Anyone else feel let down???

[MachThree]

I gotta say, this episode was not very good, and since it was (apparently) such a key episode in the series, that gave us (non)-answers to a lot of questions, and probably the only answer's we're getting, man... its not a happy time to be a Lost fan, IMHO...

a) the script and the acting felt awkward, especially the beginning before Jacob and MiB grew up - I can't blame them in a way, how to tell this sort of epic nature of the whole show in 42 minutes, but maybe it was just a bad idea to tell this part of the story this way.

b) Jacob's predecessor is just some semi-insane woman who steals babies, murders their mother and refuses to offer any good explanation for anything.  Honestly, we really know little more than we did before about the nature of the island and it seems that any hope of this being answered is gone.

c) the heart of the island is just a pool of light, and we weren't really told in any meaningful way what it is
  - life, death, or whatever, that's so bloody ambiguous it would have been better not to have been told about it.  Its also just plain silly, IMHO.

d) Jacob killed his brother, or condemned him to a fate worse than death (I'm not even sure) simply because he wanted to leave the island.  No reason given by Jacob's "mother" as to why she won't let him leave.  I think its a huge mistake not to detail this.

e) The frozen donkey wheel is just some sort of device no-name MiB wants to couple to the light source to allow him to leave the island.  Why the light or the donkey wheel would let him do that or work in that way, totally unexplained.  How he figured that out or why he thought that?  Totally unexplained.

f) Jacob's "mom" destroys the village of the pre-Others, and destroys MiB's tunnel to the light source.  Meaning the frozen donkey wheel was buried before it was completed.  So how did it get completed?

g) If the "pre-Others" are so evil and bad or what not, and the island needs protecting from them, why did "mom" wait 30+ years to kill them?

h) The "rules" between Jacob and MiB are simply that they can't kill each other, for no other reason that "mom" "made it that way".  Why did mom make it that way, and don't we deserve a better explanation than that?  Yeesh.

i)  Did MiB really become the smoke monster, or did (as someone posted in another thread) Jacob release the bad energy under the island by throwing MiB's unconcious body in there?  Therefore smokey is not really Jacob's brother?

j) The "flashbacks" to Jack, Kate and Locke in the cave felt like Darlton manifesting a need to rub it in to the audience that "hey, we knew what we were doing all along, see?"  What, the audience wouldn't have gotten the significance of Jacob burying "mom" and MiB in the cave with the black and white stones unless they shoved a flashback in our face?  Worse, the whole idea that this proved anything in terms of who knew what, when, feels like a stretch.  I know Darlton have admitted that specifics were not known that early, and that while they had some ideas, it didn't really get detailed out until after season 1, but even beyond that, they could have had anyone be buried in those caves and said they knew it all along, didn't have to be "mom" and MiB.   

k) there were interviews with Darlton after the Candidate how they were bragging like "ok, after tonight no one should have any doubt that MiB is freaking evil".  After "Across The Sea", they did a 180 - they make Jacob seem like little more than a unloved, naive jerk who kills his brother in a rage, and MiB comes off as almost sympathetic in this episode.  MiB is pissed off at "mom" for all the right reasons, wants to explore the world and learn more than just what he can see on the Island and what "mom" tells him.  Meanwhile, Jacob is too blinded by his mother and his lack of worldly experience to see things as they really are.  Which makes little sense because he's intelligent enough to feel "mom" loves him less than his brother.  Its Jacob who ought to have animosity towards "mom" a lot more than MiB.   

Anyhow, sorry for the long rant.  I am a huge Lost fan, just very unhappy with this episode.  We'll see how it goes, but I fear this is sadly the episode where Lost might have jumped the Dharma Shark for real.    Here's hoping I'm wrong and that the last two episodes are better.  I'll still be watching, we've come too far now not to.       

[CaseyMac]

a) I'll have to just agree to disagree. I thought the acting was brilliant by all 3 of the main characters this episode.

b) whoever, or whatever 'Mother' is...she's much more than just some crazy baby stealer. I mean, would have have felt better if they said she was from Krypton? Personally, I think any detailed explaination they could have given on who exactly she is other than the Protector of the Island would have been a disappointment.

c) The Cave is like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, if you describe it as something so great it is beyond words, then you have to leave it at that. The intangible has the ability to be exponentially greater than the tangible. Case in point: Midichlorians in Star Wars. Giving an explaination of the Force in that way took alot away from it.

d) Jacob condemned his brother to a fate worse than death because he killed 'Mother'. Jacob may have been acting in a very human way in getting justice or revenge the only way he knew how...but he is human.

e) How the donkey wheel works...see Midichlorians. (But I do agree that it's pretty amazing how somebody figured that out)

f) The Donkey Wheel appearantly gets made later, either by MIB or the next group of people to the Island.

g) Why wait 30 years? She only killed them once they tried to tap into the light of the Island. It was her job to protect it, and she did exactly that.

h) We'll have to figure out the reason why for the rules on our own it seems. I mean, it can be explained as simply more than a plot device, just havn't figured it out yet, but someone will.

i) I'm not buying the theory that Smokey is not MIB. MIB told Richard that Jacob took his body, well we just saw how that happened.

j) Yeah, the flashbacks at the end were a little heavy handed, then again, they played just enough of the scene to have Locke show up, which was pretty cool.

k) I agree with you a bit, that this episode actually creates more sympathy for MIB, however, 'Mother' never got a chance to explain to MIB anything because he broke the cardinal rule of trying to tap into the light. Then when 'Mother' corked that plan, he killed her. Alot of people seem to just accept that as being ok, but if she was the one with answers...then you ask her questions. You don't stab her in the back, both literally and symbolically.

P.S. My only disappointment is that they drop this crazy episode on us, then we only have 1 more before the finale. These last few hours are going to be at a pretty furious pace.

[Barringer]

I thought the writers tried fairly hard to imply without outright stating that the smoke monster is Jacob's brother, and not just a pre-existing entity taking his form, with it telling Richard that Jacob took its body, the mother saying she made it so they can't kill each other, and her explaining that you don't die if you go into the light, but something worse happens.

I also thought it made sense that she killed the village when she did. She asked the man in black if the other people had seen the light, and when he told her they had and had ideas about using it, that's when she knew she had to kill them. It also seemed like she didn't *want* to kill them, but knew she had to.

This thing about the protector of the island protecting this light actually makes sense in light of the truce between the hostiles and DHARMA. I was reading over it on Lostpedia, and one of Richard's conditions:

"If the DHARMA Initiative digs or drills any more than ten meters into the ground, even in their designated territory, the truce is violated."

[WhatThe]

a) the script and the acting felt awkward, especially the beginning before Jacob and MiB grew up - I can't blame them in a way, how to tell this sort of epic nature of the whole show in 42 minutes, but maybe it was just a bad idea to tell this part of the story this way.

Couldn't agree more. From a series that has given us some amazing acting in characters of Ben and Locke (just for starters), the two kids and the insane "mom" were incredibly weak. And while I understand them speaking in English for the sake of the viewing audience, they ended up sounding like they were from Toledo lol. Even when they spoke Latin, it came off as incredibly fake. They should have hired an actress who could have spoken with an accent a little less banal than the one they hired.

b) Jacob's predecessor is just some semi-insane woman who steals babies, murders their mother and refuses to offer any good explanation for anything.  Honestly, we really know little more than we did before about the nature of the island and it seems that any hope of this being answered is gone.

Agree there, too.

c) the heart of the island is just a pool of light, and we weren't really told in any meaningful way what it is
  - life, death, or whatever, that's so bloody ambiguous it would have been better not to have been told about it.  Its also just plain silly, IMHO.

Also agree here. I would have preferred not being shown the light peeking out through the rocks and the glow from the cave, etc, etc. When I saw the cave for the first time I literally said out loud "Well, this looks stupid" lol.

d) Jacob killed his brother, or condemned him to a fate worse than death (I'm not even sure) simply because he wanted to leave the island.  No reason given by Jacob's "mother" as to why she won't let him leave.  I think its a huge mistake not to detail this.

Actually, Jacob killed his brother because his brother killed their mother. And because Jacob apparently has one hell of a temper lol. And I assumed that the "mother" wouldn't let them leave because she needed them there to be the next island protectors, and thought that convincing them that nothing else outside of the island existed would make keeping them there easier.

e) The frozen donkey wheel is just some sort of device no-name MiB wants to couple to the light source to allow him to leave the island.  Why the light or the donkey wheel would let him do that or work in that way, totally unexplained.  How he figured that out or why he thought that?  Totally unexplained.

Yeah, that NEEDED an explanation other than the incredibly generic explanation of "These guys found areas on the island where metal acts different...so they dug holes, saw the light, and now want to make a teleportation device from it." What, was the ship that wrecked full of physicists or something?

f) Jacob's "mom" destroys the village of the pre-Others, and destroys MiB's tunnel to the light source.  Meaning the frozen donkey wheel was buried before it was completed.  So how did it get completed?

g) If the "pre-Others" are so evil and bad or what not, and the island needs protecting from them, why did "mom" wait 30+ years to kill them?

Agree with both, again. My only response would be that "mom" actually did not do all of that, and that she summoned Somkie like Ben did a few seasons ago.

h) The "rules" between Jacob and MiB are simply that they can't kill each other, for no other reason that "mom" "made it that way".  Why did mom make it that way, and don't we deserve a better explanation than that?  Yeesh.

Yeah, I'm guessing that mom "made it" so that they couldn't hurt each other by making them both candidates. But when Jacob's brother joined the tribe of crash survivors, he lost his "candidate" status, and thus the rules between him and Jacob were no longer valid. So in my eyes, "mom" didn't actually do anything herself to make it so that they can't hurt each other, but she knew that making them both candidates to take her place would cause that to happen. Or something. I don't know lol.

i)  Did MiB really become the smoke monster, or did (as someone posted in another thread) Jacob release the bad energy under the island by throwing MiB's unconcious body in there?  Therefore smokey is not really Jacob's brother?

I believe it's the latter, especially after the talk MiB had with Jack:

JACK: Look just like him.

LOCKE: Does it bother you?

JACK: No, what bothers me is I don't have any idea what the hell you are.

LOCKE: Sure you do.

[Jack kneels.]

JACK: Why John Locke?

LOCKE: Because he was stupid enough to believe that he'd been brought here for a reason. Because he pursued that belief until it got him killed. And because you were kind enough to bring his body back here in a nice wooden box.

JACK: He had to be dead before you could look like him.

LOCKE: That's right.

j) The "flashbacks" to Jack, Kate and Locke in the cave felt like Darlton manifesting a need to rub it in to the audience that "hey, we knew what we were doing all along, see?"  What, the audience wouldn't have gotten the significance of Jacob burying "mom" and MiB in the cave with the black and white stones unless they shoved a flashback in our face?  Worse, the whole idea that this proved anything in terms of who knew what, when, feels like a stretch.  I know Darlton have admitted that specifics were not known that early, and that while they had some ideas, it didn't really get detailed out until after season 1, but even beyond that, they could have had anyone be buried in those caves and said they knew it all along, didn't have to be "mom" and MiB.   

Agree here, too lol. The flashback to Jack and Kate in the cave was completely unnecessary, and actually made the moment a little less potent. It's weird, because many times the show offers next to zilch in the way of solid, dependable answers to things...and then here they go overboard beating us over the head to announce "SEE THAT? THAT'S ADAM AND EVE, FOLKS! DID YOU CATCH THAT? HUH? DID YOU?" lol...

k) there were interviews with Darlton after the Candidate how they were bragging like "ok, after tonight no one should have any doubt that MiB is freaking evil".  After "Across The Sea", they did a 180 - they make Jacob seem like little more than a unloved, naive jerk who kills his brother in a rage, and MiB comes off as almost sympathetic in this episode.  MiB is pissed off at "mom" for all the right reasons, wants to explore the world and learn more than just what he can see on the Island and what "mom" tells him.  Meanwhile, Jacob is too blinded by his mother and his lack of worldly experience to see things as they really are.  Which makes little sense because he's intelligent enough to feel "mom" loves him less than his brother.  Its Jacob who ought to have animosity towards "mom" a lot more than MiB.   

Good point, and I didn't like how they said "Locke's motives become clearer" as a teaser for this episode. You mean all he REALLY wants to do is take a vacation? lol...What, if he does leave the island is MiB gonna show up in Disneyland wearing a Goofy cap and riding the Pirates Of The Carribean ride? He just wants to have a 2nd chance at a childhood his crazy mother denied him?

Both Jacob and Widmore have given the intense impression that MiB leaving the island spells incredible doom for the entire human race. It would have been nice if we got a peek into this flashback episode as to why that is.

[Writers_Strike]

Maybe since MiB went into the Spring of Light, Smokey is carrying the "Light of the island" and if he leaves the light will go out? C.J. Craig Mother did say bad things would happen if the light went out.

[lostlady]

Maybe since MiB went into the Spring of Light, Smokey is carrying the "Light of the island" and if he leaves the light will go out? C.J. Craig Mother did say bad things would happen if the light went out.

That is a good explaination. It would have only taken one or two lines of dialogue to put something like that into the show last night. I don't know why they didn't answer such an important question

[muggle_born]

Yeah, the kids did all right in their acting--they are only kids, after all, but the lady from West Wing was downright terrible, and I usually like that actress.  The glowing light was lame not only in its inherent lameness that none of us needs to explain to each other, but insomuch that in the third to last episode it's brought in out of the blue that the island is the source of all... everything in the entire, what... universe?  There's a little bit of that light inside every man?  I could have loved this episode.  I still enjoyed watching this backstory, but it seemed poorly done.

[DharmaCakes]

YUP! I feel incredibly let down.

I thought that even though we were getting “answers” they weren’t even questions I cared about anymore. Part of mythology is NOT knowing why, so I'm suspecting I will not be satisfied with the ending. It all felt very contrived to me.

I kinda liked how they were showing who Adam and Eve were... but why have they begun treating the audience as if we're morons. It was really lame to show the clips of Jack and Kate finding them. I mean come on! Like we didn't all remember that scene as he was placing them there? If your mind didn't flash to that scene as you saw MIB doing that, you aren't a true fan. Now after 5 years the show is going to start treating the viewers like morons, I'm insulted!  Part of the brilliance of the show is that (unlike most shows) it credits its audience with intelligence. So that upset me (if you can't tell)!

I’m not going to stop watching now... I'm still giving the show until the end. I've come this far, I'm not going to give up now. Just lower my expectations maybe.... Think maybe they're just trying to make it so that the idea of the show coming to an end is easier to swallow??

[thebeann]

I'm going with CaseyMac on this one. I thought it was a great episode and some key things answered. And how can you talk about the acting with people like Emily DeRavin on the show? She sucks! The only actress worse than her is Maggie Grace and by the power of Greystone we were thankfully relieved of that mess early on.

The best thing about this episode is that they brought us back to the skeletons in Season 1, which reassured me that D & C had a master plan all along. Yeah, they probably made up some stuff, but the core plot remains intact. Down to Locke and Walt playing backgammon with black and white stones....

[Writers_Strike]

I think the acting of the kids was fine. They were trying to protray innocent children who were ignorant to the world around them. "A ship, whats that?" "There is nothing across the sea"

[bfth]

Husband turned to me last night and said, "Did I just waste 6 years of my life?"

[Suzanne4au2]

I understand they wanted to give a background of these 2 characters they introduced to us, but I would have rather watched an episode that showed Dharma finding and setting up on the island and how they came to be. They were such a huge part of the show and it seems like TPTB just forgot about them. I don't get that at all. Just my opinion.

[james_sawyer]

feels like i'm the only person who liked this episode  .

[Writers_Strike]

feels like i'm the only person who liked this episode  .

I  liked it too, why show how Dharma got set up? That will not tells us what the island is and where smokey came from. They already showed us Dharma in '77 building and drilling, how much more do you want?

[sobrien]

I thought the writers tried fairly hard to imply without outright stating that the smoke monster is Jacob's brother, and not just a pre-existing entity taking his form,

OR, it is a page from Fringe - when something comes from one universe, it must trade places with the something from the "other side."  MIB was "traded" for smokie in the tunnel/universe of light?