the blast door map

written by: melinda hsu taylor and greggory nations. gregg nations is of course lost's star script supervisor, and lord of all continuity. whenever there are continuity problems, i blame his archaic system of ms word documents. gregg has also co-written the blah 'eggtown .' melinda hsu taylor is new this season, and previously co-wrote 'the little prince.'

directed by: jack bender. best director on the show.

director of photography: john bartley. the jungle looked normal in this episode! is it only when we're around the hostiles that they apply the yellow filter? was it the colorist's week off? that said, there was a lot of great photography in this episode, as well as the impressive 'swan station under construction' setpiece.

nutshell: back to character-based stories - this ep nailed parent-child redemption a hell of a lot better than ben's encounter with the floating face youtube aftereffects tutorial of doom.

key considerations:

1. miles.
2. daddies.
3. juliet's moment.
   
4. naomi n' libby.
5. bram n' ellie.
6. island layout.
7. hurley. (and minor gripe)
8. details.
   
9. the clip show.
10. preboomer.
    

1. miles.

one of the many things i absolutely love about 'lost' is their handling of surprises - damon and carlton know what savvy fans have already guessed, and reveal these points offhandedly. the revelations don't patronize fans but also don't diminish the power of the surprise for those that didn't see it coming. the revelation that pierre chang is miles' father was played as a matter-of-fact occurrence, discovered and dealt with years ago. a lesser show would have artificially postponed miles' discovery for three years just so we could see his wtf-face when he runs into his mom in the lunchline. miles has pretty much put the issue to bed: dad is here, he's a bastard, probably best if i avoid him. but if you didn't see it coming, you get to enjoy the surprise through hurley's reaction to the news. claire's half-sibling relationship to jack was revealed in a similar, matter-of-fact way, as well as locke and sawyer's mutual connection to anthony cooper.

the dramatic arc of this episode centered around miles' need to deal with his inner demons. he has a power, sure, but he also lies about it in order to extract money from people. he joins widmore's team purely for a paycheck, but once he gets called out by bram, something changes, and his sense of honor compels him to return the money he stole from a client.

what 'lost' does sometimes is artificially frame flashback events so that it appears to say something about a character's arc, but it breaks down when you look at the context of the full timeline. miles gives back the money he stole - so it's not just about the money anymore - it seems like 'he's changed,' but don't forget that once miles gets to the island, he tries to extort 3.2 million from ben the very first chance he gets. so sometimes it is just about the money, i guess. you could make the argument that miles gave the money back to his deceived client because it was a case specifically about father/son love, and he came to resent deceiving the client about an issue that is deeply personal to him.

in any case, miles does need to talk about all this. he sure didn't put up much of a fight when the opportunity arose for hurley to tag along on his super secret mission. miles needed to unload, finally, about the craziness of both his weird power, and the fact that he's now living two doors down from his 3 month old self, not to mention long lost daddy.

while it all seems a bit tangential to the overall story of 'lost,' i think we're being set up for this season's finale: the incident. i can't see how establishing and developing the relationship between miles and chang can lead to anything but a tragic ending. it's very likely that 'the incident' leads to the loss of chang's arm (unless smokey gets that one too), leads to mom's premature death and hair loss, and also transforms baby miles into the chinese haley joel osmet.. we shall see.. the point is that this episode is all about buildup. sure, miles' mini emotional moment watching his father play with his own baby self was poignant, but if they do it right, that moment will be nothing to compared to what they must have in store for these two characters. remember, chang's feeding and care of miles was the first scene of the season - chang and miles, like desmond and juliet (also introduced in season openers) will have crucial roles to play in the season's closing chapter.


it was so wonderful to see ken leung get a complete episode to himself. he's a smart, savvy actor who's able to wring maximum effect out of very few words. damon and carlton love that. 'i'm in the circle of trust.' 'that douche is my dad.' miles is a snarky smart ass in a totally different way from sawyer, who is merely sarcastic. snark vs. sarc.

also handled wonderfully was the undercutting of miles' emotionally cathartic moment with chang's offhanded request, 'miles! i need you!' and then miles' choking, '..you do!?' a hilarious and unexpected way for the writers to say 'yeah, you thought we were going to do the obvious, didn't you? well we did, but not how you thought we would. we are brilliant, we know.'
2. daddies.

yes it's another character with daddy issues. all the best cowboys have daddy issues. more daddies! quick roster of who has daddy issues: kate, jack, locke, ok nevermind.. it will be easier to list main characters who have not had daddy issues as part of their stories: juliet. jin has more of a father in law issue. jin also has boat issues. sayid. oh wait no, they gave sayid daddy issues this season! rose and bernard. vincent. anyone else? will we learn that one of our beloved original cast members is actually from the future and is the child of one of the other original cast members? is sun actually ji yeon?

3. juliet's moments.


you know, she just rocks. i'm discovering that my ideas of what the 'behavior of awesomeness' would be are actually defined by elizabeth mitchell's performance of juliet. when roger linus innocently enters the infirmary, she has a tiny moment of hesitation.. she doesn't know what to do: 'should i lie and say we moved him to another area? should i stall, should i join in his panic? should i incapacitate him? (we know that she could, too).' unlike last week's scene with ben and cesar, in which ben's lies were horribly transparent, here's a scene where the lie is played correctly. juliet's ability to improvise is impressive, (kate just kind of watches her do it) and her moment of stillness before uttering... 'well. here we go' is just kickassery at its finest. as john august said in his blog, 'i would watch juliet boil water for an hour.'

i was also struck by another of juliet's moments of silence: just after sawyer asks her to get some rope to tie up phil. her pause before doing so held the weight of her question to sawyer in 'he's our you.' in that ep, juliet quietly asked sawyer, (or did she tell him? one of juliet's tricks is to put periods at the end of questions) 'it's over isn't it. ..this. us. playing house. all of it.' at the time it seemed like she was reacting to kate's return. but now, the fullness of her fear is clear, and this moment solidifies it: it's all over, maybe not their relationship, but their days of dharma bliss are officially done. all the stability and happiness that fate granted them (but withheld from the oceanic 6) is over.

4. naomi n' libby.

how great to see naomi again, mostly because it reminded me that 'oh yeah, miles came to the island on the freighter, that's right.' it's been so long since we've had reference to his origin, that it was good to have this little callback to season three, when she dropped in via parachute. remember that? that was season three folks! they're using naomi similarly to how i imagine they would have used libby, had she not needed to die: drop her in as a connective tissue when necessary, but as a character, there is really nothing new to learn about her.

which brings me to libby. there are gaping, open holes in her story, and i hope they get told. we were promised after her death that we would get her story through other people's flashbacks, and now damon and carlton are saying in the podcasts 'there's really nothing more to learn about her.' it's bullshit. cynthia watros is waiting by the phone! put her in the background of every scene! they could tie up libby with one flashback scene, and i hope they do it in season 6.

5. bram n' ellie.

ah yes, we knew that 'inconspicuous' guy standing among the background survivors of 316 had to be more than ajira's frogurt. ilana and bram are on the same team. they're packing up their mysterious crate, and both of them are asking people ''what lies in the shadow of the statue?'

but whose team are they on? i thought for sure ilana was working for widmore, but (in what was probably the biggest mythological reveal of the episode) we've learned that bram is working against widmore. and ilana doesn't know ben - so the only logical person left for them to be associated with is eloise. are we looking at a threeway battle for the island?

miles' van abduction encounter with bram was interesting because it revealed that bram's organization (while not performing van abductions) seems to have cleaner motives than widmore (the question of whether widmore actually funded the staged wreck of flight 815 seems to have been settled by the corpse naomi provided for miles' audition). bram's people offer no money to miles, only an alternate chance to learn the secrets of his past. they play the emotional card with him, and fail. maybe at the end of it all, bram and ilana are the true good guys?

so, if these are eloise's people, what is their relationship to the statue? were they 'infected' long ago? when whatever happens at the temple to make you into an other, does it somehow imbue you with the answer to this mysterious question?

in 'flashes before your eyes,' her first appearance on the show, eloise demonstrated an ability to see points in the future. she knew desmond's entire future life story, and proved it to him. here is that scene again, for reference:



she later said to desmond 'the island isn't done with you yet.' so what else does she know? can she forsee something about what's going to happen in the 'final showdown?' is she trying to assemble her troops?

what exactly was the power dynamic between her, alpert, widmore, and ben?

6. island layout

miles picks up the body of a man in 'grid 334,' which is hostile territory (that is some damn ballsy truce-breaking), and contains an electromagnetic force strong (and specific) enough to rip a filling through someone's head. on first viewing i thought that 'grid 334' was a separate area from both the orchid and the swan construction sites, but after being dropped off at the swan, chang says to miles that he'll 'get a ride back from radzinsky,' indicating that we're in the same area where miles first picked up the dead body.

7. hurley. (and minor gripe)

my theory was wrong. hurley is not the circular origin of the numbers - meaning that he doesn't use his memory of the numbers to 'create' them in the past. i felt certain that hurley himself would somehow dictate which numbers were chosen. how fantastic would it have been if in 1977 the numbers were chosen randomly, by hurley, pulling each one out.. like the lottery girl. alas no. the numbers are deeper than that, and apparently do have a larger part to play in the story.

the 'hoth' storyline was cute, but it's also my minor gripe. a shoutout to the fans who have recognized all the star wars references along the way. 'empire strikes back' might be the ultimate daddy issues movie. there was something just a touch hokey and wink winky about it, though, when the references to star wars have always been rather sly. (my favorite is in season one, when michael and jin are building the raft, and michael says, exactly like han solo, 'no, no! this one goes there, that one goes there!') but the overt discussion about luke losing his arm because he couldn't work things out with dad (more irony, since chang is about to lose his), was too on the nose. (there is some hilarious discussion on this week's podcast about the debates in the writers room about exactly what hurley was trying to 'fix' in the 'star wars' saga. they agreed that hurley was actively trying to restore lucas' original idea to set 'jedi's' final battle on kashyyk instead of endor.)

what did work was hurley's discussion of how his own father issues became resolved, which finally put the strangeness of hurley's actions in the episode into proper context. see, the island is really just an extremely exclusive and elaborate support group for getting over your daddy issues. the show will end once the rest of the cast figures that out - all they have to do is sit in a circle and talk.

i enjoyed the scene where he and miles compared powers - neither of them have discussed exactly what happens to them when experiencing paranormal communication before. i also liked that hurley pointed out pierre chang's multiple aliases, which means damon and carlton haven't forgotten the issue, and probably whatever it is that makes chang have aliases is coming in 'the incident.' what if chang is split into multiple copies, all of which believe they are married to mrs. chang? the experience freaks her out and she flees the island with her son.. sounds more like battlestar galactica than 'lost,' though. (update - i just rewatched the opening scene of the season, and while shooting the arrow orientation film, chang refers to himself as 'marvin candle,' so the use of aliases actually predates the incident. i got no theories now.)

8. details.


interesting parallels between the opening shot of this episode, and the opening shot of the season: both are shots of clocks. both are shown at times corresponding to the numbers of flights destined for the island. both clocks are interrupted by mrs. chang, following discussion of miles.

10. preboomer.

MILES: Dan.

FARADAY: Hey, Miles. Long time no see.

(boom)

while not an earth-shattering preboomer by any means, daniel's appearance raises a lot of questions: what has he been doing in ann arbor? how long has he been there? what kind of timeline altering trouble has he managed to get himself into while on the mainland? why has he come back? why has he come back now? why does he look so worried? is he going to try and stop the incident from happening? is he going to cause the incident? how does he go from the ann arbor science team submarine to being a crewmember digging out the cave in the orchid (where we saw him in the season opener)? next week is daniel's episode.. hopefully we'll find out.