A remembrance of Seasons Past: The hatch

So, here comes the second of a five part series of really short reflections on seasons gone by. I kind of free-associated what I remember to be the emblematic sounds, images, characters and scenes of the season in question. But they could never be the only ones, and you're most welcome to comment on your own selections.

Season 2:'Lost' departed in Season two. It departed from hopes of imminent rescue, and from the physical drama of eking out an eating, drinking, disease-free existence in the wilderness. It departed from the hothouse collision of 40+ (for dramatic purposes, 12+) strangers forced to regress into a rough collective of survivors. The show has been continually moving since that first departure, but the rush of leaving, the absolutely novel contours of the first port, and the depth of mystery we were able to glimpse there makes Season Two my favorite season of Lost.

I have the sense that this isn't a common position--that conventional wisdom is that pushing the button was a gimmick that should have lasted 2 episodes, not an entire season. I've also read the creators themselves, and Terry O'Quinn, talking about the mounting frustration they felt as they were forced to keep Locke in the hatch, hour after hour, pushing the button. It may have been maddening, but I am enchanted by its sheer simplicity, and its ability to formalize the key conflict of the entire series--Why are we here?--in relentlessly awesome pseudo-sciencey trappings. It's old news now, but could anyone, in their absolute wildest predictions, have guessed what awaited our castaways in the Hatch?? Darlton have said that they take their missteps in stride because without a willingness to go so far out there and court failure, they wouldn't have the successes we all love them for. The opening of Season 2 represents a massive risk, and stands as a peerless success.

The Sound:

The hatch computer timing out. Leading to the crash, and the entire series...nuff said.

The Image:

The numbers: "Enter exactly what I tell you. And nothing else."

The Character:

And...it's a tie between Eko and Locke. Both men of faith, but Eko's was a faith that his journey had ended, while Locke's was a faith that his special purpose was yet to really begin. Perhaps no character on 'Lost' is thought to have met a more premature end than Mr. Eko. While it wasn't until Season 3 that he died, it was in Season 2 that Eko became the powerful presence that we still miss. Still, Darlton has said that Adewale's desire to leave the show left them the room necessary to further develop Ben Linus into a major component of the show--so, not the worst of exchanges. As far as Locke, the biggest arc of the season is, essentially, Locke's own arc. The writer's took us into the depths of elation, piety, petulance, anger, and heroism of this extraordinary character. Taking the long, long view, there isn't a single more original and compelling character on 'Lost' than John Locke, and this was the season that the writers and O'Quinn took us into the bare heart of the man.

The Scene:

Jack. Locke. The Hatch. The Button. Faith. Science. Mindgames. Absolute fracking brilliance. Watch the whole thing. It primes you for the final 15 seconds, which have probably already been the seed for a thousand discussions in Philosophy 101 classes.

A remembrance of Seasons Past: The crash

Lists! Whenever something ends: a year, a century, a pizza...people love to formalize and rank the most treasured moments of times gone by. Lost is ending. Lost is, in fact, ending very soon. And I can think of many Lost lists that call out to be made. How about...

1. Top 10 Sawyer nick-names.

2. Top 3 most unnecessary instances of Kate telling either Sawyer or Jack, when they are working out a legitimate and heavy emotional issue, to 'stop...that's enough'.

3. Top 3 times when Sayid knows what the score is before anyone else.

4. Best Hurley headphone closing montage of Season 1.

...off the top of my head. One blogger, doubtless not the only one, decided to rank the seasons. I'm inspired by his effort to recollect the moments of Seasons past, but stumped when it comes to a ranking. I can say only what my favorite season has been, but it's a first among equals sort of thing.

So, here comes the first of a five part series of really short reflections on seasons gone by. I kind of free-associated what I remember to be the emblematic sounds, images, characters and scenes of the season in question. But they could never be the only ones, and you're most welcome to comment on your own selections.

We herewith begin...

Season 1: Things that struck me on a recent Season 1 rewatch: Jack.is.intense. Compared to the ‘working things out’ Jack of Season 5, he is just so damn volatile. The men on his good side—Michael, Jin, Charlie, Hurley—are kept at a polite yet brusque arm’s length, while those on his shit list—Sawyer, and more slowly, but much more potently, Locke—are given no quarter in an unpredictable, violent, and totally reactive Jackian way. I read something recently quoting Josh Holloway as being excited about the return of a more salty Sawyer in Season 6, but I’d be equally as excited to see the return of a more intense Jack, as we glimpsed in the Black Rock scene with Richard in 'Dr. Linus'.

Also: I wasn’t sorry to see Boone go—too often his character reminded me I was watching a network drama, rather than the incredible pop-culture mindmaze and mythic drama that ‘Lost’ actually is.

And: I miss Charlie. Dominic Monaghan is a great actor. He lent an energy that the ensemble needed to counter the self-seriousness of a Locke or, later, an Ilana.

Furthermore: Life-lesson Locke—John had a couple of great little scenes where he’d impart wisdom to a conflicted character in a very non-didactic zen koanish sort of way. There’s a dark reflection of such scenes in Season 6, as Flocke deploys his ‘but what if you could’ visions of fulfillment to his recruits.

And as far as episodes: ‘Walkabout’, ‘The Greater Good’, ‘Whatever the Case’, ‘The Moth’, and of course, the Pilot stand out to me, but moreso than other seasons, I can conjure up wonderful little character moments than I can blockbuster episodes from this first outing. The fizz has inevitably lessened from some once truly surprising moments, i.e., Sun speaks English? And Sawyer doesn’t even have the inhalers? But, the patient introduction of such well-drawn, complex characters that the writers accomplished this season should be admired as a challenge just as difficult as threading the complex intertime plotlines of Seasons 4 and 5…and to our great benefit, they *rocked* it.

The Sound:

lost smokey sound bite

The roar of Smokey. 'nuff said.

The image:
John Locke, amid the wreckage, pulling his shoes on and arising to answer Jack's calls for aid.

The Character:
Jack. It’s a big ensemble, but Kate’s right when she says “Without you Jack…” and trails off into a silent mixture of gratitude and empathy.

The scene:


The raft launching. Along with the phone call that closes ‘The Constant’ it is the never fail, make me weep uncontrollably moment of this amazing show.

'Lost' and Thomas Covenant, Part II

Enter a mysterious world of unspoiled richness and spiritual purity: The Land. Our hero is a physically ravaged and broken, yet enormously stubborn man of the everyday 'real' world. He finds himself, through circumstances he does not understand, transported to this magical and verdant place. A sickness that had previously defined his existence and isolated him from any modicum of happiness is, in this new land, completely healed. He is awed by the lore and wisdom of the land's inhabitants, yet that awe is dwarfed by discomfort, as the land's people are convinced that our hero is a prophesied savior upon whom the fate of the land depends, a notion he finds ridiculous. The land is troubled by a sort of 'dark lord' who thrives upon the defilement of the land's spirit. The corrupt servants of the dark lord were not always so, but succumbed to his will by means of arrogance and temptation. The dark lord's highest wish? To escape the land.

Now class, can anyone who has watched 'Lost' for these 5 13/18 seasons note a parallel between the above story and the narratives of 'Lost'? The foregoing was a brutal and brief summation of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever.

Covenant, in our world, is a leper. His disease has robbed him of any sense of touch, and thus pain, forcing him to constantly repeat a fixed regimen of 'VSE'--visual surveillance of extremities--to ensure he does not mortally injure his already corrupted body in the course of everyday life. He loses consciousness in our world and wakes up--healed of leprosy--in a place simply called 'the Land'. The land is peopled by a collection of races (giants, goblins, etc) familiar to readers of Tolkien-influenced literature. The humans of the land are a pre-scientific society whose lives are immersed in a sort of nature-religion absent any particular deity, and to a greater or lesser degree all wield an earth-derived magic. Repeated magic ritual constitutes daily life, and performing mundane daily tasks using machinery or overly complex tools instead of magic is seen as abomination.

The inherent magic of the Land seduces Covenant into (in someone else's words) believing it to be 'not just an island!' while simultaneously goading his skepticism and bitterness regarding the truth of such a sensual place. After all, he has survived his adult life only by rigorously denying and mistrusting feeling. Covenant oscillates between 'Jack-like' and 'Locke-like' poles of belief and unbelief.

Arrayed against the land, wishing only to desecrate its nature and people, is ghoulish Lord Foul, the Despiser. Covenant is not only healed by the Land, but hailed by its people as a prophesied savior, possessor of unique powers that will be the key to defeating Lord Foul. Foul's contention though, is that through manipulation and intimidation, he will force Covenant to use his Land-bestowed power to sicken rather than save. The psychological drama of the series draws from Covenant's attempts to escape the clutches of either a benevolent (assuming the role of the Land's savior) or fiendish (succumbing to Foul's manipulations)destiny and find a way to retain his autonomy without denying the land's reality for the benefit of Foul.

The prime enemy of both Covenant sequences, Foul is also the entity responsible for bringing Covenant to the Land. Though he is a demigod-like being, he cannot achieve his final goal--***escape*** from the bounds of the land--until he utterly corrupts (claims?) Covenant. Foul works by humiliating the prideful, turning hope to spite, and manipulating the naive into desecrating what they'd formerly thought holy. The portrayal of 'evil' in such emotionally familiar terms, rather than black capes and dark castles elevate the Covenant sequence above cosmetically similar fantasies content with only costume metaphysics.

There are other books more apt for complementing the time-travel, multiple dimension aspect of 'Lost', but the Covenant sequence is a fantastic read for those touched by the heroism, foolishness, tragedy,and redemption all embodied in John Locke, surely the most original creation of the 'Lost' writers, regardless of how (un)fulfilling the finale turns out to be.

Discussing the end of the Chronicles in an attempt to reason out the possible conclusion of 'Lost' just isn't possible without spoiling the 'Chronicles', something I just can't do.

Sure, MiB kills people, but Jacob is a total bastard

In working out a theory of some possible ramifications of the Incident over at Bigmouth's site I let my propensity to produce overlong comments go daffy. So, here's a repost of that comment in a venue that requires a wee bit less scrolling to get through. The thread started talking about possible causes of the pregnancy sickness, which led Darkprose to comment: "Indeed, the whole reason the Swan site was there [when Locke found it in S1. --ab42] was because of the Incident, which was the bomb being detonated. When Juliet got the Island to work with the Others, she had already detonated the bomb decades ago. Whatever happened, happened."

I kind of haven't explicitly thought through the time travel mechanics of the Incident, but darkprose's proposed scenario motivated me to do so. Here's me doing the blog-commenting equivalent of thinking out loud:

You're proposing that Miles was right in season 5 when he warned the others that Jack's H-bomb detonation plan may end up causing the very incident he's seeking to prevent.

The corollary is that Faraday was, tragically, wrong. Forgive me for quoting at length, but here's Faraday's speech to Jack in 'The Variable':

"In about four hours, the DHARMA folks at the swan work site--they're gonna--gonna drill into the ground and accidentally tap into a massive pocket of energy. The result of the release of this energy would be catastrophic. So in order to contain it, they're gonna have to cement the entire area in, like Chernobyl. And this containment--the place they built over it--I believe you called it "the Hatch." The Swan hatch? Because of this one accident, these people are gonna spend the next 20 years keeping that energy at bay... by pressing a button... a button that your friend Desmond will one day fail to push, and that will cause your plane--Oceanic 815--to crash on this island. And because your plane crashed, a freighter will be sent to this Island--a freighter I was on and Charlotte was on and so forth. This entire chain of events--it's gonna start happening this afternoon. But... we can change that. I studied relativistic physics my entire life. One thing emerged over and over--can't change the past. Can't do it. Whatever happened, happened. All right? But then I finally realized... I had been spending so much time focused on the constants, I forgot about the variables. Do you know what the variables in these equations are, Jack?"

So...you're saying Faraday was, ultimately, incorrect about his 'realization' of variables, and that his focus should have remained on the constants.

It would then follow that James's disappointment upon waking up at the ruin of the Swan hatch in 'LA X' is one more example of "how little he knows". He'd gone along with Jack's H-bomb plan to *avoid* the incident, and following Faraday, the subsequent construction of the Swan Hatch. Nothing of the sort had happened.

Interesting. This reinforces that the sideways universe has existed since at least 1977. But why would the bleed-through between the S1-S5 timeline and the sideways universe only begin after the sideways 815 flight? But that's entirely another topic.

Per the original topic, the pregnancy sickness, if it is simply a byproduct of radioactivity on the island emanating from the 1977 H-Bomb...why the hell did Richard not once mention it to Juliet in her recruitment or in her years of research??? He was there in 1977 and would have watched the bomb go off.

In any event, if you're right the main timeline of 'Lost' is a cruel, cruel story. Both Locke and Faraday came to the island, and both gave the ultimate sacrifice in service of something they believed to be greater than themselves--for Locke, it was the Island itself, and for Faraday it was the 815ers whose lives had been so altered by the island. Jacob told Richard that he brought people to the island because he believed that they were capable of 'knowing the difference between right and wrong'. If willingly throwing yourself into a fatal task completely for the benefit of others isn't evidence of having satisfied Jacob's stated reason for manipulating the lives of others, than what is?

But let's look at Locke and Faraday's reward: For Locke, it was to be murdered in a state of profound bewilderment, and later to provide the bodily means by which the enemy of all that he held dear might destroy what he (Locke) meant to sacrifice his life for. For Faraday, it was to be murdered by his own mother, and to have his dying thought be 'My mother acted as if she pushed me so hard out of love, but really she did it so I would eventually come to this island and die by her hand for a reason that I don't even know.' And following his murder, his great sacrifice was put into motion by Jack...the end result being to cause the very thing he'd given his life to prevent.

That is profoundly, absolutely, and utterly cruel. The Man in Black may kill people on a whim, but the fate of Locke and Faraday is just...sadistic. And if Jacob's responsible, since he brings people to the island in the first place, then he's worse, a thousand times worse than MiB.

The only way Jacob can redeem himself is if his endgame is to engineer the complete negation of the Island reality, and let Faraday, Locke and the others exist free of his and MiB's manipulations in the sideways reality.

And sideways Faraday needs to get a clue. Sure, that redhead was hot, and you loved her in another life...but in that other life *your soul was destroyed for the benefit of others who couldn't care less*.

A Magnificent Man

Ah, Jacob. You'd been alluded to for like ever before we caught a glimpse of you. For a while, I was convinced you were a piece of subterfuge constructed by Ben. Then I thought you were really Charles Widmore, pulling the strings of everyone on the Island through some unknown means. Later, I thought you were a never-seen, or mentioned, former head of the Dharma Initiative. I imagined there had been a split in the DI, and one side went native with you as their Kurtzian leader, joining forces with, and later, assuming the leadership of the Others.


Then after you (I thought, at the time) moaned 'Help Me' to John Locke, I sort of gave up speculating about you, assuming you were just the disembodied G-d force animating the Island. What you needed help for, I couldn't imagine. When John received his island-moving instructions from Cabin Christian, I took CC's assurance that he could 'speak' for Jacob to sort of confirm that Jacob was the Moses-like island G-d, communicating thru ghosts he was able to invoke.

Then, watching the first 10 minutes of 'The Incident' Ming and I turned to each other and stared, our third eyes wide open and locked.

During the Great Lost Hiatus of 2009 (GLH9) I became a more than a little nervous. Did Lost just reveal the Big Bad...and the Big Good? Was a show that thrived on unreliable narrators, instantaneous reversals of fortune, men of faith who cautioned against coincidence, and men of reason who were slaves to their impulses going to rewrite itself as the millionth unnecessary chapter in ye olde booke of the battle between untarnished GOOD and pure EVIL? This show has been about many things for five seasons, but never about a noble group coming nobly together to the noble thing on behalf of their vanquished general's fallen nobleness. That kind of transition in storytelling would absolutely suck the life out of any post-finale rewatch of earlier seasons--every great character developing moment, would be seen instead as the invisible hand of Jacob. Or that other dude.

Despite Dogen's (RIP) insistence of 'evil incarnate', I've dialed down my nervousness quite a bit at this point (after 'Sundown'). Where Jacob and his beach-bud come from remains a (delicious) mystery, but they've both passed with distinction from the (apparently ancient) Other school of communication--dangle grandiose fantasies of wish fulfillment among subtle and reasonable requests to perform a task that, though simple, must remain vague, thus keeping their mark distracted as they're maneuvered into positions where the only choice remaining is a bad one. If the reveal of Jacob's and UnLocke's styles continues along these lines, I'll consider it a suitably strange spin on the old, generic tale to keep me happy for future Lost-watches.

Even now, a third of the way through Season 6, Jacob's origins and motives remain--I think--mostly a mystery. Nearly all the evidence we have of Jacob's character has been dispensed by UnLocke--hearsay from a hostile witness. I'm not saying I'm hanging life and death on every one of the questions below being wrapped up, but they're what I think about when I think about Jacob. So, let's begin.

THE JACOB DOSSIER: QUESTIONS

1. Why isn’t Jacob more clear and direct with his wishes? Why does he hide his motives and goals from his allies? What code of conduct does he impose on himself? Why?

2. Who is Jacob? Was he, like his adversary, once a man?

3. Is beach-Jacob the original face of that 'which lies in the shadow of the statue'? Or is he only the latest successful ‘candidate’ in an eternal cycle of supernatural essences assuming some kind of manly guise?

4. What is Jacob’s endgame? Is it simply as MiB tells Sawyer: That his endgame is finding the ‘new’ Jacob? Would such a passing of the torch constitute what beach-Jacob was referring to with ‘It only ends once.’? If the events of Lost represent his endgame, what was his pregame, middlegame, etc? What was he up to, and why, in the period in between the construction of the Temple, the tunnels, the statues, etc and when the eldest of our Lostaways (say, Christian Shephard) were born?

5. Has any leader of the Others ever met Jacob face to face?

6. What is the disagreement that Jacob and MiB have? ’Still trying to prove me wrong, huh? ‘You are wrong.’ How does Flocke’s wish to escape his ‘trap’ relate to beach-MiB’s disgust with those who come to the Island and ‘corrupt’ it?

7. Can people find the Island without Jacob's 'bringing' them? Did Jacob 'bring' the Dharma Initiative?

8. When Jacob said 'What about you?' to Ben, was he coldly dismissing an errant peon, or gently attempting to begin a therapy session?