So this is the one where they explain, like, everything. Kinda. They even make fun of how much they explain everything. But at the end of the episode, what exactly has been explained? And does it matter?
It turns out that 2,000 years ago, a beautiful woman washed up on an island. She was pregnant. A strange lady helped to deliver the twin boys, then killed the mother. The boys grew up to be the entire reason behind a show called Lost.
The show’s creators have spent this entire year setting up the good/bad dichotomy of Jacob and Not-Jacob. It’s come with their typical subtlety: white and black, blond and dark-haired, happy and angry, life and death. Hell, they even had to murder one of the best characters on the show and let ol’ What’s His Face take over his body. So it came as somewhat of a shock at first to see that CrazyMom considered Not-Jacob “the chosen one,” and that Jacob was just kind of…well…okay, not exactly dumb, really, but fatally naive and reactionary.
The worst part is, as usually happens on Lost, that Jacob’s naiveté is only fatal to everyone else. After learning that Sibling Dearest has horribly stabbed CrazyMom in a fit of pique — after all, she knocked him out and shut him off from the Glowing Lost Source of Life for Everything on the Planet and Ancient Donkeywheel plan. And then Jacob walks in on some kind of “what have you doooooonnneee?!?!?!?!?!” tip. Jacob is a God of Faith that had to deal with a God of Science; and by “deal with” I of course mean “beat brutally and then sling into the all-destroying white light/white heat thing in the cave-looking place.” Y’know, cause it’s Lost.
Hence, the Smoke Monster, which we now know is really Jacob’s brother in a weird perverted sort of his former self mixed up with the “worse than death” mojo from that cave. I guess that means that every time we have seen Titus Welliver before tonight, he was just slumming the human form thing, huh? Anyway.
It just boils down to the same old thing time after time. Someone wants to guard and protect the island, so that person wins a convert who will then do anything to “protect” the island, even if it means killing tons of people (Ben) or just backslashing one hot lady with an axe (Locke). This convert is always opposed by someone who doesn’t believe the hype and wants to get away from the island by any means necessary, even if it means killing a bunch of dudes, too.
Also, the motif of the CrazyMom: Rousseau, Claire (kinda), Eloise Hawking, etc. Nice break from DistantDad, I guess.
What did we learn? Jacob is not all good, and his brother has real reasons for how he feels. We learned about Adam and Eve, right, and the two stones Jack found that I don’t remember him finding. We learned that people have known about the electromagnetic properties of the island since before they knew what that meant. Sorry, but that’s about it.
BUT THIS IS WHAT YOU PEOPLE ASKED FOR. (And by “you people” I also mean me.) In fact, this episode of Lost comments on that directly, when the twins demand to know the big secret and CrazyMom tells them that it’s too soon, then realizes that she has to do it anyway. We are those twin boys, thrown into the jungle, led blindfoldedly through it by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof and hundreds of characters and leaps forward and jumps backward and timeslips sideways, to this episode — because we wanted to know the secret, too.
Well, now we know that the characters on the show have gone through everything they’ve gone through, have fought and died and struggled for and against each other, have sacrificed their souls in many cases, just because two semi-gods had a sibling rivalry that turned ugly. I guess we have to side with the blond heroic one, overall…but I’m kind of intrigued that they’ve expended so much energy on making us hate the quester, the visionary, the ambitious brother. Are we really supposed to just accept the idea that we should follow the one who doesn’t want to know what’s across the sea?
Check out promo pics from “What They Died For”, the next episode of LOST!
Jacob has left the island.. When he went to visit all of the losties.. So he does know what is across the sea!
How do you know it was 2,000 years, and not, say, 1500 years ago? I keep searching for the answer to this. Period clothing and language are not enough to get this specific, yet people keep using this number, and no one can say why or where they got it????
Yanger: Yes but he only goes there after hundreds of years so he can protect the island.
Jennifer: I for one pulled that number completely out of my ass. Who knows how long ago it was?
That was a very engaging and well-thought-out review. I hadn’t made the observation about the demi-god of faith vs. the demi-god of science theme. I just rewatched the HD ITunes version and I’m pretty sure I see unburnt apples lying around the dead villagers after CrazyMom ransacks ‘em. I guess they ate of the fruit of knowledge, huh?
Personally for me this is the episode I was waiting for . . . the one where I realized that the ending of Lost is going to suck. I don’t know but I was bored and annoyed at this episode.
well what dus my headin is tere is still o amn unasnwer questions, fair enuff the number, black smoke, jacob,others ave all been expalnied fully, but we spent almsot 10 episodes wit the dharma inttative as thecentral theme and learnt little of the reasons behind why they actully there, and there is at least 10 bungers and faccilties that we see once, like go back to season 4 when kimmy cam with all army dudes, why ditn they jsut go hude in the medical centre also what pisses me off, when time flashe started happenin there was liek 25+ castawasy, u tell me that the flaming arrow attack killed them all other than main uns, doubt it but still i can critisi this show, they coudl do 10 seasons easlly if they cud take it back to season 3, they coudl drag it out and make it immense but gosh know wy they cut it so short as 6 seasons
“sorry about missspelled word keyboard is brokw”
well, i liked this episode. I’ve seen better, of course, but i can’t complain, and I get really really mad whenever I listen to people whining on and on about it!!!!!! Can’t they just go with it??? Why do they have to complain all the time??? This episode HAD answers, and I’m glad we now know a. Smokey’s origins and b. who Adam & Eve were. And the exact reason why Jacob and MIB are fighting all these years… So STOP nagging, LOST is an amazing show, and no matter how it will end, it had a great plot and amzing characters. JUST GO WITH IT!