Lost: S1E3

I find it funny that the very first thing that the Lost crew does is release an episode about the nature of knowledge. Given how many people were all about trying to dissect the show and figure it out I find it ironic that the first thing the show does is go out of its way to discuss the basic ideas of information. You've got Kate, for whom information is a threat to truth, Sawyer, who refuses to act on information and condemns a man to death, and Jack tries to let information go and focus on the task at hand. If there is any episode that states the inadequacy of approaching this show as merely as a puzzle to be solved it's this one.

So, the sum up is that the air marshal is dying, and Jack accidentally finds out that Kate is a murderer. The episode dips a bit into Kate's backstory, showing her rather dodgy history with the truth. We also dip a bit into Michael's issues with Locke. And see Sawyer fail to be a decent person for not the last time.

AN ACTUAL SCENE WHERE TOO MUCH INFO IS A BAD THING. HOW MUCH MORE OBVIOUS CAN WE GET?

But seriously, the above scene is hilarious in hindsight when you realize Sun knows English... and therefore knows everything Michael is saying. I dunno, That's a fun layer of stuff to read back later. And this is one of the funnier moments, at least for me. Yeah, I think it's funny.

The truth around Kate is complicated, and is therefore hard to communicate adequately. She had killed the man who had abused her multiple ways, after finding out that he's actually her father. That's... complicated. That's not a simple thing to explain to anyone. So why would Kate even attempt to do so, to anyone? I think Kate is totally justified in not sharing the truth with anyone, ever. It's really not a grey thing, at least to me. 

So yeah, I'm gonna die on that hill.

Come at me, folks.

Moving onto someone else, Sawyer doesn't care about anyone else's truth. Like, at all. I'd forgotten just how insufferable Sawyer was at the beginning. There's a lot of really grinding stereotypical remarks going on, which just grind all the harder when you take characters like Sayid and call them "Al-Jazeera". Sawyer's mind is perpetually made up and that just makes him grate and grate and grate... right up until the end, when Sawyer decides enough's enough and he's going to act on his stupid ideas. It doesn't go well, what a surprise! He talks Kate into giving him the gun the others had entrusted her with. And condemns the marshal to a horrifying desk, because Sawyer is a jackass. This won't be the last time Sawyer condemns people to horrible fates because he thinks he knows best. And it's all out, right here, in the third episode of the show.

Jack wants to focus on the matter at hand, and tries to only use the information he thinks is relevant to that situation, despite everyone else wanting him to jump to conclusions about Kate and the marshal. I really Jack's ending statement: everyone should get the chance to start all over. Given what we'll find out about Jack we know he's saying that about himself is a lot more than he would say that about anyone. Jack has always wanted to be the hero. He's always wanted to be the hero. Now that he's got that chance Jack tries to live up to what he always wanted to be. And he impresses that upon Kate at the end. 

But it's Locke who has the best idea: realizing that the truth can only take you so far, given how fragile everyone can be. Seeing how Michael and Walt can barely carry on a conversation, Locke ignores Michael's hatred to help the father out. I really like how Locke just sits through most of the episode, crafting that whistle, focusing on the one thing he knows he can do right.

And, once everyone starts doing that, for however short a time they can manage, you get this incredible ending.

 I leave you with that ending, because there's something special about it. This remains one of my favorite episodes.

Lost: The End

Lost: Season 1 Episodes 1 and 2 (Pilot)

 

I have been sitting at my computer for the last fifteen minutes trying to sum up what this pilot has meant to me, over the years. This was my first time I understood craft; I watched this pilot and realized what they were doing, why they were doing it, and I wanted to do it myself. Heck, needed to do it myself. It's also a beautifully shot pilot. The pilot not only holds up to nostalgia but helped me realize that this was as close to an ideal of a serialized beginning as you can get.

Lost is, at its heart, a fantasy; you are changing elements of a setting to explore them in a different way. Fantasy is about making things just alien enough to where you can look at the unchanged elements with fresh eyes. The Lord of the Rings is about exploring love versus power; change power to an actual dark lord with a magic ring that has addictive properties, and you have a compelling take on why love will win out. Lost is a fantasy about dealing with what's precious within you. Do you give your light wisely, do you try to push people away to protect yourself (and thus put yourself in Hell), or do you try to destroy it so you can get away? There's as many answers to that question as people, but Lost is a treatise on how you relate to yourself, and thus to others. Lost adds the Light of the Island to further clarify the theme of relationship to self and others, as well as the Man in Black to show how to not relate to that Light.

Lost is not dualistic. The Man in Black is not an anti-Light; he is an anti-Jacob, but that's not the same thing.

Every episode of this show lets us see how the subjects of the episode are going to relate to themselves and each other, and why. And the pilot is in this structure, with fine style. We learn about Jack, principally. I say principally, because this pilot accomplishes the staggering goal of introducing us to each primary character while not telling us a whole lot about them: show don't tell. Even Jack isn't explained a whole lot and we see his flashbacks! We are deliberately shown only the surface. The pilot sticks to stereotypes. Jack is the rugged hero, Kate the helpful mate, Locke and Sawyer the mysterious outsiders, Hurley and Charlie are the man-children... we could just keep going. 

Everyone is archetypal. Elemental. Primal. The writers show us a preview of how the characters might interact together, without going into too much detail. They clearly know their characters well enough to be okay with putting them in situations that shows them at their most reactive, with each character running into situations that they just wouldn't do, not normally. A lot of these previews are meant to be partially deceptive; we know that Locke is sitting around because he's in shock and trying to process being able to walk again. But we're not told that. It's all surface, but the surface is so intriguing that I found myself being willing to just go along for the ride.

And then the pilot dies. 

And everyone has to ask "What's out there?". 

I love that it's Charlie that's asking. He's got a recovery arc ahead of him, even though we don't know it the first viewing. Out of all the characters Charlie fears the unknown most. Addiction is an answer to the unknown: going to something known, to the point of hurting yourself. But known things are just as dangerous as unknowns. The fact that Charlie asks this from left to right is going to give American viewers a tinge that this is the right question to ask. There's a deliberate discord in this shot, where Charlie is definitely not asking because he wants the answer. But he's shot in a way where we want to know.

It's a brilliant shot.

And it's a brilliant pilot. Because it tells just enough, while showing that we don't know anything. And then making us want to know more. Question after question is poured out, along with excitement and intrigue. And then it ends the episode with a literal question to a problem that there is absolutely no context for.

This pilot is as good as it gets. What a freaking amazing show.

The Impact of Lost

A sincere thanks to my patrons, who have provided a lot of feedback and encouragement. Y'all mean a lot to me. If you want to join them  and help steer the direction of the blog it would be much appreciated. Thank you so much!

I've been thinking about Lost a lot lately. Part of it has to do with my neighbor watching it. He's a gregarious fellow and is the type of philosophical/sci-fi dude I would have assumed had watched Lost before. So he's been talking to me about it as he goes through and his mind. Just. Gets. Blown.  Which is so fun and satisfying to watch!!!

But then I began to think about it.

I owe Lost a whole hell of a lot. 

Lost, along with Clannad, cemented my tastes in high-concept and character driven fantasy. It also pushed me fully into mythology, reading classics, and demanding intensive character work in my RPGs. Much to the chagrin of literally everyone who has played with me since.

So I'd actually had a pretty low-magic/tech sensibility before Lost. Firefly is absolutely my preference over Star Trek, for instance: the problems of the human heart don't change, regardless of tech level. I had made the mistake in assuming that high-concept meant bad character development. Lost and Clannad changed that, being very high concept shows that used their concepts to forward character development. And I've not quite recovered from that rush of adrenaline since.

I was always interested in mythology. I read a lot of Greek mythology as a kid, imbibing a lot of those stories. Contrary to what a lot of people may think, I always found them to be very character-driven. And I enjoyed the arcs that mythology had to offer. Heracles and his constant drive to get ahead of Hera's jealousy, leading into his eventual ascent to godhood. The Trojan War is a key part of my consciousness. Lost reinvigorated my childhood love for mythology, and I have been slowly arcing back to a study of the older stories. It's a long work, recovering what we lost. But I have found a depth in the older works that have been preserved that we don't have these days, by and large. Lost seems to have inherited some of the older stories. And it was Lost that reminded me that I still preferred them.

Lost also lit a fire in my heart about reading the classics. Most of the characters in that show are either an overt reference to something classical or an actual author. Some of the references were merely surface level, but a lot of them weren't. And that piqued my interest. I've barely gotten through two in the ten years since: The Brothers Karamazov and The Count of Monte Cristo... although I'd count the Solar Cycle in that reckoning, even if they're not universally recognized. So I guess that's a total of seven. I've also dived a lot into primary sources in the Orthodox faith, in large part because of the uncertainty of knowledge presented in Lost. While I'd been interested in the Fathers and liturgics before then a lot of what I did after that point was because of the skepticism I found in myself to be in consonance with the show.

But the nail in the coffin was the character work. Lost was always about the characters. Always. Bad, good, inbetween, it didn't matter. Watching how the characters evolved from such basic events as needing to get food to the of the world was the point. Anyone wanting answers about the setting missed why the setting elements existed in the first place: to change the characters as they encountered the unexplainable. Wanting answers was against the point of the whole endeavor. We were meant to watch characters change in the face of the numinous. 

I've talked with Peter, my sole Peanut Gallery patron. We both want to see some commentary on this ground-breaking show, which changed so much in our world. So I'm going to start looking at this show, with the ending, the mythological framework, in mind. Hopefully y'all will find it as illuminating as Peter and I. I got a lot from and out of this show. Maybe it's nostalgia. Maybe it's gratitude. Maybe I just want something to chew on for a long time. 

Regardless, we are here.