LOST 032 - You Conned My Father, Prepare To Die
LOST 032 - You Conned My Father, Prepare To Die
Unpacking the TV show LOST — Season 3: Episodes 18-19
This essay is cross-posted on Substack from The Reframe.com.
It's that time again, people and others. You can't always get what you LOST, but you LOST what you need.
Previously, on LOST: Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on a mystery island full of mysteries. Adventures and killings have happened ever since. Our heroes the Oceanic survivors live on the beach (that's good) but are being manipulated by demigods (that's bad), and they're locked in an often-deadly struggle with a cult that's been on the island for decades or perhaps even centuries already. The cult worships a demigod they call "Jacob," (that's good) but they're being manipulated by another malevolent demigod (that's bad). The Jacobians believe they are opposing this malevolent being (that's good) even though they are largely carrying out Its bidding without knowing it (that's bad). This is often how it goes with cults in case you didn't know. There's also a guy on the beach named Neil who used to own a frogurt stand. (That's good.) The frogurt is also being manipulated by demigods. (That's bad.)
The Jacobians have a big problem; on-island conceptions invariably result in pregnancies that terminate just the way Texas Republicans like it—that is to say in the death of both baby and mother. This has forced the Jacobians to rely upon occasional recruitment and frequent abduction to keep their numbers up. The Jacobian's fertility doctor, smirk-aficionado Juliet Burke, has now joined the Oceanics on their beach, ostensibly because she's been excommunicated for violent infractions, but in actuality in order to observe and select fertile specimens for the Jacobians to recruit and/or abduct.
Meanwhile, there's this Scottish guy named Desmond who can see the future in bits and pieces, and he and his hand-selected motley crew (Hurley, Charlie, Jin) have followed his latest vision into the jungle, where they discovered an envoy from a rescue mission: a mystery parachutist who was badly injured when her helicopter crashed. This is very important because most of our Oceanics really want to be rescued. Most, I say, because even meanwhile-er ...
... the Oceanics' resident mystic/hunter/tracker/former paraplegic John Locke does not want to be rescued, and apparently doesn't want anyone else rescued, either. He recently blew up the Jacobians' submarine, which we're told is the only reliable conveyance on and/or off the island. Yet rather than feeling the harsh sting of correction and rebuke, he's been allowed to join up with the faction of Jacobians led by Machiavellian imp Ben Linus, for reasons that are as yet mostly unexplained. For reasons totally unexplained, the Jacobians have Locke's murderous con man of a father tied up in one of their basements. And nobody seems to know what to get Millie and Jimmy for their wedding present. I mean we're dealing with a lot of shit here.
Let's do our observations and our beliefs.
O B S E R V A T I O N
I have been predicting for some time that once we reach the point in LOST's production that the creators received a solid end date from the network, we'd see the narrative rope go taut once again, and we sure have. What I wasn't anticipating is what that would do to the pace of these watch-through pieces. Anyone reading along knows that I've kept a steady pace of three episodes most times, but it's becoming clear that this isn't going to be practical anymore. You can do three episodes when the buried backstory is being parceled out in tiny incremental pieces, or even ignored entirely for whole episodes while Sawyer feuds with a boar or chases a tree frog. You can't do it when the whole story starts driving toward The Big Revelations, especially when those revelations are essayed mostly through characters who have their own agendas, and who mostly lie, and lie best by telling mostly the truth.
What I'm saying is there's going to be a lot more stuff-per-episode (SPE) to pick through. As I consider the SPE on the storylines I know are coming, I'm guessing that the days of 3-episode entries is going away; it's probably going to be 2-episode and even 1-episode entries from here.
This is good news to me. I don't mind writing longer rather than shorter on this show, obviously. Hopefully this is good news for you, too. For those who would rather have less than more, as an experiment, I'll begin the episode recaps with a short version before doing the long version. OK? OK.
Behold: LOSTstuff.
Episode 18: D.O.C. (Sun and Jin, but mostly Sun): The short of it is that Sun learns that she conceived on the island, which means that, like all pregnant island people, she doesn't have long to live. Meanwhile Desmond's party saves the mystery parachutist's life, with a big assist from the Jacobians' mystery Russian, and thanks to the expectations-far-exceeded efforts of this week's MVP, Jin.
The long of it is that Sun is pregnant and isn't 100% sure who the papa is. Pre-island, she learned that Jin is infertile, and she was having a teensy old affair with her English tutor, back when she was planning to escape from her toxic husband and loveless marriage. Juliet, meanwhile, is still establishing trust among the people Ben has ordered her to betray, so she takes Sun to the old Dharma Staff station to run some tests. Good news! the baby is Jin's! Bad news! That means the baby was conceived on-island, which means that Sun's doomed to death! Sun is happy, though; it appears she'd rather bleed out than have to bear the shame of an appearance on a Jerry Springer paternity episode. Still, when it comes to a deadline for getting off the island, this Sun is setting. Juliet secretly records an update for Ben, who she hates—which we know, because she says so.
In flashback, we learn that Sun was blackmailed by Jin's mother, who it turns out was a prostitute back at Jin's old fishing village. She threatens to go public if Sun won't pay out, and to save Jin (and herself) the public shame, she takes money from her father, the automotive CEO/mafia kingpin (the show can never decide which and just positions him as a mafia kingpin but in a corporate CEOs office, and I know, I know, what's the difference haw haw haw, but there is a character difference between Tony Soprano and Logan Roy, even if they are both monsters, and I don't know but it feels weird to try to make Paik be both monsters simultaneously and this is just one of my funny quibbles of which I will never let go). This creates a debt that both daughter and father agree Jin will have pay off through mob-enforcer work. Yes, however questionably well-intentioned her motives, Sun was responsible for the situation that threw Jin's humanity into hazard in the first place. I don't think he ever learns that. Dang, Sun. That's cold.
Meanwhile, the mystery parachutist's come down with a bad case of a tree branch through her abdomen. She needs medical attention, and she gets it from Mikhail, the eye-patched Russian military Dharma dude who we last saw getting murdered by sonic fence courtesy of Locke. Mikhail was apparently only mostly dead and stumbles upon our away team. Jin singlehandedly chases Mikhail down, and wins the ensuing fight with a perfectly-executed AB+up+up roundhouse kick. Subdued, Mikhail offers his services as a field medic and patches the parachutist, assuring the gang that, despite the severity of her injury, she will heal in about a day, because "on this island, the rules are a bit different." After this there's some talk about whether to keep Mikhail as prisoner (impractical, it's decided), kill him (Charlie votes yes) or let him go (Desmond argues for this). Ultimately the majority opinion is that they aren't cold-blooded killers, so they let Mikhail go, but not before Jin catches him trying to make off with the parachutist's satellite phone. Ha-yuge episode for Jin! He's learning English, his boys can swim, he beats up a Russian badass, and he keeps the hope of contacting a potential rescue mission alive. Just a world-class performance from a guy who in Season 1 couldn't even deliver a watch without fucking it up.
The parachutist wakes up, and delivers upsetting news: They can't be the survivors of Oceanic 815. Oceanic 815 was found in the ocean. Everyone on Oceanic 815 is dead.
Hurley (and us): "What?"
End of Episode 18.
Episode 19: THE BRIG (Locke): A big episode here. The short of it is that Locke has to kill his dad to prove himself to the Jacobians, in a test devised by Ben Linus, but he can't bring himself to do it, so he tricks Sawyer into doing it. Locke gets the idea to do this from a man who had until now seemed to be Ben Linus' trusted lieutenant, Richard Alpert. Also the parachutist is back on the beach, her name is Naomi, and nobody (except Kate) trusts Jack.
The long of it is that Ben Linus and the Others are on tour and Locke is the opening act, by which I mean they are travelling to (as Ben puts it) "a new place—well, an old place, actually"—and are now in a gorgeous valley chilling in some really sweet-looking tents. Locke is being stared at by the Others like he's a celebrity of some kind, which is ... interesting. Cindy, the Oceanic 815 flight attendant/tail section survivor, is there, and is definitely a Jacobian, and the vibe she's giving is not "recent recruit." It's notable only because it means that as previously theorized, there was definitely a member of a Jacobian sect on Oceanic 815, which means that somebody already knew that Oceanic 815 would be arriving on the island, even though it was an accident whose causes couldn't have been predicted. How did they know? Interesting question! To be addressed some other time!
Cindy tells Locke everyone is staring because "we've been waiting for you," which means everyone is excited. Locke is excited, too! He's finally in the Island Club!
Ben is excited, too, he claims. He tells Locke how special Locke is, which is clearly what Locke likes to hear. Apparently the moment Locke arrived at the Dharma barracks, Ben started to recuperate from his spinal surgery in expedited islandy ways, which makes Locke even specialer. Ben tells Locke that he really wants to tell Locke all about the island—he just can't wait to do so!—but there's a catch: When people join up with Jacobians, they make a sacrifice to prove their commitment to the island, so Ben needs Locke to kind of sort of murder his dad? kind of sort of right over there? over on the pillar of killin', sort of?
Sure enough, as we now see in a (perhaps unintentionally) hilarious cutaway, the Jacobians have brought Locke's dad along and tied him up to a stone pillar thing, and he's just standing there while everyone else just goes about their everyday business tra-la-la. According to Ben, Locke is the one who made his father appear out of the "magic box" of the island (though Ben now admits the "magic box" is metaphorical), and this manifestation is an obvious sign from the island itself that Papa Locke is an entanglement of Locke's previous life from which he needs to free himself, preferably with the perhaps-ceremonial stabby knife Ben proffers.
Locke ultimately can't do the deed, so Ben publicly expresses his disappointment; "he isn't who we thought," he tells the gathered Jacobians. They leave Locke behind. As they go, Ben instructs him not to return without a dad-shaped corpse.
Before they go, however, there's a scene—an important one—in which Richard Alpert takes Locke aside and tells him that the whole shebang is Ben's attempt to embarrass and discredit Locke. Richard hands Locke a dossier, which we'll learn is an impressively deep file on one James Ford, aka Sawyer, aka the guy who carries a letter he wrote as a boy expressing his intention to murder the con-man (also named Sawyer) who seduced James' mother and took all his father's money, leading to a murder-suicide that aw heck you saw the episode.
Hmm. Richard just got a lot more interesting.
Locke finds Sawyer during a nocturnal pee break and lures him under false pretense to the Black Rock (the mystery ship in the middle of the jungle). Locke's stored his dad in the ship's brig, so there's our episode title right there. Locke barricades Sawyer in the brig with Cooper, putting his two bugs in a jar and shaking it up. It takes a minute, but eventually Inigo Sawtoya figures out the truth, and takes out his murder letter for one last read before he strangles Cooper to death with a chain. Josh Holloway is very good in this episode, is my opinion.
Locke follows the Jacobians' trail with grim resolve on his face and his dad's corpse on his back. Sawyer heads back to the Oceanic beach camp with haunted eyes, and a warning from Locke—along with proof (in the form of Ben's mini-cassette player)—that Juliet is a mole working to help the Jacobians abduct even more Oceanics.
In the B plot, the away team has carried Naomi back to the beach—in secret, because they no longer trust Jack and his Juliet-trusting ways. But they also realize they need a better leader than Desmond, so The Gang Recruits Sayid. Naomi tells Sayid that she's from a freighter that's anchored just offshore, which we will come to discover she is, and that she is on an expedition funded by Penelope Widmore to find Desmond—which we will come to find out she absolutely is not. We'll get to that soon—but not today.
In flashbacks, well ... there kind of isn't a flashback. Or rather the earlier thread of the on-island story is the flashback, and the later thread of the on-island story is the "present." Or you could say it's vice versa, and this story employs flash forwards. It all depends on your perspective. Hmm. That's interesting. Probably won't happen again.
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B E L I E F
Let's dig into what we all saw, and I'll tell you what I believe. We'll cover this using 10 direct quotes.
1) "On this island, the rules are a bit different." So again, we keep learning that deadly things and injuries aren't as deadly or injurious on the island as they are elsewhere. Mikael delivers this line about Naomi, but he may as well have been talking about himself. Mikael looked pretty dead after he went through the sonic fence, and next episode he'll explain this by telling Ben that he was lucky the setting was on stun. Maybe so, though I don't know why you'd have a stun setting on a fence built to contain a smoke monster. Me, I believe Mikael is somebody the island won't let die. He's going to overcome a harpoon through the chest before it's all over. And why won't the island let him die? I think for the same reason the island won't let Charlie live. He's got a quantum-entangled part to play.
2) "Charlie, let him go!" Desmond says this about Mikhail. Charlie wants to kill a Russian; Desmond is the one who argues for giving their enemy a hall pass. This isn't entirely out of character for either of them ... but I recommend that we remember that Desmond is a man out of time who can see different future possibilities, and that he has been using this ability in order to keep Charlie alive from a series of unfortunate events. Just one episode ago, though, Desmond was willing to let events take their course on Charlie, because he saw a Charlie-death that gave Desmond what he wanted most of all: a reunion with his great love Penny. Ultimately Desmond saved Charlie, which threw his assurance of that reunion into hazard.
Now that you've remembered all that, I'd like to inform you that the decision to let Mikhail go will lead directly to a Charlie-death that results in a great number of things, one of which is ... Desmond's reunion with Penelope.
Did Des see that sequence of events in his flashes before his eyes? Is he choosing a death for Charlie here? We're never told, and maybe not, but that's what I believe.
3) "They found your plane ... there were no survivors. They were all dead." Naomi says this to Hurley. It's going to be a hanging mystery for a while.
We're going to discover that this is Charles Widmore's subterfuge. He dug up a cemetery and filled an airliner doctored to resemble Oceanic 815 and filled the fuselage with corpses before sinking it in the Pacific. We can unpack the whys and wherefores when all of these shenanigans are revealed, I suppose. I guess for now I'll note that this makes Charles Widmore an all-time crazy bastard.
I think it was introduced because the writers want to play with one of the most popular fan theories that was floating around; in fact, it remains so popular that many viewers still believe it to be the case, even though it gets repeatedly and directly refuted, not only in interviews with the show's creators, but within the show itself.
What is that theory? Well ...
4) "This is hell." Cooper says this a few times. He comes by the belief honestly; according to him, he remembers his car hitting the divider, then a paramedic smiling at him as everything went black, and then the next thing he knows he was in a cell, bound and gagged, and the first person he saw was his much-abused (by him) son, John Locke, who is, as far as Cooper knows, very dead in a plane crash. And Cooper is not only the sort of guy who would end up in hell, but the sort of guy who knows it.
We'll eventually learn that Richard Alpert (Ricardus if you're nasty) was also convinced he was in hell when he first arrived on the island—convinced by his own religious beliefs, but encouraged in those beliefs by none other than The Adversary. For this reason, I believe that The Adversary probably made an appearance to Cooper, probably in the guise of one of the many victims he left in his wake—maybe even in the guise of John Locke? Maybe not. It's not clear The Adversary can manifest as Locke yet. Someday he will be able to, though, and time on the island, as we will learn, is a tricky, tricky thing.
Anyway the writers are playing with the "they were dead all along and the island is the afterlife" trope a bit too much, in my opinion, since so many casual viewers are still confused about this matter.
5) "A new place ... well, an old place, actually." Ben says this to Locke, when asked where the Jacobians are heading. I believe this is the Temple. There's really very little reason to believe it isn't. We'll see Jacobians retreat to the Temple in Season 6, when they (correctly) believe there is deadly trouble on the way.
This is why I believe that Ben knows there is deadly trouble on the way, incidentally. Much more about this some day soon.
6) "I'm not a murderer." Locke says this to Sawyer, the clear implication being and you are a murderer, which Sawyer is, so point to Locke, I guess. What I'd like to point out here is that when Locke needs to get somebody killed, he doesn't bloody his own hands. Instead, he gets somebody else to do it, which he accomplishes by targeting somebody as executioner, then playing on their traumas and insecurities and resentments, then acting under false pretense to put both of his victims—killer and killed—in proximity to one another, then letting things take their course.
What I'm saying is that Locke is acting a lot like the entity with whom he's been working very closely and very secretly—the entity who has been manipulating him by playing on his traumas and insecurities and resentments, and telling him that he is very special—which should sound familiar, because it's also what Ben is telling Locke, and what I can only assume The Adversary has been telling them both. I believe we're seeing a Locke who is operating to some degree under the Adversary's thrall, and for my money Terry O'Quinn does a good job of modulating his performance that direction, particularly if you compare it to O'Quinn's performance in later seasons. And if you know, you know.
And—I keep saying it because it keeps being important—The Adversary has also been working very closely and very secretly with Ben Linus—who will himself eventually be somebody that The Adversary grooms as an executioner, by playing on Ben's traumas and insecurities and resentments, using him to be the prospective killer of ... well. Again, if you know, you know.
7) "When people join us here on this island, they need to make a gesture of free will, of commitment. And that's why you're going to have to kill your father." This is Ben's claim to Locke, and it seems to be true to some degree. A murder pillar is apparently something the Jacobians have, or at least (if we want to say it's just a regular pillar) there really does seem to be a general expectation that Locke will ceremonially kill his father, and his failure to do so does seem to cause him to lose credibility, which I take as yet another proof of The Adversary's infiltration and corruption of these Jacob-worshippers.
But Ben also frames Cooper's presence on the island as something Locke subconsciously manifested through his special communion with the island. This is bunk in my opinion, as are most things Ben Linus. Cooper's story (see item 4) sure sounds like an arranged abduction to me. The smile from the paramedic (Ethan? Tom Friendly?) is a nice touch. Ben's going to be lying to Locke a lot. This is just one of the early ones.
What's happening in my opinion is this: Ben Linus has held control over a faction of the Jacobians for quite some time—a decade or so. (Timeline corner: He wasn't the leader when he kidnapped Rousseau's daughter Alex as his own, but he probably became leader not long thereafter. She's about 16 now, so less time than that, more time than 10 years.) Now, for the first time, his leadership is being threatened, and he is doing everything he can to deal with that threat.
But threatened by whom?
Good question!
8) "I'm sorry. He's not who we thought he was." This is what Ben tells the Jacobians. This is the basis for my belief that the Jacobians all think that Locke is somebody.
But who do they think he is?
Good question!
9) "We've been waiting for you." Cindy says this to Locke. This is my basis for my belief that the Jacobians have been waiting for Locke.
But how long have they been waiting?
Good question!
We are going to eventually learn the answers to these very good questions, but it won't be until dozens of episodes have gone by, halfway through Season 5, and in true LOST fashion, nobody is going to then stop and go "oooooh remember all those good questions from Season 3 episode 19? Well those were your answers."
But I will connect the dots right now, because I love you.
10) "When word got back here that there was a man with a broken spine on the plane who could suddenly walk again, well ... people here began to get very excited, because that could only happen to someone who was extremely special. Now, Ben doesn't want anyone to think that you're special, John. Ben has been wasting our time with novelties like fertility problems. We're looking for someone to remind us that we're here for more important reasons."
Longest quote saved for last. This is what Ricardus tells Locke.
It's only partially true. People are excited to see Locke, but not because he has a healed spine. I believe Ricardus is lying because he's still not sure why John Locke doesn't seem to know the truth, and because he himself isn't entirely sure what the truth is. I suspect that Ricardus was hoping that John would be able to tell him, and I think that this uncertainty is making Ricardus cautious.
Here's the truth: The survivors of Oceanic 815 are one of the island's greatest mysteries.
It's possible to travel through time on this island, though very few people (if any) know it, and even fewer (if any) know how. Only a handful of days from this moment with Ricardus and the dossier, John Locke is going to travel in time. He's going to show up here and there and everywhere, scattered throughout the island's past. In fact, a lot of our Oceanic characters are going to show up here and there and everywhere in the island's past, and Ricardus is going to meet them, and so is Ben Linus, and so are a lot of the Jacobians.
Wait, did I say is going to?
How about already has?
From the perspective of people on the island, especially Ricardus, the Oceanics have been on the island a very long time. They're ghosts, flashing in and then flashing out. They've been directly and materially involved in some of the most critical moments in the history of this island. Why do you think the Jacobians have such thick dossiers on our heroes? How long do you think they've been watching them?
The survivors of Oceanic 815 are indeed all special people, but John Locke is particularly special to the Jacobians.
Locke is special because in 1954, John Locke is going to walk into the Jacobian camp—a camp that looks very much like the ones we see here—and he's going to announce to Ricardus and the rest that he, John Locke, is their leader. And then he is going to disappear in a flash of white light.
Is going to? No. Already did.
Ben Linus' leadership is being threatened by who? By John Locke.
Why? Because the people Ben leads have been waiting for John Locke.
Who do they think Locke is? They think he is their leader. They think that because Locke told them so himself, fifty years in the past, or one week in the future depending on whether you are Ricardus or John Locke.
How long have the Jacobians been waiting? Fifty years. That's when they first met him, They've been waiting ever since.
And then, a couple months ago—not looking a day older than he looked back in 1954—if anything, looking a couple of months younger—John Locke and all of the rest of the island's strange ghosts fell out of the clear blue sky.
They've been there all along.
But now they have arrived.
L O S T
Next Time: Daddy, Wizards & Hobbits
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A.R. Moxon is the author of The Revisionaries, and the essay collection Very Fine People, which are available in most of the usual places, and some of the unusual places. He is also co-writer of Sugar Maple, a musical fiction podcast from Osiris Media which goes in your ears. If time were only part of the equation, then he could draw the boundaries of our cage.