the blast door map

written by: brian k. vaughn and elizabeth sarnoff. the last time these two worked together, they churned out the craptastic 'meet kevin johnson.' this season brian also co-wrote 'namaste,' and 'the little prince.' sarnoff co-wrote 'lafleur ,' and 'jughead.'

directed by: stephen williams. i think it may be time to start phasing stephen out of 'lost's' roster of directors. if you ask me, he failed this episode, and failed it hard. his episodes this season have ranged from low-grade mediocrity to merely serviceable: 'because you left,' 'the little prince,' and '316.'

director of photography: court fey. new fun thing to do: look up the crew of 'lost' on facebook. it's amazing how open the world can be sometimes. check out his 'lost' reel on his website to see some of the amazing work he did throughout the 3rd and 4th seasons. this is his first episode in season 5. i realize that many of my gripes about color correction are not actually the fault of the dp, so i'll lay off on that a bit. i would like an explanation, though, about why it's suddenly appeared in the show.

nutshell: a flawed episode that probably played better on paper, but was marred by lackluster direction and effects.

1. ben.
2. locke.
   
3. widmore.
4. penny.
   
5. smokey.
6. ilana.
7. preboomer.

1. ben.

this episode was lacking in the very things that make ben great: cleverness and subtlety.

the tricky thing about using ben as a central character is that in order to connect to him emotionally, we have to believe at least a couple fundamental truths about him. the problem is that he's so enigmatic, and his lies have flipped back and forth more times than can be counted - watching him is filled with such distrust that it's actually alienating.

and so the big challenge of this episode was to make us believe some fundamental truths about ben:

• he really truly loved alex. no, seriously, he did.
  
• he really truly feels responsible for her death. like, actual guilt - he feels it, he really feels it!
  

getting us to care about ben is no small task. the writers really had a tall order to fill. and i think it's all there on paper - we learn that ben's abduction of alex was not, as we originally suspected, part of the others need to abduct children because of their inability to procreate. no - ben had in fact been sent on a mission to 'exterminate that woman.' ben's decision not to kill ether rousseau or alex would become a point of contention between ben and widmore up until their last meeting on the dock, as widmore is banished from the island (now we know that widmore didn't push the donkey wheel). widmore says to ben:

I hope you're right, Benjamin, because if you aren't, and it is the Island that wants her dead, she'll be dead. And one day, you'll be standing where I'm standing now. You'll be the one being banished, and then you'll finally realize that you cannot fight the inevitable. I'll be seeing you, boy.

so, was widmore's killing (by proxy) of both rousseau and alex merely delaying the island's inevitable timeline? why would jacob want them dead (if that's indeed what he wants)? if jacob turns out to be one of our lead characters transported back in time, with foreknowledge of things to come with a manipulating hand in making those things happen, why would he push for rousseau to be killed? what would an early removal of rousseau/alex from the timeline accomplish?

beyond this, ben's inability to kill rousseau/alex was juxtaposed by his similar inability to kill penny/little charlie. saddling ben with this weakness and then using it as a parallel between past and present was the episode's most inspired invention.


one thing we know about ben is that he is an amazing liar. so it made absolutely no sense that in the scene with cesar, ben is suddenly an atrociously shitty liar about his knowledge of john locke. i have to chalk this up to bad direction - ben has never, ever lied that badly in the history of the show, and we were meant to believe that this tactic worked? it felt like a director 'helping' the script by having the actor 'play' the lie. the scene as written was an excellent chance for ben to truly win cesar's trust. the dramatic irony of knowing ben is lying (and seeing just how well he does it) would have made the interaction much more interesting. poor cesar. his entire time on the show was defined by his shoulder bag and the gun he put into it at the start of 'jeremy bentham.'

mythologically, we're still left with some questions about ben/rousseau/alex

• how was rousseau able to change the numbers transmission to her distress call when dharma was still in full operation in 1988? she would have been all over their tv screens breaking into that radio tower.
  
• why did the others leave rousseau's distress call running in the tower once they took over the dharma resources?
  
• how was ben 'raising' alex if he was still living among the dharma people in the barracks until she was 4?
• ben tells rousseau to run when she hears whispers. does this mean that going into the temple makes whisper noises preceed your every entrance?
• i expected ben to be more backlit during the alex abduction. i still buy it, but rousseau could totally see his face. i buy that she didn't ever put one and two together with jin, but this scene skirts the line of whether she would have recognized ben as the abductor of her child when he first got caught in her trap.
  

2. locke.


we're just now getting to know this 'newly reborn' locke, and i'm finding it rather frustrating. the writers allow ben's character to call out the frustration - 'how is it you just know things? where does it come from?' and locke replies with a smug 'i'm not sure,' then hits ben with the ultimate bitchslap, 'now you know what it was like to be me.'

one of the things that makes this show great is that when it's at its best, its characters are so strong, that it seems like you can throw literally anything at them and they will respond in a believable way - the success of the recent time-jumping plotline is a testament to that skill. but the handling of locke's resurrection doesn't yet feel right from any angle. sun is not responding correctly, ben is not responding correctly, even locke doesn't seem to be responding correctly. when locke says to sun, 'it's weird for me too,' it's not enough. ben says he's scared to death of locke, but seems to be lying (again) about that. if ben is truly scared of locke, that fear should have pervaded every aspect of their interactions together.


many people are happy to see the return of locke's season one-esque confidence - but that confidence was tempered by his many clashes with jack's extremely reasonable objections at the time. in a trio of sun, ben, and locke, it's sun who must serve as the audience proxy. she can't just sit there looking scared. she's got to have something to do other than wait for a 60 year old jin to walk out of the jungle and make out with her.

the questions have to be screamed from the rooftops: is locke still locke? is he possessed by the ghost of jacob? is he like christian shepard now? if cesar had shot locke, would it have mattered? can locke even die again? is he actually alive? will he disappear in the season finale like a certain someone on bsg? after this episode aired, many many blogs, twitters and facebook statuses immediately (and rightfully) proclaimed 'wtf is going on with this show!?' we were asked to follow a character who's not entirely his character anymore, to a place he doesn't know how he knows about, to do a thing he doesn't understand. not very compelling drama. now locke thinks he might know how to reunite sun and jin.. somehow.. meh.

3. widmore.


despite the problems of the episode, there were some interesting things happening. the key question about widmore is what exactly these 'rules' are that he and ben are supposed to abide by. in the season 4 episode 'the shape of things to come,' after alex was killed, ben said to widmore 'you broke the rules,' and then promised to kill penny in revenge. up until that point, the only real discussion of 'rules' were temporal ones espoused by ms. hawking. but now it looks like being 'an other' comes with a set of moral guidelines that ben trusted enough to be genuinely shocked when keamy pulled the trigger on alex. i had thought that ben's shock at alex's death came from his confidence that she would not be able to die because of island time rules - not some gentleman's agreement. are these rules imprinted in you after you visit the temple?

rules for being an other:

1. at some point, you must have really bad hair
   
2. speak latin
3. make sure your tape player with the 'whisper' recording is always working.
   
4. learn kickboxing
5. master mysterious gazes
6. babies babies babies: abduct them! adopt them!
   
7. no off-island babymaking
8. don't kill daughters (adopted or otherwise)
   

it doesn't make sense that ben was so deeply surprised that widmore broke rule #8 after he'd already broken rule #7. it also looks like penny is not the daughter of widmore and eloise hawking, so she and faraday are not half-siblings after all.

4. penny.


and penny is not dead. as awful as it would have been, i was kind of hoping she would be, since her death would activate desmond's storyline again. i'm more curious than ever about how they're going to write desmond back into the show. another dream/memory from faraday? an upcoming episode is called 'the variable,' which seems designed as a desmond-centric episode to go hand in hand with 'the constant.' hopefully it will live up to the standards of its predecessor.

5. smokey.

i've saved my deepest disappointment for last. damon and carlton must have known that they'd be raked over the coals for the effects in this scene. the design of the temple was reminiscent of a set from 'lost treasure of the grand canyon,' an original syfy channel movie starring shannen doherty. the heiroglyphic carvings look like styrofoam, even though the main portrait of anubis (very likely the statue) and smokey having a chat was interesting.


the smoke effects pouring out of the stone grate were nicely done, until we got inside it and saw the flashes.


this is not 'lost.' this is mansquito. or any movie on this list. what should have been an emotional catharsis was marred by effects that not only looked bad, but even if done well, betray the visual language of the show. apparently smokey has access to the season 4 dvds and was able to cut together a nice clip reel from the footage. i really hate when shows recycle footage for use within the show. the camera is an omniscient observer - using show footage in this way is a sloppy breaking of the 4th wall. smokey should have his own point of view. the ancient toilet drain required to 'call' smokey was more interesting than anything in the temple. turns out that all smokey does is a hazy version of 'this is your life' before deciding whether or not to throw you against the rocks. what if the smoke monster actually made ben relive that moment? what if we only hear the voices? what if the images were more subtle - the way they were during eko's encounter with the monster?



what if he had to deal only with ghost alex? what if he had to pass a test administered by ghost alex? what if this scene actually had emotional depth behind it? what if the flashes inside the smoke showed us things we hadn't yet seen on the show?? what if there was some mystery surrounding his final exclamation, 'it let me live'? it's too bad. this one scene ruined the whole episode for me. if these are the kind of answers we can expect in the show's final season, then maybe the people who bailed on the show at 'the button' had the right idea.6. ilana.


she was obviously hired by widmore to bring sayid back to the island, but it seems that she, and others have another mission. did widmore stack the plane with soldiers for 'the war' he promised locke was coming? will it be 316ers vs. 815ers? what's in the crate? what's in the shadow of the statue? were ilana and the rest of the 316ers 'infected,' or are they exiled others? or did the 316ers pow-wow real quick while lapidus was away and decide on a password?

7. preboomer.

'it let me live.'
(boom)


it should have been an amazing moment. i should have been wiping tears offa my face. you know i love my wtf preboomer faces. well the only wtf face at the end of this episode was mine. wtf happened to this episode? wtf is this show going to do to right these wrongs? wtf am i writing this blog for? michael emerson deserved so much better. the show's present day storyline needs to find its focus, and fast.