Lost Rewatch on VHS: Hearts and Minds

 

While watching this episode on videotape, I saw a commercial for OfficeMax in which a man makes poster for a mislaid ball of rubber bands with ‘LOST’ over a picture using the font of the series ads. In just three months, the series had become part of the zeitgeist.

There are also quite a few commercials trumpeting all of the recent series to earn Golden Globe nominations now on ABC, including Desperate Housewives (which would eventually win Best Actress for Teri Hatcher and Best Musical or Comedy) Boston Legal (William Shatner took the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor) and Alias (Lost’s new next door neighbor had just gotten another nod for Jennifer Garner) Lost had just been nominated for Best Drama that year, the first of three consecutive years it would receive be nominated by the Golden Globes in that category. Say what you will about them these days; they got television right back then. (It would lose to Nip/Tuck which really should have gotten some Emmy nominations.) Back to business.

If you get past some of the inconsistencies in some of the characters between this episode and the last one, and you can get through the ‘ick’ factor in the flashback, there’s actually a lot on display to like in ‘Hearts and Minds.’ The major flaw in the episode is one that maybe is only obvious in hindsight.

In the first couple of seasons of Lost in particular,  it can appear like the writers had some issues with utilizing the original cast members. Part of this is doubtless because of the death rate that would often take out characters just when it really seemed like we were getting to know them. (This may have led to the theory that existed for much of the series that the island was actually purgatory because the characters would die after they came to that realization.) And let’s be honest: a major flaw will come with the first two regulars who end up dying.

Early in the series many people became fans of Boone very quickly. Ian Somerhalder made a strong impression almost immediately in the series and the writers would give his character a lot of screen time in the first season, sometimes at the expense of other characters that we might have wanted to get to know better. Considering that he had gravitated to Locke, who by this point the writers have established is central to the understanding of the show, the fans would justifiably consider that Boone would be important to the series as well, even if not for as long. By this point in the era of Peak TV, the fans had started to expect a major character death in the first season. The writers have been doing a good job to this point leading us down blind alleys so far: it seemed almost certain that Charlie was dead, the viewer would not be surprised if we never saw Claire again, and this episode  reaches its final minutes with Boone and the audience believing Shannon is dead. Given the nature of how television was working, I suspect the viewer was thinking it was going to happen in the season finale. (A death did take place, but by then…we’ll get there.)

And because we all thought Boone was going to be around for a few seasons, we had reason to suspect that the flashback we get in this episode was going to be the first in a series that would tell us the story of Boone and Shannon, who we naturally suspected would get her own series. There’s a lot to unpack in what we end up getting: the fact that Boone instantly goes to Sydney when he thinks his sister’s in danger, when he tells the police the truth about their relationship (we’ve been led to think they’re blood-related, so it does come as a shock to learn they are merely step-siblings) how he has no problem bribing her boyfriend to go away, and the way he learns how she’s been playing him all this time. (We learn Shannon was married, but that’s another bit of her backstory we never learn about.) When we learn that Boone’s mother has left Shannon penniless, there’s another level to that almost gives us sympathy for her – until the final flashback.

But unlike all the other characters who ended up being killed off before we learned their full stories, you can make a pretty good argument that both the flashback we see her and the one we end up getting in Season 2 tells us basically everything we need to know about Shannon and Boone, their complicated family dynamic, and why their relationship was so fraught, on the island and before. I realize a lot of people will truly wonder “Why did we have to see that scene in the hotel?” and I am amazed that, particularly on broadcast TV in the 2000s, we got a scene that was as close to incest as network television was willing to go. But as sick as it may have made the viewer at the time, and as pointless as it may seem to many people who look at the series as a whole, I don’t think its gratuitous, at least in the context of what is happening on the island.

Boone is clearly in love with Shannon. (Nikki pointed out in her book that Boone’s girlfriend bares a striking resemblance to her, and that should have been a warning sign right there.) Shannon has clearly been using to manipulate Boone for much of their adult life, and based on what we will later know, she has been doing this to manipulate him after what we later see.  The scene isn’t erotic or gratuitous, it’s borne out of Shannon’s drunken rage and her wanting to last out at Boone.  The important moment is not the two collapsing on the bed, but Boone afterward, genuinely looking broken as Shannon does what she’s clearly been doing for years, making the terms of their relationship clear. Boone puts up his usual fighting but he seems dead emotionally in a way we’ve never seen in any of their arguments.

So while its pretty clear Boone’s experience didn’t help his long-term survival on the island, it probably helped him reach a point of emotional clarity he wouldn’t on his own. When he admits to Locke that he felt relieved at Shannon’s death, I suppose we might think its cruel – but based on what we see in the flashback, there’s an argument that he did need to find a way to let go of his obsession with his sister. This may have been harsh medicine, but its hard to imagine anything else making the point clear. (I’ll get back to the long-term ramifications of it to the series near the end.)

And don’t kid yourself about how Boone got to that revelation: at this point we may have needed a refresher course on just what’s in the jungle. For what was a drug induced hallucination, what we see the monster do in it is consistent with what we’ve already seen and actually gives a little bit more. Shannon and Boone start running from it as the ground explodes and we hear the howls, and they end up managing to escape into a bamboo thicket where the monster goes away. When Shannon and Boone are running from the ‘monster’ near the end, when she slows down the monster lifts her off the air and will drop her on the ground in blood in a way we’ve seen with the pilot and we’ll see again later. Even where Boone finds her body will have significance very close to the end of the series.

There are certain inconsistencies with some of the other characters: Jack and Kate, who were snapping at each other near the end of the last episode, now seem to be on friendly, almost warm terms again. But I’m willing to let that go because of the garden that Sun has started to maintain in the jungle, which will end up being a critical part of the series for the first half of the show, particularly in regard to Sun. A lot of important revelations about her will take place in the garden and the one here is no exception: Kate comes to the realization that Sun can speak English. The bond between Kate and Sun will be one of the deepest in the series for much of its run (it’s really maddening how few female-centric friendships there were during the course of Lost) and while we don’t know if Sun knows the truth about Kate yet, the fact that she is willing to confide as to why she is lying about her speaking English to Jin is clearly something that Kate might very well be the only person on the island to understand.

Locke’s personality continues to come into focus, but at this point the opinions are all over the map. He’s clearly engaged in long-term deception and its kind of amazing that not only have his lies not caught up with him yet, he doesn’t seem to worry about what will happen if they do. That said, every so often he tells the characters – and the audience – something true. When he tells Sayid about being a Webelos, he says almost as a throwaway: “I wasn’t the most popular kid”, which is so true about Locke. When deceiving Jack about the boar, he makes a very clear statement about man as the most dangerous predator which we will learn again and again. And it’s telling that when Charlie makes it very clear to Jack that he has absolute faith in John Locke to save them, that he means it with every fiber in his being. We don’t know why he thinks he has to hide the truth but we do think there might be something to it.

Of course, there’s also some laughs to be had as Hurley suffers through ‘digestive issues,’ has an ‘argument’ with Jin and begs him to pee on his foot. But there’s character growth here to: Jin may not understand a word Hurley is saying (Hurley was giving voice to the fandom when he said so, as will be his habit) but this is a clear effort by him to make an inroad with some of the people in camp. When he shows up near the end of the episode with a fully cleaned fish in his hand, it says a lot about Jin making progress.

Now I realize that despite all of that, given the above-mentioned inconsistencies, the ick factor and the relatively inconsequential nature of Shannon and Boone to Lost, some fans will still say there’s no point to this episode. Except…after Boone makes his confession, Locke says: “Time to let go.” This is a theme that is going to come up over and over throughout the series and will be critical to the arc of more than a few characters who will make it to the end. We’re going to hear it said again in different circumstance not that long from now. Boone has learned this lesson, but when he tries to pass it on in the most horrific of circumstances the man who most needs to hear it is going to ignore it.