Lost Rewatch on VHS: Tabula Rasa

 

I didn’t realize that most of these recordings were on a station that served Connecticut. For those who might have forgotten, this episode aired in the fall of 2004, when both the Yankees and Red Sox – teams covered by New England stations because of their proximity – were beginning their playoff runs that would end up being so significant to quite a bit of the series in ways I’m quite sure the writers couldn’t have anticipated at the time.

One of the consequences of not killing off Jack halfway through the Pilot was that the writers – who were now almost entirely different than the ones who had anything who had conceived Lost – now had to do was start to fill in his character. And for much of the first season and indeed half the series, they seemed determined to bring up all of the unpleasant natures of his characters. None of the survivors – or indeed any of the characters on the show – could be considered saints or even likable much of the time. But the writers seemed determined to make the character who by now most of us considered the lead singularly unattractive. This is perhaps most clear in how he treats Kate, which in this episode essentially becomes the framework for their relationship for the first season and indeed almost the entire first half of the show.

We find almost from the start that with Jack, trust is a one-way street. This shouldn’t surprise us; almost every character on this series is lying about something. But Jack in particular is the most self-righteous of it. This becomes clear the moment the party who went into the jungle comes back. The decision has already been made to lie to the rest of the survivors about what they heard on the transceiver, but in what will essentially become her go-to move, Kate immediately shares this secret with Jack, and says he wants to tell her first. Jack’s reaction to the utter bizarreness of this is basically about everything he will too for much of the series: he does everything he can to push it to the background. (In hindsight, Dana Scully was far more accepting of the supernatural than Jack could be.) He then immediately asks Kate if she has anything else to tell him. Kate than asks about the condition of the Marshall, and Jack immediately lies about it.

This similar do-as-I-say, not as I do attitude is just as apparent when he goes into the fuselage looking for medicine for the marshal and finds Sawyer doing more or less the same thing. Immediately, Jack refers to him as a looter when there is no difference between what the two are doing. Yes Sawyer will go out of his way to basically make himself a black market for the next season and take pleasure in making everybody pay for it. But Sawyer is deciding who gets what – which is exactly what Jack will do with the medicine for much of the next half of the series. Perhaps what rubs Jack the wrong way is that Sawyer, in addition to never deferring to him, also makes it truly clear the reality of their situation – something, we shall see very soon, Jack has never been willing to accept.

It is interesting that at this point in the series, Kate is the figure more of the survivors trust than Jack. No one has any problem with Kate being the one to hold the gun. It is also fundamentally clear from her flashback that for all the lies Kate tells, she is fundamentally a warm and compassionate person, always willing to put someone else’s wellbeing ahead of her own even, as we see for the first time with Ray, it ends up costing her something dear. The marshal makes it very clear from our few exchanges with him that there is something utterly untrustworthy about her, that is beneath contempt and compassion. Despite everything we will learn about her, I am inclined to believe that at its core, this is about the marshal’s distrust for the criminal element rather than anything else. (We will understand in part why the marshal has pursued her to the ends of the earth, but never fully why he is so fixated on bringing her to justice at the expense of all else.)

Sawyer goes out of his way to act contemptibly at every turn, but he is fundamentally far more of a realist than almost anyone else we have encountered. He knows what has to be done and is willing to do it before anybody else is. That doesn’t mean his actions are little more than bravado as is made clear in the horrible aftermath when his attempt to end the marshal’s misery only makes things worse. We will have many more opportunities to think the worst of Sawyer – it is something that he himself wants – but he sees the world in a way that most of the survivors just aren’t capable of even now.

We’re still filling in the blanks on most of the other characters at this point – Shannon and Boone don’t seem to do much more than snipe at each other, Charlie is beginning to seem more and more compassionate (and we don’t see him using his bag at any point) and it’s clear he has an interest in Claire; Hurley still seems little more than comic relief right now, even though the fact that he’s willing to stick with Jack through the agonies of the marshal does show their might be depths to him; and Sun and Jin, by necessity, still remain a mystery.

Sayid is more clearly revealed as someone who has the capability to lead and is much more qualified – and clear-headed – than Jack is. With few exceptions, he is far less judgmental, he has a greater willingness of what to do next than anyone else, and he has a very clear view on what needs to be done involving the marshal. You have the feeling that if Jack had been willing to ask the right question when Sayid offered to help, there might have been a solution that would have been more merciful for the marshal. But the prejudices that fill the world are still apparent on the island, and one of the duties of a soldier is to be able to follow more than lead – something Jack is not good at.

The Michael/Walt relationship remains interesting in that Michael seems almost from the beginning like the worst kind of father. When Walt tells Michael he’s been talking to Locke, his immediate reaction is not protective or even curious to Locke’s statement, but dismissive. Michael’s determination to be the parent at the expense of all else will start to separate him from the group early and in a characteristic worse than Jack, he forms immediate impressions of people which no matter what they do, they can never overcome in his eyes. This is crystal clear when Locke manages to find Vincent and tells Michael about it, in the sole effort to make the father look better in front of his son. The thank you Michael gives is perfunctory and nothing Locke will ever do will improve that impression. The writers will manage to make many characters rise above their initial impressions of them. The problem with Michael is our initial impression – that he is a father who thinks he has to protect his own son and will not accept help – essentially never changes.

Which leaves us with Locke. I’ve never been wild about the closing sequence or so many of the ones that end with music on the island on Season 1 – there just seems to be something deliberate disconnected with the nature of the tune and the nature of the situation. (The creators eventually realized this and decided with few exceptions to let the magnificent score of Michael Giacchino stand alone.) But the final image – where after all these cheery looks and upbeat music, we settle on Locke with an expression none of us can read, while the music becomes somewhat sinister – is tonally odd. Are the writers telling us that despite everything that has happened, we just shouldn’t trust Locke? Or are they telling us that there’s far more to him than meets the eye? Given how important the next episode is not only to Locke, but to the series, I’m inclined to believe that it’s the latter.

Side note: One of the commercials during this episode is a trailer for the film Friday Night Lights which will quickly become a minor film classic and the foundation for another one of the greatest television series of all time. Sometimes we don’t know what the future holds.