Well. I’ve spent a few days trying to work out how to write this, or even if I should. This was the episode that I personally have waited six years to see. It didn’t answer my questions, but it shoved me in the direction of the answers. I guess that this is the episode that the writers and producers have wanted to show us for so long, waiting for a solid end date to the show so that they could schedule it in.
It’s had mixed reactions. A lot of people claiming that they’ve jumped the shark. In a show that featured polar bears on a desert island back in season one. With a monster that lived in the jungle. NOW it’s jumped the shark? Not with the time travel?
I guess it shows how much people are invested in this show, that they can be so affected by not getting exactly what they wanted. But I’m not going to talk about other peoples reactions. I loved the episode.
I’ve theorised previously about the date Jacob was first on the island, and it seemed pretty clear from the beginning of the episode that we were looking at a point in the fairly distant past.
We see another reinforcement of water as the pregnant woman (Claudia) looks into a stream and sees a reflection of Mother. It’s interesting that she’s scared by the reflection, and continues to look at it as she retreats – rather than looking up at the woman. Seemed like a fairly important piece of direction, to intensify the importance of the water. But I could just be reading into it too much.
This woman, Mother, either natively speaks the same language as the pregnant woman (which I believe to be latin), or she has the ability to speak in a multitude of languages (something we’ve seen Jacob later do). They shift into speaking English, which is almost certainly just done to spare the actors having to learn latin and the viewers having to read subtitles. The interesting thing is the sound effect they play just before the shift. Almost like they’re inferring that this is some kind of magic. But I think it’s just a bit of an aid to suspension of disbelief.
Claudia asks mother “where are the rest of your people” to which mother replies “there’s only me”. We could look at that in a couple of ways. The first would be that she’s answering the question as if it meant “where are your friends, family, neighbours or companions?”. The second would be “where are your race?”. My second option there might seem like a bit of a reach, but if I was stranded on an island and someone asked where my people were I might be tempted to say something like “I was stranded here”, explaining why I’m the only one. “There’s only me” sounds like either she’s the last one, or has always been there, or is the only one of her kind. In any case it’s a suspicious answer. She does go on to answer the next question by saying that she got there “by accident”, but really that tells us nothing and sheds no light on where “her people” are.
Mother is angered by Claudia’s desire to look for other survivors: “if there are other people on the island I will find them”. She doesn’t sound like she’s trying to help, she sounds like an exterminator! Does she want to find the others so she can get rid of them? Does she want to find them so she can judge them like we’ve seen smokey do?
Claudia gives birth to two babies: a quiet, serene baby wrapped in light colours called Jacob, and a wailing baby in black called… Oh wait, still no name (and apparently no umbilical cords either). Then Claudia gets bludgeoned to death.
Older MiB finds a game of sorts on the beach and we later find out that Mother left if there for him to find. But I’m wondering where she got it. She could, perhaps, have made it – but surely her children would see her. Perhaps instead she had the ability to leave the island, or perhaps she took it from the other people on the island. It’s also interesting that MiB knows how to play the game as soon as he has it. Perhaps he’s simply suggesting that he made up a way – or perhaps he genuinely has some kind of preexisting knowledge. The symbols on the game look Egyptian, but I’m going to steer clear of the notion that Jacob and MiB are some kind of resurrected Egyptian souls, gods or something similar.
Interesting that Mother seems to be pressuring Jacob to tell the truth about his brother having the game, like she’s steering him onto the path of truthfulness. She then speaks to MiB on the beach and says “Jacob doesn’t know how to lie” in an almost mocking tone, as if this is some kind of private joke they make about Jacob – because MiB and Mother are both expert liars. She says “he’s not like you”.
After telling the boys that they’re there for a purpose, she starts leading them to the cave. Refers to the other people on the island as “men” and “people”, then ignores the “but we’re people” objection. She seems to be making it very clear that the three of them are certainly not normal people. Whether this means that they’re not normal humans isn’t clear. Her statement “I’ve made it so that you can never hurt each other” seems very peculiar. How has she done this? By imposing rules? By raising them a certain way (a long con)? By modifying their minds or bodies? Or is this just a similar type of action to Jacob later giving Richard immortality, or (possibly) bringing John Locke back to life? Also, how is it that we see Jacob smashing his brother in the face on a couple of occasions throughout the episode?
The cave. It’s described as containing “light”. A light which is contained within all people (again, she didn’t say “in all of us”). It sounds like this cave (or whatever is beyond the cave) is responsible for all life (or possibly all souls) and could wipe out all life. It’s not a leap of faith to connect this cave with the islands childbirth problems.
We see that the Man In Black has the ability to see dead people, just like Hurley does later. This possibly explains Fake-Locke seeing the little blonde boy, who we now know to be a young Jacob. But I recall the first time this happened Jacobs hands were covered in blood. At no point in the episode do we see Jacob get blood on his hands – so is this just some kind of guilty vision on Fake-Locke’s part, rather than a direct spirit visitation?
What I don’t really understand is that ghost-Claudia tells Man In Black that she’s going to show him where he came from. But he’s not being shown that.. He didn’t come from there. Or is that just semantics, I don’t know.
Jacob is watching Man In Black with his people, building the well, then in the next scene they’re sitting together playing the game in front of a well. You can’t tell if that’s the same well or not, but assuming it is – where have all the people gone?
We see Man In Blacks pugio again, definitely the same dagger that Dogan gave to Sayid to kill Man In Black with, and that Man In Black had previously given to Richard to kill Jacob.
When Mother appears down the well with Man In Black, she’s shown as being bathed in light, much like Claudia was shown as a ghost earlier. Odd choice, but probably not connected in any way.
We get a bit of an explanation about the frozen donkey wheel. The plan was to connect it to some kind of system which would channel the water and the light. We already knew that there is water and light in the cave, so it doesn’t really help us much – but i’m more interested in the idea that Man In Black and his people seem to have some opinion as to why messing with them would accomplish something. What’s led them to that? Did they experiment? Why does Man In Black think that’ll get him off the island? Even Mother is confused by how he knows about it.
I don’t know if Mother was trying to kill Man In Black, or just knock him out while she destroyed the other people and collapsed the well. Assuming she did it.
She tells Jacob that she had to say goodbye to his brother, I can’t tell if they’re suggesting she believes that he is dead (in which case why remove his body before collapsing the well) or if she’s simply lying to Jacob about letting him leave, or even perhaps that’s she’s accepted she’ll never see him again – either because she expects to die, or because she does expect him to leave. In any case there’s a good chance she’s lying to Jacob here.
Mother tells Jacob that inside the cave is the heart of the island. This is a big deal, I’m almost certain that this is a direct shout out to when John Locke saw “the heart of the island” and thought it was beautiful – did he stumble onto the cave? She explains that inside the cave is the source of all life, death and rebirth. I think it seems plausible that the cave has something to do with souls.
Interesting to note that the liquid she makes him drink isn’t taken from the water, it’s a bottle she was already carrying, which she says some kind of magic spell over before offering it to him. This seems to be the moment where she gives him immortality. Saying that he needs to protect the cave for as long as he can.
It interests me that she says she can now see that it always should have been Jacob. Perhaps this is because initially she thought that she needed a devious person to protect it, like her and Man In Black. But after his intent to leave the island is made clear she reconsiders having a “good” person like Jacob be the protector of the island. After he drinks the liquid she explains that he’s the same as her. Does she mean immortal? Powerful? Inhuman?
I wonder what the timeline is at this point, did Mother and Jacob kill all of Man In Blacks people together, or did she do that before “converting” him? I suspect the latter, partly because they’ve portrayed Jacob as a good person, and partly because she clearly sends him away – expecting death to come for her, and it does by way of that pugio again.
Note that she’s killed from behind, with the knife, before she speaks to Man In Black. This was the way that Dogan told Sayid to kill MiB, and MiB told Richard to kill Jacob. Is this the secret to killing them?
Why does she thank Man In Black? Is it because she’s now released from her task? From her immortality? Is it because he’s putting her plan into action? By doing this did he somehow do exactly what she wanted? Did she need him to be a “bad person”? Maybe it’s because she knows it’ll be the one thing that will compel Jacob into doing what he needs to do? Lost has been all about long cons, and as I mentioned before there’s a good chance that she was playing the long con with them since birth. Did she always intend for them to take these roles? To take over from her? Was she the personification of both roles together, and now they’re split between the brothers?
Regardless, the end result is that Jacob throws Man In Black into the cave, and he’s sucked down with the water. The smoke monster emerges moments later, seemingly terrifying Jacob, who obviously didn’t expect it and very probably knew no more about the cave than we do.
Man In Blacks body turns up draped over a tree as if he’s fallen from the sky. Was the smoke monster carrying it? Dumping it, lifeless, after scanning it? Absorbing it’s personality perhaps?
We know that the smoke monster can appear as people whose dead body it has encountered. But we’ve heard Man In Black infer that he is a man, and basically is who he is. We’ve also seen Man In Black use Locke-isms while in the Locke form (“Don’t ever tell me what I can’t do!”) and refer to his memories – so there’s a chance he absorbed Lockes mind when he took over the body shape. Did this same thing happen to Man In Black? Is this creature NOT the original Man In Black, but just has his memories? I don’t believe so. We’ve seen Jacob sit down with Man In Black and have personal conversations. Offer him food even. I think somehow Smokey was created when Man In Black entered the cave. Why? I don’t know.
I also don’t know what happened between this episode and the present day, but the answer seems to be “a lot”. There were Egyptians on the island at one point, building the statue. There’s a large temple with a lot of people resident. The lighthouse was built, lots of candidates selected. Possibly most important of all – Man In Black has built up a hatred for Jacob. He’s desperate to kill him, and the seeds of a war have been planted.
Tags: lost, tv
