[US/IRL] 6x15 - "Across The Sea" [** SPOILERS WITHIN **]

PetKing

5

I posted last season about answers, and in particular to the way that Darlton and the writing team presented the show in such a way as to make you wonder about every insignificant detail.

Everyone is clambering over each other to get to the truth first to an extent, and it makes us all question everything they tell us, or dont... like MIB's name.

Up until the third last episode a friend of mine had read into the religious connotations of the show and decided that MIB was the anti-christ, and that his name would be the big reveal. This episode has killed that theory for the most part, but if they keep you guessing right up to the last episode, they are doing a good job in one light. The were just regular joes who landed on mystery light source island.. his name could be Bob for all I know.. maybe they will never reveal his name.. maybe it doesn't even matter.. they sure kept us guessing though.


Hopefully the 2.5 hour finale will be the SWEETEST pay off of all time, because... Im not a violent person... for the most part...

RolandIRL

8

demolitionman wrote: »

this doesnt make sense to make...
series five episode one opening scene depicts jacob and mib and mib saying to him ''you know how badly i want to kill you right'' and then saying ''someday ill find a loophole''

that loophole ended up using ben to kill jacob....

so mib himslf couldnt hurt jacob (because the mother made it that they could never hurt each other)

the question is, if the person in the opening scene was actually smokie (which presumably it is), then why is it that smoke cant kill jacob?

i thought the loophole was caused by the alternate reality being created by the bomb faraday rigged, not smokie getting someone else to kill jacob. maybe ben was able to kill jacob because he was healed when shot as a child by Richard. then the rules don't apply to him....maybe?
i presumed that smokie used other visitors to the island to try and kill jacob but he knew none had a chance because he needed a loophole

Penn

whiteman19 wrote: »

did anyone else think Mommy sounded like katey segal, (locke's wife-to-be in alternate timeline)

i kept thinking that throughout the episode!

No but I kept think Jacob and MIB's mother looked like Juliet, especially in the ghost scenes.

Overall, I enjoyed the episode. We got a pretty good backstory, some good answers, and we got to see the birth of Smokey.

Only one thing annoyed me. Adam and Eve being Mother and MIB. I always thought that the reveal of Adam and Eve would be one of the best moments of Lost, and something which would show they were planning it from the beginning. No way they planned that from the beginning. I'm not fully convinced they had it planned from the beginning of the season. For Eve to be a character only introduced and mentioned in the episode the identity was revealed is just a complete copout. Don't see why they couldn't have had Mother appear to MIB/Locke in a previous episode rather than Jacob appearing to him twice

jimbling

7

Just watched it again there. A great episode.

Earthhorse

This is how I feel about this show right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIEoXeXa5G0

Penn

whiteman19 wrote: »

i thought the loophole was caused by the alternate reality being created by the bomb faraday rigged, not smokie getting someone else to kill jacob. maybe ben was able to kill jacob because he was healed when shot as a child by Richard. then the rules don't apply to him....maybe?
i presumed that smokie used other visitors to the island to try and kill jacob but he knew none had a chance because he needed a loophole

But he didn't really have anything to do with the bomb which caused the sideways.

I think the loophole was simply that he had to convince someone else to kill Jacob. But it would have to be someone fairly close to Jacob in order to get access to him.

PetKing

5

jimbling wrote: »

Just watched it again there. A great episode.

I'll have to watch it again... gave it a 6. It's hard at this stage to separate what I expect from what I get. I suppose it come down to how it's executed in the end. Really hope I accept it.

Maybe the extra half hour that was missing from this episode will be the tasty reward at the end.

the_monkey

8

Gave it a 9/10 - enjoyed it even though I have agreed with a lot of people's complaints.

As soon as LOST went down the supernatural road we knew explanations
would be let downs.

S1, S2, S3 (most of S4 too) everything could have had a science explanation, we didn't know about Smokie - he could have been some Dharma nano bot experiment gone haywire.

Lost should have lasted about 3 seasons, no time travel, no supernatural crap.

Twists/Explanations should have been more related with DHARMA and the Others ,
also maybe the island being in the mid Indian ocean rather then the mid Pacific would have been a good twist.

It was always gonna be dissapointing when it got so complex in S4 and S5, so from then I have just been enjoying the ride.

So was a very good episode, I felt the explanations were a lot more satisfying then the whispers(for example).

DonkeyStyle \o/

3

demolitionman wrote: »

and the whole thing with the adam and eve stones...what a load of bull....that in no way made me think that the writers planned it all from the start...it actually made me think ''ok they didnt have this planned from the start and now theyre just trying to work a story around this''

Yeah they could have explained it with anything... I don't even care.
There are far too many loose ends to tie up now, so why did they bother labouring on such an insignificant one?
I think they'd need another two seasons to explain how everything comes together and makes sense... and that's if they even can make it all fit.
I've given up caring about the answers now, it's not going to crystallize into a big ball of "ah-ha!", so this is just a non-episode for me.

the_monkey

8

paddyirishman85 wrote: »

Only one thing annoyed me. Adam and Eve being Mother and MIB. I always thought that the reveal of Adam and Eve would be one of the best moments of Lost, and something which would show they were planning it from the beginning. No way they planned that from the beginning. I'm not fully convinced they had it planned from the beginning of the season. For Eve to be a character only introduced and mentioned in the episode the identity was revealed is just a complete copout. Don't see why they couldn't have had Mother appear to MIB/Locke in a previous episode rather than Jacob appearing to him twice

I thought it would be the FINAL answer given too, something like Jack and Kate settling down in the caves in the final scene.

- this was something I read somewhere, I think it was on too many forums and so the writers canned it.

hightower1

An origin story should set a scene, give information, set rules for the universe so at a later stage these can be challenged bent or broken. This allows an audience to both feel comfortable with the structure of the story to be told whilst both being enthralled when these "rules" are challenged at a final act..... this did none of that. No rules were set only explained again which we already knew.

This episode needed to outline why mib and jacob cannot kill each other, why mib needs to kill the current lost crew in order to be free and the actual origin of the island power .... again it did none of these, it only told us that mib cannot kill jacob... we knew this already and it was not explained IN THE ORIGIN STORY??? It in no way explained why the lost crew need to die to free mib and finally it only told us that there was a power deep in the island and was not explained .... WE KNEW THIS ALREADY.

This episode at best only reiterated rules that were already well known and in no way answered any questions definitively bar adam and eve which all good origin stories need to do. As a singular episode it was alright at best.... in context of the current series time frame and the individual story here that COULD have been told.... it fails miserably.

Mr.Nice Guy

1

OK, deep breaths...

I gave this episode a 2/10 and that's because I have calmed down a bit and because they answered the Adam and Eve question.

As far as I am concerned this is the single worst episode the show has produced. I have never, ever been close to turning off an episode of Lost before but this ran me damn close.

I think it is frankly a disgrace that they give us an episode like this so late in the game which, to me anyway, shows they have been making it up as they went along.

For all the time they had to think about this, the fact that this is the origin of the show's story is an amazing let down. I think I actually said before that a show about Lost's origins would make for a good spin-off. I take it back. This was a joke.

As I feared it has descended into a story about hocus pocus. A story about magic wines and secret caves. I was half expecting Gollum to show up and enquire about a ring.

I hope this is the last of this Jacob/MIB stuff because I am honestly sick and tired of it. What happened to the show about the men and women we cared about and their attempts to make sense of the island? When did it turn into Romulus and Remus meets The Hobbit?

Thumbs way, way down.

purcela

Where to begin? Possibly by selecting the option for 0 out of 10, unfortunately 1 is the lowest that I can give this episode.

I am so disappointed in the Adam and Eve revelation. If this is supposed to prove that the writers knew where they were going from the start, well then that is the biggest load of bull ever. What a cop out. They stumbled across 2 people they could use as Adam and Eve. I'd have been much more satisfied if Rose and Bernard had somehow ended up as the skeletons from the time travelling. And the clip with Jack, Kate and Locke from Season 1. Did they have to spoon feed their audience this tripe answer?

Next, how the Man in Black became the smoke monster. It's safe to assume that we will never get any more of an explanation other than the fact that he was thrown into a hole in the ground that had a bright light shining from it. If anybody tries to defend this by saying it's an electromagnetic analomy or something then they really are digging as deep as they can get to defend this show, that by this stage is 3 seasons past it's sell by date. I will follow it through to the end, purely because there are 2 episodes left. This episode proved the tangent that the show has gone on, and it has gone too far to turn back unfortunately.

Possibly most unfuriating for me however is the refusal to allocate a name to Man in Black. There were countless opportunites in this episode for either Jacob or their 'mother' to call Man in Black by his name, but they couldn't because the writers simply didn't have the imagination to assign a name to the character that they plucked out of their @rse.

Also, when 'mother' brought the 2 boys up to the hole in the ground with the light shining through, I could not stop laughing. I think I was laughing at myself for investing 6 series of viewing into this show, to be told by mother that 'this is what it is all about' or something along those lines.

I am looking forward to the replies telling me how crazy I am for not liking this episode, as maybe it will shed some light on this episode for me, and point out things that I missed.

EDIT

Just remembered the stupid wheel. Another ridiculous cop out. If anyone claims that that is indeed an answer to the wheel then they deserve to be marooned on that island. No explanation whatsoever about how he knew what to do, he miraculously knew to install a rickety wooden wheel into a wall with a shiny light in it.

And as an aside for that dodgy piece of season 1 footage. There was already a moment in this series where a character, I think it was Hurley, mentioned the bodies in the caves from season 1. So it had already been adhered to, and we did not need a spoon fed reminder of there being 2 skeletons discovered in a cave way back in the first season.

blue_steel

9

also maybe the island being in the mid Indian ocean rather then the mid Pacific would have been a good twist.

Yeah that would have been amazing alright :rolleyes: Hope they've saved that one for the finale.

Shryke

5

So it went a step further back in the chronology of the inhabitants. It didn't start with Jacob and his brother. It started with some random woman who was murdered by another random woman. That's what we got for an origin. It's a bit of a let down. Especially when I realised what this episode was. While I scored this episode rather low, (6), I still have high hopes. I'm not put off by it to be honest. I'm well used to not getting the answers I want and I've already been given more answers than I had expected would come a couple of years ago.

To be honest I think the last few episodes before this episode were great. The origin might not have been neccesary but there we have it. Back to the guys present time! (And alternate!)

Basq

Seriously.. pardon my French.. but what the feck is this sh*t?!

This is absolutely awful...

I'm 32 minutes in.. and I'm just hugely annoyed. I wrote a long post last week that basically talked about my disappointment with this season but that last week's episode "The Candidate" looked like a turning point and that it might get back on track (albeit late in the season). How wrong was I?

I wanted more of the on-island mythology and a backstory to Jacob and MiB.. I was so very wrong!

Utter drivel..!

EDIT: Oh.. and is it me? Or is the score horribly distracting in this episode? I normally love Giacchino's score, but this just seems very loud and distracting!

seadnamac

demolitionman wrote: »

this doesnt make sense to make...
series five episode one opening scene depicts jacob and mib and mib saying to him ''you know how badly i want to kill you right'' and then saying ''someday ill find a loophole''

that loophole ended up using ben to kill jacob....

so mib himslf couldnt hurt jacob (because the mother made it that they could never hurt each other)

the question is, if the person in the opening scene was actually smokie (which presumably it is), then why is it that smoke cant kill jacob?




but jacob did die....?

Oh yea sorry, ignore that. Meant he couldn't age.

Still, I don't think the reason MIB can't kill Jacob is because of anything to do with the mother. I think Jacobs brother is dead and Jacob killed him. Hopefully the 'rules' will be explained, but who knows.

Shryke

5

I'm a relatively happy tree alone in a forest of hate.

df1985

4

blue_steel wrote: »

Yeah that would have been amazing alright :rolleyes: Hope they've saved that one for the finale.

haha or even better theyve been stuck on achill the whole feckin time!

MisterAnarchy

3

whiteman19 wrote: »

did anyone else think Mommy sounded like katey segal, (locke's wife-to-be in alternate timeline)

i kept thinking that throughout the episode!

Yes,I thought the exact same thing.

PetKing

5

How much origin was everyone looking for exactly??? The caretaker of the island, and that's all mother really was, clearly isn't some awesome deity from the infinities, just a human gifted with immortality and certain power to serve as guardian for the island. She became caretaker after someone before, after someone before her.

Did you want to see a black screen with light at the center, then the island and life form around it, and draw guardians to watch over and protect it, followed by the next, and the next, and the next, to lead to Jacob and MIB??

They were only human, and starting at their birth is a fairly good starting point in terms of origin.

jor el

2

purcela wrote: »

No explanation whatsoever about how he knew what to do, he miraculously knew to install a rickety wooden wheel into a wall with a shiny light in it.

I think the explanation for that was in the episode itself, when young brother found the game on the beach, and just knew how it worked. In other words, a complete cop out. I had wondered what the point of the game was until the magic wheel bit came up, then you see it was just another hastily written explanation of something that they really have no idea how to explain. As I said earlier, it's square pegs in round holes. They're just making it fit now.

Oh and I too was trying to see past mother's make up to Katie Sagal. Sounded very like her, but it would have been very ridiculous to use her for that role. Which makes me wonder why they didn't?

RolandIRL

8

i also think that Sagal-Mommy (i just keep thinking of her as that ) brought preggers mom to the island (like jacob brought the candidates to the island), though when she gave birth, Sagal-Mommy was only expecting one kid, because she seemed a bit shocked when another boy was born.

when she shows Jacob and MiB the cave of light, she tells them that the cave "is the reason we're here" [on the island, i think] to protect it from outsiders.

PetKing

5

jor el wrote: »

I think the explanation for that was in the episode itself, when young brother found the game on the beach, and just knew how it worked. In other words, a complete cop out. I had wondered what the point of the game was until the magic wheel bit came up, then you see it was just another hastily written explanation of something that they really have no idea how to explain. As I said earlier, it's square pegs in round holes. They're just making it fit now.

Oh and I too was trying to see past mother's make up to Katie Sagal. Sounded very like her, but it would have been very ridiculous to use her for that role. Which makes me wonder why they didn't?

He wasn't working alone here, he was with some "smart people, who had some very interesting ideas about how to use it [the light]". And it wasn't just shoving a wheel in a wall... clearly the wall was artificially constructed, look at the masonry... lovely square blocks, with 2 nice long rectangular block to sit just above and below wheel which "connected to a system they built that would channel light and water into it" to harness it's power.

Did you want him to pull out a flippin white board and draw diagrams of the inner working of the mechanism with flow charts and a legend?!??!



Also, can we give the Katie Sagal comparisons a break here, does anybody watch The West Wing??

PetKing

5

whiteman19 wrote: »

i also think that Sagal-Mommy (i just keep thinking of her as that ) brought preggers mom to the island (like jacob brought the candidates to the island), though when she gave birth, Sagal-Mommy was only expecting one kid, because she seemed a bit shocked when another boy was born..

So Jacob and MIB were once candidates...

DonkeyStyle \o/

3

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I think it is frankly a disgrace that they give us an episode like this so late in the game which, to me anyway, shows they have been making it up as they went along.

Hopefully there's still time to get Randy's backstory and the origins of his job at the box factory.

Jay Ru

2

How did Jacob know what to do after his mother died? How did he discover that he cud bring folk to the island. How does he bring people to island. How did he know how to build the light house. How did he discover that the ash was a problem for MIB. If Mother was lying about the brothers not being able to hurt each other and killing each other why the hell didn't MIB just kill Jacob in the meantime. I don't need all of those answered but just one good answer wud be sweet.

The Ash thing has always bothered me, firstly because it seemed to rain a hell of alot on the island in the earlier series so how the hell did it last so ****ing long. But after this ep i have an ever bigger problem with it! Ilana gathered Jacobs ash to use it to help protect the candidates from unLocke right? So where did the ash that was used around the temple and the ash around the hut come from. The way i see it is that the ash of the protector body has some kind of power if that is the case, where did the ash come from while Jacob was still alive? His mother body was (as the writers are tryin to make us believe) in the cave all along side MIB's original body. So what was that ash?

cosgrove80

3

Wow, whilst not the worst episode of Lost ever, it certainly the most disappointing.

It was disappointing for may reasons, all already posted so I won't repeat them but the main reason is because it broke down that barrier.

That barrier that I'd built up over the years, the one that helped me overlook the plot holes, that accepted the filler episodes and allowed me to come to terms with the time wasted spent on the flash-sideways.

The cracks were showing and this episode just made it crumble.

I had no expectations of the episode as I didn't know before-hand what it would be about so I'm surprised how annoyed I am.

Over the years I've gone from an avid fan that would hoover up any info possible after an episode to someone who has stepped back and just gone along with the ride. I guess deep down I wanted it to prove me wrong.

A woeful episode that leaves me with little doubt that the ending will be a crushing disappointment.

I genuinely think that it has single handedly managed to undermine a huge amount of what was left of the soul of the show.

But sure, tis only TV. Time for a cup of tea.

the_monkey

8

blue_steel wrote: »

Yeah that would have been amazing alright :rolleyes: Hope they've saved that one for the finale.

would have been had the show been shorter.

No need for sarcasm, I'm just giving an opinion.

cooker3

Wow. I am stunned at the hate this episode is getting. Each to their own I guess. I can't remember any episode of a tv show having such a polarizing effect on the fanbase.

I thought it was excellent. I enjoyed the backstory, never felt bored. Offered up decent answers and gave a what I consider a good explanation of Jacob MiB backstory. Although the whole not naming him thing is really waring thin. I am not sure quite why they are doing that.

The flashback to Adam and Eve s1 scene was un-necessary without doubt but like it's only 1 flashback. I simply don't understand how people can hate it so much. It's not that big a deal.

I think the vast majority of new questions people are bringing up are either not very important are if they were answered would be completely awful and basically unanswerable to any degree. Of course the finale will dictate a lot of what I think, as there are still more questions to be answered, but I expect them to be. So I'm feeling pretty good with where it all stands.