Lost, what are you doing to me, jumping that shark and all? I have invested six years in you with the anticipation of receiving compelling answers I return for my time and this is how you repay me? With five hours left, you waste one of them on this convoluted mess/ I am getting flashbacks from another once great J. J. Abrams show, Alias, that spent its final season tossing out the phrase ’Rambaldi’ every ten minutes in order to extricate itself from all the questions it had posed over the years. Lost is going down the same road.Arrgh!
“Across the Sea" answered two questions for us:
1. How was Old Smokey created? (Hobbes was shoved into pool of glowing water.)
2. Who are Adam and eve/ (Hobbes and C. J.. Cregg.)
I like some of the fan theories much better. Does anyone buy for a moment this was all part of the plan or are the writers just filling in gaps with retroactive continuity? I am firmly in the latter school of thought. This season feels like it has been tacked onto the end of an unrelated show hoping no one will notice how poorly it ties up dangling plot threads.
Let me try to sort this out. Jacob and Hobbes are regular people. Their mother, Claudia, was shipwrecked, gave birth, and was killed by Allison Janney’s character. I am going to assume her name is Rebekah so I can cling desperately to my Jacob and Esau theory. She is the protector of the island. She wants Hobbes/Eau to eventually replace her, but he is rebellious and runs off to join a group of regular people who want to leave the island.
They area bunch of ne’er do wells, but he decides to help them build the Frozen Donkey Wheel which will eventually move the island for Ben and Locke. Rebekah kills them all and buries the wheel so it cannot happen. Hobbes/Esau kills her in revenge.
Jacob, the island’s new protector, throws Hobbes/Esau into the golden pool of some mystical power he is supposed to protect. Logically, he becomes Old Smokey as a result. Jacob sets up the corpses of Hobbes/Esau and Rebekah to be eventually found as Adam and Eve.
Where does Jacob get his power of granting immortality? Why can Hobbes/Essau ot kill him? How is Jacob orany candidate able to keep Hobbes/Esau on the island when Rebekah had to bury the Frozen Donkey Wheel or otherwise he would have escaped? Why can he not dig up the Frozen Donkey Wheel himself and use it anyway? Who was keeping Hobbes/Esau in line when Jacob was off meeting with the Candidates at various points in their lives? These answers would have made for a more fulfilling episode.
I am disappointed. While it was cool to see Allison Jannet again, there was not much else great about “Across the Sea.” my enthusiasm for the series finale has been considerably diminished.
Rating: ** (out of 5)
