Lost Rewatch on VHS: The Little Prince

 

Before we get started a small detail. There are some disagreements between Lostipedia and Finding Lost during Season 5 as to which characters certain episodes of the season are centered on. Both sources agree that this episode centers on Kate, but Nikki Stafford also believes that this an Aaron-centric episode. In this case, I believe her version is correct. The evidence points to this because Aaron is involved both in the scene that opens the episode, is critical to much of the action off the island and we see him being born on the island during one of the flashes.

However the clearest proof the episode is focused on Aaron is the title. Like many episode of the series the title is based on a famous book. Sometimes the literary references on Lost are direct (Catch 22, Through the Looking Glass in Season 3) sometimes more obscure (The Shape of Things To Come last season) but here the reference is the most deliberate. Aaron is a young blond child who was born in a strange place like the title character in the beloved children’s classic. Just as important to the story is ‘taming’. This reference refers to how, when the little prince meets a fox, the fox tells about taming as belonging to someone. It’s clear even in the first flashforward how much Aaron has tamed Kate in such a short time – so much so that she has decided that she will pretend to be his mother from this point forward.

Unlike the lie the Oceanic 6 told – that Jack asks Kate help perpetuate -  this lie becomes a far greater reality than the truth. It was very clear in Season 4 that Kate’s relationship to Aaron was truly devoted and in a way that seems to have surprised even her, something that she is good at in a way that is real. The fact that Jack drunkenly berated her on it was the blow that severed their relationship for good – and it’s very manipulative of Jack that he chooses to use her desire to protect him as a way to get back into her good graces.

We’re back in LA after spending the previous episode with Desmond in London and Kate has reunited with Sun to try and figure out how to learn who’s after Aaron. The episode turns as much as how people are more than willing to manipulate Kate to their own ends – and while they are all diametrically opposed, they all revolve around her relationship with Aaron.

The mumbling about Kate that went on throughout the series turned very vicious in this season for reasons that even now are incomprehensible to me. The parallel that comes to mind the most is, sadly, the way that so many fans of Breaking Bad began to hate on Skyler White almost the moment the series began, first for being too naïve, then for standing in the way of Walter White’s villainy in order to protect her family and then eventually taking on a villainy of her own. There were fans of Kate in the early days of Lost, mainly because people thought that Jack was far too harsh to her and how good she was when the chips were down. This was always counterbalanced by the fact that she was always trying to run away and refused to pick a side between Jack and Sawyer.

Now that the action is about to return to the island, people starting to grumble about how selfish Kate was being. It wouldn’t become clear until they ended up going back to the island how irrationally the fans loathed her. Paradoxically , I think there might very well be more cause to dislike her in this episode because Kate’s desperation to protect her son has left her open to not doing the rational thing here.

As was clear at the time and has been reported throughout numerous sources, nothing that Dan Norton does is legal or could happen that quickly. Under normal circumstances this would be impossible to do and it would take weeks, if not months for the threats that Norton is trying could play out in real life. It’s clearly not a weakness in the plot when we learn that Norton is Ben’s lawyer because he knows that and she does any of these actions the public pressure would be enormous and she would not want exposure. The hole in the plot comes in the fact when you realize that Kate immediately goes on the run…instead of talking to an attorney. Which as we saw in Eggtown was willing to represent her for the duration of her trial. Even if he was just a criminal lawyer he could have easily pointed her to another lawyer who could have told her the same thing, made assurances that this was nonsense, and tell Norton that this is all a bluff.

Now we all know Kate’s de facto mode is to run, and its telling that until Sun called her yesterday she didn’t seem to have a plan on where to go next. So in this episode she acts not at all like the smart and savvy Kate we’ve known for four seasons, but like a panicky, clueless woman, following her worse impulses. Admittedly that has been Kate’s Achilles heel when on the run, she cares too much about hurting people. But you’d think after everything that happened she’d have figured that part out.

So she goes to Sun and leaves Aaron with her. Sun is, as we immediately see in the first scene, clearly not interested in protecting Kate or Aaron, but using her to get to Ben. When Jack calls her in a panic, Kate clearly doesn’t want to deal with him – she ignored his call back in The Lie – but her concern for Aaron overwhelms her and she gives in. Her decision to follow Norton to the motel is just as foolish, considering it doesn’t lead her to his client. It is not until she has ended up at the marina and comes face to face with Ben that she finally realizes the truth about who’s behind this – something that it’s clear Jack never suspected.

Watching Jack in this episode is incredibly painful because everyone else is looking at him like he’s worshipping the devil (which isn’t that far from the truth). Sayid tells Jack point blank the only side Ben is on is his own. Jack knew this when he was on the island and the fact that he’s decided to ignore it shows how far he’s fallen. When he goes to see Kate, it’s ostensibly to keep her safe but we all know he still thinks he can find a way to persuade her to go back with him. There’s a very good chance that, as much as he cares for Aaron (when he tells her ‘Aaron’s my family too’, it’s probably the most honest thing he says) part of him is thinking that if he can ‘fix this’, Kate will trust him and go with him to see Ben.

The look on Evangeline Lilly’s face, followed by the outrage in her tone and she goes after Ben, is one of the highpoints of her work in Season Five. It’s been clear since Through the Looking Glass that she has been trying to forget everything that happened the day they left and being face to face with Ben would be a nightmare even if she had not realized that Norton was his attorney.

I have to say that Ben’s actions involving Norton and Aaron truly make me question whether he is the evil mastermind we all think he is. It’s clear that his actions were meant to manipulate Kate and that her first action would be to run, probably towards Jack. What’s harder to understand is how he thought that would encourage to go back to the island. Unlike the other Oceanics Kate has a physical reason not to come back and going after it in order to take what Ben assumes will be a one-way trip to the island shows how little Ben understands human nature. (Then again, Ben’s never had the best idea of what it takes to be a parent in the first place.) Considering that Ben has never been very good at manipulating Kate compared to the rest, he must really have been depending on Jack on being able to sell it. That faith is clearly misplaced.

It's telling that in the final scene in LA, five of the Oceanic 6 are in the same place for the first time since the rescue but they are just as isolated from each other as before in their goals. Sayid has no interest in listening to anything Ben has to say, Kate looks like she wants to kill both Jack and Ben, and Sun is about to leave Aaron in her car with the purpose of shooting Ben. Hurley may be about to be released from prison but he clearly has no interest of going back either. It seems impossible the Oceanics will ever get on a plane again.

Which is not encouraging for the people left behind. Charlotte eventually regains consciousness but Dan finally reveals what he has been withholding since Charlotte’s first nosebleed – the time jumps are affecting them neurologically. Charlotte has been suffering the worst of the symptoms but while the episode proceeds Miles gets a nosebleed and at the end of it so does Juliet.

Locke didn’t have a reason to bring everybody back to the island before but now he does. He leads everybody on a path to the Orchid with the logic that whatever Ben did started there, and that might be the best way to stop it. While that is based in reality, his certainty that the only way to stop is to bring the Oceanics back is based in little more than his faith – something that Sawyer knows all too well has little basis in reality. Locke acknowledges as much when he says he has no idea what he’s going to be able to say to make them want to come back but at this point the crisis is quickly starting to catch up with them.

The critical flash takes place during Do No Harm. There are certain nitpicks to be sure, but I think they’re deliberate. When the light shoots up to the sky, it’s meant to represent the light in the hatch being turned on but as we know that’s not what it looked like in Deux Ex Machina. (It might have seemed that way from Desmond’s perspective but no one else during that episode noticed a giant flash of light in the sky.) However, if we assume that the flashes are there for the purpose of Locke to experience them, I think this is symbolic. At the time, Locke took that flicker as a bright flashing sign that he was on the right path. Now, he has come to realize it was not a sign, and just a light. By making the light bigger than it appears Locke now knows that it was a signpost but not the journey.

More importantly Sawyer ends up seeing Kate helping Claire give birth to Aaron. This is symbolic not only in the context of the episode but to Sawyer. He saw many sides of Kate throughout the first four seasons but this was one of the few sides of her he never did and it is a reminder not only of what he thinks he has lost for good but for the fact that he may have never really known her at all. That he chooses to open to Juliet about this fact in a way he never did to Kate – or really anybody before – not only shows us how Sawyer has begun to grow emotionally but is foreshadowing for what will happen later in the season.

When the next flash happens they are in the future, but we’re not sure how far. (Again this is foreshadowing for something that will happen later this season.) The outrigger gunfight is one of the mysteries in Lost that will never be fully resolved though if you’re a true fan of Lost, I think we all have our suspicions as to who did it. (Seriously Darlton, you couldn’t have had one reference in the season finale?)

But the critical moment of the episode – indeed, the most important moment of Season Five so far – comes when the French teams finds a man washed up on a piece of wreckage, and it’s none other than Jin. My heart leapt when I saw this happen when I saw it the first time. I realize I should have had some faith – Daniel Dae Kim had appeared in cast photos for Season Five and his name had been on the opening credits since the season began – but given how so much of Lost involved flashbacks and time travel, I suppose I had begun to wonder how seriously the writers were taking the idea. And I was so overjoyed I clearly missed the boat (heh heh) when it came to the fact that the team that had rescued Jin were the French team that had included Rousseau. The fact that Melissa Fairman would be playing her in Season Five would naturally throw you off; Mira Furlan was a great actress but there’s no way she could play someone that young and innocent. (Hmmm. The Rousseau’s are played by actresses with the same initials. Never noticed this until now. Well, don’t mistake coincidence for fate.)

It is now clear that a reunion of some kind is happening in the next episode. Jin will soon be reunited with his fellow survivors and now Sun will have a reason to come back to the island. The question we have at the end of the episode is, will she kill Ben first?

Note: From this point, I will resuming looking at the series from VHS recordings. The last recording of the episode starts with a preview of the intriguing but cancelled too soon The Unusuals.)