Episode 109 Across the sea
May 11, 2010 by Donald Mikhail and Charlotte
Filed under Most Recent, Tv and Film
There has been some crazy divisive reactions to this episode! Join me as I try to breakdown an unbiased view.
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Finally, a Jacob & MIB backstory. OMG, Jacob & MIB are twins, saw that coming. And were born on the island didn’t see that coming. I started laughing when MIB was born and the mom said she doesn’t have a name for him, I guess he really doesn’t have a name. MIB can see dead people but Jacob can’t. MIB created the donkey wheel to leave the island, how MIB became the Smoke Monster, and who’s Adam & Eve to me that’s some of the solid answers this season. Even though this episode showed the motives behind MIB’s action, he’s still evil. AWESOME episode!
that episode was awesome. one of my faves of the season. the story needed a historical foundation to tell where all of this erupted from and this was it. sure, it had a few holes and wasnt to everyones liking but i thought it was a hell of a lot better than watching people sit around a camp doing Nintendo objectives like: “go to the boat. now escape the cage. now go in the sub. blow something up.”
thats too convoluted, contrived and all for an agenda no one understands without this episode.
good stuff. hopefully it gets better and more crazy as it finishes up.
Zoinks, freakin’ Zoinks
What a wonderful episode. It really shows that the creators of the show had a plan that if necessary, could have probably been a one season story arc. I was so freaked out to see the donkey wheel. This has been my desktop image for 3 freakin’ years!!!
Okay, okay, I’m a little bit out of breath.
So no name for Jacob’s brother, who appears was a relatively sane person, until his mother pushed him to the brink and his brother killed him.
Okay, okay, Jacob good, MIB not so good.
Did I mention the freakin’ donkey wheel!?!?!?!?
oh yeah, my new theory is that Adam and Eve are not Rose and Bernard.
peace!
Len
I thought it was so cute to see baby Jacob wrapped in a white blanket and the boy who shall remain nameless wrapped in black. The light/dark stuff is rampant in this episode which I really appreciate.
To be honest I thought this episode was terrible.
I didn’t really buy any of the character’s motivations. Crazy Mom tells Jacob and MiB (Who is only referred to with pronouns… ugh…) that the world is a bad place, while she’s the one who killed a woman right after giving birth?
Jacob also knows apparently nothing, as does MiB, and yet we are supposed to believe that they get all sad and teary OVER THE WOMAN WHO KILLED THEIR MOTHER FOR NO REASON?
Also, for that matter how did Biological Mom even get on the Island? Accident? I’m supposed to think that a pregnant woman about to go into labor can:
1) Survive falling off a ship
2) Somehow manage to then swim through the water and crawl up the beach
3) And not have a single child be harmed
For that matter, how did the boat even get on the Island? Is it that easy to enter on the correct bearing?
What the hell Lost.
I mean, I know I have to suspend my disbelief a little bit anyways, but this is just ridiculous.
I’ve got more to say, but I worry about my health, so I’m just going to go now and hope I don’t get a heart attack or something due to the anger swelling inside me over this episode.
I thought this was a great episode. Excellent casting on Young Jacob/ and the Kid in Black. The episode revealed a few answers (of course people are ready to send Damon and Carlton to burn).
LOST fans are some of the most interesting fans out there. They get some answers and then dismiss them as nonsense. All season long there has been such negativity from the fans. I would go out on a limb and say most people view this season as underwhelming. They want answers and answers to everything. what does the MIB’s name mean to the whole story? Who cares what his name is?. If it is ever revealed they will complain about his name. They will scour history books for a name with similar characteristics. And the complain why they didn’t name this.
If the long list of questions people needed answered were relevant to the story. Wouldn’t they have been answered? For the fans needing answers to everything. Maybe Damon and Carlton will put out an encyclopedia for you. Just like J.K. Rowling is planning to do on Harry Potter. Then once that is released the fans can argue for eternity on every little detail.
Sorry about the rant. Wait for the final episode before passing judgment on what was explained and what wasn’t.
I am disappointed…
We still don’t know what the smoke monster is, who the crazy mother is, what the light is (nor will we because the only person that knew died)…
Not to mention…
What was/ what happen when the light turned purple when Desmond turned the fail safe key?
What happen when the island sunk?
What was the button doing to stop to the light?
Food drop?
I could go on but I think a lot of people know how I feel. I love lost but feel disappointed…
Well I thought this episode was INCREDIBLE! Definitely in my top ten- possibly even five.
Some things to think about:
- So that kid running around on the island in present day taunting MIB is in fact young Jacob. I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case- I still can’t think of how or why that would possibly happen…
- So Jacob’s job would have been to keep people out of the island’s light, but he made it so it’s now to keep the island’s darkness in…interesting. So is the MIB that’s the smoke monster the same as Jacob’s brother at all, or did it just take his form like it took Locke’s? It is apparently still bound by their fake mom’s rule that they can’t hurt each other…
- So Jacob’s brother could see dead people (or at least his mom) but Jacob couldn’t- what does that say about Hurley? What does that say about Ben (who could see his mom as a kid which freaked Richard out?) Is there a difference between being able to see your dead mom and being able to see all dead people? Is there a difference between being able to see people who died on/off the island? (remember Richard asked Ben about that and freaked out more cause she died off island- MIB’s mom died on island…)
- Finally: Darlton said that they had the whole Adam and Eve thing planned from the beginning- however, Jack said that they had only been there about 40-50 years. Now, I’m usually the first one to admit that Jack is a complete idiot and is always wrong (until last week with the bomb at least,) but he was off by quite a lot, and I don’t think they’d write that in at all if they knew that one day they’d show us that it wasn’t right. It looks to me like they threw together an answer after seeing how much we wanted it…
…oh well I’m over it. THIS EPISODE WAS SO GOOD!!!
What a disappointment of an episode.
1. The Rules are what we make them out to be. Is that why MIB can’t kill Jacob? Really?
2. Jacob doesn’t know anything. He basically follows what his mother told him, to “protect the light”. How does he leave the Island? How does he bring people to the Island? How does he know about the Lighthouse? Where does he know all this stuff if his only source of information was the Woman, and she just died?
3. Lame Adam & Eve reveal. How did they “plan it all along” if A&E were characters introduced in the 6th season? How come Adam & Eve still have flesh bits and clothing remains stuck on them if they died in a damp tropical cave in Roman times?
4. Last episode was supposed to be conclusive that MIB was bad, but now we know that Jacob killed MIB, that he is following the mission of a crazy woman who killed a bunch of people (including a woman that had just given birth)
5. If Jacob is the successor to the Woman, then why does MIB express the exact same philosophy as the Woman (“they come, they destroy, etc.”)?
Not sure why people are sure that MIB and his mom died in the same era as the shipwreck (regarding the skeletons’ ages). If that is the case, why did MIB still have the same body in the 1800′s when Richard arrived? He sits with Jacob on the hill, and Jacob gives him the bottle of wine. We already know Jacob doesn’t age after young adulthood, so there is no real indication of how much time passed in this episode. But I suppose we are supposed to think that MIB is killed soon after the original villagers from the shipwreck. Does MIB inhabit his old body in the same way he inhabits others’ bodies? Not that I expect everything to fall together logically anymore…
I definately agree with Stubble. Crap episode. They even spelt out that all they are going to do is answer every question with another question. The big difference now is that our answers are lame… The light in the island needs protecting!!! Their fake mother, how did she arrive at the island, how long has she been there, how come she has magical powers. Fake mother also came up with the rules of “You boys play nicely together”. i am supposed to believe from then on they weren’t allowed to kill each other because mommy said. i guess this whole episode could be put into grinds my gears… Thanks for the podcast have always been a huge fan
In what year was Across The Sea? I recall Jack saying the clothes on Adam and Eve (NoName & Dead KillerMom) were about 40 or 50 years old. Is this to imply that the LOSTIES are in ancient times plus 40 or 50 on the Island? Now I’m even more confused?
This episode really didn’t do anything for me. What we learned could have been accomplished in a few minutes without the need for taking up a whole hour.
One other point. The mystery of The Smoke Monster has been a major issue since the Pilot episode. I’m certainly not satisfied with the “explanation” of throwing the no-name brother into an orange light created the biggest mystery of the entire show.
I’m still trying to figure out the purpose of not giving MIB (or his “mother”) a name. If they would have just given him a random name from the beginning (season 5 finale) then it would have made no difference except poeople wouldn’t have had to theorize about why he didn’t have one. It was a cool episode but nothing was REALLY explained. Looks like we’re heading for a disasterous finish to a great show.
Does anyone have any thoughts on what Jacob meant at the end of Season 5 when he told MIB that “it only ends once, everything before that is just progress”? Was Jacob thinking that “progress” means getting closer to finding the candidate to replace him? Is that all he cares about? Or is there still some larger purpose to jacob’s plan for our Losties that we’ll see in the final episodes? I’m hoping there’s a larger purpose that plays out in the end, but right now I’m completely at a loss to even guess what it could be.
Theory/Question:
Is someone going to tell Jack that there is a bright light in the middle of the island that he is supposed to be protecting, or is the sole purpose now to just keep smokey in? Is Jacob going to finally come to Hurley and tell him these secrets of the island???
Ryan- the light isn’t there anymore. Remember their mom said it’d go out it anyone tried to get it? When MIB went in the light turned into darkness/evil so instead of keeping people out, Jacob’s job was to keep the darkness in. Maybe in the end Jack and friends will find a way to destroy smokey which will return the light to the island and then MIB’s soul will be free to leave but Jack will still have to stay and protect the light.
For me it was a fantastic episode. Where to start? Jacobs mother = Hot!
Jacob and MiB are twins, or should I say MiB is “The Bad Twin”
MiB and his mother are Adam & Eve. (Love this, I mentioned it in Rethinking Lost and posted it in the Adam & Eve section on the Dharma dummies board as a pure guess but never thought it’ll come true)
I was not a fan of the montage used although I understand why they did it that way.
The light in the cave was a little harder to believe. Why wasn’t it covered with reeds or branches if it was meant to be kept hidden? Was the water suppressing the Black smoke? keeping the darkness in? Is the Smoke only a taster of what would be released?
I’ll leave it at that for now. Thanks for the show.
I tell you though, one good thing that this episode did spawn is a pretty funny Jimmy Kimmel clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8JBYlNTf-Q&feature=player_embedded
Hey Donald, let me start off by saying I had to watch this episode 3 times, Twice last night and another time when I got out of work today. With each viewing I noticed a little more, and became less and less harsh on it. I think part of the problem was that I was expecting an ‘ab aeterno’ quality episode, but sadly it was not that potent (no matter how many times i’ll watch it)
At first I thought all this episode did, was give me more questions, but then I realized, these are questions that they will never answer anyway so why even waste my time on them. The main thing I noticed is, “Boy in Black” was special as noted by his “Mother” He was more aware…..of the way things worked….He picked up the metal box, and right away knew it was a game, right away knew to make up rules, things that jacob was clearly unaware of. Almost as if both children went to different schools and were raised by different teachers? You know what I’m saying.
Even at the age of 30+, Jacob seemed to have the mind of a innocent child, scoffing at every serious subject MiB brings up with a laugh…not in jest, but almost as if he was a younger brother being jested by his older brother…and when MiB reinforced his point and what he was trying to get across, jacob would quickly retort back with such naive phrases that might as well been “Nah-uh….mommy wouldn’t lie”
All this episode did……….was make me wonder what happened in between this incident and the totally revamped jacob we have today….which can honestly become its own television series….or a great book series…
/rant
On the IR people thoerized that the mom is the smoke monster. I disagree, she had a human body which decomposed into a skeleton, and we clearly saw that MIB lost his body when he got turned into smokey.
Donald,
This episode sucked!
That’s my three little words….oh wrong website!
The writing as gotten lazy, it does seemed like the same show that I have enjoyed over the past five seasons. After the momentum from THE CANDIDATE they take us to this mess! They could have put this junk before Ab Aterno!
This whole damn Island is EVIL, I will be so glad when the LOSTIES realized they have been played!
I hope they can pick it up, what a way to close the BEST show on TV in the last ten years….DAMN!