Metakritikomentaryo: Lost

Adam David loves Lost: watching it, thinking about it, reading about it, listening to podcasts about it, talking to people about it. Now, he’s blogging about it!

Lost Season 6 Episode 7: “Dr. Linus”

Finally, what seems to be Ben’s redemption episode, where he finally breaks his own Island Narrative cycle and finally seemingly selflessly puts someone else’s interests before his own, i.e., Alex’s, although not without the Ben-trademarked scheming only in a more benign form, i.e., weaselling his way out of Detention Duty and regaining the slot for his History Club, but the principal was kind of a bigger ass than he was in the Parallel Reality so I suppose that makes it all okay, in the greater scheme of things.

What I love the most about the Parallel Reality narratives is how it’s a very handy device for easy (= quick) characterizations via making the Parallel Reality Losties be their own foils for their Island Reality selves, giving viewers an answer to a question asked by the characters by themselves if not in the show itself: “What would’ve happened if the Island Incidents did not happen?” And this is most true with this episode, where it is very strongly telegraphed to the viewers short of being bludgeoned on the head with it: “This is how Ben would have been if he didn’t grow up on the Island!” Except in this Reality, it isn’t just a possibility.

Another thing that I love about the Parallel Reality narratives is how it’s also setting up what could possibly be a very important turning point in the show – I have a feeling that somewhere down the line, in a move straight out of Philip Dick’s the Man in the High Castle, the Parallel Reality Losties will come to realize that their Reality wasn’t meant to be, that the real Reality is the Island Reality, and that they will have to make a choice between the two, which is why in almost all the Parallel Reality narratives the Losties are basically better-off, either happier, i.e., Hurley, if not more content, i.e., Locke, just so that the choice that they will have to make – choosing the Island Reality, where everyone is very much living in some form of misery but it’s the real Reality, or choosing the Parallel Reality, where everyone’s happy but it’s a false Reality – will be all that much more important for everyone, or at least, makes for better TV.

One reason why I’ve latched onto this theory is how that is more or less obviously the trajectory whenever we see Jack’s Parallel Reality, and to a lesser degree, Locke’s. They always seem to be almost out of sync in the Parallel Reality, as if always just catching up, always noticing idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies: Jack’s appendectomy scar, Locke’s Greater Destiny, Jack’s cut in the airplane toilet, Jack seemingly knowing who Kate is but can’t really remember exactly, even Charlie’s throwaway line “I was supposed to die!” in the plane after Jack saved him. It’s all very under the surface, which is how Lost plays it more often than not.

And in this episode, everyone just really ups and tells everyone else just what’s up: all questions asked were actually answered, or in the case of Richard and Jack, was answered off-camera and will be revealed to us in the next-next episode. It was really funny, watching this, and made me realise that it’s not really Lost if it’s not asking questions and not bothering to answer them – but of course, all of them answering is a very good change of pace.

One major nitpick, though: the writing here was more blatantly obvious than with the other episodes, more generous with its efforts for mirroring and juxtaposing the two realities that it almost felt like it was too obvious, reminiscent of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen and more or less reminded me why that book’s verbatim movie adaptation didn’t really work that well – the deliberate literary echoes/resonances for ironic effect in the dialogue registered as more clunky and less artsy, as if the show was winking too much at us and far too often that it sort of spoiled most things for me, like watching the show with a film undergrad annotating it for me scene-by-scene and in each and every piece of dialogue and their overall significance and effectivity in the use of filmic language.

Curiously enough, though, the episode actually shines in its use of the more visual aspects of film language – this is the only episode of Lost that I actually noticed to have made more-than-usual efforts with camera movements and framing and editing all to portray visually what the story was trying to convey narrative-wise: symmetry (again, glimmers of Watchmen), the cause-and-effect bleeding through the two realities. This was an episode that was very cleverly very consciously very deliberately shot, and the cherry on top of the whole thing is that it was directed by the one and the only Mario Van Peebles, and that fact just gave me all sorts of geekgasms.

Small things that I really loved: the small slivers of humane characterization with how what Arzst only really wanted in return for helping Ben is a change of parking space and better lab equipment and how Sun only momentarily seemingly thinks twice about letting Ben help her with fixing the tarp. Miles continues to be effortlessly funny, most especially with his “uh-oh.”

I love the symmetry between Ben and Richard both losing hope on Jacob and his plans for the two of them despite coming from more or less different trajectories, and Locke and Fake Locke both asserting their support of the two Bens only one is more practical and an attempt to make small talk while the other is just simply malevolent. Ben’s figurative and literal digging of his own grave was funny, too.

About Jacob’s Gift, though: I’ve long believed that Jack would have to make the Ultimate Sacrifice™ for the Island and the Losties, only Jacob’s Gift sort of tosses a very huge spanner into that idea – or pretty much to everyone else’s potential for heroic suicide, unless they dive into it without really intending to die? But that negates it being a sacrifice. At any rate, I still think Jack (and a buncha other peeps from the six remaining candidates) will still have to make a sacrifice for the Island and one another eventually, only right now it seems like it wouldn’t be as important or symbolic as it could be. We’ll see!

Next: Sawyer cons and cons again!

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