Lost: The Rewatch Thread

Next season means the end of Lost. Between now and January of 2010, I'll be rewatching the series, typically at a four-episodes-a-week pace.

If you've never tried the show, I encourage you to jump in and test the waters. Lost has its flaws, but it's consistently excellent television and well worth the commitment. If you're already a fan, come along and let's see it again from the beginning. When Season Six rolls around it'll be as if we've just read through all the Potter books in time for the final volume.

I'd like to suggest that we place a block of episodes up for discussion and spend the week discussing them. Next monday, the next four episodes will go up and we'll shift focus to discuss them, as well as continue discussing the previous episodes if we want.

I'm not sure how to handle 'spoilers' for future seasons, as far as those new to the show are concerned, but suggestions would be welcomed!

This week's episodes:

Pilot: Part One
Pilot: Part Two
Tabula Rasa
Walkabout

Season One: Episodes 1-4

[Note: Anyone can get a recap of the episodes and their events by googling them. I’d prefer to discuss what comes to mind about the episodes generally, not give a plot synopsis. Chime in!]

Season One: Episodes 1-4

A fateful crash-landing. A mysterious Island. A group of survivors. That’s all we know entering into this story, and the show’s first few episodes work like gangbusters for me, balancing character work, subtle surreality, a sense of menace, and a fragile hope.

This early in the game, it's all about the characters. There is no Dharma Initiative, there are no ‘Others,’ Walt doesn’t have the Shinning yet, Locke’s mad, Ahab-esque Hatch quest yet looms on the horizon, so it’s down to character interaction for the most part. And these characters are fun/interesting to watch. I haven't seen Season One through since it aired, and following the events of the S5 finale, its fun to see how all these people got their start with one another.

In these initial episodes the writers mostly illustrate the potential realities of being stranded, while at the same time not attempting any sort of total gritty realism. This means that we get frank and honest discussions about burning dead bodies in the fuselage to keep animals from consuming them, as well as an extended sequence of Hurley and Charley fishing (hilariously) with a spear.

It's also interesting to see how my knowledge of these characters after five seasons has influenced how I view behavior at the beginning of the story. Sawyer is a good example. Rewatching his first scenes, Mr. Ford comes across less as the dangerous criminal he was to me initially, and more of a dickish, emotionally-battered smartass. This is a result of both my expanded knowledge of him as well as the way in which that understanding informs the acting choices that Holloway makes here at the start.

Jack comes across as more complex and ambiguous in his heroism from the start – quick to point out that he’s entered the family business as something of an inevitable event, capable of heroic action but just as capable of overextending himself, unable to let things go. Some folks have soured on Jack, but I really like his arc and Matthew Fox is exceptionally good at showing conviction while hiding doubt.

I've grown more and more tired of Kate as the show has gone on, but she's an engaging character at the beginning of the show and it makes em think that what I’m really tired of is the triangle she’s in, not necessarily the character. Plus, Evangeline Lily gives great I'm-gonna-die-face. Check out, if you will, her close-ups during any of the scenes on the failing plane. There are moments of cross-eyed weirdness that are laugh-out-loud funny, and for some reason we get to see those moments a few times over these episodes, as the show cuts back to cross-eyed Kate over and again.

In general, I’m struck by how human most of the characters are. The show went out of its way to paint each of them as flawed from the word go. I’m also struck by how Boone seems to screw up every single thing he touches. Good lord, man. Recognize your limitations. Great Boone line #1: “I run a business!”

(cont'd)

I can see more clearly why some folks were turned off by the developments of later seasons when looking back on these eps. They’re all touched by elements of the weird (the Monster, the bears, Christian), but the focus is on the people who’ve crashed and on their basic survival, along with their personal histories. This focus goes wider and wider as the show progresses and it’s easier to see, looking back, how that expansion would turn some off. For me it’s cat-nip.

In terms of the show’s eventual “mythology,” the first four episodes drop some hints into the bucket and give the show some shades of previous sci-fi classics like the Prisoner and Twin Peaks with well-chosen moments of fright and mystery. Mythology elements touched on so far include:

-The Monster: Smokey shows up early and often in the first four episodes, something I guess I'd forgotten. We don't see him/her/it, but we hear it, and we see it move, marked by uprooted trees and shaking foliage. It's not clear to me if anyone on the show actually knew what the Monster was at this point, but there's nothing in the first four episodes that contradicts what we'll learn later.

We see Smokey take out the pilot of the plane, but it’s not clear why. Most likely it’s simply because they wanted to establish the Monster as a legitimate threat, not because they’d already decided what its motives were.

-Jack's Dad: Jack's father appears on the Island for the first time in Walkabout, the fourth episode. He's a momentary apparition, but there's maximum eerieness to the appearances, aided by the incongruity of a full, natty-looking, suit and tie outfit in the Island landscape. We don't know that this mystery man is Jack's pop yet, but we can sense that there's something otherworldly about the appearance. We also see what appears to be a white tennis shoe in the opening sequence of the Pilot, dangling from a tree. It serves two purposes: for the new viewer it indicates that something here is off, prior to discovering the crash. For the repeat viewer it seems to be one of Christian’s tennis shoes.

-John Locke’s Legs: Walkabout is justifiably celebrated as one of the show’s best episodes, and I’m reminded again why that is. The reveal of John’s ‘limitations’ is very well handled, and the revelation of what Locke’s miracle was is dealt with intelligently and smoothly. There are no words to let us know what’s happened, just the stark shift from a man confined to a man liberated, wordlessly searching the sky with wondering eyes.

-Backgammon!: ‘Two sides, one light, one dark. Backgammon is 5,000 years old – that’s older than Jesus Christ.’ Looking back, these (paraphrased) lines laid out one essential thread of the show from the very beginning. It suggests many things at once: that the show is not simply a Judeo-Christian allegory, that there are forces at war, that there are sides and that these people will be among the players. When the show first aired there was much speculation that this was the mission statement of the show, per se. As the show went on, that line first seemed less relevant, and then seemed relevant to the story of Widmore and Linus. Now, as we round the corner to the final season, we’re back where we began – contemplating a more cosmic interpretation of those words.

Nifty touches/references:

1) Watership Down pops up, in what I believe to be the first installment of the Lost literary appreciation gallery.
2) In Tabula Rasa, Kate the fugitive drags a one-armed man to safety. Dr. Kimble would chuckle.


Those are my scattered opening thoughts and impressions. I’ll add more through the week. What are yours? Favorite lines? Moments? Things that stand out? Things that impress or irk?

I liked Season 2 when it aired, even if the eventual flip-flop between Locke and Eko over the button was (to my recollection) sort of random. We'll see how it holds up now.

I was struck by Hurley's constancy on second viewing also. He is the same basically benevolent figure he's always been. Since I'm going to be referencing various schools of belief as Lost references them, I'll say that Hurley calls to mind the ideals of Taoism and the way of the Buddha. Hurley conjures the concept of 'Pu,' a Taoist concept of simplicity, or 'the uncarved block.'

Charlie strikes me, even more on second viewing, as a deeply wounded and troubled soul from the word go. Not sure if the mugging you bring up involves his drug using - I found his scenes alone, discreetly getting high, to be pretty effective stuff and I like in retrospect how relatively open and vulnerable he is despite his hidden addiction. His scars are all pretty much on the surface, and I really like the way he uses his 'currency,' in the form of having been in a one-hit rock band, in an attempt to establish himself in the Islanders' pecking order. I like how relatively subtle this is. The first time he does it, with Kate, it comes off as endearing and oddball. The second time, it's needier and searching, as if saying this has paid dividends off-Island (and I'm sure it has - Brett Michaels is still using this trick) but isn't working now. He has no status to speak of on the Island, where 'being in a band' means nothing on a Boar hunt.

This was terrific to revisit. Mysterious and creepy as all get-out.

Here are the French iterations, as broadcast in the episode, if anyone's curious:
Here are the English translations of those iterations:

I don't know about that. The flashbacks we saw this season make it pretty clear that Danielle thought the rest of the crew had been changed/infected irrevocably, and we see Smokey kill one of the crew outright. It's entirely plausible for her to describe both the attack and the infection as 'killing' them, especially if the french language doesn't accomodate 'It killed one of them and turned the rest into murderous zombie automatons' easily.

It's also entirely possible that, after recording the transmission in season one, the show decided it wanted to do something slightly more nuanced with the Rousseau crew backstory than simply slaughtering them all, and so changed things up slightly.

It's either slight revisionism or its a more 'poetic' view of what happened. And psychologically-speaking, I doubt that a young woman alone on a creepy island would choose to admit to murder in a distress call. I imagine she'd be more likely to paint the threat as outside of both herself and her companions.

Which, come to think of it, is kind of a defining theme of this series - any threat is almost always percieved as being something literally outside the group we are identifying with at the time (see: the Others, Widmore, Dharma v. Hostiles), whereas the true danger almost always originates, literally or figuratively, from within that group (see: Ethan, Michael, Sawyer in the Dharma Initiative).

In what way is it pretty clear that the writers didn't know what to do with Rousseau? And how did they really f--- up?

That is weird. How was it watching Season 4 without the previous seasons? Did anything make sense?

I'm more than a little confused by your qualifications, to be honest. Rousseau was pretty clearly a supporting character, not a main character. Her arc ended when the story needed it to end: showcasing the violence of the mercenaries and effectuating Alex's capture.

Prior to that, she taught the castaways about the Others, foreshadowed the Others' fascination with babies by kidnapping Aaron, provided the introduction to the Black Rock and the Dark Territory....that's just off the top of my head.

Plus what Dave said, essentially.

That's a strange way of viewing things. Television characters must only provide accurate and reliable information in order to make a storyline valid? Many of her 'expert' tips were accurate and helpful. The one that was 'sketchy' wasn't even information she provided directly to the 815ers. It was a recording she'd made 16 years earlier, and one which has a semi-rational explanation.

Maybe there's a reason for apparent inconsistencies. Or maybe they screwed up some of the details. Either way, I'm not sweating it right now. The stories of an madwoman tend toward unreliability in my experience.

Of course, my opinion could change when I rewatch her episodes. We'll see!

...and 'beloved character to many'? I had no idea. This isn't me being snarky, just honest. Was/is Rousseau a fan-favorite?

Oddly, I'm really okay with where they left the Libby storyline. Would it be interesting and exciting to see more of her background? Absolutely. But I think her story works just fine where it was left - the unresolved mental hospital story thread feels complete to me despite its being enigmatic and I'd understand if the writers wanted to drop it, rather than address it in the monologue of another person, if the actress is reluctant to return.

It's not a defense. It's just my take. Feel free to disagree. And I'm not sure what you mean about some of the inconsistencies happening prior to her being on the Island. When we get to her character as the episodes roll on, let's look into it more.

Now that everyone's been labeled, could I point out that in the post you're quoting, I say upfront that it's entirely possible I'll change my mind on this?

I was never arguing against her character's importance. And I've said that there are inconsistencies. You liked the character and you feel the character wasn't given her due. I get that. I haven't watched this show through since it first aired, so as of right now I don't have a problem with what I remember of Rousseau's story. Like I said, that may change now that I'm revisiting things. Or maybe it won't. We'll see.

I'm in essential agreement with you on this, but I would like to point out that people are invested in the Libby storyline for pretty much exactly the reasons you're invested in the Rousseau story.

Welcome aboard, Mattioli.

I enjoyed this throughout the first episodes. Seeing people's first interactions with each other - their introductions to one another - was pretty great. I love that the first time we see Kate she's emerging from the jungle, rubbing her wrists.

They use silence really effectively in this group of episodes. The wordless shots of Locke and Sawyer and others are great small character moments.

I'm hoping that this rewatch gives us a better idea of the MiB's role in things so far. Is he actively attempting to 'corrupt' the castaways or simply observing how they innately behave? Last night, I randomly recalled the Hurley Bird - once an item of some interest, now largely forgotten. Was the Hurley Bird the MiB?