Lost Rewatch On VHS: LaFleur

 

 

VHS Notes: Nothing immensely differently than the last couple of weeks of promos, though it is worth noting that we see a preview for the Nicolas Cage thriller Knowing, a movie whose reputation was initially negative but overtime has been viewed as a masterpiece. I am inclined to agree with those who think so.

 

The nature of television has been, at least in the era before cable TV, was that in order to bring the viewer back week after week, not only the formula of a show but the characters could not change. Over a period of years they might be along to evolve but for the most part – as with the believer/skeptic role that Mulder and Scully maintained well past the point of credulity on The X-Files – television broke that model its peril. Character growth was possible – Andy Sipowicz on NYPD Blue was the most obvious example – but it took place gradually over years.

The Sopranos threw in a wrench in this by arguing that not only was change not possible over extended periods of time but if anything, characters could regress over time. There are countless examples of television following this model for during the period but for the sake of this section, I’ll just deal with the dramas that were being nominated for the Emmy during the same period Lost was on the air.

Shows like Six Feet Under and The West Wing, which argued for character growth, were increasingly becoming aberrations. It’s hard to figure out how 24 fits into this, given the amount of time frame over a season, but the fact that a character was allowed to lose their moral compass for a greater good was increasingly a theme that became prominent on so many law enforcement dramas. Shows like House and Boston Legal argued that the male leads could behave monstrously in their moral and career behavior and go unpunished as long as they got results. Grey’s Anatomy allowed for the women to behave as badly as the men and go just as unpunished.

By the time Lost returned to the Best Drama category in 2008, the second wave of Peak TV was coming along and a new and more complicated group of characters with mixed messages. Mad Men famously argued that men were incapable of behaving morally but that women could make strides up the ladder. Damages argued that women could engage in the same ruthless behavior as Tony Soprano or Vic Mackey to anybody – including their loved ones –  and be viewed as heroines by the masses because they engaged in a greater good. Dexter followed a different concept: a character who knows that he is a monster and tries to hide who he is but who finds himself making more human connections – and those are the ones that cause more harm. (The Trinity Killer saga was the best example of this) And Breaking Bad famously showed how Mr. Chips became Scarface and brought ruination to all around him.

Lost was an outlier series in many ways but one of the more significant ones had been how the first four seasons unfolded. On most shows over four seasons, four years go by but on Lost on 100 days had passed in the timeline since the Pilot. As a result while we can see certain amounts of character growth in many of the survivors, with few exceptions, they’ve mostly been nuanced to the point the average viewer could be forgiven for missing them. When the flashforwards were put to full use in Season 4, we began to see how that growth was possible when it came to the Oceanic 6 and in the first half of Season 5, we have seen how that applied to Desmond and Ben.

Now in Lafleur, we finally see what happened after Locke pushed the wheel way back in This Place is Death. The final flash has put the remaining survivors in 1974 at the time of the Dharma Initiative. And during this three year period, the remaining survivors have become part of Dharma and Sawyer has now taken on the name of Lafleur and become the head of security in Dharma.

In a way, it’s fitting that this episode is Sawyer-centric because while it has been difficult at times to see the changes in many of the characters over four seasons, with Sawyer its incredibly easy. Because at the start of the series Sawyer was a selfish bastard, hoarding all the medicine and goods, doing everything in his power to keep himself separate from anyone who even tried to get close to him. And now, in both the aftermath of the final flash and in the ‘present’, everyone trusts him. He manages to persuade Amy to trust him on a moments notice = though to be fair, it only lasts until they get to the fence. He manages to help the Initiative through a crisis and persuades Richard Alpert to stand down, something that impresses both Richard and Horace Goodspeed.

In the present his lackeys, such as Phil, are clearly a little afraid of him. He has the authority to give orders to an intern and say that he’s speaking for Horace and that Amy is willing to listen to him. Horace is now a trusted confidante. And everyone else who came with him now trusts him in a way they just didn’t. Jin and Sawyer have had a decent relationship since their time on the raft together but the fact that Miles is willing to take orders from him is a real shock. (Perhaps the last three years has revealed what kindred spirits they truly are.) And of course in one of the great joys of the entire series, Sawyer and Juliet are now a couple.

There has been a lot of discussion, starting in the episode guide, as to why Sawyer has been having the island searched grid by grid. Juliet is right when she says that waiting for Locke doesn’t mean anything: they are already saved. It’s also a very real argument that the Oceanic 6 never had to be brought back to the island, that Locke was operating under false pretenses and that Jack basically convinced everyone to come back out of his own guilt. (But they don’t know that yet.) Nikki Stafford makes a very convincing argument in this part of the book that in the final act of the episode when Sawyer talks about Kate and tells him that he’s gotten over her after three years, he’s lying to himself as much as Horace. And based on the expression on his face when he sees Kate for the first time since he jumped out of a helicopter so that she could get rescued, there’s a good argument for that fact. Much of the debate in the second half of the season is whether Sawyer has been yearning for Kate all this time and that everything that follows is in part because of that.

There is a certain truth to this. But I think there might be a counterargument, and to understand it we have to review what we know about Sawyer. James Ford’s life has been shaped by the con man who he blamed for conning his mother, which led to his father killing her and then himself. He spent his entire adult life searching for the real Sawyer, eventually taking his name and essentially ‘becoming’ him. He is a very capable con man but as we have seen both in his flashbacks and on the island, he’s the easiest person to con – indeed, it was a con by a man named Hibbs that landed him in Sydney and on Oceanic 815 in the first place.

Throughout the first three seasons Sawyer continuously alternated between a selfish jerk with bits of compassion: he was willing to hand over his liquor to try and save Boone without any questions (he even offered to help, but Kate told him there were too many people); he made an effort to get off the island that nearly got him killed, then he went on a rescue mission to try and save Walt, that ended up with him being taken prisoner by the Others. During Season 3, there were signs of a more compassionate person but when he actually found the real Sawyer – Anthony Cooper – and ended up realizing his search of 30 years, it left him emotionally empty.

In Season 4, he found a way forward. When the barracks were attacked he risked his life to save Claire, put a gun on Locke when he threatened to take Hurley with him, and led a group of people through the jungle, searching for Claire when she disappeared. Something had shifted in Sawyer by then. The old Sawyer would have shoved Hurley out of the chopper rather than jumped himself.

Sawyer spent the period during the flashes, trying to deal with his loss and everything else. He spent time following first Dan, then Locke, but he didn’t have any plan. Now when the flashes end, Dan is a quivering mess incapable of leadership. (Jeremy Davies is exceptional in his few scenes; babblingly incoherently as to what happened to Charlotte, proceeding through the island dully with no interest in his life, and then watching as Charlotte as a toddler goes by him.) Sawyer doesn’t have a plan either; something both Miles and Juliet take the piss out of him for. But at this point, he’s now the kind of person willing to risk his life for others. So when he sees Amy being attacked by two Others, he and Juliet risk their lives to defend them.

At this point we know how good Sawyer is at improvising on short notice. (He’s actually as good at this as Ben is.) He comes up with a story that is not that far removed from Rousseau’s and throws some elements involving local color. (When Horace tells him that he’s never heard of the Black Rock, we know that Horace is just as good at lying.) But Sawyer by now knows more about the island then many of the residents do, which is another good trick of the con man. He should not be able to outwit Richard,  but it’s clear when he casually says: “Did you bury the bomb?” that he’s clearly caught the eternally calm Richard by surprise.

But here’s the thing. He also knows about the Purge. Juliet knows about it, and at some point she would have told Sawyer. We also know that he’s been listening to Dan (who doesn’t seem to be on the island three years later) and that it doesn’t matter what they do: “whatever happened, happened.” Sawyer has to know that if his friends don’t come back to the island, he and everyone he’s responsible for will die. Yet when they come back his reaction is to try and assimilate them rather than make any effort to go home; indeed he’ll spend much of the rest of Season 5 trying to keep up the life he’s built.

Why does he not do anything? It’s simple. For the first time in James’ whole life, he’s happy. Josh Holloway has taken his acting up to the next level in Season Five, but he rarely does so to an extent the way he does in Lafleur. There’s an ease in him that we just haven’t seen, either on the island or in any of his flashbacks. Everyone in Dharma treats him with respect and compassion – something that we rarely saw any of his fellow survivors try to do. He’s not running through Dharma with desperation like we see everybody on the show, he’s running with purpose and confidence – something we never have seen any character show. Lafleur doesn’t ask questions because he’s probing for weaknesses; he genuinely cares about people in a way Sawyer never did. The smiles on Holloway’s face throughout the episode are remarkable because they’re genuine.

And a large part of the reason is the woman he’s living with. Elizabeth Mitchell has always been a superb actress and has been up to her usual caliber in Season Five but watching her in Lafleur is a whole different story. When she and Sawyer banter, there’s a genuine treatment of equals that we’ve never seen Sawyer show – not even with Kate. Kate kept keeping him off balance because she was never sure of what she wanted; something Sawyer was reminded of time and again.

Juliet is a different story and frankly, it’s kind of remarkable considering Sawyer spent most of Season Three not trusting anything that came out of her mouth. There were signs of a bond when she went back with him to save the ones left on the beach (Sawyer clearly saw it then) but they went in different directions in Season Four and they didn’t really talk until they thought they were stranded again. Watching their interactions while the flashes were going on it was clear the two of them were connecting in a way that usually takes more time. Did the two of them sense that connection way back in Season Three? Maybe. Because when Sawyer cracks a joke just before she gets on the sub, Juliet gives the first laugh – actual laugh – she’s managed in the action on the island. Juliet has always been guarded throughout the first two seasons, which is why many fans had trouble trusting her.

And the smile the two of them exchange is open and honest in a way we’ve rarely seen two people get a chance to show on Lost. Most interactions on this series have been borne out of desperation, given how quickly everything moved, no one has any time to relax. Now the two of them are stranding on a desert island in 1974, completely isolated in space and time from everyone and everything they care about. Yet in that moment, they look freer than they’ve ever been.

So maybe long time fans were stunned when Sawyer strolls through the Barracks, picks a flower, walks into a house and presents to Juliet. I have little doubt much of it had to do with those who were still shipping Kate-Sawyer. But there’s something joyous about it when you see these two souls who have been lost for a long time, holding each other completely unironically and saying “I love you” to each other. The look on their faces is that of a fondness we have seen between Sun and Jin on the island and Penny and Desmond when they reunited.

So yes Lafleur is lying about having forgotten Kate but he’s also telling the truth to Horace at the same time. He hasn’t forgotten what she looked like, but he has found happiness and security in a way he would never have had with her and he knows this. And I think that maybe one of the reasons he doesn’t immediately tell Juliet what’s happened when Jin calls and tells him that the people that he has been searching for the past three years have returned.

He's built a nice life for himself in Dharmaville. Shame his old friends are about to blow it up.