Gah! Third to last Lost review! Tivo is off duty today because it already deleted the episode, so consider this Hulu Roster for the rest of the review (don't worry, they get along...unlike Jacob and his brother).
Play, pause, fill buffer, play...
0:01 - I have to admit, I thought that was Rousseau the first time I watched this. Remember when we thought we'd never get to find out what happened during the Dharma Initiative because it was too long ago? Now we're in Roman times. What a show.
0:05 - Well, Smokey did say he had a crazy mother who he compared Claire to, turns out he tells the truth sometimes. So Jacob has a brother who doesn't a name because he wasn't expected. Also I got a distinctive Swan hatch vibe from "Mother" finding Claudia. I'll talk more about it later.
0:09 - Or right here. Mother denies the existence of anywhere else. The thing that kept Desmond in the hatch was the big QUARANTINE stencil across the door. Kelvin perpetuates the myth to make sure Desmond stayed, and Mother seems to be doing the same thing with Jacob and his brother. Of course the game he found came from somewhere else, but she gladly claims it was from her, securing her lie.
0:12 - Interesting that Mother spouts the same view of men that Smokey has on the beach in "The Incident." That they come, corrupt, destroy, and that it always ends the same. Also her dismissive attitude towards those who aren't on the island "for a reason" is interesting, because it seems morel like she has an idea of the "right" reason rather than any reason.
0:14 - And the reason is to protect the mysterious light that lies inside of all men, that they always want more of, and that they will destroy if they reach it. I don't think the light is supposed to be anything in particular, like all great myths they've left it general enough that we can put whatever we want in that cave. The question is, is that the real electromagnetism? The real exotic energy that Dharma was so excited about?
0:23 - Interesting commentary from Smokey about how Jacob's view of man is skewed by him looking down from above and not living amongst them. He believes Jacob has faith in men because he is naive and unexperienced.
0:24 - Smokey is so empowered by science. He's a little like man in the story of the Tower of Babel, ambivalent towards God's rules and beliefs because science has shown other options. Jacob steadfastly refuses the possibilities because he takes Mother's word as gospel. It's a complete turn of the Jack-Locke Man of Faith versus Man of Science rivalry. Jack's adherence to science and reason in a land of magic and destiny made him ignorant and foolish, while Jacob's belief in Mother's word makes him the same. Part of me wonders if Smokey escaping from the island is dangerous merely because it disproves that original unshakable rule that he couldn't. Faraday discussed the problems of paradoxes, events that cannot possibly happen because they will disprove the laws of the universe and unravel it. Perhaps Smokey escaping will be a paradox related to the rules of the island, and will cause that to unravel too.
0:27 - The frozen donkey wheel! I guess all that ice down there was the water Smokey mentions when he says "the water and the light" that the mechanism will adjust.
0:33 - Much has been made of the question of whether or not Mother is a Smoke Monster herself, and I am going with the idea that she is. How can one tired old woman take down that whole camp like that? How could she fill in that well that fast? Not just fill it in, but overfill it. Plus her knowledge of what happens when you go down the hole. She talks about the "worse than dying" part with far more gravitas than a person retelling a warning they once heard themselves. And i don't want to hear about how she killed Claudia with a rock instead of Smokey powers etc. Smokey has killed people with guns and by snapping their necks, he doesn't always put on his angry form.
0:38 - Mother's "thank you" after Smokey killed her also feeds into the idea that being the island's guardian is like being in the hatch. It's draining, and although it must be done it's still something you'd rather see someone else do.
0:39 - I guess you can't really blame Jacob for tossing Smokey down the glowing stream. Killing Mother left Jacob completely alone, with the huge burden to carry himself. Maybe he even realized how he had been duped into taking the job, that he was just a way for Mother to tie up her loose ends before finishing her secret fight with Smokey. Unable to kill Smokey, or take back his oath to Mother and the island, he took her favorite son/murderer and threw him down the hole she said never to go into. It eventually lead to his death, but I can see how it would be cathartic and rebellious in the moment.
0:46 - And so we find that Adam & Eve were Smokey and Mother all along. It might have seemed a little cocky of the show to do a flashback to season 1 to rub it in our faces, but with the amount of abuse the creators have faced for "making it up as you go along" I think they deserved a chance to stick it to the doubters. It also sheds some new light on Hurley's question about the possibility of Adam & Eve being them after traveling through time again. Instead they were destined to become Adam & Eve is a different way, by becoming like Smokey and Mother with their in-fighting, debates about the island, lies, and separations.
A very divisive episode, which I actually liked a lot more the second time around. At first I was disappointed, not as angry as others, but it didn't seem right to spend a whole episode on ancient backstory. The thing is though, what people probably thought was that this hour could've been better used to answer some mysteries, except it answered a bunch of them. If you had told people after "The Incident" that there would be an episode next season that explored the creation and development of Jacob and The Man in Black that filled in the gaps of their beach conversation they'd have been amped! I think the end of the series is just making people a little crazy.
Status: *ding ding* Two Thumbs Up
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