Rewatching LOST: 5.17 “The Incident, Part 2″

Locke and Ben finally meet face-to-face with Jacob, while Jack receives unexpected help in his attempt to change history.

• In 2007, the Others arrive at the four-toed statue, where Richard informs them that this is where Jacob lives. After making camp just outside the statue, Locke insists that he be taken to Jacob immediately, and brings Ben along, over Richard’s vehement objections. Richard opens a hidden door at the base of the statue and allows Locke and Ben to enter, but he returns to the camp. Inside, Locke gives Ben a knife to kill Jacob with, and they proceed down a corridor.
• Outside, Ilana and her friends arrive, and she asks Richard her question, “What lies at the foot of the statue?” In Latin, Richard replies, “He who will save us all.” Relieved at his answer, Ilana orders the crate opened, and what’s inside spills out: it’s John Locke, still dead after all! Ilana tells them that they found the body in the cargo hold of Ajira 316, in its coffin. Sun asks the question everyone is thinking: “If this is Locke, who’s [inside the statue]?”
• Inside, Locke and Ben arrive at Jacob’s main chamber, where we see that the large wall tapestry Jacob was working on long ago has finally been finished. Jacob notices Locke and notes that he found his loophole. This isn’t Locke at all — it’s the Man in Black, Jacob’s Nemesis! The Man in Black says that Jacob has no idea what he’s been through to get here. Ben is confused and frustrated that Locke and Jacob seem to know each other, but as the Man in Black spurs him on to kill Jacob, Ben addresses Jacob directly, and asks why he never got to meet Jacob before now, even after everything he did under Jacob’s orders while he was still leader of the Others. But Locke, on the other hand, was brought straight here to meet Jacob, where Ben was forever told he had to wait. “What about me?!” he cries. “What about you?” Jacob replies calmly. Furious, Ben stabs Jacob twice in the chest, and Jacob collapses. Just before he dies, Jacob whispers to the Man in Black that “they’re coming.” Hearing this, the Man in Black kicks Jacob’s body into a fire in anger.
• In 1977, Jack agrees to talk to Sawyer in private and hear him out, before going forward with his plan to detonate the hydrogen bomb. The two of them find a private spot in the jungle to talk, and Sawyer explains how his parents died when he was a boy — which was just one year ago. He could have left the island and changed things if he wanted to, but he understands now that “what’s done is done.” Jack refuses to listen, insisting that they have to undo everything that’s been done, but Sawyer believes that Jack’s motives are more self-serving than he’s letting on. Jack admits that the one thing he truly wants is the one thing he can no longer have: Kate. Sawyer points out that changing the past so that Oceanic 815 never crashes on the island won’t fix that problem — it’ll mean that Jack and Kate never met at all. But Jack doesn’t seem to care, and is adamant about completing his plan. Realizing that reason isn’t getting him anywhere, Sawyer launches into a vicious attack, beating Jack to a pulp. The two engage in a long-overdue brawl until Juliet arrives and breaks it up. She informs Sawyer that she’s changed her mind, and that they have to let Jack carry out his plan. As Jack wanders off, Sawyer has reached his breaking point, and demands to know what’s made Juliet change her mind. She says that it happened when Sawyer looked at Kate earlier. Juliet knows that Sawyer loves her, and she loves him as well, but she says that if they never meet, then she never has to lose him.
• At the nearby Swan site, the readings on the drill go “off the charts,” and Chang again tries to get Radzinsky to stop drilling, but Radzinsky won’t listen. Phil calls, informing him that Jack and his friends are on their way there, and he orders Phil to get there on the double.
• Kate catches up to Jack as he watches the action unfolding at the Swan site, and they briefly reminisce about old times. She finally explains to him why she came back to the island and what happened to Aaron. Jack tells her again that he knows that detonating the bomb is the right thing to do, because nothing in his life has ever felt so right as this. This time, she finally agrees to help him, and as they watch, an alarm sounds at the Swan site, indicating that the Incident is about to occur.
• After Jack sets off alone, Miles points out that what Jack is trying to do could end up being the cause of the thing they’re trying to prevent — the Incident. They spot Phil driving to the Swan site, and they all decide to go help Jack get the job done.
• Jack reaches the site and a big gunfight takes place, with Jack’s friends swooping in, in their stolen Dharma van, to save the day. They manage to turn the tables and even get some assistance from Dr. Chang, who tries to turn off the drill, but finds that he can’t because the electromagnetic energy pocket has been hit, and the drill is now being pulled down. With everyone at a pregnant pause, Jack reaches the drill shaft and drops the bomb down into it. Tears fall and final goodbyes are exchanged in significant looks, but everyone is surprised when nothing happens. The bomb never explodes. But now it’s too late, the Incident is in full swing, and everything metal in the area is being drawn powerfully toward the drill well, even large vehicles. Chang’s hand is crushed under some metal, and his son Miles rushes forward to free him. Some chain wraps around Juliet’s legs and pulls her down into the hole, but Kate arrives and grabs her. Sawyer comes to help too, and he insists he can pull her up, while she inches further down into the hole and the entire drill rigging above them threatens to collapse. Seeing that Sawyer is in danger of being killed by the enormous rig, she tells Sawyer one last time how much she loves him, and then lets go of his hand. Sawyer is emotionally crushed as he watches her fall to her doom. Kate finally is able to pull Sawyer away from the hole, just before the entire drill collapses and falls in.
• Deep at the bottom of the well, Juliet is broken and dying, but she briefly awakens to see that the bomb hasn’t gone off. She spots it on the ground nearby and grabs a rock, bashing it against the bomb until finally, it detonates.

• In addition to his visits in the past to Kate, Sawyer, Sayid, Locke, and Sun & Jin, Jacob also visited Jack and touched him as well.
• The day before the Oceanic 6 returned to the island, it was Jacob that convinced Hurley to return. Jacob shared a cab with Hurley after he was released from jail, and though Jacob never identified himself, he assured Hurley that he was neither cursed nor crazy. He also gave Hurley the guitar case that Hurley would carry with him back to the island, though we never saw what was inside it.
• As a child, Juliet and her sister Rachel learned that her parents were getting a divorce. Their mother told them that “just because two people love each other doesn’t mean they should be together.” Juliet was upset and didn’t understand, but her mother told her she would understand what it meant someday.

• According to Sawyer, this episode takes place in July, 1977.
  Question: When, prior to 1980, did “the incident” occur? 2.03
• Chang’s hand was crushed by a large piece of metal during the powerful electromagnetic catastrophe known as the Incident.
  Question: Marvin Candle appeared to be wearing a prosthetic arm. Why? What happened to his real arm? 2.03
• From what we can glean about Jacob in this episode, the island seems to be his domain, or at least the shared domain of him and the Man in Black. So since the Others work for Jacob, then in a sense, yes the island is theirs, though the word “belong” implies an ownership that they can’t really claim.
  Question: Does the island belong to the Others, as they claim? 2.11
• Again, since the Others work for Jacob, then they no doubt see their actions as justifiable for the greater good. It doesn’t appear that Jacob gives specific instructions on how his orders are to be carried out — such as bringing new people into the Others’ ranks. It’s the Others themselves who decide to violently kidnap the people on Jacob’s lists.
  Question: Ethan told Claire that the Others “are good people,” a “good family.” Yet we’ve seen them commit acts of unspeakable cruelty. How can they be good if they do such bad things? 2.15
• Though a definitive answer is yet to come, it seems pretty conclusive at this point that most or all of the dead people seen on the island are probably the smoke monster in human form, including Yemi.
  Question: Who was the Yemi that Eko confessed to? Was he, as it appeared, the smoke monster taken human form? 3.05
• Emily Linus was no doubt another example of the smoke monster taking on human form.
  Question: Who or what was the Emily Linus we saw on the island, when she is known to be dead? Is she in the same state as Christian Shepherd, and other dead people who have been seen on the island? 3.20
• This was most likely the Man in Black.
  Question: Who was the second person Hurley saw in Jacob’s cabin (the one that appeared at the window)? 4.01
• Jacob gave him a little nudge.
  Question: Why did Hurley change his mind and decide to go back to the island? 5.06
• He didn’t — it was the Man in Black the whole time.
  Question: How did Locke wind up standing in the ocean just off the shore of Hydra Island, apparently resurrected after killing himself in Los Angeles? 5.07
• Locke was never resurrected! Ben was right — dead is dead. Instead, the person everyone thought was Locke was really Jacob’s Nemesis in disguise.
  Question: How exactly was Locke resurrected? 5.07
• Locke’s body — the real Locke.
  Question: What’s in Ilana’s steel crate? 5.12
• “He who will save us all,” which is undoubtedly a reference to Jacob.
  Question: What’s the answer to the question, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” 5.12
• Knowing the answer to the question appears to be an identifier for the personal servants of Jacob.
  Question: Why did Ilana ask this question to Frank? Is it some kind of pass code? 5.12
• He doesn’t — Jacob’s Nemesis does.
  Question: Why does Locke want to kill Jacob? 5.15

• How did the Man in Black take on Locke’s form? Can he assume the form of anyone he wants, or does it have to be a dead person?
• What all did the Man in Black “go through” to get to Jacob?
• Since we’ve seen other dead people (like Locke) on the island before, such as Alex Rousseau and Yemi, who very likely were the smoke monster taken human form, does this mean that the Man in Black is the smoke monster? Could they be one and the same?
• Who was Jacob referring to when he warned the Man in Black that “they’re coming”?
• Were Jack, Juliet, and the other survivors successful in altering history by detonating the hydrogen bomb?

• I still don’t quite understand Jack’s personal motivations for wanting to detonate the bomb, if for him, it was all about being with Kate. I could see his desire to wipe away the mistakes he’d made, such as his drug addiction and how he pushed Kate away. But he has to know that it’s unlikely that they’ll ever meet if history is changed. Maybe with his newfound belief in fate, he now believes that if he and Kate are meant to be together, they still will be, in the new timeline.
• So it all comes down to whether or not that bomb reset the timeline. My initial instinct upon seeing the episode was that there’s no way it could have. There’s just too much evidence to the contrary, such as Richard remembering that all of the survivors died (presumably from the bomb blast) in 1977. If the bomb blast changed history, he wouldn’t remember their deaths in the original timeline version of 2007. Or consider Chang’s hand/arm injury, which we’ve known to be part of continuity all the way back to the earliest Dharma orientation videos of Season 2. This episode finally showed us how his hand was injured, so wouldn’t that point to an unchanged timeline? Yet we know from all of the hints we’ve seen since way back at Comic-Con ’09 that alterations to the timeline are something the show is going to play with heavily in Season 6. Is it possible that somehow the bomb both did and didn’t change history? We’ll find out soon.
• I’m convinced at this point that the dead people we’ve seen on the island are really the smoke monster/Man in Black assuming their form: Alex, Yemi, Emily Linus, etc. I still do wonder, though, about Christian Shephard. Sure, it’s possible that he’s another guise of the smoke monster/Man in Black, but there almost seems to be more to him, somehow. I wonder if he could be Richard’s opposite number, serving the Man in Black the same way that Richard serves Jacob. There’s a certain symmetry to it — Richard was made a symbol of life by Jacob when Jacob made it so that Richard doesn’t age, whereas the Man in Black used a symbol of death as his servant.
• Now that Rewatching Lost is done (and man, what an exhausting undertaking this was…), I have a complete master list of all the remaining unanswered questions. Over the next week, you’ll get to see the full, unabridged list, which I’ll be presenting here on the site in several fun and useful ways. Before Season 6 begins on February 2nd, you will be completely prepped for the show’s grand finale! Be sure to follow me on Twitter if you want to know when these features go live.

Need more depth and detail? Read my full recap of “The Incident”.

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Image credits: “Rewatching Lost” logo by Robin Parrish. Season 5 cast promotional image: American Broadcasting Company.