"Lost": Episode 9, "Ab Aeterno"

The exchanges between Jacob and Man in Black were particularly tantalizing. Now we know without any doubt why Flocke can't just hit the road. He has to somehow overpower the spirit of Jacob in order to escape the island and spread his chaos into the wider world. Of course all I could think of by the end was the lengthy exchange between Jacob and MIB in the season five closer, where they talk about the cycle of violence and how everything else is just progress. One of many things I still don't quite get is MIB telling Richard, just after freeing him from Black Rock chains, was that Jacob "betrayed" him and took his body? True? Or just talk to scare Richard?

I'm half tempted to think that the very last scene of Jacob and MIB talking and looking down into the green valley was meant to be in our contemporary 2007 island time line -- to indicate that nothing has really changed. Jacob is not dead -- perhaps all of this "Jacob's dead" business is just a big test for his batch of favored "candidates" -- and the MIB is still scheming away but trapped.

What sparked that thought was the look of the white rock in MIB's hand as he tossed it from palm to palm. It was very smooth and rounded, nothing like the jagged hunk that Ricardo handed MIB more than 100 years ago after he was first recruited to Team Jacob. After all, he wanted to go to the New World, right?

Jacob targets people to come to the island to prove his point to the MIB about humanity -- that there is pure good in the world, and that's enough to want to prevent it from descending into mayhem. Jacob's point won't be made if he's always in their face telling them what to do, so that's where Richard comes in. "When you get here, the past doesn't matter," Jacob tells Richard.

This episode made me think a lot about Benjamin Linus and Charles Widmore and where they fall on the Jacob-MIB continuum. Obviously Ben thought he was doing Jacob's will, even when he was torturing unsuspecting innocents like Juliet and the Oceanic 815ers. I found it interesting that even with all he's been through, Ben still hasn't told everything he knows to Jack, Ilana, et al, because he was still only hinting at Richard's identity early on in the episode when they were sitting around the campfire. I still don't quite get Ilana's role in all this. Maybe she really is just muscle.

Hurley, naturally, has a crucial role in getting us to the end zone of this show. I've been feeling for some time that he's the new Richard -- the adviser who makes things happen and can see dead people.
I jumped when I heard MIB tell Richard "It's good to see you out of those chains," just as Flocke said to Richard last week.

My Variety colleague and fellow "Lost" freak Justin Kroll points out that the boar that feasted on the dead Black Rock prisoners was the same old sow who pestered Sawyer in that unnerving first season episode that taught us so much about the character.

Dogen's motivation is definitely called into question by the fact that MIB delivered the exact same "kill him don't let him speak" speech and a very similar dagger to send Richard off to kill Jacob as Dogen did when he sent Sayid off to kill Flocke. Or maybe Dogen just knew the drill and wanted Flocke to kill Sayid all along.

How great was it to see the Black Rock backstory, at long last?

As much as I loved the episode and as much as I adore Nestor Carbonell, there were moments in this hour that tested his limits as an actor. As thesps often say, it's hard to be convincing and real when you're working in fantasy/sci-fi realm and asking the aud to take a leap with you on the story.

Now we know what happened to the statue.

All of this thinking is making my head hurt! Till tomorrow, and a second viewing.