I can't believe I'm posting about a second TV show in only two days, but anyways...

I just finished watching the final season of Lost. I absolutely loved the first two seasons, liked the third one, felt like it was still entertaining but that they were losing their way with 4 and 5. The final season felt like an appropriate ending to seasons 4 and 5 but totally unworthy of the first two.

I guess the biggest disappointment was that after all the brilliant episodes about chance vs destiny, guilt and letting go etc, the whole thing just came down to a sword-and-sorcery type struggle between two supernatural brothers. And what a huge letdown that so many questions were left unanswered. It makes me think that they really made shit up as they went along (throwing things in that seemed cool at the time) and only had a general idea mapped out from the start. I was also disappointed that they wasted the character Locke. He was the most intriguing of them all and seemed to be on a really interesting path but then they just had him strangled and that was that.

Here are some of the other things that bug me (who knows, maybe there's a good answer to some of them that I've missed):

What exactly is the light inside the island and what does it do apart from turning people into smoke monsters and starting earthquakes and teleporting folks off the island if they turn a big wheel through it? It all seems so random.

Why did the light give the guy in black powers to use againt itself?

Why did the guy in black become "evil" at all? He basically just tried to get off the island. The only really bad thing he did before becoming a smoke monster was to kill the woman who had murdered his mother, lied to him all his life, knocked him unconscious, burnt down his village and killed everyone he knew...

Who set up the "plug" down in the heart of the island?

Were all the people who were brought to the island candidates? It didn't seem that way since the smoke monster killed a bunch of folks and he wasn't allowed to kill candidates. So if the rest weren't candidates, why were they brought to the island at all?

How exactly were the candidates supposed to prove themselves? At the end it seemed like Jacob's job was open to anybody. Were you eligible just by surviving to that point?

What was the story behind the supernatural brothers' adoptive mother? She seemed to know a lot more than Jacob ever did.

Why and how did the numbers of the most important candidates show up on the hatch and in Hurley's lottery number?

Why did The Others dress in rags at first?

Why did all pregnant women (or was it their kids?) die automatically on the island?

Why was it cold and icy when Ben went down to turn the big wheel?

What's up with all the Egyptian hieroglyphics? Who built the Egyptian-style statue?

WTF was that stupid twilight zone-like self-contained episode about the man and woman who were after gold or some crap and sedated each other with spider poison all about? As far as I can see it had absolutely nothing to do with anything else.

Poor Richard Alpert. He really got shafted, didn't he? I can't see that his superlong life filled much of a purpose in Jacob's plan, despite his assurance that that was the case.

What happened to Michael and the others "who couldn't move on"? I didn't see him in the church at the end.

For a long time it was hinted that Michael's son was special and/or had special powers but I can't remember anything actually coming out of that?

I could probably list a million other questions too. These were just off the top of my head.

[Edited 9/18/10 18:02pm]

retina said:

I can't believe I'm posting about a second TV show in only two days, but anyways...

I just finished watching the final season of Lost. I absolutely loved the first two seasons, liked the third one, felt like it was still entertaining but that they were losing their way with 4 and 5. The final season felt like an appropriate ending to seasons 4 and 5 but totally unworthy of the first two.

I guess the biggest disappointment was that after all the brilliant episodes about chance vs destiny, guilt and letting go etc, the whole thing just came down to a sword-and-sorcery type struggle between two supernatural brothers. And what a huge letdown that so many questions were left unanswered. It makes me think that they really made shit up as they went along (throwing things in that seemed cool at the time) and only had a general idea mapped out from the start. I was also disappointed that they wasted the character Locke. He was the most intriguing of them all and seemed to be on a really interesting path but then they just had him strangled and that was that.

Here are some of the other things that bug me (who knows, maybe there's a good answer to some of them that I've missed):

What exactly is the light inside the island and what does it do apart from turning people into smoke monsters and starting earthquakes and teleporting folks off the island if they turn a big wheel through it? It all seems so random.

Why did the light give the guy in black powers to use againt itself?

Why did the guy in black become "evil" at all? He basically just tried to get off the island. The only really bad thing he did before becoming a smoke monster was to kill the woman who had murdered his mother, lied to him all his life, knocked him unconscious, burnt down his village and killed everyone he knew...

Who set up the "plug" down in the heart of the island?

Were all the people who were brought to the island candidates? It didn't seem that way since the smoke monster killed a bunch of folks and he wasn't allowed to kill candidates. So if the rest weren't candidates, why were they brought to the island at all?

How exactly were the candidates supposed to prove themselves? At the end it seemed like Jacob's job was open to anybody. Were you eligible just by surviving to that point?

What was the story behind the supernatural brothers' adoptive mother? She seemed to know a lot more than Jacob ever did.

Why and how did the numbers of the most important candidates show up on the hatch and in Hurley's lottery number?

Why did The Others dress in rags at first?

Why did all pregnant women (or was it their kids?) die automatically on the island?

Why was it cold and icy when Ben went down to turn the big wheel?

What's up with all the Egyptian hieroglyphics? Who built the Egyptian-style statue?

WTF was that stupid twilight zone-like self-contained episode about the man and woman who were after gold or some crap and sedated each other with spider poison all about? As far as I can see it had absolutely nothing to do with anything else.

Poor Richard Alpert. He really got shafted, didn't he? I can't see that his superlong life filled much of a purpose in Jacob's plan, despite his assurance that that was the case.

What happened to Michael and the others "who couldn't move on"? I didn't see him in the church at the end.

For a long time it was hinted that Michael's son was special and/or had special powers but I can't remember anything actually coming out of that?

I could probably list a million other questions too. These were just off the top of my head.

[Edited 9/18/10 18:02pm]

We may never know any of these answers.

I discussed this show regularly at two sites for it's entire run. One Lost related, one TV/movie related. I was a junky fiend at the beginning, fell out a bit towards the end of season two and was brought back into the fold towards the end of season three by people telling me how much better it had gotten. I then rewatched the entire series before the beginning of the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons. So I watched the first five seasons at least two times a piece. Some seasons as many as four and five times.

I thought LAX was a great start to season six, but by the third week I was doing a lot of this: wft?! By the middle of the season I was actually angry at the direction they'd taken. Angry that they were wasting an entire season doing nothing and telling us close to the same (did we need NEW characters in the SIXTH SEASON? characters that who did nothing but die, anyway?). As we got into the stretch run of the last few episodes I did a lot of this: "really?! that's their answer/revelation after all this stringing us along? that's complete bullshit and it makes no sense." Within seconds of the final episode ending I had posted the following. It's not word for word, but it's pretty close...

"Fuck this show and every single person involved with it. I will never watch another second of this piece of shit. Nor will I comment or discuss this nonsensical bullshit any further. Ever. For the rest of my life."

I still feel exactly the same way as I did that night. It was even difficult to explain my relationship to the show without reliving some of those feelings. I've never been this disappointed with a TV show before (X-Files doesn't even come close!). Doubt I ever will be again.

I need to rewatch the entire thing again to revaluate the entire flow, but I do agree, I'm disappointed by the sword and sorcery aspect of it. As well as the literal relgious aspect. I did feel that character-wise it was an emotionally satisfying finale.

But intellectually and mystically, that first season was amazing.

I kept thinking that the couple who were accidently buried alive would somehow come back into the story.They did get a brief mention in the finale.

MoniGram said:

We may never know any of these answers.

You're right. And I think the main problem isn't even that they won't let us know the answers, I think the problem is that in many cases there aren't any answers. Like I said I'm sure that a lot of the things I mentioned above can be explained in one way or another, at least through a stretch of the imagination. But I'm equally sure that there is also a bunch of questions and mysteries that even the writers don't know how to explain. They just thought it was cool to put a glow-in-the-dark map on the door in the hatch (just an example) for dramatic effect, but then without thinking who put it there or why they just moved on and never looked back. And I think that's really cheating your audience that have invested so much time and effort into the piecing the puzzle together.

Cerebus said:

I discussed this show regularly at two sites for it's entire run. One Lost related, one TV/movie related. I was a junky fiend at the beginning, fell out a bit towards the end of season two and was brought back into the fold towards the end of season three by people telling me how much better it had gotten. I then rewatched the entire series before the beginning of the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons. So I watched the first five seasons at least two times a piece. Some seasons as many as four and five times.

I thought LAX was a great start to season six, but by the third week I was doing a lot of this: wft?! By the middle of the season I was actually angry at the direction they'd taken. Angry that they were wasting an entire season doing nothing and telling us close to the same (did we need NEW characters in the SIXTH SEASON? characters that who did nothing but die, anyway?). As we got into the stretch run of the last few episodes I did a lot of this: "really?! that's their answer/revelation after all this stringing us along? that's complete bullshit and it makes no sense." Within seconds of the final episode ending I had posted the following. It's not word for word, but it's pretty close...

"Fuck this show and every single person involved with it. I will never watch another second of this piece of shit. Nor will I comment or discuss this nonsensical bullshit any further. Ever. For the rest of my life."

I still feel exactly the same way as I did that night. It was even difficult to explain my relationship to the show without reliving some of those feelings. I've never been this disappointed with a TV show before (X-Files doesn't even come close!). Doubt I ever will be again.

Well I think the direction the final season took was started somewhere in season 4 or 5 when Jacob and time-travelling and a few other things were introduced, so I can't say I was totally surprised by it.

I totally agree that it was foolish to keep introducing new characters in the final season though, especially since there were so many other character arcs that needed to be resolved. And we didn't need the "afterlife" timeline to be kept a mystery for so long. It would have been more emotionally satisfying to know what was going on there at the start so we could feel involved and take interest in how the characters found peace with themselves and each other. I guess that would be breaking with the Lost "rules" of keeping mysteries alive until the end but come on, it was the final season...

ufoclub said:

I need to rewatch the entire thing again to revaluate the entire flow, but I do agree, I'm disappointed by the sword and sorcery aspect of it. As well as the literal relgious aspect. I did feel that character-wise it was an emotionally satisfying finale.

But intellectually and mystically, that first season was amazing.

Yeah, the literal religious aspect was annoying too. There was a lot of light vs darkness and sin and redemption and when they ended up in a friggin church in the afterlife the Christian propaganda became a total overdose.

As for the finale being emotionally satisfying character-wise I agree in many cases but in others not so much.

A few examples of what I didn't like:

Poor Desmond had these great custom-made abilities to resist electromagnetism but he only got to use them to inadvertently set the island to self destruct and then when he wanted to fix that, Jack swept in and stole his thunder.

Poor Richard Alpert got tortured emotionally and then left to more or less aimlessly wander around the island for hundreds of years only to realize that he wanted to live right when he was no longer immortal. I suppose he was "set free" but I don't feel satisfied with the meager payoff. I actually thought his character would be a key to the mysteries.

Poor Hurley explicitly stated that he didn't want Jacob's job and was too social and grounded to do it, but he still got stuck with it in the end.

Poor Kate had been a central character for the whole series and fought hard and overcome many difficulties only to be taken off the list of candidates "because she became a mother". I felt a feminist twitch when I heard that, lol. Not much of a resolution there either. I guess her moment was to finally tell Jack that she loved him.

A few examples of resolutions I liked:

Sun and Jin, finally together and determined never to leave each other again even when facing death. Cliched perhaps, but romantic too.

Sayid managing to break free even after having been "claimed" and struggling with heavy guilt for the entire series. An upbeat resolution isn't always needed but in Sayid's case I think it was.

Ben was such a great nuanced character and his progress towards finding his way was wonderfully slow and nuanced as well. I liked how he was invited to enter the church but chose not to.

The last Ben episode (where he is a teacher) and then his breakdown and emotional spilling on the island was amazing!

ufoclub said:

The last Ben episode (where he is a teacher) and then his breakdown and emotional spilling on the island was amazing!

Agreed.

Cerebus said:

I discussed this show regularly at two sites for it's entire run. One Lost related, one TV/movie related. I was a junky fiend at the beginning, fell out a bit towards the end of season two and was brought back into the fold towards the end of season three by people telling me how much better it had gotten. I then rewatched the entire series before the beginning of the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons. So I watched the first five seasons at least two times a piece. Some seasons as many as four and five times.

I thought LAX was a great start to season six, but by the third week I was doing a lot of this: wft?! By the middle of the season I was actually angry at the direction they'd taken. Angry that they were wasting an entire season doing nothing and telling us close to the same (did we need NEW characters in the SIXTH SEASON? characters that who did nothing but die, anyway?). As we got into the stretch run of the last few episodes I did a lot of this: "really?! that's their answer/revelation after all this stringing us along? that's complete bullshit and it makes no sense." Within seconds of the final episode ending I had posted the following. It's not word for word, but it's pretty close...

"Fuck this show and every single person involved with it. I will never watch another second of this piece of shit. Nor will I comment or discuss this nonsensical bullshit any further. Ever. For the rest of my life."

I still feel exactly the same way as I did that night. It was even difficult to explain my relationship to the show without reliving some of those feelings. I've never been this disappointed with a TV show before (X-Files doesn't even come close!). Doubt I ever will be again.

While I was not as livid as you are/were about it, I whole heartedly agree with you.

It was like they got some big time Hollywood producers in there for the last season to make the show more "action packed".

Big fans of the show didn't need more action. They needed resolution to the character arcs and to address the series' many unanswered plotlines. Does anyone REALLY know what the Dharma initiative was all about? What about Walt? Wasn't that intended/destined to be something very important?

Extremely frustrating.

I just remember the scene at the end with Locke and Jack on the mountain side - "Ooooh the big battle scene". I was literally laughing out loud. Who is this aimed at, your third grade audience?

I don't know if I can say I would NEVER rewatch it. I think somewhere down the road I'll give it another go. It just won't be for a long time and I 'll be going in with extremely limited expectations.

retina said:

MoniGram said:

We may never know any of these answers.

You're right. And I think the main problem isn't even that they won't let us know the answers, I think the problem is that in many cases there aren't any answers. Like I said I'm sure that a lot of the things I mentioned above can be explained in one way or another, at least through a stretch of the imagination. But I'm equally sure that there is also a bunch of questions and mysteries that even the writers don't know how to explain. They just thought it was cool to put a glow-in-the-dark map on the door in the hatch (just an example) for dramatic effect, but then without thinking who put it there or why they just moved on and never looked back. And I think that's really cheating your audience that have invested so much time and effort into the piecing the puzzle together.

I agree that map thing had my son & I all excited...we actually thought it might have meant something, but in the end it really didn't.

There are many things that I will never understand about this show, but I sure loved it when it was on.

retina said:

I can't believe I'm posting about a second TV show in only two days, but anyways...

I just finished watching the final season of Lost. I absolutely loved the first two seasons, liked the third one, felt like it was still entertaining but that they were losing their way with 4 and 5. The final season felt like an appropriate ending to seasons 4 and 5 but totally unworthy of the first two.

I've been a fan since the beginning, but I think season 4 was easily the show's best. Once the end date was announced, the pace really picked up. I also enjoyed the format of starting the season in January/February and airing it (mostly) weekly. It was nerve-racking following season 2 when you didn't know whether it would be a new episode, a recap show, or a rerun. My ranking from favorite to least favorite: 4, 5, 1, 6, 2, 3. The beginning of the third season is the show's low point, but the final 2/3 of that season is phenomenal.

Why did the guy in black become "evil" at all? He basically just tried to get off the island. The only really bad thing he did before becoming a smoke monster was to kill the woman who had murdered his mother, lied to him all his life, knocked him unconscious, burnt down his village and killed everyone he knew...

I wouldn't call him "evil" per se. Like you said, he just wanted to leave the island, but Jacob wouldn't let him. His plan involved killing a lot of people, but the same can also be said of Jacob. I think the whole point of the episode "Across the Sea" was the show that it wasn't as black and white as people thought.

Were all the people who were brought to the island candidates? It didn't seem that way since the smoke monster killed a bunch of folks and he wasn't allowed to kill candidates. So if the rest weren't candidates, why were they brought to the island at all?

No, all of the people brought to the island weren't candidates. However, from what we were shown, all of the people brought to the island were brought along with candidates. You can consider them collateral damage.

What was the story behind the supernatural brothers' adoptive mother? She seemed to know a lot more than Jacob ever did.

She was the protector of the island before Jacob. Whereas he eventual came clean with his possible replacements, she kept everything close to the vest.

Why and how did the numbers of the most important candidates show up on the hatch and in Hurley's lottery number?

We saw the numbers applied during the construction of the hatch in S5. Hurley got the lottery numbers from Leonard in the mental institute. Leonard heard the broadcast of the numbers from the island while in the Navy (the same transmission Rousseau heard and eventually replaced).

Why did all pregnant women (or was it their kids?) die automatically on the island?

It appears to be due to the electromagnetic energy released during the Incident.

WTF was that stupid twilight zone-like self-contained episode about the man and woman who were after gold or some crap and sedated each other with spider poison all about? As far as I can see it had absolutely nothing to do with anything else.

"Exposé" was like a clip show they used to do when airing seasons 1 and 2, but it had a new storyline... and it was awesome! Great hour of TV and a better sendoff than the show's 2 most hated characters probably deserved.

Poor Richard Alpert. He really got shafted, didn't he? I can't see that his superlong life filled much of a purpose in Jacob's plan, despite his assurance that that was the case.

If you hadn't noticed, Jacob wasn't exactly the brightest guy.

What happened to Michael and the others "who couldn't move on"? I didn't see him in the church at the end.

They were stuck on the island. See the epilogue "The New Man in Charge" for more info.

For a long time it was hinted that Michael's son was special and/or had special powers but I can't remember anything actually coming out of that?

Malcolm David Kelley quickly grew to old to play Walt at the age he started, so they wrote him out of the show. Locke was supposed to bring him back to the island with the Oceanic 6, but he thought Walt had been through enough.

I have no problems with the way the show ended. I'm glad they didn't feel the need to spell out every single answer; some mystery should always surround a show like this. For my money, LOST is the best show in TV history.

The finale, "The End," was utterly brilliant.

[Edited 9/19/10 15:17pm]

retina said:

But I'm equally sure that there is also a bunch of questions and mysteries that even the writers don't know how to explain. They just thought it was cool to put a glow-in-the-dark map on the door in the hatch (just an example) for dramatic effect, but then without thinking who put it there or why they just moved on and never looked back. And I think that's really cheating your audience that have invested so much time and effort into the piecing the puzzle together.

Are you sure you watched the show? Kelvin explained to Desmond on the show (in season 2) that the blast door map was created by Radzinski (who we finally met in season 5). He and Kelvin were left in the Swan station after the Purge and he was trying to map out the Dharma stations from memory (while going crazy).

AlexdeParis said:

I've been a fan since the beginning, but I think season 4 was easily the show's best. Once the end date was announced, the pace really picked up. I also enjoyed the format of starting the season in January/February and airing it (mostly) weekly. It was nerve-racking following season 2 when you didn't know whether it would be a new episode, a recap show, or a rerun. My ranking from favorite to least favorite: 4, 5, 1, 6, 2, 3. The beginning of the third season is the show's low point, but the final 2/3 of that season is phenomenal.

Gosh, we really don't have the same taste. Judging by your avatar we have the same favourite character though.

As far as I can tell, that's just one possible interpretation. I don't think they ever say that the rest are or aren't candidates. There are hundreds of names both in that cave and in the lighthouse but we don't know which ones. I agree that someone like Lapidus likely wasn't ever a candidate but what about Mr Echo or Michael or Rose or a whole bunch of others? We simply don't know.

Yes, I know that she was the protector but that's also pretty much all we know about her. I would have liked to get some insight into her knowledge about the light, how many protectors there had been before her, how she could know that it would be "terrible, worse than death" to enter the light etc. She's just such a total mystery in every way. I wouldn't be totally surprised if they're saving her backstory for a TV movie or something.

Well yes, but what's the actual connection? Why did the numbers of the candidates happen to be a winning lottery combination? And why did they happen to put those exact numbers on the hatch? I guess it's all because of some "magic cosmic flow" that we're just supposed to accept.

Could be, but it's just a theory. Again, we didn't get a proper answer.

I have no idea what that is. I've followed the regular series from start to finish and that's all I think I should need in order to understand the episodes.

Eh? Is that also something that wasn't part of the actual series? I really don't want to feel forced to watch a patchwork of bonus material, clip shows or whatever to get the whole picture.

See, that's just poor production planning then. They shouldn't have assigned so much importance to him if they wouldn't be able to use him later.

I appreciate your efforts to explain some of these mysteries but I guess I feel like I wanted and expected more by way of explanation just from watching the actual series. I totally admit to forgetting certain things but others are just not explained at all, and the only way you can find some satisfaction is by interpreting and stretching your imagination. I know that the mystery aspect was central to the show and it was part of what made it so enjoyable, but after the end of the final season I really did want more clear answers.

Just now I could think of even more questions, for example:

Being a candidate, Jack was not allowed to cause his own death by letting the dynamite explode in the Black Rock and yet Sawyer was allowed to cause several candidate deaths in the sub by pulling out the wire? In fact, getting the candidates to kill themselves was the man in black's whole plan.

Why did Jacob tell Ben that he could summon the smoke monster? It makes no sense.

Anyways, I'm glad that you feel satisfied with the answers and like I said I do appreciate that you have tried to help by offering a few. I honestly don't think I'll ever feel quite satisfied with the ones I got from just watching and paying attention to the episodes though.

retina said:

AlexdeParis said:

I've been a fan since the beginning, but I think season 4 was easily the show's best. Once the end date was announced, the pace really picked up. I also enjoyed the format of starting the season in January/February and airing it (mostly) weekly. It was nerve-racking following season 2 when you didn't know whether it would be a new episode, a recap show, or a rerun. My ranking from favorite to least favorite: 4, 5, 1, 6, 2, 3. The beginning of the third season is the show's low point, but the final 2/3 of that season is phenomenal.

Gosh, we really don't have the same taste. Judging by your avatar we have the same favourite character though.

Actually, Desmond is my favorite character. Locke is #2.

As far as I can tell, that's just one possible interpretation. I don't think they ever say that the rest are or aren't candidates. There are hundreds of names both in that cave and in the lighthouse but we don't know which ones. I agree that someone like Lapidus likely wasn't ever a candidate but what about Mr Echo or Michael or Rose or a whole bunch of others? We simply don't know.

We can see the names on the wall and the lighthouse.

Well yes, but what's the actual connection? Why did the numbers of the candidates happen to be a winning lottery combination? And why did they happen to put those exact numbers on the hatch? I guess it's all because of some "magic cosmic flow" that we're just supposed to accept.

The numbers winning the lottery was a coincidence. The numbers on the hatch were the serial number. Please tell me you don't think every single instance of the numbers has some kind of deep meaning. For instance, they were in Hurley's car just to freak him out.

Could be, but it's just a theory. Again, we didn't get a proper answer.

How is that not a "proper answer"? Ethan was conceived and born on the island in 1974. Charlotte and Miles were also born there. The Incident occurs in 1977. No baby is ever conceived and born on the island after that point because the mothers all die before carrying it to term. Do you really need more details?

I have no idea what that is. I've followed the regular series from start to finish and that's all I think I should need in order to understand the episodes.

Come again? "Exposé" is the name of the episode you were complaining about. It was fantastic. Macabre deaths + season 1 flashbacks + Billy Dee Williams = awesome.

Eh? Is that also something that wasn't part of the actual series? I really don't want to feel forced to watch a patchwork of bonus material, clip shows or whatever to get the whole picture.

It is a short epilogue to the series that they cut out of the show. It certainly isn't necessary to enjoy the series, but it does explicitly answer some questions for people who want everything spelled out. It features Ben and Hurley.

Malcolm David Kelley quickly grew to old to play Walt at the age he started, so they wrote him out of the show. Locke was supposed to bring him back to the island with the Oceanic 6, but he thought Walt had been through enough.

See, that's just poor production planning then. They shouldn't have assigned so much importance to him if they wouldn't be able to use him later.

Perhaps. He obviously was special and he did have powers.

I appreciate your efforts to explain some of these mysteries but I guess I feel like I wanted and expected more by way of explanation just from watching the actual series. I totally admit to forgetting certain things but others are just not explained at all, and the only way you can find some satisfaction is by interpreting and stretching your imagination. I know that the mystery aspect was central to the show and it was part of what made it so enjoyable, but after the end of the final season I really did want more clear answers.

You're welcome. We'll have to agree to disagree on that point. I think they gave us enough to figure out the answers to a lot of little things. They answered the important questions AFAIC and they presented a story that was true to the characters.

Just now I could think of even more questions, for example:

Being a candidate, Jack was not allowed to cause his own death by letting the dynamite explode in the Black Rock and yet Sawyer was allowed to cause several candidate deaths in the sub by pulling out the wire? In fact, getting the candidates to kill themselves was the man in black's whole plan.

Yes. A candidate could not cause his own death, but he could be killed by anyone else. As expected, Sawyer's action killed other candidates while he survived.

Why did Jacob tell Ben that he could summon the smoke monster? It makes no sense.

Jacob never told him that. Jacob never talked to Ben at all until they met face to face at the end of season 5. Ben had been lying the whole time.

Anyways, I'm glad that you feel satisfied with the answers and like I said I do appreciate that you have tried to help by offering a few. I honestly don't think I'll ever feel quite satisfied with the ones I got from just watching and paying attention to the episodes though.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

AlexdeParis said:

Actually, Desmond is my favorite character. Locke is #2.

Desmond is my #2.

Not all of them. Unless you've been scrutinizing every frame of every shot and managed to spot every single one.

It seems like a pretty wild coincidence. And why would they put the exact numbers of the last surviving candidates as the serial number? I think it's pretty clear that there is supposed to be an actual connection between all the instances of the numbers popping up, but it's unclear what that the nature of that connection is.

Besides, it occured to me that it was strange that some of the (now living) candidates had such low numbers (2, 4 etc). If Jacob has been bringing candidates to the island for a long time, the current ones should be 243, 312 or whatever.

Oh, ok, I thought you were talking about something else that was not part of the series. Anyway, I think that episode was a total anomaly. It was the only episode that had nothing to do with anything else and to me it was totally uninteresting. So I guess we simply disagree there.

Alright, I guess I'll have to go look for it. I do think it should have remained a part of the episode.

Well it seemed like it was just Sayid's actions that saved him, not some kind of magical protection. And the man in black seemed surprised and disappointed when he said that some had survived the sub incident. He should at least have expected one candidate to have survived since someone had to activate the bomb.

So who was he referring to when he said he'd "been told" that he could summon the smoke monster?