Summary: A long time ago, a woman named Claudia arrives on the island where she meets another woman. Claudia gives birth to Jacob and MIB and is promptly killed by the woman, adopting the kids as her own. As they grow up, Jacob and MIB develop opposing worldviews. The mother reveals that she is protector of the island and shows Jacob and MIB The Light, which she is protecting. Jacob is content on the island and is looking to earn the mother's admiration, while MIB yearns to see what is across the sea. MIB has a vision of his dead mother and goes to live with the other people on the island. Jacob and MIB still talk frequently and MIB eventually reveals that he intends to leave the island and has found a way off. Jacob tells this to the mother. Distraught, the mother takes Jacob back to The Light and makes him the next protector. The mother goes to see MIB, knocks him out, and slaughters his people. Enraged, MIB goes back to the cave where they lived and kills the mother. Jacob sees this and beats up MIB, takes him back to The Light, and throws him in. MIB becomes the smoke monster. Jacob lays the mother and MIB's physical body to rest in the cave.
The Good: With just a few episodes left, "Lost" decided to hit us with one final swerve with a stunning formula break episode. I never would have expected an entire episode to go without having a single main cast member appear and that is exactly what happened here. The entire episode took place in the past and gave us the detailed history of Jacob and MIB, and I was engrossed by every moment of it. I had hoped to learn more about these mysterious deities all season, and I'm thrilled that we finally got a chance to see who they are and what they have been through. So much of this episode explained the Jacob/MIB dynamic that has been present since "The Incident". For a show notorious for not answering questions, it nailed all of the important character-centric questions surrounding Jacob and MIB. We learned everything we needed to know about their relationship, who they are, and why they are at war in this episode. Let's start with MIB. MIB's motives have been kept murky since his introduction, and we finally get to see what drives him: he just wants to see what is across the sea to satisfy his child-like sense of curiosity and wonder. It's surprisingly human and relatable, and I appreciate that this villainous character has been given such a simple and understandable origin. I also like that we see how he developed his philosophy about humans. It actually came from his mother, but he doubled down on it because he ended up living with humans, experiencing their vanity firsthand. I really like the storytelling of how this contrasts with Jacob's views on humanity, which I will discuss more later. MIB's desire to kill Jacob also makes a lot of sense. MIB just wanted to leave, but his mother stopped him and foiled his plans. And then to add the cherry on top, Jacob turned him into the smoke monster, forcing him to live on as an entity instead of as a being, and taking away any chance of him ever leaving again. I'd say that's a pretty good reason to want to kill somebody. Jacob is also given an excellent bit of development. I've always thought of Jacob as a god in this universe, so it was easy for me to be frustrated with how he seemed to be so vague and distant from his people for what felt like no good reason. But this episode explains to us that Jacob is no perfect deity. He's just another flawed human that was thrust into a job he never felt like he wanted, deserved, or earned. He's as clueless of a protector as he could possibly have been. This episode does a fantastic job of portraying Jacob as timid, confused, and low on confidence. He is the one who stays with the mother, and yet he is always the second favourite, the back-up choice to being the protector. He is the one who is afraid of moving on and having things change. When MIB threatens change by leaving the mother, Jacob beats him up. When MIB threatens to leave the island, Jacob immediately tells the mother. When MIB kills the mother, Jacob lashes out and turns him into the smoke monster. Jacob is not some legendary being, he's an afraid child with an inferiority complex. It's surprising how negatively he is portrayed in this episode, painting him as so relatably human. I also really appreciate that this episode even explains why Jacob is so distant from his people. He's not just being vague and unhelpful because the plot demands it - it's just who he is. Jacob is timid and shy, and he does not like to directly involve himself with people. Instead he likes to watch, and he is able to believe that humanity is not all bad because he takes an observer's perspective on all humans. Unlike MIB, he keeps his distance from humans, hoping that their individual sense of good is enough to overpower the vanity, negativity, and evil that overcomes them when they interact with each other. That's why Jacob does not stop Ben from killing him. That's why Jacob makes Jack go on a frustrating trip to a lighthouse instead of giving him answers. That's why Jacob doesn't communicate much with his followers. He expects people to understand good for themselves without needing somebody to tell them what to do. This philosophy is developed organically in this episode, and it clashes with MIB's philosophy beautifully. Bridging these two characters together, we have the mother. The mother is admittedly a bit underdeveloped, but she fulfills her role in the story perfectly. This woman is legitimately lonely and insane. She lives on her own, kidnaps two babies after killing their mother, and raises them while feeding them her own propaganda, preventing them from being their own people. The mother feels like the real villain of this story because it is her controlling and manipulative style of raising these two kids that caused all of this chaos to happen in the first place. I know a lot of people will be upset that we didn't find out more about the mother. But we really didn't need to know more about her from a storytelling perspective. She fulfilled her role perfectly, and I found myself getting invested in this family dynamic and all of the twists and turns that happened until the somber moment when Jacob said a final goodbye to his family at the end of the episode. On top of this lovely story, we were given loads of answers in this episode. Now, I know that lots of people will be upset with these answers because they didn't answer every little detail. For every answer we got, it raised more smaller questions that will frustrate viewers. But I maintain that this is not that big of a deal. The questions that remained unanswered are not important to the story, and spending more time addressing those questions would likely be a detriment to this episode. For example, we do not need to see exactly how the frozen donkey wheel was built and when that happened. All we need to know is that MIB invented it in an attempt to use the power of The Light to get off the island, and that it was finished sometime after this episode, likely by MIB to see if it would work. We don't get every detail possible, but we get enough for these to be a satisfying enough conclusion. Several other questions were answered this way. In this massive episode, we learned that MIB and Jacob were brothers, that the protector of the island creates the mysterious "rules' we keep hearing about, that Jacob is responsible for MIB becoming the smoke monster, that The Light is at the center of the island and is the reason for its importance, and so on. There were loads of reveals and answers in this episode, and I enjoyed them a lot. The Bad: There were a few moments in this episode that felt sloppy. The mother claims that she has made it so Jacob and MIB can't hurt each other. And yet Jacob beats him bloody on two separate occasions, knocks him out after bashing his head on a rock, and ultimately turns him into the smoke monster. So that line was just a blatant lie and only serves to confuse me. Did she mean that they were just unable to kill each other? If so, she should have said that. It was very confusing to me when Jacob hurt MIB in spite of what the mother said. I'm also confused about what to make of MIB becoming the smoke monster. With how vague The Light is, it's hard to understand what exactly resulted in MIB becoming the smoke monster and how this changed him (see: The Unknown). That moment could have used more context. I wasn't happy with the flashbacks at the end of the episode. They almost ruined the devastatingly sad conclusion of the episode as Jacob buried his family. It was jarring to go from Jacob's sadness to seeing the other characters finding the skeletons in what was an unnecessary flashback. We know where the skeletons are from! We don't need to see it again! These flashbacks came off as smug, as if the writers were trying to say "see, we planned it out this whole time!" even though that is blatantly untrue. The scene would have been far better had it just been Jacob mourning in silence or with some gentle music playing. I can see why some people would not like this episode. It's a very bold move to have an episode so close to the end of the show where not a single main cast member appears. As outlined above, I thought that this was a tremendous decision, but I can understand that some people would be frustrated with it, especially when you consider how rushed the past few episodes have felt. Having an extra episode to tell the story at a better pace could have been valuable. I also understand the criticism of how unsatisfying many of the answers are in this episode. I've outlined above why this episode's approach to the island's mythology didn't bother me much, but I understand if you're somebody who was frustrated that after six seasons of promised answers, you get told to stop asking questions and just enjoy the ride. It feels like a cop-out, and Lindelof and Cuse's decision to hype up that everything will be answered only to leave a lot of mysteries unresolved is a huge slap in the face to the people that watched "Lost" specifically for the mystery and mythology. Since I am not one of those people, I am not too bothered by the show's decision to zero in on story and emotion over plot and mystery, and I enjoyed this episode. But I am not the whole audience of the show, and I think that it is the responsibility of the writers to tell a compelling story that everyone can enjoy, not just a story that will divide the entirety of the show's audience. I'll continue to defend this episode and my enjoyment of it until the day that I die, but I can't say that this episode is not deserving of the polarizing reaction that it received. The Unknown: Oh boy, here we go. I expect that most of what I put here will not be answered. Who was the mother? How did she get to the island? Why does she have such a dim view of humanity? Who made her the protector? What is The Light exactly? Is it naturally forming? Did somebody make it there? How do you find it? How does its powers work? It looks like MIB built the frozen donkey wheel underneath The Orchid. But he was unsuccessful in his attempt to build it in this episode. When did it get made then? After the events of this episode? Why? Was MIB still involved with it? How does the power of The Light get harnessed to teleport somebody off of the island? Were the people we saw here the others? Does this mean that neither Jacob nor MIB created this group of people? What is the significance of them then? Are they somehow connected with the Egyptian people that built the statue and the temple? What exactly were these rules that the mother, MIB, and Jacob used? Is that an ability of the protector of the island, to create these rules? What exactly can you do as protector of the island? Why did MIB become the smoke monster? Does anyone become a smoke monster when they get thrown into The Light? Is MIB even himself anymore after becoming the smoke monster? Or is he a different entity? How is he evil incarnate? is it because he's a being made purely of The Light? Does that make him evil? How? Why? Not many unanswered questions frustrated me in this episode, but the ones surrounding the smoke monster definitely did. Why did MIB's body appear at such a distant location after he went into The Light? What happened to him in there? How was Claudia able to appear to MIB? Why didn't she also appear to Jacob? How do dead people appear on the island like this? Is it some different, unexplained force? Why does this happen? What's controlling it? Is this their actual conscience appearing or is it some fancy sort of vision? And for god's sake, what is MIB's name????? Best Moment: MIB embracing his mother in the cave was a phenomenal piece of acting. You could see that MIB is still the same as the young boy we met at the start of the episode that wanted nothing more than to just see what was on the other side of the sea. After all these years, that's still all that he is. He still loves his mother and there is nothing inherently evil about him. And in a devastating twist, that one moment of weakness allows the mother to knock him out and strip everything away from him. It's a fantastic scene that is heart-wrenching and pivotal in the episode. Character of the Episode: MIB, thought it is tough to choose between him and Jacob. Conclusion: This is a polarizing episode, but I thought that it was mesmerizing; the biggest formula break of the whole show and it was thrilling to watch. Every little detail provided us with key answers, and they connected it all cohesively within a compelling and emotional character story that humanized the two godly beings that have been the men behind the curtain of this entire story. Yes, there were flaws. The unanswered questions and few sloppy moments did give this episode a slightly unsatisfying feeling. But so much was done well, and the conception of this episode was a stroke of genius. My favourite episode of the season. Score: 80
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
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