6:4 The Substitute, Second Thoughts

After listening to podcasts and reading blogs and message boards this week I've had some additional thoughts about "The Substitute."

-I had completely forgotten about this one - in season 3 when Mr. Eko's is killed by the smoke monster, he whispers something right before he dies: "You're next." And the person he whispered it to? None other than John Locke. At the time I assumed he meant a collective "you", but now it looks like he meant it specifically. Locke was the next one to be taken over. Interestingly, Sayid was there too. [The Lostpedia entry says that if you turn the volume up during this scene you can hear Eko say "I saw the devil." Evidence that the smoke monster is on the bad side?]

-The number next to Jack Shephard's name on the cave wall is 23. Psalm 23 is the one that begins "The Lord is my shepherd." The Christian symbolism in this episode (and just about every Locke episode) is amazing. More on that later.

-The good folks at Lostpedia put together a comprehensive list of the names that appear on the cave wall. Some are very interesting.

-I completely agree with those of you who pointed out that Fake Locke is not to be trusted. I'm not buying a word he says about Jacob forcing everyone to the Island - and I wonder if it's even Jacob's cave at all.

-The first place we saw the protective ash was around Jacob's cabin. Ben brings Locke there intending to pretend he's talking to Jacob, and when things start flying around the room we thought it was Jacob. But now that we know what is in John Locke, it seems much more likely that it was the smoke monster in the cabin all along. Ilana discovers the broken circle of ash and says "Someone else has been using it." I think the smoke monster was trapped inside the cabin by the circle of ash and somehow managed to break the circle and escape. Other manifestations we've seen inside the cabin (Christian Shephard and Claire) are likely Smokey related as well.