I Am DB

I would like to state from the outset that the makers of Lost stole this episode title from me. In 2002, when it was announced that Star Wars Episode II would be called Attack of the Clones, I started a list of alternate titles that riffed on other movies. The list quickly turned into a general game of altering titles to incorporate any element of Star Wars. “Some Like it Hoth” was on my list. Had I shown the foresight to copyright my parody titles, I would now be preparing to sue the makers of Lost and the ABC television network. (I would of course offer to settle the case out of court in exchange for full-time access to the set during the production of the sixth and final season.) Instead, I must be content with knowing that I came up with the title over six years ago, and that I have the e-mail to prove it. I will share my work with you later; right now, we have more important things to consider. Starting with…

BODY OF EVIDENCE
With Sawyer “off the grid,” Horace has no choice but to bring Miles into the “circle of trust” in order to take on an important assignment. (I wonder if this is the same circle of trust into which Robert DeNiro brought Ben Stiller.) Miles notes that the location Horace is sending him to is not part of Dharma land, but in Hostile territory. Regardless, Horace gives him a package and assures him that Radzinsky is there waiting to a) take possession of it and b) send him back with one in return.

The package going back to Horace turns out to be a dead body. When he returns to deliver it, Horace is on the phone with Dr. Chang, and Miles hears him say, “Pierre, if it was caused by the electromagnetism, we need to know!” Horace now tells Miles to bring the “package” out to Dr. Chang at The Orchid. Miles seems uncomfortable with the assignment, but Horace isn’t in a patient mood. The stage for hilarity is set when Miles arrives back at the van only to find that Hurley has signed it out to deliver lunches to The Orchid’s work crew. Miles tells him to get another van, but Hurley insists they go together. “We’re going to the same place. Why don’t we carpool? It’ll help with global warming…which hasn’t happened yet, so maybe we can prevent it.”

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD?
Meanwhile, Roger Linus returns to the infirmary to discover that Ben has disappeared. Juliet says she was gone for ten minutes, and that’s pretty much the best she has to offer other than an apology. Not too smart of her, I have to say. Juliet has always been pretty resourceful, so it’s kinda strange she hasn’t thought this through more. She looks like a deer in headlights when Roger angrily demands to know where Ben is. When he storms off to notify security, Juliet says to Kate, “Well, here we go,” as if this is the beginning of the whole thing unraveling – not just the fact that they took Ben, but her whole life on the island with Sawyer.

Roger’s mood doesn’t improve as the episode goes on. When Kate tries to offer encouragement that Ben will be fine, Roger grows suspicious of her interest in his kid. She backs off, but now he’s wondering if she might have something to do with Ben’s disappearance. Later, when Roger finds Jack cleaning a classroom and kicks his water bucket across the floor, that feeling of sympathy I started to have last time we saw him –  grieving over his wife’s death and his son’s shooting – began to turn back into a feeling of “that guy’s an ass.” I try to remember the pain he’s suffering underneath it all, but he doesn’t make it easy.

That night, security officer Phil shows up at Sawyer and Juliet’s with a security tape showing Sawyer and Kate out by the pylons with Ben. He’s willing to give Sawyer a chance to explain himself, which Sawyer does….by knocking him unconscious. He tells Juliet to get some rope. Well, here we go…

THE SIXTH SENSE
While driving to The Orchid, Hurley detects a foul smell in the back of the van. He makes Miles pull over so he can check to make sure the sandwiches aren’t bad, but as he roots around in the back, he discovers the source of the odor: the body bag.

When he asks what happened to the guy, Miles says he was working, thinking about a girl, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in his tooth, which turned out to be a filling getting yanked out of its socket and through his skull. (The moral of the story is if you don’t overindulge in junk food, you’ll reduce the chances of needing fillings that might one day get yanked through your cranium by a massive electromagnetic surge. This episode of Lost is sponsored by the American Dental Association. Four out of five dentists choose Lost in the Wednesday evening, 9-10pm time slot.)

Hurley is curious as to how Miles knows details like the fact that the victim was thinking about a girl. He asks Miles point blank if he can talk to dead people. He says he understands, because he can talk to them too. At first I thought Hurley was just trying to trick him into admitting his secret, but in their next scene Hurley talked more about his experiences and I was reminded that of course, he’s had encounters – at least in his head – with Charlie, Mr. Eko, and who knows who else. Miles’ sixth sense works differently from Hurley’s, in that the latter’s seems limited to his friends or people he knows, whereas Miles hears it all…as long as there’s a body nearby, at least.

They finally arrive at The Orchid, where Dr. Chang – acting like his usual, short-tempered self – is annoyed that Hurley knows about the body. Dr. Chang sorta chews Hurley out and threatens him with a new role weighing polar bear feces on Hydra Island if he speaks of the body to anyone. He takes the corpse away and tells Miles to wait there for him. Hurley remarks that Chang is a douche.

“That douche is my dad,” Miles responds.

MORE DADDY ISSUES
Perhaps this would be a good time to comment on the episode’s flashbacks. It only took about two seasons, but we finally got a good chunk of the Miles Straume backstory. It had been widely predicted by the fan community that Miles was the son of Dr. Chang, and in this episode we learned it conclusively. But he was living off the island by the time he was six or seven years old, and he already had his gift for communing with the dead. Where did that come from? Did something he experienced as a boy on the island give him that ability, or is he just special, like Walt?

When he’s older, he questions his dying mother about his father, but she does not want to talk about him and harps on the fact that his father didn’t want them, didn’t love him, kicked them out when he was a baby, etc. But is it really that cut and dry? I mean sure, Hurley’s description of Chang is accurate, but did he really not want his family? If he did kick them out, might it have been because he somehow knew that something bad was going to happen on the island and he was trying to save them by making them think he didn’t want them? He might not have known what was coming exactly, but maybe he knew something was. Or he expected one thing, and instead suffered The Purge. Or maybe he died before the Purge. And how does Mrs. Straume even know he’s dead?

So now Miles is back on the island, working with his father in The Dharma Initiative. When Hurley asks how he knew Chang was his father, Miles answers, “Third day we were here, I was on line at the cafeteria and my mother got in line behind me. That was my first clue.”

After a few minutes, Chang returns and tells Miles to drive him back to Radzinsky. With Hurley along for the ride again, more good times are in store. The whole scene that follows, in which Hurley casually questions Chang and tries to make the connection between him and Miles, is hilarious.

Hurley actually does a pretty good job of not sounding obvious, though you gotta figure: Chang is Chinese. He has a kid named Miles, which I don’t think is a particularly common name among the Chinese. He’s now sitting next to a Chinese guy named Miles. And he believes in the possibility of time travel. For a scientist, he’s not too bright, is he? Shouldn’t the presence of adult Miles at least give him brief pause at some point?

To those who would argue that he might not know about the time travel yet, I counter that he certainly suspects it’s possible. The Orchid is already under construction, and as he told a foreman in the very first scene of this season, “This station is being built here because of its proximity to what we believe to be an almost limitless energy. And that energy, once we can harness it correctly, is going to allow us to manipulate time.” So he’s already caught the whiff off time travel…which makes me think he’s a little bit of an idiot for not putting two and two together vis-à-vis Miles. Still, just cause he believes in time travel doesn’t mean such a leap would be obvious. Alright Chang, I’ll give you this round…

One thing is for sure: half the people on this show have some kind of daddy issue. Jack, Kate, Sun, Jin, Locke, Ben, Miles, Claire (remember her?)…am I missing anyone? These people don’t need a way home; they need group therapy.

Oh, and based on the last few seconds of this episode, I assume we’re about to learn more about how and why Faraday was present in The Orchid during that “limitless energy” conversation.

WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
Haunted by the voices of the dead, abandoned by his father and lied to by his mother, Miles grows up to be a sarcastic, cynical loner with a capitalist streak. After all, he’s got a gift – why not show that American, entrepreneurial spirit and make some money off it? His business as ghost whisperer leads him to an encounter with a familiar face: Naomi Dorrit, organizer of international covert freighter operations.

Naomi approaches Miles and informs him that her employer has been following his work for a while and is interested in retaining his services. For his “audition,” she takes him to a corpse she’s got hidden away and asks him to tell her about the deceased. Miles says his name was Felix and that he was delivering something to a “guy named Widmore” – papers, photos of empty graves, a purchase order for an old airplane…

Had we ever officially found out whether it was Ben or Widmore who planted the fake wreckage at the bottom of the ocean? This episode tries to reinforce that it was Widmore, which I bought into…until I logged onto Entertainment Weekly‘s website and read Doc Jensen’s recap, in which he pointed out that last season, Tom/Mr. Friendly/The-Now-Dead-Other-With-The-Fake-Beard showed Michael the very same documents Miles describes. Jensen writes, “So: Did Big Tom kill Felix and swipe his stuff? Or is it possible that Charles Widmore wasn’t behind Oceanic 815 cover-up at all, that it was actually Ben who was behind it, and that Felix was killed to prevent him from reporting the scheme to Widmore?”

Anyway, Naomi is convinced that Miles is the real deal, so she lays it out for him, and at last we find out why he was chosen for the freighter mission.

Naomi: I’m leading an expedition to an island, and on that island is a man that will be very difficult to find. That’s why I need you.
Miles: Need me for what?
Naomi: This island has a number of deceased individuals…residing on it. And as this man is the one responsible for their being deceased, we believe they can provide invaluable information as to his whereabouts.
Miles: Much as hunting down a mass murderer sounds really safe, uhh, I’m gonna pass. Thanks for the audition.
Naomi: My employer is willing to pay you $1.6 million dollars.
Miles: (Long pause for dramatic effect) When do we leave?

Okay, so….1) I love how matter of factly she says that the deceased will be able to provide invaluable info. I mean okay, she just witnessed a legitimate communication with the dead, so she’s in the realm of the amazing. But still, she says it as if it’s not the slightest bit out of the ordinary; as if they’re going into a standard police line-up and it’s obvious that the suspects will talk.

2) Matthew Abbadon requested Miles because Widmore has been following his work. Is that just a coincidence, or has Widmore been following his work because he knows of his connection to the island? Just like Faraday?  And possibly Charlotte? And if so, how does he know?

3) How is it that people off the island – like Widmore, or Miles’ mother – know that people on the island are dead? And in Widmore’s case, at least, how does he know the details? (That is, that Ben is responsible for the deaths?)

VAN-NAPPED
One night after agreeing to go to the island, Miles is grabbed off the street by a gang of ruffians and thrown into the back of a van, where he meets…that big dude from Hydra Island? Yes, the guy from Ajira 316 who is in cahoots with Ilana introduces himself to Miles as Bram. He explains that he wants to talk him out of getting on Widmore’s boat the next week.

Bram: You know what lies in the shadow of a statue?
Miles: No. Can’t say that I do.
Bram: Then you’re not ready to go to that island. But if you come with us, all those things you’ve spent your life trying to find out, you’ll know. You’ll know who you are, Miles. Why it is you have a gift. And most of all, you’ll know about your father.
Miles: I don’t know where you’ve been getting your intel, but I stopped caring about my father a long time ago. What I do care about is money. So I’ll tell you what: you want me to pass on going to the island, it’s gonna cost you double what they’re offering me. $3.2 million.
Bram: We’re not paying you anything. And all the money in the world isn’t gonna fill that empty hole inside you, Miles.
Miles: That’s sad, isn’t it?
Bram: Toss him!

I think this exchange merits another numbered list, yes?

1) Last season, when Miles asked Ben for $3.2 million, I wrote that the sum was “oddly specific.” Now we know where it comes from. Of course, the initial offer of $1.6 is pretty oddly specific too. But 16 is one of the Numbers, so I’ll assume that’s where it came from.

2) After listening to the line 1.6 million times, I’m pretty certain Bram asks what lies in the shadow of a statue; not what lies in the shadow of the statue. I replayed the previous episode, when Ilana asks the same question of Lapidus. Her question says “the statue.” A small distinction, but a potentially important one. And what’s up with this damn riddle anyway?

3) Was Bram serious when he said he could provide Miles with answers about his past, his abilities, etc.? Or was he just saying whatever he felt necessary to dissuade Miles from getting on the freighter?

4) If Bram and Ilana are against Widmore, does that mean they’re with Ben? There are clues to suggest yes. For starters, Sayid directly asked Ilana if she’s working for Ben, only to have her deny even knowing who Ben is. I took her denial mostly at face value at the time, but now I wonder if it could have been meant to throw us off the scent. There was also the moment when Ben came upon Ilana and Bram on the beach, moving that big metal box, and asked them if they needed any help. They treated each other as cordial strangers. Too cordial?!?

On the other hand, if they are working with Ben, would Ben have had to know all about the freighter crew before they boarded, making it possible for Bram to grab Miles? Or did Michael gather all that research about the passengers for him en route to the island, which would mean Bram couldn’t have stopped Miles on Ben’s orders? I’m not sure it’s been clarified how Ben got all the facts about the freighter team members.

As the van prepares to drive off, Bram and Miles exchange their final words.

Bram: You’re playin’ for the wrong team.
Miles: Yeah, what team are you on?
Bram: The one that’s gonna win.

How many teams are in this game?

HATCHING THE SWAN
Miles and Hurley return to the location where Radzinsky handed over the dead body, and we now see that it’s a construction site. Chang gets out and says they can leave him there. They remain for a moment to observe the work, wondering what’s being built. It doesn’t take long for Hurley to see a worker carrying a piece of metal with a window in its center. A look of sickening realization comes across his face, and in one of my favorite moments of the episode, the worker calls out to another asking what serial number is supposed to be hammered into the lid. As the second worker responds, the first bangs in the numbers: 4 8 15 16 23 42.

Hurley: They’re building our hatch.
Miles: What hatch?
Hurley: The one that crashed our plane.

The one that crashed our plane. Not “the one where Desmond lived.” Not “the one that imploded.” Not “the one that had all the food in it.” No, Hurley’s choice of words is “the one that crashed our plane.” Spoken like a man who might try to interfere with fate and prevent that crash? I wonder. Something is gonna happen here. Remember The Swan’s orientation video, the first time we ever saw Dr. Chang (calling himself Dr. Marvin Candle in the video)? He said the station was “originally constructed as a laboratory where scientists could work to understand the unique electromagnetic fluctuations emanating from this sector of the island. Not long after the experiments began, however, there was…an incident. And since that time, the following protocol has been observed.” He then goes on to explain the pushing of the button every 108 minutes. Also, in that orientation video, Chang/Candle’s left arm is fake. It’s a wooden limb, resting at his side the entire time. But in other orientation videos, and obviously in 1977 real time, his arm is fine. Was the prosthetic limb just a prop? Was the Swan orientation video filmed after the others in which his arm is fine? Does the “incident” result in him losing his arm? What was the incident exactly? I don’t know. What do I know? The title of this year’s two-hour season finale is…The Incident.

So if The Swan was supposed to specialize in studying electromagnetism, what’s up with The Orchid? We already revisited the fact that The Orchid was being built near a pocket of “almost limitless energy.” But is it electromagnetic energy, or some other kind? Remember also what Ms. Hawking told Jack and the others when they were in her sub-church Dharma station: “The room we’re standing in was constructed years ago over a unique pocket of electromagnetic energy. That energy connects to similar pockets all over the world.” Including, she says, the island. But is the entire island over one of these pockets? Or are the pockets smaller? And if they’re smaller, could there be more than one on the island? Could two pockets on the island – maybe one at The Swan and one at The Orchid – connect and cause some kind of reverse-flow damage? (I don’t actually know what reverse-flow means, if anything, but it feels like the right thing to say. Besides, I’m pretty sure Egon mentioned it when he described how crossing the streams “would be bad.”)

As for the stamping of the serial number – it must have been located on different parts of the hatch. When we saw the numbers on the structure way back in Season One, they were engraved on the side, in the concrete or whatever the side was made of; they weren’t on the metal door. Just a point of interest for the truly obsessive among us. Which is probably just me…

By the way, when we saw a wide view of the Swan construction site, I looked for some sign of Jughead, but I didn’t see anything. Time will tell on that one…

“HOW DO YOU SPELL BOUNTY HUNTER?”
Throughout their van treks across the island, Hurley is writing in a notebook and being rather secretive about the contents. When Miles has had enough of him prying about his father, he grabs the notebook away and discovers, well…they say it better than I will:

Miles: What the hell is this?
Hurley: I’m writing The Empire Strikes Back.
Miles: I’m sorry, what?
Hurley: It’s 1977, right? So Star Wars just came out. And pretty soon George Lucas is gonna be looking for a sequel. I’ve seen Empire like 200 times, so I figured, make life easier and send him the script. With a couple of improvements.
Miles: That has gotta be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

Miles is right about that. It is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Because The Empire Strikes Back can not be improved. It is literally not possible to make that film any better than it already is. It’s perfect cinema.

That said, I LOVE that Hurley is trying to script it and save George Lucas the trouble. If he wants to do George (and all the rest of us Star Wars fans) a favor, he should try writing and improving The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.

After returning to Dharmaville and exiting the van, Hurley tries one last time to encourage Miles to give his father a chance, telling him about his own dad abandoning him, and their eventual reconciliation.

Miles: My dad didn’t leave when I was 10. I was a baby. I never knew him. And I don’t want to. It’s not happening.
Hurley: That was Luke’s attitude too.
Miles: What?
Hurley: In Empire, Luke finds out Vader was his father, but instead of putting away his lightsaber and talking about it, he overreacted and got his hand cut off. I mean, they worked it out eventually, but at what cost? Another Death Star was destroyed, Boba Fett got eaten by the Sarlacc, and we got the Ewoks. And it all could’ve been avoided if they just, you know, communicated. Cause let’s face it: Ewoks sucked, dude.

Now I’m sorry, but I gotta set a few things straight here. First, anyone who has seen Empire 200 times knows perfectly well that Vader cut off Luke’s hand before revealing that he’s his father. Second, no amount of communication in that moment would have altered what was to come. Vader was not yet in the mental space to be redeemed, so Luke had no choice but to respond to Vader’s revelation by throwing himself down that metallic abyss into the bowels of Bespin. Third, even if he had worked things out with Darth Daddy, the new Death Star would still need to be destroyed, lest the Empire continue to terrorize the galaxy. And fourth, Luke still would have had to go to Tattooine and rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, and so Boba Fett still would have died. So my message to Hurley? You may not like the Ewoks, but you can’t impose some kind of cheap, sentimental Dr. Phil moment on the Dark Lord of the Sith and just poof!, erase the events of Return of the Jedi. I’m afraid your theory is utterly flawed, and I say once more: The Empire Strikes Back: Perfect. Film.

Oh and you know what? I’m saying it loud and proud right here: I love the fuckin’ Ewoks. So suck it, haters.

A LONG TIME AGO…
Having just completed the relevant Star Wars portion of this write-up, I’m cutting in with the irrelevant portion, which I addressed at the beginning: my prescient creation of what would become this episode’s title. For those among you who call yourselves Star Wars fans and film geeks (and you’ll need to be both to appreciate some of these…if they are appreciable at all) here is my list from Fall 2002 (I’ve got the date stamp to prove it) of movie titles adjusted to reflect the holy saga. I decided to add some new ones, which are separated from the originals by a line break. Behold my [CHOOSE ONE] genius/lameness/illness:

When Obi Met Ani…
Bringing Up Vader
Mr. Skywalker Goes to Coruscant
His Girl Padme
Strangers on a Starship
Tuskin Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Sand People Under the Stairs
The Man with the Golden Gungun
A Hutt for All Seasons
Inherit the Windu
A Starfield Runs Through It
The Maltese Jawa
One Flew Over the Sarlacc Pit
They Shoot Tauntauns, Don’t They?
Some Like It Hoth
The Fortune Wookie
Something Wicket This Way Comes
Jabba on 42nd Street
The Perfect Stormtrooper
Porgy and Bespin
Look Who’s Tarkin
Jango & Cash

Song of the Sith
The Darth Crystal
Han’s Labyrinth
A Fett Called Boba
Master and Commander: Dark Lords of the Sith
Kamino Royale
Kung Fu Wampa
O Yoda, Where Art Thou?
Chasing Ani
Dude, Where’s My Landspeeder?
Crouching Mynock, Hidden Bantha
The Curious Case of General Grievous
The Sith Sense
Twi’lek
The Pink Bantha
Before the Rancor Knows You’re Dead
Qui-Gon with the Wind

That’s right, bitches. The Force is strong with me.

One last note on the Star Wars theme, and I’ll wind down this write-up. It just so happened that Monday night’s Colbert Report was infused with much Ewok related humor, and I encourage you to watch the following clips:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Or watch the full episode, which you can link to from either of these clips; it was a great episode in its entirety, thanks not just to Ewoks, but also to the appearance of my musical obsession, The Decemberists.

RETURN OF THE JEDI?
With all of that nonsense out of the way, there’s one more important development to address. After his long day on the job, Miles is outside Dr. Chang’s house when his father emerges and asks him to give him a ride to the dock, where a team of scientists from the home office in Ann Arbor has just arrived on the submarine. Once at the dock, Miles helps unload luggage for the sub’s passengers…one of whom turns out to be the MIA Faraday. Can’t wait to find out what he’s been up to…and what brings him back now.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-Anyone else notice that there are a lot of dickish people in The Dharma Initiative? Horace is generally okay, but he’s quick to turn snooty and condescending, as he is with Miles in this episode or as he was with Jack when the prisoner (i.e. Sayid) “escaped” and Jack asked how he could have gotten out if he was locked in. We’ve seen plenty examples of Roger’s pissy behavior. Then there’s Radzinsky, who has a major attitude problem and tells Miles, “Your job is to do what I tell you to.” We’ve already spent some time – in this write-up and in others – talking about Chang’s extreme prickness, and Miles’ comment that he and Dr. Chang “don’t exactly travel in the same circles” illustrates (along with the whole “circle of trust” notion) that the Dharma Initiative is a pretty hierarchical organization with a lot of big egos and big secrets. Not exactly the hippie-dippie, harmonious utopia we once thought Dharma was.

-What’s the deal with mothers and their kids who seem to get off the island during the Dharma years? Charlotte left with her mother; Miles left with his mother; did Ellie leave the island with Baby Faraday somewhere in there too? Knowing now that Ben has a weakness for mothers and children, could he somehow have arranged these departures, possibly across time warps?

-If Ilana and Bram are so concerned with people who know what lies in the shadow of the/a statue, are we to believe that Sayid is in the know? After all, Ilana brought him with her, so she must have had a good reason. And come to think of it, if Ilana is not in league with Ben, then how would she know that Flight 316 would take her to the Island?

Remember off-island when Ben first visited Jill in the butcher shop and asked her to keep Locke’s body? Do you remember he asked her if Jeffrey and Gabriel had checked in yet, and Jill answered yes, everything was moving according to schedule? Could Bram be a last name…like Jeffrey Bram? Gabriel Bram? That wouldn’t necessarily explain Ilana…but c’mon: on a show like Lost, almost everything means something. These Jeff and Gabriel people Ben was asking about – whether or not they have anything to do with Bram and Ilana – are probably going to come up again at some point.

-In my previous write-up, I questioned why the Smoke Monster killed Mr. Eko but not Ben, since both of their Smokey encounters seemed pretty similar. I like this theory from Doc Jensen, in which he points out an important difference between how Ben and Eko handled their judgment:

Maybe we don’t need to be cosmic about it. My current take on Smokey is that the Monster is an electric prod used by the Island’s secret masters to keep the herd of its people in line, lest they make a mess of said secret masters’ master plans. Sometimes, that prod can kill. (See: Mr. Eko.) But the example of Ben shows us it can be set to stun, too. Remember when we all thought Smokey was attracted to fear the way sharks are drawn to blood? I think there’s mounting evidence to suggest that what Smokey is really drawn to is guilt. I don’t think the Monster’s interest is in judgment or redemption. What it wants is control. That’s why Mr. Eko had to die: He could not be manipulated. Smokey smoked out his great guilt, but when Eko basically said, ‘Dude, I haven’t done nothing wrong, I only did what I needed to survive,’ Smokey threw up its hands like a director pissed at an uncooperative actor, said ”I can’t work with this fool,” and fired him. And by ”fired,” I mean ”brutally pummeled him into jungle pudding.” But Ben didn’t rationalize his sin, and by submitting to Smokey’s critique, he is now more useful than ever to the Monster’s masters…

-There’s one more tidbit from Doc Jensen’s files that I’ve been meaning to share. He posted this interview with Matthew Fox a few weeks ago, and I liked Fox had to say about Jack. I thought you might enjoy it too:

”I feel very fortunate to be able to play someone like Jack Shephard,” Fox told me. ”When we were shooting the pilot, I remember talking with Damon [Lost executive producer Damon Lindelof] about how we didn’t want to make Jack the guy who was the ‘knight in shining armor’ or ‘the classic hero.’ It seemed like an antiquated, unrealistic version of heroism. We were really trying to look at a new way at looking at heroes.”

Fox describes Jack’s journey on Lost like this: ”We set him up to be a hero in the eyes of people on the island — they needed that — but he really wasn’t that, or he felt like he couldn’t be that. And so we broke him down to where he was desperately trying to hold onto the idea that he can control his reality, that logic and reason and science are the real dictators of the world, not fate and magic. He then felt like his only way out was to take his own life. Failing that, he then moved to a place where he was finally forced to consider that he was probably wrong, that probably Locke was right, and probably the only way he can find any redemption or any salvation in this universe is to go back to the very place that he tried to leave and get back to whatever fated destiny that place has for him. Playing that has been a pretty extraordinary opportunity. A f—ing challenge the whole way through, but it’s been really cool experience.”

I asked Fox to describe the state of Jack as we currently find him at this point of the season, and his answer speaks to the quiet, patient, humbled hero that has returned to the Island. ”Coming back to the Island, he gains strength just by being in its proximity,” he explained. ”I’ve always believed part of what was destroying him was his actual lack of physical proximity to the Island. He is fated to do something on the Island, but in fighting to get away from that, the Island was destroying him from afar. Now, he’s wide-eyed and alert and watching for his destiny. He doesn’t have any idea how he’s going to know it, or when he’s going to know it. But when the moment comes, he will realize he’s in the path of his own destiny. And when he’s clicked into it, he can start taking action without over-dictating, without trying to control his reality, to just do what it is he’s meant to do.”

-Can I just say how jarring it was to cut from a scene in Lost directly to a shot of Harold Perrineau in a commercial for his new show, The Unusuals? It just brings back painful memories of how badly they botched Michael’s exit from the show last year.

-Finally, I came across this article today. Suddenly my obsession with Lost – and even my need to write about it – is explained. I had no idea I was so lonely and socially retarded.

LINE OF THE NIGHT
It’s not a line; it’s the look that Miles gives when Dr. Chang says he likes country music. Classic.

Tonight’s Episode: The Variable