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"Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by mrc on 05-10-10 at 12:02 PM
In which Christopher Columbus and Christopher Cross cross swords.

This thread is for discussion of the episode once it airs on the Left Coast or for spoiler-free discussion prior to the episode. Please keep all spoilers in the designated thread.

(Note: The episode description and guest casting are in the spoiler thread.)

Table of contents
Messages in this discussion
"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by blacknwhitedog on 05-11-10 at 10:34 PM
we were pre-empted 15 minutes due to tornado warnings- what happened?


Handcrafted by RollDdice 2005

"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by dabo on 05-12-10 at 01:24 AM
LAST EDITED ON 05-13-10 AT 09:12 AM (EST)

LAST EDITED ON 05-12-10 AT 01:27 AM (EST)

Awesome episode! Pregnant Claudia washes up on shore with wreckage. Crazy Island Woman rescues her, takes her to her home, treats her wounds, delivers twin boys. First boy is named Jacob. Surprise second boy is named I Only Had One Name. From now on I'm going to call him Claude. And Crazy Island Woman will be Claudia Jean because she's always CJ to me anyway. Claudia wants to see her babies so Claudia Jean brains her with a rock, Claudia is dead, Claudia Jean will be the mother from now on. Boys grow up, play games, Claudia Jean teaches them that the island is the whole world, there's nothing else. One day while hunting they see other hunters kill a boar, run back to mother CJ, she explains there are bad people living on the island and they should stay away from them. CJ takes the boys to a special cave at the end of a stream, light shows from the cave, the light is special, she explains that bad people want to steal the light but she protects the island and one day it will be one of them who has that job. Claude one day runs into the ghost of Claudia who tells him Claudia Jean is crazy and killed her and the island isn't the whole world it isn't even their home, so he decides to join the bad people so he can get off the island and find home. But Jacob won't come with him and they fight. Then Claude joins the bad people and they start digging holes all over the island in order to get off the island. He tells Jacob he's found a way off the island, so Jacob tells Claudia Jean, so Claudia Jean goes and knocks out Claude, fills in the hole, and kills all the bad people. She then takes Jacob back to the light, makes him the guardian of the island, goes back home. Claude is really upset all the bad people are dead and the hole filled in, finds Claudia Jean alone, stabs her in the back, she thanks him and dies. Jacob then comes along, fights with Claude, takes Claude to the light, knocks him out, tosses him in the stream which carries him into the cave where he turns into a smoke monster and the light goes out. Later on Jacob finds Claude's body and puts Claude and Claudia Jean's bodies in the cave with the black and white game rocks.


"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by Outfrontgirl on 05-12-10 at 06:08 AM
You crack me up, dabo, awesome recap.

You left out only a few things.

First, Claudia and CJ speak to each other in another language at first, but after a few sentences they decide to speak English. Jacob and Claude grow up speaking English, which explains Jacob's American accent.

CJ swaddles the nameless baby in black, because she only had enough white swaddling for Jacob. They are fraternal twins and one is born blonde and the other black haired.

As far as we were shown, neither kid ever asked if they had a dad, or even knew about fathers. Finally some LOST characters with no overt father issues. Instead they have crazy mom killed real mom issues and Mom likes you best sibling issues. They are kind of like Tom and Dicky Smothers that way.

Claude builds the donkey wheel, and he explains how the light hits something and that's why the wheel turning takes people off the island. So now we know.

Claudia and the boys live in the Caves and in case we didn't figure out that they are Adam and Eve from "White Rabbit" -- we see flashbacks of Kate, Jack, and Locke. What I notice most is that Kate's hair looked very just out of the salon and her face was made up and not dirty like it is in Season Six.

The cave that Jacob throws Claude into is where the light is that is the spirit in all of us, and is different than the cave where they all live, the one where Jack and Charlie were buried alive. The cave of the light, I am going to guess that the pool of the Temple was fed by the spring, and that the Temple got built over that spot. At this point I'm not sure they'll ever say that but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The place where CJ bashed MIB's head against the rock where he invented the wheel (even though I'm not so sure these people had invented the wheel) -- becomes the Orchid.

Of course, Claudia washed up on the exact same beach were the 815 survivors camped all that time. We don't know why she was on a boat or raft as she seemed to be one of the bad people who live on the other side of the island, but I'm guessing that the primeval shark that will eternally swim with the DHARMA logo busted up her vessel.

The only thing we found out about the Rules is that CJ caught her boys fighting and made some rules that they can never hurt each other. Claude told Jacob he couldn't hurt him because of the Rules that Mom Said, but Jacob jumped on him, beat the crap out of him, and threw him into the stream that took him into the cave where the light was, and the smoke monster came out one way and his dead body floated out the other.

Which leaves me pretty confused about Mom's rules because I'm pretty sure that Jacob hurt his brother in a very Cain and Abel reminiscent BAD way. So Jacob is the Cain character, which is not a nice thing to be.

CJ gave him some wine to drink and now he is the caretaker and will probably not age and will inherit the ability to make Richard Alpert immortal, but that wasn't explained.

Claude as it turns out was the "special" one and Jacob was Mom's second choice, but he did weave a nice tapestry.

Do not ask how he ends up living in a giant statue of Tarawet by the sea.

THE END

"Interesting Read"
Posted by Carezy on 05-12-10 at 10:28 AM
Mr Carezy just sent me an email with a bunch of interesting stuff in it, and I thought I would share it with all of you!! I'm not sure where he found it, but I don't think it matters... lol.

Anywho, here it is:


"Every question will lead to another question. You should rest. Just be grateful you're alive."

Oh whatever, Allison Janney. We know we should have stopped asking questions long ago, but damn it, we have things we need to know before Lost ends!

Thankfully, tonight's crazy weird episode--no series regulars and CJ from The West Wing?!--spilled some serious mythology. So what did we learn? What lies ahead? And what did Ian Somerhalder and Maggie Grace tell me about the finale? Dig in...


WHAT WE LEARNED


The Island Is a Circuit Breaker:
This episode was written by Lost masterminds Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse themselves, so we should pay extra attention to every word of island mythology spilled tonight, including Allison Janney's explanation of the light dome:

"A little bit of this very same light is inside every man, but they always want more. They can't take it but they would try. And if they tried, they could put it out. And if the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere."

We know from Jacob's previous "cork"/"wine" analogy that the island is the device that keeps all the evil from spilling out into the world. We know from Charles Widmore that if it does escape, it's the end of "everyone we love." And we know from tonight's episode that the Man In Black absorbed all the light of the island, becoming the embodiment of pure evil (the Smoke Monster). MIB wants off the island, but can only do so if all the candidates are dead. And he can't kill the candidates himself--which is why we've seen him "scan" Losties throughout the six seasons. (Who could forget that scene with Smokey coming face to face with Eko and flashing scenes of his life before him.)


Jacob and MIB Are Twins (?!) Who Were "Raised By Another":
It's pretty clear that Allison Janney's character (may I call her MamaMIB?) was told precisely what to do when she saw twin boys born on the island (one adorably smiley in white swaddling; the other pitching a fit in dark). It was written all over her face as the second MIBaby popped out, right before she apologized and killed their mother, Claudia. Janney later told Jacob she killed his biomom because "I needed you to stay good." This, naturally, raises all kinds of questions: Is this why women cannot survive childbirth on the island, because the babies are pure, innocent beings and they must be protected? Is this why Claire was told Aaron should not be raised by another?

Damon Lindelof told me: "Aaron is important; he definitely figures in the end of the show. Not integral, but important." Is it possible that Aaron--still presumably a pure soul--is the one remaining candidate who (I'm pretty sure) has not yet been revealed? If my memory serves me right, in episode nine, Ilana said there were six candidates left, though we only know of five. And in the lighthouse episode, Jack was told to turn the wheel to 108 degrees but we never saw who was there. There must be another, right?

Who Will Be the New Jacob?
After seeing the similar essence of Allison Janney's character and Jacob tonight--and that neither of them seemed capable of lying--it begs the question: Which remaining candidate seems the most honest and pure? Does this mean we can rule out Sawyer the con man? Is it relevant that Hurley can see the dead a la MIB? Is it possible the new Jacob will be someone we haven't seen coming, like Aaron or Jack's son, also a Shepard? Or maybe Desmond, who certainly has seemed eerily Jacob-like lately.

Argh! Allison was right. Just more questions. (*Shakes angry fist in air.*)


WHAT LIES AHEAD (***These MAY be considered spoilers, so be warned!!***)


Poor Man In Black Never Got a Name…Or Did He?
Scoop! Insiders tell me that Mr. Big, er, MIB does have a given name though I don't yet know if it will be revealed. (Hint: It's not John, a la SATC's Big and despite his current corporal housing situation.)


A Boone and Shannon Reunion in the Series Finale…?
That's what I'm predicting after running into Ian Somerhalder and Maggie Grace (separately) this past week. When asked how her return to Lost island was, Maggie (Shannon) said, "Amazing." When asked if that meant she actually returns to the actual island, she said, "It was full circle and very poetic." Hmmm…

Ian (Boone) mentioned that he was shooting the finales of Lost and The Vampire Diaries at the same time, saying: "I went down to shoot the last episode which was one of the coolest human experiences I have ever had. It was just the core group of that cast all together in one day. It was like the last day of school, man. It was like the last day of senior year. I was so proud to watch these people who have become like my family, finishing six years of incredible storytelling and all the trials and tribulations that go with that."

"Who else cannot lie?"
Posted by weltek on 05-12-10 at 11:23 AM
I think Jack telling the truth about his father's drunken surgery is important here. Jack couldn't lie just to protect his family.


-A Tribetastic Creation

"Ummm..."
Posted by zombiebaby on 05-12-10 at 04:10 PM
Some of those are spoilers. Could you please hide?
"hidden text"
Posted by dabo on 05-12-10 at 04:26 PM
hide = edit to hidden text. type

{font="dddddd"}this text would be hidden{/font}

except use square brackets instead of {}.

"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by Outfrontgirl on 05-12-10 at 10:46 AM
I truly wanted to love this episode and learn from it. But twas not to be. This is what I got from the episode:
___________________________

A pregnant lady named Claire -- no, Claudia -- washed up on the same beach where our 815 survivors would someday camp. I'm guessing that the primeval shark that will eternally swim with the DHARMA logo busted up her vessel.

Claudia is helped by CJ. OK, she has no name but dabo says she'll always be CJ to him. Claudia and CJ speak to each other in another language that sounds vaguely like Latin. Once Claudia says her name, CJ speaks English to her. She says Claudia is a lovely name. (Claudia means "lame" or "limping" and we have our first self-referential moment of the episode.)

CJ snaps that questions only lead to more questions and only if Hurley had said it could they have inserted a more blatant "listen up" to the viewers.

Claudia goes into labor, naturally, and somehow CJ seems to have delivered babies before in spite of the fact she lives on an island and never knew anyone but her own mother. Claudia pushes out baby and says his name is Jacob. She had that one ready. Her stomach is just as huge as ever, so it's no big surprise that baby #2 comes along. CJ swaddled Jacob in white but ran out of white and swaddles #2 in black.

Claudia has only picked one name and needs CJ's help for name #2. CJ prefers to bash her head in with a rock. No name for you, baby #2, and in spite of the many times we hear Jacob named, BIB (boy in black) is never named.

CJ raises Jacob and BIB speaking English, which explains Jacob's American accent. I thought the Latin might have explained why Alpert and his people spoke Latin, but since Jacob speaks American and Richard is from Spain -- you got me.

Mommy, how did we get here? My mommy raised me, and her mommy raised her. We learn this is some kind of immaculate matriarchy. I see a problem here because with two boys it looks like there will be no more mommies, but the great thing is we finally have two characters with no daddy issues.

But soon we learn these kids are prototypes of Tom and Dicky Smothers. Jacob has a Tommy Smothers complex. Dicky is special and Mom has always liked him best. BIB finds a game and thinks he can pull one over on CJ by hiding it, but turns out she was testing him to see if Jacob could lie or something,which he can't.

BIB has never seen a game or heard of one, but he knows it is one, and he makes up Rules. Jacob asks why BIB gets to make up the rules and BIB tells him when Jacob manages to make up a game he can also make up RULES and make everyone follow them. WELL, that explains how we all end up in the mess that is Season Six.

Now the boys chase a boar because that's LOST move #2 to get people from point A to point B. CJ tells her boys that people are bad and always the same, just like MIB tells Jacob centuries later. They ask her a question and she says it's not time yet, and I swear I wait for her to say that this is only Episode 6.16 and if they are patient the Finale will explain everything.

Instead she blindfolds them and leads them to the magic Disney cave. There was a guy named Plato who wrote about a cave and maybe this is it. After CJ tells the boys that the light could go out, I half expect to see Tinkerbell fly by and ask if we believe in fairies to clap our hands. If we still believe in LOST, clap our hands, or all the fairies will die!

BIB becomes a teenager, sees his real mom's ghost, and we learn that Jacob cannot see dead people because he's not as special. Teen in black moves to the other side of the island with the bad people, but he and Jacob keep playing the game.

Then one day they are thirty years old, only Jacob is still a mental age of about ten. No name guy has stolen the missing part of Jacob's IQ and is off inventing what will be the frozen donkey wheel so he can get off craphole island.

When CJ shows up, he is down in some kind of underground well that might be one of the big holes they built looking for the "places metal behaves strangely." He tells her that she sucks for taking him to a light river cave that he can't find ever again but he has learned to find the light by looking in a different way.

We learn that he can take a little wedge of rock out of the wall and the magic light shines in like a sunbeam projected through Newgrange and lights up his wheel. He says that the men are going to help him make a bigger hole so they can let in more light which will make the system work as a transporter. Now all I can think is didn't the men build that stone wall in the first place, so why now do they need to take the rocks out to let the light in, I mean why didn't they just build a nice arched window or porthole in the first place.

But yeah, questions are bad.

CJ does her apology thing which means she is about to bash your head on a rock. Somehow she kills everyone and fills in the hole in the ground after bringing her son above ground because she didn't want to actually kill him but just wanted to bash some sense into him?

CJ takes Jacob back to the magic cave and he whines and says he doesn't wanna look after it, but she gives him some wine to drink after mumbling some spell, and we all get to see how the wine is in a bottle just like Jacob showed Richard and said that was the island. We hear absolutely nothing about the island is a cork, nothing about evil, and I think that Darlton maybe had amnesia when they wrote this.

But .. Jacob is clearly mentally challenged and my guess is that he barely remembers what Mom told him and he got mixed up and thought the wine bottle was the island and his brother was the evil, when clearly his brother is just a victim of Mommie Dearest's "you will never leave the island" obsession.

Now Dim Jacob is the caretaker and will probably not age and will inherit the ability to make Richard Alpert immortal and transport himself off the island to touch people in his own special way, but that wasn't explained in any way.

Back at the home cave, CJ tells Jacob to go get firewood because the plot requires him to be off stage so that MIB can sneak up behind CJ/MOM and shove a short sword through her back and out her stomach, which is not at all disturbing and do you watch this with your kids?

CJ thanks MIB and dies, none too soon for me, but Jacob is royally pissed and beats up on his brother for like the third time in spite of Mom's you can't hurt each other rules. MIB points out the RULES say Jacob can't kill him and Jacob says he won't. Jacob then drags MIB to the water cave and sends him over the falls -- and the light must be like a splitter that parts body and soul. Soul gets spit out the front as a smoke monster, and body gets spit out the back of the cave as a sort of cleansing flush thing ... dead.

Um, Jacob didn't kill his brother; the light did? Is that a loophole?

Jacob feels bad and lays bro next to mom in the cave, where Kate and Jack are waiting -- oh wait, this is a forward in time flashback reminding everyone about Adam and Eve. Wow. That was jarring. Wow. There's Locke when he was Locke. I miss Locke.

At the end, I have not learned how Jacob came to live in a statue of Tawaret, but I totally understand why MIB came and asked Jacob if he had any idea how much MIB wanted to kill him. I really do get it, and I would like to kill Jacob myself. Go Ben!

It would be wrong to say I learned nothing from this episode. I finally figured out why the recurring references to Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." Jacob is a Lenny, a man with quick fists and limited mental ability. Seriously, he was straining to understand Mom and bro the whole way through. And his smarter better half just had to put an end to him, but because of Mommy's Magic Wine it wasn't so simple as taking him out and shooting him. Which is a shame really.

Pass me the magic wine, will you?


"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by frodis on 05-12-10 at 11:05 AM
Regarding speaking English: There was a little tinkley noise when they switched to speaking English, presumably to let the audience know that we'd all been given a babelfish.

I don't think that they actually started speaking English, it was a made-for-TV insta-translator.

"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by Breezy on 05-12-10 at 12:54 PM
Yup, I heard the tinkle "signal" that we were now in translation. LOL
"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by weltek on 05-12-10 at 11:26 AM
I hardly think LOST ever tried to be a real family show. The stabbing seems mild compared to many of the scenes in LOST over the years.


-A Tribetastic Creation

"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by blacknwhitedog on 05-12-10 at 12:34 PM
Why in the world did they feel it was necessary to insert that scene where Jack & Kate find Adam and Eve with the black and white rocks? Do they think we're stupid or something?

I don't think Jacob was mentally challenged- I think he had no knowledge of good and evil- he was innocent and naive- but MIB the boy was not an innocent- he knew how to lie, etc. I think when Mommy gave Jacob the wine to drink his eyes were opened so to speak- sort of like Adam and Eve and the apple.



Handcrafted by RollDdice 2005

"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by Breezy on 05-12-10 at 01:00 PM
Loved it.

Still have lots of questions. But I thought it was a good episode.

Everyone remember MIB telling Kate he had a crazy mother too? He sure did have a crazy one.


My questions.

Why were we never told his name?
I didn't think there was wine left for Jack to drink?
How often does Jacob bring candidates?
Why can the electric fence thingy keep Smokey out? Is it a demagnatizer maybe?
Why do the candidates have to be dead in order for Smokey to leave? They don't even know what the heck they are supposed to be protecting.
Is Jacob really dead?

"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by frodis on 05-12-10 at 01:11 PM
Hm.

I'm not sure how I feel about this episode. I didn't hate it, I didn't love it. I mostly came away with a bunch of questions.

I also had coffee before bed, so I was awake for a long time thinking about it. The following may not be clear, but it was caffeinated.

I found myself wondering. . .

Did MiB become the smoke monster when Jacob bashed his head and flushed him down the happy hole, or was the smoke monster in there already and the flushing action just let him out?

Was the woman who kidnapped the babies and raised them herself a smoke monster, too? Is that how she wiped out the village?

This line of thought made me wonder. . .

Was kidnapper woman's intention all along to have MiB be her successor? Did she trick Jacob into throwing MiB down the hole so MiB would be the next Smokey? MiB was a lot more similar to the kidnapper woman than Jacob was. Jacob even suggested that MiB was her true choice. Does Jacob just *think* he's the successor, but in reality, MiB is? Is that why MiB can't leave?

She was a good liar, and Jacob believed her. Is Jacob just a lame duck? Did she ever tell Jacob he couldn't leave the island? (She told the brother, but did she ever say that to Jacob?) She seemed to know that Jacob was too much of a weenie to do the kinds of things she did to protect the island. (Although he turned out to be a good head-basher.)

I guess one answer we got is that the reason Jacob never gives us answers is because he doesn't know anything.

"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by dabo on 05-12-10 at 03:13 PM
I'm happy. They can just end the show now as far as I'm concerned. Nope, no need for another 3 1/2 hours minus about 75 minutes commercial time, just Soprano it right here. Great show everybody! I wonder if I can get my money back for those theater tickets I reserved for next week.
"Dreadful. "
Posted by Max Headroom on 05-12-10 at 01:18 PM
That was an hour of my life that I'll never get back.

We're down to the last two episodes of the entire series, and the best they can do is waste an entire episode on the backstory of Jacob and his unnamed brother? Other than a token tie-in to the Adam and Eve scene with Jack, Kate, and Locke, there was no link to anything relevant. While I was curious about the mystery of Jacob and MIB/XLocke/Unnamed Brother, a brief explanation would've been enough for me. Instead we got a "War and Peace" answer to a "Jeopardy!" question.

YMMV, but this episode svcked horribly.

"RE: Dreadful. "
Posted by Breezy on 05-12-10 at 01:58 PM
I didn't think it was horrible. But. I do think it should have been shown earlier in the season instead of right at the end. Showing it at the end, could be construed as filler.
"RE: Dreadful. "
Posted by blacknwhitedog on 05-12-10 at 02:23 PM
I was very disappointed- it was like- ok the whole thing about the island is this shiny light cave- don't let the light go out boys and girls- have a nice day- very disney.
"Catch a falling star..."
Posted by blacknwhitedog on 05-12-10 at 02:30 PM
How relevant do you think that "Catch A Falling Star" song is? Falling star- a meteor or something? Source of the light cave?
"RE: Catch a falling star..."
Posted by weltek on 05-13-10 at 11:04 AM
The song appears to be very important, but I can't for the life of me figure out a really good reason it is.


-A Tribetastic Creation

"RE: Catch a falling star..."
Posted by dabo on 05-18-10 at 04:00 PM
I don't think the song itself is really important so much as it just happened to fit what they needed a song for.
"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by zombiebaby on 05-12-10 at 04:31 PM
I kind of liked it. Not enough though for it to be the 3rd to last episode ever of Lost though. It was not a favorite of mine nor my least favorite. I loved the first half with the kids. 2nd half dragged a bit and I thought it was a bit heavy handed with all it's symbolism.

I feel like it's been confirmed that Jacob is indeed a tool. MIB is certainly more sympathetic. I scratch my head at why they insist he is evil. Are they trying to illuminate the "light that is all of man"? If that's the case I don't see any in Jacob. Jacob as a character to me is incredibly dull.

So was mom the smoke monster originally? No way she killed all those people and sealed up the well by herself right? She had to be some other kind of entity.

If she made it so the brothers can't harm each other then how did Jacob end up killing MIB?

Why does Jacob get to leave? How does that work?

So MIB can see the dead but NOT Jacob. MIB is special but NOT Jacob. I'm trying to think about who can/has seen dead and/or other images on the island. Everyone? Jack-Christian, Hurley-various, Kate-horse, Ben-mother, Sun/Jin-never did right?, Locke-Walt, Shannon-Walt, Richard-Isabella, Sayid? anyone?, Charlie? Ecko-Ana Lucia, Yemi...are there more? Is this relevant?

I liked how these characters looked so similar to our familiar ones. I thought Claudia looked like Kate, twins mother-Helen, Roussou, one of shipwrecked guys in jumgle looked like Sawyer.

The episode I thought rapidly answered many questions, especially in the first half, and it leaves me hope that they really do have time to answer more.

"Who was CJ?"
Posted by zombiebaby on 05-12-10 at 04:33 PM
I keep reading CJ. What character was that? There were only 4 characters in this episode and I don't think the mother had a name either? Or was this her name? What a weird name for her or is it being mispelled?
"my fault"
Posted by dabo on 05-12-10 at 04:41 PM
LAST EDITED ON 05-12-10 AT 04:42 PM (EST)

The Allison Janney character wasn't given a name. Allison Janney played CJ (Claudia Jean) Craig on The West Wing. So I started this bit of calling her Lost character CJ or Claudia Jean, and MIB Claude, which I thought was just funny since the biological mother's name was Claudia. Just me having a yuck.

"RE: my fault"
Posted by zombiebaby on 05-12-10 at 04:50 PM
Oh Ok, I did not think I heard a name for her!
"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by michel on 05-12-10 at 07:13 PM
That was a very difficult episode to digest. I'll have to watch it once more before knowing if we took a step forward or a few back.

Instead of being all-knowing, we saw that Jacob is really like Sergeant Schultz: He knows N.O.T.H.I.N.G! Unless his centuries on the island has taught him something, if he really doesn't know, how will we?

Could MIB have all the answers? Like OFG, I thought of Plato's cave but wondered if the only creature that had been inside the cave is the one that knows everything of the outside world.

The question raised from this episode was: Is Smokey MIB or is MIB Smokey? I mean, was that MIB coming back as Smokey or was Smokey already inside the cave and he burst out after MIB was pushed in and will he claim him now that he has a dead body? Didn't the light go out when Smokey came out of the cave? If so, what is Jacob protecting?

When I saw Claude digging the hole and being covered in dirt, I thought we were supposed to see that all the "Bad people" had been claimed just like Sayid. They were bad because Smokey had them under his control. But then, how did "Mommy dearest" kill them all? I suspect she was a white smoke monster. There needs to be balance after all.

I found it interesting that Jacob looked exactly like Sawyer beating up Jack when he was punching Claude. Another parallel.
Jacob protects the island but he doesn't know a thing about what he is protecting. That's a lot like Desmond when he was in the hatch punching numbers. Desmond only wanted someone to come take his place so he could leave the island. That sounds more like MIB than Jacob however. Richard wanted to die instead of leaving the island, sounds a lot like CJ who thanked MIB for killing her. I'm starting to wonder if there is only 1 very troubled character.

"LOL"
Posted by zombiebaby on 05-12-10 at 09:03 PM
I think we might agree?

Also the punching scene was like Jack punching out Ben.

"RE: LOL"
Posted by michel on 05-12-10 at 09:13 PM
If so, the episode was good for something!

Didn't everyone and their mother punch out Ben? I remember Desmond, Sayid and Rousseau beating the crap out of him. That's it: Ben was MIB and MIB is a punching bag! That's why he's mad.

"Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by zombiebaby on 05-12-10 at 09:31 PM
A couple of my readers pointed out that when Jacob sends the Man in Black down the log flume and he turns into the Smoke Monster, the light in the cave goes out. And they've wondered if that means that Smokey now is the light that Jacob is supposed to protect and that's why he can't leave the island.

CC: You'll get more information that will help you understand that in the episodes that follow this one.


http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/exclusive-interview-lost-producers-damon-lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-talk-across-the-sea


"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by Outfrontgirl on 05-12-10 at 09:56 PM
>http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/exclusive-interview-lost-producers-damon-lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-talk-across-the-sea

It's so hard for me to keep reading debates about how discrepancies are actually clues to explanations after reading this:
_________________

"You've said many times that when people find out who Adam and Eve are, we'll all realize just how long you've been planning the mythology. Well, I went back and watched the "House of the Rising Sun" scene, and Jack says that the clothing looks like it's 50 years old. Is he just not very good at calculating the rate of decay on fabric? "

CC: Jack is not really an expert in carbon dating.

DL: He's not really a forensic anthropologist. We need to bring in Bones.

CC: Or Charlotte. She's an anthropolgist.

DL: The other theory that I would like to throw out there is that Jacob and his mother were just expert craftsmen. They made those clothes on that loom so well, it would appear that they were only 50 years old in decomposition, when in fact it's several thousand.

CC: Or perhaps the fabric is magic. A lot of theories there, Alan.

These writers are good with the magic fabric explanation. (yes I realize that it's tongue-in-cheek, but it's also clear that they don't care, as long as they never have to admit that they didn't plan for Adam and Eve to come from long long ago. Why they can't admit that I don't understand; it hurts them more in my eyes that they have to descend to silly banter to keep up the illusion.

If they did know back in Season One that the bones were MIB and fake Mom, then there was no reason to put in dialogue where Jack came up with an estimated time for the clothing. He could have just said that they looked "real old."

In any case, there shouldn't have been any fabric unless the power of the island has a special interest in preserving textiles. No, but then the fabric shouldn't have been decayed at all.

The simplest explanation is usually correct, says Mr. Occam as he shaves, and that is that the writers either hadn't worked out the mythology, or that the skeletons were originally someone else in the group who had time traveled.

I'm fairly sure that the Adam and Eve discovered in the cave had their hands clasped, and we inferred they were a couple, whereas they didn't bother to have Jacob stage this. It wouldn't have worked well with the final plot where MIB whacked Mommie Dearest and Jacob was totally jealous of their bond.

In some podcast from long long ago, Darlton said they had planted an anagram that said who Adam and Eve were, and fans found an anagram that worked out to the bones of Nadler -- Rose and Bernard.


`If there's no meaning in it,' said the King, `that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any. ~ Lewis Carroll

"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by emydi on 05-13-10 at 04:21 PM
I'm fairly sure that the Adam and Eve discovered in the cave had their hands clasped, and we inferred they were a couple, whereas they didn't bother to have Jacob stage this. It wouldn't have worked well with the final plot where MIB whacked Mommie Dearest and Jacob was totally jealous of their bond.

didn't Jacob put CJ and Claude's hands together? I know I saw that

FWIW I agree with you OFG totally about this

These writers are good with the magic fabric explanation. (yes I realize that it's tongue-in-cheek, but it's also clear that they don't care, as long as they never have to admit that they didn't plan for Adam and Eve to come from long long ago. Why they can't admit that I don't understand; it hurts them more in my eyes that they have to descend to silly banter to keep up the illusion.

"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by Corvis on 05-16-10 at 09:36 AM
I re-watched that episode where they discovered Adam and Eve and not only were their hands not clasped, they weren't even laying near each other. One was on the other side of the cave from the other. So that was kind of annoying.
"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by weltek on 05-17-10 at 10:00 AM
I was actually thinking MIB is maybe "revived" (the water?) at some point after Jacob places them in the cave. I'm not convinced Jacob and MIB have had their beachside "why do you keep bringing them here, the result is always the same" conversation yet. Jacob didn't seem to be that advanced in his manipulation, confidence and knowledge yet, nor did the rift between them seem developed enough pre-"mom's" death.


-A Tribetastic Creation
"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by michel on 05-17-10 at 02:19 PM
That's because Jacob had that conversation with Smokey. MIB was dead just like the real Locke.
"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by weltek on 05-17-10 at 03:52 PM
So do you think it might mess with the actual body positioning a bit when Smokey "inhabits" another body?

I still don't understand if it was Smokey in MIB's body, why Smokey would tell Richard later on that Jacob "stole his body." Smokey would have stolen MIB's body. Maybe I'm being obtuse.


-A Tribetastic Creation

"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by michel on 05-17-10 at 04:23 PM
>So do you think it might
>mess with the actual body
>positioning a bit when Smokey
>"inhabits" another body?

No idea. Maybe that's it. Smokey isn't lighfooted! Or, maybe the boar or the polar bear came in the cave? Maybe a wave? I don't get the fixation on a detail.

It's like the fabric issue and the 50 year comment: When you involve time travel, anything is possible. The centuries that have elapsed on our world could have been only 50 years of island time.


>I still don't understand if it
>was Smokey in MIB's body,
>why Smokey would tell Richard
>later on that Jacob "stole
>his body." Smokey would have
>stolen MIB's body. Maybe I'm
>being obtuse.

The quote, if I remember correctly was: "Jacob stole my humanity." Anyway, it could have been a lie to convince Richard to kill Jacob or Smokey meant that Jacob drew him out of the cave where there was the light. Maybe "humanity" was the only way Smokey could make an 19th century uneducated man like Richard understand that he meant his essence.

Have you read my post below?

"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by weltek on 05-18-10 at 01:32 PM
I don't get the fixation, either. This just seems to be one of the "big flaws" in the writing people seem fond of pointing out. My point was only to say, as you also did, there could be a million different explanations and it doesn't really matter to the story, IMHO.

I thought MIB said "body." Maybe it was "humanity."


-A Tribetastic Creation

"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by Flowerpower on 05-19-10 at 07:28 AM
I don't know, Michel. Time and again, Flocke tells us that he lost his humanity. We saw, in "Across the Sea", how he lost it. Becoming smokey is the 'worse than death' fate, that befell MiB. It was Jacob's mistake.

Flocke also told us that he likes to walk because it reminds him that he was once human. I don't think smokey escaped from the light, I think his soul is trapped within the smoke. I think that it is MiB trapped in the smoke essence, and ever since his real ghost mother told him that he came from across the sea, he's wanted to flea. He wanted to go for 30 years when he was alive and human, yet special.

What I don't get is that clearly he knows that he can get off the island via the wheel under the Orchid. He took Locke there, when he appeared as Christian. But, he couldn't go, as his Fake mom told him he could never go. So, is this a loop hole or not? Apparently he cannot leave via the wheel. We all know now that if he gets off the Island, life as they know it will end, and everyone they love will die. Will everyone that they love die, because the light on the Island will go out, and therefore go out in everyone on earth, all men. At least that's the way I am starting to see it....


"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by dabo on 05-14-10 at 01:50 AM
Oh, if you want to get into it, after 2000 years exposed to the elements just inside the entrance to a cave... why were the skeletons even intact? Tidal wave tosses a slave ship a mile inland, breaks a giant statue, huge electromagnetic blast wrecks a jet airliner, boars and polar bears roaming around, on and on, but two unprotected skeletons remain intact.

Actually, though, in the episode where the skeletons were discovered, when Jack and Kate and John and Charlie were running from angry bees, they weren't together holding hands, they weren't next to each other.

"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by Outfrontgirl on 05-15-10 at 03:19 AM
emydi, you are quite right ... thank you for the correction, I do appreciate it.
It took a second look for me, and dabo, thanks, I had it the reverse, but the Season 1 didn't match up with this scene is the salient point. You would think it would as they are going back and airing the old footage, just conveniently not including any that shows the skeletons' positions and clothes.

I don't find it all that psychologically realistic for Jacob to entwine their hands. He was bitterly jealous of his brother. I bet if it were Criminal Minds where they are serious about the way people behave who have killed or caused harm, he may have showed remorse and treated his brother's body accordingly, but his brother killed Mother and I seriously doubt he'd lay them to rest like a couple.

But that's a very, very minor concern.

There's a game on another forum to think of alt names for the Magic Light cave, and someone came up with "The Plot Hole."

"RE: Found this:Smokey=light?"
Posted by weltek on 05-17-10 at 10:02 AM
See my above comment. I'm not sure we've seen how the scene plays out after Jacob places "mom" and MIB in the cave. I think there may be more.

The "Jacob stole my body" comment made by MIB also still is lurking in my mind.


-A Tribetastic Creation

"RE: Discussion Thread Ep. 6.15: "Across the Sea""
Posted by frodis on 05-12-10 at 11:40 PM
Michel, I agree with you, too! I also wondered what's left for Jacob to protect - he basically got the job and screwed it up immediately by either creating or releasing the smoke monster. Oops.

Good point too about Jacob not knowing what he's protecting paralleling Desmond punching the numbers. Jacob didn't want to take the job, either, but he had to. Makes me think that he may have started bringing "Candidates" to the island right away to get out of his obligation (thereby exposing the island to lots of bad people.) He also died the same way Crazy Mama CJ did - knife through the gut.

"some other things."
Posted by zombiebaby on 05-13-10 at 04:17 PM
Claudia was wearing red.

The flowers(same as temple?) surrounding the "light" were all red.

Still think the inclusion of these red things mean something. Somwhere we had a thread about it. Red shirts(on ghosts/dead people), symbols on hatch countdown clock, tool box that hit Jack, Connect Four game, etc.

MIB was told he was bad and acted bad, told he was good and acted "good". Kind of like Sayid.

"RE: some other things."
Posted by AyaK on 05-18-10 at 10:40 PM
As long as the message isn't, "Better red than dead!"
""Across the Sea": Thoughts"
Posted by michel on 05-13-10 at 10:38 PM
LAST EDITED ON 05-13-10 AT 10:47 PM (EST)

The following quotes led to some thoughts:

Woman to Claudia:
"The same way you got here; by accident… Every question I answer will simply lead to another question. You should rest. Just be grateful you're alive."

The writers were addressing the viewers here; it would be quite an impolite way to tell the audience to shut up unless they are really saying that the answers are coming in this episode if we listen. I’ll go with that.

Mom to BiB:
“Jacob doesn’t know how to lie, he’s not like you…You’re special.”
First, Garcia had his characters wrong when he said MIB couldn’t lie. This also tells us that Jacob is innocence while Boy in Black is curious, defiant and the leader of the two.

Mom and the boys:
”There is nowhere else. The island is all there is.”

”They are not like us. They don’t belong here. We are here for a reason.”

“What makes them dangerous?”
“The same thing that makes all men dangerous: They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.

Interesting that Mom uses the words that MIB will be using later but Jacob, who takes her place, doesn’t share that view when he inherits the job. Jacob did learn something over time.

"This is the reason we’re here: The warmest, brightest light you have ever seen or felt and we must make sure that no one ever finds it. A little bit of this very same light is inside every man, but they always want more. They can't take it but they would try. And if they tried, they could put it out. And if the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere."

I think I know what the object of Jacob’s game is: Smokey wants to find the cave with the light, Jacob hides it.

Claudia was surrounded by a strange light when she met BiB.

Jacob and BiB:
“You will never be able to leave this island.”
“That’s not true and one day I will prove it.”

MiB to Jacob:
“I’ve spent 30 years with them. They are greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy…They are a means to an end. I’m leaving. I found a way off the island.

MIB to Mom:
"I spend 30 years searching for that place you brought me as a child. That waterfall with the beautiful light. I have walked this island from end to end and not once coming close to finding it. What if the light underneath the island, what if I could get it from someplace else? I’m going to attach that wheel to a system we’re building…Then I’m going to turn it and, when I do, I will finally be able to leave this place."

We know that the wheel did get installed. The donkey wheel works exactly as MIB thinks it will, sending someone off the island. So, this light is a portal to our world. The fact that MIB hasn’t found the cave in 30 years had to be because it was inside another portal that is activated by some other mechanism that he ignores. All the places “where metal behaves strangely” have to be portals that lead on and off the island.

Jacob and Mom:
"What is down there?"
“Life, death, rebirth. It is the source, the heart of the island. Just promise, whatever you do: Don’t ever go down there. You’d be worse than dying. Much worse…Take the cup and drink. Now, you and I are the same."

MIB woke up to realize Mom had done her own version of the purge and had filled the well.
He stabs her. (Without letting her talk)
She thanks him. (That’s more like Richard than Jacob.)

After beating the crap out of MIB, Jacob pushed him into the cave.
”You wanted to find light? You wanted to leave this place? Then go.”

After pushing him in, Smokey comes out of the cave. Note that we do not see the cave after Smokey comes out. We don’t know if the light went out. What we do know is that Jacob had learned something that we didn’t see: He knew the cave was a way off the island, that it was a portal. To where? To our world, our universe.

What happened? What does it all mean?

We’ll need to find out what is Smokey to be sure but I’ll stick with my assumption that Smokey is Chaos, Disorder, Entropy.
I’ll add that the island isn’t in our universe but that it is superimposed on it.
That’s why the island could “move” and it was impossible to find: It can only be seen through narrow portholes and, if you close them, the island disappears. And each portal leads to a different time and space on either side. That’s the reason for the time travel. When the donkey wheel was crooked, the portals would open up and close randomly within the island.
All the places with electromagnetic anomalies are doors, gates between the island and our universe.

When MIB was pushed inside the cave, he either created imbalance in our universe and forced Smokey out of it or his arrival “surprised” Smokey and the creature had to see where that body came from.
The net result was less chaos in our world and maybe a chance for the progress that Jacob has been hoping for. Jacob’s brother is dead. We had always seen Smokey using his body like he has done with Locke.

Smokey took on human form to talk to Jacob, to convince him to let him go back to his home, our universe. I think Smokey has gone over the island and cannot find the waterfall with the beautiful light again. He needs Jacob’s help so that’s why he couldn’t kill Jacob. Jacob’s game may also be that Smokey cannot kill his candidates if he wants a chance to “win” the game, find the cave and go home. However, if he wins, chaos will return to our world and it'll be destroyed.

Smokey found a loophole or at least he thinks he has. Maybe it's on the lines of having everyone kill each other so that no one is left to hide the light.

Who are the candidates? Could they all be descendants of Claudia’s people? Smokey isn’t allowed to kill these people but everyone else doesn’t have protection.

By bringing Smokey on his island, Jacob enabled life to grow on our Earth.
Maybe that’s why Mom and MIB were named Adam and Eve: Their actions led to the creation of our world and Jacob’s job evolved into protecting it.

Or all this is wrong!


"RE: "Across the Sea": Thoughts"
Posted by dabo on 05-15-10 at 11:37 PM
Actually, as I said in a post above, I'm happy with this episode. I've read a few things refering to this as a mythological episode, and I think those reviewers are pointing to something they don't quite understand. But that's absolutely right. This episode brings the "myth" of Lost into focus. At least it does for me.

Forget about the mysteries and the plot and all for a bit: What is Lost really all about?

Stories in mythology often aren't entirely logical, they aren't meant to be. They are metaphors, analogies, parables; they are really about the central theme, often human nature. Sometimes they contain aspects of history, sometimes they are pure invention. Some of them seem to fit scientific theory, some of them seem to fit theological belief, some of them are flat out fantasies.

So, this "myth" stages the battle. It isn't good versus evil. It is the natural inherent conflict between duty and free will. Excellent! I'm happy, I get it now.