Talk to the Flocke: Reactions to the "Lost" episode "Across the Sea"

Well, son of a bitch. That didn't quite go how I figured, now did it? Here's what last night's episode taught me, and I mean this without any semblance of sarcasm: Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse do not understand what an answer is.

To us, their loyal and often insanely frustrated viewers, an answer is the end point of a line of questioning. It's not, under any circumstances, providing something that instantly begs another question. For example, you do not answer "who set up the rules for the battle between Jacob and the Man in Black" with "Some crazy woman who isn't really their mom who was already on the island." We're going to have a few more questions there. "Why can't they hurt each other?" Oh "Because their mom made it so they couldn't." Really? Why? How can she do that? Who is she? I doubt in the remaining 2 hours we find that out. So congrats on "answering" things with more questions.
We should have seen this coming when we got the "answers" to the numbers. The "answer" was "They're the numbers assigned to the six remaining candidates." Oh, well then how the hell do they have magic powers? How does assigning those numbers make Hurley win the lottery? Is it coincidence? The reply from the creators/producers on this matter was, "we don't want to ruin the magic by explaining away everything." I see, said the blind man...

What I'm saying is this: They think episodes like "Across the Sea" ARE answering things. They think they're doing a good, satisfying job and that they're revealing things to us. They do not realize that most of us are pulling our hair out after some of these "answers." More frustrating still is when they decide they really want us to get something. That final sequence showing the "Adam and Eve" answer was perhaps the single most insulting thing the show has done. Not because I didn't like the answer. Actually, that was my favorite part. No, but because they were seemingly so afraid that we wouldn't remember or grasp that these two were Adam and Eve to the point that they constantly intercut the two scenes (the discovery by our 815 people and the burial by Jacob). What. The. Hell? I mean, if you wanted to show a brief clip, that would be fine by me. It would be almost poignant. But to do the back and forth as if someone is standing there going "get it? GET IT?!" Oy vey.

I wanted to like this episode so much. On some levels, I really did. But overall it just didn't do the very heavy lifting it had to do and fans are, I think, pretty mad. It sure wasn't the overwhelming move towards brilliance I had been praying for. Instead what we got was a strange, messy little episode. Oh, one more note, although how something ends is important, it's not the entire determinant of whether or not something is great. What I mean is, if I listen to a beautiful song but I hate the last note, it's still a great song. I fear that "Lost" is slowly hitting some wrong notes at the end here. That doesn't mean I won't have loved this ride.

Things I liked

• CJ, is that you? - Despite the fact that her very existence makes my brain hurt, I loved the performance of Allison Janney in this episode. Her crazy, brutal mom/goddess thing was really intriguing and represented a high-wire act as far as acting goes. If she goes too far, she's Mrs. Hawkings in her later episodes, all chewing scenery and acting stupid (oh, and by the way, did you notice her "it's not time yet" line mirrored Mrs. Hawking's note to Desmond...interesting). Instead, she was able to make the totally bizarre sound like it was coming from someone who totally accepted what she was saying. I believed it because it sounded like she did. Nice work, CJ from "The West Wing." I still love you.
• Smokey's transformation - Although I would have loved to see the smoke pour out and rain down fury upon the people the Man in Black had been forced to live with, instead of the weird assertion that his mother somehow killed all those people, I did like the scene of him floating down the stream into the light that made him dark. That was cool.
• The sympathy vote - I like that we are still able to feel for the Man in Black. The last few episodes have made us loathe him so much that we put to rest the "good guy/bad guy" theories pretty handily. I think this made a clear point: The person who was the Man in Black before he became Smokey was actually a pretty good guy whose mother was murdered and who felt betrayed. Perhaps the best writing in the show this season is that we're able to simultaneously pity and hate this character. That's a nice job.
• The light itself - I knew they would blend the "light" with the "electromagnetism." I totally called this. It was the only way to weave together the science and faith of the show. I actually like it. See, it's okay for me to have the answer of what makes the island so powerful and magic simply be the mom's response that "this is the source." I like that. It is Eden, even if it isn't called Eden and isn't Eden literally. I buy that whatever "light" or "force" that she says is strongly there and yet is present in all of us to a degree can't really be defined but that science chooses to see it as "electromagnetism." I'm okay with that as an answer. I don't need to know where the tunnel takes you or what happens inside there. I like the idea that we, as humans, couldn't even comprehend it. That was cool with me.

What I didn't like

• The pace - Again. These sons of bitches still haven't figured out how to make a compelling stretch of 44 minutes consistently. Sometimes they get it, but most often it moves in fits and starts. I think that they could have condensed all of the events in this entire episode to the first half hour. Really, I do. I think they then could have dropped in on Jacob and the Man in Black throughout the centuries for a lot of fun. Missed opportunity based on heavy handed writing. My gut tells me this is Carlton Cuse at work, because I've seen other things and read other things from Lindelof that had more movement. Bad, Carlton. Bad.
• What's in a name INDEED? - If it turns out that Jacob's brother's name is Fred, I'm going to stab someone. In an episode in which there are really only 3 characters, only one person's name gets used...and it gets used so frequently that it's maddening. Everyone wants to yell Jacob, but nobody says the other brother's name? Does he not have a name? Are you kidding me? It better be revelatory. It better be so important that when we hear it we are instantly floored. If this name happens to be some throwaway thing, then this is the most maddening decision they've made in awhile.
• The dialogue was, at times downright Lucas-ian - Dare I say it? Everyone spoke as though they were auditioning for a role in Star Wars Episode 7. Nobody spoke like they were people. I get that these characters have significance and whatnot, that they are not "normal people" per se, but come the frak on. This dialogue was so "on the nose" that each of them may as well have been wearing Groucho Marx glasses.
• The lack of payoff - This is the big one, right? We still don't get what the game is these two are playing, what the rules are, how other people are involved in the game, what the stakes are, exactly how long it's been going on for, who they really are, and so on and so on. We got little answers, yes...but this was supposed to be the one where the pinata broke and all the truth spilled out. So much for that, huh?

Answers

• The kid is Jacob - By virtue of using the same kid as an actor, we can now conclude that the boy appearing to Flocke on the island is Jacob.
• Jacob and the Man in Black are twin brothers - We don't know who their mom is or where they really came from, but we know they are brothers.
• Adam and Eve aren't married - They weren't lovers, they were quasi-mom and son. It was the Man in Black and his pseudo-mother.
• The light is the source of the island's power - The nature of this light remains a mystery, but that's the origin of the powers.
• Smokey became smokey by light - I get this, actually. See what I think happened is that the Man in Black went in as a person...and all of that person stuff was stripped away and killed. I think that all that's left now is his dark soul. His body died but because of whatever his wacky momma did, he can't "die." So now he's left as this monstrous, bodyless, angry soul that is all evil. All the light that was left in him is gone to stay in the light hole. I'm not saying it makes a ton of sense, but this is what I think happened.

Reflections

• The more things change... - We still don't know what the stakes of the game are, where these two came from, what their powers are, when they decided to gamble with human lives, what happens when and if Flocke gets off the island, why bodies have to be dead for Smokey to look like them, and so on and so on. The legacy of this episode will forever be missed opportunities.
• Weight-less - The worst part is this: As much as they made me care about the Man in Black here, despite not giving us his stupid name, I don't know squadoosh about Jacob. If he is the role that our hero, Jack, is going to step in to, I need to care more about him.
• Locke tight - Did anybody else forget that Locke was there when they found Adam and Eve. Interesting, no? I now totally believe that we're going to be left with Jack and Locke on that island. Whether its the Man in Black or not, I don't know.
• Where do we go now? - Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the next few hours will build on these revelations into something incredible. Maybe we WILL find out things that I've been asking throughout this post. It's possible. Did anyone else notice that the emphasis on wells and their connection to the light certainly may have a role with Desmond, who is all "electromagnetized" (another word for "the light") and was pushed in a well? Methinks that will be involved in the ending.
  

Look, I don't have a good grasp on what happened here or what's going to happen, and that sucks. Unquestionably sucks. I wanted to give this episode an A (maybe an A+). It gets a C. Why? Because what was good was very good and what was bad made me get stabby.

I want better. I want to believe that next week, which is "Lost" week, will include no less than 154 actual minutes (not counting commercials) of brilliant material that ties together the last 6 years. I am just running low on hope. This episode kind of knocked the wind out of me in a bad way. I still love this experience, I'm just not sure about where we're ending up. It's been that kind of week, I guess. My luck is nothing if not bad right now. So, here's hoping I'm wrong.

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