Across the Sea

For a season in which answers were promised, the series' antepenultimate episode poses three questions for every one it answers. And if it ''weren't'' the series' third-from-last outing, that'd be just fine. But it is, and the answers we get in this episode aren't really even answers (Jacob and the Man in Black can't kill each because their fake mother said so....um, what?). The genesis of the Smoke Monster is no clearer now than before we actually saw it took place.

Mark Pellegrino and Titus Welliver did a great job with what they were given, and Allison Janney was pretty delightfully creepy in an important one-off role. Definitely the high point of the episode.

I have confidence that the series will go out with a bang and leave everyone mostly satisfied, but this episode was a pretty big dud all in all.