dark without flashlights cursing and swearing to appear cool—like Extreme Paranormal. (For Extreme Paranormal, picture the Jackass franchise done with ghosts.) Somewhere in the middle, is a balanced show like Ghost Hunters, one of the original and most successful series in this genre. A show in which two plumbers and a rag-tag group of other investigators set out to use what they deem to be scientific tools to track and record ghosts. They’ve been doing it for a long time, seven years now, and they’re honest in their pursuit whether or not the “science” they use is altogether scientific.

But enter Fact or Faked.

The premise of this new some from the SyFy Network is that a former FBI Special Agent and his team of investigators set out to debunk popular paranormal videos gleaned from around the Internet. Now I don’t know about you but when I hear about a former FBI agent investigating the paranormal I’m getting set for a long-awaited sequel to the X-Files series. Sadly, that is not the case, and agent Ben Hansen is no Fox Mulder. Barely thirty years old, if Hansen really was an FBI agent (which I’m not sure they could necessarily lie about) then he must’ve been kicked out of the bureau after only a few months of service, presumably for being so emo. A veteran, seasoned FBI agent ready to tackle the paranormal he is not.

But surely his crack team of investigators bring some scientific background to the show, a serious research-based approach? Well, again, not so much. The team is comprised of a special effects technician, a journalist, a photography expert (who knows nothing of post-production methods), some other guy, and a gentleman who is credited only as an “investigator” but who also seems to have recently completed a degree in Biology, and shops exclusively at American Eagle. This crack team gathers every episode in what looks like somebody’s den and reviews a series of videos, each presented by a different member, before deciding which two they’d like to investigate.

The show’s investigative portion isn’t so bad—it’s awful. I mean, let’s be honest, despite the appearance of a scientific, investigative approach, these team members really don’t know what they’re doing. In the first two episodes they’ve actually hit on some good ideas, and debunked a couple of the videos they set out to investigate but it was really only by mistake. The fun part is if they can’t immediately debunk something, like a UFO sighting or the famous stick alien, they run around at night with infrared cameras scouring the area for clues, adopting a research method that is so mind-bogglingly absurd you worry about potential mental illness amongst the production staff.

In the end, Fact or Faked is a confusing show that leaves you wondering what its producers at the SyFy Network were really thinking. In a market already saturated with paranormal shows—few managing to survive passed their first season—it’s hard to believe that anyone thought this new entrant into the genre would last.

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Leave it to someone to find all of the answers to the questions we were left with after the LOST finale.

It’s as amusing as the original LOST questions video was. Pretty clever.

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Well, it’s over, and almost right away juries around the world began to weigh in on what was one of the most hyped series finales in recent memory. The LOST finale: The End. Before the final episode opinions, objections, predictions and criticisms flew left, right and centre. Would we have our questions answered? Would we be left hanging? Would we be satisfied? Would fans feel appropriately rewarded for their six years of loyalty? Since everyone and their uncle is offering their review I, of course, must add mine to the chorus of voices. So, here we go…

In my opinion, the final episode of LOST was satisfying. But you have to look at it from a certain perspective. I think lots of us, myself included, were watching LOST as we’d watch a mystery drama series. I’ve been looking for clues, looking for answers, trying to figure out small and big details and piecing together crazy little puzzles. There’s a ton of depth to LOST, and there are those puzzles there; mystery and—for lack of a better word—the paranormal, permeate every inch of this TV series, but it isn’t a mysterious drama at its core. As we learned in LOST: The Final Journey, the 2-hour recap lead-up to the finale, LOST is a really a character drama. At the heart of the show are writers who are interested, much like the way Stephen King writes, in plunking down a group of people into a new situation and seeing how they react. That is LOST. And I guess we should’ve known that all along.

But it’s clear from the finale that LOST is about its characters, not its mysteries. In the final episode few mysteries were actually cleared up and the action focus heavily on the characters themselves, their development, and the end result of their lives. We didn’t learn a lot more about the nature of the island, the Temple, the ancient mythology, the wheel, the Dharma Initiative, Walt’s powers, the whispers and why Michael has become a whisperer, etc. Instead, we find out what the flash-sideways has been all about, we see Jack and Desmond trying to save the island, Kate kick butt, and Hurley and Ben tag team it up.

In the end, LOST ended in the way that made the most sense, I guess. Whatever all the critics might say LOST has never been about answering questions or explaining itself. Whether or not we realized it, LOST has been about its characters and their choices set in a world that’s mysteries and nature are secondary to the plot and, it turns out, needn’t be explained at all.

For all it’s strangeness, it’s mystery and its unusual properties the Island was real. The island had strange magnetic and supernatural properties. It was protected by Jacob who battled with his brother, the Smoke Monster, and kept him from leaving. Jacob had great faith in people and wanted to prove that they could make good choices. Jacob called flawed people to the island, namely the Survivors of Oceanic flight 815, to help them to redeem themselves, and to find someone to replace him and protect the island when he was ultimately killed. Jacob knew he would be killed and it would only be a matter of time. So he searched for a replacement.

Meanwhile, Jacob’s brother, the Smoke Monster, attempted to escape the island. He was trapped but he eventually found a way he thought might work. The final showdown, his final plan, came to a head in the finale. His plan? To lower Desmond—who is somehow immune to the electro-magnetic energy of the Island—into the “heart” of the Island to cut off its power. But the plan backfires when Desmond literally pulls the plug and the Smoke Monster, in the form of John Locke, suddenly realizes that he can be hurt—and killed.

He is killed, finally, after a battle with Jack, the new protector of the island, when he is shot by Kate. But Jack dies too trying to save the Island by putting back in the plug that Desmond pulled out and harnessing the strange light-energy once again. Before dying though Jack appoints Hurley as the new protector of the Island; Hurley asks Ben if he’d be his “Number 2″. Ben, with a great big smile on his face, accepts. Ben must finally feel wanted and truly useful—it suits him well.

Meanwhile, in the flash-sideways world, our Survivors are coming to realize the true nature of the world they’re living in. One by one and two by two the Survivors are either meeting up, or being set up to meet, people who were important to them in the Island reality. It begins with Juliet’s ultrasound of Sun, mirroring the ultrasound that she performed on Sun back on the Island. As she speaks the same words she spoke then Sun is suddenly taken back to the Island reality, much like Desmond and Hurley and Libby were in earlier episodes. Sun suddenly realizes that this happened before, and Jin realizes too. It’s beautiful, it’s poignant and it brought both the characters and surely the entire viewing audience to tears. When Juliet asks the baby’s name Sun and Jin already know the answer, and it’s beautiful.

Truly, this finale kept everyone on the edge of their seat and the verge of tears, I’m sure. Seeing Survivors who had been away from each other for so long like Sayid and Shannon, Claire and Charlie, and Juliet and Sawyer meet up again and realize who each other really is, and the role they’ve played in each others lives… it’s absolute high drama. For example, you can’t even pretend it wasn’t incredible when Charlie saw Claire, the nameless woman from his flashback dreams, sitting down in the audience from up their on his stage. His reaction is just dumbfounded disbelief and you can feel that emotion, given all the time and energy we’ve put into this series as fans.

And that, in my opinion, is what makes this finale so powerful. It’s a character drama, right(?), and we’ve all put so much time and energy and so much of ourselves into these characters. We have our favourites, our own personal alliances, our own characters that we’ve cheered for week in and week out and as it comes to a head it’s the characters who matter the most—it’s the characters that the writers focus on. Personally, being a huge fan of the Sawyer/Juliet romance I was so happy to see them realize who each other is. It was absolutely incredible to see that the lines which Juliet uttered down in the pit, lying next to the bomb, were actually the words that she said to Sawyer in the flash-sideways that somehow bled through to the other reality. It was so poignant, wasn’t it?

The nature of the flash-sideways reality, the alternaverse, is finally revealed in a conversation between Jack and his dad, Christian Sheppard. The alternaverse, Christian says, is a reality created by the Survivors in order to find each other and to move on together. They’re all dead. The alternaverse was a reality that the Survivors imagined up, their own personal, chosen reality, in order to connect back up with the people who were important to them and to move on to some other world, some kind of heaven, together. Sawyer needed to meet Juliet. Sun and Jin had to meet their baby. Kate and Jack had to meet. Sayid and Shannon, etc. As Christian explains, some of the people died on the Island, others like Hurley and Ben and those that escaped on the plane, lived much longer lives, post-Island, that we as viewers know nothing about. But now they’re all dead and in this place together, waiting to move on.

The finale finishes with the doors of the church opening and the room filing with light. At the same time, Jack, on the Island, is laying down in amongst the bamboo stocks and exhausted after saving the Island and getting stabbed he closes his eyes for the last time. That poignant shot of his eye closing—a mirror image of the opening scene of the pilot episode—marks the end of our beloved series. The end of LOST.

If I can though say a few things about the finale. Much criticism as well as much positive feedback has been leveled at the writers and staff of the show. To anyone who says that we didn’t get enough answers or we’ve been left hanging, I can sympathize, but at the same time I understand where the show is coming from. Like I said before, I think we’re dealing with a character drama—it’s clear now that all the mystery and mythology was secondary. Again, there are lots who didn’t enjoy the finale probably because they didn’t understand a lot about the show in the first place. If you haven’t been following closely enough, especially in the flash-sideways, you were probably just completely confused by the final episode. That’s OK, you can watch it again and pay closer attention this time.

All in all, it was a great finale. I think that the final scene with Jack and his dad could’ve been greatly improved. It didn’t make sense to me to have Christian deliver the news about the alternaverse to Jack. Christian, despite his impact on Jack’s life, has been a fairly inconsequential character in the series. I know, he’s named Christian Sheppard and that’s clever, but I feel like a character with more of a connection to the viewing audience could’ve been the one to explain things to Jack. Then again, maybe they were trying to redeem the relationship between Jack and his father, to show that his Dad wasn’t all bad. I’m not sure.

And how about Desmond. When we find out that the flash-sideways is actually the afterlife that means that Desmond has been moving between reality and the afterlife, conscious of both realities at the same time. Interesting.

Even though LOST is over, I think I’ll still be blogging on the subject a few more times. There’s still lots to say and there’s no point in crowding it all into one article. I’d still like to explore more of the mythology, the history and some of the mysteries of the Island. Like many Losties I’ve talked to, Maria and I are going back and starting the series over from the very beginning. It’ll be interesting to see what we pick up the second time around—I imagine there’s a lot buried there that hindsight will reveal more clearly. Still, when next Tuesday rolls around I know that LOST fans around the world will feel that great big gaping hole in their hearts. At least we can safely say it wasn’t six years wasted, they treated us well and, in the end, it was a great experience.

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I think it’s impossible not to frame this review in a particular context: this is the last regular episode of LOST, ever. The penultimate LOST episode. The almost-an-end-of-an-era episode. The fat lady is about to sing, and it’s impossible to get past that. But, all that said, I want to take a second to step back and try to see the longview. Have hopes and expectations lined up with reality? Is it going in the direction we thought it would? What’s up?

If there’s one thing that I think every LOST fan can agree on, aside from the fact that the show is awesome, is that we haven’t been getting nearly as many answers as we expected. I think it’s funny, as this debate rages on, that there are those who act like apologists for LOST’s writers. We get the slightest little hint at an answer and they’re all over it to say, “See! We are getting our questions answered!” They work so hard to help us find merit in every episode despite the fact that we’re constantly disappointed. These guys are real troopers and I think we have to applaud their incredible faith. But, guys, let’s be realistic: no one is pleased with the amount of question that have been answered—we’re all disappointed.

But should we have expected more? Did we really think that we’d get all of our questions answered? I mean, deep down inside did we? From its inception, LOST has been about leaving us hanging, about piling on more and more mystery instead of explaining it away. This show has never been about tying things up neatly with a bow, and I don’t think we should expect anymore, not from this final season and, I would suggest, probably not from the finale either. In fact, they’ve so much as told us that they aren’t going to explain it all, that we won’t be left completely satisfied. If we chalk that up to the nature of the beast, then I think we can atleast get on with it.

The Alternaverse

Things are falling  into place in the alternaverse. I mean, you can see the pieces sliding together in what is going to end up being one great big grand slam finale, but it’s getting insane. John wants to get his surgery. Jack wakes up with that scar on his neck bothering him again. Ben and Rousseau have met and are hitting it off! And everything else is moving at break neck speed, too.

Now it’s clear that Desmond knows everything. Hurley too. Hurley’s reaction when Anna Lucia freed the prisoners was brilliant, “Oh, you’re here!” It’s that kind of hilarious view of fate: Everyone from the island is interconnected in the alternate universe too, it’s just that some of them don’t know it. Hurley and Desmond now know it and it looks like they’re about to bring about the same knowledge in Kate and Sayid. If we were ever unsure about what Desmond knew in the alternaverse it’s clear now that he knows everything. Does he know he’s Widmore’s failsafe, and what exactly that means, I would venture that he does. His mission in the alternaverse seems to have taken on a new fervor and I suspect that the alternaverse Desmond has all the knowledge that present island Desmond does, and vice versa. Whatever is happening on the island, or happened, Desmond is working to fix or repair or prevent—or something.

More about what I think might be happening, later.

The Island

Back on the island, things are finally coming together but it’s all happening so fast. Jacob appears to the remaining survivors and explains to them the nature of the island, he explains that he brought them all to the island to find his replacement, to find someone to protect the light in the island that we were introduced to last week. When Sawyer objects and says that none of them wanted to come there, Jacob explains that they needed the island as much as the island needed them—that he didn’t plunk them out of happy, healthy lives. They were all searching for something that they couldn’t find, he said. In my interpretation, they were all broken.

I’ve talked at length about this before, the candidates were making bad choices, much like the choice that Jacob made when he threw his brother into the light on the island. The island has helped most of these survivors to redeem themselves from those choices, it’s a kind of second chance, I think, to start over. But all of that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Jacob explains that one of these survivors must choose to take over Jacob’s role on the island and to do something that Jacob couldn’t do himself: to kill the Man-in-Black, Flocke.

I do love the exchange between Jacob and Kate when she asks why her name was crossed off the list on the cave wall. “Because you’re a mother,” Jacob explains,” but it’s just chalk on a wall…” Like Anna Lucia’s appearance in the alternaverse, I think we’re being poked in the ribs a little bit and being asked to lighten up. All the speculation from fans on why Kate was disqualified from being a candidate, all the theories and conjecture, boils down to the fact that it doesn’t matter, that it’s just chalk in a cave, Jacob says.

Of course, it’s Jack who ultimately chooses to take over Jacob’s job. I think we knew that he accepted this fact a long time ago, whether he really knew it or not. Jack has been the old Jack, the leader Jack, but also the trusting, accepting Jack, for a long time now and it suits him well. He’s now in charge of protecting the island and with killing the Man-in-Black.

Meanwhile, Ben and Richard meet Widmore and his assistant Zoe at Dharmaville. As the Smoke Monster approaches, Widmore and Zoe hide inside Ben’s old house, in a secret room behind his bookcase. When the Monster arrives at the village, to everyone’s surprise, it picks up Richard and throws him off into the jungle. It’s an expected scene. The Monster just roars by and picks up Richard, throwing him off into the distance as it goes by. Is Richard dead? I don’t think so, he lives forever and there’s nothing to indicate, as far as I know, that he can be killed even by the Smoke Monster. Then, in return for being given “the island” after the Smoke Monster leaves, Ben decides to give up the whereabouts of Widmore and Zoe.

This next scene, between Widmore, Zoe, Ben and Fake John, is probably one of the most tense in LOST history. When Locke asks Zoe who she is and Widmore tells her to say nothing, John slits her throat, in one lightning-quick motion. He then explains that if she isn’t going to talk, she isn’t worth anything to him. This Nemesis dude is absolutely evil. With Zoe bleeding at his feet, the Nemesis then tells Widmore that he wants some information or, when he escapes the island, the first thing he’ll do is kill his daughter. Widmore begins giving him that information but before it looks like he’s finished, Ben shoots him, explaining that Widmore shouldn’t have the chance to save his daughter, ostensibly because Ben didn’t have the chance to save his from Widmore.

Following this exchange, the Nemesis realizes that Desmond is the failsafe, that he was the last ditch effort to save the island if all the candidates were killed. This was why Widmore brought him back to the island. When the Nemesis and Ben set off to find Desmond, where Sayid was supposed to kill him, they find that he’s escape. The Nemesis finally explains that he needs to find Desmond and get him to do what he never could, destroy the island.

Is Ben bad? I wonder, because I truly thought he was redeemed after that conversation with Ilana earlier in this season but now I’m not so sure. I hope that the reason he really shot Widmore was to try and prevent John from hearing the information that he wanted to hear. Ben is a master manipulator, but so is the Nemesis. Is Ben playing up John? I hope so, I liked redeemed Ben.

Oh Brother…

I don’t even know where to begin, so let’s work backwards.

It seems to me as through Jacob’s Nemesis has given up trying to escape the island. Now he wants to destroy the island. Is this another way of escaping? I’m not sure. He knows there are still candidates wondering around out there on the island. More than he knows, actually, if candidates whose names have been crossed out are, like Jacob said, still eligible for the job. Miles, like Kate, was a crossed-out candidate. So the submarine is destroyed, that means that way of getting off the island is impossible now for the Nemesis. The plane is all wired up with explosives, but still standing, so there is that way but he would need all the candidates to come with him, or he needs to kill them all. But, it seems this plan has been abandoned. Now he needs to find Desmond and, it seems, to destroy the island in order to secure his freedom.

But what about Jack?

Does candidacy even matter anymore now that Jacob’s replacement has been named? Jack now has the job of trying to find and kill the Nemesis, presumably with the assistance of the remaining Survivors.

But then what is Desmond working on in the alternaverse? Allow me to speculate.

Suggesting what Desmond is doing in the flash-sideways timeline necessarily requires that I explain how I think the show might end, so here goes.

I think the show will end in the flash-sideways timeline. I think the scar on Jack’s neck which keeps coming up in the alternaverse is an indication of things to come for him in the island reality. Somehow, either Jack’s throat is slit, like Zoe’s, or he’s hung on a rope or something. However it happens, I think it’s an indication of something that’s going to happen to Jack, as Jacob’s replacement, on the island. Jack and John face off, somehow, and because in the alternaverse, as we saw at the start of this season, the island was destroyed, I’m wagering that John won. The Nemesis escaped and set into play the alternative universe.

Desmond has this knowledge and as the failsafe, is working to bring all the Survivors back to the right reality, bring them to the knowledge of what happened because they must do something in order to prevent ultimate chaos, or something. Do you know what I mean? Does that make any sense? I could be entirely off, and in fact I’m sure that I am, because you never know with LOST, but it’s a thought.

Of course, every review of this episode wouldn’t be completely without a wishlist of questions I’d like answered. I do hope they address the question of Dharma and what they’re all about and Eloise’s connection. If Dharma were just a research group we have to keep in mind a couple of things. They were called to the island by Jacob, everyone who comes there is. They knew about the ancient/magical nature of the island, there is a Smoke Monster “access point” in the closet of one of the Dharma houses. They’re somehow involved with Eloise, who was once an Other. If you remember, Eloise, who is Daniel Farraday’s mother, was once an Other and the husband of Charles Widmore, who was also once an Other. When the Survivors want to return to the island, Eloise uses a Dharma station to track the coordinates of the island. What is Eloise doing in a Dharma station? Does she have some connection with the group? These are nagging questions I have, that I hope are answered.

So, if I can end it here and say this. Sunday is going to be a night to end all nights and certain a night to end one of the best TV series ever. With a 2-hour recap and another 2 1/2 hours of finale it’s going to be a very, very good time. I can’t wait.

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Strasser, of course, is not a Yo-Yo champion. You can tell right away, just by looking at him. Everything about him says that he’s putting you on. Well, he’s still going at it.

WGN9, one of the news networks that he duped, was pretty steamed by the trick and did an expose on him. They’ve been issuing takedown notices to YouTube, so I can’t actually link to any of their videos but there is  a clip of his original appearance on their network still available.

WGN9’s expose—of their own guest!—revealed that Strasser was a fake. Well, duh. But they didn’t stop there, they wanted blood so they invited Strasser back into the studio. This time, Strasser appears in a wheelchair with both of his arms in slings wearing a shiny black eye and a neckbrace. When asked about his accident he explains that “some of our Yo-Yos are the size of chocolate chip cookies” and then falls asleep.

With Strasser in the studio this time is Eric Stringer, an individual who Strasser himself called the “Garth Brooks of Yo-Yo” in a previous appearance—Strasser also claimed that Stringer was dead and, on live TV, paused for a moment of silence. Apparently WGN9 didn’t do their research very well because there’s no mention of Stringer’s apparent resurrection. Stringer, who I think is wearing a wig, plays the mature older father figure, despite appearing to be the same age as Strasser, quite well. While the station suspects the Strasser is a fake they seem to have no clue that they’re being had by Stringer as well; sure he can do some tricks but guys, they’re pulling your leg!

Now the brilliant part here is that not only did Strasser dupe this network, but he doesn’t it again because the anchors are taking this serious. They ask serious questions about Zim Zam, about Stringer, and about Strasser’s past as a  Yo-Yo champion. They’re still pushing for actual answers and it just goes to show that they’re still bring strung along. Not only by Strasser but by his buddy Eric Stringer, who is clearly in on the joke as well. And no one at WGN9 is the wiser.

Stringer claims to be the new “spokesperson” for Zim Zam and their Green campaign; a company and a campaign which don’t even exist. He claims he was brought in to “salvage” things and the hosts are just eating it up!

This is comedy gold. The network is obviously playing right into the hands of this clever duo and are about as dumb as a doorknob to the bleeding obvious!

You can watch the interview in its entirety on WGN9’s website which, admittedly, is very lacking in quality but the video isn’t available elsewhere.

Update (10:48pm): I am beginning to love this campy little hometown network. The video clip that played for me immediately following the Kenny clip was talking about a university giving out free iPad “tabloid” computers to all their freshman so that they could “learn even better.” I’m not making this stuff up!

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Kenny “K-Strass” Strasser has been making the rounds on local American morning shows claiming to be a Yo-Yo Master with a non-profit organization called Zim Zam, LLC. The catch is, he is anything but proficient with a Yo-Yo. Strasser is a prankster and comedian of the highest order, it would seem.

A quick YouTube search reveals a plethora of appearances by K-Strass on the sets of unsuspecting morning news programs. Once on camera K-Strass is an awkward looking guy in green shorts, a white t-shirt with suspenders, and a yellow hat. He looks nervous, but I suspect that it’s all part of the act. The tricks K-Strass performs are hilarious. His special, the “Blue Flying Angel” involves him twirling around two handfuls of four Yo-Yos each—in one appearance, losing grip on one of them in the process. His tricks are clearly below amateur and don’t even involve any real Yo-Yoing, but  he passes them off as genuine routines.

But his tricks aren’t the real trick. When given air-time K-Strass does anything but Yo-Yo, instead he talks about his failed marriages, his childhood and being spanked by his father, and even takes calls on his cellphone twice during one appearance. In one appearance he requests a “second of silence” after the loss of a supposed close friend, the “Garth Brooks of Yo-Yoing.” And, when he showed up for an appearance on another local morning news show, he told the hosts that he brought his Yo-Yos, but forgot the strings—instead describing the tricks he would’ve performed.

K-Strass is a master comedian and is already drawing comparisons to the late Andy Kaufman.

Here’s a clip of K-Strass from one local morning show:

And it’s not just pulling pranks, K-Strass, in my opinion, has reached the height of hilarity after an appearance on a local NBC station. Perplexed by his performance, the station was prompted to do an investigation segment on their own guest to find out who Kenny Strasser really was—something you think they’d do before having him on the show.

Strasser even remains in character under investigation.

Unfortunately, the station involved has pulled the video off of YouTube but as the NBC report suggests, that this might all be part of some kind of documentary that’s under production. I would love to see all the behind-the-scenes finagling of a guy pretending to be a Yo-Yo champion, and scamming American morning TV. Five stars.

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This week’s episode of LOST, like the earlier Richard-centric episode, was entirely a flashback. I don’t think we saw any of these kind of episodes during earlier seasons so it’s pretty neat to see two in the final run. Like Richard’s episode, “Across the Sea” did a lot to move the good vs. evil plot forward and reveal to us a bit more of what the island is really about. Do we come away really knowing anything new? I don’t know, I’m still on the fence about that. But it was a solid episode with lots of information and a lot of intriguing developments. An enormous 2,200-word essay is below the break…

One thing that certainly makes things easier is that there isn’t an alternaverse/island reality to deal with in this episode. In fact, this episode touches very little on the main LOST plot—although one could argue that this is the main underlying plot, I suppose.

Who was the woman that killed Jacob/Man-in-Black’s mother?

This is perhaps the central question we’re left with after this week’s episode. Who was she? Aside from playing a well-known character on The West Wing. Who was she really? Well, we know a few things. We know that she was there before the ship with Jacob’s real mother arrived. We know that she had been protecting the light on the island and that she needed a replacement. Other than that? I’m not sure what else we know.

As far as I can tell, this woman was performing the role that Jacob would later inherit, before Jacob’s mother and the others crashed on the island. Did she call them there? We don’t know. But it seemed like she was ready and eager to find a replacement for herself—a candidate?—because as soon as she could she killed Jacob’s mother she adopted Jacob and his brother, the Man-in-Black, as her own. She raised them with the full intention of having them take over her role on the island to protect the light. She knew that there were other people on the island and she kept that knowledge from both of the children as she raised them. She needed them to be sheltered, to be different—to not known evil? But then again, she herself acknowledged the Man-in-Black’s lies, she knows of his ability to deceive and Jacob’s inability to lie like him.

What’s up with the Man-in-Black?

Among other things, this episode completely turns on its head the idea of good vs. evil. Previously, I think we kind of understood Jacob to be a force of good and the Man-in-Black to be a force of evil. Well, not so. The Man-in-Black, we now know, is kind of a product of his mother. The woman the raised him and Jacob. The woman who he previously acknowledged was “crazy”. She lied to him. She raised him as her own son, told him there was nothing across the sea, and that he couldn’t go there, he couldn’t leave the island. She lied to him from the start and when his real mother appeared to him and told him the truth, naturally he went along with it.

The Man-in-Black’s departure to the camp with the “Others”(?) is only natural. He listened to and followed the advice of his natural, his real mother. He decided to make it his goal to find a way off the island and back to where he belong, after being lied to for most of his life. Is the Man-in-Black the embodiment of evil? Certainly not at this point. Instead he’s the victim of a lie and of, interestingly enough, evil. The victim of evil, not evil himself.

And what about Jacob?

Of course, we also see in this episode that Jacob isn’t the embodiment of good—he isn’t necessarily good, at least not at this point. Jacob acts out ragefully a couple of times in this episode, revealing his human side to be sure. In the end, after discovering that the Man-in-Black has killed their mother, Jacob attacks the MiB and eventually “kills” him by floating him down the stream into the light that his mother was protecting for so long. If there’s one thing we learned about Jacob in this episode is that he is capable of doing evil, or at least has a very strong sense of justice. After all, if the MiB killed their mother, in a “just” world, isn’t his death necessary to balance things once again?

The Light…

But the Man-in-Black doesn’t really die, does he? Of course Jacob finds his corpse and “buries” him along with their mother in the caves—later found by Jack, Kate and John—but the Man-in-Black obviously makes a return, later in the storyline, as the Smoke Monster. In a way, he’s dead, in another way, he’s not.

What I think happens is that going into the light, like Jacob’s foster mother said, is “worse than death”. I think it traps a person on the island, among other things. It’s stolen the Man-in-Black’s body, transformed him into the Smoke Monster, and somehow also trapped him on the island. Did going into the light make him evil? I’m not sure, but quite possibly. It certainly killed him, in a way, but it seems like if he can get a new body, like he’s done with John Locke, then he has a chance of leaving the island again. But he seems trapped by Jacob too because we’ve seen him in the past asking Jacob to let him leave, and Jacob saying that he can’t do that. Jacob also explained to Richard that the Man-in-Black was the embodiment of evil. We know that Jacob can’t tell a lie, so that means that maybe the MiB really did become the embodiment of evil after going down into that light.

Either way, the light seems to bind Jacob and the Man-in-Black to the island. It seems to be the thing that’s brought everyone there, I think. It’s certainly brought Dharma, which I’m sure we’ll hear more about in the final two episodes. Did Dharma have something to do with protecting the light? I wonder. I also wonder where the light is now? Is it underneath the Temple, or somewhere else, or is it just dispersed around the island and being tapped into at the different Dharma stations.

Candidates

It seems as though however Jacob’s real mother and the other people in her group were brought to the island, the woman intended Jacob and/or the Man-in-Black to replace her in the job of protecting the light. I wonder if she had the ability to bring them there—an ability that Jacob would later inherit—or if the light brought them there or neither. In any case, it seems like this is the same kind of thing that Jacob is doing later in the storyline: finding someone to replace him. Or is he?

Jacob, as we learn in this episode, is a broken man. He killed his brother in cold brother, whether or not it was doing justice he was clearly angry and killing him was an act of vengeance. We learned earlier on that Jacob is bringing people to the island. In a conversation on the beach the Man-in-Black tells Jacob that it’s pointless, that it always ends the same with everyone killing each other. Jacob says that in the meantime, there’s progress. We know that Jacob isn’t trying to leave the island so it isn’t progress towards that. I think it’s progress towards finding a candidate, and at the same time, proving that Jacob is right.

Jacob believes, to some degree, that people can and will do good—that they can redeem themselves from poor circumstances. He is thinking of his own poor choices when he killed his brother, he wants to believe that there are good people out there even if it doesn’t include himself. Meanwhile, the Man-in-Black has little faith in people. He’s taken the lie his mother told him to heart, stewed upon it, and his time spent with the people digging the wells only served to solidify his bitterness. Not to mention he was “killed” by his brother and is now trapped on the island.

I think Jacob was trying to find someone who was better than he was, perhaps, to both prove a point and to take over his duties on the island, protecting the light. Problem is, the Man-in-Black is now a force of evil on the island, somehow connected to the light as well. Did Jacob know he was going to be killed and was searching for a replacement to take over when that happened? Did he know it was inevitable that his brother would find a loophole?

Adam and Eve

I like that John Locke nicknames the skeletons of the Man-in-Black and his foster mother Adam and Eve. Like everything in LOST, this of course is very important. We can discount Adam and Eve as meaning the first two people on the island because we know they weren’t. Instead, Adam and Eve, in this case, is an illusion to original sin. Jacob and the Man-in-Black’s foster mother was originally sinful when she killed their real mother. Was that the first death on the island, the first murder? Maybe. The second sin, or murder, was then when the Man-in-Black killed his foster mother. So were these two the first two “sinners” on the island? It seems likely, but I’m not sure, it’s a neat allusion either way.

Other Allusions…

Of course because it’s LOST there are other allusions that we can now see have kept coming up throughout the story.

Baby-stealing seems common place. First, Jacob’s mother had her babies stolen from here and raised by the woman, Eve. Later, Rousseau had her baby stolen from her and raised by Ben and the Others. And finally, Claire had her baby stolen from her, in a way, and it was raised by Kate. In the case of Rousseau, we know that Widmore issued the order to steal her baby and we know that the Others had made a practice of this but we don’t really know why, do we? I suspect that maybe the Man-in-Black, and not Jacob, was counseling the Others at this point because we see the same thing happen later on with Claire’s baby and then it is the Man-in-Black who forces her to abandon Aaron.

The wine bottle. Here is the origin of the wine bottle, perhaps. Jacob’s foster mother has him drink from the bottle to indicate his new role as protector of the light. This is the same bottle that Jacob later uses to illustrate to Richard that evil is being contained on the island. The same bottle that Jacob later gives to his brother, which he smashes in a very poetic metaphor. If it were only that easy to leave the island.

Now we know who the little boy is. That little boy who has been appearing off and on throughout this season, chasing and chastising the Man-in-Black is Jacob, a younger Jacob. This makes sense, especially when he tells the Man-in-Black, in one instance, that he is breaking the rules.

This episode also gives us a glimpse into what all of those wells were about and their purpose. We even learn that the Man-in-Black himself built the wheel, intended to manipulate the light.

Consider This…

The appearance of the Claudia, the real mother to Jacob and the Man-in-Black, was actually the appearance of the Smoke Monster. Remember, it was on Claudia’s prompting that the Man-in-Black left his foster mother and Jacob and joined camp with the Others. It was by Claudia that he learned of his mothers lies and deception and it was from her that the seed was first planted that the MiB should try and leave the island. Was this appearance of his mother actually a manifestation of the Smoke Monster manipulating the MiB? I think the implications of this are far-reaching if it’s possible. Maybe, just like the Smoke Monster/MiB was searching for a body in John Locke, the Smoke Monster prior to becoming the MiB was searching for a soul. If the Smoke Monster’s goal, from even before Jacob and the MiB’s time, was to leave the island then maybe it needed someone to come down that whole, into the light, so that it could  have their soul, it could become a presence on the island.

I don’t know, but I wonder.

Final Thoughts

Yes, the Man-in-Black, Adam, was the victim of some serious brain-washing and lies but that doesn’t excuse him and certainly doesn’t mean that he’s not now the embodiment of evil. Was it Jacob’s doing, when he threw him down into the light, that made him evil? Maybe it was. Yeah, it could’ve been, because he certainly wasn’t wholly evil before then. But he is now. Manipulating and killing at will, in cold blood. His only goal now is to get off the island and it seems that he’s willing to accomplish it at any cost. Any sliver of compassion or sympathy seems to be entirely lost now, as far as I can tell. He’s in it for himself and himself alone.

That said, is Jacob entirely good? Is his mission to find a candidate wholly righteous? Probably not. When he drank the wine and was given authority as the new protector of the light his foster mother, Eve, told him that he was now “like her”. Does he inherit all of her faults as well as her faith? She was certainly not wholly good, she killed the entire village of Others that the Man-in-Black was living with. Whether or not she was doing this to protect the light I think we can agree that it’s a pretty unwholesome move. Jacob certainly isn’t perfect either.

So in the end I feel like we’ve learned a lot and then we haven’t. None of this really changes the main storyline, I don’t think. We still don’t want the Man-in-Black to leave the island. He’s still evil, as far as I can tell, even if he wasn’t always. We still need someone to replace Jacob on the island. We still want the remaining Survivors to survive. I don’t see a whole lot of difference. But, in any case, there is only 3 1/2 more hours of LOST left, forever. How it’s going to end and what we’re going to learn—or not learn—is absolutely anyone’s guess. It is insane though for a show to keep its fan base guessing right up until the eleventh hour, knowing LOST, probably up until the very last second, if not beyond.

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Someone I was talking to last week predicted that LOST would end with a twist. The twist would be that there was going to be another season. How I wish that were true! With only two episodes remaining before the 2-hour 2.5-hour season finale, I feel like we’re wringing our hands in desperation, wondering what to do next, once our beloved television program ends. I think maybe we’ll join a cult.

But in all seriousness, LOST has become more than a mere television show for those who have remained faithful through all six seasons. It’s become this wild journey, this all-consuming mystery—it’s taken on a life of its own. I remember sitting on the bed with Maria, my wife (then girlfriend), in her dank basement apartment—student housing!—in Waterloo going through the first season of LOST on DVD. She was sick that weekend and we had nothing to do so we watched LOST, which we heard from friends was good. The apartment was later gutted after being plagued by plumbing and mold problems and I did develop a significant mold allergy later that year but was it worth it? I’ll leave that to you to decide.

This week’s episode of LOST, “The Candidate,” was nearly non-stop action. The times when the action did stop, or slow down, were filled with insane parallels and illusions between the two universes—the flash-sideways and the island reality. For those that say the writers are flying by the seat of their pants at this point, you may be on to something here. But for those who have faith and believe that there’s a greater plan, that it’s all in hand, then I guess we’re finally getting down to it. While it seems a foregone conclusion that we won’t have all our questions answered by the end, and that many of the rumours and speculations aren’t going to pan out, LOST is clearly dead set on going out with a bang even if that bang just means killing everyone off.

The Alternaverse

I absolutely love the play between John and Jack in the flash-sideways alternaverse. It’s a complete role reversal, and it’s brilliant. Jack is playing John, as he was on the island. He has faith, believes in destiny and is embracing the mystery of life and the universe. He finds meaning and importance in the fact that he met John on the plane, and then again after his accident. He thinks it’s happenstance, it’s important, and that it’s his job to fix him. Just like John, back on the island, who believed in destiny, believed in the island and the importance of his mission there.

But in the alternaverse John is a broken man, literally. He was faithful and sure of himself and confident and, as we learn, it led him to crash a plane. As a result of the plane crash, John’s father, Anthony Cooper, is permanently brain-damaged and John himself is paralyzed. It’s penance, as John sees it, that he remain confined to a wheelchair even though Jack is sure he can restore his ability to walk. What does it mean that alternaverse John is “paying for his sins” so to speak? I have no idea. And anyway, it sounds like an accident. Jack is right that John needs to just “let it go.”

The fact that we’re still puzzling over what the alternaverse is all about is just more proof that we’re talking about an incredibly well-written piece of TV. I seriously haven’t the foggiest, although it isn’t for lack of trying. I’m constantly coming up with theories about what I think might be going on only to dismiss them, or have them dismissed. I’m still floating questions about Eloise and her role in the flash-sideways universe, of how much Desmond knows, of the importance of Jack’s scar, and why some character seem to be doing alright while others are struggling.

Personally, if it’s a matter of the show ending in the alternaverse reality I think I’m in favour of that. If it can somehow tie in the character development of the first five seasons, I say go for it. In the alternaverse all of our characters are still alive, old characters like Libby and Charlie are still around. Sun and Jin! It’ll be interesting to see how these two timelines end up. Really interesting.

On the Island

The meat of this episode took place on the island, or at least near the island.

I was surprised, first of all, at the insane pace of things. Within the blink of an eye Smokey is on Hydra Island, he’s taken out the sonic fence, killed all of Widmore’s people and he’s getting ready to leave on the sub. It’s break-neck pacing. The complete double fake-out on his part is brilliant too and I definitely didn’t see that coming. In case you missed it:

Jacob’s Nemesis wants to leave the island. He told the candidates that he needs all of them to leave with him in order for him to leave. That’s reasonable enough and lines up with everything we’ve known before. If here’s no candidate (to take Jacob’s place) then there’s nothing tying the Smoke Monster to the island. But, the truth is, all old Smokey needs is for there to be no more candidates, whether that means they leave the island or they’re killed. Trick is, he can’t kill them himself.

When Jack discovers the bomb which Locke put in his backpack he quickly realizes this truth. They can’t be killed. John’s plan, all along, was for them to take the sub, leaving him behind and then kill themselves trying to defuse the bomb. It was a genius plan, tricking them into thinking they had the upper hand on him the entire time. Satan is the great deceiver, after all.

Unfortunately, because of a hot-headed Sawyer, Locke’s plan works and the bomb is set to detonate and destroy all the candidates on board save for a highly unexpected move by Sayid.

And here’s where I run into a bit of a problem, personally.

When did Sayid become good again? I had, like many other viewers, I’m sure, completely written off Sayid. He was killing without mercy or consideration. Romping through the jungle to perform insane missions for Jacob’s Nemesis and generally being a really creepy, evil guy. But I guess the incident with Desmond in the well was a turning point. We now know that he didn’t end up killing Desmond, and I guess this was his turning point, but it seems pretty drastic. To go from an absolute killing machine, to a very compassionate friend willing to give up his life for the other survivors is pretty intense. Personally, I didn’t buy it, but maybe that’s just me. I was just getting used to crazy Sayid, so it was a bit jarring to see the other side of him again.

But aside from the crazy dramatic death of Sun and Jin (don’t worry, they’re still alive in the alternaverse!) Sayid does manage to save the other candidates on board the submarine. My question, does John Locke know it?

I don’t think so.

Last night’s episode ended with John trotting off into the woods, explaining to Claire that he had to “finish something”. When Claire gasped that everyone on board the submarine must’ve been killed, Locke didn’t bat an eyelash or form a rebuttal. Instead, he realized that he had unfinished business, and left to finish it. My prediction? Locke thinks that his plan worked and that the candidates on the sub were killed. The business he is going to finish is with Desmond. If the candidates on the sub are all dead, Locke thinks, then he should be able to leave the island. When the submarine explodes and he still can’t leave the island, I’m guessing he thinks that Desmond must be alive still. What he doesn’t realize is that not only is Desmond alive but Jack and Hurley and friends are too. Now they really have the upper hand.

An interesting juxtaposition here though: Jack refuses to leave the island. Jack is giving up everything in the service of the island, because he believes that it’s his destiny, that it’s what he’s meant to do. Meanwhile, John gave up everything in the service of the island because he was tricked by Jacob’s Nemesis who told him that he would have to die to save the island. Really, he wanted him to die so that he could steal his body, and be free of the island. I like the dueling sides here. If this isn’t a battle of good vs. evil then I don’t know what is.

What’s amazing, looking back on this whole series, is that right from the very start Jack and John were pitted against each other as kind of opposing leaders. Back then Jack couldn’t wait to leave the island, while John had pure and honest faith in their destiny. The roles have reversed now, but the two still find themselves pitted against each other, in a way. If there are two better characters to live on as Jacob and his Nemesis, I don’t know who they are. With next week’s episode approaching quickly I simply can’t wait to learn more about the good vs. evil plot line. From the looks of things, we’ll learn a lot more about the nature of the island and this whole saga. I’m betting—and I think it’s a safe bet—that this thing reaches all the way back to the first time we met John, playing a game of backgammon on the beach. Good vs. evil, right from the very start.

A few thoughts in closing. Widmore knows who the candidates are, he tells the Survivors that he has a list. He knows enough to know that Kate isn’t on that list and he puts them in the polar bear cages on Hydra Island, he says, for their protection. I believe him that far. But how did he get that list, and how does he know who the candidates are? Is it something to do with Eloise? She’s someone of great importance even in the island reality nevermind the alternaverse. If it was her that gave Widmore a list then I really wonder what her role is. If it wasn’t her, then I wonder how Widmore got it.

Where’s Dharma? In interviews leading up to the beginning of this final season the writers hinted that we’d be learning more about Dharma and that their Anne Arbour, Michigan headquarters would become important. Is that, uh, still gonna happen? I hope so because it’s a big unanswered question. Dharma was about more than just doing tests on the island methinks when you discover things like one of their cottages was built on top of an entrance to the Smoke Monster’s temple and the fact that Horace built Jacob’s Cabin, etc. etc. I try to have faith, but when things like this don’t seem to be manifesting themselves in the final season, I do wonder how much clairvoyance the writers have. And, I have to admit, I’m a little shaken up by the announcement that the 2-hour finale is being extended to 2.5-hour. That just screams, “We don’t know what we’re doing and we’re running out of time!” But maybe I’m wrong.

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Damon Lindelof, one of the talented writer’s for TV’s LOST sat down with The Hollywood Reporter this past week to talk about the show’s 2-hour finale. The full text and video interview can be found here, and I thought I’d spend a few minutes going through the cliffnotes, and adding some of my own ideas and wild theories.

The Finale Will Leave Us With Questions

Lindelof said that the finale won’t end in The Sopranos style of leave-the-whole-audience-hanging but he said it will necessarily leave some questions unanswered. He said that some fans will walk away wondering, “What did they mean by this?” But, he also added, that a “very, very large part” of the finale was part of the original plan of the show. This is good news, and puts to bed the notion that this last season has departed sharply from their original game plan.

The Flash-Sideways

Lindelof comment on the flash-sideways bits, saying he knew it was going to be controversial introducing a new literary technique in the last season—opening up more doors when they’re supposed to be closing them. But if this is all part of the bigger plan, like he said, then it’s all well in hand.

On this note, he made an interesting acknowledgment. He said that people got really upset when they thought that the whole series leading up to the flash-sideways wasn’t important. He said that people now realize, as the characters remember their experiences on the island, that what happened on the island was important. I want to run with this for a second.

I’ve long held that character development is an integral part of this show—maybe even the most important part. I’ve said that an ending which ended in the flash-sideways world would negate all the character development which took place on the island. However, now that the characters in the flash-sideways world are remembering what happened to them on the island, an ending in the flash-sideways world could make a lot of sense. Lindelof acknowledged this. He said that fans were initially upset that the show could possibly end in the flash-sideways world because if the island never happened, then the first 5 seasons of the show would be irrelevant. But Lindelof has allayed our fears and as the characters begin to remember what happened on the island, those five seasons of character development become important again.

Is Lindelof hinting that the show will end in the flash-sideways reality? It seems like it to me!

Secrecy Abounds

One really interesting tidbit from the interview is how and when the finale was filmed. Instead of waiting until the very end of the Season 6 shooting schedule, Lindelof tells us that the finale was actually filmed in the middle of the season in order protect the secrecy of the final chapter. I had heard before that in order to protect the show’s ending actors were only given information pertaining to their particular character, but I hadn’t heard about this before. It’s kind of neat, and you know that a show takes itself very seriously when they slip the filming of the finale into the middle of the shooting schedule in order to throw everyone off.

Desmond is Missing

The final bit that the interview touches on which I think is worth exploring is the interesting absence of Desmond in the cast photo for the season finale. I guess this has been stirring up some questions around the Internet, and Lindelof’s response doesn’t exactly dismiss the claims. The video interview explains it well, but in case since you’re reading these cliffnotes let me elaborate. Apparently Desmond is missing from the cast photo for the finale. When asked, Lindelof said that he didn’t want to ruin the fun for fans and that a character missing from a cast photo is something that’s out of his hands—but you have to wonder. Everything, and I mean everything means something in the LOST world so a major character being conspicuously absent from the finale promo picture is very suspicious. The fact that Lindelof says that he doesn’t want to ruin it for fans, before going on to say that it was out of his control definitely alludes to something. Did Sayid really kill Desmond? Or, if not, does he die a different way? You really have to wonder.

All in all, a pretty interesting interview and you can see why LOST is so well written and such an incredible series. There’s obviously great care that goes into this show. Thank goodness there’s an episode this week! But what are we going to do when it ends?

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