LOST :: Across the Sea
Well, seeing as to how the guide description was “Locke’s motives are finally explained” sounded like it was going to be great forward momentum to the end … this really disappointed, and is flirting with becoming bat-crap-crazy**. Sure we got another glimpse into the origin of Jacob and Man in Black, but there were still so many holes in the story that I was left wondering why I just wasted an hour on this? This episode moved us no closer to understanding any of the mythos* of the show.
We open on a woman in the water. It’s fairly obvious her ship has wrecked as she is clinging to a piece of broken wood. She comes up onto the beach and we see she is pregnant. She stumbles through the jungle, finds a stream from which to drink and another woman appears. The Lady in White tells preggers she can help and they go to the caves. There, preggers goes into labor and the Lady in White delivers the child. Preggers calls him Jacob then screams again … another kid is on the way. She delivers another son and says, “I only chose one name.” Preggers asks to see her kids and the Lady in White says, “no,” and whacks her with a rock to the head. Preggers is dead – and once again, we have no clue what name was given to the Man in Black.
The kids grow up (about young teenagers now – 13ish we find out), and the Kid in Black finds some pieces to a game. He asks Jacob if he wants to play and they do but Kid in Black says to not tell mother … oh, and the game pieces are black and white. Anyway, the boys go boar hunting and they come across some Others. Evidently their mother had told them there is no other place but the island. They run to her, she freaks and says all other people are bad and they run off into the jungle. She tells the boys that “*she has made it so that they can’t harm each other.” She has them blindfolded and leads them to a stream that seems to run underground, but at the mouth of this underground stream is a great golden light. She says she’s been guarding this light and that men want to come and take it. It’s special, they’re special, it’s their purpose and one day one of them will takeover as guardian of the island light. Great … tell us something we didn’t know.
The boys are playing the black and white game one day when Kid in Black sees the ghostly appearance of his true mother. Jacob cannot see her. Kid in Black follows her through the jungle to see a village of other people. She tells him that she is his real mother. Kid in Black goes back to the caves, gets Jacob and tells him they are going to leave and go with the Others and get off the island. Jacob freaks, beats Kid in Black, Fake Mom shows up and stops them. Kid in Black says he’s leaving, he knows she’s not their real mother and goes away.
They grow up. Jacob checks in on Man in Black from time to time. They continue to play the black and white game (a little more advanced now) and Man in Black says he has found a way to leave. Jacob calls B.S. and Man in Black throws his dagger at a stone well where the dagger sticks to the stone like a magnet. He says the smart guys on the island have found a way to use these spots where metal behaves strangely and they dig until they find something or nothing. This time though, they’ve found something.
Fake Mom (Lady in White) comes to visit Man in Black who is down in the well they have dug out. He tells her he has tried to find the light she showed them before. He has dug many holes and has now found it. He takes out a piece of the rock and the golden light shines into the well – hitting a large donkey wheel propped on the wall. He tells her they are going to cut a large hole into the light source, place a structure and then turn the wheel and that will allow him to leave the island. She gets sad, they hug and she says, “sorry,” just before ramming his head into the wall.
She comes back to the caves and tells Jacob, “it’s time.” They go to the source of the light and she tells him it’s time to pass the torch from her to him to protect the light. She pulls out the very similar wine bottle we saw in episodes before, pours some into a cup, says some kind of incantation and tells Jacob to drink. He does and she says, “now we’re the same.”
They go back to the caves, Jacob stops off to get some firewood, Man in Black is waiting for Fake Mom at the caves. Man in Black stabs Fake Mom with his dagger and she dies. Jacob freaks and beats Man in Black. Jacob takes Man in Black to the light source, throws him on the rocks in the water. Man in Black says, “you can’t kill me. ” Jacob says, “I’ll do something else.” Jacob then pushes Man in Black into the stream. Man in Black hits his head on the rocks, gets knocked out and floats into the light source. There is a lot of light and noise and suddenly, the smoke monster pours out of the light source and off into the jungle.
Jacob finds Man in Black’s body further down the stream. He takes it to the caves and lays Man in Black next to Fake Mom and places a black and white rock in a pouch. We flash back/forward to when Jack and Kate found the skeletons and the pouch with the black and white rocks. John Locke arrives and says, “who were these men?” Jack says, “one was a woman.” Locke says, “well, our very own Adam and Eve.”
LOST.
* OK, so this wasn’t a complete waste of time, but seriously. Here’s the deal, Fake Mom said she “made it to where the boys couldn’t hurt each other.” Great – we knew that. What we need to know is how did she make it that way? With whom did she make it that way with? There has to be some greater power they answer to in order for her to make these kind of deals. Seems to be the same kind of deals that Jacob was able to make for Alpert … so who/what is this greater power?
** The only things missing from this episode that didn’t make it fully bat-crap-crazy were tinkerbell fairies, talking woodchucks and Vincent guarding the cave entrance to the light source. This episode was a far cry from any part of the mythos we’ve ever had to accept on this show.
This was definitely not a favorite; however, it will not keep me from finishing strong with the series. I still have high hopes for a satisfying ending … thank God this wasn’t the finale!
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Wow! It’s been a real ride engrossing ourselves into LOST, and now they are coming at us with gloves off, landing hard-hitting blows that Kimbo Slice himself wouldn’t be able to handle. The Candidate continues on the fast-ending slide that the writers, producers, creators and actors promised us we would get. This episode was very powerful and very close to one of the best episodes of the series. It moved very quickly, had a lot of action and drama. There was a lot of role-reversals from the sideways timeline and the original timeline that was pretty brilliant to see. A+ on this episode.
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