The Man in Black still doesn't have a name
Earlier this evening, before 6×15 Across the Sea came on, I took a look back at my Oedipus Lost theory.
How does it stand up after 6×15? (Warning: 6×15 spoilers ahead, so close your eyes if you haven’t seen the episode yet).
Like many other fans, I was right in thinking that Jacob and the MiB were brothers — twins, like the Biblical Jacob and Esau.
I was wrong in thinking that the Jacob-MiB saga would be rooted in patricide. This dysfunctional family had brother killing mother, and brother killing brother, but nobody killed a father because there were no fathers to be found.
I was right in originally thinking that Jacob was a prisoner, of sorts, of the Island, even though I later came to doubt that.
Well, enough about theories. Some random thoughts about the episode, along with some still-unanswered questions:
Amazing opening. When Mommy Dearest picked up the stone and attacked Birth Mother, I did not see that coming.
Quibble: Why was Mommy Dearest so surprised that there was a second baby? Did she not see Birth Mother’s belly?
Oh, and another quibble: Kid in Black said he didn’t know what death was, but then in the next scene he was running after a boar with a spear. What did he think he was going to do to the boar?
So Smokey will eventually inhabit his own dead body? Hmmm.
What gave Mommy Dearest, Jacob, and the MiB the ability to live so long? What gave Mommy Dearest the power to prevent Jacob and the MiB from hurting each other?
Who was the guardian of the light before Mommy Dearest?
If Mommy Dearest was the power behind Jacob and MiB, who was the power behind Mommy Dearest? Who started the chain of guardians of the light, and why?
And what is the light, anyway?
What was in that wine?
Who would have thought that Jacob could be so whiny and petulant! (“I don’t waaaaana guard the light.”)
Not sure how I feel about having the MiB revealed as a sympathetic character — not after what he did to Sun and Jin, and the 815 pilot, and the people in the Temple, and all the random strangers who got in his way.
How did the nice light turn him into such a mean monster?
When Mommy Dearest said “Thank you,” to the MiB, was she thanking him for killing her (thus ending the curse of immortality)?
The screenshot is from the Season 5 finale, from when the MiB asked Jacob, “Do you know how much I want to kill you?” Now we finally have some idea why he felt that way, and also why he needed a loophole.
I love the Mommy Dearest name…heh…that’s perfect. I actually had a suspicion the rock was going to come out, because she took the babies away and was staring at them so lovingly. I figured something bad was going to happen. Argh.
I had a lot of issues with this episode, but one of the things I think is interesting is the concept of good and evil. If you slaughter a whole village of people to protect the balance of the universe, are you still a good person? After we’ve seen what MiB has done, and found him evil, we now see a little of what made him who he is.
Jacob has been kind of painted as the good guy, but he’s done a lot of messed up stuff, too–and after all, all the crazy stuff Ben and Richard did were in the name of Jacob as well, right? Jacob had the Darma people killed just the same way Mommy killed all of the MiB’s people. Or did Ben Act Alone on that one?
I’m still not sure of the timeline of the MiB telling Jacob he’s going to kill him–was that before he became the smoke monster or after? Of course I was just going to say that it doesn’t seem possible to possess his own body later on, but he hasn’t possessed Locke’s body either. We still had a dead Locke even while Not Locke was walking around. So he just assumes the image of someone who’s passed, I guess. I don’t know. My head hurts. 😛
Yeah, Mommy Dearest was a very bad mommy.
It’s funny — I loved this episode — and if you saw my poll, you can see it’s kind of biased, with most of the answers being way over on the positive side. I sort of assumed everyone would have loved it as much as I did.
Then late last night, I was browsing around the Lost-fan sites, and, oh, there was so much hate! Hate hate hate for this episode. Ha. (Especially on TWoP.)
But even loving it as much as I did, I know what you mean about the meh-ness of the light in the cave (I’m actually responding to your other comment now). That scene where they first saw the light looked to me like an illustration on a greeting card, or one of those overly-sentimental Thomas Kinkade paintings.
As for good and evil — I’ve been listening to the podcasts all along, and Damon and Carlton have been hinting all season that we might find out that MiB wasn’t all bad and Jacob wasn’t all good. I was hoping, though, that they were just faking us out, trying to create artificial suspense, because I didn’t want to have to think well of Smokey after all the terrible things he’s done.
And now, here we are, and they weren’t faking us out after all, and pre-Smokey MiB was the one who was on the side of truth and Beautiful True Mother, while Jacob unwisely cast his lot in with the side of lies, self-deception, and Wicked Stepmother.
But we’ve been here before, haven’t we, in the territory of ambiguous evil. We traveled that road with Ben, who at first appeared to be evil incarnate. In fact, I remember it was your description of him which first awakened me to the possibility that he might not be *all* bad.
Interesting thought that Jacob ordered the slaughter of the Dharma people. I hadn’t thought of that. If so, I wonder why. That slaughter was so strikingly parallel to Mommy Dearest’s slaughter of the other others. (If in fact it was Mommy Dearest who did that. Since that happened off camera, maybe I am jumping to conclusions. It could have been Jacob, which would have made him REALLY bad. )
As for the timeline, I think the events we saw yesterday happened long before the scene in the Season 5 finale where MiB told Jacob he wanted to kill him. First off, the latter scene must have been in the 1800s, because the Black Rock was on the horizon, while yesterday’s scene seemed to be thousands of years BC, based on their clothes, their tools, and their language.
Also, there was nothing to indicate that the statute of Taweret had been built during the time that MiB and Jacob were young.
I’m glad we’re getting back into head-hurting territory. 😉 I actually like having my head hurt now because I know the pain will be relieved so soon!
Or maybe not. Uh oh. 😉
Oh, P.S. You’re right . Smokey doesn’t actually inhabit dead people’s bodies, but just some kind of image of them, if Locke’s body in a box is any indication.
Although … there does seem to have been some leakage between SmokeyLocke and OriginalLocke. Remember when SmokeyLocke was yelling “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” which was OriginalLocke’s signature line?
So maybe it’s not*just* an image that SmokeyLocke takes over.
Also, what happened to Christian’s body? If SmokeyLocke was telling the truth (and I’m not sure he was) when he told Jack that he (Smokey) appeared as the ghost of Christian, then why was Christian’s coffin empty?
Now my head is hurting too. 😉