The Ascension of Hugo Reyes

So I went, in my wayback machine, to the early days right after the crash. Hugo needed the manifest so he could compare it with the census he'd taken. (Of course, it was Hugo who alerted the survivors that they had a mole among them. Key.) James had the manifest, only he wasn't James then; he was Sawyer. Sawyer was a mean guy who hoarded all the goods he could get his hands on, and anything you wanted from him came with a price. So Hugo told Sawyer that he should just give up the manifest for free, "because, Dude, you could use the points." Sawyer gave it up with a comment about how Hugo knew how to talk to people. What did Hugo say? "It's a gift."

Later he conned Sawyer into being nice to everyone by telling him he was about to get banished from the beach camp, and let's not forget when he conned Sayid, Kate, and Miles when they came to the Barracks looking for Charlotte. Hugo knows how to talk to people, how to appeal to their better nature and make them see that it's in their best interest to do what he says. These are the qualities of a natural leader.

We've seen a couple of times now that Hugo is the one Jacob has chosen to talk to, dead though he is. Jacob appeared to Hugo shortly after the time-travelers had returned from 1977, just after Ben had killed him, and told Hugo that he had to lead everyone to the temple. This week, Jacob told Hugo that he had to take Jack out of the temple to the lighthouse, because someone was coming to the Island. Jacob works in mysterious ways, though, and it seems he was not altogether honest; he wanted Hugo to take Jack and get out of the temple because something bad was about to happen. Not Dogen, not Lennon, not Miles or Cindy or anyone else, Jacob made sure to protect Hugo and Jack. We've seen now for 6 years that Jack is a leader of men, and it's safe to say that he will lead the good fight against the Man In Black once the sides have been chosen for good, but doesn't every king need a viceroy? Doesn't every godfather need a consigliere, every captain a first officer? We've recently learned that although Ben made the decisions, it was Richard and Richard alone who talked to Jacob, who brought the word of God down from the mountaintop. Now that the Others have no leader (Dogen's position is unclear,) and Richard is on the run, hugo will have to step forward and take the advisory role Richard has played. That's my take on it, anyway...

(I stole the picture you see from Jorge Garcia's blog...)

Still working on this week's post; in the meantime, enjoy this:

Better late than never...

Things have been a little hectic in la vida del toaster lately, and I tried to write a bit on Tuesday but couldn't really come up with anything. Tonight will be better.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the first few episodes of the final season, and I know the fan-verse is abuzz with what has been revealed, but I'm of the opinion that we've not gotten answers, just more bread crumbs. Candidates to become the next Jacob, fine, if that's what you want, but it doesn't answer the only real questions:

1. What, exactly, is the nature of the Island?

2. Who, exactly, are the Others, I mean what do they call themselves?

2a. What, exactly, is their purpose?

3. What are the whispers?

4. What, or who, exactly, are Jacob and his mysterious nemesis?

5. Who will Kate choose, Jack or James? (Bear with me on that one.)

All of these questions were laid out in the first season. (I know, we didn't know who Jacob was or that he had a nemesis, but we wondered what the monster was, and what was the mysterious force that seemed to push all the survivors onto that plane on that day. So many questions have come and gone since then, about the Dharma Initiative, the Hatch, Widmore, Rousseau, Faraday, and all the myriad characters we've met, and even the questions that remain are unlikely to be answered. I find it highly improbable that we'll get one BSG-style episode consisting of nothing more than expositional dialogue, let alone the two or three it would take to tie up every loose thread. More likely, we'll get a lot of action, conflict, and character development; as the story of the Island crescendos, so do the character arcs, and somewhere along the way we'll get answers to those big questions. Once we have those, we'll have to go back over everything again and put the pieces together, for I am sure that there are enough clues and easter eggs along the way, clues that we could never understand only because we didn't have enough information, so that we can find the answers to the little ones on our own. This has been the most engaging, thought-provoking, interactive series I have ever seen, and I am sure that, even after all is said and done, we will have to find most of the answers ourselves.

I realize that a lot of folks would not put the whispers on that list, but to me, they seem like the sine qua non, if only the transcripts of them I've read are accurate. Look them up on Lostpedia, they're gripping!

I further realize that most would think the resolution of the love triangle is trivial at best. Indeed, I have mercilessly mocked people for being so dumb that the biggest point on Lost they can discuss is whether Kate belongs with Jack or James, but I got a hunch a few weeks back after I wrote about Schrodinger's cat. We've heard numerous references to free will, the most recent ones coming from Jacob himself, reminding you that you have a choice, no matter what you've been told, and we definitely seem to be at a crossroads, more likely two crossroads: I assume that the time has come, after much preparation, for Jacob's replacement to be chosen, and there seem to be at least five viable candidates: Jack, Hugo, Sayid, Sun, and Jin, although it's possible that it is only Sun, or only Jin, or my long-shot bet, only Ji-Yeon. Who will be chosen, and how will the choice be made? This is the first crossroads, the second is this: which side is everyone on? Does Jack side with Dogen and the temple dwellers? Does James side with Smokey? Hugo? Sun? Jin? You see where I'm going now, right? The love triangle was not for nothing after all: Kate will have to choose, this time for keeps: Jack or James? Not a prediction, just an intuition.

Now, that being said, there are certain things we need to see, not for answers to questions, but closure to the story. We need to see Desmond again, just to make sure that he and Penny will live happily ever after. We need to see Widmore again; he needs to either find the Island or die trying. (I would love to see him on the Island in real time this year.) We need some closure for the kids: Walt, Aaron, and Ji-Yeon. We need to see a bit of what Cindy, Zack, and Emma went through after they were taken.

And finally, Ben Linus has been a little neglected so far this season, but we really need to see a proper ending to his story: he was the man, then he was brought low, then he came back in penitence only to be used by Smokey as a murder weapon. Is there any hope for Ben to find redemption? I hope there is; I hope that Ben can give his life, finally, for the Island he tried to protect for so long. (See, the only thing he ever said that I truly believed was what he told Michael on the dock: "We're the good guys.")

Muddying the waters

This gets harder and harder every week. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.