Lost, Season 5, Episodes 16 & 17
The Incident, Parts 1 & 2

The whole black/white theme of the show introduces us to Jacob, and Not-Jacob. Jacob, wearing white, and Not-Jacob wearing dark. The backgammon pieces were white and dark. The stones found in the hands of the Adam & Eve bodies found in the caves in Season 1 were black and white. Black and white represents the yin/yang...the dark side and the light side. Day and night. Good and evil.

Jacob: Jacob is some kind of demigod, it would seem. He's been in the "shadow of the statue" for hundreds (thousands?) of years, weaving his Egyptian and Greek tapestry on a loom. And he wears white. He seems peaceful. And yet he is only half of the Lost puzzle. He appears to some of our Losties off-Island at some point in their lives, either pre- or post-crash. He has an opposite, however. The other half wears dark. We'll call him...

Not-Jacob: Jacob's nemesis....opposite. Seems geared more towards the chaos side of things. Also seems to have appeared to some of our Losties through the years. Touching each of these people marked them, but also apparently protected them from harm until they were able to get to the Island to become part of Not-Jacob's plan. (NOTE: Lots of Lost message boards are referring to this character as Esau, who was Jacob's twin-brother in the Bible mythology, with Esau actually being the first of the two born. For all intents and purposes in the Christian religion, God chose Jacob over Esau, despite Jacob's deception of his father, Isaac, who blessed Jacob as the first-born, which granted certain birth-rites. Esau pretty much hated Jacob from that point on.) He also appears to be some kind of demigod.

Locke: Seems to have died twice, now. First, when he was pushed from the window in the hotel by his father (Anthony Cooper, who was also the con-man that swindled the money from Sawyer's parent's) that led to his falling and breaking his back, and second was by Ben strangling him in the hotel. When he was pushed out of the hotel window originally, Locke appeared to be killed in the fall, but Jacob (Not-Jacob?), wearing gray clothes, so not light and not dark and sitting nearby reading Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor, touched his motionless body and Locke took a deep breath in. Told by Not-Jacob "I'm sorry this is happening to you", Locke is alive, but damaged. And this will fuel the desire to find his destiny. However, the resurrected Locke, or Not-Locke, has been a different being since arriving on Ajira 316. And we learn that this change is because it is (likely) the Not-Jacob entity that has taken over Locke's dead body (dumped out of the crate by Ilana and her team), and has been manipulating all of these characters the whole time.

Ben: What a whiner! "Jacob didn't want to see me" wah wah wah. However, it's this whining that Not-Locke capitalizes on and tells Ben that it is Ben, not Locke, who is going to kill Jacob. Forced to admit to Locke that originally in the cabin, Ben lied and acted like he was talking to Jacob when in fact he wasn't because he was embarrassed to have never seen Jacob. Also, important to note, I think, Ben's reference to Moses when talking to Jacob. He says that Jacob never showed himself to Ben, but as soon as Locke comes and asks, Jacob lets him in like Moses (Moses being one of the few humans to have seen God in the Bible...or at least was able to communicate directly with God). Ben is jealous that Jacob never wanted to see Ben. When Ben asks, "What about me?” Jacob replies, "What about you?". Ben kills Jacob. He kills what he covets.

Richard: How Richard plays out is still a mystery, but he is questioning Not-Locke's motives, though it's unclear if he's aware that the Locke he's seeing is Not-Locke. Also, it's interesting that Richard is sought-out by Ilana and her team to show him Locke's dead body and to alert him that the Locke he's seeing is a deception. It's also interesting that Richard is normally seen wearing black/dark clothes. Maybe he's the omnipotent referee in this galactic game.

Jack: Touched by Jacob wearing dark clothes (Not-Jacob?) after the surgery in which he sliced that woman's dural sac (of which he told Kate about when they first met after the crash). Jack hopes for redemption by re-setting everything with the bomb, after admitting that he regrets not being able to keep the relationship with Kate together. Sawyer tells him to go get her, but Jack says it's too late for that. Jack has become gun-happy since returning to the Island, getting involved in another shoot-out, this time with Dharma Initiative folks while taking Sayid to the Swan Station site with the bomb-core. And then another shoot-out at the Swan site when they arrive to detonate the bomb.

Kate: Young Kate steals a lunchbox while playing with her friend Tom (who played with the toy airplane that was so part of her life the first couple of seasons), but is busted by the shop manager. Jacob appears and tells the manager he'll pay for it. This Jacob was wearing light clothes, not dark, so was it good or bad Jacob? Regardless, he touches Kate and she lies and say's shell never steal again. On the Island, she does not want Jack to detonate the bomb core, but eventually goes along with his plan, especially after Juliet gets on board with the idea.

Sayid: Shot by Roger Linus, he is dying slowly as Jack gets him to the Swan Station with the bomb core. He rigs it to explode on impact once it's dropped down the Swan Station drilling shaft. In flashback mode, we see Sayid and Nadia at the street crossing where she is hit by the car that killed her. It was Jacob (dressed in dark, Not-Jacob?) who distracted Sayid long enough for Nadia to begin crossing and getting hit. Saddest moment in Lost history was her death, telling Sayid to take her body 'home' (to Iraq). Poor Sayid, he also has the second saddest moment in Lost history when Shannon was shot and killed by Anna Lucia.

Sawyer: Gets off the sub with Juliet and Kate (with some force, of course) and returns to the Island, finding Rose and Bernard (and Vincent!) on their way back to stop Jack. In a one-on-one with Jack, Sawyer confesses to just wanting to stay on the Island and not bother going back to the mainland. Tells Jack how his folks were taken in by a con-man and he witnessed the death of his parents. He tells Jack he could've left the Island on the sub and gone back and killed the con-man before he killed Sawyer's parents. But didn't because "What's done is done", he says. Then they start punching each other. Later, he rides to the Swan Station and provides cover for Jack to drop the bomb down the shaft.

Juliet: So sad that ultimately she becomes another sacrifice to the Island. Wrapped up by chains being pulled into the shaft at the Swan Station, she is pulled in, but manages to grab Sawyer's hand for a few moments, telling him she loved him before letting go and plummeting down the shaft. Surviving the fall, but terribly wounded, she uses a rock to set off the detonator Sayid fashioned for the bomb. Previously in the episode, we see Juliet as a child with her sister Rachel being told by their parents that they were separating. Letting go of Sawyer on the Island shows how that moment in her life impacted her decision to die, as she decides she'd rather die than face the thought of losing Sawyer (to Kate). Sawyer loves her, but she would rather have Jack re-set everything, saying "If I never met you, I'll never have to lose you."

Pierre Chang: Uses rational thinking to try to stop the drilling at the Swan Station. Believing Miles' and Daniel's story, he wants the drilling stopped to prevent the Incident. Radzinsky (pretty much Chang's opposite...light vs dark) will not hear of it, and continues the drilling. When the electromagnetic (EM) force is released, all of the metal objects near the shaft begin to be sucked in, and Chang's left arm is pinned and heavily injured.

Radzinsky: Has been working on the Swan Station for 6 years, and wants the drilling of the electromagnetic force, but it's his arrogance that leads to the whole Incident when the EM force is released. Radzinsky, it should be noted, is always dressed in dark.

Ilana: Who is she working for? She sets off to find Richard Alpert (Ricardos, as she called him), because it was him that her and her team (including Bram) need to show Locke's dead body to. Maybe Jacob, the good one, was also visiting people? Ilana did get a visit from Jacob (who was wearing black...Not-Jacob?) while she was in some hospital, with her face bandaged, as though from a burn or something. She agrees to help this Jacob, but he does not say what kind of help is needed. On the Island, she goes into the cabin they thought was Jacob's, but it's burned on the inside (there's a painting of a dog in the corner), and finds nothing except a piece of cloth. She says "He has not been here in a long time, but someone else has been using it." She shows Bram the piece of cloth, which is a corner of a hand-woven tapestry with the image of an Egyptian statue on it...a statue with a human body with the head of crocodile. They head to the remains of the statue.

Sun and Jin: In flashback, we see their wedding, and we see Jacob (Not-Jacob, dressed in black?) give them his blessing in the reception line (very good Korean, Not-Jacob). He touches them both. Tells them to never take for granted the love they share. They don't know who he is, but boy what an effect he ends up having on their lives.

Hurley: In flashback, he shares a cab with Jacob/Not-Jacob (dressed in black) when he leaves the sanitarium. "I'm definitely not dead," he says to Hurley. Jacob tells Hurley that he is not crazy. Also leaves the guitar case in the taxi when he gets out...the guitar case that we see Hurley carrying with him on the Ajira flight (whose departure information was provided by Jacob) and on the Island. What we don't see is what Jacob told Hurley to get him to go back to the Island. Whatever it is he told him, it's got something to do with the guitar case.

Rose and Bernard (and Vincent): Honestly, the two people who end up being the smartest of everyone in Lost so far ends up being Bernard and Rose. They've found their happy retirement home and have given up the whole "get them before they get us" mentality of Kate, Jack and everyone else. Forgotten for three years after being separated from their Lost-mates during the flaming-arrows retreat, they settled in the woods in a little cabin (a cabin that looked eerily like the burnt out shell of Jacob's cabin) with Vincent and scavenged Dharma food and caught what they needed to survive. They don't care that Jack has a bomb and he's threatening to use it. They just want to have tea and enjoy their time together. In the end, that's all that matters, Bernard tells them. Nice to see Vincent, too.

Other characters
Miles / Eloise / Christian / Bram / Frank Lapidus

Double Take
--Statue of human body with crocodile head is definitely not Anubis, as previously speculated, but Sobek, the Egyptian crocodile god. Some Egyptian creation stories have Sobek creating the world after coming out of the waters of chaos, but he eventually became more associated with the fertility of the Nile
--Jack getting an Apollo candy bar out of the candy machine in the hospital
--I had no problems with Phil being impaled by a long piece of rebar at the Swan Station as the Incident was unfolding. Bye bye Phil. You were a douche-bag for punching Juliet

Funny
--"It's always something with you people. We traveled back 30 years in time and you're still trying to find ways to shoot each other?" - Rose to Kate, Juliet and Sawyer
--"Don't worry dude. Everything will be fine when Jack changes the future...or the past...one of those," Hurley to the injured Sayid
--Sawyer referring to Juliet changing her mind about getting off the sub as "The Great Sub Escape"

Interesting
1. Not-Jacob to Jacob, referring to the sailing ship (the Black Rock, perhaps?), approximately 1800s: "We brought them here. You're still trying to prove me wrong. They come...fight...they destroy...they corrupt." To which Jacob replies: "They only fight once."
2. Not-Jacob telling Jacob that one day he'll find a loophole to kill Jacob
3. Locke to Ben: "Despite your loyal service to the Island, you got cancer. You had to watch your own daughter gunned down right in front of you. And your reward for those sacrifices? You were banished. And you did all this for a man you've never even met. Why the hell wouldn't you want to kill Jacob?" So, Locke (under Not-Jacob's guidance) gets Sawyer to kill his father (Cooper, the con-man who led to Sawyer's parents death), and gets Ben to kill Jacob
4. Charlie's DriveShaft ring found by Sun in Aaron's old crib
5. It was a long time coming...I refer to the Jack and Sawyer fight. Both of these guys can take a punch, eh? Or, since both were touched by Jacob/Not-Jacob, maybe they still can't die, so no matter how hard the smacked each other, both would've survived anyway
6. The circle of dark sand was broken around the cabin where Jacob/Not-Jacob was being held
7. Lost episodes usually end with the black screen, and word LOST in white. But this episode ended with a white screen and black lettering of LOST. Is this a subtle sign that previously things were being run/controlled by Not-Jacob and the times were dark, but next season will be dominated by good? Am I spending too much time on this??

Questions Answered
1. Pierre Chang's left arm is crushed/injured by metal being sucked into the shaft at the Swan Station construction site
2. The Incident is the release of the EM force during the drilling at the Swan Station construction site, or it occurs because of the bomb, but it's here that it occurs
3. The answer to "what lies in the shadow of the statue?" is, "he who will protect us", but Richard said it in Latin ("Ille qui nos omnes servabit")
4. Jacob's lists had the names of the people that he had been recruiting for the upcoming...war?

Questions
1. What was the loophole Not-Jacob found in order to kill Jacob? Maybe it is that Not-Jacob can't kill Jacob, and must find another way to do it, in this case, using Ben
2. So, ultimately, it seems that the people brought to the Island are just game pieces for an eternal war of good vs evil with the two entities, Jacob and Not-Jacob, being the game players. Humans are just the game pieces, like pieces in a backgammon game, with one set light, and one set dark. Or chess pieces. Some have to be sacrificed to achieve victory. But what is the victory? And what are the gods/entities playing this game? Are they Egyptian gods?
3. What is in the guitar case that Hurley is carrying around that he got from the cab ride with Jacob?
4. The screen explodes in white with the detonation of the bomb-core...what does the explosion cause? Jacob, as he lay dying from being stabbed by Ben, said "They're coming...they're coming". Who are 'they'? If the bomb re-sets the time-loop, then it's likely 'they' would be Kate, Jack, Hurley, Jin, Miles, Sawyer (Juliet?) returning to the 2007 timeline. They may be the ones who will stand up to Not-Locke/Not-Jacob. Maybe.
5. How will Lost finish up? What will be the final scene? The end of the war, but since everything repeats, will we see another plane crashing on the Island with all new players as the cycle begins again?
6. Who is Widmore fighting for? Who is Eloise fighting for? Who are the Dharma Initiative fighting for?
7. Who broke the circle of sand at the cabin that let Jacob/Not-Jacob out of the cabin, which may have been a prison of sorts? The circle was likely some mystical force designed to hold the entity inside this cabin, but who would have opened up the circle, allowing Jacob to get out? And who had been living there instead (Rose & Bernard, perhaps?)
8. Where is Claire? Was she ever visited by one of the Jacobs?
9. With the black/white theme still in my head, I can't help but now wonder if the bodies dubbed Adam and Eve by Jack are the bodies of Rose and Bernard, who would also be black/white?
10. What destroyed the statue?
11. What is the SMonster's role in all of this? In Roman and Greek mythology, Cerberus was a three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades to prevent any souls that were brought there from escaping, similar to the way the SMonster guards the Island. Does SMonster serve a role like this, protecting the Island and deciding who lives/dies? Remember: Locke has stared into the SMonster, and it let him go, and also Sayid. Why? It killed Eko and was called by Ben to attack Keamy's men. So what is it? Who does it fight for?
12. We still haven't been introduced to Alvar Hanso, so is he involved in this somehow?
13. Was it Jacob or Not-Jacob that has been using Christian Shephard's body? The reasons would be far different for each one, so it would seem important to know who has been appearing as Christian.
14. "If that's Locke, who's in there?" asks Sun when she's sees Locke's dead body after having seen Locke go into the statue base. Good question, Sun, good question.

I'm going to once again reference the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Cause and Effect, because I think this is still a similar theme, with the Island being caught in some kind of time-loop. The more times you go through the loop, the more memory you have of the previous experiences eventually allowing you full knowledge of how to escape the loop. In the Lost scenario, I think they've done all of this before, a couple of times, perhaps. However, the first time through, for instance, Desmond was on the Island, and forgot to push the button, but there was no Oceanic 815 to bring down, and the result of the huge EM release caused the Island, and time itself, to go back to the start. So, the whole process begins again, but the next time through, let's say, Not-Jacob knows to get the Oceanic Flight involved, and this time when Desmond forgets to push the button, the EM release down Oceanic 815, and the time loop continues but this time, with our Losties involved in the story. It's taken a long time to get all the pieces in play, which is why Not-Locke said to Jacob, "You have no idea what I've gone through to be here."

Well, that's it gang. At least until January/February 2010. Good news! There are only approximately 255 more days until the final season of Lost begins! (I wish I could turn the Island-Wheel and jump forward to start watching it now...)

Feel free to share your views, theories, money....remember: it's good vs evil. Muahhahhahahahaha!

Have a great summer.