Lost: The Man in Black's Origin Is Revealed -- Do You Care?
Credit: ABC
There were three important deaths in the May 11 episode: The Man in Black, the Man in Black's mother, and the show's momentum.
Sayid is gone. So are Sun and Jin. Lapedus is underwater. Ben, Miles and Richard have been AWOL since the college basketball season ended. Desmond is still in the well, just waiting to unleash his magical powers. Fake Locke is gearing up for an epic showdown. And yet...all this compelling drama got suspended.
Miss last week's Lost? Catch up with Mara's May 4 recap.
Instead, viewers finally got the backstory of Jacob and the Man in Black. Make no mistake: Their history is crucial to the series‚ narrative. But to paraphrase a reoccurring Saturday Night Live segment...really??????!!! The Lost hourglass is quickly running out of sand and last week's episode was the most action-packed of the whole season. This stand-alone tale could have been told in March, easily.
That's not even the worst of it. I'm already bracing for the hater comments, so here goes: This episode was a letdown. Thanks to glacial placing, obvious themes, and heavy-handed dialogue (I think the phrase "You must protect the island!" was uttered 13 times), I found myself getting more frustrated with each passing moment. The surprises registered fairly low on the Lost a-ha! scale, while the big one shocker at the end just raised even more questions. It's mid-May. Viewers are entitled to more fulfilling answers than the identities to the Adam and Eve bodies who were discovered way back in season one.
So let's travel back. In the beginning, there was light. And water. And a pregnant woman ready to pop on the island. And a homely island native ready to play nursemaid. Conveniently, both speak perfect English. The nursemaid -- who looks just like the actress who played CJ on The West Wing -- delivers a boy. Mama has already named him Jacob. But wait! There's another baby. She names him Esau. Actually, nope. She's so shocked and unprepared for this second baby, she doesn't name him at all. One boy is wrapped in white cloth. The other is wrapped in a dark one. Then the nursemaid kills mama. Fade to black...Lost.
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OK, if Sex and the City writers can name Mr. Big, then Lost writers can do the same for the baby in black. He can still be evil with a moniker, I swear! It just came off as an eye-rolling contrivance. Ditto the white/dark blankets. It would have been a more interesting twist if Jacob were the baby wrapped in black. Just saying. That said, the good twin/bad twin was a development that, frankly, I didn't see coming. (Which is pretty sad, considering I'm a twin myself). Knowing in retrospect that the two main island ancestors are brothers gives their relationship extra resonance. Blood is thicker than water (and wine), after all.
Fast-forward 13 years. Jacob is good boy, dedicated to his mother, incapable of lying and living blissfully on the island. His brother is more inquisitive and restless. But not evil. He wants to play games. And he's itching to learn what's the other side of the sea. His strict mother shoots him down, insisting that the island is the hot spot of the universe. But she does tell that she's special.
The mythology continues. Jacob and Teen in Black stumble upon the original Others. They run and tell their mother. She tells them to stay away from the group, and reveals that the two of them are there for a reason. What reason? "It's not time yet!" she exclaims. Then she leads them in blindfolds to a glowing light.
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"We must make sure no one ever finds the light."
"It's beautiful."
"Yes it is. That's why they want it. A little bit of this light is inside every man. But they always want more."
"Can they take it?"
"No. But they can try. And if they try, they can put it out. If it goes out here, it goes out everywhere. So I protect it. But I can't protect it forever."
Why the cryptic language? Just say what the light is! This isn't Pulp Fiction! Besides, if the light is that important, why has this development never been an issue until now? It would have helped if the castaways would have found this light at least once during the series. Just so viewers could have planted a flag somewhere.
Next, the brothers play another round of (yes) backgammon, complete with black stones and white stones. "One day you'll make up your own game and make up your own rules," TIB tells his bro. It's just one of many prophetic, subtle-as-a-jackhammer lines. Suddenly, TIB has a vision of a woman. His birth mother. She leads him to the original Others (actually the shipwrecked survivors), and tells him about the secrets and lies going on at casa mama.
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That settles it. TIB wants to join his people and leave the island. He tries to convince Jacob to join his cause, but his brother is not having it and beats him up. "Those people are bad," the mother tells Jacob, "And I need you to stay good." Jacob stays with her -- even though she kind of admits that she loves his brother more than him.
Not that the other brother cares. Now an adult, he just wants to punch his ticket off that island. And he seems to have found a way. It took him 30 years, but he has figured out a way to mix the light and the water and the well and the wheel to transport himself. He shows his creation to his mother -- and in a nice moment of humanity, weeps while hugging her goodbye. You knew what was coming next. She knocks him out and destroys his well-concoction and goes on a murdering spree. She's very apologetic about it.
Then, revenge. The MIB -- who, several weeks ago, went on a soliloquy about his unloving mother -- puts a knife through her heart. Her last words: "thank you." Huh? Perhaps she really wanted off the island along. Which would make no sense, considering her ultra-protective nature.
Anyway. Jacob's wrath is palpable. He can't kill his brother, but he can do the next best thing. Throw him into the light, of course! As his mother told him earlier, to get thrown down into the light is to have a fate worse than dying. So MIB goes into the light as a man, and comes out as the smoke monster. It's a 5 on a 1 to 10 wow scale. But he's physically dead; and Jacob places the body next to his dead mother's corpse. Adam and Eve's skeletons, revealed.
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Let me get this straight. The Smoke Monster is just that. A monster, albeit one that can apparently embody dead people. When Jacob and MIB were talking on the beach at the beginning of the season five finale, that was really Jacob and a spirit. And a spirit got Richard out of those chains.
Meanwhile, Jacob is the chosen one. His mother tells him that he doesn't have a choice about it. (Ah, but we all have choices, right Charlie?). And his responsibilities include selecting the possible heirs to his throne. And he does this by...leaving the island again and again and touching his successors and future island inhabitants.
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Look, I'm all for Lost mythology. If I wanted easy-going simplicity, I'd turn on USA (no offense, Psych fans.) But this episode seemed so in love with its nods to the series‚ folklore, it lacked basic explanations -- starting with who invented these island rules in the first place.
I guess I should just follow the advice of the island matriarch herself. "Every question I answer will just lead to another question," she told the woman in labor at the start of the episode. "You should rest -- and be grateful you're alive."
-- By Mara Reinstein for UsMagazine.com. For more of Mara's TV recaps and interviews, click here.
Tell Us What You Think
18Way to go Lostgirl. I must disagree with you on one point though. There are some of us who are into lost for both the science fiction and the characters. And Jeff I too have a MBA and am now pursing a PhD in finance. I would like to point out getting an MBA does not require a tremendous amount of intelligence. If you doubt that look at the "mental giants" who caused the recent financial crisis. Oh and by the way take a look at the sci fi section at any library or bookstore and you will see many sci fi books with alternate history plots and quite a few that fit in the realm of mythology. Many writers of science fiction also write fantasy and some refuse to clearly distinguish between these two genres of speculative fiction. Lost is so great because the creators have decided to break all the rules of good and evil, of storytelling, of blindly appeasing fans too impatient to allow a good story to unfold at its own pace. I loved the last episode and am willing to wait until the end to make my final assessment of the entire show.
oh and I prefer to be called "Sir" :-)
it really doesn't show anything... Just because they answered the question doesn't mean it was planned. Just b/c they came up w/ an answer to the question doesn't mean they originally knew who they were going to put in that cave. There's simply no proof they planned to have it be MIB & mother. As I said in my post earlier it's pretty clear that whoever they originally had in mind was only going to be there for 50 years. If it was planned all along you would think they would at least be able to get that straight? Or you know not have Jack say that the decomposition of their clothes dates them back to about 50 years. Or better yet how about putting the skeletons in the same position they ORIGINALLY were in season 1? Go back and watch.. they weren't holding hands and actually werent even laying that close to each other. For a grandiose plan, it was sure poorly executed.
Ok, "boss"! Whatever you say! I think there is a deeper meaning of LOST, and you obviously don't. The writers are leaving a lot of things open ended because they want it left open to interpretation, not because they don't care to answer the questions. That's two completely different things. LOST is one of those shows that will have us thinking about it WAY after it all ends. New ideas and theories will be able to be generated long after it's all over. How did the death of MIB and the mother NOT prove that they had an idea of where it was going since square one? Who did you originally think that was going to be? Admittedly, I thought it would be Rose and Bernard, especially after they cleverly anagram-ed a sentence stating that "Adam and Eve" are the Nadlers in the video from Room 23. Big easter egg right there, and I was sad when it turned out it wasn't them. Regardless of which couple had their bodies in the cave, it shows they had a plan from the beginning.
lostgirl, your the most annoying kind of fan of the show. The kind that overanalyzes everything and assumes they're better or "smarter" than everyone else b/c of it. You're smarter than me? hmmm... ok well if you say so but I'm currently pursuing an MBA (at a school much better than yours im willing to bet) so I'll still be your boss when you graduate lol i bet that feels great to know. and yes i am a pretty big jerk. Good call on the thought experiment stuff though; I stand corrected there. I know time travel was science fiction. I was referring to the Across the Sea, which had about as much science fiction as the Ten Commandments, but what do I know your the "scientist" here. Donnie Darko - great movie btw As for the great debate over whether the writers had all of this planned from the beginning. I'm sure they'd like us all to believe they're geniuses that had been planting the seeds for all of this, but I think anyone that does probably isn't too bright.. there are just too many plot holes. The ironic thing is, the Adam & Eve thing was supposedly the trump card that was going to prove that it was in fact planned from that start but all it really did was show that it wasn't. The flashback conveniently ignored the part about the skeletons being 50 years old and more importantly, it was blatantly obvious that the two corpses werent even holding hands back in season 1. As I said before (and you ignored it) I liked last night's episode. And I love almost everything about the show, but what I really dislike are fans like you (most of my friends are like you so dont take it personally) that act like this show was written by Aristotle and keep looking for "deeper meaning" in it. Hate to break it to you but there isn't.. characters got killed of because the actors moved on to something else and most of your questions wont be answered b/c the writers don't know or think they're relevant enough to discuss.
PS: If you just open your mind up to some of these famous interpretations of quantum mechanics, you'd see how amazing LOST truly is not only for drama, but for inspiring good conversation for hours and hours and hours. Oh man, I can talk for DAYS about "Why are we here?" or "What if our choices are all pre-determined?" or "What if in an alternate universe there is someone just like me who has just made different choices". I just LOVE that kind of stuff! If you're having trouble with LOST, maybe try watching Donnie Darko. The creators of the show have stated that Donnie Darko it's one of the many inspirations for LOST. I love that movie, every time I watch it I lose sleep for about a week afterward. It keeps me up late at night thinking about this whole parallel/alternate/crazy universe thing!
Whoa Jeff, you didn't have to rage on me there! LoL! Number 1: Science fiction does not necessarily have to mean that there is a hard scientific basis. You can define the idea of alternative timelines AND time travel as science fiction, so BOOM, LOST does in fact have a science fiction aspect to it. Number 2: I got through the first few seasons because I think the show is well written, and I know that the creators of the show had all the big ideas planned out since the very beginning. I wanted to see how it would all unfold. Number 3: What I was originally trying to say is that the May 11 episode is NOT going to appeal to everyone. Some people are going to embrace the mythology because they are into that stuff (ME), and some people are going to think it's really dumb (YOU). That doesn't mean anyone is right or wrong, it's just DIFFERENT. Not everyone agrees with you! You should probably know that by now.... Number 4: Don't call someone that you don't know a bible thumper. I am by NO MEANS a bible thumper, I'm not even remotely religious at all. I just enjoyed seeing the beginnings of Jacob and MIB. I think that their relationship is interesting and worth seeing. I think they could have shown this episode last season, or earlier this season, but that's just not the way the cookie crumbled. I'm just happy they got around to it. Number 5: Please don't tell someone who is two years away from a PhD in physics at a top US research instution that she doesn't know what a thought experiment is! A thought experiment is just an idea of how things work...alternate timelines cannot be proved, so the original idea of alternate timelines was a THOUGHT experiment. It's a thought experiment because there's no factual way to prove it. Does that make sense? If you want to learn about a really famous thought experiment that can be applied to LOST you should look up "Schrodinger's Cat". I also encourage you to look up the "Many Worlds Interpretation" which is also a thought experiment based off of quantum mechanics. When you look this stuff up, don't get hung up on the equations. I wouldn't expect your ignorant self to understand any of them. Before LOST even started I was interested in various thought experiments that I had heard about when I first started college. Now, tons of people talk about LOST and bring up schodinger's cat and the idea of many worlds. I'm excited that people are taking an interest in quantum mechanics (even if they don't technically realize it). I like when people educate themselves, it makes me happy! Please please please don't ever say that someone is "making stuff up and using words that [they] have no idea about".... Just because YOU don't understand it doesn't mean that I do not. I'm smarter than you are, and since I can't prove it, it'll have to just be my own little thought experiment. Jerk!
I think Fred is an example of why we should stay off the drugs. and to answer your first marginally coherent statement, yes you have missed out on a great show. this season while not great (see my below post) is hardly a barometer for the show overall.
I havenâ??t watched an episode of â??Lostâ?? since the pilot, until now. Why? Because I was burned by ABCâ??s â??Twin Peaksâ??. It started off as what appeared to be an intriguing, complex mystery, but as time wore on, it became all too evident that the writers of â??Twin Peaksâ?? had no idea where the show was going. They were good at creating mysterious situations, but they had absolutely no answers â?? or at least none that any intelligent person would want to hear. The show simply sold increasingly bizarre situations with the false promise of significance. The audience eventually caught on to the con, and the show slowly fizzled out, leaving devoted followers feeling cheated and abandoned. So, when â??Lostâ?? came on, all it took was watching the first episode for me to realize that we had another â??Twin Peaksâ?? on our hands. All mystery and no solutions. All atmosphere and no answers. Who needs it? I stopped watching. But since the show is finally coming to an end, I decided to watch the last few episodes, just to make sure I hadnâ??t missed anything. And after yesterdayâ??s ludicruous excuse for an episode, I can say with confidence that â??Lostâ?? is an even bigger con than â??Twin Peaksâ??. Or, as L. Frank Baum might put it: a humbug. (Do not pay attention to the man behind that curtain!) The writers of â??Lostâ?? have postponed judgement day for years now, slowly but surely digging a bigger hole for themselves â?? but it is inevitable that it will be come clear to all (but the most diehard zealots) that the emperor is naked. There IS no deep meaning behind the series. Itâ??s just an excuse to sell soap and keep the checks coming in. To quote the anvil salesman in â??The Music Manâ?? to the gullible citizens of River City: â??Why you bone-headed, square-toed, tank town boobs! Canâ??t you get it through your heads that this music man is giving you the double shuffle? Heâ??s puttinâ?? the shake on ya. Heâ??s takinâ?? out your eye teeth while youâ??re lookinâ?? the other way. Thereâ??s burglars in the bedroom while youâ??re fiddlinâ?? in the parlor! Iâ??m talking about a shell worker, a flim-flammer, an 18-karet thief! There ainâ??t any band. There ainâ??t never been a band! There ainâ??t never gonna BE a band!â??
Hey Mara, please do not try and make a sarcastic article on LOST anymore. You sound really stupid....there are plenty of unemployed people who would do a much better job at usweekly.
it was terrible. stupid. insulting. a complete waste of time. all the "mythology" of the series is a joke.
lostgirl, what show have you been watching for 6 yrs? apart from season 5 there's no science fiction in Lost. Last night was just biblical rehash. What the heck was so "Scientific" about golden caves 2000 years ago. I personally didn't dislike last night's episode but what I am starting to dislike are the people claiming that this is somehow a major part of what the show is. If you could care less about the characters how in the world did you watch the show in the first 3-5 years? Seasons 1 & 2 had nothing that related to this show. Interesting as it may be (Thought slightly poorly written) the whole MIB-Jacob thing is really starting to seem like filler. What exactly is a "thought experiment"? stop making stuff up and using words that you have no idea about. If you watched the first 2 seasons (or last night episode for that matter) and thought "this is sci-fi" you must not really understand what the difference between drama and sci-fi is and should go back to bible-thumping instead of trying to pretend that season 6 isn't a giant albiet enjoyable plothole in the story.
Excellent commentary! The show sucks.
It doesn't matter what the light is. It didn't even have to be a light, it could have been anything whatsoever! A tree, the wind, whatever! It's not about what the object is, but what it represents!
By the way, you shouldn't make people feel bad or silly for liking the May 11 episode. Some people like the action, some people like the science fiction. It's not WRONG to like the science fiction, it's just DIFFERENT!
There are two types of people who watch LOST: Those who care more about the relationships, and those who are really into the science fiction aspect of the island. Personally, I could really care less about the people so last week's episode for me was a let-down. I LOVED this week's episode because I feel that I finally got to see the things that I have been wondering about for so long. I love LOST because it makes me question reality and inspires people to think about tons of famous thought experiments proposed by some of the greatest thinkers of all time. Yeah, Sayid is dead, Jin and Sun are dead. BOO-FREAKIN-HOO! I think it's WAY more interesting to find out what they died for! (Coincidentally, that's the name of the next episode)
And it goes on. The attention deficit disorder viewers (and writers), can't simply relax and enjoy the story but must have EVERYTHING answered, and IMMEDIATELY, to satisfy their over anxiousness and need for closure. LOL. After six seasons I'm still laughing at all these whiners, trying to figure out why they have even been watching a mystery show they obviously are not equipped to deal with emotionally.
I agree with you on most things, but just couldn't let you get away with this: "The nursemaid -- who looks just like the actress who played CJ on The West Wing -- delivers a boy." That's because it WAS Allison Janney. A simple IMDB search would've brought you to that conclusion. Tsk, tsk.