The Mystery of the Cabin

Welcome to Round 3 of my post-finale analysis and theory spitballing. (Here's Round 1 and Round 2.) The topic today: the finale's one and only scene featuring the cabin.

Ilana, Bram, and the rest of the Shadow of the Statue cult -- Frank included -- made their way to the cabin, presumably to find Jacob. This in and of itself is interesting: since they know that "the one who will save us all "lies in the shadow of the statue, why did they think he'd be at the cabin?

Outside, they notice the ash line that formed a circle around the cabin had been broken -- although the shot is void of any footprints, so we can only theorize whether someone was going in or coming out:

The purpose of the ash certainly seems to either be keeping someone in or keeping someone out, so there are a few options. Here are the two most probable:

1. The cabin was Jacob's. Jacob placed the ash around the cabin to keep the Second Man or Smokey outside. When the ash line was broken (due to the Second Man, Smokey, or something else), Jacob abandoned the cabin and went back to the Statue.

2. The Second Man was imprisoned inside the cabin, with the ash line, created by Jacob, acting as his barrier. He was the invisible man that Locke saw, which is why he said "help me" -- he wanted help escaping. Someone or something later broke the ash line and allowed him to escape.

I'm inclined toward #2, since it explains the "help me" line. One loose end, though: how did Ben know where to find the cabin, and why did he think Jacob would even be there?

Back to the finale scene. After Bram notices the ash line is broken, Ilana goes into the cabin by herself. (Before she does, we flash back to Jacob asking her for help.) Everything's trashed -- more trashed than it had been before -- and twice, the camera dwells on the incredibly creepy portrait of the dog:

Have we figured out anything about this yet? I believe we first saw it when Locke and Ben made their first trek to the cabin, but I don't remember what kind of theorizing was going on then.

After looking around, Ilana finds a knife stuck in the wall with a piece of fabric hanging on it:

Two things:

1. The obvious dramatic placement of the fabric -- knifed to a wall -- doesn't make much sense unless it was specifically stuck there as a message to let Ilana and her gang know where to go: either where Jacob was, or where the Second Man was planning on going. But who left it there for them?

2. Look at the picture. Look at the angle of the statue. To the right of it should just be water, and yet there seems to be a big something emerging diagonally out of the water. Might it be the crashed Black Rock? The fabric seems to be strategically ripped in half, so maybe we'll see the other half of the artwork at a later point, eh?

Ilana then leaves the cabin, tells her minions to burn it, and shows Bram the fabric, but not before she says: "He isn't there. Hasn't been in a long time. Someone else has been using it." The implication from this line could be, once again, one of two things:

1. Jacob is "he"; the Second Man is "someone else."

2. The Second Man is "he"; Christian and Claire are "someone else."

The most likely scenario, based on the context of the scene, was that they thought Jacob might be there and the "someone else" was the Second Man. Since they weren't alarmed to see the ash line but were alarmed to see it broken, that means the ash was put in place to protect Jacob inside. That, however, destroys my theory that the Second Man was imprisoned inside due to the ash line, as it implies that he was the one breaking into it. (The language "using it" strengthens the implication that he was not "trapped inside" it.)

One more loose end: Ilana went into the cabin alone. It's unlikely, but possible, that Bram or some other Shadow of the Statue cultists couldn't cross the ash line. Something to consider, at least briefly.

I planned on getting into the possible allegiances of Christian and Claire here, but the length of this post is already pushing it. I'll follow-up soon with an examination of the prior scenes of Christian and Claire in the cabin and see what I can make of it all. In the meantime, feel free to leave a comment if you know something I don't, or if you disagree with any of my conclusions. I'm sure they're far from foolproof.

TAGS: Bram, Christian, Claire, Frank, Ilana, Jacob, Season 5, Second Man, Shadow Of The Statue Cult, The Cabin, The Incident
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