Lost Season 5 Finale Review & Discussion
May 14, 2009 by Rob KeyesJoin the discussion on the controversial season finale of Lost.
Five seasons of Lost down, one more to go. If you watched tonight’s episode, it was quite a complex ride.
I just got home from a friend’s house where we had about seven or eight people watching the two-hour season 5 finale of Lost. Some have watched all along, some only a few episodes and some had no idea what was going on. It was an interesting dynamic to say the least seeing the reactions and questions coming from the non-fans. It really makes you think how this show, more than any other I can think of, is truly impossible to follow unless you’ve been there all along.
Now, on to the finale… Where do I even start?
First off, if you’ve not seen the finale, you best watch it or catch up in the show and watch it before reading on. Do that and come back to post your thoughts, we’d love to read them. This article and the comments will be discussing spoilers.
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If you’re still here, it’s time to talk Spoilers.
Introduction
As briefly as I possibly can summarize the episode: we finally meet Jacob, we see the four-toed statue in full form, we discovered why the unwilling members of the oceanic six came back, why many of the characters seemed to be destined (chosen) to come to the island in the first place, how Locke “survived” his death (twice?), how Jacob is the key to connecting many (all?) of the characters with the island, we find out why Locke knows everything he knows and who he really is, the losties all come together again annndddd the island gets hydrogen bombed the same year Star Wars came out.
Oh, and how could I forget! Fan-favorites Rose, Bernard and the most important character of all, Vincent the Dog, all make triumphant returns in the finale to explain where they’ve been all this time.
I read in the papers this morning that after tonight’s episode, fans would not know how the show could continue – that it acts as a sort of conclusion. Of course, for us Lost fans, this is no conclusion at all, but the start of a bridge leading to the real conclusion that will come in the form of 17 new episodes starting a full eight months from now.
From the final official Lost podcast of the season, producers and writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse revealed that this finale would give fans all the tools they need to form together a proper theory of what the show is all about and possibly how it may end. Well, they certainly did do that with the season closer and many theories of old can be officially trashed now.
The Finale
In traditional Lost fashion, the first episode opens mysteriously in the distant past where we get to see the four-toed statue in full form. While that was a cool reveal, the big reveal came moments later when we see two unknown men talking with each other on the beach beside the statue with the Black Rock ship in the ocean background. The conversation of the two strangers hints at them being long-term enemies and it ends with one referring to the other as Jacob and promising that one day he would find a loop-hole to kill him.
Wow. No messing around.The first scene of the show give us Jacob after all this time and speculation – Awesome!
Well, kind of. While Jacob was a cool character throughout the finale, appearing at key points in each character’s lives and seemingly recruiting them with his golden touch, it did feel very haphazard to see it happen all at once in this finale.
In two back-to-back episodes, we met Jacob and his nemesis (his brother Esau?), saw how he was involved with our main Losties, and how he seemingly dies – All in a two-parter out of 103 episodes of the series so far. Why not develop that some more over the last two seasons? It seems a bit much to have all of it in one episode and have it all so convenient, like it was made up in this certain way afterwards to find some way to explain what we’ve seen in past seasons.
That being said, the religious themes and characters were incredibly interesting and we can certainly tell there is a ton of work behind-the-scenes being done to tie everything together. It is creativity at its finest. Looking back on the episode, even the intro where we see Jacob wearing white and Esau wearing dark representing good and evil, mostly everything that occurs over the two hours is very precise and intentional.
Continue to Page 2 of Lost Season 5 Finale Review for Issues, Religious Themes and more!
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Ok, well i think that some how the whole hydrogen bomb thing didnt work. the “incident” that faraday warned eveyone about was probably the fued between them, and the later death of a friend. how did juliet survive a huge fall??? and when she blew up the bomb, i think it was just an explosion. traveling up the drilled in hole. killing juliet. ive been watching the show since episode one and im still LOST. i agree with the whole jacob-god and esau-devil thing, but knowing the show; we’ll just have t wait,
An atom bomb would not just be ‘an explosion’. It would be monstrous.
Jabob is Jesus, Christianity
“Esau” is Judas/Satan and sin
Jacob gives everyone the free will to follo who they like and that can be seen fromt he division amongst the Losties. Jacob died without a fight like Jesus gave himself to the Romans without a fight, in a peaceful way. He sacrificed himself for the people on the island just as Jesus did for us so that they can be saved. Jacob will resurrect and crush all evil.
This is just like the Matrix. This happens all the time. Good vs evil and evil looks like its making a brakthrough and is going to win only to discover it will never win.
Adam:
I have to disagree. I can not see the makers of Lost creating a world this complex for the sake of a religious battle. A god battle maybe, as in Egyptian gods, or the like. But Christianity I don’t think so.
To say Jacob died to save the people on the island is a baseless statement. We do not know why he died. Or even if he DID die. All we know is he gave Ben the choice and Ben made his decision.
I understand people wanting to say this is based on religion but come on people…. That is just a easy way for people to explain what is happening! Have an original thought!!
The Jacob/Esau theory makes sense, but the first thing that popped into my mind in the opening scene of the two on the beach was the story of Job – Satan wants to prove that Job’s faithfulness to God is only circumstantial, that Job will curse God to his face if all is taken away. God tells Satan that he is not allowed to kill Job but can do whatever else he wants. To kill God’s most righteous was what Satan wanted most of all but how was he going to accomplish that end? Job dies of old age at the end of the book. Satan never gave up; it just took a while to find the loop hole.
Everything is uterly brilliant and yet somehow ultimately dissatisfying to me. I suppose I prefered the more Twilight Zoney notion of the mysteries of the island as some sort of living entity where both miricles and tragedies, pain and joy love and hate, ect.. occur. That every miraculous thing that happened, (Locke healing facotr, Kate seeing the Horse to reasure her, Seeing Walt, the numbers, Jack seeing his Father, The Christain Specter, Visions, ect were manipulative fabrications of two mind reading Q-Talosian entities, dunno cheapens it all to me. Lost has become The Cage.
And To reduce Locke, the best charcacter, to some pityful manipulated corpse is bold but sh*tty!!
Clay:
how can you get stabbed plenty of times, spit out blood and then get kicked into a fire and live? he’s dead.
i don’t now if anyoen else has said this but the last bang caused by juliet might have actually not been a bang but a flash (as seen earlier in the season).
how do we know this isn’t about ‘Cain and Abel’, Abel was a shepherd. what’s Jack’s and his dad’s second surname?
Im a BIg lost fan!!!loving every bit of it!just completed the finale of season 5!Good post by the way. helped me clear some doubts.thanks and keep writing!we got a whole 8 months to wait!!
I have read most of the posts now, and just wanted to chip in, didn’t the article about the Statue say that the godess Tawaret also was thought to retain evil? If I remember right and this is the case, it would be a different perspective from Jacob’s nemesis being evil, Jacob being ”retained” in the hollow platform which Tawaret is standing on. Just wanted to say this since everyone seems to see Jacob as the good guy, but what about Sayid? I was under the impression that Jacob distracting Sayid in the Season 5 finale was part of some plot to take his woman’s life, but after further reflection Jacob may just have saved Sayid’s life. I am looking forward to seeing how it all pans out.
Real interesting reading your thoughts, everyone.
We don’t know that the bomb went off.
Juliet hit the thing several times and it didn’t go off. We see a flash, and it happened to be at the time of the flash.
There was also a flash when Desmond turned the key, releasing the energy. Drilling in the pocket was releasing the energy also, and the same thing was happening with the metal object going into the hole.
We saw a similar, yet seemingly controlled even when Ben “moved” the island.
We’ve also seen two objects existing at the same time previously also. The one that comes to mind was the teaser video showing Doctor Chang with the two rabbits.
Anyhow, I don’t think Juliet is dead. I think she may be running around the island naked (what a great image in my mind!) just as Desmond was after he released the energy.
I’m thinking that Juliet may also gain the temporary power to see future events and change them just like Desmond was able to do for a short time.
tosguy
I’m also not totally convinced that the bomb did go off. I think you might have something here!
The tapestry that “Jacob”/”Job” was weaving – and completed -is an important clue. Ben and “Locke”/”Esau”/”Satan” are focused on death and destruction. They are unable to comprehend creation even when it is pointed out to them and so they are allowed to believe they have destroyed what they fear the most. My guess is that they are going to be in for a shock when they wake up on the other side of the “big bang”.
Thank you, xyz, for pointing out the tapestry. When I first saw it, I immediately thought to the Three Fates of Greek mythology, who spend their days weaving the destinies of others’ lives on tapestry. However, as many have pointed out, Jacob appears to represent Freewill in contrast to “Esau”/Destiny, so this seems like a contradiction unless you look at it from the Creation/Destruction standpoint that you proposed. Nice work.
Hello ladies and gents…
My 15 cents, for what it’s worth, organized according to various trains of conversation:
1. Where did everyone go at the big bang?
Well, what happened at the original Big Bang?? Creation, of course.
Also…if you’re not watching the tv show Fringe, you need to, especially if you’re a big LOST fan. Same creative team working on this, and, so i’ve heard, connections between the two. I’ve seen several, myself. Most significant has to do with the concept of so-called time travel. Here’s the summary: there are “soft spots” in the universe where you can move to alternate reality. When this happens on Fringe, there are similar sounds and visuals as those we get when people travel on LOST.
What if the folks at the Incident site move through to the alternate reality? Not a different time…a different plane of existence. Remember that the tapestry shows us layers of existence, several “worlds”, all separate but happening at the same time. And what will happen to Sayid, Hugo and Jin…who are not at the immediate site?
2. Regarding religious issues:
Why do you think the identity of the statue is so confusing? I think it is intentional, and that the Tawret statement on the website was a McGuffin. The image on the weaving that Ileana and Co. found at the house was slightly different than the statue we saw. I am thinking that images are a blend… Why do you suppose there are Judeao/Christian, Greek, mesoamerican, Egyptian religous references? Why all the hints at various philosophers, mathematical theory, science, economics? Here’s the point: no one discipline, no one school of thought, no one theology, etc. is enough to completely explain the big questions of meaning. The Island is the real deal…so we see reflections of all the human systems that trying to sort it all out.
3. Claire?
Claire is either dead or trapped in the alternative reality.
4. Dead people reappearing?
Dark shirt guy and Jacob are both shape shifters. In my opinion, immortal shape shifters. Think about both Christian and Claire’s behavior…they seemed very different, right?
5. Jacob dead?
No. I say again…think phoenix.
And remember…EVERYONE on LOST is an expert of the con game… especially the writers…
Each of the characters, historical figures, myths, concepts and theories that have been presented through out the series represents a thread of truth in the picture that Jacob created. Individually, they are necessesarily incomplete.
That same fact is what makes this message board so much fun to read – every one has their own thread of the tapestry to offer.
Thank you for sharing.
I think beaming the LOSTies to 2007 would be ridiculous, unbelievable and bad writing, it just makes no sense to me whatsoever!
So how about this:
The bomb going off, but this does not prevent the incident, instead causing/worsening it (as Miles predicted). The blast happened underground though, so the damage is fairly contained. It does however kill the LOSTies and damage the Taweret statue. This way the hatch will still be built, the plane will still crash, and the whole cycle will repeat. So Faraday is right in saying that they can’t change the past, and that they can die. Richard Alpert’s remark “I saw them die” would also be correct, as he saw the blast happen from the beach.
I think that way it all fits together quite nicely…
The only problem I can see is that the primary cast would be dead in season 6, but I think tying their stories off might actually be a good thing, helping to move the overarching story forward.
Right on, xyz. Right on.
“A dumb thing for me was Ben telling Locke that he made up that conversation he had with Jacob when he brought Locke to the cabin back in season 3. That seems like a bit of a retcon and they’ve yet to address how/why the cabin disappears or moves. I felt that it was a weak cop-out of sorts and Ben saying he did it because he was embarrassed didn’t make sense with his character and what else happened in that cabin scene” .The people carring the body of Lock say the cabin is empty and SOMEONE else has been using it. So i am guessing that was not Jacob.
i do not think Jacob and the other guy are Gods. Y belive the other guy could´t kill Jacob for the same reason Ben couldn´t kill Charles.
As for the statue I don´t think it is suposed to represent any of the characters. I think the statue and the temples belonged to peolpe who lived in the island a long time ago but they killed eachother (as in always happens acording to the other guy).
Adam said: how can you get stabbed plenty of times, spit out blood and then get kicked into a fire and live? he’s dead.
So they introduce a character (Not just any character but the main force behind the island…) just to kill him an hour later? Now that would be crappy writing… some way shape or form Jacob will return this I am about 95% sure on.
Something that just occurred to me. Remember in the first scene between Jacob and Black Shirt, when Black Shirt asked how the Black Rock got to the Island, and then said it was because Jacob brought them there? Do we really, really believe that the Oceanic plane crashed because of the glitch in the energy? Wouldn’t it make more sense that the folks arrived at the Island because Jacob brought them there…just as he somehow brought the Dharma people there, and brought the Oceanic Six back.
I really wonder if that first scene wasn’t telling us that Jacob brings people to the Island, Black Shirt doesn’t like the chaotic nature of people, and that conflict gets played out over and over…making “progress”…until The End.
Thoughts?
I remember these :
1. once Locke said to Walt when he was teaching him an old game.: “”"Two players. Two sides. One is light, one is dark.”
2. when they found the bodies in the cave (Adam and Eve (( maybe our Rose and Bernard ))) one of the bodies had two stones which were black & white.
I think black and white were always together
In the first episode ever, the black smoke ripped the pilot out of the cockpit and killed him. No reason why…
The first time it encounters Locke, it lets him live. The first time we actually see it, it grabs him by the ankle and tries to abduct him. Only through the use of the Black Rock’s dynamite do they save Locke. Why was it trying to take him?
The author of this post doesn’t seem to realize that the “flashback for Juliet about her parents divorce thrown into the show for no purpose whatsoever” was a scene that included not only Juliet, but also Kate: that flashback revealed that Kate and Juliet were sisters who grew up together. That’s why Juliet sided with Kate in the sub, and I thought she was going to come out and say as much when confronted by Sawyer about her fickle behavior. Instead, the writers decided to leave that to the audience to figure out, and it appears the author of this article did not catch it.
Claustro, where is that mentioned? The girl next to Juliet was Juliet’s sister, Rachel…the one who gets cancer later on, and then pregnant.
my bad. I confused the young kate with the young Rachel (juliet’s sister). I just watched it again to confirm my error. That would have been cool/interesting though! lol.
may I ask, what eye? it ended with a white flash o.0
The eye opening in the Season 6 Teaser: http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5595/lost6eye.png
i think that the man in the cabin when locke n ben went wasn’t jacob but the evil one – his brother or whoever was at the beach with jacob at the beginning of the series finale. i think when locke heard ‘help me’ it was the evil man and i think he also manipulated christian shepards body to make john locke do his bidding – and then when locke came bk to the island (his dead body) he took on his persona n appearance. i noticed tht when sun and lapidius where ahead of ben and locke coming over they talked with christian but locke and christian where never on the screen at the same time. also explains why the locke suddenly knew where the monster lived and disappeared when ben fell down the hole in the temple – even though ben asked him not to leave and then the monster suddenly appeared. the evil dude is also the monster as well as ghost of christian and locke.
in addition when ben told locke he was going to do anything he said he seemed glad that he wouldnt have to convince ben to do it – cause the john imperstonator still couldnt kill jacob but he could kill him using ben as his loophole!
my theory anyway!