Posts Tagged ‘ Cultural Evolution ’

Lost, Found: Light at the End of the Tunnel

May 12, 2010
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Good and Evil and In Between

The third from the last episode, and we start to see, literally and figuratively, a light at the end of the tunnel. And I believe more than ever in what I’ve said about Lost providing a complicated, atypical look at “good” vs. “evil.”

A Woman kills the twins’ Mother, apologizing to her right before smashing her face. She raises the kids as her own and lies to them about their origins, telling them they are from the island, that there is no place else in the world, that there are no other people in the world. Later, she’ll smash her “son’s” head with an apology as well, to prevent him from leaving the island, even though she needs only one successor to protect the island. She then kills all of the people in the Man in Black’s settlement after learning of their plans to leave the island.

The Man in Black sees his dead Mother — sees a truth Jacob cannot. He hears what she has to say and wants to honor it. If the other people on the island are his people, he wants to be with them instead of the Woman who killed his mother and lied to him all along. If the island is not his home, he doesn’t want to stay, he wants to find a way to leave. When the Woman subverts his goal, he kills her — an act that doesn’t really help him, but one that is understandable as something other than unadulterated evil.

As for Jacob, he smashes his brother’s face in when his brother wants to go live with the other people (the “Others,” in contrast to the Woman, even though later there will be “Others” serving Jacob himself). Instead of facing the truth, he chooses to stay with the Woman and her lies. When the Woman wants to pass the torch onto him and have him replace her as protector of the island, he does not want the job. He seems insecure and frightened. When he accepts, she says they are now the same — he is now the same as the Woman who has done all the not-so-nice things she has done. Later, when the Man in Black has killed the Woman, Jacob once again smashes his brother’s face in, and punishes him by sending him into the light in the tunnel, the place the Woman described as “Life, death, rebirth. It’s the source, the heart of the island,” right before telling him to never go down there, since a fate worse than death awaits. The fate worse than death is what Jacob wishes upon his brother.

Who is good and who is evil here? It would be too strong to say that the Woman and Jacob are “really” evil and the Man in Black really “good,” but it is equally misguided to pose it the other way around.

The Man in Black merely wants to face the truth about himself and find his way home. The Woman and Jacob are willing to lie, hurt, even kill, all in the service of a story the Woman tells about the source of the island, despite Jacob (and we, the audience) having no real idea whether the story has credence, or how she knows what she says she knows.

It seems that all these characters have elements of what we think of as “good” and of what we think of as “evil.” In other words, they are people, and the fact that they have conflicts merely means they haven’t figured out how to get what they all want collaboratively.

Procreation, Longevity and Power

The episode begins with a birth, of twins. We know that there are issues on the island with fertility, with pregnant women losing their babies. Claire was able to give birth on the island — because of the Others’ medicine, and/or because she was far enough along when she arrived. The twins’ Mother obviously received no such medicine, so her giving birth on the island can only be the result of either the fertility issue not having begun yet or of her having been far enough along.

In any case, consider that the island is known simultaneously as a place where fertility is problematic and where immortality is possible to some extent. Jacob and the Man in Black seem to live forever, even though they may have weaknesses that can cause their death. Richard receives the gift of immortality from Jacob. Even Locke’s having his paralysis cured seems to be of a piece with these phenomena. The island seems to be something of a Fountain of Youth, a place where health, vigor and longevity can be cultivated.

In the mid-1990s, I came up with an idea for a screenplay about Ponce de Leon and his quest for the Fountain of Youth. Some scientists in the modern day conducting experiments in the Bermuda Triangle would somehow discover that their actions have caused an old ship to appear, and on that ship would be Ponce de Leon. He would be grateful for having been freed from the triangle so he could resume his quest for the Fountain of Youth in Florida. Eventually, the story would make clear that the Bermuda Triangle was itself the Fountain of Youth, and that the only way to take advantage of it would be to relegate oneself to it’s parallel-universe-like existence in the middle of the ocean, a place where “real life” simply cannot be lived, since “real life” includes death.

On Lost, the island is, in addition to having these properties of longevity and health, also a place where fertility is an issue. Just as in the story I’d come up with years ago, perhaps wishing to live forever is an ultimately selfish thing that can only be done in a place cut off from the reality of the rest of the world, a place where the normal cycles of life, of generations, cease. The island’s troubles with procreation may be a necessary condition of the presence of longevity/immortality. To be cut off on the island and living forever, one can easily imagine people going mad and wanting to leave, to get back to “life” as it really is. In some sense, the island’s brand of immortality could be tantamount to death itself, a denial of life as it is.

Indeed, what to make of the Woman thanking the Man in Black as her final words, despite him having just killed her? Could she have felt trapped in a too-long life on the island herself? Is this why she killed the Mother and took the babies, grooming them to succeed her — simply to find her own escape? Perhaps she came to know that apparent immortality is more than it’s cracked up to be, and perhaps she needed a loophole to have herself killed, just as the Man in Black sought a loophole, getting someone else to kill Jacob on his behalf. Collateral damage may be necessary to escape the immortality of the island.

In contrast, what do we know of life as it really is, off the island? From most characters’ backstories, we know that they’ve got issues. Problems they struggle with. Violence and heartache and confusion and tragedy. And also good things, too. It’s a mixed bag — just as the Woman, Jacob and the Man in Black appear to be. And, crucially, this is true not only in the original timeline but also in Sideways world. Whatever created Sideways world, it did not “make everything better” in any simplistic sense, as the lostaways had hoped would happen as a result of blowing up Jughead.

Perhaps this all adds up to the very simple message that life must be lived, with its ups and downs, for better and for worse, including the fact of its ending in death, and that any attempt to do otherwise is bound to lead to undesired results.

This is not a lesson learned only through experiences with the island — it is seen even in characters’ regular lives separate from their island experiences. Christian drives his son too hard with expectation. Jack is a compulsive fixer. Anthony Cooper conned people to ensure his own “ups.” Kate killed for the sake of her and her mom’s “ups.” Jin is willing to obey the whims of Mr. Paik for a shot at a decent life. The list could go on and on. At least so far in the story, essentially everyone has failed to find redemption, and this failure appears to be to the very extent that they fail to confront the things deep in their past that have saddled them with a too-strong desire to strive for ups and a too-weak ability to accept life’s downs. If only they could embrace both sides — the ups and downs, the “good” and the “evil” — and let go of the striving, the attachment to only the pleasant at the expense of the unpleasant, then maybe they’d actually get more of what they want.

Long ago, when first writing here about Lost, I talked about the show as a critique of civilization. Civilization is, most basically, a social structure in which power is unevenly distributed, with some having much and most having little. Now consider the island and the light hiding beneath/inside it. It is a place where a special kind of power has been consolidated, with much of the rest of the world lacking it. Originally I’d thought the island to stand in distinction to civilization. While in some ways it clearly does, in its own way it also now seems to just be one more place where the same old things play out.

In civilization off the island — and in various civilization-inspired social structures on the island — the unequal distribution of power leaves many people wanting, searching, striving to find more “ups” to make up for their experience of too many “downs,” while also giving a few people more “ups” than they deserve and leaving them exceedingly protective of their status against the masses who aren’t so lucky.

On the island, the light is a power that is warned against, to be left alone. Somehow on the island, extreme longevity — a surfeit of “ups” — is made possible, surely through something having to do with that light. And yet direct contact with the light can release a Smoke Monster — the inevitable extremity of “downs” that must go hand in hand with ever bigger “ups.” That, too, is true of civilization, where psychological, social and ecological ills increase right alongside — and often because of — the so-called “advances” of civilization.

Jacob described the island to Richard as the cork which keeps evil from being released out into the world. But we already see plenty of evil in the world, and we are starting to get enough information to doubt just how unassailably good and right Jacob may be. Further, if the island needed protection prior to the Man in Black becoming the Smoke Monster, then the Smoke Monster can’t be the evil being corked up.

Was there another monster, which gave the Woman her knowledge of what happens when someone goes into the light? Perhaps it was the Woman herself. Trapped by accident on the island, she stumbles upon the light cave. Drawn in by its beauty, she finds her fate worse than death: she is granted immortality and turned into a Smoke Monster. Unlike the Man in Black, she has no desire to go home — that is not something that must go along with being a Smoke Monster. She perhaps understands the nature of the island’s power and realizes that, rather than it needing protection from people, people may need protection from the island. She resolves to stay, but time grows long, and she wants to be freed from the endless prison of her life. Perhaps this explains why she steals the babies, how she can grant them their own near-immortality, and why she needs a loophole and thanks the Man in Black for killing her. That we never see her turn into a Smoke Monster in last night’s episode may be incidental, since we know the Man in Black only takes that form in particular circumstances. But even if she can grant immortality without Smoke-Monsterhood, wouldn’t she just be setting others up for the same too-long-life? Yes — hence the need for Jacob to find a successor — and the Man in Black’s own long-held frustrations.

Is there some way in which that light itself could somehow be evil as opposed to good, the evil needing to be corked up? Of course, we’ve witnessed two “disasters” on the island, under the hatch at two separate times, where massive explosions caused that Dharma station’s pocket of energy to be released — and in neither case was the world destroyed, as some said it would be in those circumstances. If the light is life and death and rebirth, then it surely must be good and evil wrapped together — pure power, not yet applied. Perhaps, then, rather than seeing the island’s light energy as either something to exploit — as perhaps Widmore and the Dharma Initiative might — or as something to protect — as the Woman and Jacob would — it should instead be understood as something to be released, once and for all, and thereby dissipated. Power corrupts and absolutely power corrupts absolutely — therefore enormous sources of power in some sense “should” be dissipated, to reduce the potential for corruption and therefore to bring more balance to the world.

Releasing the island’s energy, then, could be what causes the island to end up at the bottom of the ocean, neutralized, as we saw at the beginning of the final season. Metaphorically, it would show the way for people elsewhere, out in the “real” world, in whatever timeline, to lead better lives. Release power, the need to control. Let power be distributed to all rather than bottled up in small pockets where it can become volatile, corruptible, dangerous. Accept that we all live and we all will die — no immortality for us. Accept that we must do well by future generations — fertility for us, backed up with good parenting, unlike what we’ve seen so often throughout the series and especially in this episode by the Woman. Raise our kids so that they will know from the start that they should do their best but within the context of accepting both good and bad in their lives. Struggle to free ourselves from the resistance we’ve come to have about this very acceptance, so that we will be able to do all these things for ourselves, our kids and others, instead of striving for more and more control and power. Through all this, through this balance, there can be redemption — for the characters in the show, and for anyone who chooses this path.

The End of the Tunnel

I’ve so far avoided making any concrete predictions about the plot. So far, mostly abstract analysis and suggestions about the basic shape of things to come — about the show becoming much more nuanced in its depiction of good and evil and vaguely what a resolution of that dichotomy may look like as opposed to one side simply winning somehow. With last night’s episode having seemed to corroborate my perspective to some extent, and with so little of the series left, this may be a good time to pose some more concrete possibilities.

With Jacob having been killed, the conflict between “good” and “evil” seems difficult to resolve. With his project of finding a successor, though, that becomes more viable. Will a lostaway step in and duel with the Smoke Monster? In light of the nuanced handling of good and evil, this seems doubtful, or at least not genuinely climactic. Perhaps other oppositions will come into play. Most notable seem to be Jack’s man of science vs. Locke’s man of faith, and Jack’s “selfless leader” vs. Sawyer’s “island unto himself.” The former, though, has shown Locke’s faith to have made him a sucker, leading to his death and the ascension of UnLocke, while Jack has himself seemed to give up some of his compulsion while embracing the less “scientific” truths of the island — not quite a resolution, but certainly that conflict is not what it was. As for Jack vs. Sawyer, likewise, Jack spent a fair amount of time very concerned about himself getting off the island, and it only led to the massive guilt he experienced during the flash-forwards, while Sawyer did a lot of growing up during that same time. Jack and Sawyer, though, do remain among the few remaining lostaways/candidates.

In the end, could two lostaways, Jack and Sawyer or otherwise, end up replacing both Jacob and the Man in Black? Perhaps on some level this could happen willingly, mutually, without real conflict, both replacements somehow believing in a need to serve those roles and stay on the island. Perhaps there would not be willingness, no more than Jacob and the Man in Black had themselves shown. However it goes, the show has proved time and again what it’s willing to do to characters we care about — kill them, maim them, torture them. And we have seen that the Smoke Monster we’ve come to know and hate was, as UnLocke had said, once just a man, and not only that but a man who just wanted to be loved and find his way home. Don’t put it past the show’s creators to turn someone we really like into another Smoke Monster.

Given that the island ends up on the ocean floor at some point, I’d guess we’re in for a followup to Jack’s Jughead plan, something to bring closure to “getting a fresh start.” The series, so much about free will vs. determinism, so much about our inability to change the past, seems poised to affirm our ability to affect our future, to change. Juliet had said that the Jughead plan worked — and we have seen the Sideways world which may prove that it did. But we have obviously not seen enough to know the real relationship between the original timeline and Sideways world. The Sideways experiences of Desmond, Charlie, Hurley and Libby suggest it is not mere conjecture, a storytelling “what if,” but something real. Perhaps, and especially if there has been any taking over the roles of protector and Smoke Monster, someone may deliberately cause the destruction of the island. Once and for all, its energy could be released, bringing to an end the dichotomy of protector vs. Smoke Monster, leaving the original timeline behind to somehow cause the Sideways timeline.

The slight hints we have in the Sideways world timeline that things are maybe working out a little bit better for people may be all we get. Jack having a son and making an effort. Kate seeming to be on her way to another chance with a more understanding law enforcement officer holding her custody. Hurley’s success with money and with Libby. Claire and Jack finding family in each other. Locke getting Helen and accepting his limitations. Ben having sacrificed an administrative career for the sake of the success of the “daughter” he mistreated in the original timeline. Jin and Sun finding their way together. And so on. Here in the Sideways world, life is still a mixed bag, full of ups and downs. Sideways world underscores how this cannot be avoided. Accepting this leads not to some trite, pat, happily-after-ever good-triumphs-over-evil ending but, instead, to small, one day at a time improvements. Therein would lie the hope that, whatever else may not be working out in Sideways world, change may be possible. The glimpses the Sideways characters are getting of the original timeline may end up being no more than a reason for them to appreciate what they now have, the proof that any path would be a mixed bag and that there is far more a point in just doing one’s best rather than in always wondering, with regret, “what if.”

Obviously these aren’t totally concrete, specific predictions. Obviously much remains to be addressed — the origins of the temple, statue and lighthouse; the role of Desmond’s parallel-worlds mission; countless other things, many of which are sure never to be fully resolved because they just aren’t core to the main throughline of the story. In any case, these are least some suggestive notions about what may lie ahead.

Lost, Found: Raised By Another

October 2, 2008
By

Claire dreams of her baby’s disappearance. In the dream, Locke says, “It was your respnsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now.” She goes through the crib, only to get blood on her hands. This episode will soon tell us that she wanted to put the baby up for adoption. Is the message that there is blood on the hands of anyone who doesn’t effectively nurture their children, and that such parenting has a broad impact, far beyond just the child?

Charlie overlty offers to be Clarie’s friend, noting how difficult the island experience must be for her, especially since she’s pregnant. If she needs someone to talk to, he’s here. Is he hitting on her, or trying to make a genuine connection, or both? It seems to be the first time that someone on the island is so overly offering to establish a profound connection — and yet this directness itself seems a barrier given that such connections usually best occur organically.

Flashback: A psychic sees something in Claire and refuses to do the reading, sending her away. How certain is prediction, and how does it relate to the series’ theme of not being able to change the past yet staying open to changing the future?

Claire wakes in fight, screaming: “He was tring to hurt my baby!” Much later on we’ll find out about the vaccine and the disease that kills the island’s pregnant women. In fear, not knowing what’s going on, Claire’s assumptions get the best of her here. And yet, what else could she think? When those trying to help don’t make their intentions clear, is it so unreasonable to fear them?

In response to Claire’s attack, Hurley decides to take a census, hoping that if they start “laying down the law” that perhaps people will think twice about such offenses. Is he reproducing civilization here, or just attempting to truly get know his community?

Charlie says he’ll be there all night to protect Claire. But she then flashes back to Thomas, very concerned about their situation, how there are always plans and responsibilities, and worried that it will be even worse when the baby comes. She says, “You can’t just change your mind,” but he leaves her. Thomas wasn’t there for her after he’d promised he would be — can she believe Charlie will be?

Jack is concerned that Claire’s experience was a nightmare. Charlie gets very defensive, “It’s not all in her head.” Soon after, Claire is offended at the same suggestion from Jack: “You think I’m making this up?” She is so put off she leaves the valley camp. The assumption is that if it’s in your head, it doesn’t matter. More to the point would be the fact that, if it’s in your head as opposed to a threat from outside, it certainly matters but must be handled quite differently. Jack doesn’t say it doesn’t matter, but neither do his sedatives offer a way of handling things effectively beyond the short-term — so often the case with the medical model.

Flashback again to the psychic. He seems in pain, horror. “This is important… It is crucial that you yourself raise this child… This child parented by anyone, anyone other than you… Danger surrounds this baby. Your nature, your spirit, your goodness must be an influence… There is no happy life, not for this child, not without you. You mustn’t allow another to raise your baby.” In response, Claire becomes very agitated, thanks him for his time and leaves. She is in denial about this. Is it a very special circumstance this particular person is in denial about, or is this about the responsibility of parenting in general? How many parents “run away” from the prospect of getting in touch with their true selves in order to provide unconditional nurture to their children?

To Hurley’s census-taking, Boone says, “Maybe we’re just not cool with you setting up your own little Patriot Act.” Yet moments later, directly seeking the manifest from Sawyer, he prompts Sawyer to say, “You sure know how to butter a man up, Stay Puft.” Hurley responds: “It’s a gift.” They both seem to be joking, and yet Hurley was effective in getting what he wanted without Sawyer’s usual negotiations. Hurley does seem to have some talent for communication, connection, cooperation — all of which suggest that the census is a bit more innocent than Boone’s accusation suggests.

When Claire experiences severe pains, Charlie runs to get Jack but finds Ethan first and tells Ethan to get Jack. Charlie comes back to Claire, who complains of the pain. With the Ethan connection, we can’t help but imagine, in hindsight, if she is, indeed, going through the island’s pregnancy-related disease.

Flashback: She’s puzzled at the psychic’s suggestion of giving the baby to a couple in Los Angeles when all he’s done is warn her against having anyone else raise the baby. He says, “This is what must happen… It has to be this flight.” Claire believes he was full of it, but Charlie helps her see that perhaps he was not: “All he wanted was that no-one else raise your baby. Maybe he knew.” That is, maybe he foresaw the plane crash, knew he couldn’t tell her about it, yet knew he had to ensure she got on the plane. If it was foreseen, though, did he have to try so hard? Would she have ended up on the plane without his involvement? When even the psychic felt the need to intervene, the suggestion is that the future is malleable. It’s as if he saw not one future but possible futures and became proactive in generating the preferred outcome.

Charlie reassures Claire, “I told you I’d take care of you… I won’t let anything happen to you.” But his promises will go unkept . Should he make such claims just to make her feel better in the moment?

Sayid comes back to the caves. He reports that he found the woman on the island, that “We’re not alone.” Soon after, Hurley informs Jack of a problem: one person in the group doesn’t appear on the manifest. He wasn’t on the plane with them. We now know the survivors are even less alone — and that Rousseau may not be as crazy as she seemed.

Ethan shows up with Claire and Charlie. “Ethan, where’s Jack?” But they just stare at each other. Ethan has not gone to get Jack. He was not on the plane, he was on the island before them, and he has some other purpose here. We certainly are meant to think his purpose sinister. Is it? Can we find the gray area where the survivors’ feelings of threat are understandable, yet without completely demonizing Ethan and the Others? Not for now.

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Mutant Message Down Under

September 13, 2008
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Mutant Message Down Under
Mutant Message Down Under
By Marlo Morgan



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Wall-E

September 13, 2008
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Wall-E
Wall-E
By Written by Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon; Original Story by Andrew Stanton & Pete Docter; Directed by Andrew Stanton



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Apocalypto

September 13, 2008
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Apocalypto
Apocalypto
By Written by Mel Gibson & Farhad Safinia; Directed by Mel Gibson



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Lost, Found: Confidence Man

September 11, 2008
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Boone going through Sawyer’s stash. Next thing you know, Boone’s bleeding, being helped back to camp. “What happened?” Boone: “Sawyer.” Sawyer, the only one who has seemed to horde property, the only one who has claimed property that isn’t personally useful, is now using violence to protect his plunder. A familiar story to any civilized culture: claiming possession of things that either already had a claim or were in a commons, then using force to keep it. This perpetuates the confusion between assets and income that allows unsustainable practices like economic growth to be pursued as a matter of ideology.

Sawyer’s letter seems to reveal that he seduced and conned a woman and that she and her husband were then killed as a result. And someone wants Sawyer dead. The price of deception is death and loss — and for those who experience that death and loss and don’t know another way to cope, they will want to perpetrate more of the same on those who caused it for them. A vicious cycle. But the vicious cycle is even more vicious, as we will learn, because of a further deception Sawyer is carrying out around this letter.

Shannon’s asthma acting up. The initial response, supported by doctor Jack: drugs, the medical solution, the pharmaaceutical fix.

Sawyer keeps flashing back to the con, in which he pretends to have things he didn’t really have — the seed money, the opportunity to make more money. He uses them — the illusion of them — so that others will give him something. A direct parallel to the asthma inhalers which, we will learn, Sawyer doesn’t actually have. Yet another deception we will only learn about later.

Shannon’s asthma is attacking. Boone insists she needs the inhaler, but Jack insists it’s anxiety for the most part. She breathes in through the nose as he instructs. It works. Hurley thinks it was like a Jedi moment. Was it an “old Jedi mind trick”? If so, then the Jedi aren’t as magical and special as they seemed, because this kind of mind trick is available to anyone. What’s most amazing is that something available to everyone should be used so seldom that it seems amazing.

Sayid says he will get the medicine from Sawyer. Torture. Sawyer is the enemy, the other, less than human, otherwise Sayid couldn’t do it.

Sawyer lets the torture go on, lets them go on thinking that he has the asthma medicine. Jack: “It doesn’t have to be this way.” Sawyer: “Yeah, it does.” After the torture is heightened and Sawyer reveals nothing, Jack wonders about him, “What the hell is wrong with you?” Sawyer only gives in when Sayid threatens to cut out his eye, but he will only tell Kate — why?

Flashback begins with someone asking him, “Do you want to die?” We learn the seed money wasn’t his in the first place, it was just fronted for the con. Sawyer is threatened with torture. Has Sawyer been tortured before? Reached his limits with torture before?

As a condition of telling where the inhalers are, Sawyer insists on a kiss from Kate, just as he’d asked for earlier. “You’re just not seeing the big picture here, Freckles,” he says, wondering if she’d let the girl suffocate because she won’t give him a kiss. She does it, and he immediately lets her know that he doesn’t have the inhalers, that the reason they’d all suspected him, the book — that had been packed with the medicine but that he was now reading — had simply washed up on shore. Why would he put himself through the torture when he didn’t have what they were after? Perhaps the kiss was the goal of the con — a moment of love and connection, even if false and superficial. More likely, it is power itself. He hordes goods, holds sway over those who want things from him. Others show leadership, but Sawyer is an alpha male, and he is doing his best to create an alternate power structure, one in which he can be top dog. If he is willing to endure torture to “withhold” goods he doesn’t even have, what will he be willing to do in the service of his actual possessions? On one hand, this is the true madness of hierarchy. On the other hand, it is, sadly, extremely effective in convincing others to bow to its power.

Sayid loses his temper when he finds out that Sawyer was lying. He believes it’s been lies all along and that Sawyer doesn’t want off the island. Sayid believes Sawyer must have broken the transceiver. They fight and he stabs Sawyer. Is this conflict, is this wound, justified, or is it the result of yet more assumptions and people letting their emotions get the better of them when they’d be better off keeping themselves in check?

Michael brings eucalyptus to Sun as she asked, Jin is up in arms about it, but nothing comes of it. Sun’s power in the relationship is increasing here on the island, where they are immune from so many cultural conventions that previously impacted them. Sun goes to Shannon with the plant.

Jack is holding Sawyer’s wound, keeping pressure on to keep him from bleeding to death. Sawyer says to Jack, “Let go, I know you want to…. If the tables were turned, I’d watch you die.” Does Sawyer actually have a death wish? Does he really want to die?

Flashback to the couple Sawyer was conning. He sees their kid, and we think now more than ever that this is the couple that will die as a result of the con, that this is the kid who writes the letter threatening to kill Sawyer. But he calls off the deal when he sees the kid. Our assumptions were wrong. We’ve been conned by Sawyer — and the writers — into thinking we understood the letter. The man we now know as Sawyer was once a kid, likely no more threatening than the kid we just saw — he has only become who he is now through profound trauma.

On the island, Sawyer wakes up, arm wound treated. Kate says he’s lucky to be alive — possibly little solace to someone who may have a death wish. While he slept, Kate examined the letter, wondering why he’d beat up Boone instead of just saying that he didn’t have the medication — does he simply want to be hated by everyone? Closer inspection tells her the letter is old — he was the kid, the letter written by him to someone whose con led to the death of his own parents. His name isn’t Sawyer. Sawyer was the con man, but then, as Sawyer says, “How’s that for tragedy? I became the man I was hunting. I became Sawyer.” In some sense, it was his only option — his only role model for survival given that his parents died, a role model that forces him to hurt others so that he can live. He wants nothing more now than to hurt the one who hurt him, so see the real Sawyer pay for what he did, to force the real Sawyer to feel the regret he seemed to lack. Perhaps this is why Sawyer wanted Jack to let go of the wound, so that he could know there’d be at least one person having to live with the conscious knowledge of having hurt him.

Sun applied the eucalyptus on Shannon’s chest. Jack realizes what it is and laughs. “Smart, Jack.” He seems embarrassed not to have thought to look for it himself in the island jungle. He thanks Sun, and all seems well. She has used her knowledge and talent, contributed to the group in ways nobody realized she could have, and all while making use of what was on hand, no lamenting what was “missing,” what they were unable to access from off-island.

Sayid decides he can’t stay. “I’ve worse things to fear than what’s in the jungle. What I did today, what I almost did, I swore to do never again. If I can’t keep that promise, I’ve no right to be here.” Sawyer seems successful at continuing to cut off parts of himself from conscious experience — the part that is deeply hurt by his parents’ death, a part which he perhaps feels would consume him if its feelings were permitted expression. Likewise, the parts of him that must regret the impact he’s had on all his marks, the subjects of his cons. Sayid had to squash himself in similar ways throughout the course of his previous torture work, but he obviously wasn’t successful at keeping it up. The shame and regret were powerful enough that he allowed them to be conscious and decided not to torture again. Would Sayid be leaving if the torture of Sawyer had “worked out?” Unknown. But Sawyer’s deception is a blessing in disguise for Sayid. When Sayid realizes the torture was for nothing, that it was only carried out because of Sawyer’s insanity, Sayid seems to recognize that insanity breeds more of the same. Sawyer may still want to live like that, but Sayid does not. Sayid, who knows his most profound fears are inside as opposed to out in the jungle, who wants to stop participating in vicious cycles, goes off to his own walkabout.

Sawyer almost lights the letter on fire with his lighter. But he doesn’t. He can’t shake his past. He’s still attached to it. He’s going to remain so for quite some time.

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Lost, Found: White Rabbit

August 27, 2008
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Time to go down the rabbit hole, into an odd Wonderland. But what kind of hole, what kind of Wonderland? The kind we’ve been set up for, in the pilot, with a tabula rasa, a walkabout.

Jack goes out to save a drowning woman, finds Boone, who has already gone out to try to save her. Boone is having trouble of his own in the water, and Jack brings him back to shore, even though he says they have to go back for her. By the time Boone is safe, it’s now too late to save the woman. Jack tries, but he can’t get to her in time. He wrestles with this, the loss. But what was he to do, let Boone die as he tries to save the woman? The doctor in him found something he could fix, and he did. He then tried to fix the second thing, and he couldn’t. Better fix one than risk nobody surviving, that seems to be what Jack thought. Perhaps reasonable? Kate: “You tried.” Jack: “No, I didn’t.” He says he decided not to go after her. When he acknowledges this to Kate, he sees his father in the water at the beach. In confronting something he doesn’t like about his own thought process, his past appears before him.

Michael tells Walt not to swallow the ocean water. Walt: “Why?” Because it’ll make you thirsty. “Why?” “Just don’t swallow it, Man.” More “because I said so” parenting, authoritarian, no reason given.

Sun wants to try harder to communicate. Jin says they’ll be fine — and he will tell Sun what to do. Does Jin fear connection because it might cause him to lose power over Sun?

Claire talks about astrology to Kate, says that people think it’s meaningless, and that’s only because they don’t get it. Just as Locke will eventually contrast with Jack, man of faith vs. man of science, Claire, Jack’s half-sister, seems to have a similar contrast, more apt to have faith than question with logic.

Jack blows off Hurley and Charlie who seeks his advice about rationing resources. “I’m not deciding anything.” “Why not?” Jack gives no answer, but it’s because he feels badly about losing the drowned woman. He lets a bad result get in the way of his using his natural talent for leadership — he hampers his own ability to lead because he can’t do it perfectly, thereby ensuring that he will continue to do it more poorly than he would like. A vicious cycle.

Flashback: Jack’s father talks about how he can come home and have a calm evening even when he loses a patient. “Even when I fail, how do I do that? Because I have what it takes.” He advises Jack to not be a hero, don’t try to save everyone, because when Jack fails, he just doesn’t have what it takes. Is it true? Jack has internalized the message. But it seems far more plausible that it’s not true at all, that Jack’s father needs to have Jack see himself that way in order to feel superior to Jack. Jack’s father attempts to hide his own insecurities but just ends up passing them on.

Boone in Jack’s face, questioning his decision, questioning who made him boss. Jack sees his Dad again, follows him into the jungle. He is following the rabbit down the hole. Interestingly, there seems to be a reference to The Empire Strikes Back, Luke going into the jungle to face his father.

Claire needs attention. Jack is not there to help, to fix. He is wandering the jungle, following the image of his father. But it’s probably good that he isn’t there to fix — he must confront something from his past in order to better know how to make things work well in the present.

He constantly sees his father’s back, as if he is following in his father’s footsteps, as if his father is leading him somewhere. Jack needs to get in front of his father, to put his father behind him so that he can lead his own life, literally. When he tries to lunge after his dad, he falls down a hill, hanging on for dear life at the top of a cliff. Only saved because Locke arrives. Significance: He cannot fight his father anymore than he can flee his father. He must resolve his past. Locke, who is more in harmony than the others, is there to save him, symbolically communicating this message — it is through harmony, not fight or flight, that he will be saved.

As Charlie talks to Claire, We see clearly on Charlie’s left arm a tattoo: “Living is easy with eyes closed,” a lyric from Strawberry Fields Forever. Claire talks about how the others don’t seem to look at her, a pregnant woman being a time bomb that’s going to go off at any time. She reinforces the notion that people live with eyes closed, denying what there is to see right in front of them.

Kate comes after Sawyer for the stolen water. Sawyer: “Seeing as you’re the new sheriff in town, might as well make it official.” He tosses her the marshal’s badge, as if she’s on the police force — the “wild” man critiques someone for acting the role of a civilized, force-wielding, order-preserving institution. But is this fair? Is she really the same as the police, or is that only true from the point of view of someone with Sawyer’s past, Sawyer’s mindset?

Locke tells Jack, this place is special — the others don’t want to talk about it, because it scares them. But what if everything that happened here happened for a reason? Jack says he’ll come with Locke, but Locke says no, he must finish what he started, because a leader can’t lead until he knows where he’s going. This brings to mind the previous images of Jack’s farther facing away from Jack. Also worth noting the Internal Family Systems model of the psyche, which poses that the Self must lead the psyche and help organize and guide other internal parts of one’s personality. The leader must possess confidence in order to lead others who may not be as confident, who must have confidence in their leader, their organizer. Locke has helped Jack stay on his own personal walkabout.

Following his father’s image, Jack is led to a waterfall. He finds fresh water despite not even having been around to know that the camp has run out of it — kismet, coincidence, providence. He also finds part of the wreckage, the cargo hold. There is a casket. He flashes back to the airport, being held up because of improper documentation for his father’s body. He says, “I need it to be done. I need it to be over. I just… I need to bury my father.” He is talk literally, but he far more profoundly needs it symbolically. But on the island, he checks the casket, and it is empty. Jack flies into a rage and destroys the casket. Is he angry that the body isn’t there and can’t receive a proper burial? Is he just acting out all his past anger at his father? Either way, it is a catharsis for him.

Jack returns to the beach, just as things are getting very heated as a result of Boone apparently having taken the last fresh water. He tells everyone that rescue may not come. “We have to stop waiting. We need to start figuring things out.” He’s saying that they can no longer hide themselves, no longer deny, must face what is there before them. “Every man for himself is not gonna work. It’s time to start organizing. We need to figure out how we’re gonna survive here.” He says that those who don’t want to come get water with him can find another way to contribute. “If we can’t live together, we’re gonna die alone.” He has had some kind of resolution inside, has integrated aspects that were once separate. He is now more keenly aware that the same thing must happen socially, that the group must come together, organize, because, on this island, no man is an island.

Sun tells Jin, “Thank you for getting me water today.” Jin: “That’s what husbands go.” Whatever else is between them, they care for each other — i.e., they have positive regard for each, and they tend to each other’s needs. They will need to learn how to care for each other in less easy, less obvious ways as well, so that they actually both feel cared for and loved in general, not only in isolated instances.

Jack tells Kate, “My father died in Sydney.” Kate: “I’m sorry.” Jack: “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” Even this early in the series, we’ve seen enough to know he has good reason to have dislike for his father. Much more will be revealed later. And yet, despite all this, he doesn’t hate hi father. He is capable of missing his father and regretting his father’s absence, his father’s death. In that sense, his father is still there in a positive way, despite dying. That, indeed, is something that will shed some light on Locke’s situation much later in the series — will Lock’s father’s death really let Locke move on? Will it really be sufficient? It seems doubtful. Moving on happen inside, as has started to happen for Jack.

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Lost, Found: Walkabout

August 25, 2008
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Walkabout — as Locke describes it, “a journey of spiritual renewal where one bcomes one with the Earth and derives strength from it.” As the survivors are all lost and trying to find themselves and the island represents in so many ways the Earth, it seems the entire series is an epic walkabout.

Noise, rumblings in the fuselage, waking everyone up. Jack assumes it’s Sawyer, lotting. Sawyer nastily announces to Jack, “Right behind you, Jackass.” A tiny moment, but one full of assumption, of generalizing, assume the worst of people, or at least assuming people will do what you’ve seen them do before. How times will this happen in the show? How many times does it happen in our lives? When so many of us are caught in patterns, doomed to repeat ourselves, it seems reasonable — and yet isn’t this inclination to assume one of the very things that keeps us in these patterns? All are afraid, but it turns out to be a boar — Locke smiles, recognizing that what was frightful is now the potential for food, for sustenance, that things were not as they appeared.

Sayid expresses concern over burning the dead bodies in the fuselage, without concern for their wishes, their religions. Jack may be right that there is no opportunity to sort that out. Worth noting who was sensitive to this, though — not just the Muslim, whose creed decries cremation, but the Muslim, the Iraqi, who knows very well how so many other misjudge people with these labels. The outcast knows better than any how important it is to be sensitive, inclusive.

Flashback: Locke plays his war game while at work. The culture that itself creates war does not allow its members to feel power, to struggle for survival. That can only happen in a game. One must leave the culture in order to feel true power, to truly survive.

Michael is going boar hunting with Locke. Walt: “Why can’t I come?” Michael: “‘Cause I said so.” Authoritarian parenting, no reason given. Does he respect Walt so little as to deny a reason, or does he respect himself so little because he can’t provide a good reason, and this is the only way to avoid confronting his own self-disrespect?

Locke tracking the boar. Noticing clues in the ground. Explaining the habits of boar. Using knowledge, skill, for survival. A sharp contrast with paper pushing as he’d done at home. There is something thrilling and threatening about his ability to do this. So many work lifeless jobs, making money to buy food that is kept from you unless you hand the money over. How many would keep doing this if they had the skills Locke had? How much of civilization would crumble if people left those jobs and could get food on their own like this? Here on the island, Locke can truly experience his own power and channel it toward life, no longer just a game. Those who abandon the game and do this in reality are a palpable threat to civilization.

Shannon needs to prove to Boone that she can catch her own fish. She invites Charlie to go for a walk. She gets him to catch a fish for her. Boone frowns on this. Is this the same or different from Locke? She has tracked her quarry, used her knowledge of its behavior, applied her skill to obtained food for herself. But in this case her quarry was just a man taken in by her wiles. Is it the same when one gets someone else to provide as opposed to providing for oneself directly? Are Shannon’s strategies threatening to or supportive of civilization’s typical power structures?

Jack doesn’t want to confront Rose who sits alone, but he convinced to because he is the one who saved her. He sits with her, and he manages to truly care for her, beyond his medical abilities. He acknowledges her desire to be alone and says it’s okay, simply suggesting that she take care of herself, drink. She doesn’t respond, and he says it’s okay if she’s wants to be quiet, they can just sit together. He is providing empathy and connection, stretching beyond his usual behavior patterns — and it does reach Rose, who opens up for the first time since the crash.

John’s flashback, he is annoyed with his boss, and says, for the first of many times we’ll hear the line, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.” This line is particular interesting and resonant. The problem-based mindset focuses on what is not being done — the appreciative mindset reframes to focus on the many things that can be done despite what seems undoable, and in the process it often extends what is doable. Focusing on what one can do allows one to cultivate ability, strength, talent, power — just as we’ve seen John doing with the boar.

Several more resonances with this very significant line:

  • Telling someone what they can’t do is denying validation for that person, validation that may encourage them with what they can do as well as the validation they surely need in order to come to accept the things they truly can’t. One need not only talk about what someone can do — we can be there for someone, with empathy, when they are facing something they can’t. This, indeed, may help them grow to face, to do, after all.
  • Natural laws, defining how things work in the universe, in the world, are almost always able to phrased as a limit, as something that cannot be done. Light cannot travel more than a certain speed. Energy cannot be indefinitely conserved. Knowing this natural laws, though, enables tremendous amounts of accomplishment and activity. Non-living things do all they do by honoring these laws, as do non-human living things — and some humans. Only those humans which lament the limits imposed by the universe fail to see just how much potential there is within those limits, how much can be done.
  • The laws of civilized cultures often dictate what is forbidden, what “cannot” be done. However, prohibition and punishment fail to prevent those actions from happening. By focusing our laws and our justice systems on “what we cannot do,” we fail to foster the kind of activity we actually want, ensuring only that we get more of what we don’t want, and not much justice.

Compare Charlie and Hurley in their attempt to catch a fish. Comical compared to Locke. But what might they be able to do that perhaps Locke cannot?

Rose guesses that Jack became a doctor because of his caring way — but he says he was just born into it. Jack’s caring approach to Rose stands in very stark contrast to his medical work, in which he is known to have poor bedside manner. It is not a desire to care that led him to medicine, only a need to fix. Perhaps the caring side of him may lead him away from medicine. But toward what?

Kate tries to boost the transceiver signal, and the Monster comes, crashing down trees. Once again, the island does not want anyone to attempt to make the island visible to the outside world. Locke then sees the Monsters, appears to confront it, and it spares him. Do the Monster and the island sense something special about Locke, understand his appreciation for the island?

Rose says her husband is not dead. Jack tells her everyone in the tail of the plane is gone. “They’re probably thinking the same thing about us.” Once again, there are assumptions based on one’s perspective, failing to consider how things might look from another point of view. Immediately after this, Jack sees his father. Is there significance in this being juxtaposed with Rose’s talk, indicating that people aren’t really gone even though we thought they might be?

Kate returns with the broken machine and asks Sayid to try again. He becomes angry and frustrated that he must do so while lying to everyone who wants to know what he’s actually doing. He is upset about the deliberate deception. Will those who want to speak the truth get their say, or will they be pushed down by those who want the truth hidden? Will we be convinced to hold ourselves down instead of speaking our truths?

Jack tells Kate about the memorial and sees his father again — just as his father appeared before, right after Jack mentioned the memorial to Rose. Jack may seem unemotional about the crash memorial, but even for Jack much can be evoked by the prospect of remembering the dead. Right then, Locke, who’d been presumed dead when he didn’t return with the other boar hunters, appears with a dead boar. Not only did the Monster fail to take him, he’s returned victorious in his hunt. Someone thought dead turns out not to be — resonance for Rose’s husband, for Jack’s father?

Charlie takes a hit of heroin during the memorial. Must he himself to be present to death? What about when it runs out? Just like the antibiotics will run out and Jack will have new things to confront, so will this drug run out for Charlie. Just like batteries and lighter fluid will run out. Soon enough, more and more survivors will have more and more to confront.

Michael asks if Locke got any kind of look at the Monster. Locke says no. More lies, more deliberate deception about the island. Is he guarding his own private island experience? Is he sparing the rest something that may concern them? Either way, it will remain unclear whether good will come from the deception.

Flashback: Locke in the wheelchair after they’ve refused him to get on the bus for the walkabout. The event planners interpret things so literally — Locke can’t possibly walk about. But it’s a spiritual quest, not a physical one. Once again, Locke says, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.” It’s then we see him on the beach, moments after the crash, and he can wiggle his feet. He has full functioning. He stands. Why? How? We don’t know, and neither does Locke, but his point is certainly proved — we can’t say what someone can’t do, lest we be proved simply wrong in light of new developments. Locke is up on his feet just in time for when Jack asks him for a hand. Immediately, his first act as a walking person again is to serve others. Back to the memorial, the wheelchair is in the flames, burning — Locke is moving past something from his past that restricted him.

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Lost, Found: Tabula Rasa

August 23, 2008
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Tabula rasa — the blank slate. The notion that people are born with nothing innate, “blank,” “clean,” and that everything we are comes from our experiences. Our modern conception of this comes mostly from 17th century philosopher John Locke, who also thought this meant that each individual is free to define the content of his or her character, to author their own mind, despite not being free to be anything other than human (and so acknowledging that we can never be fully blank). No surprise, the philosopher’s namesake character, more than any other crash survivor, represents this possibility, at least at the start of the series.

On Lost, everyone is already long since affected by many experiences. They are no longer as blank as they were at birth. But each day is blank, and they are free to author their own minds. Or are they? Those who are conscious about the possibility may strive to do so, those willing to confront the restrictions in their own heads. Will they take the opportunities they have to write new futures for themselves?

Charle says: “They’ll find us” and refers to satellites in space that can photograph a license plate. The outside world tries very hard to see all, to bring all under its purview. It uses high technology to do so. The survivors count on this, want it. The island has other plans.

Sawyer calls Sayid “Abdul” — more nicknames from Sawyer, and many more to come. This is a person who doesn’t acknowledge things for what they are. His nicknames symbolize the assumptions we all have about things, even when we aren’t giving them nicknames.

The group of hikers decides to lie about the distress signal, feeling that the other survivors will lose hope if they learn of a distress signal gone unanswered for 16 years. We have already seen deception — Kate keeping her criminal past quiet, for example. But this seems to be the first group decision to deceive, and the first time people have decided to deceive others about some aspect of their shared situation on the island. It is a conspiracy, the first of many we will see on the island.

Whatever we might think of larger conspiracy theories fans have about the nature of the island, these conspiracies among characters are among the most significant we can learn of for the show, because of the relationship between on one hand deception, hiding, fear, and on the other hand consciousness, awareness, trust, communication. Unintended consequences and vicious cycles will often appear when characters try to deceive, even as a result of good intentions. Lost repeatedly shows us the difference between benevolence — wishing others well — and beneficence — doing well for others. It repeatedly shows us how, just as is so pervasive in our global culture in general, benevolence often breeds maleficence, doing ill for others. Good intentions can pave the road to hell. The point isn’t to avoid good intentions, it’s to know how to make good on them. Learning how is a significant part of each character’s journey — in a sense learning how is the very point of these journeys.

Hikers camping. Boone takes Sawyer’s gun, and the group argues over who should hold it. Kate has a resentful face when the group decides she should hold the gun. It’s as if she doesn’t want to do that anymore, as if she wants the clean slate, to start anew. She will need to resolve who she’s been with who she wants to be. She will need to find a way to accept all of her past, carry forward with her what she values, and leave behind what she doesn’t. Perhaps it is only what she associates with guns and violence that needs to be left behind as opposed to the things themselves, which can defend, or provide sustenance, or various other real benefits.

Sayid, back at the beach, asks the survivors to gather electronic equipment so he can try to boost the transceiver’s signal — though his real motive is to discover the source of the distress call, not to send out their own transmission. He says there is a need to organize three groups, and each must have a leader. He is organizing, he is displaying leadership. But it’s not in conflict with any leadership that others, such as Jack, have already shown. Each steps up to the plate to get things done. Neither expects any special status or favors or benefits in return. It is leader as team player, just another role to play on a team in which everyone has a role, everyone has skills to offer, and some happen to have leadership skills. This is true leadership, and it is not hierarchical as “leadership” so often is in global culture.

Jack needs stronger antibiotics otherwise the marshal will die. Jack is using his knowledge, his talents, but he is hampered by the standard medical model, a model that believes it can fix anything and that more technology and drugs means a better or easier fix. The medical model itself forces a barrier upon his talents, limits what he can do.

Sawyer loots the plane. He tells Jack, “You’re still back in civilization. ” Jack responds, “Yeah, and where are you?” Sawyer: “Me, Im in the wild.” All very reasonable from the standpoint of those who prize civilization, since those who do envision the wild as a place where dog eats dog, where every man is for himself, where nature is red in tooth and claw. But is this actually how things are? Is this actually human nature outside the influence of global culture? Sawyer is one of the angriest, most antisocial survivors. We will soon find out that he is one of the people most hurt by the culture they’ve left behind. Couldn’t the fact of is having been literally left by himself as a child have led to his attitude of “every man for himself”? Couldn’t such hurts be exactly why people have these visions about life outside our culture, warping their image of it? Isn’t civilization itself filled with far too many people looking out for themselves? If so, could the truth about what’s beyond civilization be something very different from what most imagine?

Jin criticizes Sun for looking filthy and commands her to wash up. More dominance from him, more denial of the natural — more insistence on a culturally condoned order that includes keeping buttoned and keeping clean, both literally superficial traits. But then he says he loves her. More benevolent maleficence. He doesn’t know how to express his love to make her actually feel loved. Making her feel loved would be benevolence and beneficence combined.

Sayid is helping set up tarps to collect water. He knows these skills, skills for surviving outside of civilization, as a result of training he received in the military. Ironic, given that militaries as such only exist along with nation-states, the hallmark political structure of civilization. It’s as if, on some level, the culture beyond the island knows of its own potential weaknesses but reveals them only to a select few, only to those who are most trained to follow orders, to do the culture’s bidding, to not to question or comment. These are the people who the culture puts into situations in which they may need the skills to survive when the common power structures fail them — all to prevent the masses from being put in such situations. The cost of “freedom”?

In Kate’s flashback, the farmer Ray Mullen says to Kate about her leaving him and the farm, “I get it, you know. Everyone deserves a fresh start.” The tabula rasa, at least from here forward.

The wounded marshal wakes up to see Kate. He immediately tries to strangle her. She has done nothing in the moment other than be there beside him. He is living in the past, punishing her for no good reason right now, living out his own fears, his own righteousness. He is a member of a police force, another agency only possible in the nation-state. He doesn’t believe people deserve a fresh start. He believes people should be punished over and over for past actions — he is Javert to Kate’s Valjean. Most of the characters and audience might recoil at his action here, yet nearly all the characters are living out his very notion, continuing to engage in their own dysfunctional patterns of thought and behavior, punishing themselves over and over and failing to get past their past. When the one is seen to be the same as the other, then there is the possibility of progress.

Walt reveals Locke’s secret to Michael. “A miracle happened.” Michael doesn’t want him hanging around Locke. Walt wonders, “Why not? He’s my friend.” Michael feels threatened by a person who could possibly imagine this plane crash to be a good thing, much less a miracle. In the face of a threat, Michael’s reaction is, as with most of the characters, not to face it, but to deny it, to avoid it. He changes the subject: “‘I’m gonna get you’re dog back, as soon as it stops raining.” Boom, the rain stops, and we see him searching for the dog, sarcastically talking to himself about his promise, revealing it to have been inauthentic, just saying what Walt wanted to hear. There is a growl in the jungle, perhaps a polar bear, and Michael runs, abandoning the search for the dog Walt so badly wants back. It is as if the island, the bear, are presenting Michael with an opportunity to face the fears he needs to face in order to become the parent that Walt needs.

Charlie sees Locke whittling a whistle, and he uses the opportunity to dovetail into his own musical background. Several times now, Charlie has gone out of his way to conspicuously let people know of his involvement in a popular rock band. He seems badly in need of validation. If the many howling audiences for his band haven’t provided validation enough, can the reactions of his fellow crash survivors possibly satisfy? It is not his rock band experience but his fears that will require validation and acceptance.

Kate tries to light a fire on her own. Sawyer offers a lighter and she takes him up on it. Soon enough, these kinds of technologies from home will stop working. Are the survivors smart to make use of what they have as long as they can? Or are they hurting themselves by postponing learning how to get along without these technologies, using them up now instead of saving them for potential future crises?

Sawyer shoots the marshal to put him out of his misery, but he fails to kill. Is this merciful? He then wants a cigarette, but he can’t get the lighter to work. Technology has failed him — the gun, the lighter. Jack must now confront what he wanted to avoid — he must now finish the marshal. Is this a bad thing? Jack thinks so, but perhaps his insistence on the medical fix blinded him to the possibility that a doctor may actually be more caring and humane by putting a person out of their misery. He simply didn’t want to do any harm to his patient — but isn’t standing by while a patient suffers an unnecessarily long and tortuous death a kind of harm in itself? Not to those who believe that sins must committed actively, that omission is not sinful. But does anyone really think that? Sin seems beside the point — the question whether one can live with oneself if one refrains from doing something. Can Jack? Not in this case, not now that Sawyer has failed in his attempt.

Locke sits cross-legged on the beach. Calm, at ease. He blows his whistle, and Vincent the dog comes straight to him. No force, little effort. He has understood the situation and acted simply and effectively to make good things happen. He then allows Michael to take the credit for it so that Michael will look good in Walt’s eyes. Locke has no ego here. He has simply served the situation and is content to have helped the result.

Kate wants to reveal her criminal past to Jack, but he says, “It doesn’t matter, Kate, who we were, what we did before this — before the crash. It doesn’t really– Three days ago we all died. We should all be able to start over.” Jack acknowledges that the crash on the island can serve as an ego death for everyone, can help get everyone to the place where Locke appears to be in his egoless ability to serve. Jack seems content that the rules are different here, that perhaps what was considered criminal at “home” may not be here, or at least that whatever happened in the past should remain there as they all move forward.

Joe Purdy’s song “Wash Away” plays on Hurley’s headphones and serves as the soundtrack for the first unambiguously positive moments on the island. Sayid gives Sawyer a fruit despite their enmity. Michael brings Vincent back to a happy Walt. All seems calm and optimistic. The song tells us, “I got troubles oh, but not today… And I have sins Lord, but not today… And I had friends oh, but not today.” They’re all washed away, by the lapping waves on the beach of the island, in a sense. “And oh, I’ve been cryin’, No, no more cryin’ here.” Is the crash a disaster? The show tells us very clear here — no. The tabula rasa begins today — for those who are willing to write something new on their slate.

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Lost, Found: Pilot, Part 2

August 20, 2008
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The proper critics will scoff — I remember my Environmental Sociology professor being horrified that I was going to go through Titanic in chronological order rather than thematically. After seeing the look on her face, I did a rewrite, and I admit it’s a better way to write criticism and analysis. But chronological is exactly what I’m going to tend to do with Lost from here forward, both because it’s easier and also because I think it may prove interesting to have a thematic analysis done in parallel with the show, everything emerging organically as things go, all the pieces clicking into place only gradually.

This episode, though, and consequently the pilot as a whole, ends with a very notable moment, one that has huge implication for how we understand the meaning of the show and the phenomenon that surrounds it. This deserves some real attention, and I’ll try to do it justice. But first, we start at the beginning.

The episode opens with the gang who found the transceiver trying to get it to work. They can’t. Once again, it’s the wanting to be off the island, but somehow they can’t. They don’t have it in them, or the island won’t let them. They need to develop those resources within — and/or work with the island until the island is willing to let itself be seen.

The first flashback: Charlie, after talking with Kate about whether or not he’s a coward, flashes back to being on the plane. His hands are shaking. Fear, or just a physiological reaction to needing a fix? The flight crew seem onto him, and he gets paranoid that they are going to come after him, so he bolts to the bathroom. There, he takes some of the drugs he has stashed in his shoe, as the crew are demanding he opening the door. What do we learn here? Two things. First, in flashing back to this after considering his cowardice, we know that Charlie is on some level aware of the truth about drugs and addictions in general — that they are a refuge for the fearful, covering up their fear with something else. Second, we learn that civilization has no patience for fear — the flight crew is after him, and he ends up even more fearful now, fearful that they will punish him. Civilization can’t help the addicted, the fearful, in the refuges they take, because civilization is the very cause of them needing that refuge.

Shannon is sunbathing. Boone tells her he is helping others sort clothes and asks if she’d like to help. She blows him off and then ends up berating him for thinking too highly for himself. She is so disconnected from others that not only can she not help, but she needs to blame someone else, make someone else feel bad, because of her own inability. What fear is she not facing?

Jin makes Sun close her top button when Michael comes around searching for Walt. More controlling behavior between dominant husband and passive wife. Also, though, it is an act of embracing freedom outside civilization, met with civilization swooping in and reasserting its restrictions on healthy human behavior.

Michael, who had lost Walt, finds Walt in the jungle. Walt was comfortable walking off on his own into the unknown. Michael was afraid to do so. He scolds Walt: “What’d I tell you after everything that’s happened? …. You listen to me, I mean what I say.” Michael has not yet confronted his own fears, and so the jungle is a dangerous place. There seems little doubt that Michael may have real love for Walt, but he doesn’t know how to make Walt feel loved. Walt has perhaps not yet become as fearful as Michael, and on some level Michael resents that fact, reacting with authoritarian parenting that’s sure to push Walt eventually toward repeating the cycle of fear. Is it a coincidence that all of this happens just as Walt finds a pair of handcuffs? Definitely a symbol of authoritarianism, dominance, punishment, imprisonment and fear from a culture that is full of these things, that has an ever growing inmate population, and all despite its knowing the science that shows that punishment is not as effective as reward in modifying behavior, and neither as effective as simple validation and empathy when it comes to fostering intrinsic self-esteem. Parenting, no doubt, will prove to be a significant theme in the show, just as parenting is an absolutely crucial factor in the real-life repetition of vicious cycles — and in the real-life breaking of those cycles.

The first real fight between characters occurs between Sawyer and Sayid after Sawyer accuses Sayid of crashing the plane. To sum up these characters in single superficial words, we have, from Sawyer’s standpoint, the Patriot vs. the Terrorist. From Sayid’s perspective: the Redneck vs. the Iraqi, a national designation filed for Sayid with cultural but not ideological meaning. What fears cause people to make generalizations, to automatically assume that the “other” is the enemy? To make someone to be “other” and not part of “us” in the first place? Soon enough, there will be extremely significant developments in the story in terms of people branded as “others” and assumed to be enemies. It is the dichotomous, win-lose thinking that is inherent to civilization itself, so often filled with us vs. them scenarios.

Sawyer’s negative assumptions about Sayid are so strong that he sarcastically says, “Great!” when Sayid offers to help with the transceiver — much like Shannon needing to put down Boone’s attempts at helping others. When Hurley then tries to transcend us vs. them by saying, “We’re all in this together. Let’s treat each other with a little respect,” Sawyer lashes out at Hurley, calling him “Lardo.” Sawyer’s is, indeed, an overreaction, just more of the same from him. But there is something very significant about Hurley’s own response, made all the more clear when he subsequently says to Sayid that Sawyer is a “chain-smoking jackass,” and then again when he reacts with silence to the revelation that Sayid was in the Republican Guard — the “other” side, “them” — during the Gulf War. Hurley may be “right” that they are all in it together and ought to treat each other with respect, but inside he thinks lowly of Sawyer — he disrespects Sawyer. To have truly treated Sawyer with respect would have required empathy and validation for Sawyer, even in the face of Sawyer’s overreactions and prejudices. That would have stood a chance of calming Sawyer down and getting him on board, seeing everyone as “us.” As it stands, Hurley did more harm than good — he knew an important truth, but was incapable of expressing in a way that could be embraced. That is, in a way, as bad as not knowing the truth in the first place, but on some level it’s even worse — to know it and be incapable of living it out. Indeed, to the “jackass” comment, Sayid says to Hurley, “Some people have problems.” Sayid may only likely have meant Sawyer, but this statement will hold true for everyone here, including Hurley who has already betrayed his own wish for respecting others, and certainly including Sayid himself.

Sun finds Kate on beach, stripped down to her underwear. In light of the buttoning up, she must be jealous of a woman who feels free enough to do this. Sun wants to be free of her cultural restrictions. But despite so much being left behind, off the island, those restrictions remain with her. They are in her head — and in one’s head is the only place something needs to be for it to be, or at least seem, real. The same is true for everyone and all they carry with them from their pasts. Until they each resolve their issues, even if they had only the clothes on their back, they would all remain threats to the island, they would all still embody the encroachment of dysfunctional civilization.

Kate wants to hike with Sayid to send the transceiver signal from high ground. Jack discourages her: “You saw what that thing did to the pilot.” Fear is present once again, fear of the unknowns on the island now making even Jack afraid to attempt to let civilization know that they are there. He advises her: “if you see or hear anything, run.” In the face of anything truly life-threatening, such as an island monster, this is, indeed, good advice. How often, though, do Jack and the rest run when their lives really aren’t threatened?

Jin slaps Sun’s hand for touching the food he’s preparing — dominance turning into violence, a tiny violence that few equate with the plane crash but that is in ways culturally connected. He heads off, she unbuttons — the will to live, to be free, is still inside her and takes any chance it can to be seen, even if the sight must be kept hidden from some, like Jin.

Hurley refuses Jin’s offer of food: “I’m starving, but I’m nowhere near that hungry.” The most obese of the survivors, likely the person with the biggest appetite, shows us that what is “food” is defined by culture, and that culture can teach us to do things that fail to support our own lives.

Shannon tells Boone: “That guy from the gate, he wouldn’t let us have our seats in first class. He saved our lives.” This echoes the ancient Taoist story about the farmer, whose neighbors kept saying that things that happened to him were “good luck” or “bad luck,” but they seemed to always turn out to be wrong. Prizing the comforts and trappings of first class turned out to be not so worthwhile — the “bad luck” Shannon surely saw it to be at first has turned out to be something else. Isn’t it possible that the “bad luck” of crashing on this island could also turn out to be something else for everyone?

Wailing to Boone about the fact that she’s “been through a trauma here,” Boone can only point out that they all have been through the same trauma, and “the only difference is you’ve taken time to give yourself a pedicure.” This is too much for even Shannon, who decides to step out of her comfort zone and go on the hike with Kate and Sayid. She may be doing it for less than fully noble reasons, to show up Boone in some way, but she is doing it. Like Kate stitching up Jack, here is another survivor moving out of her usual behavior patterns, starting the kind of journey the island may require of the survivors.

The hike begins, and we see the struggle they have scaling the mountain, the incredibly steep landscape. To hope to be seen by the outside world, they must literally do what they imagine of their situation — put themselves “above” the jungle, rejecting what is “beneath” them.

On the beach, Locke is fiddling with a backgammon set. In the face of all going on, Locke is able to play a game, to think strategically, to devote time to a skill he enjoys. Jack has also had an opportunity on the island for this, using his medical abilities to help others, but Locke is the first to do so outside the bounds of the crisis. He’s the first to simply live his life here. (What about Shannon’s sunbathing? Probably not — more of an escape from the situation rather than a taking advantage of it.) When Locke catches Walt’s interest, he offers to teach Walt the game. “Two players. Two sides. One is light. One is dark. Walt, do you want to know a secret?” We don’t find out just yet what the secret is, but we have seen dichotomous, us vs. them, win vs. lose thinking already. Is the secret that this kind of thinking is just game-playing, not real life and certainly not harmony? That might be a secret worth passing onto kids. Locke, the survivor most in harmony with the island, is now trying to spread that harmony — and serving as an alternative parenting figure, a role model for Walt as child and, though he’d not admit it yet, Michael as parent.

After tasting Jin’s food, Claire feels the baby kick for the first time since the crash. She’s so excited, she wants him to feel it, but he doesn’t want her to put his hand on her belly. He somehow seems to think it’s not appropriate, not acceptable. On top of the button incident, it’s another rejection of the natural — indeed, another rejection of the female body. The dominance he expresses doesn’t flow a sense of good in men but a sense of contempt for women. Underneath, he is probably afraid of the life-giving power of women, and more broadly he seems afraid of connection.

On the hike, there is a grunt, an animal. Kate: “Something’s coming.” Charlie: “It’s coming toward us, I think.” Sawyer shoots it — a polar bear. The mysteries keep compounding on this island, but so far, all the mysteries — the terror in the jungle near the beach, the monster who killed the pilot, now the polar bear — they all seems to be beasts, monsters. The hikers deny it: “That can’t be a polar bear.” But these things are here — and they’re “coming toward us.” They may evoke fear, but on this island, these things must be confronted.

Sayid believes that Sawyer is the criminal being transported by the marshal. The tables have now turned, and Sayid is making the assumptions. Sawyer says, “Fine, I’m the criminal. You’re the terrorist. We can all play a part. Who do you want to be?” Oddly, this statement subverts Sawyer’s own assumption of Sayid as terrorist, as if he knows these reactions are all based on false assumptions and fear. But old habits die hard. Sawyer will moments later say of Kate, “I know girls like you.” But Kate responds, “Not girls exactly like me” — she knows that these are just more false assumptions and generalizations on Sawyer’s part. As they get to know each other better, the characters will force each other to question their early assumptions, to confront what they are here to confront. They will do this for each other just as surely as the island does it for them and just as they will, in doing so, be reciprocating, doing it for the island.

In Kate’s flashback to the plane, we see the tail section rip off. We now know that the plane is broken into three main parts. The front section goes down in the jungle where the pilot was killed and the transceiver retrieved. The tail section seems gone, and we’ll later find it went into the ocean. The middle section is on the beach and holds the bulk of the main characters in the story. The pattern seems significant. The middle section survivors find themselves on the beach, that liminal place, between the ocean which drowns and the jungle with all its unknowns, monsters, etc., threatening death. These are the very two places where the other parts of the plane, the parts surrounding the middle, end up. As of now, there are no survivors from the front — most dead in the crash, the pilot killed by the island. Could it be that we’ll find something similar of the tail? All dead? Or many dead, and the rest having a far tougher time than those in the middle of the plane, and several killed on the island? Indeed, is it a coincidence that, by the end of Season 4, the only “tailie” who isn’t either dead or captured by the Others is Bernard, who was only in the tail to use the restroom, i.e., someone who “belonged” in the middle? There may be some meaning here about being in the middle, between extremes, between “us” and “them,” something about balance, harmony and some middle path that the survivors must learn to walk.

On high ground, Sayid gets a bar, a signal. He tries to transmit, but he can’t, because of the French distress signal. Shannon, who we already know to have low self-esteem, denies her ability to translate, but she is convinced to try. We learn that someone else is or at least was on the island and needs help. The others this person was with are all dead. “It killed them all.” Boone says, “That was good,” validating Shannon, supporting her attempt at translation — at using communication skills — as a contribution to the group. Shannon’s journey is progressing. But in the meantime, the group is left in greater fear, yet another mystery, another threat.

In the face of this, the last moment of the episode is Charlie asking the other hikers, “Guys, where are we?” This bookends with the first moment of the pilot as a whole, Jack’s opening eye. Both of these moments seem to ask, what is it that the survivors must wake up to, open their eyes to? Clearly, there is something significant about the nature of the island — “where are we” — that all will need to make conscious. And clearly, there are a lot of Lost fans in the world who are trying to figure out what’s going on. This is what I mentioned at the beginning, the thing in need of some real attention. Indeed, it’s so deserving that it gets its own post, the first but not likely the last that won’t direct cover a particular episode. Read on.

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