Blogging While Watching LOST: Across the Sea

Wreckage in the water. Um… random woman arrives on the island? Pregnant. VERY pregnant. Are we about to see Jacob and the Man in Black being born?

Who is this woman who appeared to her and offered help?

The pregnant woman is Claudia. The other woman is alone, arrived on the island “by accident.” Every question answered will lead to another question, and it’s best if Claudia rests. If anyone else from the ship arrives on the island, the nameless woman will find them.

Here comes the baby. At least she has a makeshift midwife.

Happy baby boy! Jacob. (I knew it.) And here comes another one. Yep, twins. (Yeah for twin theories!)

“I only picked one name.” So… the other one doesn’t get a name?

Jacob is a happy blond baby. The other one is a dark-haired screamer. And… Claudia just got beaten to death by the woman who delivered the babies. I don’t think “I’m sorry” quite covers it.

Waves crashing on the shore. A young Man in Black  finds a box on the beach. Young Jacob comes over and asks what it is.

“It’s a game. Play it.”
“How do you know how?”
“I just know.”

But they’re not going to tell Mother, because she’ll take it away. Mama is weaving. Jacob wants to help. He’s told he can sort. She wants to know what they were doing, asks if Jacob loves her. So he told her about the game.

Tortoise!

Jacob doesn’t know how to lie, at least not like his brother. Young MiB is dubbed “special” by his mother. (We’ve heard this before, particularly about Locke. What does that say about the fact that the Man in Black takes over his body later on?) She left the game for him. He had thought it came from somewhere else “across the sea.” Mama says there’s nowhere else but the island. Says that her mother is dead when asked where she came from.

“What’s dead?” Young MiB asks.
“Something you’ll never have to worry about.”

Boar hunting.  Other people! Wearing armor and bracers. The boys ran to tell Mama.

“They’re not like us. We are here for a reason.”
“What reason?”
“It’s not time yet.”

I want to know what the reason is, too. She knew about the people, but didn’t tell the boys because she didn’t want to frighten them. She gave them the same speech about men coming, hurting, corrupting… basically what the Man in Black goes up to believe and Jacob shuns in favor of believing the best of people.

What is this place? This is the reason they’re here. The glowing spot. A cave. They’re not supposed to go in there. It’s filled with the warmest, brightest light, and they must make sure that no one ever finds it. If the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere. Mama has been the protector of this place. It will pass to one of the boys after her. Oh, and she’s made it so that neither of them can hurt each other. So Mama has some form of supernatural powers.

Jacob and his brother playing the game with black and white stones. Jacob tried to make a move that was against the rules. MiB says some day he’ll be able to make up his own game and people will have to play by his rules. (Foreshadowing, much?)

Young MiB saw Claudia, but Jacob couldn’t see her. Dead Mommy wants to show MiB where he came from, across the island, a place he’s never seen.

There’s a whole village of people who came to the island 13 years ago, the day before the boys were born. They were shipwrecked. “There are many things across the sea. You come from across the sea, too.” The Mommy reveal.

Young MiB looks like he’s running away. Tries to wake up Jacob to go with him. The two boys are out in the jungle. Jacob doesn’t want to run off to live with the people.

Jacob is punching his brother for lying. Young MiB confronts Mama about her lies. But Jacob won’t go.

“Whatever you have been told, you will never be able to leave this island.” He says it’s not true, and some day, he’ll prove it.

Jacob and Mama are on the beach looking out over the water. She confesses to killing Claudia. If she had let her live, she would have taken the boys back to her people, who were bad, and she needed them to stay good. Jacob wants to know why Mama loves MiB more than him. She loves them both in different ways. That’s enough to convince him to stay with her.

So I’m confused here. If Jacob stays behind with Mama, why is the Man in Black the one who spouts her ditty about men corrupting everything?

Grown-up Jacob is now weaving with Mama. She’s tired.

Jacob goes to spy on the Man in Black in his little village. They’re playing their game. Mama never comes to visit him, doesn’t mention him. Jacob watches them because he wants to know if Mama is right, if the people are bad.

Aha! Jacob thinks they don’t look so bad, looking down on them from above. Living among them, the Man in Black sees them as greedy and selfish… He’s using them as a means to an end, to get off the island. Jacob doesn’t believe there’s a way to get off the island. MiB throws his dagger, which sticks to a well magnetically. He lives with smart men who have found sites all over the island where metal behaves strangely, and they’ve dug.

Jacob never wants to leave the island. It’s his home. The Man in Black says it’s not his home.

Jacob tells Mama that MiB has found a way to leave the island. Mama goes to spy on him. She looks like she has murder in her eyes.

MiB is stirring some coals. Black smoke. Huh. There’s mama, asking to join him. She’s worried, and she should be. He has never been able to find the light that she showed him. What if there was another way to get to it?  She says he has no idea… He replies that he has no idea because she wouldn’t tell him.

And there’s the light, behind that brick he just wedged out of there. He’s making the frozen donkey wheel so he can leave!

“How do you know this? How do you know it will work?”
“Because I’m special, mother.”

He insists on doing this because he doesn’t belong here. She says goodbye. She hugs him. Does her touch do something to prevent the donkey wheel from working for him?

“I am so sorry,” she says. As she smashes his head against the rock wall. Yep, I saw that coming as soon as she showed up there. It was cemented in my head when she said goodbye. No wonder MiB is so screwed up. Well, I guess he did tell Kate that he had a crazy mother.

Jacob is asleep. Mama wakes him up. “It’s time.” Time for what?

She’s bringing him back to the cave with the light. It’s his job to protect it now.

“What’s down there?”
“Life, death, rebirth. It’s the Source, the Heart of the Island. Just promise me, no matter what you do, you won’t ever go down there.”
“Would I die?”
“It would be worse than dying, Jacob. Much worse.”

Bottle of wine. Mama’s muttering an incantation. Hands Jacob the wine and tells him to drink it. Drinking it means he accepts the responsibility to protect this place. He doesn’t want the responsibility because she’d wanted it to be MiB, and now he’s all she has left. She says it was always supposed to be him, and he doesn’t have a choice. He drinks it.

“Now, you and I are the same.” Um, what?

The Man in Black wakes up on the ground. He must have a splitting headache. The well was filled in. There’s a cloud of black smoke coming from his village. They’re all dead. Mama killed them. He finds his bured out game box and cries. And now… he’s freaking ANGRY.

The thing is… I’m actually feeling bad for him now. He didn’t start out as evil incarnate.

Thunder. Jacob and his Mama. “You should go. Get  some firewood. Before it rains.” She  tells him to be careful. I foresee her death.

The loom is all inn tangles. There’s the game box, with the two stones inside. She’s looking at the black stone when she gets a blade in the gut. Yep, it’s the Man in Black, getting his revenge.

“Why wouldn’t you let me leave, Mother?”
“Because I love you,” she replies. “Thank you.”

Thank you? Did she want to die?

And then Jacob walks in. “What did you do?” Starts dubbing MiB senseless. He’s not going to kill him… Brought him to the cave filled with light. He’s gonna throw him in. MiB got sucked down in the water. The ground is shaking… and here comes Smokey! Dude. Jacob just turned his brother into Smokey by pushing him into the cave with the light that he swore to protect.

There’s his brother’s body. He cradles his head, strokes his hair, and carries him back to his home, where Mama’s body still lies. There are the two stones. Jacob puts them into the pouch. The pouch that Jack and Kate found in the cave. Adam and Eve are MiB and Mama.

“Goodbye, brother,” says Jacob. “Goodbye.”

Tagged as: Blogging while watching LOST, LOST Episodes