Part 3
Reetae reviews the third season in this part. He starts out with the events happening in the season 2-finale, leading up to the third season. “They had people pushing a button since 1980. How wasn’t that a galactic waste of time if they had the failsafe-key all along? ” (Reetae reviews Lost: Part 3) Wouldn’t it be a waste of time and money when NASA constructed the Venus Pioneer program with probes that wouldn’t even survive its descent to Venus? No, because they would be able to transmit data on their voyage back to the scientists. The Island was home to something geologically unique. The DHARMA Initiative was studying it. To them it wasn’t a waste of time having the station there, constantly building up the energy and the button discharging it before it gets too big as long as they could study it. The failsafe-key would ultimately destroy The Swan and their experiments. And using the failsafe-key before would have created created a paradox. It is crucial that The Swan exist exist until September 22nd 2004 to get the characters to The Island. Or else they wouldn’t be there in the past to cause the events that had already happened. This is hinted at in season 3 when Eloise Hawking tells Desmond to go to The Island to press the button. If he doesn’t everyone will die. Kelvin did say “screw the button”, while Desmond maintained on pushing it. A chain of events that had to happen.
DUI curse theory Reetae takes another step back into season 2 and brings forward the deaths of Ana-Lucia and Libby which he consider suspicious. This isn’t part of the “making it up”-idea of his, but a part of the theory that a DUI (driving under the influence) causes the death of your character on the show. A theory that was made popular after the DUI-reports of the actresses (Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Watros, whose characters both died in the same scene). He pulls out a lot of sources on this, although he was basically just reading out loud the Wikipedia-article about the episode and referring to the the sources from there.1 Damon Lindelof said in February 10th 2006, when he rejected the rumors of the DUI-curse and said that no actor would be killed off other than to serve the story. Reetae says that the quote is dubious due to Mr. Eko being abruptly killed , but doesn’t take the context of what happened with Adewale. Damon Lindelof said that already in the second season “there “there were deal [sic] complications complications with the actor going into that season”.2 Adewale never liked being in Hawaii. It wasn’t wasn’t a DUI that caused his death. Already in January 2006 he 1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_for_the_Road_(Lost) https://tv.avclub.com/losts-damon-lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-1798213783 https://tv.avclub.com/losts-damon-lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-179821378 3
2
expressed wishes to leave leave the show.3 People seem to bring up that that he drove without a license on September 2006, but fails to bring up that the charges were dropped because he proved to court that he had a license. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since he was already on his way out of the show way before this event.4 That didn’t have anything to do with it either. I’ll get back to Adewale later in another part, since Reetae brings it up again. First of all, Michelle Rodriguez was only on contract for one year. She said so herself and that was her wishes from the beginning, something that Reetae also confirms. Cynthia Watros was not, and Reetae points to her character to be the one to raise questions. He raises suspicions that she was killed in an episode called “Two for the road”. However, the title of the episode is a reference to the film Two for the Road (Donen, 1967) that is, just like Lost , a story about a road trip to a foreign country between a man and a woman that is told in a non-linear fashion. It is the story we see in Ana-Lucia’s flashback, just like the many other episode titles that are based on films or books. However, what Reetae fails to deliver in this part is the timeline. His arguments makes the DUI and the production (especially filming) of Two for the Road as Road as events heavily tied together, as if it happening during or after the episode was written. I think t hink it would be better if he laid out the chronological timeline, because it would make the whole picture a little clearer. Let’s look at the timeline
3
February 2005
Damon and Carlton confirms to TV Guide that they were looking for a tough leader for the tail section. This fits the timeline, because in February they got renewed for a 2nd season. They They got Michelle Rodriguez Rodriguez recommended. recommended.5
February-April 2005
They have talks with Michelle Rodriguez and her agent about it. it. She She only only wants wants to do the show for one year. Something they were a little reluctant for, but agreed to.
April-May 2005
They film the season 1 finale, finale, where she appears as a guest star.
May-June 2005
The writers spend three weeks in Hawaii planning the major landmarks for season 2 (as well as discussing the show’s future). We don’t know how detailed the season 2-landmarks were, but seeing as how important the death scene is in the t he structure of season 2 there is a possibility this one was one of the plot points.
June 7th 2005
Michelle Rodriguez is confirmed confirmed to the press as being a main character for season 2
August 21st 2005
Cynthia Watros is confirmed to the press that she will star as series regular Libby. Libby.6 A role that she won over veteran actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.
November 30th 2005 2005
We are well into into the 2nd season. season. On this date Fire + Water’s production draft was completed and they were laying groundwork for episodes to come.
https://www.y outube.com/watch?v=XYC8Apc62gw&feature=youtu.be&t=41 outube.com/watch?v=XYC8Apc62gw&feature=youtu.be&t=41m2s m2s http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Oct/25/br/br5701984326.html http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Oct/25/br/br5701 984326.html 5 https://www.tvguide.com/news/did-lost-kill-8218/ 6 Cynthia Watros might’ve been cast earlier, but it wasn’t revealed to the press yet. This news came from Kr istin at E! Online. 4
Dec. 1st 2005
They are arrested.
February 10th, 2006
Rumors about killing off Michelle Rodriguez have been circulating. On this date Damon Lindelof denies those rumors
April 3rd 2006
Final production draft of Two for the Road is Road is completed
April 5th 2006
Dave is aired, which begins the mystery of how Libby ended up at Santa Rosa. (Note that this episode was aired after they had written and handed in the death scene of Libby).
April 17th 20067
Shooting begins on the season 2 finale which includes a flashback appearance of Libby. This was supposed to be one (out of more) flashbacks from other characters where we would explore her story.
May 3rd 2006
Two for the Road is Road is aired.
In the end, we can’t deny the fact that the episode where they died was written after the DUI-event. However, the road from Michelle Rodriguez being cast as Ana-Lucia, Cynthia Watros being cast as Libby and them Road is a long stretch of time. They had written the episode where Hugo and planning the events in Two for the Road is Libby starts their interest ( Fire Fire + Water ) before the DUI. And that they already a lready knew that they would explore her backstory through flashbacks after their death. It was even revealed to the press on April 18th 2006, before Two for the Road aired, Road aired, that Cynthia Cynthia Watros was going to star in a CBS-show. CBS-show.8 The whole situation consist of a little suspicious timing, but it’s not as Reetae says it as “the proof is in the pudding”, since he proof he presents is that he says it’s odd that the behind-the-scenes don’t show Libby’s death scene. He refers to the “Lost: On Location”-clip. Location”- clip. Reetae claims that Libby’s scene is added later on. He says that it was only Ana-Lucia that was supposed to be killed and Libby was a last minute addition, without showing any concrete evidence evidence of it at all. Nothing points to this situation at all. He shows that it must’ve been handwritten in the script at a later time. All of this is simply not true. The script had both death scenes in it, in the final production draft from April 3rd, that came out when they already had established that Libby had a mysterious past that would be explored explored in the flashbacks.9 Her death wasn’t added later on, on, because it’s all there in the script. The “Lost: On Location”-clips are always a lways a few minutes long and just document something random on set or interview the producers/writers/actors. The DVD-team are entirely different people than the film crew or the writers. Sometimes they manage to get a few interviews and cool scenes, other times they have bigger documentaries. In the very same box set you have the t he “Lost: On Location” for the episode The Whole Truth, Truth, which is a Sun/Jin-episode, but they never never appear in this little clip at all. a ll. The “Lost: On Location”-clip for this episode just focused on Michael Emerson’s make-up as Henry Gale, a guest actor on the show. The “Lost: On Location”-clip for the season 4-finale never shows Jin or Michael, both that were subject to the gigantic freighter-explosion where Michael died, but this isn’t a secret message either. Using “Lost: On Location” as evidence for his claim is rather weak.
7
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/lostpedia/images/5/53/Callsheet.gif/revision/latest?cb=20070413093515 https://movieweb.com/cynthia-watros-leaves-lost-for-cbs-my-ex-life/ 9 http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/220_two_final.pdf 8
When Darlton were confronted confronted on the subject Carlton Cuse Cuse told TV Guide “Oh, great . Everybody is going to think we're killing her off because she got a DUI.” Damon Lindelof added: “Both Michelle and Cynthia were busted the same night for DUI and we've got this story point coming up where they essentially both get shot at the same time, so it's going to look like this is the Lost producers attempt attempt to say, 'Don't drive drunk!'" drunk!'" But as Carlton says, all it created in us was [the thought that], that], "Maybe we shouldn't do do the plan now, 'cause people people are going to think think this is a reaction to [the DUIs], as opposed to this [plan] existing prior to that event." There are numerous death scenes of Lost that are meant to cause tension and conflict. We have that with the very first major death scene on the show. Boone’s death was an accident, but when the blood is pulling down to his leg during the operation, Jack realizes that he didn’t fall. He got crushed. When Boone dies we get the beautiful and tear-inducing moment with “Life and Death”. But the episode doesn’t end with the somber piano melodies. Jack says to Kate that Boone was murdered and he goes out to find John Locke. This creates a tension between the characters and fuels into a conflict we as an audience loved to witness. Shannon was a character many found frustrating during the first season. They were building her up in the 2nd and making her more nuanced, and as soon as we get to Abandoned, Abandoned, we (and Sayid) are torn apart. This creates a conflict between the Collision. We are also emotionally invested in this, since tail-section and the mid-section which we see unfold in Collision. we know Sayid has already lost one woman in her life, and Sayid is a beloved character on the show. The dialogue and tension between Sayid and Ana-Lucia goes on for the rest of the season until Sayid’s hatred is shifted towards the fake Henry Gale. But the audience weren’t so convinced by the moment they shared in The Whole Truth where Truth where Ana confesses to Sayid that people don’t like her. The writers had a crucial point coming up where Michael betrays his friends to get his son back, but if he had gotten rid of an unpopular character, then would the mission in the last episodes be as engaging? With the addition of Libby the death would be more emotional fuel for the characters, since she has been a warm presence there, helped Claire and was Hurley’s love interest. Because Ana-Lucia is a character character that a lot of the the audience had mixed mixed feelings about, but Libby is a character that nearly everybody loved. So to make Michael's act as heinous as possible, Libby ended up dead. (Dam dead. (Damon on Linde Lindelof lof to to AV Club Club))10 To close of the DUI-theory. Josh Holloway, Dominic Monaghan and Naveen Andrews Andrews had speeding tickets in 11 2005, with none none of them having having a death in the nearest future. future. Daniel Dae-Kim got a DUI in 2007, 2007, but he 12 wasn’t abruptly killed off. They actually had a chance to kill him him off in the 4th season, but but didn’t. The death death of Mr. Eko wasn’t due to a DUI at all. It’s understandable that the theory is there to begin with, but in the end you can either buy the denial of the writers or not.
10
https://tv.avclub.com/losts-damon-lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-1798213783 http://archives.starbulletin.com/2006/09/05/news/story01.html 12 https://people.com/crime/daniel-dae-kim-deeply-ashamed-after-dui-arrest/ 11
Libby’s backstory
Picture 3.1: Libby meets Desmond
At 3:57 in his video Reetae Reetae takes yet another thing out of context. context. It seems like he mixes up up the interview where where Damon Lindelof said that Libby is a “little bit of a stealth surprise that we have cooking on the island,” and “that is going to be very cool, when the longer game reveals itself.” It was an interview from January 11th 2006 and Damon Lindelof is referring to her central role in discovering what Claire’s memories were suppressing, but also to the revelation in Dave and Live Together, Die Alone . January 11th marked the beginning of the t he second half of the second season, with The 23rd Psalm airing Psalm airing that night. The marketing for the second half of the show was on, with spoilers, press photos and other releases from this episode and up to Maternity Leave at at this point. The latter being a central episode for Libby. They were promoting this five-episode stretch (as well as future flashbacks), not season 3. Reetae seems to infer that this quote is taken from interviews after Libby’s death. Reetae only provides one source for Libby’s future flashback about season 3 which is an interview in May 2006 about the plans for her in season 3. They wanted to explore her character in flashbacks. One of the t he flashbacks was her scene with Desmond in the season 2-finale. Here we learned her real name, that her husband David died and she gave the sailboat to Desmond. This scene also hints at some psychological trauma, since it is an unusual act to give out a prized possession to a stranger in a coffee shop. And it sparked up the possible connection that David was Hurley’s Dave. This flashback was also easier to shoot, since you already had the actress in Hawaii. Getting Cynthia Watros back to Hawaii in the next seasons could be trickier. They got her a new job on another show, because she was very sad to be killed off Lost . In the same article from Entertainment Entertainment Weekly they Weekly they said 13 they plan to to address address her her next next season. season. 13
https://ew.com/article/2010/05/07/lost-dead-zone/
There were three journalists we mainly got our spoilers from. Kristin from E! from E! , Jeff Jensen for Entertainment Entertainment Weekly and Michael Ausiello for TV for TV Guide (Laconis (Laconis & Johnston, 2008, chp. 6). They were in regular contact with Darlton. I am very surprised how little Reetae uses them as sources, which makes his video series very poorly researched. For the “Ask Ausiello” 18th November 2006 they commented more on Libby. Question: What's the latest on Cynthia Watros returning to Lost to finish out her backstory?— T.K. Ausiello: I asked Lindelof-Cuse that that very question when I spoke to them for AA's 100th. 100th. Here's what Carlton Carlton had to say: "We would love to tell the rest of [Libby's] story, it’s it’s [just] a question of whether we get to it. We’re now working on the early episodes for the second pod, and we want to get back to some of the characters we haven’t seen, and spend a little more time with them. We'd like to get to Cynthia's story, but I think we're going to try to tell the stories of our regular characters before we do that." Adds Damon: "Obviously, we have a couple more beats of Libby’s story to tell to fill in the the missing pieces, and the the way we would tell that story story is in the flashbacks of another character. But that character character can’t be a character character that we already already know and love, otherwise they they would recognize Libby. Libby. We know who those characters characters are and what those story beats are, but it might be awhile awhile before we get to their their flashbacks." 14 She didn’t appear, but this goes back to what Reetae misinterprets as planning a television show. It’s just not how it works. They obviously had a hard time writing her in. And it’s not like you only need to type a few letters and suddenly you have them in the scene. It’s easy in a script or a book, but when you bring something to the screen you might end up with Crabbe being replaced with Blaise Zabini in Deathly Hallows Part 2 or or the Gryffindor-chaser Angelina Johnson being replaced by another actress because it didn’t work out with the scheduling for the film. They tried to get Libby in season 3, but that didn’t work. They told pretty much the same thing to Kristin on E! Online the next month (December 2nd 2006). “Given everything else we have to tell, [Libby's story] is going to be a mystery that's going to have to get answered in year 4. There's really one significant missing piece to Libby's story. We saw in the season finale last year that she met with Desmond, she gave him his boat, and we know that her husband died — and then we know that subsequent sub sequent to that, she spent some time in a mental institution, the same one as Hurley. The question the audience wants answered is, How did she get from A to B — from Desmond to the mental mental institution? We know the answer to that that question, but the only way to tell that story is through another character's flashback, and that character would have to be another character character on the the show who is not among the the beach dwellers” dwellers” 15 Seeing how they start that sentence, Libby’s backstory was not their top priority. Reetae mention in this video that ratings started to fall down for the show. Things might’ve changed. Perhaps the story about Locke and his father, or Sayid in The Flame and the whole “rescue Jack from the barracks”-mission was prioritized more for the writers? The next source I have is from the Official Lost podcast April 5th 2007. Now we are four months after the the talk with Kristin.
14
https://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2006/11/no-more-libby-for-while.html http:// spoilerfix.blogspot.com/2010/02/lost_277 spoilerfix.blogspot.com/2010/02/lost_2776.html 6.html
15
Carlton Cuse asks a fan question: Uh, "Any chance we'll see Libby again this season? I miss her and it seems like there there is so much more backstory backstory to tell with her. All the mysteries surrounding surrounding the mental institution [laughs] and giving Desmond her boat. Damon Lindelof: “Do you you think mental institutions institutions are funny?” funny?” Carlton Cuse: [laughs] “No, but I'm just thinking like, how much mystery is there surrounding giving Desmond her her boat? I mean, we sort of of explained ... they sat down down and had coffee, she said 'Take the boat.' Do we need to see ... although a flashback where w here she actually signs the deed of title could be very exciting.” Damon Lindelof: “She “She did ... she did make a reference reference to the fact that that her husband had had died though, and maybe there's some sort of, kind of story to tell there. I would say s ay that you certainly haven't seen the last of Libby; we miss her too. Um, one of the things that, you know, people always ask us, 'Have you made mistakes mistakes on the show or do you you have regrets about the the show?' One of those regrets is that we weren't really able to service Cynthia Watros better as an actress better. Um, in Season Two obviously, um, there there was a lot of grumbling about ... as there was this year, that that we weren't giving our regulars enough screen time, and with Mr. Eko and Ana Lucia sort of joining, you know, the cast of characters, characters, Libby sort of got short short shrifts. So, we ... we owe those answers answers and we ... we have every hope that Cynthia is gonna come back and uh ... .. . come back to the show and you know, grace us with her her presence again so we can answer them.” Which means that when they arrived at April (when they were working on the last episodes/finale for season 3), they expressed doubts about having the story told about Libby. My next source is later lat er that summer during San Diego Comic-Con. This is July 26th 2007 and someone asks a question about Libby: MAN: I'm gonna ask a very volatile volatile question right now, now, Libby! We were told that we were going to get more of her in uh flashbacks and stuff, revealing stuff, and there's been a couple of hints that she possibly worked for DHARMA, I don't- uh, it's been theorized online and stuff, uh, what do you have to say about the absence of Libby and are we getting more of her any time soon in flashbacks like you promised? promised? CARLTON: It- it is our intention to get to Libby's story this year, and we think you will be very happy when we actually do finish that. DAMON: You're not, um, you're not not barking up the wrong tree either either with some of your speculative online questioning. questioning. What happened in between April and July? They have a mini-camp in Hawaii in May-June where they map out the upcoming season (and talk about the rest of the seasons). This is also the first mini-camp when they know they have three more seasons with 16 episodes each. The doubt that was present in the podcast from April is gone in July. This is just speculation, and it might be that it’s easier to say no on a podcast than in front of a full hall in San-Diego. But it seems like they postponed the story, tried to figure out how to weave it in and wanted to try to add in Libby in season 4. After all, we would get four new faces in the group (Charlotte, Daniel, Frank and Miles), along with guest star sta r Matthew Abaddon who was getting a lot of attention. Desmond (who knew her) was still a series regular and could have more Libby in his past.
In September 2007 they told Ausiello: “She'll be in enough of the show for us to fill in the missing pieces of her story," says Cuse. "We could not be more pleased. Cynthia is a smart and engaging actor, and Damon and I have some very cool parts of her story left to tell.” One problematic event happened and it was the writer’s strike. We only got one guest appearance by Cynthia Watros, in the episode Meet Kevin Johnson Johnson,, and any remaining “cool part of her story” weren’t seen in season 4. It’s easy to deduce that the strike might’ve cut down this. Carlton Cuse told Ausiello after the strike was over that: “We've found ourselves in a situation where we had eight episodes of story planned, and we're going to try to fit fit that into five hours hours of the show.” show.”16 The Libby-story was was probably one that was cut, along with with 17 the four-toed statue, which they said said would reappear in season 4 (before (before the strike happened). When season 5 came and went they t hey addressed Libby one more time. This time with more skepticism. In an interview with Comics on Comics they they said that they approached Cynthia Watros several times, but she 18 didn’t didn’t want to return. return. On May 8th 2009 2009 we learned learned from from Kristin Kristin on E! Online that that “Libby's story will not be wrapped up on the show. Damon said: "I have learned that if you kill someone off the show, show, they are less likely to cooperate cooperate with you." Basically, Basically, Cynthia Watros is busy until further notice, and they can't explain Libby without her, at least not in any way that shows her story rather than annoyingly tells her story.” 19 Later they told Digital told Digital Spy on July 3rd 2009 that the backstory of Libby would now forever be ambiguous. It wouldn’t work without Cynthia and Damon added that “It would be more insulting where one character just j ust 20 explains it”. On Comic-Con the same month, they had a tribute tribute video for dead characters on Lost . Here they officially confirmed that Friendly really was Tom’s surname, as well as the full name of Libby. They gave her the surname Smith, one of the most common surnames in English-speaking countries and finally put it to rest. No Widmore, Hawking, Hanso, DeGroot or Goodspeed. (However, it didn’t stop Lost fans from trying to find anagrams in Elizabeth “Libby” Smith). The writers tried from April 2006 to t o May 2009 to weave in Libby to the show. It just didn’t happen. Didn’t they try enough or do you have better ideas for how to execute it? You are of course free to speculate it. I would’ve loved to see more of her. One example could be a scene between her and Miles in a flashback where she is one of his customer and he tries to communicate with her dead husband. Maybe Miles was the one that brought peace and sanity back to her? But the point is that they addressed the issue to the public several times and I wanted to bring out additional sources and quotes to paint a larger picture of the situation. It’s not like they told we would see her and never spoke of Libby again.
16
https://www.tvguide.com/news/exclusive-lost-boss-8314/ https://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2007/05/some-season-4-spoilers-for-you.html 18 https://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2009/05/damon-lindelof-on-libby-numbers-mr-eko.html https://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2009/05/damon-linde lof-on-libby-numbers-mr-eko.html 19 http:// spoilerfix.blogspot.com/2010/02/lost_277 spoilerfix.blogspot.com/2010/02/lost_2776.html 6.html 20 http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/lost/news/a163300/exclusive-team-darlton-talk-lost/ 17
The problems in season 3 It is true that the show was stalling in season 3. It is also true that it lost a lot of viewers. The writers did address that Lost needed to set an end date so the story could move forward. Damon addressed it for a full audience on a class called “Relevant Storytelling” in 201121 . The writers envisioned the show being in three phases. The first phase was going to be an exploration of characters that had just crashed on The Island. This is something they’ve talked about much earlier, in an interview with the Honolulu Star Bulletin about Bulletin about season 2 being the second arc after the exploration of characters. “We peeled away the layers of who they are, the island and the group's whole mind-set of just getting off of it," it," Lindelof said. "Now, the group group begins to realize they just might be there there for a while, so we'll see them get into society-building mode. Expect really solid answers about the nature and history of this place in a far more defined way than season one.” 22 The second phase goes deeper into the characters and eventually some of them manages to get off the island. But they realize that they never should've left, conflict intensifies on t he island and the characters return, in phase three, for their their final resolution.23 That was the first and initial long-term-plan for for the show. And And it would end end with Jack dying in the bamboo forest, closing his eye. They proposed three seasons for ABC. After season one, they couldn't negotiate the deal. Between season 1 and 2 a lot l ot of mythology and planning was prepared (like I’ve mentioned earlier with the mini-camp). Season 2 went on, but dragged a bit. ABC still wouldn't let the show go into the next phase, even though the writers had characters that were striving to get off the island, so they put them in cages. Damon says that the best thing they could do creatively was to lock down the characters that were moving the plot the fastest. Then they negotiated the deal that managed them to end the show in three more seasons. And that is why the last stretch toward the season 3-finale is so great (which also Reetae compliments). In 2010 they also addressed the issue in the NY Times about the middle part of the season and Strange Land. Land. what has been called the weakest episode of the show: Stranger in a Strange
Q. Are there any episodes that you wish you could do over? CUSE I would just say this: I think that our belief is that even our mistakes were necessary and that we learned as much from our failures as we did from our successes, so it’s not fair to say we would take back the episode where Jack is flying the kite with Bai Ling; that was a necessary step in our growth and our learning process. LINDELOF It was also Exhibit A in “the “the show has to end.” I think think if we hadn’t stumbled we never would have been able to make the creative case for the series. Q. What didn’t work in that episode in your mind?
21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYC8Apc62gw http://archives.starbulletin.com/2005/08/22/features/story2.html 23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYC8Apc62gw 22
LINDELOF Where to begin. begin. The first was that after after we spent six episodes with Kate and Sawyer locked in the cages and they escaped, we had to lock Jack back up in the cages again just to slow down the storytelling again, and so you’re like, “Wait, we’ve already done this.” The second was we had to begin to explore explore the Others’ Others’ culture, so we saw what a funeral funeral 24 looked like for for them and 25 that they had a sheriff.
Reetae says that the characters aren’t in mortal peril in the first half of season 3 a nd this goes back to the point of them stalling the show because they didn’t have an end date. However I would like Reetae to do a better analysis of the episdes. Reetae’s list of “trivialities” should be questioned. He brings up that the characters are: Playing chess
Picture 3.2: Mikhail puts a knife to Locke’s throat.
This is Locke playing against The Flame computer which would reveal that when beating it, you would get a message from Marvin Candle/Mark Wickmund/Edgar Haliwax. This is to show Locke’s interest in games and would foolishly provide for an easy escape for Mikhail. This computer chess game also leads to the destruction of the station, so I wouldn’t call it a trivial t rivial part of the show. They would all be dead if Mikhail hadn’t put a knife to Locke’s throat before 77 was entered. If you watch the episode you can tell that the chess game is not filler at all. Playing more chess This is a clip from the mobisode, not season 3. They were also made after the ABC-deal was done. Camping
24
Damon Lindelof is mixing up a scene that happened a few episodes earlier. The funeral for Colleen happened in the fifth episode, not in Stranger in a Strange Land . It was still part of the Hydra-arc that many people didn’t like. 25 https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/arts/television/16weblost.html
This isn’t part of the first half of the season and Desmond is using the excuse of camping to convince Jin and Charlie to be on this mission. This mission needs to happen to fulfill Desmond’s vision, even though it might result in Charlie’s death. Playing more ping-ping This isn’t in the first half of the season. Watching baseball-highlights They are not “watching baseball highlights” as a way of getting through the day. This is Ben’s way of showing that they have contact with the outside world and that “home is right on the other side of the window”. I am baffled how this went over Reetae’s head, since Ben says this in the episode. This was his way of showing that they weren’t stuck there and had a choice of leaving. Reetae would prove his point much better if he pulled out the sources about a bout how the writers felt caged with the ongoing storyline with ABC, instead of listing things t hings like this. In the much celebrated season 1 they played Backgammon all the time, had a few golf matches, organized practical clothes from fancy clothes, played catch with the dog, working on crosswords puzzles on the beach, sunbathing, reading magazines to the baby to calm him down and even devoting a very long scene to a drinking game. They weren’t exactly in mortal peril when they did all that were they? “They even have an election episode” Technically they didn’t. This was Hurley’s way of conning Sawyer into thinking that the rest of the survivors were going to vote him off the beach. Sawyer’s character arc from the beginning of the show started out as a selfish hoarder that kept everything for himself and was a jerk to the rest of the community. This is part of his change. But Reetae says that in the midst of the stalling, they were putting things on screen that were baffling. Saying “things that they claimed to be important, but was later proved to be irrelevant” as part of the stalling in the early phase of season 3. One of them is the volcano.
The volcano First of all, what Reetae says is not true. The episode he is referring to is at the end of t he season, not the beginning. This episode came to be after they t hey negotiated the deal with ABC. The quote he is referring to is from the audio commentary. The volcano on The Island would play a seismic role on the show, albeit not as important as Annie. They told this in the audio commentary for The Man Behind the Curtain. Curtain . Reetae says that “We never see or hear of the volcano ever again”. We do see it though. We knew about it already from Rousseau’s maps in season 1 where both of them pointed to a crater on the south end of The Island. It’s not that far from where the midsection crashed. When the characters went on a trek, they often passed this field. In S.O.S. Bernard S.O.S. Bernard is seen hauling volcanic rocks to make his sign. He says “There's a lava field about a half mile inland that's loaded with tthem.” hem.” When they were filming those treks near the beach camp, they made sure to use
the volcanic areas around the Southern part of Oahu. China Walls Coastline served as the location for the Black Rock-trek, the trek to the pillar of black smoke with Charlie and Sayid (which I mentioned in part 2), as well as the trek with all the survivors from from the beach camp to the radio tower. tower.26 If you follow the coastline of this rocky area in Oahu you get to Spitting cave27 . This is the location of the ladder down to Jacob’s Jacob’s cave from season season 6. And just along the same coastline you find find Lana’i Lookout, another volcanic area. area. When they shot the fight fight scene between Jack and MIB-Locke, they made sure to connect both Spitting Cave and Lana’i Lookout, so that the volcano is in in the background (which it is on Lana’i Lookout).28 You might ask which which volcano I am talking about, but the production team made sure that the real life Koko Head crater was in the background of these shots29. We see itit for the first first time time in in Abandoned (3.4).
3.3 - Eko sees that the area curves into a peninsula. Fun fact: In real life, you’ll find Jacob’s cave on the other side of this area. What would happen if they stumbled upon it?
3.4 - In the background you have the real life Koko Head crater. The jungle is digitally inserted, because because they have to venture venture in there.
And this area is seen again in Live Together, Die Alone Alone , which would make this area tops 54 minutes walk/run each way from The Swan. This is the area where Desmond’s boat was and where Kelvin died. We revisited the scenery in season 3’s One of Us . We saw it again in Confirmed Dead (picture 3.5). The volcano is still there in the background .
Picture 3.5: The volcano in the background.
26
http://www.lostvirtualtour.com/lost/filming_locations/chinawalls/index.html http://www.lostvirtualtour.com/lost/tours/south%20city/(15)%20Portlock_Spitting%20Cave_index.html 28 http://www.lostvirtualtour.com/lost/episode/6x17.html 29 http://alohavalley.com/koko-head-koko-crater-oahu/ 27
And like I said, the scenery scenery was used again in season 6. In In this way they made sure that the volcano was in the background when Jack came flying towards MIB-Locke, while he was at a different location (Spitting Caves).
3.6: Lana’i Lookout
3.7: Spitting Caves
In the series finale we also see how The Heart of The Island is connected to volcanic activity, act ivity, inspired by the real geology on the Hawaiian islands. The cave Locke ventured into in Further Instructions Instructions was was one of these lava tubes as well, which they shot at a t the Ka’umana caves on the Big Island of Hawaii (not Oahu). This cave was formed from a lava flow in 1880-1881. 1880-1881.30 And the Heart of The Island is full of stalagmites as well. well. Due to the proximity to The Heart of The Island and the midsection crash site (Jack came after all from the bamboo field in the Pilot ), ), you can probably deduce that the location of this place is either inside or close to the volcanic crater seen in the background of these episodes. My personal theory is that it is in the t he very centre. However, Reetae is correct if he specifically wanted a character to point out to this gigantic volcanic crater and confirm to the audience that it is a gigantic volcanic crater. Another example of how things things can change due to many other other factors is that the volcano was supposed to be the setting of the series finale. It also fits with the script for The End that describes the scene when Desmond pulls out the cork as “unseen molten activity”. Reetae’s video series was made before that revelation in Entertainment Entertainment Weekly, Weekly, so I won’t hold it against him. Lindelof and Cuse initially initially envisioned a finale finale in which Jack (Matthew (Matthew Fox) and Smokey incarnate (Terry O’Quinn) would brawl over the fate of the island at Lost’s proverbial Mount Doom. “The volcano had been dormant for the the duration of the the series,” explains Lindelof, Lindelof, “but based on moving into this endgame, the island had become unstable and the volcano was going to erupt. We were going to have lots of seismic activity, and ultimately, there was going to be this big fight between the the forces of good and the the forces of evil, which ended ended up in the series manifesting manifesting as Jack and The Man in Black, in the midst of magma. magma. Magma spewing everywhere!” everywhere!” 31 However, ABC said no. It was way over the budget for what would be feasible. This isn’t how ABC treats Lost because the ratings were dropping. Every production can face these problems. Digging through examples of news stories about studio meddling and network decisions would explode over this paper. And those are the 30
http://www.lostvir tualtour.com/lost/filming_locations/kaumana/ind tualtour.com/lost/filming_locations/kaumana/index.html ex.html https://ew.com/tv/ 2017/04/10/lost-volcano-alternative-ending 2017/04/10/lost-volcano-alternative-ending//
31
ones revealed to the press. There are a plethora of decisions made by the bosses that we don’t see. Darlton wanted to use the volcano for years. At least we got the shot of the crater in the background in season 6. The fact that they made sure to shoot it at two locations, just to get it in the shot is evident of that.
Annie It’s true that she never appears in an episode again. I had gripes with that as well, since it is a character mystery. Ben kept her doll, as seen in The Man Behind the Curtain, Curtain , which means she has had an importance for him for decades. Harper Stanhope cryptically said to Juliet (whom Ben had feeling for) that she looked just like her. Many thought this was a reference to Annie. We also know that in Follow the Leader , all women and children were escorted away from The Island on the submarine. It would be nice to have a resolution to their story. I can imagine two situations out of this event: -
-
She lef left The The Islan sland d in Follow the Leader . Since Ben was with The Others he never managed to say goodbye. This works on a character level, l evel, since he’s been so socially awkward with women and never had a mother figure in his life. Her importance to the show was that she left Ben, emotionally scarring him and never came back. He might lack l ack a lot of experience with women as well. He left The Island regularly. He might’ve been searching for her and found her. This is something that would’ve been nice to see play out on the show. She didn’ didn’tt leave the island. island. After all, Amy Amy stayed stayed with with Ethan. Ethan. There There could could be more people people that chose chose not to follow the orders to evacuate. Maybe Ben and Annie had a romantic relationship and he got Annie pregnant. This would would add more to Ben’s obsession obsession about the pregnancy-issue. pregnancy-issue.
I agree that this is something that would be worthwhile to give a resolution to in the show. The “insert character = Annie”-popularity existed for the remainder of the show. People even theorized that Zoe was Annie because she was a brunette and a geologist, which many thought was a connection to the fact that Annie asked a geological question in Olivia’s class.
Nikki and Paulo
3.8: Nikki and Paulo, which were described by Damon Lindelof as Lost ’s ’s Jar Jar Binks.
This is also, like Reetae says, a negative point about the third season. He claims that they were written out of fan backlash. This is partly true. One thing that is prevalent earlier in this paper about Libby and Ana-Lucia’s death is that Reetae doesn’t know how far into the production the writers are. Not only do they map out the entire season in their mini-camps, but it also takes 10-14 days to break an episode. In some cases it takes longer, like The Constant took five weeks weeks to break32 And sometimes it is overlapped with filming, like they they had to start shooting the season 4-finale before they got the script. script.33 And you have have post-production as well, well, before the episode is aired and gets a fan reaction. They could see the fan reactions for the first couple of episodes they were in, which were negative, but we need to be reminded that they write the episodes a long time in advance. They knew the characters weren’t working, and when Further Instructions Instructions came came out, it started to be obvious what had to be done. Remember that we had spoilers for episode 8 and 9 before the season had even started. Nikki and Paulo were in many episodes before the fans had a chance to react. Rodrigo hinted that he was leaving on January 10th34 2007, and the episode they they died in aired on March 28th. 28th. On the April 6th 2006 Official Lost Podcast they confirmed that a question they get asked a lot is about what are all of the other Lost-survivors’ stories35 when they addressed the episode S.O.S. episode S.O.S. and and how Bernard represented them. They got asked that very same question in the podcast from April 3rd 2006 as well. The fans were curious about what all the t he other survivors were up to. Nikki and Paulo were created. They didn’t flow right in the story and when they got to the point that their first episode was aired, the fans hated them from the get-go.
32
Audio commentary, The Constant, Season Constant, Season 4 bonus material Lost: On Location, There’s No Place Like Home, Season Home, Season 4 bonus material 34 https:/ /spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2007/01/rodrigo-santoro-to-leave-by-season-3.h /spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2007/01/rodrigo-santoro-to-leave-by-season-3.html tml 35 http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Official_Lost_Podcast_transcript/April_10,_2006 33
The Others
3.9: The Others observe the plane crash.
Reetae says that The Others is the main problem with season 3. That’s his opinion. They were tattered people of the jungle in the first two seasons. He didn’t like that in the third season they suddenly had nice clothes and then they abandoned the barracks and became tent-settlers. We just learned much more about them, so the scary mystery of them in season 1 and 2 would be gone. As promised by the writers on Comic-Con 2006, we would learn more about The Others this season. It seems like we get a reverse situation with Reetae, where he prefers the mystery and ambiguity of The Others rather rat her than the revelation or explanation. In terms of them being more sophisticated than the tattered jungle-dwellers was a theory that came up since Ethan was amongst them. People were theorizing on how he had regular clothes, was clean-shaven and had white-and-blue sneakers. Especially since we saw them barefeet in the 2nd season. There was also the fact that Ethan came from the water to attack Scott, that sparked up some theories about a submarine. And then we got additional hints in Maternity Leave about about them pretending to look like hillbillies, both with Claire’s flashbacks and the wardrobe Kate found. Another thing we learned learned in the sixth season is that there are fractions fractions of The Others. We have a group at The Temple as well, and they choose to walk barefoot. Dogen even calls them “my people”, so there seems to be a distinction between Ben’s group and Dogen’s group. The Others have moved around before. We saw them at the decoy village in the 2nd season. We saw them living at the beach in the 5th season (2007) and in the jungle in the 70’s. They took over the army camp and they took over the barracks. We learn from Richard that they were looking for new leadership, so the third t hird season saw a lot of changes in The Others’ structure and sympathy. The loyalty towards Ben was fading. Even people he trusted chose to shoot in the sand instead of following Ben’s orders to kill Bernard, Jin and Sayid. “Their main objective is to investigate pregnant women” This was under Ben’s rule and Reetae says this in a way that is suggesting that this was one of the many things about them that didn’t make sense. The Others have been connected to pregnancies since their introduction. In
the first episode we learn about them, we also learn that they have Alex, Danielle’s child. Something that is very prolific in the season finale that same season. Sayid says that Danielle was a mother who lost his child, just like Claire. The situations in Lost keep reappearing. When MIB-Locke talks about his mother, who was crazy, he says the same thing about Claire. The interesting thing about the way history repeats itself is that MIB-Locke could very well be talking about John Locke. His mother was also crazy and used to be a patient at Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute. Emily Locke even told her son was immaculately conceived as part of the con in Deus Ex Machina. Machina. In the next episode in the first season, Raised by Another , we learn that Ethan wants to kidnap the only pregnant woman on The Island. The show’s importance in maternity is frequent through all six seasons, both literal and symbolic. I am very surprised how this came as a shock to Reetae, since the show hinted at it several times through the first two seasons. Claire is dressed like the Virgin Mary in season 2 while she is talking about Aaron (picture 3.10). And the Egyptians build a gigantic statue of the goddess of childbirth and fertility, adding thousands of years of history to the importance to this subject. The Mother symbolizes all phases in life. Fertility, life, protection, eternal renewal and rebirth. This is explored more with The Heart of The Island later in the show. A place that functions like the womb of the world (I will get back to this in la ter parts).
Picture 3.10
“We never get a satisfying answer” We get an answer. If it is satisfying enough is subjective. Reetae says that one shouldn’t have to see the epilogue because “99% of you didn’t see it”. He doesn’t give out a source for those numbers. If he’s referring to the people that is watching his video, then I must contradict with him. His video “Reetae Reviews Lost: Part 3” has around 26.000 views on YouTube. The epilogue The New Man in Charge has has 600.000 on one video on
YouTube (that was posted in 2013), 130.000 views on another video (published in 2010), 30.000 views on another video (published in 2010) and additional 8.000 views on a video that was released in 2017. It wasn’t really a secret find for those that saw it on DVD, because it was leaked over a month earlier, on August 6th 2010 36 where it was to be found on several news sites as well as downloaded as a torrent file. However, The New Man in Charge just just add more to the answer for the pregnancy issues. Personally I found the answer to be very satisfying. Benjamin Linus had a mother who died in childbirth. He ends up on an island that experiment with electromagnetism. When he is older he recruits Juliet to study the problems with the pregnant women. He gets Ethan to help him recruit him (as well as Richard Alpert). Time after time she tries tries to save the women from dying, dying, but can’t. Ethan kidnaps Claire Claire and The Others will try to cut Aaron out of her womb. (We get an additional background to Ethan’s actions in the mobisode where we learn that his wife and kid died in childbirth). She escapes thanks to Alex (Ben’s daughter). Ben gets Juliet in on another a nother plan involving the pregnant women in the beach camp. Time goes on and she manages to convince Sun to leave The Island. Juliet doesn’t want yet another dying woman there. t here. When they travel back in time she finally manages to save a woman. Sawyer told her that maybe what caused the event hasn’t happened yet, and he is right. The woman gave birth to Ethan, the man who kidnapped the show’s first pregnant girl and that we later learned brought Juliet back to The Island. And even more so, Juliet hit the bomb in the season 5-finale and ultimately causing the event she was brought there to fix. Just like the Room 23 video said: “We are the causes of our own suffering.” “Nor does it explain why it doesn’t affect men’s reproductive abilities” abilities” That’s where you just have to buy into the symbolic nature of The Island and how it is the heart to the Source of Life, Death and Rebirth. The importance of the father is not there. We saw it with Jacob and his brother and in season 1 Malkin said that “the father will play no part in its life, nor yours”. The show painted a lot of themes concerning our characters’ relations to the father and mother figures. The Island just doesn’t affect the men in the same way. That’s the explanation. In fact, it gave men an advantage with a higher sperm count. “Shouldn’t they be afraid of having sex?” and proceeds to show the sex scene between Shannon and Sayid, and the one between Ana-Lucia and Sawyer. Those characters didn’t know about the pregnancy issues. “Like Kate. Kate should be dead several times over” No, she had sex with Sawyer two times and we didn’t see (nor would we ever, since it’s on ABC) if Sawyer impregnated her. And he didn’t, because she wasn’t pregnant in t he future. And that wouldn’t matter anyway, because she left The Island shortly after a fter her first sexual encounter with Sawyer in I Do. Do. You only die if you give birth on The Island. Sun would’ve died if she didn’t leave on the chopper. If Sawyer did impregnate Kat e and she chose to stay on The Island, she would also die. Kate did hear Juliet say that every pregnant woman until Claire died on The Island in One in One of Us , but Juliet was playing a trick on Jack and the rest of the survivors to gain their trust (as learned by the end of the episode). When Kate has sex with Sawyer in the next episode, she has 36
http://collider.com/lost-epilogue-the-new-man-in-charge-leaks-online/
nothing to fear because Claire is fine and she got birth on The Island. She doesn’t know that you have to have been impregnated on The Island and stay there if you wanna die. “The Others brought pregnant women to the Island to run tests on them and make them give birth there” No, they didn’t. The mothers were all members of The Others. Juliet even suggested to take ta ke them off The Island, something that Ben rejected. Reetae asks why The Others care about pregnant women and says it’s impossible to rationalize. He brings out the part of Ben’s mother’s role being a catalyst, but doesn’t bring out Alex. She was the one who mattered to Ben, which which the show made very clear. The last flashback-episode of Ben Ben didn’t go into his quarrel with Henry Gale, how he got caught in Rousseau’s net, his off-island adventures, the first time he went to Tunisia, how he learned about the frozen wheel or how he learned about Jacob’s cabin. No, the last flashback-episode of Ben was all about him and Alex. He cares so deeply about this in the third season because he doesn’t want her to get pregnant. This isn’t something I am making up, because he says so in Through the Looking Glass . He keeps Karl in a cage and Room 23 just so Ben can separate him from his girlfriend. Reetae says that Ben lose interest in the pregnancy issue after season three, but why would he care when he is a prisoner again and Jack made the call to the freighter? People who work for his nemesis Charles Widmore are coming. And shortly after this scenario, his daughter is killed by one of them. It is natural for his character to grow and progress. This is part of his development, that he cared too much about power and his position, that he lost what truly mattered to him. He confesses this to Ilana in Dr. Linus . It would’ve been a very unnatural character development that when he turned the frozen wheel and gave up his position to Locke, he would go to different places to t o find fertility doctors to continue working on the pregnancy problem on The Island. This wasn’t the way the story got told. It ended up being told through the perspective of Juliet and her experiences in the 70’s that I mentioned earlier. Reetae says that they retconned Ben’s interest in pregnant women, with Ben’s interest in power. But Ben’s interest in pregnant women is part of Ben’s interest in power. If women can’t give birth on the island, then it means trouble. Without the capacity to reproduce, the Others cannot be a self-sustaining community and are reliant on the outside world. Richard said that Ben’s focus is wrong in The Brig and and told Locke they were looking for someone else. If Ben fixes the situation, he will be respected enough that Richard would finally take him to Jacob. “But the weirdness of The Others don’t stop there, because The Others are also into lists” Yes, but I don’t understand what is weird about lists? “The Others also know about things they did before they got onto the plane. Things that they shouldn’t possibly know” and reference the man Sawyer shot in cold-blood the day before he got on the plane This is a good point. There were no witnesses to the murder of Frank Duckett. Who was the only ones who knew about it? Sawyer and Hibbs. That means Hibbs either has a connection with The Others or got questioned by the one who had a job of creating Sawyer’s file. This is easy to piece out. The Others have a massive off-island network anyway.
The Others staging a car accident with Anthony Cooper. Reetae says that it is mumbo-jumbo that they would do this, because how would The Others know that Locke would stumble upon them to find his father. This isn’t mumbo-jumbo. In fact, John Locke is the one Flight 815-survivor they’ve known about for over fifty years. Richard would know (and research) all about him back in the 50’s. Richard knows that t hat John Locke would come to The Others eventually, since he claimed cla imed to have been sent by Jacob. Locke told Ethan a few years before the plane crashed that Ben elected him their leader. In the audio commentary for Because you Left , Darlton says that Ethan would run back to The Others and tell them about this st range encounter, even suggesting suggesting that that there would would be a scene with Ethan Ethan and Richard Richard about it.37
That some of The Others are willing to die instead of telling the rest of the people their secrets (references Bea Klugh). Whether or not Reetae likes this is his opinion. The Island is special, have healing abilities and consists of a unique monster that can take the shape of your loved ones. There’s no place on earth like this. I mean, people are willing to die instead of telling where Osama bin Laden is hidden. Yes, some people are willing to die for The Island. Others not. We see this time and time again. The Oceanic 6 were willing to lie about everything related to The Island. Even Sawyer said he’d be willing to die instead of telling them where he hid the guns. Reetae shows a video clip of Damon talking about the mention by Danny Pickett about Jacob’s list and that it shows that Damon didn’t know the answer to that question. That’s also pretty subjective. What Damon answers is what they intended with it at the time, because the questionnaire asks if it relates to Jacob’s cave. The idea of Jacob’s cave, a location from the fourth episode in season 6, was very likely not conceived during the mini-season at the start of season 3. Does it matter if they knew they were going to show us Jacob’s cave three seasons from now (remember this is at a time where they didn’t know when the show was gonna end. The idea of a candidate-list could’ve been very different if the show had four seasons or twelve). t welve). However, However, there’s many lists on the show and that many of The Others believe they come directly from Jacob. And as we learn from John Locke in the very very same season, that he finds it suspicious suspicious that nobody has ever seen seen Jacob. He thinks Ben Ben is putting up a show. Reetae brings out the scene where Sayid is asking a sking Juliet about what The Others are doing on the island and kidnapping children, but feels that it is irritating that Sayid ends it with a “who are you?”-question, because we’ll learn it in a flashback. That’s because this is show about characters. The pacing would be all off, without André -session any dramatic momentum if the entire 42 minutes was a My Dinner with André -session between Sayid and Juliet at the riverbank. That That is never what Lost was in its six-year six-year run.
37
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Because_You_Left_audio_commentary http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Because_You_Left_audio_ commentary
Sonic fence
3.11: The Monster can’t go past the fence. In season 2, on that blast door map, there were several mentions of the monster actually. The DHARMA Initiative just called it "Cerberus". And that there were several Cerberus vents (CV) on the island. Cerberus is named from the beast that guarded the entrance to Hell in Greek mythology38. It was famous for having three heads (and in this episode we see three plumes of smoke smoke converging into one right before it hits the fence). We learn from Juliet that the monster doesn't "like our fences", which is interesting. That it is sound waves that prevented the monster from getting to Juliet and Kate, not explosives. A fun connection here: In Greek mythology, Orpheus managed to get past Cerberus by playing music, music, which which lulled lulled it to to sleep sleep39.
Reetae doesn’t bring up Greek mythology or Orpheus, but is irritated with this scene from Left Behind, Behind, because he seriously wanted Kate to ask these questions: - “Wha “Whatt tech techno nolo logy gy is used used?? - “How “How did did the the DHARM DHARMA A Initi Initiati ative ve know know how to instal installl this?” this?” - “How was the the DHARMA DHARMA Initia Initiative tive even even able able to constru construct ct this fence fence consideri considering ng that the Smoke Smoke monster should be able to annihilate them all while they were building it” And then he felt frustrated that Juliet Juliet said “it doesn’t like our fences” fences” and then the conversation was was about the key. This is very evident that Reetae isn’t really familiar with dramatic storytelling. We see this already from the Pilot , when Sawyer shoots the polar bear. The characters acknowledge that there shouldn’t be polar bears on The Island, but when asked where it came from, Sawyer says “probably Bear village”, but the conversation changes from the bear to the gun. And then to the marshall and the identity of the prisoner. That is how they wrote a mystery show about characters. It’s not very dramatic if it was all a discussion about polar bears and tropical environments. Actually, it makes sense for Kate’s character to ask about a bout the key, because she did the same thing in the Pilot . She was never interested in the scientifics or Island history. Imagine how off-putting and 38
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerberus http://www.museumofmythology.com/Greek/cerberus.htm
39
unnatural the scene at the sonic fence would be if they went in-depth with those t hose questions instead of the ones that developed the relationship between Juliet and Kate. J.K. Rowling wouldn’t have have made Harry Potter a global sensation if the dialogue was like that, because it sounds like the one in the Harry Potter fan-fiction Harry Potter and and the Methods of Rationality Rationality,, which illustrates why it never would work as a book series since it removes all wonder and fantasy about it. I’ll provide a short snippet from the fan-fiction that illustrates where the charm of the J.K. Rowling’s book series was. This is a scene where Professor McGonagall transforms into a cat and then back to herself: Harry was breathing breathing in short gasps. His voice came out choked. "You can't can't DO that!" It's only a Transfiguration," Transfiguration," said Professor McGonagall. McGonagall. "An Animagus transformation, transformation, to be exact." "You turned into a cat! A SMALL cat! You violated Conservation of Energy! That's not just an arbitrary rule, it's implied by the form of the quantum Hamiltonian! Rejecting it destroys unitarity and then you get FTL signalling! And cats are COMPLICATED! A human mind can't just visualise a whole cat's anatomy and, and and all the cat biochemistry, biochemistry, and what about the neurology? neurology? How can you you go on thinking using a cat-sized brain?" Professor Professor McGonag McGonagall's all's lips were twitchi twitching ng harder harder now. "Magic." "Magic." 40 *
Ben’s lies Reetae feels that it’s a problem that we never know if he tells the truth or not. He’s referring to “the magic box” that we wouldn’t know if Ben told the truth about it being a metaphor, since he tells a lot of lies to Locke at this point in time. This is a fair point, but also his subjective feelings towards Ben as a character. He lies a lot. The Magic Box certainly is a metaphor for The Island.
Season 3’s ratings From A Tale of Two Cities to to Exposé , there’s a viewer drop of 7 million. That is true. And he says that the show picks up towards the end of the third season, which I also agree with. This could also reflect why they had to postpone Libby as I mentioned earlier. The way it picks up at the t he end reflects the way the producers managed to negotiate an end deal with ABC. Reetae feels there is something weird about The Others just letting Kelvin be there in The Swan with Radzinsky (if he wasn’t dead yet) and Desmond. That’s also okay. I only took it as them seeing that it was manned and there were no reasons to intervene. They had access to the cameras through The Pearl and saw they were pushing the button all the time.
40
Chapter 2, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Jacob’s cabin
3.12: The cabin in The Man behind the Curtain.
Now, this is a very vague concept in Lost and that certainly raised a lot of questions. In many ways the cabin symbolizes The Island. It has a circle around it and if broken you can enter. Either on specific coordinates or when a window opens. The cabin moves around and it has been occupied by Jacob and The Man in Black. I agree that we could’ve gotten even more clarity on Jacob’s cabin, but we got some elements to puzzle it together. It seems from the show that some of the plans with the cabin became different over time. “Not only is this never explained. It actually makes less sense the more we learn about Jacob” It wasn’t Jacob in the cabin. It was Jacob when it was aired in 2007, but we later learned from Ilana that it was used by somebody else. Reetae uses the DVD commentary commentary track as source for the claim that it was Jacob in the cabin at that time. “Ben has powers over Jacob, and Jacob has some powers over Ben. And there's a bit of a stasis. But, obviously, on a bigger picture level, what we really wanted to do was once Ben kind of recovers from his surprise that that Locke was able to carry through through on this task that that Ben never thought thought he would be able to complete, that is, kill his father, now Ben really wants to find out, "ls Locke special? ls he actually communing communing with the island island in a significant way, in a way that actually threatens his primacy?" Ben decides, "Yes, I will take him out to the cabin where Jacob is, and if Locke can see Jacob, I will know there there is something special special about Locke. And if he can't, can't, then I can utterly dismiss him." ( Carlton Carlton Cuse, audio commentary for The Man behind the Curtain) Obviously, this didn’t happen. Reetae says that the producers were lying in the commentary, but that’s not the case either. Their ideas for Jacob and The Man in Black changed. What they said in the commentary was the “truth” about Jacob right there and then. Not anymore. If you had asked J.K. Rowling using some sort of truth serum if one of the trio t rio dies during the Harry Potter-series when she was writing the books, she would have said yes. But at the end of the series, none of them died. You see, J.K. Rowling planned to kill of Ron Weasley, but didn’t. didn’t.41 Plans change, change, new new ideas ideas come. come. 41
https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2011/oct/31/jk-rowling-ron-weasley
Just a few episodes after this this event we would revisit revisit the cabin. In the season 4 premiere premiere Hurley would would stumble upon it and inside he wouldn’t see the figure we saw the last time. He would see himself. That is a crazy situation and spins a whole new field of theories regarding the identity of the man we saw in The Man Behind the Curtain. Curtain . This scene was planned, written and even filmed with Jorge Garcia in the chair. Garcia confirmed it on his Geronimo Jack’s beard podcast. The Network intervened, because it was too weird. In a panel in Israel, Jack Bender confirms confirms this as well.42 The network didn’t like it so Darlton told Jack Bender to film it really dark, so it wouldn’t be so noticeable, but even the silhouette of Jorge Garcia would be too noticeable for the network. So they had to go back and re-shoot it. They thus had to retcon the cabin somehow and Christian Shephard was the best they could do to somehow make sense. They had a plan but they had to go back to the drawing board. And then the plans changed and new ideas emerged from this change-up. Later we had Christian Christian Shephard appearing again in the cabin, where he clearly was in the role of The Man in Black, after getting Claire “claimed”. As confirmed by Javier Javier Grillo-Marxuach that wrote for the show show much earlier, they could could add different strokes to their ideas because they came up with something that was better, yet still part of what they wanted to tell. I want to illustrate this with an example from an episode that is often talked about as the one that “hooked” the hardcore fans. An episode that told a beautiful story in an engaging way. An episode that transcended from an ordinary “plane crash on an a n island”-show to something unique, mainly due to a twist. Even though we knew knew from the very first first day that Locke's arc would be that of a warped, frustrated middle-aged middle-aged man who, feeling feeling that his survival was a mystical mystical revelation, would recast himself as a sort of shamanistic badass on the island, the wheelchair was almost an afterthought. afterthought. The original story break break for that episode episode focused on Locke being a meek, if physically able, office drone drone whose hopes and dreams dreams had all fizzled out out and he was trapped trapped in a loser job where he was mercilessly abused and passed over by entitled, supercilious, younger co-workers. The original story break ended with Locke -- who had bragged to his office rivals about embarking on on the adventure of of a lifetime -- alone and and miserable in a bus heading heading away from an outback tourist tourist trap... realizing that that his dreams of being a great adventurer adventurer were just that. It was not until the episode had been plotted that Damon rushed into the writers room and pitched his overnight overnight brainstorm that that there should be a Sixth Sense-like twist... twist... that Locke should be sitting in all of his scenes... and it’s not until the end that we realize he was in a wheelchair all along, adding a layer layer of cruelty and poignancy poignancy to the abuse and and skepticism he suffered suffered from his co-workers... And creating the shocking, series-defining reveal that the island had healed Locke and his transcendence transcendence may have been the the product of a higher higher cosmic force at work on the island! (Marxuach, 2015, p. 25) Sometimes a new change can occur and it will work better in the end. The change-up made it so it wasn’t Jacob in the cabin, but The Man in Black and that was part of his con of getting John Locke as his loophole. For all we know, the “2007 edition of Jacob” might’ve been an invisible man, that only the ones that were special could see. Or that Jacob was a reflection of oneself from a different time period (maybe it really was Locke in the chair, only with longer hair, like many theorized?). Or that he had a Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-transformation where he 42
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joG17ZHpfxE
would either be raving mad or a great leader, a Yin/Yang-character. Or he was trapped in time, like many theorized, and the reason why Hurley saw himself was because he would become Protector? Maybe Jacob and The Man in Black were the same individual after all, both The Protector and The Monster, before they made them into brothers. (And making them into brothers is a decision I liked, since that is something that could be foreshadowed and tracked back down to season 1 and 2). In the end, it was different. The change made for the cabin makes more sense with the actions of The Man in Black, so in this situation I actually agree with ABC. The only thing it destroys is the audio commentary, but the show stay the same. Before they enter it, they pass the circle of ash. They didn’t go around it to check if it was broken. When Ilana and her people went to the cabin in daytime, they had much more visibility of the ash and saw that it was broken. We don’t know when it was broken because we never saw the whole circle.
Picture 3.13: Is it just me or does the ash look b roken here? Where Locke points his flashlight.
But since The Man in Black was in the cabin in this episode, then the ash must’ve been broken before Locke and Ben entered. Or Jacob trapped him there in the t he time after the events of Left Behind and Behind and that Locke broke the ash circle. Here’s why it was The Man in Black based on what happened inside the cabin: Telekinesis Various objects fly around the cabin. This is something we know The Monster/The Man in Black can do. It can rip and elevate the trees from the ground as seen as early as season 1. He also used it to open up Ben’s shackles much later in Dr. Linus . He even summoned the sailboat from Hydra Island to the main island. Appear/disappear Appear/disappear The Smoke Monster has shown to appear and disappear in shorter than a second, even before this episode aired. Mr. Eko is encountered by quick Monster-projections of Emeka and his goons in The Cost of Living . The Man
in Black also does this with Richard in Ab in Ab Aeterno. Aeterno. In this episode he appears briefly as an unknown, ragged man. Fire generation This one is interesting. The man in the chair causes the lantern to fall and a fire erupts inside the cabin. But when Ben goes out, the lantern is fine. This is something one can chalk up to a blooper, but there should be a fire started inside the old, wooden cabin. It’s pitch black when they go out. It took seconds to burn the whole thing in The Incident . Where is the fire now? We’ve seen The Man in Black create fire out of nothing in The Cost of Living when when he visited Eko’s tent and burned it. Which is also something that happened before this Dead when he extinguishes the flame in the tunnel with Ben, episode aired. He does a similar trick in Dead is Dead when shows up as Alex, and then generate fire once again. Appear as dead dead people In 11 frames we see a figure sitting in the rocking chair. In real life it was just the prop master Rob Kyker, but the clothes were old. They looked like they came from the 19th century. Fans felt they were reminded of Richard’s clothes in the very same episode and thought that this man could’ve been a man that was killed on The Island after arriving with The Black Rock. And we know The Smoke Monster killed them all. We know that they hadn’t cast Titus Welliver yet, so the hazy image could’ve been what they imagined this individual looked like. It isn’t the first time they had to recast someone. They got a professional actor for the role as Carole Littleton, that didn’t look like Carole from Par Avion, but Avion, but we got a good acting performance in There’s No Place Like Home . I am glad the prop master Rob Kyker didn’t play the role of The Man in Black in season 5 and 6. This image (picture 3.14) might be stretching it too far and I won’t put it as evidence. I just think it’s neat, since it looks like a black shadow is sitting in the chair. Most likely this is a lighting issue or the black circle inside the flashlight’s light.
Picture 3.14
“Help me. Help you how? Can you be a little specific?” Why would you ruin fantastic dialogue with anything more than those two iconic words? E.T. isn’t specific enough when he said “phone home”. He should say “E.T. wants to contact his home planet pl anet of RizzleDoozzle that is 40 light years away where his people are waiting and to do that I have to find a transmitter to contact
them, and the technology I will use is inside this satellite dish” or something like that. Reetae even complains that The Man in Black tells Locke “Help Me” at the end of the scene, not earlier. Once again Reetae doesn’t understand dramatic storytelling. The way the scene plays out is as an anticlimax. It builds up from the beginning of the episode and when we end up in the cabin, we see Ben talking to an empty chair. We conclude that Ben is crazy and made the whole thing up, because that is what was the most likely option. That is why he was shaking his glass at the beginning of the episode. That is why Locke calls Ben “The man behind the curtain”. If The Man in Black had suddenly started making clear-cut dialogue with Locke, how would that seem on screen? Pretty silly if you ask me. This is a scene with a supernatural element, that’s using a lot of tropes and conventions from horror films. When the audience has calmed down, we have the twist with “help me” and then the horrific events happen inside the cabin. To answer Reetae’s question: The Man in Black, which was established as being in the cabin during this scene, needs John Locke’s help to fulfill his plan. John Locke is the most important key to his long plan. He wants John Locke to move the island island and make him believe that he is still special. That this is The Island talking to him and that he has to help The Island/Jacob. The Man in Black only talking to Locke infuriates Ben, which the Man in Black later exploits as a means to finally kill his brother, Jacob.
Taller Ghost Walt
This scene happened one year after they had written out Walt. And yes, I can agree that it’s strange that they wanted to include Walt despite him aging past his role rol e on the show. There have been many theories surrounding this scene. “Why, what and how is this scene possible if he’s off The Island?” asks Reetae and uses the Lostpedia theory-page to find theories on the matter. matt er. One he picks out is that “he can manipulate space and time”, which
he criticizes because then Walt is useless and could’ve gone back in time to save the characters. I would be more interested in hearing what theories Reetae has on the matter, because this is the t he third video into this series and he hasn’t provided any analysis (or tried to get in-depth) on the mysteries happenings on The Island. There is a possibility that the writers now tried to get Walt back into the mix. In season 3, just a few episodes before the season 3 finale, they introduced a new concept. Richard Alpert is ageless. He stays st ays the same age both in the 70’s and the 2000’s. There might’ve been talks in the writer’s room about doing something similar with Walt. That he ages rapidly. His ability to “appear in a place he wasn’t supposed to be” isn’t exactly new. We’ve covered this earlier. And his ability to sense things before they happen is also something that has been covered. The only thing is his age. But since the show didn’t do more on the subject, it wasn’t like that. They got him back in scenes taking place in the future instead, while still having him “written off” the show. However, this scene in the finale is very cryptic, so it could mean that this is The Man in Black using an image of Walt. This is a theory I’ve liked a lot. The Man in Black appeared briefly as the altar boy Daniel, so he can use the image of someone living as well as someone dead. It’s just not common with The Man in Black. Walt doesn’t refer to Locke as “Mr. Locke”, but as John. It is in The Man in Black’s interest that the remaining candidates are all together, so they can kill off each other. Walt tells Locke to stop Naomi and he does. Naomi was also a candidate (#27 in Jacob’s lighthouse) and it causes a conflict within the group of survivors. Walt also told Locke that he has “work to do”, something that was uttered by Christian Shephard in the mobisode So it Begins. However, this is regularly regularly spoken phrase anyway. anyway. Or The Island provided John Locke a vision? Something needed to happen from preventing a suicide. (Although the bullet wouldn’t go off anyway). a nyway). John Locke needs to get to 1954 to meet Richard. The Island spoke to Locke earlier, when he talked tal ked to Boone. Boone had a different hairstyle in this situation, so it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to say that The Island isn’t particularly good at producing an image that is exactly like what the characters remember them to be. This scene is a headscratcher, but take a look at the forums. At the Live Thread on TheFuselage or Lostpedia. This scene was well-liked by the audience. People were ecstatic a bout it. Walt and Locke always had a special bond and we haven’t seen a scene with them together since since season 1. They They called it a “nice “nice surprise”43 and “Yes finally we see Walt!!”44. He’s a fan favourite. So what would the writers value in this situation? Have Have Locke get up by himself from that ditch? Have Richard Alpert drag him up? Or include an aged Malcolm David Kelley in the season finale in a pivotal scene with Terry O’Quinn. The best emotional payoff would probably with either Walt or a vision of Eko. And the latter wasn’t that interested in returning to Hawaii anyway. I guess we have to stick with the fact that t hat they wanted a cryptic scene between these two characters, even though it’s a headscratcher, and you can try to theorize your answer out of that. I like the Man in Black-theory. I know many like the Walt astral projecting to The Island-theory. Reetae doesn’t even try to explore the issue of Taller ghost Walt and just say it’s bullshit. He points out that Walt has visions that don’t mean anything (shows the scene about “don’t open it”. I’ve already addressed that). “He materializes deadly polar bears”. I’ve addressed this in part 1. “He kills dead birds”. That sentence doesn’t 43 44
http://thefuselage.com/showthread.php?t=74878&page=30 http://thefuselage.com/showthread.php?t=74878&page=30 http://thefuselage.com/showthread.php?t=74878&page=31 http://thefuselage.com/showthread.php?t=7487 8&page=31
make sense. “And he never uses his powers in a productive way”. Walt barely knew he had powers. He left The Island before he could learn to use them properly.
“There are quite a few Lost-fans who refuse to accept that some of this stuff is bullshit. They have to believe that everything in this show meant something” I don’t understand why this video, which is supposed to be a criticism of the t he show, needs to criticize the fans. Their interpretation of the show is just as valid as Reetae’s. Who is he to dictate what they can or can’t enjoy? What something means to a viewer is an entirely subjective experience. *
Reete didn’t like the ending to the season 3 finale which is also one of the first times I’ve heard this seeing as Through the Looking Glass is is the most critically acclaimed finale of all the t he Lost seasons, and pretty much every TV and film critic praised the flashforward-ending. Time even called it one of the best scenes on television in 2007.45 He doesn’t explain explain why he didn’t like the line “We have to go back”. He He only called it awful. awful. It’s his opinion. If he wanted Jack to be more specific, then I guess the season 3 finale should’ve packed more exposition to please him. Jack: “We have to go back, Kate. We have to return with a plane or a submarine to The Island we escape from three years ago at the bearing of 305, Kate!”
45
http://entertainment.time.com/2007/12/21/robopost_the_10_best_tv_scenes/ http://entertainment.time.com/2007/12/21/robop ost_the_10_best_tv_scenes/
