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If you’re the creators of Lost and you are looking for a sure -fire way to heat up the season, the answer is always the same. Dig up a John Locke episode. It works every single time.

Tonight’s episode, ‘The Substitute’ is proof of that, as it combined more honest suspense, emotion and intrigue than the last three episodes combined. It even managed to end on a note of near revelation. We may possibly know the impetus behind why all of the 815ers are really on this island.

That is, of course, if Smokey Locke can be trusted. While I sincerely doubt he can be, I also don’t think he was lying to Sawyer in the cave when he revealed that Jacob had been looking for a replacement guardian for the island. A replacement to guard what? The creature disguised as Locke is my guess, but is it all bigger than that? Earlier, in the jungle with Sawyer, Anti-Locke said he had once been human too, and attempted to deceptively relate to the younger man’s pain.

Whatever he is, he’s ominous enough to make Richard Alpert run about through the underbrush like the White Rabbit, and inspire fear and dread in Ilana, who now has Jacob’s ashes with her. I kept hoping she’d sprinkle them on Locke’s body and we would get a glorious Locke-Off with the two Johns wiping up the jungle floor with each other. But, hey that would be too silly right?

But, as everyone keeps asking, why John Locke? On one level, it’s pretty simple. Terry O’Quinn has given, by far, the most nuanced and complicated performance in the entire show, with the possible exception of Michael Emerson. Over the five years Lost has aired, Locke has been a figure of pity, of fear, of hope and even unbridled awesomeness. “No one will tell me what I can’t do” became his mantra, and we cheered for him, believed in him, at points resented him, and were always fascinated by him. Because while the others were chasing time streams or frustrated love triangles, John Locke was looking for his purpose. Now, he’s dead and that purpose may have eluded him.

There’s a triple sense of dark finality in three of tonight’s sequences; Katey Segal tearing up Jack Shepherd’s card in the sideway’s universe, Ben’s tender but twisted eulogy (‘He was a better man than I will ever be, and I’m sorry I murdered him’), and the Smoke Monster crossing Locke’s name off that cave wall.  Somehow, the writers managed to have their cake and eat it too. We finally get the dark villainous Locke that so many fanboys salivated for back in season’s 2 and 3, and we had what may amount to a heartfelt goodbye to the character we loved, and yet there’s that glorious sense of renewal and promise when we see him wheel into that teacher’s lounge and meet Ben Linus. Indeed, in another world they may be allies.

So, what is happening here? What’s the real significance? I believe that it goes back to that scene on the beach where John showed Walt the white stones and the black stones in his backgammon game and talked about the disparity between darkness and light. Over the years, seemingly prescient characters like Rose (who had a great scene in sideways world tonight) and Walt himself have expressed dread regarding John. As it turns out, it wasn’t  his true nature they sensed, but the force that now impersonates him.

In the early days of the island, John was like a saviour of sorts, helping the island take away the things that kept his fellow survivors prisoner. Charlie and Boon, both now dead, spring to mind as recipients of his help.  Then, he went through a Job-like test of his faith, and had the Sisyphean task of pushing that button, over and over again. In seasons 3 and 4 he was like a mad prophet of God, looking for the truth, trying to keep the faith, and still utterly lost. He might as well mutter “Why have you forsaken me?” right before his Judas, Ben Linus, strangles him to death in that hotel room. And now, striding across the island like that unseen demon in the Evil Dead films, he has become the deciever and the devourer.

Because, at the end of the day, all of the mystical and spiritual themes of Lost have been heaped onto the sweaty, brawny shoulders of John Locke. Let’s see if he gets to carry them over the line. The battle between good and evil, will, I believe come down to the choices that the John in this now split tangent universe will make. How much sweeter it will be, when he does, if Jack and Ben make that stand with him.

That’s more or less all I got this week, other than to share a bit about Locke’s pseudonym from season 4, Jeremy Bentham. The interesting thing about Bentham was that he believed that the bodies of great men should be perserved and displayed long after they die. In fact, Bentham’s body was preserved and is kept at the The University College of London in a wooden cabinet. The head has been replaced with a wax one, so we aren’t looking at his proper visage, but the body is indeed his. Or was. The legend used to be that the body would be wheeled out during university meetings, and attendance would be taken with Bentham listed as present. He thought of this idea as his ‘Auto-Icon.’ Not too unlike what’s happening on the island right now, eh?

Those pesky writers. Until next time, long live John Locke!