LOST Across The Sea

Last updated on: May 11, 2010 at 11:30 pm

May 11, 2010 by James F. McGrath

Tonight’s episode ties together some threads and questions, but it is summed up well (as is the series as a whole) in the phrase spoken by one of two characters whose names we never learn in this episode “Across the Sea”: Any answer I give you will only lead to another question. SPOILERS lie ahead.

In the washing ashore of the shipwrecked, pregnant Claudia, I was reminded to the story of Perseus from Greek mythology. But there are important differences. In keeping with the Biblical narrative from which Jacob’s name derives, one of the brothers was a bit of a mama’s boy.

We learned important details tonight. We learn the origin of the “donkey wheel” – at least we get hints of it. In fact, it isn’t clear that the Man in Black ever managed to complete it, and so perhaps we are to understand that he guided others to complete what he started.

Tonight’s episode provided much backstory for Jacob and his brother. But we have still been left feeling that, as different as these two characters are, depicting one as good and the other as evil, or one as right and the other as wrong, really cannot do justice to the complexity of the situation.

If there is one thing that was clear tonight, it is that their adoptive mother did not always tell the truth. And so what did she tell us that was true? With the finale so near, it seems like we still do not know which side to root for. And perhaps that is the point. But at any rate, the adoptive mother is herself an enigma, and she may simply be yet another in a long line of “protectors” of the island who have ended up there, and who could not die except under a certain set of circumstances. Presumably that is why she thanked her adopted son.

“Our very own Adam and Eve…” We have lots of answers, but still have questions. And that is as it should be, since we still have more to watch.