First, an apology to those of you (and I know there are just throngs of you out there) who have actually noticed that I haven’t blogged since January.  And, after I promised I was going to review and deconstruct evey single episode of LOST’s fifth season as it aired!  Okay, now that we’re all over that, let’s talk about last night’s no-breathe-TV 2-hour episode — the one that will have to hold us for the next nine months!  If you haven’t watched the episode yet, DON’T READ ANY FURTHER!  If you have, get out of this paragraph and into the next one…hurry!

You know Jacob has to be in the first paragraph. For someone who has been so elusive for so long, he sure was easy to find here!  The dude was everywhere!  But, more than that, he gave us one of the most gorgeous opening scenes of the entire series!  Sitting inside his giant foot (which was a whole statue then), he spun and wove by firelight.  Whoa.  Moments later, he went all Bobby Flay on us and cooked some fish on his rock grill (Lostpedia says it was a red herring…a cool tidbit).  When the second guy showed up, I’m betting I’m not the only one who thought HE was Jacob (it was the beard).  Once the Black Rock appeared and the conversation began, I was sure ONE of them was, anyway.  By the end of the scene, we knew which one was, but the identity of the other remains a mystery.  Can’t say I’m thrilled with that, but being frustrated over mystery on LOST seems kind of like being frustrated about the thrill you feel when you willingly get on a roller coaster!

Once we have established that Jacob seems to be able to control the actions of others and seems to exist outside of time (he brought the Black Rock to the island, apparently to prove that things will play out the same perpetually…except for the mysterious reference he made to “progress”), we see him make his rounds, clearly keeping an eye on those whose lives are tied to the island.  We see Kate, Sawyer, and Juliet as children and I didn’t realize why it was those three until I just typed their names all together.  They were uncomfortably chained to a table on the submarine together, broke out of it together, and stood against Jack and Jughead together…initially.  They came around to see Jack’s view together (well, Sawyer allowed Juliet to run the show, but the ladies were genuinely convinced), and they all ended up at the mouth of the drilled hole that led down to the dreaded “pocket.”  I’m guessing these three will have a lot of screen time in the beginning of season 6.  What?  You think Juliet is dead?  Didn’t you watch the season 2 finale where Desmond turned the key and the sky went all purple and the hatch blew up?  On this island, my friends, being at ground zero isn’t necessarily the end of the game!

Jacob also makes appearances at key moments in the lives of Jack, Sun & Jin, Locke, Hurley, Sayid, and Ilana.  We see Jack’s first major surgery and pick up some history on the “count to five,” technique.  We see Locke apparently resurrected by Jacob after being pushed out of the window that left him paralyzed.  I always wondered how the heck he survived that fall, didn’t you?  It seems, perhaps, that he didn’t.  I loved this setup because it seemed to explain why Locke was alive on the island after being killed by Ben.  That small window of satisfaction was then ripped away from us when we finally saw what was in the crate!   We saw how Hurley came to be in possession of the guitar he carried on board Ajira 316, and we saw Nadia die.  Even though we’ve seen that hit-by-a-car/bus/quarterback film technique a million times, now, I am still amazed by it.  It seems to have replaced the cat leaping out of the dark as the quintessential guarantor of gasps!  Back on point, Jacob touches or gives something to everyone he encounters.  That physical contact was certainly played up as significant, making me wish it wasn’t going to be nine months of waiting to find out more about it.

Okay, so our love triangle of the season are out of the sub (one of the coolest escape scenes I think I’ve ever seen!  I mean, who the heck escapes from a SUBMARINE?) and rushing off to stop Jack when Vincent comes running out of the jungle.  Wait, what?  Aren’t we in 1977?  Oh, so that means Vincent must have time traveled, too.  By the way, that was so clearly not the same dog actor, it was almost distracting as I was trying to process this scene.  But, the moment Bernard and Rose showed up, I let that all go and just drank them in.  Their peaceful hippie vibe made for an outstanding scene!  We’re so accustomed to everyone being all dirty and sweaty and urgently running off to deal with some crisis and right in the middle of that we have this serenity that is just unshakable, even when the happy couple is told they’re about to die.  Priceless!  It did raise one question, though: How is it Rose and Bernard never had any problems with the Hostiles (was it because they were not a threat?) and how did they keep themselves in Dharma provisions?  Okay, that was two questions.  Any thoughts?

Drama, drama, drama while the core is removed from the bomb and carried through Dharmaville out to the Swan construction site.  Sayid gets gut shot and there is a dramatic VW bus getaway that you just gotta love!  Radzinsky continues to be way too intense and annoying and Pierre Chang is doing his darndest to stop the drilling.  Once the bomb core is dropped down the drill hole (nice work covering Jack by the VW bus and the gang, by the way!), we get to watch the faces of Jack, Sawyer, Juliet and Kate up close and teary-eyed as they prepare to never have been to the island.  Then, we get the anti-climax of the century as — well — nothing happens.  But, a moment later, the pocket begins to suck metal and we watch “the incident” unfold.

Yea…Phil is dead by impaling!  That guy was asking for it almost as much as Radzinsky and exactly as much as that annoying dude that was trying to steal Libby from Hurley and got it with a flaming arrow!  Now, let me pause here and confess that I genuinely cried when Juliet was hanging on for dear life in that hole with Sawyer and Kate trying to save her.  The eye contact between her and Sawyer and the stream of “I love you’s,” and “Don’t you leave me’s,” was actually stronger than the grip they had on one anothers’ hands.  That Kate was present and desperately trying to be a part of that moment, but unable to touch either of them was poignant on a number of levels.  This scene was EPIC in the same way as the two reunion scenes between Desmond and Penny (the one on the telephone in “The Constant,” and the one on her ship as the Oceanic 6 were rescued).  That was just great television and there is just no arguing with that.

As creepy as her alien-eque stare can sometimes be, Elizabeth Mitchell deserves serious recognition for her acting prowess here.  The scene where she recovers from her fall, momentarily panics, then causes the bomb core to detonate (another juicy tidbit from Lostpedia says she strikes it “8″ times) puts her on a par with Terry O’Quinn (Locke) and Michael Emerson (Ben) in my book.  I’ve always been ambivalent about her as Juliet, but I think that feeling has made for the best characters on Lost.  My hat’s off to her.  And, now that she has won me over, I’m a bit sad to have read that she is already cast in a remake of the 1980′s schlock TV series, “V,” so there’s no telling if we will actually see her here again.  I know, I said in the third paragraph that this whole episode set her up for season 6, but perhaps that’s not the case.  I’m making this up as I go along, people!

Okay, before we talk about the sky going white and the awesome white ending title screen (oops…I guess I just did that), let’s go back to 2007 and the shadow of the statue.  Ilana asks the now-famous question of Richard, who correctly responds in Latin, “”He who will protect/save us all.”  Whatever that means.  So, even as Jacob is being stabbed and burned to death inside the statue, Ilana is fulfilling her promise to “help” him by delivering Locke’s corpse to Richard as proof that the man who took Ben inside was not the man we thought he was.  This leaves me wondering how this “helps,” since Jacob ends up dead, but there’s one more reason to tune in for season 6.  The man we’ve thought was Locke is now revealed as the bearded man from the opening scene who expressed how badly he wanted to kill Jacob and vowed to find the loophole that would make it possible.  Whatever that loophole actually is, I’m not sure, but this scene and the one where Juliet detonates the bomb seem to tell us definitively that whatever happened didn’t necessarily happen and time can be changed.  Having said that, we have seen so many examples of “course correction,” that I’m currently of the opinion that there are major points that are non-negotiable but several possible ways to reach them.  Whether the bomb was part of “the incident” or not, Chang loses the use of his let arm and the Swan station gets built and he goes on to make the Dharma station orientation films.  If you haven’t noticed,  watch The Swan orientation film to see that his left arm does not move:

No matter what Desmond does to stop it (or even step in as a replacement), Charlie dies.  The Black Rock will land and the people on it will do bad things, though there may be some “progress” involved in the changing minor details.  So, I’m guessing that either Oceanic 815 crashes no matter what, or these individuals who end up on the island will always end up there even if it’s on Ajira 316 or some other way.  Hey, they’ve been touched by Jacob!

Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff “Doc” Jensen has been writing awesome pre- and post-episode articles here.  I recommend signing up for the email alerts if you don’t already.  He’s issued a call for your top 3 mysteries that MUST be answered before the series ends next season.  There are still many unanswered questions and a few new ones just cropped up last night!  But, see if you can get it down to three completely non-negociables — the ones that will make you feel like you just wasted 6 years of your life if they aren’t answered by the big wrap up.  You can submit your responses this week at JeffJensenEW@aol.com, but be warned: His inbox fills up and stays filled up so you might have to try a dozen times and get bounced a dozen times before your message gets through.  Your other alternative is to just post a comment here and we can keep it nice and cozy!  Here are my three picks:

1. Who are the “Adam & Eve” skeletons found in the cave in season 1 and what is the significance of the black and white stones Jack found on them?
2. What is the smoke monster…and I want DETAILS!
3. Who/what is Jacob?

Of course, I want to know about everyone who doesn’t seem to be a “normal” human being, so I could cheat and make my questions more compound than they are, but these are the crucial ones.  I’m very curious about the nature of Richard (“I am like this because of Jacob,”) and Christian Shepherd (is he also an enemy of Jacob taking the form of another person…or perhaps the same enemy?).  I’m curious about the Hostiles in general (if they are truly “indiginous,” where did all of the Egyptian culture come from and why are they speaking Latin all the time?).  Is Claire dead?  Are dead people showing up a good thing or a bad thing? Is Desmond coming back to the island? Who are the new posse headed by Ilana that claim to be “the good guys,” just as Ben did is season 2?  If the outcome is always the same, what ist here to war about and which is acutally the “right” side?  Okay, let’s hear from you!

1 Corinthians 15:35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” 36 Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. 37 And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain–perhaps wheat or some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body. 39 All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. 40 There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. 42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord  from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. 50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption.

51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed– 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

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