Lost Update

If you don't care about Lost, you probably don't care that I added yet another blog . . . it's really ridiculous, but I couldn't stop myself. I know it appears to be a total waste of time, but I'm actually just trying to be more productive with my pent-up, nervous, time-wasting energy.

It's Real Status Updates at facebookforreal.blogspot.com. What does it have to do with Lost, you ask? Well, allow me to connect the dots.

First of all, this episode demanded quite a bit of your long-term memory, forcing you to reach far back into Season 1. Danielle Rousseau was a seasoned, sharp-shooting, independent resident of the island back then (which was actually much later than the events of tonight's episode . . . awesome). She told us, through conversations with Sayid, and others, two things that were brand new revelations at the time but also remained total loose ends, until tonight:

• She was forced to shoot the surviving members of her expedition, including her husband, because they were sick.
  
• The black smoke, she argued, was not a monster, but a security system.

Other loose threads from past seasons were tied together in just a few small comments made by Danielle's husband in tonight's episode before he tried to kill her, forcing her to bust a chapeau in his derriere:

• John Locke had an encounter with the Black Smoke Monster, after which he claimed to have looked into the eye of the island . . . apparently he found it beautiful.
• John also came very close to getting pulled into the same Black Smoke Monster hole we saw in action tonight, except that he wanted his friends to let him get dragged down into it . . . and his limbs remained intact. 
• Mr. Eko saw the Black Smoke Monster twice. Once it flashed a bunch of images at him and then retreated. The second time it flashed a few images at him, turned into a giant hand, and whacked him around Bugs Bunny style.
• The folks at the Dharma Initiative . . . not in love with the Black Smoke Monster, but they knew that their electromagnetic fences kept it away.
• Alex's boyfriend, Karl, was forced by the Others to sit in a room and get brainwashed by a bunch of pro-Jacob propaganda in some sort of mental reprogramming video.
• The Others were sent to "the Temple" at the end of Season 3. Aside from it being kind a far away from the barracks, we really have no clue what or where it is.

But now we know a little bit more about this temple, because we heard Mr. Rousseau telling his gun-toting bride that the smoke was just a security system that protected the temple. Linking the security system concept with the temple is huge. Here's why:

• It definitely distinguishes the temple from any Dharma stations. If the Black Smoke Monster is protecting the temple, the temple is most definitely anti-Dharma.
• It opens up a whole can of worms about who the Others are, how they are recruited, why they are selected, and how they are trained.
• The images projected by the Black Smoke Monster now seem to be connected to the Others' mental reprogramming video. It would make sense. The Black Smoke Monster could possibly both project these brainwashing images and detect brain activity in the dude (or dudette) it's attacking, evaluating the dude's response. If the brain is receptive to Jacob's messaging, this dude is Other material. If not . . . 20 million people are about to see the dude's guts.
• If that theory is true, it's quite possible that the Black Smoke Monster and, by relation, the Others in general are interested in weak-minded people who are likely to have their intellect reshaped by Jacob's little hyper-drive power point presentation. People with especially strong wills of their own are unlikely to conform to the will of Jacob and his merry band of Others.
• And if that's true, it's not a very good sign for Locke and his state of mind. Of course, listening to Jack's dead dad has led to some bizarre life choices for the Losties, so Locke is looking like a full-blown Froot Loop. You'd kind of expect Ben to be in the same boat.
• Along those same lines, it's not a sure thing that the Black Smoke Monster is really just a security system. That notion was the calming reassurance of psycho shooter frenchy husband guy. I think security system is probably not a terrible description, but brainwashing superspy of cartoon death might be a more apt name for it. If the Black Smoke Monster is an ACME product, ya gotta hand it to them, they finally got one right.

Now, I already told you that Daniel Farraday's mom was Ms. Hawking. That proved to be true when Desmond showed up at the door of her . . . church. But Jack's dad, Christian Shepherd, as Jacob? That's real interesting. It's even more interesting that he couldn't help Locke up. We've seen from the way his cabin moves around, that whoever this Jacob is, he is really flippin' good at manipulating what people see. It appears those talents don't extend to the touch. I don't know how he's doing it (maybe he found the corpse in the wreckage of the crash), but it seems that Jacob has chosen the image of Jack's dad to speak to the Losties because he's such a common bond between so many of them (Jack and Claire's dad, talked to Sawyer, met Ana Lucia).

Long story made even longer . . . I don't believe it's in anybody's best interests to go back to the island. My guess is that Jacob (whoever he or they may be) is trying to bring the Losties back to keep them from talking to anyone else about the island and risk it being discovered once again. I think Charles Widmore is pro-Dharma (Science), Benjamin Linus is pro-Jacob (Faith), and they're all a little bit crazy and fighting to the death to keep the other from having a controlling interest in that islandic gem.