Means to an End

Quick Hits

• Let’s talk about the boys’ real mother, Claudia, who first speaks to Mother in Spanish. Shipwrecked and separated from the rest of her boatmates, she is exceedingly pregnant and gives birth to the two boys shortly after waking up in The Caves. She becomes a little more relevant after she’s dead, if that’s possible. Visually, aside from her beauty, what stands out is her red dress.

  

  We’ve seen red in the large flowers/plants around the Temple and Sun’s garden; in the fabric pattern of Sun and Jin’s bed in one of the flash-sidewayses, etc. I’ve seen it too often this season to believe it’s happenstance. I’ve referenced the many times we’ve seen red about a half a dozen times now this season, and I’ve come to the conclusion the color red denotes the cycle of life (that is, the energy of life, whether embodied by someone living or dead).

  I’d go with red symbolizing death only, but the appearance of the red flowers around the waterfall entrance would tend to make me believe equating it to death alone isn’t quite right.

  

• When Claudia later appears to Esau; is she serving the will of the Island? Her appearance directly results in Esau leaving the Caves, so it doesn’t strike me as something Mother would approve of.

  

  Recall, in present day, that an apparition of young Jacob appears to be haunting Esau/Locke, reminding him of the Rules. Is it the Island giving these friendly reminders?

• As much as I’d like to find some explicit Biblical references to Claudia’s namesake, here’s all I could come up with:
  

  Around the year 205 BC the statue of the Cult of the Great Mother (also known as Magna Mater or the Cult of Cybele) was moved from Pessinus to Rome. Scipio Nassica was given the order to take all the married women of Rome to go and receive the statue when it arrived in port at Ostia Harbor. However before arriving in port as scheduled the ship carrying the statue ran onto a sandbar at the mouth of the Tiber River and would not proceed any further. They tied ropes to the stuck vessel and all the young men of the area were put into service. Using all their strength they pulled to no avail. They then called on Claudia to come up with a solution to their problem as she was the other person with Scipio that called the women to the port for the arrival of the statue. Claudia prayed in front of them and then with confidence she ordered that the ropes be tied to her sash and the men to step aside. Claudia then pulled and pulled until the vessel started floating again. She towed it out off the sandbar and into port. Needless to say, she instantly became a hero and had vindicated herself. The Temple of Cybele then went to the Palatine Hill in Rome. [Wikipedia]

• We see Mother weaving throughout the episode, something Jacob later takes up in what I’m guessing is simple tribute rather than some mystical ability to weave the strands of time.

  

  Then again, why did Esau cut off a piece of Jacob’s tapestry under the Tawaret statue after Ben killed Jacob?

• We’re never gonna get Esau’s name. Claudia had only come up with a name for one child, Jacob, and we never hear the man in black referred to as anything other than “Brother.” I’m gonna stick with Esau, thank you. Kind of a reversal of the Biblical story, in which Esau was born first. Similarly, however, it appears Mother had Esau in mind as her eventual replacement, changing her mind only after Esau disowns her.
• Still not sure where it originated, but we see that ornate dagger pop up again, first to demonstrate the magnetic properties of one of the EM pockets on the Island, and later to kill Mother.

  

• Another of Mother’s talents is apparently one that allows her to bestow the gift of language. Mother somehow gave Claudia the ability to speak English in the opening scene. I assume this wasn’t just a script device to make their conversation easier to digest, as Sun and Jin have spoken Korean at length for the duration of the show.
• How exactly does one attach a giant wheel to light and water?

  

  And why is the donkey wheel chamber so frigid in present day? Mother referred to the warmth of the Light when she first shows it to Jacob and Esau. Perhaps all the work Dharma did to try and tap into the Light has slowly started robbing it of that warmth.

• I really disliked the insertion of the Jack/Kate/Caves flashback during the scene in which Jacob lays Mother and Esau to rest. It was a spoon-feeding moment; one I don’t think the audience that’s stuck with the show to this point really needed to correlate the “Adam & Eve” bodies found in season 1. An unfortunate conclusion to a great episode. There are no significant implications of this, obviously, just an issue I had creatively.
• More tangential and obscure references: read about the Cave of the Patriarchs here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs. I’ve made mention of the story of Rebecca in trying to decipher the origins of Jacob and Esau before tonight and it bears repeating here:
  

  Jacob and his twin brother, Esau, were born to Isaac and Rebecca after 20 years of marriage.

  Rebecca was extremely uncomfortable during her double pregnancy and went to inquire of God why she was suffering so. The Midrash says that whenever she would pass a house of Torah study, Jacob would struggle to come out; whenever she would pass a house of idolatry, Esau would agitate to come out.

  She received the prophecy that twins were fighting in her womb and would continue to fight all their lives, and after they became two separate nations. The prophecy also said that the older would serve the younger; its statement “one people will be stronger than the other” has been taken to mean that the two nations would never gain power simultaneously: when one fell, the other would rise, and vice versa. [Genesis 25]

• What’s with the sea turtle?

  

  It appears only Esau can see the dead (like Claudia); perhaps this was another indicator. The sea turtle is not present in the following shot (and that’s probably not a simple production goof).

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