Lost 6x15: "Across the Sea"

[Jono]

Above average.

So the special secret of the island is that it has a magic light in a cave...I guess it makes as much sense as anything else that has happened in the show. I was waiting the entire episode for MiBs name to be revealed, it would have been a much better treat than just finding out who Adam and Eve were.

 

[Mr Awe]

Having said that, it definitely puts the two brothers in a new light. It seems to me they're both evil, in their own way - one following the path of his mother, one rebelling against it. Certainly Jacob's claims about Smokey and the island's purpose in Ab Aeterno are highly suspect. At this point, I'm really rooting for the castaways to find a third option.

For quite awhile now I've been suggesting that both brothers are both good an evil. This episode just reinforced that. In the end, both brothers have their own agenda and will use approaches that we label "good" and "bad" to achieve them.

MiB: Just seems to want to leave the island. Deperately. He's been forced to stay against his will. He gets frustrated and will use any means to get off the island. He may not go out of his way to hurt others unnecessarily but clearly will kill if it helps him escape.

Jacob: Protector of the island. But, will kill and disrupt lives of innoncent bystandards to continue that protection. He doesn't seem to care about the side effects of his actions.

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Awe]

So apparently nobody actually knows what's going on. I mean, we first thought that the Others knew what the Island was all about, but then it was "No, most of them don't know anything. It's Ben who has all the answers." Then we learned that Ben was just following orders indirectly from Jacob. Now I guess it turns out that Jacob only knows what the Island is and why it needs to be protected in a very vague sense. That is, he's protecting the glowing rocks because his mother told him to, and he blindly follows, but he doesn't really know specifically what the glow is, or what would happen if the glow ran out. He's just protecting it because he was told to, sort of like Desmond pressed the button because he was told it was important but never asked any questions.

I actually do think this is a part of the larger message of Lost. No one knows the answers for sure in real life. We're all kind of "lost". How do you react to and handle this uncertainty? Some people will cling to strongly held beliefs or follow someone else who claims to know the real truth. But, in reality they're just pawns for someone who doesn't know the truth.

The message seems to be, find out for yourself what is important, truly important, in your life and build that up. It's probably the people around you. Don't be pawns, don't follow someone else because they claim to know the truth. Ask Richard, you could end up wasting you're entire life!

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Awe]

What is also weird is that later on we see that the MIB hated jacob for bringing people to the Island, yet from this episode it appears that it should be jacob (like his mom) who would want to keep people away from the island to protect it since they are all "evil". And it would be the MIB who would want people to come to the island to help him (and re-dig the well, etc...).

Possibilities. MiB may be reacting to the fact that he was brought to the island against his will while he was still in the womb. He's against forcing other to come against their will. Additionally, it doesn't seem like it's physically possible for him to leave the island when there are living candidates on the island due to the established rules. So, bringing more people doesn't help him escape.

For Jacob, well, he wants to protect the island and wants to insure that the protection continues indefinitely. So, he brings people to the island just like his mother did. More candidates for a possible replacement.

Mr Awe

 

[chrisspringob]

I liked that it pretty much solidified my "I'm with the smoke monster" stance. Jacob has always come off as kind of a smug douche... and here we see how much he really does suck. That lady isn't my mother? She killed my mother? Yeah well... uhh, she says she has good reasons, so I'll stick with her.

I can't go along with MiB's casual indifference to killing people to achieve his ends, but in terms of his overall philosophy towards the Island and Jacob's role in protecting it, I'm totally on Team MiB. It's absurd to try to protect this glowing cave just because this psycho woman said you have to do so, and for no other reason. I think if the Island has powers that allow one to pull off all kinds of neat technological advances like teleportation and time travel, then it *should* be studied by outsiders. Of course it can be misused, just like any technology can be misused, but that's no reason to avoid all scientific progress.

The writers seem to misunderstand what religious faith is supposed to be all about.....in the same way that the BSG writers did. In their world, "faith" just means blindly following orders and trying to fulfill prophecies (and because the writers have stacked the deck, those prophecies always work out). But ideally with religious faith, there's some actual philosophical content behind why we're asked to do certain things. The things that we're asked to do by a higher power lead to a better life in a particular way. In Lost-world, it feels much more random.

[Of course, it's possible that there will be some philosophical content in the end, having to do with Jacob vs. MiB on the inate goodness of man, but it's not yet clear how that ties in.]

 

[Dream]

IGN and TWOP both gave this episode low scores. I'm glad people are realizing how boring this episode was.

http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/lost/across_the_sea.php

http://tv.ign.com/articles/108/1089039p1.html

 

[Mr Awe]

^^ Chrisspringob, I think it's pretty clear. Find out for yourself what is important rather than just following someone else's agenda because they claim to know the truth!

This affects all of us because we're all lost to some extent. No one knows the real purpose and there is great uncertainty all around. How do you handle that? The strange stuff on the island symbolizes that. But, it's present in the real world.

And, Dream, no this episode was not boring. Or at least, most people would not say that it was boring. It just seemed less epic than anticipated, but that's very different from boring.

Mr Awe

 

[Agent Richard07]

I'm a little surprised by the reaction in this thread and elsewhere online that some people think that Smokey is something separate from Titus Welliver's character and just appropriated his form.

It's not an unreasonable assumption.

1) We know the smoke monster takes on the form of dead people.
2) We didn't see any indication of an actual transformation.
3) We saw Jacob's brother's dead body just like we did with Locke.

Jacob's mother literally cast a spell to turn him into whatever he is. Complete with chanting.

Another explanation might be that the liquid he drank is perhaps from the heart of the island. Maybe the light, or heart of the island (since it has the power to create and is life and death) adds properties to water somewhere on the island, and this plus some other ingredients on the island has the power to make you not age. (Keep in mind this water was supposed to bring Sayid back to life too, so I'm thinking the water came from that pool area) Note that they can obviously still die, it does not grant you the power of invulnerability, we've seen Jacob and his mother die from nothing but an easy stabbing, so they are not immortal, they just don't age. The chanting could merely be a tradition and not actually have any power.

That's a pretty good explanation. It would have been nice if they had given us a little more to make those connections, even if it was just a throw-away line or two. As it stands, it did come off as little more than a hand-wave.

How did she burn down a whole village?

Yeah, how did one woman kill all those people anyway? Increased agility? Super strength?

 

[Woulfe]

Now were down to 3.5 hours and things are about as clear as MUD on this show....

I LOVE IT !

I'm glad that there are still questions about what things are and what they mean, this is what "THE END" is all about.

Folks didn't really think there was going to be be "THE ANSWER" before we even got to the last episode of this show did they ?

We have a lot of pieces to the puzzle, yes, but the pieces are all jumbled on the ground, we have to put them together.

However even if you put the pieces we have together the puzzle isn't finished because the show isn't over yet.

Once it is over the puzzle can be put together and ONLY then will you have "THE ANSWER"

I think that's how it'll play out once all has been said and done.

 

[Brent]

I think they want to leave us thinking, and leave things up to our imagination. If you are expecting everything to be answered clearly by the end, I think you're going to be disappointed. I'm just taking it one episode at a time, sitting back, and being entertained.

 

[RoJoHen]

How did she burn down a whole village?

Yeah, how did one woman kill all those people anyway? Increased agility? Super strength?

I was half-expecting to see her turn into a Smoke Monster herself!

 

[label]

Well, I don't know that I can rate this episode until I've seen the finale and the rest of the story is presented. Other than who the skeletons were in the cave from Season 1, we really didn't get any actual answers that didn't yield more questions.

I guess we were told that Jacob and the MIB were actually brothers but what's not clear is the entity posing as Locke right now is actually Jacob's incorporeal brother or if the Smoke Monster is a different entity that had the memories of Jacob's brother, much as it does Locke's.

I hope the entity is not his actual brother but some malevolent being that's been trying to escape this whole time. Otherwise, why would the cave of "light" turn him into a smoke monster that can shape shift and inherit dead people's memories......?

Honestly I had just about as many questions after the episode than I did before and I found that disappointing - unless - we did get more answers then we were aware of and the last 3.5 hours will make that clear to me.

Normally I rate these but I think in this case I'll just say I enjoyed parts of it pretty well and there was some intriguing dialog that probably informed me more than I know right now and I guess I'll just choose to be patient and see where that takes me.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I enjoyed the episode. Thought it was better than last week.

But also frustrated by it.

It answered a bunch of questions, and threw up tons of new ones they can't possibly answer in the next couple of episodes.

agreed...sniff sniff a movie down the line?

Rob

 

[trekkiebaggio]

I guess this was average, when I saw the promos and knew it was about the history between Jacob and MIB I thought we'd get a lot more substance. And I thought we'd finally get his name this episode, it's a bit beyond a joke now I bet it's just Norman or something.

There's so many more questions now about the history of the island which I'm just not sure we're going to get. I'd assume that the statue, temple, lighthouse etc were built after this episode. But that means that the well that ends up having the FDW can't have been the well in this episode because when Locke, Sawyer, Jin etc flashed back holding the rope they saw the statue.

I thought the young actors did well, and now leads us to wonder why young Jacob is appearing on the island in the present.

I believe that Smokey is a disembodied MIB. The Mother talked about the light being life, death, rebirth, and a fate worse than death.

I found it interesting that the Mother gave the boys the speech about "they destroy they corrupt etc etc" which would suggest that idealogically MIB and the Mother agree. She wanted to keep her boys away from people, and didn't trust the village (and presumably had a hand in their mass murder). MIB feels the same, and just uses them as a means to an end.

However Jacob keeps bringing people to the island, believes that they can redeem themselves and hopes to prove this to his brother. So it seems that he sees that as a greater purpose than merely protecting the island (the best way to protect the island would be to not bring people there).

I didn't mind the Adam & Eve clips being shown as I think it was a nice reminder to casual viewers. However I'm sure I read an interview somewhere where someone said that showing Adam & Eve will prove they had a lot worked out. But I don't get that impression from the episode. Oh and Locke looked really evil in those clips. Kinda funny that the person who's skeleton they were looking at now has Locke's form.

So now there's 3.5 hours left, and I'm really keeping faith that it will be a satisfying ending but I felt they could have done more with this episode. As in who made the rules, who appointed that woman as protector of the island etc. Hopefully we'll find out that information in the remaining hours. That's why I'm holding off on judging this too harshly until I've seen the end.

 

[Ryan8bit]

I think they want to leave us thinking, and leave things up to our imagination. If you are expecting everything to be answered clearly by the end, I think you're going to be disappointed. I'm just taking it one episode at a time, sitting back, and being entertained.

I think there's clarity and then there's murkiness. Right now it's completely murky because for every question that's been answered this season, five more have been presented. No one wants the show to end without certain questions being answered because they won't be able to fill in the blanks. And honestly, if a show has to hand feed us clips from the first season to figure out who the skeletons are, the writers can't use this excuse. To have such blatant exposition that there's been lately yet leaving other things unanswered is just being dodgy.

I enjoyed this episode, but I don't think it was some ultimate reveal of any sort.

 

[RoJoHen]

I enjoyed the episode. Thought it was better than last week.

But also frustrated by it.

It answered a bunch of questions, and threw up tons of new ones they can't possibly answer in the next couple of episodes.

agreed...sniff sniff a movie down the line?

Rob

I'd rather see a series of "Lost Tales" (pun intended) somewhere down the road that helped fill in a bunch of gaps. I think it would be a cool way to keep the show going.

 

[Hunter X]

Something else regarding Jacob and MiB I found interesting was the scene where MiB confirms the mother's belief that men are greedy, evil, corrupt, etc. Jacob doesn't think so, but the MiB tells him it's easy to think that standing off and looking at them from above. This leads into Ab Aerterno, where Jacob tells Richard that he doesn't like getting involved in human affairs, and so Richard becomes his emissary.

It shows how Jacob doesn't sit off in his cave issuing orders from afar because he's all benevolent, doesn't want to interfere, or wants people to make their own choices. He does it because he's cowardly and passive. He's never interacted with people on a regular level, but only through spokesmen like Richard and Hurley. How can he say that he thinks people are basically good when he's only ever interacted with them in such a removed way, as a detached observer? He's never been willing to get his hands dirty. He's never really been human.

 

[exodus]

The Mother clearly had some kind of super-powers. When the pregnant woman fell into her arms she saw an opportunity to raise her own family, so she killed the mother and raised the boys, giving them magical immortality and the inability to kill each other. Yet she thanked Cerebus for killing her... was she cursed with immortality and looking for her own loophole? It does seem likely she went down into the Wellspring and became a Smoke Monster. Maybe the ultimate purpose of raising the kids was to a) create a replacement guardian of the Island and b) get one to kill her.

..but techincally she didn't.

Michael's spirit and others who have died on the Island can't cross over because the "well of souls" is where mankind originated from. We saw how Smokey came to be and his physical body as we understand it is dead. Jacob's physical body was killed by Ben and his soul reverted back to his younger self. Both their souls also can't cross over either because like Michael, they were once human. So mom didn't do anything to keep them from dying, the Island just holds their souls.

 

[Jax]

So the Island is Eden ? The Light is the source of ceation ?

Would be nice for them to have told us though cool how Smokey was created. Still no answer on why if smokey left the Island why would he corrupt people ?

next week entitled What They Died For so I would guess we learn why then.

 

[exodus]

Something else regarding Jacob and MiB I found interesting was the scene where MiB confirms the mother's belief that men are greedy, evil, corrupt, etc. Jacob doesn't think so, but the MiB tells him it's easy to think that standing off and looking at them from above. This leads into Ab Aerterno, where Jacob tells Richard that he doesn't like getting involved in human affairs, and so Richard becomes his emissary.

It shows how Jacob doesn't sit off in his cave issuing orders from afar because he's all benevolent, doesn't want to interfere, or wants people to make their own choices. He does it because he's cowardly and passive. He's never interacted with people on a regular level, but only through spokesmen like Richard and Hurley. How can he say that he thinks people are basically good when he's only ever interacted with them in such a removed way, as a detached observer? He's never been willing to get his hands dirty. He's never really been human.

I think originally that's why Walt & Aaron were so important and considered special..........before Walt hit that growth spurt.

Walt & Aaron are innocent, like Jacob. They know nothing of how deep the corruption of man has gone. Jacob is looking for an innocent like him in the candidates. Someone as yet untouched by corruption.

Out of all the candidates left, Hurley might be the only one that still retains innocense.