TPG's Lost Compass: Across the Sea

God dayum! What a crazy ass episode that was. Only LOST would have the courage to kill a whole bunch of it's beloved characters one week and then follow it up the next week with a mind bending episode where none of them appear. Some say it's frustrating, I say it's bold storytelling. And last night's episode entitled "Across the Sea" certainly had a story to tell. My head is still spinning from the implications of it. So what to do you say we grab out decanter, stare into the glowing yellow cave and attempt to be reborn in the enlightenment of LOST


1. So we never got a name for Jacob's brother, eh, big deal, we'll probably never get one. But, let's just be honest here, is he really that bad? Dude just wants to leave. He's been getting screwed over by his Mama's boy of a brother for thousands of years, so of course he's pissed. He builds a well, makes some friends, gets some knowledge then his family rolls in and destroys it all. I feel bad for the guy. By the way he's clearly cooler than Jacob? Jacob sits at home knitting quilts for Mother's approval and this dude is out gambling with his board game, meeting babes from across the sea and solving the mysteries of time and space.


2. ULTRA MIND MELT WITH CHEDDA. The "Mother" was the smoke monster. Let me say that again, the mother is the original smoke monster. No wait TPG, what about the bro on the who dresses in black? Naw, look at the facts

•  She kills an innocent woman for her childen, with a rock too, that's Jack Bauer shit!
•  She knows everything (knew about the game, knew he was lying)
•  She's been killing people on the Island for a long time (she was digging more than one grave)
•  She tried to kill her own adopted  son (not the nicest thing to do in the world)
•  She wiped out an entire village of people and burned it to the ground.
•  In case you can't tell, just like Smoked out Locke said to Kate, she's clearly crazy.
•  She was killed by a special knife by someone who didn't let her speak a word to her. After this   happened her smoke monster self was freed from it's human form and came roaring out of that cave.
•  She assumed the form of Jacob's brother because the smoke monster appears as dead people.

3. The glowing cave is nothing we haven't seen before. It's the electro magnetic energy that we've been dealing with since we first saw the Hatch. The sound of the golden stuff is even the same. I find this new way of looking at what's underneath the island as very cool. People, whether it's the man in black, whoever re-built the well, the others, the Dharma Initiative, or present day Widmore and Zoe have been trying to get at the "pockets of electro-magnetic energy" for a long long time. I believe that Widmore knows how to kill the smoke monster using this energy, see point #5 last week for more on that.
4. MIND MELT PART 2 - The mother seemed to be protecting the "source" aka the glowing cave on the Island. Now before, in the Richard Alpert centric episode "Aeb Eterno" we learned that the Island is a cork, keeping the bad stuff in. Now, last night the essence of the island was described as the super heady beatnik sufer brah fantastic thing known as "the source...life, death, and rebirth," which doesn't sound that evil to me. However, perhaps this great glowing gold is not to be obtained by anyone, it's the forbidden fruit, it's the apple in center of the Island of Eden. Yeah, I said it the Island is Eden.

5. Continuing on this religious tip, if the Island is Eden, than the "mother" is well Eve. She ended up stuck there, banished from the glowing goodness of the cave, because like everyone she arrived by "accident."  Her accident, eating that damn apple or, or drinking that fine fine wine, the same wine she gave to Jacob to trap him in the cycle. Her going in that hole was original sin, it ruined her life, trapped her (No wonder she was so happy when she died). I wonder if she was egged on to go in by someone, perhaps a person who wanted to see what is was. After all, man corrupts, hey, that's what she said. And in case you didn't know that she was Eve, the writers, really really spelled it out for you at the end of the episode.
6. And finally we're only one episode away from the finale. And man, I couldn't be more satisfied with LOST right now. It's clear that the writers are making a major play to tackle some serious themes here, and I love it. Does man corrupt man? Are we born blank slates or Tabula Rasas (link to episode)? How do the philosophies or Locke, Rouseau, Hume, Bentham and others relate to show? Are we men of science or men of faith (link to episode)? Do you believe in God or in reason? These are things that Lost is trying to answer, and I applaud them for making the effort, and hey I guess I'm a man of faith, cause I think they're going to pull it off. And for all you haters out there....see below