There's some kind of connection between Christan and Jacob but it's not clear yet. According to the evidence outlined at Lostpedia, they are at least separate entities: Jacob - Lostpedia

Huh, I guess that answers those questions.

The finale was great but I have 2 mild annoyances with the episode:

1. WHY did Juliette have to do the whole "I saw the way you were looking at Kate" crap?? With the ending of the episode, it could have been a lot more emotional if that whole scene didn't happen.

2. I think Jacob's character was a bit miscast. He didn't fit the persona behind the all mighty Jacob very well and the actor behind him just sorta got on my nerves.

Other than that, another great season finale.

I think they're setting up Sawyer for some loss-motivated rage in the final season. Plus, the writers of this show have used the love triangle (now love rectangle) to reach out to the soap-opera crowd for years. There's no changing that. While the O-6 were off the island, they could only do it indirectly--having Kate's promise to Sawyer come back and fuck up her relationship with Jack, etc. That moment mid-season when Sawyer saw Kate for the first time in three years... That was a great moment for the soap-opera crowd.

I liked him! Especially in his flashbacks.

Okay, people, so what happens next, you think? After the first black-on-white LOST title card, what do you think the next scene will be? Does Season 6 open with them landing in LAX? Bumping into each other as they deplane? Going home and having some dinner? I doubt it very much. But I have no idea what else they'd do.

I need to think on it for awhile first but let me say two things:

1.) I knew Juliette was going to die (or at least appear to) because in traditional Star Trek fashion, she was wearing a red shirt for the last few episodes.

2.) I loved the white ending title card.

Cool episode. But the new season isn't till 2010 :(

Spoilers:
Woa, so now that we know Nameless (the guy jacob talked to in the start and that wants to kill him) can change shape (him being Locke all this time, Locke is dead :( ), combined with the comment by the latina chick Allana or whatever, that Jacob's shack had been used by a pretender...i think if we look back we'll see Nameless' hand in almost everything. I think he was pretending to be Christian and was messing with Locke that whole time. And guess who else got manipulated by some dead person...Ben by his supposed daughter's spirit...right after the smoke monster. Soooo if you could follow all that, I think Nameless is the smoke monster. In other words, dead characters like Christian have never really come back to life. It was Nameless pretending to be them the whole time. Which makes sense if you think back. Like Mr Echo was right! It wasn't his brother! So the smoke monster/Nameless killed him because he figured it out.

All this Nameless has appeared to do because he wanted to create a loop hole to kill Jacob.

Also, we have the new "Others". "They're" coming apparently. Wonder who they'll be?

And those people from the plane (allana or whatever her name is) carrying Locke's body, how the heck did they seem to know so much about the Others? (ie their secret pass code of what lies in the shadow..)

Well, that's a lot to chew on and a very long (long long long) time to wait until we get any answers. I really liked Jacob. I thought he had just the perfect look and demeanor. I will be very disappointed if that's all we get of him after four seasons of hearing about his...plans. I'm a little disappointed, also, that he wasn't able to play Nameless's (never heard that name given for the character before, but it works as well as any) game better. I can't imagine that he didn't have some idea that something was wrong, but other than his relatively unremarkable request that Ben "just go away" he didn't make any attempts to do anything to protect himself or avoid the confrontation.

I also don't really have any love for the fact that a mostly dead Juliette pounding on the bomb with a rock (apparently) set it off but it falling hundreds of feet didn't. Which says nothing for the fact that I can't fathom how she didn't die on impact or, failing that, get crushed by any of the large heavy metal objects getting sucked to the bottom. I'm kind of surprised Juliette made it this long without dying, so a fitting time for her to go. I just would've been perfectly happy for her to go when she slipped from Sawyer's grasp.

I don't think Daniel is right, if for no other reason than it would make everything that happened with Jacob, Locke, Not Locke, Ben and Richard completely irrelevant. Also, it'd vape all of the storylines we've seen play out for the last five years. Now...what would be VERY interesting would be for him to be partially right and to have everyone land safely in LAX, but remember everything that had happened. I think that's also unlikely, but I guess we'll have to see.

It never occurred to me that Nameless would be working against Jacob. I always assumed they were intrinsically linked entities. It also never occurred to me for even a second that Jacob would be so easily struck down by a simple stab wound with a knife. What lies in the shadow of the statute, indeed. Can it be January 2010 yet?

Yeah, I doubt they'll all end up in LAX. Gawd I hope not because I'm not up for "We have to convince everyone to GO BACK!" plot line again.

Ya it makes me wonder if Jacob either wanted to die, or he's faking his death.

I'm still wondering about the supposed loop that Nameless found and exploited. Perhaps he was responsible for Jack and co being sent back to the 70s.

Woah! But... THEIR BODIES ARE ALL ON THE ISLAND!!! So maybe whatever this thing is can only impersonate people whose bodies are available to him?

Christian's body left its coffin and was never found.
Locke's body just fell out of a box.
Alex's body presumably never left the island.
Yemmi's body was in the Beechcraft.

This fits very nicely with the "talking with the dead" themes they've been working via Hurley and Miles. Miles has to have physical proximity on the body too...

I think the loophole that Nameless found was one of two things:

1. He can't kill Jacob (as said in the beginning of the episode, "you can't kill me unless you find a loophole), but he can get someone else to kill him (Linus).

2. The loophole is him simply taking other people's bodies (which I think is safe to say: Locke, Christian, Walt, all the other ghosts that have appeared on the Island could be attributed to him).

So do you guys agree with my thinking that he is also the smoke monster?

Definitely plausible since he appeared as Alex when Linus was in the Egyptian temple. Also, this sounds stupid, but he had black/white hair and facial hair which would match the persona/appearance of the smoke monster. If the Smoke Monster and Nameless are the same thing, then the smoke monster and nameless both want Jacob dead, so Alex telling Linus to follow Locke blindly absolutely ended up with Jacob dead. I think you're exactly right.

I don't think the smoke monster and Nameless are necessarily the same thing, no. We know now that Locke has been Nameless this whole season, so I see no reason that he couldn't have just become Alex to speak to Ben before returning to Locke after using the smoke monster to give Ben a scare. Which isn't to say they aren't the same entity, I'm just also still open to the smoke monster still being just a tool or just a security system.

Looking back, it feels kind of funny to know just how badly we've been manipulated this season. Pretty awesome job, that.

This "Nameless" thing. Is this a term we've coined here? Or is it a name given on some fansite somewhere?

And, have we known of this character/entity before the opening teaser of last night's episode?

I'd never seen it until Zeraph's post 206, and just adopted it since it's way easier than saying "The entity that is pretending to be Locke and other dead people but really isn't and we haven't seen before today who is probably also the weird guy from the beginning of the episode who wants to kill Jacob."

As to your other question, I cannot recollect any suggestion of there being another "power" on the island that's a direct rival of Jacob before tonight's episode, no.

Lostipedia is calling him "Jacob's enemy" or "Jacob's nemesis." I like Nameless better.

Yeah, I just used 'Nameless' because we don't know his name and it fits his shapeshifting persona. Made it up, haven't heard it anywhere else.

Fross- in that same example tho, when Ben tried to call the smoke monster he didn't come (possibly because he was busy being Locke). Then again, Ben suddenly falls and is seperated from Locke to suddenly face the smoke monster. It all just seems too coincidental since Ben has normally been able to summon the smoke monster pretty quickly.

PS This show has its faults and plot holes, but gawd, I love how it makes you talk around the water cooler so to speak. I've never enjoyed a show, while not watching it, as much as I have this one.

So, what the hell are Jacob and Nameless, anyway?

I'm going to take a stab and say that one of them (probably Jacob) is this guy:

Sobek - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This part of Sobek's description seems extremely familiar:

I had no idea that the Egyptian pantheon was quite so massive or I'd spend some quality time comparing real statues and images of them with the Lost island statue. I would agree 100% with this show being as enjoyable discussing it as it is when watching it. Just have to wait...so...long...!

The image in Wikipedia for Sobek is this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-Sobek.svg.png

.. which looks awfully familiar, right down the ankh he's holding.

Well, unfortunately, I think pretty much every god is holding an ankh, so that's not very helpful. I looked at 5 or 10 and they all had one. But the face/head shape sure look similar.

Over on Fark they're calling him "Anti-Jacob" and on the podcast I listen to, they call him BlackShirt.

As open as next season's course is, I think the beginning exchange between Jacob and Nameless is the heart of the unfolding story:

Nameless said that when people come to the island it's always the same (ie human nature) they get corrupted and fight. Jacob replied that when the cycle happens for the last time, all that was before was progress.

Okay, so we're building towards a confrontation where the players are given a choice between their base urges for vengeance and power and some progressive action, likely forgiveness or selflessness and sacrifice.

Accepting this, Ben’s killing of Jacob becomes a parable for next season. His god pushed him to the brink and then explicitly gave him the choice of what to do about it, not unlike the Biblical Job. I’d say he failed the test (Namless played him for a chump!) and next season, each of the main characters will have to make a similar choice.

How will Season 6 open? I predict that the remaining characters will start out back in present day but spread separately across the island. They’ll come together over the course of the season literally and figuratively.

Good thoughts, fres. The Lost "elephant in the room" for me right now is how do Eloise and Charles fit into this whole equation. Seasons 3 and 4 to me very much set up Charles to be the "big bad" (to use Buffy terminology), but with the events of season 5, I hardly know why I should care about him and I know even less what his designs are for the island. The whole "Widmore is coming with his freighter" thing is totally out the window. Instead, our attention is re-focused on Nameless as our likely primary antagonist, even though we know even less about what he wants than we do/did about what Charles wanted.

Also, as Ben is my favorite character, it was pretty awful to see him get played the fool. Hook, line and sinker, though I can't really blame him for falling for it.

Obviously, Nameless is Jacob's brother, Esau. :) Re-reading the story of Jacob in Genesis there's many similarities to the storyline on LOST. My guess is that Nameless was once the owner of the island and he sold it to Jacob cheap and accused Jacob of stealing it from him. I am pretty certain that Nameless is also the smoke monster, or can pretend to be the smoke monster.

On a side note, The guy that played Jacob was in the CSI season finale with The woman that played Libby on LOST. :)

I wonder if they'll ever explain Jack's Appendicitis in Season 4?

Perhaps "they" (of "theyre coming") are whitmores people coming to exploit the island again (like dharma). Then the O6 (oceanic 6...kate, jack, all of em even over 6) will need to cast them out to break the cycle that Jacob spoke of.

Explain what? I don't remember.

On a side note, the statue was confirmed by podcast to be Taweret, the Egyptian goddess of fertility. Apparently some people dispute the canonicity of the statement by ABC, but..I don't know why ABC would casually put that out there without being sure. It's a pretty big deal, so I'd think they'd make sure they got it right. Regardless, some fans still think it's Sobek or Anubis.

Goddess of fertility in which Jacob was living inside (i.e. womb) = Jacob is the child of the gods/the island/or maybe Egyptians...

They're coming could be in reference to Jack, Sawyer and the crew coming back to the current timeframe.

And I think the answer to what lies at the foot of the statue or whatever is Jacob's lair.

Did any of you catch Jack's eye at the end of the episode?

I did catch the eye. The answer to the question is "He who will protect/save us all." That's the translation of the Latin that Richard responds with when asked the question. I think it means Jacob fairly unequivocally.

New Stuff!

ABC is posting a faux documentary about the Dharma Initiative in five parts. The first two parts are up on ABC's website and also Youtube. I think it might also be on the Season 5 DVD but I don't own it.

It's done in the style of one of those low budget 80's specials and it's called Mysteries Of The Universe: The Dharma Initiative Great fun!

Here are Parts one and two. Part three is scheduled to be posted on September 8th.

I definitely like the how the Mysteries of the Universe videos seem to be rounding out the DI a little more.

Does anyone else think that season 6 is going to focus on a parallel reality where the plane doesn't crash on the island? Kind of like someone hit a giant reset button. If they do go that route, I'll be interested to see what importance the island would end up having.