LOST Reaction: "The Substitute"

Island Timeline (present day)

The episode featured Smokeylocke and Sawyer (and Richard, kind of). An intriguing Smokey-eye-view shot through the jungle opened up the episode. We see (or rather, are) Smokey chattering and clanking through the jungle, pausing outside a Dharma house to listen to some music coming from inside (which turns out to be Sawyer), and zooms back into the jungle to find a machete. He then presumably turns back into Fake Locke (which Ilana later says he's trapped being; he can't change the people he's imitating again) and cuts Richard down from a tree. He tries to recruit Richard for some unknown purpose, and Richard wisely refuses and is clearly freaked out by Smokeylocke.

While Smokeylocke is out and about (this also happens with Sawyer later), he sees a small blonde boy. He chases him later and the boy tells him "you know you can't" or "you're not supposed to kill him." I can't remember which. Smokeylocke was visibly freaked out.

Smokeylocke then successfully recruits Sawyer, taking him to a mysterious hole in a cliff. This is where the big questions came from. There was scale right inside the entrance with two rocks on it , one black and one white. Smokeylocke threw the white one into the sea, calling it an "inside joke." He is relishing in his supposed victory quite disgustingly. Then comes the big one.

Smokeylocke shows Sawyer a cave with names scribbled all over it. This is the origin of the mysterious "lists" from previous seasons. And there's a few names we recognize.

Jarrah, Reyes, Ford, Shepherd, Kwon, and Locke. Each corresponded with 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 or 42.

Kate was noticeably absent from this list, even though Jacob interacted with her before the Island.

No mention of the Temple folk this week. Instead, we have the beach folk (Ajira flight). Ilana, Ben, Lapidus, Sun, and a few others decide to go to the Temple where "it's safe." Sun insists on burying the real Locke, which they do, next to the other people who have died on the Island (Boone, Shannon, Eko, Ana-Lucia, etc.). Ben delivers a possibly heartfelt apology in which he reveals that he killed Locke. Lapidus says "This is the weirdest d@#$ funeral I've ever been to." Truer words were never spoken, Lapidus. He's becoming the new Hurley in terms of comic relief.

LA Timeline (2004)

This was a Locke-centric, so we got to see Locke back at his old job, which he gets fired from for lying about attending a conference in Sydney. We also discover that, much like the other 2004 timeline, he tried to go on a walkabout, but was not allowed because of the wheelchair.

In happier news, Locke is engaged to Helen! It looks like he didn't get conned out of a kidney or any of that, so he didn't get weirdly obsessed with his punk dad.

Hurley is back and even more awesome. He is apparently so rich that he owns a temp agency, which he uses to help Locke get another job, and the box company that Locke got fired from. Lucky happy Hurley is much more enjoyable than sad and freaked-out Hurley.

Locke eventually lands a job (with the help of Rose, who runs Hurley's temp agency) as a substitute teacher, where he meets another teacher at the school, our dear friend Ben Linus.

Ben's back, and he's an obnoxious European History teacher. This should be good.

Reactor Reaction

Locke-centric episodes have ranged from illuminating to depressing. This was definitely on the illuminating side, a trend that I expect to continue for the entirety of the final season.

I thoroughly enjoyed the 2004 timeline, seeing that Locke didn't give up so easy this time around. Him being connected with Rose, Hurley, Jack and Ben should prove quite interesting as the story moves along.

As for the Island Timeline, seeing Richard that scared of something is a pretty big red flag that something's going down. My theory on Richard is that he's seen most of Smokey's tricks, and it appears that what Smokey-as-Locke is doing is new and terrifying.

My wife and I hypothesized that the names on the cave wall were for "candidates," a suspicion that was confirmed by Smokeylocke. We know we can't take his word for it, so the Jacob(s) of the Island must be protecting it from something. Another interesting idea we came up with is that Jacob is the goalie, keeping Smokey on the Island and away from the rest of the world. Smokeylocke keeps pushing to get off the Island, so we can only assume that something bad will happen, should that occur.

The candidates' names being associated with The Numbers is also very intriguing, and hints at just how long Jacob and Smokey have been at this game. If the Numbers were broadcasted 30 years before all this happened and Jacob had interacted with many of the Losties during that time, that could mean that Jacob was preparing for those seven for more than 30 years.

Trippy stuff.