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May 13, 2010

LOST - Jacob Episode

Morning all, so I know everyone has been eagerly anticipating my take on this latest episode which “solved” so many of the questions about the two godlike fellas we’ve seen running things over the last few seasons. My thoughts are it was a pretty terrible episode, and of course that we knew this was coming. I told you guys at the beginning of the season that there was not going to be any acceptable solution to the hundreds of bizarre and senseless mysteries they’ve spun together, and now that it’s time to start wrapping some up they’re doing what I foresaw all along. Hey how did Jacob and Man in Black (or “MiB” as the Lost nerds call him) get their powers? Magic. How did Mib get turned into black smoke? Ummm Magic? How did that wheel that sends people through time and space get made? Magic!! The only thing I learned last night were that Jake and Mib weren’t Gods, but rather humans given Godlike powers for some unknown and uncared about reason. Whatever, they could have told us that in 5 minutes instead of wasting a whole episode on it; now I’ve forgotten everything that was happening with Jack, Kate, and the gang again after 2 weeks away.

Listen, you aren’t going to get any life changing answers from Lost… obviously. Once they started traveling through time and doing even more bizarre stuff it became pretty obvious the solution to all their “mysteries” was going to be magic, but they could at least continue the strong character driven storylines that made people like the show in the first place. The final season was destined to be a disappointment no matter what, they made all these promises about solving all the mysteries in a genius way that would change television forever, but not even the most gullible Lost fan had any delusions of that happening. Yet, they somehow made it even worse by trying too hard with pointless alternate universes, even more confusing mysteries late in the game, and wasted characters. They should have just stuck with their tried and true formula of everyone running around the island doing their usual antics and trying to get off, hell just give me good old Desmondo running around without a shirt on, doing his Desmondo things, and I’m a pig in the mud… Here are some more additional thoughts:

-The Richard Alpert episode was kind of similar to this one, they spent a whole episode on Alp’s backstory, yet somehow the Alpert one was good and this one was boring, I think it was because Alpert was a character we already liked, it still had a couple of Island cut-ins with future Alpo interacting with Hurley, and of course the fact that Nestor Carbonell is a great actor…

-Which leads me to my next point, I get that they had to hire a kid who was an absolutely painfully bad actor to play young Jacob, since the adult Jacob can’t act either. But the adult Mib is an even worse actor than Jacob, and that young Zac Efron was actually a pretty good actor, it really confused me. Also, I’m obligated to mention, the babies that played Mib and Jacob in the I really did believe they were babies, which is more than adult Mib or Jake have ever done for me…

-I was hoping after their mother named the first kid “Jacob”, and the second one popped out she’d say “Call him Mib” or some kind of joke nod to all the retarded names the Lost nerds have come up with for old smokey, instead they just never said what his name was, ohhh it’s so mysterious…

-Here’s how I imagine the conclusion to the episode was written up at their writer table…

Cuse – “and then Jacob finds his brothers body and carries it back to the camp, then quietly buries his and his mother’s bodies and he’s all alone on the Island”
Lindelof – “hmmm, you know as long as we’ve got TWO bodies lying around…”
Cuse – “Great thinking, we’ll toss them in the caves, and cross another mystery off the big board! That should get those Lost nerds off our backs!”
Lost Nerds (upon viewing) – “Of course!!! It was Mib and his mother all along, I should have known!!! Those producers are geniuses!!!!!”


10 people have chosen wisely: on "LOST - Jacob Episode"

Univarn said...

I actually enjoyed the episode, and the dynamic between Jacob/Whateverhisnotnamednameis (Wehnnni for short). As for answers, eh, we all know we're not going to get any. Lost is a series built on cliffhangers. They'll probably end on one just because it's what they do.

The talk around things here (despite Allison Janney always being awesome) got old rather quickly. They've got 3 1/2 hours not to answer questions, but at least offer something of a reason or overarching explanation. If they do that, it'll be all good.

Alex said...

Yeah Univarn, I agree, Allison Janney was awesome here (at first I really didn't buy her in this context but after a while I completely believed it).

But Fletch, you are basically correct with everything here. All of the "answers" we're getting are just "whee magic!" I miss the days of Faraday's scientific babbling and discoveries of Dharma Initiative experiments. If this show didn't have so few episodes left I would be so DONE with it.

Fletch said...

I kind of enjoyed the ep. Yeah yeah, it's more questions to go along with your answers, but at least it's more answers before the questions, rather than questions piled on top of other questions. I agree, though, that the Alpert ep was better.

And unlike Kid Vegas (who writes these, not me), I like the guy that plays Jacob. Janney was a great catch, though they did a shit job of either making her look young or old, depending on what point in the episode you look at. The kids aged 43 years or so, and she looked roughly the same for all of it...or was she immortally aged and I just missed that? I guess it doesn't really matter anyway.

kid vegas said...

Man you guys actually liked that episode?? Yeah you're girl Janney was pretty good, but compared to those guys she was acting alongside it probably made her look better in comparison.

And Ir you raise a good point, perhaps this bizarre aging is also responsible for Mib being 20 years older than his twin brother, although a more reasonable explanation is they just decided to make them twins before this episode.

Another point I forgot, if good old Mib had just hung out and kicked it on the Island for a millenia or two, he could have had Jake's job and been doing off Island trips to recruit candidates, instead of going bezerk and killing everyone just to get an off-Island vacation...

Alex said...

Also sorry I didn't see that kid vegas had written this! So my initial comment was not directed toward Fletch, obviously.

Rachel said...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Janney's character was suppose to be immortal until she passed the job off onto Jacob. When MIB killed her, she was grateful.

I figure at this point we won't get any answers about the supposed "magic" of the island.

Fletch said...

KV - it's obvious that the island has different aging effects for blondes and opposed to brunettes.

Rachel - Agreed. Magic light - what more would we want to know anyway, right?

Nick said...

I enjoyed the episode... but I have a few notes here regarding this post.

"How did Jacob and the MiB get their powers?"

Well, the key word there is "powers." How was that NOT going to be "magic"? I suppose radiation or something could have been involved, but still...

"How did MiB get turned into Black Smoke?"

From what I gathered, MiB did not gain the ability to turn into the Smoke Monster. MiB's death released the Smoke Monster, which has the capability to change into the form of anybody who has died. He just took the form of MiB, most likely, because that figure was closest to Jacob, the Smoke Monster's new guardian or whatever.

"How did that wheel that sends people through time and space get made?"

Now, this one wasn't magic... from what MiB explained, he had a scientific backing to his machine. He built some kind of machine thing to harness the power of the light substance and the wheel was like the remote control for the machine hidden on the other side of the rocks... or something like that.

I didn't see any issues with a "magic" explanation for things, though... as long as they eventually explain what the magic IS, specifically, by the end of the final episode.

I'm also relatively sure that the glowing light is the "energy source" that DHARMA drills into that will inevitably cause them to build the SWAN, which they will need to use to push the button every 108 minutes to stop it from destroying the world. It makes sense that it's electro-magnetic, especially if the Smoke Monster came from there, considering the Smoke Monster is always surrounded by electro-magnetic-type bolts and sounds as it moves. And I'm also assuming it's the same energy that Widmore is after and everybody's been trying to harness for the entire show...

JacksSmirkingRevenge said...

I assumed Janney's character didnt age at all during the episode, just as Jcob hasnt aged over the last 1000 years or so.
Also, in response to KV bringing up the age difference in Jacob and MiB, there is only a 4 year age difference between the actors who play the 2 parts.

This Guy Over Here said...

Lost has created the biggest closed door in all of television history (ala,the monster is always scarier on the other side of the door.)

It feels like the writers are getting summeritous - ready to just get out of school for the summer, or in this case graduate, so on their papers they're just giving stupid answers: "Why is this this way?" "Because I made it that way. Get off my f***ing back!"

I'll tell you what though, they're making letting go of this show a hell of a lot easier. I'm just pot committed at this point.