Last night, crazy Island Mother kept the twins in mostly ignorance, and it was the "bad" twin's pursuit of knowledge that led to his fall - or did it? I got the strong sense that everything that happened might have simply been a long con by the Mother to find her replacement. Also, she was Smokey, right? How else did she fill the well and kill all the people in the village?
Also, MIB is not Smokey, right? MIB is dead - MIB is Adam! And crazy Mother is Eve. ANSWERED! But we clearly saw MIB's dead body, and we saw Smokey, so they are not the same. I assume Smokey is either the trapped soul of MIB, or it is simply impersonating him completely, just like it does with Locke.
But what led to all the trouble was the appearance of the dead real mother, who appeared only to MIB. She spoke nothing but the truth, but in a vengeful way, as if she wanted the boy to hate his Crazy Mother and do something to her. Which he did, which leads me to believe this dead apparition was in service to a goal like many of the dead apparitions we've seen in modern times - Smokey's goals. So the theory here is Crazy Mother was Smokey, wanted out of the job, got lucky by finding a pregnant woman, kills her, and raises the kids in isolation only with the intent that one of them will take her place. By the end, she gets her wish, MIB kills her, freeing her, and he becomes Smokey, or at least his soul.
The time period for this tale is defined by the use of Latin - so, circa 500 BC to 700 AD or so. They were using an Egyptian game, but sadly this misses my hope of getting full on Egyptian action.
We saw what appeared to be the very same knife MIB gave Richard and Dogen gave Sayid to kill Jacob and MIB, respectively - MIB uses this knife to kill crazy Mother. Who thanks him for it.
We also saw the beginnings of the Wheel of Time, and I won't make any attempt to understand how that thing is supposed to work - light and water! But it was fascinating to me to see the dichotomy of the two brothers: MIB is the man of science, of this world; Jacob is the man of faith, aloof from the world. We also now know the young boy we've been seeing this season who spook's Smokey is Young Jacob - whether his ghost or his resurrected spirit, who knows?
Finally, for now, I think it likely the Other's Temple we saw earlier this season is connected to this cave/stream of light. That's where the healing spring comes from, now not-so-healy.
Overall, it seems pretty clear that no one really knows what's going on with the Island, and that's most likely the way it will stay. And isn't the mystery better, anyways?
I think this episode will be quite polarizing with the fans. It's also ballsy - no main cast at all, at this junction in the show? Takes creative guts.
2 comments:
Ugh - I really did not like this episode. The acting was horrible and the writing was soo cliched. The bit about the warm light being the source of everything, "life, death and rebirth". Barf! And don't fall down the hole where the warm light is, because that will kill you and make you into Smokey. Oh, okay.
I hate that they're reducing all the awesome, complex mysteries of the show down to biblical bullshit.
There was some stilted writing, for sure. But, I liked all the heavy mythological elements like the cave as the source of life, death, etc. It's a fairy tale. In fact, I am far more interested in the mythology of the island than I am the passengers of Flight 815, so I am biased to like this episode, I think.
But, consider: These were ancient people (some 2000 years ago); how else would they describe electromagnetic energy other than as magic, or something from the gods. I think the point was that the religious mythology of the past was turned into the scientific mythology of Dharma - don't forget, Dharma was doing much the same things in concern this "light", but instead of referring to it as magic, they called it "Exotic Matter". From a storytelling perspective, same deal. But sometimes pseudo-science terms are easier to accept than magical explanations.
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