Rose
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« on: May 12, 2010, 11:48:30 AM » |
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OBS RECAP & REVIEWS: LOST S6 EPISODE 15 ‘ACROSS THE SEA’
Written by OBS Staff Member Rose
In this episode, one that we have all been waiting for, the back-story of Jacob and the MIB is revealed.
Lost never gives you the answers to everything outright. There are always more questions asked, every time we get some answered. But we’ll get into those in a minute.
In this Jacob/MIB centric episode we learn that Jacob and MIB are actually twins. Their mother Claudia is killed after giving birth, by the woman that helps Claudia after her ship crashed on the island.
There are others like Claudia who build their own Dharma looking enclave, but we find this out later, as do Jacob and MIB.
Claudia never had a name for MIB for she was only expected one child. Hence MIB is never named.
Fast forward to when the brothers are pre-tweens. Jacob and his brother are playing a game that MIB has found with white stones and black stones. (We learn later that their now fake mother planted the game on the beach so MIB could find it.) MIB makes up the rules of the game and they play. Rules as we know play a big part on the island.
One day Jacob and his brother are on a wild boar hunt and they come across other men coming through the brush to kill the boar. The revelation that there are other people on the island puts the boys into a frenzy. How could this be? Their mother told them they were the only ones. When confronted they learn they have been lied to.
In order to rein the boys in from ever trying to contact those other people, she brings them to a spot on the island that has a cave of ‘light’. She is the protector of this light and one day, one of them will be too. Mother has rules of her own and she has made it that they cannot harm one another and they cannot leave the island. How? We don’t know.
To spoil more of mother’s lies, MIB sees his real mother’s ghost (Jacob cannot see dead people) and MIB learns the truth about her.
Livid about this revelation MIB wants to leave his fake mother and take Jacob with him. Jacob like the good little boy he is does not want to. MIB leaves his fake mother and Jacob and joins the other camp.
Segway: I find this parallel of sorts, to Ben being shot when he was a child, and is brought over to the others and then lives with them instead of the Dharma crew.
Adulthood, 30 years later: Jacob visits his brother (to play their game) and MIB tells Jacob he has found a way off the island. After years of not being able to find the cave of light, he and the very smart people he cohabitates with have been digging in various locations on the island and have found that there is an electromagnetic ability in certain locations on island. They have dug wells to find the light underground and are in the process of trying to harness this ability to leave the island. MIB brings Jacob down into this well and the wheel they are building to harness the light. (As we all know this is the wheel both Ben and Locke turned when they wanted to move the island).
Jacob, like a little tattletale, runs back to Fake Momma to tell her all about it. She then pays a visit to MIB in the well. She cannot let him leave the island. MIB should know not to trust her by now, but yet still shows her the light through a crack in the wall of the well. What does momma do? She pushed MIB against the well wall and he is knocked unconscious.
Momma takes Jacob back to the light cave and tells him he is the protector of it now. We get a sense of foreboding that she will not be around much longer. She hands him wine from a carafe and tells him he must drink, he has no choice. She tells Jacob he can never go into the cave for it is worse than dead itself. What can be worse than death? We find out soon enough.
Momma then burns the camp and fills the well to ensure MIB can never get off the island. How she did all this by herself in one day will remain a mystery.
MIB appalled at all the destruction of his years of hard work and the death of his cohabitants and goes to fake mother camp and stabs her with his dagger. Curiously enough she thanks him afterwards as if she happy to be done with her job as protector.
Jacob arrives upon the scene, beats his brother senseless (he has amazing boxing skills by the way) and takes MIB to the light cave and throws him against the rocks, in the stream that leads through the cave and MIB floats like an lost lily pad inside. A hushed moment passes and the Smoke Monster comes rushing out like a freight train.
Jacob finds his brother’s body per chance after trekking through the jungle and is noticeably distraught at having killed him. He brings him back to the hut and in a bittersweet ceremonial send off, he lays them both (MIB and fake momma) together, places their hands together and props them up against the wall. He takes two stones from the game he used to play with his brother, one white, one black, places them in a satchel then into his brother's hands. The light bulb seen round the world goes off. This is ‘Adam and Eve’. L O S T
That was the biggest revelations in the episode. The neat little flashback to Jack, Kate and Locke finding Adam and Eve’s bodies, (which is from Episode 6, Season 1) are meant to remind the audience. This is one time when we didn’t need reminding. Thanks for nothing new.
Revelations aside…more questions are bound to bother us.
What was in the wine? My theory is it stopped Jacob from aging. Remember when Jacob gave a cup to Richard and from that point on Richard stopped aging as well. Jacob would extend this Dorian Grey attribute, for he wanted someone to be by his side, for quite some time.
Why did MIB turn into Smoke? If you think of the Ying and Yang of most things on the island…black and white, good and evil…there is light and dark. The light in the cave should have remained untouched. Yet MIB’s body flowed through and out came black smoke. The light cave basically took the essence of MIB and instead of death he became black smoke.
What is the light? The source of all life somehow connected or tied into the electromagnetic energy on the island.
If you notice, the light went out in the cave when he entered. My theory on this is, when MIB’s body went through, the light turned to dark, transformed into smoke, and now the MIB is the one who holds the life of the island, which is why he cannot leave. If he is to leave, the whole world ends. Remember their fake mother said there is a little piece of light in everyone, if they light should go out, it will go out everywhere.
What is it that makes it impossible for Jacob and MIB to leave the island? For this one I have no theory. Only thoughts. This hindrance of not being able to leave is tied into the game that Jacob and the MIB play for years on the island. The game includes others who arrive. The game is to show that all men eventually turn bad. Jacob thinks that there is good in all humans. MIB thinks they can be corrupted eventually. Jacob ‘brings’ people to the island as pawns in their game and MIB tries to corrupt them. But this happens by everyone’s free will. They are not forced. They cannot force anyone to do anything. This is as far as I’ve gotten with this thought. Does anyone have anything to add? It would be very much welcomed.
Where was Claudia, their real mother from? Actually this doesn’t really matter in the grand scope of things; therefore I believe we will never know. It’s really not important. It’s just the audience’s curiosity.
An interesting flip occurred in this episode. We came to understand why MIB is the way he is. He was lied to from the very beginning. All he wanted was to know what is out there in the rest of the world. But his fake mom did not allow this. His ‘people’ were massacred by his fake mother, so he harbors much anger and discontent. This manifested against Jacob as well, because he sided with her. It almost makes you feel sorry for MIB.
One thing I should mention, call it an out loud thought. When Jacob and the MIB are together in one scene in a past episode I cannot recall which, MIB tells Jacob “You don’t know how much I want to kill you right now”. This want to kill him came after all these incidents in this episode. I am thinking MIB took the form of his old self (body) after Jacob killed him. He somehow learned how to morph his smoke self into a person that is dead.
A note on the language flip. How weird was that? It’s almost as if they were hiding the fact they spoke English from each other when the transfer happened. It totally threw me for a loop. They tried to smooth the transition by sounding off that musical tinkle they always do when things shift in episodes that we should pay attention to. Their use of the word nomen, leads me to believe they were speaking Latin.
Some Keys Points from Episode:
When Claudia asks, “How long have you been here?” The reply “Every answer will lead to another question.” is obviously said for us viewers who have been dealing with this since the show started. We should just be grateful we’re getting any answers at all.
Notice after giving birth to two babies, Claudia says, “May I see him”. Not may I see them. This is interesting.
Fake mom planted that game on the beach. Notice how MIB looks out to sea (like something else is out there) after he finds it. Why on earth would fake mom do this, to stir a yearning in MIB that there is something else out there, by placing the game in such a fashion? This…makes no logical sense.
The game box itself has hieroglyphs of sorts on it. When Jacob puts his white stone down in the center ‘box’, in another ‘box’ close to it are two figures, one light and one dark in a running position.
When fake mom asks Jacob where his brother was and she learns he was down at the beach, she already knows that MIB found the game. She planted it there. It’s as if she was testing Jacob’s loyalty. When she tells MIB that his brother Jacob doesn’t know how to lie, she tells him he’s not like Jacob he’s special.
When Fake Mother tells Jacob to get firewood before it rains, it's as if she was sending him off so she could be attacked by MIB alone. It's as if she knew what was to come.
That well that had magnetic properties...just might be the same well that Desmond is now in.
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