"Across the Sea"

I can't believe that there are only two more episodes of LOST left...Ever!  Of course one of them will be two and a half hours long but still, that means that there are only three and half hours of LOST left.  And I still have no idea how it will end!!!

STOP READING NOW TO AVOID SPOILERS!!!!!

Well this was certainly the most unconventional of unconventional episodes.  I'm thinking of it as a companion piece to "Ab Aeterno;" heavy on the mythology of the Island, Jacob and the Man in Black while being almost entirely devoid of any of the regular cast members.  And for that matter, the only appearance of any regular cast members came in the form of a clip from the Season 1 episode "House of the Rising Sun" giving context to the skeletons that Jack and Kate found in the caves.  Adam and Eve are the Man in Black and his adopted mother.  Their bodies were placed in the cave after the Man in Black killed his mother and Jacob killed the Man in Black.  So the mystery of Adam and Eve is finally solved and I'm satisfied.  I suppose it could be considered strange that Jack estimated the age of the skeletons at 40 or 50 years when they were actually hundreds, if not thousands, of years old.  But they also had the gift of near immortality so I guess their bones age very slowly as well.

This episode started with the birth of Jacob and the still unnamed Baby in Black.  I liked that each was swaddled in a burlap cloth of their respective colors.  From the very beginning they were marked so to speak.  Unfortunately for them, their mother was brutally murdered by the woman who helped her deliver them thus setting up what would become the first in a long line of parent issues among those associated with the Island.  The murder seemed very unnecessary at first but it became clear that this adoptive mother felt a very strong distrust about other human inhabitants of the Island.  Some of her ranting and raving reminded me very much of Rousseau's solitude. 

Jacob and the Man in Black's birth mother came to the Island from a ship wreck but there were other survivors.  One day Jacob and the Boy in Black stumbled across some of the Others (?) and followed them to their village.  When they wanted to know more, their adopted mother showed them the secret of the Island and told them that one of them would be in charge of protecting it some day.  Later, Boy in Black saw a vision of his dead mother that Jacob was unable to see.  Boy in Black proclaimed that he was special.  After what his ghost mother told him, Boy in Black wanted to leave the Island but Jacob didn't so they went their separate ways; Jacob stayed with their mother and Boy in Black went to the village. 

Years later, Man in Black and the Others had figured out a way to find the secret of the Island and use it to leave.  It was very cool to learn that they had dug wells to investigate the magnetic properties of the Island and were working on installing the donkey wheel.  Unfortunately, Man in Black's mother stopped him, killed all of the Others and filled in the well.  In retaliation, Man in Black killed his mother but was caught by Jacob who was very unhappy about it.  Jacob took Man in Black to the special place and pushed his unconscious body into the cave.  After his body was eerily pulled into an underwater crevice, the light went out and the Black Smoke emerged.  Shortly afterwards, Jacob found Man in Black's lifeless body and he placed it in the cave with their adopted mother as mentioned earlier.

After last week's episode painting Locke/Man in Black in the most malevolent light possible, this episode made me sympathetic to his plight.  I don't condone what he has done to all the people he has killed, but it certainly seems like Jacob hasn't made his existence easy.  Of course, he isn't actually Jacob's brother anymore but rather some kind dark yin to the light yang that is the secret of the Island.  I also found it very interesting that not unlike Richard Alpert, Jacob seems a lot less enlightened the more we learn about him.  Perspective is such a key concept in LOST.  It looks like Locke/Man in Black wasn't telling stories when he told Kate that his mother was crazy just like Claire will seem to Aaron.  I know there is not enough time left in the series to learn Jacob and Man in Black's mother's backstory, but I suspect that she was recruited just as she "recruited" Jacob to take over her job. 

There really isn't much left to say about this episode.  It was very good and very necessary but it still doesn't give me enough clues as to what will happen during the rest of the series.   I just can't believe that LOST will be completely over in only twelve days!