LOST: Does anyone even care at this point?
When the episode ended, my first thought was “oh, that was sort of a nice little three-man stage play.” And then I remember that it was supposed to be a LOST episode. Not just any LOST episode, either. This was to be the episode that explains the island! And what did we get? “Oh, yeah, um, well God lives in a cave there. Sort of. And some lady was protecting it and then some kids were born and the lady killed their mom for some reason. Later, the one brother decided he wanted to leave, so he started looking for a boat or watercraft of some sort the God Cave. But then the lady knocked him out and his brother fed him to the God Cave and then a smoke monster came out. TA DA!”
Seriously, Lost? What the fuck? Are you going to readdress any of this nonsense or is this all we’re getting?
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From Reddit:
“I’m gonna put this Donkey Wheel in the wall and then direct like the water and the light such as complex machine such as education and the direction of the light such as Iraq and everywhere like such as SO I CAN GET OFF THE ISLAND.” -MiB
I normally hate your lost rants, but I wasn’t nuts about this episode either. It did explain some stuff, but not nearly enough to have made it worthwhile.
Yeah, apparently the mass consensus of LOST fans on this one is that is was total bullshit, so I figured this might be the week where my solo bitching and moaning actually turns into a chorus.
It’s a shame, too. They had a few totally solid weeks in a row, there. Then they pull this Nicki and Palo bullshit.
I’ll admit, I haven’t watched the past 4 episodes. I’ve been busy with other stuff and refuse to turn down doing stuff for watching tv (even if it’s the final season of LOST). And THIS week, when I’m finally home and can watch an episode, I left feeling totally unfulfilled. Watching Evil Mom smack her “kid” against the wall was fun. And it was a surprising turn of events that Evil Mom went batshit and killed the entire village.
But still…D+ LOST writers. As my mom would say, “I expect better of you. You’re just not applying yourself.”
ok, so maybe this is a little nitpicky after time travel and zombie resurrections but last night’s episode was labeled ridiculous at the 5 minute mark. crazy old lady killed the mother of two newborns. how did she manage to feed them? did she have some formula stashed in the cave? can infants draw power from the cave of life? the entire show is based on a huge plot hole.
let’s pretend that the hatch explosion at the end of season 2 nuked the entire island and the show got cancelled. i feel better now.
Primitive men discover the Island and dig into the earth out of curiosity and lust for knowledge. Their village is wiped out and the people destroyed. Centuries later, scientists of the Dharma Initiative discover the Island and dig into the earth out of curiosity and lust for knowledge. Their village is wiped out and the people destroyed. Destiny’s still a big, spoke-filled wheel spinning around and around to the same place again. For all we know, the rest of the world is just a vast senet game the Island plays to amuse itself. Jacob and his brother are therefore just men, nothing more, wrapped up in the same soul-crushing inability to beat back against the greater forces of the universe. The only difference between them and everyone who came after them is that they can see the puppetmaster’s strings. I got the feeling last night that this back-and-forth over games and rules is their crippled attempt to eke out as much of a choice for themselves as possible beneath the omnipotent power of a cruel, emotionless, and invisible entity… that both of these guys hate the place to the core. The Man in Black is just content to shred the universe to pieces so he can be done with the cursed place.
I mean, I think we’ve got enough answers about the Island now. It’s the godhead, the Source of all the life-force of the world, the absolute powerful nexus point of all the energy that animates the planet, the McGuffin of every goofy Japanese videogame ever. Like the men animated by this same spirit, it’s tainted by observation and exploitation. Yank out that lynchpin or allow it to decay, the entire works of the universe will come raining down around your head.
The smoke monster (and, therefore, the Man in Black) are really shown to be nothing more than an extension of the Island itself. It mirrors the same exact supernatural powers, is held in thrall by the same limitations, and likely harbors the same desires. You have to feel bad for the guy… he just wanted to get the hell out of there and, instead, the Island went and cursed him as its very own avatar for the remainder of human history.
I thought we were told plenty… at least enough to extrapolate some big answers.
Though three things:
• Child actors are fucking horrible. God awful.
• It didn’t help that a lot of the dialogue in this episode was witless and clunky.
• I don’t have a problem with The Source as a whole, just felt that the reveal was too goofy and clumsy. Could have worked up to it better.
Here are the questions this generated for me:
-If his brother is dead, how does he have the conversation with him that was previously flashed back to, where they were sitting on the beach waiting for that black rock ship coming in. My wife clarified that now he wouldn’t actually be his brother, he would be smokey inhabiting his brother’s body (a la Locke and Christian). But unless they confirm this later, that’s a fairly big presumption.
-How does Jacob leave the island (as we were shown he does to touch people’s live in the way he wants them to act)? And when he does, who is “protecting the island.”
-If all it took was smokey inhabiting a dead guys body (which he seems to do ad infinitum) to be able to kill Jacob, why did it take him a few hundred years to do it?
-For that matter why does he need to kill his brother to be able to leave?
-O.K. presumably if the dead brother is now smokey and thus has all this power…that’s fine….but how and when does Jacob get all his power (immortality, etc.) Does that just come with the job? Hence his “mom” saying “Thank you” when she is killed?
Basically what they set up last night still needs about 4 or 5 episodes to explain all of this.
-If all it took was smokey inhabiting a dead guys body (which he seems to do ad infinitum) to be able to kill Jacob, why did it take him a few hundred years to do it? – Didn’t Ben technically kill Jacob? And when Alpert first got to the island, Smokey tried to convince him to kill Jacob as well.
This seems to be what I think is a common misconception that MiB is actually dead and smoke monster just took his form. But if you remember from a previous episode, MiB says to Jacob, “you stole my body.”
Smoke monster is MiB, in a less corporeal form. Smoke monster is not taking MiB’s form.
But I second most of what Kev is saying here. Justin and I had lunch (with Tim and Jenelle, who never post here anymore) and my assertion is that this whole episode feels like a setup for a part II that we may never see.
The Man in Black doesn’t need a body, his spirit is now endlessly bound to the power flowing out of the Source of the Island. He’s a piece of that vast and beautiful energy, albeit corrupted… that’s why Locke was able to peer into him all those years ago and still see something beautiful. He pretty much dubbed it the “face of the Island.”
Really, the monster is the ultimate protector and ultimate “security system” that they’ve been talking about all these years. Seems the mother was grooming the special, Walt-esque Man in Black to assume a small amount of that power all along in service to this place, to continue the cycle… Its just mankind’s folly that things went too far and Jacob drowned him in the divine light after his brother’s heart had already been poisoned.
It’s all Jacob’s fault really. Angrily shoving his brother down the glorious poopshoot of the universe was about as reckless as Jack driving an atomic bomb down the throat of an electromagnetic well. Same intent, same horrible aftermath of death and suffering. Jacob poisoned the lifeforce of the entire world. He deserves worse than getting stabbed in the chest.
Jacob doesn’t seem terribly bright. The Man in Black seems to subsist on sheer intuition. They’ve spent the intervening centuries watching people come to the Island and they’ve piggybacked off the results of smarter men. The Man in Black didn’t really understand how the wheel would work, he just knew it would do… something.
Actually, the consensus that John and I came to was that we both are willing to swallow an immense amount of backstory bullshit from different shows and are biased for different reasons. Lost works okay for me. Battlestar Galactica has me on the verge of kicking over the DVD player and not watching it anymore.
Also mildly amused that Jacob and his brother are playing senet, the oldest board game in the world.
No one in contemporary society knows the full extent of the rules. Sounds familiar.
1) Yes, I guess it was Ben who killed him now that I think about it. I stand corrected.
2) I agree with Just that I’m willing to swallow a lot from Lost (as opposed to something like Galactica). I think I’m just more patient with real world sci-fi (Lost, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, X Files type stuff) than I am people in goofy costumes shooting lasers that go “Pew! Pew!!”.
Maybe Mother planned on getting Jacob to throw MiB into the light. Maybe she made Jacob just think he was the protector, but she knew MiB would be better at it. Maybe Mother’s “thank you” is actually about MiB become the real protector replacement.
the only redeeming feature of the show was getting to watch sexy MiB run around all dirty & bloody, Indiana Jones-style.
my dad insists locke is still alive. that’s not because he has some crazy-ass theories and has anything to back them up. it’s because he honestly has no idea what is going on in the show.
hahhahhahahahahahahhaha, that’s great. And, apparently, a common trait amongst the boomers.