6.15 Across The Sea

Random thoughts. “This” is what they were planning for six seasons? THIS? Doomed. Motherfocking doomed. It’s over. I want to apologize to the X-Files. For years, I swore up and down that it was the greatest TV show ever. Then LOST came along, and was terrific until Juliet bludgeoned a hydrogen bomb with a rock. Since that moment, LOST has been a tremendous disappointment to me and a growing number of restless and increasingly frustrated fans that I communicate with. So, once again, X-Files is the greatest show of all time, while LOST is probably good enough for Top 3. I suppose this is an example of the universe course correcting. Executive producers Lindelof and Cuse have been doing tons of press over the last few days. They must have been anticipating doing a victory lap for the show and upcoming finale. Instead, they are being put on the defensive by largely poor reviews of Across The Sea. They’ve gone so far as to criticize fans for being negative. Apparently, they just want to answer the questions relevant to the main characters of the show, the Losties, and all other mysteries will be ignored. A show largely built upon mysteries will not deal with answering many of those mysteries. Unbelievable. You can try to sell the show as being about the characters at this late hour, but honestly, does anybody give a sh!t about these characters that are left? For the most part, all of the characters were and remain morally reprehensible people and I can’t think of any that have changed for the better, if they are even still alive. This island is Lord of the Flies. The best characters on the show for me were Smoke Monster, Locke, Ben, Mr Eko, Juliet, Desmond, Keamy. Smoke doesn’t seem as cool anymore, even though Terry O’Quinn is doing some great acting. Ben’s character has been dreadful since he stabbed Jacob. Juliet is dead. Mr Eko is dead. Desmond has barely been a part of the show the last 2 seasons. Keamy dead. Jack? Kate? Hurley? Don’t care. Don’t care. Don’t care. Jacob? Jacob can cram it up his cram hole. Fock Jacob. I swear on all things holy, Jacob looks about as bright as a veal waiting for an axe to take of its corn fed head. There is deep undercurrent of stupidity between Jacob’s ears. Not only have I been a charter member of Team MIB from the beginning, I’ve been bashing Jacob almost every week. And I feel very vindicated. The only morally pure character on this show is probably MIB, who has been built up to be the villain. And don’t give me Hurley. Hurley is responsible for many deaths. The deck that collapsed. Tricia Tanaka hit by a meteor. And her cameraman. What a bizarre corner the writers have painted themselves into. MIB is actually the hero, a week after they claimed that MIB was pure evil for hiding a bomb in Jack’s backpack. Unfortunately, I am a man of attention to detail. I spend time analyzing and picking apart a show I care quite a bit about. This show has either gotten lazy and sloppy in writing, filming, presenting details, or indeed this show is a cut and paste of different scenes from various time loops, and I don’t think the writers are that smart. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. My expectations for the show this season were probably unrealistic. I wanted explanations to some of the great all encompassing mysteries of the show. That’s not asking for a lot, is it? Instead, we get episodes based on Hurley getting a kiss and MIB sitting on a log while whittling. So much wasted time. They can’t find time to answer who shot at Sawyer and the gang while time traveling in the boat because the scripts are just jam packed with scenes of Jack staring out at the ocean and giving speeches about the destiny of tomatoes. Paddle from one island to the other island and back. Repeat. Much to my surprise, I recently googled the title of the blog where these write-ups call home “Lost…his mind” and noted that some of the writeups pop up in the top 20 of 172 million entries for that sequence of words. I suppose that some folks must be reading this crap that I type week after grueling week. Maybe as many as a dozen. I wish I could say something classy, tasteful, and inspirational, but that just wouldn’t be my style. I’m narcissistic, delusional, angry, and have borderline sociopathic tendencies. At least that’s what my kindergarten teacher said. While these are great adjectives to describe myself in a craigslist ad, I must defend myself and add that I would never kill anybody until at least the third time I met them because I’m a gentleman. With the exception of Oprah, who needs to beaten to death with a sock full of scorpions as soon as I can find a sock without a hole. So let’s buckle up and try to review this stupid, illogical, steaming pile of crap. Not the writeup, I mean the episode. Well, maybe I mean both. Want to fight about it?

As best as we can tell, about 2000 years ago, a person is seen floating in the water off the shore of LOST island. It’s not Jin, not Rousseau, not Frank, and it’s not screaming for Walt. Rather, it’s some woman dressed in Roman style clothing, having just attended a frat party at Animal House was just left outside the front door of town mayor’s house. I wish they would have explained how the boat she was on was destroyed, but I bet it was for singing some folk song about cherries on a staircase and Brother Bluto was not amused. She washes up on the beach and wakes up with a mouth full of sand, which in the southern United States they call grits. She is pregnant, much like Claire was when she arrived on the island, but is not so lucky to have a heroin addict to cater to her every whim. The woman finds a creek and takes time to wash the icky out of her mouth. Someone suddenly appears over her reflection in the creek, much like Smokie was sneaking up on Mr Eko in Season 3 in the episode where Eko gets a sound thrashing. A woman speaking Latin offers assistance. Good thing she wasn’t speaking Latino or else she would be the focus of a partisan political tug of war. The shipwrecked woman’s name is Claudia. But her friends call her Claudia. Claudia asks the woman, from now on I’ll call her Mother, questions such as how did you get here. “I got here by accident” It is strange how people seem to be brought to the island…oh, who cares. We didn’t learn much of anything from this opening scene. It was just boring crap. Mother was guarded with her responses with crappity crap like “Every question I answer will lead to another question” which is pretty much a snarky comment to fans of the show to stop expecting to learn much in the final episodes. Because I need another 43 minutes wasted on Jack trying to convince Locke to have a surgery. Mother says that if there are other people on the island, she will find them, again exhibiting a property associated with Smoke Monster, as he seems to be pretty quick in finding new people on the island. Black Rock, the French team, the Losties. Mother seems to have Smokie properties all throughout the episode, purging, judging, manipulating. Claudia goes into labor and pops out two kids as if she was in a watermelon spitting contest. The first is named Jacob. The second one is a surprise, so Claudia doesn’t have another name ready. This may or may not be the reason Mother goes a little nuts, but she picks up a rock and caves in the skull of Claudia. There were many, many blows to the head as Mother gurgled with primal rage. Or what I call a great first date. Mother was polite enough to say “I’m sorry” before the whacking, so you have to be impressed with her sparking manners if not her charming howls of rage.

So, about 13 years later, MIB finds an Egyptian game called Senet buried in the sand of a beach. I’d like to see the entire Senate buried up to the their necks in the sand just as the tide starts to roll in. A young Jacob, the same kid that MIB has been seeing on the island in present time, agrees to play the game with MIB. MIB claims he just knows the rules somehow. Either that or he is making them up as he goes along. I don’t think Jacob wins at this game all that often. MIB is the carnie, Jacob is the rube. Jacob is instructed to not tell Mother about the game. Back at their cave home, Jacob arrives to see Mother weaving on her loom. Not satisfied with Jacob’s response to what have you been doing, Mother pulls out the “do you love me?” card, and Jacob confesses everything. There is no doubt that a Norman Bates personality is bubbling under the skin of Jacob. A momma’s boy, a sad sack, unable to face his mother, crumbling at the first sign of disapproval, an unhealthy emotional relationship, and a constant need for attention. Jacob is somebody in a horror movie that you root for to lose his head somewhere along the way. Mother goes to confront MIB at the beach. During the course of the conversation, Mother notes that Jacob does not know how to lie. I can’t fathom the inability to lie short of having a mental defect. Well, it is Jacob after all. Mother thinks MIB is special. Compared to Jacob, a soiled baby diaper. As this episode progresses, you can now see why Jack is the guy to take over for Jacob. You have to be an idiot to be the guardian. Mother starts to instill a curiosity in MIB. Mother: there is nothing across the sea, the island is all there is. Well I can see why she didn’t get the job with the travel agency. She can’t explain where her mother is, because she is dead. MIB: what’s dead? Evangeline Lilly’s career in about 3 episodes. Mother: something you will never have to worry about. I wonder how much of the future Mother can see and if she knows MIB will be transformed into Smokie in about 30 years. Young MIB and Jacob chase a boar through the jungle. They are just in time to see other people kill the same boar. They run to tell Mother. Mother: they do not belong here, we are here for a reason. Well, somebody lives in a gated community. Sniff. A conflicted Mother blindfolds Jacob and MIB and leads them into the jungle. In the past, with the absence of piñatas on the island, Mother has strung up a boar for the boys to hit with sticks while blindfolded. The winner knocks the guts out of the rotting carcass. Mother was never actually all that much fun. Mother: all men are dangerous, they come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt, it always ends the same. Sure, in divorce court. Also, these are words that MIB said to Jacob during the Season 5 finale. Mother: I’ve made it so you can never hurt each other. Actually, the statement ended up being completely wrong on every level. Sure, you could argue that MIB can’t kill Jacob directly, and needed Ben to stab Jacob. But this rule certainly did not apply to this episode as we progress. They arrive at a cave of bright yellow light, as if someone was hiding a gleaming pot of gold inside. The Leprechaun Cave. Whatever was inside the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. A place where Hurley can microwave Hot Pockets. Mother: don’t go in there, but inside is the warmest, brightest light you’ve ever seen or felt. Well, if you don’t want anybody going inside, why give them incentive? Hey, son, you see this wall socket? Well, take this fork and do not, I really mean it, do not stick it in there. You come back in 5 minutes and your child’s hair is on fire. Great. Now let’s go tell your sister. And how would you know how the light feels if you didn’t go inside and feel it? It’s like saying sex is like warm apple pie, but you may not be so inclined to take somebody’s word for it. Which only leads to problems in the supermarket’s dessert aisle. Mother: a little bit of light is inside everybody. What the fock? First of all, this is the negatively charged exotic matter that Dr Chang talked about in the Orientation film that Locke watched in the Orchid hatch as Ben was preparing to move the island. That matter is what bends time and space, the mystery property on the island. Something that is theorized to be part of wormhole construction. It does not exist on this planet. It could be radioactive. But it’s the light that is inside everybody. Bullfockingshit. Inside all of us? I’ve taken lots of dumps in my lifetime, and believe me, none of it ever glowed and only some of them felt warm. Man is always wanting a little more of the light. I can think of 700 things off the top of my head that I would want more than a magical night light, and that includes a nicely cooked piece of fish. Well, I suppose this is the Widmore explanation. He has seen the light, craves more, and has a map of some of the electro magnetic locations around the island. So, I guess that completes the Widmore story arc and he is probably going to be killed soon. Of course, we won’t get more information on Widmore and solve any of his mysteries. He’ll just suddenly die. I wonder if Desmond is back in the will? If the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere. When did LOST become an Aesop fable? When will we see the Gingerbread House hatch and Gumdrop Falls? Mother: I’ve protected this place, but I can’t do it forever. So, even though you can be practically immortal on the island, at some point you get so friggin’ bored with your life that you have to find some unwilling dupe and make them take over for you. Again, Jack is a perfect patsy. I’m coming around on this whole Village Idiot Protector of the Island. Mother: it will have to be one of you. Well, I don’t see a whole lot of other options here.

MIB and Jacob are playing their Egyptian game. It stands to reason that Egyptians were on the island, built the Temple and statue and other stuff, but we are not going to get any information on that era I suppose. MIB: you have to follow the rules, one day you can make up your own game and everybody will have to follow yours. Pretty telling summation of what is happening on the island right now. Jacob made up a set of rules, like MIB can’t harm the candidates, MIB and Jacob cannot kill each other, MIB can’t leave the island, etc. and MIB needs to follow the rules while trying to win. The endgame was to find a way off the island, which includes killing Jacob and all of the candidates. MIB sees Claudia, but Jacob cannot. MIB follows. Claudia: I’m dead. MIB surprisingly didn’t say “I don’t know what that means.” I want to show you where you came from. Instead of lifting up her skirt, she leads him to a village on the island, built by the survivors of Claudia’s shipwreck. Claudia: there are many things across the sea. War, famine, the plague, stadiums full of spectators watching Russell Crowe fight lions, and did I mention the plague? Sounds dreamy. It seems like a number of things are playing up the idea of leaving the island to MIB. Is this really the spirit of MIB’s mother, or a manifestation of Smokie, buried in the microwave cave, trying to manipulate in order to find a means of escape. Smokie could be using the image of somebody that has died. Claudia: she is not your mother. It’s a man, baby. MIB returns home, packs, and looks to sneak out in the middle of the night. He brings Jacob along. MIB explains that they are going to the people, Mother lied, and that Jacob is probably too stupid to understand. Jacob loses his temper, attacks MIB, and beats him silly. I guess MIB is the brains, Jacob is the muscle. Mother pulls Jacob off the bloodied MIB. MIB: I’m going home, you killed my mother, we don’t belong here. All valid points. Jacob is crying. Insert yet another comparison to Jack here. Given a choice this time, Jacob decides to stay with the crazy woman that killed his mother. Mother: you will never be able to leave this island. MIB: I’m going to prove you wrong. MIB leaves. So the main motivation for MIB all these years later is to simply prove his mother wrong. So, for Jacob, it’s to beat his brother in a game caused by Mother, and for MIB, it’s to prove his mother wrong. Well, that’s been worth all the blood shed over the years. At the beach, Mother confesses to Jacob that she did indeed murder his mother and she wants to talk to a lawyer. Jacob demands that she return all those Mother’s Day gifts he’s given her. Mother: these people are bad, I needed you to stay good. Veal. Jacob is a calf being fed just before slaughter. Jacob: why do you love him more than me? Jacob has accepted that he is not the superstar that MIB is. But you need to notice the statement “I needed you to stay good.” Not for Jacob, not for the island, but because she needed a pure soul to take over for her as guardian of the light. Mother needed a Scooby Doo, and Jacob is just the right fit. It’s for selfish reasons. Mother: I love you in different ways. Well, that must sting a bit. She didn’t say I love you just as much. No, she decided to say “in different ways”. If Mother starred in Sophie’s Choice, they wouldn’t even finish the question before Jacob’s suitcase is packed. Mother is frustrated that she is stuck with Jacob, and Jacob decides he will stay with her. Two undigested peanuts in the same lump of sh!t.

Thankfully, we don’t have to deal with the child actors anymore, as they simply sucked. Geez, the acting this whole episode was just really bad. Grownup Jacob takes a break from weaving to go find MIB and play their game outside the village. It’s kind of sad to see Jacob standing in the wide open, observing the digging of the well, as this is the saddest attempt in the history of ever at being inconspicuous. He is standing behind a tree that can’t be more than 2 inches thick. Is he even trying to hide a bit. Jacob is about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. He has a vacant far away look to him, as if he is constantly thinking about what pudding tastes like. MIB confirms that Mother was right about these men. Jacob is only looking from above and he really doesn’t see them for who they are. They are greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy, selfish. I draw a parallel to Jacob’s candidates. I bet he thinks they seem OK at first glance through a telescope. Then he brings them to the island to test them. That’s when we get a good look at their true nature. Shannon was a candidate. I rest my case. But it’s a means to an end for MIB, as he just wants to leave the island. MIB throws a knife that changes direction in midair and gets pulled against the well wall. The knife was not made in Australia. The village is full of smart men, people who are interested in how things work, who have discovered places all over the island where metal behaves strangely, they dug. This is the speech MIB gave to Desmond before tossing him into the well. It is also a cyclical event, as Dharma was essentially doing the same thing on the island. Jacob still doesn’t want to leave with MIB. When Jacob returns to his home, Mother is shaving her legs. I’m not kidding. Look at that scene again. Considering Jacob is very likely a virgin, this is probably the most skin he has seen of a woman. Other than when Mother asks him to pop her back zits. Jacob yet again can’t keep his mouth shut, and blabs to Mother that MIB is going to leave the island. Mother goes to the well and climbs down. MIB is alone, stoking a fire, getting ready to put some ribs down on the grill. MIB hears a sound, pulls out the Roman knife that Dogen gave Sayid, and is ready to stab somebody. Sure, this is paranoid as fock. You are in a well. The only people who have ever been down here are members of your village. Why are you ready to kill one of them for sneaking up behind you? Isn’t that extremely odd? So, how are you? I see that your legs are looking fabulous. MIB spent the last 30 years walking every inch of the island without ever finding the planetarium laser light show cave featuring the music of Pink Floyd. I hate Pink Floyd. So, much like the Lighthouse, certain objects appear on the island only when they want or need to be found. MIB decided to look for the back door instead. The men of the village have some interesting ideas what to do with the light. This is of great concern to Mother, the guardian of the light. MIB pries a small rock away from the well wall to reveal the bright light. I have to wonder, how exactly did the cave end up icy and frozen when Ben entered to turn the frozen donkey wheel, but right now it’s dank and hot. MIB shows the wheel they mean to attach to a system they built that will channel the water and allow them to leave the island. Mother: how do you know it will work? MIB: I’m special. FACE. Mother gives MIB a goodbye hug, has the good manners to apologize, then bash his head into a rock wall as she screams. All MIB wanted was a hug from his faux mother, and she tries to kill him.

Mother wakes up Jacob. She explains that she had to say goodbye to his brother. She leads Jacob back to the Muse stage show cave. Jacob is now to protect the light. Mother: it is life, death, rebirth, it’s the heart of the island. Two things. Rebirth? So, when people die, they aren’t dead, but move along to another timeline? The word really bothers me. Still, there is a cyclical nature to this show, so it would be nice to see an explanation. And remember when Locke described his first encounter with the monster back in Season 1? “I looked into the eye of this island, and what I saw... was beautiful.” Did Locke see this light? Mother: just never go down there, it would be worse than dying. Here is a fork. She brings out a wine bottle, says some kind of prayer or chant or the lyrics to a Justin Bieber song, and offers Jacob a drink. Jacob is to accept the responsibility of protecting this place as long as he can, then find his replacement. Jacob doesn’t want to do it. Mother: somebody has to, my time is over. So, no one is apparently immortal after all. I wonder how long you have to serve your term when elected, 2000 years or so? Jacob sulks and points out the Mother wanted it to be MIB and that she is stuck with Jacob. Mother is getting desperate now. Mother: it was always supposed to be you, I see that now. Jacob is right, she really has no other option. Jacob is the only single girl left in the bar, and it’s closing time; if you squint enough, you can hardly notice the huge goiter on her neck and unibrow. Mother: you don’t have a choice. Strong, strong statement here. We’ve been lead to believe that there is an element of free will to this show. Look at that again. You don’t have a choice. Jacob is forced into a role he doesn’t want. Seemingly, he is like MIB in trying to prove mother wrong, but his quest is free will while MIB is leaving. Fine, but Jacob is not going to drink any focking Merlot. Jacob reluctantly drinks. Mother: now we are the same. Yeah, kool aid drinkers at Jonestown. MIB wakes up outside the well, which is completely filled in with dirt. The world’s largest flower pot. He follows the black smoke in the sky, reminiscent of the smoke from Season 1 by Rousseau, and finds the village completely purged, people smashed and dead. Did Mother turn into a Smoke monster? How else do you get about 50 people to stand still while to beat each one to death and then pick up a shovel and fill up a well? Even worse, MIB’s precious Senet game is found charred in the ruins. Hey, you can go ahead and kill all my friends, but don’t mess with Egyptian Monopoly. MIB is in anguish and quickly fills up with rage and hate. MIB has been screwed over.

Jacob is sent to gather firewood. Mother returns to her home, which has been ransacked. She picks up the charred Senet game from the ground, opens it, palms a white and a black game piece. It’s not so much white is good and black is bad, but the white and black simply signify a game. Much like chess, there are two sides, two players, neither is good and neither is evil. It’s a game of Who Did Mother Love More? MIB stabs her from behind. Well, LOST clearly doesn’t have enough crying, so MIB tears up. Why wouldn’t you let me leave? Mother: because I love you. Now if you just hand me that rock, it’s just out of my reach, I want to show you exactly how much I love you. Mother thanks MIB with her dying breath. I suppose he put her out of her misery. MIB told Kate that his mother was crazy. He failed to mention that he was not referring to his birth mother. Jacob walks in, sizes up the situation, and like some big dumb animal attacks MIB. After a beating and ignoring anything MIB has to say about the purge, Jacob leads/drags him to the magical mystery cave. Jacob states that he has to protect it now. Well, genius, if you are to protect it, why did you bring somebody here the first day on the job? Jacob knocks MIB unconscious and allows him to drift into the cave and the reverse waterfall which sucks him down into it’s depths. The light goes out and a roaring Smoke Monster emerges and steams off into the jungle. So, Jacob has just screwed up everything he was to protect, but hey it’s his first day, so what can you do? Jacob goes to wash his hands and finds the corpse of his brother along the riverside. Jacob cries yet again and hugs the body. So, MIB managed to live his whole life without a name as far as we know. Well, that’s just not good enough. This is a man, and he has a name: Robert Paulson. He's dead now because of the island. Do you understand that? His name is Robert Paulson. His name is Robert Paulson. His name is Robert Paulson. His name is Robert Paulson. His name is Robert Paulson. Remember when Mother said: I’ve made it so you can never hurt each other. Well, Jacob managed to beat up his brother several times and just murdered him. So how did that rule work out? Jacob lays the corpses of Mother and MIB inside the caves from Season 1. They replayed the scene of Jack and Kate and Locke finding the skeletal remains and finding the white and black rocks and calling them Adam and Eve. Unfortunately, they left out the part where Jack called the bodies 40 or 50 years old. So, Jack was off by about 2000 years. Jacob: goodbye, brother. Swell, but you didn’t say goodbye to Mother.

What did we learn? Free will is an illusion. We don’t know why Smokie has the powers that he does. MIB was right about the candidates being puppets of Jacob, being brought to the island by a lifetime of manipulation. The rules are whatever Jacob wants them to be; he decided to create the Others in mid game. Watching this episode made me grind my teeth down to the gums. Jacob was breast feeding until 43. Actually, what did that woman feed those kids the first few years on the island with no formula nor baby food around? Who finished building the donkey wheel? When MIB went off the island to appear to Jack in the hospital in Season 4, did this break the rules? When MIB went off the island to appear to Michael on the freighter, did this break the rules? But I thought he could not leave the island? When MIB appeared to Locke as Walt, did this break the rules? The Richard episode had a big build up and delivered. This episode had a big build up and fizzled. Going into the final hours of the show, we have zero momentum.

I need to do a really quick turnaround with the next edition, between Tuesday and Sunday. Well, until then, may the worst of your todays be the best of your tomorrows