Reflections on John Locke, Richard Alpert, The Nemesis and The Smoke Monster (Part 2) – Time Travel by DaveTheKlone

Let me begin by posing this new possible interpretation of the opening sequence of Season 1, Episode 4 “Walkabout”. The episode begins, and we hear what we’ve come to know as one of LOST’s signature mysterious sounds, and the first visual we get is Locke’s eye opening. The shot pulls back and we have Locke lying on the beach just after the crash of Oceanic 815. He is looking up at the sky (directly at the camera) and after a brief moment he looks down at his right foot as he begins to wiggle is toes. Until recently it was perfectly reasonable to see this as Locke realizing he has feeling in his legs after spending the past 4 years as a paraplegic. What if we were actually seeing a John Locke who just consciousness tripped back to this moment, and is looking down to see what footwear he has on? Was he expecting to maybe see black dress shoes, courtesy of a young Dr. Jack Shepherd? Could be…

I’m not sure I completely buy that last idea, but it was a thought that I had while composing this next installment, which is really a collection and connection of more reflections on details that seem to be getting lost in the shuffle as we all try to make sense of Season 5 and prepare for Season 6. One of the biggest innovations of LOST as a TV show is not only that they re-booted serialized drama as a popular genre, but that they have been telling the story from the beginning in a format that pretty much requires you to re-watch the previous seasons once a new one concludes. This isn’t only to make sure you remember all the events that have occurred, but because those events make more sense when you have later information. This show truly is a Mosaic. So, in taking a queue from the above paragraph, let us continue to explore what is in store by re-examining some things that have already happened on the show.

Season 1, Episode 5 “White Rabbit”

[This is the infamous first dialogue between Jack Shepherd and John Locke.]

JACK: How are they, the others?
LOCKE: Thirsty. Hungry. Waiting to be rescued. And they need
someone to tell them what to do.
JACK: Me? I can't.
LOCKE: Why can't you?
JACK: Because I'm not a leader.
LOCKE: And yet they all treat you like one.
JACK: I don't know how to help them. I'll fail. I don't have
what it takes.
LOCKE: Why are you out here Jack?
JACK: I think I'm going crazy.
LOCKE: No. You're not going crazy.
JACK: No?
LOCKE: Crazy people don't know they're going crazy. They think
they're getting saner. So, why are you out here?
JACK: I'm chasing something. Someone.
LOCKE: Ah. The white rabbit. Alice in Wonderland.
JACK: Yeah, wonderland, because who I'm chasing... he's not
there.
LOCKE: But you see him?
JACK: Yes. But he's not there.
LOCKE: And if I came to you and said the same thing, then what
would your explanation be, as a doctor?
JACK: I'd call it a hallucination. A result of dehydration, post
traumatic stress, not getting more than 2 hours of sleep a
night for the past week. All the above.
LOCKE: All right, then. You're hallucinating. But what if you're
not?
JACK: Then we're all in a lot of trouble.

[Think back to when you first watched this scene, back before Season 2 of the show ever existed. Upon first viewing, we see a frazzled doctor who almost just plunged to his own death chasing what we all assume to be a ghost of his recently deceased father. As inexplicably as the apparition first appeared, along comes John Locke, in the nick of time to save Jack from his demise. Locke pulled a Richard Alpert before we ever knew there was a Richard Alpert. (Would’ve never made that connection without a re-watch.)

The tone of the scene is very interesting. At first this appears to be a scene where an experienced outdoorsman, maybe a wiser individual due to his advanced age (compared to Jack) is consoling an obviously intelligent, and valuable member of this group of survivors, and trying to give him perspective. When looking back on this moment with knowledge of the seasons that followed, we see that Jack and Locke are in vastly different places (mentally, emotionally, motivationally) at the beginning of this journey than they are later. Locke is the calm, confident character with a handle on the situation…he is the one making sense of what’s happening around them, while Jack is the shaken, confused one looking for answers. He still needs a “little push”.]

LOCKE: I'm an ordinary man, Jack, meat and potatoes, I live in
the real world. I'm not a big believer in…magic. But this
place is different. It's special. The others, they
don't want to talk about it because it scares them. But
we all know it. We all feel it. Is your white rabbit a
hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that
happened here, happened for a reason? What if this person
that you're chasing is really here?
JACK: That's impossible.
LOCKE: Even if it is, let's say it's not.
JACK: Then what happens when I catch him?
LOCKE: I don't know. But I've looked into the eye of this
island. And what I saw was beautiful.

[This could be the single most important, as-of-yet unexplained moment on the show to date. We have absolutely no idea what took place when Locke had his encounter with what we all assumed was the Smoke Monster in Season 1, Episode 4 “Walkabout”. Like the rest of the 815 survivors, we expected that Locke was about to be attacked and killed, yet he then returns to the camp with a slain wild boar. The following episode he tells Jack that he “looked into the eye of the island” and that what he saw “was beautiful”. We haven’t seen any other characters encounter this “force” or “eye of the island” and survive to spout off spirituality.

In Season 3, Episode 5 “The Cost of Living” Locke and Eko are comparing war-stories of their encounters with Smokie.

Season 3, Episode 5 “The Cost of Living”
LOCKE: So, what exactly did you see back there? I saw it once,
you know.
EKO: And what did you see?
LOCKE: I saw a very bright light. It was beautiful.

Hmmm…what do we know of now that we didn’t in Season 1 or 3 that involves a very bright light? Time-Flashes, maybe? So, was Locke actually the first to consciousness Time-Trip, and did he do it all the way back in the 4th episode of the 1st season? (I find that to be far more plausible than that there’s a white Smoke Monster on the island in addition to the black one we all know and love.) Remember, LOST is a mosaic. Let’s see if there’s anything in the end of Jack and Locke’s conversation that hints at this a little more, because I think there could be.]

JACK: Wait, wait, where are you going?
LOCKE: To find some more water.
JACK: I'll come with you.
LOCKE: No. You need to finish what you've started.
JACK: Why?
LOCKE: Because a leader can't lead until he knows where he's
going.

Could Locke’s last line be a bit of wisdom learned the hard way, maybe through a previous iteration on the island? What if the “Eye of the Island” unlocked (wow, puns abound even when unintended) some or all of Locke’s past knowledge from his previous trip through the time-loop, and this is why we see Locke so contemplative as he observes the actions of the 815 survivors (like the close-up and sinister music that we get at the end of Season 1, Episode 3 “Tabula Rasa”) and guarded with the information he reveals. He speaks so ambiguously most of the time that we, as the audience, are often puzzled as to whether Locke truly knows what he’s doing, or whether he’s just a crazy old man (a bit of the “Old Ben Kenobi” effect).

Personally I believe that Locke’s communion with the island is something that has been a constant from the very first time he went through the time-loop, and that his repetitions on the island are what lead to the Uber-Locke we see from Season 5, Episode 7 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Benthem” and on. (As I stated in my previous post, I do not believe that the Locke that enters the foot of the statue with Ben is entirely NOT the real Locke.) A lot of the mystery in the show surrounds what knowledge each of our characters actually has.

Imagine a character that has been to the very distant future (like 2004 Locke appearing to 1954 Richard Alpert), and the difficulty and frustration this character would experience trying to explain something they understand and believe to be true based solely on the fact that they have knowledge from the future. What if there was some way that Locke was able to see so far into the future that he came to believe The Nemesis to be the correct one, and the one who should be supported and assisted and that Jacob was actually misguided and wrong? What if the only way he knows this to be true is because he’s seen what happens in the future where Jacob wins the game? (This is why in the military, information is given on a need-to-know basis only. Explanations take time, and when time isn’t only of the essence – it IS the essence – you do not have the luxury of wasting that time. It allows your enemy an opportunity to grow stronger, and to strike you while you are unpre! pared.)

As an aside – I often used to wonder in the early seasons why the characters wouldn’t be more open with each other about things they witness or experience on the island? I think it would be hard for me to not blurt out “HOLY S#!T! When we got on the plane I was in THAT wheel chair right there, because my legs were paralyzed, and now I CAN WALK!” if I was Locke. Looking back with post-season 5 knowledge, I think I have a better idea of why the characters are all as guarded as they are. Imagine if you had knowledge of the future that was coming to you in clips and phrases, maybe even flashes that happen before your eyes, and that future knowledge involved some of these supposed strangers you survived a plane crash with. How would you explain having this knowledge in a way that people would believe you? Might be somewhat difficult.
Too bad they didn’t try anyway, they might’ve discovered that everyone was experiencing the same phenomenon. I think this is something that Season 6 is going to illustrate for us. What we’ve been watching this entire time is a single iteration of the time-loop – most likely the 2nd to last iteration – the iteration where The Nemesis’ loop-hole is realized. These characters have all been through previous iterations that they don’t remember, but through Jacob’s touch they will begin to remember now, arming them with the knowledge they need to fight the upcoming war.

Now, here’s a bit of a mind f**k twist to this logic…

Since I apparently missed this the first time I watched it, I went back to my Season 4 Blu-Ray DVDs and watched the deleted Scene where Ben, after defeating the desert Bedouins, gallops around a low dune and comes to a stone well - the same stone well as the one outside The Orchid construction site I posit – and finds his stash of currency and passports. Before he finds the secret stone behind which this is hidden, he turns and notices what appears to be a lifeless version of his body lying on the ground a short distance away. He has almost no reaction to this, and just goes back to the well to find his gear.

My first thought is, “Does this mean there’s a dead Locke just around the dune from where Widmore’s men found the injured one? Does turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel actually create two copies of the one who turns the wheel? Part of me thinks that this detail may have been more of an indication that Ben did something wrong, or broke the wheel in a way when he turned it, which led to the time skipping. Perhaps, because when Locke turned the wheel he was actually fixing it by re-aligning its axis, a dead copy of him did not appear on the other side of the dune. What if the other copy was Locke waking up on the beach in Season 1, resurrected by the island? After all, the hieroglyphs in the Frozen Donkey Wheel chamber have been translated and confirmed by the producers to read “reincarnation”.

-OR-

What if the dead body that Iliana and Bram dump on the beach is in fact the dead copy that arrived in Tunisia? What if Iliana’s people found it and shipped it to the U.S. in the big metal crate that they discovered in the cargo hold of Ajira flight 316? We don’t know where or when Iliana was when Jacob recruited her, and I’m no linguist, but from the condition of the hospital she was in, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tunisia wasn’t very far away.

Something that always bothered me about the “which Locke is Locke?” dilemma is that we have never seen the coffin that Jack brought with him onto the Ajira airplane since the crash. In season 1, Jack discovers Christian’s empty coffin, implying that the body was literally reanimated upon its arrival. We do not get the same confirmation in regards to Locke.

I keep thinking back to comments Carlton Cuse made prior to the beginning of Season 5, alluding to a famous figure in history who was said to have been resurrected 3 days after they died. How many days after Locke’s murder was flight 316? Would be pretty insane if it was only 3…

These reflections tend to jump around a lot, like an island that is no-longer fixed in a specific time and space, so I apologize if they get a bit difficult to follow. Much like the story unfolding across the seasons of the show, so does the journey of John Locke, and those key figures he interacts with…Jacob, The Nemesis, Richard Alpert and The Smoke Monster.

More to come…comment away…