Okay, I asked on twitter whether I should write on Jack v. John Locke or on Convergence. Well, said my inner writer person, why not both. I’m here to please (mostly myself) so read along if your willing. This is all off the top of my head, so I’m willing to be corrected and proved wrong. I’m gonna try to not research much on Lostpedia, or re-watch old episodes, because, well, I don’t have the time. Don’t judge.
A little ditty about Jack and John Locke
They go way back. In season one, Jack and John had some interesting interactions, the first being John Locke reaching over the cliff to pull Jack from his plummet over the edge after his mad dash after the white rabbit like appearance of his father. Jack was completely under the influence of his father’s echoed words, “When you fail, Jack, You don’t have what it takes.” John Locke, disagreed, and said the people back at the beach looked up to Jack as their leader, that they needed someone to step up and lead them, and that Jack possessed the qualities needed in leadership. The result: Live together, die alone speech, and Jack’s first small step of faith.
“Waitaminute, Jon!” you might be saying, “Jack’s the Man of Science!” I’d have to agree with you, but Jack’s journey is to also take some steps of faith, his trek along the island timelines are little tiny steps of faith, and becoming satisfied with not always being the FIXERATOR!! We saw last episode, and a peek last season of Jack letting go of leadership, and letting other people (Sawyer, Daniel, Hurley) lead. Sure he had a little relapse with that whole thermonuclear bomb thing, but let’s not judge too harshly, recovery is a journey not a destination.
Jack and John were also in agreement with Jack’s plan to move people to the caves, start up their little civilization, though not all the people were in line with the idea of playing house in the caves of death. So there was quite a lot of back and forth to and from the caves, because Kate, Sayid and Sawyer’s resistance to assimilation. This theme of splitting up people plays over and over throughout all the seasons of LOST.
Jack and John had their first division when they sped after Ethan after he trailnapped Charlie and Claire. Jack wanted to go immediately, not take the time to regroup and be purposeful, John wanted to go back and get supplies and lead a meaningful chase. Jack isn’t much of a tracker, and wound up going in circles until John now with Kate and Boone in tow, returned to the same place that Jack was circling. The next break was a few strides down the trail, when it ended up with two trails. Kate disclosed her mad tracking skills, and Jack and John parted ways. John found the hatch. Jack found Ethan’s fist, then Charlie’s noose.
John was a bit sidetracked by the machine like hatch, and his inability to open it. This obsession became the second misunderstanding when Locke’s adventure in the jungle with Boone had Booone become one with the plane’s cockpit. After failing to save Boone’s life, Jack blames Locke for Boone’s death. He thought John had pushed Boone, or at least lied about the circumstances. Jack gets really angry when he fails.
But the Jack and John train got back on track after they realized they were under threat from Rousseau’s warning (which was a feint for her to get Aaron away from the 815ers). They joined teams, and retrieved the explosives from the Black Rock, and blew the hatch wide open. Which leads us to the next season of John and Jack, with a new person tossed in. Desmond.
Slowly they came down the hatch, and into the swan station, Kate first, then John Locke, then Jack. John was mystified, and Jack was aghast that he’d met Desmond over three years before at a stadium in Los Angeles. Desmond prompted him to have a little faith, a little hope, that the surgery Jack performed on Sara would be a success. In the hatch however, immediate crisis. The computer that entered the numbers took a bullet and needed to get fixed. John and Jack watched the orientation film, and John was on board. Jack? Not so much, but after tracking down Desmond and getting his assurance that while he pressed the button, he didn’t really think he needed to, but was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t. Jack comes back and starts the 815ers tenure in front of the swan computer, pressing the button, saving the world.
The tension between the styles of Jack and John never dissipated though, and Ben “Henry Gale” Linus took advantage of the spilt to drive a stake through their relationship. By the end of season 2, Jack was a captive of Ben, and John Locke was a casualty of the hatch implosion. Most of season three was spent getting the two protagonists back together, Jack stayed in exile with the others, and was happily on the road off the island via submarine, when it exploded in a fit of John Locke lead pyrotechnics. Jack was still trapped, and John Locke went native and tried to get on the team with Ben’s folks. Convergence happened again, when Jack’s team with Naomi found the radio transmitter. John found it too, and took action by tossing a knife in Naomi’s back, and pointing a loaded gun at Jack to not turn off the transmitter. Jack did, John didn’t shoot.
Which brings us to season four and the infusion of the freighter folk into our happy band of travelers. Jack and John met at the midsection of the plane, with all the rest of 815ers, and Jack in a fit of joy at seeing his old friend, grabbed Locke’s pistol, pointed it between John’s baby blues and snapped off a good six rounds. Well, six trigger pulls, the gun wasn’t loaded. Separated again, Jack and John pursue different goals, Jack’s was to get the frieghter’s help to get all the survivors off the island, and John’s was to keep people from leaving. They both were successful failures. Six people got off the island with Jack, and John kept a few dozen people back on the island with him, as Ben turned the donkey wheel for him.
Jack and John were meant to be together though, because without them both there, the island was skipping through time like my old Saturday Night Fever album after being played too much. John Locke fixed the off-kilter donkey wheel, and suddenly was on another collision course with Jack Shephard. Well. Kinda. He did have a collision, thanks to Ben shooting his chauffeur, and he did meet Dr. Jack in the hospital. But Jack wasn’t having any of John’s mystical talk about fate, and not leaving the island. So John let Ben hang him. Or something.
The last time Jack saw John alive, he told him he was never going back to the island. Then last time Jack saw John dead, he was putting his father’s shoes on John’s stocking feet. Jack took a detour to 1977 (see there’s the SNF reference, right there!) while John’s body became the mold for the Smoke monster to assume. See, John Locke was a pawn of the MiB, in finding a loophole to kill Jacob. And Now what looks like John Locke isn’t really John Locke. That is who Jack (and Hurley and Sun and Frank) happened upon after getting a little Sacajawea action from Michael in the jungle. Convergence again.
Two American kids done best they can
While in the sideways Jack and John have never choked on a chilidog outside of Hasty Freeze, they had a small encounter at the lost (get it!? LOST) luggage office of LA_X interspacial airport. John had lost his box o’knives, Jack had lost his coffin o’Father. John would get his luggage back, the coffin with Jack’s Dad’s body? Still MIA.
We’ve seen Jack here and there in the hospital scenes, walking past Sayid as Sayid was going to see his brother. Now, on the opposite end of the collision that Sayid had with Keamy, we’ve got Sun wounded Jin carrying her to somewhere… a hospital? Another collision was with the newly awakened Desmond, his automobile, and John Locke’s poor wheelchair. Well and John Locke and Desmond’s bumper, and John Locke’s head with Desmond’s windshield, and John Locke’s back with the school parking lot of Dr. Linus’ school. Certainly there is an ambulance ride in John Locke’s future, if he can keep it going after that ‘I-just-fell-out-of-an-8th-floor-window’ look he had on his face.
Convergence? Sun, John, Jin, Ben, headed to a hospital. Jack works at a hospital. Sayid’s brother is still at the hospital. Claire’s still in a hospital.
Miles and Sawyer might have a restaurant murder to investigate, where the prime suspects might be last seen in or around a hospital. Sawyer and Miles just caught a Kate Austen, last seen at a hospital.
Naw, I’m sure they’ll never see each other ever again in sideways world, what a waste that story is, we need to go back and find that Charlie bloke. Where was he last? Oh yeah, running loose in a hospital, where Claire (his vision in blonde?) might be.
Curious.
We have no earthly way of knowing.
