Plot

The story of how Jacob and his brother came to the island, their uneasy relationship with their "mother," their eventual falling-out, and revelation of what Jacob was on the island to protect.

A shipwrecked pregnant woman named Claudia comes to the island and is rescued by an older woman and immediately after she delivers two babies: Jacob and another boy; then, the woman kills Claudia. She raises the boys as if they were their sons and one day they see three men in the island. She shows a cave with a bright light inside and she tells them that they shall protect this light. One day, Claudia appears to her other son and she shows the survivors of the shipwreck living in the other side of the island. She tells what happened to her and the boy calls Jacob to go with him to live with the other people; however Jacob decides to stay with his foster mother. Jacob secretly visits his brother to see where his people are bad or not. His brother tells that will leave the island and Jacob tells to his stepmother. She destroys all the humans and assigns Jacob to protect the light in the cave. Jacob's brother kills their stepmother and Jacob throws his brother in the cave, where he transforms into the smoke monster.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

We opened on a pregnant woman who washed up on the island's shore, apparently the victim of a wooden shipwreck. She drank water from a stream and was met by another woman who offered help, speaking a language we haven't heard before, before switching to English. The woman who was already on the island said there were no other people with her, and that she got there the same the pregnant woman did, "by accident."

The pregnant woman went into labor and delivered a baby boy who she immediately named Jacob. But, wait... there was another baby. It was another boy. Baby Jacob was wrapped in a white blanket while the second boy, appropriately enough, was wrapped in a dark cloth. The new mom hadn't thought of a name for the second boy, but before she could think of one, the woman from the island turned to her and said, "I'm sorry." Then she bashed the new mom over the head with a rock, repeatedly.

We next saw a young boy (dressed in black) who found a small game washed up on shore. His brother Jacob came over and wanted to play, but they couldn't tell "mother" because she'd take the game away. Jacob's mother later asked what he and his brother were doing down on the beach. Jacob couldn't keep the secret when she asked him to tell her what happened. The woman next went to the beach and the Teen Boy in Black confessed about finding the game. He knew Jacob had told and she said Jacob couldn't tell a lie because he's different from his brother. She said the Boy in Black was "special." She then claimed she'd left the game for him, but he still thought it had come from somewhere else, maybe from "across the sea." She tried to tell him there is nowhere else. "The island is all there is." The boy asked his mother where her mother was, and she said, "She's dead." When he asked, "What's dead?" she said, "Something you will never have to worry about."

We next saw the boys chasing a boar and they saw three strange men kill the boar. When they told their mother, she said, "They don't belong here." Then she said they were there for a reason. They asked what the reason was, and she blindfolded them and walked them somewhere, all the while explaining that other people would occasionally show up on the island and fight and destroy things, pretty much because that's what people do. She told them that she'd made it so that they could never hurt each other. Then she showed them a brightly lit cave and said it was the reason they were there. "We must make sure that no one ever finds it," she told them. She said there was a little bit of that light in everyone, but all people want more and they would try to come to the island to get it. She said she had to protect but she couldn't do it forever. It would have to be one of them.

Jacob and the Boy in Black played their game -- whose pieces were white and black stones -- and Jacob got upset that the Boy in Black made up some rules. "One day, you can make up your own game and make your own rules." Then the Boy in Black saw a woman (his real mother), but Jacob couldn't see her. He went after her and they talked. She said Jacob couldn't see her because she's dead. She took him to another place on the island where a small village where other people from her shipwreck lived. She explained to him that they got there on a ship and she explained that the woman he thought was his mother actually wasn't. That night, he woke Jacob in the middle of the night and took him through the jungle. He said they were leaving and never coming back. He said they were going to live with the other people. Boy in Black was telling Jacob that their mother had lied about everything and Jacob became upset and attacked him, punching him until their "mother" came and broke it up. Boy in Black vowed to find the other place across the sea, and said he'd go there. He told his fake mother that he knew she'd killed their real mother, and he asked Jacob to come with him, but Jacob refused. His "mother" told the Boy in Black that regardless of what he'd been told, he'd never be able to leave the island.

"That's not true," he told her. "One day I can prove it."

Later, Jacob and his "mother" sat alone on the beach. He asked whether the story about her killing his real mother was true and she told him it was. She said she did it because otherwise his mother would have taken him back to "her people, and those people are bad." She said she needed Jacob to stay good. She asked her why she loved the Boy in Black more than him.

"I love you in different ways," she said. Then she asked him to stay with her and he said he would.

Later, an older Jacob went over to the village of other people to visit his brother. It was something he'd apparently done regularly. They played a game. Man in Black asked Jacob why he watched the people of the village. Jacob said he wanted to see if his mother was right about the village people being bad. He said they didn't appear to be, but Man in Black said they were "greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy and selfish" but he stayed with them because they were a means to an end -- getting off the island. Jacob said there was no way off the island, but MIB threw a knife at a rock and it stuck like a magnet. He said that some smart men had found places on the island where metal acts strangely and that would be his ticket off the island.

Jacob went home and told his mother that MIB said he'd found a way off the island. She went and found MIB in a cave. She said she was worried and he said she should be. He said he'd spent years looking for the light cave she'd shown him as a child. He said he found another way to get to it, and that his people had some interesting ideas of what to do with it.

He popped a hole in a wall and the intense light shined through, then he showed her a massive wheel that he said he was going to connect to the light and water source. When he turned it, he believed, he'd finally have his way off the island. When she asked how he knew it would work, he said, "I'm special, mother." She asked him not to do it and he said he had to, because he didn't belong there.

"Then I suppose this is goodbye," she said, approaching him slowly and hugging him as she cried.

"Goodbye, mother," he said.

She looked at him and said, "I am so sorry." Then she slammed the back of his head into the wall of the cave and he crumbled to the ground.

That night, she woke Jacob and said, "It's time." She told him she had to say goodbye to his brother. She took him back to the light cave and told him he was going to protect it. When he asked what was down there, she said, "Life, death, rebirth. It's the source, the heart of the island."

She asked him to promise her that no matter what he did, he'd never go down there. He asked if he'd die, and she said it would be worse. She popped open a bottle of wine and muttered some kind of prayer as she poured it. She handed it to Jacob and asked him to drink it. By doing so, he was vowing to protect the island before finding his replacement. He was upset because he thought she really wanted it to be MIB. She tried to convince him it was always supposed to be him. He took the cup and drank from it.

"Now, you and I are the same," she said.

On another part of the island, MIB woke up, albeit it with a bad headache. He found his cave crumbled to bits, everyone dead, and the village he'd lived in all those years was burned down. He found his board game among the ash. He was not happy.

Jacob went to look for some firewood while his mom went back to their cave. She found a cave where a fire was lit. Inside, she saw MIB's game on the ground. She opened it and pulled out its black and white stones. She examined the black stone just as she felt a dagger pierce her back.

"Why wouldn't you let me leave, mother?" MIB asked her as she looked up at him, breathing her last breaths.

"Because I love you," she said. Then she said, "Thank you." She died.

MIB cried and Jacob came upon the scene. Jacob was pissed. He saw what had happened and attacked MIB, punching him repeatedly. Then he dragged MIB out to the light cave. He told him that if he wanted to leave the island so badly, he should go. He slammed MIB face first into a rock in the stream that led to the cave, and let him float into it. MIB's body went down the waterfall, and moments later a massive cloud of black smoke came back out of the cave and went over Jacob and into the jungle.

Jacob went looking for it but found nothing. Then, he looked up and saw his brother, face down on some rocks. He hugged him, then carried his brother back to his cave and laid him down next to his dead mother.

Jacob found his brother's game and took one black stone and one white one and put them in a pouch. He kissed the stones in the pouch and laid it with the bodies.

We next saw bits from Season 1, when Jack found the pouch and opened it as Kate watched. He found the two skeletons with it and told Locke, who stumbled upon the cave, that one of them was a woman. Locke called him their own little "Adam and Eve."

Back to Jacob, he looked at the bodies and said, "Goodbye, brother."