LOST Rewatch: Season 5 Locke Episodes and More

In between the Season 5 finale and Season 6 premiere, I participated in The LOST Rewatch.  During the hiatus, I wrote detailed commentaries with fresh insights into the first 21 episodes of Season 1 (see all of my previous posts; start reading from the bottom of the page).  Following are my notes from the rest of the LOST episodes I had time to rewatch, including all of the Season 5 episodes involving John Locke (or rather, in most cases the fake John Locke, aka Jacob's nemesis).  Enjoy!

Season 1 Episode 22 - "Born To Run"

Kate, as a blonde, has at least 9 different license plates from various states in the trunk of her car, and she swaps her Nebraska plate for an Ohio plate.  She dyes her hair brown and picks up a letter from a motel lobby for a guest named "Joan Hart."  (Incidentally, the most prominent person named "Joan Hart" is Melissa Joan Hart, the actress who played the starring roles on the TV shows "Clarissa Explains It All" and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch".)  The envelope contains some 20-dollar bills and a letter which Kate reads tearfully.  The letter is difficult to read from the viewer's perspective, but here's what I was able to make out:

"...have to tell you... have gotten... and the doctors... and there's nothing else they can do.  She's still as stubborn as ever and refuses to stay at the hospital,... but I can see she's growing weaker and fear that before long there may be no other choice.  I can only imagine how hard all of this may be for you.  I wish more than anything that things were different.  I don't know when this letter will reach you, but I am hoping it's soon because she may not have much time left.  I am so sorry Katherine.  You will be... and prayers.  Love, ..."

Based on the context of the episode, it seems that someone sent a letter to Kate to let her know that her mother was sick and may soon be in the hospital.  Who sent this letter?  Was it perhaps her (non-biological) father, Sam Austen?  This could explain the cash; sending money seems like a parental thing to do.  There probably wouldn't be too many people in Kate's life who would both know her mother well and would also sign a letter to Kate with "Love" at the end.  The letter writer clearly wasn't Tom Brennan because we find out later in the episode that he obviously hadn't been expecting her.

On the Island, Charlie approaches Kate while she plays with the toy airplane on the beach.  Charlie thinks Michael's raft will be a success, and he tells Kate that when the Oceanic survivors are rescued they'll be "ridiculously and eternally famous.  What's the matter?  Don't you want to be famous?"  Kate, of course, doesn't want to be rescued; she knows that if that happens, she will be taken back into custody and probably spend the rest of her life in jail for murdering her biological father and her later crimes including orchestrating an armed robbery of a bank.  We now know that Charlie didn't get his wish of coming back alive to enjoy eternal stardom, but the Oceanic Six did indeed become celebrities as he suspected.

Dr. Arzt says that they need to leave "yesterday" to avoid monsoon season, during which the winds would take the raft south to Antarctica.  Michael prepares to leave the following day.  Kate tries to convince Michael to let her on the raft, but he says "the raft's full."

In a flashback, Kate pretends to be a flower delivery person taking flowers to her mother, Diane Janssen.  Kate sees a police officer in the hallway and walks past, deciding that it's too risky to approach her mother.  Instead, she hides in Tom Brennan's car, miraculously without triggering his alarm (or, at least, if she did trigger it, she reset it before Tom came to his car).  Kate enlists Tom's help to get to her mother.

Kate and Tom's time capsule is a New Kids on the Block lunch box, presumably the same one that young Katie tried to steal in her Season 5 finale flashback, which Jacob ended up buying for her.

Season 3 Episode 1 - "A Tale of Two Cities"

Perhaps Ben knew or suspected that Ethan might have had feelings for Juliet, which could explain why he selected Goodwin and then Ethan to go to the crash sites as spies.

Season 4 Episode 2 - "Confirmed Dead"

After Ben attempted to assassinate Charlotte, Locke took Sawyer's gun and had the chance to kill Ben, but ultimately Locke decided to let Ben live.  If Locke had killed Ben at that time, then Ben would never have had the chance to kill Locke after they left the Island.  For that matter, if John had killed Ben, then Ben never would have killed Jacob either.

Season 5 Episode 7 - "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"

Charles Widmore tells John Locke that a war is coming and says that if Locke's not back on the Island the wrong side is going to win.  We now know that John never really came back, unless you count his corpse; does that mean Jacob has lost?  Personally, I suspect Jacob still has a trick or two up his sleeve.

John can dial 2-3 to reach Charles (23 is one of the Numbers).

Season 5 Episode 12 - "Dead Is Dead"

Ben says to Cesar, trying to turn Cesar against "John": "What if he [the person claiming to be John Locke] was already here before the crash?"  As it turns out, he actually was!

In a flashback, Ben said to Danielle as he stole Alex from her: "If you want your child to live, every time you hear whispers, you run the other way."  What exactly do the whispers mean?  The Others are nearby?  The monster is near?

Fake Locke remarks to Ben that his decision to move The Others into the DHARMA barracks "just doesn't seem like something the Island would want."
Ben: "You don't have the first idea about what this island wants."
Fake Locke: "Are you sure about that?"

Christian told Sun that if she ever wanted to see her husband again, she'd wait in Ben's old house for John Locke.  Sun and Frank Lapidus knew that Locke was dead, and yet there he apparently was, standing outside.  Given that Christian told Sun to wait for Locke, does this mean that Christian is actually in league with Jacob's nemesis rather than Jacob?

Fake John left when Ben went into the hidden cave to summon the monster, and the monster didn't come when summoned... or did he? Fake John came back shortly after Ben walked outside.  Is Fake John (aka Jacob's enemy) the same as the monster?  Ben says he doesn't know where the monster is, but Fake John says he knows.

As soon as Ben fell down the hole underground and Fake John supposedly went to find something to help Ben get out, Ben saw the smoke monster, and then Alex (or rather, Fake Alex) appeared and told him not to kill John again and said she'd hunt him down and kill him if he didn't follow everything "John" told him to do.  After "Alex" was gone, "John" came back.  "John" and "Alex" weren't there at the same time because they're the same person: Jacob's nemesis.  The nemesis was playing with Ben's emotions and deceiving him in every conceivable way in order to trick him into killing Jacob.

Season 5 Episode 15 - "Follow the Leader"

Richard sensed "there's something different about you" which Fake John dismisses, saying "I have purpose now."

Richard tells Sun that he watched Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Jin die 30 years ago.

During one of the brief time travel flashes when Real John flashes to their place and time, Fake John instructs Richard to tell Real John to tell him that he needs to die.  (All of that was part of Jacob's enemy's plot to create a loophole so he could kill Jacob.)

Fake Locke points out to The Others that they all take orders from Jacob, whom none of them have ever seen.  He says he wants to take all of them with him on his trek to go see Jacob.

Fake Locke privately tells Ben that the real reason he's going to see Jacob is not to be reunited with his people, but that he's going to kill Jacob.

Season 5 Episodes 16 and 17 - "The Incident," Parts 1 & 2

The real John Locke's Season 1 monologue to Walt about light and dark was a direct foreshadowing of Jacob and his enemy; Jacob wears a light-colored shirt while his enemy weaks a dark shirt.  This whole time there have been two sides determining to some degree the outcome of events on the Island.

Richard is still puzzled how John could have come back to life; he's never seen that happen in all his years on the Island.  Fake Locke quips that he's never met someone who can't age, and Richard reveals that Jacob made him that way, and says he'd guess that Jacob is why John came back to life.  Fake Locke says that after he visit Jacob "to thank him," they'll "take care of" the rest of the people from the Ajira flight, implying that he wants them dead.  This should have sent up red flags for Richard since presumably he knows that every group that comes to the Island is brougt there by Jacob as an attempt to prove himself right to his enemy; by killing the Ajira survivors, Fake Locke would be going against Jacob's plan.

Fake Locke points out to Ben "the door to the hatch where you and I first met."  Jacob's nemesis seems to have Locke's memories, perhaps similar to the smoke monster's ability to read and analyze the memories of a person.

Just before Jack drops the hydrogen bomb, Sawyer orders Dr. Chang to turn off the drill, but the drill fails to turn off because, as Radzinsky explains, they've "hit the pocket," which apparently means they've punched through to the point of no return and the electromagnetism is about to become too strong to control.  Jack then drops the bomb and it doesn't detonate.  A few moments later, after it's clear that the bomb hasn't exploded, everything metallic that's nearby begins to be pulled toward the hole.  I'm convinced that the electromagnetic event is what Dr. Chang (as Dr. Marvin Candle) described as "an Incident" in The Swan's orientation film, and that this event would have taken place regardless of whether or not Jack had dropped the bomb down the hole.  The exact consequences of the Incident seem to vary at least somewhat from what originally happened in 1977, as is seemingly evidenced by the fact that Dr. Chang's hand was impaled, whereas in some of the orientation films he has an entire prosthetic arm, not just a prosthetic hand.

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