He Who Is Called Jacob

In The Incident, Parts 1 & 2, we finally met the mysterious man previously only glimpsed. And what a surprise that he’s a blond weaver who makes his own threads. But as the episode ended and as I thought about the events that occurred, I have come to see that he is not just a weaver of cloth, but a weaver of…well, events perhaps? Lives? I was also struck with how benign and gentle a being he actually seems to be, one who believes in free will and progress. Throughout the seasons we have noticed how manipulative those in leadership can be, best epitomized in Ben, who remains dejected and depressed now that he is no longer on top. But perhaps Jacob is not as straightforward as I perceive, if he indeed manipulated Ben into killing him.

One pleasant surprise for me was the presence of Jacob in the lives of the surviving Oceanic 815 castaways (or as Rose said, “you people”). These people have been marked, some for decades, by the touch of Jacob. And they were touched, all of them, some only briefly. And all of them at a pivotal point in their lives (more or less).

First, the young Kate enters a convenience store with her toy airplane-toting childhood sweetheart, with the intent to steal a “New Kids on the Block” lunchbox. (Are there any readers who sympathized with Kate’s choice?). The clerk catches them, and threatens to call their parents, but a stranger approaches, pays for the box, and gives it to Kate (the box will be seen again in Season 1’s Born to Run). Touching that pert little nose, he makes Kate promise to never steal again. (That clearly didn’t take).

Jacob met James Ford the day the boy’s parents were buried. Jimmy is on the church steps, trying to write a letter to the con-man whose scheme eventually led to the murder/suicide, when his pen runs out of ink. Jacob gives Jimmy a pen (grazing the boy’s hand), saying how sorry he is about his parents. Although Jimmy promises his uncle he’ll not finish the letter, we know he breaks the promise. (As a total aside, the Ford family was living in Jasper, Alabama, just before their deaths. I had occasion to live in Jasper, and I can tell you that none of the churches looked like the one we saw. I’m just saying.)

The next flashback, as I mentioned previously, was the most heartbreaking of all. Sayid and Nadia were discussing how to celebrate their first anniversary. Silly woman can’t find her sunglasses. They are crossing the street when Jacob, briefly touching Sayid on the shoulder, asks for directions. Ever polite, Sayid tries to help. Nadia continues walking across the intersection, digging around for her sunglasses. When she finds them, still unaware of her surroundings, she turns around triumphantly to show them to Sayid. Sayid then watched in horror as Nadia gets struck by the car. Did Jacob save Sayid from death or distract Sayid so that Nadia would be killed?

Locke is not left out. The day that Locke is pushed out the window by his father to plummet eight stories down, Jacob is reading a book, “Everything that Rises Must Converge”, apparently waiting for the fall. When it comes, Jacob rushes over to an apparently dead John, but upon Jacob’s touch, John gasps and opens his eyes, confused and in pain. Was John dead? Did Jacob save John’s life? Was the resurrection of John not in 2007 but in 2000? Jacob tells John, “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be alright.” Really, Jacob? Because I’m not so sure.

We finally get to see Sun and Jin in the same scene, but sadly it was only in flashback. Sun and Jin exchange wedding vows in front of their family and friends. Jacob walks through the receiving line afterward, touching both on the arms, and in excellent Korean (just ask Jin), tells them to cherish their time together.

Jack is having a bad hair day when he accidentally cuts the dural sac on a young girl while operating on her. He starts panicking, but his father tells him to count to five. Jack is angry, feeling embarrassed, since he believes the whole hospital thinks the only reason Jack got the internship was because of his father. Christian points out that the only one who doesn’t believe in Jack is Jack. At that point, Jacob calls out to Jack, “Is one of these yours?” rescuing Jack’s Apollo bar from the candy machine that hadn’t dispensed it.

Finally, the most touching scene. Hurley is distraught to be let out of prison, telling the officer that he killed three men, and, when that didn’t work, that men with tranquilizer guns were after him. However, the officer could not care less, and made Hurley leave the safety of the jail. There’s a cab waiting, with Jacob, of course, and what appears to be a guitar case. They ride together. And unlike every other time he was with an Oceanic castaway, he revealed something of himself, asking Hugo by name why he won’t return to the island. Jacob also tells Hurley that he’s not cursed and not crazy, but blessed to see those he loved who have died. He then tells Hugo about the Ajira flight, saying it is Hurley’s choice whether to go. Oh, and the guitar case wasn’t Jacob’s. (Is the guitar Charlie’s?)

We also saw Jacob with an Ajira castaway, Ilana. I got the impression that Ilana and Jacob were acquainted. After apologizing for not coming sooner, Jacob tells her that he needs her help, which she offers to give without hesitation. However, there was no touching in this scene.

As far as we know, Jacob never visited Juliet.

But the episode started out with a mystery, and it ended with a mystery. First the spinning and the weaving. Then the gutting of what appears to be a goldfish (are they even edible?) and its cooking. And the observation of a ship in the distance. If that ship isn’t the Black Rock, then I’m just going to be downright disappointed. (The Black Rock was lost at sea in 1845.)

Jacob is joined on the beach by a man who is never named, but for ease, I’m going to call him Esau. Dressed in black with salt-and-pepper hair, he looks on the ship with no pleasure, accusing Jacob of bringing the ship to the island. And it always ends the same when people come to the island, in corruption and destruction. Jacob looks at it differently, noting that the ending is all the same (which doesn’t sound so benign, now does it?) and everything that happens before it is progress.

Esau then turns to Jacob, saying, “Do you have any idea how much I want to kill you? I’m going to find a loophole, my friend.”

A number of things struck me while watching this scene. First, the much-discussed battle is not between Widmore and Ben, but between Jacob and Esau. And although Jacob clearly seems to be the good guy, we still have no idea who else is. Can we be confident that Richard is? Ilana and Bram? Or is Frank right to doubt their constant protestations that they’re the good guys (Ben kept telling Michael that – remember how that turned out?). Furthermore, we know little to nothing about the combatants. How long had they been on the island? Clearly they’re not immortal, since they apparently can be killed, so what are they? Why does Esau want to kill Jacob?

The second thing that struck me is that Widmore and Ben, among oh, so many others, are pawns in this game. Perhaps all the characters are. Jacob dangles choice before his pawns, whereas Esau apparently scares his to compliance with visions of their dead daughters.

I don’t know when it hit me that Ilana and Bram were carrying a dead body, and that the dead body had to be John’s, but I think it was around the time that Ilana showed up at the foot of the statue to talk Latin with Richard. As Locke’s body poured unceremoniously out of the box, the only conclusion was that Esau had somehow become John Locke. No wonder Richard had noticed something different about him. Locke wasn’t Locke, he was Not-Locke. He looked like Locke, he seemed to have Locke’s memories and habits, but he was Not-Locke.

We learned a little more about Jacob as Not-Locke made Richard lead the Others to Jacob. Ben never met Jacob. Instead, despite years of faithful service, all he got were notes, lists, cancer, and a dead daughter. Did any of the “leaders” meet Jacob? Or was Richard the only Other to have communication with him? Jacob was believed to have magical powers, in that he keeps Richard from aging and was believed to have resurrected John. Of course, if John was resurrected, it wasn’t in 2007 but in 2000, since it was Not-Locke that walked to Jacob in 2007.

In Jacob’s final scene, he did not seem surprised that Not-Locke and Ben came to him. Instead, he calmly looked at his ancient enemy, observing that he had finally found his loophole. He then turns to Ben, telling him he doesn’t have to do what Not-Locke told him to do; he has a choice. Ben explodes, and all his bitterness and disappointment about not being as special as Locke (he seems to not get that he’s with Not-Locke), ending with, “What about me?” Jacob coldly answers, “What about you?”

Now, it seems to me, if you’re dealing with a clearly disturbed man, who is spilling his guts about wanting to be important to you, you should at the very least pretend that he has been important to you all along. The neglect the person perceived was all because you knew he didn’t need you like the others did. This seems rational. (And didn’t Richard save Ben at Jacob’s orders? Why did he do that?)

But Jacob instead was dismissive and disdainful. Jacob had to have known what would happen next. For then Ben stabbed and stabbed and stabbed, with the same fervor with which he killed Keamy in the last Lost finale.

Jacob’s final words, before Not-Locke kicked him into the fire, was, “They’re coming.” And he seemingly was no more.

So, what’s the loophole? What are these rules? Are these the same rules that Ben referred to last year when he accused Widmore of breaking them? What kind of powers do these two “men” have? Why did Jacob touch all the Oceanic castaways?

June (hi June!) has some interesting theories about the touching. One is related to Harry Potter (which I’ve never read), and is the theory I like more. That theory says that Jacob touched each of the castaways, leaving a little of himself in each so that when they returned (a little hazy on that part) they could revive him. The other theory is that Jacob touched them so that when they returned to their lives on the plane, as Jack planned, their memories of all that transpired was intact. Thus, they could all return to the island of their own free will, as opposed to the result of Ben’s manipulations.

I also have questions about the allegiances of the smoke monster. Did the smoke monster not know that Locke was actually Not-Locke when it materialized into Alex and threatened Ben with destruction if he harmed Locke? How could the smoke monster know that Ben planned to kill Locke/Not-Locke, but not know that Locke was actually Not-Locke? Jane suggested (Hi Jane!) that the smoke monster might actually be Esau. Jane also noted that if Esau is a shapeshifter, perhaps it is he that kept showing up to the castaways – Mr. Eko’s brother, Kate’s horse. Perhaps Esau is also Christian?

And at last, why I chose the name “Esau” for Jacob’s nemesis. For that tale, we must turn to Genesis, which tells how Isaac and his Aramaean wife Rebekah had twin sons. She had a tough pregnancy because the children struggled inside her. She complained, but Yahweh told her that she had two nations in her womb that would be rivals, and that the elder would serve the younger.

First born was Esau, red and hairy, and Jacob, grasping his brother’s heel, was born next. Isaac preferred Esau, the hunter, while Rebekah preferred Jacob, a quiet man who stayed among the tents.

One day, when Esau had come home after a long day, he asked his brother for some of the soup Jacob had made. Jacob would not give him any until Esau sold his birthright to Jacob. Esau, as first born, was his father’s heir. Esau was so hungry that he sold his birthright to Jacob.

As Isaac lay ill, blind and ailing, he called Esau to him, and asked him to hunt game and make him a savory dish. Once Isaac ate, he would give Esau his blessing. Rebekah overheard and desired Isaac to give his blessing to Jacob. She called Jacob to her and sent him to the flocks to kill a pair of kid lambs so she could prepare the dish. She then dressed Jacob in Esau’s best clothes, and wrapped his arms in the skin of the kids so he would feel hairy. Jacob took the dish to his father. His father expressed surprise at how quickly Esau caught the game, and observed that Esau had Jacob’s voice. However, he felt the arms, and knowing Esau to be hairy, he gave Jacob Esau’s blessing. Esau returned just as Isaac finished. The only blessing that Isaac could give his favorite son was to serve Jacob. Esau hated Jacob for stealing his birthright and his blessing. Fearing for his safety, Rebekah sent Jacob to her brother, Laban.

Jacob spent many years with Laban, marrying both his daughters, and having many sons. However, Laban’s sons became jealous of Jacob’s prosperity, and Jacob had to return to his father’s land. He heard that his brother Esau was coming to greet him with over 400 men. He was terrified, but prepared to meet him in kind. However, Esau had forgotten their past differences, and the two brothers hugged and were like family. Esau left and settled the land of Edom, and Jacob settled the lands of his father. His last son, named Benjamin, was born there.

This is an exceedingly long post, and I am up later than I planned. And sadly, there is still so much unaddressed from the finale. I also want to acknowledge all the wonderful comments and suggestions that y'all have been sending my way, both in person and via e-mail. I've tried to credit you when I used or stole your theories. If I didn't, let me know. Also, let me know what you thought. I feel like I left so much about Jacob untouched.