the blast door map

last week i dared you, 'meet kevin johnson.' i dared you to tie all the disparate elements of michael's story together in a surprising yet inevitable way. did you meet the challenge? ....



written by: elizabeth sarnoff and brian k. vaughn. as i've said before, 'the sarn' is hit and miss in my book, and because she is always working with different writers, i don't know how to attribute credit to her. is she bringing the other writers down, or raising their standards? brian k. vaughn has been a co-writer on some very strong episodes, most notably, this season's freighties flashback, 'confirmed dead.' he is also the writer of the much-acclaimed graphic novel series 'y: the last man,' which i really really need to check out.

directed by: stephen williams. one of 'lost's' old pros. this was a really big episode, very highly anticipated, and i'm sorry to say that i think it fell flat in a lot of areas:

1. timeline
2. michael
   
3. coffin
4. tom
5. aturo
   
6. libby
7. rousseau
8. freighter
9. locke
   
10. details and references
11. minor gripe
    
12. preboomer
    

1. timeline. one of my concerns was exactly how much time there was for michael and walt to get off the island and then head right back over. and here's how it breaks down:

• november 27: michael and walt leave the island shortly after the electromagnetic event.
• december 4: tom's last on-island appearance, at juliet's 'trial' for killing pickett.
• december 8ish: michael gets on the freighter, talks to tom, who is still in new york.
• december 10: tom and jack play football at the barracks.
  
• december 17: naomi parachutes to the island.
• december 28: sayid and desmond discover michael on the freighter.

tom has a 5 day period, between december 5 and december 10 to go to new york and get back in time for his next appearance on the show.



i can't help but think they wanted to use a different character for this role - perhaps richard alpert - but weren't able to get the actor, so they threw this somewhat shaky retcon at us. yes, it does fit the timeline, but similar to ben's affection for juliet, it feels tacked on. more on that later.

also, it is during this same 5 day period, that locke's father, aka the real sawyer, is kidnapped off the mainland and brought to the island.

so - i can see a possible retcon scene, on hydra island, december 4th, in which ben lays out the big plan, and sends several people off the island at the same time, all tasked with various missions. it all would have been so much stronger if there was even one tiny reference to tom having returned from a trip.

2. let's talk about michael. why do we bring michael back to the show? what is the 'greater function' that his character is going to play?



after all the hype, i had big hopes for this episode - michael will introduce a major new element to the mythology! but no. not really. what did we learn?

• the island tasks you with 'work,' and then, in ways similar to desmond's 'course correcting,' prevents you from killing yourself until that work is done.
• ben blames widmore for planting the wreck.
• 'some' of the others can leave the island.

uh, i think that's it. that's it!? really??

i like my idea better. michael's boat should have been intercepted. to start the flashback when he's already home, and cracked out in the same way jack was in 'through the looking glass' cheats of what we -really- want to know, which is: how did they get back? and more important, why are they hiding their identities? what reason would michael have to keep himself hidden? did oceanic intervene? is he also being paid off? does michael need to have a new identity in order to avoid questions once the fake wreck is revealed? there are sooo many questions (key questions that made the idea of the episode very exciting), and the main problem is that it begins the michael story at a point beyond when those questions would be answered - and so we watch the entire episode not able to get our minds off of them, and consequently don't care much about what's going on.

this story needed to start with michael in an office with someone very official looking - not abbaddon, but someone like abbaddon. michael is wet and has longer hair. he and walt have just been rescued off their boat. michael is telling the official that he's a survivor of flight 815, and he has a very good idea of how to get back to the rest of them, and a rescue operation needs to be launched immediately. he tells the official that he had to do unimaginable things to escape. the official sits there and says nothing. finally he silently writes michael a check and slides it across the table. michael says 'what's this?' the official says 'this is your price for being silent. there will be no rescue operation. you will change your identity. you will take this check and you'll take your son, and whatever it was you had to do, you'll put everything that happened on that island out of your mind. we have resources you can't imagine. if you choose to speak, you will be silenced.' michael thinks about it. takes the check. boom. cue opening title.

and what's cool about that opening is that we don't know if this person is on ben's side or widmore's - and when michael sees that the 'wreck' has been discovered, he understands the resources and power that he's dealing with.

also - we needed more explanation of why it has to be michael who infiltrates the freighter. have tom say 'there's no record of your escape, and our security has been breached. they know who we are now.' for that matter, why couldn't tom just do it?

also - ben has a man on the boat, great, but who does ben have on the mainland? within widmore, to even know about the freighter in the first place? why not send them instead?

also also also also. this is what makes the show confusing: 45 different strands that don't tie together nicely. the beauty of 'lost' is when the complexity is revealed to be part of a simple unified theory. occams' razor, not occams frizzy head of split ends. i just hate when a retcon feels like a retcon.



plus, the timeframe doesn't make it plausible that michael is now suicidal. jack's flashforward is in an undetermined point in the future, which allows us to imagine a slow descent into madness that culminates with him standing on that bridge - but michael had exactly ONE WEEK to go from yay i got my son back to boo i want to die. it took him a month on a deserted island to win walt's respect. he's really going to give up on walt's forgiveness after one week? we need more than that. if we can't show walt because of the growth spurt, then we need a letter from walt. something. something more than grandma and a disappointed look from the window. darlton says they've taken walt's growth into account - it's clear that they plan to use him in flashforwards, but at this point, i think he should have died. that's the only thing that would have me believe michael's state of mind in just a few days.



dear damon and carlton: you had so much time to figure this all out! we accepted the truncated season schedule and were excited by it because it allowed you more time to focus on the development of each episode! this should have been the centerpiece of the season! this should have been season 4's 'the other 48 days!'

3. michael is in the coffin. jack's newspaper clipping contains a J name (johnson?), and reference to the person as being from new york. with this new revelation that the island prevents you from killing yourself - it makes sense that jack, upon seeing the article, would be sent into a tailspin. jack sees the article and thinks, 'michael did it. maybe i'm free! maybe now i can do it!' so he gets on the bridge, and.. no. then he goes to the funeral, which is in a poor black neighborhood not unlike the new york area that michael was living in before. jack's demeanor, and kate's dismissal all seem to make sense given this context. per darlton, we should know soon.

4. tom. i think throwing tom into this episode seriously confused a lot of people - especially since the episode didn't make use of date cards, which would have helped us understand where in time all of these things were happening. and while it's always fun to see dead characters come back in flashback, you run the risk of confusing people when you're dealing with very narrow windows of time.



and.

what lost really needs is a gay person on their writing staff. i'm just going to throw it out there and voice my suspicion that there isn't anyone on hand (except perhaps chris white, who produces the podcasts) to give voice to this particular perspective. which is a shame. because last year's teaser that kate 'wasn't tom's type' was a perfect moment. ambiguous yet telling, and allowed us to postulate about a deeper life for mr. friendly.

until we finally get to see that deeper life. like making dumbledore gay, what i liked about the idea of tom being gay was that he was this rugged, imposing guy - at turns friendly and terrifying, who seemed to be very at home living in the rigors of the jungle, and who also just happens to be gay.

but the new york apartment scene. with the clothes and the hair and the wine and the kiss and -

5. arturo. arturo?? it felt like the writers sat around and said, 'well we have this gay character, but we haven't really made him gay yet. so now's our chance.



what does it mean to be gay? i think it means slicking your hair back and having a lover named arturo.' i can hear damon and carlton's sinckering voices as they jokingly decide to name tom's lover arturo (in much the same way that they named the shark from season 2 ezra j. sharkington). it feels like a slap in the face, and it's moments like these that i understand my inside source's statements about the production atmosphere on lost as a 'frathouse, with its barely concealed homophobia, racism and misogyny.'


i absolutely hated these choices. tom should not have been any different on island from off. and his lover should have been someone that would reasonably be with tom - and rather than deliberately inducing snickers across america when they kissed, that scene had the potential to create deeper sympathy for tom, knowing that he is now dead, and his lover may not even know. rather than a fey punchline (the guy was practically charmen ghia from the producers), there should have been a sad undertone accompanying his introduction. and making tom gay should not have meant making tom gay. can i please just rewrite this entire episode?

6. libby. i was spoiled via imdb that libby would be appearing in this episode. and boy what an awful lot they gave her to do. hold some blankets! say 'no!'



i understand the choice - michael's guilt over murdering her and ana lucia is now driving his story arc (was michelle rodriguez not available to make similar dream-cameos?), but why not give her something more to do? is libby now a post-island manifestation, similar to hurley's vision of charlie in 'the beginning of the end?' why not give libbly a scene in which she really rubs the guilt in? if she is a manifestation, why not tease us with that a bit more and allow someone else to 'see' her the way one of the inmates saw charlie at the institution?

and you can't help but wonder, given libby's reappearance - will we ever find out the missing pieces of her story? seeing her name on imdb gave me that glimmer of hope that the only main cast member never to get their own flashback might finally have their story told, but no:



7. rousseau. she'd better not be dead. that is all.

8. i wanted to see people on the freighter start going crazy. i wanted to see zoe bell do something kick-ass. i wanted to see minkowski's exact moment of timeshifting. i wanted new information about these people!

9. locke. it turns out that all ben said to locke in order to be set free was that michael was the man on the boat? rrrrrgggh. that's not enough! why does ben need to be set free? i understand that in locke they are trying to build an impressionable character, which is not an easy task. you want the character to make questionable choices, but the audience must also understand why they've done it. letting ben run around the barracks with blankets is just too easy. too easy for ben, and too easy for us. it feels like the show is deliberately stalling the locke plotline through most of this season because locke/jacob/the temple/four toesy are not going to be dealt with until season 5. or six.

10. in my criticisms i'm overlooking some interesting details in this episode. many dead characters reappear - tom, libby, naomi, minkowski - which was fun to see. some cool stuff:

• the watch michael pawns in order to buy a gun was given to michael by jin, as a peace offering.
  
• carl says 'i have a bad feeling about this' shortly before getting shot. the line is george lucas' trademark, and appears in each of the star wars films.
• liked the reference to 'the shining' and bouncing the tennis ball.
• structurally, this episode is similar to 'flashes before your eyes,' in that the flashback takes place all in one unbroken chunk before returning to the island story.
• the temple. yeee i'm so excited about seeing this damned temple. i hope it's like, inside the fallen head of what was once the entire giant four-toed statue..
  

11. minor gripe. again, a good set of major gripes to accompany this episode. in the context of the entire season i'm sure it will sit quite nicely in that vague 'tail end of act 2' space in each season. if you think about it structurally, we're at episode 8 of a 13 episode season, just beyond the halfway point, which is classically when the weakest episodes have fallen: 'expose,' 's.o.s,' 'left behind,' 'hearts and minds,' etc. it's that falloff before introducing the central conflict that drives us through to the season finale.

but to get really really minor - i'm slightly annoyed that ben's map to the temple is drawn in the exact same style and handwriting as charlotte and faraday's map, which doesn't have the temple on it. here's ben's map:



i'm hoping this isn't props oversight, but if the hostiles are indeed 'safe' at the temple, why does its location have a dharma logo next to it, and why would it be on official maps? doesn't seem very safe to me. here is charlotte and faraday's map:



but maybe that's why carl had a 'bad feeling' about it. i think this episode, like juliet's episode represents a lot of missed opportunity and unmet potential. and worse than the juliet episode, it was alienating to a lot of fans who don't have intimate knowledge of the show's complex timeline. it even had my head spinning with doubt about the plausibility of these things. what we needed from michael's return were two things: a solid purpose to drive his new arc on the show, and an important new piece of mythology that only he could provide us with. i don't think that's an impossible order to fill, though it was clearly too tall for elizabeth sarnoff and brian k. vaughn.

but we've been through these bumps before, and far worse ones. my main concern is that the next 5 episodes will be rushed through every stage of production and will suffer on all levels. but my big hope is that this pause due to the writers strike will actually allow darlton to use the second half of this season to respond to fan reactions to the first half. for this season anyway, the show will remain a dialogue between the producers and the fans. so - have i given up hope?



12. preboomer: see #7.

see you again after april 24th. thanks to everyone who finds all this somewhat amusing!