selenak

After having watched season 2 of Lost on DVD, I mentioned in my review that Michael appeared to me as an interesting counterpoint and critique to a much beloved fannish archetype: the ruthless father willing to do anything for the safety of his child, including – indeed especially – selling parts of his soul. If Jack Bristow does this on that other Abrams show, Alias, the audience loves him for it and applauds. But then, the narrative is on Jack’s side. He never hurts or kills people the audience cares about – with the arguable exception of Will in early season 2, but the audience knows framing Will with heroin is actually saving Will’s life, so again, no problem there in terms of affection for Jack, and his ruthless gambits always pay off. Michael, on the other hand, doesn’t get privileged by the story in the same way. First, his desperation to keep Walt safe endangers members of the cast we like (early s2), and then, it drives him to kill two people the audience knows and has bonded with. He achieves the goal he has aimed for – Walt back and a way off the island – but instead of admired and applauded, he’s loathed for it. Michael exposes the ugly side of “everything for my child”, the one where we’re invited to look at what his protective actions cost the rest of the world, and not in a supervillain way, where it could be discounted, but in an everyman way that’s guaranteed to disturb. Because between if you wonder “what would I do in this situation, and how would I fare?”, what is more likely, that you’ll end up being Bristow, Jack Bristow, or Michael Dawson?

As good as I found this narrative choice, I wondered whether we’d simply be in for a repeat, if Michael’s return this season was still motivated by needing to keep Walt safe, if Ben still blackmailed him this way. A repeat is never as interesting as the original version. But no, the writers went for another direction, and I applaud them for it. Walt is indeed safe now (and presumably will stay with his grandmother in Manhattan for a while, as that actor keeps growing way beyond looking like a ten years old). Now, in Alias in the early seasons, we often get situations like this:

Jack: *does something dastardly*
Sydney: I’ll never forgive you!
Jack: *looks stoic*
Half an episode, or sometimes an entire episode: *passes*
Jack’s reason for dastardly deed: *is revealed as having been all about Sydney*
Sydney: *makes poignant gesture of renewed father/daughter bond*

No such luck and support by the narrative for you, Michael. Walt apparently was horrified to have been the cause of two murders, understandably so. Michael can’t return to the life he had pre-island (and pre-Walt, for that matter), either. He’s guilty, he’s haunted, and he’s trying to commit suicide in complicated ways. (Though on second thought, crashing his car against a wall isn’t as out of there as I first assumed – it has at least the benefit of not endangering anyone else.) And then he finds out that this is hell, nor is he out of it, to paraphrase Mephistopheles, because the island won’t let anyone die if it doesn’t want that death.

(Which has interesting implications for the definite deaths we had as well as the resurrections. But I’ll get to that.)

Tom shows up, proving – as do Naomi and McCousky (spelling?) later yet again that on Lost, you have a life and ongoing guest spots after death, and delivers the happy news of Michael’s sentenced-to-life existence as well as another Faustian bargain. While he’s around in flashback, we also get casually shown Tom was gay, which is neatly done; it has nothing to do with his being a ruthless Other, it’s just a part of his character, as Juliet’s heterosexuality is of hers. And in an expected juxtaposition of last week’s scene with Gault pinning the dead bodies and the fake airplane on Ben, we get Tom pinning it on Charles Widmore. While I suspect Ben is responsible for a lot of things, including something else that happens in this episode, I assume in this particular case, we can believe Ben’s minion over Widmore’s minion, simply because Widmore has the better resources in the outside world to pull off something like that, and also because Widmore was searching for the island long before that plane crashed.

Speaking of Ben and minions: I note that Miles doesn’t refute Ben’s claim that the Freighter people are supposed to kill everyone on the island once he’s dead, but that doesn’t have to mean it’s true; Miles appears to have come to the conclusion that even if Ben can not provide immediate cash, it’s better to be on his team anyway by virtue of him being the smartest guy around and wait for the cash to arrive later.

Meanwhile, we see more of the freighter people – who continue to get nicely fleshed out – and what we see still keeps everyone’s veracity nicely ambiguous. Frank the pilot continues to be sympathetic, so is the late McCousky, Gault the captain has some scary mercenaries on board and is clearly in the Charles-Laughton-as-Bligh mode (my inner historian prevents me from saying “Bligh” as the genuine article was not like his on screen counterparts), Naomi is quickly catching up with Ethan in the “most often showed after initial demise” department, and Sayid’s general calmness and collectedness gets a break as he outs Michael to Gault. Methinks that’ll be the incident that Ben refers to in the flash forward where he says to Sayid “what happened the last time when you lead your heart rule your head”. Mind you, I doubt they brought Harold Perrineau back just to kill him off in the next episode, so whatever Gault does, it won’t be killing Michael – which is presumably what Sayid expects him to do; it’s probably going to be something very bad for the general island population.

Which appears to have been reduced by two. Though I’m not 100% sure about Danielle Rousseau – the island could pull a Locke on her, since she only has one bullet, but alas Danielle is not a regular, so her chances aren’t that good, especially since the Freighter Four are new recurring guest stars the show clearly wants to explore this season, and there is the question of screentime. Karl is definitely dead. Given that he dies immediately after that exchange with Alex about finally sharing something with Ben – wanting Alex to live -, this points to Ben as the culprit (not in a trigger-pulling, in a set up way) in a big way (i.e. Ben wants Alex to live and be safe, absolutely, but he doesn’t have that wish for everyone else, especially not for competition like Danielle and unwanted suitors like Karl), which is, this being Lost, the only reason why I’m not 100% sure he did set it up. It seems almost too obvious. Though then again, sometimes the too obvious is true on this show, too. Anyway, both Ben having left orders with some of the Others to take out Rousseau and Karl and Ben making another attempt to get Alex out of the Freighter/Island fireline would be in character (he did ask Rousseau to take her away, not to tell him where they went but just leave with Alex in the season opener, after all, and that couldn’t have been a set up since their destination would have been up to Danielle), so I’m willing to go with whichever the show will verify. In any case, Danielle Rousseau: you were a cool character and a rare chance to see Mira Furlan again, and if you’re gone for good (except for flashbacks), I will grieve for you.

Lastly: Ben’s long-distance enlisting of Michael was another scary demonstration of his manipulative skills, this time using Michael’s guilt and death wish instead of his love for Walt. And did anyone else think during the Sayid – Michael confrontations “take a good look, Sayid, this is your future” ?