As expected, this week’s Lost yielded more questions than answers — just as mother told us.
Actually, to the show’s credit, a few questions did get answered. We now know where Jacob and his twin brother came from. We now know what said twin brother set out to do. We now know that he, along with his “crazy” mother, are actually Adam and Eve, the skeletons that Jack and Kate found at the beginning of the series.
But more telling are the things that weren’t revealed, and if we’re out to understand why things went the way they did, we’ll have to do a bit more waiting.
Apparently, the island is where the Light of Life emanates. The Light isn’t limited to the island–that explains the Lamp Post station in Los Angeles. But the island is the center of everything, which still leads us to an age-old question: why was it created? To me, it looks like the island is the world’s “weak spot”–that spot where most of the Light is placed, that spot which can be easily manipulated to cause good or harm. That explains mother’s role, and later, Jacob’s.
But how did mother, and presumably every person that came before her, knew of the Light’s purposes and capabilities? How did she know that going into the cave would result in something “worse than death” if she didn’t even venture inside it?
I don’t expect an answer to that question, frankly. That’d go way, way back in time, back to the age of dinosaurs, or maybe even back to the Biblical story of Creation. Let’s just say the powers that be knew what they were doing. That, or dinosaurs are more intelligent than we thought they were.
The most pressing question this week’s episode raised, though, goes like this: what is the Smoke Monster, really?
The Man in Black thought that tapping into the Light would give him a way off of the island–correctly, as it turns out, considering what Ben and Locke were able to do. But, when Jacob shoved him into the cave in an attempt to leave, he ended up dead. Well, not dead, but worse, since his body is useless, but his memories are with the Smoke Monster, as we learned over the past six years.
So who is the Smoke Monster? John suggested last night that he is a repository of souls, judging from the way he scanned people (Ben and Mr. Eko for instance) and seemed to keep some of their memories. It also explains why it, as Locke, explained the story of his “crazy” mother to Kate.
I’ll kick that idea up a notch. What if the Smoke Monster is the original guardian of the island–a higher force, above the people that watched over the place for millions of years? Only thing is, it remained dormant inside the cave, because nobody attempted to get near it. “Worse than death,” as mother explained. But it was woken up when Jacob tried to shove MIB into the cave.
Yes, I’m suggesting Jacob screwed us all by unleashing Smokey on us. And maybe along the way he’d realize what he’s done. Maybe he’ll see his brother–a friend thinks he’s named Justin because of his Bieber-esque hair–alive again and learn the truth. By then he’ll probably assert that this is his game now, and that he gets to set the rules. Smokey can’t leave the island. Jacob can’t either, until he finds a replacement. And somewhere along the way, the frozen wheel gets built. The Others, the Black Rock, the Army and the Initiative arrive. Oceanic 815 crashes and…
(Image courtesy of ABC)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
