Lost: Season 6 - Episode 4 "The Substitute" Airdate 2/16/10

"At some point in your life, probably when you were young, when you were miserable, vulnerable, he came to you, manipulated you, pulled your strings like you were a puppet; and as a result, choices that you thought you made were never really choices at all. He was pushing you, pushing you to the island."
- John Flocke


Oh, by the way, blackie the smoke monster is being called "Flocke" in almost all of the forums so I will adopt the name as well. The above quote is what Flocke tells Sawyer in Jacob's cave.



To access this cave, they had to first go down "Jacob's Ladder."



Jacob's Ladder... hmmmmm? I wonder if this is subtle reference to the Book of Genesis (28:11-19) in the bible? If we come to find out that Flocke's real name is Esau, then it very well could be. Jacob's ladder was a "ladder to Heaven" that appeared to Jacob in a dream as he was fleeing from Esau. In his dream, God speaks to Jacob and says:


"I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you."


And when Jacob woke up, he proclaimed the land the house of God and the gate of Heaven. Of course I may be digging way to deep as I sometimes do, but I chuckled when they had to go down Jacob's ladder to get to his abode.



Flocke picks up the white rock off the scale and tosses it out into the ocean leaving the black rock to tip the scale and says it's an "inside joke." I'm not sure what the joke is, unless he is saying that the white rock represented Jacob and since he "died" (I say that with quotes because if Flocke found a loop hole, perhaps Jacob knows of one as well and is not dead... but then again, what is death in this place?) he is no longer in his way.

Before we explore Jacob's cave and his "thing for numbers," let's back up a little and see if we can out the creepy kid.



Here the kid appears to either have a reeeeeeaaaaalllllyyyy bad case of poison ivy or he is bleeding from his arms. Is this supposed to represent the stigmata, or wounds of Christ?



He doesn't appear to be bleeding here...




... or here. The promos for the show keep saying, "The time for questions is over," but WHO THE HELL IS THIS KID? Is it Jacob reincarnated? Could it be Aaron who has aged at a fast pace because of the island? I think I'll name him Jaron for now. DON'T YOU TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO!!!!... oh, sorry... gotta a little caught up. Maybe we WILL see Ethan take Aaron in a future flash sideways. It could happen. And what's with "the rules?" Flocke can't kill Sawyer? I wonder if he'll try to talk him into killing himself... but then again, if that were the case, why would he have saved him when he was falling down Jacob's ladder? There's a great read on The Rules on Lostpedia.org.

Moving to the Flash Sideways since I mentioned it, Helen is alive and well and busy planning her wedding to John.



They are planning on getting married in October of 2004, but as we learned in Season 5, or will learn, she dies of a brain aneurysm in 2006. She is the one who believes in destiny and miracles whereas John doesn't in the flash sideways.

Even though Oceanic Flight 815 never crashed on the island, the real John Locke still manages to bump into Hugo...




Mr. Reyes owns the box company where Locke works, or worked. Locke is fired when his boss, Randy Nations finds out that he did not attend the conference in Sydney, but instead went on a walkabout.




Randy also fired Hugo from Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack in season 2, but Hurley ends up buying Mr. Clucks when he wins the lottery. I found a video that was shown at Comic Con last year. It's a commercial for Mr. Cluck's featuring Hugo:



Hugo also owns a temp agency where he sends Locke upon finding out that the "douche" Randy has fired him. There he crosses path's with Rose.



In the flash sideways, Rose still has terminal cancer since she never came to the island, but she "got past the denial and got on with living." She helps Locke find a job as a substitute teacher at a junior high school. It's there that he runs into "an old friend."



Benjamin Linus teaches European History, and looks different. Is it the hair?

Back on the island, that Ben Linus lies to Ilana when she asks if the pillar of smoke killed Jacob? I'm guessing he feared she would kill him if she knew that it was him that did it.

Flocke makes his way across the island as only a smoke monster can do and cuts Richard out of the, uh, what would you call that? A hammock trap?



Flocke apologizes for hitting him and carrying him into the jungle, but Richard looks extremely scared.



Some things are said by Flocke here that perked my ears:

1. "I would have never have done that to you. I would have never have kept you in the dark. I would have treated you with respect."

2. "Come with me and I promise I'll tell you everything."

3. When Richard tells him NO, Flocke's response is, "are you sure about that because people seldom get a second chance?"

4. "I'll be seeing you Richard, sooner than you think."

He was obviously trying to recruit Richard (as Ilana says he is doing), but why is Richard so scared of him? Is it just that Richard is enjoying the fountain of youth and doesn't want to die?



When Flocke enters Sawyers house (or the place where he lived for a little while), The Stooges "Search & Destroy" is playing very loudly on the record player. This is from the 1973 album titled "Raw Power." Not that it has any bearing, but Iggy Pop and the Stooges are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2010.

Flocke doesn't drink Sawyers whiskey; Sawyer doesn't "give a damn if your dead, or time traveling, or the ghost of Christmas past." Sawyer also knows that Flocke isn't Locke because "Locke was scared even when he was pretending he wasn't." And off they go to Jacob's cave so Flocke can answer the most important question in the world, "why are you on this island?" Well, first they have to get by Richard who tries to get Sawyer away from Flocke while he is chasing the creepy kid. Then comes a Steinbeck "Of Mice and Men" refrence; a trip down Jacob's ladder and we are just about where I was when I started this blog entry: the numbers (4,8,15,16,23,42).



So the numbers coincide with a person, or a candidate, huh?

4 - John Locke (Crossed off because he is dead)
8 - Hugo Reyes
15 - Ford, James (Sawyer)
16 - Sayid Jarrah
23 - Shephard, Jack
42 - Kwon (He doesn't know if it's Sun or Jin)

So where does Kate fit in to all of this? There seems to be a plan for everyone, and now James is left with 3 choices:

1. Do Nothing. See how it plays out.
2. Accept the job, become the new Jacob and protect the island from nothing.
3. We (Flocke and Sawyer) just go... Together.

Are you ready to go home? Hell yes I am. Let's end this show! How many episodes are left? 14? Let's get it on!

I think I touched on just about everything except maybe Ilana knowing about Jin. Sorry I am dragging with my blog. This is the week I get caught up as my work schedule gets back to normal tomorrow. I better run get ready for Episode 5 "Lighthouse." Thanks for reading and taking part.