LOSTBLOG: "The Incident"

Season 1 ended just as we were about to see what's in the hatch.

Season 2 ended with its destruction.

Season 3's finale teased us with the knowledge that some of the characters would, in fact, get off the island -- and it would ruin their lives.

And Season 4 finally gave us emotional payoff, and hope for the future.

But everything feels pretty darned hopeless now.

Locke is dead, and has been ever since Ben strangled him. Juliet is dead because she detonated the nuke. It would seem prudent to assume that Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Jin, Sayid, Hurley and Miles are all dead, too.

And now Jacob -- who we finally met tonight, and who seemed to be wise, benevolent and, yes, God-like -- is dead, killed by Benjamin Linus, who now becomes as tragic a figure as John Locke ever was.

Where do we go from here?

• • •

Man of faith

"Lost" has always had religious overtones, but tonight was its real coming-out party. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have said that Stephen King's "The Stand" is a huge influence on the show, and that never was more apparent than tonight.

The show's version of Randall Flagg showed up tonight in the episode's first scene in the form of Titus Welliver -- that's the actor's name, not the character's. (As far as I could tell, we never learned the name of Jacob's buddy in that first scene.) If "Man No. 2," as the ABC press release referred to him, is the Satan to Jacob's God, then we saw Satan cast God into the "lake of fire" in the room under the statue, after being stabbed by Ben "Judas" Linus. (OK, maybe that doesn't technically work, but I'm clutching at theological straws here.)

If Jacob lives in the statue, then was Man No. 2 in the cabin all this time, telling everyone he was Jacob? That would seem to make sense, since Jacob is apparently all about choice and free will, while the Jacob that Ben and Richard thought they knew handed down specific orders. Further, are Man No. 2 and Smokey one and the same? That also makes sense, as it was Smokey who told Ben to do whatever "John Locke" told him to do.

I have to admit that when I first saw Locke's body fall out of that cargo crate, I felt a little cheated -- you mean to say our friends have been manipulated this whole time by a character we had never even heard of? But perhaps he has been with us the whole time -- he is Smokey. He is Christian, Yemi, Harper, and Ghost Walt. Man No. 2 has been moving all these pieces in order to find "the loophole," as they both referred to it, that would allow him to kill Jacob.

And now he's done it.

• • •

Whatever happened, happened

In 2007, "Locke" and the Ajira survivors happen upon the Oceanic 815 camp. Sun finds the cradle that the real Locke built for Aaron, and Charlie's DriveShaft ring inside of it. Though Juliet succeeded in detonating Jughead in 1977 after Jack and Co. disappeared from Ajira 316, there remained evidence that Oceanic 815 did, in fact, crash. It would appear that Miles was right, and the bomb was the cause of the incident after all.

If whatever happened did happen, then it is safe to say that Jacob's flashbacks always happened, and did not only exist in a timeline created by the aversion of the 815 crash. We see little Kate promise Jacob she'll never steal again. We see little James promise his uncle(?) that he won't finish writing that letter. But they didn't listen, did they? That darned free will that Jacob kept bringing up got in the way.

Of course, that presents us with quite a dichotomy within the world the show has created. If we can all choose our destiny, then why can't we change whatever happened?

• • •

The long con

Unlike most of this show's naysayers, I absolutely, 100-percent believe that the far-reaching storyline of "Lost" has been planned since Season 2, and that a basic outline has existed since Season 1. Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof are playing us like a piano, and tonight revealed several whoppers.

Two years ago, we saw that Jack was devastated when he learned someone had died. Many people correctly guessed that person was John Locke, which was not confirmed until one year ago. In the year that followed, we saw Locke die and, presumably, come back to life -- only to learn tonight that, yes, John Locke has been dead this whole time.

Jacob himself was a long con in more than one way. More than two years after the fact, we learn that Ben's little show in the cabin in "The Man Behind the Curtain" was just that -- a show. Ben has never even seen Jacob. Then of course there's the revelation that whoever was in that cabin when Locke visited it was neither Jacob nor his surrogate.

Benjamin Linus and John Locke have been victims of the cruelest con of all. Benjamin's life has been miserable because of the island, and Locke wrongly thought the island was his salvation. And when Ben is finally given a moment of satisfaction -- his only friend in the world hands him the opportunity to kill his tormentor -- he is merely acting as a pawn on someone else's chess board.

There is another long con possible -- what if Faraday knew the only way the make things happen the way they were supposed to is if he convinced Jack he had to change it? Faraday was a strict proponent of the "whatever happened, happened" philosophy, but his little sojourn to Ann Arbor changes his mind. But that could have been another con on both Faraday's part and the writers' part.

• • •

Live together, die alone

And so Juliet does die alone, after one of the most devastating scenes of the series. Elizabeth Mitchell's performance in the final two acts of the episode is heartbreaking, first as she professes her love to Sawyer before plummeting down the well, and then when she detonates the bomb with what little strength she has left.

Juliet speaks Jack's famous catchphrase just before the showdown at the Swan site, and there must be meaning in that -- Sawyer, Jack, Kate and everyone else must survive in some way, whether it's in the past or, thanks to some burst of electromagnetic/temporal/magical energy, in 2007 with Sun, Ilana and whatever the heck's going to happen now that Jacob's dead.

• • •

Dead is dead

Ben said so himself, and it turned out to be true: John Locke is dead. So is this the end for Terry O'Quinn on "Lost," or will Man No. 2 (they really need to give this guy a proper name next season) retain Locke's form throughout Season 6? That would be cheesy, but it might be the only way they keep O'Quinn on the show ... unless Ben was wrong.

Then again, maybe they're all dead, just like Richard said. Will the battle for the island -- which one could say is Heaven, given the obvious God/Satan allegory at play -- continue in the afterlife for some of our friends? Will Miles and Hurley, with their abilities to talk to the dead, survive Jughead's blast and be the intermediaries between the Losties and whatever is left of the island?

• • •

White rabbit

"The Inicdent" ended, as all "Lost" episodes do, with the title of the show against an empty screen. But for the first time, the screen was white, and the lettering was black. This cannot simply be part of the shock of what happens in the final scene. It must be a somewhat subtle clue or signpost -- that power has shifted, most likely. But the black and white motif, which goes back to Locke's backgammon game with Walt way back in Season 1, would seem to suggest that Jacob now has the upper hand. After all, he wore white, and Man No. 2 wore black. Was Jacob's death all a part of the plan? Does the white screen signal that the forces for good finally have a chance?

• • •

The shape of things to come

I don't know what's going to happen next, and I don't think anyone could possibly make anything resembling a correct guess. That's why this season has been so wonderful -- nothing you or I could come up with would be equal to what actually happened. I read a lot of creative and interesting theories about what would happen in this finale, but nothing I read correctly predicted Jacob's true identity, purpose and backstory. The fact that it all works -- that it doesn't smack of the writers making it up as they go -- is a testament to its greatness.

These are going to be eight very long months. Something tells me I'm going to spend them watching all 103 episodes all over again.