[Editor and Author's Note: These weekly recaps will be cross-posted over at Vinyl is Heavy. We encourage comments at either joint.]
Though we got a glimpse of how good things would get early on with Jack looking into the mirror, tipping a hand to doubles, the real money came after that CGI plunge to reveal the foot, after the first commercial break: Kate, midair, hanging off a branch. There's even a wide shot to show her in a space of branches, the frame all a zig-zag of lines around this lady. After last season's record-skip start that saw our principals shuffled through time across the island's 20th century, here we get time as a tree. It's gnarled and knotty and nutty. It's branching, manifest in the title of the episode, too, with that "X" sitting apart from the "LA" as a clever signpost of things at a cross, or overlaid, or collapsed yet separate. Every turn's effect depends on a few different histories, including yours. Like any good soap opera, you've got to have your stories straight—and catch up is near impossible in the space of one episode. That fearless game of "stay with me" is what keeps amazing me with Lost. This show trusts its audience. However, it also asks a lot.
Yet my biggest complaint of the first night wasn't the speed of plot—that's the fun of the later seasons—but, call me crotchety, the frequency of the commercials. Were I not prone to front line fandom (I saw Avatar on opening day at the first IMAX 3D show possible after all), I would only ever watch Lost on demand/DVR. It's such a compelling chiasmus—both twining and untwining the plot; that X goes along two lines—that I, like so many, get impatient and anxious. I need to know!
That said, it's all falling into place in a lot of fun ways, most particularly with this new Locke, or as I am going to call him from here on, Dark Locke, after his Man-in-Black heritage. (Guess we could call him Johnny Locke, or Cash Locke or some silly combo, too, but Dark Locke sounds like Darth Vader and I dig that more.) The scenes in the foot centered around the "reveal" of Dark Locke's identity were some of the best tête-à-tête match ups of the show between its two best (here I mean compelling) characters and character actors. Terry O'Quinn, in particular, kills it. He's got most of the best moments of the show, of this episode, and he seems to know it; there's an actorly glee about him when he says, "Sorry you had to see me that way," after, well, killing a cadre of Jacob-followers as the so-called smoke monster. (He also grins through, "Let's not get into name-calling.") This Dark Locke's more than vengeful: he's that great villain archetype of one part tyrant (unstoppable, apparently immortal) and one part sadist (I think the character, not just O'Quinn, is having fun toying with these pawns).
If it wasn't clear last season that we've left Sci-Fi for Fantasy, it should be doubly discernible at this point. I'm sure there's some physics I don't know behind the branching-universe (and -time) ideas at the core of this season's apparent structuring, but all the plot hanging on those limbs, like Kate, is wholly preposterous in the best ways possible. Put otherwise, there's no science to ghosts. Ghosts are an element of the fantastic, an interpretation of the real, not so much virtual as imagined, somehow. That's what I'm looking forward to understanding better as the season progresses: just how this specter became material, and how he can change back spectral at will again.
I'm also pretty jazzed to see how the "What If" plot plays out. Though after a few scenes I worried it would reduce itself to "look how crummy their old lives were," that scene between Jack and Locke in the missing luggage room sealed this branch's appeal. It was the one scene where I actually kinda dug Jack, for one, as it highlighted the good side of his altruism. And, for another, again, there was Terry O'Quinn all benevolent and calm. In fact, I have to say that it was O'Quinn's face in the final montage that closes "Part 1" of "LA X" that really sold me on the back-to-reality side: he projects thought unlike any of the other actors, including Michael Emerson, on the show; and he looked shamed and devastated and resigned in ways we haven't seen from Locke in some time. I'm a sucker for a misfit. And I'm loathe to admit it, but, well, I know a lot of my aversion to Matthew Fox isn't just his television-bound acting tics (how much can you nod and furrow your brow?) but also that Jack, plain and simple, is a go-getter asshole. Granted, his position in the show is very interesting, say his arc if you will, from outright hero type to confused dolt, but the dolt part has always been there. That said, it's the go-getter dolt who believes he can reverse Locke's condition, and that hubris is moving.
Back on the island, though, it's all jock all the time and even Jack's bravado is the pose of, as I chatted with some friends, a FUCKING BITCH! In that, it's almost hilarious how Cuse and Lindelof seem to want to pile on Jack. Every choice he makes on the island looks wrong. If he's our true protagonist, it's certainly fitting because of all of Oceanic Flight 815 he is the most lost, chasing one red herring after another. He never hears a voice from within that isn't colored from without. He's prey. He's looking for a shepherd, not a flock; he cannot handle a herd with any aplomb. And now he's at the mercy of John Hawkes and some temple people all obsessed with ashes (or was that gunpowder?) to protect themselves from this new Dark Locke. Oh, and, he is let off the hook for Sayeed. Guess he can't be wrong all the time.
[Next week I'm hoping to make some TV Time images to go with these random-fire ideas. Until then, thanks for reading! This season sure does look like it'll be fun!]
That's a beautiful interpretation of the branching tree; the imagery immediately struck me as lovely and sinister, but I hadn't thought it through despite the show's fondness for dropping motifs in their season openers.
I agree with Time's James Poniewozik that the most daring move of this bifurcated, multiple-worlds gambit is making much of it so sad, from Charlie's thwarted suicide to Sawyer's deciding to let Jack live only so he can suffer along with the rest of them. Even Rose and Bernard's tender domesticity, since the terra firma they've finally reached brings with it the death sentence they'd avoided on the shifting island.
The brutal crescendo, of course, being the one-two punch that is 2007′s Dark Locke callously reiterating Locke's final, helpless thought and Locke in 2004 still peddling his self-delusional bullshit about walkabouts and spiritual uplift. Interesting that Jack's the one that tempts him with hope; ominous as well, since that rarely turns out well on this show.
And one of my favorite things about Lost has always been that the lead is generally a self-righteous dick.
Thanks, Bruce, for the comment and the compliment. I would agree, too, that it's pretty bold to make the show this downtrodden. But it'll only set up a payoff of (probably tempered) triumph.
I'm amused by the contrast between Jack's instincts and Locke's special bond with the island. For a few seasons there, Jack was Mr. Skeptical, the man of science versus Locke's man of faith. Nowadays, Jack believes and pursues any theory, scientific or fantastical, and still ends up looking like, as you said, a dolt. On the other hand, Locke followed every "crazy" instinct he had and almost always came out looking like a genius.
Oh, and if I remember correctly, that's gunpowder they're using, much like the gunpowder that Jacob had around his cabin a few seasons ago, as well as the gunpowder that Jacob's follower poured around himself while in Jacob's lair. All to protect from the Smoke Monster/Dark Locke (which is why the monster attacked him by knocking the ceiling on him).
Right, around the cabin, too! Totally forgot that. And my crowd was a little too excited/loud at the moment the smoke monster came on screen so I missed what that was this time around. In any case, yes to the other stuff, too: the whole faith v. science back-and-forth is eternally amusing on this show.
Ryland, you've created a conundrum: I haven't watched the previous season of "Lost" — time management issues — and don't want any surprises spoiled, so I've deliberately avoided reading recaps by anybody, including House writers, figuring I'll consume all available writing about the series at some future date, once I've finally gotten caught up.
Yet here you go with your imaginative yet on-point metaphors, making me want to read below the jump. Bastard!
What has kept me watching this long, even more than the compelling character arcs & mysteries, is the writers' choice to keep "rebooting" or reinventing their series every season. To paraphrase David Chase, most Network T.V. shows eventually become zombie versions of their former selves – they look and dress the same, but have no life left in them. LOST avoided this fate with the epic escape from the island & quest to return, the time travel season, and now this dual timeline paradox, all of which have kept the show from sinking into obvious forumla.
Matt, thanks and sorry! Hope you didn't spoil everything for yourself by reading further…
And, Michael, yes, the recasting of the mission in each season has kept the show fresher than one would normally expect from a network show. What grinds my gears is that some fans of the earlier seasons just won't get on board with the new spins, as if the abating mysteries (in favor of adventures) are a bad thing and not a product of this insanely baroque and fantastical plot's further unfolding.
Ryland,
Yeah, I know. It's odd. Who would want to watch that for this long? The third season was already spinning it's wheels and quickly becoming hard to take seriously. The finale, though, breathed so much fresh life into the series, & the writers are still finding ways to do that.
RE: Jack & Locke. They are certainly the two central characters around which the show revolves. The only abiding theory I cling to in this show is that Lindelof and Cuse planned Locke's death as early as season 3, as part of an "end game" strategy they are just now in the home stretch of.
Anyway, to think of this show haven't not evolved, still recycling the same material from season 1 & 2, and still on the air…who would really want to watch that?
I have to question the wisdom of referring to Man-in-Black version of Locke as Dark Locke. First off, other than some very cliche clues (one wears white, the other black, etc), there's no real evidence that Jacob is actually the good guy here. Let's not forget that Jacob's followers are the Others, a vicious group of murderers, kidnappers, and thieves who will stop at nothing to achieve whatever mysterious goals they seek. And Jacob's involvement in the Losties' lives wasn't necessarily positive. Although some of his interactions seemed benevolent, in a few cases he was simply setting events into motion to get these folks to the island in the first place, which hasn't been entirely good for any of them. If the Man-in-Black's desire to kill Jacob simply ended the game between them, maybe that was for the best since the unending game they played involved the turmoil over and on the Island, the source of as much death and destruction as it was personal salvation.
I'm guessing the Man-in-Black version of Locke will turn out to be evil but I'm taking nothing at face value. If Lost has had one consistent mantra it is that nothing on the Island is ever as it initially appears to be.
I see your point, but it's mostly a bit of shorthand. And, come on, this Locke is easily darker than the one we all got to know and love before Ben killed him. My chosen moniker is more about that change manifest in O'Quinn's (awesome, hilarious, super fun) performance than it is simply about the plot.
Also, at this rate, any fan speculation seems a waste of time: we're in the home stretch! Or, I have no use for the speculation. I trust there's a plan and that it'll all lock and load together really well. And, yes, that might mean another reversal that sees John Hawkes and his bonsai-lovin honcho turn around and sabotage our "heroes" … but I doubt it.