(27) - Show Me the Way

First, an apology. Sorry for the late LOST post. I pulled a muscle in my shoulder on Wednesday and then our power went out yesterday. Back and running now. Let's get to another recap! First up, previous thoughts that had to do with "Lighthouse."

• Jack's relationship with his father as a driving point of the series
• BIG time. This episode was filled with Jack and his dad, as well as the newest Shephard, David
• Christian is on the side of LockeMonster
• Maybe I should have said, Christian IS LockeMonster. We couldn't really tell from this episode but I believe it was inferred when Claire was explaining to Jin how she knew Aaron was inside the Temple. "First my dad told me, and then my friend."
• Claire is the new Rousseau
• CHECK. So does this mean that Rousseau was infected? And her shipmates weren't infected? We saw in the time travel what happened to her shipmates, but this got me thinking maybe she was infected all along.

Now, let's get into the meat of this baby (skip to Point #4 to get a quick recap of the below).

1. Jack and his daddy issues. This plotline has gained a ton of steam throughout the series. My thought: Jack is now Jacob's #1 choice to take over the Island duties (since Locke is dead, and dead is dead, even on this Island). But until Jack can leave all of his daddy issues behind him, he cannot take the torch. Unlike Hurley, Jack cannot be told what to do -- he has to do it by himself, on his own terms. He has to realize that he "has what it takes." Jacob knows that Jack has it, but he just has to find it out for himself.

When Jack was young his father Christian told him that he didn't have what it takes. Throughout the series we have seen Jack try and protect the survivors from everything, and every time he failed. Every decision he made was increasingly worse until he completely lost himself in his "hero" complex. His ex-wife said it best: "You will always need something to fix." Jack needs to fix himself now. He told Hurley himself that he was broken, and he stupidly thought this Island could fix it. Well Jack, you're wrong. While the Island can help you fix yourself, YOU have to do the legwork. YOU have to make it work. And this is what Jacob is waiting for, or at least hoping for.

In the alternate world, Jack is a father, but he still has the same daddy issues we know and love (hate?) from the current world. Try as he might, Jack cannot seem to connect with his son David. David just wants to get through each of their visitations. They only connect after Jack tracks David down and finds him at an audition for a spot in a music school. Jack believed David had given up playing the piano and long time ago. For his audition David chose to play Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu #4 in C Sharp Minor. Interesting choice; we heard Daniel Faraday practicing this same piece as a young boy when his mother told him he had to stop. Speaking with David outside of the school, we find that David never wanted his father to see him fail. After explaining to him that he will always love his son and that he can never fail in his eyes, they go back to the apartment to share pizza. This would NEVER happen with Christian and Jack. It shows that Jack has the ability to change and accept his failures from before and put those behind him. He failed at being a father, and has now owned up to that failure, and is ready to move on to a new future with David. 

2. Claire and her search for Aaron, takeover for Rousseau and her search for Alex. So the darkness over took her, as the darkness is currently claiming Sayid. She seems off her rocker, and when it comes to her baby, she'll believe anything. So she followed her father (Christian) off into the jungle leaving Aaron behind. We next see her in Jacob's cabin with Christian, telling John that everything is fine. And then she's gone (save her popping up in Kate's dream). In the three years since we saw her, apparently she became crazy. Baby crazy. She wants her boy back, and will do anything to do so. Kill Kate, oh she'll do it. Kill the others, been doing it (see: axe). She explains to Jin that she knows Aaron is with the others because both her dad told her and then her friend. Who's her friend you ask? None other then LockeMonster. This statement leads me to believe that LockeMonster was occupying Christian's body looking for the loophole he needed to kill Jacob, only Christian's body wouldn't allow him the leverage he needed. When he could occupy Locke's body, this provided him with his loophole. This is when Claire stopped seeing her father and instead began seeing her friend, LockeMonster.

Claire must have been "claimed" when she first walked off with her father into the jungle. And now she's either blocked out her memory or is crazy, but she believes that the others were going to kill her, even though the other she captured was trying to tell her that she wasn't remembering it correctly. So what actually happened? Could Dogen and co. have saved her? Doubtful. Either way, she is clearly on the side of LockeMonster. That side is shaping up to be quite a doozy: LockeMonster, Sawyer, Claire and probably Sayid (although I still believe Sawyer is pulling a long con).

3. Who is coming to the Island? Jacob assigned Hurley with the task of making sure this person could find his way to the Island. Instead we found out that what Jacob wanted was for Jack to go apeshit and smash mirrors. From the top:

• Hurley/Jack needed to set the contraption at the top of the Lighthouse to 108 degrees.
• Like the cave LockeMonster brought Sawyer to, each number had a name associated with it with most of these names crossed out
• As Hurley is moving the dial to 108 degrees, Jack sees two images reflected in the mirrors. The first image looked like a building from Japan, and the second looked like the church where Sawyer's parent's funeral was
• Jack moves the dial to 23 degrees, aka his number, and sees the house he grew up in reflected in the mirrors, and proceeds to demand that Hurley summon Jacob here right now
• Of course he can't, and Jack smashes all four mirrors and goes to sit on the rocks and stare out at the ocean and think
• Jacob appears to Hurley and says he isn't worried, explaining that this person will find another way to the Island
• He further goes onto reveal (or we infer) that the reason Jack was needed on this mission was precisely because Jacob wanted him to smash the mirrors. Jacob needs Jack to get over his issues and get on with his life, just as his alternate world self has (also, Jacob apparently needed his candidates as far away from the Temple as possible)

So, who is coming to the Island? Well, number 108 on the wheel in the Lighthouse said the name "Wallace," but his name was also crossed off. Also, on the wheel we saw the name "Austen" with Kate's last name still not crossed out. Her number is 51; not one of the magic numbers, so what exactly does that mean?

My theory on the Lighthouse device? You turn the wheel to a number and it corresponds with a name, and reflected in the mirror is the exact moment when that person was "broken." Jack's was most likely when his father told him he didn't have what it takes. If that was Sawyer's church, then his moment would be when he wrote his letter to Mr. Sawyer telling him that he would find him one day.

4. Final thoughts! Almost done now!

Recap

• Jack needs to get over his daddy issues. He is Jacob's #1 man. Once he leaves his issues in the past, he will be truly ready to be a hero and save the Island and protect it.
• Claire is crazy and wants her baby back, and will do anything to do so. She appears to be on the side of LockeMonster.
• The Lighthouse shows the exact moment when a person was broken.

Other Thoughts

• Who is Jack's ex-wife in the alternate world? The easy answer is Sarah, his ex-wife in the current world, but I'm venturing a guess that it is either Juliet or Libby, with my money on the former.
• Who is coming to the Island? Is it one person (Wallace? Desmond? Widmore? Walt?)? Or is it a group of people, or more specifically, an alternate group of people? Could both timelines, the current and alternate, be merging?? I truly believe that both timelines will collide. How it will happen I'm still unsure of, but I'm going to guess that both Locke and Desmond are keys to making this happen.
• Thought I'm abandoming -- Sawyer will be the new Richard. I still believe he is pulling a Long Con and Jacob will offer him eternal youth, ala Richard. But now I believe Sawyer will decline.
• Adam and Eve in the cave is not Kate and Sawyer. Maybe Rose and Bernard? I'm stealing that idea, but I like it.
• LockeMonster speaks in truths. Jacob speaks in lies, riddles and puzzles, hiding the truth. Who is the good guy? My money is still on Jacob, and I'll go back to the season two finale for this one. Michael asks Ben on the docks, "Who are you people?" Ben's reply: "We're the good guys, Michael." Ben also spoke in lies and riddles, but ultimately proved to be a "good guy," even if he did straddle that line on more than one occasion. 

Predictions

• The good vs evil teams will be drawn in the next episode. We'll see who is with Jacob, and who is with LockeMonster.
• Expanding on a prediction from last week: the Island might not be a Higher Deity, but it could be the heart of life. If it dies, so does life as we know it. 

Until next week (or actually, three more days, gah)...LOST