Lost: The Other 48 Days

 The only real flaw in The Other 48 Days is one that I don’t think is the writer’s fault. Given everything we know about the eventual fate of the Tailies, one might be inclined to think that this episode is less important than it seemed at the times. We won’t know for sure until the full truth behind the major actors involved telling us, but I don’t think that was the show’s fault; at least one of the Tailies demanded to be written out of the show within a season and it’s never been clear whether Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Watros left the series of their own volition or outside events intervened.

Even if that does hamper the viewers long term appreciation of the characters, none of that diminishes the power of this episode, one of the high points not only of Season 2 but the series as a whole. This episode is significant in many respects because it represents the writers decision to take what the viewer has come to consider the traditional structure of Lost and turn it on its head. From this point on Darlton will do this at least once or twice a season for the rest of the series and on almost every occasion, create some of the high points of Lost as a show as well as some of the greatest moments in TV history.

The opening gives us an indication of exactly what we’re in for: we see a quiet, serene beach – and then there’s one splash, then a louder one and we increasingly become aware of more and noises until a huge piece of wreckage blocks out the screen. Then we see the subtitle Day 1. Now we get a look at the crash of Oceanic 815 from a completely different perspective, and its significant that the person we see it through is Ana Lucia.

This episode has always been classified by the show as being ‘The Tailies’ and that may be so, but from start to finish it is a showcase for Michelle Rodriguez as Ana Lucia. Her performance in this episode stands out as one of the great ones in the entire roster of the cast, as she goes through a range of emotion that some of the best members of the cast will give during the series run.

It’s clear from the fact that the episode chooses to start from Ana Lucia’s perspective that she is being set up as a parallel to Jack. Like him, she has a take charge attitude from the start, trying to take care of the children (Zach and Emma are significant as they, along with Walt, are the only children that survive the crash), taking care of and literally saving another. I think the children are in the tail section for a critical reason: they symbolize innocence in a way that we have not seen in any of the survivors on the beach, save for Walt, and since there are no parents, the camp more or less unites to take care of their well-being first. They are significant to Ana Lucia in this regard.

The events that go on throughout the episode are clearly detailed to deliver direct parallels to what we’ve already seen on the show in similar episodes. The major reason is to show, in a sense, just how much worse the Tail sections survivors have it then the Losties. There’s no food, no water, there’s no doctor and no medicine so the injured succumb from their injuries quicker, and its just as clear early on the any hope of rescue is futile.

The major difference between what is going on between the Tail section survivors is that they clearly have no idea that there is something – strange – about the island. The monster for whatever reason never seems to visit them, and they never see the trees falling and being wrecked. However, the Tail section survivors wouldn’t be able to deal with it they could because of the ‘other’ major critical difference.

The Tailies become aware of the Others a full two weeks before the survivors on the beach even suspect that they might not be alone. For reasons that the show never chooses to make clear, the Tailies are attacked far more directly than the Losties are during this same period. This causes a healthy sense of fear into a camp that has every reason to be panicked already.

Then two weeks later, everything goes to hell as the Others what will be there most direct attempt to attack the survivors of Oceanic 815 until the end of Season 3. It is at that point we see something that the full significance of won’t be made clear of for a while: ‘the lists.’  In this case, it is an actual list with the names of the people who have been taken, and perhaps most horribly the two children are among them.

It’s worth noting the taking of the children is what more or less changes Ana Lucia irrevocably. The first night when she discovers what has happened, this hits her hard. She tries to argue to take everybody of the beach, but when Nathan and Cindy tell her very clearly this is their best chance of being rescued, she backs off. She’s clearly reeling from this, but during the next two weeks she seems to be maintaining a front: she’s still joking with Goodwin, and when Nathan disappears she’s upset but doesn’t get angry. Once the kids are gone, she basically loses any veneer of any civilization. When she attacks one of the Others she has to be pulled off a dead body. She may have been okay with Eko’s vow of silence before; now it infuriates her. From this point on, she basically becomes a paranoid dictator. She keeps pushing everybody to move and only stops when someone challenges her. She only agrees with Nathan because she no longer trusts him and is clearly planning to interrogate him.

She isn’t helped by the fact that most of her few remaining followers don’t raise objections. Libby is already beginning to sound delusional, Cindy seems just as sure Nathan wasn’t on the plane, and Bernard puts up a minor argument and then backs down. Eko is the only one who defies her; its clear he’s been feeding Nathan against Ana Lucia’s orders but he doesn’t object beyond that. Only Goodwin puts up an argument, and as we immediately learn, its based on his own self-preservation.

After Goodwin kills Nathan (and disposes of his body somehow) everyone goes on the move again, only now Ana Lucia has turned her focus on Goodwin. Then they find the Arrow (and they are very clear it’s a bunker, not a hatch) and they find a radio. Goodwin clearly intends to destroy it and then Ana Lucia follows him.

The scene between the two is superb: Goodwin clearly knows that Ana Lucia suspects him but seems just as determined to push her. Ana Lucia’s questioning is slow and easy, much in the same way Sayid interrogated Locke after Boone’s death. Finally Ana Lucia asks a question that Goodwin chooses not to answer and instead tells her what she wants to her. He clearly has every intention of killing Ana Lucia – he knows when he tells her that they’re giving the kids ‘a better life’ it is the exact button to push. That Goodwin ends up on the wrong side of a stick comes as a shock to him.

As exceptional as her descent into paranoia is, Rodriguez’s work after Goodwin’s death is equally remarkable. She returns utterly drained and just tells them: “We’re safe now.” Two weeks later, we finally hear the distress call that Boone made before the Beechcraft collapsed and we see that what Boone saw as a message of hope, Ana Lucia viewed as just another deception. The way she simply says: ‘This is our life now” is almost as heartbreaking as when we see her burst into tears on her own the next scene.

Adewale Akinnouye-Agabje spends most of the episode not saying a single word and rarely showing an expression on his face, so its actually surprising that his work is so revealing to his character. This is the first time since we’ve met him that we’ve begun to think that Eko might actually be a man of faith. After helping the survivors, he takes the children to Cindy and tells her “there is something I must do.’ He then offers prayers over the bodies and as we later learn, helps bury the dead. When Bernard comes to him on the first night, wanting to know if Rose is alive, Eko announces that he will pray for her.

This is keeping with the idea that Eko is fundamentally gentle despite the savagery we’ve seen him capable of, and its not until the night of the attack when we see him standing over the two men he’s killed that we realize there is as much darkness as there is Ana Lucia. Unlike her, however,  he thinks that this is a flaw in his character and he spends the next forty days taking a vow of silence which he clearly sees as penance for his sins. It is fitting than he breaks his vow in front of Ana Lucia; he knows that she needs comfort from someone and she will never ask for it. Ana Lucia is only willing to seem vulnerable in front of Eko.

Then Jin washes up on shore and in one of the best ending sequences in the history of the series, the writers decide just to cut through everything we’ve already seen knowing that at this point it’s little more than a ‘Previously on Lost sequence.’  The big difference is the last minute when we see from Ana Lucia’s perspective just what happened to Shannon. It isn’t until Michael shouts out: “What was that?” that it truly dawns on Ana Lucia what she has done. The episode chooses to end on Ana Lucia’s face as she realizes that while in her relentless drive to find some form of salvation, she has committed an act that will utterly drive a wedge between her and the people she hoped to find companionship with.

The next episode will feature the inevitable reunions that so many of the fans have been waiting for. But just as Eko’s murders on the first night caused him to spend forty days in silence, Ana Lucia’s own penance will be to isolate herself from everyone. Much as Locke as fundamentally been part of the group but never fully belonging, Ana Lucia will essentially fill that same role for the rest of her time on the series. She will be included in quite a few group activities going forward, but she will never be trusted or respected the way the rest of the leaders of the group are. She won’t lead or follow, she’s on her own. And as we shall see in the very next episode, she feels better that way.

 

Rewatch Notes: This episode aired just as Oscar season was starting to heat up. Among the trailers that I saw during this period were ads for the exceptional Syriana which earned George Clooney his Oscar and Walk The Line, which earned Reese Witherspoon hers. Both surely would have been Best Picture contenders had the number of nominees been greater than five, and honestly both films were far superior to the eventual winner that year.