Lost S2 (13-22)
Dec. 7th, 2006 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSay what you will about JJ Abrams, but once you start watching a season of one of his shows and have the entire thing at your disposal, you can't stop.
Also, he likes his slaughter. Last season, Boone dies; this season, it's Shannon, Ana-Lucia and Libby, and I have to say each of them came as a complete shock even though I had guessed Michael was going to help "Henry" escape; him being blackmailed for his son was sort of obvious. Speaking of Michael, I find it fascinating to compare his story and the way it is presented with that other example of parental love in a J.J. Abrams show, Jack Bristow. Jack's utter and complete devotion to Sydney (despite his initial unability to express it by, say, having actual conversations with her), his willingness to torture, kill or do whatever else it takes for her welfare, are a big part of what makes fandom love him. And in the early Alias seasons - actually also in season 4 with the Irina revelations in the season opener, but otherwise it's more of a s1 and 2 ploy - the narrative pulls off the "Jack does something heinous, but look, turns out he's doing it for Sydney!" gambit quite a lot. However, on Alias, the narrative is stashed in Jack's favour. Granted, this is also because Jack is established as a smart, ruthless and experienced agent from the start (as opposed to Michael on Lost, who's a civilian in an increasingly horrible situation), but still, one can't help but notice that all the morally questionable things Jack does for Sydney's sake are presented in a way that makes the audience root for Jack. (With the notable exception of a) framing Irina and b) being revealed to have conditioned Sydney as a child in s2, but even those two exceptions are de-greyed by certain s5 retcons and presentations.) He doesn't do them to characters the audience cares about. Thus, his dedication to Sydney is presented as an unquestioned virtue.
Meanwhile, I think it's safe to say that Michael's devotion to Walt on Lost in s2 is, shall we say, not. At the start of the season, he keeps endangering his friends by running off on his lonesome at every opportunity; at the end, he kills two people and leads four more into a trap. His motivation is exactly the same as Jack Bristow's: to save his child. But instead of being stashed in his favour, the narrative shows the horrible cost the "a parent is willing to do anything for his child" principle, no matter how understandable, is demanding from others. We're partly in Michael's pov, true, but more in the pov of the other characters, and the emotional effect is devastating. Retrospectively, I think that was the main reason for Libby as a character. She's presented as kind and caring from the start; literary from the start: in the episode which recounts the other 48 days, we see her helping other passengers on the beach, she gives water to Sawyer, Michael and Jin when they're still prisoners, she tries to comfort Ana Lucia, and later, of course, she bonds/falls in love with Hurley, and as one character in this season says, who doesn't love Hurley? Her being one of the people who die so Michael can get his son back is a very different thing, story-telling wise, than just assign a random redshirt (though you could argue Libby is a season-lasting redshirt).
The other victim is Ana Lucia. I continued to like the character through the second half, and I think within that one season, she got a great arc. As opposed to many a character, she really does show herself capable of learning from the past, not just by checking out Henry's story because she remembers how she misjudged and prejudged Nathan, but by not doing to him what she did to Jason for assaulting her. She doesn't shoot him. At the same time, she's not presented as completely changed and/or redeemed: by doing the Pilate thing of giving Michael the gun and the door combination - two steps, presented in a slow enough way to make it clear she has time to think - enabling him to kill Henry, as she believes, when he demands it, she seals her own death warrant. Ana Lucia going out in shades of grey, a bit more at peace with herself than she came in, but still flawed, was, I believe, the right choice. Though I shall miss her.
"We are all the products of our pasts" could be this show's motto. Sayid falling back on torture is believable, given last season's events, and I think the show manages to succesfully walk a tight rope there because Sayid doesn't actually get anything out of Henry that way; we're worlds away from 24 territory wherein Jack Bauer's torture of bad guys always gets life-saving results. Moreover, the flashbacks support the anti-torture stance; oh, and I remain impressed by the way Lost handles its Iraqi character. Having him learn how to torture from the Americans was audacious. (For Carnivale fans: naturally, once I saw the American commander in the umistakable form and voice of Clancy Brown I had a strange crossover moment and thought "Justin!" Little did I know he'd be back and qualify himself even more as a sort of descendant...)
Another character showing that you don't unlearn control issues at once was Jin with his freak-out, but he also came down at the side of changing and learning, not just by repenting and acting on it but by his reaction to the pregnancy news. Which tied with the season theme of the question/leap of faith in as well. I like that the show left open whether or not Sun had a one night stand with her English teacher. The child could be the result of this, or it could be the result of the island doing for Jin what it did for Locke and Rose - cure his infertility in the way it cured Locke's legs and Rose's cancer. The important thing is that Jin does not ask but chooses to trust when Sun tells him. He makes that leap of faith.
Faith, however, is not always a virtue. Clancy Brown's character might have been cynical when telling Sayid in the flashback that loyalty is a virtue but unquestioning loyalty is not, but he had a point. In the first season, Locke become more and more fanatical in his faith in the island. It had cured him, it had to be the mystery that gave his life a sense, and in the end, he was willing to sacrifice Boone to it. Then he got his reward, of sorts: the hatch opened, and there were (some) truths revealed. In retrospect, you can see Locke's "but this isn't how it is supposed to be" in the season opener as a warning sign; he did go for the new mystery, the button which had to be pushed, but not quite with the same intensity, not quite the same belief; and then first the encounter with Henry and then the discovery of the other hatch with Eko throws this in complete disarray. No atheist is as bitter as a former fervent believer, and Locke risking all by refusing to push the button at the end of s2 just as he risked all to open the hatch at the end of s1 makes complete sense to me. He's an extremist. Religious-comparison wise, he's Thomas who needs to put his fingers in the wound to Eko's Matthew who, once called, never stops believing.
The other thing about Locke, underscored by the flashbacks, is that he's unable to cut loose from people as well as causes. Helen asks him for a leap of faith in the sense of leaving his father behind and focus entirely on her, but faith is also what said father demands. I was a bit afraid that this flashback story would end with Locke conned yet again, but what happens instead is different. His father was actually telling the truth and, as opposed to the kidney affair, not pretending love in order to get Locke's help, but of course what Locke wanted was love and not the money, and he ends up being left by both his father and Helen. The way this connects to the present to me - though I might arrive at different interpretations later - right now is that there is no way the mystery of the hatch could have given Locke what he was looking for, and in the process of looking for it, he lost the human connection (Boone, Helen) he actually made.
Speaking of connections: while I think much of what Henry told Locke was mindmessing - both the glaringly obvious as the stuff with Jack and the questionable such as the idea his original mission was to get Locke - I think they did make something of a connection, and Henry coming back after the shut down was dealt with was actually to help Locke. I'm curious whether that - and Locke's promise to protect Henry no matter what - will lead to something in s3.
I was delighted to see Danielle again, both in her short scene with Sayid and even more in Maternity Leave with Claire and Kate. (There should be more episodes focusing on female interaction.) Now that we actually did see her daughter Alex with the Others, will there be a reunion? Somehow I fear only in the form of Danielle dying immediately after, and I don't want that.
As to what's actually going on on this island: two separate things at least, imo. Due to magnetism (thank you, faith healer, for the info dump in Rose's episode which btw was an excellent one) and whatever else is naturally there, there is both enhanced physical healing (Rose, Locke) and enhanced psi abilities (Walt - who had some before, as we saw in the flashbacks, but now seems able to do more, such as projecting, and of course just about everybody hallucinating now and then, not to mention the dreamsharing with Eko and Locke). On the other hand, you have the Dharma group having started a grand scale experiment about two decades ago which since has gone wrong on a horrible scale. Since we saw the logs from Hatch 5 all outside on a giant waste heap, it's probably safe to say there is no current observation going on... except that obviously, someone must have ordered that parachute with food to be dumped, so someone must at least know there are still people on the island. At a guess, the Others are either members or descendants from the original groups meant to be the focus of the experiments, which was abandoned because of the discovery of the magnetism factor (not in the sense of healing, in the sense of bringing planes crashing down), without, however, telling said participants that, just leaving Clancy Brown's character and his partner behind to deal with the button and making sure there is food delivered every now and then. Oh, and speaking of that partner - whose name I understood to be Rietzenbacher, though being German, I might have misheard it - I'm willing to bet he's identical with the brilliant ruthless leader the Others keep mentioning and which we haven't seen.
So, season 3. When? Where?
Also, he likes his slaughter. Last season, Boone dies; this season, it's Shannon, Ana-Lucia and Libby, and I have to say each of them came as a complete shock even though I had guessed Michael was going to help "Henry" escape; him being blackmailed for his son was sort of obvious. Speaking of Michael, I find it fascinating to compare his story and the way it is presented with that other example of parental love in a J.J. Abrams show, Jack Bristow. Jack's utter and complete devotion to Sydney (despite his initial unability to express it by, say, having actual conversations with her), his willingness to torture, kill or do whatever else it takes for her welfare, are a big part of what makes fandom love him. And in the early Alias seasons - actually also in season 4 with the Irina revelations in the season opener, but otherwise it's more of a s1 and 2 ploy - the narrative pulls off the "Jack does something heinous, but look, turns out he's doing it for Sydney!" gambit quite a lot. However, on Alias, the narrative is stashed in Jack's favour. Granted, this is also because Jack is established as a smart, ruthless and experienced agent from the start (as opposed to Michael on Lost, who's a civilian in an increasingly horrible situation), but still, one can't help but notice that all the morally questionable things Jack does for Sydney's sake are presented in a way that makes the audience root for Jack. (With the notable exception of a) framing Irina and b) being revealed to have conditioned Sydney as a child in s2, but even those two exceptions are de-greyed by certain s5 retcons and presentations.) He doesn't do them to characters the audience cares about. Thus, his dedication to Sydney is presented as an unquestioned virtue.
Meanwhile, I think it's safe to say that Michael's devotion to Walt on Lost in s2 is, shall we say, not. At the start of the season, he keeps endangering his friends by running off on his lonesome at every opportunity; at the end, he kills two people and leads four more into a trap. His motivation is exactly the same as Jack Bristow's: to save his child. But instead of being stashed in his favour, the narrative shows the horrible cost the "a parent is willing to do anything for his child" principle, no matter how understandable, is demanding from others. We're partly in Michael's pov, true, but more in the pov of the other characters, and the emotional effect is devastating. Retrospectively, I think that was the main reason for Libby as a character. She's presented as kind and caring from the start; literary from the start: in the episode which recounts the other 48 days, we see her helping other passengers on the beach, she gives water to Sawyer, Michael and Jin when they're still prisoners, she tries to comfort Ana Lucia, and later, of course, she bonds/falls in love with Hurley, and as one character in this season says, who doesn't love Hurley? Her being one of the people who die so Michael can get his son back is a very different thing, story-telling wise, than just assign a random redshirt (though you could argue Libby is a season-lasting redshirt).
The other victim is Ana Lucia. I continued to like the character through the second half, and I think within that one season, she got a great arc. As opposed to many a character, she really does show herself capable of learning from the past, not just by checking out Henry's story because she remembers how she misjudged and prejudged Nathan, but by not doing to him what she did to Jason for assaulting her. She doesn't shoot him. At the same time, she's not presented as completely changed and/or redeemed: by doing the Pilate thing of giving Michael the gun and the door combination - two steps, presented in a slow enough way to make it clear she has time to think - enabling him to kill Henry, as she believes, when he demands it, she seals her own death warrant. Ana Lucia going out in shades of grey, a bit more at peace with herself than she came in, but still flawed, was, I believe, the right choice. Though I shall miss her.
"We are all the products of our pasts" could be this show's motto. Sayid falling back on torture is believable, given last season's events, and I think the show manages to succesfully walk a tight rope there because Sayid doesn't actually get anything out of Henry that way; we're worlds away from 24 territory wherein Jack Bauer's torture of bad guys always gets life-saving results. Moreover, the flashbacks support the anti-torture stance; oh, and I remain impressed by the way Lost handles its Iraqi character. Having him learn how to torture from the Americans was audacious. (For Carnivale fans: naturally, once I saw the American commander in the umistakable form and voice of Clancy Brown I had a strange crossover moment and thought "Justin!" Little did I know he'd be back and qualify himself even more as a sort of descendant...)
Another character showing that you don't unlearn control issues at once was Jin with his freak-out, but he also came down at the side of changing and learning, not just by repenting and acting on it but by his reaction to the pregnancy news. Which tied with the season theme of the question/leap of faith in as well. I like that the show left open whether or not Sun had a one night stand with her English teacher. The child could be the result of this, or it could be the result of the island doing for Jin what it did for Locke and Rose - cure his infertility in the way it cured Locke's legs and Rose's cancer. The important thing is that Jin does not ask but chooses to trust when Sun tells him. He makes that leap of faith.
Faith, however, is not always a virtue. Clancy Brown's character might have been cynical when telling Sayid in the flashback that loyalty is a virtue but unquestioning loyalty is not, but he had a point. In the first season, Locke become more and more fanatical in his faith in the island. It had cured him, it had to be the mystery that gave his life a sense, and in the end, he was willing to sacrifice Boone to it. Then he got his reward, of sorts: the hatch opened, and there were (some) truths revealed. In retrospect, you can see Locke's "but this isn't how it is supposed to be" in the season opener as a warning sign; he did go for the new mystery, the button which had to be pushed, but not quite with the same intensity, not quite the same belief; and then first the encounter with Henry and then the discovery of the other hatch with Eko throws this in complete disarray. No atheist is as bitter as a former fervent believer, and Locke risking all by refusing to push the button at the end of s2 just as he risked all to open the hatch at the end of s1 makes complete sense to me. He's an extremist. Religious-comparison wise, he's Thomas who needs to put his fingers in the wound to Eko's Matthew who, once called, never stops believing.
The other thing about Locke, underscored by the flashbacks, is that he's unable to cut loose from people as well as causes. Helen asks him for a leap of faith in the sense of leaving his father behind and focus entirely on her, but faith is also what said father demands. I was a bit afraid that this flashback story would end with Locke conned yet again, but what happens instead is different. His father was actually telling the truth and, as opposed to the kidney affair, not pretending love in order to get Locke's help, but of course what Locke wanted was love and not the money, and he ends up being left by both his father and Helen. The way this connects to the present to me - though I might arrive at different interpretations later - right now is that there is no way the mystery of the hatch could have given Locke what he was looking for, and in the process of looking for it, he lost the human connection (Boone, Helen) he actually made.
Speaking of connections: while I think much of what Henry told Locke was mindmessing - both the glaringly obvious as the stuff with Jack and the questionable such as the idea his original mission was to get Locke - I think they did make something of a connection, and Henry coming back after the shut down was dealt with was actually to help Locke. I'm curious whether that - and Locke's promise to protect Henry no matter what - will lead to something in s3.
I was delighted to see Danielle again, both in her short scene with Sayid and even more in Maternity Leave with Claire and Kate. (There should be more episodes focusing on female interaction.) Now that we actually did see her daughter Alex with the Others, will there be a reunion? Somehow I fear only in the form of Danielle dying immediately after, and I don't want that.
As to what's actually going on on this island: two separate things at least, imo. Due to magnetism (thank you, faith healer, for the info dump in Rose's episode which btw was an excellent one) and whatever else is naturally there, there is both enhanced physical healing (Rose, Locke) and enhanced psi abilities (Walt - who had some before, as we saw in the flashbacks, but now seems able to do more, such as projecting, and of course just about everybody hallucinating now and then, not to mention the dreamsharing with Eko and Locke). On the other hand, you have the Dharma group having started a grand scale experiment about two decades ago which since has gone wrong on a horrible scale. Since we saw the logs from Hatch 5 all outside on a giant waste heap, it's probably safe to say there is no current observation going on... except that obviously, someone must have ordered that parachute with food to be dumped, so someone must at least know there are still people on the island. At a guess, the Others are either members or descendants from the original groups meant to be the focus of the experiments, which was abandoned because of the discovery of the magnetism factor (not in the sense of healing, in the sense of bringing planes crashing down), without, however, telling said participants that, just leaving Clancy Brown's character and his partner behind to deal with the button and making sure there is food delivered every now and then. Oh, and speaking of that partner - whose name I understood to be Rietzenbacher, though being German, I might have misheard it - I'm willing to bet he's identical with the brilliant ruthless leader the Others keep mentioning and which we haven't seen.
So, season 3. When? Where?
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Date: 2006-12-07 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-12-07 12:29 pm (UTC)I was very annoyed to miss the Locke-flasback episode you talk about above due to video failure. I am also annoyed that he's one of the characters left in Schroedinger's box until next season, which is only available on a subscription channel in the UK now.
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Date: 2006-12-07 02:47 pm (UTC)Flashback episode: this one started with Locke having the ring and all to propose to Helen, when she finds out via the obituary his father died. Locke goes to the funeral with her (where there are also some suspicious characters lurking around, and an ominious car) and tells his father, or rather, his father's coffin, he forgives him. A few days later, someone gets in his car, and lo and behold, it's his father, who has faked his death to escape the suspicious characters (some criminal thing or the other) and now needs Locke to get at the money he has in a secret account. This time, as mentioned, he does not pretend, he just asks (complete with "I know you have no reason to help me, but..." introduction), but you know, Locke, being Locke, just can't help it. You can see him start hoping again. And Terry O'Quinn plays that vulnerability so very well. So he gets the money, and when he gets home, the suspicious characters from the funeral are with Helen, asking him whether he has seen his father. Helen is furious and says if they knew how the guy treated Locke, etc. Locke of course denies having seen him. The suspicious characters search him, find no money, and leave. Helen is relieved but asks him just to be sure, and he says no. (Aka the big mistake.) He goes to meet his father at the man's hiding place and delivers the money. And the emotional disaster unfolds. His father hands him over "his share", i.e. some of the money, Locke says he didn't do it for the money, awkward silence, Helen shows up (presumably having followed Locke), says if Locke needs his father's love more than hers, that's that, leaves, so does the father, and Locke remains on his knees and alone.
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Date: 2006-12-08 03:08 am (UTC)I look forward to reading your comments on S3, too. :) Good news: so far it's even better than S2 (IMHO). 'Course, it could be because half the Alias staff joined Lost.
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Date: 2006-12-08 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 08:23 pm (UTC)YES! I wholeheartedly agree with that. Sometimes, there's just a little too much testosterone on this show. Not that it isn't lovely testosterone, mind you, but sometimes it's nice to see what the girls (and not just Kate) are up to. Though after season 2, there aren't a whole lot of girls left. Three were killed, and poor Cindy vanished before we got to know her.
As to your last paragraph: which partner do you mean? Desmond's partner, Kelvin? Or Kelvin's original partner? I believe that partner's name was Radinsky or Radzinsky or something like that, and I thought Kelvin had told Desmond that he died before Desmond arrived. My theory about the food drop was that, as long as the button was being pushed, Dharma kept making their drops as scheduled, and don't actually know what's going on in the hatch, or who is manning it.
Oh, and the moment when the gang came across the HUGE pile of pneumatic tube cylinders (or whatever they're called) was probably one my favorites of the season. It such an OMG kind of moment, because it totally switched around my thinking of what was going on, sicne I'd fallen for the theory that the Swan hatch was the psychological experiment rather than the Pearl hatch being the fake. But after seeing that little scene, I'm convinced that the intention of the Pearl hatch was always for those logs to go nowhere. That the Pearl was the psychological experiment, and no one was ever going to read their notes.
I just love this show. :) And I'm in serious withdrawal right now because we're in the middle of the Season 3 hiatus until late February!
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Date: 2006-12-07 08:31 pm (UTC)Partner: I meant Kelvin's original partner. And I know Kelvin said he shot himself, but then again, how do we know Kelvin wasn't lying to Desmond about that? He sure was re: need for quaranteene...