# LOST - Across the Sea 5/11



## michad (Sep 9, 2002)

Now that was satisfying!


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Nooo! it was so Lost like... answers and yet....more questions!!!


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

michad said:


> Now that was satisfying!


Please be kidding.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Where did SHE come from? Why was she dressing them in light and dark even as kids....predestiny or what? 

Who were the other others?

Okay, yes answers...but ahhhhh.


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## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

While like most any LOST episode it seemed far too short, I felt a twinge of dissapointment at the mundane to me direction of the story arc. I think now that we won't ever understand 'The Island' itself. In any case despite any 'creative differences' LOST continues to be the penultimate A Ride.


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

All this episode revealed was who Adam and Eve were (thank god that's finally solved). So Smokey took the shape of Jacob's brother. Ok. We still don't know what it is. Also we learned that one day Jacob will have a game and he can make his own rules, and that one day he will choose his replacement. 

We also have no idea why he will "destroy the world" if he leaves the island. Absolutely nothing about Jacob's brother history, or the smoke monster, indicates why this is the case.


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## markz (Oct 22, 2002)

So did Jacob's brother ever get a name? Or was he always just brother or son?


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Smokey was released when MIB (still no name. Poor kid never had a name?) fell in. It hadn't been out before and I got the feeling the FakeMom (but not like fakelocke) knew it was there but knew it should never be released.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

markz said:


> So did Jacob's brother ever get a name? Or was he always just brother or son?


Nope. When he was younger was he CIB? Child in black?


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## chronatog7 (Aug 26, 2004)

That is what bothers me. They should mention his name no need to keep hiding it. It not like it would change the story or would have a impact to the story.


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## TiVotion (Dec 6, 2002)

I have so many questions...I find myself wanting the backstory to tonight's backstory, but I realize we're probably not going to get it. That's ok, I'm keeping an open mind that every detail can't be filled in. Like, for kids that had no interaction with anyone other than their "mother", they sure spoke really good English and seemed to have had a decent education. Yes, I also wonder where "faux mom" came from. Why does she have super abilities. Why she too doesn't age. Etc. Etc. But we are running out of time, I know.

As soon as I saw the pregnant woman wash up on the beach, I said to myself, she's carrying twins! And I knew those twins would be Jacob and....speaking of "and"....is there a reason why MiB still hasn't been given a proper name? Is that going to be the key to something larger, a big reveal, perhaps?


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Can anyone see on the credits if he is called anything? or on imdb?


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## Shakhari (Jan 2, 2005)

markz said:


> So did Jacob's brother ever get a name? Or was he always just brother or son?


No, they went out of their way not to give him a name.

Interesting that he, but not Jacob, could see the dead mother. Also interesting, if the well was destroyed, who finally got around to building the wheel?


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

betts4 said:


> Smokey was released when MIB (still no name. Poor kid never had a name?) fell in. It hadn't been out before and I got the feeling the FakeMom (but not like fakelocke) knew it was there but knew it should never be released.


OK, but what is smokey?? This is what I'm getting at. Still absolutely no information. Tivo guide said "Locke's motivations are revealed"... no they're not. He wants to go home, how is that different than what we knew before? And if Smokey was just impersonating MiB all along, then who was he before? And again, why can't he leave?

I still don't get MiB's motivation for wnating to leave. he was perfectly happy until Ghost mom showed up.... I was expecting this big backstory about how he came to the island as was possessed by the monster through no fault of his own and now just wanted to get back home... but that was his home. And it's not like he had a bad life--his mother even _favored _him over Jacob.

very disappointing for me, especially after the major hype around this episode. It reminds me how I felt after watching the Jeremy Betham ep which I found disappointing also given that it seemed to ignore a ton of stuff that preceded it.


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## michad (Sep 9, 2002)

mrdazzo7 said:


> Please be kidding.


Not kidding, I'm resolved to the fact that we (or better I'm) not going to get the dumbed down step-by-step explanation to all the things I'd like to know, and with that, I was satisfied with this episode. 

Its simple; with no expectations there can be no disappointment. I'm throughly enjoying the season. I would like to know about Christian, I wasnt really buying the 'explanation' we've been given.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

What did she give Jacob to drink? I was thinking it was anti-aging stuff so that he could remain and be the guardian of the hole. 

And I want to go back and watch it, but there was one scene by the fire when she was smearing something - it looked like on her legs. ?


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## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

betts4 said:


> Smokey was released when MIB (still no name. Poor kid never had a name?) fell in. It hadn't been out before and I got the feeling the FakeMom (but not like fakelocke) knew it was there but knew it should never be released.


She said as much to Jacob, warning him of dire consequences should he enter the LightCave. Now we also know why MiB blames Jake for robing him of his body.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

michad said:


> Not kidding, I'm resolved to the fact that we (or better I'm) not going to get the dumbed down step-by-step explanation to all the things I'd like to know, and with that, I was satisfied with this episode.
> 
> Its simple; with no expectations there can be no disappointment. I'm throughly enjoying the season. I would like to know about Christian, I wasnt really buying the 'explanation' we've been given.


I am okay with not knowing all the answers, because it is fun to speculate. I mean, we have been primed for 6 seasons to speculate on all that is going on. That is a lot of the fun of all this!


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

michad said:


> Not kidding, I'm resolved to the fact that we (or better I'm) not going to get the dumbed down step-by-step explanation to all the things I'd like to know, and with that, I was satisfied with this episode.
> 
> Its simple; with no expectations there can be no disappointment. I'm throughly enjoying the season. I would like to know about Christian, I wasnt really buying the 'explanation' we've been given.


I don't want a dumbed down explanation but I'd like SOME explanation. That's the point of a story, damn it! There's obviously plenty we'll have to do without and I'm fine with that but there was seriously NOTHING revealed in this episode, which was hyped up to be major.

And Christian was just another apparition of the monster--he utilized a dead body to take it's form and get people to do stuff.... EDIT: actually I'm not sure about that because I think Christian and Fake Locke were both in the same episode last season. In which case I have no idea WTF is up with Christian.


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## SocratesJohnson (Sep 14, 2005)

TiVotion said:


> ... they sure spoke really good English and seemed to have had a decent education....


I don't think they were really speaking English, that was for the audiences benefit. They switched over to English when Mom and Fake Mom were talking.


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## pcguru83 (Jan 18, 2005)

Who knew there'd be a Defying Gravity/Lost crossover.  Sure didn't see that coming. 

I must admit, I'm really kind of let down by the decidedly non-scifi turn that Lost has taken over the last few seasons. Seems pretty obvious to me I'm not going to get my fancy sci-fi explanation I was hoping for when all is said and done.


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## Cindy1230 (Oct 31, 2003)

Thank god for this thread because I came away from that thinking MiB became smokey. But it makes sooo much more sense that by MiB going in there, he released smokey and smokey assumes MiB's body. Many thanks.


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## Cindy1230 (Oct 31, 2003)

betts4 said:


> What did she give Jacob to drink? I was thinking it was anti-aging stuff so that he could remain and be the guardian of the hole.
> 
> And I want to go back and watch it, but there was one scene by the fire when she was smearing something - it looked like on her legs. ?


It looked like she was rubbing dye on the thread for the tapestry.


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## TiVotion (Dec 6, 2002)

You know, another thing that sort of bugged me. Not to nitpick, but when I was watching MiB explaing the "wheel", I was like...who's helping him? How did he get all this knowledge? He builds a wheel and talks about opening up the cave wall and installing this wheel to some device process or whatever and turning it...and that's going to get him off the island...I was kinda like, wow. This seems too complicated for this guy to be talking about. 

And as someone else said - the obsession with getting off the island? Why?

And the "cave of light" - no one else ever found it and entered it?

When the smoke monster came out of the light cave, was that "brother in black" transformed into the smoke monster, or, did the smoke monster simply suck up and take over the body of brother in black? Does that make sense? I'm confusing myself.


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## markz (Oct 22, 2002)

betts4 said:


> Can anyone see on the credits if he is called anything? or on imdb?


Titus Welliver is listed as Man In Black for this episode.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

A tremendously disappointing episode. A couple of answers and a metric ton of nebulous and unsatisfying fantasy. At least, Lost strayed true to form - the mother wouldn't give her sons any frickin' straight answers either.


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

So I'm the only one not happy that we will likely never get an explanation as far as who/what the smoke monster is? Believe me I'm not an "answer" nut but I am a wannabe writer and I know it's easy to come up with stuff, but it's hard to explain it. Anyone can say "ok so there's this smoke monster that kills people and wants to leave but it will destroy the world if it does!" but isn't the fun of that learning who it is and WHY it does what it does? 

I can't be alone in wanting answers on that particular aspect of the story...


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## SocratesJohnson (Sep 14, 2005)

Cindy1230 said:


> Thank god for this thread because I came away from that thinking MiB became smokey. But it makes sooo much more sense that by MiB going in there, he released smokey and smokey assumes MiB's body. Many thanks.


I'm not convinced that Smokey and MIB are two totally separate entities. Smokey/Flocke still have MIB's memories about his "mother" and still seems to have the same motivation to leave the island that MIB had...


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

TiVotion said:


> When the smoke monster came out of the light cave, was that "brother in black" transformed into the smoke monster, or, did the smoke monster simply suck up and take over the body of brother in black? Does that make sense? I'm confusing myself.


I think it just carried him out. Although I'm not exactly clear on how him floating into the cave "released" the monster. He didn't remove or unplug anything. He simply floated inside.

Side note, nit pick all you want, that's the point of a discussion!


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

mrdazzo7 said:


> OK, but what is smokey?? This is what I'm getting at. Still absolutely no information.


Smokey IS the MIB, Jacob's Brother. The mother said "don't go down there." Jacob replied "Why, will I die?" She said, "No something far worse will happen to you." ie, the monster with no soul, basically. (I'm paraphrasing the conversation).


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## brermike (Jun 1, 2006)

TiVotion said:


> You know, another thing that sort of bugged me. Not to nitpick, but when I was watching MiB explaing the "wheel", I was like...who's helping him? How did he get all this knowledge? He builds a wheel and talks about opening up the cave wall and installing this wheel to some device process or whatever and turning it...and that's going to get him off the island...I was kinda like, wow. This seems too complicated for this guy to be talking about.


He said that there were smart people in his camp and they were helping him.



TiVotion said:


> And as someone else said - the obsession with getting off the island? Why?


He found out he had been lied to and wanted to go home from where he came from. He was raised thinking there was nothing across the sea. Once he found out that was not true, he wanted to find what actually was across the sea. Just like we watch Lost and crave answers, Man in Black wants an answer to where he comes from.
[/QUOTE]



TiVotion said:


> And the "cave of light" - no one else ever found it and entered it?


It seemed like it wasn't always visible. Man in Black said he had been searching for it for 30 years, but Mother led them right to it. Seems like it isn't always visible.
[/QUOTE]



TiVotion said:


> When the smoke monster came out of the light cave, was that "brother in black" transformed into the smoke monster, or, did the smoke monster simply suck up and take over the body of brother in black? Does that make sense? I'm confusing myself.


The smoke monster was released and can now assume the form of Man in Black. His dead body is buried in the cave. Sort of like how the smoke monster now assumes the form of Locke but his dead body is buried.


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## Boot (Mar 15, 2000)

betts4 said:


> Smokey was released when MIB (still no name. Poor kid never had a name?) fell in. It hadn't been out before and I got the feeling the FakeMom (but not like fakelocke) knew it was there but knew it should never be released.


I don't think that's true. I think that Smokey really is MiB. When he drifted in the cave, he was released from his body and became the smoke. It didn't exist before - the consequences mom was warning about was losing your body and being stuck as smokey for all eternity. Mom eventually was able to "escape" the island by being stabbed. Smoke can't be stabbed, so he's stuck. Unless that "source" somehow goes unprotected. (That's the part I'm still not really clear about.)


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

In the light there is good and evil - fake mom said this and I thought by throwing his brother into the light, Jacob released the evil which is the smoke monster.


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## brermike (Jun 1, 2006)

Great episode. We got answers but in typical Lost fashion they raise more questions. Like Mother said, if I answer your questions, they will just least to more questions. I don't think they could give any answer where people would still ask how or why. Love it!


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

The reason MIB wants off the island is that he found out the truth (in that he wasn't born there and not his real Mom) so he feels VERY betrayed and wants to go find his REAL home!

Seems simple enough to mean, and a pretty strong motivator.


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## brermike (Jun 1, 2006)

MikeMar said:


> The reason MIB wants off the island is that he found out the truth (in that he wasn't born there and not his real Mom) so he feels VERY betrayed and wants to go find his REAL home!
> 
> Seems simple enough to mean, and a pretty strong motivator.


Agreed.


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

betts4 said:


> In the light there is good and evil - fake mom said this and I thought by throwing his brother into the light, Jacob released the evil which is the smoke monster.


I guess this makes sense. The logical side of me would still like to know how he came out a flying pillar of smoke that scans people's memories, but whatever... I guess I'll go with it.

As for him wanting to go home, I understand he was lied to but the idea of stuff being "across the sea" could be a lie also--he has absolutely no reference whatsoever about anything beyond the island, so it's weird to be that he's so completely and utterly desperate to go, especially since his mother is dead. And the fact that he's taking all of this at the word of a ghost. But I get that is why he wants to go.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

MikeMar said:


> The reason MIB wants off the island is that he found out the truth (in that he wasn't born there and not his real Mom) so he feels VERY betrayed and wants to go find his REAL home!
> 
> Seems simple enough to mean, and a pretty strong motivator.


Not to mention that his fake mom killed his real mom. Kind of a motivator to get away from her.


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## SocratesJohnson (Sep 14, 2005)

Another question.... How was Fake Mom able to wipe out a whole village of people and totally fill in the well?


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

SocratesJohnson said:


> Another question.... How was Fake Mom able to wipe out a whole village of people and totally fill in the well?


A shovel? Bang everyone in the village on the head then fill in the well?


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

SocratesJohnson said:


> Another question.... How was Fake Mom able to wipe out a whole village of people and totally fill in the well?


I thought Smokey had come loose and did it. I mean, I knew it couldn't be, but that was my first initial thought.

Maybe she could do it the same way they can be walking and one minute it is light and the next it is dark. Or the same way MiB can make the donkey wheel.....


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## TiVotion (Dec 6, 2002)

SocratesJohnson said:


> Another question.... How was Fake Mom able to wipe out a whole village of people and totally fill in the well?


Also good questions. Forgot about those.

I know we're out of time, so I'm still sure these details won't be fleshed out. The only thing I can figure is, fake mom must have some sort of super abilities on the order of MiB. How she knew, what she knew, when she knew it, and where she came from...who knows. She seemed very relieved to get killed though.

For a conclusionary (is that a word?) episode, I think this one raised more questions than I've seen on the show in a long time.

I vow not to be disappointed when the whole thing wraps up, though. Just hoping they pack an awful lot into those last 2.5 hours.


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## robbhimself (Sep 13, 2006)

well, technically the smoke monster is a completely different being than jacob's brother, and he may have said to manipulate people that he wanted to leave the island, but he is more passionate when he says he wants to go home or that he just wants to leave.. and the smoke monsters home is in that cave.. 

i think the smoke monster is the physical manifestation of the light, but a dark version that was created when jacobs corrupt brother was thrown in there after living with the people for so long.. and being dark, it can't return as the heart of the island.. that's where i think clair comes into play, despite being batnut crazy, she is still innocent and full of wonder (like locke was when the smoke monster tried pulling him into the hole a couple seasons ago), i think it needs that bit of good with it to return as the light


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

I hope we don't get any more background shows. I want to see Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Locke and Hurley!!


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## cmontyburns (Nov 14, 2001)

TiVotion said:


> For a conclusionary (is that a word?) episode, I think this one raised more questions than I've seen on the show in a long time.


People need to get used to the idea that we're never going to know what the island _is_, not explicitly. So with that backdrop, I think this episode answered a lot of stuff. No, we don't know where Allison Janney's character came from, but we're not meant to. We're just meant to understand that she was the person protecting the island before it was Jacob, and presumably there was someone before her. There's no reason to address anything other than this: we now see that there's a lineage of protectors, and -- evidently, with Jacob dead -- now it's time to find the next one.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

cheesesteak said:


> A tremendously disappointing episode. A couple of answers and a metric ton of nebulous and unsatisfying fantasy.


This would be why there's chocolate and vanilla!
I thought this was a fantastic episode that really dug in and gave us a ton of background and answers on some big items in regards to MiB and Jacob.

I'm of the camp that Smokey is the MiB, but released from his body, they all but telegraphed that in FLocke saying " I had a body once" this adds up to that easily IMNSHO.

Diane


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

cmontyburns said:


> we now see that there's a lineage of protectors, and -- evidently, with Jacob dead -- now it's time to find the next one.


Absolutely nothing about that is news though. I don't think anyone assumed Jacob was the first, and we already know he's not the last. Who built the light house? How did he choose who to bring to the island? How does he have the ability to touch people and heal them, etc.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

The thouht of her being from a long line that is protecting the cave/island makes me think of Desmond and the button. Got to push the button every 108 minutes. Someone did it before him and then he has to do it.....


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

dianebrat said:


> This would be why there's chocolate and vanilla!
> I thought this was a fantastic episode that really dug in and gave us a ton of background and answers on some big items in regards to MiB and Jacob.
> 
> I'm of the camp that Smokey is the MiB, but released from his body, they all but telegraphed that in FLocke saying " I had a body once" this adds up to that easily IMNSHO.
> ...


Just out of curiousity though, can you point out what you felt it answered? Aside from them being brothers and the reveal of adam and eve, I feel like there is almost nothing in this episode that couldn't be surmised without it.


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## T-Wolves (Aug 22, 2000)

<babbling>This all has a kind of metaphor feel to me. The "golden light" area is the knowledge of the universe or something. "Smart people" are the scientists poking around, splitting the atom, messing with nanotechnology, cloning, splicing DNA, etc. Experimenting with things that they don't understand and can't always control. Once you get that knowledge, it can be used for good or evil, sometimes depending upon who acquires the knowledge. But once the knowledge is out there, it is out there for good. The genie is out of the bottle.

Perhaps "Mother" (Nature, Earth?) in protecting the "golden light" is trying to prevent mankind from learning the secrets of the universe? Because if we do, then what? -- it is all over? Once we "see God," the experiment of mankind is over?
</babbling>

So it appears that the fundamental mystery of Lost is actually the Island. Jacob/MIB are just people who came to the Island and were affected by it (and "Mother"). Interesting.

One thing I'll always remember about Lost is that it always kept you wanting more.


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## packerfan (Jan 8, 2002)

Does anyone else think that the noise smokey makes is from the stones rattling around inside his game/box? I noticed that noise when their mom picked up the game, right before she was stabbed in the back.


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## johnh123 (Dec 7, 2000)

TiVotion said:


> I vow not to be disappointed when the whole thing wraps up, though. Just hoping they pack an awful lot into those last 2.5 hours.


Don't get your hopes up too high. I don't think we'll know much more after this is over than we do now.


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

mrdazzo7 said:


> Just out of curiousity though, can you point out what you felt it answered? Aside from them being brothers and the reveal of adam and eve, I feel like there is almost nothing in this episode that couldn't be surmised without it.


How about the desire and reason for MIB/Smokey to want OFF the island?


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## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

T-Wolves
So [B said:


> ] it appears that the fundamental mystery of Lost is actually the Island [/B]. Jacob/MIB are just people who came to the Island and were affected by it (and "Mother"). Interesting.
> 
> One thing I'll always remember about Lost is that it always kept you wanting more.


Like many things in LOST, this is simple, fundamental, consistent with the story from the beginning, yet still a mystery. Every time we see something, be it the Others, then Jacob and MiB, there's always a deeper story, sorta like those Russian doll boxes...

It's Turtles all the way down.


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## dslunceford (Oct 19, 2000)

mrdazzo7 said:


> Please be kidding.


Agreed....


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

MikeMar said:


> How about the desire and reason for MIB/Smokey to want OFF the island?


I wonder why now though? I mean, MiB I can understand wanting to get off the island, but why smokey? And after all this time, he is not going to find his family.


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## tewcewl (Dec 18, 2004)

What would the timeline be if they were all speaking Latin and wearing those clothes? I'm very curious. 

And as for "Mother," Evangeline Lilly seems to think it's Mother Nature. Myself, I'm not so sure. This episode gave me quite a bit to think about. I just thank the stars that the wait between the penultimate episode and the series finale is only a few short days, not a whole week.

Wow. Just two more episodes, period.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

At least we know now that the kid that Flocke was seeing in the Jungle is Jacob.

Heres what I got from the episode, that wasn't necessarily really "said" but implied:

The island has is the entry point or the cork in a bottle of the world's "life energy." This energy is within all of us, anything living.

"Bad People" are constantly after this life energy. If they are allowed to uncork this life energy, it will be bad for the world. In essence kill everything. 

So there must be a protector. We don't know where it began, but we know that Allison Janney was one in a long line of protectors. Allison Janney probably came from ancient Italy, because she spoke Latin. But very badly. It was a relief when they switched to the English translation.

When one protector begins to fade, get tired, or whatever, they get to choose candidates to be the next protector. Allison got lucky and was able to groom her protectors from the birth, when the pregnant woman came to the island and gave birth to twins. And because Allison was very paranoid about bad people, she killed the woman.

With this great responsibility come great vague powers, such as living forever and being able to burn a village to the ground and fill a well overnight.

If you fall down the "cave of souls" you become a smoke monster (or at the very least, release a smoke monster who looks like you).

Adam and Eve, the dead bodies in the cave from the first season, are Allison Janney and her MIB "son." 

The MIB's childhood motivation to get off the island remains to this day, simply because he knows he didn't originate there. It wasn't his home. Why that is bad in and of itself, we don't know yet. (and face it, may never know). But he's evil and doesn't mind killing lots of people to get what he wants. These days, the Protector seems to have a double purpose. To keep Smokey on the island, and the previous one to protect the Cave of Souls from unscrupulous bastards who want to release the energy and unwittingly destroy the world.

So drawing analogies between Jacob and his Mother, he's been nurturing his candidates since early childhood and manipulating them so they all crash-landed on the island together, so one could be his replacement. Probably the only one who survives.

How the Alternaverse fits into that, we don't know. Yet.

Anything else?


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

MikeMar said:


> How about the desire and reason for MIB/Smokey to want OFF the island?


Still don't know what the reason is, aside from "he's not from the island"... We knew about his desire to leave since the season premiere when he said "I want to go home".


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## dslunceford (Oct 19, 2000)

One thing I didn't like is that the previous episode was made in part to clearly show that Flocke was the bad guy


> From EW: "There is no ambiguity," says [producer Carlton] Cuse. "He is evil and he has to be stopped."


This episode had me feeling bad for Nameless...his real Mom is killed by a woman who then takes on the Mother role; he's lied to about what's beyond the island; he learns about the deceit from his dead mother; his twin brother refuses to join him as he moves to live with "his people;" his Fake Mom tries to kill him, then kills and destroys the camp of people he's lived with for 30 years; then his twin brother conks him on the head and sends him into the abyss/light without any choice in the matter, where he turns into some otherworldly smoke thing.

End of day seems he becomes pretty sympathetic character to me (or at least his motivations seems more reasonable, given what he's gone through).


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Peter000 said:


> Anything else?


That was pretty good! thanks.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

dslunceford said:


> One thing I didn't like is that the previous episode was made in part to clearly show that Flocke was the bad guy
> 
> This episode had me feeling bad for Nameless...his real Mom is killed by a woman who then takes on the Mother role; he's lied to about what's beyond the island; he learns about the deceit from his dead mother; his twin brother refuses to join him as he moves to live with "his people;" his Fake Mom tries to kill him, then kills and destroys the camp of people he's lived with for 30 years; then his twin brother conks him on the head and sends him into the abyss/light without any choice in the matter, where he turns into some otherworldly smoke thing.
> 
> End of day seems he becomes pretty sympathetic character to me (or at least his motivations seems more reasonable, given what he's gone through).


I do agree here. I was feeling more sympathetic for MiB then Jacob. But then I never have liked Jacob.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

And for those who wanted "answers," what did you expect? Seriously, what would have satisfied you, and still been a good entertaining story that fits into the Lost world?

For the most part, this satisfied me. The only big question I had was why Allison Janney was so damn paranoid that she had to kill every non-candidate person on the island?


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## Azlen (Nov 25, 2002)

Lost = Answers that just lead to more questions


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

So, I don't want to post this, and I know it has the potential to spawn a whole tangential argument, but I selfishly need to post this or I'll go crazy.

I don't have any polite words for those of you that couldn't love this episode.

I don't think it's your fault, and I feel bad for you that you didn't find it satisfying and were left wanting. I do. But I don't think I'm going to choose to spend my time trying to convince people who didn't love this that they somehow missed something great.

I mean no disrespect, but I'm going to focus my energy sharing my thoughts with those that enjoyed this.. Because man, here at the end, to finally see such a great story, and to not enjoy it? All I can say is that I'm glad I didn't see what you wanted to see.

Highlander II was the worst movie ever made. It took the stunning movie before it - a completely surreal story about people who can't die, fighting with swords in New York of all places for some ultimate prize - and proceeded to destroy it by removing any shred of mystery with some lame explanation that sucked ass more than any story had ever sucked ass.

They tried providing answers to questions that were perfectly fine to have left unanswered. Hell it was poetic that they weren't answered. That movie tried to do the equivalent of explaining poetry, which always reduces it to something banal.

That's what I think a purely answer-filled episode about all of this would have brought.

And hell, we even have answers! We know who built the damned donkey wheel!!!!! And we know that he like Hurley could talk to dead people, so he potentially had access to tons of ancient knowledge in addition to the "smart people" (the Dharma Initiative equivalent of that day).

I'm going to enjoy my last few Lost threads, despite the people who can't see it and are sad or disappointed. I can't spare any change today, sorry, can't coddle you or tell you why you should like it. I'm just paying attention to the light.

Excellent, excellent episode. This is the same sadness you feel in the last 10-20 pages of a good book. Goodbye Lost, I'll miss you.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Yeah, but not everyone here didn't like it.


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## brermike (Jun 1, 2006)

betts4 said:


> I do agree here. I was feeling more sympathetic for MiB then Jacob. But then I never have liked Jacob.


Man in Black is dead. The evil was released as the smoke monster and has Man in Black's memories, but is not actually him. So in that regard, he is actually evil. It had Man in Black's firm, too, but is now John Locke's form.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Peter000 said:


> For the most part, this satisfied me. The only big question I had was why Allison Janney was so damn paranoid that she had to kill every non-candidate person on the island?


I found that amusing in a way. I mean, wow, but amusing. And she was so polite. She always said "I'm Sorry".


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## TiMo Tim (Jul 20, 2001)

Now, about that light... is this the same bright, blinding light that Locke saw thru the original hatch's window?



jkeegan said:


> Highlander II was the worst movie ever made.


I thought that title belonged to Troll 2.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Erf... about 10 minutes in I realized the Losties wouldn't be shown this episode. :down:

I thought it was a lame episode, with a sad, obvious and predictable storyline. Nothing shown meant much of anything to me. A few answers (which I personally didn't need), and a few more questions (which I personally didn't need). I would have greatly preferred most on our Losties than spending one of the last few hours on that storyline.



I'm afraid I'll need to find the season finale of Six Feet Under and have that at the ready.


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## zuko3984 (May 4, 2002)

brermike said:


> Man in Black is dead. The evil was released as the smoke monster and has Man in Black's memories, but is not actually him. So in that regard, he is actually evil. It had Man in Black's firm, too, but is now John Locke's form.


I still think the smoke monster is the man in black. If going into the cave just killed him why would the fake mom make a point of saying if you go into the cave something worse then death happens to you. Also I remember Flocke saying he had a body once.


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## Philosofy (Feb 21, 2000)

First, Jeff, Highlander: The Source was the worst movie ever made.

Now, on to Lost.

I saw this as the Jacob backstory. His brother is dead, and Jacob now protects the Island and the world from his mistake: releasing the smoke monster. What I don't understand is why Allison Janey (terrible casting, by the way) didn't kill all the men right off the bat.

So, what we know now is the Island is a source of light, but also held the darkness. Jacob is the latest in a (long) line of protectors. What we don't know is:

1. What is keeping Smokey on the Island
2. What is the contest between Jacob and Smokey
3. Why couldn't Smokey kill Jacob


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## TheMerk (Feb 26, 2001)

Ugh. The reveal of the light cave was so cheesy. And thanks a lot writers for ret conning Adam and Eve.


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## cmontyburns (Nov 14, 2001)

Terrific, cogent review of this ep by Alan Sepinwall at his new blog. I think he hits perfectly on everything that worked, and some of what didn't, about this episode and the direction this season has taken as a whole.

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/lost-across-the-sea-raised-by-another


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## S3-2501 (Jun 2, 2007)

SocratesJohnson said:


> Another question.... How was Fake Mom able to wipe out a whole village of people and totally fill in the well?


 I see parallels in this to the extermination of the Dharma Initiative. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more to this than fake mom somehow doing it all herself. There's probably a reason they didn't show how it happened

Count me among those who think that MIB was transformed into the smoke monster, not that MIB died and simultaneously released a separate entity that took his form.
.
My only real disappointment with the episode is the indication that the island contains the "source" of all life or something similar. If everything really boils down to something like the island being the source of all life, I'd be disappointed with such esoteric blandness being the answer to all the puzzles.

This episode has me a bit concerned that things won't wrap up in as satisfying a way as I hope they will, but this wonderful series has yet to introduce something dissatisfying that wasn't soon flipped around into something that made me love the show even more.

PS I'm guessing the water heading into the cave is the same water seen in the Temple. I wonder if the source of light is under the temple and was in fact the reason it was built there...


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Starting my rewatch now..


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

TheMerk said:


> Ugh. The reveal of the light cave was so cheesy. And thanks a lot writers for ret conning Adam and Eve.


Yeah, the light cave was horrendously cheesy. I almost expected harp music and birds coming out from it.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Oh, so I guess Jacob didn't kill MIB (because he can't), but it sure was close. Not sure MIB would have lived to much longer after Jacob had him knocked out face down in the water.

Kind of like saying you didn't kill someone by pushing them in a tiger's den. The tiger killed him, I didn't.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

cmontyburns said:


> Terrific, cogent review of this ep by Alan Sepinwall at his new blog. I think he hits perfectly on everything that worked, and some of what didn't, about this episode and the direction this season has taken as a whole.
> 
> http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/lost-across-the-sea-raised-by-another


Good read, thanks. :up:

It says, specifically:

The Man in Black was turned into a smoke monster when Jacob, distraught over his brother committing matricide, threw him into the golden spring, which Mother had warned him was "much worse" than dying.


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## GDG76 (Oct 2, 2000)

I still feel like they wasted so much time with so many things - Dharma, Widmore, the hatches, the food drops, the lack of ability to have babies, Jacob's lists and how the Others came to possess them, the time travel qualities of the island (Faraday's rocket), Ben Linus' girlfriend, smokey scanning peoples souls, the temple, Walt being special, the numbers, etc.. and none of them really matter at all or will be answered trivially (like the dead person whispers)

I still love the show and enjoyed this episode for what it was...but I do feel like some of the episodes and ideas they introduced in previous seasons were a big waste of time... maybe I just feel this way because I spent so much time trying to figure out the mysteries that seem to not matter...


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## Philosofy (Feb 21, 2000)

One thing that bothered me about the "light" was it sounded a lot like the Force.


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## nrrhgreg (Aug 30, 2003)

TheMerk said:


> Ugh. The reveal of the light cave was so cheesy. And thanks a lot writers for ret conning Adam and Eve.


You can't retcon something that never had a back story in the first place.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

uncdrew said:


> The Man in Black was turned into a smoke monster when Jacob, distraught over his brother committing matricide, threw him into the golden spring, which Mother had warned him was "much worse" than dying.


I honestly can't see how anyone can come to a different conclusion...this conclusion may be wrong; but right now, all the evidence point to it as correct

I was annoyed about replaying the part where Jack and Kate found Adam and Eve...almost insulting the viewer...of course we got it!

I hope whatever Jacob drank is a fountain of knowledge since nothing was passed down to him...I also assume it gives him special powers since he now would never age, can heal mortal wounds, travel at will to any place on earth...etc.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Anubys said:


> I honestly can't see how anyone can come to a different conclusion...this conclusion may be wrong; but right now, all the evidence point to it as correct
> 
> I was annoyed about replaying the part where Jack and Kate found Adam and Eve...almost insulting the viewer...of course we got it!


agreed


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## mqpickles (Nov 11, 2004)

brermike said:


> Man in Black is dead. The evil was released as the smoke monster and has Man in Black's memories, but is not actually him. So in that regard, he is actually evil. It had Man in Black's firm, too, but is now John Locke's form.


I think it's kind of a merger. The way MIB acted with Jacob in Ab Aeterno, and the end of Season 5, says to me he's been "possessed" by Smokey, but Nameless Brother (Bad Twin?) is still in there too.

And lately I think there are signs that there's some John Locke in the guy too.



S3-2501 said:


> PS I'm guessing the water heading into the cave is the same water seen in the Temple. I wonder if the source of light is under the temple and was in fact the reason it was built there...


That's what I surmised.



Anubys said:


> I was annoyed about replaying the part where Jack and Kate found Adam and Eve...almost insulting the viewer...of course we got it!


You know, I was too, but then my husband (really smart guy, casual Lost viewer) said he didn't remember Jack and Kate finding Adam & Eve.

That scene aired almost 5 years ago. And although it gets brought up on TCF frequently, the Adam & Eve mystery hasn't gotten much play on the show.


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## mqpickles (Nov 11, 2004)

One thing we learned is that Jacob and Nameless Brother aren't the best cowboys. Because "all the best cowboys have daddy issues," and these guys have some serious mommy issues.


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## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

Great episode. The writers were speaking to us fans with the line from Mom: "Every question I answer will simply lead to another question..."

This episode gives us a general framework for the Jacob/MIB plotline; we will be talking about 'what's really going on' there for years to come. But their story is a backdrop, the real story is the 815ers, and I think we will get a much more detailed resolution to that story.

ETA: So glad Adam and Eve weren't Rose and Bernard or Jack and Kate...


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

Peter000 said:


> Anything else?


Jacob doesn't know how to lie.



nrrhgreg said:


> You can't retcon something that never had a back story in the first place.


Agreed, he just can't wrap his mind around the concept that they planted it into the first season knowing full well that when they got to the end, Adam & Eve would be the people we saw tonight.



Anubys said:


> I was annoyed about replaying the part where Jack and Kate found Adam and Eve...almost insulting the viewer...of course we got it!


For YEARS I felt this way about Babylon 5, which did the same thing, but I've come to realize over time that there are people who don't watch as closely as I do.



latrobe7 said:


> Great episode. The writers were speaking to us fans with the line from Mom: "Every question I answer will simply lead to another question..."


YES! I was thinking the same thing when I watched it.

And for the record, "the writers" are Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse.

Greg


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## rlc1 (Sep 15, 2003)

zuko3984 said:


> I still think the smoke monster is the man in black. If going into the cave just killed him why would the fake mom make a point of saying if you go into the cave something worse then death happens to you. Also I remember Flocke saying he had a body once.


Because what's worse than just being dead is being dead, plus having some evil smoke monster take your memories, and your body. I think that's what she meant. I think they tried to make it clear in the episode that MIB - the real one before he was thrown into the hole by Jacob - was not really evil. In fact I would argue that Jacob is more messed up than MIB. When they both found out that the woman killed their real mother, MIB has a normal human reaction and wants nothing to do with her, and also wants to go live with the people he would have been living with in the first place, had his real mother not been killed. But Jacob takes the news that his mother was killed with an "oh well" attitude. MIB may have been wrong to kill his "stepmother", but he was sort of justified after she killed all of his people. Jacob killed his brother by throwing him in the hole - I think the very fact that they showed him laying the brother/MIB's body beside the woman/stepmother's body means that the real MIB is really dead. The smoke monster is just some evil entity that took on the form of his body, as well as his memories.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

I personally think that Smokey is a combination of the evil in the source and the disembodiment of MIB.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

I also didn't get why Jacob thought his brother was the favored one...I don't recall seeing either one get preferential treatment...I think they should have shown us that more clearly (other than the characters mentioning it as a fact)...


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

I thought this was a great episode and don't understand all the hate here.

Man, some of you are going to be crazed after the finale is aired.



mrdazzo7 said:


> I still don't get MiB's motivation for wnating to leave. he was perfectly happy until Ghost mom showed up.... I was expecting this big backstory about how he came to the island as was possessed by the monster through no fault of his own and now just wanted to get back home... but that was his home. And it's not like he had a bad life--his mother even _favored _him over Jacob.


Or so Jacob thought.



MikeMar said:


> The reason MIB wants off the island is that he found out the truth (in that he wasn't born there and not his real Mom) so he feels VERY betrayed and wants to go find his REAL home!
> 
> Seems simple enough to mean, and a pretty strong motivator.


Not to mention that he was staring at the ocean like he wanted to see what was out there before Really Dead Mom showed up.



Peter000 said:


> For the most part, this satisfied me. The only big question I had was why Allison Janney was so damn paranoid that she had to kill every non-candidate person on the island?





Philosofy said:


> I saw this as the Jacob backstory. His brother is dead, and Jacob now protects the Island and the world from his mistake: releasing the smoke monster. What I don't understand is why Allison Janey (terrible casting, by the way) didn't kill all the men right off the bat.


Did she?
Did she kill them?

And if she did kill them, maybe she waited because she didn't know that they were close to breaching the Source wall.

And was her behavior related to the Island Sickness?

I am amused that Mark Pellegrino is playing "the Good Son" here and "the Bad Son" on Supernatural.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

Anubys said:


> I also didn't get why Jacob thought his brother was the favored one...I don't recall seeing either one get preferential treatment...I think they should have shown us that more clearly (other than the characters mentioning it as a fact)...


I got that feeling and the gift of the game telegraphed it. Jacob didn't know about the game but we have to assume there were other indications he WAS aware of.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

gchance said:


> Agreed, he just can't wrap his mind around the concept that they planted it into the first season knowing full well that when they got to the end, Adam & Eve would be the people we saw tonight.


I'm pretty certain they didn't have this specific story in mind for the bodies when they put them there. That was, what, the third episode? I read (I can't remember where) a quote where they didn't really sit down and roadmap the series until half-way through the first season, when they knew it was being renewed. Most of the stuff was written on the premise of "wouldn't it be cool if..."

That last I think I read in EW's special lost issue this week.


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## Allanon (Nov 2, 2005)

Maybe after Jacob was given the drink by his "Mother" and she said something like "You and I are now the same", Jacob magically gained the knowledge of what "The Light" was and what would happen if he entered the cave. Then maybe Jacob was so outraged by his brother killing his mother that he threw his brother in the cave knowing he would turn in to the Smoke Monster and would never be able to do the one thing that he wanted the most which was to leave the Island.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Across The Sea rewatch notes

Love the title, now that I've seen the episode.

Great that there wad no "previously, on Lost".. Just went straight into it.

Like Tivotion, I too called out loud to my wife "She looks *really* pregnant.. They're going to be twins!"

As was said, I also was entertained by her always apologizing. It makes even better the previous scene where Flocke tells James that he's glad he apologized.

She drank from the stream before giving birth. I'd wonder if this was relevant but it hardly seems relevant since Mother can make them special herself.

Loved that the rules keeping them from killing each other came from their mother. So simple. She wanted to rid them of that one curse of being "a person". "I've made it so you can never hurt each other".

Interesting to see that *she* was the origin of MiB's view of people and that they always come, destroy, etc. I said this out loud like one scene *before* she said those exact words.. 

The advice the mother gave could be heeded by some here: "Every question I answer will simply lead to another question."

The actual mother said "it's coming", and since we know there were twins, she really meant "they're coming". That's also the last thing Jacob ever said alive.

Wow.. Such a peaceful opening, right up to "I'm sorry", head-smash-with-rock, and then LOST.

Jacob's first words in the episode:
"What is it?"
MiB's first words:
"It's a game. You play it."

Their game board has hieroglyphics on it. There's at least a sideways ankh on one of the squares.

Liked the consistency of seeing mother weaving as Jacob had in the foot statue.

Re: it's turtles all the way down (love that quote) - there's a huge sea turtle on the beach with MiB.

I loved the casting of mother.

MiB was "special". She said so, and he could see dead people.

When MiB asked "what's dead?" and mother answered "something you will never have to worry about", did she mean that she'd made MiB and Jacob not age past a certain point and made rules that they can't kill each other? As it turns out, maybe she was right for the wrong reason, and maybe she was wrong. If MiB dies (his body certainly did), she's wrong. If he lives on in smokey, she might be right (so far anyway), but not the way she meant/wanted.

Can we date any of this by the types of clothes the men are wearing that stabbed the hog in front of MiB and Jacob? They're wearing some bone necklace thing, leather wrist guards, an arm brace/armor thing, etc.

I half expected those people killing the hogs to be wild crazy versions of Jack & co.

The light cave is at the end of a long walk through tall bamboo that looks like the same bamboo that Jack woke up in in the pilot episode.

"they come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt, and it always ends the same".

Hey, whoa, wait a second. Speaking of her saying "I've made it so you can never hurt each other"... Jacob clearly hurt MiB.. He floated him into a cave and his dead body was there later.. Was she unsuccessful, or did her success take the form of making MiB stay alive no matter what? Why do those rules apply later if smokey is just smokey taking on the shape and thoughts of MiB?

And let's not forget that we've seen hieroglyphics next to an ancient picture of the smoke monster.. And there were hieroglyphics on the board game, so this is at least after hieroglyphics were invented. So smokey would seem to predate MiB being floated into the cave..

A little bit of this same light is inside of every man.. But they always want more.

MiB wants to use the light to get off of the island. Jacob has promised to protect the light. Maybe that's why he can't let MiB leave.

Meaningless data: Their playing board is a 10x3 grid.

Their cave felt distinctly like the cave they lived in in Land of the Lost.

When smokey became Christian and led Jack to water and the caves, he also led Jack to his own dead body.

When Jacob brought MiB to the cave, he'd already drank the wine and made the promise, and he and his mother were now "the same". That meant he had "powers" then.. So maybe part of what happened to MiB was Jacob's deliberate action (via powers, not just floating someone into a cave of light)?

Now we know why Jacob (and presumably his people) would want to hide away from "people"... That's what he grew up doing.

My love, you need to know this. Whatever you have been told, you will never be able to leave this island!

They mentioned a storm was coming..

Thought it was great that MiB himself was part of the people who walked around digging wells, especially when Flocke was telling that story to Desmond.

Another thing we saw: the setup of MiB believing people in general were all greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy, and selfish (bad), and jacob not being so sure.

Hey.. Jacob was like "that's impossible. There's no way off this island".. All he learns after that is about the wells and magnetism. Yet we see Jacob off-island to touch Kate's nose, etc. Looks like becoming the protector includes powers that let you leave?

So the knife was MiB's.

No foot statue reference.. Hmm..

So they were digging wells because MiB was telling them to because he wanted to find another way to get at The Light..

We finally know where "home" is that MiB wants to get to - Across The Sea..

So, were there multiple wheels, or was it a mistake that in this episode the wheel room has sunlight pouring into it and it looks 15-20 feet deep tops, but the Orchid elevator went "deep"?

Personally I thought it was great to see MiB building the wheel. Excellent.

So he referred to the light underneath the island.. Remember, when Locke was hanging in the well, and the island flashed, he saw light coming from the bottom of the well below him, too.

Jacob asked mother if she was going to let MiB go. Her answer was that she didn't have a choice - it's what he wants. Is that about free will? Jacob doesn't honor that...

What's down there? Life. Death. Rebirth. It's the source. The heart of the island.

Hey.. Did Richard ever drink that wine?

"You don't really have a choice" she tells him, before he has to promise to guard the island as long as he can. That explains why he'd tell Ben "No matter what he told you, I want you to understand - you have a choice.." - because HE didn't, and people should appreciate when they do! 

MiB walking into camp and seeing it and everyone burned down felt very much like Luke returning to find Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru dead.

Nice touch that the way he knew to go there was the smoke filling the sky..

Mother seemed to know she wad going to die, even before getting back to the cave. She didn't know exactly which moment though - she was surprised to see/feel the knife (she'd just been looking at the black piece, btw).

She says Thank You to MiB for freeing her.

MiB: You can't kill me Jacob. She made it that way. You can't!
Jacob: Don't worry brother, I'm not going to kill you.

Jacob's last line of the episode: "Goodbye brother. Goodbye.". It didn't feel like he knew he'd be visited by The black smoke monster taking the shape of MiB...


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Anubys said:


> I was annoyed about replaying the part where Jack and Kate found Adam and Eve...almost insulting the viewer...of course we got it!


Yeah I felt that pulled us out of the story. For us, it would have been better to not have the cutaway. For most people, it's good it's in there, or we'd be explaining that to people too (and having some of them even doubt us)...


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

The Allison Janney character delivered a verbatim quote of MIB's line in last season's finale, "They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same." She didn't want anyone coming to the island. Jacob's mission is clearly not the same as hers was.

She also made no sense in explaining to the children how important the light is. She implied some kind of cosmic damage, "everywhere," if anyone gets to it. But if there's nothing else other than the island (which is what she was telling them at the time), what cosmic damage could there be.

The deliberate dialog written to obscure MIB's name (or, worse, to imply that he doesn't have one) was absurd.

In all, I had a feeling I would be disappointed in what I saw tonight, and I was. They explained precisely nothing about what the smoke monster is, what is so evil about him, and what happens, anywhere, if he leaves. Nobody says that you have to keep what's on the island, or in the cave, away from the world. It was the other way around.

Last week we were lead to believe "I just want to go home" was just a ruse. Now we find out it's real?


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## T-Wolves (Aug 22, 2000)

TiVotion said:


> ...And the "cave of light" - no one else ever found it and entered it? ...


Maybe the people who got the "sickness?"



cmontyburns said:


> ...There's no reason to address anything other than this: we now see that there's a lineage of protectors, and -- evidently, with Jacob dead -- now it's time to find the next one.


Which brings up an interesting question. "Mother" whispered some Latin words over some wine(?) and made Jacob the new protector of the "light." With Jacob dead, how does the next protector get chosen (and _initiated_)?



Peter000 said:


> ...The island has is the entry point or the cork in a bottle of the world's "life energy." This energy is within all of us, anything living.


I think the words, "life, death, rebirth" were also used to describe what was in the light.



Peter000 said:


> "Bad People" are constantly after this life energy. If they are allowed to uncork this life energy, it will be bad for the world. In essence kill everything.


Supposedly we all have a little bit of this light inside us, and "it is never enough." That sounds like life-force, and the light is the fountain of youth or something (which is interesting because Mother and Jacob seem to have the power to grant immortality). And "if the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere" makes it sound like there is a finite amount of light, which almost sounds like a reincarnation thing.



Peter000 said:


> ...If you fall down the "cave of souls" you become a smoke monster (or at the very least, release a smoke monster who looks like you). ...


MIB was supposedly "special" ("Mother" told him so, and he repeated it later), so maybe the light wouldn't turn a "normal" person into a smoke monster. Odds are that Jacob and CIB/BIB/MIB weren't your average kids.



Peter000 said:


> ...For the most part, this satisfied me. The only big question I had was why Allison Janney was so damn paranoid that she had to kill every non-candidate person on the island?


The *protector *philosophy seems to be to just ignore or stay away from other people on the Island *until* they start messing with the "light." All the Dharma folks were gassed, and when the US Army started messing around with a nuclear bomb (back in the 50s?), the "Others" attacked them as well.



Philosofy said:


> What I don't understand is why Allison Janey (terrible casting, by the way)....


I agree 100%. It really ruined it for me seeing CJ from the West Wing on the show. But according to the recent audio podcast, Cuse and Lindelof really wanted her for the role.



Anubys said:


> ...I was annoyed about replaying the part where Jack and Kate found Adam and Eve...almost insulting the viewer...of course we got it!


I was excited for a second -- I thought it was some kind of crossover to the current storyline, or a flash-forward or something. But then I realized it was just a flashback for story purposes.



Anubys said:


> ...I hope whatever Jacob drank is a fountain of knowledge since nothing was passed down to him...I also assume it gives him special powers since he now would never age, can heal mortal wounds, *travel at will to any place on earth*...etc.


I was wondering about this -- "Mother" told BIB that no matter what anybody told him, he'd never be able to leave the Island. At the time, I thought that also applied to Jacob. But Jacob obviously left the Island a lot. So why, at that point (before she knew Jacob would be her replacement), did she tell BIB he would never be able to leave the Island?



Anubys said:


> I also didn't get why Jacob thought his brother was the favored one...I don't recall seeing either one get preferential treatment...I think they should have shown us that more clearly (other than the characters mentioning it as a fact)...


There was the scene on the beach where BIB thought that Mother was going to be mad about him playing the game. Then she told him that she had left it for him to find. And she told him he was "special." I definitely got the impression that BIB was her favorite.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Philosofy said:


> What I don't understand is why Allison Janey (terrible casting, by the way) didn't kill all the men right off the bat.


When MiB was telling her about his idea of getting to the light from somewhere else, she asked:
"The people with you - they saw this, too?"

When he said yes she looked distraught, as if she were thinking "damn, now I'm going to have to kill them now".

So maybe she didn't want to have to kill anyone, but felt forced to when she heard that they knew about the light.


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## Uncle Briggs (Sep 11, 2004)

What a wasted hour.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

T-Wolves said:


> Which brings up an interesting question. "Mother" whispered some Latin words over some wine(?) and made Jacob the new protector of the "light." With Jacob dead, how does the next protector get chosen (and _initiated_)?


Maybe Hugo will say them to Jack (at this point, I assume Jack is the new protector) through either mother or Jacob...since Hugo can see the dead, he can be the middleman for the initiation...

the flashback to Jack and Kate with Adam and Eve would have been better handled in a quick "previously on Lost"...


----------



## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Peter000 said:


> Smokey IS the MIB, Jacob's Brother. The mother said "don't go down there." Jacob replied "Why, will I die?" She said, "No something far worse will happen to you." ie, the monster with no soul, basically. (I'm paraphrasing the conversation).


Exactly.

I think this was the most straightforward episode in all of "Lost". It showed what MiB and Jacob are and who they came from. Good enough for me. That it didn't answer all questions about the smoke monster or the light is par for the course.


----------



## JETarpon (Jan 1, 2003)

philw1776 said:


> While like most any LOST episode it seemed far too short, I felt a twinge of dissapointment at the mundane to me direction of the story arc. I think now that we won't ever understand 'The Island' itself. In any case despite any 'creative differences' LOST continues to be the penultimate A Ride.


The second to last A Ride?


----------



## JETarpon (Jan 1, 2003)

TiVotion said:


> When the smoke monster came out of the light cave, was that "brother in black" transformed into the smoke monster, or, did the smoke monster simply suck up and take over the body of brother in black? Does that make sense? I'm confusing myself.


The smoke monster *is* the Man in Black. MiB is just no longer in his body, though he can take its form.

We know this because otherwise smoke monster/fLocke would have been able to kill Jacob himself and would not have needed to con Ben into doing it.


----------



## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

betts4 said:


> I hope we don't get any more background shows. I want to see Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Locke and Hurley!!


I agree. I enjoyed the episode, but this close to the end, I want to spend most of my time with the main characters.

I do think we'll see some Dharma/Hostiles era background, but only as flashbacks.


----------



## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

Peter000 said:


> Allison Janney probably came from ancient Italy, because she spoke Latin. But very badly. It was a relief when they switched to the English translation.


Man, that was horrible. Normally I am annoyed when they don't use native languages, but this time, like you, I was merely relieved.


----------



## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

Philosofy said:


> One thing that bothered me about the "light" was it sounded a lot like the Force.


Likely because they're both borrowing from some of the same esoteric traditions. Star Wars being vaguely more Eastern, LOST more Western, but both a kind of hodge-podge.


----------



## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

My episode didn't record, and I had to watch a crummy (so-called HD) torrent. Anyone else?


----------



## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

I watched the episode again last night and then went to bed. One thing I am GLAD MiB isn't just pure evil. I had long been rooting for him not to be. Personally I like him more than Jacob. And if you think about it, just as Jack, Kate, Locke, Michael... everyone on the Island, really, has good & bad aspects to their personality, so does MiB. 

He felt betrayed by the woman who killed his real mother and lied about (or at least hid) her role in how he ended up at this point in his life - of course he was angry. She even thought he was the destined protector over Jacob until he discovered her lie. 

Lies, and this odd need to never reveal anything to those who ask logical questions seems to cause every conflict on this Island. I mean, I know for the sake of the mystery of the show they don't reveal everything to the viewers, but you gotta wonder if they're only making things worse for each other by not just being up front about the historical information they posses. Communication. I have yelled for years - talk to each other.


----------



## Cearbhaill (Aug 1, 2004)

Anubys said:


> I also didn't get why Jacob thought his brother was the favored one...I don't recall seeing either one get preferential treatment...I think they should have shown us that more clearly (other than the characters mentioning it as a fact)...


I saw preferential treatment the moment they were born, but it wasn't MIB on the good end of it. When Mother delivered Jacob she smiled and laughed and cooed and was happy to see him. She gave him a name. When the second baby came she just stared at him with trepidation as if somehow the presence of a second child changed everything.


----------



## Rinkdog (Dec 21, 2005)

I am trying to remember the circumstances of Michaels eventual death. Christian (MIB) was there and told him he could go right before the bomb exploded. Michael was helping wasn't he?


----------



## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

dslunceford said:


> One thing I didn't like is that the previous episode was made in part to clearly show that Flocke was the bad guy
> 
> This episode had me feeling bad for Nameless...his real Mom is killed by a woman who then takes on the Mother role; he's lied to about what's beyond the island; he learns about the deceit from his dead mother; his twin brother refuses to join him as he moves to live with "his people;" his Fake Mom tries to kill him, then kills and destroys the camp of people he's lived with for 30 years; then his twin brother conks him on the head and sends him into the abyss/light without any choice in the matter, where he turns into some otherworldly smoke thing.
> 
> End of day seems he becomes pretty sympathetic character to me (or at least his motivations seems more reasonable, given what he's gone through).


This is how I felt. If MIB is supposed to be evil, this origin story failed to show me why.


----------



## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> So, I don't want to post this, and I know it has the potential to spawn a whole tangential argument, but I selfishly need to post this or I'll go crazy.
> 
> I don't have any polite words for those of you that couldn't love this episode.


What kind of crap is this? People can't have a different opinion than you? I'm not a True Believer. I don't think that everything Darlton does is unicorns, lollipops and fairies. Sorry to offend you.


----------



## scheckeNYK (Apr 28, 2004)

TiVotion said:


> And the "cave of light" - no one else ever found it and entered it?


No one could ever find Jacob's cabin either, unless they were properly guided. This adds up for me.

The Light inside the cave is basically the essence of the Universe. It's everything. Kept inside the cave it is anchored and safe. Tampered with, (i.e.: a human entering it's core), it is released from the cave, becomes the smoke monster, and extremely unstable. If this unstable smoke monster (the freed essence of the Universe) were able to leave the island the Universe as we know it would simply cease to exist.

It has all these memories and can read people's minds because it is life. It already knows everything because whatever happened is a derivative of the smoke monster/essence.


----------



## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

Something about the way the "mother" said "I'm so sorry" when she killed the real mother and brained MIB reminded me of David Tennant saying "I'm so sorry" numerous times in his Doctor Who run.


----------



## caslu (Jun 24, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> So, I don't want to post this, and I know it has the potential to spawn a whole tangential argument, but I selfishly need to post this or I'll go crazy.
> 
> I don't have any polite words for those of you that couldn't love this episode.
> 
> ...


+1:up: - Let's also not forget there are 3.5 hours of story left to tell, so there are still some answers forthcoming (even if they're not the ones some people will want to hear).


----------



## GDG76 (Oct 2, 2000)

I'm convinced they could film Vincent taking a dump for an hour and some people would consider it brilliant just because it is Lost, and they must know what they are doing..

"Every question I answer will lead to more questions.." if this is supposed to be a wink to the viewers, I think it's telling that the recipient of that answer got hit over the head with a rock


----------



## Alfer (Aug 7, 2003)

SocratesJohnson said:


> Another question.... How was Fake Mom able to wipe out a whole village of people and totally fill in the well?


That was what we were saying when we saw that scene....no way one person could do that.


----------



## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Alfer said:


> That was what we were saying when we saw that scene....no way one person could do that.


I figured she had a lot of rocks. I mean that is the only weapon we ever saw her use....


----------



## NatasNJ (Jan 7, 2002)

GDG76 said:


> I'm convinced they could film Vincent taking a dump for an hour and some people would consider it brilliant just because it is Lost, and they must know what they are doing..


That would actually be hilarious... I am sure there would be theories based on that dump. How the certain color meant one thing and the texture would mean certain other things. All providing a few answers with more questions.


----------



## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

GDG76 said:


> "Every question I answer will lead to more questions.." if this is supposed to be a wink to the viewers, I think it's telling that the recipient of that answer got hit over the head with a rock


I thought that also. I mean, yes, definately a wink at us, the viewers.


----------



## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

I still would loved to have seen an episode that was from Vincent's point of view. Maybe with Bruce Willis or Tom Hanks doing the voice over.


----------



## madscientist (Nov 12, 2003)

TheMerk said:


> And thanks a lot writers for ret conning Adam and Eve.





Peter000 said:


> I'm pretty certain they didn't have this specific story in mind for the bodies when they put them there.


Er... what? Why do you think that was ret conned? Or put another way, what kind of explanation would you be satisfied was NOT a retcon? Darlton said, back when the original episode aired, that Adam and Eve were critical to the story, and so they were. I think nothing would ever convince you that they did have it planned.



Anubys said:


> I also didn't get why Jacob thought his brother was the favored one...I don't recall seeing either one get preferential treatment...I think they should have shown us that more clearly (other than the characters mentioning it as a fact)...


 As with others I thought they did a good job of showing this. Compare her conversation with Jacob where she knows he's lying, to her conversation with MiB about the game on the beach where she says he's special. It seemed clear to me, even before the accusation.


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

dslunceford said:


> One thing I didn't like is that the previous episode was made in part to clearly show that Flocke was the bad guy
> 
> This episode had me feeling bad for Nameless...his real Mom is killed by a woman who then takes on the Mother role; he's lied to about what's beyond the island; he learns about the deceit from his dead mother; his twin brother refuses to join him as he moves to live with "his people;" his Fake Mom tries to kill him, then kills and destroys the camp of people he's lived with for 30 years; then his twin brother conks him on the head and _*knowingly*_ sends him into the abyss/light without any choice in the matter, where he turns into some otherworldly smoke thing, _*an alleged fate worse than death*_.
> 
> End of day seems he becomes pretty sympathetic character to me (or at least his motivations seems more reasonable, given what he's gone through).


FYP 



zuko3984 said:


> brermike said:
> 
> 
> > Man in Black is dead. The evil was released as the smoke monster and has Man in Black's memories, but is not actually him. So in that regard, he is actually evil. It had Man in Black's firm, too, but is now John Locke's form.
> ...





Anubys said:


> I honestly can't see how anyone can come to a different conclusion...this conclusion may be wrong; but right now, all the evidence point to it as correct
> 
> I was annoyed about replaying the part where Jack and Kate found Adam and Eve...almost insulting the viewer...of course we got it!
> 
> I hope whatever Jacob drank is a fountain of knowledge since nothing was passed down to him...I also assume it gives him special powers since he now would never age, can heal mortal wounds, travel at will to any place on earth...etc.


I'm in these camps.


----------



## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

betts4 said:


> I still would loved to have seen an episode that was from Vincent's point of view. Maybe with Bruce Willis or Tom Hanks doing the voice over.


That could be a pretty interesting episode. Vincent was gone for days at a time many instances. You could show him visiting New Otherton, or perhaps getting scraps from Desmond at the Swan hatch before the castaways actually found it. Taking a pee on the four toed foot.


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

NatasNJ said:


> That would actually be hilarious... I am sure there would be theories based on that dump. How the certain color meant one thing and the texture would mean certain other things. All providing a few answers with more questions.


none of these methods would be conclusive...everyone KNOWS it's the taste that gives definitive answers


----------



## crowfan (Dec 27, 2003)

According to the article linked above, the game was Senet.


----------



## Shaunnick (Jul 2, 2005)

I think it is great that on an island that is unplottable and moves around one tiny supernatural cave that no one can find is hard to believe. 

I said this over in the 'Other' Lost thread, but I really think it is funny that the people who are upset are not getting the answers they want so they are angry and are turning against Darlton. Those who are ok with the answers they are being given are willing to accept those answers as is and are defending Darlton. 

Did anyone else notice that before MIB was born real mom asked to see her son, and then she had MIB, and her next question was let me see him. That is when Mother made a face and grabbed a rock. Real mom wanted just the son she counted on. The other son she could care less about.


----------



## Queue (Apr 7, 2009)

TiVotion said:


> Like, for kids that had no interaction with anyone other than their "mother", they sure spoke really good English and seemed to have had a decent education.


The pregnant woman and Allison Janey were speaking Latin to begin with, then there was this eerie sound and everything was in English. I assumed the sound signified that they were still speaking Latin but we were hearing the translation instead of reading it. So I'm guessing the boys were speaking Latin also.


----------



## rlc1 (Sep 15, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> Hey, whoa, wait a second. Speaking of her saying "I've made it so you can never hurt each other"... Jacob clearly hurt MiB.. He floated him into a cave and his dead body was there later.. Was she unsuccessful, or did her success take the form of making MiB stay alive no matter what? Why do those rules apply later if smokey is just smokey taking on the shape and thoughts of MiB?


This was my biggest area of confusion after seeing the episode. She says she made it so they can't hurt each other...but we see Jacob beating the crap out of his brother not once, but twice...and then throwing him into the hole to die. Seems like Jacob's the bad guy to me. Like someone else said above, I had more sympathy for MIB than Jacob. Not the smoke monster version of MIB, mind you...but the innocent kid that found out his real mother was killed by some crazy lady.


----------



## rlc1 (Sep 15, 2003)

aindik said:


> In all, I had a feeling I would be disappointed in what I saw tonight, and I was. They explained precisely nothing about what the smoke monster is, what is so evil about him, and what happens, anywhere, if he leaves. Nobody says that you have to keep what's on the island, or in the cave, away from the world. It was the other way around.


The idea that not everything hasn't been answered doesn't bother me. There's still 3 hours of show left. What would they do with those 3 hours if all questions had been answered? I don't think they'll answer every single question that's come up over six seasons, but I think that towards the end we'll find out _some_ kind of answer about what the smoke monster really is. I hope.


----------



## rlc1 (Sep 15, 2003)

JETarpon said:


> The smoke monster *is* the Man in Black. MiB is just no longer in his body, though he can take its form.
> 
> We know this because otherwise smoke monster/fLocke would have been able to kill Jacob himself and would not have needed to con Ben into doing it.


That's a great point, about him not being able to kill Jacob directly. I'm guessing that when Jacob said "Goodbye, brother", he had no idea that he would meet him again in the form of smoke monster/MIB. It also makes me wonder, what was it that made Claire and Sayid crazy/evil? Was it just their exposure to the smoke monster/MIB or did he do something to them - perhaps infecting them with the same evil that originated from the underground light?

I'm now thinking that there were three distinct "people" or "entities" if you want to call them that:

1: the original Man in Black, who was Jacob's brother but is dead (in his original form)
2: the smoke monster, trapped underground and unable to get out or assume human form, because no human had ever gone into the hole
3: A creature/entity that is now a combination of MIB and the smoke monster. I'm not sure I'm adding anything here. My thoughts on this are changing by the minute.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

The smoke monster has to be MIB. Not just because the smoke monster couldn't kill Jacob, but also because Jacob couldn't kill MIB.


----------



## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

Anubys said:


> I was annoyed about replaying the part where Jack and Kate found Adam and Eve...almost insulting the viewer...of course we got it!


My take was that I was bummed they didn't add new detailed footage of Kate in wet underwear or less. Director's cut Blu-Ray DVD material?


----------



## HIHZia (Nov 3, 2004)

We had a weather interrupt during the scene with the dead mother. I missed from where she said follow me to where the BiB had a bloody nose and it cut to Mother and Jacob on the beach. Can anyone recap what happened in that time?

Thanks


----------



## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

JETarpon said:


> The second to last A Ride?


There's always hope for something better...


----------



## pjenkins (Mar 8, 1999)

i haven't been very keen on the storyline, and last night reinforced that view. i honestly laughed a few times at the stupidity of this story and how it's being told (or not told, more accurately). Glad the show is finishing up, will be interesting to see whether they butcher the final 3.5 hours as much as they have the last 2 years...


----------



## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

rlc1 said:


> This was my biggest area of confusion after seeing the episode. She says she made it so they can't hurt each other...but we see Jacob beating the crap out of his brother not once, but twice...and then throwing him into the hole to die. Seems like Jacob's the bad guy to me. Like someone else said above, I had more sympathy for MIB than Jacob. Not the smoke monster version of MIB, mind you...but the innocent kid that found out his real mother was killed by some crazy lady.


Along this point, despite the creators telling us (last week?) that unLocke/MiB is clearly the bad guy which I have been fine with, this latest episode amped up the typical LOST ambiguity. We saw a sympathetic portrayal of MiB's childhood. His disgust at his foster Mom's murder of his birth mother vs Jake's bland indifference, his attempt to live with people before turning cynic. Murdering the Mom/Protector was at least understandable from a rage standpoint, having just seen everyone you lived with for 30 years, men women and children slaughtered by the harridan.

Plus we saw the Protector murder the birth mother of the twins, slaughter wholesale an entire settlement and Jacob's later authorization of the murder of everyone in the Dharma Initiative, and Jacob's repeated bringing of people to the island only to see most of them murdered later if not sooner. The Protectors are the good guys?

And yes, MiB was absorbed into the inherently evil smokey entity and therefore is not dead although his body c'est morte. Now we know why he was so POed at Jacob about stealing his body.


----------



## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

Anubys said:


> I also didn't get why Jacob thought his brother was the favored one...I don't recall seeing either one get preferential treatment...I think they should have shown us that more clearly (other than the characters mentioning it as a fact)...


Ditto.



jkeegan said:


> Hey.. Did Richard ever drink that wine?


I can't remember either. Anyone?


----------



## Mike Wells (Mar 9, 2000)

I'm in the camp that says that MIB turned into smokey when he went into the LightCave.


I say to those who want more and more questions answered - (not the BIG questions but every little question about everything on the island) - is to be careful what you wish for. Having all the answers sucks.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have evidence to present for my case.

Exhibit A: Indiana Jones 4. In the first three we are searching for artifacts that have special powers "just because." No explanation about those powers, just that they exist and are cool. IJ4 - we get Aliens and long discussions about this crystal skull. No fun.

Exhibit B: Matrix 2-3. CC and DL even said in the last podcast "if you want someone to come out and explain everything to you, you will be disappointed. Just go watch the Matrix Architect scene to see how exciting that can be." 

Exhibit C: Star Wars 1-3. Midiclorians anyone? The force went from some cool mystical force to some sort of nanobot disease. Oh, and Jarjar.


At this point, be happy for the answers we get and accept the rest (or discuss and debate it - that's more fun anyway.) Sometimes you may have to accept that there is a golden cave of goodness without having to understand the complete nature of WHY it is there. (Oh, and don't go swimming there...)


----------



## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

I think Jeff Jensen hit it on the head with a couple of points in his initial reaction article on EW:



> Across The Sea confirmed once and for all that The Island is a fundamentally spiritual place  but one that most likely defies human understanding, let alone a fundamentalist interpretation. Lost seems to be saying that the something like God actually exists  but anyone who claims to know who or what God is probably wrong, if not totally off their Jacob rocker.
> 
> ...Still, I cant say I loved it. I thought it was a collection of Grade A ideas in a Grade B package.
> 
> ...(I wouldnt be too surprised if some of you felt the same way. One mans This is meaningful stuff! is another mans This is a bunch of murky bullst!)


Personally, found it to be meaningful stuff.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Mike Wells said:


> Sometimes you may have to accept that there is a golden cave of goodness without having to understand the complete nature of WHY it is there. (Oh, and don't go swimming there...)


It doesn't much matter why it's there. What matters is, WTF is it, and why does it need protecting.


----------



## flyers088 (Apr 19, 2005)

After watching last night I wonder that if they episode came at a different point in the season would people feel different? I had a feeling there would be backlash about this episode doing nothing for the story. I thought it was an excellent episode but coming off the heels of last week it would be hard for people to accept an episode that did not advance the main story line.


----------



## Philosofy (Feb 21, 2000)

Can anyone here with better recollection than me tell us where we've seen the wine carafe before? I seem to remember it being broken, but who drank from it, and who broke it?


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

flyers088 said:


> After watching last night I wonder that if they episode came at a different point in the season would people feel different? I had a feeling there would be backlash about this episode doing nothing for the story. I thought it was an excellent episode but coming off the heels of last week it would be hard for people to accept an episode that did not advance the main story line.


I think the problem people are having is, this _is_ the main storyline, and that other story line seems tangential (and the other other storylines even more so).


----------



## jhowell (Sep 19, 2006)

One thing I don&#8217;t remember seeing mentioned: MIB designed the donkey wheel as a way to leave the island, and it does seem to serve that purpose in that whoever turns it is transported away. I wonder if moving the island is just a side effect and if the whole &#8220;you have to move the island&#8221; instructions for Locke was a total fake out to distract from the main intent of getting him to transport himself off of the island.

I enjoyed the episode myself, but I think I would be enjoying the ending of Lost more if there had been more clues to the back story earlier in the series. Sure Adam and Eve were introduced fairly early, but no one could have ever figured out who they were and their relevance from anything prior to the current episode. I prefer a mystery that I can&#8217;t figure out before the end, but once having seen the end it is possible to look back and see that there were clues pointing toward it all along. Lost doesn&#8217;t seem to be structured that way.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Philosofy said:


> Can anyone here with better recollection than me tell us where we've seen the wine carafe before? I seem to remember it being broken, but who drank from it, and who broke it?


Jacob showed it to Richard while he was telling Richard what the island was, by analogy. Later in that episode, Jacob gave it to MIB. After Jacob walked away, MIB broke it.

IIRC, the only people we saw drinking from it were in last night's episode.


----------



## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

flyers088 said:


> After watching last night I wonder that if they episode came at a different point in the season would people feel different? I had a feeling there would be backlash about this episode doing nothing for the story. I thought it was an excellent episode but coming off the heels of last week it would be hard for people to accept an episode that did not advance the main story line.


I was thinking the same thing, but maybe placing it even earlier than that, like near the end of the 5th season. Or drop it in almost any time. If I would have seen this ep in say, the third season it would have made my head explode. In a good way.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Anubys said:


> the flashback to Jack and Kate with Adam and Eve would have been better handled in a quick "previously on Lost"...


No way. A "previously on LOST" with a scene from six years ago is way too much of a giveaway at the beginning of the episode.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

crowfan said:


> According to the article linked above, the game was Senet.


Excellent! Time to build a Senet board...


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

jkeegan said:


> Excellent! Time to build a Senet board...


Found this: http://www.funmin.com/online-games/senet/index.php
I may prevent you from getting splinters!


----------



## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

Refresh my memory - who else was born on the island besides Aaron?

Miles?
Ethan?
Faraday?

Were any of the babies born on the island conceived on the island?


----------



## JETarpon (Jan 1, 2003)

Queue said:


> The pregnant woman and Allison Janey were speaking Latin to begin with, then there was this eerie sound and everything was in English. I assumed the sound signified that they were still speaking Latin but we were hearing the translation instead of reading it. So I'm guessing the boys were speaking Latin also.


It's like Hunt for Red October.


----------



## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

MacThor said:


> Refresh my memory - who else was born on the island besides Aaron?


What about Alex?


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

JETarpon said:


> It's like Hunt for Red October.


According to Jorge Garcia's podcast (posted this morning), the script actually referenced "Hunt for Red October" when making the switch from Latin to English.

Though, at some point between this episode and the arrival of Ricardo, Jacob actually begins speaking English.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

MacThor said:


> Refresh my memory - who else was born on the island besides Aaron?
> 
> Miles?
> Ethan?
> ...


Jacob and MIB were born on the island, too, obviously.

Of that list, Miles, Ethan and Faraday were conceived on the island, and Aaron, Alex, Jacob and MIB were not.


----------



## drumorgan (Jan 11, 2003)

Cindy1230 said:


> Thank god for this thread because I came away from that thinking MiB became smokey. But it makes sooo much more sense that by MiB going in there, he released smokey and smokey assumes MiB's body. Many thanks.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_(season_6)


> Jacob and the Man in Black are revealed to be twin brothers. They are raised by a mysterious woman who is charged with protecting the Island. Jacob throws his brother into the source of electromagnetism after being made the island's guardian, *turning the Man in Black into the smoke monster*.


----------



## BrandonRe (Jul 15, 2006)

brianp6621 said:


> I got that feeling and the gift of the game telegraphed it. Jacob didn't know about the game but we have to assume there were other indications he WAS aware of.


See, I assumed that the gift of the game was a lie she was telling. I figured it had washed ashore from somewhere and she told him she gave it to him in order to keep him form thinking about the place "across the sea."

One thing I noticed in this episode is another instance of the "Man of Science/Man of Faith" theme. MIB with his curiosity and exploration of the properties of the island, and his inability to accept what his mother told him at face value was certainly in stark contrast to Jacob who was quite happy to accept whatever his mother told him and showed absolutely no curiosity about the world beyond their family.

Like many others, I am in the WTF camp regarding the portrayal of MIB vs. the claims by the producers that his motivations have been shown to be evil. I certainly didn't get that form this episode.


----------



## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Alison Janney must have practiced Latin for all of 5 minutes or so before filming. That was one awful accent.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Philosofy said:


> Can anyone here with better recollection than me tell us where we've seen the wine carafe before? I seem to remember it being broken, but who drank from it, and who broke it?





drumorgan said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_(season_6)


Yeah but so what, that's just a wikipedia entry.. That's not definitive by any stretch of the imagination.


----------



## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

rlc1 said:


> I don't think they'll answer every single question that's come up over six seasons, but I think that towards the end we'll find out _some_ kind of answer about what the smoke monster really is. I hope.


But we DID find out what the smoke monster really is. It's the fusion of the mystical power of the island, and the hate, desire for revenge, and feeling of betrayal of the MiB.

I doubt we'll get any more "answer", if we do it will likely focus on what that mysterious energy source is, but I'm not sure that will happen either.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Did the light go out after MIB went into the cave? And was "mother" a smoke monster?


----------



## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

philw1776 said:


> ...and Jacob's later authorization of the murder of everyone in the Dharma Initiative, and Jacob's repeated bringing of people to the island only to see most of them murdered later if not sooner. The Protectors are the good guys?


While I do agree that Jacob is not unequivocally "good", exactly when did he authorize the murder of the Dharma Initiative?



aindik said:


> Though, at some point between this episode and the arrival of Ricardo, Jacob actually begins speaking English.


Of course, you're assuming that Jacob didn't already know Spanish or Ricardo (being a good Catholic with a talent for languages) didn't already know Latin.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

JYoung said:


> Of course, you're assuming that Jacob didn't already know Spanish or Ricardo (being a good Catholic with a talent for languages) didn't already know Latin.


No. I'm assuming that when they do the Red October thing, they use that effect (whatever it is), and that, if they don't do that, the people we see speaking English are actually speaking English.


----------



## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

aindik said:


> Miles, Ethan and Faraday were conceived on the island, and Aaron, Alex, Jacob and MIB were not.


How do we know that Miles was conceived on the island? And for that matter, how do we know about Ethan or Faraday?


----------



## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

aindik said:


> Did the light go out after MIB went into the cave? And was "mother" a smoke monster?


Those were the two things I was wondering about as well after the episode. It LOOKED on screen as if the light went out when Smokey left, but that might have just been a mistake or misinterpretation by me. Once Smokey appeared, I wondered if she was also really Smokey, and maybe that's how she destroyed the others. But if she was Smokey I, I don't think the light would have gone out with MIB Smokey.


----------



## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

MickeS said:


> But we DID find out what the smoke monster really is. It's the fusion of the mystical power of the island, and the hate, desire for revenge, and feeling of betrayal of the MiB.


That's certainly one theory. However, it's not the only theory and thus hardly deserving of the phrase "found out".


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

By the way, last week when in the podcast (as has been said here repeatedly) they said that this finally cemented that Smokey/MiB was bad/evil, I think that might only apply to SmokeyMiB....

Maybe MiB the kid wasn't necessarily evil.. but the evil smoke monster took his form (as maybe he'd taken the form of others before him, or maybe he was his first).

The thing that put the bomb in Jack's bag - he's not totally nice.


----------



## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Amnesia said:


> That's certainly one theory. However, it's not the only theory and thus hardly deserving of the phrase "found out".


It's the only theory that makes sense.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

With respect to the light going out (which I wondered about too), I'm leaning towards no, since Mother said that when the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere.. We saw light in the well near the Orchid station twice..

I also liked the idea that the wheel was connected to a mechanism that ultimately mixed the water and light somehow, since the wheel being off its axis would probably result in water leaking everywhere, doing who-knows-what.. (flashes)


----------



## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> With respect to the light going out (which I wondered about too), I'm leaning towards no, since Mother said that when the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere..


Good point. I'm gonna say it didn't go out, as that would make no sense for the overall story. But it LOOKED like it did. Maybe just an oversight.


----------



## JETarpon (Jan 1, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> Yeah but so what, that's just a wikipedia entry.. That's not definitive by any stretch of the imagination.


No but if it MiB didn't *become* smokey then smokey would have been able to kill Jacob and wouldn't have needed the loophole.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

BrandonRe said:


> See, I assumed that the gift of the game was a lie she was telling. I figured it had washed ashore from somewhere and she told him she gave it to him in order to keep him form thinking about the place "across the sea."


I kinda thought that too.

She was always kind of in CYA mode, seemingly making stuff up to keep the brothers from wanting to leave.

If she wanted to give him a game, send Jacob on an errand and give him a game. Leaving on the beach... it could have easily been found by Jacob (or others, or a turtle, or washed out to sea, or buried by sand, ...).


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

JETarpon said:


> No but if it MiB didn't *become* smokey then smokey would have been able to kill Jacob and wouldn't have needed the loophole.


Yeah I know, that's the part we're wrestling with.

Maybe it depends on how she "made it that way".. Maybe she changed their thoughts/desires such that they'd always feel it was against the rules to kill each other. Maybe she made the universe recognize the thoughts of the two boys and not allow physical actions which would kill someone with those thoughts (and her rule couldn't detect the difference between MiB and SmokeyMiB)..

We might not know this before the end.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> Yeah I know, that's the part we're wrestling with.
> 
> Maybe it depends on how she "made it that way".. Maybe she changed their thoughts/desires such that they'd always feel it was against the rules to kill each other. Maybe she made the universe recognize the thoughts of the two boys and not allow physical actions which would kill someone with those thoughts (and her rule couldn't detect the difference between MiB and SmokeyMiB)..
> 
> We might not know this before the end.


That's a good point.

When Mom tells you something and you're 8-ish (or whatever age), you believe it. Perhaps mom just planted the "you can't kill each other" seed so well that neither of them even tried.

Of course as curious teens you'd test that out, kind of like Claire on Heroes.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

BrandonRe said:


> See, I assumed that the gift of the game was a lie she was telling. I figured it had washed ashore from somewhere and she told him she gave it to him in order to keep him form thinking about the place "across the sea."


I hadn't thought about this.. I'll have to rewatch that scene a third time from that perspective.. But you're right, that wouldn't really jive with her interrogating Jacob...

The benefit of it coming from her is that it ties her lineage of predecessors back to ancient egyptian times.. Eh, maybe she's got that anyway.

(and I don't mean ancestry.. she got to the island by accident.. I mean the passing of the torch)


----------



## TonyTheTiger (Dec 22, 2006)

MickeS said:


> Alison Janney must have practiced Latin for all of 5 minutes or so before filming. That was one awful accent.


...and the accent of a dead language should sound like...? 

I think MiB/Smokey's name could have mythological consequences if we knew what it was (same with AJ).

I'm still considering a Pandora's Box theory where if it were opened (Smokey gets off the island), all H3LL will break loose!


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Amnesia said:


> How do we know that Miles was conceived on the island? And for that matter, how do we know about Ethan or Faraday?


I guess we don't know. But for all three, their parents both lived on the island for years before they were born, and we never saw them leave.


----------



## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

JYoung said:


> While I do agree that Jacob is not unequivocally "good", exactly when did he authorize the murder of the Dharma Initiative?


I'll let the true devotees cite detailed specifics to support or refute, but Jacob's emmisary to people, the guy Jacob tasked with communicating his wishes to the island's inhabitants, Richard, was working with Ben and was directly involved in the mass slaughter of Dharma folks.


----------



## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

When in time was this supposed to take place? Obviously before the late 1800s (when Richard arrived).


----------



## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

Mike Wells said:


> I say to those who want more and more questions answered - (not the BIG questions but every little question about everything on the island) - is to be careful what you wish for. Having all the answers sucks.
> 
> Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have evidence to present for my case.
> 
> ...


This, this, a thousand times, this!


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

hefe said:


> This, this, a thousand times, this!


I'm not sure "wanting more answers" is the main complaint I'm seeing. At least personally I don't care all that much about getting an answer for everything.

The main complaint was we wanted more on the Losties, and less on this back story. Or if they did a back story, we wanted something more unique and more interesting. This story was kind of bland IMHO.

I'm in the camp that the "answers" will be disappointing. This story has been awesome overall. Great drama, great characters, a wonderful ride. :up: So good that any ending for such craziness will probably be flat -- their best bet IMHO is to go Pulp Fiction and Repo Man with this, leaving things a bit unanswered.


----------



## TheMerk (Feb 26, 2001)

I really don't care if we get answers or not, I just want a compelling story. Last night's episode was NOT a compelling story.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

TheMerk said:


> I really don't care if we get answers or not, I just want a compelling story. Last night's episode was NOT a compelling sotry.




You said it more concisely than I. :up:


----------



## GDG76 (Oct 2, 2000)

One thought I had given the new info about Jacob's role..

Perhaps Jacob steered Dharma to create the hatch as kind of a training station and then could see who was willing to keep pressing the numbers despite the fact that they didn't know why or what they were exactly doing. Then Locke went and failed that test miserably.... I would think Desmond passed the test since he left someone else in charge before he got the hell out...

So maybe this will tie back to Dharma, which would be very cool.. I don't need answers, I just want a lot of the stuff we've been wondering about and focused on (Dharma, time travel) etc, to be a key part of the story rather than a tangent.


----------



## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

Peter000 said:


> I'm pretty certain they didn't have this specific story in mind for the bodies when they put them there.





madscientist said:


> Er... what? Why do you think that was ret conned? Or put another way, what kind of explanation would you be satisfied was NOT a retcon? Darlton said, back when the original episode aired, that Adam and Eve were critical to the story, and so they were. I think nothing would ever convince you that they did have it planned.


Exactly. The way I see it, they knew the greater story of MiB/Jacob, had a beginning & end, perhaps the first half of S1, but the details in between still needed to be written. Sort of like how when you read the novelization of Star Wars. I did a quick search and can't find it online, and I'm at work so I don't have it with me, but in the first two pages, Lucas briefly talks about Palpatine "making himself" emperor, the extinction of the Jedi (he uses that term, not murder, not assassination), and some of the other finer points of the prequel trilogy. Points about Jedi. This was published when Star Wars was released. The outline was there, but the details in between hadn't been written yet. It's the same thing here.



pjenkins said:


> i haven't been very keen on the storyline, and last night reinforced that view. i honestly laughed a few times at the stupidity of this story and how it's being told (or not told, more accurately). Glad the show is finishing up, will be interesting to see whether they butcher the final 3.5 hours as much as they have the last 2 years...


Harsh. Why have you bothered watching the past 2 years? Year? This season?

BTW, I'm in the camp of MiB BECAME Smokey. His life essence entered Smokey, and his body was taken by Jacob. That's pretty straightforward.

Greg


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

GDG76 said:


> So maybe this will tie back to Dharma, which would be very cool.. I don't need answers, I just want a lot of the stuff we've been wondering about and focused on (Dharma, time travel) etc, to be a key part of the story rather than a tangent.


Yeah, remember how awesome the episodes were when we got pieces of the Dharma movies?

Or the episode that started with The Momma & The Poppas' song in the hatch?

That was amazingly powerful stuff. That one where we first met Desmond was perhaps the best hour of TV I've ever seen.


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

TheMerk said:


> Ugh. The reveal of the light cave was so cheesy.


The only thing really revealed was that there was a cave that exposed the exotic matter that we've known about for a while now.



Allanon said:


> Maybe after Jacob was given the drink by his "Mother" and she said something like "You and I are now the same", Jacob magically gained the knowledge of what "The Light" was and what would happen if he entered the cave. Then maybe Jacob was so outraged by his brother killing his mother that he threw his brother in the cave knowing he would turn in to the Smoke Monster and would never be able to do the one thing that he wanted the most which was to leave the Island.


Actually, I don't think Jacob knew what would happen. He seemed surprised when Smokey came flying out of the cave. I think MIB told him about his plan to harness the light to leave the island, and Jacob in his anger threw him in there thinking that's what would happen. It wasn't rational, thought-out thinking, but I think it was an honest "You want off this island? Fine then!" train of thought.



jkeegan said:


> So, were there multiple wheels, or was it a mistake that in this episode the wheel room has sunlight pouring into it and it looks 15-20 feet deep tops, but the Orchid elevator went "deep"?


I wonder if Mother did something to bury the light deeper, so whoever finally built the wheel room ended up having to dig further down. Or maybe Smokey being released caused the energy to lose some of its power, thus requiring one to get closer.

I thought this was an excellent episode. It not only answered a bunch of questions, but also gave us some insight into Jacob and MIB's history, something that has always been a big part of Lost. It didn't answer every question about the island, but there's still 3.5 hours left.

We still don't know how Jacob got on and off the island, but with the dangers of the exotic matter, I wonder if he had some other means. I also wonder if Locke had to turn the wheel not just to get off the island, but because it was necessary for him to be exposed to the exotic matter in order for Smokey to take over his body. Perhaps Ben being exposed to the exotic matter was also necessary for him to be able to kill Jacob.

I'm in the camp that thinks Smokey is MIB, or at least a part of him. I think MIB + exotic matter created Smokey; I don't think he was already there. The lines Flocke spoke about his crazy mother and body being stolen seem to point to that. Plus, I don't know what Smokey would need with MIB's body since he still couldn't leave the island. And Smokey left the cave as smoke, not by walking out in the form of MIB.


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## john4200 (Nov 1, 2009)

GDG76 said:


> I'm convinced they could film Vincent taking a dump for an hour and some people would consider it brilliant just because it is Lost, and they must know what they are doing..


Vincent taking a dump. Reminds me of a certain movie. Hey, maybe the glowing briefcase contained some of the stuff from the cave!


----------



## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Mike Wells said:


> Exhibit C: Star Wars 1-3. Midiclorians anyone? The force went from some cool mystical force to some sort of nanobot disease.


The FORCE has never been explained. What midichlorians explained was JEDIS. It explained that some people had a higher concentration of midichlorians, and they could control the Force (the more midichlorians, the better control of the Force). We already knew that some people could use the Force, and some couldn't. The only thing midichlorians explained was why some could use it and some couldn't. I guess that could have been left unexplained too (nobody really cared why it was that way, I think), but it took away none of the mysticism of the Force IMO.

The Force is as unexplained as it ever was.


----------



## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

john4200 said:


> Vincent taking a dump. Reminds me of a certain movie. Hey, maybe the glowing briefcase contained some of the stuff from the cave!


----------



## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

My fantasy ending has Vincent as the new protector. 
I for one welcome our new canine overlords.

Can't wait for Tuesday.


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## lpamelaa (May 3, 2004)

john4200 said:


> Vincent taking a dump. Reminds me of a certain movie. Hey, maybe the glowing briefcase contained some of the stuff from the cave!


Best Lost tweet I saw today: It seems that the Island is protecting Marcellus Wallace's briefcase.


----------



## markz (Oct 22, 2002)

BrandonRe said:


> See, I assumed that the gift of the game was a lie she was telling. I figured it had washed ashore from somewhere and she told him she gave it to him in order to keep him form thinking about the place "across the sea."


I totally thought that she lied about the game as well to support her story that there is nothing else but the island.



MickeS said:


> Once Smokey appeared, I wondered if she was also really Smokey, and maybe that's how she destroyed the others.


That would explain how she was able to destroy the whole village so quickly. And the aftermath did look like the aftermath of other rampages by Smokey.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

markz said:


> I totally thought that she lied about the game as well to support her story that there is nothing else but the island.


And then she very quickly told the kids that if the light goes out there, it "goes out everywhere." Where the heck is everywhere if there's nowhere else?

The kids don't know what "dead" is, and they're seen a scene later talking about how the others killed a boar.


----------



## john4200 (Nov 1, 2009)

lpamelaa said:


> Best Lost tweet I saw today: It seems that the Island is protecting Marcellus Wallace's briefcase.


Nice!


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

lpamelaa said:


> Best Lost tweet I saw today: It seems that the Island is protecting Marcellus Wallace's briefcase.


Which was stolen from the trunk of a Chevy Malibu.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

aindik said:


> And then she very quickly told the kids that if the light goes out there, it "goes out everywhere." Where the heck is everywhere if there's nowhere else?
> 
> The kids don't know what "dead" is, and they're seen a scene later talking about how the others killed a boar.


 and double 

The "what is dead?" thing struck me as ridiculously stupid. These are very intelligent boys with a very intelligent mom.

And the island has turtles and other animals. Obviously "dead" would have been learned many times over, just as our kids learn it quickly.


----------



## bruinfan (Jan 17, 2006)

mqpickles said:


> You know, I was too, but then my husband (really smart guy, casual Lost viewer) said he didn't remember Jack and Kate finding Adam & Eve.
> 
> That scene aired almost 5 years ago. And although it gets brought up on TCF frequently, the Adam & Eve mystery hasn't gotten much play on the show.


i liked it in the sense that it reminded us about the rocks and the bag.. i never would've remembered that.



gchance said:


> Agreed, he just can't wrap his mind around the concept that they planted it into the first season knowing full well that when they got to the end, Adam & Eve would be the people we saw tonight.
> Greg





madscientist said:


> Er... what? Why do you think that was ret conned? Or put another way, what kind of explanation would you be satisfied was NOT a retcon? Darlton said, back when the original episode aired, that Adam and Eve were critical to the story, and so they were. I think nothing would ever convince you that they did have it planned.
> 
> As with others I thought they did a good job of showing this. Compare her conversation with Jacob where she knows he's lying, to her conversation with MiB about the game on the beach where she says he's special. It seemed clear to me, even before the accusation.


I, for one, was thinking that if there was ever evidence that there was a master plan, this was it... the cave, adam and eve, the rocks... you can't please everyone.


cheesesteak said:


> What kind of crap is this? People can't have a different opinion than you? I'm not a True Believer. I don't think that everything Darlton does is unicorns, lollipops and fairies. Sorry to offend you.


i get where jeff is coming from... i came out of this episode thinking how great it was, and was SHOCKED that the overwhelming opinion on the first 2 pages was 'hated it'.

the episode is a continuation of what LOST has been for 5 3/4 seasons... and it's amazing to me the fans of the show didn't overwhelmingly love it...

i get the frustration.



jkeegan said:


> Yeah but so what, that's just a wikipedia entry.. That's not definitive by any stretch of the imagination.


[michael scott] what????

another star wars influence:

jacob was very childlike this episode...and he eventually goes through the same cycle as luke did in star wars. and it takes him a while to mature into badass jedi/protector. they have a loss of an important loved one: mother and obi wan;


----------



## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> The "what is dead?" thing struck me as ridiculously stupid. These are very intelligent boys with a very intelligent mom.
> 
> And the island has turtles and other animals. Obviously "dead" would have been learned many times over, just as our kids learn it quickly.


Yeah, that was pretty dumb. Unless she never actually used that word, but called it something else.

This episode was OK for me, but it felt very much done out of duty, as a way to connect a few dots and move on. Didn't feel like there was a lot of joy or excitement behind creating it.


----------



## markz (Oct 22, 2002)

MickeS said:


> Yeah, that was pretty dumb. Unless she never actually used that word, but called it something else.
> 
> This episode was OK for me, but it felt very much done out of duty, as a way to connect a few dots and move on. Didn't feel like there was a lot of joy or excitement behind creating it.


No Jacob, the turtles are just "sleeping"!


----------



## TheGreyOwl (Aug 18, 2003)

Mike Wells said:


> Exhibit C: Star Wars 1-3. Midiclorians anyone? The force went from some cool mystical force to some sort of nanobot disease. Oh, and Jarjar.


Not relevant to this thread at all, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people get this bit of Star Wars trivia wrong. The movies never said that midichlorians were the source of the Force, just said that they indicated how strong someone was in the Force. If you read several interviews by Lucas and some of the EU books, you'll see that the midichlorians are merely attracted to the Force, so more of them means stronger Force. But they don't create it. The origin of the Force is still unexplained in the Star Wars mythos.


----------



## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

philw1776 said:


> I'll let the true devotees cite detailed specifics to support or refute, but Jacob's emmisary to people, the guy Jacob tasked with communicating his wishes to the island's inhabitants, Richard, was working with Ben and was directly involved in the mass slaughter of Dharma folks.


I could be wrong but I thought that Ben came up with and executed the plan while Richard just said "Ok".

Which Richard may have considered falling under "protecting the Island" as they were getting pretty close to the Donkey Wheel.


----------



## desulliv (Aug 22, 2003)

uncdrew said:


> and double
> 
> The "what is dead?" thing struck me as ridiculously stupid. These are very intelligent boys with a very intelligent mom.
> 
> And the island has turtles and other animals. Obviously "dead" would have been learned many times over, just as our kids learn it quickly.


Turtles can live for a long time, but even so. This seemed to be a really lazy device to demostrate some level of innocence.


----------



## pjenkins (Mar 8, 1999)

gchance said:


> Harsh. Why have you bothered watching the past 2 years? Year? This season?


probably for the same reasons I subject myself to the abortion that is Heroes every week it's on


----------



## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

pjenkins said:


> probably for the same reasons I subject myself to the abortion that is Heroes every week it's on


Yeah, I have 8 or 9 episodes that I haven't watched, and every time I think, "Wow maybe it's better" and watch one, I'm disappointed... yet don't delete them. *sigh*

Greg


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

pjenkins said:


> probably for the same reasons I subject myself to the abortion that is Heroes every week it's on


I'm doing that with 24 this year as well.

Lost is still awesome TV and still my most eagerly anticipated show each week (though Survivor is close second). But it doesn't mean I don't call out crap. I love the show, but lame is still lame -- even if it's Lost lame.


----------



## BrandonRe (Jul 15, 2006)

uncdrew said:


> and double
> 
> The "what is dead?" thing struck me as ridiculously stupid. These are very intelligent boys with a very intelligent mom.
> 
> And the island has turtles and other animals. Obviously "dead" would have been learned many times over, just as our kids learn it quickly.


My take was that they had no concept of the death of humans. I know that's not exactly how the scene reads, but that's what I took away from it. Certainly they understood animals dying. But it is likely they had never experienced the death of a human or even thought that such a think was possible.

Which leads me to another thought I had. This is far from a perfect analogy, but I was reminded of the creation stories of Genesis where Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and was corrupted. Is it possible that the light serves the same purpose as the fruit? That partaking of the light leads to corruption through the imparting of knowledge? That, and that neat trick where you get turned into a smoke monster.


----------



## hapdrastic (Mar 31, 2006)

I got the distinct impression that MiB had a power to "figure things out". He just "knew" how the game worked (unless he made up the rules, which was kind of implied), and he just "knew" how to build the mechanism to control the light/water mixture to build a transporter. This would also explain how he could MacGyver a bomb last episode without ever having left the island and taking Engineering courses.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

BrandonRe said:


> My take was that they had no concept of the death of humans. I know that's not exactly how the scene reads, but that's what I took away from it. Certainly they understood animals dying. But it is likely they had never experienced the death of a human or even thought that such a think was possible.


I'll kind of buy that. It's a bit thin, but I suppose Crazed Mom could have perpetuated that.

But they surely know about blood, breathing, etc. and the similarities of animals and people. Meh, I'll let it go.


----------



## mulscully (May 31, 2003)

I am in the camp that smokey is MIB, I believe that going down into the light changed MIB into smokey and he shed his body that's why it was found by Jacob, I believe it got blown out of the cave when smokey appeared...

If that is so, then smokey/MIB still can't kill Jacob 

My 2 cents


----------



## BrandonRe (Jul 15, 2006)

hapdrastic said:


> I got the distinct impression that MiB had a power to "figure things out". He just "knew" how the game worked (unless he made up the rules, which was kind of implied), *and he just "knew" how to build the mechanism to control the light/water mixture to build a transporter. * This would also explain how he could MacGyver a bomb last episode without ever having left the island and taking Engineering courses.


But I don't think he "just knew". He told Jacob about the smart people in his tribe who had been studying the strange properties of the island. I thought the wheel was the result of their study and experiments.


----------



## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

Any indication as to when this was supposed to take place? Early 1800s or 2000 years ago?


----------



## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

What's really in the Golden Hole?



Spoiler


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Anyone but me think that Jacob seemed VERY reluctant at first to be the protector of the island?

Also, to me, the fundamental difference between MIB and Jacob is the fact that one can lie and one can't. That was huge point "mother" made when talking to MIB. I think this theme has manifested itself over and over again during the series. Ben, to me, is the prime example of this. I've thought for awhile that Ben is the agent of MIB. It's why he's always wanted to find Jacob. I think Richard has kept him away from Jacob MANY times. Ben might be to MIB what Richard was to Jacob. I think a key part of this will be that we need to learn what happened to Ben when Richard "fixed" him. Did we ever learn exactly what happened there? The only thing I remember is Richard telling Kate that he'll never be the same.

My feelings are known how I feel about this whole Jacob vs. MIB thing. The one thing this episode did, was explain why they were there. I still will feel a bit cheated watching 5 years of events that about 75&#37; of them will be meaningless. Also, hoping we learn something abut Whidmore's role in this. To, that's the biggest enigma out there.


----------



## tewcewl (Dec 18, 2004)

Anubys said:


> I honestly can't see how anyone can come to a different conclusion...this conclusion may be wrong; but right now, all the evidence point to it as correct
> 
> I was annoyed about replaying the part where Jack and Kate found Adam and Eve...almost insulting the viewer...of course we got it!
> 
> I hope whatever Jacob drank is a fountain of knowledge since nothing was passed down to him...I also assume it gives him special powers since he now would never age, can heal mortal wounds, travel at will to any place on earth...etc.


What happened to your vow to abstain from all episodes of LOST until the series finale? 


BrandonRe said:


> My take was that they had no concept of the death of humans. I know that's not exactly how the scene reads, but that's what I took away from it. Certainly they understood animals dying. But it is likely they had never experienced the death of a human or even thought that such a think was possible.


That's exactly how I read it too.


Steveknj said:


> Anyone but me think that Jacob seemed VERY reluctant at first to be the protector of the island?
> 
> Also, to me, the fundamental difference between MIB and Jacob is the fact that one can lie and one can't. That was huge point "mother" made when talking to MIB.


I did notice that and found that interesting. The reluctant hero is a trope that's been used many times throughout storytelling in the ages. What intrigues me the most is that Jacob cannot lie. This gives validation to everything that Jacob says, so we know we can trust him.

I have a feeling the show will have Jacob explaining some things to the LOSTies, including what the rules are. That's pretty much the only thing they left out of this episode and what I was hoping to find here.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

hefe said:


> What's really in the Golden Hole?
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler


:up:


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Steveknj said:


> I've thought for awhile that Ben is the agent of MIB. It's why he's always wanted to find Jacob. I think Richard has kept him away from Jacob MANY times. Ben might be to MIB what Richard was to Jacob.


Before Ben killed Jacob, Ben had no idea what the smoke monster was.


----------



## markz (Oct 22, 2002)

desulliv said:


> Turtles can live for a long time, but even so. This seemed to be a really lazy device to demostrate some level of innocence.


That's assuming that all the turtles were young or born after the boys were. What about all the turtles (and other creatures) that were already old/dying as the boys grew up.

On another note, I wonder what Jacob thought the first time he saw a polar bear on the island!?



hapdrastic said:


> I got the distinct impression that MiB had a power to "figure things out". He just "knew" how the game worked (unless he made up the rules, which was kind of implied), and he just "knew" how to build the mechanism to control the light/water mixture to build a transporter. This would also explain how he could MacGyver a bomb last episode without ever having left the island and taking Engineering courses.


I believe that Jacob commented on BIB making up the rules to the game. It was something like:

Jacob: made a move
BIB: "you can't do that"
Jacob: "Why not?"
BIB: "It's against the rules"
Jacob: "But you just made up the rules"


----------



## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

There's no way Smokey isn't MIB.


----------



## Waldorf (Oct 4, 2002)

Haven't seen anyone else mention it in this thread, so I guess my wife and I are the only ones that have been calling him "Esau" and were thinking he was going to be mad about Jacob stealing his "birthright".

It seems the two schools of thought are the "smoke monster" didn't exist until the cave consumed MiB vs. the "smoke monster" was trapped there and assumed the MiB's form when Jacob floated him in.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

aindik said:


> Before Ben killed Jacob, Ben had no idea what the smoke monster was.


But Ben lies. Maybe he knows more than we think.

Also, consider how "hot" Ben was on getting everyone back to the island. And also he killed Locke, who eventually was the body MIB took. And, of course, he killed Jacob.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

BitbyBlit said:


> I'm in the camp that thinks Smokey is MIB, or at least a part of him. I think MIB + exotic matter created Smokey; I don't think he was already there. The lines Flocke spoke about his crazy mother and body being stolen seem to point to that. Plus, I don't know what Smokey would need with MIB's body since he still couldn't leave the island. And Smokey left the cave as smoke, not by walking out in the form of MIB.


Underneath the temple, next to lots of hieroglyphics, right above the grate with holes which seems designed for smokey, was this image, which I believe depicts the smoke monster on the left:










I think the smoke monster predates Jacob and MiB's birth.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

MickeS said:


> The FORCE has never been explained. What midichlorians explained was JEDIS. It explained that some people had a higher concentration of midichlorians, and they could control the Force (the more midichlorians, the better control of the Force). We already knew that some people could use the Force, and some couldn't. The only thing midichlorians explained was why some could use it and some couldn't. I guess that could have been left unexplained too (nobody really cared why it was that way, I think), but it took away none of the mysticism of the Force IMO.
> 
> The Force is as unexplained as it ever was.


THIS! :up::up::up:


----------



## markz (Oct 22, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> Underneath the temple, next to lots of hieroglyphics, right above the grate with holes which seems designed for smokey, was this image, which I believe depicts the smoke monster on the left:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I believe that's just an evil slinky that pushes girls and boys down stairs.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Steveknj said:


> But Ben lies. Maybe he knows more than we think.
> 
> Also, consider how "hot" Ben was on getting everyone back to the island. And also he killed Locke, who eventually was the body MIB took. And, of course, he killed Jacob.


When in a room with just MIBLocke (after he killed Jacob and smokey killed everyone else), why is he lying about not knowing what smokey is?


----------



## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

jkeegan said:


> Underneath the temple, next to lots of hieroglyphics, right above the grate with holes which seems designed for smokey, was this image, which I believe depicts the smoke monster on the left:
> 
> [IMAGE]
> 
> I think the smoke monster predates Jacob and MiB's birth.


I agree that that's supposed to be smokey, but since we can't attach a date (or even a timeframe) to the events of this episode, I don't know that we necessarily can conclude that the smoke monster predates Jacob and MiB's birth. For all we know, what we saw last night took place well before the construction of the foot temple etc. Why isn't it possible that Jacob and MIB have been around long enough that the smoke monster depicted in the heiroglyphics is our MiB?

I think that there _was_ no smoke monster prior to MiB's entry into the glowing cave. The island was an unspoiled garden of eden, the concept of death not even known, until the well was poisoned, so to speak, with MIB. MIB entered the glowing cave and became smokey. His dead body was cast aside, but smokey can electively take the shape of dead people (including that of his old self - or at least he could, until recently when he became locked into Locke's form).


----------



## zordude (Sep 23, 2003)

uncdrew said:


> And the island has turtles and other animals. Obviously "dead" would have been learned many times over, just as our kids learn it quickly.


Maybe they learned what "supper" was, but not what "dead" was 

Z


----------



## whitson77 (Nov 10, 2002)

2nd worst episode ever. I would have been happier if this episode never existed. Boo!! I am just hoping the last two episodes are great. This one felt and smelt like a turd.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

aindik said:


> Before Ben killed Jacob, Ben had no idea what the smoke monster was.





Steveknj said:


> But Ben lies. Maybe he knows more than we think.
> 
> Also, consider how "hot" Ben was on getting everyone back to the island. And also he killed Locke, who eventually was the body MIB took. And, of course, he killed Jacob.


From "The Shape of Things to Come" in season 4:



> LOCKE: Sorry about your daughter.
> 
> BEN: Thank you, John.
> 
> ...


----------



## vman (Feb 9, 2001)

Couple thoughts:

I feel a bit more positive about the episode now after reviewing all these comments, but it was still a bit of a let-down. 

Count me in the camp of smoke monster is not just MIB - I think smokey certainly absorbed MIB and his memories, and perhaps more than most since he was the first "person" smokey came into contact with, but it seems like smokey has bits of Locke, Christian and other dead people in him as well.

I still don't know what it is, but it seems clear Desmond is the key to brining Smokey under control - he has the unique ability to handle electromagnetic outbursts, and so seems likely to be the key to corraling Smokey somehow (perhaps by also entering the "light", maybe not by the stream but through one of the well walls. Also, it seems to me that Desmond is so zen now because after his most recent exposure to the electromagnetics he has seen the future (a la Charlie's death) and so is not scared of what John will do to him...


----------



## jking (Mar 23, 2005)

danterner said:


> I think that there _was_ no smoke monster prior to MiB's entry into the glowing cave. The island was an unspoiled garden of eden, the concept of death not even known, until the well was poisoned, so to speak, with MIB. MIB entered the glowing cave and became smokey. His dead body was cast aside, but smokey can electively take the shape of dead people (including that of his old self - or at least he could, until recently when he became locked into Locke's form).


Yeah I agree. Although I wouldn't say the concept of death wasn't known until MiB poisoned the well. The fake mother killed the real one, and laid waste to MiB's village prior him floating into the well. I'm wondering if, rather than MiB poisoning the well, the "light" was able to separate the good and evil side of MiB, the evil becoming the smoke monster. I just think that, even now as Locke, the smoke monster is still taking things way too personally to think that it had simply "borrowed" MiB's shape.


----------



## smickola (Nov 17, 2004)

I liked the episode, but was a bit frustrated at the pace of it...I kept looking at the clock and thinking "it's 8:53, and we don't even know how MIB became the Smoke Monster yet!"  I agree with the idea that this episode might have been better received if there wasn't so little time left to the season.

So MIB told Jacob that his time would come to make up a game and he'd get make up his own rules that they'd have to abide by. I was really hoping this episode would have explained the rules. Still, seems like Jacob got the better of the exchange...the stakes of the game he's setting the rules for are a bit more meaningful than a game of Senet!


----------



## Waldorf (Oct 4, 2002)

danterner said:


> The island was an unspoiled garden of eden, the concept of death not even known, until the well was poisoned, so to speak, with MIB.


So when Fake-mom bludgeoned Jacob and Esau's mother into the ground, she was merely stunned? resting? Kind of like a Norwegian Blue parrot? 

I would contend that her metabolic processes are a matter of interest only to historians.


----------



## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

Waldorf said:


> So when Fake-mom bludgeoned Jacob and Esau's mother into the ground, she was merely stunned? resting? Kind of like a Norwegian Blue parrot?
> 
> I would contend that her metabolic processes are a matter of interest only to historians.


 I conveniently forgot about the whole murderous rampage of Fmom when I made my post. Both the death of the boys' real mother and the killing of the proto-Others. Oops. 

So, about that whole 'unspoiled garden of eden' thing... never mind.


----------



## vman (Feb 9, 2001)

Here is where much of my frustration with this season's turn of events comes from - it's not that I don't see the themes they've been setting up throughout all the seasons (balance between good and evil, the Dharma stories are just the latest iteration of the "smart men" that MIB hung out with, etc), it's that the specific goals of MIB this season don't seem to align with the previous seasons.

One of the main focuses of this season has been MIB trying to get off the island, which it now appears can only happen if all the "candidates" are dead. Well, if that's the case, at what point did he learn who the candidates are? From the pilot episode, he apparently had little problem directly killing some of the 815 survivors (the pilot of the plane, Eko) so he must have been confident they weren't candidates. If he knew who was and who wasn't candidates, it seems like in the months when they all first crashed, he could have arranged deaths of a lot of them fairly easily (at least as easily as arranging for them all to end up in a submarine and giving them a makeshift bomb). Heck, even just tell Ben to kill them, since he had no problem telling Ben to kill Jacob at the end of last season as his loophole.

Granted, there are still 3.5 hours left, and a lot can and I'm sure will happen in that time. I have really enjoyed the series overall, including this season. And while I am not 100% in the camp of those that are annoyed much of what they've seen over the past several seasons (Dharma, etc) has been irrelevant to the main story, I just hope that the finale ties in this season's Jacob/MIB storyline with the previous years in some way.

On a separate note, I'm confused why Jacob/MIB's "mother" was afraid of any people arriving on the island, and wanted to keep them away, but yet Jacob apparently kept bringing them (especially if he, like his mom, _may_ have felt it necessary to wipe them out if they got too close to the island's secrets).


----------



## Philosofy (Feb 21, 2000)

First off, Jacob can lie. He did it to his fake mom. He just doesn't lie _well_.

I have another question about the candidates: We didn't see Jacob's name on a list with Allison Janey. And MiB doesn't even have a name to be on a list! So when did that rule come about?


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

vman said:


> On a separate note, I'm confused why Jacob/MIB's "mother" was afraid of any people arriving on the island, and wanted to keep them away, but yet Jacob apparently kept bringing them (especially if he, like his mom, _may_ have felt it necessary to wipe them out if they got too close to the island's secrets).


This is my big problem with the story. Her attitude ("they kill, they destroy ... it always ends the same") matched up better with MIB's attitude than with Jacob's. If Jacob's job is to protect the glowing hole from people, why does he keep bring people there?


----------



## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

Here are the words of Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse, from an interview with HitFix.com:



> *How much attention have you paid to the reaction to last night's episode?*
> 
> *Carlton Cuse*: Some degree. We get a little bit of general feedback. We try not to obsess about the boards and all that stuff. So we have some sense.
> 
> *Damon Lindelof*: It's never exactly the reaction you're expecting. We knew it would be an episode that would be divisive. We've been talking since the beginning of the season about the idea that the great thing of doing a show on your own terms is you have no excuses, but it's also slightly terrifying that if you're a mystery show, there will inevitably be episodes that answer mysteries. That has the potential to frighten, terrify, make people hate. This was going to be the season where we said, "Whatever your theory was, our presentation of the endgame of the show may disprove your theory, so we're sorry if you don't like the fact that you don't get the Man in Black's name, but you don't get it." So that's going to piss some people off, and it's their right to be pissed off. In terms of what the specific reactions are, it's too hard to say 12 hours after the fact, and without seeing where this episode plays in the grand scheme of the series. That's all we can say.


http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-a...lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-talk-across-the-sea

Take with that what you will.

Greg


----------



## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

aindik said:


> This is my big problem with the story. Her attitude ("they kill, they destroy ... it always ends the same") matched up better with MIB's attitude than with Jacob's. If Jacob's job is to protect the glowing hole from people, why does he keep bring people there?


Because he is tired of the whole thing and needs a replacement?


----------



## Waldorf (Oct 4, 2002)

gchance said:


> Here are the words of Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse, from an interview with HitFix.com:
> 
> http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-a...lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-talk-across-the-sea
> 
> ...


Some good stuff in that interview. However, their answer about the Adam & Eve scene with Jack estimating the clothes were about 50 years old starts to sound like they are channeling Ronald Moore. 

I guess I could repost it here:



> You've said many times that when people find out who Adam and Eve are, we'll all realize just how long you've been planning the mythology. Well, I went back and watched the "House of the Rising Sun" scene, and Jack says that the clothing looks like it's 50 years old. Is he just not very good at calculating the rate of decay on fabric?
> 
> CC: Jack is not really an expert in carbon dating.
> 
> ...


----------



## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

Waldorf said:


> Some good stuff in that interview. However, their answer about the Adam & Eve scene with Jack estimating the clothes were about 50 years old starts to sound like they are channeling Ronald Moore.
> 
> I guess I could repost it here:


Nah it's more their usual schtick when they know they've been caught and are being silly to respond. Unlike Ronald Moore, who feels his audience is full of morons.

Greg


----------



## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Waldorf said:


> Haven't seen anyone else mention it in this thread, so I guess my wife and I are the only ones that have been calling him "Esau" and were thinking he was going to be mad about Jacob stealing his "birthright".


I also was calling him "Esau". 



IndyJones1023 said:


> Any indication as to when this was supposed to take place? Early 1800s or 2000 years ago?


It has to be some time when Latin was spoken colloquially, I think. So, yes, 2000 years ago, give or take. IMHO the costumes support this, too.


----------



## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

wmcbrine said:


> I also was calling him "Esau".
> 
> It has to be some time when Latin was spoken colloquially, I think. So, yes, 2000 years ago, give or take. IMHO the costumes support this, too.


In Jorge Garcia's podcast for this episode he mentions a direction in the script that says:



Spoiler



Referencing MIB's dagger, that it is the same dagger Dogen gives to Sawyer "two millenia from now"


----------



## Roadblock (Apr 5, 2006)

Wish they had offered some explanation for how the mother could fill up the well and kill all the villagers.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Roadblock said:


> Wish they had offered some explanation for how the mother could fill up the well and kill all the villagers.


Speculation is that she's made of black smoke.


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

danterner said:


> I agree that that's supposed to be smokey, but since we can't attach a date (or even a timeframe) to the events of this episode, I don't know that we necessarily can conclude that the smoke monster predates Jacob and MiB's birth. For all we know, what we saw last night took place well before the construction of the foot temple etc. Why isn't it possible that Jacob and MIB have been around long enough that the smoke monster depicted in the heiroglyphics is our MiB?
> 
> I think that there _was_ no smoke monster prior to MiB's entry into the glowing cave. The island was an unspoiled garden of eden, the concept of death not even known, until the well was poisoned, so to speak, with MIB. MIB entered the glowing cave and became smokey. His dead body was cast aside, but smokey can electively take the shape of dead people (including that of his old self - or at least he could, until recently when he became locked into Locke's form).


Also, who's to say there was only one smoke monster? Mother seemed to believe that anyone entering the golden cave would be destined for a fate worse than death. Where would she have gotten that idea from? I think someone had to have entered the cave at some point prior, and all the protectors since then (except apparently Jacob ) knew not to let anyone else enter...


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

jkeegan said:


> I hadn't thought about this.. I'll have to rewatch that scene a third time from that perspective.. But you're right, that wouldn't really jive with her interrogating Jacob...


Unless she's still testing/conditioning Jacob to never lie. She may have known exactly what would happen and wanted to make sure Jacob was still "the good son"


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

aindik said:


> And then she very quickly told the kids that if the light goes out there, it "goes out everywhere." Where the heck is everywhere if there's nowhere else?


The rest of the island?

There is still something significant to saying if the light goes out here (in the only place the children know of at the time) then it goes out all over the island.

That seems believable by a child with no concept of off the island.


----------



## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

Peter000 said:


> Allison Janney probably came from ancient Italy, because she spoke Latin. But very badly. It was a relief when they switched to the English translation.





Fool Me Twice said:


> Man, that was horrible. Normally I am annoyed when they don't use native languages, but this time, like you, I was merely relieved.


I had trouble getting into Janney's portayal of "Mother" and her accent at the beginning is what spoiled it for me from the start. 

I was also let down by this episode. I'll have to rewatch it now, after poring through this lengthy thread, and listening to the Darlton official podcast, as well as Jorge's podcast at Geronimo Jack's Beard.

I WANT to love this episode, but it will take some effort.

I had a lot of other multi-quoted bits I was going to go through, but most of them had already been discussed.

I distinctly recall the scene from Ab Aeterno, right after Jacob "baptised" Ricardus, and Jacob was explaining the island and the cork as Ricardus sat huddled under a blanket, holding a cup of the wine.

So when Mother had Jacob drink the wine to become like her, I immediately connected that scene with the Jacob/Ricardus beach scene, and figured that it meant that the wine was the magic potion. Later, Jacob gave that bottle to MiB to "pass the time", followed by MiB smashing the bottle on the log. We had never seen MiB drink from the magical wine.

I look forward to how the new info will be woven into the penultimate episode ... and then the ultimate episode!


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

dslunceford said:


> One thing I didn't like is that the previous episode was made in part to clearly show that Flocke was the bad guy
> 
> This episode had me feeling bad for Nameless...his real Mom is killed by a woman who then takes on the Mother role; he's lied to about what's beyond the island; he learns about the deceit from his dead mother; his twin brother refuses to join him as he moves to live with "his people;" his Fake Mom tries to kill him, then kills and destroys the camp of people he's lived with for 30 years; then his twin brother conks him on the head and sends him into the abyss/light without any choice in the matter, where he turns into some otherworldly smoke thing.
> 
> End of day seems he becomes pretty sympathetic character to me (or at least his motivations seems more reasonable, given what he's gone through).


This. After this episode, I'm back to questioning whether MiB really is a bad guy or not. Perhaps that was the point. Maybe they wanted to definitively say he was a bad guy with the previous episode, only to spin that idea completely around with this episode. 


Anubys said:


> Maybe Hugo will say them to Jack (at this point, I assume Jack is the new protector) through either mother or Jacob...since Hugo can see the dead, he can be the middleman for the initiation...
> 
> the flashback to Jack and Kate with Adam and Eve would have been better handled in a quick "previously on Lost"...


No way. That wouldn't have worked at all. The big reveal near the end of this episode was who Adam and Eve were, but if they had shown something about Adam and Eve in the "Previously on" segment, we'd have known right from the start who they were.


BrandonRe said:


> See, I assumed that the gift of the game was a lie she was telling. I figured it had washed ashore from somewhere and she told him she gave it to him in order to keep him form thinking about the place "across the sea."


Totally agree with this. She just made that up on the spot. She didn't give him the gift.


uncdrew said:


> Yeah, remember how awesome the episodes were when we got pieces of the Dharma movies?
> 
> Or the episode that started with *The Momma & The Poppas' song* in the hatch?
> 
> That was amazingly powerful stuff. That one where we first met Desmond was perhaps the best hour of TV I've ever seen.


Don't you mean Geronimo Jackson? (Also, it's spelled The Mamas & The Papas.)


danterner said:


> I agree that that's supposed to be smokey, but since we can't attach a date (or even a timeframe) to the events of this episode, I don't know that we necessarily can conclude that the smoke monster predates Jacob and MiB's birth. For all we know, what we saw last night took place well before the construction of the foot temple etc. Why isn't it possible that Jacob and MIB have been around long enough that the smoke monster depicted in the heiroglyphics is our MiB?


MiB said he'd been wandering all over the Island looking for the entrance to the cave again. I'm guessing that if the Temple existed at that time, he'd have found it. So therefore, I think we can deduce that the Temple was built on the Island after the events of this episode.

Wasn't my favorite. I wish they'd never introduced Jacob and MiB and just stuck with the Losties, Others, Dharma, etc. But since they did introduce them and are determined to shoehorn them into the storyline, I guess it's probably fitting that we got a little of their backstory.


----------



## stellie93 (Feb 25, 2006)

aindik said:


> The smoke monster has to be MIB. Not just because the smoke monster couldn't kill Jacob, but also because Jacob couldn't kill MIB.


Did Jacob ever say he wanted to kill Smokey?

Mother gave Jacob the wine to drink to make him like her. Maybe that made it impossible for certain people to kill him?



Philosofy said:


> Can anyone here with better recollection than me tell us where we've seen the wine carafe before? I seem to remember it being broken, but who drank from it, and who broke it?


The wine carafe has been broken, so where do we get the wine to give Jack to annoint him as guardian? (and give him special powers)

The original MiB before his death wanted to leave the island. That makes sense--there's a whole world out there you know nothing about. But even though current time Flocke keeps saying he wants to leave the island, I'm not so sure. He lies more than Ben does. Maybe he just wants to get rid of all the island's protectors so he can scarf up all the light for himself.


----------



## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

Oh yeah! 

I wanted to mention that, during the scene between Mother and MiB with the donkey wheel and the light in the wall, that I was totally expecting Mother to hug MiB and then force the two of them into the firepit, and that the flames would consume their physical bodies, but since neither of them could die, their life forces would merge into the indestructible smoke monster. 

But then, that theory went up in smoke ... but I like my idea better than what we were presented by Darlton.


----------



## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

And I believe it was Jorge's podcast which confirmed that the timeline for "Across the Sea" was 2000 (two millennia) years ago.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

aindik said:


> Speculation is that she's made of black smoke.


When stabbed, she bled. Not so for Flocke.


----------



## Family (Jul 23, 2001)

So when figuring out who are "The Candidates" to replace Jacob and his brother does Hurley seeing dead people have significance? Maybe both children had special qualities split between them that were important to being Guardian. 

Hurley seems to combine the honesty of Jacob with the gifts of the brother.


----------



## bruinfan (Jan 17, 2006)

DevdogAZ said:


> Wasn't my favorite. I wish they'd never introduced Jacob and MiB and just stuck with the Losties, Others, Dharma, etc. But since they did introduce them and are determined to shoehorn them into the storyline, I guess it's probably fitting that we got a little of their backstory.


i'm of the opinion that jacob and mib are not being shoehorned into the storyline... they are an integral part of the storyline.. always has been... it's just their Act the last 2 seasons... jacob has been around since season 2... and smokey has been around from the pilot...

but then again... i'm in the "there was always a plan" camp. as evidenced by the cave, adam and eve, and the rocks....


----------



## TheMerk (Feb 26, 2001)

bruinfan said:


> jacob has been around since season 2


Has he? I know Lostpedia says he was first referenced in Season 2, but I believe those references were to "the man in charge" and "him," not actually Jacob by name.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

TheMerk said:


> Has he? I know Lostpedia says he was first referenced in Season 2, but I believe those references were to "the man in charge" and "him," not actually Jacob by name.


Carl was being brainwashed, and the screen said "God loves you as he loved Jacob". They did also make multiple references to "him" as you say.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Waldorf said:


> Some good stuff in that interview. However, their answer about the Adam & Eve scene with Jack estimating the clothes were about 50 years old starts to sound like they are channeling Ronald Moore.
> 
> I guess I could repost it here:


Wow.

50 years old, 1000 years old, close enough.

Perhaps Jack saw the Levi's tag on the bodies when he made his estimation. I gotta say it doesn't look like Adam and Eve were planned out all that well up front.

Not that it matters either way, but still. 50 years?


----------



## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

Will we ever find out how the fence keeps out Smokey/MIB and who figured that out?


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

cherry ghost said:


> Will we ever find out how the fence keeps out Smokey/MIB and who figured that out?


Sonic waves, Dharma


----------



## Bananfish (May 16, 2002)

Those of you who are surprised at the negativity toward this episode surprise me.

Cuse and Lindelof themselves would tell you .... well let me use their words: "Our belief is that the real resolution of the show and the one that matters is what happens to these characters."

This episode departed from the characters that most viewers care about and watched exclusively for the first 5 seasons (Jacob and MiB only were introduced as characters in the last episode of season 5 - yes, I know there was some tangential Jacob stuff before that, but he was certainly never seen before that - noone was wrapped up in caring what happened to Jacob). There's actually nothing wrong with doing that, if you make the departure worth the viewers' while.

There are several ways to make such a departure worthwhile: (1) to answer mysteries in a cool way; (2) to present a powerful episode in its own right (a la the Richard episode); and (3) to set up backstory for future episodes.

For me, this episode didn't succeed at all at the first two and it seems to me far too late in the show to be devoting an entire episode to setting up something for the remaining two nights of entertainment.

(1) The mysteries it answered were unnecessary to answer, and lamely answered.

I should say that as a viewer, I personally don't necessarily "need" answers to the mysteries. Of course I "want" them - that's the definition of a mystery, and exactly what Lost counts on - something you don't understand you want to know about. So because I'm human, when you throw a mystery in front of me, of course I want to know what's behind it. But if the writers deem it worth refraining from answering a mystery, and they do that in a cool way, well, I'm cool with that. But if you're going to answer them, it better be in a cool way too. The viewer ought to think "wow, that is so cool!" I just didn't get that from this episode, and don't really see how anyone could.

The answered mysteries in this episode?

- The source of the island's power. It turns out there's a cave on the island that's been there the entire time we've been watching the show, but noone ever knew about it before. And there were no clues to the viewer that it was there. (Yes, we knew there was an energy thing going on, but not a light cave.) In fact, to cover up the fact that it's been there the whole time, they had to make it so that you could only find it if you were taken there by someone who knew it was there. (What?!?!?) How is that cool to a viewer to introduce that at this point? 

- We now know who Adam and Eve are. So what? Eve turns out to be a character we've never seen before this episode and basically didn't know existed. (Yes, MiB mentioned he had a crazy mother - but the guy's done nothing but lie, and well, it's hardly a surprise someone had a mother, is it?) Once again, how is that cool to introduce something brand new and have it solve a long-running mystery? And does the fact that Adam and Eve are CrazyMom and NoNameMiB's body have any relevance to anything else in the show - would it matter if they didn't have this reveal? 

- MiB and Jacob backstory. Personally, I couldn't care less how they got to the island ... the fact that their mother washed up on an island, gave birth to them and got murdered by CJ from the West Wing is essentially IRRELEVANT to anything else in the series. I want to know about their powers and their dispute and why they've been doing what we've seen them do, and how it relates to the characters I've been watching for almost 6 seasons, and all the things that they've done. I feel I got only the teensiest bit closer to knowing anything about that.

(While I'm at it, the Jack/Kate flashbacks, which some have already commented on - completely unnecessary. For those who say "well some people who don't remember or weren't watching then needed that," NO, they didn't. If they didn't remember it or weren't watching, the fact that Jack and Kate found a couple skeletons five seasons ago is completely irrelevant. I feel confident that nothing the rest of the way will depend on those skeletons being CJ and MiB ... this was put in only so Cuse and Lindelof can check off another long-time mystery revealed.

(2) This was not a powerful episode in its own right. Too many contradictions in logic and no real purpose. (MiB/Jacob supposedly can't hurt each other, but they CAN beat the snot out of each other and apparently kill each other; CJ murdered the mother, but not the others on the island; the boys at 13 don't know what "death" is, yet hunt boars to kill them; CJ is insistent that Jacob not go in the cave, but doesn't explain to him what will happen to him; out of the blue, CJ thanks MiB for killing her without the viewer having any idea why that's a good thing to her; etc. etc.)

(3) Setting up backstory for future episodes. I'm afraid I've lost faith that this is going to end in a way that I find cool. I've had my fears the last few seasons about whether Cuse/Lindelof really knew where they were taking this show, but most of this season restored my faith that maybe they really did have a plan all along (or at least most of the way) and could conclude the series in a satisfying way. This episode restored all my fears - ladies and gentlemen, we have just entered the red dwarf dream from Twin Peaks.

P.S. Other than that, I actually enjoyed the episode.


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## rondotcom (Feb 13, 2005)

I love that so many are unsatisfied about that their particular fixaton wasn't addressed. I can imagine them watching "Citizen Kane" and asking: "But where did the sled COME from, I mean who MADE the sled? And why Roseud? I sat here for over two hours and NONE of the questions were addressed I think OW didn't plan things out very well. I feel so cheated that those important questions will never be answered."


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## gryphon00 (Jul 23, 2003)

stellie93 said:


> Did Jacob ever say he wanted to kill Smokey?


I don't think he's ever said that, no. In fact, has Jacob killed anybody? MiB is still his brother, but I don't think it's in Jacob's nature to kill. I think Mother knew this and it's why Jacob wasn't her choice to replace her as guardian. A guardian would need to be able to do whatever was necessary... including killing people.



> The wine carafe has been broken, so where do we get the wine to give Jack to annoint him as guardian? (and give him special powers)


BiB to Jacob: "One day you can make up your own game and everyone else will have to follow your rules." This is a long thread and this may be a repeat, but I think this was a key line in this episode on a number of levels.

Mother used the wine to make Jacob the guardian but that doesn't mean Jacob has to do it the same way. As the guardian, Jacob makes his own rules as to how things work on the island, to some extent... in this case, how the candidates are chosen and the power passed. At the point when Richard drank the wine, it was just wine. And Jacob giving the carafe to MiB could have been a number of things... a reminder that he was the guardian and it's his job to protect the island, a dig that Mother chose him to guard the island, a reminder that MiB could have been guardian had he made different choices, etc.

Regarding the game box... I think maybe Mother did leave it for BiB to find with the intention that it was a training tool for him to learn how to make up "rules" that worked... which he would need. She was grooming him to be her replacement up until the night he left to go to the other camp and she saw he would never willingly stay on the island. She knew he was special, but I don't think she knew how special (ie. speaking to the dead) so she couldn't have anticipated him learning the truth. As it turned out, she had to settle for Jacob because she knew she was coming to the end of her time. I think she knew MiB was going to kill her because of what she did to the well and the villiagers. She pretty much forced his hand.

I was originally aggrevated with this episode because it didn't seem to answer big questions. But the more I thought about it, the more I think it laid the groundwork to answer some. Guess we'll see.


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## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

getreal said:


> I had trouble getting into Janney's portayal of "Mother" and her accent at the beginning is what spoiled it for me from the start.


I'm still confused about why you're so certain that you can tell a good Latin accent from a bad one. Are you saying that her accent wasn't like the Latin heard in a 21st century Catholic mass? Who is to say which is correct?

And perhaps she wasn't speaking Latin at all, but rather the language from which Latin devolved...


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## Shaunnick (Jul 2, 2005)

I love all of the people *****ing about Alison Janney's Latin accent. Last I checked the language has been dead for quite some time. There is no accent. Now if you guys are trying to say she cannot pronounce the words, well that's a different story.


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## GDG76 (Oct 2, 2000)

I'm still interested in the "loophole" in Jacob's game. Was it Ben, the person who actually killed him? Or Locke? I have a hard time believing that Locke is the loophole...

So, if Ben is the loophole, is it because he turned the wheel and came back? And was it only because Ben was a potential leader? You'd think they would have taken 10 minutes last night and explained the new game.. now we have to digest all the rules of the game and the finale and anything else they choose to wrap up in three shows. I still have faith and love the show, but I think they could have done more with this episode...


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Bananfish said:


> P.S. Other than that, I actually enjoyed the episode.


Very well said. Your entire post, that is.

I too really enjoyed the Ricardo episode, which had a lot in common with this one. But they got that one right and it was compelling.


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## Dnamertz (Jan 30, 2005)

SocratesJohnson said:


> I'm not convinced that Smokey and MIB are two totally separate entities. Smokey/Flocke still have MIB's memories about his "mother" and still seems to have the same motivation to leave the island that MIB had...


Plus, he still had to follow the fact that his "mother" made it so he and Jacob could not hurt each other. If the smoke monster was not the MIB, then he wouldn't have needed to get Ben to kill Jacob.


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

TheMerk said:


> Has he? I know Lostpedia says he was first referenced in Season 2, but I believe those references were to "the man in charge" and "him," not actually Jacob by name.





jkeegan said:


> Carl was being brainwashed, and the screen said "God loves you as he loved Jacob". They did also make multiple references to "him" as you say.












And here's the scene with Jacob & Richard. While you don't see Jacob pour, the bottle's uncorked and they're both drinking from similar cups.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Amnesia said:


> Are you saying that her accent wasn't like the Latin heard in a 21st century Catholic mass? Who is to say which is correct?


In fact, the pronunciation of "modern" Church Latin is very different from the (reconstructed) Classical pronunciation. Or so I was taught in high school Latin, anyway. (We learned the supposed Classical version.)


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Family said:


> Hurley seems to combine the honesty of Jacob with the gifts of the brother.


I like this.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

wmcbrine said:


> In fact, the pronunciation of "modern" Church Latin is very different from the (reconstructed) Classical pronunciation. Or so I was taught in high school Latin, anyway. (We learned the supposed Classical version.)


Did it sound exactly like modern American English, only with Latin words instead? Because that's what Janney's Latin sounded like.


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## desulliv (Aug 22, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> In fact, the pronunciation of "modern" Church Latin is very different from the (reconstructed) Classical pronunciation. Or so I was taught in high school Latin, anyway. (We learned the supposed Classical version.)


Since the Church kept the "dead" language alive for centuries, seems that might be the more accurate pronunciation. I could never quite to get used to the "classical" pronunciation of Kaysar (Caesar) and Kickero (Cicero).


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

GDG76 said:


> I'm still interested in the "loophole" in Jacob's game. Was it Ben, the person who actually killed him? Or Locke? I have a hard time believing that Locke is the loophole...
> 
> So, if Ben is the loophole, is it because he turned the wheel and came back? And was it only because Ben was a potential leader? You'd think they would have taken 10 minutes last night and explained the new game.. now we have to digest all the rules of the game and the finale and anything else they choose to wrap up in three shows. I still have faith and love the show, but I think they could have done more with this episode...


this is the point some posters are missing...MIB could did not kill the candidates because his goal was to FIRST kill Jacob...he could not get off the island until Jacob was dead (and he could not kill him)...he finally found the loophole that he had to convince one of the candidates to kill Jacob (and the candidate had to do it with his own free will)...

now, he can concentrate on killing the candidates so he can leave the island...but up until Ben killed Jacob, the entire mission of MIB was to kill Jacob...


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

stellie93 said:


> Did Jacob ever say he wanted to kill Smokey?


Not Smokey. MIB.

If Jacob can't kill MIB, then MIB is not dead.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> When stabbed, she bled. Not so for Flocke.


Flocke has yet to be stabbed (on camera) by someone to whom he hadn't spoken first.


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## rondotcom (Feb 13, 2005)

aindik said:


> Not Smokey. MIB.
> 
> If Jacob can't kill MIB, then MIB is not dead.


Jacob didn't kill MIB. Whatever force that was in the cave killed his physical body but kept his MIB spirit alive (and a little Smokey).


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## Tsiehta (Jul 22, 2002)

I will say this, there is absolutely no excuse for dialogue such as:

MIB/CIB: What is "dead?"

Then cut to scene of little Jacob and MIC/CIB chasing and trying to kill a boar.

Just dumb.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

rondotcom said:


> Jacob didn't kill MIB. Whatever force that was in the cave killed his physical body but kept his MIB spirit alive (and a little Smokey).


I say the jury is out on that...there's a good chance that Mother killed MIB in the well and that he was some sort of living dead like Locke is now when he woke up to find the place burned down and the well covered up...

therefore, Jacob sent a dead body into the light...


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## GDG76 (Oct 2, 2000)

Anubys said:


> this is the point some posters are missing...MIB could did not kill the candidates because his goal was to FIRST kill Jacob...he could not get off the island until Jacob was dead (and he could not kill him)...he finally found the loophole that he had to convince one of the candidates to kill Jacob (and the candidate had to do it with his own free will)...
> 
> now, he can concentrate on killing the candidates so he can leave the island...but up until Ben killed Jacob, the entire mission of MIB was to kill Jacob...


I get that, and I don't really see what it has to do with my post 

I just don't understand why Ben was the loophole - why was he still a candidate after being kicked off the island, why couldn't MiB convince any other candidate to do it (he didn't even try)..I guess that Ben was listening to Locke more than anyone else, but it's a hell of an effort to set up Ben doing the killing when it could be so much easier to just convince another one of the candidates...there have been 100s of them after all..why was one of them the "loophole"?


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

betts4 said:


> I like this.


Me too.

And it seems like they've set it up (though I could be giving them too much credit) for Hurley to be the most likeable and favorite character. For this to end with him being the most important Lostie will resonate well with viewers.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

GDG76 said:


> I get that, and I don't really see what it has to do with my post
> 
> I just don't understand why Ben was the loophole - why was he still a candidate after being kicked off the island, why couldn't MiB convince any other candidate to do it (he didn't even try)..I guess that Ben was listening to Locke more than anyone else, but it's a hell of an effort to set up Ben doing the killing when it could be so much easier to just convince another one of the candidates...there have been 100s of them after all..why was one of them the "loophole"?


your post mentioned Ben and the loophole and so I used it as a starting point (thank you!) 

could Locke convince Jack to kill Jacob? Hugo? Kate?

his only hope was Ben or Sayid...if you further assume that the person killing Jacob had to kill him knowing who Jacob is/was and exactly what they were doing, then Sayid would also be out of the picture...Ben was the logical choice...he knew who Jacob is, he is certainly a person capable of killing, and he was mad enough at Jacob to want to kill him...

I also assume that MIB finally figured out the loophole...if you recall their conversation at the beach, MIB told Jacob that sooner or later, he would figure out a loophole and kill him...seems that he finally did (that discovering the loophole is a recent event)...


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

aindik said:


> Flocke has yet to be stabbed (on camera) by someone to whom he hadn't spoken first.


Fine point.


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## GDG76 (Oct 2, 2000)

Anubys said:


> your post mentioned Ben and the loophole and so I used it as a starting point (thank you!)
> 
> could Locke convince Jack to kill Jacob? Hugo? Kate?
> 
> ...


The cave was littered with 100s of names, and some of them were quite crazy (Inman, Desmond for a while). I find it hard to believe that no one else who came to the island could have been convinced to kill Jacob.

We did see MiB convince Alpert, but Jacob wasn't ready to die then.. so I think maybe the whole loophole thing was a big red herring and that Jacob wanted to die...It would have been cool if he had said "Thank you" to Ben after he did it...


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

GDG76 said:


> We did see MiB convince Alpert, but Jacob wasn't ready to die then.. so I think maybe the whole loophole thing was a big red herring and that Jacob wanted to die...It would have been cool if he had said "Thank you" to Ben after he did it...


"Thank you" would have been very cool...I also think that Jacob wanted to die.

However, recall that Flocke told Ben that the last thing that Jacob was thinking about before Ben killed him was that he still hoped that Ben would not do it (or something along those lines)...

in other words, Jacob may have been testing Ben and Ben failed, catastrophically for Jacob...


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

GDG76 said:


> I get that, and I don't really see what it has to do with my post
> 
> I just don't understand why Ben was the loophole - why was he still a candidate after being kicked off the island, why couldn't MiB convince any other candidate to do it (he didn't even try)..I guess that Ben was listening to Locke more than anyone else, but it's a hell of an effort to set up Ben doing the killing when it could be so much easier to just convince another one of the candidates...there have been 100s of them after all..why was one of them the "loophole"?


First of all, there's no reason to think that a person was this loophole.

A loophole refers to hole in an insufficient set of rules that allows something through the cracks that wasn't intended.

MiB was looking for a loophole that would allow him to kill Jacob, despite the fact that there were presumably rules to prevent that. We don't know with 100% certainty whether those rules were what Mother put in place ("I've made it so you can't hurt each other" (paraphrased), or new rules that Jacob sets up, either once he became guardian or once he hired Richard.

I always imagined the rules included things like:
 No one goes in the foot statue unless summoned
 Only one person at a time can see/visit Jacob
 MiB can't himself directly kill Jacob, nor can Jacob directly kill MiB.

Jacob had Richard enforcing the first two rules.

MiB wanted access to Jacob, with someone else (who he could convince to kill Jacob). With respect to the last part, he needed someone who would resent Jacob. He picked Ben. He might even have drawn Ben into the Others group at a young age by appearing as his dead mother outside his window, but I doubt it because that was inside the sonic fence and that would mean someone summoned him via the water channel thing, which I doubt).

But Ben had no access to Jacob, nor did MiB.

So MiB picked one of the candidates that he felt that Richard might believe Jacob would want to talk to. He picked Locke, probably because Locke showed up at the cabin. See previous long descriptions from me about the MouseTrap-like complicated chain of events that MiB put in motion by telling Locke to move the island. Dead Locke's body is returned to the island (killed by one of Jacob's followers, Ben), MiB can impersonate him, important Locke can convince Richard to let him inside, and we're done.

That whole plan was his loophole, not just one person.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

rondotcom said:


> Jacob didn't kill MIB. Whatever force that was in the cave killed his physical body but kept his MIB spirit alive (and a little Smokey).


IOW, MIB is not dead.

The reason I posted what I posted was to show that MIB (Jacob's brother) is not dead, to the people who think he is dead.

If MIB _is_ dead, then the rule that they can't kill each other isn't really a rule.

If you want to argue that MIB is dead, but Jacob didn't kill him, I'd call that seriously lame if that's what they mean by you can't kill someone. If that's the rule, that you can't kill someone but you can bludgeon them about the head, knock them unconscious and feed them to something else that will kill them, it's not much of a rule. If that's the rule, I'd expect MIB to have done that to Jacob a long time ago. Not to mention, doing it to Jack et al.

That must be another reason I didn't like this episode. They violated the rule "dead is dead."

They also made Jacob, mastermind of essentially the entire show, out to be a gullible bumbling fool. I didn't like it when they did that to Ben Linus, and I don't like it here.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> I always imagined the rules included things like:
>  No one goes in the foot statue unless summoned
>  Only one person at a time can see/visit Jacob
>  MiB can't himself directly kill Jacob, nor can Jacob directly kill MiB.
> ...


Doesn't that break Rule No. 2?


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Anubys said:


> "Thank you" would have been very cool...I also think that Jacob wanted to die.


Agreed.

Thousands of years on an island with few other people around. Yuck.


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## Keen (Aug 3, 2009)

jkeegan said:


> When stabbed, she bled. Not so for Flocke.


He also stabbed her before she could say a word. Just like Dogen's instructions to Sayid.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

First, a minor peeve: It's not the "Red October" subtitle trick. It's been in use far longer than that.

As for Jacob bringing people to the island - there have now been _two_ conversations on the beach (Jacob-Ricardus, Jacob-MiB) where it is explained that he is bringing people to the island to "prove MiB wrong." Perhaps one of the rules of the game is that when Jacob finally _does_ prove him wrong ("it only ends once") it's game over for MiB?

My main problem with knowing all of these rules is that it lessens the impact of a re-watch of the series. Sure, we know the smoke monster _doesn't_ kill Jack/Kate/Charlie in the Pilot, but now we know smokey _couldn't_ kill them. For instance, I can re-watch Star Wars over and over and still enjoy it even though I know how it ends -- but I'd enjoy it less if there was a *rule* that Darth Vader couldn't kill Luke.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

aindik said:


> Doesn't that break Rule No. 2?


Absolutely, and posing as Locke helped MiB con Richard into breaking that rule.

Locke appeared to Richard in the 50s, said he was from the future, said he was their leader, etc (all because of MiB). That helped con Richard into thinking Flock was important enough to bully him into letting Ben in.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

MacThor said:


> First, a minor peeve: It's not the "Red October" subtitle trick. It's been in use far longer than that.


"Red October" is how the writers referred to it in the script for this episode (according to Jorge Garcia).



MacThor said:


> As for Jacob bringing people to the island - there have now been _two_ conversations on the beach (Jacob-Ricardus, Jacob-MiB) where it is explained that he is bringing people to the island to "prove MiB wrong." Perhaps one of the rules of the game is that when Jacob finally _does_ prove him wrong ("it only ends once") it's game over for MiB?


That made sense until this episode. Now it makes no sense. Jacob's number 1 mission is to make sure humans don't tap into the light. If that's the case, than his bringing people to the island over and over again makes no sense, unless he just wants out. (Which, BTW, is thoroughly unsatisfying as a motive for Jacob, to me as a viewer).


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> Absolutely, and posing as Locke helped MiB con Richard into breaking that rule.
> 
> Locke appeared to Richard in the 50s, said he was from the future, said he was their leader, etc (all because of MiB). That helped con Richard into thinking Flock was important enough to bully him into letting Ben in.


Refresh my recollection again as to how MIB convinced Locke that he was the future leader, so that Locke would convince Richard of that when Locke traveled to the 50s? Is that by appearing to Locke while in the cabin with Ben and having Ben freak out about it?


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## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

aindik said:


> That made sense until this episode. Now it makes no sense. Jacob's number 1 mission is to make sure humans don't tap into the light. If that's the case, than his bringing people to the island over and over again makes no sense, unless he just wants out. (Which, BTW, is thoroughly unsatisfying as a motive for Jacob, to me as a viewer).


That bothers me too.

One (unsatisfactory) way to write around it would be that if/when Jacob 'wins' the game with MiB by finding an uncorruptable person, the Island dissapears forever from this spacetime removing the light. There are other work arounds as well.

Put me in the camp of those dissapointed by the sharp contrast in the excellence of Ricardo's back story vs this sub-par episode. But below par LOST is still way better than anything else on TV.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Anubys said:


> this is the point some posters are missing...MIB could did not kill the candidates because his goal was to FIRST kill Jacob...he could not get off the island until Jacob was dead (and he could not kill him)...he finally found the loophole that he had to convince one of the candidates to kill Jacob (and the candidate had to do it with his own free will)...
> 
> now, he can concentrate on killing the candidates so he can leave the island...but up until Ben killed Jacob, the entire mission of MIB was to kill Jacob...





GDG76 said:


> I get that, and I don't really see what it has to do with my post
> 
> I just don't understand why Ben was the loophole - why was he still a candidate after being kicked off the island, why couldn't MiB convince any other candidate to do it (he didn't even try)..I guess that Ben was listening to Locke more than anyone else, but it's a hell of an effort to set up Ben doing the killing when it could be so much easier to just convince another one of the candidates...there have been 100s of them after all..why was one of them the "loophole"?


When was Ben considered a candidate?


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

aindik said:


> That made sense until this episode. Now it makes no sense. Jacob's number 1 mission is to make sure humans don't tap into the light. If that's the case, than his bringing people to the island over and over again makes no sense, unless he just wants out. (Which, BTW, is thoroughly unsatisfying as a motive for Jacob, to me as a viewer).


Well first of all let's establish that there's little or no risk of people finding the cave. MiB was there as a kid and then looked for 30 years and couldn't find it.

So that leaves the wells. Yeah, it'd be safest to not bring anyone to the island, but people are going to arrive anyway (as did both of his mothers).

He wants to know people aren't ALL corruptable. He was/is? a person!

Gtg


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

zordude said:


> Maybe they learned what "supper" was, but not what "dead" was


Actually, it could very well be something like this. The animals they ate might have been merely moving food to them. We don't think of the plants we harvest dying in the same way as we do our pets or loved ones, and the kids likely treated the animals they hunted similarly.

So although they had experience with death, they never conceptualized it.



orangeboy said:


> Also, who's to say there was only one smoke monster? Mother seemed to believe that anyone entering the golden cave would be destined for a fate worse than death. Where would she have gotten that idea from? I think someone had to have entered the cave at some point prior, and all the protectors since then (except apparently Jacob ) knew not to let anyone else enter...


Given that Mother seemed happy to die and she had extraordinary destructive powers (assuming it was, in fact, her that destroyed the village and filled in the well), it would seem that perhaps she had firsthand knowledge of the dangers of entering the cave.

Perhaps her goal was to raise a replacement that was not infected by the energy, and then die, freeing her from whatever happened in the cave. But then MiB got thrown into the cave, and the roles played previously by Mother got split between the brothers.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

JYoung said:


> When was Ben considered a candidate?


somebody at some time mentioned it 

sorry, I don't remember...but Ben doesn't need to be a candidate to kill Jacob...we assume that was a "rule", but we don't really know...


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## jking (Mar 23, 2005)

aindik said:


> Refresh my recollection again as to how MIB convinced Locke that he was the future leader, so that Locke would convince Richard of that when Locke traveled to the 50s? Is that by appearing to Locke while in the cabin with Ben and having Ben freak out about it?


IIRC, Locke was kind of recruited his whole life by Richard, only because when he went back to the 50's he told Richard that he was going to be their leader one day. He unwittingly created a self-fulfilling prophecy for himself when he went back to the 50's and told Richard that. The only part MiB had in that whole "flashing through time" process is that he was the one who had Richard convince Locke that he had to go off-island and "die for the cause."


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

aindik said:


> "Red October" is how the writers referred to it in the script for this episode (according to Jorge Garcia).


As did one of the Lost TV critics in a review linked earlier in this thread. That doesn't make it right.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

jking said:


> IIRC, Locke was kind of recruited his whole life by Richard, only because when he went back to the 50's he told Richard that he was going to be their leader one day. He unwittingly created a self-fulfilling prophecy for himself when he went back to the 50's and told Richard that. The only part MiB had in that whole "flashing through time" process is that he was the one who had Richard convince Locke that he had to go off-island and "die for the cause."


When 815 crashed, Locke didn't think or know he was supposed to be the leader of the Others or the keeper of the island. How did he come to that (apparently mistaken) realization in order to take it to Richard in the past?


----------



## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

jking said:


> IIRC, Locke was kind of recruited his whole life by Richard, only because when he went back to the 50's he told Richard that he was going to be their leader one day. He unwittingly created a self-fulfilling prophecy for himself when he went back to the 50's and told Richard that. The only part MiB had in that whole "flashing through time" process is that he was the one who had Richard convince Locke that he had to go off-island and "die for the cause."


I don't think it was so unwittingly as it was what Fake Locke wanted.

After all, if John Locke wasn't prophesied to be their leader, he couldn't order them around when he "returned" and it wouldn't have helped bring Ben's jealousy and rage to the boiling point.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

aindik said:


> When 815 crashed, Locke didn't think or know he was supposed to be the leader of the Others or the keeper of the island. How did he come to that (apparently mistaken) realization in order to take it to Richard in the past?


Because Richard hadn't told him yet.
The Real Locke learned this when he timed jumped into the future 2007 and Richard, under Fake Locke's direction, gave him the compass.


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> Wow.
> 
> 50 years old, 1000 years old, close enough.
> 
> ...


That's not actually what Jack said though. Here's the key piece of dialogue from that scene (from S1E6 "House of the Rising Sun"):



House of the Rising Sun said:


> KATE: Any idea how long they've been here?
> 
> JACK: Long. It takes 40 or 50 years for clothing to degrade like this.


I don't read that as Jack saying that those those corpses have been there for between 40 and 50 years, no sooner and no later. Instead, I read that as Jack concluding that, based on the deteroriation of these clothes, they've been here _at least _40 or 50 years. I'm no expert, but I would have to guess that clothing will deteroriate to a certain point when left exposed but protected from the elements (in the cave there would have been no damage from sun or water exposure), but no further. Perhaps that point is 50 years?

In any event, there is no inconsistency between what Jack said in S1 and what was revealed in this episode. However, what Darlton said is not so easily reconciled.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

MacThor said:


> First, a minor peeve: It's not the "Red October" subtitle trick. It's been in use far longer than that.
> 
> As for Jacob bringing people to the island - there have now been _two_ conversations on the beach (Jacob-Ricardus, Jacob-MiB) where it is explained that he is bringing people to the island to "prove MiB wrong." Perhaps one of the rules of the game is that when Jacob finally _does_ prove him wrong ("it only ends once") it's game over for MiB?
> 
> My main problem with knowing all of these rules is that it lessens the impact of a re-watch of the series. Sure, we know the smoke monster _doesn't_ kill Jack/Kate/Charlie in the Pilot, but now we know smokey _couldn't_ kill them. For instance, I can re-watch Star Wars over and over and still enjoy it even though I know how it ends -- but I'd enjoy it less if there was a *rule* that Darth Vader couldn't kill Luke.


Wow, I so totally disagree!!! I think the fun part of rewatching this will be to find the clues about MIB/Jacob. I'm really interested in all the incarnations we see of MiB over time, such as him being Christian or whoever. It will be interesting to see what they said and now realize what it all meant.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

DreadPirateRob said:


> That's not actually what Jack said though. Here's the key piece of dialogue from that scene (from S1E6 "House of the Rising Sun"):
> 
> I don't read that as Jack saying that those those corpses have been there for between 40 and 50 years, no sooner and no later. Instead, I read that as Jack concluding that, based on the deteroriation of these clothes, they've been here _at least _40 or 50 years. I'm no expert, but I would have to guess that clothing will deteroriate to a certain point when left exposed but protected from the elements (in the cave there would have been no damage from sun or water exposure), but no further. Perhaps that point is 50 years?
> 
> In any event, there is no inconsistency between what Jack said in S1 and what was revealed in this episode. However, what Darlton said is not so easily reconciled.


I chalked it up to things deteriorating at a different pace on the island...when Jack made this statement, he assumed he was on a regular island where normal rules apply...


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## jking (Mar 23, 2005)

aindik said:


> When 815 crashed, Locke didn't think or know he was supposed to be the leader of the Others or the keeper of the island. How did he come to that (apparently mistaken) realization in order to take it to Richard in the past?


The time jumps started happening right after Ben had moved the island and Locke had returned to where the others were camped and at that point he WAS the leader (at least as far as he knew). Remember, Ben told him to go back to them, that he (Ben) would be leaving the island when he turned the wheel and that now it was Locke's time to lead. Right after that is when the time jumps started happening, and soon after is when Locke met up with 50's Richard.


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## jking (Mar 23, 2005)

Anubys said:


> I chalked it up to things deteriorating at a different pace on the island...when Jack made this statement, he assumed he was on a regular island where normal rules apply...


I thought the same thing (in terms of the deterioration of the bodies). However to be fair, the purged Dharma bodies in the pit looked similarly deteriorated as Adam and Eve, and they are less than 20 years old. If it were simply because of the differences in how things happen in island-time, they should still look like fresh kills. A couple of them may still be breathing!


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## Fl_Gulfer (May 27, 2005)

I though that was the stupidest explination of how things came to be. But I guess it was needed to have the story evolve for a good ending. And after all the hours we spent watching this show I hope it blows our socks off.


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## Queue (Apr 7, 2009)

Some of the dead people appearing on the island are really ghosts of themselves right? Richard's wife for instance. But Christian was not the ghost of Christian, it was smokey.

Is it possible the ghost of MiB's mother was actually a manifestation of smokey? This was the first step in smokey's plot to get off the island. Create tension between the brothers, hoping it would lead to something like it did (MiB being thrown into the light cave).


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

aindik said:


> When 815 crashed, Locke didn't think or know he was supposed to be the leader of the Others or the keeper of the island. How did he come to that (apparently mistaken) realization in order to take it to Richard in the past?


Ben said that they'd all been waiting for him (presumably because others from the 50s had remembered a guy showing up, saying he'd be their leader someday, then disappearing into thin air). Ben staged something publicly to humiliate Locke - telling him to publicly kill his father. Locke couldn't, and Ben said "I guess he wasn't who we thought he was", then Richard gave him James' bio, and he had James kill his dad. Locke brought his dead dad to the Others', threw it down, and got everyone's attention again.

After Ben turned the wheel, Locke went to the others, and it was said somewhere in there that he was their leader.

The whole reason any of that could happen was because Locke went to the 50s, which he was only able to do because MiB told him to move the island.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Queue said:


> Some of the dead people appearing on the island are really ghosts of themselves right? Richard's wife for instance. But Christian was not the ghost of Christian, it was smokey.
> 
> Is it possible the ghost of MiB's mother was actually a manifestation of smokey? This was the first step in smokey's plot to get off the island. Create tension between the brothers, hoping it would lead to something like it did (MiB being thrown into the light cave).


I'd say no for one reason - Jacob couldn't see her, but MiB could.

It seems that when someone "special" sees ghosts (like MiB and Hurley), no one else can see them. When smokey impersonates someone, I think everyone can see it.

(which does beg the question - what the hell was that that looked like kid Jacob in the jungle that James could see too?)


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## Philosofy (Feb 21, 2000)

Some random thoughts:

I don't think we'll get a satisfactory explanation as to what the Island is. Remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Did we ever get a good explanation what the Hell Mouth was and where it came from? Or the fact that there are slayers? (They did end up explaining why there was only one slayer.)

I will make a guess that the Island is Eden, and the cave of light is the tree of knowledge.

I'm also curious to what brought Sayid back to life. And how killing Jacob affected the Temple's pool.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

So I have one idea that might help reconcile my problems between the ancient cave carving of a smoke monster and the seemingly simple explanation that throwing MiB into the cave "made" the smoke monster...

...maybe those were different smoke monsters.. Maybe waaaaay in the past in Egyptian times someone went into the cave, and became a smoke monster.. Maybe someone later managed to figure out a way to kill that smoke monster, and then warned all future protectors not to let anyone go into the cave (and they even carved a nice picture of it into the temple to warn people).

Mother did her best to pass that along (begging them both to never go in), and when she saw people trying to get in she killed them all. But Jacob, enraged at MiB's killing of his fake mom, sent MiB to a fate worse than death - living disembodied, floating around, unable to leave the island... That created a NEW smoke monster.

..and maybe at the end of the finale we'll see someone kill THIS smoke monster, which would be a nice wrap-up to my theory here.

That would explain the "can't kill each other" rule still applying to Jacob and what we've been calling smokey, and explain the carving in the temple, and explain why Mother knows it's a fate worse than death to be sent into the cave.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

By the way, after rewatching Dead is Dead, I think they made it pretty clear in that episode (if you watch closely) that the "ticka-ticka-ticka" receipt-printer scratchy sound that we hear is exactly when electricity/light moves around inside the smoke..


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> different smoke monsters.. Mother knows it's a fate worse than death to be sent into the cave


I agree, multiple.

Seems to me Mom _was_ a smokie, hard to figure her sneaking up on all the "people" and killing them all off without some smokie power. I mean, did she have a scratch (or a singe) on her?


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## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

jkeegan said:


> So I have one idea that might help reconcile my problems between the ancient cave carving of a smoke monster and the seemingly simple explanation that throwing MiB into the cave "made" the smoke monster... [idea clipped]


I like this a lot. :up:



jkeegan said:


> It seems that when someone "special" sees ghosts (like MiB and Hurley), no one else can see them. When smokey impersonates someone, I think everyone can see it.
> 
> (which does beg the question - what the hell was that that looked like kid Jacob in the jungle that James could see too?)


Was it ever resolved what category Hurley's Dave falls under? The thing that's always bothered me about Dave was the scene with the slipper and coconut. Didn't he throw the slipper (or was it the coconut?) at Hurley to "prove" he was physically there and not a ghost/delusion? I think he slapped Hurley, as well. So was island Dave really MIB? I also recall that he tried to lure Hurley to his death via a clifftop plummet, didn't he? Wouldn't that have been against MIB's rules? Dave confounds me.


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## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

danterner said:


> Was it ever resolved what category Hurley's Dave falls under? The thing that's always bothered me about Dave was the scene with the slipper and coconut. Didn't he throw the slipper (or was it the coconut?) at Hurley to "prove" he was physically there and not a ghost/delusion? So was island Dave really MIB? I also recall that he tried to lure Hurley to his death via a clifftop plummet, didn't he? Wouldn't that have been against MIB's rules? Dave confounds me.


If physical interaction by 'ghosts' is the issue, didn't Christian help Locke up when he fell down the well shaft? Didn't Ricardo feel his dead wife's touch on his cheek? Maybe not, but I thought so.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

danterner said:


> Was it ever resolved what category Hurley's Dave falls under? The thing that's always bothered me about Dave was the scene with the slipper and coconut. Didn't he throw the slipper (or was it the coconut?) at Hurley to "prove" he was physically there and not a ghost/delusion? I think he slapped Hurley, as well. So was island Dave really MIB? I also recall that he tried to lure Hurley to his death via a clifftop plummet, didn't he? Wouldn't that have been against MIB's rules? Dave confounds me.


I think Dave falls under the category of Hurley's delusion. In the mental institution, Hurley could actually touch Dave (he put his arm around him for the picture the doc took). So Hurley's manifest delusions seem physical to him. And I don't think the slipper was ever actually seen by another person.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

philw1776 said:


> If physical interaction by 'ghosts' is the issue, didn't Christian help Locke up when he fell down the well shaft? Didn't Ricardo feel his dead wife's touch on his cheek? Maybe not, but I thought so.


Christian wasn't a ghost, but the Smoke Monster at that point, helping Locke get off the island so he could "die," and Smokey could take his place.

That was one convoluted plan.


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## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

philw1776 said:


> If physical interaction by 'ghosts' is the issue, didn't Christian help Locke up when he fell down the well shaft? Didn't Ricardo feel his dead wife's touch on his cheek? Maybe not, but I thought so.


I'm not sure whether Christian was a ghost or MIB at that point. You think a ghost?

As for Richard's wife, I think part of the time we saw her she was a ghost (for example, Hurley's conversation with her and Richard at the end of the episode - when she touched his cheek - but I think earlier in the episode (while Richard was still in chains) she was actually MIB.


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

philw1776 said:


> If physical interaction by 'ghosts' is the issue, didn't Christian help Locke up when he fell down the well shaft?


Nope. In fact, Locke DID ask him for help, and he responded that he was sorry but couldn't.



> Didn't Ricardo feel his dead wife's touch on his cheek? Maybe not, but I thought so.


Not sure about this one, I'd have to check on it. I do know though that it was pretty obvious that Christian COULDN'T help him up.

Greg


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## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

danterner said:


> I'm not sure whether Christian was a ghost or MIB at that point. You think a ghost?
> 
> As for Richard's wife, I think part of the time we saw her she was a ghost (for example, Hurley's conversation with her and Richard at the end of the episode - when she touched his cheek - but I think earlier in the episode (while Richard was still in chains) she was actually MIB.


Not anymore. I agree that Christian was MiB.

I agree about the 2 different manifestations of Ricardo's dead wife.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

bruinfan said:


> i'm of the opinion that jacob and mib are not being shoehorned into the storyline... they are an integral part of the storyline.. always has been... it's just their Act the last 2 seasons... jacob has been around since season 2... and smokey has been around from the pilot...
> 
> but then again... i'm in the "there was always a plan" camp. as evidenced by the cave, adam and eve, and the rocks....


I think there always was a plan too. I just think that if Jacob and MiB were always part of it, they did a really poor job of integrating them into the narrative. If the culmination of six seasons of mystery is going to be explained (at least partially) by the interactions of these characters, wouldn't it make sense to have these characters present before the end of season five?


jkeegan said:


> So I have one idea that might help reconcile my problems between the ancient cave carving of a smoke monster and the seemingly simple explanation that throwing MiB into the cave "made" the smoke monster...
> 
> ...maybe those were different smoke monsters.. Maybe waaaaay in the past in Egyptian times someone went into the cave, and became a smoke monster.. Maybe someone later managed to figure out a way to kill that smoke monster, and then warned all future protectors not to let anyone go into the cave (and they even carved a nice picture of it into the temple to warn people).
> 
> ...


What I think you're missing here is that the Temple didn't exist at the time when Jacob and Smokey were kids. MiB said he'd been all over the Island looking for the cave and had never found it. Do we really think that those people would have been living in grass huts if there was a Temple available to move into? Therefore, I think it's pretty clear that the Temple was built, and the carving was made, after MiB turned into the Smoke Monster.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

philw1776 said:


> If physical interaction by 'ghosts' is the issue, didn't Christian help Locke up when he fell down the well shaft? Didn't Ricardo feel his dead wife's touch on his cheek? Maybe not, but I thought so.


As to the first one, Christian specifically did NOT help Locke up.. Locke asked, and he said sorry, no, can't help.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

jkeegan said:


> As to the first one, Christian specifically did NOT help Locke up.. Locke asked, and he said sorry, no, can't help.


...that having been said, I feel 100% sure that the Christian in the cave telling Locke to fix the wheel was smokey, either as a projection of some kind or actually as him.

As to why he said he couldn't help him, who knows.. Misdirection maybe? Or maybe it just had to be Locke's free will for some reason, to satisfy the later rule about too much involvement in a chain of effects that kills your brother..


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

philw1776 said:


> Not anymore. I agree that Christian was MiB.
> 
> I agree about the 2 different manifestations of Ricardo's dead wife.


I'm still lost (no pun intended) on how MIB could become Ricardo's dead wife. Is her body on the island somewhere?


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

danterner said:


> I'm not sure whether Christian was a ghost or MIB at that point. You think a ghost?
> 
> As for Richard's wife, I think part of the time we saw her she was a ghost (for example, Hurley's conversation with her and Richard at the end of the episode - when she touched his cheek - but I think earlier in the episode (while Richard was still in chains) she was actually MIB.


The problem with this was that while we saw her talking to Richard, we heard a smoke monster outside the ship.

Maybe this is the best evidence yet (which is still not great evidence) that Jacob-after-drinking and Mother were smoke monsters too, even if they don't take that shape often. But I'm still not convinced, since Jacob leaves the island, etc.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> ...that having been said, I feel 100% sure that the Christian in the cave telling Locke to fix the wheel was smokey, either as a projection of some kind or actually as him.
> 
> As to why he said he couldn't help him, who knows.. Misdirection maybe? Or maybe it just had to be Locke's free will for some reason, to satisfy the later rule about too much involvement in a chain of effects that kills your brother..


I think he just wanted John Locke to think he was a ghost.

On the freewill thing, Smokey told Ben "we're going to kill Jacob," and then handed him the dagger. I'd say that's lots more direct than helping John get up so he can turn the wheel so he can go die so his body can come back so smokey can take its form so he can tell Ben that they're going to kill Jacob.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> What I think you're missing here is that the Temple didn't exist at the time when Jacob and Smokey were kids. MiB said he'd been all over the Island looking for the cave and had never found it. Do we really think that those people would have been living in grass huts if there was a Temple available to move into? Therefore, I think it's pretty clear that the Temple was built, and the carving was made, after MiB turned into the Smoke Monster.


I'm of the opinion that when the writers are showing us hieroglyphics that's their way of showing us that that area is REALLY OLD, like older than Mother, Jacob, and MiB. Someone leaked here spoiler free that the Jorge leaked that the script said that this episode was around 2000 years ago from now.. I think that at least the "underneath" part of the temple (where there were hieroglyphics) was built pre-Mother/Jacob/MiB. And we saw Ben/Richard/etc all living in huts and not going to the temple, until they felt they needed to.

The other part of that cave painting was described by lostpedia as an "Anubis-like figure" (insert joke about our own Anubis here). Looks a bit like Tawaret..

Do we really think that within the past 2000 years someone built a huge egyptian Tawaret statue on the beach?

That stuff is OLD.

I think the temple DID exist when Jacob and Smokey were kids.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

aindik said:


> On the freewill thing, Smokey told Ben "we're going to kill Jacob," and then handed him the dagger. I'd say that's lots more direct than helping John get up so he can turn the wheel so he can go die so his body can come back so smokey can take its form so he can tell Ben that they're going to kill Jacob.


Good point.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> I'm of the opinion that when the writers are showing us hieroglyphics that's their way of showing us that that area is REALLY OLD, like older than Mother, Jacob, and MiB. Someone leaked here spoiler free that the Jorge leaked that the script said that this episode was around 2000 years ago from now.. I think that at least the "underneath" part of the temple (where there were hieroglyphics) was built pre-Mother/Jacob/MiB. And we saw Ben/Richard/etc all living in huts and not going to the temple, until they felt they needed to.
> 
> The other part of that cave painting was described by lostpedia as an "Anubis-like figure" (insert joke about our own Anubis here). Looks a bit like Tawaret..
> 
> ...


Totally disagree. I think Jacob and MiB would have seen more evidence of civilization on the Island if that were the case. However, we know that MiB specifically searched the entire Island during the 30 years after he left his "family." I think if he'd have found evidence of prior civilizations, that would have been mentioned.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> Totally disagree. I think Jacob and MiB would have seen more evidence of civilization on the Island if that were the case. However, we know that MiB specifically searched the entire Island during the 30 years after he left his "family." I think if he'd have found evidence of prior civilizations, that would have been mentioned.


As to the first part of what you're saying, we know where Mother and the kids lived - the caves where the 815'ers lived, which was apparently nowhere near the statue.. and the kids were specifically told not to visit the other side of the island.

As for your second point, I do agree that if MiB saw a big statue that maybe he'd mention it to Jacob, and that it might be meaningful to show us that conversation.. but I still can't see someone building a huge honkin egyptian-style statue post-Mother without knowledge of Egypt, complete with hieroglyphics if one didn't know about hieroglyphics.. where did they get the knowledge of those from?

Maybe the reason they didn't show us MiB telling Jacob "hey there's a statue with weird lettering/pictures in it" is to preserve some reveal in the remaining 3.5 hours..


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

Wow, took me two days just to catch up on reading this thread. A few thoughts...

First, I enjoyed this episode. H*ll, I enjoy *every *LOST episode. LOST is a lot like sex; even when it's bad, it's still good. I enjoyed learning about Jacob and MiB, and believe this episode will have some play over the last 3.5 hours.

Put me in the "Smokey is the MiB" school. Not a one-for-one MiB=Smokey equation, but IMHO he did turn into Smokey. His body died, but that is him inside Smokey. Not sure why so many doubt this. He's even said (as FLocke this season) things like " I had a crazy mother too". And we heard his fake mom say you don't die in the cave, but something terrible happens to you.

I lean towards fake mom (step-mom?) having been thru the cave experience. Several reasons why: She knew what happens when you enter it. She was able to kill an entire camp of people. She said Thank You when she died; she was obviously tired and ready to go (think FLocke).



BrandonRe said:


> Like many others, I am in the WTF camp regarding the portrayal of MIB vs. the claims by the producers that his motivations have been shown to be evil. I certainly didn't get that from this episode.


Highly suggest you read Alan Sepinwall's interview with CC & DL (also referenced earlier in this thread). They cover this exact subject.


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> Do we really think that within the past 2000 years someone built a huge egyptian Tawaret statue on the beach?
> 
> That stuff is OLD.
> 
> I think the temple DID exist when Jacob and Smokey were kids.





jkeegan said:


> As for your second point, I do agree that if MiB saw a big statue that maybe he'd mention it to Jacob, and that it might be meaningful to show us that conversation.


Since ancient Egyptian culture was about 5000 years ago, and Jacob and MiB were about 2000 years old, and the Tawaret statue survived until the Black Rock bumped into it a mere 140 years ago, it may have been from "Mother's" time. She was speaking ancient Latin, apparently, and may have been on the island for 3000 years, for all we know.

We do know that Smokey/MiB and Jacob hung out in the shadow of the statue within the last 140 years. And since there was a doorway at the foot of the statue, why didn't Mother and the boys live there 2000 years ago?

Hmmm ...


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

astrohip said:


> Highly suggest you read Alan Sepinwall's interview with CC & DL (also referenced earlier in this thread). They cover this exact subject.


So after reading that article,


Spoiler



who actually believes that we WILL see a resolution to the outrigger scene?


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> So after reading that article,
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...


Not me. They're occasionally coy about things they don't want to give away, but in this instance, they were pretty matter of fact. It simply didn't work to create that scene and work it into this season's plot, so they scrapped it.

But that conversation did raise a good point, which I've been discussing with a friend. Darlton said they did know exactly who was in the other boat and why they were shooting. However, they simply couldn't work it into an episode. So that got me thinking about how episodic TV is not really the best medium for presenting an epic story like this. There are too many limitations on what stories can be told, based on whether they fit into production, or fit into the theme of a specific episode, etc. Because of this, I'd really like the producers of LOST to someday write a novelization of the story, and include all those little tidbits that the writers agreed were part of the story, but which simply couldn't be included in an episode for logistical reasons. I wonder how much more satisfying something like that would be.


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

I was going to keep it to myself, but I need to share. I was listening to Jorje Garcia's podcast today, and I now know how Lost will end.



Spoiler



He mentioned the MiB/Smokey leaving the island, and showing up in Tunisia, so it got me thinking of that, Dharma, time travel, and the 70s.

If MiB gets off the island, and gets to Tunisia, he just might land in the 70s. If he's in Tunisia in, say, 1976-1977, he'd need a human form, so he'd take that of a young filmmaker, who will later unleash Jar Jar Binks onto humanity.

Therefore, Hurley will take Jacob's place, because he knows the importance of keeping that from happening.



Greg


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

We saw MIB referred to as "special" a couple of times in this episode. The other person we've seen referred to as "special" is Desmond. He's special because he can withstand large amounts of electromagnetic radiation. (He's also "special" because the "rules don't apply" to him, but those might just be the time travel rules).

I predict that the endgame will involve Desmond going into the light cave.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Walt was special too, and an entire episode was named about him.


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## stellie93 (Feb 25, 2006)

Amnesia said:


> I'm still confused about why you're so certain that you can tell a good Latin accent from a bad one. Are you saying that her accent wasn't like the Latin heard in a 21st century Catholic mass? Who is to say which is correct?
> 
> And perhaps she wasn't speaking Latin at all, but rather the language from which Latin devolved...


It has been established that this took place about 2000 years ago during the time of the Roman Empire when Latin was spoken almost everywhere. Jorge said in his podcast that there was a Latin expert there advising them. So those who disliked her accent can address your complaints to him.  By the way, someone else was born about 2000 years ago.....



gchance said:


> Nope. In fact, Locke DID ask him for help, and he responded that he was sorry but couldn't.
> 
> Not sure about this one, I'd have to check on it. I do know though that it was pretty obvious that Christian COULDN'T help him up.
> 
> Greg


So Smokey can throw people across the room, but not help them up. Maybe he just can't do gentle. 



jkeegan said:


> As for your second point, I do agree that if MiB saw a big statue that maybe he'd mention it to Jacob, and that it might be meaningful to show us that conversation.. but I still can't see someone building a huge honkin egyptian-style statue post-Mother without knowledge of Egypt, complete with hieroglyphics if one didn't know about hieroglyphics..


Agreed--if it was there it would be cool to see it in passing. But maybe a group of Egyptian experts came later to build the statue and try to steal the light. Elena seemed to know a lot about the statue. Maybe she was descended from that group. Much like Dharma came later and tried to study the island.

It seems contradictory--first the island was all about corking the evil and not letting it out. Now it's light, and we want to keep people from taking too much. Jacob makes it seem like his whole mission is to keep Smokey from escaping. Was Mother's mission different?


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

stellie93 said:


> It seems contradictory--first the island was all about corking the evil and not letting it out. Now it's light, and we want to keep people from taking too much. Jacob makes it seem like his whole mission is to keep Smokey from escaping. Was Mother's mission different?


He's had three missions, all conflicting with each other:
a) keep people away from the light
b) keep Smokey from escaping
c) prove MIB wrong about people all being corruptable


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> Walt was special too, and an entire episode was named about him.


Sometimes on this show I think some of the characters were created or altered because actors playing other characters had to leave the show. I think there's some stuff in Sayid's stories that looks like it was meant for Eko. I think the stuff the Ilana character did was meant to be done by Anna-Lucia. Maybe Desmond was created to take over what they had planned for Walt.


----------



## anuyag (Apr 18, 2006)

I agree.



cheesesteak said:


> A tremendously disappointing episode. A couple of answers and a metric ton of nebulous and unsatisfying fantasy. At least, Lost strayed true to form - the mother wouldn't give her sons any frickin' straight answers either.


----------



## Queue (Apr 7, 2009)

Philosofy said:


> I will make a guess that the Island is Eden, and the cave of light is the tree of knowledge.


Hm, I could see that, but I think it would be the Tree of Life.


----------



## Roadblock (Apr 5, 2006)

astrohip said:


> Highly suggest you read Alan Sepinwall's interview with CC & DL (also referenced earlier in this thread). They cover this exact subject.


From that interview:



Spoiler



Okay, you've now said at a couple of points here that you're not going to reveal the name of the Man in Black. Is there a significance to that, or you've just decided you prefer the air of mystery it gives the character to not give him a name?

CC: I think for us to explain why we're not giving him a name veers too far into the territory of explaining things that we don't feel the need to explain.



Lame.


----------



## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

A friend directed me to this - apparently it was on Jimmy Kimmel the other night. Pretty funny stuff.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

"Pretty sneaky, bro."


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

jkeegan said:


> The other part of that cave painting was described by lostpedia as an "Anubis-like figure" (insert joke about our own Anubis here). Looks a bit like Tawaret..
> 
> Do we really think that within the past 2000 years someone built a huge egyptian Tawaret statue on the beach?


I never even considered Taweret...it's Anubis...

at first glance, Anubis was in the God position (usually on the right) and the smoke was approaching him...but then when I looked closer, Anubis is on one knee with hand extended to the smoke monster (in a clear offering gesture)...SM is even in a higher position than me...er...Anubis 

very unusual relief...if I were interpreting this, I would say SM has defeated Anubis...


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> Not me. They're occasionally coy about things they don't want to give away, but in this instance, they were pretty matter of fact. It simply didn't work to create that scene and work it into this season's plot, so they scrapped it.
> 
> But that conversation did raise a good point, which I've been discussing with a friend. Darlton said they did know exactly who was in the other boat and why they were shooting. However, they simply couldn't work it into an episode. So that got me thinking about how episodic TV is not really the best medium for presenting an epic story like this. There are too many limitations on what stories can be told, based on whether they fit into production, or fit into the theme of a specific episode, etc. Because of this, I'd really like the producers of LOST to someday write a novelization of the story, and include all those little tidbits that the writers agreed were part of the story, but which simply couldn't be included in an episode for logistical reasons. I wonder how much more satisfying something like that would be.


Yeah, Lost might have made a better book than a TV show. But not after the TV show.


----------



## MonsterJoe (Feb 19, 2003)

I think this was the first time I ever fell asleep during a Lost episode.


----------



## chrispitude (Apr 23, 2005)

GDG76 said:


> I'm convinced they could film Vincent taking a dump for an hour and some people would consider it brilliant just because it is Lost, and they must know what they are doing..


4 piles here... 8 piles there...


----------



## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

danterner said:


> A friend directed me to this - apparently it was on Jimmy Kimmel the other night. Pretty funny stuff.


Now THAT'S classic. I love the fact that Kimmel has such great access, heh.

Greg


----------



## MonsterJoe (Feb 19, 2003)

Ok ...I'm going to try this again.


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

can someone give me the reader's digest version of what is going on for the Finale?

I've seen bits and pieces about a pre-show, an extended show, then something with Jimmy Kimmel...what is everyone watching that evening?


----------



## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

Anubys said:


> can someone give me the reader's digest version of what is going on for the Finale?
> 
> I've seen bits and pieces about a pre-show, an extended show, then something with Jimmy Kimmel...what is everyone watching that evening?


http://lost.about.com/b/2010/05/08/lost-finale-schedule.htm


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

danterner said:


> http://lost.about.com/b/2010/05/08/lost-finale-schedule.htm


thanks...how the heck do they expect us to work on Monday?!

what is so special about having a Finale on Sunday? Survivor does that as well...very frustrating...


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> Darlton said they did know exactly who was in the other boat and why they were shooting. However, they simply couldn't work it into an episode.


You know, they did say they weren't doing more after the finale, but I wonder if they might be doing extra stuff that will be released later on the DVDs and Blu-rays. It would be cool if they did tie up some of the smaller loose ends in shorts that couldn't fit into the episodes.


----------



## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

Heads up, everyone, they showed Tuesday night's episode in its entirety at the Lost Live event last night. Spoilers abound online, so watch your back.  I didn't, and it wasn't simple spoilers, it was pretty stinkin' detailed.

Greg


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Anubys said:


> what is so special about having a Finale on Sunday? Survivor does that as well...very frustrating...


They get an extra hour of prime time on Sundays.


----------



## TheMerk (Feb 26, 2001)

gchance said:


> Heads up, everyone, they showed Tuesday night's episode in its entirety at the Lost Live event last night. Spoilers abound online, so watch your back.  I didn't, and it wasn't simple spoilers, it was pretty stinkin' detailed.
> 
> Greg


Thanks for the heads up! I'm sorry you got spoiled


----------



## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

stellie93 said:


> Jorge said in his podcast that there was a Latin expert there advising them. So those who disliked her accent can address your complaints to him.


Someone who is fluent in what should be their native tongue ("Mother" tongue) expresses a fluidity of speech which Janney clearly did not portray. During the recent Winter Olympics Closing Ceremonies, there was one speaker who was clearly reading a (cringe-worthy) phonetic version of a speech in French, and he was followed by another speaker whose native language was French. The second speaker's speech in French flowed easily from his lips. Even for any non-French speaking audience member, it was extremely clear as to which speaker was comfortable with the language.



stellie93 said:


> By the way, someone else was born about 2000 years ago.....


I don't recall any classical depictions of Jesus or his disciples wearing pants ... and pretty much all the men had full beards back in the day (before vibrating razors with not one or two, but FIVE blades ) ...



stellie93 said:


> So Smokey can throw people across the room, but not help them up. Maybe he just can't do gentle.


 :up:



BitbyBlit said:


> You know, they did say they weren't doing more after the finale, but I wonder if they might be doing extra stuff that will be released later on the DVDs and Blu-rays. It would be cool if they did tie up some of the smaller loose ends in shorts that couldn't fit into the episodes.


Like they had done early on in the series, but these only added more mystery. Remember the *LOST: Missing Pieces*?


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

gchance said:


> Heads up, everyone, they showed Tuesday night's episode in its entirety at the Lost Live event last night. Spoilers abound online, so watch your back.  I didn't, and it wasn't simple spoilers, it was pretty stinkin' detailed.
> 
> Greg


What's the "Lost Live event?" Never heard of that.


Anubys said:


> thanks...how the heck do they expect us to work on Monday?!
> 
> what is so special about having a Finale on Sunday? Survivor does that as well...very frustrating...


Traditionally, Sunday is the day with the highest overall viewership. Also, it's a day when the networks can more easily move other shows around to accommodate these finales (Survivor can air on Sunday, because The Amazing Race, Undercover Boss and Cold Case are already done for the season; on ABC, Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters are airing their season finales this Sunday). Finally, LOST will get much higher viewership and ratings on Sunday than it will on Tuesday, May 25th, which is the final performance night for American Idol.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> What's the "Lost Live event?" Never heard of that.


There was a live event in Los Angeles last night, which had (apparently among other things) a live performance of the LOST score, by an orchestra conducted by the composer of the score. Members of the cast were also there.



DevdogAZ said:


> Traditionally, Sunday is the day with the highest overall viewership. Also, it's a day when the networks can more easily move other shows around to accommodate these finales (Survivor can air on Sunday, because The Amazing Race, Undercover Boss and Cold Case are already done for the season; on ABC, Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters are airing their season finales this Sunday). Finally, LOST will get much higher viewership and ratings on Sunday than it will on Tuesday, May 25th, which is the final performance night for American Idol.


Of course, if they hadn't done a rerun a couple of weeks ago, they could have run the finale on Tuesday, May 18.


----------



## anuyag (Apr 18, 2006)

agreed



uncdrew said:


> Erf... about 10 minutes in I realized the Losties wouldn't be shown this episode. :down:
> 
> I thought it was a lame episode, with a sad, obvious and predictable storyline. Nothing shown meant much of anything to me. A few answers (which I personally didn't need), and a few more questions (which I personally didn't need). I would have greatly preferred most on our Losties than spending one of the last few hours on that storyline.
> 
> I'm afraid I'll need to find the season finale of Six Feet Under and have that at the ready.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

aindik said:


> Of course, if they hadn't done a rerun a couple of weeks ago, they could have run the finale on Tuesday, May 18.


But they wouldn't have had two hours of primetime before the episode to devote to series retrospectives.


----------



## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

getreal said:


> I don't recall any classical depictions of Jesus or his disciples wearing pants ... and pretty much all the men had full beards back in the day (before vibrating razors with not one or two, but FIVE blades ) ...


They could have used the Charlton Heston method.











aindik said:


> Of course, if they hadn't done a rerun a couple of weeks ago, they could have run the finale on Tuesday, May 18.


Yes but then it wouldn't have been at the end of May sweeps.

Greg


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> But they wouldn't have had two hours of primetime before the episode to devote to series retrospectives.


EDIT: This is true. They probably could have gotten an hour in, but not two. Which was my original point of why they're running it on a Sunday. To get the extra hour.



gchance said:


> Yes but then it wouldn't have been at the end of May sweeps.


Why does it matter if it's at the end of May sweeps as opposed to the middle?


----------



## mostman (Jul 16, 2000)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Jacob is capable of becoming a "White Smoke Monster". That's how the village got torched. I think Mother was also a White Smoke Monster. The Black Smoke Monster was stuck, locked up, in the cave - no body to transform into. 

The protector (White Smoke Monster) has to keep it in there - if it is released, the world ends. Jacob accidentally freed the Black Smoke Monster by 'feeding' it the body of his brother. His brothers soul is absolutely retained within the Black Smoke Monster.

Now Jacob must keep the Black Smoke Monster on the island, and hopefully get it back into the cave. Only the protector can do this. Only an incorruptible person can be the protector. Jacob has been looking for a new protector, while the Black Smoke Monster has been trying to stop the crowning of a new protector by corrupting everyone.

Edit: by the way - I absolutely expect the White Smoke Monster to be revealed at some point.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Might that white smoke monster possibly at times look like.. a snowman?

What did one snowman say to the other?


----------



## jking (Mar 23, 2005)

I've heard a lot of speculation that Fake Mom might have been a smoke monster based on the idea that she wouldn't otherwise have been able to lay waste to the village like she did. I can see the logic in this line of thinking, because it sure looked a lot like smoke monster damage. But at the same time, we don't really know the extent of the powers she might have had, or that Jacob had once he took over the job. There's nothing to say she couldn't have destroyed that village with a simple wave of her hand, and not have to be a smoke monster, black or white. Jacob could have this same power, and just choose not to use it.


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## anuyag (Apr 18, 2006)

This sentiment comes close to how I and a lot of other folks I get to talk to around the water cooler feel. Everyone loves the show but it seems like this whole Jacob/MIB theme came across as contrived and inorganic.



GDG76 said:


> I still feel like they wasted so much time with so many things - Dharma, Widmore, the hatches, the food drops, the lack of ability to have babies, Jacob's lists and how the Others came to possess them, the time travel qualities of the island (Faraday's rocket), Ben Linus' girlfriend, smokey scanning peoples souls, the temple, Walt being special, the numbers, etc.. and none of them really matter at all or will be answered trivially (like the dead person whispers)
> 
> I still love the show and enjoyed this episode for what it was...but I do feel like some of the episodes and ideas they introduced in previous seasons were a big waste of time... maybe I just feel this way because I spent so much time trying to figure out the mysteries that seem to not matter...


----------



## vman (Feb 9, 2001)

jkeegan said:


> Might that white smoke monster possibly at times look like.. a snowman?


Or maybe a polar bear!


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> Might that white smoke monster possibly at times look like.. a snowman?
> 
> What did one snowman say to the other?


A polar bear


----------



## T-Wolves (Aug 22, 2000)

jkeegan said:


> ...What did one snowman say to the other?


- "*Don't tell me what I can't do*, Frosty!"
- "*What happened, happened*, carrot-nose!"
- "*If we can't live together, we'll* melt *alone*."
- "*Guys, where are we?* In the frickin' tropics?"
- "*Wallllllttt!* Stop Vincent from peeing on me!"


----------



## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> What did one snowman say to the other?


Does it smell like carrots in here?


----------



## Queue (Apr 7, 2009)

Possible smeek.

Maybe smokey doesn't want to destroy the world or he won't have that effect.

Season finale last year, smokey said, They come, they kill, they destroy, it always ends the same.

Fake mom said that to the two little boys. She's trying to prevent people from coming to the island. But Jacob is bringing people. He doesn't seem to be attempting to protect the island, he's trying to prove MiB wrong.

There doesn't seem to be enough info to even attempt a guess.

Or maybe he's trying to prove his fake mom wrong too?


----------



## avery (May 29, 2006)

jking said:


> I've heard a lot of speculation that Fake Mom might have been a smoke monster based on the idea that she wouldn't otherwise have been able to lay waste to the village like she did. I can see the logic in this line of thinking, because it sure looked a lot like smoke monster damage. But at the same time, we don't really know the extent of the powers she might have had, or that Jacob had once he took over the job. There's nothing to say she couldn't have destroyed that village with a simple wave of her hand, and not have to be a smoke monster, black or white. Jacob could have this same power, and just choose not to use it.


After discussing the possibilities of Mother= Smoke Monster with a friend, she sent me the following. [it's from a viewer's recap - full write-up at the link below, if interested]

"Cue spooky music change, and enter our oldest LOST character to date - 'mother'. Right away, we should know who this really is. We're given a tremendous clue as Claudia stops to drink from a stream: the overhead reflection that startles her is nearly identical to a scene in The Cost of Living. In that episode, Mr. Eko is drinking from a similar stream when he sees the reflection of the smoke monster looming over him."

I missed these first few minutes, so didn't see this part. [visiting my mother, who verifies the start of her imposed silence by coming into room where I'm watching to ask if *it* started yet... _and it usually has_ ] Don't think it's been mentioned here - if accurate. Can anyone confirm the mirroring of these two scenes?

http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2010/05/things-i-noticed-across-sea-by-vozzek69.html


----------



## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

hefe said:


> This, this, a thousand times, this!


But I actually liked Matrix 2, mostly for that incredible chase scene but, also, for the Architect's speech.

Can't disagree with the others, though.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

anuyag said:


> This sentiment comes close to how I and a lot of other folks I get to talk to around the water cooler feel. Everyone loves the show but it seems like this whole Jacob/MIB theme came across as contrived and inorganic.


yup


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

aindik said:


> EDIT: This is true. They probably could have gotten an hour in, but not two. Which was my original point of why they're running it on a Sunday. To get the extra hour.


Plus they get to show the finale on the 23rd. If they wanted to be even cooler, they would have started it at 4:42 PM (a.k.a, 16:42).



getreal said:


> Like they had done early on in the series, but these only added more mystery. Remember the *LOST: Missing Pieces*?


Well, hopefully they don't feel the need to continue expanding the mystery after the show is over. But then again, maybe they do. I guess we'll see what the finale is like.


----------



## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

avery said:


> After discussing the possibilities of Mother= Smoke Monster with a friend, she sent me the following:
> 
> http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2010/05/things-i-noticed-across-sea-by-vozzek69.html


That was a very interesting read. Thanks for the link, avery. :up:
Having just finished reading that blog, I will rewatch the episode with a renewed perspective.



BitbyBlit said:


> Well, hopefully they don't feel the need to continue expanding the mystery after the show is over. But then again, maybe they do. I guess we'll see what the finale is like.


The End is the end. They will not be re-hiring the cast & crew for new stuff. Period.


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

I think there is a new phrase rivaling "jumped the shark" in my list of most hated phrases of all time: "They're not gonna 'spoon-feed' everything!"... In my many Lost related discussions this past week online and in reality, most people I talked to felt the same was as I did about this episode, in that it really didn't deliver, but there are a lot of people who's argument is that the writer's aren't gonna "spoon-feed" us information, as if what they've given us is so deeply cerebral that only scholars can understand it. 

I love Lost, it's obviously one of the most original and cools shows of all time. What I don't love is the idea that they have set up some of the coolest story lines and mysteries and will likely (/possibly) not pay off any of them, and that people will consider it brilliant. I don't give a crap about the Hurley bird, or some kid Ben knew when he was 10 years old, and I don't think they need to explain why women can't get pregnant. Dharma is interesting, but we've seen their complete on-island arc. 

But stuff like exact what the smoke monster is and exactly how it getting free will *end the world* is a big one. Also things like Walt's specialness, the absolute conviction that Claire has to raise Aaron, the existence of a lighthouse that somehow show's specific people's lives as if it's a TV monitor, the origin, existence, and world-wide scope of The Others, and countless other things--I feel like these should be paid off. I don't think it's unreasonable to watch a show, get engrossed in it, and expect that it will make sense in the end. That is the writer's job, not mine. 

It's like a writer writing a movie script, then stopping before the third act and saying "Eh, I'll let the audience figure it out!!"-- how does that make sense? If it did I would definitely be a writer. Anyone can come up with cool concepts and mysteries, etc, but it's the payoff that ties it together. It just bugs me when people act like you're an idiot because you don't think you should be doing the writer's job. I think they've come up with awesome stories and I think as the show rounds to an end, they should be closing those stories up, not ignoring them. Open new ones, fine, but address the ones that already exist.

Just my long, drawn out opinion.


----------



## fliptheflop (Sep 20, 2005)

mrdazzo7 said:


> I think there is a new phrase rivaling "jumped the shark" in my list of most hated phrases of all time: "They're not gonna 'spoon-feed' everything!"... In my many Lost related discussions this past week online and in reality, most people I talked to felt the same was as I did about this episode, in that it really didn't deliver, but there are a lot of people who's argument is that the writer's aren't gonna "spoon-feed" us information, as if what they've given us is so deeply cerebral that only scholars can understand it.
> 
> I love Lost, it's obviously one of the most original and cools shows of all time. What I don't love is the idea that they have set up some of the coolest story lines and mysteries and will likely (/possibly) not pay off any of them, and that people will consider it brilliant. I don't give a crap about the Hurley bird, or some kid Ben knew when he was 10 years old, and I don't think they need to explain why women can't get pregnant. Dharma is interesting, but we've seen their complete on-island arc.
> 
> ...


+1


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

It is gearing up for one of the biggest flop endings ever. I really, really, really hope they can make it end with a bang.

So many episodes were so good. I think they can do it.


----------



## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> It is gearing up for one of the biggest flop endings ever. I really, really, really hope they can make it end with a bang.
> 
> So many episodes were so good. I think they can do it.


The episodes of the first season of Battlestar Galactica, and many subsequent episodes are still great, even though it turns out there was no plan, no satisfying conclusion. If you've liked Lost, and so many people have, that enjoyment of what you've experienced should not be diminished if the ending falls flat. It was what it was.

Personally I think the series has been a big joke, an extremely well-crafted and somewhat amusing one, so I've got nothing to lose from the ending. Lame will just reinforce my conception that the audience has been played. A conclusion that in fact molds what has come before into something excitingly cohesive will open up a whole new view of it, to me; hell I'd probably watch the whole thing again, over time.


----------



## stellie93 (Feb 25, 2006)

I re-watched today, looking for some of the things talked about here. I think she did a pretty good job of spitting out the Latin. But when she gave Jacob the cup to drink, she mumbled something, I think in Latin. Did anybody get that?

Supporting the idea that she was Smokey herself, when she showed the boys the light, she said it is the "warmest light you've ever seen or felt." So how does she know what it feels like unless she's been in there? 

The whole Jacob and Esau thing is out, because Esau was born first. He was the real heir, but he gave away his birthright to Jacob. Here Bib was the second baby. 

Mother tells them that people can't actually get the light, but they can "put it out"
I wonder how that would happen? Mib leaving the island because he has some of it in him? If the island was underwater (like in the sideways) it would be much less likely to be found. But someone like Widmore might still find the unusual readings in the ocean. 

I'm still keeping the faith that the ending will be awesome. But if it's not, it will be the first episode I haven't enjoyed in 6 years, so I can't say I've wasted my time.


----------



## jking (Mar 23, 2005)

stellie93 said:


> I'm still keeping the faith that the ending will be awesome. But if it's not, it will be the first episode I haven't enjoyed in 6 years, so I can't say I've wasted my time.


:up:

I've always thought of LOST as a novel. Even when people I know were bailing on it years ago because of all the unanswered questions building up, I told them, "You wouldn't skip to the final chapter of a book you were reading... so why get all PO'd about this? Wait until the novel is complete." That's how I've always felt about the show, and how I still feel. This episode might not have made a lot of sense to some, and may even seem out of place, but until we see the final chapter next week, how can we know how it will fit into the big picture? And if it doesn't fit, or if the ending isn't as great as I expected it to be, yes I will be disappointed. But I won't be rioting in the streets.

I have a friend who started working at my office 4 years ago, and pretty much every day after LOST has aired for roughly the past 4 years, we've sat at lunch and discussed what happened the night before, our theories, etc. We've built a friendship that will still be there after LOST is finished. No matter how good or bad the series ends, it doesn't negate the good "water cooler" discussions I've had with her, or with the great friends I've made here for that matter.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

73 hours, 19 minutes (until 2.5 hours left).


----------



## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

avery said:


> After discussing the possibilities of Mother= Smoke Monster with a friend, she sent me the following. [it's from a viewer's recap - full write-up at the link below, if interested]
> 
> http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2010/05/things-i-noticed-across-sea-by-vozzek69.html


This is a fantastic read. Right or wrong, it's well thought out. And it answers something that had been puzzling me--why didn't Mother kill MiB? She had the chance, but only knocked him out, and then dragged him to the destroyed village. Why?


----------



## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

Wil said:


> The episodes of the first season of Battlestar Galactica, and many subsequent episodes are still great, even though it turns out there was no plan, no satisfying conclusion. If you've liked Lost, and so many people have, that enjoyment of what you've experienced should not be diminished if the ending falls flat. It was what it was.


I kind of disagree with this... Lost is like a book or even a movie in that I think it *is* dependent on the ending to a degree. I've seen plenty of good movies ruined with horrible endings, and it ruins the whole movie, no matter how good the rest was. This is a bit different because it's spread out and has years of great viewing in between, but if the final reveals and the ending are horrible, I think it would definitely taint what's come before, because it's all connected.

It's not like say 24... if 24's ending absolutely sucks, it won't diminish prior seasons because they're only loosely connected to each other. I think Darlton painted themselves into a corner because they flat out never closed or resolved anything on this damn show, and as a result there is so much more riding on these last few episodes than there would be otherwise.

I know they were in a tricky spot early on w/o knowing how long it would air, but in my opinion once they worked out the "three seasons" bit, they should have planned on resolving stuff throughout, this way the ending could just focus on the current story and there would be no pressure to tie stuff up. The biggest mistake they made was spending 2/3 of season five in the damn 70's.



> This episode might not have made a lot of sense to some, and may even seem out of place, but until we see the final chapter next week, how can we know how it will fit into the big picture?


Agreed. It's like leaving a movie with 20 minutes left then complaining that you didn't like the ending. I've complained about the previous episode but I readily admit that it may all become clear in the next couple. I just have my doubts given how much "present day" crap they have to get to in that time.


----------



## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

mrdazzo7 said:


> Darlton painted themselves into a corner because they flat out never closed or resolved anything on this damn show


Do you have a selective memory or something? They've closed out PLENTY on the show. The whole Dharma initiative for one. We know what ultimately happened to them. We know what the whispers in the Jungle are. We know essentially what Smokey is... Evil MIB leftovers from being shoved down a magic energy hole. We know what they have to do. Protect the magic energy from evil men, and keep Smokey on the island (or ideally destroy him), or something bad will happen to the rest of the world. We know why there were/are polar bears on the island. We know how the plane crashed. We know the typing numbers into the computer actually did something. We know that Ben ultimately was full of crap and Jacob never actually talked to him. We know Richard's history. We know that Smokey could, and did, take on the guise of dead people on the island (he was Christian, for example). They've certainly closed out Jin and Sun's story. James finally got revenge and killed Sawyer. They wrapped up Kate's being hunted for murder story. Oh... Hey Lassie! What's that girl? Oh yeah, we know that Desmond is sitting at the bottom of a well somewhere waiting to be rescued. Okay, I was flip on the last one.

Those are just off the top of my head. The writers are being incredibly straightforward with his right now, but like true Lost fans, people are reading WAY more into it than they intended, and aren't satisfied. Not really their fault, I guess, they've been trained to do that so far. But really, THE WRITERS DON'T HAVE TIME TO **** AROUND or be evasive about stuff. They've said to us, "Don't ask any more questions, we'll provide what answers we can work into the important drama of the characters who first crashed on the island." They're giving as much as they can to us as straight as they can without the show totally turning into total exposition.

But essentially we know what has to happen in the final hours of the show. Now we enjoy (or not, apparently) how they resolve the remaining big questions... HOW are they going to protect the island and deal with the MIB, and how does the alternaverse fit into everything.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

Peter000 said:


> We know essentially what Smokey is... Evil MIB leftovers from being shoved down a magic energy hole


Well, that clears THAT up.

If we're going to be this easily satisfied I think 2 1/2 hours for the finale is overkill.

One scene is all it would take. A closeup of Hugo as he has a moment of realization! He looks up to the rest of the survivors and says, momentously, voice full of wonder: "It's all ... MAGIC." Cut to the Bad Robot.


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## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

Anubys said:


> can someone give me the reader's digest version of what is going on for the Finale?





danterner said:


> http://lost.about.com/b/2010/05/08/lost-finale-schedule.htm





Anubys said:


> thanks...how the heck do they expect us to work on Monday?!


Some of you are working on that Monday? What are sick days and vacation days for? I've known for years I wouldn't be working the day after the LOST finale.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

Wil said:


> Well, that clears THAT up.
> 
> If we're going to be this easily satisfied I think 2 1/2 hours for the finale is overkill.
> 
> One scene is all it would take. A closeup of Hugo as he has a moment of realization! He looks up to the rest of the survivors and says, momentously, voice full of wonder: "It's all ... MAGIC." Cut to the Bad Robot.


Well, y'know, it pretty much is magic at this point. He fell down a hole and became this weird smoke monster. Don't think there's a good scientific reason for that.

But would you like a fake scientific explanation instead? It'll make just as much sense as Desmond being able to see the future after surviving the Hatch blast, or seeing an alternate reality while being exposed to extreme electromagnetic radiation. Or why typing numbers into a mechanical box kept massive energy at bay below the Swan Station.

MIB went down the hole. "The Force" kept the good stuff and rejected the bad. Or he was broken down into ash, but the life-giving light kept his consciousness alive. Or he broke the box of specially forged metal containing the Smoke monster, and set it free! Or the Smoke monster is from another planet and our sun's yellow radiation makes it more than mere mortal!

What explanation would you like? I'll make it up for you. Do the mechanisms really matter? Maybe they do and we haven't seen it yet. Maybe the whole plot hinges around why the MIB became Smokey. I doubt it though.

The resolution seems to be heading towards a solution of faith, instead of a solution of science.


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## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

Well, I finally watched the episode last night (yep, been a busy week). And I must say, even after reading this thread (which led me to lower my expectations, somewhat), I came away oddly unsatisfied. Casting issues aside, I thought the writing, acting and story-telling were not up to Lost standards. 

All that said, here's where I stand:

1. I agree with those who think that smokey *is* MIB, and not just some ancient smoke monster who took on MiB's personality. When fLocke said how he used to have a body but Jacob took it away, it sounded way too personal. And, of course, he says he just wants to get off the Island and go home -- something MiB mentioned a few times.

2. I agree with those who think "Mother" has been to the whirlpool herself. She may very-well be the smoke monster represented in the temple wall engravings. Or it could have been her predecessor -- point is, MiB is not the first one.

3. I think the wine is symbolic. I think the real clincher is that he has to decide (of his own free will) to remain as the protector of the Island. Not that it really is that important.

4. I like the theory that MiB got split in two down in the whirlpool -- the good part stayed, the evil part came out as smoke. Ties in with that whole "A little bit of it is in everyone". 

I'm looking forward to the next two episodes. Hopefully they resisted the desire to introduce any more new characters and guest-stars and just concentrate on finishing the story(ies) already started.


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## rondotcom (Feb 13, 2005)

Some people (my wife included) have have a neat ending to a TV show or movie. All mysteries solved, all questions answered, "i's" dotted and "T's" crossed. If that's what you want from LOST, you will be extremely disappointed.

My best guess is that the finale may also introduce us to some more mysteries at the end. It will undoubtedly require some thought, some re-watching, and some more thought before we begin to understand what we have just seen.

As maligned as the ending of "The Sopranos" was, it accurately conveyed the paranoia that will follow Tony the rest of his life along with the realization that life could be over in an instant.

If you want all questions answered, spare yourself the headache and skip the finale. The ending of this particular television event will most likely end not with a period, but a question mark.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

getreal said:


> The End is the end. They will not be re-hiring the cast & crew for new stuff. Period.


I didn't mean they would be filming new stuff after the finale. I meant they might have filmed additional stuff that will be released after the finale. At the very least they likely did a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff, but they might have also done some "fill-in-the-missing-pieces-that-we-couldn't-fit-into-the-main-episodes" stuff as well.

And on a different note, I think people are underestimating how connected a lot of these questions are. It is true that a lot of answers to questions have led to more questions, but this evolution of questions has created a connection to previous questions such that unlocking the answers to the final questions will also answer a lot of the earlier ones as well.

For example, once we find out what the alternate universe is, it will lead to answers as to why it was created, which will lead to answers as to what needs to be done to resolve the island situation, which will lead to answers as to what the island situation was in the first place, which will lead to answers as to other things that have happened as part of that situation.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

wprager said:


> I'm looking forward to the next two episodes. Hopefully they resisted the desire to introduce any more new characters and guest-stars and just concentrate on finishing the story(ies) already started.


I'm a little concerned about the rumor that Patrick Duffy is making a guest appearance at the end of the last episode, but I'm sure it will be fine.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> 73 hours, 19 minutes (until 2.5 hours left).


So we get 1 hour Tuesday night and then the rest 5 days later. Is that correct?


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Peter000 said:


> Do you have a selective memory or something? They've closed out PLENTY on the show. *The whole Dharma initiative for one. We know what ultimately happened to them. We know what the whispers in the Jungle are. *We know essentially what Smokey is... Evil MIB leftovers from being shoved down a magic energy hole. We know what they have to do. Protect the magic energy from evil men, and keep Smokey on the island (or ideally destroy him), or something bad will happen to the rest of the world.* We know why there were/are polar bears on the island. *We know how the plane crashed. We know the typing numbers into the computer actually did something. We know that Ben ultimately was full of crap and Jacob never actually talked to him. We know Richard's history. We know that Smokey could, and did, take on the guise of dead people on the island (he was Christian, for example). They've certainly closed out Jin and Sun's story. James finally got revenge and killed Sawyer. *They wrapped up Kate's being hunted for murder story.* Oh... Hey Lassie! What's that girl? Oh yeah, we know that Desmond is sitting at the bottom of a well somewhere waiting to be rescued. Okay, I was flip on the last one.


Can you remind me of those answers? Seriously. I'm blanking.


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## stellie93 (Feb 25, 2006)

Ben and the others killed the Dharma Initiative--at least in this timeline.

The whispers in the jungle are people who died on the island and can't move on--Michael

Dharma brought in the polar bears for experiments. ???

Kate burned the house down around her stepfather (who turned out to be her biological father) because he beat her mother. Her mother turned her in.

1 hour Tuesday and 2 1/2 hours Sunday plus Jimmy Kimmel.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Thank you Stellie


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## madscientist (Nov 12, 2003)

stellie93 said:


> 1 hour Tuesday and 2 1/2 hours Sunday plus Jimmy Kimmel.


Plus two hours of pre-show catch-up content for those who've drifted away, or just can't remember.


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## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

On the question of whether Smokey _is_ MiB, or has simply assumed his body and memories, I think these two possibilities kind of blur together. In one case, MiB gains the abilities of Smokey, and in the other, Smokey gains the memories, motivations, and limitations of MiB, but either one leads to about the same creature in the end, with the same abilities, the same motivations, and the same issues. So I think we might be intended to not have a definite answer, because it doesn't change anything.

That said, I'm in the "MiB turned into Smokey" camp only because we have a solid season behind us of Smokey _saying_ who he was, and no reason to think it was lying or being mistaken. I think the heiroglyphics is either irrelevant or just an error (like the age of the clothes).


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

rondotcom said:


> Some people (my wife included) have have a neat ending to a TV show or movie. All mysteries solved, all questions answered, "i's" dotted and "T's" crossed. If that's what you want from LOST, you will be extremely disappointed


I never said that is what I want from Lost. I just think we deserve answers on some of the biggest mysteries on the show, I really don't think it's that crazy. I don't need characters sitting around explaining back story to each other. I'm not a moron and can follow the show just fine when it's subtle. I think things like "magic light" and "because the island said so!" are cop outs. Also, we're expected to believe that the monster leaving the island will end the world--are you really gonna be ok with it if they simply never tells us why or how he will end the world? Don't you find that little bit of information to be necessary to getting behind the conflict/drama of the final episodes?

"If he leaves he will destroy the world so we have to stop him" isn't enough for me, sorry. A three-year-old can come up with that. I'm a grown up so I'd like to know what the actual threat to humanity is, and I don't think that is so crazy.

As for the last episode, the writers had an extremely rare opportunity to finally go back and show us all this stuff about the island's origins, and instead they copped out in a ton of areas. Someone above posted "what more explanation do you want on the monster?"--that's what I'm saying. I understand that MIB floated into magical light and his soul turned into a giant pillar of memory-scanning, Eko-killing smoke (allegedly). My point is that this is not a satisfactory explanation to me. Anyone who looks at that reveal and can actually say with a straight face that it was genius or smart is lying--it's the easiest possible explanation that they could have come up with.

Again, I don't need information telegraphed to me line by line going through every single thing that's ever happened on the show, but yes, I'd like a show that I spent six years watching to actually answer some of the questions it's raised--and given the level of brilliance I know these guys are capable of, I'm not happy with the answer for everything turning out to be "magic light made it happen".


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

I was checking out Jimmy Kimmel's episodes and there's more Lost related guests if you're curious.

Monday and Tuesday nights appear to be repeats although Monday night (Tuesday morning) is the Mickey Rourke - Jorge Garcia episode.

Thursday night (Friday morning) has Josh Holloway on.

Friday night (Saturday morning) has Lindelof and Cuse with Teri Hatcher as the lead guest.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

Thanks! Just set up an SP for Kimmel for the week.


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## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

Interesting post. The author says the characters of MIB and Mother were influenced by a specific Gnostic myth.

http://eyemsick.blogspot.com/2010/05/thoughts-on-across-sea.html

Contains a minor spoiler. Specifically, the name MIB was referred to as in the casting call for "The Incident".



Spoiler






> the story of Mother and the Man in Black was a metaphor for the Gnostic myth of Sophia and Demiurge. In Gnostic mythos, God is living energy -- pure spiritual light -- a tiny spark of which burns inside each of us. Occasionally, this divine light produces avatars of human form, one of whom was Jesus. Another was Sophia, an expression of the divine feminine. Sophia became estranged from God and tried to cure her loneliness by creating a son. But something went terribly wrong, and she gave birth to Demiurge, a being of pure evil with many names, including Satan and Samuel.
> 
> Neither Mother nor the Man in Black was ever named. But you can bet if they had been, those names would be Sophia and Samuel. Indeed, the original casting call for "The Incident" referred to the Man in Black expressly as Samuel. And Jacob all but called him Satan in "Ab Aeterno" by describing him as the personification of malevolence, evil, and darkness. Beyond that, Mother's description of the "warmest, brightest light you've ever seen or felt" a little bit of which "is inside every man," clearly evokes the Gnostic notion of the divine spark of living energy inside all human beings.






I didn't repost the entire article, but it's a good read if you want to follow the link.


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## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

Wow! Incredible fan made trailer for the finale. I'm not embedding it because you're going to want to watch this full screen in its highest resolution. :up:


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Fool Me Twice said:


> Wow! Incredible fan made trailer for the finale. I'm not embedding it because you're going to want to watch this full screen in its highest resolution. :up:


Locke's line says it all. "I looked into the eye of the monster...and it was beautiful".


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

betts4 said:


> Locke's line says it all. "I looked into the eye of the monster...and it was beautiful".


That's not what he says. It's "I've looked into the eye of this island..."


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## jradford (Dec 28, 2004)

hefe said:


> That's not what he says. It's "I've looked into the eye of this island..."


I'm currently a little stale on the whole "light" phenomenon, but that line sure does become a lot clearer now that we know about the light.


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## tewcewl (Dec 18, 2004)

Fool Me Twice said:


> Interesting post. The author says the characters of MIB and Mother were influenced by a specific Gnostic myth.
> 
> http://eyemsick.blogspot.com/2010/05/thoughts-on-across-sea.html
> 
> ...


Thanks for posting that! It illuminates a lot of things right now.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

JYoung said:


> I was checking out Jimmy Kimmel's episodes and there's more Lost related guests if you're curious.
> 
> Monday and Tuesday nights appear to be repeats although Monday night (Tuesday morning) is the Mickey Rourke - Jorge Garcia episode.
> 
> ...


In addition, there's lots of other appearances this week as well. I did a search last night, and can't remember all of them, but I think Matthew Fox is on Letterman tonight, and there are other cast members on Leno, Fallon, The View and Live with Regis and Kelly later this week, etc. I didn't think to check the morning shows, but I'll bet there are some actors there as well.


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## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

DevdogAZ said:


> In addition, there's lots of other appearances this week as well. I did a search last night, and can't remember all of them, but I think Matthew Fox is on Letterman tonight, and there are other cast members on Leno, Fallon, The View and Live with Regis and Kelly later this week, etc. I didn't think to check the morning shows, but I'll bet there are some actors there as well.


It seems cast members are also calling in to morning radio shows this week, too. (At least Matthew Fox did - I assume that was part of a larger blitz).


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

37 minutes...


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## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

JYoung said:


> I was checking out Jimmy Kimmel's episodes and there's more Lost related guests if you're curious.
> 
> Thursday night (Friday morning) has Josh Holloway on.
> 
> Friday night (Saturday morning) has Lindelof and Cuse with Teri Hatcher as the lead guest.


I just found out my girlfriend got us tickets to Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday!

I said, "That's awesome, honey! But why didn't you get them for Friday when Damon and Carlton will be there?" 

"Because I'd rather see Josh Holloway", she says


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

latrobe7 said:


> I just found out my girlfriend got us tickets to Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday!
> 
> I said, "That's awesome, honey! But why didn't you get them for Friday when Damon and Carlton will be there?"
> 
> "Because I'd rather see Josh Holloway", she says


LOL!


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