The final season of Lost continues with last night’s intriguing episode, “The Substitute,” in which the dial is turned up just a tad on the mythology reveals.

And it was a Locke episode, which… well, by now you know of our love of the abilities of Terry O’Quinn, but it’s always good when what appears to be your show’s primary villain can get an episode all of his own.

And what a peak into the world of the Man In Black/Smoke Monster/”The Locke-Ness Monster” it was, this new semi-corporeal existence. Supposedly the only form he can take, other than smoke, is that of John Locke. In that case, who was that appearing as Alex to Ben last season in “Dead Is Dead?”

Regardless of that, the glimpses of the character were fascinating. Supposedly he was once human, knowing joy and fear and what it’s like to be betrayed. He’s been trapped so long that he doesn’t know what it’s like to be free anymore. And while he’s clearly manipulating anyone he can, tell what would appear to be at least partial truths, he wants to “go home,” to leave the Island. But where is home? And what does leaving the Island, and the needing of someone else to help him do it, entail exactly? Is it a genie in the lamp/djinn thing, in that he needs someone else to take his place?

And he clearly didn’t take just the appearance and memories and shroud of John Locke on, because he seems quite a bit like him. Maybe he’s not afraid, as Sawyer claims Locke always was (really, James Ford, was he always afraid?), but he certainly seems to be enjoying continuing playing the role of Locke, taking on his mannerisms and seemingly a little bit of his personality. And failings.

Meanwhile in the Sideways universe: How weird is it that a millionaire like Hurley can be on a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles with not just one, but two of his employees? Is it me or is this show all about WEIRD COINCIDENCES?

The Sideways universe still fascinates me because there we are, just looking for it’s reason for being, other than being neat, and while it’s not exactly revealing any big stories, it’s giving us the exact opposite. The small little human stories. John Locke, the man in the wheelchair with the douchebag boss. He’s about to woman to marry the woman he loves and seemingly still has a father in his life. He’s encountering all the echoes of another version of himself in another time and place, and he’s tired of being told what he can’t do. It’s time to start seeing what he can do.

I guess there’s another option besides farmer and hunter, huh? What’s the old joke… Those who can’t do, teach…

…like Ben Linus, European History teacher. Watching Ben’s progression in the Sideways universe will be fascinating and should answer a lot of nature vs. nurture questions we’ve been gathering up.

Meanwhile there’s Island Ben. Not quite ready to admit to the manipulated murder of Jacob (which is reasonable at this point, I think, because there’s a good chance that Ilana might just shoot him on the spot), but he can admit to not just the murder of the real John Locke, but the (possible) remorse he feels because of it.

And then there’s Sawyer and the Man In Black. The fallen man and the man who fulfills our need for “the Devil” in any story.

It’s interesting to me the mythic value of Christianity, which to me is really just a collection of interesting stories rather than the basis for being crazy, voting Republican, or blowing up abortion clinics. To the people who deemed the Left Behind series as good, I would instead submit to you a little television show called Lost. I don’t know if it represents your so called “values” any better, but it certainly presents them mixed with something even more important: How people really are.

from here.

Jacob and the Man In Black represent, to me, the very nature of what should be taken out of a story like Christianity, stories that had been around long before Christianity. Fate vs. Free Will. Or the new update, Faith vs. Science. Jacob represents so much of what we can rely on from “God,” doesn’t he? He’s good and all, righteous and true, but there isn’t a whole lot of room for innovation. And there isn’t a lot of sharing of knowledge. You’re set up to either fail or succeed, but you don’t know why, and seemingly the only thing that can save you? Blind obedience and total submission.

Meanwhile, if the Devil was a real being, then Lost tackles that character exactly how I, a mere mortal on this spinning rock, would envision him/her in the Man In Black: He’s just somebody who’ll show up when you’re at your lowest and offer you a little bit of knowledge and some choices. And that’s the kind of thing that scares a lot of people.

But not Sawyer, apparently. Seemingly he’s so hollowed out by his past experiences on the Island that he’s past the point of caring or being scared. Sitting around in your boxers talking to what is either a dead man or something that has appropriated the face of a dead acquaintance of yours? That’s no big whoop to Sawyer. Strange, almost hallucinatory little boys (young Jacob, right?) appearing to the Locke-ness Monster? Doesn’t phase him in the slightest. Neither does almost plummeting to your death from a cliff face. He just wants to sit around, drinking whiskey, and listening to Iggy and the Stooges. And I can’t blame him. That’s exactly what I do when all of my girlfriends die setting off a timeline-altering nuclear bomb.

But then there’s that cave. With THE NUMBERS. And the names attached. It seems that Sawyer and the other major players from Flight 815 are all candidates for taking over Jacob’s job. But not Kate, seemingly. And obviously Jacob’s been at this for a while, since you can see the names from the 50s military expedition crossed out there as well. I’d like to think that Richard Alpert knows a little more of what’s going on then what we were lead to believe in this episode (he at least knows when it’s time to be scared shitless enough to take off towards the temple, like everyone else), but seemingly even he didn’t know about this cave by the sea, Jacob’s version of Plato’s Cave, with it’s little inside jokes (are these Jacob and The Man In Black’s inside jokes, or Damond Lindelof and Carlton Cuse’s?).

But there they are in that cave, Sawyer looking at the list of names, seeing himself as a prisoner of fate possibly, and the Man In Black offers him choices. Not just one, not just two, but three choices. Obviously Sawyer’s being manipulated, without a doubt. But seemingly, when you’re the plaything of the Gods, all you can do is be manipulated in one direction or another, right? And if he plays along, well, then perhaps he can save his own soul.