Lost Rewatch on VHS: The Greater Good

 

VHS Note: One of the ads in this episode’s recording was for a 20/20 special that went behind the scenes of Lost itself. While there had already been countless signs previous as to just how much the series now had a place in pop culture lore, the devotion of an entire prime-time special to it  solidified that it was officially part of hit TV.

 

John Locke will do far worse things during the course of the series then his actions in this episode, but I have few memories of him acting more tone-deaf and pathetic than in the aftermath of Boone’s death. Just after Sayid has given a eulogy that is extremely awkward, Locke emerges, with his clothes still covered in Boone’s blood and attempts to explain Boone’s death in a way that seems as much a defense of his own actions as it is how it happened. The editors cut to a wide shot that displays the entire camp standing around Boone’s body and Locke entirely on his own. It’s a clear metaphor for how the camp sees John at the moment, and it’s prescient as to how the divide between John and the survivors has officially become from this point.

Locke seems increasingly tone deaf as he walks over to Shannon with Boone’s stuff and tries to awkwardly commiserate with her about the loss.  Despite what Locke says at the end, its clear he’s hoping for some kind of absolution from her, which even the kindest viewer of the series has to say he does not deserve. The rupture he has made is impossible to mend, and this is never more clear when he is finally cleaning himself off and Walt, who has spent his time on his island worshipping John looking at him with utter terror in his eyes.

Jack doesn’t exactly come off much better in this episode. Kate finds him still determined to find Locke and do who knows what to him and practically has to be guilted by Kate to return to oversee Boone’s funeral. He can barely go through the motions there, seems to be determined to make Shannon say something rather than do so himself, and launches himself on Locke the minute he appears utterly determined to beat him to a pulp. It is worth remembering that the justification Jack gives for his rage at Locke about his role in Boone’s death is relative dross – even if Locke had stayed right by Jack’s side and told him every detail about his injuries, the chances of saving Boone were just as infinitesimal. What we are seeing is more or less Jack’s self-righteousness towards anyone who challenges him combined with his guilt over Boone’s death. I honestly believe even if Boone hadn’t died, the gulf between Jack and Locke would have become irreparable by the time the existence of the hatch was revealed.

What is far more damaging to Locke’s relationship to the rest of the camp is because of what happens between him and Sayid in this episode.  Sayid is trying to reach out for Shannon, who he knows is in pain and who he must suspect wants to see John dead. He goes into the jungle with John hoping he can head this off as well as to find out what may have caused Boone’s death. Perhaps he is hoping there is a reasonable explanation for what has happened.

The scenes in the jungle between Sayid and Locke are some of the best scenes in Season 1, as Sayid tries to interrogate Locke to find out what he has been hiding. Locke is very much aware of this but is still trying to deflect, which he has to know is a mistake given the circumstances, perhaps because he is still trying to keep his secret. But much as will be the case throughout the series, Sayid is always better at manipulating Locke than Jack because he is much more dangerous than Jack is. When Locke tells him that he was the one who smashed the transmitter way back in ‘The Moth,’ Sayid doesn’t hesitate a moment before grabbing John in a chokehold and putting a gun at his head. It may be a trick to try and get Locke to tell him the truth about the hatch. Locke is counting that Sayid will believe because he has a gun to his head. Sayid thinks Locke is lying for exactly that reason – and he makes it very clear to John at the end of the episode.

This episode no doubt earned Naveen Andrews a nomination for Best Supporting in a Drama for 2005 (sadly, the only one he ever earned for Lost). The flashback tells us what Sayid was doing in Australia before he got on the plane – and its genuinely appalling on many levels, not the least that of the U.S. government. Sayid is essentially bribed and then blackmailed by the CIA into meeting up with a former college classmate who is now part of a terrorist cell in Sydney. During the course of their interactions, he learns that there is an operation being planned, that Essam is going to be used as a suicide bomber – and that he does not want to do it. The scene where Sayid tries to convince the agency to flip Essam and they convince him that it’s his job to force Essam to go through with it so they can get the C-4 struck some as far-fetched. I found it neither in a realistic sense (I have little doubt the government would be willing to do the kinds of things they threaten him with and demand Sayid do) nor in the terms of television at the time. (This seems very much within the grounds of a 24 storyline. It won’t come as a shock that Donnie Keshawarz, who plays Essam, starred on 24 though oddly enough it was as the unsuspecting fiancée of the member of a terrorist plot – and his American wife murdered him in cold blood. For the record, this storyline also featured John Terry as her father. )

The Greater Good makes it very clear that Nadia is Sayid’s Achilles heel and he will do anything to see her again – even betray his principles and persuade an innocent man to become a martyr, then betray him at the last minute having talked him out of it. Essam’s last words to Sayid before he kills himself are: “I hope she (Nadia) makes you whole,” and this stings just as much as Essam’s suicide because, as we shall see, Sayid has never been fully whole. It is that sense of guilt that makes him change his flight to arrange Essam’s burial – and puts him on a course for the island.

As I have said many fans of the series were incapable of understanding Sayid’s romance with Shannon, no doubt more out of their dislike of the latter character. I never felt the same way about either her or their relationship at the time (then again, I did not watch the first season until it was in re-runs). I thought then, and do now, that Shannon’s character, like far too many of the female characters on Lost was badly underutilized.  Maggie Grace’s work in this episode is another example of the potential she had that was almost untapped during her time on the series. Standing over her brother, talking to John, she seems almost disconnected, and we assume she’s grieving – until she goes to Sayid and says: “John Locke was with my brother when he died. Will you do something about that?” She says it in such a detached fashion that you almost miss the threat and when Sayid comes back and she acts sullen again, we’re almost inclined to think she was just being the stereotype people thought – until we see her going to the gun case.

The scene between her and Locke is genuinely brilliant on all fronts because Shannon is both angry and disturbed enough to kill Locke and not feel anything until its done. Sayid manages to stop her at the last minute, and when she collapses in despair its impossible not to feel her pain – so much so that near the end of the episode Sayid actually doubts his actions. When Kate tells him that he had no choice, he says simply: “There’s always a choice,” and we knows he thinking about every single one he made from the moment the CIA pulled him aside in the airport – and far more than that.

The rupture between Jack and Locke was inevitable. The one between Locke and Sayid was not, and it is worth noting that Sayid is well aware several episodes before Jack is just how determined Locke is to stay on the island, even if he doesn’t comprehend why. In ‘Hearts and Minds’ Locke told Boone that it was important to keep Sayid ‘on their side.’ By the end of ‘The Greater Good’ it is clear that Locke has failed at that accomplishment spectacularly. Sayid will never be as outright dismissive of Locke as Jack will be from this point on, but he makes his point of view on Locke very clear in the last minutes: he knows that they will need him to survive, but he does not trust him. Viewed in that perspective the relationship that they have for the rest of the series follows exactly along those lines: Sayid will work with Locke far more easily than Locke will with Jack, but it is borne out of necessity, not out of trust.

And that’s made crystal clear in their last exchange where Sayid demands Locke take him to the hatch. Locke tries one last time to deflect. Sayid says with a coldness we’ve never heard him take with Locke before: “No more lies.” Sayid will never believe any action Locke takes at face value, and its worth noting he got there before Jack did.

One last note: The Greater Good is the only Sayid-centric episode in the entire series where we do not see or hear anything about his history as a torturer even as a throwaway. (Sayid says he was an ‘interrogator’ but Locke does not press the point.) One can only wonder what would have happened had Sayid decide to break his rules on the one man who had the most secrets to keep and who kept the longest.