Dr. Linus - Sides

by StefanyMac

I'm going to take the liberty to borrow TimeIsRelative's trademarked theory of 'Sides', for the theme of this article. Every fan is in the busisness of trying to figure out the sides. It's practically a bracket game at this point. The final contenders are obvious, perhaps too much so. Jack will be Jacob. Sawyer will be MIB. That's all fine and good, but I feel the need to point out, that one of the key reasons that viewers have had such difficulty assigning which of the two men on the beach was good, and which was bad, was because Jacob is such a master manipulator. " It takes a very long time when you're making the thread, but, uh... I suppose that's the point, isn't it?"

So who is going to be on which side. And who are the sides.

Well I think we can all agree that dispite his death, it's Jacob vs. MIB. Yes the ever mysterious man with no name. Why... will... they... not... name... him... already!? Originally I assumed it was because their was something so telling about his name that it would be too big of a giveaway. You know, the likes of Jesus, Lucifer, Judas, Job, Esau etc. That it was something that would immediately size up the character the moment we learned his name. But after watching him opperate these last few weeks, I am starting to doubt that. Dogen called him Evil Incarnate. The only image that we know is his, is that of Smoke. Any other human image is up for question. The man played by Titus Wellover is the earliest visage known to us. But it could just as easily have been some other poor soul's image that he was trying on for size. He could simply have been out tormenting some other suffering islanders with the image of some poor soul from their past, and taken a break to sit and ship watch with Jacob. It occurs to me that Ben's people had no name for it, because it was unnameable. It was never human to begin with. Perhaps it's some purer expression of evil, as Dogen said. Chaos?

As for Jack becoming the next Jacob, I'm not so sure. Jack has the goodness, no question. If we were to pit Jack against Sawyer, it would mirror the animosity mixed with friendship that Jacob and MIB share. But if we look at Jacob's character closely, it becomes clear that Sawyer would be the better fit. Sawyer can be the leader. We saw all through season 5 how capable 'Lafleur' is. Sawyer can be loving, kind and fatherly. We've seen his protective papa bear routine shown with Claire, Aaron and Hurley. Sawyer can think, even read his way through problem solving. This was punctuated in his confrontation with Jack over what was being done to help an imprisoned Sayid. Jack is a reactor, frequently flying off the handle. Sawyer can be patient, and take his time. He spent his whole life patiently researching and seeking out the man that led to his family's demise. He can sacrifice. He jumped out of the helicopter to save the others. And most importantly, he is a master conman. That is the one skill that Jacob perfomed over and over, that Jack doesn't have at all. And he's already decided that some people are just meant to be alone. It would seem that the role of either Jacob or MIB would lead to a very solitary existence. Even though Sawyer has seemingly had it with this island, I can see where he might just as well choose to stay. He has a daughter out in the real world, but he has no connection to her. The only happiness he's ever known all happened on the island. So now it seems that we have effectively changed the triangle. We've gone from whether Jack or Sawyer will be the one to end up with Kate, to whether Jack or Sawyer will end up with the island. Well it may still be a triangle, but I'll take the latter over the former any day of the week. So will the island be as fickle as Kate? Time will tell.

So now, as if we didn't have enough to figure out, they've thrown us a new curve. Charles Widmore is in the "They're Coming" group. We have long debated whether or not someone would in fact come to the island, or whether it was simply Jack and company returning to their proper time. Well now it has been revealed that Big Daddy Widmore is island bound, and nearly home. What is his plan? Who's side is he on? Who else is on board? Personally I was hoping for and predicting the entire Widmore clan: Charles, Penny, Charlie, Eloise and of course the long awaited Desmond. Likely I won't be that lucky. But it sure would be nice to have all the kids under one roof finally. We've been told that the island isn't through with him yet. Des promised that he'd never leave Penny. It would break my heart to have to see them seperated again.

I decided to take a closer look after my mother asserted her interpretation of the sub scene at the close of "Dr. Linus". God bless her, my 70+ year old mom is attempting to watch Lost because I love it so. Unfortunately I have not been able to get her to start at the beginning and watch them in order. She jumped in during mid season 5 and is struggling to follow the show. When you all wonder about why ABC bothers to do pop ups or clip shows, this apparently is their demographic. So her interpretation of the scene with Widmore was that he was out at sea, his shipmate saw that the island had castaways, but that Widmore didn't care and that he was just going to sail on by. It was difficult to explain seasons' worth of backstory to show her that there was no way that he accidentally 'found' the island, and that given his obsession with the island, there's no way he would just keep sailing on by without stopping. But dispite my internal eye roll, I was glad she made me take a closer look at the scene. My take on that dialogue was that his lackey was trying to beg for mercy for the islanders. He was saying that there were people on the beach, and that they should stop (not go through with their plans). Widmore said to proceed. His plans are going through, no matter what. The first 'plan' that occurred to me was his old plan that Keamy was preparing to execute. He was going to torch the island. Ben once said that Widmore was going to kill every single 'living' person on the island. The words of his lackey would seem to back that up as well. So if that is what he's planning, who's side is he on? That smacks of MIB if you ask me. We have to remember that he told Locke that a war was coming, and if Locke wasn't on the island when it happened the 'wrong' side would win. Getting John Locke back to the island seemed to spell disaster for most of the island, given that it allowed MIB's plan to succeed. So unless we have an Eastertime resurrection coming our way, it would seem that Widmore's machinations were towards MIB's end.

And even though some of our favorite character's are in MIB's clutches right now, I still hold out hope that they are not yet claimed. Kate is not a conformer, Jin is smart enough (and scared enough) to lie to Claire, and Sawyer is a wiley conman. I'm hoping as are many fans, that Sawyer is just running a big con on MIB. As the great Benjamin Linus once said, "the only way to gain a conman's respect is to con him"