In my last article I explained there were
quite a few valid reasons for fans to become frustrated with Lost during
those first six episodes of Season 3. So now the question is: why did many of
us choose to stay?
Speaking for myself and I suspect most of
those who stuck with it there were two very big reasons involving two
characters who became series regulars. The first was one we'd met during Season
2 and was about to officially become Lost's antagonist for at least the
next two seasons (your mileage will vary as to when he stopped being one) and
who deservedly received the first of four consecutive Emmy nominations for Best
Supporting Actor in a Drama in 2007. The second would make an impression so
quickly that when TV Guide listed Lost at number 9 on its 10 best list
of 2006 then critic Michael Ausiello would say that 'her presence alone
justified her being there'.
I speak, of course, of Michael Emerson as
Ben Linus and Elizabeth Mitchell as Juliet Burke and because so much of the
first six episodes have Mitchell front and center I think its worth beginning
with her.
The opening teaser for Season 3 isn't quite
at the level of Man of Science, Man of Faith but its up there. We open on the
eye of a woman putting a CD in that starts playing Petula Clark's 'Downtown'.
It's clear that she's on the brink of tears despite the upbeat song. We see her
putting together chairs in a circle, hearing the smoke alarm before muffins
come out of the oven and opening the door to her bungalow apologetically. We
then see a book club involving Stephen King's Carrie and it's pretty
clear many of the members don't like the book choice. Then the furniture starts
shaking and everybody heads to the doorway.
Because we've been here before, the viewer
is relatively certain we're still on the island even before everybody runs
outside to see Oceanic 815 breaking into three pieces and that the man we know
as Henry Gale (viewers will call him Benry for the first few episodes until
we're officially introduced) starts giving orders to Goodwin and Ethan to go to
where he thinks the wreckage will come. What's different this time is what the
viewer knows. We know that Ben is sending both Ethan and Goodwin to their
deaths. We know that despite that neither one hesitates before heading into
danger and their demises. What we also notice is that everyone – including Ben
– is genuinely shocked by what they're seeing. And the way Ben just says to
Juliet "So I guess I'm out of book club," doesn't fit with what we
knew of 'Henry Gale' at any point during Season 2.
In the DVD extras of Season 3 Elizabeth
Sarnoff said that "it was important to establish early…that Ben Linus has
lots of underlings and not all of them are happy with his leadership." By
starting the season from Juliet's perspective the writers make it clear she's
Others Exhibit A and Mitchell registers that in every scene she in during those
first six episodes.
It's clear that while Juliet is just as
capable of violence and manipulation as all the Others we've met so far, she's
not as committed to it as that group. She is capable of tasing Sawyer when he
tries to escape on their first introduction and holding a gun to Kate's head
when Sawyer' tries a prison break in The Glass Ballerina. But compared to those
such as Danny Pickett or Tom, it almost seems like a job more than a calling. The
same is true during her interactions with Jack during 'A Tale of Two Cities';
the moment she manages to break Jack for the first time she walks out into the
next room where Ben thanks her and she responds with perhaps the most neutral
"You're welcome" you possibly could.
This has nothing to do with the fact that
she nearly drowned during Jack's attempt to escape (though the fact that Ben
seems willing to let her die is not lost on the viewer). Mitchell makes it very
clear that for her this is a job and she really wishes she could clock out and
go home. As she'll joke to Jack later on "It's stressful being an Other'
and as with so much of what Juliet says she means it.
Mitchell also makes it clear in her scenes
with Jack that she's honest in a way that neither Henry nor any of the Others
(sorry) have been. She's actually forthright with him in a way that none of the
natives have been to this point. It's clear she knows far more than she's
telling but she's also more forthcoming. When asked she tells Jack that the
station they're in is called the Hydra, that's an aquarium that was used for
experiments on animals from sharks to polar bears. Even though she knows
everything about Jack from the files they've collected on them, she allows him
to lie to her and she's honest about the speakers not working properly. And we
learn very clearly that she is a doctor and she doesn't want Jack to get
dehydrated or lose his energy because of the drugs they put in his system.
She also shows emotion far more readily
then any of the Others we've met during this period and she also remembers her
job. In Every Man for Himself she's called into operate on Colleen after she's
been shot and is near death. Juliet then breaks protocol by demanded that Jack
scrub up to try and help save Colleen.
This is important because Lost has
already established, as Back to the Island makes clear "it's a
dude-heavy show, with a lot of episodes focused on a moody doctor with a
brusque demeanor, a hero complex, and daddy issues. And then here comes Juliet,
also a doctor and also very complicated, but with a different energy." The
biggest difference is that we've already seen Jack willing to violate the
Hippocratic Oath multiple times in order to get what he wants and while Juliet
is more than willing to manipulate people when required she truly believes in
'first do no harm.' And if that means she has to violate the Leaders orders in
order to try and save a woman dying of a gunshot wound, that's exactly what
she's going to do, Ben Linus be damned.
As the series continues it's worth noting
that Juliet takes her oath far more seriously than Jack ever will. Despite his
mantra that he needs to fix things we've already seen that is almost always
arbitrary on the island, even when it comes to being a surgeon. Juliet, by
contrast, will maintain that belief throughout her full three seasons on the
series and there's an excellent chance the main reason she defects from the
Others is because she's been forced to violate it because of the mission
statement of Ben Linus. (If you look at Missing Pieces on the Season 4 DVD Set
there are more than a few segments featuring Juliet that will back that up.)
When Colleen ends up dying despite the best
efforts of Jack and Juliet, she confides in him she's a fertility specialist
and then bursts into tears. Jack consoles her and while he makes it clear it’s
a professional courtesy you can tell Juliet needed to hear it. This scene
really does humanize Juliet in the eyes of the viewer; she may be 'one of them'
but it doesn't make us care for her any less. And it helps matters that by this
point we've gotten to know her boss a little better as well.
There have been some series that when the
writers try to humanize the villain it backfires because it takes away some of
the menace behind them. I'm reminded of William B. Davis's Cigarette Smoking
Man and how the show's writers would make efforts in the later seasons to give
him a family of his own as well as a
name – and then abandoned it when the mythology moves on to try and putting him
back where he was. Michael Emerson is a special case, mainly because when the
writers introduced him he had only a three episode arc but because of his
performance they kept expanding his role and decided to make him the leader of
the Others. Darlton made it clear that
by the time Emerson made his debut as 'Henry Gale' in Season 2 they'd only
roughly conceived of who the leader of the Others would be and they sure as
hell hadn't cast him. In one of those elements of synchronicity that worked out
more often for Lost then not along came Michael Emerson and the rest is
TV history.
Famously at the end of Season 2 Ben told
Michael "We're the good guys." Considering who said it and what we'd
already seen that season we were inclined to take this with a pillar of salt. Eventually it will become
clear that Ben believes it and that every action he has taken is for
that purpose. Much of the first six episodes try to show bits and pieces of
Ben, showing one face to the three Oceanics he's captured and the other to his
underlings. What's clear is that neither group particularly respects him or
even likes him that much. We assume that the Others are following him because
he knows all the secrets of the island and we will hold that believe until
Season 3 is nearly over.
That's why the opening scene of Season 3 is
just as important for Ben's character as Juliet's as it reveals he's not in
control of events as he makes himself appear to Jack, Kate and Sawyer. He's
capable of improvising on short notice but those decisions have already led to
people dying and we've heard with Walt "we got more then we bargained
for.' At the opening of The Glass Ballerina Colleen comes to him and tells then
that Sayid, Sun and Jin have a boat. Juliet tells them it doesn't matter
because they'll just sail around aimlessly. Ben ignores her and sends a team
after it – a decision that gets them the boat but leads to Colleen being
mortally wounded. The fallout of this decision leads to her husband deciding to
kill Sawyer and while Ben tries to hold him in check it fails the moment he
goes into surgery which will lead to Danny's death.
While this is going on we become
reacquainted with a familiar face – Alex. We met her in 'Maternity Leave' when
she went against her father orders and broke Claire out of the Staff Station.
We've seen her a couple of times in the last two episodes of Season 2 and she
seems more interested in Claire's wellbeing then carrying out orders. The few
times we see her in the first six episodes she's looking for her boyfriend Karl
and she's not happy about it. By the time 'I Do' ends its clear that Alex is
Ben's daughter – or as the viewer knows, has been raising her as such since he
abducted her from Rousseau as an infant.
We'll get to know Alex much better during
the rest of Season 3 (Tania Raymonde will appear in nearly half the episodes)
but our first impressions of her are correct: she's no more committed to the
vision of the Others then Juliet is and her reasons are far more personal. For
one thing Ben has given the dress he gives to Kate from Alex's wardrobe. (The
way Alex says "It looks better on you" to Kate during The Glass
Ballerina will break your heart.) By 'I Do' it's clear she's team Oceanic all
the way: she warns Kate that they're planning to kill Sawyer and she actually
helps Jack break out of the Hydra station. In a scene I really wish had been
part of the episode (you can find it in the deleted scenes of the DVDs.) Ben
calls Alex into his office. Alex yells at him: "I hate you. I hate your
guts. I wish you were dead!" It's then that Ben tells her about the tumor
on his spine. In what is his most human scene yet Ben says that what upsets him
more is how badly our relationship has suffered. It doesn't make a difference:
Alex isn't around for Ben's surgery and by the time the action resumes in Not
in Portland, she's actively trying to help Sawyer and Kate escape.
So its fascinating to see Emerson when he
formally introduces himself to Jack at the end of 'The Glass Ballerina'. He
takes on the form of this being a socially awkward position rather then the
fact he's holding Jack and his friends hostage. Jack spends most of this scene
refusing to buy a word of it, and he's absolutely right to do this. Ben's lying
even when he says he's lived on this island his whole life and Jack knows that
whatever offer he makes about bringing him home has to be a trap. That at first he believes they have no
contact with the outside world is understandable and it's telling Ben has to
show him the final out of the 2004 World Series just to confirm it.
Those last moments show a perfect mix of
comedy and darkness. There's the humor as Ben has to explain the greatest
comeback in baseball history to Jack (knowing full well that he's never seen a
game in his life) and then how Ben shows that final out, completely unaware of
the significance of the Red Sox to Jack.
While the Others will prove to know every single piece of data about the
survivors lives they have no way of know the personal details and therefore
can't know that Christian's favorite saying was: "That's why the Red Sox
will never win the series." There's been some debate whether Jack's
reaction at the end of the episode is based just on seeing a recording of a
baseball game or whether he secretly believed in his father's theory on fate
and free will. I suspect it’s a combination of the two.
And it's at that point that Matthew Fox
manages to take baby steps towards finding direction for Jack. It helps matters
that of the three characters who've been taken prisoner it’s the greatest power
reversal for his character. Jack has been the reluctant leader ever since the
crash, the one that everybody takes direction from whether they listen to him
or not. It's gotten hugely frustrating seeing that dynamic during the first two
season with Jack not wanting to be the leader but unwilling to relinquish control.
Now for the first time in the series he's in a position where he has none of
all, where he's at the mercy of people who've made it clear they will do him
harm. Much he doesn't believe a word they say, he knows he has to let this play
out.
It helps matters that he has the most
interaction with Mitchell and Emerson during this period which in turn helps
the two of them up their game. With both characters it's clear Jack doesn't
believe a single thing either of them say and while he may be more at ease with
Juliet, he never misses a chance to punch back at the flaws in her character.
We see this most apparently in Every Man for Himself when Juliet, having just
tried to convince them that they make decisions independently, Ben runs in and
says "Juliet, we need you right now." The smirk on Fox's face as he
says goodbye makes it clear that this just took the piss out of the woman
trying to lure him to their side.
When Jack sees the x-rays its clear he
makes the connection almost immediately. We get to see a different side of him
in 'The Cost of Living' when he tells Ben "It must hurt." He then describes the tumor on Ben's spine
and how its borderline inoperable. When Ben tries to deflect Jack shrugs it off
as if he could care less. The moment Juliet shows up the game is given away:
Ben: Why did you show him my X-rays?"
Juliet: I didn't tell them they were yours.
But I guess you just did.
The look on Ben's face that moment is
brief; Jack's isn't.
When Ben goes to visit Jack while he eats a
cheeseburger (no, we never found out where they got it) and tries to let down
his guard we don't know if this is yet another manipulation of his. The problem
is that Ben literally doesn't have time for manipulation. In the opening of 'I
Do' Jack tells him about the X-ray and the OR before telling him "You need
to be in surgery yesterday."
That scene between them is magnificent. Ben
seems to assume Jack has agreed and then in what is the cruelest scene of all
Jack says he's not going to operate: "I just want to tell you how you're
going to die."
There's a darkness in Fox's behavior that
we've never seen on Jack's face before, and its abated by the fact that his
reasons are absolutely valid: Ben has no intention of letting him go
home; this is just another manipulation. This leads to an even darker exchange:
Ben: I'm very disappointed in your
decision.
Jack: At least you won't have to be
disappointed for very long.
Here's how much we're on his side. When
Sawyer learns about this from Kate he completely agrees with Jack's decision
even if it means he'll die the following day. And with the benefit of hindsight
you do wish Jack would follow through given how many people will end up dead as
a result of Jack's eventual decision to save Ben. No viewer could have known
this for certain in November of 2006 but that didn't mean when Jack agreed to scrub
in that we didn't think in our gut that this wouldn't have a happy ending for
anybody, least of all Ben.
While the overwhelming majority of the good
stuff is happening on Hydra Island there is some interesting stuff back on the
beach and unsurprisingly it involves John Locke. Terry O'Quinn's work in the first six
episodes is fascinating because it's very different from what we've seen before
and what we'll see in rest of the series.
'Further Instructions' the first Locke-centric
episode of Season 3 shows John unable to speak, presumably as a consequence of
his decision to not push the button, causing the Swan to implode. (We actually
see the wreckage of it.) John builds a sweat lodge and has one of the trippiest
sequences of the entire season in which he goes on a vision quest where 'Boone'
shows up to guide him. We see him in an airport in a wheelchair unable to walk
and we see how he views the castaways. Interestingly his visions will end up
foreshadowing much of not only Season 3 but the show to come with the arc of
the characters (I'll just talk in regard to Season 3). He's told by Boone there's
someone in the airport he needs to help
Charlie, Claire and Aaron are together as a
family. Boone says: "They'll be fine. For a while." (One of the major stories of the season is
whether Charlie will die.)
Sayid is talking to Sun and Jin who are
having a quarrel. "I think Sayid's got it," Boone says. (This seems
to refer to what happened in the previous episode but Locke has no knowledge of
that yet.)
Hurley is at the airport desk, checking
everyone in the same way the Swan did every time they entered the numbers. "Not
Hurley" Boone assures him. (Locke seems to have realized Hurley has a
connection to the hatch and perhaps the island he wasn't aware of.)
Desmond is seen in a pilot's uniform.
"Forget it, he's helping himself," Boone says. (Rescue will come this
season because of Desmond.)
Kate, Jack and Sawyer are at the gate.
Locke starts pointing at them the moment he sees 'Henry Gale'. (Ben is wearing
that as a nametag and as of this point that's the only name John knows him as.)
"There's nothing you can do to help them, not yet.
"First you have to clean up your own
mess."
At the top of the escalator is Boone. Locke
climbs it and at the top he sees Boone covered in blood and Eko's stick.
John comes out of his experience able to
talk and knowing he has to save Eko.
Charlie comes with him, despite Locke's
warning "Bad things happen when people are around me." The rest of
the episode is Locke's rescuing of Eko from a polar bear. John tells Charlie he
was told to clean up his own mess.
Locke confides in Eko that this is his
fault. If he'd let Eko keep pushing the button he could have helped his friends
and none of this would have happened. He will spend the first half of the
season trying to take up the role of leadership.
It's surprising just how good John is at during
the first half of the season. He's more democratic in his approach then Jack, more
willing to take counsel from people like Sayid and he knows when to tell the
truth and use his discretion. When Eko's killed he only tells Sayid that he was
killed by the Monster because he doesn't want to create a panic and at one point
he goes with Sayid to tell just Charlie and Hurley what happened so that morale
doesn't get any lower.
It's possible that Locke's arc in the second
half of Season 3 was necessary for how the rest of the series played out.
Considering that the writers began to do so after they'd negotiated an end date
for the series makes me pretty confident that this was what Darlton and company
planned for John all along. And much as I'd like to have seen this narrative
followed considering O'Quinn won an Emmy for his work as a large part because
of that turn, I can't argue it didn't work for Lost.
But let's not kid ourselves. The biggest
argument for sticking with Lost after the first six episodes of Season 3
is the rest of Season 3. Generally speaking from the moment actin
resumes whatever problems the show had before almost immediately become
resolved and we have one of the greatest stretches not just in the show's
history but in TV history.
And we'll get to that when I officially
resume the 20th anniversary coverage of Lost next year. (There'll
be more articles in between.)
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