Lost Rewatch On VHS: Through the Looking Glass

 

I have made my share of mistakes in my years in Peak TV. I stopped watching The Sopranos before the final season because I had reached the opinion that these characters were hopelessly driven by violence and incapable of change. (That was, as David Chase, the point of the series.) I refused to watch Breaking Bad through the first half of its run because I thought the concept was derivative of Weeds a series I’d watched and utterly loathed. (To be fair, an executive for FX thought the same thing when Vince Gilligan pitched it to him.) I spent much of Succession’s run utterly baffled by both critics and audiences love of a series where there was a single likable character in a battle no one deserved to win. (I didn’t come around on that one until Logan Roy died.)

All of which is to say that when I first saw the ending of Through The Looking Glass, the episode that is considered by and large the episode that basically saved the series from what was considered a middling third season (something I never understood) my reaction was not: “OMFG!” but rather “Lost has jumped the shark.” I honestly don’t know how long I held on to that belief; it was certainly well past the point the episode was nominated for Best Writing and Best Directing in a Drama but it was one of my biggest crises of faith in the interim between Season Three and Four. It may not have been until I finally reading Finding Lost: Season Three that I truly began to appreciate what Darlton had managed to pull off and why so many people we’re impressed.

In retrospect, maybe I thought had been misled by an article in TV Guide that came out that April. In it Cuse and Lindelof were previewing the final episodes of Season 3 and for a change were being relatively transparent. They told us we would see what would happen to Locke the week he spent with The Others (check); they told us Ben would get his first flashback and we’d learn some of his backstory (check) they told us we’d finally learn Charlie’s fate (sob!) and they told us the final episode of the season would have an enormous body count.  They weren’t lying there; but they neglected to mention most of the carnage would involve The Others (we actually see Juliet start to bury most of the bodies). But when it came to the details of what happened in the finale, they said the usual: “It will change everything” and whatever I was expecting, somehow the last five minutes really seemed like a betrayal. I’ve changed my mind in the interim (though if the opening episodes of Season Four hadn’t worked as well as it had I might have stuck with my opinion) but I spent a lot more time during the summer and fall of 2007 thinking Darlton had screwed up rather than on the more important things every other fan was thinking about during that same period.

Now that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t riveted to the screen for the first one hour and fifty-five minutes of the series finale (the last five minutes my head was spinning like everyone else’s) because Through the Looking Glass is everything we all say it is.  There’s so much to talk about that has already been said that I’m going to look at it from a different perspective and evaluate the performances that are among some of the best work much of the cast will do in Season 3.  There are at least four or five performances that any of the actors could have used to submit for Emmy consideration apart from their individual episodes and two or three more that are above the pale from those who’ve done better work.

Let’s start, of course, with Dominic Monoghan. Charlie is the only character in this episode who is truly having a good time. No doubt the fact that he spends most of it sure he’s a dead man frees him from the burden of having to carry all the baggage he’s been handling all season, if not all series. He’s spent a lot of the show baring a lot of rage towards the Others; now that he’s is certain that he will succeed, he is free to spend most of the episode taking the piss out of them. (Poor Bonnie. It’s bad enough she dies down here but to spend it all being mocked by one of them really drives her round the bend.)

Charlie is so certain that his fate has been decided he decides that everything’s going to be okay. He takes a swing at Ben by absentee, casually mentions that Juliet has betrayed all of them, absolutely loves shattering all the pretensions that Bonnie and Mikhail have towards all their years of loyal service to Ben and convinces Bonnie to give him to code by giving her a chance to spend her last breath betraying the boss who had her killed. (Perhaps she’s smiling when she says her last words because of it.)

Special mention should be made to the work of Henry Ian Cusick. Apparently Desmond seems determined to save Charlie even after getting bashed in the head, and it actually seems like he might very well have done it by the end of this. Even Desmond thinks that when he doesn’t get any more flashes that maybe fate has been appeased by his actions. Charlie clearly thinks the same thing.

And then after he turns off the jamming signal, an incoming transmission comes.  Charlie turns out to be the first survivor to meet Penny Widmore. It doesn’t seem odd that’s she’s the first transmission the island receives: after all, we know she’s been looking for Desmond. And then Charlie asks about the freighter and she says those last haunting words: “Who’s Naomi?”

And at that moment Mikhail, who took a spear gun to the chest a few minutes ago, is outside the window pounding on the porthole with a hand grenade in his hand. He knocks to let Charlie know he’s there and pulls the pin. (By the way, fans of the series spent much of the next three years certain that Mikhail was still alive. They clearly didn’t listen to one of the extras on the DVD when we hear the list of the casualties among the Others and learn that Mikhail is dead. Then again, even if they did, most Losties would have been inclined to disbelieve.)

Desmond is running towards the transmission room to see Penny. Charlie knows what’s about to happen and spends his last minute sealing the room from the inside. Then there is an explosion and the room begins to flood. I’m pretty sure that just like Jack in Titanic Charlie might have been able to swim to safety had he tried. I think his true act of heroism was making sure that Desmond  - and his friends – know the truth about the boat. Cusick is nearly as magnificent in Charlies’ final moments. Despite everything he seems determined to save Charlie one last time. Then Charlie spends his last bit of energy writing on his hand (no doubt with the pen he used to write his last note to Claire) and places it on the porthole in a moment that has gone down in television history. It is impossible not to get moist around the eyelids watching the final moments as Desmond stays with Charlie to the end (he makes sure he does not die alone) Charlie crosses himself one last time as a lonely violin plays and we cut to Aaron in Claire’s arms. It seems he knows before anyone else what has happened to his surrogate father.

The next most remarkable performance in this episode is Michael Emerson. That should come as a shock Emerson has been magnificent all season. What makes his performance here different is that for the first time since we met him Ben has no control of events. From the moment Bonnie breaks radio silence to the final moment at the radio tower, all of Ben’s years of planning have completely collapsed. The survivors have known was a masterful liar Ben has been all this time, so you’d think his people would know it too. The problem is that all of Ben’s plans are coming apart at the exact moment he has begun to lose control over his people and now he has to spend much of the episode spinning to people who do not trust him anymore.

With good reason. In the space of a few hours he learns not only that Juliet has betrayed him but Alex has too.  (So much of Emerson’s performance is done without words as one knife after the other goes in.) Then he learns that his plan at the beach, which was done on an impulse, has also ended in the deaths of seven of his most loyal soldiers and the three who are left are starting to have doubts. (By the time the episode is Tom has clearly lost all faith in him.) Ben spends the first half of the episode trying to convince all his loyal followers – Bonnie, Mikhail, Richard and Alex – that he has been doing the right thing and they have to trust him. But I have a feeling that when he decides to try and intercept Jack at the radio tower that his time is over.  The idea that he can talk Jack out of this would be ludicrous for anyone, giving the circumstances.

The scene at the halfway point is another highlight. Jack and Ben face off for the first time since the submarine blew up in The Man From Tallahassee.  Jack clearly looks like he wants to snap Ben’s neck even before he tell him as much, but for once his anger is more than sufficient because Ben has no cards to play. Ben’s argument is one that would be utterly ludicrous to any one of the survivors. He is trying to convince Jack that Naomi who (as far we know) he only heard of a few days ago represents a force that is a threat to the island and she contacts her boat, everyone on the island will be killed. Now we have no reason to believe a word Ben says (though it turns out he’s actually telling the truth this time) but even if Jack did, Ben is basically sentencing Jack and his people to stay on the island for the rest of their lives. Ben then tries his last card by saying he will kill Jack’s friends (which we later find out was another bluff) if he doesn’t bring him the phone. That scene is magnificent mainly because Jack is mostly quiet and Ben becomes increasingly desperate as time runs out. He clearly was relying on Jack’s empathy and he was wrong. When Jack beats Ben to a pulp (which he’s wanted to do all season), he grabs Ben by the collar and orders them to tie him up.  And at that moment, Rousseau sees Alex for the first time. I think Ben is truly defeated at this moment; when he tells Alex that Danielle is her mother, he sounds like he has lost everything.

Ben spends the rest of the episode (and indeed much of the next season) tied up and a prisoner of the survivors. From this point on Ben is in a sense a man without a country. He will spend much of the next half of the series among the survivors but while he has the ability to manipulate them (and does so successfully many times) the curtain has been pulled back. Ben has been abandoned by the island. And the confirmation comes when Locke shows up at the climax of the episode. He tries to recover and tell Locke to shoot Jack but the look on Ben’s face speaks to something far deeper in his psyche. By the end of this episode he’s lost everything. What’s remarkable about Ben going forward is that he manages to spend much of the time looking like he’s still in charge on bluster alone.

Two smaller brilliant performances come from Josh Holloway and Jorge Garcia, both of whom play parts in the rescue of their friends in different ways. Hurley has spent much of the last two episodes feeling left out.  He was clearly hurt by Charlie sending them out and he clearly suspects his best friend is going to his death even though he keeps lying to Claire. When Sawyer and Juliet go back after its clear the plan has gone wrong, Hurley follows them determined to help. Strangely enough Sawyer (who’s been nasty ever since The Brig) actually tries a half-hearted way of being compassionate to Hugo. It’s clear almost against his will he’s starting to become friends with Hurley and doesn’t want him to end up dead on what he believes is a suicide mission.

And of course, Hurley saves the day. When we saw Hurley fix the VW bus in Tricia Tanaka is Dead, we figured it was a one-off. Then in The Man Behind the Curtain, we got the backstory on the bus and we learned that it was the final resting place of Roger Linus. Now Hurley finds the car and drives through his old camp through a path of bullets, killing Ryan Pryce. (The nicest guy on the island killed one of the nastiest Others. Talk about poetic justice.) And then, after becoming well and truly Hurley, he brags about it on the walkie-talkie and gives the good news to the camp that nobody has died. This is perhaps the highpoint in Hurley’s story and he’d have every reason to think the curse was broken. (Oh poor Hurley.)

Josh Holloway is just as brilliant. He’s been quiet for much of the last episode but when Kate tells him she ‘s going back, his sarcasm is crueler than it usually it is. (Though not wrong.) He then says he’s going back on his own and Juliet comes with him. The interaction between the two of them is fun as Juliet mocks him about the runway being for the aliens (we will find out what its for) and teasing James about sleeping with Jack. She is, however, honest about why she’s going back: she wants to face the people she’s betrayed.

It's not clear whether Sawyer is going back out of revenge or on a suicide mission: before Hurley shows up, he does seems more determined on the latter. But I do think that high on his agenda was giving back some of what the Others had dished out. When he shoots Tom is cold blood, I do believe that was inevitable. He makes sure that he tells Tom it was taking for Walt off the raft, and we all know that’s where Tom shot him which nearly killed him. Sawyer has spent much of the last few episodes looking utterly lost but after this he seems to find a new purpose. The next half of the series will be about him making his own journey to becoming the most unlikely of heroes.

We don’t see much of Locke in this episode: he shows up less then ten minutes in two hours. But Terry O’Quinn, as always, make it count. He wakes up in the pit and his legs are useless. He finds a gun on one of the bodies, manages to pull it out, and prepares to kill himself.  Then we hear the whispers and ‘Walt’ appears. He tells John to get out of the pit because “he has work to do.” A smile appears on John’s face. (We knew this probably wasn’t Walt. In a Missing Piece segment – which I will review in the introduction to Season 4 – we got a hint as to who it might be.)

Then at the climax of the episode just as it looks as if rescue is imminent, Naomi falls over backward with a knife in her back – and there is Locke. This is the only scene of significance that occurs between Jack and Locke in the entire season and its terrifying.  At this point the fan has every reason to believe Locke has finally gone over to the dark side as he points a gun at Jack and tells him to get away from the phone. Locke fires a shot at Jack and then points the gun at him saying he doesn’t want to shoot him. Much will be written about what happens in the next encounter but when Jack stands with his hands up and Locke with the gun out, the viewer could be forgiven for thinking John might just follow through. The fact he doesn’t – and in fact makes a variation on the same desperate plea Ben did – makes us truly believe that he has become as corrupt.

This brings us to the highpoint of the episode – Matthew Fox. Many people watching the episode the first time were frustrated with every flashback because it was another Jack story and by this point the viewer was sick of them. We didn’t want to try to work out where in the timeline this was; we just wanted to get back and see if the rescue was going to happen. But the reason that ‘Through the Looking Glass’ is a masterpiece is because it rises and falls on Fox’s performance.

I’ll admit to being frustrated with the flashes initially but you could let that go because of Fox’s willingness to commit.  Jack has spent the entire series trying to be in control, even when his lesser impulses led him but in the flashes here, it’s clear he’s entirely given up. In every sequence Jack’s looks like he is holding himself together booze, pills and muscle memory. He can barely make the effort to seem normal in any sequence: the raw pain and suffering he feels is apparent every moment he’s onscreen.

And this is completely paralleled by what we see Jack doing on the island.  Jack knows after the third explosion doesn’t happen that the plan has fallen apart. He spends much of the rest of the episode trying to maintain a façade of control but he’s more emotional then usual. Perhaps that is the reason he confesses his love to Kate for the first time in this episode.

As I mentioned he is exceptional in the scene when Ben threatens to kill his people and when the shots ring out, he beats Ben to a pulp, and then picks up the walkie and tells Tom what he’s going to do. He is more open with Kate then he’s ever been after he thinks his friends on the beach have been killing and he shows a side of him that is ugly but fitting. He wants to show Ben that everything he has worked for has failed and that he has finally beaten him.

Fox runs the gamut throughout the island: his face showing measure of rage, agony, despair, blessed relief and when he finally announced that there is a rescue elation.

And then comes the final flashback. Jack is in an apartment that is a complete wreck, there’s spoiled food in the sink, papers everywhere, maps on the wall. He reaches whoever he’s been trying to contact since the beginning and then they set up a meeting late night.

That night Jack is barely holding it together until a car pulls up. The driver walks out…and it’s Kate. The two have a discussion where Kate barely seems able to be in the company of the man she once loved. And Jack tells us that he has been flying every Friday to the Pacific, hoping for a crash. The implication was obvious to me the moment I heard it: Jack is hoping to find the island again.

Kate walks away to his desperate pleas: “We were not supposed to leave.” And those final words: “We have to go back!”  And then the purpose of the title has been realized: we have been truly through the looking glass. This isn’t a flashback, it’s a flashforward.

I think most of the reason I thought the show had lost it was because the idea of the flashforward was unprecedented at the time. (This would not be the case for long: a little more than 2 months later Damages would debut on FX and become the first series to use flashforwards as part of it episodes.) And that’s the thing we don’t always recognize game-changers when we see them.

The questions started the moment the episode ended, most notably who was in the coffin and what did he mean to Jack and Kate. Now I was never the kind of person to pause an episode and look at the details of everything (ok, not for Lost at least) so I didn’t try to look at the obituary. That was probably wise considering almost everything in it would be a lie, at least here. The major theories had was that the person in the coffin was Locke or possibly Michael. I was not inclined to believe it was either: I didn’t think it was Locke because I couldn’t see him leaving in the island and at the time I thought Harold Perrineau was done with the show. Did I have a theory at the time?

Here's one that I briefly considered. It was Ben. Hear me out. Jack clearly had a complicated relationship with him: he wasn’t friend or family, but they were both leaders of their people. Ben had spent their last interaction telling him that if he made the call everyone would be killed and questioned why Jack wanted to go home. When we see this episode, Jack is sick of lying and it’s clear that home has offered nothing for him. No one would have shown up to Ben’s funeral because (as far as we knew) Ben had never left the island and had no friends or family. Ben had told Jack that he had to protect the island; perhaps he had died doing so. We might not have seen his name in the obituary but we already know Ben loved using false names and maybe Jack recognized one.  And when Jack says: “We were not supposed to leave” that’s something Ben had spent more time saying than Locke had. And Kate would have had no reason to show up to Ben’s funeral either.

In a way had the writers followed through this might have been more radical than what actually happened: they had spent the last two seasons building Ben up as the ultimate threat and now it turned out he had been right and had been removed by a greater one.  Few would argue the choice the writers did was the wrong one, but it would have been a hell of a play. (This theory, it’s worth noting, would hold up until in the Season 4 finale and by that point, might have been more likely than who was in the box.)

No one who saw Through the Looking Glass could argue that the game had been radically changed. Whatever you might have thought about Season 3 overall, it is universally agreed that the writers would kick it up a notch for the final three seasons. Ben was right when he said it was the beginning of the end, but in a sense of Lost’s best work, it was also the end of the beginning.

 

VHS Notes: We see quite a few film trailers throughout the finale. The biggest box office sensation will be Ratatouille which would eventually win the Oscar for Best Animated Film in 2007. There were also some undervalued gems in this one: the exceptional Kevin Costner thriller Mr. Brooks and William Friedkin’s minor masterpiece Bug which was the first time I ever saw the brilliant Michael Shannon in anything. We also saw previews from what would be the doomed 2007-2008 ABC season: the critically acclaimed Pushing Daises and Dirty Sexy Money, the successful Grey’s Anatomy spinoff Private Practice – and the bizarre Geico insurance spinoff Cavemen. Well, they can’t all be winners.