Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Across the Sea



Well, we have SOME answers.

We know how the black smoke monster was created.

We know (as much as we're going to) where Jacob and the Man in Black's issues came from.

We know who Adam and Eve are.

What is in the wine? What does it do to Jacob?

Is the Man in Black we later see just a ghost inhabiting his body? Who is Fake Locke? Is he really just two dead people?

Is electromagnetism the fountain of youth? Is this the same well as in the temple? Has it been getting darker over time as more people go into it? What does this mean for Sayid (if he was alive) or Ben (assuming the Others put him in the fountain)?

It's interesting how Mother Dearest talks about how people are corrupt and fight and destroy, when essentially, that's what Jacob, her and the Man in Black do to each other.

29 comments:

Dylan Thomas B. said...

I thought it was pretty rad. I wish they had said when it was, however. They were speaking Latin at the beginning, so it was probably about 2000 years ago. That's cool.

nortagemdar said...

The only thing that confuses me is that the MiB sees his dead mom before turning into Ol' Smokey. So does the pool, um, exacerbate that ability to 'impersonate' the dead? Or ampify it? Seems like there was a lot of sacrifice going on. If Jack throws himself in the pool to save everyone, I'ma flip my lid.

Cody said...

So I'm thinking the wine had ashes in it. Same ashes they tried to make Sayid take, which would have kicked-started a new Jacob, or killed him, depending on his candidacy. Or maybe not the same ashes, but the ashes of the previous Jacob.

Also, it sounds like Jacob has to guard the Island's well of midichlorians. Bullshit ass bullshit.

beckler said...

Can we all agree that the Golden Hole is like a vagina? Think of it, once you get your first taste you always want more. Too vulgar? Are there any children reading this blog? Besides Matthew.

nortagemdar said...

I would like to add a little to my Jack-sacrifice (hereafter referred to as The Jackrifice) hypothesis. He dives into the pool, expecting to doctor up the island's wounds and heal all wrongs. But instead the island gets addicted to booze and pills. Sick burn.

Kind of.

Ok, not really.

Cody said...

I love the Jackrifice idea. Or maybe I just love the word.

I gotta be honest. I hated the light pond/well business. The only thing I can come up with that kind of makes it seems cool it the Island is where multiple realities/dimensions and times intersect. Turning the donkey wheel diverts reality into a different direction for the turner. Maybe the "friction" of so many realities intersecting in one place causes a buildup of weird electromagnetic pressure that lies beneath the surface. when they build the swan station they release that pressure, and have to instate the button to relieve it. Setting off the bomb blew the realities all out of kilter, and as they slowly reset themselves, the realities will slowly merge. That doesn't explain why when MIB went into the well, Smokey emerged. It's been a pretty hot topic as to whether MIB became smoky or somehow when MIB went in, it set Smokey free and then Smokey just takes his form sometimes.

Ben Steinert said...

I still think Smoke Monster is a nanocloud or an alien intelligence masquerading as both Jacob's brother and Locke. Or perhaps he's God.

There's a definite Garden of Eden feel going on. "Mom" lies to the boys to protect them. Jacob drinks from the tree of life, then throws his bro into the tree of knowledge, which corrupts the light and thereby looses the swarm.

Cody thinks Jacob's bro BECAME the SM at that moment. He may be right, because the SM did say "I used to be a man."

However the series ends, we know that ultimately Marsellus Wallace will get a hold of that source, 'cause he had some of it in his briefcase.

Anonymous said...

Not that any of this occurs to me naturally but in reading online about this episode, it's been suggested that Smokey is what happens to you when you enter the cave. One theory suggests that mom also had the ability to become Smokey - explaining both why she said that going in to the cave is 'much worse than death' (and said it in a way like she KNOWS) and also how she wiped out the settlement of the 'original others'. Doesn't seem like she could just walk over & do that singlehandedly.

At any rate, we know Smokey existed before MIB went in to the light cave, right?

-miller

Cody said...

Yeah, I would assumme Mother Dearest had some kind of powers judging by the things she accomplished after she knocked MIB out. I guess I had kind of assumed she was more like Jacob than Smokey, but I don't know if Jacob has the same kind of power.

By the way, I can't believe Matthew or Dillon haven't said anything about the obvious reference to Luke returning home to find Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru dead!

michele h said...

Oh yeah, Mommy Dearest totally must of been a smoke monster! Because MIB stabbed her before she had a chance to say anything, which is the only reason the murder was successful. And yeah, the massacre at the settlement was very reminiscent of the massacre MIB committed at the Temple. And that must be the same knife being passed around to people like Richard and Sawyer to murder MIB or Jacob.

So Locke and Walt played backgammon in season one right? And that was reminiscent of Jacob and his bro's game.

So yeah, there was some cheesy shit in this episode -- especially the flashbacks to Kate and Jack checking out Adam and Eve in the caves (duh! even my in-laws remember that) and the preview for the next episode that they let the ABC intern produce.

-mH

michele h said...

"Jackrifice" is the best! Every day is one big jackrifice for Jack.

-mh

Anonymous said...

does that miracle potion only come in that glass bottle? or can it also be packaged in a...........juicebox?

whoa, right?

Gabba

Dillon said...

If we start cross referencing star wars here then we would have to say that Hurley is the Jar Jar of LOST and I just don't wanna do that. But yeah, Jacob seems to be Lukeish and he who refuses to be named is Darth-esque or Darthian. Becky's right about that cave. When that scene came on I announced to Amber that they had finally found the island's vajay-jay. What do they expect us to think when they feature a honey colored hole as the central theme of an episode? So smoke bro gets into the islands pants first and then becomes a big flaccid worm of smoke that just wants to get far away. I'm gonna say the island is a really bad lay. A really really bad lay.

nortagemdar said...

Whoa. Ok. First of all good call on the juice box, C-Gabs. No wonder she wanted him to drink his juice! It wasn't even HIS juice, it was island juice! From the jungle!

Secondly, the wording, "honey colored hole," is quite lovely. We should get a bunch of women with dishwater blonde hair to do Hole covers (the alleged Kurt Cobain ones) in an island/jungle setting not unlike the one used for Crucial Taunt.

Or I should stop talking.

Did any women see the honey colored hole as a vajay-jay? I think I was waiting for an apparition to appear so I didn't catch that. I think that the idea of the island being a bad lay could work punningly well with my jackrifice idea.

Dylan Thomas B. said...

"Punningly well." Good phrase!

I'm not catching the whole midichlorian thing. The island is special. We've always known that. Jacob's there to protect the island. That area is just a bit more vulnerable and special. When the nuke went off, it was probably real close to the magic pond area, causing the light to go out, causing the island to sink in the sideways world. That's my theory. I'm probably right.

Cody said...

Yeah, i was mostly just referring to the "it's in every man, but every man wants more" thing when it comes to the midichlorians. Reminded me of Qui Gon's bullshit explanation of the force and midichlorians to young Anakin. I don't know. My other theory is completely separate from that, and I'm sticking to it.

beckler said...

One of my favorite lost bloggers also caught the midichlorian whiff.

Nortagemdr (I'm going to assume that is your real name)-I'm a woman and yes, I thought of a vagina when I saw the glowing, powerful, intoxicatingly wonderful cave. More specifically, my vagina.

The Armeniac said...

The 'spark of light' Mom was reffering to is the spark of God inside very human. One of the many Gnostic refernces in Lost. She was also weaving in her cave, this is exactly what the time weaving goddesses of old would do , weave reality in caves, the wombs of Mother Earth. The weaving Goddess also brings death and destruction in adition to life and creation. The midochondrian thing is not quite on, I'd say. The joy of Lost is that it can be seen in so many lights, though clearly I'm right!!
Oddly, I also thought of Becky's vagina when I saw the glowing cave.

Cody said...

Somehow I knew David Paul would shed some light. I'd gladly take a Midichlorian whiff of his glowing cave any day.

The Armeniac said...

Cody, my cave is glowing even brighter and puting forth even more midichlorian scents knowing you'd be right there, behind me:)



veriword: valuca, sounds vajayjayish!!

beckler said...

I'm reading another interview with Darlton and this exchange is funny:

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.

beckler said...

this one too! sorry for hijacking this blog:

As we've gone into this final season and you've introduced new characters like Dogen and Lennon and the other Temple people, and new mysteries, there have been some people who've said, "Okay, they don't have to answer all the old mysteries if they don't want to, but it's not fair for them to keep introducing lots of new ones at this late date." How do you respond to that?

DL: Are there any readers who actually like the show?

Anonymous said...

DP, can we start a band called MAGIC FABRIC? Can Dillon be in it? Can our first record be called THE FABRIC IS MAGIC?

-miller

Anonymous said...

Golden vagina! Called it!

-DB

Eryn said...

I am really starting to think they're not going to answer half of the questions/mysteries, much less most or all of them.. there are simply too many things, a huge laundry list of things that have yet to be explained.. a regular episode and a long series finale is all they have left to do it? Gonna be depressing!

While I look forward to empty depression after the show is over, this episode was okay. Thank god the crazy mom got killed off as quickly as she came on. It was awesome to see the man in black with real emotions, you really felt sorry for him.

On another note - how did these Latin (were they Romans?) people get on the island? Or was the island in a completely different location back then, like the Mediterranean Sea? Interesting possibilities - could explain the Egyptian influences as well... I'm hoping to see a "brief history of the island" summary in these last episodes!

The Armeniac said...

Miller-Yes. yes and hell yes!!

Anonymous said...

On their last podcast, Damon and Carlton pretty much said they were done with "island mythology".

-DB

Cody said...

I heard that. And I'm bummed. They also argued against me midichlorian comment, saying that in Star Wars, no one ASKED for the Force to be explained further, whereas in LOST everyone wanted to know about the Island. Touchez (not the band). I'm kind of getting used to the idea of the golden water/honey hole thing I guess.

sam said...

I like the idea of the mom being smokey(the security system for the island) and the overseer jacob is, as both technically are jobs that protect the island. So, if mama was both, those two things would not necessarily be mutually exclusive, they just have been for the past 2000 years while the twins have had their go. So, that would mean that it's not that locke can't leave the island because he's evil or smoke monsters shouldn't leave the island but because he would let people exploit the island. We've seen jacob leave the island and mom (mom in black?), presumably, would have at some point also and if she's both, then smokey would have technically been off the island. Though if all this were true, it'd be possible locke could be killed somehow and wouldn't need a replacement and the he and jack won't be playing board games and warring for the next 2000 years like I'd like to imagine is going to happen.