It looks like the same knife. Jacob disarmed Ricardo, so it’s possible that Dogen got it directly from him although it doesn’t explain why the instructions for using the knife were the same in both cases (i.e. the stab him in the chest before he can say anything).
Is Kate a candidate?
Everyone keeps talking as though things are great in the ATL. Right from the beginning, I’ve gotten a sense of foreboding from the ATL. There’s somehow a tension in every flash-sideways, like something really bad is about to happen but we don’t quite get there. I’ve been suspecting that something catastrophically bad will happen in the ATL (or that things are already really bad, but we haven’t been shown in what way yet.)
Dogen probably heard the story from Richard, and gave Sayid the same instructions for his own amusement. The point after all, was to get Sayid killed for the attempt, without any expectation that the knife would actually kill MiB.
Jobs wife was not killed during the bet, just his children, and besides you can always make new ones as he did.
i think it’s pretty common these days for people to look at the story of Job and wonder what the wife and kids did to deserve their fate. but in the context of the story, the wife and children are not innocents. IIRC the children are implied to be wicked and unrighteous, and the wife encourages Job to curse God. despite this, Job’s wife actually survives the story unharmed and unpunished. although i suppose you could argue the ‘blessing’ of bearing 10 additional replacement children is punishment.
I phail.
I loved the episode… and I expected not to because I’ve been looking forward to the highly anticipated “Richard” episode for some time now. I definitely figured I would be dissapointed. Not so!
Anyhow… I really like the MIB actor. I hope to see him a bit more.
Also… when are Boone and Shannon supposed to come back? Cant wait for that!
Jacob spoke to Ben (“What about you?”) and Ben was still able to kill Jacob.
Not sure, though Boone was in the first episode this season.
Did anyone else get the idea that he had a touch of the madness?
Time is very relative on this island! It may have been night on the ship and day on the island.
I’m actually starting to think that the whole Dharma Initiative has been a red herring. It doesn’t seem central to the main plot. I wonder if they were just pot smoking hippies who happened upon the wrong pocket of unique properties.
My wife instantly said the same thing despite being FOREVER confused. She said she may not understand who Martin Keamy is, but she understands overly obvious symbolism…
I actually was hoping the Richard episode would last through multiple time periods. I wanted to see the other side of the Dharma wars. But as I said, that might be a red herring…
I would think Jacob had Dogen use the same line. Kind of the same as giving him the white rock.
I think Jacob was always able to be killed because he had a body. MIB seems more ephemeral.
I agree with this. Although, depending on how you look at causation, if Dharma hadn’t been there, then there’d be no button to not push, and no 815 crash into the island, etc. Ben seems to have served a similar role.
Yes that’s just what I thought. The explanation for the killings made no sense. The island is a jungle, not the proverbial desert island, it has resources aplenty.
Did anyone catch the name of Ricardo’s village? I thought the doctor said Socorro, but can’t find anywhere of that name. I have an obscure need to find it’s location and see just where it is half a day’s ride from.
Missed the edit window so I fell compelled to point out that I do know I shoulf have said its location.
Maybe I missed other comments before, but I’m really starting to think that Jacob and MIB are angels.
I’m thinking it’s something much more basic than that. Most cultures have some sort of myth about the good/evil duality or opposing forces. God/Satan, Caine and Abel, Romulus and Remus, Yin and Yang.
There’s a strong Egyptian theme to the Island. Hieroglyphs, statues, architecture. In Egyptian Mythology, dualism was a common theme.
See if this sounds kind of familiar:
Wounded by knives and spears from his ‘divine entourage’? I’m not saying that Jacob/Esau are Re/Apep, but all of these old duality myths that exist in most religions have elements very similar to what’s going on on the island.
My current theory is that Jacon/Esau are very old creatures, and possibly the inspiration for some of the duality myths. They may in fact be Romulus and Remus, Caine and Abel, and all the rest of them. Not literally, but they may have inspired these legends by being in contact with those civilizations.
But there’s probably even more. I remember when the series first started, the producers promised that the plot was not supernatural, that everything was explainable, at least in a far-fetched way, by science or at least by natural forces. So perhaps we’ll find out that the island’s mysterious magnetic source is something like the power source from a very ancient crashed spaceship, and Esau and Jacob are the survivors, and they’re immortal creatures, and basically they’ve been amusing themselves by setting up games and dicking around with humanity for a long time.
But that’s probably going a bit too far with the speculation…I’m kind of nuts that way.
My theory: to appease all the nitpickers pointing out how Alfred Nobel didn’t invent dynamite until… 1867 (well, that’s when he patented it).
Or set off an atomic bomb…
I thought it was funny when one of the prisoners on the Black Rock said, “I see the devil! The Devil Guards the island!”
Well, yes, the head of Taweret DOES look a bit menacing, but Wired! magazine and JJ Abrams confirmed that Taweret is what the statue depicts. She was a crazed mom when she married Apep. Goes with Flocke’s claim about having a mean mommy. PLUS, by breaking the statue of the Egyptian goddess of fertility and birth, no more babies happen on the island. (!)
I’m guessing that 1) Jacob and MIB are THE SAME PERSON and 2) Jacob/MIB is the egyptian god Set.
I’m guessing they’re the same person due to the relentless competition they insist on having with each other. If they are NOT the same person, they’re a pair of beings that are certainly not omnipotent or omniscient. Jacob calls the Black Rock to the island letting not only the people make their own choices, but he lets MIB kill and test the new arrivals. Still, I’m absolutely sticking with Jacob is a bad guy, most likely as evil as MIB appears to be.
Just as Jacob arrives and touches those he wishes to come to the island at unsure and weak times of the person’s life, MIB, as the smoke, tests to see who is vulnerable (Richard) and chooses to manipulate them to his own wishes. So, MIB ain’t a goodie either.
Hell, if Jacob and MIB are NOT the same being-- two sides of a being-- maybe they’re genies! Maybe that’s why they can’t bring back the dead, or absolve sin!
Ah, I’m still waiting for Vincent to show up and bark in English what the whole thing’s about, maybe at a surprise Dharma Initiative Reunion picnic. 