Lost 6.15 Across the Sea
May. 12th, 2010 08:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakNow that, as opposed to the Richard backstory? Was awesome. Show, I love you. Icon courtesy of squee-worthy guest actress.
Most trivial observation first: it is so weird to hear Latin spoken out loud with English pronounciations. (Err, if you're German and thus learned with German pronounciation, like yours truly.) Also, that dates the twins from rather later than I thought (ab urbe condita, so to speak), but it's still ancient enough for me to be happy, especially given the actual story.
So. After an episode which presented Smokey performing his most dastardly act yet (i.e. attempting to kill 'em all, and succeeding with Sayid, Sun and Jin, plus arguably Frank Lapidus), we get the origin story, and lo and behold, nobody starts out evil, and everything is a lovely, lovely shade of grey. ZOMG, I'm even, finally, warming up to Jacob now, who'd have thought? Because they didn't go the good twin/ bad twin or clear cut Abel/Cain route from birth route; Jacob is the one with the violent temper and some sibling jealousy re: whom he thinks their mother likes best, Future Smokey (btw, since they are twins, I suppose we really should call him Esau) is the one curious, questioning orders, searching for truth and not fighting back when his brother beats him up (both times). Their (second) mother, aka the awesome Alison Janney (do we call her Eve?), unites all the roles these two will later perform in herself, she's murderer and protector, betrayer and revealer of truths, mad and sane. (BTW, I was hoping Smokey hadn't entirely lied to Kate re: mothers when he talked to her. Hooray! It does put an interesting light on the Smokey/Claire relationship, and also makes me wonder about Danielle Rousseau, and whether it's the island itself that keeps bringing back a female archetype to balance the twins.) Kudos for making a character whom before the teaser ends we see kill a woman who has just given birth ambigous, I say.
Of course, we don't know yet how Eve came to the island, and how long she was there before poor pregnant Claudia showed up. Given that she says "thank you" to Smokey when he finally kills her, I'd say chances are very long. But who put her there, in charge of the energy source? I doubt we'll get introduced to yet another string puller that late in the show, so I wonder whether they'll go with a kind of backward butterfly effect, i.e. in the season finale we'll also experience the creation of the island - whatever the island is - and Eve (will call her that until the show gives her a name) coming there due to some action of Our Heroes.
The fact we never hear Future Smokey's name better prove significant because I feel horribly teased about this (and also would prefer it if people in present day would not refer to him as Locke - come on, Jack & Co., you know it's not Locke, so pray call him something else) and really have no better guess than the old Welsh tale where Arianrhod's refusal to name her son is one of the curses laid on him, and has to be broken.
Young Esau (can't always call him Future Smokey) seeing the ghost of Claudia, and that Jacob can't, is fascinating. Among other things, it proves that ghosts showing up on the island predates Smokey and Jacob and operates independently from them (which ties with Hurley seeing ghosts that couldn't be Smokey). Given the information she gives him, it must have been the genuine article. Also, no wonder Smokey in past seasons had a particular affinity to Locke and Ben and got to them, because:
- "special"
- one parent who lies to you, uses your affection for him/her against you and lands you in a situation you feel horrible trapped in
- one dead parent who died shortly after your birth and shows up later, guiding you to the people your family sees as the enemy
- games (do we call that early backgammon or early chess?).
Dark humour moment: young Esau telling young Jacob when Jacob complains that they play by Esau's rules that Jacob will make up his own game one day and can then make everyone play by his rules. Err, yes. Poor everyone. Jacob, too, has parallels with Ben and Locke; he's seeing himself as the less favoured one and his determination to stay, both with his mother and with the island, is partly motivated by the need to be loved most (and partly by a fear of change). At the end, he, like Eve and Esau, has committed a murderous/semi-murderous act against a person who trusted him and thereby finishes the vicious circle they're still in. Eve kills Claudia to keep the twins (with the wish that one will replace her, and one will kill/free her), and later an entire village after knocking Esau unconscious (btw, I thought that crack to the skull had already killed him at first and couldn't quite figure out how that would lead to the smoke state, then realised he couldn't be dead yet) to keep Esau from leaving. Esau finally snaps and kills Eve in retaliation. Thereby causing Jacob's revenge. Note that Eve explicitly told Jacob that going "down there" to the light/energy source would not kill him but would be far, far, worse. So while Jacob doesn't exactly know what he's doing to his brother (i.e. that this would result in a lethal Smoke Monster), he is at least aware of the general idea; in addition to grieving and raging over the death of Eve, and wanting to punish Esau, I think there is also the previously established Jacob tendency of wanting to keep people at work. He wants to do something horrible to Esau but also wants to keep him. (As the final scene showcases, he still loves him.) And he gets his wish. Does he ever.
...add two millennia of this, and no wonder Smokey has gone Übervillain. Phew. And yet, as I said: for the first time, I feel some empathy for Jacob as well. Despite the fact that between them, they ruined many, many lives from this point onwards, I'm all "poor twins" right now. Will undoubtedly change next week, but give me a moment.
The bones that Jack and Kate found being revealed as the ones of Eve and Esau, mother and son rather than husband and wife, was a great twist I should have seen coming halfway through the episode but didn't; I had forgotten Locke was also present in that scene, which I doubt was planned but worked out very poignantly given what was/is in store for Locke and Jack. And Kate, the crossed-out name? Also the mother/not mother of a child someone else gave birth to, a child she helped bring into the world but took involving a lie? Hmmmm.
In conclusion: I loved this episode, which really delivered the mythic dimension I was hoping the backstory would achieve.
Most trivial observation first: it is so weird to hear Latin spoken out loud with English pronounciations. (Err, if you're German and thus learned with German pronounciation, like yours truly.) Also, that dates the twins from rather later than I thought (ab urbe condita, so to speak), but it's still ancient enough for me to be happy, especially given the actual story.
So. After an episode which presented Smokey performing his most dastardly act yet (i.e. attempting to kill 'em all, and succeeding with Sayid, Sun and Jin, plus arguably Frank Lapidus), we get the origin story, and lo and behold, nobody starts out evil, and everything is a lovely, lovely shade of grey. ZOMG, I'm even, finally, warming up to Jacob now, who'd have thought? Because they didn't go the good twin/ bad twin or clear cut Abel/Cain route from birth route; Jacob is the one with the violent temper and some sibling jealousy re: whom he thinks their mother likes best, Future Smokey (btw, since they are twins, I suppose we really should call him Esau) is the one curious, questioning orders, searching for truth and not fighting back when his brother beats him up (both times). Their (second) mother, aka the awesome Alison Janney (do we call her Eve?), unites all the roles these two will later perform in herself, she's murderer and protector, betrayer and revealer of truths, mad and sane. (BTW, I was hoping Smokey hadn't entirely lied to Kate re: mothers when he talked to her. Hooray! It does put an interesting light on the Smokey/Claire relationship, and also makes me wonder about Danielle Rousseau, and whether it's the island itself that keeps bringing back a female archetype to balance the twins.) Kudos for making a character whom before the teaser ends we see kill a woman who has just given birth ambigous, I say.
Of course, we don't know yet how Eve came to the island, and how long she was there before poor pregnant Claudia showed up. Given that she says "thank you" to Smokey when he finally kills her, I'd say chances are very long. But who put her there, in charge of the energy source? I doubt we'll get introduced to yet another string puller that late in the show, so I wonder whether they'll go with a kind of backward butterfly effect, i.e. in the season finale we'll also experience the creation of the island - whatever the island is - and Eve (will call her that until the show gives her a name) coming there due to some action of Our Heroes.
The fact we never hear Future Smokey's name better prove significant because I feel horribly teased about this (and also would prefer it if people in present day would not refer to him as Locke - come on, Jack & Co., you know it's not Locke, so pray call him something else) and really have no better guess than the old Welsh tale where Arianrhod's refusal to name her son is one of the curses laid on him, and has to be broken.
Young Esau (can't always call him Future Smokey) seeing the ghost of Claudia, and that Jacob can't, is fascinating. Among other things, it proves that ghosts showing up on the island predates Smokey and Jacob and operates independently from them (which ties with Hurley seeing ghosts that couldn't be Smokey). Given the information she gives him, it must have been the genuine article. Also, no wonder Smokey in past seasons had a particular affinity to Locke and Ben and got to them, because:
- "special"
- one parent who lies to you, uses your affection for him/her against you and lands you in a situation you feel horrible trapped in
- one dead parent who died shortly after your birth and shows up later, guiding you to the people your family sees as the enemy
- games (do we call that early backgammon or early chess?).
Dark humour moment: young Esau telling young Jacob when Jacob complains that they play by Esau's rules that Jacob will make up his own game one day and can then make everyone play by his rules. Err, yes. Poor everyone. Jacob, too, has parallels with Ben and Locke; he's seeing himself as the less favoured one and his determination to stay, both with his mother and with the island, is partly motivated by the need to be loved most (and partly by a fear of change). At the end, he, like Eve and Esau, has committed a murderous/semi-murderous act against a person who trusted him and thereby finishes the vicious circle they're still in. Eve kills Claudia to keep the twins (with the wish that one will replace her, and one will kill/free her), and later an entire village after knocking Esau unconscious (btw, I thought that crack to the skull had already killed him at first and couldn't quite figure out how that would lead to the smoke state, then realised he couldn't be dead yet) to keep Esau from leaving. Esau finally snaps and kills Eve in retaliation. Thereby causing Jacob's revenge. Note that Eve explicitly told Jacob that going "down there" to the light/energy source would not kill him but would be far, far, worse. So while Jacob doesn't exactly know what he's doing to his brother (i.e. that this would result in a lethal Smoke Monster), he is at least aware of the general idea; in addition to grieving and raging over the death of Eve, and wanting to punish Esau, I think there is also the previously established Jacob tendency of wanting to keep people at work. He wants to do something horrible to Esau but also wants to keep him. (As the final scene showcases, he still loves him.) And he gets his wish. Does he ever.
...add two millennia of this, and no wonder Smokey has gone Übervillain. Phew. And yet, as I said: for the first time, I feel some empathy for Jacob as well. Despite the fact that between them, they ruined many, many lives from this point onwards, I'm all "poor twins" right now. Will undoubtedly change next week, but give me a moment.
The bones that Jack and Kate found being revealed as the ones of Eve and Esau, mother and son rather than husband and wife, was a great twist I should have seen coming halfway through the episode but didn't; I had forgotten Locke was also present in that scene, which I doubt was planned but worked out very poignantly given what was/is in store for Locke and Jack. And Kate, the crossed-out name? Also the mother/not mother of a child someone else gave birth to, a child she helped bring into the world but took involving a lie? Hmmmm.
In conclusion: I loved this episode, which really delivered the mythic dimension I was hoping the backstory would achieve.
