Do you like it? I bleached it just for you. Go on…take it. Take that golden asshole.
Warning! Spoilers ahead! If you have not watched every episode of LOST up to and including “Across The Sea,” do not read any further.
The anticipation leading up to last night’s penultimate episode of LOST (that is, if we take into consideration that the finale is technically three parts spread over two nights) was probably higher than any of the show’s previous 117 hours. When I first heard that there would be an episode this season that featured zero principal cast members, and that it would indeed be one of the series’ final three episodes, I began counting down to its air date. Finally, an episode about the island; the time for answers about a history we have pondered and debated for six years was nigh.
Boy, did we receive some answers last night. Some big answers. But, as Mother said last night, any answer given will only lead to more questions. And we were left with just as many questions post-“Across The Sea” as we had prior to its beginning. Different questions, of course — small questions — but questions still remain.
A quick note. I thought “Across the Sea” was a good episode. Not great, not horrible. My hesitancy to declare it amazing hinged upon the scenes centered on the Cave of Light. They were a bit…how do I say this…Narnia-ish? The music, the wonderment, the urine-enriched glow…it didn’t work for me. The idea worked, but the execution was — in my opinion — a swing and a miss.
We begin with Claudia. Pregnant, washed upon the shores of our island, same as any number of visitors/inhabitats we have already seen dating as far back as Richard Alpert. Claudia, of course, is from a time long before Alpert. We were given contextual clues hinting at her origins. She speaks Latin. She arrived by boat. She appears to have been named after an ancient ruler, Claudius. Holy Roman Empire? Probably. We’re looking at a timeframe of 10BC – 54AD. Odd, considering the Ancient Egyptian, Taweret-worshiping ages officially ended in 31BC and there was apparently no statue on the island when “Across the Sea” took place. There was no definitive answer of “When did Jacob and MIB arrive at the island,” but we found out how the brothers came to live there. Very cool.
We learned a lot about Jacob and his nameless brother last night. They were never Gods nor deities. They were not the embodiment of good and evil. They were merely men. They were flawed, just like the every other castaway and candidate we have seen. The Man In Black was never evil incarnate. He was just another “special” person (like Walt, Desmond, et. al.) brought to the island. He wanted to see what existed beyond the surrounding ocean. He wasn’t born bad, it is not him that needs to be guarded and kept from leaving the island. It is the column of smoke that rose from the cave and stole his visage, voice and mannerisms (just as it stole from John Locke) that needs to be contained. At the end of the day, the Man In Black wanted to have a choice. He wanted to exercise his free will. Unfortunately, his curiosity and thirst for knowledge did not agree with the role his mother wanted him to play.
The dynamics of Jacob and his brother as they age was remarkable to watch. The path to their confrontation at the end of season five was given a fantastic foundation last night. We saw the commencement of Jacob’s game, thirty-something years after his brother tells him that one day he’ll be able to create his own game with his own rules that everybody else would have to follow. We saw how Jacob stole his brother’s humanity. And, of course, we saw both the conception of MIB’s plan to leave the island and his first attempt at enacting it.
I suppose the biggest reveal of the night — from an island history perspective — would be that which makes the island so special. The answer was given to us in a metaphor-enriched “light” that is described as the heart of the island. Mother says, “A little bit of this very same light is inside of every man.” She later says the light represents, life, death, and rebirth. She portends that men will want to reach the light, but to go inside of it would bring about a fate worse than death.
I’ve equated all this “light” talk to a metaphor for greed, desire, and temptation. Jacob does not want to enter the cave because he is virtuous. He does not need it. To make a Garden Of Eden reference (and there were more than enough to go around in “Across the Sea”), he felt no urge to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Along these same lines the smoke monster is considered to the snake, leading people into temptation. Think about how the monster as John Locke promises his recruits whatever they most desire in the world. He’s offering them the source of the light. Jacob, despite his morality and adherence to Mother’s “no cave entering” policy might have committed the original sin by killing his brother and tossing the body into the cave. That appears to have not only unleashed the monster (which now has the capability to leave the island and destroy humanity) but it also turned off the “light” he was supposed to protect.
The Adam and Eve reveal was okay. Wasn’t the original writing staff fired after “Walkabout”? So I’m supposed to believe that within two episodes (when the skeletons were found) the new writers had roughly sketched out this path? That seems a bit unbelievable. Otherwise, why would the writers have Jack comment about how the skeletons’ clothing appears to be at least forty years old? I mean…there’s a pretty big difference between 40 and 2,000 years. I’m not mad about how they answered this question. It works. It offers a sense of finality and created a strong link back to the show’s initial episodes. At the very least, I appreciate the fact that they didn’t cave to everybody’s expectations and just say Adam and Eve were Bernard and Rose. I guess the cynic in me doubts that this is where they were steering us since the earliest episodes of the first season.
I could write paragraphs upon paragraphs about what was presented to us during “Across the Sea,” but I’m trying to stick to what I liked or disliked most. Personally, I’m satisfied with what I saw last night. I’m definitely happy (and not surprised) that they went far, far beyond the “it’s a cork!” explanation of what the island is. My friends and I have been saying all along that they don’t have to define it, they just need to allude to it in a “it’s been called many names before” way, and that would be satisfying enough. Oh, and if any of the people who commented on this blog weeks ago saying “It’s a cork” was an acceptable answer to “What is the island” are reading this, I hope you feel like idiots now.
Lastly, I just want to brag for a moment about how I’m going to LOST: Live at UCLA tomorrow night. No cameras or cell phones will be allowed in the concert hall. I’m pretty sure it’s because — after Michael Giacchino awes us with his conducting skills — we’re going to see a screening of the next episode, “What They Died For,” several days before it airs on TV. I’ll certainly write about the music tomorrow, as well as the appearances by (and possible Q&A with) Michael Emerson, Nestor Carbonell and Jorge Garcia. Oh, and if Mark can’t make it to the show I’ll have an extra ticket. So, there’s always that. Contact me if you might want that extra ticket. No guarantees.
