Lost - "Across the Sea"

Episode Title: “Across the Sea”

Brian’s Deeper Meaning Guess: Do you know what has been noticeably absent for Lost’s entire final season? An episode title that actually had any real deeper meaning or tie-ins to popular culture, books, movies, or songs. In previous seasons, I spent a good amount of time researching the episode title, trying to find thematic hints about the bigger meaning of the episode, or finding how the title provided a clever spin on the action taking place on the show. This season they seem to be more of an afterthought. It’s not to say that the episode titles have been “bad” – most have done a good job of tying together something from the Flash Sideways to the action On-Island (“What Kate Does”, “The Package”) – but some have seemed to be nothing more than being a simple reference to one scene or character in the episode (“The Lighthouse”, “Dr. Linus”). But hey, we don’t watch Lost for the episode titles – it’s not really that big of a deal – but it’s my justification for one reason why the episode preview posts this season have been so brief.

Which brings us to this week’s title: “Across the Sea”.

When I first read it, my mind immediately began humming the Bobby Darin song “Beyond the Sea” – which has been referenced on Lost before… but is not actually the same as “Across the Sea” – so any comparison between the two is probably an illogical stretch.

My second thought was that this episode title can be taken two ways – across the sea (literally) and across the sea (of space and time), meaning that this episode will feature people journeying to the Island as well as the audience journeying across the seas of time to learn a little more of the history of the Island, and two if it’s oldest inhabitants:

Jacob and Anti-Jacob.

That’s right – this is the long-anticipated episode that cast members have been talking about since early this season, using phrases like “unlike anything you’ve ever seen on network TV”. For months, they’ve been pointing to two episodes this season as the “tent pole” episodes that would provide a ton of the mythology answers to the audience. The first was the Alpert-centric “Ab Aeterno”. The second is this week’s Jacob-centric “Across the Sea”.

The bad news is that we’re probably not going to see a lot of advancement in the On-Island action this week, as I’m anticipating the episode being nearly 100% flashback. The good news is, this might finally be the episode to answer some of the “big questions” on Lost surrounding the nature of the Island, Jacob, Anti-Jacob, Smokey, their powers, the “rules”, and maybe even the identities of Adam and Eve.

Yeah – that sounds like an episode that’ll be worth 42 minutes of my life.

Guest Stars: Mark Pellegrino as Jacob, Titus Welliver as Man in Black, Allison Janney as Woman, Kenton Duty as Teenage Boy, Ryan Bradford as Boy in Black, Lela Loren as Claudia, and Ivo Nandi as Oldest Hunter.

Guest Star Breakdown: The phrase “Guest Stars” might be a little misleading this week. Typically, the “guest stars” appear in a few scenes here and there, but the series regulars are the ones in the spotlight for the majority of the episode. This week will likely be quite different, as any origin story about Jacob and Anti-Jacob would feature ZERO of the Lost characters we know and love (aside from perhaps Alpert) for the first few hundred years of their time on the Island.

The writers appear to have tipped a bit of their hand here – but it comes as no surprise that if there is a “Boy in Black” (a young Anti-Jacob), it stands to reason that “Teenage Boy” is going to prove to be a young Jacob – meaning that our theories have been correct – and the young boy we’ve seen appearing periodically this season is exactly who has been tormenting SmokeLocke this season, laughing at him and reminding him about “the rules” of who he can and can’t kill. Perhaps we’ll finally learn what Young Jacob really is (a ghost? Jacob being reborn on the Island?), why his hands were bloody when we first saw him (did he murder someone? Did someone else just die in his arms… tonight?). QUESITONS WILL BE ANSWERED.

It also seems logical that if there are two young boys on the Island, there should also be a parent of some kind there as well – which is probably where Allison Janey’s “Woman” comes into play.

But for the most part, I’m expecting this to be the Jacob and Anti-Jacob hour, and upon it’s completion, we should finally have an understanding of the motives of each of them, and have a deeper appreciation for both characters, and how they’ll factor into Lost’s final episodes.

Episode Description: The motives of John Locke are finally explained.

Episode Breakdown: It seems as though we already know a good portion of John Locke (aka “SmokeLocke’s”) motives – he wants to kill the Candidates and leave the Island because he’s been trapped there for so long. He just wants to go home! He’s tired of being corked up on the Island. Life is rough when you’re a super powerful, non-aging being living in paradise.

But although we already know WHAT SmokeLocke wants – this week should finally show us what brought him to this point – to help us understand the man behind the smoke, and what brought him to this point. Why has he hated Jacob so much for so long? How did he and Jacob grow apart, if they clearly had some connection as youth? And if he started out as a normal “Boy in Black”, how did he become Smokey?

This episode could go a long way in explaining a lot of the big mythological mysteries on Lost. You should probably be excited about it. With that, I’m wrapping it up for this week.

On this week’s Podcast, Damon and Carlton said you should probably go into this week’s episode knowing as little as possible, so that you’ll get maximum enjoyment out of it… which means by reading this much, you’ve already ruined the episode for yourself. Shame on you.

Happy Losting!

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