Lost Character of the Week

Even immortal masterminds can give the stinkeye.

What can we say about Jacob? Not much, because we don’t know much about him. He likes white shirts. He has mad “building a trap with sticks and catching colorful fish” skills. He also has frying a fish on a rock skills. He has a nemesis, which is pretty cool. His nemesis likes black shirts. This is probably what caused the rift in their relationship. Nemesis wants to kill Jacob, but he can’t because Jacob is the awesome. He apparently has to employ a loophole to kill Jacob. Like I said, awesome.

We first hear of Jacob early on in the series when his “list” is mentioned. Being on Jacob’s list is like having access to an exclusive club. If you’re a crybaby doctor, angry shirtless con man, or island tramp then you’re in! If you’re the likes of Hurley, you’re pretty much out of luck. Jacob is cryptically referred to in the first few seasons of the show as the person in charge, although by the time he’s revealed you had already started believing that he didn’t exist, so seeing him was actually kind of a letdown. Because he’s just a dude, nothing special.

He is the person who gives Richard Alpert his ageless loveliness, though, so he is a-ok in my book. Ben seems to think that Jacob lives in a decrepit cabin in the forest, but he actually has a rockin’ bachelor pad in the giant foot statue. Why live in a cabin when you can live in a statue with a giant fire pit (that gives your nemesis the perfect “oops he fell in the fire” murder weapon).

Let’s talk about the important stuff, though. Jacob is also ageless, Jacob can leave the island, and Jacob has contacted most of our beloved survivors at some point off of the island. And he loves Flannery O’Connor. Back to meeting the survivors, though. Here’s who Jacob fraternized with prior to the crash of 815:

*He visited Sawyer at his parents’ funeral, and even gave him the pen that he would use to write the letter to the real Sawyer

*He visited Kate when she was a wee little hobbit and caught her trying to steal a lunchbox. Instead of putting the fear in her he bailed her out by buying the lunch box and then did some lame, grandfatherly nose tweak thing to her and tells her to be good. This proves once again that Kate has some kind of woman voodoo going on because NO man ever calls her on her crap.

*Jack got scared during surgery early in his career and ran from the operating room straight to the vending machine for a chocolate fix. He put his money in but OOOOOHHHH NOOOOESSSS! His candy bar got stuck (story of my life, Jack, story of my life). True to Jack form he cries like a little girl or something. Then Jacob shows up and buys Jack’s candy bar and tells him he needs to stop being a nancy.

*Later still Jacob shows up at Jin and Sun’s wedding and congratulates them and tells them love is the stuff and he’s happy for them. Jin’s all “That American guy could speak Korean!”

*Farther in the future, Jacob was sitting on a bench on a pristine sunny day, just chillin’ and reading some Flannery O’Connor (holla!) when out of nowhere Locke falls out of the sky. Yowzas. Our Jacob is ruffled by nothing. In fact I’m pretty sure he finished his chapter before he got up, walked to Locke and told him he was sorry that his jerk of a father pushed him out of a window after stealing his kidney.

*Jacob showed up to a hospital room where a very bandaged Illana (girl with the awesome earrings) was being treated and asked her for a favor that we were never privy to.

This is all stuff that happened before flight 815 crashed (except the Illana visit. We weren’t given a time for that so we don’t know when Jacob visited her). A good thing to note was not only did Jacob visit these particular people, but he made sure to physically touch each one. Is that relevant? Dunno.

After the Six returned to the normal world:

*Jacob approaches Sayid and Nadia and asks them for directions. Someone hits and kills Nadia as she stands in the crosswalk waiting for Sayid.

*Hurley is convinced he’s losing his mind and running around like a crazy person when Jacob jumps in the cab, tells Hurls he needs to get his hiney back to the island, and gives him Charlie’s guitar.

After everyone finally returns to the island Locke seemingly rises from the dead. But it’s not Locke! It’s Nemesis wearing a Locke suit! Nemesis talks to Ben and tells him that he needs to confront Jacob about why Jacob has always snubbed Ben (because you’re a nerd Ben. I’m a nerd, too, and have always been snubbed by the cool people living in the foot). Ben goes all crybaby on Jacob and Jacob’s like “why are all these men crying? What have I brought upon this island? Are you all 13 year old girls?” A punch to the face would have sufficed, but we all know Ben and how he’s prone to overreaction. He freaks out and stabs Jacob while Nemesis smiles like the Cheshire cat in the background. Nemesis nonchalantly nudges Jacob into the fire with his foot.

Writing this made me realize something. If Nemesis pushed him into the fire (which is how I remember it happening. Correct me if I’m wrong), then Nemesis killed Jacob, which wasn’t supposed to be possible. Hmmm…

Back to the story. So Jacob is now “dead.” I put that in quotes because dead on this island never means dead for good. Ben gets that “what did I just do” look on his face that we all get when we realize we might have overreacted a teensy bit. If Nemesis had a goatee he would stroke it with glee. The most important part, though, is that since Jacob is dead, does that mean our beloved Richard will age? ! Perish the thought!

Leave corrections in the comments. It’s been soo long I’m sure I missed something.

Sawyer Nicknames: NONE

Sources: Lostpedia; lost.about.com; my memory, fuzzy as it may be