Across the Sea (Lost)
Encyclopedia
"Across the Sea" is the 15th episode of the American Broadcasting Company
's sixth season
of the serial drama television series Lost
and 118th episode overall. The episode aired on May 11, 2010 on ABC in the United States
. The episode was written by Carlton Cuse
& Damon Lindelof
and directed by Tucker Gates
. The episode is centered on Jacob and The Man in Black. This episode is the second time in the season that there is no "flash-sideways".
The episode, unlike most Lost episodes, does not divide its time between two different time settings
, but takes place almost entirely in the past, except for a brief scene at the end from the season one episode "House of the Rising Sun
". It depicts the origins of the characters of Jacob (Mark Pellegrino
) and his brother, The Man in Black (Titus Welliver
), and how they came to be on the island. It also reveals the identities of the corpses discovered in the cave in "House of the Rising Sun". None of the series regulars appear in the episode except in the flashback sequence, making it the only episode of the series in which this occurs.
), both of whom speak Latin
. The woman helps Claudia give birth to her son, whom Claudia names Jacob (Kenton Duty
). Then another boy is born (Ryan Hanson Bradford
). The woman then kills Claudia with a blow to the head. The woman raises the twins as her own, and to be ignorant of a world beyond the island. She also convinces them to be distrustful of humanity, which she says she regards as corrupt and dangerous.
At age 13, Jacob's brother (the future Man in Black
) finds a Senet
game, containing polished black and white pieces. Jacob asks about the box and his brother tells him it's a game for which he "just knows" the rules. He asks Jacob to keep the box a secret from the woman, but Jacob reveals it to her as she appears to know there is a secret. The woman confronts Jacob's brother and claims that she left the box for him, musing to him that "Jacob doesn't know how to lie...he's not like you." She allays the accusation by telling the young Man in Black that he is "special." He suggests that the box came from somewhere else, across the sea. The woman responds, "There is nowhere else." When the young Man in Black persists in asking about his origins, the woman explains that she came from her own mother who is now dead. When he asks "What is dead?" the woman explains, "Something you'll never have to worry about."
After following a boar some distance from their camp, Jacob and his brother discover that other people are on the island. The woman warns the brothers that the other people "are not like us. We are here for a reason." Then she worriedly expresses out loud that "it's not time yet" and reluctantly decides to show the brothers a mysterious, hidden tunnel filled with light and an underground stream. She tells them that one of them will eventually be its caretaker, and that she "made it so you [the two boys] can never hurt each other." Upon seeing the light-filled tunnel, the woman explains that the light is "the warmest, brightest light you've ever felt. And we must make sure no one ever finds it." She goes on to explain that, "A little bit of this very same light is inside of every man, and they always want more." And then she finally warns, "If the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere."
Soon after, the brothers are playing the box game and Jacob is frustrated at his brother's selfish rules for the game. The young Man in Black explains, "One day you can make up your own game, and everyone else will have to follow your rules." Suddenly a vision of Claudia appears and asks the young Man in Black to have courage and follow her. Jacob can not see her, so his brother excuses himself and follows Claudia into the jungle. She reveals to the young Man in Black that she is his and Jacob's birth mother and that the other people came to the island with her, 13 years earlier. After his discussion with Claudia, the young Man in Black confronts the woman with Claudia's claims, and attempts to convince Jacob to join the other people on the island with him. However, Jacob refuses and stays with the woman.
Over the course of the next 30 years, Jacob (Mark Pellegrino
) visits his brother (Titus Welliver
) at the camp he shares with the other people. The Man in Black, while he still believes the people are corrupt, stays with them as a "means to an end," and when Jacob asks, "What end?", he replies "I'm leaving, Jacob." He reveals that together with other scientifically curious men, they have figured out a way to leave the island by harnessing its strange properties. This was accomplished by digging wells in spots where "metal behaves strangely
." The Man in Black invites Jacob to leave with him, but Jacob refuses to leave the island or the woman. When the woman hears of what the Man in Black is doing, she visits him and learns that he and the others have constructed a giant wheel
down a well. He tells her that his people have dug into the light from other locations on the island, and that they plan to create a system that will allow them to exploit its energy, and use it to leave the island. Upon hearing this, she smashes the Man in Black's head, rendering him unconscious. Later, the Man in Black awakes outside the well site, and the people in the camp are shown to have been massacred; the wheel well has been completely filled in with earth. Meanwhile, the woman shows Jacob the tunnel of light again, explaining that it leads to "Life, death, rebirth; the source, the heart of the island," and that Jacob has "no choice" but to take care of it now. She also warns Jacob never to enter the tunnel, as doing so would cause a fate worse than death. Jacob reluctantly drinks a wine
that the woman pours and then she proclaims, "Now you and I are the same."
Enraged by her actions, the Man in Black stabs the woman in her camp through the back and asks why she wouldn't let him leave the island. She replies, "Because I love you." Appearing relieved and calm with her fast approaching death, the woman says "Thank You" and dies. Jacob retaliates by beating his brother, and throwing him into the stream leading down the tunnel of light. The Man in Black is sucked into the tunnel and the smoke monster emerges in his place, disappearing into the treetops above. Jacob then finds the Man in Black's physical body and places it with the woman's in the cave where she had been living with Jacob, along with a pouch containing the black and white stones they used in the box game.
In a repeat of a scene from the first season
now in a new context, the corpses and the stones are found centuries later by Jack Shephard
(Matthew Fox
) and Kate Austen
(Evangeline Lily), and dubbed Adam and Eve
by John Locke
(Terry O'Quinn
).
gave the episode a score of 80, saying "One part of me, the TV critic part, the part that dissects these things and picks them apart and looks for things to dislike about them, mostly really liked the episode, aside from a few niggling points." Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly
gave the episode the score of 70, stating "Across The Sea" was "an unconventional outing that deserves props for benching its stars to give us a story that felt absolutely necessary for establishing the Big Picture context for the final act that is at last upon us." Chris Carabott of IGN
gave the episode a score of 6.8, saying that he felt frustrated that at this point of the show, it isn't giving many answers.
Some critics were very disappointed with the episode. James Poniewozik of Time
gave the episode a score of 40, stating "'Across the Sea' took a series that is deeply and richly psychological and character-based and moved it into the realm of the allegorical." Maureen Ryan of Chicago Tribune
stated "For a lot of reasons, this was not an episode that goes in the Win column. It was actually seriously disappointing, if not disheartening."
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's sixth season
Lost (season 6)
The sixth and final season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing in the United States and Canada on February 2, 2010. The sixth-season premiere was the first to climb in the ratings year-over-year since the second season, drawing 12.1 million viewers. The season...
of the serial drama television series Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
and 118th episode overall. The episode aired on May 11, 2010 on ABC in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The episode was written by Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse is an AmericanEmmy Award winning screenwriter and producer, most famous as executive producer andscreenwriter for the American television series Lost for...
& Damon Lindelof
Damon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American television writer and executive, most recently noted as the co-creator and executive producer for the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan, and wrote for Nash Bridges, Wasteland, and the MTV anthology series Undressed...
and directed by Tucker Gates
Tucker Gates
Tucker Gates is an American television director and producer. He has directed several episodes of the J. J. Abrams shows, Alias and Lost, including the very last episode of Alias...
. The episode is centered on Jacob and The Man in Black. This episode is the second time in the season that there is no "flash-sideways".
The episode, unlike most Lost episodes, does not divide its time between two different time settings
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
, but takes place almost entirely in the past, except for a brief scene at the end from the season one episode "House of the Rising Sun
House of the Rising Sun (Lost)
"House of the Rising Sun" is the sixth episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Michael Zinberg and written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach. It first aired on October 27, 2004 on ABC....
". It depicts the origins of the characters of Jacob (Mark Pellegrino
Mark Pellegrino
Mark Ross Pellegrino is an American actor of film and television. He is best known for his work on Lost as Jacob and for playing Lucifer on Supernatural.-Career:...
) and his brother, The Man in Black (Titus Welliver
Titus Welliver
Titus Welliver is an American actor. He is best known for his recurring roles on the television shows Deadwood, Lost, Sons of Anarchy and The Good Wife...
), and how they came to be on the island. It also reveals the identities of the corpses discovered in the cave in "House of the Rising Sun". None of the series regulars appear in the episode except in the flashback sequence, making it the only episode of the series in which this occurs.
Plot
Washed ashore on the island, a pregnant woman named Claudia (Lela Loren) encounters an unnamed woman (Allison JanneyAllison Janney
Allison Brooks Janney is an American actress, best known for her role as C.J. Cregg on the television series The West Wing.- Personal life :...
), both of whom speak Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. The woman helps Claudia give birth to her son, whom Claudia names Jacob (Kenton Duty
Kenton Duty
Kenton Duty is an American actor and singer. He is best known for his recurring role as "Young Jacob" on the final season of the ABC primetime drama, Lost, and for his co-starring role as the flamboyant European exchange student, Gunther Hessenheffer on the Disney Channel comedy series, Shake It...
). Then another boy is born (Ryan Hanson Bradford
Ryan Hanson Bradford
Ryan Hanson Bradford is an American actor. His first credited role was on the critically acclaimed HBO television series Carnivàle, where he appeared as the younger version of the series' main character Ben Hawkins on the episode entitled Milfay...
). The woman then kills Claudia with a blow to the head. The woman raises the twins as her own, and to be ignorant of a world beyond the island. She also convinces them to be distrustful of humanity, which she says she regards as corrupt and dangerous.
At age 13, Jacob's brother (the future Man in Black
Man in Black (Lost)
The entity referred to most frequently as the Man in Black is a fictional character on the American ABC television series Lost, and is the main antagonist of the...
) finds a Senet
Senet
Senet is a board game from predynastic and ancient Egypt. The oldest hieroglyph representing a Senet game dates to around 3100 BC. The full name of the game in Egyptian was zn.t n.t ḥˁb meaning the "game of passing."- History :...
game, containing polished black and white pieces. Jacob asks about the box and his brother tells him it's a game for which he "just knows" the rules. He asks Jacob to keep the box a secret from the woman, but Jacob reveals it to her as she appears to know there is a secret. The woman confronts Jacob's brother and claims that she left the box for him, musing to him that "Jacob doesn't know how to lie...he's not like you." She allays the accusation by telling the young Man in Black that he is "special." He suggests that the box came from somewhere else, across the sea. The woman responds, "There is nowhere else." When the young Man in Black persists in asking about his origins, the woman explains that she came from her own mother who is now dead. When he asks "What is dead?" the woman explains, "Something you'll never have to worry about."
After following a boar some distance from their camp, Jacob and his brother discover that other people are on the island. The woman warns the brothers that the other people "are not like us. We are here for a reason." Then she worriedly expresses out loud that "it's not time yet" and reluctantly decides to show the brothers a mysterious, hidden tunnel filled with light and an underground stream. She tells them that one of them will eventually be its caretaker, and that she "made it so you [the two boys] can never hurt each other." Upon seeing the light-filled tunnel, the woman explains that the light is "the warmest, brightest light you've ever felt. And we must make sure no one ever finds it." She goes on to explain that, "A little bit of this very same light is inside of every man, and they always want more." And then she finally warns, "If the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere."
Soon after, the brothers are playing the box game and Jacob is frustrated at his brother's selfish rules for the game. The young Man in Black explains, "One day you can make up your own game, and everyone else will have to follow your rules." Suddenly a vision of Claudia appears and asks the young Man in Black to have courage and follow her. Jacob can not see her, so his brother excuses himself and follows Claudia into the jungle. She reveals to the young Man in Black that she is his and Jacob's birth mother and that the other people came to the island with her, 13 years earlier. After his discussion with Claudia, the young Man in Black confronts the woman with Claudia's claims, and attempts to convince Jacob to join the other people on the island with him. However, Jacob refuses and stays with the woman.
Over the course of the next 30 years, Jacob (Mark Pellegrino
Mark Pellegrino
Mark Ross Pellegrino is an American actor of film and television. He is best known for his work on Lost as Jacob and for playing Lucifer on Supernatural.-Career:...
) visits his brother (Titus Welliver
Titus Welliver
Titus Welliver is an American actor. He is best known for his recurring roles on the television shows Deadwood, Lost, Sons of Anarchy and The Good Wife...
) at the camp he shares with the other people. The Man in Black, while he still believes the people are corrupt, stays with them as a "means to an end," and when Jacob asks, "What end?", he replies "I'm leaving, Jacob." He reveals that together with other scientifically curious men, they have figured out a way to leave the island by harnessing its strange properties. This was accomplished by digging wells in spots where "metal behaves strangely
Electromagnetism
Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. The other three are the strong interaction, the weak interaction and gravitation...
." The Man in Black invites Jacob to leave with him, but Jacob refuses to leave the island or the woman. When the woman hears of what the Man in Black is doing, she visits him and learns that he and the others have constructed a giant wheel
There's No Place Like Home
"There's No Place Like Home, Parts 1, 2 & 3" is the season finale of the American Broadcasting Company's fourth season of the serial drama television series Lost, consisting of the 12th through 14th episodes. They are also the 84th through 86th episodes of the show overall...
down a well. He tells her that his people have dug into the light from other locations on the island, and that they plan to create a system that will allow them to exploit its energy, and use it to leave the island. Upon hearing this, she smashes the Man in Black's head, rendering him unconscious. Later, the Man in Black awakes outside the well site, and the people in the camp are shown to have been massacred; the wheel well has been completely filled in with earth. Meanwhile, the woman shows Jacob the tunnel of light again, explaining that it leads to "Life, death, rebirth; the source, the heart of the island," and that Jacob has "no choice" but to take care of it now. She also warns Jacob never to enter the tunnel, as doing so would cause a fate worse than death. Jacob reluctantly drinks a wine
Ab Aeterno
"Ab Aeterno" is the ninth television episode of the American Broadcasting Company's sixth season of the serial drama television series Lost and 112th episode overall. The episode aired on March 23, 2010. The episode was written by producer Melinda Hsu Taylor and co-producer Greggory Nations and...
that the woman pours and then she proclaims, "Now you and I are the same."
Enraged by her actions, the Man in Black stabs the woman in her camp through the back and asks why she wouldn't let him leave the island. She replies, "Because I love you." Appearing relieved and calm with her fast approaching death, the woman says "Thank You" and dies. Jacob retaliates by beating his brother, and throwing him into the stream leading down the tunnel of light. The Man in Black is sucked into the tunnel and the smoke monster emerges in his place, disappearing into the treetops above. Jacob then finds the Man in Black's physical body and places it with the woman's in the cave where she had been living with Jacob, along with a pouch containing the black and white stones they used in the box game.
In a repeat of a scene from the first season
House of the Rising Sun (Lost)
"House of the Rising Sun" is the sixth episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Michael Zinberg and written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach. It first aired on October 27, 2004 on ABC....
now in a new context, the corpses and the stones are found centuries later by Jack Shephard
Jack Shephard
Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character and protagonist of the ABC television series Lost played by Matthew Fox. Lost follows the journey of the survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815 on a mysterious island and their attempts to survive and escape, slowly uncovering more of the much broader...
(Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox (actor)
Matthew Chandler Fox is an American actor. He is mostly known for his role as Charlie Salinger on Party of Five, and for portraying Jack Shephard on the supernatural drama television series Lost.- Early life :...
) and Kate Austen
Kate Austen
Katherine Anne "Kate" Austen is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly. She is the de facto female lead...
(Evangeline Lily), and dubbed Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
by John Locke
John Locke (Lost)
John Locke is a fictional character played by Terry O'Quinn on the ABC television series Lost. He is named after English philosopher John Locke...
(Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn is an American actor, most famous for playing John Locke on the TV series Lost. He made his debut in a 1980 television movie called F.D.R.: The Last Year. Since then, O'Quinn has had minor supporting roles in films and TV movies such as Young Guns, All the Right Moves, Silver Bullet,...
).
Reception
"Across the Sea" is writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse said on their podcast that even they were shocked by fans' reaction to the episode, stating they had received comments ranging from saying "This is one of the best episodes ever" to "You ruined Lost". The episode received mixed reviews from critics, and a divided reaction from fans. Review aggregate website Metacritic gave the episode a score of 58 out of 100, indicating "Mixed or Average Reviews". The score was down on the previous episode's score of 92 and is the lowest rated episode of the season. Teresa Kiessling of NPD, said the episode did little to satisfy viewer's curiosity surrounding origin of Jacob and Man In Black. "Now we just need to learn the origin of their Mother". Noel Murray of The Onion A.V. Club stated "I have only one real criticism of “Across The Sea,” and it’s that when Lost deals directly with the transcendental—rather than just glancing at it—the show can get awfully gooey, and painfully blunt." In total, he gave the episode the score of 91. Todd VanDerWerff of Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
gave the episode a score of 80, saying "One part of me, the TV critic part, the part that dissects these things and picks them apart and looks for things to dislike about them, mostly really liked the episode, aside from a few niggling points." Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the episode the score of 70, stating "Across The Sea" was "an unconventional outing that deserves props for benching its stars to give us a story that felt absolutely necessary for establishing the Big Picture context for the final act that is at last upon us." Chris Carabott of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
gave the episode a score of 6.8, saying that he felt frustrated that at this point of the show, it isn't giving many answers.
Some critics were very disappointed with the episode. James Poniewozik of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
gave the episode a score of 40, stating "'Across the Sea' took a series that is deeply and richly psychological and character-based and moved it into the realm of the allegorical." Maureen Ryan of Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
stated "For a lot of reasons, this was not an episode that goes in the Win column. It was actually seriously disappointing, if not disheartening."