Thursday, May 13, 2010

ACROSS THE SEA


Okay, I freely admit that this was not an episode that will ever make it onto my favourite 116 episodes list. I think it ranks down there around the bottom, alternating places with Exposé, and team Razzle Dazzle for 118th and 117th place. I’m sure these two episodes will remain on the bottom of my list for all eternity.

That being said, we learned a metric tonne of information from Across The Sea that, for some of you, may have changed the way you look at Jacob, his brother and their relationship with the island. Yeah, like the fact that they were twins was a surprise any of us. Thanks Damon and Carlton for that confirmation. We also learned that the boys that Smocke, Sawyer and Desmond are seeing are “reflections or ghosts” of the people Jacob and MIB used to be.

Again, I’m not going to recap the episode. You’ve all seen it and have likely read more recaps than there are existing episodes of the series. I’ll just give you my thoughts on what I got from it and the resulting questions bouncing around in my mind (or what’s left of my brain after LOST got into it).

I know that there a lot of viewers out there who were bitterly disappointed with this week’s episode. Perhaps they were expecting some great spectacular story of mythical proportions of how MIB came to be the smoke monster and where his home is and how it relates to our current island inhabitants. I do know that many were angry that STILL we do not know his name, although I don’t really think his name is integral to the weave of the fabric of the story. What’s important is the fact that he has always wanted to leave and has been prevented from doing so for a very specific reason.

Across the Sea will be an episode that grows on people over time, as we watch it again (which is miles ahead of Exposé if you ask me). Eventually, after reading Doc Jensen`s analysis, Erica Olsen`s analysis, etc, people will see the necessity of an episode such as this one.

We saw a woman wash ashore on the other side of the island from her ship mates, and I believe that it was no accident. She didn’t ride the waves and I think was “brought” to that side of the island by “Mother”. It’s pretty convenient that Mother found her so quickly and was able to help her give birth. While Mother was surprised by the birth of the second baby, I can see that her plan to groom, if you will, her replacement took root immediately following the birth of the babies.

As I thought about Jacob and his brother being born on the island and never knowing any other people, I realized that they would not know of the outside world and therefore would never want to leave. After all, if there is no evidence of anything beyond the pristine shores of their island, why would they even entertain the thought of leaving?

I found it difficult to tell when Mother was speaking truthfully and when she was being deceitful. She lied to the boys by telling them that there is nothing across the sea. I’m positive that it was she who appeared to Boy in Black as Claudia as part of her plan to figure out which boy would be her successor as protector of the island. If this is true, then she was the smoke monster from the beginning, and it is in her actions that MIB became the smoke monster. Since they were boys, she has been played the boys off each other, even swaddling Jacob in a light wrap and No Name baby in a dark wrap (they sound like burritos, don’t they?). They were dressed as opposites from the very beginning which foretold the tale of their futures.

I think, from the very beginning, it was Mother’s plan that Boy in Black would leave to live with “his people” and learn that what she had said about the light and humanity wanting more was true. MIB needed to go be with his people, become attached to them, learn from them and then, when Mother “took care of them”, he needed to seek vengeance against his mother for killing them. Just as Jacob needed to knock MIB unconscious and toss him into that incredibly fast moving stream that carried him into the cave of glowing light.

Mother had told Jacob that the light was the source. It was life, death and rebirth, but that he must never go into the cave as a fate worse than death would befall him. That fate, by the way, is becoming the smoke monster for all eternity (and obviously that is a fate worse than death, IMO). Mother, I believe, was the smoke monster first and this is evidenced in the fact that she was able to pull MIB out of the well, fill in the well and then destroy the village and kill its inhabitants.

Perhaps each incarnation of the smoke monster retains the memories of it’s previous manifestations. You know, I just can’t stop thinking about that song by the Poppy Family called Where Evil Grows. A specific line keeps playing over and over in my head.

And it never shows the place where evil grows….Evil grows in cracks and holes, and lives in people's minds

I can’t help but wonder if the golden glow in the cave is a disguise. Boy in Black thought it beautiful. Mother agreed. What if that is what John Locke saw when he first met Ole Smokey?

I think that very soon after Jacob tossed his brother into that stream and saw that column of volcanic ash cloud and lightening roaring out of the mouth of the cave, he figured out that Mother had manipulated them. Instead of protecting the island, Jacob must now protect the rest of the world and keep his brother “corked” and unable to leave.

I've made it so you can never hurt each other.

I need to address this thought. I was distressed when Boy in Black asked what death is, and Mother told him that he wouldn’t have to worry about that. If she truly made it so that neither Jacob nor his brother could hurt the other, how is it that Jacob was able to beat on his brother? How was he able to knock him unconscious and send him floating into the golden glow? Is MIB not dead when Jacob so regretfully places the bodies in the cave? Or is it just his human form that is dead? And, after so many years, he reappears in his human form to talk with Jacob on the beach at the feet of the Statue. What or how did Mother do to make it so that Jacob and MIB would live on into eternity?

HERE’S WHAT I WAS HOPING WE WOULD LEARN

I was hoping that we would learn more about the ancient influences that we have seen on the island. Who built the statue of Terewet, the tunnels, the temple, the caves in which Smokey lived?

Why was it that Jacob was able to leave the island to visit those LOSTIES he has visited, and how was he able to do so?

I was hoping that MIB’s claim that Jacob took away his humanity would have a mythical, god like tale behind it.

I was hoping to learn how both Jacob and MIB came to be seemingly immortal.

Most of all I was hoping to learn the “rules” by which they seemed to live their lives.

My assertion that the loophole MIB had found was finding someone else to kill Jacob turned out to be correct. Yay me. Neither could hurt the other, but mere mortals could fell them. An interesting concept that takes away their god-like immortality in one fell swoop. Neither Jacob nor MIB are blameless and both have caused a lot of deaths over the years, but I believe that only MIB has actually killed with his own “hands”. To see what Smokey can do in a confined space we need only go back and watch what happens when Ilana and her crew enter the foot to confront Smocke. And then there is the temple.

Jacob’s culpability lies in the fact that he continually brought people to the island and failed to help them to survive. He failed to tell them what was expected of their presence. The only person he has ever used his own hands to kill, if it can be classified as killed, is his brother.

Do I believe that Smoke/MIB/Smokey is evil? Yes I do. Despite having a home, a family, MIB has only ever wanted another home. Even before he went to live with the shipwreck survivors and learn their ways, he has always wanted more. That is why Mother put the game on the beach. That is why she appeared to him and led him to the village. That is why he lived amidst people he despised and mocked the very qualities that he possessed. He wanted more.

Mother said that there is a little bit of the light inside all man. I think that light is contentment. That’s the only thing I ever want more of.



DID YOU NOTICE?

This is the first time in the history of LOST that no main character appear in original footage, and only Jack, Kate and Locke appear in archived footage.

Claudia is the third woman to arrive on the island pregnant, give birth and have her children raised by another.

Claudia’s abdomen didn’t get smaller after she gave birth to TWO babies. Surely it would have deflated at least a bit.

Did you notice the giant sea turtle on the beach with young Boy in Black and as his mother approaches, the turtle is no where to be seen.

When MIB is visited by “Mother” in the well, she is bathed in light and he shown in darkness.

MIB seems to adopt the “man of science” attitude by using technology to find a way off the island, yet he takes over Locke’s body, who was a “man of faith”.

Mother is examining a black stone from the burned Senet game just before MIB stabs her in the back.

The knife the MIB carries is the same one given to Richard in Ab Aeterno and to Sayid by Dogen.

There was at least one little girl in the village, which means that Mother/Smokey murdered the children as well when she destroyed the village.

QUESTIONS:

What was in the wine that made Jacob become the protector?

What was Mother saying as she poured the wine?

How did MIB explain his reappearance to Jacob after his body was laid to rest in the cave?

Why did Jacob only say goodbye to his brother and not Mother?

Where’s Vincent?


QUOTABLE QUOTES

MOTHER: Every question I answer will simply lead to another question. You should rest. Just be grateful you're alive.

MOTHER: Of course he did. Jacob doesn't know how to lie. He's not like you.

BOY IN BLACK: Why? What am I like?

MOTHER: You're... special.

JACOB: What makes them dangerous?

MOTHER: The same thing that makes all men dangerous. They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt... and it always ends the same.

MOTHER: Light. The warmest, brightest light you've ever seen or felt. And we must make sure that no one ever finds it.

BOY IN BLACK: It's beautiful...

MOTHER: Yes it is. And that's why they want it. Because a little bit of this very same light is inside of every man. But they always want more.

JACOB: Can they take it?

MOTHER: No. But they would try. And if they tried they could put it out. And if the light goes out here... it goes out everywhere. And so I've protected this place. But I can't protect it forever.

BOY IN BLACK: Then who will?

MOTHER: It will have to be one of you.

MOTHER [grabbing Boy In Black]: My love, you need to know this. Whatever you have been told, you will never be able to leave this island.

BOY IN BLACK [forces himself away from his mother]: That’s not true. One day I can prove it.

MAN IN BLACK: Oh, you mean my people. You wanna know if they’re bad. That woman may be insane, but she’s most definitely right about that.

JACOB: I don’t know. They don’t seem so bad to me,

MAN IN BLACK: That’s easy for you to say. Looking down on us from above. Trust me, I’ve lived among them for 30 years. They’re greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy, and selfish.

Next week's episode is called What They Died For, and it sounds so horribly ominous. I'll need chocolate, tissues, and probably several days to get over what I may see.


*sigh*


On May 24th I will be wearing my "Warning: I am going through LOST Withdrawl" label.

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