Lost: Killing Us Softly

By Dan Birlew | Posted May 7, 2010 in Television | 2 Comments »

Today’s episode recap is proving really challenging for me. Not just because I’m exhausted from fighting with my old host and moving the entire site to a new server (and am still fixing the problems thereof) — and that’s why this post is late — but also because I just really… really… really didn’t like this week’s episode of LOST. You’ll get the idea why further on in this summary.

Perhaps I’m noticing a late trend — or perhaps I’m just picking at straws, but the Sideways universe where Flight 815 never crashed seems to be taking up more and more time per episode as the season wears on. I’m wondering if a) I’m right about that, and b) does that give the Sideways universe more relevance than the Island universe? Although this proved to be another mainly Jack-centric episode (and maybe they all will be, from now until “The End”) we started out with a close-up of John Locke opening his eyes. Usually when an episode starts with someone opening their eyes, it’s a clear indicator that the episode is “centric” to that character. So they fooled me into thinking that this would be another show told from the perspective of the Man in Black. However, as the series winds down the script writers appear to be changing the format, either to play with it in an artistic fashion or perhaps to say “fuck you” to the viewers still maintaining any such expectations. Although Sideways Locke was the one to open his eyes, it was Jack Shephard, standing over him, who took the majority of focus for the rest of the episode. The good spinal doctor was waiting for his patient to wake up after operating on his dural sac; Locke’s had been damaged when he was run over by Desmond Hume outside the school where he is a substitute. The first time we heard about a dural sac on Lost was in the pilot episode: Jack confided to Kate, whom he’d just met following the crash of Flight 815, that he accidentally cut a young woman’s dural sac during his first operation. He said he brought himself back from the edge of panic by counting to five. However, the season five finale showed us that Jack didn’t exactly come up with the idea all by himself; his father Christian was in the OR that day and forced Jack to count in order to compose himself. Afterward in the corridor outside, Jack was bitching and whining at his father about belittling him in the OR when a strange man bought an Apollo bar from the nearby vending machine, dislodging Jack’s candy bar, which had gotten stuck. The strange man handed Jack his Apollo bar, saying “I guess it just needed a little push.” While handing Jack the Apollo bar, the man’s finger touched Jack’s hand. The strange man was Jacob, and this is when he officially made Jack a Candidate, giving him the little push he needed.

But sideways Jack had a very different idea about what it means to be a candidate: He thought Locke would be an excellent candidate for corrective spinal surgery that would help him walk again. So the title of this episode was a little misleading, since it made me think we were going to finally learn who was going to get Jacob’s job on the Island. But Locke still refused the surgery. This left Jack, who is flawed with an ingrained need to fix people, completely baffled. So he sought help from Locke’s dentist… who just happens to be Bernard Nadler, fellow Flight 815 passenger and husband of Rose. In the Island universe both Bernard and Rose have been missing even though everyone else who went into the past returned when Juliet detonated the atomic bomb core in the drilling shaft beneath the Swan Station. But their repeated appearances in the Sideways universe give me hope that they’ll show up again in the Island universe, alive and well. I just seriously hope that they don’t wind up being Adam and Eve, since that would just be too simple an answer to that age-old mystery. But I digress; Bernard didn’t want to disregard his doctor-patient confidentiality with Locke, but still set Jack on the trail of “the other man in the accident,” Anthony Cooper.

Tracking Anthony Cooper to a nursing home, Jack was able to gain access to the man by bumping into Helen Norwood, Locke’s fiancée.  Helen introduced Jack to Locke’s father, Anthony Cooper, who in the Sideways universe is a vegetable thanks to an airplane crash that was John Locke’s fault. Therefore it was the accident, and not Anthony Cooper pushing him out an 8th story window, that put Locke in a wheelchair.

Sideways Jack returned to the hospital to wait for Locke to wake up. But in his sleep Locke was muttering lines he’s previously spoken in the Island universe, such as “Push the button!” which was required every 108 minutes in the Swan Station, which Locke took over managing for a short time on the Island. He also said “I wish you had believed me,” which was what he wrote in his suicide note to Jack. The note prompted Island universe Jack to return to the Island with Locke’s body in order to save everyone they left behind. But just as Jack was going to try to wake him, he noticed his newfound half-sister Claire in the hallway outside. He bought an Apollo candy bar from the vending machine (in reference to his scene with Jacob) and sat down to see what Christian had willed to her; a wooden music box that plays “Catch a Falling Star.” While they spent a moment staring at it in confusion, both their faces were reflected in a mirror. This is the 12th time this season that characters have looked in a mirror with confusion, even though the music box itself was the source of confusion and not their own appearances in the mirror. Also, this is the fifth time that the song “Catch a Falling Star” has been played or mentioned in relation to Claire and Aaron, her son in the Island universe/unborn child in the Sideways universe. Several seasons ago Claire requested that Aaron’s adoptive parents sing “Catch a Falling Star” to him, because her father sang it to her when she was very young. So the fact that Sideways Claire doesn’t recognize “Catch a Falling Star” or its relevance to her relationship with Christian Shephard indicates that she wasn’t aware that Christian was her father in this universe. Thus, the music box could almost be seen as a prompt, as if some force was trying to jog Claire’s Island memories by giving her the box, which has no purpose in the Sideways universe. But it didn’t work. Perhaps it will in one of the remaining episodes!

Finally, Locke is wheeling himself out of the hospital. In recognizable Locke fashion, he tells his orderly that he can do it himself, and rolls on. Jack caught up to him in the hallway and admitted going to see Anthony Cooper. Locke admitted that it’s his fault Anthony Cooper is the way he is, and so that’s why he doesn’t want out of his chair. Jack tried one last time to convince Locke to undergo the surgery that would help him walk again by saying about Locke’s accident, “whatever happened, happened” and “let it go.” The first phrase was regularly spoken by Daniel Faraday on the Island in regard to time traveling to the past, and it was also the title of an episode where Kate “let go” of Aaron and returned to the Island. The second phrase was something Jack himself had trouble with in the Island universe — so that people were always telling him “let it go.” When Locke tried to turn his words around on Jack and make him let it go, Jack quickly smirked and said he was hoping Locke could go first. John took this as his cue and said goodbye, but Jack called after him, “I can help you, John. I wish you believed me.” Although Locke continued rolling away the words appeared to shake him, as if though they sounded familiar.

I’m going to go out on a limb and continue to press my theory that Sideways Locke isn’t the real Locke. I believe this whole storyline about Locke not wanting to get out of his chair has been contrived by the Smoke Monster, manipulating this false reality to explain why he is in the chair. I don’t think any accident crippled him, I think that escaping from the Island is what did the trick. The Man in Black admitted to Sawyer that he was human once, but that he’s been trapped on the Island so long he forgot what being human was like. What if he forgot that as a man, he was crippled? What if his condition was the impetus that forced him to give up his humanity and become the Smoke Monster, to start with? Or what if during his escape from the Island he is attacked and crippled? Because if you’ve been watching from season one, you’d probably agree with me that the real John Locke wouldn’t allow even an accident that was his fault like the one described in this episode keep him a cripple. The real John Locke railed against his paralysis every chance he got, screaming angrily at people “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” You may not agree, but frankly tonight’s episode was all the proof I needed that he’s not the real Locke.

Now we come to the part I didn’t like: the events that took place in the Island universe. (Though everything was fine for me until near the end.) Jack was the one to awake in the Island universe, and I suppose this should have been the writers’ way of “switching” the episode perspective on us. Jack found himself on Hydra Island, taken there in an outrigger by Locke and Sayid. And no, Sayid didn’t say anything about being fired upon by a time-travelling Sawyer, Juliet and Locke during the trip, which would have solved one of the unanswered questions very nicely. Ugh, I’m about to give up on those. But anyway, Jack helped Sayid and the Smoke Monster free Widmore’s prisoners, Sawyer, Kate, Lapidus, Sun, Jin, and Hurley, who were trapped in the monkey cages where Sawyer and Kate previously fell in love and got it on for the first time. Exploiting the fact that the temporary sonar fence was down the Smoke Monster wreaked havoc, killing all of Widmore’s people. However, the fates of Widmore and his Girl-Friday Zoe remain unknown. Jack freed his friends from the cage and went with them to the Ajira airplane that Frank Lapidus crash-landed on Hydra Island last season, but during the trip he told Kate that he wasn’t going to leave the Island with them.

At the plane, the indestructible Man in Black as Locke takes out the guards easily and ascends the rickety jungle stair-ladder to the cabin. There he finds the plane wired to blow with 4 bars of C4. Though he disconnected the only brick he found and showed it to the others, he warned them that the plane could have other booby-traps, and couldn’t be used. So he suggested that they attack Widmore’s group head-on and commandeer the submarine. Hurley wisely tried to interject that Richard Alpert said that the Man in Black must never leave the Island. But as Sawyer has been doing a lot recently, he very unwisely shushed Hurley. Sawyer still had a plan though. As they set off for the sub he took Jack aside and told him to push Locke in the water so the rest could get away.

Meanwhile, no one stops think that maybe, just maybe, they should take the bricks of C4 away from the Man in Black. Seriously, the characters seem to get stupider every week.

Sawyer exercised yet more stupid insistence as they reached the sub, left oddly unguarded. Most of the group boarded the sub and took charge of the only two crew mates aboard. Meanwhile Locke handed Jack his backpack and tried to make him reconsider not leaving the Island with them. He said that whomever told Jack he had to stay had no idea what he was talking about. They were on the dock by this point, and Jack wheeled on him and said “John Locke told me I needed to stay,” and pushed the Man in Black into the water.

Just then Widmore’s men showed up and opened fire. Kate took a bullet, and Doctor Jack was once again called into action. He had to take Kate inside the sub and stay there to treat her wound. In what has recently turned into the funniest gaff in Lost history, Jack then sends Hurley to find a first aid kit. A subsequent scene shows Lapidus ordering the sub captain to dive, and on the shelf right behind him is a first aid kit. But a minute later Hurley returns to Jack and says he couldn’t find one. Guess he didn’t look very hard.

Sawyer seized upon his chance and closed the sub hatch, and Frank got the captain to dive. As the Man in Black and Claire, left behind, watched them descend, the Man in Black grabbed her and said with a sneer, “You don’t want to be on that sub.” When Hurley couldn’t find the first aid kit, Jack asked for his backpack. Looking inside, he found the C4, wired to explode in less than 4 minutes. Realizing the truth, he turns to Sawyer and says pointedly, “We did exactly what he wanted,” meaning the Man in Black. Jack convinced Sawyer to resurface the sub, but couldn’t convince him that the bomb wouldn’t go off because the Candidates were present. That’s because Sawyer wasn’t there when Jack pulled his little dynamite stunt in front of Richard Alpert. And Hurley didn’t exactly see it either, so it’s not like he could give Jack any backup. Stubborn as ever, Sawyer refused to believe Jack and ripped the wires out of the C4. The timer stopped for a second, then started counting down faster than ever. Sawyer was determined to fuck over everybody during this episode.

Sayid saw what had to be done. He told Jack where Desmond was being kept in the well (meaning that he lied to Locke about killing Desmond) and said “Locke wants him dead, which means you are going to need him.” When Jack asked what he meant by telling him this, Sayid replied “Because it’s going to be you, Jack.” He picked up the bomb and ran for the bow of the ship, where Frank Lapidus was holding the bridge hostage, and the bomb exploded. Frank survived the explosion but looked up just in time to get hit by a big chunk o’ ship. As water flooded the sub, everyone scrambled to get out. Sawyer was knocked unconscious and Jack had to carry him, meaning that he couldn’t help Jin free a trapped Sun. Jin told Jack to take Sawyer and leave. Jack tried to offer Jin the last air cylinder, but he refused. Everyone swam out of the sub except for Jin, who refused to leave Sun, and promised her that he never would leave her again.

Jack swam back to the Island (But which island?) with a still-unconscious Sawyer, and forced him to spit out some water he was choking on. Perhaps now that Sawyer has gotten Sun, Jin and Frank killed all in one rash of stupidity he’ll quit pretending that Jack owes him something for Juliet’s death. Kate and Hurley soon joined Jack on the beach, both physically and in his grief over Sun and Jin.

Meanwhile the Man in Black sensed the submarine sinking, but also determined that some of them survived. After all, he’s not free to leave the Island yet, is he? He told Claire he plans to finish what he started.

As a writer, I just don’t like it. The body count was excruciating in this episode. And let’s not forget that Jin and Sun just reunited last week after being apart for three years. When you as a writer start yanking around your audience like that, it has the effect of telling people that you’re playing god. While all writers play god with their characters, it’s important to be invisible about it. I really felt like the writers may as well have stuck their heads into the television frame and said to us, “Don’t you think this is great TV? Don’t you think WE are great?” And my answer to them would be no, you’re not great. You’re a bunch of infantile bullies who are merely toying with your audience. I would never risk exposing myself as the god machine behind any fiction I write by killing off three major characters in just a few minutes, especially after asking an audience to patiently follow these people around for six years. Maybe in a short story, yes, because it may be unavoidable within a short word count. And this whole thing with reuniting Jin and Sun just to kill them both off 35 minutes later is the worst kind of emotional fuckery you can pull on an audience. All along I’ve been a cheerleader for this show, even when the story had holes or the show faked us out with moving bullet wounds. If the intention was to shake our sense of security and make us think, “Oh gee, this show could kill anyone at any time,” then it worked. However, it also has the unfortunate side effect of distancing the audience emotionally from the remaining characters. Next week they’ll probably kill off Kate, Hurley and Sawyer because a tree falls on them. That’s what I’ll be expecting anyway, now after all this, and that’s not the type of expectation you want your audience to walk away with between episodes. If they’d killed one major character (like, Sayid) and let us grieve a little bit about that, it would have been much better.

On the other hand, I doubt we’ve seen the last of Jin, Sun, Sayid and Frank. After all, either Jin or Sun is a Candidate, which means that one of them could very well swim up to the surface in the upcoming weeks. My money is on Jin. After all, he was on a freighter that blew the fuck up in the middle of the ocean, and yet he survived the explosion, landed on some piece of boat, and floated safely back to the Island even though he was unconscious, and even though the Island was skipping through time. If that’s not a miracle, I don’t know what is. Plus the Candidate’s name inscribed at the seaside cave and the Lighthouse is “42-KWON,” and Jacob has been watching all the Candidates since they were children. Sun’s name has not always been Kwon, and she’s never walked away from any situation that should have by all rights killed her, like Jin has. Plus there’s the association of Jin’s number, 42, which was taken from Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In that book, the supercomputer tasked with figuring out the answer to everything came up with the resulting number, 42. Plus there is a book I’m currently reading titled Distress by Greg Egan. I’ll be reviewing this out-of-print book here at my blog in a week or two, and I think you’ll agree from my review that it must be one of the main, unspoken inspirations for Lost, especially in regards to the Dharma Initiative and the numbers. The number 42 plays a significant part in that book as well, especially when Egan segues into a math trick where a person can be made to divide, add, subtract, and multiply any given number and come up with the same result every time: 42. So because of this association in Lost, and the fact that Jin can be blown up and drown and come out with nothing more than a little sunburn, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him. Plus there’s the fact that his name is Jin, which is pronounced the same as the term “Djinn,” which if you do a little research you’ll basically figure out that both Jacob and the Man in Black could be Djinns. Meanwhile we should fully expect to see Sun and Sayid carry on in the Sideways universe, hopefully living much happier lives. As for Frank, I don’t think a little bump on the head is going to keep Shaggy from catching up to the heroes.

But do I like the fact that Jin would be forced to leave Sun on the sub and return to the Island? Personally no, just because I would never leave my wife underwater, even if I couldn’t drown and just sat there underwater for 100 years. But as a plot device… it could prove really cool. Can’t you just see Jin coming back with a vengeance, being the one to stop the Man in Black, perhaps even kill him? Would love that. And what if Jin is the one who takes over Jacob’s job? Now that Sun is dead, he may want to go back to the real world for his daughter. But if he became the new Jacob, then he could have Ji-Yeon brought to the Island to be with him. Then again, would you bring your daughter to the Island, after everything that’s happened? Not likely. But I still groove on the idea of Jin being the new Jacob. First off, he’s got the right name. Second, he’s a fisherman’s son, so that would be a rather Biblical way for him to end up.

There have been rumors circulating for a few weeks about the next episode, “Across the Sea,”  (the 15th episode of the season, btw) not having any of the regular characters in it. I’ve been interpreting this all along that it means we’ll finally get to see the backstory of Jacob and the Man in Black, and how this whole thing got started over a game of Backgammon. At least, that’s what the previews lead me to believe:

Tags: Lost

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