(If you don’t watch LOST, these posts will be torturous to you. I apologize in advance. Just skip them and come back later, when I will try to make it up to you.)
My brother Jordan and I are back to discuss a few things related to episode 15 of LOST’s final season, “Across the Sea”. (Jordan’s thoughts will be the ones in blue)
—————–
S6, Ep. 15, “Across the Sea”
My 10 biggest Observations/Questions/Thoughts
1. As the writers like to call it, this episode was indeed a huge mythological download. what was your first impression?
Loved it.
For me, I was a bit underwhelmed at first, but after watching parts again and thinking about it some more, I think it was a necessary episode and that they pretty much nailed it.
2. The island is the home of the source of light, it needs to be protected, there’s a little of the light in everyone…these are the answers about the island. I’m happy with them, are you?
Definitely, I was never even close to guessing something like that, and I think thats the reason that some people are upset with this episode, it wasn’t the answers that they were looking for.
3. Mother was pretty hard core. After all the daddy issues on the show, now we get two characters with huge mother issues. It definitely seems like one of the basic premises of the show is that your parents absolutely can screw up your life. or maybe, who you are is determined in part (a big part) by your parents. Even the writers said that part of the reason they threw the footage from Season 1 at the end of the episode was not to hit you over the head that these were the Adam and Eve skeletons, but to give the viewer the thought, “wow, bad parenting created this whole series of events that led to a plane crash that led to the last 5 seasons for our characters”.
Yeah it is a little strange that horrible parenting is one of the main themes of the show, but it makes for some good characters. What cool character had a good relationship with their parents?
Maybe Hurley? But that was only after his dad came back. I’m not sure that any really did. And yet, with all the blame that can go to the parents, in this story we had twin boys who each had a choice as to how to respond to the same parent. They were different people who reacted differently. Ultimately we choose how we react to our circumstances.
Yeah there is still some sense of free will involved. You can either blindly follow the parenting (Jacob) or you can ask questions (Bad Twin).
4. Did the Adam and Eve reveal feel satisfying to you? And are you cool with the fact that the writers are saying “since these two are Adam and Eve, this is the beginning of our story…whatever happened before this isn’t for us to tell.”
The Adam and Eve reveal didn’t blow me away. The writers said that that reveal would confirm the fact that they knew where they were going with the story since season one, and I don’t think that it really did that. Seems more likely that they put the skeletons in there with the white and black rock, and then figured out who the skeletons were later on in the series. Either way it didn’t really bother me at all, I like the fact that the skeletons are Jacob’s family, it just didn’t blow me away.
yeah, I’m with you on that one. Guess we weren’t blown away because we expected it to be this huge mind-blowing twist. “The Adam and Eve are …. wait for it … Desmond and Penny! or Christian Shephard and Naomi from the freighter! Or Jordan Allain and Scarlett Johansson!
I do like the fact that they called them Adam and Eve in the first season, and chronologically the story starts with them now that we are in the sixth season, and at the same time the show is winding down to the end with their story. Very poetic.
5. Are you of the opinion that the black smoke is the soul of the man in black (corrupted/damaged by the light)? Or do you think sending MIB’s body into the light released the Black Smoke, which is a separate entity. Clearly the smoke is a very evil thing, and yet I dont think the MIB was that evil.
I don’t think that the MiB died, Mother called it a fate worse than death. So I think that maybe his soul or spirit or whatever was removed from his body and it became the Smoke Monster. Is this the first incarnation of the Smoke Monster? That I can’t say. Its possible that Mother was also the Smoke Monster, she seemed to know what would happen if you went inside the light, she also single handedly destroyed a village and killed all the people living there.
Hadn’t thought of Mother being the Smoke Monster too. She certainly was capable of some bad things. I agree though, that the smoke monster was some version of the MiB and not a separate entity. I do think MIB died though…his body that is…because that was the skeleton in the cave. So i guess that’s what she meant by a “fate worse than death”. Your body is lifeless, but your soul looks like the output from a diesel truck on the highway.
Before being tossed into the light he was the body of the MIB with a soul that was curious, deceptive, and manipulative. After the light toss, we see the MIB’s body again, but now it is being operated by the black smoke, which is basically pure evil. And yet the smoke still wants to leave the island as desperately as MIB did, so that’s why i think it’s his soul with all the good removed and all the evil amplified.
6. What about the theory that the release of the black smoke diminished the light on the island just enough to make it that babies couldnt be born? Or do you think that the Black Smoke was directly responsible for that because he did not want a new island protector born on the island?
I don’t know about that. It might make some sense, but if that is the source of the Light for the whole world, it seems that babies wouldn’t be able to be born anywhere.
7. Do you think the black smoke (MIB’s corrupted soul) reentered the MIB’s body and continued to work on escaping the island…including the creation of the donkey wheel? Or do you think that was created by people as they continued to make advances? Maybe the MIB could leave via the wheel, but apparently Smokey MIB could not.
Well, the Smoke Monster is able to take the form of dead bodies, so it would make sense that he would take the form of his own body occasionally. I think that as the MiB he might have been able to escape via the FDW, but as the Smoke Moster I think he is bound to the island. He seems to think that he can still escape though.
And isn’t it crazy that he wants so badly to escape, but he doesn’t even know what he is escaping too. All he knows is there is something Across the Sea, and that’s where he came from, and he wants to go “home”.
8. Speaking of the donkey wheel, the MIB described it as a system to harness the light and the water of the island. The writers referred to it in their last podcast as the light being the “heart” of the island, and the water being the “blood” of the island. Maybe this explains how the island heals, because the water on the island carries some of the light of life. And maybe the wine Jacob drank to gain some form of immortality was made from some of the water or something.
Was it the wine that made Jacob never age? Mother told them at a young age that death would be something they wouldn’t have to worry about. I thought the wine was just to make whoever drank it the new protector of the island. But maybe agelessness comes hand in hand with that. I call it agelessness instead of immortality because as we have seen, Jacob is kill-able.
Well, Jacob ages UNTIL he drinks the wine, right? So I assume the MIB, not being chosen as the new protector, would have continued to age except that he got lit up by his bro (see what I did there). Also, I assume that Jacob gave Richard some of that wine as well. Anti-aging wine…if only I could bottle that and sell it.
9. Interesting to see how “okay” Mother was with dying (even going so far as to say “Thank you”). Jacob too seemed content to let Ben stab him. Any thoughts on that?
Well, Jacob played the role of protector for about 2000 years, maybe he was just ready to call it quits. Who knows how long Mother had been at it.
10. I don’t want to speculate a lot, but I do want to mention this theory again that I hinted at last week. What if what is special about Desmond is the fact that he can withstand “the light” like no one else can. And what if because of that he can move the donkey wheel and send the island underwater, or way back in time, or into Hurley’s belly? Any other ideas on what Desmond is up to at this point?
Nope, I still like this idea though. I can just see Desmond cranking that wheel right now. The only other thing that I can think of would be if he entered the light source, maybe he wouldn’t turn into Smokey or something. Maybe he will grab Flocke, and jump into the source with him and maybe that will kill Smokey once and for all, I have no idea really. Just thinking out loud. I really can’t believe that there are two more episodes left though. At least one is 2 1/2 hours.
Yeah, it’s crazy that the story will be done by this time next week. Speaking of which, we need to do a post for Saturday before Sunday’s finale. Any other thoughts?
A couple additional things about Mother. Do you think she planned for Jacob to throw MiB in the Light? When she told both of them that only one of them could replace her, it seemed like she was pitting them against each other. She thanked MiB for killing her, maybe she knew that would enrage Jacob to the point that he would throw his brother into the source.
I don’t think she planned it. I think she knew only one would be the protector, and I think she thought it would be MIB since he was most like her in his penchant for manipulation. She knew only one would drink the cup of agelessness and the other would die, and when she said to Jacob “all along it was you”, it was her way of saying that it was fate, and not her, that had made the choice.
And did you believe her when she said that she planted the Senet game for MiB to find as a child? I thought maybe she was trying to cover up the fact that there was something ‘Across the Sea’.
I did believe her, but your theory makes sense too. She was definitely trying to hide the Others from them as long as possible. I think the idea we are left with is that for as far back as time goes there have been people coming to the island, and there has been a protector of the light. They wrote Mother’s character as mysteriously as possible because I think she represents in some way, all the protectors of the island until that point.
And another thing I thought of. Jacob said it only ends once and everything up until then is progress. At first I thought this was a prediction, but knowing how naive and innocent Jacob is, maybe this is more of his wishful thinking. Maybe there isn’t progress being made? Maybe it will never end and the light will always need protecting? But I digress…
Yeah, mother was a very mysterious character, I was actually a little upset about the fact that they chose Alison Janney to play her. Don’t get me wrong, I like her as an actor, love the West Wing, but it kind of took me out of the show whenever I saw her. They’ve pretty much always used actors that aren’t very well known, and I loved that about the show. Then for one of the most important characters ever they use Alison Janney? At least she is a good actress. Well, this is getting too long, I should stop, but this is one of our last recaps ever, gotta get the most out of my words being put up on a popular blog.
We’ll figure out a way to bring you back after LOST is said and done. If there’s no other show to dissect, we’ll have to find movies to discuss, books to pick apart, or something else.
Or we’ll throw the LOST DVDs in and start from the beginning.
—
tonight…Episode 16, the 1-hour “What They Died For”
Sunday…Episode 17, the 2.5-hour finale, “The End”
and yeah, Jordan and I will try to have a discussion of tonight’s episode up on Saturday, and possibly a recap of the series online in the next week or two.