The LOST Rewatch: Seasons 1-5 in Review

Recently I was invited to participate in The LOST Rewatch, masterminded by DocArzt & Friends and Lostpedia. It's going to be a hiatus-long event where fans rewatch the first five seasons of LOST in anticipation of the sixth and final season.

The rewatch starts June 1st, and a tentative episode schedule is here (I say tentative because the Season 5 portion may be postponed until after the DVD and Blu-ray editions become available on December 8th if there isn't an official means of watching Season 5 online by then).

I plan to blog and podcast during the rewatch, sharing insights and commentary on each week's set of episodes with a particular emphasis on making connections we didn't make the first time around, since we now have much more context for the series. As usual, I intend to mainly focus on the mysteries and most plot-relevant points. I'll probably blog once a week and podcast a bit less often (although my rewatch blog commentaries should all make it to the podcast).

If you're into social networking, you can:

• Join the LOST Rewatch official Facebook group
  
• Follow the LOST Rewatch official Twitter profile
• Follow the JoshMeister on Twitter if you haven't already
  

Subscribe to this blog and podcast, and stay tuned for the rewatch!

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Simeon Hobbes & Epithet Alpha: Real LOST ARG or Hoax?

There's a lot of buzz today about a supposed new LOST alternate reality game (ARG) revolving around a couple of new Twitter accounts and an old YouTube account that just posted a video after being stagnant for three years. A lot of people are excited about it, but so far there's little evidence that this is an official LOST ARG.

Let's take a look at the chronology of events. Late Thursday night (depending on your time zone), one day after the Season 5 finale aired in the U.S. and Canada, a new Twitter account was created (@simeonhobbes), which has posted a lot of cryptic messages, many of which refer to someone named Jacob in a reverent manner as if speaking of a deity.

On Friday, May 15, a new video was posted on the YouTube page of a user named "thelostexperience". The video is titled "Who is Simeon Hobbes?" and is technically just a photograph with an audio track. The photograph is of a starry sky, and the audio has been identified as Morse code spelling out "I AM THE BENNU BIRD, THE HEART-SOUL OF RA, THE GUIDE OF THE GODS TO THE TUAT". According to Lostpedia, this video was later referenced by the @simeonhobbes account (the tweet said simply "KLbOw2XTWg8", which is the YouTube video's ID), but the tweet has since been deleted. Earlier today, Twitter user @DEBauslaugh deciphered a riddle posted by @simeonhobbes and determined that @epithetalpha is also part of the game, which @simeonhobbes confirmed.

But is this an official LOST ARG, or just a fan-made game? As of right now, there doesn't seem to be any solid evidence that it's official, and the evidence that exists seems to point to it being unofficial (that is, a non-canon, fan-created ARG). For one thing, the YouTube account and Twitter accounts only make reference to each other, and none of them seem to be referenced on any official ABC sites as far as I'm aware. There's no mention of anything related to the game at http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/ which is ABC's official LOST homepage. I asked fellow LOST blogger and podcaster DocArzt about it since he often has inside information about LOST (he also owns the domain thelostexperience.com, incidentally), and he agreed with my suspicions that it's not official. And as if that wasn't enough, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse gave a small hint on the most recent episode of The Official LOST Podcast (May 11th) that there may be a new ARG beginning at Comic-Con San Diego 2009 (July 23-26). This doesn't necessarily mean that an official ARG won't start before that, but they didn't give any hints about anything coming sooner. Here's what they said:

Carlton Cuse: "So this is it. This is the last time we're going to be chatting until Comic-Con, but we hope that you guys will come to Comic-Con as that will also be our final Comic-Con appearance."
Damon Lindelof: "Yes. We've got some treats in store, I think."
Carlton Cuse: "Yes. We are already talking about what we're doing for Comic-Con and it should be really fun."
Damon Lindelof: "That is very exciting."

In spite of the evidence cited above, I sent a message to the YouTube video account holder asking for evidence that the game is authentic, and I haven't gotten a response yet. I also was followed back by @epithetalpha when I followed the account, so I sent the user a direct message asking the same thing. I'll be sure to tweet and blog about whatever response I get, if any. So far I've gotten no response.

Even if this ARG is fan-made, it may turn out to be fun if you're willing to invest your time in it. To keep up with the latest tidbits and watch the plot unfold, keep your eyes on these places:

• Twitter: @simeonhobbes and @epithetalpha
• also @DEBauslaugh and @lostpedia who are playing and keeping track of the ARG
• YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/thelostexperience
• Lostpedia is also currently tracking the ARG at the article Simeon Hobbes
• If it turns out to be official, you can be sure that I'll tweet about it @theJoshMeister and blog and podcast about it as well (so please subscribe!)

If you have any further information about this ARG, please free to leave a comment on this blog post.

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Translation of Greek Words on Jacob's Tapestry [Updated]

Last night on the live post-Season 5 finale podcast, Congested sought to be the first to discover the meaning of the words written on the tapestry in Jacob's dwelling place beneath the statue. Congested knew that the writing was in Greek letters, so he tracked down some folks who could read Greek and ultimately came up with the following translation:

"May heaven grant you in all things your heart's desire"

An alternate translation from Lostpedia reads:

"May the gods grant thee all that thy heart desires"

This is a line from Homer's Odyssey (Lostpedia) (Wikipedia) (Amazon).

So, now that we know what the tapestry says, what is its significance or meaning? Richard Alpert told John Locke (er, "John Locke") that Jacob had given him the power of immortality. We don't really know whether Richard can be killed, but at least we know that he seems to be able to live forever without showing any signs of aging. Either way, this was a gift or blessing that Jacob gave to Richard. Jacob himself seems to have the same ability since, like Richard, he never seems to age. When Richard was speaking to "Locke" about coming back from the dead—something Richard had never seen happen before—he assumed that it must have been a gift from Jacob as well. Thus, it seems that Richard is convinced that Jacob can grant "whatever one's heart desires."

Richard Alpert is not the only person whom Jacob has blessed. At Sun and Jin's wedding, Jacob offered them "his blessing" for their marriage, and because of Sun and Jin's experiences on the Island their marriage and love for one another were restored. Hurley is another person who has apparently been blessed by Jacob. While they were riding in the cab together, Jacob said to Hurley, "What if you were blessed? You get to talk to the people you've lost." Although this isn't a direct revelation that Jacob is responsible for blessing Hurley with his ability, it is implied by the conversation, especially when viewed in context of the other things we learned about Jacob in the episode.

Is the writing on this tapestry a reflection of Jacob's power to make dreams come true? Or does the tapestry magically give Jacob power to grant wishes? My guess is the former: that Jacob already had this power. After all, Jacob himself created the tapestry:


Here's yet another puzzler to ponder: Why did Jacob create a tapestry with Greek writing when virtually everything else that's manmade on the Island (pre-DHARMA Initiative, that is) seems to be of ancient Egyptian origin? While it makes sense for a quote from The Odyssey to be written in its original language, a tapestry with Greek words on it seems rather out of place inside the base of a giant Egyptian statue.

Thanks again to Congested from Audibly Lost for passing along the Greek translation.

UPDATE: This high-quality image from DarkUFO shows more writing than has been translated so far, including hieroglyphics (see below). Lostpedia now has a translation of the Greek text in the middle of the tapestry: "May the gods grant thee happiness."

UPDATE 2: I've continued the discussion of Jacob's tapestry in this post.

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Season 5 Finale "The Incident" Discussion

[Listen to this episode!] [Subscribe to the MP3 feed via iTunes]

the JoshMeister and fellow LOST fans discuss the Season 5 finale, Episodes 16 and 17, "The Incident" Parts 1 and 2.

We'll get to that in a moment, but first here are some revelations from the executive producers and some additional notes and commentary regarding previous episodes.

The Official LOST Podcast notes from recent episodes:

• Why did Ben have to move the Island if the Island is always moving?
• The executive producers indicated that what Ben created a "bigger jump"
  
  
• Why were Amy and Paul having picnic in Hostile territory? (Some fans had speculated that one or both of them might have secretly been colluding with the Hostiles)
  
• The executive producers said that Amy and Paul were unknowingly just outside the DHARMA territory; it was an accident that they had their picnic in Hostile territory
  
  
• The executive producers also pointed out that The Swan is actually in Hostile territory, too (hence all the secrecy with the hidden fence during construction, etc.), which was a big risk for DHARMA to take
  
  
• We'll see an ankh again this season (we did see one in the finale—on the statue)
  

• The writers said that the compass that has been passed between John Locke and Richard Alpert through time in an endless loop was intentional, and is supposed to be a mystery
  
  
• A couple episodes ago on the JoshMeister's LOST Podcast, we discussed whether it was Daniel Faraday (voiced by Jeremy Davies) who was speaking to Dr. Pierre Chang in the Comic-Con 2008 video. The executive producers explained that it was Dan's voice, but the video is not canon and the show didn't end up going in that direction.
  
• Carlton Cuse said that "We don't consider what goes on in Comic-Con canon. I mean, we try to make it tied to the show, but the only thing that really is canon is the show for us."
• The story didn't go in the exact direction that they had intended at the time the video was made (before the worldwide financial crisis that forced the ARG to end early)
• Damon Lindelof: "We just rejiggered that because we lost all the storytelling that would have happened in the ARG that got essentially canceled, and then as the teaser of the season premiere, we basically—we sold this idea that Faraday was going to be in DHARMA times, but this was the new idea."
  
  
• Regarding who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, Carlton Cuse said:
• "Hurley's a good guy"
• "Kate's a good guy to me, too"
• Richard Alpert: "Haven't decided"
• Frank Lapidus: "Frank's good."
• Sayid: "Depends on the day. I like Sayid, but he's done some bad things."
  
  
• A fan asked at what point we'll have "enough information to adequately theorize about how the show ends." Damon's response:
• "I think, personally speaking, by the end of this finale, and by the end of the season premiere of season six, you will have pretty much all the fundamental building blocks you need to put together a hell of a theory as to what it all means and where the show might potentially end... You're going to get a substantial piece of information in this finale that will help you get a sense of where we might be going."
• Start putting on your theory hats during the hiatus, LOST fans!
  

Other notes:

• Last week, natalie_in_seattle asked: "how old is daniel? because it seems like he should be born already, well in 1977 anyway"
• Daniel was supposed to have been born in 1978. (Recall the comment from Charles Widmore to Eloise last week implying that she's pregnant.) Interestingly, Daniel died in 1977, meaning in chronological time, he died before he was born, and yet lived to be an adult. =)
• The actor who plays Dan Faraday is Jeremy Davies, who was born in October 1969. So the actor is almost 40 years old, and the role he's playing is that of a 30-year-old. That's why Daniel looks older than his character is supposed to be.
  
  
• StefanyMac e-mailed and said:
• "Hey Josh,
  
  I noticed a couple of things I wanted to share from 'The Variable'.
  
  1) The D.I. Worker down in the Orchid work site stopped Dan to make him wear a hard hat. He is the exact same actor that played an Other in 'Through the Looking Glass'. I'm certain of it. I couldn't find a screen cap from Variable but here's a link to one from 'Looking Glass'. It he man holding a gun to Sayid's head.
  
  http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1300-315.html
  
  2) When Ms. Hawking was visiting with Penney at the hospital she stated that Charlie 'had his father's hair.' Charlie has blond hair and Des has dark brown hair. If she had said he had his father's wavy hair that would have been accurate. That's not what she said. It's true that some people's hair turns from fair to dark as they age. However if that's in fact what happened, how would Ms. Hawking know that?
  
  I believe that Ms. Hawking has some sort of Time travel/temporal abilities. The popular theory is that her future knowledge comes from Dan's journal. I don't think that is the complete answer. Dharton has said that "The Variable" is the companion episode to the constant. We have learned that Desmond is special. The rules don't apply to him. This ep featured Des recovering and Dan dying. I think these two men are both special. Perhaps the rules don't apply to Dan either. Dan believed that 'whatever happened, happened.' Maybe that's because his mother taught him that. She seems to be a mathematician in her own right. She knew that the man in the red shoes would die. How? Not from the journal. Dharlton have described her as a Temporal Policeman in the past. She described raising Dan as her 'job'. Perhaps she knew that both Dan and Des had the ability to change the path of events in time, and therefore it was her 'job' to guide them both and make sure they did not deviate from the assigned path. I believe she has been watching Desmond his whole life. She placed Father Campbell in his life to get him to that monestary. She was there at the ring shop when he came in. She has a general 'read' on events in time. That's how she placed herself in the shop at that time. It's how she knew about the man in the red shoes. It is also possible that she knew that Dan was able to change events in history so catastrophically that it was best to have him die back in the past, rather than let him live to rip time apart."
• I did some research and found out that the DHARMA Initiative worker who told Dan to wear a hard hat is indeed played by the same actor (Ariston Green) who played Jason the Other whose neck was snapped by Sayid's legs in the Season 3 finale, and who also played a different Other in the Season 4 finale (see Lostpedia's article on Ariston Green and also this interview with the actor).
• Could they be clones of each other, or zombies perhaps? (Kidding! I couldn't resist. ;o)
  
• As a reminder, I'm planning to do a special blog post and podcast episode at some point connecting the dots between actors who have played multiple roles (e.g. Others as well as Flight 815 survivors) on the show. Hopefully I can get to that during the hiatus.
  

Season 5 Episodes 16 and 17 "The Incident" Parts 1 and 2 notes:

• Flashback: Unknown point in history
  
• Man with spinning wheel, a loom, and fire (this turns out to be Jacob in his home)
  
• He spins a tapestry with Greek writing on it:
• Screenshot
  
• Can anyone translate this?
• Congested went to a Greek chat room and they said it's ancient Greek
• the link is irc://irc.freenode.net/debian.gr the site is www.debian.gr
  
• Congested's gaming community friend in Greece translates the first part as: "The gods give as much as..." The fifth word could mean "the ones who have their head right," which means they're not crazy
• Someone else told Congested that it's an uncommon dialect of ancient Greek
• We cut to a scene of Jacob and another man on the beach looking at an old sailing ship
• Is this the Black Rock?
  
• Jacob to the second man (we'll call him the rival): "I take it you're here because of the ship."
• Rival: "I am. How'd they find the Island?"
• Jacob: "You'll have to ask them when they get here."
• Rival: "I don't have to ask. We brought them here."
• Several people think the line is "You brought them here." This seems to make more sense.
• Jacob smiles
• Rival: "You're still trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?"
• Jacob: "You are wrong."
• Rival: "Am I? They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same."
• Rose and Bernard in 1977 are happy; does this prove Jacob right?
• Jacob: "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that, it's just progress."
• Rival: "Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?"
• Jacob: "Yes."
• Rival: "One of these days, sooner or later, I'm going to find a loophole, my friend."
• Jacob: "Well, when you do, I'll be right here."
• Rival: "Always nice talking to you, Jacob."
• Jacob: "Nice talking to you, too."
• diesel929: "so mystery man needed a loophole to kill jacob... loophole around the rules. sounds familiar, eh? ben and widmore..."
• It seems as though the loophole might be that the rival can't kill Jacob by his own hand; he has to get someone else to do it (Ben)
• congested thinks that the loophole might be (at least in part) taking the identity of John Locke
• Ultimately, it seems, Ben was used as a pawn by Jacob's rival to kill Jacob
• Jacob is wearing white, the rival is wearing black
• jennielynn pointed this out and said: "bad and good maybe"
  
• So Jacob is good and the rival is bad?
• They're sitting beneath the statue
• Jacob lies in the shadow of the statue?
  
• It's not Anubis—it has a crocodile mouth
• The latest theories are that it could be Sobek or Taweret
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobek
  
• Evidence for:
• Damon reportedly referred to the statue as being male in an interview, which Sobek is, while Taweret is identified as being female, typically pregnant
  
• The shape of the front of the face and the teeth look much more like a crocodile than a hippopotamus
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taweret
• Evidence for:
• The hat on the statue looks much more like Taweret's than Sobek's
• Michael Emerson recently speculated that it's Taweret
  
• Who is the second man?
• baileybear: "so can we guess who this man was at the beginning of the show. the locke bodysnatcher?"
• Perhaps it will turn out to be the rival who took the form of Christian Shephard; we know Jacob hadn't lived in his cabin for a while, and Ilana said someone else had been living there. We've seen Christian in the cabin, and it might make sense for Jacob's rival to have lived in Jacob's old house
• On the other hand, Christian said to Locke when Locke was leaving the Island "Say hello to my son," which wouldn't necessarily make sense unless it was really Christian and not an impostor
• On the other other hand, Christian and John both came to the Island dead and wound up (apparently) alive again in some form. It appears that "resurrected John" was actually Jacob's rival, so maybe alive-again Christian was also Jacob's rival
• jennielynn: "so the guy in the black is he smokey?"
  
• According to Robert (and later Danielle), supposedly the smoke monster is a "security system" for the Island (see http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Monster), and it apparently resides near or underneath the temple
• Congested thinks he could be like a pre-Benjamin Linus, someone who's not on the same level as Jacob
• jennielynn: "didnt jacob have a evil brother" (Yes: Esau)
  
• Maybe Jacob and this guy are brothers, perhaps even fraternal twins like Jacob and Esau (although I don't think they look much alike)
• diesel929: "i just read a theory that the guy in black is an egyptian god named Seth and that Jacob is Sobek: http://www.lost.com/forum/showthread.php?p=222381"
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(mythology)
  
• From Lostpedia (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Jacob%27s_enemy): The casting call described him as "Samuel. Any ethnicity, 40s-60s. A corporate raider looking to take over his next company. Powerful, devious and obtuse. He has a cunning intellect and a strong sense of danger. May lead to recurring. Looking for someone very interesting and very special for this role..."
  
• Could this be a description of Jacob instead?
• jennielynn: "he aready has control so it seems" — so it doesn't necessarily fit with the "looking to take over his next company"
• Congested's crackpot theory (but he doesn't believe it): Was Locke always the same person as Jacob's enemy somehow? — Jacob's enemy has really always been the same person as Locke

• Flashback: Sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s
  
• Boy and girl walk into store, girl steals a New Kids on the Block lunchbox — it's Kate ("Katie")
• Jacob pays for the lunchbox!
• Jacob: "You're not going to steal anymore, are you? Be good, Katie."
• Jacob doesn't age, just like Richard Alpert doesn't
  
  
• 1977
• Sayid tells Jack that they only have two hours to detonate the hydrogen bomb according to Daniel Faraday, who left detailed instructions in his notebook how to remove the bomb's core
  
• Richard confirms that Eloise is pregnant
  
  
• 2007
• Richard comes to talk to Locke
• Sun: "Who's Jacob?"
• Ben: "He's in charge of this Island... [Locke is the leader] and the leader answers to Jacob."
• Richard: "I'm this way because of Jacob" referring to his inability to age. He tells Locke that Jacob must have brought Locke back to life.
  
• Locke: "That's why I'm doing this. To thank him."
• He wants to kill Jacob as a way of thanking him? This must have to do with the voice John heard, "Help me."
• Congested suggested that maybe when Locke heard "Help me," it wasn't Jacob at all! After all, Ilana said someone else had been living in the cabin for "a long time"
• Some have speculated that the smoke monster is Christian, which was especially a popular theory after the smoke alarm went off in Jack's hospital before we saw Christian... so smokey = Christian = possibly Jacob's rival?
• Congested points out that the smoke monster is kind of dumb, and Josh agrees, thinking of smokey not being smart enough to jump the sonic fence
• Was it really Jacob's enemy who told Richard to help John Locke during the time-jump thing?
  
• Maybe Jacob's enemy was setting it up for John to die because his body needed to come back to the Island so Jacob's enemy could pose as him
• Congested points out that he seems to really have John Locke's memory
• More evidence that smokey might be Jacob's enemy: (presumably) Smokey in the form of Alex told Ben to do whatever Locke said, even though it was not in fact Locke! Also, we didn't see Locke at all while Alex was talking to Ben, so it's possible that the smoke monster remanifested itself as Locke after appearing to Ben in the form of Alex
• Or it's possible that the Alex manifestation wasn't the smoke monster at all; it could have been someone/something else, or perhaps it really was Alex
• Bram to Ilana: "You think he's a candidate?" referring to Frank Lapidus
• A candidate for being in Jacob's group? To be a sacrifice to the Island à la Boone?
• Frank: "Who are you people?"
• Ilana: "We're friends."
• They take the large box off the canoe, Frank asks what's inside, Ilana demands they open it
• Lapidus sees what's inside and says "Terrific."
• How did Ilana know that she needed to take this body to Jacob?
• Obviously the reason for her bringing the body is so Jacob would know that the other Locke on the Island is not really Locke
• Congested: Why did they need this big metal case to carry Locke's body? Why not a casket or just the body?
  
  
• Flashback: 1976
• A young James Ford begins to write his note to Sawyer after his parents' funeral
  
• Jacob shows up and gives him a pen so he can write his note
  
  
• 1977
• Juliet decides they can't just let the people on the Island die
  
  
• Richard asks Jack about Locke and says he's visited him three times and didn't see anything special about him
• Jack says "If I were you, I wouldn't give up on him."
• This shows he's put his faith in Locke - become a man of faith
  
  
• 2007
• John asks Ben why he's kept his plans to kill Jacob a secret from Richard
• Ben tells Locke that Alex told him to do whatever John says
• John: "I'm not going to kill Jacob, Ben. You are."
  
  
• Flashback: October(?) 2005, on Sayid and Nadia's anniversary (maybe not a marriage year anniversary; it could be a month anniversary or the anniversary from when they first met or escaped, etc.)
• Jacob walks up to Sayid and asks for directions and at that moment Nadia is hit by a car
• http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline:2005_and_beyond
  
• 1977
• Richard uses a sledgehammer to break through a wall into one of the DHARMA houses
• Congested pointed out that whoever built the house would have had to know about the tunnel!
• Richard knocks out Eloise to protect her because she's his leader and she was putting herself in danger by wanting to go first into the DHARMA house
• Richard is normally more of an advisor, and in this case he was very aggressive and took matters into his own hands to protect Eloise and her unborn child
• Announcement: "If you come into contact with the Hostiles, you are authorized to use deadly force."
• Roger Linus recognizes Sayid and shoots him in the stomach
• Hurley and Jin show up in a DHARMA van and rescue Jack and Sayid
  
  
• Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet return to the Island on a raft
  
• They see Vincent, Rose, Bernard at the beach
• Rose: "Oh, no. Bernard! They found us."
  
  
• Jack orders Hurley to take Sayid to The Swan and tells Jin he thinks he found a way to get him back with his wife
• Jack didn't know about Jin and Sun's marital problems before the flight
  
  
• Bernard and Rose have turned into hippies who don't care if they die, but they tell the group the way to the DHARMA barracks anyway so they can go stop Jack from detonating the bomb
  
  
• 2007
• Bram says they're going to show what's in the box to somebody
• Bram repeats that "We're the good guys" and Frank says in his experience, the people who go out of their way to say that they're good guys turn out to be bad guys
• This is the same line that Ben gave to Michael, when Ben was still on Jacob's side
• Is everyone on the same side except for Jacob's enemy? Does Jacob's enemy have any allies? Is this the war that Widmore mentioned to Locke?
• Bram: "Look at the ash!"
• What was significant about it? Looked darker, for one thing.
• Congested points out that there was a gap in it
• What's the purpose of the ash? To keep other people out or to keep Jacob in?
• Ilana: "Wait here." She walks forward with a gun in hand
  
  
• Flashback to an unknown date
• Jacob goes to Ilana, who is extremely bandaged up, and asks her to help him; she says yes
  
  
• 2007
  
• Ilana walks into Jacob's cabin, comes out and says "He isn't there. Hasn't been in a long time. Someone else has been using it."
• Who has been using it? Christian Shephard and Claire?
  
• She orders them to burn the cabin
  
• Frank asks, won't it burn down the whole forest? They don't answer him, and they walk away leaving the cabin blazing
  
• Ilana shows Bram a drawing of the statue that she pulled out of the cabin
• Screenshot
  
  
• Flashback to when Locke fell 8 stories
  
• John Locke fell out of the window as Jacob is reading Flannery O'Connor "Everything that Rises Must Converge" (Amazon) (Wikipedia)
• Screenshot
  
• Jacob says to John: "Don't worry. Everything's going to be all right. I'm sorry this happened to you."
  
• Did Jacob bring him back to life?
  
  
• 2007
  
• John points out the "QUARANTINE" door to the hatch where they first met
• Ben reveals that he was pretending when he was talking to the empty chair
• John asks why he would go to all the trouble to make something up
• Ben says he was embarassed and didn't want Locke to know that he had never seen Jacob, so he lied
• Ben asks why Locke wants to kill Jacob
• John points out all the bad things that have happened to Ben in the name of Jacob and the Island (Alex's death, etc.), and asks Ben why he wouldn't want to kill Jacob
  
  
• Sun finds Charlie's DS ring at their old camp site on the beach
  
  
• Flashback to Sun and Jin's wedding day at their ceremony
  
• In Jin's vow he promised that they would never be apart
• Jacob is there, and says to them in Korean he'd like to offer his blessing. "Never take it for granted."
• Neither Sun nor Jin knows who he is, but Jin remarks that his Korean is excellent
• Someone asked in the chat, "How does Jacob know Korean?"
  
  
• 1977
  
• Hurley stops the van when he sees Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate blocking their path with guns
  
  
• 2007
  
• Locke and the Others reach the four-toed foot statue
• Richard says "That's where he lives"
• They apparently beat Ilana's group there
  
  
• Flashback: Jack is performing a surgery, and his dad is there
• Christian instructs Jack to close his eyes, "count to five, and then fix her, Jack"
• Jack tries to get an Apollo bar from a vending machine, it doesn't come out
• Christian tells Jack that the girl won't be paralyzed, and Jack tells his dad "You embarassed me... You put me in a time out" during his first major surgery
• Jacob asks Jack is one of the Apollo bars is his
  
  
• 1977
• Sawyer tells Jack about his parents' death when he was 8 years old—"that was a year ago"
• Jack: "What's meant to be is meant to be."
• They get in a fist fight, Juliet breaks it up, and tells James they she changed her mind and that Jack is right
  
  
• Flashback: Juliet and Rachel when they were children
• Their parents say they're getting a divorce
• This was the one flashback that didn't involve Jacob — because she was about to die, as Congested points out
  
  
• 1977
• Juliet: "I changed my mind when I saw you look at her."
• Juliet: "If I never meet you, then I never have to leave you."
• Daddy issues!
• jennielynn thinks the line was "so I never have to lose you"
  
  
• Radzinsky is drilling, hears on the walkie that Sayid was at the barracks
• Jack is watching from a distance, Kate comes to talk to him
• Jack: "Kate, why did you make me promise to never ask you about Aaron?"
• Kate tells Jack her motive for coming back to the Island: to bring Claire back home so she can raise her baby
• Jack says he's never felt so right about anything in his life
• The alarm blares at The Swan—did they drill too close, as Dr. Chang warned Radzinsky about?
• Jack asks Kate if he's with her on this, and she says yes
• It's funny that Juliet and Kate both changed their minds and traded sides
  
  
• 2007
• Hurley got discharge papers at the prison somehow and was let out of the prison
• Jacob gives Hurley a ride in a cab
• Jacob: "I'm definitely not dead."
• Hurley tells Jacob that he's cursed, he made the plane crash and his friends die
• Jacob: "What if you were blessed? You get to talk to the people you've lost."
• Did Jacob give Hurley this gift?
• Jacob: "You're just going to have to take my word on this. You are not crazy."
• Jacob tells Hurley the Ajira flight number and says "It's your choice, Hugo."
• Hurley: "Wait, you forgot your guitar."
• Jacob: "It's not my guitar."
• This is the guitar that Hurley brought with him on Ajira Flight 316
  
  
• 1977
• Jack walks past Sawyer, says "I'll see you in Los Angeles."
  
  
• 2007
• Sun: "What happened to the rest of the statue?"
• Ben claims it was like that "when I got here"
• Locke goes in to see Jacob and takes Ben along with him, despite Richard's protests
• Locke: "Will you be able to do this Ben? I know this won't be easy, but things will change once he's gone. I promise."
• Locke hands Ben a knife
  
  
• 1977
• Sawyer, Juliet, Kate, Miles (and Hurley? or did he stay with Sayid?) go to help Jack to be able to drop the bomb down the hole
  
• Jack looks to Kate for her approval before dropping the bomb
• The bomb doesn't go off, and instead the electromagnetism starts to become extremely powerful
• Jack is knocked unconscious
• Pierre Chang's hand or arm is seriously injured (reminds us of The Swan's Orientation film)
• This implies that Pierre Chang survives the hydrogen bomb explosion
• Sawyer and Kate try to save Juliet from falling into the hole, but she ends up falling, presumably to her death
  
  
• 2007
• Ilana's group shows up on the beach with the box
• Ilana asks "Which one of you is Ricardus?"
• Richard answers in Latin the question of what lies in the shadow of the statue
• According to Lostpedia, Richard said "Ile qui nos omnes servabit," which is Latin for "He who will save us all"
  
• Does this refer to Jacob?
• John Locke's body is in the box!
• What was he wearing? Not the coffin clothing, but that makes sense since the fake Locke was wearing that clothing after the Ajira crash
• Sun: "I don't understand. If this is Locke, who's in there?"
• John is the man from the beginning of the episode! (Jacob's enemy)
  
• Jacob: "Well, you've found your loophole."
• Ben: "35 years I've lived on this Island... What was it that was so wrong with me? What about me?"
• Jacob: "What about you?"
• Ben stabs Jacob
• Jacob, bleeding from the mouth, tells fake Locke that "They're coming"
• "Locke" kicks Jacob into the flames
• Is Jacob really dead? If Jacob can give the power of immortality to Richard, why wouldn't he have that power himself?
  
  
• 1977
• Jack regains consciousness
  
• We see Juliet at the bottom of the pit—she didn't die!
• But she's wearing a red shirt, and she got a new flashback! So wasn't she meant to die?
  
• She hits the bomb with a rock repeatedly
• The bomb goes off!!! And that's how Season 5 ends
  

• jennielynn: "so are widmore and bed on the same side kind of they both were on jacobs side"
• Well, they both tried to get the Oceanic Six back to the Island, so it seems Ben and Widmore are on the same side, but are they on Jacob's? Well, Ben isn't anymore...

• Predictions and theories about next season
• jennielynn: "at least we now know they were chosen bye jacob predesetion to end up there"
• This leads me to believe that Dan Faraday and Jack's theory was correct, and that by detonating the hydrogen bomb they caused time to reset, and Flight 815 never would have crashed, meaning Locke never would have been brought back to the Island and Jacob would not have been killed; Jacob orchestrated all this to save his life
• Richard said he watched them die — was he referring to the hydrogen bomb explosion? And if so, that was 2007 Richard in the same timeline (presumably)
• Are they really in 2007? Did they end up in a parallel universe based on what Jack did in the past?
• No, can't be, or at least not one that's substantially different; Sun saw Charlie's ring, and if Jack had succeeded, Charlie never would have come to the Island

• Possible Easter eggs:
• Jacob touches people in the flashbacks — does he touch or give something to everyone? If so, what's the purpose of doing this, if any?
• He touched Kate on the nose and gave her the chance to get out of trouble for her crime
  
• He touched Locke on the shoulder (and gave him his life back, possibly?)
  
• He shook hands with Sun and Jin and gave them his blessing
  
• He gave a pen to James
• He gave an Apollo bar to Jack
• Does he touch or give something to Ilana in her flashback? Maybe he heals her
  
• jennielynn: "he said something to all of them they needed to hear" — well, some of them anyway; he only talked to Jack about the Apollo bar
  

Spoiler (sort of):

• According to the non-preview, 2010's tagline is "Destiny Found"

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