Friday, February 3, 2023

Lost Rewatch On VHS: The Moth

 

 

From the beginning of Lost few characters received such instant devotion as that of Charlie Pace. Part of it was no doubt due to Dominic Monaghan’s name recognition -  Lord of the Rings had recently completed its dominance at the box office and the Oscars not long prior to the series debut in September of 2004, which made Monaghan the most recognizable face in the first season. But much more of it had to do with the character of Charlie, who in many ways was more relatable than so many of the other characters we would meet on the series.

It’s not that any of the other character’s backstories wouldn’t turn out to be more emotionally resonant or even capable of causing more connection with the fan base. It’s because Charlie’s story was arguably the most familiar one even to those of us who, like me, don’t know the first thing about rock music and didn’t realize that I was in a sense hearing the story of Oasis. It’s one that, if anything, has become more poignant in the decades since Lost aired because we keep seeing variations on it over and over. A rock star becomes successful very quickly, falls from the public eye just as fast, and becomes a victim of substance abuse, eventual addiction, and an early death. We have already seen how the island has offered freedom to Kate and Locke (in different ways) and it’s just as clear its offered it to Charlie, who is now going through a detox without the benefit of Betty Ford.

 

One of the greater pleasures of Lost in the early seasons was the relationship between Locke and Charlie. Locke was clearly capable of great wisdom and insight but the majority of the characters would reject it. Charlie’s relationship would be more complicated then most of the characters, but a lot of that is fundamentally due to how much Locke is invested in Charlie’s recovery. This is clear from the moment he and Charlie begin their discussion about him wanting his stash back. John is not religious in the sense that Charlie is, but when he unintentionally echoes what his priest told him about choices in the first flashback, it resonates with Charlie in a way that no one else on the series could really have talked to him about. Jack does recognize what Charlie is going through as well (and in this sense, is more qualified to walk Charlie through it then John is) but it is telling about what Charlie thinks about both men that he only opens to Jack when he thinks death is imminent and is more willing to go to John first about the emotional feeling.

There’s a clearly different in help that in a sense Locke is superior to Jack on (which considering what we will learn about Jack as the series goes on, is deeply ironic). Jack is capable of helping Charlie with his addiction but only in a strictly clinical sense. Locke is capable of understanding something that, for all Jack’s medical experience, he just can’t get. In order to give up an addiction, the addict has to want it. For all the heavy-handed nature of the metaphor of the moth, it comes to the core of the episode: Charlie has to find inner strength not just to admit his problem, but to be able to reject the source. When Charlie makes his choice at the end of the novel, Locke is dismayed – until he realizes that Charlie has listened to him and knows that he has to make it.

Charlie’s backstory will get tiresome perhaps a bit quicker than the rest of the ones we hear, but there’s little denying just how painful it is when we hear it.  It will become a running joke eventually as to how many of the problems the characters we meet have because of their families, but Charlie’s is an outlier because his problems are not because of his parents but rather his brother. There’s an argument that all of Charlie’s problems can be laid at the foot of Liam, who forces them to become rock stars even though Charlie has doubts at the start, Liam gets all the glory while Charlie does all the work, Liam falls deeper and deeper into addiction and it is only through Liam’s downward spiral that Charlie follows his brother (perhaps in a broken way because he thinks it’s the only way to stay close to him) and by the time his brother does walk away, Charlie is too far gone to accept the half-assed offers for help Liam gives him in the final flashback. All of this no doubt has led to Charlie having a massive inferiority complex, and the way so many of the characters dismiss him as useless (or in Sawyer’s case, outright bully him) has done nothing to help him during this low point. When Charlie goes into rescue Jack, it is no doubt because of the responsibility he bears for causing the cave-in in the first place, but also because he still feels no one will miss him if he dies in the attempt.  It’s a sad moment, and its to the show’s credit that Charlie manages to redeem himself not only in his own eyes, but in that of the entire camp.

When the crisis involving the cave-in begins, it is interesting to observe the unity that comes. Jack is in a position where he can’t give assistance for the first time in the series, and it is a good choice to see Michael stepping up. Up to this point, Michael has been used almost entirely in connection with his relationship to Walt, and this is the first time he gets to show what he is capable of in a crisis. Much of my frustration with how Michael’s character is handled by the writers is based on how exceptionally they did in Season 1.  From this point on, he is part of the community and the actions of the island, and one of the biggest failures of this series is how utterly they would wreck his character in the years to come. (Though to be fair, they might not have had a choice in part of it.)

Some will also begin to have problems with Kate very soon, and I have little doubt much of it has to do with the whole Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle that in this episode is finally made part of the series.  Fans will expend a lot of vitriol at Kate because of the ways she spends almost the entire series flitting back and forth between Jack and Sawyer, using one when it suits her needs and flitting to the other when it doesn’t. It doesn’t help matters that her mood towards both is always complicated, to say the least: she clearly is far more devoted to Jack – the minute she hears he’s in danger, she runs to the caves and practically kills herself trying to save him. But the minute she knows he’s safe, she goes back to the beach – with Sawyer. Sawyer clearly has a better understanding of Kate, but she spends much of the first half of the series basically treating him with barely veiled contempt. This is clear in every interaction they have in this episode, and for all Sawyer’s efforts to act like an unfeeling jackass, there’s no doubt it must sting when he goes to see Kate to do the right thing and she’s basically attacks him the minute she lays on him. Is it contemptible how he responds? Yes. But its hard not to argue she kind of deserved it. Kate is more complicated then this, as we shall see, but I do understand why so many fans would have issues with her. (For the record, I always loved her character and still think she’s one of the best ones in the entire series.)

Its also worth noting that the elephant is addressed, and that the discussion does not come between Jack and Locke, but rather Kate and Sayid. The two are among the most rational ones throughout most of the series, so its interesting that Sayid raises the fact how remarkable it is that they survived the plane crash with barely any injuries. When Kate shrugs it off to “blind luck”, Sayid says: “No one’s that lucky.” At this point, both characters are devoting all their energy to getting off the island and are in fact going into the jungle to make one more attempt to get rescued, so neither dwell on it for long and neither will ever directly address this issue again for a very long time.

In a way, this scene may fundamentally lay the groundwork for one of the greater frustrations that many have with the series: all of the strange things that are going on around them, and no one ever talks about them. In this case one character asks a question that in a way is the most important one of the series, and another says that the answer doesn’t matter. At this point in Lost, the argument can be that they are struggling to survive and get rescued. But in retrospect, its maddening that Jack, who is trying to lead the struggle to survival, is not capable of deal with what it will take to survive, which means facing the question.

Perhaps that is why when dealing with the issue that is fundamental to his own survival, Charlie knows that he has to go to Locke rather than Jack to be sure of it. And the final moment when we see a smile of unadulterated relief on his face, makes it clear that Charlie might have made the right choice there too.

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