"Across the Sea"
DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN TUESDAY'S EPISODE OF LOST
All right, so! We got answers, but no shocking reveals. And of course. we got more questions. And Allison Janney, who rarely if ever does a bad job but who also, as much as I love her, can't do a non-American accent. All this being said, while I do believe that this episode was down a level from the previous week's, I think that some of the criticism is unwarranted. I’ve been mulling this over and I feel there's a few things to consider before passing final judgement.
First, we all want to know MiB's real name, but whether it's John, Esau, Walter, or Weird Al, I don't think it's going to be particularly important to the story. I think it’s kind of cool that you never know his real name. Maybe he never had one. Check out how Jacob and Crazy Mom always refer to MiB as “him” or some pet name, etc.
Second, as I understand it, when MiB got tossed in the Heart Cave, he became the Monster. The Monster was not in the cave already, and it did not “absorb” MiB (although I’m also open to the idea that Crazy Mom may have been the Monster before him - more on that later). Now, admittedly, I was very confused when I saw Jacob discover his brother’s body outside the cave, but I think I have it worked out. The body gets dumped outside again because MiB’s soul, or essence, or whatever gets somehow warped by the power in the cave, turning him into the Monster. Which leads me to point three,
MiB’s body being left behind is a symbol of how he has fallen from grace, which possibly prompts his statement in “The Incident, Part 1” that people are always going to be corrupted, etc. Anyway, the big question we all have is, if MiB’s body was discarded, why does the Monster still take his form for so long? My guess is that it was his last link to his own humanity and so for most of the time he may not have taken it out of necessity, but rather so he could feel somewhat human still. Think of what he said earlier to Kate (I think it was in “Recon), about how he used to know joy, and that he was a man once. It has been noted that the Lockelganger is a liar, but aren’t the best lies the ones that are closest to the truth? It may also be why Jacob said “Goodbye, brother.” at the end of the episode - think of it as a la Moses in The Prince of Egypt, or the Tenth Doctor referencing his deceased people in “The End of Time”. Jacob is saying goodbye to his brother as he chooses to remember him.
As well, there’s that question of “well, why didn’t he start switching bodies earlier?” I have a theory on this.
MiB kept saying he was “going to find a loophole”. My guess now is that this implies that he didn’t know what the loophole was yet, and it was only around the time that Oceanic 815 crashed that he finally figured out what it was.
The loophole in The Rules is that MiB can only potentially leave if he takes the corpse of someone who has been to the island and back again. The reason why Jacob and MiB may not have figured this out before is because nobody had left and returned to the island itself again AFTER dying. Since Locke is the only body I know of that had previously been to the island while alive, he alone fits the bill. Christian and Yemi are both out as they were already dead when their planes crashed on the island the first time. Michael is out since although his ghost appears on the island, he never actually returned to shore, and as he was right next to the C4 when it blew up, there was no body to claim at any rate. Charlotte and Daniel, as well as Tom and the rest of the Others who left and came back are also excluded because they died on the island, not before returning to it. Sayid doesn’t count because MiB already had Locke sewn up, and Sayid wasn’t dead when the Ajira flight crashed. The Others didn’t know that MiB had already become the Lockelganger however, which is why they began freaking out when Sayid came back to life. It was only later they realized he “only” had the Sickness.
I don’t know how sure I am of this, but I think a case can made for the theory that Crazy Mom may have been the Monster before MiB. She thanks MiB when he kills her, thereby releasing her from being the Monster. This would also explain why she doesn’t age when her adopted sons do until MiB becomes the Monster and Jacob takes over guardianship of the island. She also seemed to have intimate knowledge of what exactly was in the Heart Cave. Maybe because she’d already been in there and knew what it could do to a person? Additionally, how did she kill all of those people AND fill up the well that the MiB had made? Maybe she snuck up on him in the well and carried him back out using her Monster abilities. Something to think about anyway.
Also, anyone else think it’s possible that the Temple was built over the Heart of the Island? Considering that the producers have placed the episode as occurring sometime between “450 BC and 900 AD”, that’s a fairly big window to build a temple like that.
One final point to make before I end this very long entry.
I think the fact that a lot of people are complaining about how awful it is that they won't get answers is very indicative of how little they've really been paying attention to what goes on outside the show. I don't expect to get all the answers I want either, but that's how the show works. From what I've seen and read, the producers have never once claimed that they will give us all the answers. Ever. So I don't really see why people are getting so riled up over this - we've been watching the show for however long because of both the mysteries and the characters. I think that the show would actually not be staying true to form if it gave us every single answer. Besides, having read many of the theories out there, I think some of this stuff is more fun to try and puzzle out on your own. Some of what I wrote above is based off of theories I’ve read, and some is based on my own speculation, and I really enjoy being a geek like this sometimes and trying to work it out for myself. If nothing else, if you think you’re in the dark, can you imagine what the characters on the island feel like? We’ve definitely know a lot more of the story than they do!
Jesus Christ I’m a nerd.
For more reading (if you’ve stuck with me this far):
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/exclusive-interview-lost-producers-damon-lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-talk-across-the-sea
http://jezebel.com/5537568/lost-recap-brothers-from-another-mother#commentform
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Across_the_Sea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Across_the_Sea_(Lost)
- Jeff
All right, so! We got answers, but no shocking reveals. And of course. we got more questions. And Allison Janney, who rarely if ever does a bad job but who also, as much as I love her, can't do a non-American accent. All this being said, while I do believe that this episode was down a level from the previous week's, I think that some of the criticism is unwarranted. I’ve been mulling this over and I feel there's a few things to consider before passing final judgement.
First, we all want to know MiB's real name, but whether it's John, Esau, Walter, or Weird Al, I don't think it's going to be particularly important to the story. I think it’s kind of cool that you never know his real name. Maybe he never had one. Check out how Jacob and Crazy Mom always refer to MiB as “him” or some pet name, etc.
Second, as I understand it, when MiB got tossed in the Heart Cave, he became the Monster. The Monster was not in the cave already, and it did not “absorb” MiB (although I’m also open to the idea that Crazy Mom may have been the Monster before him - more on that later). Now, admittedly, I was very confused when I saw Jacob discover his brother’s body outside the cave, but I think I have it worked out. The body gets dumped outside again because MiB’s soul, or essence, or whatever gets somehow warped by the power in the cave, turning him into the Monster. Which leads me to point three,
MiB’s body being left behind is a symbol of how he has fallen from grace, which possibly prompts his statement in “The Incident, Part 1” that people are always going to be corrupted, etc. Anyway, the big question we all have is, if MiB’s body was discarded, why does the Monster still take his form for so long? My guess is that it was his last link to his own humanity and so for most of the time he may not have taken it out of necessity, but rather so he could feel somewhat human still. Think of what he said earlier to Kate (I think it was in “Recon), about how he used to know joy, and that he was a man once. It has been noted that the Lockelganger is a liar, but aren’t the best lies the ones that are closest to the truth? It may also be why Jacob said “Goodbye, brother.” at the end of the episode - think of it as a la Moses in The Prince of Egypt, or the Tenth Doctor referencing his deceased people in “The End of Time”. Jacob is saying goodbye to his brother as he chooses to remember him.
As well, there’s that question of “well, why didn’t he start switching bodies earlier?” I have a theory on this.
MiB kept saying he was “going to find a loophole”. My guess now is that this implies that he didn’t know what the loophole was yet, and it was only around the time that Oceanic 815 crashed that he finally figured out what it was.
The loophole in The Rules is that MiB can only potentially leave if he takes the corpse of someone who has been to the island and back again. The reason why Jacob and MiB may not have figured this out before is because nobody had left and returned to the island itself again AFTER dying. Since Locke is the only body I know of that had previously been to the island while alive, he alone fits the bill. Christian and Yemi are both out as they were already dead when their planes crashed on the island the first time. Michael is out since although his ghost appears on the island, he never actually returned to shore, and as he was right next to the C4 when it blew up, there was no body to claim at any rate. Charlotte and Daniel, as well as Tom and the rest of the Others who left and came back are also excluded because they died on the island, not before returning to it. Sayid doesn’t count because MiB already had Locke sewn up, and Sayid wasn’t dead when the Ajira flight crashed. The Others didn’t know that MiB had already become the Lockelganger however, which is why they began freaking out when Sayid came back to life. It was only later they realized he “only” had the Sickness.
I don’t know how sure I am of this, but I think a case can made for the theory that Crazy Mom may have been the Monster before MiB. She thanks MiB when he kills her, thereby releasing her from being the Monster. This would also explain why she doesn’t age when her adopted sons do until MiB becomes the Monster and Jacob takes over guardianship of the island. She also seemed to have intimate knowledge of what exactly was in the Heart Cave. Maybe because she’d already been in there and knew what it could do to a person? Additionally, how did she kill all of those people AND fill up the well that the MiB had made? Maybe she snuck up on him in the well and carried him back out using her Monster abilities. Something to think about anyway.
Also, anyone else think it’s possible that the Temple was built over the Heart of the Island? Considering that the producers have placed the episode as occurring sometime between “450 BC and 900 AD”, that’s a fairly big window to build a temple like that.
One final point to make before I end this very long entry.
I think the fact that a lot of people are complaining about how awful it is that they won't get answers is very indicative of how little they've really been paying attention to what goes on outside the show. I don't expect to get all the answers I want either, but that's how the show works. From what I've seen and read, the producers have never once claimed that they will give us all the answers. Ever. So I don't really see why people are getting so riled up over this - we've been watching the show for however long because of both the mysteries and the characters. I think that the show would actually not be staying true to form if it gave us every single answer. Besides, having read many of the theories out there, I think some of this stuff is more fun to try and puzzle out on your own. Some of what I wrote above is based off of theories I’ve read, and some is based on my own speculation, and I really enjoy being a geek like this sometimes and trying to work it out for myself. If nothing else, if you think you’re in the dark, can you imagine what the characters on the island feel like? We’ve definitely know a lot more of the story than they do!
Jesus Christ I’m a nerd.
For more reading (if you’ve stuck with me this far):
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/exclusive-interview-lost-producers-damon-lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-talk-across-the-sea
http://jezebel.com/5537568/lost-recap-brothers-from-another-mother#commentform
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Across_the_Sea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Across_the_Sea_(Lost)
- Jeff