I can’t figure this out: Both parts of The Incident are approximately 42 minutes. But Part 2 contains only three flashbacks, compared to Part 1′s seven. The 2007 storyline is seen far less frequently in Part 2, there are only two brief scenes before the final act, and unlike Part 1, there is no subplot with Ilana/Frank until they appear at the end. Part 1 also features two storylines in 1977 that receive equal screentime, but both have converged in Part 2. And there’s no noticeable difference in pacing between both parts. So where does the running time in Part 2 come from, I wonder?

So, flashbacks. The one involving Jack brings us back to one of the first scenes in the Pilot, and the one with Hurley is one of the very last things to happen chronologically before the Oceanic 6 returned to the island. Neat, that. Notably, Hurley is the only with whom Jacob talks openly, foreshadowing that he may have an important part to play in the final season. ABRUPT TRANSITION. Sawyer leads Jack into a clearing to try and talk him out of his plan. When that doesn’t work, they have their long awaited showdown as bombastic music plays. Hot damn this finale is climactic.

The one thing in Season 5 that was spoiled for me was that The Incident would be Jacob-centric, and that he would show up in many characters flashbacks. I was mad as hell about that, thinking that we’d have two hours of our Losties coming across a figure who gave mysterious but benevolent advice, only to find out OMG IT WAS JACOB as the final plot twist. Instead, there he is in the first couple of minutes. And OMG there’s another guy who wants to kill him. And WHAOMG it’s the Black Rock. And O. M. G. It’s the four toed statue. I had no way of getting to a computer until later, but I would have loved to have seen the online explosion.

Anyway, Jacob and his mysterious rival have a conversation that’s just revealing enough to fuel eight months of speculation. They seem to be engaged in some kind of eternal debate about whether humanity is capable of good or inherently evil. That, along with the reveal that Jacob seems to have handpicked all the major characters, has some astounding implications for the series. And of course, they’re in the White/Black clothing, finally bringing back that bit of symbolism from the first few episodes. I like these guys as distant, symbolic characters that represent good and evil, hopefully the show doesn’t try to make us care about them as characters.

And with that, of course, we’re off into a series of flashbacks, the bulk of which are in the first half of the episode. With that possible series changing reveal out of the way in the opening, these go on to be less about Jacob and more about seeing crucial moments in the character’s lives that Jacob happens to show up in. It’s a very nice way of giving us scenes that deserved to be seen but didn’t really justify having a flashback built around them. There’s Sun and Jin’s wedding, Nadia’s death, Sawyer writing his letter, Kate getting her… lunchbox? Wow, she really is kind of a shallow character. Also, seeing that Jacob not only met John Locke, but actually revived him after his eight story fall gave us hope over the hiatus that he was more than just the Man in Black’s pawn. And of course there’s Jacob’s appearance in Ilana’s flashback, all but guaranteeing a pivotal role for her in the final HAHAHAHAHAHA. Sorry, I couldn’t get through that.

The Incident reminds me of the Season 2 finale, partly because of a climax involving magnetic energy, but mostly because a long alluded to and little seen mythological figure finally appears and is thrown into the limelight. Mark Pellegrino doesn’t have to carry the two hours like Henry Ian Cusick did, since the writers don’t opt to humanize him the way they did with Desmond, and the flashbacks are more about our regulars anyway. But he still has to get us to actually like Jacob enough to care about what happens to him at the very end. I think the moment where he won me over was that little “Yikes” look he gives Young Kate after she’s chewed out in the store. He brings a lot of nice little human touches like that to this role.