Lost Rewatch On VHS: There's No Place Like Home, Part 1

 

In the opening of the first part of the finale, we see the Oceanic 6 flying into Hawaii, and officially being given the label that they we’re seen them all called in the flashforwards. We also see them in the cargo hold not looking particularly happy to be rescued or even alive.

We also see, as is always the case, that Jack has taken charge. He speaks to the representative about asking questions, and everyone seems willing to let him. He then gives instructions about the story they’re going to tell and says that if there are any questions they don’t want to answer don’t respond. “They’ll think we’re in shock,” he says. Sun is the only person to respond. “We are in shock.” Considering that Jin isn’t in the plane, his reaction is cold: “Well, okay then.”

At the press conference Jack once again is the first to answer question and he tells the story we’ve heard. The plane hit the water, some of them got out, and only eight of them managed to survive. If you have the DVD of the series, you actually know who those three other people were Boone, who died of internal injuries (which actually happened) Libby (Hurley holds his as Jack mentions her name) didn’t make it past the first week, and Charlie who drowned a little before they were rescued (also true). The series never gives an explanation as to why these three managed to survive the crash but didn’t make it back. (It’s interesting to note, however, all three either have or will appear to other survivors after they die; is Jack foreshadowing the ghosts that have already haunted everybody and will come for him.)

What is the more interesting question in retrospect, is why everybody is listening to Jack now that they’ve been rescued. It’s not just that Jack has been spectacularly wrong time after time while he was in charge and that his most recent decision to trust the people on the freighter instead of Locke has probably led to others either dying or not being saved (we still don’t know the circumstances). It’s that even in this episode his behavior is ridiculously dangerous to everybody on the island, including himself. The fact that he chooses to go into the jungle with Kate a day and a half after having his appendix removed is something he himself should know better about. I think, for the record, this is where Juliet finally gives up on ever wanting to be with Jack; the fact that he’s decided to go with Kate in the jungle instead of listening to the doctor who saved his life shows that she really should rethink the choices of the men in her life.

But even when Jack is clearly bleeding from his stitches he doesn’t listen to Kate. When Sawyer, who he hasn’t seen since he chose to go with Locke at the start of the episode, tells him point blank that the only thing he’ll find at the helicopter is a violent end, he still goes to the helicopter anyway. By this point we know getting everybody off the island or saving Sayid and Desmond from danger is secondary to Jack: he is not going to believe anything John Locke told him or even the evidence of his ears or his eyes. He will prove him wrong even if it kills him, and despite everything we know in the future, it looks like its going to do just that.

Sawyer is thinking more clearly and he has to be wondering when he became the sane one in this saga. He risked his life to get a few people through the jungle; he’s spent the last day looking for Claire. He knows that Jack will get himself killed on his own, and he also knows that he has to save Hurley from the evils of Ben. It’s clear this is foreshadowing why Sawyer will be able to assume the mantle of leadership in Season 5 – and why he’ll be so much better at it than Jack was.

It's worth contrasting some of what we see in the flashforwards here with what we know is coming not only in the later flashforwards but with what we see on the island. Kate is the one we get the least contrast on the island, though we now get confirmation as to why Aaron is part of the Oceanic 6; she gave birth on the island five weeks before they were rescued. Why nobody ever challenges her on what are elementary questions, such as how she managed to lose her after birth so quickly, how she didn’t look six months pregnant when she was taken into custody into Sydney or who the father is, are stories the show never seems interesting in telling. (Though it is notable that alone among the survivors, there’s no one there to meet her. We knew that Diane wasn’t going to show up but that Sam isn’t there makes me truly wonder how much he really loved her. We don’t see him at her trial either.)

And that pales in comparison to another story that never gets answered. In the final flashforward at Christian’s memorial, Jack thinks that he can finally put his father behind him. He doesn’t see Christian here but another ghost visits him – one whose presence is never explained.

The last Claire saw of Mrs. Littleton, it was when she was about to get on the plane. Her mother was in a coma, and there was no sign that she had any chance of a meaningful recovery. Indeed Claire basically told Sun that her mother was dead. And yet somehow, nearly a year after the crash, Mrs. Littleton is in LA visiting Jack Shephard and telling him why his father was in Sydney in the first place. Nor does she look like someone who has only recently come out of a coma, she’s walking perfectly fine and shows no signs of speech defects or lingering after effects. This is a recovery on the level of Locke being able to walk after the crash – and the show doesn’t even bother to explain the how.

Some have blamed Mrs. Littleton for just springing everything on Jack at his father’s memorial, including the fact that he had a sister and she was on the plane. I am shocked he never found this out in the immediate aftermath (the phone records would seem to verify this) and there’s an excellent chance Mrs. Littleton had come for her own sake more than anything else. She has regained consciousness to learn that her daughter is dead and that the father of her child died before that. She does need closure more than Jack does and there’s no way she can know that Aaron is Claire’s daughter.

The other stories do have some more satisfaction, even if there are darker undertones. The moment when Sayid is told that Nadia has come to see him is one of the most moving in the entire series and watching him blink several times as if he can not believe it is real is incredibly moving. It doesn’t make the moments where we see him and Nadia together in the next two flashforwards any less painful, but it is nice to know that he did enjoy some happiness. Sayid was entitled to that.

Hurley seems to have changed the least going forward. Getting off the plane, he seems genuinely happy and himself – he sees Sayid has no family there, so he goes out of his way to introduce him to his parents. We also learn that his father, unlike so many others, has decided to stay with him. He did keep his promise, by the way; he was waiting for Hugo when he got back. And there is something profound about how he describes how he fixed the Camaro for Hurley when he got back because he felt it was within. I think despite Hurley’s reaction the car really did mean something: he was driving it when he got arrested, after all.

But the most pleasing reaction we get is that of Sun. We see her walk up the stairs to see her father, who is just learning that there has been a corporate takeover of his company. Sun finally manages to execute a level of vengeance she must have felt her whole life when she makes it very clear how much she hates her father, that she blames him (in part) for Jin’s death and that she has taken away the only thing he really cares about: his money and his power. Sun will allow her mother to be a part of her life going forward, but its clear from this point on her father is persona non grata. Good riddance. (Let’s deal with later seasons when we get there.)

The larger question, and one that is never answered, is why Jin couldn’t have at least been allowed to be one of the survivors of the crash, at least one who died before rescue came? I might have an explanation which I’ll get to in the season finale but it’s clear that it might actually be Jack’s fault for once. There’s a chance that Sun was not in a position to think clearly in the aftermath of the rescue (which as we now know was less than eight days ago) and that Jack, who was trying to run roughshod over everybody, did the exact same thing to Sun. In this case, however, the consequences were much harsher. In all of the flashforwards that take place in LA, Sun is not present, and we know after Sun gave birth the only one who came to see her was Hurley. There’s a reason that after everything that she went through trying to get away from her family, she felt more comfortable with them then the people who’d help rescue her. This darkness will be critical to Sun for the first half of Season 5.

Right now, however, things are pretty bad on the island. Ben has taken command of his group – which to be fair is only Locke and Hurley. Hurley has the common sense to keep peppering Ben with questions all the way to the Orchid, and yet again Ben is willing to answer him in a way he never does Locke. Hurley can clearly see the problems in a way neither of them seems able to: he demands to know if the island moves, won’t it move the guys with guns and he has no reason to believe Ben when he says he’s ‘working on it’. Ben, however, does not even bother to answer Locke’s questions at all, no matter how valid.

 That Locke is still willing to follow Ben just how blindly committing he is to saving the island. Ben tells him the Orchid is how they move the island; he doesn’t ask how; he just follows him. That this won’t get rid of the guys with guns; Hurley wants to get away, Locke just says its too late. Ben gets to the Orchid and tells him Widmore knows about it. Locke asks if Ben ‘was ever being entirely truthful’, which is clearly a rhetorical question. Then the men with guns are there and Ben gives Locke instruction on how to find his way to ‘the real Orchid’. Locke doesn’t ask anything about this (and he won’t be able to find it anyway) nor does Ben even bother to give him instructions about how once he gets there what he needs to do. Ben just tells John: “I always have a plan.” The plan, as we see, is to walk up to Keamy and hope he will just leave the Orchid and go back to the chopper with him. For all we know Keamy could just have easily killed him and torched the island anyway (it’s never been clear whether Widmore wanted Ben off the island alive) but its pretty clear Keamy's not thinking clearly anyway. (The season finale will prove that conclusively.)

The viewer is no clearer as to what the Orchid does at the end of the episode than the beginning and its clear that the Others may not know either. Juliet has never heard of it…but Dan knows something. And whatever it does, he now knows that it is a priority they get everybody off the island as fast as possible. When Sayid comes with the zodiac raft, he starts ferrying people to the freighter.

What he can not know is that the freighter is not any safer. In one of the last scenes, Desmond and Michael get to the engine room and see that it is wired with enough plastic explosive to blow it and everybody on the freighter sky high a hundred times over.

The final scene of the episode is one of the best the series will ever do: one of Michael Giacchino’s soaring themes showing all of the Oceanic Six scattered every which way: Sun on the freighter wired to blow, Kate and Sayid having been just been taken prisoner by the Others (hi Richard! Where’ve you and your people been all season?), Jack and Sawyer striding off to the Orchid (Jack clearly in pain) Locke and Hurley looking from the jungle in fear, and Ben walking into the Orchid and calmly saying: “My name is Benjamin Linus. I believe you’re looking for me.” There is no suspense in knowing that several of the people in these scenes will survive the battle; the flashforwards have told us as much about the Oceanic 6 and Ben will be off the island in the future. Right now our question is very simple: with all of their avenues of escape blocked or in peril, how will they survive to be rescued in the first place? And one final question that we still don’t know the answer to: why are they lying about where they’ve been?