Lost Episode 6.4: "The Substitute"

Hey guys, unfortunately I'm very ill with some kind of virus and I won't be able to stay up tonight to write my normal post. I'll try to do it in the next couple of days. But, here's a few questions or big issues and we can go ahead and get the discussion going in the comments section. Feel free to post whatever you noticed or thought was interesting.

That was a much better episode than last week, overall. Maybe because Kate didn't appear in it anywhere. LOTS of answers, or at least the beginning of answers.

Highlights:

• Smoke monster POV cam: Kinda cool.

• Smokey was about to kill Richard when he saw a little boy (covered in blood? I think? At least maybe the first time.) Is this a reborn Jacob? Aaron?

• Sawyer figuring out Locke was not Locke was a nice scene.

• Smokey spends the episode trying to recruit Sawyer to whatever his cause is.

• Smokey keeps talking about revealing all of the truth, unlike Jacob, who he claims hides the truth. This is a lot like the serpent in the Garden of Eden trying to get Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge so they can know things that only God knows.

• Ilana gathers some of Jacob's ashy remains into a bag that looked a lot like Bram's bag of ash. Is this some kind of time loop thing?

• Locke's funeral: Ben's speech was very nice. Frank's comment at the end was great.

• The first, creepy Temp Agent interviewer was also Hurley's psychic back in Season 2: check it out.

• A scared Richard is not as cool as a non-scared Richard. But still, when he's scared, it kind of freaks you out. I'm glad that he stayed loyal to Jacob (which I'm assuming was the right thing to do.)

• Smokey's older than Steinbeck but not older than books. And, he's not fully in control either, as he freaked out over seeing the child.

•Jacob's Ladder? Interesting that Jacob had a ladder to his cave.

• The scales were also interesting. Black and White stones just like the skeletal remains of "Adam and Eve" had in their hands back in season 1.

• Wow. How about that ceiling with all the names on it. "Jacob's into numbers." Although I didn't really like that line, it was really interesting to find out that the numbers correspond to people on Jacob's List: Sayid, The Kwans (or maybe just one of them), Hugo, Shepherd, Locke, and Sawyer. Weird that Kate's name was not on the wall, even though we saw a flashback of Jacob touching her in the Season 5 finale. The flashbacks jammed into this scene were very "Monk" and not my favorite part of the episode. But I would be interested in seeing a screengrab of that wall to read other names on there. This scene overall was a huge moment as far as cluing us in to what's going on in the show.

• Ben works at Locke's school? It will be interesting to learn about Flash Sideways Ben. The coffee bit was funny.

• Lots of "Candidate" talk. And apparently that means a candidate for replacing Jacob as guardian of the island. Thoughts? There was also some more "rules" talk...

• Why does Smokey want to get off the island?

Sorry, got to crash now. Thanks for reading, though! More later when I feel better...