Lost recap 6.15 - "Across the Sea"

Our "Lost" blogger Luci Chavez on this week's episode. If you want to email her and commiserate, go for it. 

Two weeks before the series finale, the producers of Lost served us the episodic TV equivalent of sorbet.

I want to say it's OK by me that Lindelcuse gave us yet another backstory episode, this one explaining the genesis of the relationship between Jacob and The Dude in Black Who Isn't Johnny Cash.

It's not OK by me.

SPOILER ALERT

A lady pops her head out the water then washes ashore on what looks like our island. She's pregnant and I'm taking just one of the 20 guesses I'm going to give you to figure out what baby pops out.

The woman finds water and, while drinking, sees a reflection in the water. It's C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) from "The West Wing." Well, it's a woman on the island who sounds like she's speaking Latin, until she and the waterlogged woman start speaking English.

It kinda looks like olden times on the island. C.J. wants to help. What's your name? The pregnant woman is Claudia, who wants to know where everyone else is. She shipwrecked with other people. C.J. says, "There's only me." Like Eve, n'est-ce pas? C.J., being the great White House spokesperson she is, dodges questions until Claudia starts having labor pains. "It's coming!"

She delivers a son. Hooray. His name is Jacob (yawwwwwn). We'd like to mull on that except here comes another baby, another boy. Oh it's the other one, the man in black perhaps? The Antichrist? Well, he doesn't have a name. Can we get the kid a name? Kid with the light blanket = Jacob. Kid with the dark blanket = Other Brother.

But C.J. is acting weird. She won't let Claudia see the boys. She's obviously taking the kids for herself. They're brothers, like Cain and Abel.

Still on the island, fast forwarded maybe 13-14 years. Tween Other Brother finds a box with rocks that he turns into a game. He promises to show Tween Jacob how to play "if you don't tell Mom."

Obviously Tween Other Brother is a handful and Tween Jacob is the goody-goody because, back at camp, Mom wants to know what's up. "Do you love me, Jacob? Then tell me what happened."

Tween Other Brother is still at the beach when Mom happens by and figures it all out. Oh, she'd left it for him to find. (Yeah, riiiight.) "Where else would it come from?" Obviously, she's been selling the boys a load of goods. There is nothing beyond the island. "Somewhere beyond the sea?" "That's something you'll never have to worry about."

Later in the day, NKOTB are chasing after a boar with sharpened sticks when someone kills the boar first. Three men. NKOTB, the blond one (Jacob) and the dark-haired one (Other Brother) have never seen anyone else. Who is it? It's ... it's ... it's ... it's .... aaaaarrrrghhhh! ... it's ... oh, come on!

NKOTB runs back to Mom to explain. They want to know who the three men were. She tells them it doesn't matter because they're bad and they don't belong on the island. (Hmm. Where have I heard THAT one before?) You two belong here. There's a reason but, sons, I'm not going to tell you now. That would be too easy for our viewers.

She blindfolds El Rubio (blondie) and El Moreno (the dark-haired one) and takes them to a stream, explaining the men they saw are dangerous because they want to destroy this super cool thing she's about to show them. "They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt and it always ends the same." (She's not exaggerating.)

"They would hurt you but I made it so you can't hurt each other." Rubio and Moreno believe her. She shows them the stream and the big cave of light. "It's the warmest brightest light you've ever seen and felt. You have to make sure no one ever finds it. ... The light, a part of it is in each of us. But they always want more. If they try to take it, it'll go out everywhere." She can't protect it forever. Someday one of the brothers will protect it. (My money is on Rubio.)

The Brothers Grimm are playing their game. Moreno is chiding Rubio/Jacob for not following the rules when he sees a vision of his real mother, Claudia. Moreno follows the ghost to the other side of the island. She shows him a village made of the people who were with her when her boat crashed 13 years ago "the day before you were born."

She tries to tell Moreno he came from across the sea. He doesn't believe her because it isn't what "my mom told me." "I am your mom." (So Moreno gets the truth. Does that mean Jacob is operating on lies?)

Later on Other Brother/Moreno takes Jacob/Rubio to show him the village. Moreno wants to stay with "our people." Rubio doesn't. Moreno tells him the mom lied to them. Rubio can't handle it. He goes after Moreno and begins to beat his ass.

C.J. stops the fight. "I'm going to go home. You killed my mother. Jacob, she was your mom, too. We don't belong here." Jacob refuses to follow. Mom chimes in, "Whatever you have been told, you'll never be able to leave." Before bolting, Moreno gets in the parting shot, "That's not true and one day I'll prove it."

Jacob wants to know why C.J. killed his mom. "Yes, it's true. But if I'd let her live, she would have taken you back to your people and they're bad. ... I needed you to stay good." She reassures Jacob that he is, in fact, good. (Oh but he ends up doing some totally rank business. No bueno.) Jacob promises to stick with his other mother despite her felonious ways.

Sometime later, we see Moreno (Titus Welliver) weaving and Jacob (Mark Pellegrino) coming to visit. (Is this all about the pissy prodigal son?) Moreno claims he has stayed for 30 years with these people to find out if they really are bad. Yep, they're bad. "They're greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy and selfish." So why stick around?" "They're a means to an end." What end? "I'm leaving, bro. I've found a way off the island.

So the Dark-haired one proceeds to explain about the electromagnetic pockets on the island. Jacob eventually goes back to camp where Mom grills him as to his whereabouts. He tells about his visit with Other Brother, that Moreno has found a way to leave.

That sends C.J. to visit Moreno for the first time in 30 years. (I bet $20 bucks she tries to kill him.) She watches people digging in the spot that will likely become the hatch in no time at all. She sneaks up on Moreno, who's standing in front of a fire thingy but turns in time to pull a rock on his mom.

They talk about the great big mystical light and Moreno explains that he figured out a way to get to it. Moreno is also quite put out because Mom never told him what to do with the great big mystical light. Moreno pulls a rock fragment out of the wall and you see the light. And, wait for it, there's the donkey wheel!!

Moreno explains: Big hole. Wheel attached to a system. Water and light. Channeled to the right place. Turn it. Then I leave the island. "How do you know it'll work?" Mom asks. "Because I'm special," Moreno replies.

Mom tries to say don't go. Son says I'm "because I don't belong here." (Oh my, I just had a Foxy tingle.) Mom goes like she's saying goodbye and I'm thinking someone is about to get a shiv. "Goodbye, mother." Then C.J. says she's so sorry before cracking her non-bio son over the head with a rock.

Mom goes to Jacob and says it's time. They go to the light source. She tells Rubio he has to protect i now. "Life, death, rebirth. It's the source, the heart of the island. It's all there. ... Promise me you won't ever go down there. No, you won't die if you do. It'll be worse than dying."

Then C.J. pours Jacob a glass of whatever from the bottle and tells him to drink. How very Catholic, that. "Drink this. If do you, you accept responsibility to protect this place and to find your replacement when it's time."

They squabble over whether Jacob really is the guy. Mom says she now realizes it always had to be him. Take the cup and drink. Amen. He does. So Catholic. "Now you and I are the same." (What the heck is that supposed to mean?!? Wait, is it just me or did C.J. Cregg just figure out a way to get out of her gig as island protector? Nice.)

Moreno wakes up in some other part of the island. He sees his village has been burned to the ground. His mom killed all his peeps. (So this is the first time the "others" were killed to protect the island. Ben also did a bit of genocide in the name of the island.) Moreno digs his box out of the ashes but it makes him cry. He's getting totally worked up, pissed, BENT ON REVENGE even!

Rubio and Mom back at their campsite. Mom finds the box with Man in Black/Moreno's game. She opens it and finds one white rock and one black one. Doh! There's Moreno. He has just filleted his mother. If it's any consolation, he looks totally conflicted. "Why didn't you let me leave?" "Because I love you." MOM DOWN. MOM DOWN. (If mom was the protector, she could not have killed herself to get out of being the protector. Someone would have had to do it. Someone like the future smoke monster perhaps?)

Moreno cries a little, maybe knowing he's left with that Goody Two Shoes Jacob. Rubio and Moreno fight. Well Jacob gets in a lot of good punches. "Don't kill me!" Aren't you already dead? Maybe not. He's going to make Moreno immortal!

They go to the light cave. Jacob reveals he's the protector of the island. (Woo to the hoo, Rubio. Woo to the hoo.) "You want to leave, then go," Jacob tells the Other Brother. Bro, bloodied and bruised, floats down the stream into the cave and reemerges as ... dun dun dun duuuuuun ... the Smoke Monster.

Hey, thanks Jacob. Good work, bro. It's his fault and his face looks like he knows it. Then Other Brother's body washes up and Jacob looks said. He hugs him and rubs his head. Oh, how gentle! He carries it back and lays it next to his mother's. Jacob's all alone now. Real smart, buddy.

Jacob grabs the white and black rocks. (Flashback to Jack finding the rocks. Kate's there, too. Back when they found the bodies in the cave where the water was. Wait a second. Everyone drank from that well. Holy majoly. That was their initial water source?What the heck?)

(Flashback to Kate and Jack talking about the two bodies.) Jacob places the two skeletons side by side, holding hands with the bag of two rocks. (Locke shows up in the save. "Our very own Adam and Eve.")