Loved it? Hated it? What did you think of Across the Sea?

[Tabularasa]

I'm giving it a 6. I thought it was a pretty bad episode and I'm not liking where this show is going. This was a make or break episode and it broke for me. My enthusiasm is now really low for the finale.

[superhippie2000]

i liked it but seeing how jacob and MIB are the reason for this whole series it would have been nice to have 1 more episode atleast with their back story.

[Xanderman]

I had this theory it would turn out to be Rose and Bernard - which at least would be kind of cool with the Adam and Eve thing. I kind of wish it had been this way...I agree it would have been a lot more satisfying.

And me, I would have liked it to be Jack and Kate (or Sawyer and Kate). Jack and Kate would be fitting given they were the ones to stumble upon the bodies. And Kate, despite not being a candidate, would nonetheless have a crucial importance (in irony to Widmore dismissing her as unimportant, when he threatened to kill her). And Jacob could be their son, being named after Jack. And MIB could be Aaron or something (which would also be fitting, given all the stuff they did with her pregnancy, the premonitions/dreams, etc). There'd also be the irony of Kate loving and raising him when he was young, only for him to grow up to become the enemy/nemesis of her own son (Jacob). Plus they had Smokey say he had a crazy mother, which could have been Claire, and would account for in a fitting way why he kept her with him over the years, and why he didn't want her to go in the sub with the others to die. Or for the Sawyer/Kate route, Jacob could be named after Jack in his honor, if he died to save everyone or something. Anyway, hopefully we'll get a satisfying ultimate ending with what they've decided to do...they might surprise us. The MIB/Smokey once being as good (if not "better") than Jacob route has grown on me more as I've gotten used to it.

"If the brother is Smokey/MiB/whatever, how and why is he existing outside of his decomposed body?"

Smokey once said that Jacob stole his humanity, so I think Smokey is like an evil spirit of the man in black

To add to what Will said, the Light is the source of all life/everything apparently. So it's a "rebirth" thing, MIB died a human and was reborn as the beast.

[*]What exactly is the light? Is it Smokey?

I think the light is inside of him or a part of him -- it's inside all life apparently -- but possibly more so with him, seeing as how Locke once saw him as pure light. The light still exists underground, as we've seen with the wheel contraption/the white flashes, etc, so Smokey doesn't have all of it inside of him. So it's still not clear to me why it's the end of the world if he leaves, unless it's simply because he will wreak havoc on the world as the smoke monster?

[*]Where did the mother of Jacob and his brother gain her knowledge and power?

The Island. Lol it's the simple answer for anything it seems. The show poked fun at this sort of "answering without an answer" thing when BIB asked her where he came from, and her answer was from her. And then when he asked where she came from, she said from her own mother, etc etc. But seriously I'm wondering the same thing.

[*]Why could his brother see the dead?

Maybe that was Mother in disguise, manipulating him. She might have been a smoke monster herself, knowing from firsthand experience that going into the light was a fate worse than death. She manipulated BIB so that one day she could finally be put out of her misery (she thanked him when he killed her).

[*]How did Jacob learn about the island after his mother's death, and how did he learn how to leave it (as he will in the future to visit the candidates)?

Once again, the simple answer is, the Island. lol Whenever something doesn't make sense or shouldn't be possible, the light/the island did it. heh

[*]How did drinking the wine pass powers onto Jacob?

The wine had been "enchanted". Which is to say, Mother spiked it with her own "bodily fluids" (let's just leave it at that shall we). lol

[*]The mother made it so that Jacob and his brother couldn't hurt each other, so how/why did the light negate this effect and then pass it on to Smokey?

I guess technically we could say that Jacob didn't truly kill his brother, since his "soul" continued to live on in his next body (the smoke monster).

[*]The twist at the end - I can't believe Jacob's brother isn't actually Smokey, it's just the light taking on the brother's form! It makes sense, seeing as how he takes on Locke's form later, but I still didn't see it coming. And the fact that Jacob is responsible for releasing Smokey is pretty clever too.

I don't think it's the light, I think it's actually MIB. As afterall, even after he took on Locke's form, he still "identified" himself as or with MIB. Whenever he talked about himself or his past, it was always about MIB. Now, this could be because he had no other point of reference or prior existence to speak of of course, but I'm assuming since the light was described as being the source of life, death and rebirth or whatever, it probably means MIB's body died but he was reborn.

What the writers did sucks, and you could easily replace their "explanation" with anything and it makes sense. Here for instance, instead of there being a bright light at the heart of the island, I would say that there is this ancient toad that has lived on the island forever who is so mysterious that no one really understands what he is there for. This toad is responsible for the time travel, the dead walking, the electromagnitism, and he kissed the MIB which turned him into the black smoke monster. Jacob must protect the toad because someone told him it was important. The end. See that sounds ridiculous, but replace the toad with the bright light and it is identical. I am sorry I am a bit disappointed by this. I fear they will not be able to explain this better in the last 3 episodes and Lost will have been for nothing, nothing but a long running mind ****.

Lol. If Arnie's character from Total Recall were here, he'd probably say "Well, Abrams, I've got to hand it to you. It's the best mind-**** yet."

I wouldn't be surprised if JJ Abrams ended the series with a close up of his own face as it zooms out to reveal him holding two sacks of money that he kisses and goes, thanks for paying for my summer home viewers, the end.

[Mars Investigations]

Great post, Xanderman. I would be satisfied with those answers, I just want the show to give them to me...otherwise it'll all be over and I'll have wasted 121 hours of my life on this blasted show