Lost: Mommy Dearest

Thoughts on this week’s episode of Lost, “Across the Sea”, after the break:

1. Last week on Lost: Kate got shot but didn’t die yet; Sayid blew up real good; Sun and Jin opted to make their daughter an orphan; and some other stuff happened. None of which will be at all relevant to this episode in any way.
2. We open on the wreckage of a boat (I think? there’s wood and rope). Some buxom woman pops out of the water onto some flotsam and eventually washes up on the beach. She is heavy with child. She wanders across Hawaii a generic verdant island landscape. She sees a reflection in the creek and it is a SERIOUSLY grungy Alison Janney (CJ Cregg!). Like, I think she’s been following Phish around for a few years. She’s speaking Latin and offers to help the pregnant lady. After a while they switch to English to make life easier for us, because at some point the producers of Lost decided that we’re too stupid to read subtitles anymore. Anyway, CJ says she’s the only one there; she got to the Island by accident. She tells the pregnant lady to stop asking questions, which is annoying, and says that she (CJ) will find whatever other people might show up on the Island. Then the other lady has baby contractions. “It’s coming”. I’ve heard that before. Anyway, CJ midwifes the other lady through a screaming birth. Out pops a baby who looks annoyed. It’s a boy. His name is Jacob. JUST LIKE ME. CJ is delighted. Oh but hold on. There’s another baby. A TWIN BABY. Gee, I wonder who this will turn out to be. So CJ sets Jacob down and shepherds (see what I did there?) the other boy into the world. What should we call him? Apparently the pregnant lady only picked one name in advance. Moron. Oh, guess what color the respective children’s swaddling clothes are. Hint: you know already. CJ goes over to the lady and pummels the shit out of her face with a rock. So that’s two more babies that got orphaned on this stupid island. Credits.
3. At the beach. A young boy with dark hair finds something lying in the sand. He’s wearing a vest but no undershirt, like a prehistoric Jonas Brother. He opens a wooden box. It’s a game involving black and white stones. The kid’s brother, who actually does look like a young Jacob, shows up. They start playing, but only after Boy in Black (BIB) says they can’t tell “mother” (CJ). Speaking of which, she’s messing around on the loom. Jacob tells her that his brother, who clearly we’ll never get to hear a name for, is at the beach. He lies and says they were walking on the beach before. She asks if he loves her, which he says yes to (he probably doesn’t know she killed his real mom). She asks him to tell her what really happened. She finds BIB at the beach, looking at a turtle that washed ashore and playing with that game. She says that Jacob doesn’t know how to lie, unlike BIB, who is “special”. CJ says she left the game for him, but I’m thinking she’s a giant liar, just like BIB. For example, she tells him that “there is nowhere else; the Island is all there is”. God, get real CJ. Oops, she accidentally spilled the beans about mortality, but it’s okay, because apparently it’s “something [BIB] will never have to worry about”.
4. Cut to the boys boar-hunting. They seem to be enjoying this a lot. Oh but they come upon it and it turns out the boar’s already been speared. BUT BY WHOM? Well, I guess it must be these mysterious hairy dudes we see tearing it apart for lunch. LOS OTROS? Of course we don’t see anybody’s faces or anything.
5. The boys run back to CJ and are like, WTF mom. She’s annoyed. “They don’t belong here. We are here for a reason”. What reason? Sorry, we don’t answer questions on the Island. She just tells the boys to come with her. Blindfolded for some reason. “They come, they fight, they corrupt, it always ends the same.” Sounds familiar. CJ says “I’ve made it so you can never hurt each other” and points them to a magical cave filled with golden light. “This is the reason we’re here”. Perhaps it’s filled with leprechaun treasure??? She says not to go in, and that it’s filled with “the warmest, brightest light you’ve ever seen or felt”. And apparently they can’t let anyone find it for some reason. Oh god, it’s soul dust. Anyway, if people break the cave light it goes out everywhere and everybody dies or something. She says that one of the boys will have to protect it. She still won’t say BIB’s name though. So annoying. Time for a series of stupid, stupid commercials. The dad in this Verizon commercial is doing a Bob Saget impression. He forgot to swear continuously, however.
6. The boys play that stone game. Jacob tries to do something “against the rules” which BIB set. BIB says “one day you will make up your own game and everyone will have to follow your rules” and I roll my eyes. Then BIB sees a vision of his real mom! He runs after the apparition! She says Jacob can’t see her because she’s dead. He’s like the only dude who’s ever not been able to see dead people. She leads BIB across the Island, to where she says he came from. It’s a village of people! They don’t seem to be Dharma-affiliates. Anyway, they’re refugees from the shipwreck that got his mom to the Island. She reveals that there’s a ton of stuff “across the sea” and that’s where he’s from. She also notes that CJ’s not his mom. He’s gonna be so pissed. Actually I shouldn’t use the future tense. He was like, immediately pissed. He sneaks back to the cave, wakes Jacob up, and leads him into the woods. He tells Jacob that they’re running away and never coming back. Jacob is like, no, I follow rules! I’m a good boy! They get in a fight when BIB says she’s not even their mother. He bloodies BIB’s face a bunch. Then CJ shows up and separates them. BIB reveals all he knows. CJ isn’t happy about any of this. BIB tries to get Jacob to run away with him. Jacob is a total (non)mama’s boy, though, and refuses. CJ tells BIB that he can’t ever leave the Island. He says “that’s not true — and one day I can prove it!” That’s not the subtlest of lines but I guess it’ll suffice to demonstrate his motivation. He wanders off into the woods and CJ just lets him go for some reason.
7. She and Jacob sit on the beach and chat. He asks about the whole killing-his-real-mom thing. CJ admits it — “if I had let her live, she would have taken you back to her people”. And apparently they’re very bad for some reason? He asks, if I’m so good, why do you love BIB more than me? Busted. She says “I love you in different ways”, which of course means that she loves BIB more. But he agrees to stay with her anyway. What a pushover! Oh hey, more commercials already! I can’t believe Grey’s Anatomy is still on television. I can’t even entirely believe it was ever on television.
8. Jacob is all grown up. They don’t even try to make the actor look young. CJ tells him she’s “just tired” which means she’s gonna die soon. He watches his brother from afar. He’s working with the people! Then they play that game together again. MIB asks why Jacob watches them. Jacob says he wants to know if CJ is right that the people are bad. After 30 years with them, MIB says they’re a bunch of assholes, but he’s with them because they’re a means to an end — getting off the Island. He says he found a way, then demonstrates the magnetic superpowers of a nearby well. Presumably Jacob’s never even seen a magnet before at all, so he must be very impressed. MIB says that the people have found similar places all over the Island, and dug wells. And this time they found something. He asks Jacob to come with him (this is like a motif of the episode!), but Jacob says he doesn’t want to leave because the Island is his home. Also, he says CJ is never gonna die, so apparently he’s kind of a dummy.
9. He goes crying to mommy, tells her MIB found a way to leave the Island. CJ is not happy about this at all. She sneaks over to the well, where the people are doing some kind of crap or other. Then they leave the well, except for one guy (MIB!). He’s down in the well, tending a fire. CJ comes down and they chat. She says she’s worried. MIB says he looked all over the Island for the golden light and couldn’t find it. Finally he figured out that he should just do some digging. Anyway, he points out that if he doesn’t have a clue about how the Island works it’s because she refused to tell him. Fair point. He chisels a rock out of the wall and a beautiful golden light pops out. He says he’s going to make a big opening, and attach a big wheel, and then he’s going to turn it, and then he’ll be able to leave the Island. She asks how he knows it’ll work. Good question! But apparently he knows because he’s “special”. Oh good grief, special again. Anyway, CJ says well, I guess this is goodbye. She approaches for a hug. She cries a little. He cries a little too. Oh, and then she apologizes and bashes his head into the wall. Kinda violent, CJ, I must say, though also pretty predictable! More ads! Worse show name — Cougartown? or Happy Town?
10. Jacob wakes up in his cavebed. I wonder if CJ will tell him she murdered his twin brother. Well, she wakes him up and says “it’s time” which is not synonymous with “I killed MIB”. She says she let him go, which is really stretching the truth. Anyway, she brings Jacob to the magic light cave and says Jacob’s going to protect it now. She says it contains life, death, rebirth — it’s “the source, the heart, of the Island”. So, uh, does it have HVAC? She asks Jacob to promise never to go down there — it’d be worse than dying, she says. So I guess now we know how the series will end? She pulls a bottle out, says some crap in Latin, and tells Jacob to drink it. She says that if he drinks it he will be pledged to protect the Island for as long as he can, until he can find his replacement. Jacob’s like, eff that noise, you always wanted MIB to do it! And she just plain lies again, and says “it was always supposed to be you, I see that now”. Yeah right lady. But he drinks the stuff anyway, because this guy was a real moron. Once he drinks, she says “now you and I are the same”. And he seems quite different, like maybe he’s not a complete idiot.
11. MIB wakes up on the ground by the well. So maybe she didn’t kill him? Just knocked him out? That wasn’t clear! He sees that the well has been utterly destroyed — filled in with dirt and stuff. Then he sees smoke and discovers his people’s village has been burned to the ground. Also, they’re all dead. This is pretty messed up. He finds his stupid game in the embers of the fires. Then he cries and, presumably, embraces his role as evil incarnate. It all comes back to bad parenting, doesn’t it? Speaking of which, here’s a Chili’s ad!
12. Thunder rolls over the Island as Jacob and CJ walk through. “Storm comin’”, he observes. Sigh. She tells him to go get some firewood before it rains. He says he’ll see her back at home but there’s no way she’s gonna still be alive. She gets back there, and sees everything’s been torn to shreds and broken. Probably by MIB, huh. She finds his game box. She pulls out a dark stone and a light stone, and holds the dark stone up to the light. And then MIB stabs her in the stomach for being a really, really bad mother. He asks why she wouldn’t let him leave. She says “because, I love you. Thank you [for stabbing me]. *dies*”. He cries again. Make up your mind, dude! Oh yeah, and then Jacob shows up and doesn’t understand. They fight! Jacob punches him a million times. Then Jacob drags MIB through the forest while MIB whines about how she killed all his friends. He points out that Jacob can’t kill him, and Jacob says don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. He drags him to the golden light cave, then knocks him out on a rock, then floats him into the golden light cave. What the hell was he thinking???
13. The golden light goes out. Then the smoke monster sounds go off. Then the smoke monster erupts from the formerly-golden light cave! Whoops.
14. Jacob seems a little confused about just what, exactly, he thought he was doing. Then he stumbles upon his brother’s body, broken upon a bunch of rocks. Jacob holds him tenderly for a creepy moment. Then he drags his body into the cave and lays it right next to CJ’s. Or should I say Eve’s???? Yeah, I think I’ll go with that. He also places the dark and light stones by the bodies.
15. Then we momentarily see Jack and Kate in the caves, in the scene from years ago where Jack found the stones in that little bag next to the mysterious skeletons. And then Locke says “our very own Adam and Eve”. Thanks, producers, I think we could have figured this one out without the goddamn flashbacks.
16. Anyway, Jacob looks at them sadly and says “goodbye, brother… goodbye”. Cripes, that was about the least subtle episode of Lost we’ve ever seen.
17. LOST

Final thoughts: So great. Now, instead of “the numbers” or “the smoke monster” the answer to all of the Island’s mysteries is “the golden light that is part of every living soul”. And apparently MIB went through his entire existence without ever having an actual name, which if you ask me is justification enough for his centuries-long killing spree. We also learn that the habit of refusing to answer direct questions predominated long before the Losties ever showed up. I guess we did at least learn that the two boys we saw mysteriously on the Island were Jacob and BIB (although I no longer remember who saw them or in what circumstances). And we also learned that you don’t actually need to know anything about science to figure out how to get off the Island. I guess the Dharma Initiative was just filled with mouth-breathing nitwits.

Honestly? I would rather have had five minutes of exposition in some other episode than wasted one of the last three episodes on this. Good to see Alison Janney get work, I suppose, but really. I think this was a bit of a miscue. One interesting (maybe) question: is the smoke monster still whatever BIB/MIB was before Jacob tossed him into the cave? Or did that person die along with the body Jacob laid to rest next to the woman he killed, who had killed his own mother (WTF???)? I guess we’re to assume that his consciousness shifted into the smoke monster, but in that case it’s hard to understand what the big deal is about his body anyway. I am confused, and me being confused about new mysteries at this stage of the game is really questionable storytelling.

Next week: we get to watch some characters we’ve actually followed for more than one season! Huzzah!