Lost Rewatch On VHS: Confirmed Dead

 

 

VHS Rewatch Note: Throughout the episode we see trailers for Eli Stone, the intriguing series that debuted after the fourth season premiere of the show and has already become a hit. This was the first major TV series to feature Johnny Lee Miller as a lead; he would have success in Dexter, star in Elementary and just finished playing John Major in the most recent season of The Crown. The show also shows a preview for a TV adaption of A Raisin in the Sun with Sean Combs (as he was known) in the lead.

There are also ads for the next Academy Awards and while there are few for notable films, we do get an ad for the DVD release of Across The Universe, Julie Taymor’s movie filmed to the music of The Beatles with Evan Rachel Wood. I rather admired it.

 

In a sense I think the scene that is the most critical to what we see regarding both the freighter folk and the characters on Lost overall involved the final flashback. Naomi is meeting with Matthew Abaddon, the man we saw meet with Hurley claiming to represent Oceanic. (I’m guessing when he asked: “Are they still alive?” he’s talking about the team he assembled.) Naomi, whose entire backstory will never be known looks at the members of the team we’ve just spent the last hour meeting and considers them absolutely ‘the wrong kind of people for this mission.” Abaddon dismisses her concerns, says she can protect them, and tells her that these people were vetted and specifically selected for this mission, and that in order for it to work she has to get them in and out with nobody being killed. We then cut to Naomi’s corpse, which would seem to indicate the mission will fail.

Well, having watched the entire series we now know Abaddon was lying to her about at least some of the members of this team and probably all of them. So why were the four people selected for this mission? The theory that Nikki Stafford floated in her book was that all four of these people believed that the report we see in the opening – that Oceanic 815 has been found on the bottom of the ocean with no survivors – is a lie and that is the main reason they’ve been chosen. It’s worth noting that’s not entirely consistent with what we see in their opening flashbacks. Frank is the only person we see who is certain that there is something wrong with the wreckage he sees in the video. Charlotte seems disdainful  but doesn’t really seem focused on it; Dan thinks something is wrong but doesn’t know why and while Miles might be listening to the broadcast with disdain, we quickly find out this is his go-to look for everything.

When they land on the island, we get a similar mix of reactions about the island. Frank’s seems to know about the island, but only so far as he knows Juliet is not someone who was on the plane. Charlotte seems more happy to initially be there, but she actually seems surprised that everybody is alive. Dan, as will be his tendency throughout the series, is honest in that he believes that he is there to rescue them. Miles regards the entire operation with contempt, seems only interested in preserving his own life, and has little value for anyone there. (Looking back on it, and in combination with what we see in his flashback, I get the feeling Miles is in this strictly for the money; kindness is something that doesn’t come naturally to him.) They all seem to have been given different degrees of information as to what their mission is and what to tell the survivors. Charlotte seems to be fairly honest (at the end, she’s clearly been caught in a lie). Frank is straight forward about his approach; Miles seems to know far more about the mission then the rest of them and Dan seems to be willing to share far too much information.

As we shall find out, the three characters who will be series regulars from this point on (Jeff Fahey will be a guest star for this season and the next but not become a regular until the final season) have a connection to the island. Charlotte clearly knows something about its existence in her flashback, or at the very least about the Dharma Initiative’s connection to the island: she clearly knows about why they are unearthing a polar bear in Tunisia and she’s not surprised to see the logo for the Hydra station. (We’ll find out about the link to Tunisia before the season ends.) Dan and Miles don’t appear to have an obvious connection, but as we’ll see by the time this series reaches Season Five, they have a far deeper connection to the island than even Charlotte. That’s at least part of the reason they were chosen for this mission despite their lack of qualifications – and there’s a very good chance they were picked so that the helicopter could get to the island in the first place.

The other key element of the opening scene comes when Naomi asks if they find survivors. Abaddon tells her: “There were no survivors.” Naomi dismisses this and asks again. Abaddon repeats himself more firmly, followed with: “Don’t ask questions.” And I think that statement gets to the core of a larger issue.

In her entry on this episode in Finding Lost Stafford reminds us that when Locke tells his group that the reason he killed Naomi was: “Because Walt told him.” (Incidentally, her highlight for that episode is the look on everybody’s faces when he tells them this.) Sawyer then asks Locke: “And you didn’t ask any follow-up questions?” Stafford then says there have been very few follow-up questions the first three seasons and reminds the reader that nobody has told anybody anything about the backstories in their flashbacks.

She leaves something very critical out. No one’s been asking many questions, period. I grant you that the survivors have spent the last three seasons concentrating first on rescue, then threats from without and within. But there have been maddeningly few questions about all of the strange things that have been happening since they landed on the island at all. The irony is that only people who don’t seem to have theories about what’s happening on Lost are the people it’s happening too. – everyone’s collective reaction to whatever strange thing they see is “it’s the island, man.” In this sense both Jack and Locke are fundamentally agreed in their approaches. Jack just compartmentalizes what he cannot believe and Locke accepts it is as part of his destiny.  There have been maddeningly few occasions throughout the series when any character asks how this could be happening or what it might mean in the larger context, and when they do share information people get pissed at their withholding.

Part of me wonders if one of the reasons that everybody was brought to the island is because they were so emotionally scarred by everything that happened to him that it had led to being incurious about the world around them.  This is not something that is only true of the survivors. Rousseau has spent the last sixteen years on the island never questioning the strangeness of what she sees and never seeming to interact with the island at all. I grant you her mental instability but this is just as true the more she interacts with everybody.

Then last season when we were spending so much time with the Others, we learned that they weren’t much different. We spent all of Season Three wondering why they had spent the previous two seasons tormenting the survivors, apparently at the orders of Ben Linus, a man that many of them followed unwillingly. Near the end of the season we got an answer of sorts: they only follow Ben because he is the representative of the real man in charge: Jacob. When Locke learns that no one else has ever seen Jacob and that Ben is the only one who has, he called BS. Ben led him to the cabin, and for a moment it did seem like Ben was crazy – and then Locke heard Jacob. Ben clearly knew this, shot Locke and left him to die – and as we now know, the only reason Locke didn’t die was because of ‘destiny’. (Ben is clearly shocked when he sees the wound and learns why John is still alive. In his eyes that’s another sign John has been chosen.)  Ben went back to his camp without John and convinced his people to go to the beach and abduct the women under Jacob’s orders. His followers clearly doubted him but the name Jacob was enough and as a result all of them died. Mikhail clearly didn’t believe Ben’s explanation as to why they were jamming the signal but the name Jacob was enough to get him to follow orders on last time. It’s now clear the only reason people followed Ben was because they thought he was the mouthpiece to Jacob. It may also be the reason that Ben is now staying with Locke all this time: he knows that his mission has ended in disaster and that there is no place with him among the people he once led. At no point during his captivity does anyone even attempt to rescue him even though we learn at the end of this episode, it’s everybody’s interest to keep him safe. The only person who never seemed to be onboard with the Ben-Jacob train was Juliet, which may be the reason she was never fully accepted by the Others – she might not have been a leader as she claimed to Richard in Not In Portland, but it’s also clear she was never a blind follower.

Now as the freighter folk jump out of the helicopter and the survivors try to track them down, I think there’s another reason we relate to them so strongly from the start. It is not just the strength of the performances, although Fahey, Rebecca Mader, Ken Leung and Jeremy Davies are all superb actors. It is that they are all, at some point in this episode, asking questions of  both their surroundings and the survivors that none of them have fundamentally been asking for three years. During most of the season, some of the best moments will come as all of these new characters try to adjust to their surroundings and as they try to complete their mission, voice questions the survivors have spent so much time ignoring.

But as we go forward it will eventually become clear that no one on the freighter – not the people we’ve met and not the ones will meet later on – were anywhere near adequately prepared for what they were getting into. This is clear basically from how Naomi seems to have been sent into this mission: if her primary target was Ben Linus, the question is why did she seem to spend so much time focused on Desmond initially and getting everybody rescued?

This actually gets me to the bigger point. Why did ‘Walt’ tell Locke to kill Naomi? Even if she was a threat, if she calls the freighter and she lives, the fourth season cannot happen the same way. Naomi spent her time among the castaway assuring them that rescue was imminent. If she calls the freighter and then first the team comes, it would be a lot harder for her to keep telling everybody why they couldn’t get on the helicopter and go home. )Indeed, the people on the freighter make it very clear that was never going to happen when we finally get there.) Locke does nothing, people begin asking questions sooner, there is no real division and there’s a good chance the body count for Season Four (and possibly beyond) is much lower and maybe more people get rescued.

I think the reason ‘Walt’ came to Locke is because he knew John would not ask any follow up questions. John has been following his destiny all this time and if ‘the island’ tells him to kill a complete stranger, he’s going to do it. I think it’s on everybody who came with John for not asking the question in the first place (and you can tell that even Hurley has doubts about it when he hears the source.)

We also get the sign from the start that Locke’s not cut out for this kind of leadership. He seemed to have a better command of it during Season Three than Jack did and was doing fine until he went on the trek across the island. Now, everybody is fundamentally following him more because of Hurley’s influence then anyone else’s and there are doubts pretty much from the moment they start trekking towards the cabin. Sawyer, who went with him to survive, immediately doubts his sense and clearly doesn’t think much more of the fact that he’s brought Ben with him. Sawyer is clearly more in tune with how dangerous Ben is than Locke, and it’s pretty clear that a headshake from Hurley has more influence on him than Locke’s arguing.

Then when they encounter Charlotte, the masses begin to disagree again. Claire and Hurley try to convince them to go after one of their people and Locke, in a tone that will sadly focus on his leadership for this season, again refuses to take anyone’s opinion. It is only when Ben tries to kill Charlotte that he realizes he’s made a horrible mistake.

Ben’s actions in this episode are even harder to comprehend. It’s clear he was baiting Karl in order to get his gun, but the fact that he chose to go after Sawyer was the kind of misjudgment he hasn’t made before. It’s not clear why he tried to kill Charlotte – maybe to erase a threat, maybe he saw the vest and wanted to reveal she was lying – but either it was a major miscalculation. Locke’s patience with Ben has run out and he clearly intends to kill him. It is only when Ben finally reveals that he knows about the people on the freighter and why they are here – and most importantly, he has a man on the boat – that he manages to save his life.

 But even then his behavior is not conducive with a man willing to help keep people alive, even himself. For much of the next half of the season, he refuses to help Locke even when it’s in his best interest, when he shares information, it’s only on his terms and even then he never tells everybody what he knows. Ben spend the season as prisoner but is still trying to manipulate events so he comes out on top. There’s an argument that the death that comes this season is almost entirely due to him.

As for the group on the beach, they spend most of the episode trying to collect the team that jumped out of the helicopter. Dan’s attitude is fundamentally friendly and he doesn’t seem to get why Miles is so off-putting. Frank shows them the helicopter and seems to be promising that he will fly them off the island but the fact he knows that Ben is part of this target means we can’t believe his loyalties either. And Charlotte is in the hands of Locke and his group, which have already tried to kill her and now seem to be intent on holding her hostage. Locke tells Charlotte that: “they don’t want to be saved.” Dan has told Jack and Kate rescuing them “isn’t their primary objective.”  There have been few questions of any kind by the survivors. If they have any chance of getting rescued – and as the viewer knows, six of them will – they’re going to have to start asking the right questions.

Note: Many of the teasers at the end of the episodes show as much flashes from previous episodes as the ones ahead. Where they are honest is that they tell us that next week, we’ll learn another member of the Oceanic Six.