Lost Episodes 1x07-1x10, “The Moth” to “Raised by Another”
Here's the next round of episodes.
The Moth
Lost is not a subtle show.
This isn’t a criticism. I obviously like Lost an awful lot. But it deals in broad strokes, with archetypal characters doing bold things. The idea of the caves, that everyone on the Island has an absolute choice between optimism or pessimism, isn’t exactly nuanced. But it works. It’s sincere and upfront about its lack of subtlety.
Which brings us to Mr. Pace.
Charlie was not the easiest character to build episodes around. The drug addiction feels like such a potent idea, a stark opportunity for the blank slate of the Island. But it became such a crux that the only thing the show could really explore about him was that, or something directly tied to that. They were boxed in. Much like Mr. Pace himself, the writers lacked agency.
Lost is about choices, so it’s important to separate what Charlie does and does not choose to do. He doesn’t choose to keep going with the band. He doesn’t choose the fame and the girls and the lifestyle. He does, however, make the choice in a moment of weakness to take the heroin. I don’t actually know that much about addiction and nor does the show, but on Lost, addiction is a denial of choice and control. The last time Charlie has true agency is when he decides to take the heroin, and the next time is when he rescues Jack from the cave.
As the spiritual leader of the Losties (yes, we’re going with that term now, it’s what the internet went with in 2004), Locke talks about this over and over. The writers are starting to use Locke as the man who can state the themes of the show pretty much outright, and it works because he’s connected to the mythic element. Jack, in comparison, remains the man of practicalities. Both help Charlie this episode in different ways, but Jack is much more focused on the practicalities of right now. Charlie has to pull Jack’s shoulder back in, and then find rescue through the cave in, while Locke guides this week’s protagonist on his path to choice. As of right now, neither of these two can be considered “right” or “wrong”, but both illustrate different ideas of society.
The big reveal in the flashbacks this week is obviously about Charlie and his brother Liam, and it feels awfully one note, but I almost feel like this is the point. Liam, played by guest star Neil Hopkins and his mess of a British accent (I’ve known a lot of people from Manchester, and none of them sound anything like him), seems like something of a monster here, leading Charlie to destruction then gaslighting him about who’s fault it all was. But this isn’t Liam’s story. Charlie has narrativised his whole life, constructing himself as the victim to Liam’s bad influence. Things are cliche in his memory because he wants to believe it’s a story. He wants to believe he didn’t do anything wrong, so that’s how he remembers his life. The truth is almost certainly more complex. This is why these flashbacks can get away with being less than nuanced.
Charlie takes ownership of his narrative by throwing the drugs into the fire. Drive Shaft was defined by Liam in the public eye to the point where it defined Charlie’s own understanding of himself. Jack made the choice to destroy the coffin and no longer be defined by his father back in “White Rabbit”, and Charlie makes the same decision here. The crash doesn’t allow characters to forget the past, but it does let them redefine who they are. Charlie brings the baggage of being seen as unnecessary and worthless with him, but takes the choice to become something else here. Lost doesn’t usually have such blunt “I’m going to be a better person now” statements as this, but it’s almost always a key suggestion.
The big non-Charlie plot in this episode is about Sayid and his latest plan to rube goldberg the Losties off the Island. This is the kind of story that has a high degree of difficulty for the writers. On one hand, we the audience know full well that the gang are not about to get rescued in episode seven. But on the other, it wouldn’t be plausible if the characters weren’t doing whatever they could to get home. The French woman’s message helps them find a good balance, as the show can still move the plot forward without actually nudging them much closer to rescue. This episode does a better job with the material, I think, for a few reasons. The first is that it involves a wider number of characters. Sayid and Kate are here again, but Sawyer ends up sneaking along, while Shannon and Boone are integral. We get a lot more Kate material that indicates what works about her character, while also bringing in elements that become frustrating. The idea of her division between the cleaner cut person she wants to be and the low life fugitive she was off the Island is a compelling one, but playing it out between Jack and Sawyer feels regressive. Lost does have a problem with how much its women characters are defined by men.
But oh, it’s a great cliffhanger to a mystery thread. I’ve spent very little time writing about the mysteries of this show so far. As Lost was airing, it seemed like all anyone wanted to talk about was what the monster is, what the message meant, where they are. But that’s a very small part of the actual show itself. Much like Twin Peaks (original flavour) before it, the aspects that hit the zeitgeist are not integral to 90% of any given episode’s running time. “The Moth” isn’t about monsters or transmissions or skeletons. It’s about Charlie becoming his own person and taking control of his life outside of his brother’s shadow. And that’s all it needs to be about.
Notes
“The Moth” was written by Jennifer Johnson, a veteran of middling TV dramas, and Paul Dini, best known for Batman: The Animated Series.
The episode is directed by the main man, Jack Bender. There’s a cool shot early on between Sayid, Kate and Boone that breaks the 180 degree rule. It’s never unclear where the characters are, and it actually improves our understanding of the physical space.
The show seems to be getting better at lighting the caves, with fewer shots that are difficult to make out, but they still don’t look all that great.
Shannon is once again totally competent, despite Boone having no faith in her. He, on the other hand, succeeds at nothing while trying to be the hero of everything.
Sayid is a good exposition dump character, as the show is learning.
Confidence Man
“Confidence Man” is the first big time we see one of Lost’s favourite items in its bag of tricks: the unreliable narrator twist. This episode is a good example of what does and does not work about the approach.
The twist is certainly a good one. It’s the moment that Sawyer becomes a fully realised character, snapping into place and adding depth to his actions. His scene with Kate discussing the letter at the end involves terrific work by Josh Holloway, giving more power and understanding to who the character is than all of the flashbacks. But the problem is that the twist becomes all that the episode is about. It strings us along for nearly its whole running time on the mystery of who he is, unable to really do much else in order to keep the reveal intact. Lost is of course a twisty-turny show, and this is where so much of what works comes from. But it can at times get too bogged down in shocking the audience and pulling off a fake out that it forgets that it’s more important to, you know, tell a story first.
Let’s get to the flashback, which is where my issues really lie. We’re introduced to Sawyer some unclear amount of time before the crash, working his standard con. The episode doesn’t say outright what he’s doing until fairly late on, but they’re not exactly hiding it. His plan is fairly straightforward: convince the woman he’s been sleeping with, Jess, to get her husband to hand over $140,000 that he will then run away with. We see him go through the various stages of the grift, seducing Jess and presenting David with enough cash to make him think he’s the big man. The surprise is obviously that seeing the boy changes his mind, as he truly realises he’s become the thing he hated.
On one hand, I really like that Sawyer decided to leave the briefcase of money. This is yet another Lost character making a choice to go on a different path. With Sawyer having borrowed this money from a loan shark, it’s safe to say he’s on a different path that obviously ends in the crash. Sawyer hasn’t yet shown signs of really changing on the island, but this is a clear decision to become a different person. On the other hand, I’m not sure it really adds up.
What we’re led to believe is that Sawyer, in this moment, realises he’s become the man he’s hunting and makes a radical decision to change. But he’s already a con man who took on the name Sawyer. He already knows this to the point that it’s his entire identity. The idea of him discovering some big lesson here doesn’t track for me. And otherwise what we’re left with is a fairly routine adventure in his life that he isn’t especially going to remember. Again, it feels all in service of the twist. I can’t help but think there was a better way for us to learn who Sawyer is.
The present day material is a different story. I don’t know if we’ve all just changed since 2004, but the idea of Sawyer conning his way to a kiss from Kate feels very uncomfortable. You could probably get “Confidence Man” writer Damon Lindelof to apologise for it today if pushed on the subject, considering how much he loves to do that. Otherwise, this is a really strong exploration of Sawyer. It’s not exactly a surprise that there’s a human being in there, but it’s still compelling to see how he puts up his barriers and how easily Kate breaks them down.
The torture scene, along with it being 2004 in a nutshell, Iraq war implications to shaky cam, captures just what Sawyer brings on the Island. Sayid is a professional torturer and goes through the usual routine. But Sawyer is a good con man. He’s become legitimately good at reading other people while keeping his own feelings close to his chest. He plays Jack and Sayid like a fiddle, recognising that Jack will be too keen to play the good cop and prevent the torture from really going all the way, while he knows Sayid is frustrated by Jack’s default position as leader. It’s all too easy for him.
Except for Kate. As much as she bristles at the thought of the pair having a “connection”, and as much as Sawyer is being a creep about it, she’s the only one who can see through his act. As I’m saying for what feels like the millionth time, Jack represents the opportunity for a blank slate, for Kate to become the person she wants to be on the Island. But Sawyer represents the criminal life she comes from that she can’t escape. It’s a part of her, and Sawyer knows it. And I will state that for all that I don’t like a lot of writing choices here, Holloway and Evangeline Lilly do have a fun chemistry at times.
In terms of the rest of the gang, we get a good assortment of stories here. Sayid really pushes out a quality he thought he could keep dormant, but he also decided to do it, so he really only has himself to blame. But we’ll talk a lot more about him soon. Boone might seriously be the character who most amuses me at this point, with his constant attempts at being the hero coming up as totally worthless. But he and Shannon really do care about each other, and it’s good shading that we see them do something other than bicker. Sun saves the day this time, and it’s another character bringing value to the table that Jack overlooked. Charlie and Claire’s subplot about peanut butter doesn’t add a lot other than lightening up a dark episode, but it’s cute anyway.
The purpose of this episode was probably “show Sawyer as a sympathetic character”, and on that front I can’t really call it a success. It invests too much in the twist that amounts to “Aha! He’s actually a human being!” that overwhelms the episode. But where it does work is in demonstrating what Sawyer can do, that he’s actually useful, and how well he can push the buttons of everyone else. This is my least favourite episode so far, but there’s still plenty to recommend.
Notes
“Confidence Man” was directed by Tucker Gates, a reliable TV go to director. I made fun of the shaky cam in the torture scene, but he really does do a good job of making that sequence feel creepy.
This episode opens on Kate meeting Sawyer, rather than the other way round. At the start of the hour, Sawyer is still someone we only know from the outside.
This is the first flashback that doesn’t show us how a character ended up in Australia. It makes clear that there’s more of Sawyer’s story to come.
There’s a shot where Michael totally fails to skin a fish and Sun suddenly shows interest. Lost is being not at all subtle about what he represents to her.
Solitary
So far these reviews have been overwhelmingly focused on character aspects rather than mythology. I don’t want the mysteries to swamp everything, but we get a lot of new information here, so let’s break it out before we move on:
There’s a thick electronic-looking cable that runs from somewhere in the jungle out into the ocean
The French woman from the message is still alive, and her name is Danielle Rousseau
She came to the Island as part of a science team that was shipwrecked.
According to her account, the other members of her team suffered some sort of sickness, which forced her to kill them
Her child, Alex, was taken by other people on the island, “The Others”
She has never seen these Others, but she hears them whisper
Sayid and the audience hear these same whispers later on
Lost loves to answer mystery with character, and here is the perfect example. The French woman in the message was a mystery box plaguing the cast. A wonderful one, yes, but still a plot device. Now she’s a human being. We don’t know exactly how much Rousseau is telling the truth, but we know she’s a person with a story. This is what it means when Lindelof and Cuse say the show is “about the characters”.
Onto the rest of the episode, then…
Sayid’s backstory has always struck me as a little odd. We’re shown that he is indeed an Iraqi Republican Guard torturer, and a pretty high ranking one at that. The tragedy in this story, that he’s forced to torture a woman he loves, has always felt a little rote to me. The show already established that Sayid felt great conflict over his past. To centre a romance around that feels self-defeating. It turns his arc from something quite interesting and compelling into something a little more conventional.
But here’s the thing. It’s taken me a while to figure out Nadia as a character, and while I’m not sure this was necessarily intentional, I think I understand what her role is now: she’s not Sayid’s soulmate. The Nadia we see here isn’t particularly interesting, and we never really get much of a sense for what he would see in her. But he doesn’t love Nadia. He loves the idea of Nadia. He’s made his choices in life and become a man he loathes. Nadia represents the possibility that he could run away and be someone else. Sawyer practically said it last time, when he claimed that the husbands need to “believe that if they had the brass to put that suitcase in the trunk of their family sedan and speed away, they just might have a chance at being an honest-to-gosh outlaw” for his con to work. Nadia is Sayid’s suitcase of money.
The show’s depiction of Iraq and Iraqis is, it’s fair to say, less than perfect. Casting British Indian actor Naveen Andrews as Sayid is the original sin here, though that’s hardly his fault considering how few parts are available to actors who look like him. Andrews’ ability to act in Arabic is presumably limited, so switching these flashbacks to English is a frustrating but understandable choice. But what really rankles is the way the Gulf War is inferred. Sayid is here does the heroic act of betraying his country for love, yes, but also in an act that helps the United States. Imagine flipping the scenario. Imagine an episode of an American television show where the heroic act was in saving an Iraqi sympathiser and helping Saddam Hussein’s war efforts. It wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen.
This is a minor note, but the episode really turns up those yellow filters that indicate this is a developing desert nation. I’m sure it was difficult to distinguish the set from the rest of the show, but guess what, countries don’t actually look that different from each other!
I’ve been fairly critical of this episode, and maybe that’s unfair, because I really do like it a lot. Director Greg Yaitanes and cinematographer Larry Fong (best known as Zack Snyder’s director of photography) take great advantage of a new on-island location and play with darker shots than the show usually gets to use. The Island might exist to offer a fresh start fo our survivors, but it really doesn’t for Rousseau. She’s trapped reliving the same mistakes of her life and chasing shadows for her stolen child over and over again. Metaphorically (AND IN NO OTHER WAY!) the Island is Purgatory for the Losties, but it’s definitely Hell for Rousseau.
Ok, ok, you want me to talk about the golf. The golf is so good and pure that it’s hard to find a lot to analyse beyond “that was great!” It does show that Hurley is every bit as useful as anyone else on the Island, even if his skills aren’t always appreciated so much. This is a dark episode tonally and just visually, so getting everyone out to the golf course really helps lighten the mood. It’s a good time. Good show, this.
Notes
“Solitary” is written by David Fury, delivering his second script after “Walkabout”. Hard to argue he has the best average so far.
Walt! WAAAAAAAAAAAAALT! We get some good Walt stuff here, with his growing dislike of his father, who finally enjoys himself when he forgets about his son. As much as Michael is doing a bad job, the issue is that they’re just very different people.
Sayid is again shown to be an openly religious muslim. This feels more notable than it should be.
Considering the A-plot necessitated no series regulars beyond Sayid, it was a really intelligent choice to involve everyone in the golf.
This episode was made long before golf became the bane of world politics
Raised by Another
Justice for Claire Littleton.
Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and the writing staff do not know how to craft stories for Claire. They just don’t. I’m not really sure why, but they never figured her out. The answer was to load her episodes with mythology and mysteries that feel cool in the moment but have no real weight to them.
As Lost writer-producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach has explained, the show came close to being simply thin-on-the-ground mysteries and nothing else. “we were almost — almost — seduced by a shiny concept — the mysteries of the island, from the smoke monster to the presence of ghosts from the past in the present”, Grillo-Marxuach wrote. “We almost focused on the mystery instead of the operational theme of the characters. To this day, I thank god we had the epiphany early.”
I think “Raised by Another” is the one episode in the first season that fails to live by this.
I’ve written about Lost’s operational theme before here, but Grillo-Marxuach explains it pretty succinctly himself:
“The operating theme of Lost is simple and applies to every character: who do you say you are when you can reinvent yourself with impunity? Every member of the Lost ensemble was living a lie on the island. These lies dictated their behavior and led them to try — either successfully or unsuccessfully — to remake themselves into their most desired version of themselves.”
The way we’ve seen this play out so far is that the Island gives everyone an opportunity to start over and move past their problems. Kate can stop running and finally form bonds free from her fugitive status, if she chooses to. Jack can move on from his father’s death and become his own man out of the shadow, if he chooses to. Charlie can kick drugs and not let his brother’s decisions rule his life, if he chooses to. Everyone is working through some kind of sin or flaw, and everyone gets a choice as to whether they make a step on the road to salvation.
But what about Claire? What is her operational theme? In what way is she trying to remake herself? What past issue is she working through? Who is she? I honestly have no idea from watching this episode. Claire finds out she’s pregnant, which causes her shitty boyfriend to bounce. Her friend then encourages her to visit a psychic, who insists she must raise the baby herself. She ignores him and decides to give it away, before somehow fate stops all the pens from working? It’s very bizarre. Anyway, the psychic insists the baby now can be adopted, but only by a couple in Los Angeles, and only if Claire gets Oceanic flight 815 out to LA. It’s left to interpretation whether the psychic really did know they would crash, but Charlie certainly believes so.
So that’s all Claire is? A woman surrounded by other people’s mysteries? It’s the same on the Island, in which she suffers a horrible nightmare and then insists she was attacked, though Jack is sceptical. Things just happen to Claire here. Lost is about choices. Characters are offered salvation, but have to choose to take that path. Claire never gets to choose because she never has one ounce of agency. She doesn’t even really choose to get on the plane. And then she gets cornered by Ethan at the end. It’s a sad existence for Claire, and she deserves better than the material she’s getting here.
I do want to bring up the psychic a little because it raises ethical queries. As my friend Kev mentioned, real world psychics are... unethical. By playing into the “psychics are real!” trope, Lost allows some cover for genuinely shady real world activity. Now, this is a show that’s very engaged in ideas about con men, so we’ll leave it at that. But there will be more to discuss here at a later date.
This is another episode where Jack is the second lead, and boy does he not have his best hour here. He’s playing the percentages on Claire’s trauma, figuring the evidence points to vivid dreams as the most likely outcome. Of course he doesn’t know he’s a character on a genre show, and therefore anything could be possible. But even so, he’s not thinking strategically. He’s diagnosing Claire as a doctor, but he can’t be the leader the Island needs at the same time. This is not a new tension for the show, but it’s the one that defines Jack in the first season.
The clear “winner” of this hour is Hugo Reyes, the artist formerly known as Hurley. The census idea represents the kind of strategic thinking Jack doesn’t show, as he’s so focused on survival that he can’t see the bigger picture needs in building this society. Hurley doesn’t have what it takes to lead these people. He can’t rally everyone with the big speeches. He can’t command their respect in the same way. But he’s one of the brighter thinkers on the Island, and Jack would be wise to listen to him more often.
And then there’s the Ethan twist, which we’ll talk about in the next review. Once again, justice for Claire.
Notes
“Raised by Another” was written by Lynne E. Litt and directed by Marita Grabiak
It’s another good episode for Shannon’s underrated comedy presence. “Name: Shannon Rutherford, Age: 20, Address: Craphole Island”.
The fans should’ve adopted “Craphole Island” as the unofficial name for the Island
This episode was originally set to come before “Solitary”. I’m still not entirely clear how that would have worked.
Charlie says he wants to be friends with Claire. “Friends”. We all know what you want, Charlie.
Spoiler Zone
Turns out Sawyer doesn’t get the name James Ford until the season one finale. Makes the writing flow so much worse without being able to vary it up.
It feels very obvious in hindsight that Locke hit Sayid when they discuss it, but at this point, John was presented as the totally trustworthy spiritual leader.
It’s somewhat surprising in hindsight just how much of Rousseau’s story is accurate. The whispers ended up being a whole different thing, but she’s neither lying nor remembering her life wrong.
So are we to assume Jacob was pulling the strings with the psychic? That he was just paying the guy off? That feels like the most logical explanation.