LOST: Go Ask Jacob

It's getting harder and harder to keep up with these posts, but dammit, I'm going to do it. This week's episode showed us Jacob's system for keeping track of the names and locations of the candidates (I'm guessing that the cave was Titus' method of keeping tabs on Jacob). Jacob has a magic lighthouse that he can use to spy on the lives of his candidates, and the numbers refer to the degree at which he positions the mirror to see a given person (Jack is at 42 degrees, out of 360). Interestingly enough, someone new might be coming to the Island, someone who is at 108 degrees (108 is the total of the numbers). Is this person going to have the sum traits of Jack, Hurley, Sayid, Sawyer, Locke, and Jin/Sun? Will it be Desmond, the person who "the rules" don't apply to?

Across the Island, Jin and Claire got reacquainted, and Claire is even crazier than Rousseau. She is convinced the Others have her baby, and no one can tell her otherwise. Jin briefly convinced her that the possibility of Kate taking her baby was remotely possible, but he quickly reassured her that he saw Aaron at the Temple when he realized what she might do to Kate (or himself) if she came to believe Kate had Aaron. Couple other things about the new Claire: she has a (very professional, factory-massed produced looking) cradle in her tent, which is home to the creepiest skull baby thing I've ever seen. Also, she's been hanging around with Titus, which might explain some of the "darkness" inside her that Dogen referred to (did anyone else think of Sweeney Todd when she referred to Titus as her "friend" in that really creepy way?).

In the alternaverse, Jack is still divorced (most likely from Sarah, although she did not appear, and they never mentioned his wife by name, so he could have ended up marrying Libby for all we know), but he has a son. A son who sees Jack the way Jack sees Christian. David Sheppard is a genius pianist who hides this from Jack because he can't stand the pressure that Jack was unknowingly putting on him. Fortunately, good things happen in the alternaverse, and instead of continuing to live through a poor relationship, the two talk things out and Jack explains that he will always be proud of his son, and promises to be less intense. If the characters in the Island universe could do this, who knows what kinds of troubles they could have avoided?

Up next: Most likely next week's episode, but there is some HBO show I've been talking about...