Spoilers After The Jump
What amazed me about this episode is how the show’s creators can show you so much and explain so little at the same time.
We now know that Jacob and the Man In Black are brothers. I wasn’t particularly surprised by this, but I do think each’s development is intriguing.
The Man In Black definitely had an edge on Jacob when they were growing up. Jacob didn’t have the insight his brother did, nor the intellect. Jacob is led along throughout the whole episode, much like the Losties have been by Jacob in the current timeline.
Our sympathies are definitely placed onto the Man In Black. He simply wants to leave the island from almost the start. It’s not his fault his mother wants him to stay.
His adoptive mother, played by Allison Janney, is quite the manipulator. It’s easy to see where both men acquired this attribute. She deceives both of them, but to what end? What reasoning is there? She did murder their true mother, Claudia, but was it actually to protect them? Claudia did come from a group of greedy, despicable people, and her killer claims she had to do it to protect the island.
So at what point did Jacob and Man In Black’s adoptive mother come to the island? She spoke the same language as Claudia. She seemed not to be more than ten years older. But at some point, the island either chose her as its protect her, or her own deluded mind chose that role for herself.
On some level, the unique properties of the island could be explained scientifically. But to this woman, it may have been a completely spiritual experience to find the glowing cave. And, like Jacob and the Man In Black, it is possible that she was immortal to a point, and once she passed her job onto Jacob, she was able to be killed. Was it the drinking from the wine bottle that made Jacob immortal?
I’m not sure if we will ever find out the true nature of the glow. Right now, its origins can be explained through science or spiritualism, and I believe that’s where the show’s creators would like to keep it.
Revelations from this episode:
We finally find out who the remains of “Adam and Eve” truly are. I don’t think anyone saw that coming.
The “glowing light” is the heart of the island, the source of its power.
Man in Black and his people built the donkey wheel that releases the energy contained within the island.
My questions concerning this episode:
Jacob could not see his dead birth mother’s ghost. Why?
Was Jacob and Man In Black’s adoptive mother also a smoke monster? How did she kill an entire village of people?
If the Man in Black is dead, then who’s body does he inhabit when we are first introduced to him last season? We know his original body “Adam” stays put, so is the current Man in Black we are seeing truly alive at all? Or is he a rejected piece of the Island’s own dark nature?
I have other questions, mostly about Jacob’s sanity. Judging from his esteem issues in this episode, it’s possible he’s been delusional or at least naive from the start. He’s also a murderer, though he killed his brother by accident. No one’s hands are truly clean when it comes to the Island.
Next week’s episode - “What They Died For” sounds like it will explain a lot. The writers are going to have to do some hustling to explain and connect the Sidewaysverse in the three episodes that remain, but if anyone can, it’s them.
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