Lost to air on Thursdays in 2010

ABC has announced it fall 2010 TV schedule, which places "Lost" at 8 p.m. on Thursdays. This may change, of course, and there's no word on when season 6 will debut.

Lost season 5 is over! Now what?

Well, it means it's time to start the Lost Season 6 Blog, naturally!

Bookmark or subscribe to it now, it's the place to go for developing news about next season and to stay up to date once season six begins. See you there!

Posts on the season 5 blog will be retained, so if you want to check what happened during the season, it's all still here.

Lost season 5 complete episode guide

Here's the complete episode guide for Lost Season 5:

* 5.1/5.2: "Because You Left" and "The Lie"
* 5.3: "Jughead"
*5.4: "The Little Prince"
* 5.5: "This Place is Death"
* 5.6: "316"
* 5.7: "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"
* 5.8: "LaFleur"
* 5.9: "Namaste"
* 5.10: "He's Our You"
* 5.11: "Whatever Happened Happened"
* 5. 12: "Dead is Dead"
* 5.13: "Some Like it Hoth"
* 5.14: "The Variable"
* 5.15: "Follow the Leader"
* 5/16/5.17: "The Incident" parts 1 and 2

Lost season 5 episode guide: episodes 5.16 and 5.17, " The Incident" pt. 1 and 2

Summary:

Way back in the past on the island, we see a man in a/the temple working on a loom. Later, we see him on the beach, at the foot of the giant statue, observing an old sailing ship (the Black Rock) approaching on the water.



Another man, dressed in black shows up and these two have a conversation. We learn that loom guy is Jacob. We don't learn the identity of the other person, who says the boat is coming to the island, just as others have in the past, and that they will corrupt the place and fight, just as everyone has in the past.

Jacob indicates this isn't so. That with each new group that arrives, progress occurs.

The mystery man says "do you have any idea how much I want to kill you?," adding that one day he'll find a "loop hole" that allows him to do so.

Later, through a series of flashbacks, we see that Jacob has visited all the characters we know at key moments in their pasts, including--most recently--Hurley, who he encourages to return to the island on the Ajira flight, also giving Hurley Charlie's guitar.

One flashback also shows Jacob visiting a woman in a hospital. Her face is vanished, but it's Ilana. She knows Jacob. He asks for her help and she agrees to help him.

Back in the 1970s, in the submarine, Kate tells Sawyer and Juliette what Jack is up to: The plans to use Jughead to blow up the Swan Hatch before it's ever built in hopes that this will change the future, ensuring the Oceanic Flight never takes place. Of course, a lot of other things will never happen, either--some of them good, such as Sawyer and Juliette's life together--will never happen if this is the case. The trio decides they need to go back and manage to escape their handcuffs and procure a gun, ordering the submarine captain to surface so they can take a raft back.

Thirty years in the future, Ilana and her gang are paddling a boat to the main island, too. Faraday is with them as a captive and there's a big box on board. Ilana and her buddies are crypic about what's up, but allow Faraday to see what's in the box. It's quite surprising to him, but we don't see.

Meanwhile, Locke is leading the Others to go confront Jacob. Ben has to be the one to kill Jacob, Locke says. Ben doesn't understand why. Locke points out that all sorts of bad things happened to Ben while he was ostensibly serving Jacob--he developed cancer, his daughter was killed. "Why wouldn't you want to kill him," Locke asks.



On the island, in the 1970s, Sayid and Jack manage to get the warhead and emerge in Dharmaville, where they're spotted and shot at. Miles, Hurley and Jin swing by to help them escape in the Dharma van but Sayid is badly wounded.

This group heads to the Swan construction site, but are intercepted by Kate, Sawyer and Juliette, who are back on the island. Sawyer demands a private meeting with Jack and tries to talk him out of exploding the bomb. Jack won't back down and they have a big fist fight. But it's to no avail, because Juliette shows up saying she's had a change of heart. Maybe this will change her future with Sawyer, but ultimately it's for the best.

Jack tries to go through the plan and the rest follow, providing him with gun cover against the defending Dharamites and Jack makes his way to drop the bomb down the drill hole.

The bomb goes down but there's no bang. But a few moments, all hell breaks loose anyway. The "incident" occurred without the bomb--would've occurred regardless. Everything metal starts getting sucked down the hole, including Juliette, who gets a big chain wrapped around her. Sawyer tries to save her, but can't. Dr. Chang--as predicted--badly injures an arm.



Back in the future, Richard opens a secret door at the bottom of the giant statue--all but one foot of which has disappeared in the intervening years. Locke and Ben go into see Jacob.

Outside, Richard talks with Sun in the Others' beach camp when who should show up but Ilana. Richard doesn't know her, but she quizzes him with the password: "What lies at the foot of the statue?" Richard answers in Latin (according to the consensus Lost fan boards translation): "He who will save us all."

Ilana then says she needs to show Richard what's in the big box. As we've started to suspect, it's Locke. Dead. Sun, I think, speaks for all of us when she says "so who is in there?" pointing to the statue.





Inside, Jacob steps out of the shadows and tells Ben "you don't have to do this, you have a choice." To "Lock," he says, "Well, I guess you found your loophole." Ben demands to know from Jacob why he's been treated so poorly, he's never been able to see or talk to Jacob, despite having provided him with "lists," etc. Jacob is indifferent toward Ben. Ben stabs him and "Locke" kicks Jacob into the fire, where he's set alight.

Meanwhile, back in the 1970s, it turns out Juliette survived her fall but she's in bad shape and trapped. Also, she landed right next to the warhead. Enraged, she grabs and rock and starts pounding it. Bang! Everything goes white. And, naturally, that is another season of "Lost."

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Rose and Bernard are still alive, in the 1970s, and live in jungle seclusion. They are very happy, thank you, and want nothing to do with all the drama.



Questions/observations/speculation:

* So what HAPPENS?!!! Criminy. We have to wait until 2010 to find out?!!!

* Will the explosion re-set everything? If so, will any of the characters remember what's occurred?

* Who was the guy talking to Jacob? His brother? Who/what are they and why are they on the island? Why does Jacob bring people there?

* In the Bible, the brother of Jacob is Esau.

The Bible depicts Esau as a hunter who prefers the outdoor life, qualities that distinguished him from his brother, who was a shy or simple man, depending on the translation of the Hebrew word "Tam" (which also means "relatively perfect man").[1] According to the Bible, Esau is the ancestor of the Edomites.[1] In the Book of Genesis, Esau is frequently shown being supplanted by his younger twin Jacob (Israel).

Genesis 25:19-25 narrates Esau's birth. He emerges from the womb with Jacob grasping his heel. He is described as follows: "Now the first came forth, red all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau."

In the Book of Jubilees (which is neither part of the Jewish nor most Christian canons), Esau's father, Isaac, compels Esau to swear not to attack or kill Jacob after Isaac has died. However, after the death of Isaac, the sons of Esau convince their father to lead them, and hired mercenaries, against Jacob in order to kill Jacob and his family and seize their wealth, (especially the portion of Isaac's wealth that Isaac had left to Jacob upon his death). In the ensuing battle, Jacob kills Esau with an arrow. The sons of Jacob then defeat the rest of the attackers despite overwhelming odds.

* Is Mystery Man the same guy that's been wandering around looking like Christian Shepherd?

* How did Mystery Man become Locke? Did it occur after Locke demanded a meeting a meeting with the Smoke Monster when he, Sun and Ben met up with Christian Shepherd? Did that meeting somehow enable Mystery Man to inhabit Locke's body and use it to launch his "let's go kill Jacob" plan?

* Will the real Locke return?

* Why couldn't Mystery Man just kill Jacob himself? He needed a loophole--somebody else to do it for him for some reason? Also, why didn't Jacob fight back?

* Mystery Man is dressed in black, which made me think of the smoke monster. Any relation? Also, Jacob is dressed in white. Should we made good guy/bad guy assumptions based on wardrobe?

* What is Jacob? A god of some sort? He can heal people. He made it so Richard doesn't age.

* Why did Jacob seemingly make it so the Oceanic survivors would arrive on the island?

* Jacob is shown--very blatantly--reading Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge."

In the story, human weaknesses are expose and important moral questions are explored through everyday situations. Critics view the story as a prime example of O’Connor’s literary skills and moral views. In the story an arrogant young man takes a fateful bus trip with his bigoted mother. The mother doesn’t like to ride the recently racially integrated bus alone. Their relationship shows tensions when a black mother and son enters the bus. Through irony, the blindness and ignorance of the characters are exposed. The title Everything That Rises Must Converge refers to an underlying religious message central to her work: aiming to expose the sinful nature of humanity that often goes unrecognized in the modern, secular world.



* According to one fan post, the Greek writing on Jacob's weaving is a passage from "The Odyssey" and reads: "may the gods grant thee all that thy heart desires."



* What is Ilana's history with the island and Jacob, and who are the people with her? Why was her face bandaged?

Previous episodes:

* 5.1/5.2: "Because You Left" and "The Lie"
* 5.3: "Jughead"
*5.4: "The Little Prince"
* 5.5: "This Place is Death"
* 5.6: "316"
* 5.7: "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"
* 5.8: "LaFleur"
* 5.9: "Namaste"
* 5.10: "He's Our You"
* 5.11: "Whatever Happened Happened"
* 5. 12: "Dead is Dead"
* 5.13: "Some Like it Hoth"
* 5.14: "The Variable"
* 5.15: "Follow the Leader"

Watch the Lost season finale tonight!

See a preview here and read spoilers here! Then, come back here in the morning for a full roundup of what happened!

Lost season 5 finale "The Incident" preview May 13, 2009

Lost season 5 episode guide: episode 5.15 "Follow the Leader"

Summary:

We see Locke, Ben and Sun wandering into the Others' beach camp. Richard is startled to see them, not having seen Locke in "three years."

Locke, on the other hand, is ultra confident. Apparently his meeting with the ghost(?) of Christian Shepherd has filled him with insights and he now has plan. A plan to do what, we're not sure. But part of it has to do with fixing, or at least manipulating, the jumbled time streams everyone is mixed up in.

At night, Locke bring Richard and Ben into the jungle. He takes them to the site of the crashed drug plane, the site where we previously saw Richard tell him that he would need to bring his friends back to the island and to do that he would need to die, but--in this time frame-- this hasn't happened yet. It's about to. Whereas the last time we saw this encounter, Locke had flashed into the future, we're now seeing it in "real time."

Sure enough, past-Locke stumbles out of the jungle and sits down against the plane wreckage. Watching from the jungle nearby, present-Locke tells Richard to go to past-Locke and tell him everything we saw Richard tell him when we see this meeting previously. Very weird.

Back at the beach, present-day Locke then tells Richard he wants to go see Jacob. Now. And he's bringing all the Others with him. He addresses the entire group, saying "you've all been following a man called Jacob, but none of you has seen him. I think you should." Privately, Richard tells Ben that maybe handing over leadership of the Others to Locke wasn't such a great idea. Locke is a troublemaker. But, sure enough, the entire group goes trudging off to see Jacob. As they walk, Ben fishes for information about Locke's plans and Locke tells him that he's not going to "see" Jacob, he's going to "kill him." Ben's is pretty freaked out about this.



Meanwhile, 30 years previously, Jack and Kate are captured by the Others. Ellie has killed Faraday, and discovers that he was, indeed, her son--visiting from the future. And she recalls her previous meeting with Faraday, back in the 50s, when he instructed the Others to bury the hydrogen bomb that had been left on the island by the military.



Now Jack tells her about Faraday's scheme to detonate the bomb, thus destroying the Swan Hatch and negating the history of everything we've seen on the show, starting with the Oceanic Crash. If there's no button in the Hatch for Desmond to not push, the crash will never happen.

Kate thinks this idea is crazy, not to mention, in a round-about way, suicidal. Jack, who's becoming more Locke-like by the minute, say it's their "destiny."

Ellie goes along with the idea. Mainly, because it means blowing up the Dharma Initiative and she leads Jack, Kate, Richard (yes, he's present back in the 50s and 30 years later not looking a day older) and a few assorted Others into the jungle. They will go to tunnels that are part of the mysterious temple under the island, where the bomb has been hidden.

Before the party reaches the temple, however, Kate says she's having none of it and starts walking back to the Dharma settlement. The unidentified Others accompanying the party tries to stop her, but are shot dead by Sayid, who pops out of the bushes at just the right time. So, Kate leaves, and Sayid joins Jack. He agrees that the future must be changed if possible.



Back in Dharmaville, Sawyer and Juliette have been found out and are being roughly interrogated by Radzinski and security guy Phil, who believe the Initiative has been infiltrated by "hostiles." In the midst of this, however, in busts Dr. Chang--who earlier encounted Miles, Jin and Hurley just as they were sneaking off to the beach to avoid getting busted like Sawyer and who told Chang that, yes indeed, they were from the future and that something very bad is going to happen with the Hatch. Chang tells Horace, Radzinsky and Phil to knock it off, they need to get all the women and children into the sub and off the island.

Sawyer says if he and Juliette are allowed to go on the sub, too, he will tell Radzinsky whatever he wants to know. Radzinsky asks Sawyer to draw a map to where the hostiles are camped out, which Sawyer does.



No sooner are Sawyer and Juliette on the sub, however, when the Dharma guards throw Kate onboard, too. She's emerged from the jungle at just the right time.

Questions/observations/speculation:

* What in the H, E, double-L is Locke up to?

* The meeting between Richard and Locke occurs just as we saw it before, Locke didn't alter the script though he could have. Why not? Was he merely assuring that it DID happen?

* Locke says to Ben, "you've never seen Jacob, have you?" and Ben admits this is true. So does Jacob really exist? It seems like he must. After all WE'VE seen him. But the question remains: who/what is he?

* Locke says "the island told" him that the meeting between past Locke and Richard was about to take place? Is the island speaking via Christian Shepherd? And does this mean that Christian isn't Jacob?

* Is Locke doing all this as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy? Afterall, his leadership of the Others all seems based on his time-skipping encounters with Richard. Back in the 50s, he informed Richard that he was the Others' leader. Because he was made their leader in the future. It seems as if Lock inadvertantly set himself up to become the Others leader. In fact, it could be argued that many of Locke's decisions, knowingly or not, have affected everything that's happened on the island.

* Carrying on with the self-fulfilling prophecy notion, we again ask: Is Locke Jacob? The fleeting glimpse we saw of Jacob last season looked a lot like an older Locke.

* If Locke is Jacob how can he kill Jacob? By not becoming him? Is he trying to make it so Jacob never became an authority figure over the Others? Or is Jacob someone else, and Locke wants to kill him so he can become Jacob himself? It's vexing.

* If Locke is Jacob, then isn't he the one who told Ben to move the island? Does he want to "kill" Jacob so this doesn't happen?

* Ben describes Richard to Sun as a "sort of advisor" to the Others who has done that job for "a long, long time." But who the heck is Richard, really? Why does he let other people lead the Others instead of assuming leadership himself, since he seems to know so much? And why doesn't he age?

* What will happen with the bomb and the Hatch and everyone living is the island's past? I have one prediction: Dr. Chang is gonna come out of the whole thing short an arm.

* We see Charlotte and Miles, as children, leaving the island. It seems like this explains why they left and didn't return until they were adults.

* Richard is shown building a ship-in-a-bottle. Is it the Black Rock? Was ageless Richard aboard that ship?



Also see:

See a preview for next week's season finale: "The Incident."

Read spoilers for "The Incident."

What we STILL don't know.

Previous episodes:

* 5.1/5.2: "Because You Left" and "The Lie"
* 5.3: "Jughead"
*5.4: "The Little Prince"
* 5.5: "This Place is Death"
* 5.6: "316"
* 5.7: "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"
* 5.8: "LaFleur"
* 5.9: "Namaste"
* 5.10: "He's Our You"
* 5.11: "Whatever Happened Happened"
* 5. 12: "Dead is Dead"
* 5.13: "Some Like it Hoth"
* 5.14: "The Variable"

Watch Lost tonight!

See a preview for tonight's episode and read spoilers here! Then, come back here tomorrow for a full roundup of what happened!