The episode that got me hooked on Lost in the first place was the Season 1 episode “Walkabout”. It was the fourth episode of the series, but it was the first one I saw. And I thought it was fantastic. It unfolded in the most fascinating way, taking a character who at first appeared strong and fearsome and revealed him to instead be kind of a mess. But in the end, there was redemption! Before the plane crash, John Locke was in a wheelchair. But on the island, he walks. It’s still my favorite episode. And Locke is still my favorite character.
I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that Locke is dead, murdered — as he blithely declares in this episode — by Ben Linus. I’ve always thought of him as a central character, really the antagonist to Jack’s protagonist. White to Jack’s black, or vice versa. “The Substitute” reminds us about the role of opposing forces in Lost’s mythology, and culminates with the Man In Black removing a white rock from a set of scales and throwing it into the ocean. “Inside joke,” he says. So things are now out of balance between the opposing forces. Well, of course they are. Forget about Jacob. John Locke is dead!
Continuing on the idea of opposing forces, the cast of Lost tends to be divided into two groups. In the first season, the castaways were split between the beach and the caves. Then in Season 2, we met the survivors from the tail section. Then we spent time with The Others. And on and on. This season — so far — we are generally divided between the group which followed MIB to the statue and are now headed to the temple, and everyone who is already hiding there. Presumably those groups will merge at some point, only to splinter apart as the MIB convinces more people to follow him. His first recruit: Sawyer.
MIB first strikes out with Richard, who clearly fears and hates him. The feeling seems mutual. MIB suspends Richard from a tree, but the threat of torture and death isn’t enough to convince Richard to spill any secrets. The appearance of a mysterious blond boy with blood on his arms spooks MIB, and he leaves Richard with a promise to eventually show him what’s what. He then hunts down Sawyer in his New Otherton house. Sawyer immediately recognizes MIB as “not Locke”, but this doesn’t alarm him. When MIB promises to explain why Sawyer was brought to the island, the latter agrees to go with him.
Meanwhile, everyone is still in mourning at the statue. Ilana takes a collection of ash from the fire where Jacob burned away. Then they dig a grave for Locke — I don’t know where they got the shovels — before setting out toward the temple. Before the burial, however, a spider crawled down from the bald head of Locke’s corpse. Remember that the Medusa spider leaves its victims paralyzed and apparently dead for eight hours. I’m not speculating that Locke’s death is less than real, but the presence of the spider in that scene has to be deliberate, and could be foreshadowing.
Finally, MIB takes Sawyer to a cave in the side of a cliff, requiring a perilous climb down a series of poorly constructed ladders — Jacob’s ladders? — where he shows him a wall covered with names. Most of the names are crossed out, but a few — including Sawyer’s — remain, preceded by The Numbers. MIB claims that these names represent “candidates”: people Jacob believed could potentially succeed him in protecting the island. MIB claims that the island doesn’t need protecting, however, and offers Sawyer the opportunity to leave the island forever. Sawyer responds, “Hell yes.”
Assuming MIB is telling the truth about the names (which is hardly certain), why would Jacob have sought a successor? Did he know MIB would eventually find a way to kill him? And what about the names that are apparently missing from the wall completely, most notably Kate’s. If Kate wasn’t a candidate, why did Jacob intervene in her life and bring her to the island?
I’ll come back to that in a moment. But first, let’s talk about John Locke’s life in alternative 2004. In this reality Locke is still paralyzed and things still don’t always go his way — he’s still rejected for the walkabout, the lift on his van is shoddy — but his life seems immeasurably better. He and Helen are engaged and happy together. His father is a valued part of his life. And even though he loses his job at the box factory, “Lucky” Hugo Reyes quickly hooks him up with a new job through his temp agency, where he’s placed into a well-fitting job as a substitute teacher.
Why is Locke well-suited to be a substitute teacher? I’m not sure. It’s been sort of a running joke with the show that every time we’ve seen Locke in a flashback, he’s had a different profession. So maybe it’s appropriate that he’d belong in a job where he has to be a chameleon — teaching P.E., then health, then maybe math. But other than being generally more mentally stable in this reality, Locke is also distinguished by his stark lack of faith. After briefly considering taking Jack up on his consultation offer, he declares flatly to Helen that he doesn’t believe in miracles. Was Locke so manipulated by the presence and power of Jacob and the island that they managed to completely reverse his natural worldview? Is he really as better off now as he seems?
Last week I complained that the alternate 2004 scenes had yet to show that they mattered. Well, this group of scenes demonstrated the quality of “mattering”, making this a much stronger episode. I enjoyed the introduction of new mythology and, as always, the heavy focus on Locke. I was a little irritated at the multiple instances of “convenient knowledge” — Sawyer knows MIB isn’t Locke; Ilana knows MIB can’t take the form of any other human now (why?!) — but on the whole, I thought this was a strong entry with lots to chew over.
Let’s look at the use of substitutes. MIB, of course, is a substitute for Locke. Locke is a substitute teacher. According to MIB, Jacob was looking for a substitute for himself. And in a way, everyone in 2004 is a substitute for their “real” selves. The question, I suppose, is whether or not these substitutions are permanent. Case in point: MIB as Locke. When the blond boy warns (or scolds) him, saying “You know the rules. You can’t kill him,” MIB responds with the very outburst he previously ridiculed Locke for saying: “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.” Now that he is — according to Ilana — stuck with the physical form of Locke (or smoke), will the MIB become more and more like Locke?
And how about this: maybe the list of names on the cave wall aren’t Jacob’s at all, but actually MIB’s list of candidates to replace himself. He claims he has been trapped on the island all this time (and that he used to be an ordinary man), but if he’s really free to go, why would he bother trying to “recruit” people? Why doesn’t he just go? I suspect he needs someone to take his place, and he’s eying Sawyer to become that person — Sawyer, after all, was able to see the blond boy. Though really, I don’t see how Sawyer can end up as one of the final two. It’s got to be Jack and John at the end, somehow. Though if the MIB becomes John, then I guess that’s a reasonable expectation.
Dogen says that Sayid has been claimed, but his name hasn’t been crossed out yet. Claire’s has, assuming “Littleton” refers to her and not to Aaron.
Rating: 
In her final scene, while embracing Locke, Helen’s fingernails are painted black. I’m not convinced it’s a coincidence.
