Jacob

Mom always liked the Marx Brothers best, actually....

Another hour closer to The End (but please, please, please, ABC, can we NOT set the whole 2.5-hour climax to the dull-witted college-boy philosopher drone of Jim Morrison?) and now comes an episode-long peek back in time takes us to the birth of Jacob and his mysteriously unnamed dark-eyed twin, and then to the glowing (literally!) headwaters of some of the most crucial riddles at "Lost"'s heart: Is there a connection between the golden light of faith and the piercing Klieg light of science? How will the show be able to explain the distinction between the two, and the bond that links them? 

More questions: Are Jacob and his twin brother merely fancier versions of Goofus and Gallant? Why are the show's good guys just as capable of lying/murdering/pillaging as its antagonists? How will they ever bring the most intellecutally, philosophically and sc-fily sprawling series in the history of American tv dramas to a satisfying conclusion?

Forget about that last one. Already this morning the blogosphere -- including the level-headed James Poniewozik at Time, who is always my go-to guy for day-after recaps -- is bristling with crankiness over the episode titled "Across The Sea," musing on the line between too much information and how-the-hell-could-they-NOT-resolve. . . . 

JP raises excellent questions, as ever. Still,  I just can't kvetch about "Lost" with a lot of conviction, no matter what happens in the next two weeks.

And, by the way, I also thought "Across the Sea" did a fairly miraculous job of explaining a lot of the series' most complicated moral, philosophical and sci-fi-intific assertions. Let's take them one-by-one...

...but after the jump.

academic politics are always the most brutal...

The contrasting lives and travails of our two Bens - alt-Ben in L.A. and original recipe Island Ben - takes us back to the headlines in the morning newspaper right here at home. In a land where partisan battle takes precedent over policy; where each side is so convinced of its own moral authority that they can focus only on destroying the other side; where it's not just expected, but perfectly acceptable for ordinary folks to shed blood and even die while their leaders feud among themselves...suddenly the struggle for the "Lost" island seems far more familiar than its population of monsters, polar bears and walking, talking dead folks would lead you to expect.

The common thread, of course, is the seductive, often destructive, quest for power.

Island Ben, the leader of the Others and the acknowledged conduit to the God-like Jacob, never actually met his leader, and thus could only interpret His wishes and demands to protect the island. Most often, this led to carnage - the slaughter of the Dharma gang (including his own abusive-but-still father); bloody fights against other Others, perpetual war against Widmore & co (who may in fact deserve it) and the insta-persecution of the Oceanic survivors.

But to what end? the feud between Jacob and the Man in Black, in all their forms, continued unabated. Sacrifices were made - including Ben's own beloved daughter. Lots of blood, lots of suffering. And nothing ever changed. For al the talk of power and glory, for all the brutality meted out in pursuit of being proven right -- how many factions were led to proclaim, at one point or another, "We're the good guys"? -  each character's internal struggle continued unresolved.

Until we got to the alternative life in L.A. Unsurprisingly, the alt-life of Ben Linus -- a high school history teacher, rather than a leader of men - takes a particularly sharp turn. Away from the grand stage of Island leadership he can focus on his own humanity. Now he's a caring son for his elderly, sickly, but no longer abusive, dad (Roger, who he personally gassed to death back in the Dharma initiative slaughter). He flirts with a grand power play - using a sex scandal to oust his truly odious high school principal - but backs away when the boss threatens to take vengeance on favorite student (if no longer his adoptive daughter) Alex.

Away from the allure of glory, Ben opts for the smaller, yet arguably more fulfilling, victories of tending to the specific needs of the people he values the most.

I'm still not certain if all of "Lost"'s many philosophical/political/subtextural themes will ultimately add up to a tidy moral package. It could be that these threads serve only as dramatic enhancement: the conceptual fuel that pushes the action to a higher emotional pitch. But what seemed particularly evident to me last night was the deepening shadows surrounding all of the show's leaders. Jack's heroics often seem triggered by a combination of impulsiveness and stone-cold suicidal tendencies. Locke was/is driven by fear. Jacob, for all his fair-haired sweetness, comes off as manipulative and, possibly, wicked. The man in black, now best seen as NotLocke, simply destroys everything in his path. And God (or Jacob) only knows what Widmore and his submarine crew have in store for the Island and it's paranormal powers.

Whatever's going on between the Island reality and the Los Angeles reality, the quest for enlightenment seems far less complicated, and more fulfilling, the further you get from attempting to define, and control, the terms of right, wrong, truth and justice. Where the debate over health care policy matters less than rolling up your own sleeves and comforting the person nearest you.

Ever wonder where Nick gets his insights into "Lost"? And no, he's not telling you where it is.

By NICK GORINI

Hello, folks! Once again, I have successfully procrastinated in bringing you my recap of this week’s Lost episode, ‘The Lighthouse.’
 
Why the delay? I’ve been spending too much time starting at myself in the mirror with the sound of running water in the background. You know, like all the characters on our show (Jack, in particular, seems to do this an awful lot).
 
Before I begin, two real-life Lost-related incidents to share with you:

1.   Earlier this week I was watching that Michael Bay masterpiece known as ‘Con Air’, or as I call it, Crap. I mean, rarely do you get a pop-culture moment with so many talented people (Cage, Malkovich, Cusack, Rhames, Buscemi, etc.) dumpster-diving for dollars in one dingy flick.
 
Anyhow, there’s a scene where the convict-plane pilot, played by Frederic Lehne, is booted from the cockpit. Frederic Lehne plays Kate’s caustic pursuer, Marshall Mars, on Lost. Well, when he steps out of the driver’s seat, who steps in? A swarthy convict by the name of Swamp Thing, played by the great character actor M.C. Gainey… Who was Mr. Friendly, original face of ‘The Others’ on Lost! One Lost character gets replaced by another Lost character in a movie over ten years old. Whoa!!!
 
2.   If that wasn’t enough, I took my family for a fun weekend hike around Sauvie Island. On the far Eastern tip, away from the farms, corn mazes and bike lanes, there’s a three-mile dirt trail that is the only island path leading to… A lighthouse! Knowing what was coming up on Tuesday night, and (while looking at the map) realizing that in all the times I’d gone to this island I NEVER knew it had a lighthouse, I had to check it out. Maybe it would give me wisdom or insight into this week’s episode and what was to come. Or maybe it was just a beautiful, sunny winter day in the Great Northwest.
 
 
THE 'SIDE' TIMELINE AND THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE – SIDE BY SIDE!:
 
(If you’re curious why I’ve now combined the two, it’s because there aren’t two timelines! Ha! Read more about it at the end of the post.)
 
Jack wakes up in his nice, antiseptic apartment (hey, this other Jack doesn’t sit on his dirty apartment floor drinking whiskey and dreaming about frequent flier miles!), and stares all deja-vu-like at his reflection while water runs out the sink (see?). He sees his appendix surgery scar (you know, when he wanted to operate on his damn self until Juliet and Kate tricked him?). He has NO memory of any surgery, even after a quick phone call to his mom (welcome back, Veronica Hamel! Loved you in ‘Hill Street Blues’) reveals that he had it removed when he was a boy. Oh yeah, your dad wanted to do it, but the hospital wouldn’t let him. Just like your old island self, Jack! A chip off the old whiskey barrel..
 
Jack gets ready and we briefly see the same exer-cycle that Desmond had in the hatch. In fact, I believe this cycle has shown up at least three times this season. I believe the cycle officially has a SAG card now.

Follow the jump for a wide array of mind-bending revelations. . .
 

Mama said knock you out!

Talk about feeling lost: parents never really know what's going on with, or what they've done to, their own kids until it's too late to do anything about it. I just listened to a song by Okkervil River, "Savannah Smiles," that captures the feeling. Tune is "Savannah Smiles," the narrator a divorced dad contemplating what he'd just learned by (accidentally) reading a page of his teenaged daughter's diary. In that moment he realizes he can't reconcile the smiling photos he keeps on his wall with the feelings she records by hand.

"Is she someone I don't know at all? Is she someone I betrayed?"

So back to "Lost," and another haunting episode describing the emotional discord haunting its characters: the disconnections between parents and children; the terrors of a failed parent; the scars borne by lost and confused children. Particularly when they become parents themselves, and realize how their wounds now define the unhappy relationships they have formed with their own children.

"Just cannot believe, could do that to a child," the song continues, far beyond the point where feelings trump words. "A child, a child."

It's easy to forget how crucial the emotional side of the saga has been; how easy it is to get so caught up in the action we barely notice how we keep coming back to these particular headwaters. It's the one undertow that never, ever loses its grip.

"Lighthouse" was a Jack-centric episode, toggling between Island Jack in 2007 and alterna-Jack in Los Angeles, 2004. Island Jack, we recall, lives in a jungle of his father's creation. We've always known how fraught/broken the relationship between Christian and Jack Shephard has been. It is Jack's most primal experience: of loving and fearing his dad; the tangled strands of admiration and resentment; the love and the hatred; the need to be nurtured, and to destroy. Jack was bringing his (alcoholic) dad's body home from Australia when he stepped onto Oceanic #815, and when the plane crashed the impact seemed to revive Christian's soul: He kept reappearing, silently, only to lead Jack further into the depths of a literal/figurative jungle that presented far more questions than answers.

As the series continued it seemed that Christian had some connection to Jacob. He appeared in Jacob's stead. He delivered (or claimed to deliver) Jacob's instructions. But now that Jacob has stepped in himself, in both real and spectral forms, the connections between the Island's Good Father and Jack's bad daddy have grown murkier. Is there a reason why Christian and Jacob have never been seen together? And if the Man in Black has the power to animate the bodies of the dead, doesn't it make sense that Jacob would, too? Has he been walking in Christian's burial suit for all these years?

What seems clear now is that Jacob plays the role of Father of Fathers. From his perch on the Island - and in that groovy, previously-unseen lighthouse - he has been keeping track of his charges, monitoring their lives and stepping in when it seems they need a gentle push to keep them moving in the right direction.

Jacob's vision of a right direction, anyway, which opens up an interesting can of worms: For all his clear-eyed, seemingly warm-hearted affection for the Losties, has Jacob's presence enriched their lives, or simply made them much, much worse?

Consider that alterna-Jack in L.A. - the Jack who never went to the island and seems untouched by Jacob's presence - is actively breaking the cycles of dysfunction that "broke" him (as the other Jack tells Hurley on the island). So while his relationship with his own teenaged son (who didn't even exist until now) bears the marks of his own disconnection from Christian, Jack is growing and changing on his own. He comes to terms with his own feelings for his dad, admits his failings as a father and these revelations lead him to reconnect with his own son.

We've seen this again and again in the alterna-Losties in Los Angeles: From Locke to Hurley and now to Jack, the bonds between fathers and sons seem far more functional than it is in their island alter-egos. And now that Jacob presents himself as a kind of father-in-general. . . . God the father. . . what are we to make of how screwed up the Jacob-influenced Losties are? Why are the Jacob-free characters so much more able to control, and find satisfaction, in their lives?

 I don't think he's gonna pull through...

When I was in 4th grade the rock group Three Dog Night had this huge hit with "Black and White," which found a maddeningly tuneful way to reduce the world's racial/social conflicts, the very headwaters all the non-tea tax-caused wars in world history, into a child's singalong:

The ink is black/the page is white/together we learn to read and write...

Even as a 10-year-old I could sense that this was far too simplistic an analysis; that it offered limp platitudes rather than tough moral choices; that it might inspire Paul McCartney, ten years hence, to rewrite it and score an even bigger hit out of the arguably more dreadful, "Ebony and Ivory.

Only what I didn't foresee was that 20 years after that, "Lost" would take up the same issue (albeit not in racial terms) and present a far more complex and entirely compelling version of the age old manichean struggle: White v black; community v independence; fate v self-determination; good v evil.

No matter where you look, it's the same story: Stark distinctions; impossible choices; because you can never really tell what is good and what is bad, and why certain acts that seem like unalloyed evil might, in fact, be truly just and even merciful.

So when Sawyer, in seemingly idle talk with the NotLocke/Smoke Monster/Man in Black during a jungle stroll starts musing on John Steinbeck's "Of MIce and Men," sit up and take notice. And realize that what what you're about to see in the cave they're heading for tells you as much about "Lost"'s core themes as it does about the relevance of the notorious numbers and a glimmer of a hint about why the Losties were ever drawn to the island, and then all but forced to remain there.

All from the Man in Black/Smokey perspective. Which, as it turns out, makes some sense.

Central plot reveals: 

Jacob, who long since won the role of Island caretaker/boss/spiritual headwaters, chose/nurtured each Lostie in their pre-island lives, somehow pushing/compelling them to the point where they would all be on that Oceanic #815.

Each number was a signifier for an individual Lostie. If they signified something more profound (a top forty?) we don't know yet.

Argument for greater significance: Jacob was cultivating each Lostie as a potential substitute/replacement for him when he either retired, went on vacation, or got stabbed to death and then shoved into a campfire.

Someone brought an Iggy Pop record to the Island.

The non-island/alternative "Losties," left to their own devices in the good old US of A, seem far more successful, less angry and (to coin a phrase) fucked up than their Island-bound alter-egos. Hurley is a successful businessman; Locke, albeit wheelchair bound, is in a warm relationship with Helen and, by the end of this episode, finding new meaning as a substitute (!!!!!) teacher; Ben, also a teacher, satisfies his bossy nature by kvetching about other teachers' unwillingness to start a new pot of coffee even when they finish the old one; etc. etc.

The deep end analysis, from God to mice, comes in the jump....