Warning! If you are not caught up on Lost, cease and desist from reading this post or you will be spoiled!
Well then. I don’t seem to be the only one that doesn’t know how to “feel” about this episode. It was definitely an unusual episode, obviously since it didn’t include our Losties and was completely backstory. I loved getting all of that needed info, but I ultimately missed our regular cast. I wish this episode was spliced in as flashbacks and not a total stand alone. That said, let’s jump into it:
The poor mother getting her head bashed in after delivering the twins! I thought that was terribly violent for Lost; I didn’t think they had to be so brutal with it.
Weren’t those two young boys perfect likenesses for Jacob and the Man in Black? They really portrayed Jacob to be kind of a dummy, though. I’m sure it was just to show how naive and “good” he was, but it does put a little doubt in our heads that maybe Jacob is just following after the ramblings of a cuckoo mother and messing up a lot of lives in the process.
On the beach with young MIB, where did the game come from? I believe the mom is lying when she tells young MIB that she left the game for him. Maybe she wouldn’t have known about it if Jacob hadn’t told her? And now we know where Jacob gets his “bad” and “good” obsession, it all stems back to his mommy issues 
Back in Season 1, when we first saw “Adam & Eve” many of us (especially those of us with Bible backgrounds) speculated that the island held the Garden of Eden, and that the Smoke Monster was some form of the angels protecting the opening to it. When the mom tells the twins “this is the reason you’re here” and she shows the tunnel of light, it just seems to confirm that old theory. Was that ever officially debunked? I thought that it was, but I’ll have to look into that more.
What makes MIB able to see dead people and Jacob can’t? The real mom says that Jacob can’t see her because she’s dead, maybe candidates can’t see the dead people? Ok, I just made that up, but doesn’t it seem like there’s something to do with who can and cannot see the apparition of young Jacob in the jungle? Smocke is curious as to why Richard doesn’t see him, and then seems amazed when Desmond and Sawyer both can.
The Mother tells MIB “you will never be able to leave this island”…Do you believe her? I seem to think she’s right, clearly she knew more about the ‘rules’ than the two boys and if there was a way off the island wouldn’t MIB have found it by now? What makes our crew any different than everyone else before?
I’m not sure I understand why MIB is so fixated on the electromagnetism so soon in the history here. Obviously there’s a million things MIB’s people have been doing in 30 years that we didn’t see, but did they exhaust all ship building techniques to realize they couldn’t get off the island? When the Mother asks how MIB knows “all this” he just explains that he knows because he’s special. Are things rushed and sloppy or is it just me in a bad mood? Either way, I admit it was pretty cool to see the Frozen Donkey Wheel
Do you think the Mother went into the ‘Eden tunnel’? (My new term, coined it here lol) She seems to know first-hand that what’s in there is worse than death. And then when she’s grateful to MIB for killing her, maybe she’s glad to finally be finished with the island? Another weird thing here was the drinking of the wine. The mom tells Jacob that “now you and I are the same.” Is drinking the wine almost like eating the fruit of the knowledge of good & evil? It would seem to me that Jacob knew what to do immediately, clearly the mom didn’t kill the whole camp and burn it down alone.
It was pretty cool to see the Smoke Monster emerge from the Eden tunnel. I was initially confused when we saw MIB’s dead body, but I quickly realized that Smokey is just able to take on the form of the dead, so that explains why we’ve seen him in this MIB body since then. Now we understand how MIB has had his humanity taken from him & in typical Lost fashion, we feel sorry for someone that we’ve been despising for a while. What do you think? Did you feel sorry for MIB now? I did throughout this episode & think that again the writers are still messing with us so we won’t have a clear decision on who is “good” and “bad”.
Not everyone seems to be fond of the Season 1 clip of Jack & Kate’s discovery of Adam & Eve in the cave. I thought the interspersing of Jacob burying his only two loved ones in the cave combined with our long lost season 1 confusion was really powerful. It reminded me of just how far we’ve come in this whole crazy story, and yet seeing Locke’s face we can’t help but feel suspicious of his season 1 self. Not sure if that made any sense, it’s getting late and I guess I’ve said enough!
One last totally silly thing: Did you like the Mother’s weird leg hair removal system? Is that some silly way of explaining how The Others always managed to look so hairless and fresh? 
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode, whether you liked it or not, or whether you have some awesome theory, let me know!
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So, I definitely agree that they made Jacob very childish. Not just when he WAS a child, but even in his adult hood.
I’m very annoyed about the whole religious aspect of the show. I swear I remember the writers saying that that was NOT where they were going with this…but apparently not. The Adam and Eve reference kind of annoyed me. Maybe the flashback was a way for the writers to try to make us think they actually knew where they were going from the beginning (not that I believe them!!!!!!)
I was actually very annoyed with this episode. I said to my darling husband last night that if this were one of the first episodes of Lost, nobody would watch it. “Oh, we’re here to guard this light”. Give me a break! As I’ve said before, I’m just ready for it to be over. There’s no way that anybody is going to be satisfied with the ending.
I liked it, and I didn’t like it. Bay, you pretty much summed up every thought I had last night. Aren’t you proud of me–I watched real time this week!!
I actually love the Biblical allusions (is that the right word?). I agree that they made Jacob seem kind of simple, which I didn’t like.
Sooooo, where did the crazy lady come from? How does she know so much? Is she crazy or does she really know what she’s doing.
And, just by someone going into the light, the smoke monster/evil is released? I don’t really get it. So, smokey really can’t leave the island then because he would destroy humanity? Help.
Oh, and I liked the end where they wove the Jack/Kate scene with Jacob/Mother/Brother.
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I think she was just using her leg to make the fibers into thread for all of the weaving that went on in this episode. Which now makes me wonder if the weaving of cloth was significant (other than weaving the storyline, of course.)
I definitely felt more empathy for Smokey after this episode. He is who/what he is because of Jacob (and manipulative Mother, for that matter.) And I’m wondering if we can really believe anything she said about Eden Tunnel being the source of goodness/light. She kills people.
And Jacob just seemed weak to me.
I too thought the “mom” had first hand experience going down the “Eden Tunnel” … I think that what she experienced was “eternal life” — stuck on the island. Which is NOT all it’s cracked up to be (Richard seems to have similar experiences). That’s why, I think, she was so thankful to the MIB for killing her.
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I for one will be satisfied with whatever ending they provide. It’s their story to tell, and I am just along for the ride.
I seem to recall them ruling out biblical allusions early on too, but I actually like where they seem to be going.
My only issue was how Jacob was able to “kill” MIB when it had been stated multiple times in this and other episodes, that the rules precluded them from hurting/killing one another!?
HAIR REMOVAL? So THAT’s what she was doing–I couldn’t figure it out! LOL…
And I don’t understand why she said they can’t leave the Island, since we know they can (or, at least, Jacob can–he went across the sea to bring back our original Losties). That puzzled me.