Ultimately, I was just left feeling sad and confused. Why, with only 3 episodes left EVER, had Damon and Carlton given us an episode that didn’t feature a single primary cast member? While I’ve been dying for a Jacob/MIB-centric episode, was it really appropriate to spend a full hour of LOST on them with only 4.5 hours to go?
The biggest question to me is why did they air “Across the Sea” after the “The Candidate” instead of before? You see, from the interviews I’ve read with Damon and Carlton, the shocking deaths in “The Candidate” were to prove once and for all that FLocke truly is evil (and the real bad guy of the show). However, “Across the Sea” just made MIB a sympathetic character all over again. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to air “Across the Sea” first, allowing fans to empathize with the MIB even more before revealing his true intension to murder every last candidate on the island? While I know FLocke is bad, after watching “Across the Sea” I’m not so sure Jacob is as honest and altruistic as I once believed.
What frustrated me about “Across the Sea” was learning Jacob might not know much more about the island than we do. I get that the events of last week took place hundreds of years ago (giving Jacob plenty of time to learn all of the island’s secrets), but where does his knowledge actually come from? And is his mission to keep his brother on the island really just based on his crazy adoptive mother’s desire to keep man’s evil tendencies far away from her boys? Like most of LOST’s answers, I’m only left with more questions. This used to be one of the things I loved most about LOST, but with only 2 episodes left I’m starting to wonder if a true answer to why all this is happening is really coming.
I could go on and on about the craziness of Jacob and MIB’s “Mother,” the underwhelming discovery that Adam and Eve are really the Mother and MIB, or how ridiculous it is that Damon and Carlton are keeping the MIB’s name such a secret, but I won’t. Instead, I want to talk about my theory surrounding the Mother and the Smoke Monster. I’m now starting to believe that these two supernatural forces have always lived on the island and are in a constant struggle for the island and the world. To me, Mother was grooming the two boys to take over her role as guardian of the island. When MIB stabbed her, she thanked him for setting her free (via her death), which officially made Jacob the new guardian of the island. It seemed like after the wine ceremony between Jacob and Mother, the island was finally done with her and allowed her to die (similarly to how the island let Michael and Jin die when they were no longer needed).
I assume when MIB’s biological mother appeared to him that was the Smoke Monster. Since she died on the island, the Smoke Monster could take her form. It makes sense (at least to me) that when Jacob sent the MIB into the golden light, he didn’t transform into the Smoke Monster. Instead, the Smoke Monster took the form of the MIB. This explains why the MIB’s body was later found by Jacob in the river and why the Smoke Monster looks, talks and acts like the MIB (but isn’t really him). This theory would also work with Smokey’s recent transformation into Locke. Locke’s dead body was on the beach all along, even though Smokey looked, talked and even shared memories with John.
Ultimately there must always be good and evil on the island in the form of an island protector and an evil smoke like entity. But why they are there is anyone’s guess. What’s really confusing is how at times both entities have acted like their opposite counterpart, which makes me wonder if we’re not just looking at two sides of the same coin. Then again, maybe the smoke monster is truly pure evil and the guardian of the island is our last line of defense against the total destruction of the world…but I doubt it. I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen, I just pray we find out over the next 3.5 hours!