Lost Rewatch on VHS: Catch-22

 

This episode is arguably the most critical one for Season 3. It sets up an idea that has been absent from the series – the idea of rescue from the outside –  sets a storyline in motion that will play out for the rest of the season, be the background of Season 4 and essentially lay the groundwork for one of the critical struggles for the back half of the series. (Though sadly, it will be one of the aspects of Lost that is a great disappointment.) It gives the full story behind Desmond in what is by far his most linear of all the episodes centered on him. And in what seems to be a throwaway subplot, it sets in motion a complicated love story that will end up lasting until the end of the series.

The flashback is one of the most amusing in the entire three seasons of the show as well as one of the most optimistic. Its hard to know which part of Desmond’s backstory is more astonishing: the fact that before he went to the island he was a man of the cloth or that he was engaged to another woman before he ever met Penny.  There have clearly been signs of Desmond being a man of faith – before he turned the fail-safe key, he crossed himself and aside from Locke he’s talked more about destiny than anyone else we’ve met on the series to this point – but it’s still shocking to seem in a cell, having taking a vow of silence. The conversation he has with Brother Andrew about Moriah and Abraham is actually more critical to what’s happening on the island – we know from the opening sequence Desmond is planning to sacrifice someone so that he can see the woman he loves.

It's more interesting to learn that Desmond had been with Ruth for six years and that they were on the eve of the wedding when he had doubts, got drunk and when a monk helped him up, he thought he had a calling. Ruth sees this as so much posturing: “Next time, you want to get out of a wedding, don’t join a monastery. Just tell the girl you’re too bloody scared.” And the irony is that’s basically word-for-word what Penny told him when Desmond broke her heart during ‘Flashes Before Your Eyes’.

Brother Andrew finds Desmond getting pissed  (he could probably rival Christian Shephard when it comes to pounding them back) and tells him that he just doesn’t think he’s suited for the monastery. He tells him that he’s spent so much time running away from something he should be running towards – and as we’ve seen in Desmond’s flashbacks, that seems to be a lesson he’s incapable of learning. He ran away from Penny and joined the military, he got in her father’s race to get his honor back and ended up further away from her than he ever thought possible, he tried running away from the button and he ended up back on the island. Only now is he finally trying to run towards something – but it seems like he’s willing to run over Charlie to get it.

In the opening of the episode he seems to see Charlie die and he goes to Hurley and tells him that he has seen a series of events. For the first time the flashes are leading towards a picture he doesn’t want to change, and he convinces Hurley, Jin and Charlie to go on a hike through the woods. And that night they hear a helicopter… and Desmond actually begins to hope that what he is seeing is true.

There are parts of what happens next that are hard to gel with the overriding narrative. The pilot who ejects from the helicopter clearly knows who Penny Widmore is and what Desmond means to her.  When Desmond shows Charlei the photo of Penny and him, he reminds us of Penny’s famous statement: “With enough money and determination you can find anyone.” In the last scene of the Season 2 finale, we found out that Penny has not stopped looking for Desmond.  So even when the woman they rescue isn’t Penny, we still believe that she was sent by Penny. During the rest of the season the story she tells clearly lines up with what we already know. But by the time we learn the truth about why she’s here, none of what she was carrying and what she says makes any sense, particularly in conjunction with what we learn as soon as the second episode of Season 4.

So why did Desmond get these flashes that seemed to indicate that Penny was coming? Based on how the episode unfolds and the rest of the season, I’m actually wondering if the flashes Desmond has been getting have ever really been what will happen. Desmond has been and will continue to be the wild card on the island, someone whose presence leads to events unfolding but who seems to be at the mercy of larger forces. In the last flashback, we get a reminder of this. Desmond enters Brother Andrew’s office to give back his robes. We cut to a close up of a photo on the desk – and its brother Andrew and the woman we saw in Flashes Before Your Eyes who told Desmond he didn’t marry Penny.  This is never followed up on in the series but its worth remembering that Brother Andrew also has a critical role in Desmond’s fate, not only in firing him from the monastery but in convincing him to loading some cases of wine – so that he first meets Penny. Andrew tells Desmond that he has a higher purpose but that it doesn’t lead her. Hawking told Desmond that his path led to the island and that he was supposed to do that.

We’ve already seen Desmond spent three years pushing a button fundamentally because he didn’t know what would happen if he didn’t. We know Desmond turned the fail-safe key certain that he would die in the attempt, but instead he survived. Now it seems the side effect from it was that he has the ability to see the future – specifically Charlie’s.  Desmond spends all of Season 3 trying to keep Charlie alive: even when he knows that Charlie’s dying might bring him to Penny, he still feels compelled to save him anyway.  Desmond is trying to deal with two conflicting desires, and its still not clear which will prevail. Right now, he’s chosen Charlie and it seems to have brought salvation – even if its not the type he thinks.

And Desmond isn’t the only one being driven by his heart. Kate has come back to the other side of the island, more devastated than any of the survivors. She feels guilty not merely for bringing Locke to blow up the submarine but because Jack knows that she and Sawyer slept together. (It’s worth noting Jack still hasn’t mentioned it to her.) Sawyer is clearly feeling his own guilt, which he covers by trying to get laid.  Then Kate has dinner that night and sees that not only Jack still standoffish to her but is now actively flirting with Juliet.  It’s hard to know which part of this bothers Kate more: that Jack is interested in one of them or that now she’s on the outside of a love triangle instead of the center of one. Whatever the reason her immediate reaction to seeing Jack with Juliet is to throw herself at Sawyer (and the fact she doesn’t want him to talk really makes me wonder who she’s picturing).

Sawyer’s dealing with his own awkwardness around Jack, but he’s still being something of his old self: his first reaction to seeing Jack and Juliet together is to ask who their favorite Other is. He then engages Jack in a game of ping-pong – and actually manages to beat him – before realizing why Kate jumped him the previous night.  We still don’t know how Sawyer feels about this but he seems to have no problem being used for sex (Sawyer just keeps getting some on the island).

Juliet herself is not so much a factor but it is interesting that in the few conversations Jack and she have the two of them seem as comfortable together as they were when she was holding him prisoner. We know very well that Juliet can’t be trusted, but we also know that when Ben told her to use that, she actually seemed sad about it.  There is clearly an attraction between them but Juliet told Kate that she broke Jack’s heart. Is it possible she’s using that as leverage in her maneuvers? It will seem that way until the season is nearly over.

It's also worth noting that none of this is truly helping Jack’s reputation: at the beginning of the episode, Hurley seems to have an awkwardness around him that goes beyond keeping a secret and Sawyer and Kate are both clearly struggling to have a normal conversation with him. That Jack trusts one of them is bad enough; that he seems to be in love with her is far worse.

 An interesting move by the writers in Season 3 is that after following Jack for the first two seasons, after Stranger in A Strange Land we see far less of the action from his perspective. It has been pointed out that Locke went down that path earlier this season but Jack goes through the same parallel. In the second half of the season, he spends far less time at the center of the action, usually having only one or two scenes in the episode. It’s clear the writers are trying to build up the possibility that Jack might very well be as compromised as Locke is – and the irony is in a couple of episodes, we might well believe Locke is still acting in the interest of the camp he abandoned and Jack isn’t any more.

In the final moments of the episode we see the first meeting of Desmond and Penny (as is typical of Lost we’ve come to the beginning last) and its pretty obvious that there is attraction, if not love, at first sight.  The viewer isn’t sure whether we believe Penny would ever show up on the island proper – as Desmond said, these flashes have never entirely been accurate and that will continue to be the case – but Desmond believes it and that matters more. By the end of Catch 22, the survivors think they have found was Desmond has been running towards. But if they knew the truth, they might have done better to run away.

 

VHS Notes: Commercials in this episode showed the DVD release of the first film in the Night of the Museum series and a coming soon add for Hot Fuzz, the second in the legendary Cornetto trilogy by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The previews for the upcoming episodes talk about the survivor falling from the sky and bring up the very real threat that Sun is going to be facing. In both cases, the preview is more than accurate.

Trivia Note: At one point around the camp fire, Hurley asks if Jin has head the story of El Chupacabra.  This is a story of Mexican folklore involving a creature that is known as the ‘goat sucker’ Nikki Stafford tells this story in Season Three… but I already heard it.

You see like most supernatural folklore, there was a story about in on The X-Files. It occurred in the Season 4 episode El Mundo Gira, in which two illegal aliens in a migrant camp are exposed to a mysterious rainfall that turns them into carriers of a flesh-eating disease, From the beginning of the episode, they are referred to by every immigrant as ‘El Chupacabra’. By the end of the episode, one of the elders in the tent says that these two brothers were seized by Chupacabras from outer space. That migrant is played by none other than…Lillian Hurst, none other than Mama Reyes. Makes you wonder where Hurley learned that story doesn’t it? (By the way, in the ninth season of the series Annabeth Gish played the most recent addition to The X-Files, Agent Monica Reyes.  Hmmmm…)