Oh, Roger Work Man, if only you remembered birthdays!

Some thoughts before I go into my crazy theorizing:

#1: I think Ben's flashback gets the award for weirdest back story ever.

#2: The end of the episode COMPLETELY shocked me; my mouth was hanging open
for at least two minutes. I haven't decided if I think he's dead or not
because the last time a character was shot in the gut (Libby), I assumed she
was not dead, and I was wrong. I guess I'm hoping that he's dead, because I
thought it was a well-executed death. Although I love Terry O'Quinn and find
Locke frustratingly intriguing, so I wouldn't be annoyed if he pulled
through. I suppose time will tell. (But to never have interaction between
Michael Emerson and O'Quinn again would be criminal. They have more
chemistry than Evangeline Lilly and Matthew Fox have ever had.)

#3: I know I mentioned last week how well-coiffed Batmanuel (Richard)
appears, but damn, whatever Botox the Dharma Initiative produces must be
frickin' effective. (I don't know if they had Nestor Carbonell play
"younger" Richard so we would recognize the character or so we would think
that he doesn't age. If it's the former, I guess that messy hair was
supposed to symbolize adolescence, because Batmanuel can't be over 40, can
he?)

#4: Once again, Sayid is awesome in his small amount of screen time. Juliet
also. (And don't you think if it was just the two of them that Sayid would
actually have burned her at the stake just to get answers?) And I'm back on
the Jack Wagon. I can't wait for his flashback. I haven't liked him this
much since the very first episode.

#5: I'm curious as to the point of little Ben's girlfriend, Annie. Did he
spare her somehow? Could she be someone we have seen already? Libby? The
Sheriff? Jack's ex-wife? Maybe he got her pregnant as a teenager and she
went kaput, further solidifying him against Dharma.

#6: Really good casting of young Ben. He doesn't have Michael Emerson's bug
eyes, but he could easily pass as his son. Same chin, same profile almost.

#7, courtesy of Angela: You may have recognized Ben's Dad as Uncle Rico from
Napoleon Dynamite, but did you know that he also played the pre-wolf (as in
the human version) of the Wolfman in The Monster Squad? here.>

#8: I wonder how many of the (current) Others were Hostiles? Could the
Hostiles be survivors/spirits/descendants of crewmembers of the Black Rock?

#9: I am concerned about Rousseau taking a ton of dynamite on an island that
once had an active volcano, but maybe that's just me.

#10: Theorizing at this point (almost) feels fruitless, because I cannot
fully understand anyone's motivations at this point. That's not a
condemnation (yet), but I hope that in two weeks, I'll at least have a
better idea who's conning who. And I hope it's not the producers conning the
audience.


All of this leads me to Jacob, because that's all I could think about as I
tried to sleep last night and tried to work this morning.

Before I really get into it, I am reserving full judgment on Jacob right
now, because there is too much we don't know about him/her/it. Granted, if
it is a ghost, I have a feeling I am not going to like it, but I want to
wait until we learn a bit more.

Theory #1: Batmanuel is "Jacob" and he has been playing Ben and everyone
else for decades.

Evidence/Theorizing:

Young Ben meets Batmanuel when he leaves Dharma Town. Batmanuel tells him to
have patience, seemingly indicating that he has a plan. Years later, the
Purge is executed and Ben is installed as leader of the Hostiles because he
is a turncoat. Perhaps Batmanuel tells his people that Ben is the man behind
everything so they look up to him as leader.

Batmanuel "creates" Jacob and gets impressionable Ben to believe in Jacob.
Perhaps Batmanuel has control over Smokey and uses Smokey to appear as Jacob
to Ben. However he does it, he gains control over this obviously unstable
and abused young man and Ben believes that this Jacob lives in this shack in
the middle of the jungle. Maybe he thinks Jacob is a spirit (as evidenced by
the circle around Jacob's home - that reminded me of witchcraft).

If Jacob is Smokey, we already have seen that Ben is susceptible to the
Island's hallucinatory power (he saw his mother more than once). And if
Smokey is in league with/controlled by Batmanuel, that would be why Ben's
"mother" appeared outside the fences and told him that he had to wait or
that it wasn't time or something like that - in other words, have patience,
like Batmanuel tells him later. (I'm assuming here that Ben's mother was
Smokey and not just a simple hallucination.)

Batmanuel has shown his ability to manipulate in the past few weeks. He
convinced Locke that if he killed (got Sawyer to kill) his dad, he would be
one of them. He did the same with Ben and his dad. Perhaps he gave Locke the
tape recorder; after all, he was the one who brought it to Ben's attention
that it was missing.

So maybe Batmanuel is the "Man Behind the Curtain," but not even Ben knows
it because he had such a damaged childhood. He continues blindly following
Jacob, the truth obscured by the wounds from his younger life and his
delusions of grandeur (much like Locke, actually).

Maybe if this is true, I'll have to start calling Batmanuel by his "real"
name. But he'll always be Batmanuel to me.


Theory #2: The Island's "unique" properties have become an extension of
Ben's psyche

Evidence/Theorizing:

Ben was born in the seventh month of his mother's pregnancy and she died
giving birth to him (something his father never let him forget.) Women on
the island don't last past the second trimester, or around the 6th month of
their pregnancy.

I've got other ideas regarding this but I can't really put them into words.
Things related to Ben contending that his people are the "good" guys and the
Smoke Monster.

Factually, Ben was lying when he said that he was born on the Island.
However, when he showed up on the Island he was a bookish wallflower. The
Ben we know now is the leader of a cult. So maybe he wasn't actually born on
the Island, but Ben was formed by the Island. Maybe his relationship to the
Island has resulted in him putting his imprint on the Island as well.

In this case, I'm thinking that Jacob is just a further extension of Ben's
psyche, (perhaps Jacob is Smokey in this case as well), almost like a split
personality.


Other Jacob-relatedness:

If there is actually a human Jacob and he is not Batmanuel or in Ben's mind,
maybe he was in the hut and left after Ben's warning to set up the
Poltergeist-like activities. But if this all was just smoke and mirrors, why
did Ben shoot Locke? Did he shoot him in a way that he knows that he will
survive?

Did anyone see Jacob? (There was a quick flash of something, but I haven't
rewatched it yet. I have my further suspicions as to what/who it was, which
I will keep to myself until after the season is done.)

And now for something totally nonsensical:
Linus Van Pelt from Peanuts had the Great Pumpkin and Benjamin Linus from
Lost has the "Great" Jacob. Coincidence? Or further evidence that the whole
series hinges on Vincent? Discuss.