"Well," Dad remarked to me the other day, "less than two months to go!"
"I know!" I replied. "They're starting to show commercials for the fifth
season now. I'm so pumped!" At which he laughed and said, "Gee, you
didn't even consider that I might be talking about the Inauguration, did
you?" Nope, I didn't. And nope, he wasn't. Dad and I are anxiously
awaiting the fifth season of LOST, along with everybody else
who's been left hanging since May. It's hard for me to believe, but the
fourth season was the first one that I actually watched live in its
entirety; I saw most of season three that way but had to catch up on the
fall episodes on video.
While waiting this time around has
been a pain, it hasn't been nearly as difficult as it was last year. I
think that's partly because the season four finale left me feeling a lot
more hopeful than season three's
did. The website www.dharmawantsyou.com also helped, allowing me to
take several exams to determine my suitability for a position as a
Dharma Initiative volunteer; I received my results not long ago, and I
was assigned the role of gardener, which puts me in company with Sam Gamgee and Rubeus Hagrid, a fine pair of peers indeed. I also amused myself by carving a LOST-inspired
jack-o-lantern and dressing as a member of the Dharma Initiative for
Halloween. But now the wait is nearly over, and fans of the series can
brush up on LOST lore by snatching the fourth season on DVD.
I never really felt that LOST
lost its footing as a whole, though I have occasionally disagreed with
certain creative choices. I have a hard time choosing a favorite season
when each has such a distinct flavor and brings something so important
to the puzzle that is this show; I'm more inclined to choose favorite
episodes. That said, despite the fact that this season contains only 13
episodes, it has several that floored me. The general consensus seemed
to be that this was LOST's strongest season since the first, and I certainly have to concur that they were doing something right.
I was nervous about the fourth season because Through the Looking Glass
had such an overwhelming despairing effect upon me. Two of my favorite
characters got killed off, along with more than a dozen others. We saw
into the future, and it wasn't pretty. We were left with the
uncomfortable feeling that the desperate rescue plan for which such
grave sacrifices were made may have actually been to the undoing of all.
Not fun. And there are bone-chilling atrocities in this fourth season.
Yet there are still opportunities for light, for hope, for all of the
wonderful character-driven moments that make LOST so addictive.
The fourth season begins to move into the show's end game by giving us
as many flash forwards as flashbacks, sometimes keeping us guessing as
to which is which. We learn that Jack's (Matthew Fox) contact with the
freighter will lead to six castaways returning to civilization in the
near future. It isn't until halfway through the season that we know the
identities of them all, and there's still much to learn about what
happens to them between their departure from the island and Jack's
desperate determination that "We have to go back!" I was worried that
seeing the future might render the present less interesting, especially
in terms of knowing that certain characters will survive, but I rarely
found that to be the case. The future revelations just gave me different
things to focus on as I studied those characters back on the island.
This season brings with it several new characters, the most prominent of which are introduced in Confirmed Dead.
In this unusually structured episode, we see what each of these four
characters was up to when he or she found out that Oceanic Flight 815
had been found at the bottom of the ocean with all its passengers
confirmed dead. (The mystery of just how this illusion was accomplished
endures, though there are some conflicting clues.) The intriguingly
named Charlotte Staples Lewis is the only woman of the bunch. Played by
Rebecca Mader, she's a fiery English archaeologist whose interest in the
island may be more than historical in nature. Miles Straume (Ken Leung)
is a smart-alecky "ghost whisperer" largely out for personal gain whose
unusual skills could be especially handy on an island where so many
have recently died.
Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey) is a crusty
pilot who was supposed to have been flying Oceanic 815 and has become
obsessed with learning the truth about what happened to it. He's rough
around the edges, but his blunt sense of humor is a welcome addition;
shortly after we meet him, he dazedly utters my favorite goofy line of
the season: "I saw a cow!" Frank was the first of the freighter folk I
came to trust completely, and his heroic qualities render him extremely
helpful to our beleaguered friends. Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) is
probably the most notable newbie, given the fact that one of the most
prominent clips going into the season was of him saying shiftily,
"Rescuing you and your people... I can't really say it's our primary
objective." A jittery college professor studying anomalies in the
space-time continuum, he seems like a gentle, absent-minded professor,
and I embraced him quickly, but troubling questions about his mission on
the island remain throughout the season.
Other new characters
include Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick), an imposing figure who makes
his shadowy entrance at key off-island moments, apparently manipulating
characters toward a desired end. We still know little about him, but all
evidence seems to suggest that he is a creep. More ambiguous is Captain
Gault (Grant Bowler), the no-nonsense Australian captain of the
off-shore freighter. With the intentions of his crew unclear and some
very strange phenomena surrounding his ship, figuring out whose side
he's on is no simple task. Same goes for communications officer George
Minkowski (Fisher Stevens) and the ship's crotchety doctor (Marc Vann).
The only one on the ship who seems absolutely unfit for alliance with
the good guys is Martin Keamy (Kevin Durand), a steely-eyed mercenary
who seems to take icy satisfaction in methodical killing. He reminds me
of No Country For Old Men's Anton Chigurh, and it didn't take long for him to become my most loathed character in the show's history.
Season four finds the castaways we already know and love deeply
divided. A majority of them head back to the beach with Jack to wait for
further communication from the freighter. Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is
among them; awkwardly, so is Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), still a rival
for Jack's affections. Parents-to-be Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin (Daniel
Dae Kim) are there too; as their marriage continues to mature, they
anxiously await news of a rescue, as Sun's survival depends upon leaving
the island before her pregnancy becomes too advanced. Surprisingly
enough, Rose (L. Scott Caldwell) and her protective husband Bernard (Sam
Anderson) opt for the beach as well, even though Rose suspects that
leaving the island may result in the return of her terminal cancer. Her
profound, accepting brand of faith is a welcome contrast to John's
crazed pursuit of his destiny, and I wish the show would explore it more
often. Sayid (Naveen Andrews) and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) start out
with Jack but hop Frank's freighter-bound chopper in hopes of getting
some answers; they get more than they bargained for when they meet
"Kevin Johnson," a figure from past seasons with a lot to atone for.
Meanwhile, John (Terry O'Quinn), having survived a Ben (Michael
Emerson)-induced near-death experience, leads a small band of dissenters
to the cozy series of buildings Sawyer (Josh Holloway) terms "New
Otherton". Yes, brooding Sawyer has joined the island-loving John,
though he's none too thrilled about Mr. Clean keeping Ben alive. Theirs
is a complex relationship, but despite Ben's shockingly petulant
behavior in The Man Behind the Curtain, he and John seem to need
one another, in part because they seem to be the only people convinced
that this supposed rescue is bad news. That the half-cocked John manages
to get any followers at all is mostly thanks to Hurley (Jorge Garcia),
who delivers an impassioned speech in the wake of his dear friend's
death in hopes that it will not have been in vain. Claire (Emilie de
Ravin), at least, is convinced, and part of Sawyer's rocky road to
redemption lies in the way he, with no ulterior motive, strives to
protect her and her infant son.
LOST strays further
into science fiction territory with this season, but it's so well done
that I doubt even the least geeky viewers mind too much. The biggest
mind-bender of the season is The Constant, a riveting, dizzying
episode that finds a disoriented Desmond yanked back and forth through
time, doomed to eventual brain hemorrhage unless he connects with
Penelope (Sonya Walger), his one true love from whom he parted so badly.
I consider this one of three episodes in this season that serve as
bookends to third-season episodes; it is a perfect continuation of Flashes Before Your Eyes,
which introduced the temporal anomaly plaguing the smokin' Scotsman,
and taken together, they are every bit as romantic as the gushiest chick
flick. In addition to including one of my absolute favorite moments of
the season, The Constant reveals a great deal about Daniel in some wonderful scenes that are, by turns, comical and heart-rending.
The second bookend episode is The Shape of Things to Come.
I waited for it for a month, and after I watched it I wanted to throw
things at the television. The utter despair of this Ben-centric outing
renders it the only episode that can compete with Through the Looking Glass
in terms of inducing depression. In this episode, we finally see the
true consequences of the castaways' choices in the season finale.
Suffice it to say they're not good. Dark days are upon the island, and
this new threat makes the surviving Others, most of whom are hidden away
in a secret fortress, look like little more than annoying neighbors.
Thankfully, it's followed up with the brilliant Cabin Fever, which follows John through childhood and adulthood much like The Man Behind the Curtain
did with Ben. Both episodes involve a trip to see the elusive Jacob and
a question of whether Ben or John is intended to be the true leader of
the Others. The parallels between the episodes are so plentiful that I
won't attempt to list them here, but trying to discover them all is a
fun exercise. I love this episode because Hurley and John have been
among my favorite characters from the beginning, and while Ben
undeniably has villainous traits, he's so intriguing that I've come to
love him nearly as much as those two. He spends most of this season
under duress of one kind or another, and it pains me that Emerson was
denied an Emmy for his riveting work once again. An entire episode
focusing almost exclusively on these three characters is thrilling, and
just as fascinating as the interplay between the once and what may be
the future king is the way Hurley reacts to them. His wordless exchange
with Ben toward the end of the episode may just be my single favorite
moment in the season.
Because of the writers' strike, some characters' storylines suffered, particularly the newbies; head LOST
liaisons Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have promised that we'll delve
more deeply into their backgrounds soon. The stories that fascinated me
most involved Desmond, whose Odysseus-like journey seems tantalizingly
close to a conclusion following Through the Looking Glass but
faces unfathomable obstacles; Sawyer, who has hit rock bottom in terms
of his moral development and must reclaim the progress he had made, with
plenty of subtle guidance from Hurley; Sun and Jin, who remain one of
the best examples in prime time of a loving couple struggling to make a
troubled marriage work; and Ben and John, who are locked into an uneasy
partnership as control of the island hangs in the balance. I can't wait
to see who will be given the most opportunity to shine during the fifth
season. I'm hoping Rose and Bernard will be among the favored; they
still are used far too little, though I was glad to see them more active
in the fourth season than in the third. No matter who is most prominent
as the series moves rapidly toward its 2010 conclusion, I hope that the
quality of the episodes remains as high as ever. Somehow, I don't think
I will be disappointed.
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