In a sense, even though it took a complete break from the typical format of the show in the style of the Richard episode and the Tailies episode from way back in season two, among others, “Across the Sea” is sort of a mission statement for what appears to be the Lost philosophy on answers. You’ll get answers, yes, but not necessarily explanations. As Alison Janney’s creepy mother character said, in a line that I’m assuming had to be spoken by a guest star to cut down on any involuntary winking directly into the camera, “every question I answer will only lead to another question.” No kidding, Lost, replied ten million people all at once.

This episode did answer questions, like: who is Jacob? Who was Fake Locke before he was Fake Locke? Where did the time-unsticking donkey wheel come from? And also: who are those skeletons in the caves from season one? But it didn’t necessarily explain any of that. We don’t know the exact nature of Creepy Mother’s power, or where she got it; we don’t know the specifics of her idea that the brothers can’t “hurt” each other, because they sure seemed able to punch each other in the face and draw blood, and whether their inability to kill each other was always there or only actually came to be once Jacob became the island’s guardian and Fake Locke became a swirling ball of electromagnetic smoke; and we don’t know exactly what happened to Jacob’s brother to turn him into the Smoke Monster Later Known as Fake Locke, or what percentage of the Smoke Monster contains Jacob’s brother’s soul (or whatever). Among other things.