Lost: Across the Sea Dissection

I'm going to forebear my normal review of Lost's new episode for a longer, more indepth, dissection. Because Ladies and Gentlemen... it didn't work. For a more profanity-laden dissection, check out Dave's quick thoughts.

Quick summary: The entire episode is the story of Jacob and MiB. They are born, and their mother is killed immediately after birth by a woman who comes to be known as Mother. Mother shows the boys a source of golden light, coming from an cave, the heart of the island. When MiB sees his dead real mother, he leaves Jacob/Mother for some other people - who are busy digging wells. When MiB comes up the plan to attach a (not-yet-frozen) donkey wheel to one of the wells to hopefully go through the light to Across the Sea, Mother knocks him out, fills in the dirt, and kills all the other people. Off screen. Then MiB wakes up, kills mother, and Jacob throws him in to the golden light cave. MiB becomes the black smoke monster. Jacob leaves the MiB's body with his mothers body in the caves, and we flash forward to Jack/Kate/Locke discovering the bodies of Adam and Eve.

I think some of the common complaints from this episode will be the vagueness of the answers, the slow pace, and the golden light cave. Oh, and the lack of explanation of the full rules. These are valid concerns, but I want to examine the episode in terms of narrative.

This episodes has 3 purposes - Explanation, Backstory, and Revelation. Let's deal with these in order.

Explanation - Perhaps better titled Answers. This is (expository or not) answers to the questions that we've been asking, in some cases since the first episode. Two mysteries are given answers that I don't expect any further clarification on, and one mystery has (probably/possibly) also been answered.

First, we know who Adam and Eve are - MiB and Mother. This I have little issue with. The largest concern is that Jack said the bodies were only 40-50 years old, while we know they at least predate 1867 (Ab Aeterno). I suppose on an island that frequently travels through time and space that could be expected. Perhaps they also age slowly like Jacob?

Second, (the most satisfying of the answers) - how did a frozen donkey wheel come to exist? Well, apparently the MiB created it to try to get off the island. This answer seemed satisfying to me. The island is one of those special magnetic places in the world - like that place in Australia where Rose visited a Faith Healer. Okay, I buy that one.

Third... the smoke monster is created when MiB is thrown into the golden cave of lightlovehope. This is the answer that hopefully has more coming - I would think so. See the revelation section for more details on this. Otherwise, it's not satisfying.

Okay, so on to the Backstory. The entire episode is backstory on Jacob and MiB. Stephen King says that the one rule of backstory is that even if the audience doesn't know it, the characters do. And I felt that the backstory was consistent with what we've seen of Jacob and the MiB. However - there were very few surprises. At this point, with 3.5 hours left, was this backstory necessary in this way? Was Mother necessary? That was a significant portion of the episode, and a portion that could have been very much left to the viewers imagination.

And finally, Revelation. The large revelation is the golden cave of living loveope. Loveope is a combination of love and hope, just so ya know. This is too random of a thing to introduce with 3 hours left - so this will be something important. It has to be revisited, right? At the very least, we need to know why it turns people into smoke monsters. Maybe Hurley will become a white smoke monster? Maybe that's what Widmore is looking for? What Desmond is going to be sacrificed for?

I did like the light portion connecting to the light at the frozen donkey wheel. That was one of the stranger aspects of that wheel in my mind - the light behind it. And now we know a bit more about it.

So overall, this episode has to rate as one of the more disappointing episodes, right? Not a bad episode, necessarily, just disappointing...