VHS Notes: As the show took place near
the beginning of the summer film season, trailers for movies that could well
have been potential blockbusters were showing throughout the season finale. Episode
III of Star Wars had been
airing trailers for weeks, but after the first two prequels it was more a sense
of dread that anticipation. (Oh how twenty years has changed the opinions of
some.) Far more important was the trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Batman
Begins arguably the most significant comic book movie that would debut so
far this century – and one of the all-time best. Also significant were Steven
Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, Russell Crowe’s undervalued Cinderella
Man and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, more famous for the celebrity marriage
that resulted than its actual quality.
We also got some previews for upcoming
attractions for the 2005-2006 season. None of the series announced would be
successful, but that did not make them uninteresting or even poor. Glen
Morgan’s reboot of The Night Stalker, the Geena Davis vehicle Commander
In Chief, and the sci-fi Invasion all had moments of brilliance. I
was a huge fan of the last one, and Davis and the show itself would receive
early award notice before it ran out of steam. The most significant trailer was
for a new summer reality show called Dancing with the Stars.
On to the end.
With any season finale there is always
both a lot to unpack and a lot of speculation, some of which will be important,
some of which only seems important at the time. I remember in the first
book of Nikki Stafford’s Finding Lost she attempted a lot of speculation
the fact that Claire was the only regular who did not get a flashback of her
own in the entire two-part finale and was only seen boarding the plane. Nikki
tried to read significance in to this when it was simply a matter of her
flashback being cut for the sake of the episode length. (You can find it on the
DVD, where she’s having a conversation with the captain.) But it speaks to how
much the entire world was trying to find meaning in every single action that
happened on the series even now – and perhaps as to why so many fans became
frustrated the longer the show went on and we kept getting more questions for
every answer we got.
Nikki also speaks that the most
significant conversation in the episode is the one between Jack and Locke as
the approach the hatch and Locke makes it very clear of the differences between
them, and why he thinks they are on the island. Before I get to my own
reaction, it’s commonly forgotten that less than half an hour earlier Sun asks
Shannon a variation of the same question. She puts it in darker terms – “Do you
think we’re being punished? For the secrets we kept? For the lies we told?” –
but she comes to basically the same conclusion when Shannon asks her why –
“Fate.” Claire basically gives a
variation on the same answer Jack gives Locke when he tells him about destiny – that there’s no such thing as
fate. This is ironic because of how Claire may very well have ended up on the
island, how she saw things before she was taken, and in a sense because of what
she and Jack have in common.
Much will later be written about the
irony of Jack’s response to Locke saying he doesn’t believe in destiny and
that’s certainly true in hindsight. Looking at it during this rewatch,
however, I honestly think the viewer
would be expected to take Jack’s side based on how Locke acts throughout the
entire episode. First after Arzt
explodes (and what does it say about the way things are that no one except Hurley
even pauses before moving on) and Locke insists on getting the dynamite
anyway. Then they divide the dynamite
and as they move through the Dark Territory Hurley asks Locke what he thinks is
in the hatch and Locke just says “Hope.” (Hurley’s answer, for the record, is
closer to reality than anyone else speculation.) Then the monster finally shows
its face (or you know, fumes) and everybody runs away and Locke takes off his
pack and strides towards it. The last
time he saw it, he saw something ‘beautiful’ but that’s clearly not what he
sees this time. He starts to run away
but then it grabs him (I love the clanking of the chain just as the smoke takes
the form of one) and when Jack grabs he yells at Jack to let him go and for
Kate not to throw the dynamite. Then Jack demands to know what the hell he
thought he was doing - and Locke begins
his speech, starting with the fact that ‘he was being tested’. It’s not just
the way he talks about destiny that Jack would find off-putting but when he
refers to Boone as ‘the sacrifice the island demanded’, I’m pretty sure this is
where Jack decides that Locke is beyond insane.
After everything that happened involving Boone’s death and Locke’s
entire attitude afterwards, a remark like this would convince anyone that John
was not dealing with a full deck – and if that didn’t, the fact that Hurley
starts running towards them screaming not to do this and Locke lights the
fuse of the dynamite anyway – would finish the job. I’m not surprised Jack
tells Kate they’re going to have a Locke problem; by this point this is by far
the most logical conclusion to draw. I think Darlton chose to make Locke’s
flashback the last one of the episode to remind us where he was before the
plane crash and why he just might be on the right side of this; if it had come
earlier we very well might have lost sympathy for him completely right here.
Locke will be accused of fanatical behavior in later seasons; it’s worth noting
the writers pretty much spelled it out in the season finale.
We might have figured it out ourselves
were we not having to deal with so much else: the writers spend the episode
splitting our attention between the jungle, the camp and the raft. The jungle
scenes are by far the most important when it comes to learning new things about
the island: most notably the Black Rock. (It’s interesting that much of the
initial speculation about what the ship was carrying and how it got into the
middle of the jungle will eventually be proven to be basically accurate.) But
we barely have time to process this (and of course Arzt blowing up) before we
finally get our first real glimpse of the monster before it attacks. We’re
still trying to figure out how a wisp of smoke can do what it does before it
takes it form and starts attacking Locke. It will be awhile before we see it
again and by that time, another set of characters will see a new aspect of it.
Now there’s another crisis unfolding:
Rousseau has abducted Claire’s son and Charlie and Sayid start running after
it. Charlie’s behavior begins a critical change in the middle of this episode:
first when he demands a gun from Sayid, and then blames Sayid for not giving
him a gun when in fact he left Claire behind to get him, giving Rousseau her
opportunity. I’m kind of impressed Sayid didn’t go any further than that:
Charlie had it coming.
The pursuit of Rousseau gives several
demonstrations as to why Sayid might well have been a better leader than Jack.
From the moment Rousseau disappears, he calmly assessed where she’s going and
why she’s going there. He knows better
than to overstress someone who is not a civilian in the pursuit, can tell when
there’s a trap being set, and when Charlie is injured, takes a far calmer
approach to treating Charlie’s wound than Jack would under similar
circumstances. When he and Charlie
finally track down Rousseau, his approach towards getting Aaron back is still
calmer and he doesn’t insult or demean Danielle for what she has done, where as
Charlie is hostile and far more offensive.
Jack’s behavior in the jungle is pretty
much keeping in with who he has been to this point: he argues with Kate about
keeping the dynamite and after she earns the right to keep, carries it anyway.
When Kate confronts him on it, Jack is dismissive of her complaint. That said
his remark: “Everyone wants me to be leader until I make a decision they don’t
like” is something we’re kind of amazed its taken him this long to admit. Jack
may not be suited for leadership and he may not be making the best decisions
but its hard to blame him when everybody keeps undercutting him at every turn.
This wasn’t a job he wanted in the first place and it has to be frustrating
that no one seems to willing to accept his decision in a role no one was
itching to take.
As for the raft, it is interesting
watching many of the dynamics in connection not only with what we see in the
flashbacks but in what we remember from the island. Jin and Michael seem to
have begun to work past the horrors of the early days towards forming a real
friendship. Walt finally seems to have accepted Michael as his father as well
as understanding the reasons why they were separating. That said, Michael
clearly is not capable of letting go. After Sawyer goes out of his way to risk
his life to get the rudder back, Michael thanks him for saving them – and the
minute he sees the gun, turns cold. The conversation between the two of them
also doesn’t look good on Michael either. Sawyer confesses that his father shot
himself when he was eight, and rather than offering sympathy he turns on Sawyer
and says the only reason he came on this raft was because he wanted to die.
Sawyer does not confirm that directly – but it almost happens anyway.
Because just as they speak the radar
picks up a signal. There is fierce debate between everybody about what to do
regarding the flare – and while Michael will later blame Sawyer, it’s Walt’s
plea that makes him fire the gun. The last minutes of the scene are among the
best moments in the history of the entire series. The occupants of the raft
begin to cheer and celebrate, first as the signal gets closer, then as a boat
appears on the horizon. The man on the boat seems kind and friendly and we all
feel that rescue is imminent – until the bearded man says: “Thing is, we’re
gonna have to take the boy.”
The viewer immediately draws the
connection with Rousseau’s remark that ‘the Others said they were coming for
the boy.” Unfortunately no one except Sawyer immediately sees the threat.
Michael becomes protective – but by then it’s too late. Almost too quickly for
the eye to see Sawyer gets shot and falls in the water, Jin dives in after him,
Michael is assaulted, Walt is grabbed and an explosive is thrown onto the boat.
The final minute where Walt screams “Dad!” as the boat disappears into the
horizon while Michael screams frantically and tearfully: “WALT!” are the most
powerful in the show’s history. No matter how poorly the story of Walt and
Michael will be handled in the second season, one can not deny the power of it
the images here.
I may have mentioned that I only saw the
first season in reruns the first time I watched the show, so there was less
than a week between my viewing of the season finale and the premiere of Season
2. So I was not aware of how angry some
critics and fans would be that after spending the better part of half a season
trying to get the hatch open, the first season ended with Jack and Locke
peering down into an endless chute rather than seeing what was inside. One
critic actually expressed that this behavior was a manifestation of everything
that would be wrong with the series going forward. The fact that the writers never planned to
show us what was in the hatch in the season finale, or that they more or less
spent the entire second season in the hatch did not matter; the seeds of
doubt had been planted in some people’s heads, and in the minds of many never
went away. Perhaps if I had watched the show from the beginning, I might well
have felt the same.
That said, I sincerely doubt it. As
anyone who loves television – and has a place in their heart for shows like Lost - the speculation is always half the fun,
sometimes even more than the answers. Based on how I actually watched the rest
of the series going forward, my guess is I would have spent the summer like so
many other fans: every few days my thoughts would be wondering “What the hell’s
down in the hatch?” My attention would have no doubt turned to other concerns:
“Will everyone on the raft get back ok? What are the Others going to do with
Walt? Will Charlie end up back on drugs?” I probably would have cared about the
human relationships, most obviously with whether Jin would ever get back to
Sun. I might even have begun to wonder whether the show’s basic cast would
remain intact the whole series, because a show set on a desert island isn’t
easily going to add new regulars. (That speculation would quickly prove to be
the most unfounded.)
The one thing that is clear now – and
then – was the season finale, like the entire first season of the show – was a
work of art that had rarely been seen before. (I’d say it has rarely been seen
since but in the last two decades we’ve seen a lot of brilliant shows
that started out with seasons that were, if anything, as extraordinary as this
or more so.) Perhaps that’s why the next couple of seasons dropped in the
estimation of some critics and fans. It’s not that they were not as
brilliant as the first one; it’s because by that point in history, it had been
rare for series to start out brilliantly and then have sophomore slumps. (Desperate
Housewives would be a prime example of it the next year; Twin Peaks had
been a critical example of this, and a lot of people feel the same way about
shows like Glee and Homeland.)
Perhaps the real reason that many were
unhappy was because the truth is rarely as fascinating as the speculation. And
in a way, Lost would actually deal with this directly in the character
of Locke in Season 2. Were the writers trying to mirror the problems fans had
with the next season in the journey of Locke? It’s a point to consider as we
head inside the hatch.
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