Could Jacob and “Esau” be versions of the Black Guardian and the White Guardian from Doctor Who?
Also liked Jacob’s dissing of Ben
Ben: What about me?
Jacob: What about you?
That’s just “classic” Lost dialogue. I would have fallen backwards out of my chair if Jacob had answered his question in two or three unambiguous/non-dodging sentences.
Had to record the show earlier tonight. Watching now. Some impressions as I watch:
Sweet. Assassin from Mulholland Drive (aka Big Lebowski Treehorn thug) is Jacob. And he’s encountering all the Losties when they were kids?
Radzinski must have been sent to the island because nobody on the mainland could stand him.
Tease! Let Lapidus see into the box, but not us? Just had a strange notion that maybe it’s Locke’s body, and he really is dead, and “live Locke” is an impostor. Probably not, but Locke seems a little more vicious than he used to:
“Then we have to take care of the other passengers of Ajira 315 that brought me here.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Richard.”
Juliet is a badass. Who else would start out handcuffed to a rail and still manage to hijack a sub? Besides Jack Bauer…
Vincent looks different. Ha! Bernard has turned caveman…
I like Rose’s attitude. “It’s always something with you people…”
I like the wisdom from Lapidus: “In my experience, the people who go out of their way to tell you they’re the good guys are the bad guys.”
Hahaha – when they panned away from Jacob sitting on the bench, reading a book, and I saw a couple stories of the building in the background, I KNEW that was going to be Locke’s fall… nice scene.
“I’m glad you all thought this through.” – HA! Go Miles!
Cool – Pierre Chang grabbed Radzinsky’s gun. He’s on their side.
Ahhh, that’s where his arm gets mangled!
Sweet! Phil got harpooned!
Oh no… Juliet… 
Wow – turns out my earlier guess was right. Is this false Locke? Or is Locke now like Christian Shepherd?
In that case, who was appearing as Alex and telling Ben to do everything Locke (false Locke?) says? Is the Smoke Monster working against Jacob?
“What about you?” Weird. Almost like Jacob wanted to goad Ben into it.
Oh wow, she’s still alive at the bottom? Oh, she’s going to detonate the bomb?
Damn.
Reading the rest of the thread now that I finished watching the finale.
Nice. 
In that case, maybe Juliet will just emerge from the hole with her face blackened and hair all frizzy.
And Sayid rigged it to blow up on impact? A drop down a zillion foot hole isn’t enough of an impact, but a half dead chick hitting it with a rock is what it needed? Maybe Sayid’s been Ben Linusing them about his technical skills all these years.
And so would Goodwin, who was boffing her at the time (despite his Otherton wife).
That’s what I thought, too. Perhaps Jacob knew what Ben’s choice would be, and for some reason he knew it was necessary for the endgame he wanted. Remember at the beginning – Esau/Anti-Jacob told him that he kept bringing people here and it always ended in failure, but Jacob said it only ENDS once. So whatever end Jacob is seeking – perhaps this had to happen to reach it, and he knows it. Dumbledore… Aslan… Jesus… something along those lines…?
I think that conversation highlighted exactly what the conflict is. Anti-Jacob said things just keep repeating themselves, people come, kill and destroy and it all ends the same way. Jacob counters with, everything only ends once, everything else is progress.
So Anti-Jacob thinks that this cycle keeps repeating with no benefit. Jacob thinks that gradually it’s getting closer to the real ending and that each group of visitors move the timeline ever so slightly.
I get a distinct Dark Tower vibe from the whole thing.
One other theory I have is that Jack and Sawyer and the rest of the Losties will end up being on the Black Rock, endlessly fulfilling their roles in the cycle.
I vowed before the episode that I wouldn’t tune in for season 6 if anything happened to Juliet or Sawyer. Of course, I’m going to go back on that promise come January.
I’m grateful to whoever pointed out that Jacob was Dexter’s wife’s ex earlier in the thread. That was driving me crazy while I was watching.
It would have been tremendous if they had had Jacob’s character in the background in some of the flashbacks throughout the show, so the real geeks could go back and watch the DVD of season 2 (for example) and say, “Look! There he is! Darlton had this planned the whole time!” I predict that 20 years from now, someone will re-do this show (ala BSG), and I hope he is anal about details like that.
The thing about which I’m most curious, at the end of the show, is why Ilana was bandaged (burnt, presumably) in the middle of the episode.
I also still want to know, in season six, how Locke’s goddamn dad got on the island.
And I think we know how Dr. Chang lost his hand.
Between that and Miles “did you think this might actually CAUSE the anamoly speech” and the probability that the 2007 storyline with Locke, Ben and Jacob didn’t just end, I’m pretty sure they didn’t change history. My guess is that Jack, Kate, Sawyer and whoever else’s storyline hasn’t concluded will end up in 2007.
It occurs to me that you probably aren’t supposed to pistol-whip a pregnant lady unconscious.
Someone mentioned they were speaking Russian in that scene…so I wonder when that took place. Was it perhaps World War II and Ilana is ageless too (perhaps a side effect of getting healed?) or perhaps that was Chechnya? The hospital looked a little too primitive for modern times.
So, if the bomb resets the timeline, does that screw up Esau’s carefully laid plans? Does Jacob come back to life?
So…Locke was pretty specifically not touched as a kid by Jacob. Has he been working for the Anti-Jacob all along?
I still don’t feel sorry for Ben. He’s still a pissy little whiner.
It’s too bad they turned Juliet into a big douche in this episode. “You glanced at Kate! Fuck it, let’s blow up the island!” - wherever Kate goes, something stupid and annoying is sure to follow.
Jack and Sawyer still doing stupid stuff over Kate is pretty annoying - all because she’s hot… it’s certainly not her stunning personality or worth as a person. Just think, if she’d raided the Dharma food stores like Hurley and gained 100 pounds, no one would have any interest in her any longer (as we all know, fat and/or ugly people are worthless!) and everyone could behave a little more rationally.
It could be interesting if the context of the entire story was two mystical powers at battle using our protagonists as pawns as part of an ancient argument. That’s certainly not the direction I was expecting them to go.
Why did Jacob practically taunt Ben into killing him after telling him he had a choice?
There also seemed to be no motivation for Dharma to drill so urgently. Dr… uh… candle, whatever his real name is, who seems to be in charge of the whole project tells them to stop, their drill is overheating, their instruments are going wild, and people are coming to stop them. Why does the drilling have to take place NOW NOW NOW? Do they all get cash bonuses if they finish up by the end of the day? Perhaps you should step back and think this one through…
Of course the Losties didn’t do a whole lot of thinking either. Miles becomes the voice of reason, and is, as usual, shrugged off. GEE “THE INCIDENT” HAPPENED JUST COINCIDENTALLY ON THIS VERY DAY THAT YOU’RE TRYING TO NUKE A MYSTERIOUS SOURCE OF ENERGY… COINCIDENCE?!?
Hm…have we EVER seen the real Locke except in flashbacks? Even back in season 1 he was talking about backgammon being a struggle between light and dark. Maybe he’s been controlled by the anti-Jacob (to one degree or another) since the plane crash and his weird mood swings were him fighting the control–which would explain his constant flip-flops about the Button in the Hatch)
Gah. Can I sleep form 8 months?
I think it pretty clear that the “loophole” was the ability to kill Jacob and assumably break the cycle. I’d wager that the problem was that anyone who was touched by Jacob couldn’t kill him. Locke might have been able to do it, but he died. Thus, Ben was the key. The fact that Jacob refused to see Ben led to Ben being able to take him out. Giving Jacob’s goating I’m guessing this is what Jacob wanted to happen as well. Fascinating stuff.
I’m kind of glad that Locke is dead. The show made a major point to emphasize dead is dead, and Locke’s apparant resurrection undermined that.
Because Radinsky was pushing them forward. And it’s been established since his first appearance that he is a hyperactive fuckstick who will quite literally become a stain on the ass of the Dharma Initiative.
ETA:
Didn’t Jacob touch Locke after his fall?
Yeah, but 1) Fake Locke wasn’t actually Locke anyway, and 2) he never touched Ben, who was the one who stabbed him.
eta: Oh, nevermind, I see that you were responding to the part about “Locke might have been able to do it.” Yeah, Jacob touched Locke very noticeably after Locke’s fall.
Locke wasn’t touched as a kid, but rather as an adult. But so were Jack and Sayid.
In fact, didn’t it look like Locke was dead after the fall, and that the touch from Jacob brought him back to life? Maybe Locke’s been under Jacob’s control this whole time, not Esau? Although, I really doubt that. Locke is much too fascinating a character to have all his post-paralysis drama magically wiped out. I still do wonder why they made it look like Jacob was bringing him back to life.
Love your theory re Locke, Fenris.
Anyone notice what Jacob was reading?I think it was Everything That Rises Must Converge., which if I’m right is just fraught with possible interpretation.
Despite the horrible motivations of Juliet and Jack (doing stupid things for “love”), after a night to think it over I still think this was a great episode of TV. Love the nods to the fans – Charlie’s ring in the cradle; seeing Rose, Bernard and Vincent.
Anyway what questions are uppermost in your minds, fellow LostDopers? I think I’m most curious how Widmore, Ellie, Desmond and Penny fit into the whole mythos. And if Richard’s agelessness is tied to Jacob, is he going to turn to dust now that Jacob is fried?
I agree. In fact, despite the stupid soap-opera motivations of the characters, I think they did the right thing. No, I don’t thing the time-line will be altered. But I think the bomb negated much of the energy that Dharma was drilling into and if that energy had been let out without the bomb, it would have fried everyone on the island if not the planet. Dropping the bomb defused the energy into it’s more managable push-a-button-every-108-minutes form.
Okay then stratch that part. Only Ben could do it.