From the Field

The Outsider’s Guide to Lost’s Last Season: Episode Four

February 24th, 2010

A quarter of the way through this dense thicket of mystery and my addled brain can hardly stand the shock. The rapid plot line hopping—the dizzying cast from one time or place unto another—is taking its toll. I hardly have a moment to process a particular scene’s dynamics, to look around and get my bearings, to admire the lush green of a jungle fern or the architectural details of an L.A. office building before I am rushed on to the next edit, where there’s a good chance that I may find myself in an entirely different time and space and reconnecting with a different set of characters. Perhaps this is the storytellers’ intent: to recreate the nauseating effects of time travel for the anxious viewers at home. If so, congratulations—it’s working.

Drawing Lines

There are lines being drawn out there in the jungle. Zombie Jacob and Zombie John, foraging for pawns. Darkness and light, the kindest of eyes and the coldest of stares, each gathering recruits for some unspoken event. Zombie Jacob spent the episode shuttling Hugo and Jack through the jungle and out to a lighthouse on the other side of the island. He gave Hugo (lovable, bumbling Hugo) the courage to lead Jack out of the temple grounds and deep into the jungle. They encountered an inhaler, a pile of skeletons, and the shattered remains of a coffin that once belonged to Jack’s dad. “I did that,” said Jack, looking down at the coffin parts. And then they moved on.

Victim of the Press Gang

At the lighthouse, Jack’s temper rises to a fever pitch when he sees an image of his childhood home in the lighthouse’s reflecting glass. “Jacob was watching! He’s always been watching! Why?!” Hugo doesn’t have the answer, and so Jack smashes the glass and they leave the lighthouse. Zombie Jacob reappears soon after and tells Hugo that it all went according to plan, and thanks him for being his willing pawn. The two of them, Jack and Hugo, are now recruited, and the rest of the group back at the temple will probably be killed by an anonymous “bad person” that is soon to arrive on The Island. It is too late to save them. Hugo wipes blue ink from his forehead and sighs with the despair of a man who has been press-ganged.

That Way Madness Lies

Elsewhere in the jungle, Claire has gone mad. Jin, who we last saw detained by a bear trap, is extracted by Claire and taken back to her camp, where it soon becomes clear that three years alone in the bush has a way of eating at the mind. Look, a bassinet! And inside, an animal skull and furs shaped to look like a small child! She wants her baby back, and she is absolutely not making a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Chili’s Restaurant chain. She makes this point particularly clear by swinging an axe into The Expendable Character Who Everyone Thought Was Already Dead. Jin shudders and takes nervous sips from his water bottle. Zombie John, who no doubt has a nose for madness, sniffs Claire out. He has recruited her along with Sawyer and the pair of Zombies now stand at two apiece. If this unspoken future event (the one for which they are recruiting) is going to be a test of wills and killer instinct, Zombie John has clearly made the better alliance. Sawyer, with his rugged good looks and his fuck it sensibilities, and Claire, with her skull-baby creations and her willingness to stick an axe in a man’s stomach, would surely crush the likes of Hugo (lovable, bumbling Hugo) and Jack, who is obviously struggling his way through some kind of Daddy Dearest complex. The results should be interesting.

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