LOST: Across the Sea

Spoilers abound in the following blog, which I'm posting an hour after LOST was broadcast in the Eastern US. If you haven't seen the episode and don't want to be completely spoiled, please don't read this blog.






Yet another Spoiler Alert! Last warning.



OK. Here are my thoughts on "Across the Sea."

Another interesting mythology episode with barely a glimpse of the series’ long-time regulars, but what is revealed in their briefly replayed Season 1 moments on screen clicks another puzzle piece into place.

Probably the last person I expected to see on LOST is Allison Janney—but here she is as Jacob’s mother, and now I can’t think of anyone else for that role. She may have entered LOST extremely late in the series, but her role in the story is monumental.

She becomes the midwife to Good and Evil on the island. She smiles upon firstborn Jacob and places a white blanket around him. But Good must be balanced by Evil, and a second, unnamed son (just as he lacks a name throughout the LOST saga) is frowned upon and immediately dressed in black. He’s a screamer, too, wailing at his unjust treatment from the moment of his birth.

Surprisingly, Island Mom, like other seemingly mentally disturbed Moms we’ve met (e.g., Rousseau, feral Claire, Emily Locke), has plans for her child. Like Locke’s mother, Island Mom calls her Dark Son “special” and guides him in game playing.

The mythology of the island is complete with this episode, and the symbolism of Dark and Light, sometimes too obvious, nonetheless provides spiritual parallels that relate to the series’ recurring themes of Good versus Evil, Light versus Dark, Divine versus Human.

Island Mom manipulates her sons to learn the game that Dark Son is born to play. He teaches innocent Jacob all about moving light and dark pieces around the board; he inherently knows the rules of life. Jacob, however, has to learn about lies, deceit, and manipulation but is promised that someday he can make up his own game, with his own rules. It seems that Jacob takes that promise to heart in his adult dealings with islanders and Smokey.

Humanity is full of darkness. People, as defined by Island Mom, are inherently bad, greedy, and destructive—pretty much what the brothers see during their experiment with successive generations of castaways. Darkness is attracted to the light, and, according to Island Mom, the Island is the repository of the light needed to save the world. The secret cave (a powerful symbol itself)—ringed by water, lush vegetation, and strikingly red flowers (a symbol of passion as well as danger that surrounds Dark Son in the scene)—is the source of light. It’s beautiful and perfect, and there’s a bit of it (God, Good, Divinity, Eternity—whatever you want to call that divine spark) in everyone.

Humanity, however, likes to do instead of just know. The people who come to the island want to take more of the light; they want to do things with it. Even adult Dark Son wants to use the light to get away from the island.

Ironically, symbolically, the Island has been posited as hell in a previous episode but as the Garden of Eden in this. Light must be protected, whether within individuals or as a source of all that is Good, and it must never be lost. Hmmm. Maybe it, and not the people on the island, is really the reason for the series’ title. However, as this episode also reminds us, we lust after knowledge and are tempted by Evil more than Good. Thus, we can't live in the Garden of Eden for very long.

So many myths involve the giving or taking of Light. Trickster stories are full of such tales of characters who steal light or use it for their own misguided purpose. Dark Son wants very much to trick humans and Island Mom so that he can leave the island. The bringer of Light (whether symbolized as love, knowledge, peace, or eternal life) is often called a god—which brings us back to Jacob. He is the Light Son of a dark surrogate mother and a dead birth mother who reveals herself only to her “fallen” son, ironically while standing in a beam of light.

“Seeing the light” can be a spiritual metaphor, but it also can indicate an epiphany from the transfer of knowledge. Dark Son sees the light—he gains forbidden knowledge—and, like Eve, is no longer fit for the “garden” his Island Mom symbolically plants in an earlier scene. The seeds she has sown, however, aren't all that wonderful; they grow into her Dark Son’s ability to lie, cheat, manipulate, and, in short, act human. Like Eve, Dark Son is cast out, but he has trouble finding a way to take the Island’s light from its protective cave and “Across the Sea” to the rest of the world.

Jacob is right—his Island Mother always preferred the Dark Son who is so much more like her, not exactly the ideal for island divinity. Nevertheless, Jacob’s Goodness is appealing to her, and in part because he’s the only option left, Island Mom bequeaths her role as island protector to him. Some family traits seem to be inherent, however; Jacob also becomes an angry adult who kills family members and seems far less than perfect Goodness.

Even in this myth of the origins of Good and Evil on the island, in the forms of Jacob and MIB, they are not pure opposites. Each is “tainted” by exposure to the other. Jacob can be an angry, vengeful murderer, just like MIB. Jacob doesn’t want to stay on the island but is tricked into it—he’s not a benevolent “god” who accepts his role easily. MIB, for all his manipulative ways, is pretty much disillusioned with humans, too, and only puts up with them because he values their “scientific” knowledge that can get him off the island. Nevertheless, MIB seeks revenge for the deaths of “his people.” This morality tale shows that, although both sides balance each other and one has more “light” than the other, humanity finds no ideal role models in its island “gods.”

As far as mythic symbols go, this was a goldmine—so let’s start with the cave filled with light. Of course, there are many other oppositions of Light and Dark—Smokey emerging from the light-filled cave, lighted torches illuminating a dark path, dark-haired dead Claudia radiant in a spotlight, light and dark game pieces, Jacob’s light clothing juxtaposed against his brother’s dark garb. Island Mom even literally passes the torch to Jacob as protector. Then there are the Biblical symbols—most obviously, Adam and Eve, the garden setting, Jacob and Esau fighting over their birthright (though neither ends up wanting it), the passing of the cup.

I especially liked the cup imagery, not only for its spiritual significance. When Jacob offered the same wine flask to MIB a few episodes earlier, the symbolism of MIB smashing it worked on one level—MIB rejects the idea of Evil staying corked on the island and wants to break free. With this episode, however, the broken flash adds the layer of MIB rejecting Jacob’s ploy to accept the role of successor as the island’s protector. He knows better than to accept a drink from that flask and the resulting responsibility of guarding the light.

Other symbols—in LOST lore as well as other myths—include the loom (of fate), the wheel (providing another “aha” moment about the frozen donkey wheel), and even the knife—a symbol of Locke and MIB.

More puzzle pieces fall into place, not only about Adam and Eve—and the importance of both Jack and Locke being in the Season 1 cave scene—but the Island’s purpose and the way its history has been repeated throughout the generations of castaways. The creation of the Smoke Monster, the eternal quest for the source of all that magnetism, and the origin of the well are briefly explained in this episode.

If this is, as I suspect, the last “mythology” episode, I am well pleased with what we’ve learned. LOST’s myth reinterprets aspects of other myths, making universal stories meaningful to a new generation and thus helping keep the tales alive. Although the symbolism may have gotten a bit heavy handed, the significance of the story shines through.

Knowledge involves a loss of innocence. I am typically human. I succumbed to the tempting knowledge offered in this episode, but through the story, I realize that I, too, am less innocent about the nature of humanity and question whether pure Goodness can exist in our world. However, I still believe in the light, and I suspect I’ve also accepted the responsibility of guarding the light that remains on my own little “island” planet. Island Mom has just passed the cup to us.


ADDENDUM: Several other bloggers, whether TV critics or "mere" fans as obsessive about LOST as I am, argue that "Across the Sea" is a lesser episode because it doesn't provide enough answers about Island Mom. I disagree. If you read creation myths from any culture, not just LOST's, you see that huge questions about where main characters came from, what their motivations were, or what came before them are often unanswered. To me, that's like asking What came before God (or the gods, or the Creator(s) behind any origin story explaining how the world began)? or Why do bad things happen to good people, and why should we be "good"? There's not one definitive answer provided in every morality tale or myth. I like the mythological origins of LOST, and I don't need to have every question answered, even to the new issues (e.g., big glowing cave!) in this episode. That's part of the study of myths--what they reveal (or don't), what they say about humanity, and how they can be interpreted to reflect as well as guide a culture. For me, "Across the Sea" helped do that, but I realize that having such a mythology episode so close to the end of the series is bound to create a tidal wave of controversy among fans. That wave doesn't swamp my version of the Island, but I can understand how it might polarize viewers.