Lost Episodes 1x15-18, “Homecoming” to “Numbers”
Slightly different format this time.
Does everyone really get a new life on the Island, as Shannon says?
In the four episodes we see here, the answer seems to be “not really”. Charlie can make a case that he does, yes. For the first time since his addiction began, he’s seemingly able to make decisions for himself without the drugs deciding for him. But addiction is a cycle, and we’ll have to see whether he can live up to that for long. For now, though, he’s the closest thing we have to a success.
The others? Not so much. Sawyer has spent his entire adulthood carrying the same letter with him and has shown no signs of letting up. He doesn’t want a new life. He wants the life that was taken from him. It’s an open wound for him. He hasn’t yet realised that he can never get back what was taken from him, and until that happens, no blank slate for you James.
As for Jin? He’s outright given the chance to “just start all over” and says no. He believed completely that his father-in-law was the source of all conflict in his relationship, which may be true, but taking him out of the picture cannot heal everything between Jin and Sun. It just can’t. The fracture still exists even if the source has been removed.
Hurley is slightly different, as he doesn’t have the same level of agency in his issues. He can’t get away from the numbers, even if he thinks he can. But he can’t run away from his mental health issues, either. A blank slate does not mean ignoring everything that happened before. One first has to confront the issues in order to become a new person.
The first, and weakest, of these four episodes focuses on Charlie. I have some sympathy with the show in that his flashbacks were probably a nightmare to write with the drug addiction. When someone is an addict on the level that Charlie is, that becomes part of every aspect of their life, and every story is an addiction story. But for the television series Lost, that leads to every Charlie flashback telling the same story over and over again. This time, he’s trying to steal from his girlfriend Lucy (and her terrible, terrible British accent)’s father in order to buy more heroine. Or something. The point seems to be that he can never take care of anyone, but he now has a new opportunity with Claire. Who apparently needs taking care of, despite showing no indication that she’s asking for that.
The meat of “Homecoming” is frustrating because this really feels like it should be a great episode of Lost. It’s the one where Ethan dies! But its two primary plot points are acts of delay: Claire has amnesia, so she can’t say anything, while Ethan is murdered, so he can’t say anything either. The show had kind of written itself into a corner with the prospect of revealing too much, too soon. Anyway, it’s not very good, and we can all move on from it.
The other three episodes all deal with characters in some way failing to start over. “Outlaws” tackles this head on with Sawyer trying to kill the man he took his name from. Sawyer’s entire identity has been built around this revenge kick to the point where it’s a crux: it’s how the conman gets conned. Wherever this “original Sawyer” is, he couldn’t be further away from the Island. “Our” Sawyer will never be at peace with this until he finds him. He can’t start anew because his whole identity is built around having baggage.
For Hurley it’s the opposite. He’s desperate for his tabula rasa. Sawyer wants revenge on his curse, but Hugo just wants it to stop. The Island isn’t even giving him a chance to make it go away, and this is where I quibble with “Numbers”. Having 4 8 15 16 23 42 etched on the side of the Hatch is a cool twist, but I’m not sure it plays nicely with the themes of the show. It denies Hurley his second chance. For the most part, characters on Lost are offered a fresh start but often fail to take it. With Hurley, it feels like he doesn’t get that choice at all.
For Jin, the question of starting over is much more complicated. He wanted to run away with Sun and got exactly that. What he didn’t bargain for was Sun being her own person with legitimate agency. He totally believes that all his problems are down to Mr. Paik, but life doesn’t work like that. Hearing Sun speaks English shocks him to his core because it’s a realisation that he doesn’t understand how broken their relationship is. Sun says that she was going to leave him in English, but it doesn’t matter. He already knows. The real tragedy in their relationship is that they’ve blown their chance to heal already. The blank slate is well and truly dirty now.
On a grander level, these four episodes give us the show having to become a long running TV show. Lost was already a big hit by the time the second half of the season was made, and it was a sure thing to get renewed for another year. Suddenly the series had to find ways to build out rather than move forward, to explore new avenues rather than push on with the ones that existed. This would wear thin, and it’s a godsend that Lindelof and Cuse negotiated and end date during season 3; But right now it really is quite interesting to watch them branch out and evolve the show into something more sustainable.
The opening act of Lost was glorious anarchy. This is something different. There have been many, many, many heavily serialised shows since this one to burn bright early on and then fall apart. The gut response from most viewers has been to claim these stories need definitive endings, that closed loops are the way to go. I’ve never believed that, and I’d hold Lost up as an example why. It took its energy early on and properly understood how to build something much grander. Many others simply don’t know how to do this.