Chapter 6 

 
The sixth part of Reetae’s review picks up where he left off. He split his review of season 5 in two parts. This is 
the most subjective chapter so far where he tackles his issues with characters, scenes, the season finale and 
choices they do on the show. There are some things I personally agree with him on this, especially towards the 
end of the season, but I’m going to keep our shared (and not shared) opinions to a minimum. He starts the 
review with character development and says that almost all main characters feel “off” this season. He claims that 
“they do things that these characters wouldn’t do in previous seasons, and even no character would do in their 
shoes”. Characters stop being relatable and likable. This is one (of the many) aspects Reetae and I don’t 
necessarily see eye to eye. A piece of fiction doesn’t need any relatable or likable characters. That can often work 
to an advantage where one character feels lost in the midst of unlikable characters that suddenly feel “off” or do 
unrelatable acts. (Like several Lars von Trier-films or Darren Aronofsky’s ​mother!​). The writers Mohsin Hamid 
and Zoë Heller wrote in ​The New York Times​ that readers are too invested in characters being “likable”. 
 
“Other fictional characters may invite or accommodate more complex responses, but most authors 
aim to engender some species of readerly empathy for their protagonists. It’s not necessary to “like” 
Hamlet, but if we’re so repelled by his treatment of that sweet girl, Ophelia, that we withdraw all 
sympathetic interest in his dilemmas, then the play is unlikely to mean much to us.”1 
 
The book ​Creating unforgettable characters​ have a chapter called “Likability is overrated”. ​The New Yorker 
described the phrase “relatable” as “has become widely and unthinkingly accepted as a criterion of value, even by 
people who might be expected to have more sophisticated critical tools at their disposal”.2 The show throws this 
out the window in the very first episode, because how could we act like the show is a relatable mirror if we’ve 
never been in a plane crash, stranded on an island or heard mysterious monster sounds in the jungle? We can’t 
relate to that, but the show did have its feet in the real world. It did create relatable characters as seen in the 
flashbacks, when they go through typical scenarios we could identify with. The loss of a loved one, a break-up, 
traumatic childhood memories, falling in love, marriage and so on. The relatability is often juxtaposed with 
something crazy or weird that happen on the Island. At this point in the show, we are time-travelling. My 
opinion is that at this time, we should not really dwell to much on how it accommodates or reflects the 
experiences of the viewer. 
 
Reetae criticizes that a group of the people that had left the Island hopped on a plane and travelled back. He 
poses this question:  
 
“Why? Well, that’s the thing. There is no why? Or rather, there isn’t a good why. Which is what 
matters. Even the most dedicated die-hard fans of the show struggled to explain why the characters 
went back to the Island” 
 

1
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/books/review/are-we-too-concerned-that-characters-be-likable.html
2
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/scourge-relatability
There is a why and whether or not Reetae thinks it is a good explanation is his opinion. Once again, he doesn’t 
provide any sources from dedicated die-hard fans. I’ll add one source on the criticism for the episode Reetae 
talks about (​“316”​) and it is yet again from The Fuselage’s episode thread. Those that didn’t like it felt it was too 
anti-climatic, that Walt wasn’t included, that they had to recreate the conditions of the original flight and the 
unanswered questions in the hours that transpired before Ajira 316 departed (which were answered later in the 
season).3 As evident from various L ​ ost​-forums4, there were many theories and discussions about the show at this 
point in the show.  

 
Picture 6.1 
 
Reetae expresses disdain that they decided to return after three years and that it feels hollow, especially since 
none had “given a shit” the past three years. That is not exactly true. They were haunted by the events of the 
Island throughout this time period. Kate could’ve decided not to follow up on Sawyer’s promise, since she saw 
the Island disappear, but she did (and that was not too long after they were rescued, since Aaron was still a 
baby). Only five months after they were rescued, Hurley has another “call from the Island”. At first it was the 
coconut and the whispers (which is a small twist, since it is an island-themed birthday party), but at the same 
party the Camaro would still show him the Numbers. The Island started nudging them back only months after 
they got back to the real world. In January 2006 Hurley started seeing visions of Charlie, which is now one year 
after they were rescued. It happened on such a regular basis that he didn’t even care when Locke arrived in a 
wheelchair the next year.  
The major event that does happen after three years is that John Locke returns. I agree that the trip back 
to the Island feels very sudden, but it does have a causality to it. Locke’s death was the event that caused the 
return. The events transpiring after his arrival and death would be the same regardless of when they all 
happened. In my personal opinion, they should’ve gone for six years (so the show would end in 2010 rather 
than 2007, and have the finale set around May 2010, when the show ended). However, that’s just an opinion. 
Locke could have arrived in Sahara in 2006, 2008 or 2012, and the events would most likely be the 
same. And we shouldn’t be forgetting that not all characters wanted to go back to the Island. Hurley was one of 
those that had the constant pull back to the Island with The Numbers and the visions. The reason why Jack 

3
http://thefuselage.com/showthread.php?t=106797
4
https://lostmysteries.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-did-they-have-to-re-create.html
went back to the Island was fully explored in the critically acclaimed season 3 finale and the flash forwards in 
season 4 and 5. He also had call-backs to the Island with the encounter of his father at St. Sebastian Hospital. 
Kate didn’t want to leave, but we learned in “​Whatever Happened, Happened”​ that she wanted to find Claire, 
which is something that fans5 enjoyed6 as part of her character arc, and not as a way to once again team her up 
with Sawyer.7 It gives more dimensions to her character that goes beyond the love triangle. Sayid didn’t want to 
get back to the Island at all. He ended up on the plane by force. We didn’t even need to see that through a 
flashback episode, because we saw him in handcuffs on the plane along with a new character. Sun went back to 
the Island to find her husband, because Ben gave proof (the wedding ring) that he was alive. Ben always wanted 
to go back to the Island. He didn’t think he could before he turned the frozen wheel, but the Island wasn’t done 
with him yet. Frank Lapidus didn’t plan on getting back to the Island, but just like the show had already 
presented us the themes, he was destined to go back as well.  
Reetae feels it is hollow, but I think it is fitting that this happens after Locke’s death. He was always the 
voice of “the Island”. And that created a snowball effect.  
 
 

The lie 
 

 
Picture 6.2 
 
Reetae dislikes that Hurley cries not because a lot of people died, but that they had to lie about it. I guess you 
could see it either way, or as a mixed bag. Hurley always let his friends go in front of everything, which is why he 
chose to listen to Charlie rather than the idea of getting rescued. The monologue in “​The Lie"​ is written this 
way, because the episode is centered around the lie they told the public, in the same way that Hurley’s actions in 
“Everybody Hates Hugo” i​ s centered around his fear of change, which is how the episode’s flashbacks and 
5
http://longlivelocke.blogspot.com/2009/02/duplicate.html
6
https://ncjl.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/511-whatever-happened-happened/
7
https://forum.lpedia.com/archive/index.php/t-32656-p-2.html?s=bfa1a943835d7c6b840c85d5ca8a03f9
on-island plot is written. This is how the writers compose their episodes. The first flashback of the episode starts 
with the doubts of lying to the public with Hurley saying “I don’t think we should lie, dude”, which is brought 
back full-circle at the end of the monologue when he says “we shouldn't have lied.”.  
 
Reetae expresses some confusion about why they are lying saying that it “makes absolutely no sense, because 
lying wasn’t doing a damn thing to keep those people safe!” and that it wouldn’t make a difference. In​ “The Lie” 
Jack says that lying protects them from Charles Widmore, who sent a boat full of mercenaries to the Island. 
Hurley says that the Island disappeared. Jack replies that if they told the public that, they would all think they 
are crazy. This is actually a good question Reetae asks, but that isn’t a criticism of the show’s writing, but rather 
a criticism of the character’s decisions. Hurley is constantly “the voice of the audience” and he makes an 
excellent point at the beginning of “​The Lie”​. Why does it matter that Charles Widmore knows they are lying if 
nobody can find the Island? We, the audience, are also supposed to ask the question. Was the lie thought out? 
Did it have positive or negative consequences? What would happen if they told that the plane didn’t sink and 
crashed on the beach, which would make the public very interested in the “fake plane” in the Sunda trench? 
What would Widmore do? The whole point of the lie was that it had its very dubious holes and why the creative 
team made sure of making a fake documentary that they included on the season 4 DVD. The Oceanic Six: A 
Conspiracy of Lies is made by ABC, but is a reflection of the conspiracies that ensued after the Oceanic Six 
came back. It pokes holes in their lie. This was one of the more popular entries on the DVD set, that even actor 
Topher Grace tweeted about (pic 6.3).  

 
Picture 6.3 
  
Jack doesn’t believe Hurley when the Island disappeared. He even lies to himself saying “no, it didn’t” 
to them while they are in the life raft. This is stupid, but very natural and fitting for Jack’s character. Kate was 
part of the lie for selfish reasons, which we explored throughout “​Whatever Happened, Happened”​. The 
motherhood arc in her character is what lead her to realize that she needed Aaron in this time, and what 
ultimately lead her to abandoning him before departing to the Island. Sun didn’t have much to comment on the 
lie and just nodded along. This fits her character at this point in time, who has lost her husband. Reetae 
disagrees with the Widmore-angle provided in the first scene in “​The Lie”​, but we already know from last season 
that Widmore knows they are lying. Sun and him talked about it in London in the season 4-finale. Sun had 
different motives and ideas after the Island, so her lying didn’t make a difference. Sayid was critical of it and here 
I agree that he should voice more concern about it, seeing as Sayid is the rational mind in the group. In the end, 
the point of this scene is that Sayid doesn’t pick Hurley’s side. The point is that it would parallel a situation in 
the future where Sayid needs Hurley’s help. This scene might’ve been hard to write because it had to 
accommodate future events in the very same episode. 
 
Reetae says that season 5 is filled with inconsistencies between the past events and future. He briefly points out 
the events in season 4 and the flashforwards. 
 
“But I get the sense that while they were writing those episodes, they still had no idea how they were 
going to get these people back to the Island, because almost nothing happened in the three year 
interval leading up to this that suggested that these people were remotely interested in returning” 
 
I mentioned earlier in this chapter that these things popped up as early as 2005 (the first year off the Island). The 
idea of them becoming miserable and realizing they had to return back to the Island for the final conclusion was 
baked into the show’s long-term plan as mentioned in earlier chapters. The first flash forward scene even 
introduced the notion of one of the Oceanic 6 (Jack) sitting on a plane and closing his eyes, while praying to get 
back to the Island. 
 
“What happens in season 5 is that Lost is throwing obstacles at our characters. Obstacles that are all 
designed to push them into the direction of wanting to go back” 
 
Obstacles are part of a character’s arc. This is the most common way of writing characters. There are obstacles 
on the way. These obstacles here are quite similar to the ones that made them take the ill-fated flight to the 
Island. Sayid claiming the body of Essam that ended up postponing his trip back to the US. Or the “miracle” 
that happens to be in Australia, making sure that Eko ended up on that flight. 
 
Reetae brings up the people that were hunting down Sayid and that one of them had Kate’s address. He asks the 
question: “Why did they conveniently wait three years?” I’ll come back to it. 
 
“I’ll bet these people didn’t have a real purpose. There isn’t an explanation for their actions, because 
they weren’t designed to have one. The only reason these people exist in this show is that the writers 
needed something to shake up the characters’ lives just enough so that when they decided to go back it 
would be easier for viewers to accept why they did it” 
 
 
  
Picture 6.4 
 
Reetae brought up those people in part 5, where he calls them an unanswered question. He also says that they 
are there to kill Sayid and Hurley and that it is a mystery w
​ ho ​they are. I have to contradict him. They were 
never there to kill them. They were firing tranquilizer darts, not bullets. As I said in the last chapter, they 
represent the force of people that are trying to get the Oceanic 6 back to the Island.  
There were three groups of people that were doing this to them: Widmore, Ben and Jacob (and his 
followers). The show was not subtle about that. The Oceanic 6 aren’t escaping these characters because they are 
trying to kill them. They all had different reasons to go back. Ben was manipulating the situation with Kate and 
Aaron, and that worked. Aaron is not her child. Kate left Aaron with Carole Littleton and went back to the 
Island. Jacob’s followers were also successful. Ilana managed to bring Sayid onto the plane. They even tried 
(unsuccessfully) to get Miles on their team back in 2004. In Hurley’s case, Jacob stepped up and did the job 
himself. Widmore successfully drugged and brought Desmond back to The Island. That is the explanation of 
these people’s actions. 
 
Reetae brings up why they waited three years to do it. That goes back to John Locke’s death. Widmore and Ben 
were always watching the Oceanic 6 during the years, but the attacks happened after he died. The explanation 
for everything is said by Widmore himself in “​The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”:​ “​ Because there's a war 
coming, John. And if you're not back on the Island when that happens, the wrong side is going to win”. 
 
Even though Ben, Widmore, Hawking and Jacob might’ve had their differences, they all agreed that these 
people had to go back. John Locke was one of the final candidates and the newspaper clipping said that he killed 
himself. For Widmore, Jacob and his followers (that do not know that he was murdered) it could mean that the 
Island wasn’t preventing them from dying by suicide anymore, which is very serious and would make this much 
more critical. Michael tried to kill himself so many times, but it never worked. He wasn’t even a candidate. But 
when one of the most important candidates end up dead, then the stakes are suddenly much higher. The slow 
build-up during those three years are now turned up to 11. 
 
A time limit to get back 
 
“They have to take this flight or something really, really bad is going to happen!” 
 
First of all we need to address the biblical reference of the characters taking exactly this flight. Galicinski 
describes it as “a foreshadowing allegory for the Island’s plan of redemption” (2012, p. 172). The Bible verse 
John 3:16 is quite popular, considered by many as a “theme verse” for the Bible8 and show up a lot outside the 
show.9 It says that the love of God is so great that He sacrificed Jesus on our behalf. It is also interpreted as a way 
of having eternal life, but that is only achieved by God’s grace. All we have to do is have faith. This does come to 
play in the show. 
It’s very common for a show like L ​ ost ​to have a deadline to create tension in the episodes. In the 
critically acclaimed first season (that Reetae liked), Shannon had to quickly translate the French transmission 
because the batteries were dying and they had to quickly launch the raft because of Arzt’s weather predictions. 
The stakes became higher and higher for each season as soon as we learned how important and special the Island 
is. We already know that Mrs. Hawking’s job is to maintain the same timeline. Whatever happened in the past 
happened. In 1977, Sayid told Horace, Oldham and Radzinsky that he came on Ajira Flight 316. Luckily they 
didn’t believe him, but Mrs. Hawking only sees one event happening. It’s kind of like the question Charlie asks 
Desmond in “​Through the Looking Glass.​” Charlie: “You get any flashes?” Desmond: “No, nothing.” She only 
knows that they should board that plane and do it in the matter that she tells them, because this is the way she 
knows it will work. After this event, she doesn’t know what’s going to happen next (as she told Penny in “​The 
Variable”​). You can come to the Island at a later point through another window, but this is the way Mrs. 
Hawking foresaw this event. Even Jacob and Ilana knew it had to be this plane for it to work (making sure that 
the Island sends Jack, Kate, Sayid and Hurley to 1977). There was no problem for Widmore and Desmond to 
come back through another window at a later point.  
 
Reetae jokes about the deadline and says “Yeah, you’re running out of time … for some reason” and jokes about 
the severity in Mrs. Hawking’s “God help us all”-statement, but Mrs. Hawking says that the window closes at a 
particular time. If they won’t get on that plane and get transported to 1977, then that creates a gigantic problem 
in this universe. If they don’t get to 1977, how were they supposed to be there to cause the events that led them 
there (that created international news that Oceanic Flight 815 was disappeared)? Reetae asks why it couldn’t be 
any other transport than a plane, but it was always a plane. If it wasn’t why did all stations on The Island get a 
message from Radzinsky that they should report back if they spotted a plane back in 1977?  
 
“God help us all” is a chilling response and was previously used by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he got the 
telephone call informing him that the Nazis had invaded Poland (Ross, 2009, p. 272). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
8
https://www.gotquestions.org/John-3-16.html
9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_3:16
The custody of Aaron 
 

 
Picture 6.5 
 
Reetae says that this small storyline feels like it could step out of a soap-opera. This is a game by Ben, and it isn’t 
that far off from his other manipulative schemes. He needed Jack to do his surgery, but Kate and Sawyer were 
put in cages and used as leverage. They had cameras on the cages, but didn’t intervene when Kate escaped and 
slept with Sawyer. Ben gave Kate a pretty dress so she would feel like a lady when eating a nice breakfast with 
him.  
The twist in​ “The Little Prince” ​with Carole Littleton having the same lawyer is described by Reetae as 
very convenient. And that is understandable. These elements simply fall into places. But character connections 
like that have been present since the first season. These characters happen to bump into each other in very 
convenient ways to illustrate the point I referenced in the first chapter with Carlton Cuse’s quote about “The 
show in some sense is about how we are all intertwined in our lives.”10 Reetae says that it “might seem like a 
natural progression for Kate, but it’s not”. Whether or not we feel it’s a natural progression is up to us. 
 
Reetae returns once again to why the characters’ didn’t want to go to the Island by addressing what Locke told 
them. That it “was the only way of saving the time-travellers, which Locke couldn’t have known and that it was 
a lie told to him by the MiB”. This isn’t a new idea for Locke. He always told them that they were never 
supposed to leave. Reetae returns once again back to the question of why they returned to the Island and says 
that nobody expressed wishes to go. “The crash survivors just didn’t want to go back,” Reetae says. He does this 
by showing the following clips: 
1. Jack yelling “we’re never going back!” to Hurley in “​ The Beginning of the End.” 
2. Kate saying “How dare you ask me to go back” in​ “There’s No Place Like Home.”  
3. Hurley asking “We’re not going back are we?” in “​There’s No Place Like Home.​” 
 
The first clip is over a year before Locke visits Jack. This is not the same Jack that wants to go back as we see in 
“Through the Looking Glass.” ​Kate didn’t want to go back (and couldn’t, since she wasn’t allowed to leave the 

10
​ 2007, ​Lost: The Answers,​ television special
state of California), but the events in season 5 made her change her mind. Ben’s game with the lawyer, Kate 
loosing Aaron in the supermarket and the visions of Claire made her change her mind. Hurley was always on the 
fence about going back to the Island. Reetae uses several clips of Sayid although I made it perfectly clear that he 
never wanted to go back and was brought there by force. He uses the clip of Hurley getting away from Locke, 
putting the fingers in his ears and not listening while saying that the characters “rejected Locke’s offer”, but that 
is not what was happening in this scene. Hurley had a normal conversation with Locke until he saw Matthew 
Abaddon, which scared him. It’s because Locke was with Abaddon that made Hurley walk away and shout “I’m 
not going anywhere with you,” not because something Locke told him. Reetae also uses the clip of Jack 
insulting Locke in the hospital in “​The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham,​” but fails to use all the clips of Jack 
after this day to illustrate how Jack realized Locke was right all along. 
 
Reetae does an examination of why all the characters went back, which is weird, because he said specifically 
several times earlier in the video that there was no why. He asks why Ilana brought Sayid to the Island and 
answered it with a muffled “I dunno”, which makes sense, since he could not connect the people shooting darts 
in the previous episodes with this event. Sayid is brought back because he is a candidate. Reetae isn’t sure why 
Kate wanted to come back and said it was probably a combination of hooking up with Sawyer, rescuing Claire 
or because she wanted to run away again, which shows how he didn’t really pay attention to​ “Whatever 
Happened, Happened”​ that explicitly states why she went back.  
 

Jack’s character development 

 

 
Picture 6.6 
 
Reetae criticizes that Jack is a completely different character when he goes back to the Island. The writers made 
sure that this is part of his character arc. The reason why ​“Man of Science, Man of Faith”​ is entitled that way is 
because of the struggle in Jack’s life regarding these two perspectives. This was confirmed in the audio 
commentary for that episode. Jack being a man of science and experiencing a miracle (Sarah moving her toes). 
His anger, his profession and his entire life is the mask he wears, that don’t believe in it. A season earlier we have 
another scene where he breaks down in tears after spending his entire day chasing his dead father on the Island.  
 
Reetae says that the believability of Jack’s backstory falls apart because it is Locke who caused Jack to drive to a 
bridge and try to kill himself. That the Jack Shephard Reetae knows would never do this because of Locke, but 
this was foreshadowed since the first season. Reetae also exemplifies this with clips from the show saying that 
Jack didn’t like Locke. This is true. Just like Dwight hated Jim Halpert in ​The Office​, yet he made Jim his best 
man at his wedding at the end of the show.  
 
He criticizes the show about Jack deciding to kill himself over Locke, but not when he lost his patient, when his 
wife left him or when his father died. Suicidal thoughts are not simple switches that flips from on to off based 
on one moment. Jack always had a way of fixing his problems in the past and he always had his father as the 
inner voice. There is a reason why the first Jack-centric started with those pivotal scenes between him and his 
father. For all we know, Jack could’ve become suicidal after his father’s death based on how angry he became 
when he talked to Crissy at the airport, him drinking in the airport bar and telling Cindy that the drinks on the 
plane weren’t strong. What would his life be when he returned to his job in Los Angeles, now without his father 
which lost his license due to his drinking problem? Was Jack heading the same way? Jack was “lost in his life”. 
But he ended up on the Island and he had a new thing to fix. Jack is a structured and well-educated guy, so his 
suicidal thoughts came from a numerous situations in his life that he called “broken”.  
It all started from the day they got rescued and Jack followed up on Locke’s suggestion to lie. Locke did 
tell him: “Lie to them, Jack. If you do it half as well as you lie to yourself, they'll believe you” and this was the 
first step out of many that led Jack to the point of killing himself. Another early sign of his life spiralling out of 
control was the somber way he looked at Kate after Carole Littleton told him about Claire after Christian’s 
funeral. He started a life with Kate, which fell apart. The episode ​“Something Nice Back Home”​ gives a nuanced 
look at how Jack’s life started to go downhill. He’s haunted by the past and seeing visions of his father. He saw 
him two times in this episode, but we’ve seen him with an empty pill bottle much later in “​ Through the Looking 
Glass.”​ This gives an idea for the audience that a lot of time has passed since the engagement with Kate and he 
has seen visions ever since. Reetae brings up the scene between Locke and Jack in “​ The Life and Death of Jeremy 
Bentham”​, but there’s also more time after this scene has transpired for Jack to grow his full beard seen in the 
season 3 finale. What Reetae doesn’t bring up is the last thing Locke says that gets to him. “Your father says 
hello”. Locke’s death is what tips an already stressed out, drug-addicted alcoholic that doesn’t show up to work 
much because he’s flying to various places in the world. In ​It’s A Wonderful Life​ (Capra, 1946) George Bailey 
tries to jump out of a bridge and his guardian angel says it’s silly to kill himself over money. For George Bailey it 
is not just the money. The movie builds him up as a character that never accomplishes the dreams of his life. He 
never gets to travel, build railroads or skyscrapers. The money is the tipping point.  
Reetae criticizes the arc as happening to fast from Jack being a well-structured guy, to a suicidal 
drug-addict and then to a man with the belief that he is needed on The Island. The first arc of Jack is a long one. 
It takes three years to become this depressed individual. It is hinted at by Locke in the season 1 finale when he 
says that Jack believes in destiny, but just don’t know it yet. The transition to the clean-shaven Jack we see in 
season 5 that desperately needs to go back to The Island does happen very quickly, which is also a criticism I 
have for the show as well. There are many stories with drastic changes in character that happen for a very short 
time. George Bailey changes his mind about the suicide and that he wish he never was born very quickly 
(throughout one evening), but that hasn’t stopped I​ t’s A Wonderful Life​ of being one of the most celebrated 
films of all time. The acclaimed character development of Walter White from ​Breaking Bad​ happens very 
quickly as well. He goes from being a scared school teacher to calling himself “Heisenberg”, becoming a well 
known meth-manufacturer and blowing up the base of a drug lord just the next month in the show’s storyline. 
 
Reetae says that Jack was the reason why audiences liked the show, because he was the grounded character that 
demanded everything to be explained at the simplest level. And that the show’s first season needed someone that 
demanded a reasonable explanation to the crazy things that happened on the Island. This is partially true. In the 
first season, Sayid was first and foremost the rational and logical character and the reason why people watched 
the show was for numerous reasons as stated in earlier parts. Reetae doesn’t provide any sources for his claims 
on why audiences watched it for “Jack to explain it” (or chart which character was the popular one by fans), 
however he does compliment the show’s dynamics in the hatch. One of the reasons why it worked on a 
character level is because the characters asked questions, while Locke accepted it on blind faith. 
 
Reetae says that when season 5 arrives and Jack is a changed character, we have no one to represent the audience. 
That is not true either. Hurley has always been the voice of the audience. In the May 8th 2009 podcast Darlton 
talk about how they write the episodes months in advance of them getting aired and they often switch to a 
perspective of the audience. That sometimes they need to take a step back and say “I’m the audience now” and 
write a scene that needs to have the audience’s voice heard so they don’t get lost in the storytelling. By the time 
they got to ​“Whatever Happened, Happened”​ they needed a scene where two characters discuss time-travel like 
the audience would do when this episode aired. Damon confirmed once again that Hurley is “always the 
audience’s proxy” in this podcast. Writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach confirmed this much earlier in a 2006 
interview with T ​ he New York Times11 as well, saying that Jack is who you’d like to be, but Hurley is always the 
voice of the audience.  
 
Reetae criticizes the convenience of the Lamp Post station being situated in Los Angeles, the same city Jack was 
living in, so it would be easier for all the characters to get back to the Island. The Lamp Post station has a 
broader meaning than this. First of all, it’s a reference to the lamp post in T ​ he Chronicles of Narnia​, a memory 
trigger for the character, that symbolizes the difference between the real world and Narnia (the fantasy world). 
On the show, it’s a physical way of representing the clash between science and faith.  
Jack (and other characters in the show) living in Los Angeles is just probability. The show was after all 
about people that were all taking a plane ride from Sydney to Los Angeles, on a Wednesday outside of the major 
holidays and vacations. I would’ve voiced some concern if this was a plane ride from Sydney to Tokyo.  
 
Los Angeles means “City of angels”12, which I will come back to when talking about this place much later. It 
would be very random if the DHARMA station was anywhere else when reviewing the show and analyzing the 
end scene of the series, taking place in this church after they all landed in LAX. The Lamp Post station was the 
way “they” found the Island, but the church was the place they all met each other. They all left the physical 
world from this church. 
 

11
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/arts/television/14itzk.html
12
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ca-losangeles/
Mrs. Hawking’s explanations 
 

 
Picture 6.7 
 
Reetae criticizes the scene in “​ 316”​ when Eloise tells the characters about the plan to get back to the Island and 
why no one represented the audience in this scene. This is a fair opinion and that it s​ hould ​be one voice of the 
audience present here. One common criticism is that there’s a lot of exposition from Eloise’s part13 with fans 
calling it one of the worst scenes in terms of exposition. It might’ve been hard to write an episode packing all of 
this information in this episode. As we all know, they need to hear Eloise’s plan in the beginning of the episode 
and be back on The Island at the end of the 40 minutes of runtime. It’s still valid criticism. Reetae says that the 
scene should’ve had an “old Jack” asking questions, but the show always neglected of having a quiz show in their 
dialogue, because it’s not how good writing works. The scene was already disliked by fans for having too much 
information crammed into it. Reetae says that “the old Jack” would ask the following questions in this scene 
(which I find baffling because no screenplays of Lost have ever portrayed Jack being like this): 
 
“How do you know all this? “Why are you helping us? How do you know Ben? How long have you 
lived down here? Why/how is The Island constantly moving? Why specifically was The DHARMA 
Initiative so interested in finding The Island? Why are there suddenly so many complex rules to 
getting back to The Island? Why do we need to recreate the circumstances of a flight from three years 
ago, when three years ago we got to The Island without doing that? Why are you acting like this is 
the only way we can get back? What happened to the submarines that routinely left The Island 
whenever they wanted? Also, who are you again?” and the follow-up question “wait, who is this 

13
https://forum.lpedia.com/showthread.php/64085-316-Hate?
clever fellow?” 
 
It’s pretty common sense that this is not how good screenplays are written and never have we seen Jack acted 
like this. In this scene Jack asks a follow-up question which is “ What do you mean, "Where it was going to be"?” 
but Reetae wanted Jack to ask who the clever fellow was instead. Reetae likes “the old Jack” and wanted him to 
ask questions like he did in the earlier seasons. The episode Reetae uses as a comparison to “​316​” is 
“​Orientation.​” The questions “the old Jack” asked in ​“Orientation”​ are tightly written around other dialogue 
and it is also an episode with a concentrated amount of questions and information. Jack is feeling frustrated 
about everything and the reason he starts quizzing Desmond is because Locke says “He was the one with the 
gun” to Jack, so Jack goes to Desmond to try to get answers. Jack breaks down at the end of this episode. This is 
also an episode including many questions from Locke, Michael and Sawyer as well (but Reetae only highlights 
Jack as the voice of the audience in this episode). The list of questions in the paragraph above that Jack 
“should’ve asked” are pretty similar to the questions Reetae asks earlier in his video series and doesn’t sound like 
the way Jack phrased his questions or tackled the situations. I will in this chapter answer the questions Reetae 
asks (because this is clearly something he wanted to get out of the scenes, and not Jack): 
 
“How do you know all this?” 
 
This goes back to the character of Mrs. Hawking as introduced in ​“Flashes Before your Eyes”.​ This is due to 
archetypal traits of her character that is introduced in that episode. She is introduced as an Oracle. Almost like 
an oracular urchin which is described as a "Usually female, small and fey in a disturbing way, the Oracular 
Urchin knows more about the future — or the present — than she really should."14 
 
The scene is also very reminiscent of the scene in​ Matrix Reloaded (​ Wachowskis, Lana & Lilly, 2003) when the 
Oracle sits down on a bench with Neo and offers him candy and then explains the future (pic 6.8). The ​Lost 
crew even placed care into Hawking’s costume design with its very distinct Ouroboros pin. It automatically 
connects her to something more magical. In its original Egyptian context it symbolised repetition, renewal, and 
the eternal cycle of time. This is after all a character named after Stephen Hawking that discussed time travel and 
wormholes in A ​ Brief History of Time (​ 1988). 

14
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OracularUrchin
  
Picture 6.8 
 
The episode has a very classical structure of tales of people acquiring a power that they first don't understand it, 
then try to find more about it and then discover a master that has had it for a long time (and controlled it). The 
writers are big fans of​ Star Wars​ and the powers of the Jedi involve seeing future events. After all, Anakin 
Skywalker could "see things before they happen" as Qui-Gon described it. The Jedi Council even saw this as 
something dangerous. In the original S​ tar Wars​-trilogy, we see Luke being force sensitive and after he blew up 
the Death Star just using The Force he would in the next installment meet someone who has mastered it. Master 
Yoda seems like a fragile, warped old creature, but he has a much broader understanding and control over The 
Force. 
 
Desmond sees the future, but in most of the cases it involves Charlie's death. Eloise Hawking has the same gift, 
but she can see the future on a broader scale. She could see the different scenarios for the man with the red 
shoes. He would either die beside by this scaffolding, but if she had warned him, he would have been hit by a 
taxi the next day.  
Desmond is Luke, that goes on instinct to Cloud City (or in this case, decides to buy the ring anyway). Eloise is 
the master and knows the larger picture. "Always in motion the future is". She has mastered The Force and sees 
all the scenarios. 
 
I am well aware that I am not addressing Daniel’s journal. The inclusion of his journal in Eloise’s life is a little bit 
tricky. ​It would’ve been a fascinating revelation if everything was connected through the journal. ​For instance, 
I've always liked the idea of her learning the location of the Lamp Post station in Los Angeles from the journal. 
And I've liked the idea of the others starting to use the donkey wheel because Daniel's journal actually explains 
some things about The Orchid and the secondary protocol. But the problem is that Eloise only had the journal 
in the duration of that one day in "​Follow the Leader​". She flips through the pages and finds her handwriting. 
Then Sayid uses it to find out how to remove the Jughead core until he says to Jack "take it" and Jack grabs it 
and puts it away. And then they rush to The Swan (without Eloise or Richard) and end up in the present. So if 
Eloise had the journal and used her for future scenarios we also have to assume that either 1) Eloise memorized 
the jewelry shop, red shoes-man, Desmond's story from the journal during this day or 2) she took it from Jack 
off-screen when Sayid packed the core into his back 3) Jack lost it or forgot it at the tunnels, she went back there 
and found it before she left the Island to give birth to Daniel. 
Since we don't see it anymore, we can add the possibility of The Others re-discovering the journal in the 
tunnel or at the Swan site. The way they wrote Eloise in “​Flashes before your Eyes​” hint at a grander power rather 
than a checklist that would’ve been unlikely. The journal was introduced in her hands as a way of knowing that 
Daniel Faraday is her son. For Daniel, this is his notebook where he wrote down about his experiments, but in 
her hands it was the inscription on the front page that mattered to her. The sentence: "Daniel, No matter what, 
remember, I will always love you. Mother" makes her understand that she has written it. 
 
“Why are you helping us?” 
 
Because of the time loop. She knows about the characters getting back in time. Of course, she could’ve 
prevented it, but it’s in her character to guide others because it had already happened. She had already sent her 
son to his death three years prior. 
 
“How do you know Ben?” 
 
As we learned in season 5, they were both part of the Others at the same time. 
 
“How long have you been living down here?” 
 
The amount of time Mrs. Hawking has been operating the Lamp Post station is irrelevant in the same vein we 
don’t need to know in ​Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back​ (Kasdan, 1980) how long Lando 
Calrissian has been on Bespin. She doesn’t necessarily live at the Lamp Post station either and doesn’t need to 
man it, because the coordinates for the Island are automated to Guam. She is the general manager of the church 
and has been since the early 1980’s as revealed in M​ ysteries of the Universe​, but she has lived in England during 
the 1980s to raise Daniel. She also worked in a jewelry shop in London in the 1990s. 
 
“How do you come to be living down here?” 
 
She knows a lot about the Island and the DHARMA Initiative.  
 
“Why/how is the Island constantly moving?” 
 
The Island is a magical place. At the simplest level we can explain the “how” from the fact that it “floats” 
because of The Light. Several theories go more in-depth with many variations from fanbases15 to the ​Popular 
Mechanics​ article “​Physicist: Einstein Would Approve of Moving the Island on Lost​”16 The floating island 
harkens back to both Egyptian and Greek mythology, that the writers derived a lot of history from. In Egyptian 
mythology, the birthplace of Horus was Khemmis, which Herodotus described as a floating island in Buto 
(Griffiths, 1980, p. 130). In Greek mythology you have the historical and archeological site of Delos, which was 
described as “The floating island”: 

Prior to this event, the island had floated aimlessly in the Aegean, but became anchored in its 
position by Poseidon who made four granite columns rise out of the sea to anchor it firmly in its 
present place for the divine birth. This is why the island came to be called Delos, which means 
'visible', before which it was a floating, nomadic rock called Ortygia or Adelos (the invisible). It is 
said that it was on Delos that Leto finally bore the twins, Apollo and Artemis under a palm. In 
return for the sanctuary of the island, she promised that the god she was about to give birth to 
would turn this dry and barren island into a place of great pilgrimage and bring prosperity to its 
land.17 

 
Picture 6.8: Leto gives birth on the “floating island”. 
 
“Why specifically was The DHARMA Initiative so interested in finding the Island?” 
 
Because they gathered proof it existed and would test their experiments there to find a way to save humanity. 
DHARMA originally found the Island through a lot of combined research. The US army found the Island in 
the 1950s by accident when they were testing nuclear bombs on islands in the Pacific, but as we know from 
Jacob’s list of candidates, they would wind up on the Island anyway since some of the soldiers were candidates. 
The US Army kept some information about it as we see in the Lamp Post station. A picture of the Island taken 
by the US Army (and marked with “TOP SECRET”) exists on the wall at the Lamp Post station. Alvar Hanso 

15
https://www.reddit.com/r/lost/comments/4poeq6/my_thoughts_on_the_heart_of_the_island_the/
16
https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/tv/a3288/4266329/
17
http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/greecedelos.htm
was a munitions magnate in World War II, and he would have a personal gain of trying to research mysterious 
places in the Pacific ocean, because his great-grandfather was the captain of The Black Rock. Alvar Hanso 
personally knew Gerald DeGroot and funded the DHARMA Initiative as revealed in M ​ ysteries of the Universe 
and in the episode “​Orientation.​”  
 
“Why are there suddenly so many complex rules to getting back to the Island?” 
 
Because this is the way she believes it has to happen. I used the example of Desmond earlier. He thinks someone 
is coming to the Island in “​ Catch-22”​, but he needs certain people to fulfill his vision. He could’ve ran into the 
jungle himself if he thought Penny was coming, but he follows the rules of the vision. It even involves very 
specific moments such as them stopping at the cable. 
 

 
Picture 6.9 
 
 
“Why do we need to recreate the circumstances of a flight from three years ago, when three years ago 
we got to the Island without doing that?” 
 
I will use the answer from above. She just knows it has to happen this way.  

“Why are you acting like this is the only way we can get back?” 
 
This is part of her character. She’s very strict and even though she might’ve tried to steer things away (with 
Daniel), some things are destined to happen the way she has foreseen them.  
 
“What happened to the submarines that routinely left the Island whenever they wanted?” 
 
There was only one submarine and Locke blew it up in season 3. 
 
“Also, who are you again?” 
 
Answered in the first question. 
 
“Who is this clever fellow?” 
 
This is up to the viewers interpretation. A clever fellow built the pendulum and figured out where the Island 
was going to be. A popular theory was Daniel Faraday, but he left the Island to work with the DHARMA 
people in the mid-1970’s, several years after they found the Island. So it couldn’t have been him. The Sri Lanka 
video says that the location of the Island is known to Alvar Hanso, the DeGroots and other high-ranking 
members.  
 
Reetae takes a pause in his review when he talks about Eloise Hawking. I’ve dealt with her character earlier in 
this paper. Reetae says that there should be an “epic payoff” for her, and that is his opinion. I slightly agree, 
because I would’ve wanted to see her contact the Light. Most likely her turning the frozen wheel with a young 
Ben present (explaining how he knows about it and getting a story from Richard about it being a measure of last 
resort, and how she would never come back to the Island). Then after years of not being in use, the wheel would 
blast off too much energy so that she would end up with a similar situation as Desmond. Only her flashes would 
be tied to multiple people instead of only the death of Charlie.  
This is not “epic payoff”they decided to write, but what they decided on was a payoff in another way. 
It was the revelation that she sent her son to the past, knowing well that she would kill him in the past. It fuels 
her character as someone protecting a time loop even though it cost her her son. Reetae says that nothing about 
her is resolved, but season 5 is the season we learn a lot about Eloise. We witness her in three different time 
periods and learn her connection to several characters on the show. Once again, without any sources, he 
blatantly says that there’s holes in her backstories (without pointing any out) and disregards any form of analysis 
of her character. He just says she’s a gaping unanswered question, without any foundation.  
 
Reetae takes another stab at Jack’s character development and criticizes Jack saying that he didn’t care about 
anybody else on board the plane he took in ​“Through the Looking Glass”​. Saying “Yish, we’re supposed to like 
this guy, right?” I will once again refer to my opening segment about likability in fictional characters. The show 
was praised for writing character developments throughout the six seasons, so I am very curious why Reetae 
wanted Jack not to experience any change. I mentioned the very much celebrated character of Walter White 
earlier, who went from being a family man to a murderer, and he is also one of the most critically acclaimed 
television characters of the past decade. It all comes to a matter of opinion. 
 
 
 

Kate’s character development 

 

 
Picture 6.10 
 
 
After reviewing Jack’s development in the fifth season, the video series takes a spin on Kate, and specifically the 
flashback in “​ Whatever Happened, Happened”​. Kate visits Cassidy after they got back to the United States. 
Reetae says that neither Kate nor Cassidy acknowledge the coincidence that they knew the same guy all along 
(Sawyer). Reetae shouts: “They don’t say anything about it!” It’s a fair opinion that Reetae wanted a scene with 
the characters talking about that, but the episode ​“Whatever Happened, Happened”​ cover a lot of events from 
2005 to 2007 (and most of the flashbacks are written to explain how Kate ended up on Ajira 316), so it is 
reasonable to say that it would be a waste of time having Kate and Cassidy talk about this. The first scene ends 
with Kate telling Cassidy “Sawyer sent me”. This scene happens at the door. The next scene they are sitting 
inside. Cassidy has already served Kate some water. Aaron isn’t in Kate’s arms any longer, which leaves plenty of 
time where they could chat about Sawyer and how Cassidy knew him before he got on the Island. 
 
 
The inconsistency in location 
In a quick frame, Reetae has a written an annotation that points out that Cassidy lives in a community with 
grass and palm trees that doesn’t look like New Mexico. This is because almost every scene in the show was shot 
on a tropical island. Even though the show was complimented for its genuine portrayal of the various corners of 
the world, some plants, building and other stuff can sneak in. Reetae is once again targeting bloopers from the 
later part of the series, which he didn’t like, instead of targeting the same types of bloopers that wound up on 
the show in the first few seasons. In the flashback with Sawyer and Cassidy in *​ The Long Con”​ we had the same 
situation with palm trees that grew in an environment that should not have palm trees18, but Reetae didn’t 
point that out in his season 2 review. 
  
Reetae also point out the unlikelihood of Kate driving all the way to New Mexico just to have a talk with 
Cassidy before going back to the Island. Nikki Stafford goes more in-depth than Reetae in ​Finding Lost19 
explaining that there are a few problems with the Cassidy situation. First of all, “I have a daughter in 
Albuquerque, you need to find her. Tell her I'm sorry”, which is what Sawyer said to Kate, doesn’t leave Kate 
with much to go on. We could hope that Sawyer shared a little more information with his buddy Hugo, that 
proved a valuable asset to Kate into tracking Cassidy. Secondly, Nikki Stafford points out that it ​is ​possible to 
get to New Mexico and back in that short of time, but very unlikely. Especially since they are both on speaking 
terms and Clementine knows Kate. Kate isn’t supposed to leave the State of California anyway, so that creates 
an additional problem. Reetae only uses this episode to back up his criticism and doesn’t mention the phone call 
with Cassidy in season 4’s “​ Something Nice Back Home”​. Kate is on the phone with Cassidy and says that “Yeah, 
I'll just have the nanny stay for an extra couple hours. Jack's never home before 8:00 anyway. I could stay for at 
least an hour.” The house Cassidy stays at in ​“Whatever Happened, Happened”​ is the same in 2005 and 2007 
(and so is the filming location), so the conversation on the phone and the unlikelihood that Kate drove all the 
way to New Mexico, would put Cassidy in the State of California. Reetae concludes that she must live in Los 
Angeles and says it’s pretty convenient that everyone lives there.  
 
“When she spills out the guts out to Cassidy. Cass explains to her, and by extension the audience, 
that Aaron is actually disposable to her. That Kate did a bad thing by taking him and that the real 
reason she’s raising him is that Sawyer emotionally crippled her when he jumped out of the 
helicopter to save her. So much so that Kate needed a male substitute to have in her life in place of 
Sawyer which is why she volunteered to raise Aaron when they get rescued by Penelope. I shit you 
not!” 
 
That is still a very superficial way of portraying the events we saw in the show. Reetae back this up with a few 
quotes from the specials, but they are even more superficial in the way that they summarize the events in the 
show so that audiences can quickly get into the action. They are after all short summaries. Considering that 
Reetae has a 10 hour video analysis, one would expect an even more analytical approach. Cass only knows the 
Sawyer from before he got to the Island, so she’s still very bitter about it. She doesn’t know how the Island 
changed him. She never says to Kate that Aaron is disposable, not even between the lines.  
And let’s look at the helicopter sequence. Sawyer didn’t jump out of the helicopter to save h​ er​. He did 
it to save them all. Most importantly the editing in that scene suggest that the next one to jump out of the 
helicopter would’ve been Hurley. That’s why they cut to a close-up of Hurley after Lapidus says: “I'd feel a hell 
of a lot better if we were a few hundred pounds lighter!” Here I’d like to quote two fans’ discussion about this 
situation and the scenes between Cassidy and Kate. 
 
Cassidy is strongly projecting her own feelings of rejection onto Kate. As you say, she's far more 
interested in venting than hearing what actually happened on that helicopter. Unfortunately 

18
https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Bloopers_and_continuity_errors
19
https://books.google.no/books?id=_tn2MUyKUmcC&pg=PT101&dq=cassidy+lost+albuquerque&hl=no&source=gbs_selected_pag
es&cad=3#v=onepage&q=cassidy%20lost%20albuquerque&f=false
 there are friendships which are cemented mostly by negativity and grievance, and I think Kate 
and Cassidy's is like that. 
As I see it, Sawyer didn't ditch because he "wanted to get away from Kate;" he bailed because if he 
didn't, Hurley was going to, and Sawyer knew that Hurley had way less chance of making it to 
shore than Sawyer himself. It was a generous and noble thing to do; probably not possible had 
Sawyer and Hurley not had their Seasons 3 and 4 bonding experiences. 
- u/stef_bee 
Cassidy did seem bitter and almost seemed to take pleasure in Kate's unhappiness. And her 
comment "Well, Jack sounds like a piece of work", comes across as if she takes a certain glee in 
Kate's broken engagement with Jack. As they say, misery loves company. - u/mon-emer 
 
Reddit’s Official re-watch of “​ Whatever Happened, Happened.” 
 
Everything isn’t black-and-white and now that we’re five seasons in, we’ve experienced a lot more nuances and 
layers to Kate’s character. This is a woman who has also used sex to combat her feelings, like when she jumped in 
Sawyer’s tent after she saw Jack and Juliet eat in “​ Catch-22”​. She did the same thing with Jack after giving Aaron 
away in this season. Kate is still unsure about her feelings which is part of her development in season 5 and 6. 
The series finale shows us that she got some vague recollections of the Island when she saw Jack, but it was 
Aaron’s birth that gave Kate the awakening.  
 
He also disagrees with the way Aaron was written in the life of Kate. Reetae doesn’t paint the whole picture and 
focuses entirely on the events in the episode “​Whatever Happened, Happened​”. He says that no p ​ arent would 
leave a child for someone else to raise just because they lost them in the supermarket​. Saying “pfffff! 
What!? Wait, wait, wait, that can’t be right!?” Don’t forget that Kate ran away from the hatch with a sick 
Sawyer laying on the floor. This isn’t unusual for her character. 
 

 
Picture 6.11 
 
It is a culmination of the visions of Claire that led to her decision to go back to the Island to find her. Kate 
might’ve momentarily lost Aaron in a supermarket before, but this event happened ​after s​ he saw Claire in a 
dream warning her about not bringing Aaron back to the Island. This is all coming down to Kate in the same 
time. Reetae suggest that this situation would be much more believable if it happened a few weeks after they got 
off the Island and not after three years of raising the boy. He says: “it’s preposterous. It’s not believable!” and 
that is also his opinion, but I must once again remind him that the Island started pulling these people back at the 
same time, three years later. It all started to happen after John Locke came to visit them. It might not be the 
situation Reetae wanted, but the show was very clear about this. And even though Kate rejected Locke’s offer, 
Ben started playing his tricks which we saw in the season 5 premiere.  
 
Once again Reetae points out another nitpick in terms of the distance. Aaron managed to run away in the seven 
seconds it took for Kate to look at her phone. This is yet another situation where he treats the seasons unfairly 
and unbalanced. Why didn’t he mention that digging Ethan’s grave in season 1 went from happening during 
daytime, sunset and then back to daytime? Why is the editing of​ “Whatever Happened, Happened”​ proof that 
this season is worse than the first? 
 
“We should factor in that at this point there’s no guarantee that Claire’s even alive considering that 
she went missing three years ago. If I were in Kate’s shoes I would presume that there’s a better chance 
than not that Claire’s dead. After all, the Island is a very dangerous place. It’s inhabited by polar 
bears and smoke monsters. So it’s hard to buy the sincerity her wanting to help Claire when she spent 
the previous 36 months not doing a Goddamn thing to save her and loudly rejected Locke when he 
offered her the chance to do so. Never mind the fact that the whole reason was flying to L.A. in the 
first place was to put Aaron for adoption anyway! Which Kate is aware of!” 
 
Let’s pick apart what Reetae claims. He highlights the dangerous part of the Island (by showing us the clip of 
Charlie getting an arrow in his threat, which was a situation they prevented), but ignores the miraculous part of 
the Island. The polar bear haven’t really been a big problem for the survivors. They never ventured to the beach. 
There is only one smoke monster. Not several. Kate thought Claire was missing, but she still have faith. This is a 
major theme on the show which was first illustrated in the beginning of the show, with Rose just knowing that 
her husband Bernard is alive. Kate also know about the various ways the Island or dead people can communicate 
with her, like the way she experienced it through Sawyer and the black horse in season 2. After she declines 
Locke’s offer, she is haunted by Claire. Once again, the events surrounding Locke’s death causes a snowball 
effect. Without the Claire scene in “​There’s No Place Like Home​” and the supermarket scene in “​Whatever 
Happened, Happened​” I would definitely agree with Reetae that it would be hard to rationalize the decision, but 
those events are there to help the audience to connect Kate’s decision, her firm belief that Claire is on the Island, 
and that she warned Kate not to bring her back.  
Claire didn’t want to put Aaron for adoption. She hesitated and ran out of the situation. The reason 
she went to Los Angeles was that she felt that Malkin was genuine in his prediction that the baby was in grave 
danger. And the 12,000 dollars was something she needed after Thomas left her. But that doesn’t matter, 
because Kate also knows that Claire ​wanted ​Aaron when she delivered him in “​Do No Harm​”: “​ Do you want this 
baby now? Hmm? Do you want it to be healthy and safe? [Claire nods] Okay, then the baby knows that, too. You 
are not alone in this. We are all here for you. This baby is all of ours” 
 
  
Picture 6.12 
 
A big chunk in the video series deals with Reetae feeling displeased with Kate’s actions in the season. Saying it 
feels “off” and that the writers threw her back into the love triangle when she returned back to the Island. Kate is 
a flawed character and makes stupid decisions. It’s an odd choice of portraying criticism towards the show by 
placing himself into the situation and doing something different. Kate has always been impulsive. Like I stated 
before with her running from a sick Sawyer and forgetting about the countdown timer in season 2. Promising 
to Jack that they were to open the Halliburton case together, yet still trying to distract him to take the key from 
the wallet. Following Jack, Sawyer and Locke when they were looking for Michael in​ “The Hunting Party”​. 
Shooting her buddies in a bank just to retrieve Tom Brennan’s toy plane. There’s a lot of decisions Kate made in 
the first two seasons that Reetae doesn’t highlight, which yet again gives out a very unbalanced video series. 
 
 

Sayid’s character development 

 
Reetae thinks that Sayid’s character got butchered in the last two seasons. I wholeheartedly agree, but not for 
the same reasons.  
 
I feel like the character of Sayid gets completely flanderized. The term comes from Ned Flanders from T ​ he 
Simpsons​ and is described as:  
 
“​The act of taking a single (often minor) action or trait of a character within a work and 
exaggerating it more and more over time until it completely consumes the character. Most 
always, the trait/action becomes completely outlandish and it becomes their defining 
characteristic.” 
 
I know the episode in question (“​He’s Our You​”) is focused on the killing side of him, but the character of Sayid 
is a complex individual. He was the voice of reason on the Island, with more layers than the murderer that he is 
portrayed as in season 5, particularly in that episode. For instance, in the first flashback, it would be interested to 
see Sayid sitting by himself and trying to fix a broken radio, and then have small looks over at Omer, trying to 
kill the rooster. Seeing Omer have a hard time deciding if he’s gonna do it while Sayid is contemplating the 
situation, while doing something he likes to do. (Fix electrical equipment). What I enjoy about the scene is that 
the Quran is very precise and strict about the ways animals are killed, especially if they are used for a meal (which 
the rooster probably was).  
 

 
Picture 6.13 
 
I was wondering if this would be part of Reetae’s criticism of Sayid, but he has a different outlook, because he 
mainly focuses on his decision to shoot Ben. Reetae makes some dubious claims about the ramifications of this 
act though.  
 
“There’s no point in doing this! Killing Ben wouldn’t prevent Nadia from being targeted. It 
wouldn’t keep him from getting to the Island in the first place. And it wouldn’t necessarily undo the 
purge of the DHARMA initiative because in season 4 Ben goes out of his way to specify that while he 
carried out the Purge, he wasn’t the one who ordered it.” 
 
I’ll answer that last sentence first. Sayid wasn’t present at this scene. The scene in question happened with 
Hurley and Locke in “​ Cabin Fever”.​ Sayid doesn’t know the history of the Island in the grand scheme as we do. 
He knows that Ben is an integral part of the history from what he learned on the Island and by working with 
him later. After all he killed him as a kid and knows that he’s been scheming for decades on the Island. From 
Sayid’s perspective, knowing what he knows, he might’ve thought that removing Ben from the equation would 
rule out the rivalry between him and Widmore. Maybe with Widmore on the Island, there wouldn’t have 
existed a Penelope, and then we wouldn’t have a Desmond in the hatch causing the plane to crash. The plane 
would land in Los Angeles and he could’ve gotten the location of Nadia by the CIA. We don’t know if Sayid 
thought this far ahead, and he probably didn’t, but Sayid d ​ o ​know that Ben has a lot of strings both on the 
Island and off. Killing him would certainly throw everything in a new direction.  
 
Reetae then says that Sayid had many other options to change the history that wouldn’t involve killing Ben, 
which he calls “completely unnecessary and a waste of time”. Reetae suggest that killing Ben wouldn’t prevent 
Nadia’s death, which is true, but like I said in the last part, there’s a lot more to her death anyway. From Sayid’s 
perspective, killing Ben is the best solution. Reetae suggest that “at best” 14 people survive without Ben present, 
which I disagree and Sayid probably should guess a higher number. There are more than 14 people working for 
the DHARMA Initiative. The Others have killed a lot of people during the decades, something Sayid witnessed 
after Ethan’s brutal act of murdering Scott. But most importantly, Sayid had a grudge fueled from season 2 after 
Shannon’s death: “​ You were trying to protect your people. It wasn't you that killed Shannon; it was them. And once 
we find out he is one of them then something will have to be done.” 
 
“The revelation that Ben became bad because of this water, which is unbelievable stupid character 
development, I mean CHRIST! He’s bad because of WATER!? REALLY!? It’s not because he’s a 
mentally unstable individual, it’s not because he was psychologically scarred as a child, being raised 
by an alcoholic abusive father, on an island in the middle of nowhere. Nope! IT’S ALL BECAUSE 
OF THIS WATER!” 
 
 
If we ignore the high-pitched whining in this tone I can address a few things. The show never said Ben derived 
from this moment alone. It’s a rite of passage. The “loss of innocence” is a common trope for coming-of-age 
stories and often happens during childhood. It’s not like Ben was plugged into a simulation and operated as a 
zombie from this moment alone. I do agree that it’s quite convenient that Ben forgets certain characters from 
the 70’s and this event with Sayid. It is an easy way to handle the problem with Ben meeting several of these 
characters when he grows up, but Reetae takes this too literal. Ben was a fragile character before this event and 
after. He was willing to send the rabbit to the other side of the fence to see the Others when he was a few years 
younger. He openly stated to Richard that he hated that place before this event and after (when he tells 
Widmore he doesn’t want to go back). His feeling for his father were the same and the Pool didn’t erase all those 
memories of him.  
  
Picture 6.14 
 
The Pool is a baptism, but it works like the river Lethe at the Mountain of Purgatory in ​Dante’s Inferno​ from 
The Divine Comedy.​ This river erases memories. Dante baths in it. This river also runs down to Hell where it is 
frozen around Satan. Dante arrives here in the Ninth Circle of Hell, where the water has frozen. The show deals 
with the marriage between good and evil. Ben ends up in the Ninth Circle as well and turns the frozen wheel in 
a place constructed by Satan (The Man in black). A baptism, or a false baptism in Ben’s case, isn’t the defining 
feature in Ben’s character development. The show highly suggest so much more. When Dante was bathed in 
Lethe, he heard the voice of Beatrice. The book highlights his love for her. The writer Dante Alighieri met 
Beatrice Portinari when he was a child and was the primary inspiration for Beatrice in ​The Divine Comedy.​ Ben’s 
love for Annie was a crucial part of Ben’s character development and his behaviour towards women. This is 
explored through “​ The Other Woman.”​ His lust for power is also a major part of Ben’s arc, which has nothing 
to do with his baptism. The moment he was saved from the gunshot wound was a stepping stone into the Ben 
we know. Reetae says that this moment exonerated all of his behaviours by “making it none of it his fault”, 
which isn’t true at all. Reetae says sarcastically “Ben’s just a victim of circumstance. He didn’t evolve to be a bad 
guy! He was transformed into one against his will! Bleh!” 
This isn’t true either. For instance, a lot of Ben’s character development comes from the day he 
witnessed his dead mom on the Island. This played a lot into his strong belief in the Island. Another point in his 
character development is the day he took Alex from Danielle. That is such a crucial point in Ben’s entire 
character arc that this becomes the awakening for Ben (which was cut out)20 during the flash-sideways. Reetae 
screams in the video that he doesn’t want his characters to be “defined by EVIL LIQUID! THAT’S 
LAAAAAAAME!! LAAAAAAME!” and yet, completely miss the point of the scene while he is shouting at the 
screen.  
 
 

20
https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Awakenings#cite_note-0
The end of the season 
 

 
Picture 6.15 
 
“(about the beginning of The Incident) This seems like there was something big that was happening 
here. Like the show was entering the last stages of a master plan. Like maybe Lost was finally going to 
unveil some answers that were years in the making. And what’s ironic about all that is that if any 
two characters prove without a shadow of a doubt that this show did not have a long-term plan, it’s 
these two people (Jacob and the Man in Black). Especially this guy! (the Man in Black)” 
 
Why is it without a shadow of a doubt? As I mentioned in the first part, Marxuach said that on the first day they 
all worked together in their think tank Damon Lindelof “​downloaded on us the notion that the island was a 
nexus of conflict between good and evil”​ (Marxuach, 2015, p. 6). This is from February 2004. Before that, while 
talking about the idea for the show, J.J. Abrams talked about the Island as a character in itself.21 This was the 
first time an idea formed itself as a character with its own personality, and that frequently happened on the 
show. The different themes were represented with characters and the new discoveries on the Island was often 
tied to a certain character. “We also thought of the island as a character on the show, so we were always looking 
for things that would give it more personality,” Cuse said to ​The Independent​.22 The fans also constructed 
theories around some “Jacob”-character in season 1, appearing in the shadows as the driver of the Golden 

21
https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Genesis_of_Lost
22
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/lost-ending-different-volcano-island-jj-abrams-damon-lindelof-carlton-cu
se-the-leftovers-a7679646.html
Pontiac that popped up in the flashbacks.23 Almost as immediately as the Monster is introduced into the show, 
we learn that it has a distinct personality. They quickly applied character to a monster. John Locke instantly 
buys into it when he sees it for the first time. When they discovered the hatch, we saw Desmond. Even 
philosophical ideas, such as determination, is portrayed through characters (like Eloise Hawking in this case).  
 
Reetae mention the scene with Locke and Walt with the black and white stone. These ideas that later manifested 
into Jacob and the Man in Black. Ideas and personality traits that were deeply embedded into the show through 
dialogue and other characters. Things go in loops, so it is quite fitting that many of the traits that we see in Walt 
for instance are reflected in the Man in Black. These stones from the Pilot are already tied to characters in the 
first season when stones like these are found of the body of Adam and Eve. I will get back to it later.  
 
Like I’ve stated numerous times before, the plans change, but they went back to the original idea from the start. 
That this place was the nexus of conflict between good and evil, which Jacob and MIB represent, although their 
characteristics changed along the way and their characters were made up along the way. I am not going to repeat 
myself too much about plans and television. 
 
When presenting these two characters, Reetae takes a step back and talk about Locke and his connection to the 
Island through this scene in the Pilot. 

 
Picture 6.16 
 
“I could acknowledge that Locke was unlikely to be attached to a meta story at this point” 
 
Reetae now talks about how unlikely it is that a grand story was planned when they shot the pilot because how 
hectic it was. This seems to contradict Reetae’s earlier statements regarding the writers that should’ve had long 
talks about the character development of the show. Whether or not the show was hurried into production 
doesn’t matter for the interpretation of the viewer. The viewer can by any right interpret the scene with Locke 

23
https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Golden_Pontiac
and the backgammon set in the pilot as foreshadowing of the opening scene of “​ The Incident”​, even though it is 
very obvious that the finale wasn’t in any of their minds when they shot the Pilot. Reetae is still under the 
impression that everything that happens on screen at this point in the show (end of season 5) had to have been 
planned during season 1. He brings up the following examples: 
The interview with A ​ in’t it Cool News​ with executive producer Jesse Alexander from 2009 that asked if he knew 
in season 1 that the show would have Hurley time travel to 1977, he said “fuck no!” Of course he did, like I said 
numerous times, they were figuring out the show during the first season. What Reetae doesn’t mention is that 
Jesse Alexander was only producer until ​“Exodus Part 2”​, before the writers had a mini camp planning the major 
mythological landmarks of the entire series. The next example is of David Fury while highlighting the interview 
with R​ olling Stones Magazine​ in 2005 and the Lostpedia interview in 2008. He’s the man who said that there’s 
no meaning and a lot of things are just arbitrary. What Reetae doesn’t mention is once again that David Fury 
stopped being a writer (and co-executive producer) after the first season was over. He was not present on the 
mini camp where they planned the rest of the show.  
 
There are many stories that go back to previous elements and add more meaning to events. Ideas they might’ve 
had, but weren’t fully fleshed out. We can look at the first season of ​Lost l​ ike​ The Hobbit​ to the grand story, and 
the L
​ ord of the Rings​ being season 2-6. The One Ring might not have been that important at first, but Tolkien 
revisited it and made a bridge with that one into this new book series. Even the later additions, such as the ​The 
Quest for Erebor w ​ ould tie in some of the oddities of Gandalf’s trips in ​The Hobbit​, and closely tying them with 
his the wizard’s fear of Sauron using Smaug. The spiders in T ​ he Hobbit​ had a heightened importance with 
Shelob in ​The Lord of the Rings​ and Ungoliant in ​Silmarillion​.  
J.K. Rowling expanded on a lot of small things (the flying motorcycle, Mrs. Figg and the mention of 
Grindelwald in the chocolate frog card) that may not have been planned in H ​ arry Potter and the Philosophers 
Stone​, but were expanded as soon as the series went on and became a popular hit. The latter (Gellert 
Grindelwald) has been so developed that he is part of a new movie franchise over 20 years since he was first 
mentioned in a sentence. Of course no one is blaming Tolkien for not completely figuring out the details of the 
One Ring when he introduced it in his children’s book. Or that Rowling came up with new things when he 
wrote the ​Harry Potter​ books. Reetae’s two examples were of people that weren’t even part of the mini camp, 
so their arguments are valid if we only look at the show from the perspective of the one season they worked on. 
Not the whole series. Later Reetae brings out Javier Grillo-Marxuach, but considering that Reetae doesn’t 
remain neutral to this situation and chooses to ridicule Marxuach (who stayed longer on the show) calling his 
response as long blog posts instead and only focuses on one paragraph from the 17000 word document to prove 
his point. What Reetae says doesn’t even match what he highlights from the document. The highlights from the 
document is this paragraph:  
 
“For example, while the idea was that the island called out to people and brought them in as part 
of a greater Manichean conflict, I didn’t once in two years and change hear the name “Jacob” or 
“the man in black.” The idea that people were being recruited to come to the island as part of this 
greater agenda was never brought up during my time on the show, even though by all accounts it 
eventually became the crux of the series' final arc.” 
 
 
What Reetae says instead is that some of the stuff was being made up all along, while not going in-depth of what 
he highlights from the text. This doesn’t reflect what Marxuach said. The idea of the Manichean conflict was 
there while he worked on the show but not the names and the recruitment. This is an idea that later became 
characters, such as the hatch later led to Desmond.. It’s preposterous to think that Jacob’s search for candidates 
was planned at the time Marxuach was on the show (his last episode was C ​ ollision​, which is a long way from the 
rivalry between MiB and Jacob). In the end, the difference between Marxuach’s response to David Fury’s 
statements in Marxuach reflections are very crucial of what the show was in its first phase before they got the 
deal with ABC. Everything on the show is made up, but this segment of Reetae’s video doesn’t highlight the 
question of ​when​. When did they plan what? That could be the series ideas from when they developed the pilot 
or the mini camps in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. It could be in the writers room or between Damon and 
Carlton alone. It could be seasonal plans, episode plans or long-term mythological landmarks. It all depends on 
so many external factors that I’ve addressed earlier.  
It’s also not a single dichotomy. It’s not that you either had a “master plan” or “you made it up as you 
went along”. The show had a plan, but if the viewer expected all six seasons to be planned from the pilot, then 
that is a fantasy world that happens to no television shows at all (except for a very few cases). The case could be 
made for literature and film franchises as well. As previously stated, the polar bears in season 1 could come from 
the Medusa Corporation (The DHARMA Initiative) or magically concocted up from Walt’s head. It all comes 
down to if the show becomes a hit and the freedom of the artists. If the artist have ideas for future installments, 
then the artist can put those ideas early in the worked so he/she can tinkle with them, develop them, change 
them and see what comes out in the end. This is what Jacob and the Man in Black were at the start. Ideas. 
 
In some ways it is true what David Fury says, but it’s taken out of context. If one says “they didn’t know what 
was in the hatch,” then that is both true and false. Of course when writing for “​ Walkabout”​, they still weren’t 
sure how long the series would last, so it’s understandable why David Fury said they were building it up as they 
went along, because along the way they need to see if the show works as a long series. However, Reetae doesn’t 
emphasize the rest of the response he made with the Lostpedia crew who interviewed him, that hints at a bigger 
picture that they certainly used later in the series:  
 
“Some thought of it as a monster of the id, much like in Forbidden Planet -- that maybe it 
appeared differently to everyone who saw it. The most tangible thought, as explained later by 
Rousseau, was that it functioned as a security system set up by the island’s creators/early 
residents… whatever we later decided the answer was. For Locke, clearly, the monster was the 
“soul” of the island that was responsible for his “miracle.”24 
 
 
I can add in that David Fury was one of the writers who didn’t want to commit, so he did interviews with other 
studios as well. He came along because he was blow away by the pilot. He also admitted that he shared the 
rough cut of the pilot to his friends even though J.J. Abrams specifically told him not to show it to anyone25. 
 
The book​ ​Lost Ate My Life: The Inside Story of a Fandom Like No Other g​ oes a little more in-depth in the 
relationship between the crew members, such as Fury and the others on the show. It wasn’t just that he shared 
the pilot with others, but also that he burned a bridge with every working with Cuse, Lindelof and Burk. We 
24
https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lostpedia_Interview:David_Fury
25
https://web.archive.org/web/20170822024929/https://www.wgfoundation.org/david-fury-genre-smash/
don’t know why he left the show in April 2005 other than that he stated it was for “numerous personal reasons”
26
. As early as September 2004 Fury mentioned to W ​ hedonesque.com​ that he anticipates that the audience won’t 
like the direction the show is going and that the show wouldn’t be as good as the first episodes of season 1.27 At 
​ riters had already completed ​“Confidence Man”28 and were going into more 
the time of that interview, the ​Lost w
mythological directions with Rousseau, the Black Rock, the Others and even telling the audience that the 
science expedition were researching time. This is speculation, but to me it seems like Fury was more interested in 
the survival drama that were presented as the superficial layer of the first half of season 1, while Damon and J.J. 
were interested in the crazier stuff on the Island. Does this also mean that he had less interest in the show in the 
2nd half of season 1? In April 11th 2005 he already started with another show.29 He returned to the show for 
the audio commentary on “​Walkabout​” during spring of 2005 and in October 2005 came the interview with 
Rolling Stones magazine ​where he said that there was no master plan and everything was concocted on the fly. 
Which is a contradiction to what he said on the audio commentary that they for instance created a “a great story 
for Helen” while writing “​ Walkabout” ​that they would have to dig up again for a 2nd season.30 
So to backtrack to season 1 and put yourself into the writers shoes. When “​House of the Rising Sun​” was 
being written and you don’t have Carlton Cuse on the team, everything is very hectic and you don’t know 
whether or not you’ll have a critically and commercially successful multi-seasonal series, then inserting two 
mysterious corpses have a lot of wiggle room. Like the One Ring or Grindelwald. And their thematic 
importance was present both in season 1 and in the last season. Let’s get back to Reetae’s review. 
 

 
Picture 6.17 
 
“The first thing I want to say is why is he named the man in black? Why does his name have to be a 
mystery? Couldn’t they just have given him another bible name? Like Esau? Like when he was a 

26
http://www.whedon.info/David-Fury-Quits-Lost-Tv-Show.html
27
https://web.archive.org/web/20070602134209/http://www.mikejozic.com/buffyweek6.html
28
http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Lost/Lost_1x07_-_Confidence_Man.pdf
29
http://www.whedon.info/David-Fury-Quits-Lost-Tv-Show.html
30
https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Walkabout_audio_commentary
baby, did they call him “the baby in black”? When he was a child, was he known as “the boy in 
black”? Eh, whatever” 
 
It is the MiBs lack of name that is the important part of L ​ ost. ​It is certainly not an oversight. He’s unnamed 
because that fits his character. They did have a name for him. An insider at DarkUFO said that Samuel was the 
intended name, and the one that was in the script,31 but they never revealed it. The invisible narrator of the 
show presents us a story. His name is just not part of it. 
The MiB was once a man but he takes on the forms of many men. This ties to what David Fury said 
about him in the 2008 Lostpedia interview: ​“Some thought of it as a monster of the id, much like in Forbidden 
Planet -- that maybe it appeared differently to everyone who saw it.”32 which is an idea they developed on, even 
though Fury mentions that there were no mythology. He has been Yemi, Locke, Christian and many others. His 
namelessness is symbolic of his loss of humanity and ability to take on anyone's identity. Throughout history 
he’s been referred to as a many things, and giving him a name would derive him from the symbolic 
namelessness. The DHARMA Initiative used Greek mythology and named him Cerberus after the three-headed 
dog who guarded Hell. Ricardo called him “el diablo”. In that way, there is a strong possibility that Jacob or 
Mother had a name for him during the 30 years they spent together on the Island. He could’ve been just 
“brother” or “son”, but he could’ve had a name given to him by Mother since Claudia never gave him a name. 
He might’ve introduced himself with a new name when he joined the Romans. It’s just not part of the story of 
Lost​, which had him as the antagonist. It’s essential that he is nameless. 
 
Although there's not much we can say about it other than it was a very specific choice that we 
made. We felt that, you know, the Man in Black should not have a name. We felt that was... 
that the very was a creative choice that we thought was cool.​ (Carlton Cuse, audio commentary 
for “​ Across the Sea”​) 
 
Just like the smoke monster is a cloak over the human (played by Titus Welliver), we don’t have the name 
because that ruins the idea they infused us with. An idea coming all the way from the first season when the 
skeletons in the cave had no ID papers on them and Locke simply chose the names “Adam and Eve”. It makes 
his story even more tragic when you hear that Claudia only picked one name. He’s unwanted and “the other” in 
the family. This is quite common in film, TV and literature. Just like The Joker was described when captured in 
Christopher Nolan's ​The Dark Knight​ (2008): "No name. No other alias". 
We've long known MiB as the unseen/unknown danger of the Island. He even says: "The devil 
betrayed me. He took my body. My humanity." 
 
The identity of the individual can be encoded in the name given at birth for the child (Seeman, 1980)33 and 
Writers Relief ​describes a nameless character as a technique that: “​reinforces a theme of lost or changed 
identity—of someone who does not want to be known or whose identity is ever-changing, so it cannot be known.”34 
Revealing the name “Samuel” in ​“Across the Sea”​ would defeat the purpose, even though fans thought we would get 

31
https://darkufo.blogspot.com/2010/05/mibs-name-revealed.html
32
https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lostpedia_Interview:David_Fury
33
Seeman, Mary. Name and identity in Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie 25(2):129-37 · April 1980
34
http://writersrelief.com/2015/07/29/nameless-characters-trend/
the name in this episode.35 The purpose is that i​ n a story about characters lost in their lives, the show’s main 
antagonist is the one that is the most lost of them all. 
 
Giving him the name Esau would be a sensible, though predictable, name and would in my opinion hit us too 
much in the head with their religious references (which there are a lot of anyway). The Fuselage used Esau all the 
time.  
 

The cabin continued 

 
Picture 6.18 
 
Reetae is confused about the events in the cabin and thinks that it was Jacob in “​ The Man behind the Curtain” 
and MiB in​ “The Beginning of the End”​, and that something happened between those two days.  
 
“Within hours does that mean that something happen to the kitty litter ash surrounding the cabin, 
that made it so that the man in black could penetrate it? And if so, how did that happen? And why 
did Jacob not fix it?” 
 
The man in black was already in the cabin in “​The Man behind the Curtain​” which means that the circle was 
already broken. Ben and Locke visited the cabin at night and didn’t circle around the ash to see if it was broken. 

35
https://forum.lpedia.com/showthread.php/56469-Rate-Episode-6x15-Across-The-Sea?highlight=mibs+n
ame
That was very clearly shown in the episode. They just step over it. ​The Lost Encyclopedia​ confirms the ash to be 
broken before their arrival. 
 
Jacob has stopped using the cabin anyway. It was a temporary space. He stayed at the foot of the statue for 
centuries, but sometime after Horace built the cabin and the events in “​ The Man behind the Curtain”​, it was 
used by Jacob. We can only theorize why he needed an extra space, but one theory could be that he wanted to be 
closer to Richard while giving him instructions and slips of paper. The ash was there to keep MiB out in case he 
thought of a loophole to kill Jacob. After all the candidates had arrived on the Island, the plan to get a new 
Protector was in motion. The cabin as a meeting place was not needed anymore. 
He didn’t fix the ash circle because it apparently wasn’t necessary. The clock in ​Back to the Future 
(Zemeckis, 1985) was never fixed, which ties to the theme of the movie. Jacob didn’t step in to fix stuff. He let 
things play out by themselves. I’ve covered the rest about the cabin in chapter 3. 
 
“Also when Hurley sees this figure (Christian) another figure pops up out of nowhere. An eye 
suddenly comes into view and it is different than the eye we saw previously in season 3, the eye that 
supposedly belonged to Jacob, so at the risk of asking a completely rhetorical question. What was 
going on with this cabin exactly?” 
 
The reason why the eyes are different is because they are played by crew members and therefore meant to signify 
an “unseen mysterious male figure”. We weren’t supposed to read more into it. It is supposed to be a shadowy 
silhouette. It harkens back to my point about the nature of the MiB. When he appeared to Eko “​The Cost of 
Living​”, he appeared as several people. He did the same trick to Richard in “​Ab Aeterno​” by being Isabella and 
the smoke monster. The eye belonged to just another individual that MiB decided to portray as.  
 
Jacob 

 
Picture 6.19 
 
“I hate everything about this character! Every second he is on screen is poison to the show!” 
 
Very well. Chris Carabot from I​ GN ​praised the performance by Mark Pellegrino in the season 5 finale. Jeff 
Jensen called the opening scene legendary and Pellegrino himself was nominated for a Saturn award for his 
performance in the sixth season. (Which he lost to Leonard Nimoy in F ​ ringe​). 
 
“I hate that the writers went so beyond what Lost used to be about that they actually created a god 
that lives on the Island. Because that’s what he is. (...) He has seemingly infinite powers” 
 
He doesn’t. Richard has three wishes as a return for his job for Jacob. Two of them he couldn’t fulfill: Absolve 
him from his sins so he doesn’t go to Hell or bring his wife back. His powers derive from the Island. More 
specifically the Light. Reetae then lists the following powers: 
 
- He is biologically immortal 
- He can teleport anywhere in the world 
- He can see the future and knows when things are going to happen  
- He can permanently alter the future (Reetae says he’s saving that for later, so I will not comment on it) 
- He has followers who dutifully carry out his wishes who speak about him in a reverential tone even though 
almost none of them have ever seen him. This is not a superpower. 
 
“For years, the Other have been intimating that Jacob is not merely a good person, but a great 
person. A marvelous person. And I’m gonna go on the record to state that no, Jacob is not a good 
person.” 
 
I fully agree and the show made sure to illustrate the morally grey areas of Jacob. The fans discussed this as well.
36
The Others have been constantly portrayed as a religious cult, mashed together by many different cultures and 
religions. The show reinforces the deistic, philosophical view of as the Others fully accept that some God (or in 
this case their “great leader”) is the cause of all things and they reject anyone who says otherwise. In Islam they 
have Imam-bi’l-ghayb (the belief in the unknown) which says that you get the knowledge of what was not 
known to you from one who knows. The path to Islam is one you cannot achieve without true knowledge, and 
you have no other medium than God’s Messengers (Mawdudi, 1960, p. 15). The same goes for Christianity, 
who believes in a God “nobody” has seen, and the Bible have several passages dealing with the unknown or the 
unseen. “​ Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Those who come to God must believe that He exists” 
(Hebrews: 11.16) or “​Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have 
believed.”​ (John 20:19-29). The show also had a poignant scene in “​316​” with the doubts of Thomas the 
Apostle. Suddenly you have the distinction between those that believed and died because of their belief in 
Jacob, and those that questioned his existence or his methods. There are many parallels you can pull to religious 
history with the show. 
 

 
Picture 6.20: One of the first mentions of Jacob. 
 
The fun thing about Jacob is that before this point he has ​only ​been a name, while MiB have been witnessed 
through various forms. 
 

36
https://forum.lpedia.com/showthread.php/48871-So-Jacob-doesn-t-even-care-about-his-own-people?highlight=jacob
“In fact, in an odd way, that’s exactly why a lot of Lost fans love Jacob. Because he’s the ultimate 
get-out-of-jail free card/placebo. He’s not just a blank slate. He’s an omniscient magical blank slate” 
 
Where’s his source on ​why t​ he fans liked Jacob? How can Reetae speak for the ​Lost f​ anbase when he never 
brings out sources? Many people found Jacob exactly for him being a morally grey figure,37 found him hot or 
found him hilarious in the Connect 4 Million sketch.38 
 
“You can feasibly project onto him whatever theory or answer you want to believe is true. You can 
namedrop him as a solution for just about anything!” 
 
No, you can’t. Even Jacob had his restrictions. If you wanna namedrop someone as a solution, then it would be 
easier to apply it to the Island, and even the MiB. However, Reetae proceeds to namedrop certain mysteries in a 
sarcastic tone to ridicule either the fans or the show (or both). 
 
“What’s up with the black horse in season 2? Hmm, maybe Jacob manifested it for some unknown 
reason?” 
 
There isn’t any unknown reason. I’ve explained this in chapter 2 about the horse representing freedom and 
strength to Kate and was a crucial point for Kate to get over Wayne. Jacob never manifested himself into 
animals, so no, it was not Jacob.  
 
“How come Christian Shephard’s body wasn’t in the casket in season 1. Hmmm, maybe Jacob took it 
for some unknown reason?” 
 
I’ve lost count on how many times Reetae misremembers or forgets elements of the show. I already addressed it 
in chapter 1 as MiB taking the body. Jacob didn’t do anything. 
 
“Why is the Island constantly moving and why do pregnant women die on the Island. Hmm, maybe 
Jacob made it this way for some unknown reason?” 
 
Both of these questions never had anything to do with Jacob. The first one was due to the Light on the Island, 
while the pregnancy issues came from the Incident. 
 
“It always is for some unknown reasons and there’s the problem with all Jacob theories. Diehard fans 
want to believe, in the face of seemingly incriminating evidence (points to Javier’s “Manichean 
conflict”-quote), that there is a plan to all of this. That Jacob was fully thought out and that he was 
key to understanding everything.” 
 
It’s not “always for some unknown reason”, because I just addressed the four claims Reetae made, which he 
never backed up with fan theories anyway. There are other instances you could apply to Jacob. Once again he 

37
https://forum.lpedia.com/showthread.php/48871-So-Jacob-doesn-t-even-care-about-his-own-people?highlight=jacob
38
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGeASXjd0UU
speaks of the diehard fans without any sources to any discussion forums. I am a diehard fan and I didn’t think 
there was a plan to everything. I know that Jacob wasn’t fully thought out.  
 
“Not only is Jacob too vague for any theory to make sense…” 
 
Many theories fit well with Jacob. Even the disproven ones (the Golden Pontiac) could very well have been the 
car Jacob drove in. There’s nothing that doesn’t make sense about it and the furthest we’d have to stretch our 
belief is that Jacob had to have learned how to drive a car. Reetae says that Jacob fails as a character because he’s 
selfish and that he does things that are “pointless, dumb and stupid”. Many fans were fueled by imagination and 
theories because of Jacob.39 Flawed characters that do pointless, dumb and stupid things have existed in fiction 
for centuries, and people still enjoy reading or watching characters like that. If Reetae thinks that those reasons 
makes him fail as a character, then that is fine. But as many have said: “Bad decisions make good stories.”40 Harry 
Potter, as a first year student, didn’t avoid the dungeon even though there was a high risk that he would be killed 
by the troll down there. There are so many questionable decisions he made in the series. Like using 
Sectumsempra on a student without knowing what it would do. Or not taking Riddle’s diary to a professor. Or 
stealing the Ford Anglia with Ron to get to Hogwarts instead of waiting. Or constantly ruining the chances of 
the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Or the numerous times he procrastinated choices that could be 
life-threatening. Or believing Dumbledore would kill a student in the second task of the Triwizard 
Tournament. Or using his signature spell when he was fleeing from Privet Drive with the rest of the Order. Or 
going to the Ministry without listening to Hermione if the vision was correct. Or risking expulsion every school 
year. Or forgetting to use his two-way mirror. Or when he took Parvati to the yule ball but ignored her and 
moped about Cho instead. Or the countless of reckless time he didn’t think things through like putting his head 
into an unknown magical object (the Pensieve). Yet, Harry Potter is one of the most popular literary characters.  
 
“He’s supposed to be a good person. We’re supposed to support what he’s doing” 
 

 
Picture 6.21 

39
https://forum.lpedia.com/showthread.php/45434-What-about-Jacob?
40
https://medium.com/the-mission/bad-choices-make-great-stories-dd358808a742
He was heralded as a good person by the Others, but as soon as we pull off the rug we see someone else. He’s 
supposed to be a morally grey person. The writers even confirmed it during the ​Lost: On Location​ clip for “​The 
Incident”​: ​“We’ve always thought of Jacob as good. Why, who knows? So we really wanted the audience to come out 
of this season wondering: Is this guy Jacob sort of a force of light or a force of darkness” 
And during the confrontation between Ben and Jacob in the season 5 finale we’re supposed to feel conflicted. 
We have no attachment to Jacob, but we’re told he’s a good person. We have a lot of attachment to Ben, but we 
know he’s done a lot of bad decisions. This is highlighted in the finale and ends with Jacob’s chilling response: 
“What about you?”  
The series finale has Ben brushing off Jacob’s rules to Hurley with “that’s how Jacob ran things” which will 
bring new leadership to the Island. 
 
Reetae spends the next minutes criticizing Jacob’s decisions and I fully agree that his decisions, especially those 
that involved kidnapping, assaults and murder, are horrible decisions. That is the point and what the writers 
wanted the viewers to think about. We’re supposed to ask: “Do I agree with his actions or not?”  
I have to make some corrections to Reetae’s review when he runs down a list of things Jacob could’ve done. He 
said that he could’ve prevented Locke from getting paralyzed, because he was obviously waiting for it to happen 
that day. This goes against the rules of the show, as stated by Mrs. Hawking in season 3. Had he warned Locke 
about his father pushing him out of a window, then this situation would still happen in a different way. The 
same thing goes for the scene with him touching Sayid on the shoulder in “​The Incident.​” Reetae shouts at the 
screen “HE KILLED HER! HE KILLED HER! HE CAUSED HER TO DIE! WHYYY!? Why did he do 
this!?” but that didn’t happen. Ishmael Bakir killed Nadia. This was a hit-and-run, with a green light for 
pedestrians, and he fled the scene after doing the deed. What Jacob made sure was that Sayid survived, because 
he’s a candidate. This is also a contradiction by Reetae himself, because in the fifth part of his review, h​ e ​says 
that ​Widmore k​ illed Nadia. In chapter 5 I also explain a little bit further about Bakir’s motivations. Reetae 
shouts a bit more with “JACOB MURDERED HIS WIFE FOR NO FUCKING REASON!” but like I 
previously said, there was probably no other way. If Jacob didn’t intervene in this scene, Bakir might’ve hunted 
down Nadia the next day. If Jacob warned him about that, she would’ve died anyway.  
 
“The reason why he (MIB) has tasked Ben to kill Jacob is that, for some arbitrary reason, a rule exist 
to prevent the MiB from simply killing Jacob himself” 
 
The Rules are ancient. We’ve learned about them before in season 3 and 4. It’s the early form of “An Other 
can’t kill an Other”. Of course, in modern times, Juliet technically could kill Danny Pickett. But MiB can’t kill 
Jacob. The Island has immense power. It could prevent Michael from killing himself while he was on the other 
side of the world. In the story of L
​ ost ​they have rules, just like any other stories, and in this one MiB can’t kill 
Jacob. 
 
“Uhhm, who is coming? (in response to Jacob’s last words) Who are you referring to? Are you talking 
about Widmore’s group, because you didn’t do a damn thing to stop them when they invaded the 
Island a season ago, or are you talking about your candidates? Either way, WHY ARE YOU 
WARNING THIS GUY!? The man in black is pure evil, right? You’re trying to stop him, right? 
Then why are you alerting him to danger!? WHY ARE YOU HELPING THIS GUY YOU STUPID 
DUMBASS!?” 
 
This is a common trope of literature, film and television when someone in their dying breaths makes a curse, 
fulfills something or taunts the killer. A classical “you will never win”-quote. This obviously means the 
candidates, because even though he spent such a long time trying to find a way to kill Jacob, he has to find a way 
to kill six other individuals as well. And there’s a card in his sleeve with Desmond, that MiB doesn’t know about. 
Jacob could’ve said “my six candidates are coming back from the past, and you will once again fail in your plan”, 
but that would’ve been clunky dialogue to put at the end of the season. 
 
“Even though he dies here, he keeps popping up in season 6” 
 
The show has presented with numerous of instances of character re-appearing after their death. There are more 
appearences of Christian Shephard than of Jacob post-death. 
 
“Also if you were wondering why Jacob allowed himself to be killed by Ben here if that is indeed 
what happened, eeh, who knows?” 
 
Reetae contradicts himself once again. Earlier he called Jacob omniscient. In the case of Jacob, he could’ve done 
anything, but the end result would be the same. He would die by the hands of Ben. Had he pulled up a gun and 
tried to shoot him, it wouldn’t have worked. Had he escaped the statue, the situation would still happen later 
on. He knew that he would die.  
 

1977 - Faraday’s plan to negate the energy 

 
Picture 6.22 
 
 
Reetae says this is a crazy plan. I fully agree. Reetae explains two reasons: The first reason why this plan is too 
crazy is that it would be a cop-out. I fully agree here as well and that it puts the viewer in the position hoping it 
would fail. We do want the show to have the backbone of all the events in the past three years (or for the viewer, 
the past five years). We don’t want them erased. In Reetae’s opinion such a disconnect shouldn’t be present 
because we normally would like to see Jack succeed in the missions of the show, but in this mission we want him 
to fail and at the same time we are engrossed in the storyline thirty years in the future with Jacob, MiB, Ben and 
the rest of the people at the statue. I agree here as well, so getting the characters back on the same timeline was a 
breath of fresh air in the season 6 premiere. 
 
The other reason why Reetae thinks the plan is crazy is because it’s a hydrogen bomb.  
 
“Couldn’t Faraday find a slightly less destructive way about doing it? Is it not a tad excessive to do it 
with a powering fireball hotter than the surface of the sun that will vaporize anything it its 
vicinity? YES! The answer is yes!” 
 
The two premiere episodes start with the saying “God help us all”, that I mentioned was a famous quote by 
Roosevelt the day the Nazis invaded Poland. The finale ends with a nuclear bomb. In the third episode we’re 
thrown right into the cold war with Jughead being on the Island. A very important moment for the show, 
because it marks the beginning of many series of events. Jughead is the Chekhov’s Gun41 that is released at the 
end of the final act. It is also a reference to the scene where Eko wants to blow open blast doors at the Swan. 
 
LOCKE: Blow it open with what? 
CHARLIE: With dynamite from the old ship in the jungle. 
DESMOND: It would take an atom bomb, brother. Tell him not to bother. 
 
It’s also a historical reference to the time the US government tested nuclear bombs in the Pacific Ocean,42 which 
Daniel makes sure to mention in “​Jughead​”. In the world of Lost, it was even referenced in 2006 during T ​ he Lost 
Experience​ with Alvar Hanso’s desperate video about humanity being on the brink of extinction through 
nuclear warfare amongst other ways.  

41
https://www.nownovel.com/blog/use-chekhovs-gun/
42
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Atoll
  
Picture 6.23 
 
Reetae says they could’ve done with all of the dynamite from The Black Rock, but that wouldn’t do it. This 
isn’t destroying a weapon, but destroying energy that would let the DHARMA Initiative manipulate it in ways 
they couldn’t possibly imagine. We’re talking about something that doesn’t r​ eally ​exist in real life. In popular 
culture we have the same situation within the Marvel movies. The infinity stones are so powerful that the 
amount of fire power wouldn’t do it. However, they establish that they that someone who has the abilities of an 
infinity stone, can destroy another infinity stone as seen with Wanda destroying the Mind Stone in ​Avengers: 
Infinity War​ (Russos, 2018). 
 
“The bomb would kill Eloise anyway (including her unborn son), so why is she helping them?” and 
“It’s a hydrogen bomb! What difference does it make if its close to the Swan or not? It will destroy 
the Island! You’re in walking distance of the hatch! Just blow it up! What’s the point!?” 
 
The point isn’t to nuke the Island, but to negate the energy. It’s an odd way of explaining it because we’re 
dealing with something magical. I agree that it’s iffy and not how bombs work in real life. But the energy 
underneath the Island isn’t part of real-life. It’s a clear case of pseudoscience where the bomb’s energy will 
nullify with the Swan energy. Had they detonated it outside the Swan, everything would’ve obliterated. One 
part that got cut out of the broadcast was Richard Alpert seeing an explosion from the Swan (pic 6.24). That 
means he would’ve seen “them all die”, as he explained to Sun, but still survived to tell the tale. An explosion 
that doesn’t wipe out the Island, but has enough energy to destroy the energy underneath the Swan. 
 
  
Picture 6.24 
 
The character motivations for this bomb plan are a little bit all-over-the-place and that is a criticism I share with 
Reetae. The change of heart for some characters, how they end up on Jack’s mission in the end and the way 
Rose responded to them are all parts I found to be poorly executed and hastily put together, possibly due to 
stress of making sure everything happens that they want to happen. That also includes the Juliet flashback. (My 
criticism towards that one is not only how it was inserted into the finale, but how modern everything looked 
while this is supposed to be when Juliet was young). Reetae says that the flashback was thrown in there because 
they didn’t set up Juliet’s parents divorce earlier, which could very well be true, but the flashback also illustrate 
another thing that Reetae doesn’t mention. Every other character has a visit by Jacob except her, which is the 
show’s way of telling us that not everybody we’ve come to love have been touched by him. It’s a driving 
question to the beginning of season 6 that deals with “who did Jacob chose?” 
 
Reetae continues his at Juliet with: “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?” Reetae starts to wind 
down to the end of the the video with a question from the podcast from September 21st 2007. It’s from 
Daphne that correctly predicts the plot in the season 5 finale. Here’s the transcript:  
 
 
Daphne: Oh, my next question was, as far as the flash forward goes that we saw at the end of 
Season 3, is that a definite occurrence that takes place? Or is that something that is one possible 
future that could very possibly be changed, if Jack makes it back to the Island, to maybe be able to 
change whatever happened? 
Carlton Cuse: You know, we're not big fans of the idea of sort of multiple futures, and... 
Daphne: Okay. [Chuckles] 
 Carlton Cuse: ...I think that it kind of robs the story of its stakes, in a certain way. So, you know, 
we're working very hard to kind of, basically, maintain "the future is the future", and it's not... 
we're not gonna go back and sort of recast the future by affecting events in the past, and then all of 
a sudden having a completely different future. 
Daphne: Okay. 
Damon Lindelof: Yeah you know, we're not saying that, you know, time, and space-time, and the 
ability to sort of travel through time is not gonna continue to be a motif on the show… but sort of 
everything we have to say about um, you know, what the effects of time traveling are, is in 
"Flashes Before Your Eyes". 
Daphne: Right. 
Damon Lindelof: You know, specifically in the scene between Desmond and Ms. Hawking. The 
rules that she basically explains to Desmond are the rules that we basically live by in the writers 
room. 
 
And then he cuts to “​Making up for Lost time​” where they say that they flirt with the idea of the erase button, 
the do-over and “can they change the future”. Reetae cuts this short and sarcastically say “wow, what a plan!” 
It’s an odd decision for Reetae to use this as an example of them “making it up as they went along”, because they 
were adamant on no alternate timelines this time and later. ​“We don’t use the phrase “alternate reality,” because 
to call one of them an “alternate reality” is to infer that one of them isn’t real, or one of them is real and the other is 
the alternate to being real.”​ Damon told ​Entertainment Weekly​ in 2010.43 They were interested in keeping this 
as a discussion topic, just like they played with the idea of “is Jacob the good guy or the bad guy?” and there’s 
nothing about that (or the contents of the podcast) that suggest they didn’t plan it. There’s a lot of season 5 that 
certainly wasn’t thought out at the time of that podcast airing. For instance, how they had to cut out stories due 
to the writer’s strike. But it’s not wrong for them to play with these ideas. They also said it’s not going to be “all 
in their head”, but they still play with the idea in “​Dave​”.  
 
Reetae ends by saying that the last season was not bad because of a fluke, or loss of creativity or anything like 
that, but because the executive producers didn’t have a long term plan.  
 
“And without a plan they had to conclude a never-ending stream of loose threads and unanswered 
mysteries, on the fly, in a limited number of episodes, in a way that would make it seem as if the 
show had a plan all along. Season six is bad because it had to be bad. There is nothing else it could’ve 
been but bad” 
 
Season six is bad because that is Reetae’s opinion. It is not due to an objective fact from the writers’ room.   
 
“But the producers didn’t have those missing pieces, because they hadn’t come up with them when 
they first created this puzzle. And so what they did is, they reverse-engineered entire new pieces to 
complete the puzzle. And the pieces they invented didn’t really fit, but they crammed them in 
anyway, cause they had to complete this puzzle (or story) and that meant contorting and twisting 
and stretching these characters to the point that at the end, they are barely recognizable ” 

43
https://ew.com/article/2010/02/02/lost-premiere-damon-carlton/
 
Like I said earlier, Tolkien didn’t come up with the puzzle pieces himself and he did just fine. It’s not an 
objective fact that you need all puzzle pieces from the Pilot. I will once again refer to chapter 1-5 on this one. 
New puzzles came, but it’s a surprising amount of old pieces that were dusted off and put in place. As soon as 
the mini camp in 2005 was over and they had all the mythological landmarks, you can tell that there’s a lot of 
pieces that surprisingly fit. Maybe not to Reetae, and that is fine, but like I’ve proven in these six parts. He 
didn’t pay attention to the show.