Through the Looking Glass SE3 EP22

“John, put the gun down. You have work to do.”

It’s 11:15 Wednesday night and how can I be expected to sleep after that? Lost is the greatest show EVER.

Through the Looking Glass
The title of the episode is “Through the Looking Glass” which is the sequel to Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”. In the book, as in last night’s episode, on the other side of the looking glass, everything is the opposite. I started to catch on to Jack’s backstory not being a backstory, but actually sometime in the future around 10:15. The actual revelation was akin to seeing the movie “The Sixth Sense” for the first time, when you first figure out Bruce Willis has been dead for the entire movie. I was distracted because I was trying so hard to catch the name of the woman—or at least figure out who she was because I was so sure she had to be SOMEBODY—that I wasn’t just letting the story happen. In actuality, she was nobody. The connections that brought them to the island were destroyed once they were “rescued”.

Also, the other thing that kept throwing me off was that Jack referred to his father several times as if he was alive—“He’s upstairs right now and if I’m drunker than he is, you can fire me.” Plus writing out his pain killer prescription using his father’s name but when the pharmacist wants to check on it, Jack gets agitated and says that no one will answer because his dad is “out of town”. Clearly, Jack has either had a severe break with reality in this future, or somehow, by getting rescued, time has turned backward enough for him to save his father’s life.

What a shock to see this ruined Jack: fat, bearded, alcoholic, suicidal and addicted to pain killers. When Ben asked him, on island time, what he had to go back for is when the light started to go on for me. When Locke told Jack that he was not “meant” to get them rescued is when it finally clicked home.

Jack is on an Oceanic flight back to L.A. (hoping for a crash, it turns out) drinking himself into oblivion when the stewardess flags him and gives him a paper to read instead. There is a small article that Jack reads that upsets him so much that he tries (unsuccessfully) to call someone (it turns out to be Kate, but he keeps getting her answering machine.) He then pulls over on a bridge and climbs up, looking to kill himself. He instead causes an accident, injuring the spine of the woman driver and hurting her little boy. The accident brings Jack to his senses; he saves the boy and his mother but is in no condition to operate on the mother. Jack is hailed as a hero “twice over” but he knows that he is the only reason for the woman to have had the accident in the first place.

Jack goes to the funeral listed in the paper. (WMMR revealed a little Easter egg I didn’t pick up on: The name of the funeral home was Hoffs Drawlor, which is an anagram for “Flash Forward”.) My guess is that the funeral was for Hurley. Hurley was the most popular and well-liked guy on the island. Through the looking glass, no one comes to his funeral. Also, his death would make the paper because he was so rich.

Kate does not think it was a mistake to leave the island since through the looking glass, she is now legitimate and not a fugitive anymore and living the life she always wanted. I think she ends up with Sawyer (which is who is “waiting for her”) living her little Stepford Wife life even though she knows Jack loves her. Kate feels little more than pity for the once-great Jack now, and perhaps that’s the biggest tragedy of all.

At the end of the show, we see a destroyed Jack pleading with Kate to understand that it was a huge mistake to leave the island. “We have to go back!”

“John. Get up.”
How awesome was it that they brought Walt back to get Locke out of the pit? Even though we had speculated about this, still, it was great to see it come to pass. As I have said before, Locke ALWAYS does the right thing where the island is concerned. And while he was bleeding out in the pit, losing his faith, along comes Walt to tell him to suck it up and “Put the gun down, John. You have work to do.” Clearly, Locke’s work is to keep everybody on the island, which, we can see now, is the RIGHT thing to do. I knew he’d come back at the end to try and stop Jack from using the sat phone to contact Naomi’s ship. I’m still wondering why he let the call go through. Perhaps because Locke is such a good man, he cannot bring himself to kill Jack, another good man, in cold blood. Plus, if he did that, the rest of the Lostaways would turn on him and he knew it. It’s Locke’s job to lead them in the ways of the island, and he cannot do that if he betrays the trust of everyone by killing Jack.

In last week’s special, “Lost: The Answers” the writers dropped a couple of clues that that I did not pick up on before but seem obvious now. They included the scene from “Man of Science, Man of Faith” when Jack says, “I don’t believe in destiny.” And Locke answers, “Yes you do. You just don’t know it yet.” (Can Locke also see into the future like Desmond?) In Jack’s front story, I think Jack believes very strongly in destiny after he realizes he was not supposed to leave the island. Also, Cuse and Lindelof describe the show as a great mosaic with tiles they are filling in from the past, present and future. I think tonight’s episode revealed the strategy in the storytelling. The story is a great big jigsaw puzzle and each episode is a piece. We are starting to get enough pieces now that the picture is now starting to emerge.

Juliet: Still a lying lint licker?
Ok, tonight’s episode went a long way to proving that Juliet’s allegiances are not with the Others. But does this mean we can cancel the prime directive? I think not. Juliet wants to go back with Sawyer to save Sayid, Jin and Bernard so she smoothly lies to Jack saying she knows where some guns are. Sawyer questions her as to why he and Kate had to break rocks while they were in captivity and she calmly answers that they are building a runway…for the aliens. Ha ha ha, like my little joke Sawyer? Except of course, she’s not joking because Jacob, as I explained last week, is an alien and Juliet knows it.

Juliet knows many secrets about the island, knows the reasons for Ben keeping all of them there—including her—yet she still wants off regardless of the consequences for everyone else. Juliet only cares about one person, and that is Juliet. She cares about Jack because he is the best way to get what she wants. Hence, the prime directive is still in effect:

JULIET IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED

Body count = 12
HUGE sigh of relief that Sayid and Jin live another day. Bernard…mmmm…not so much. He’s too much of a wimp. He friggin’ lays the whole plan out for the Others at the first threat of violence. How bad to Sayid and Jin want to kill him themselves after that?

Ben tells Jack that Naomi is “not who she says she is. She’s one of the bad guys.” Ok, show of hands: who believes Ben? I do. I actually trust Ben to do what’s right now more than Juliet, but more on that below. Penny also didn’t know who the hell Naomi was and for sure that wasn’t her boat out there. Warring corporation themes come in again as I believe Naomi was either working for the competition or for Penny’s vile father, while Penny plots surreptitiously behind his back. In any event, it doesn’t really matter who the hell Naomi was since Locke kills her DEAD with one of his throwing knives.

7 Others buy it in the execution of the plan, maybe one or two more when Hurley charges the beach in the hippie bus, but by far the most significant death on the beach was Zeke, aka Mr. Friendly, aka Tom. Tom had surrendered, yet Sawyer shot him point blank. “That’s for taking the boy off the raft”. Since Juliet’s whole reason for coming back to the beach was “karma”, I fully expect that Sawyer will have to atone for the cold-blooded killing of Tom. But, it’s hard to feel really bad about killing off Tom since Tom felt they should have killed the Lostaway shooters for real instead of just shooting into the ground. Sawyer, won’t however, have to atone for the killing of Cooper. Anthony Cooper was a gimme. Sawyer was supposed to kill him and we all breathed better when that slimeball was put down. R.I.P., Mr. Friendly. We shall miss your malicious bonhomie.

Bonnie and Greta, aka Thelma and Louise, in the looking glass both end up dead thanks to Mikhail following orders from Ben. Right up until they died, though, it was so great to watch Charlie work them over with his patented watch-me-get-on-your-last-nerve-with-my-annoying-personality routine. Bonnie, in particular, had to go, just because she was so gleeful in smacking Charlie around—and he was so heroic in his taking of the beating. Charlie won all of his rounds against Bonnie.

Mikhail buys it by attempting to blow up the Looking Glass station with a hand grenade, which Charlie saves by closing the airlock, allowing Desmond to escape and Des’s prophesy to be fulfilled so that Claire and the Baybay can get on the helicopter. Of course, now we are wondering if Charlie died in vain since clearly there are some big doubts as to whether getting off the island is in anyone’s best interests. Charlie lets Penny know that Desmond is alive and with him, though it seems Penny doesn’t have an immediate way of figuring out where they are and he lets Des know right before he drowns that the ship is not Penny’s.

Like my daughter, Aaron begins to cry the moment he senses that Charlie has died. Charlie’s death, though I was beginning to think it would never come, was truly sad, as the character was redeemed at the end of his life.(Remember the emphasis on redemption by Cuse and Lindelof in last week’s special) R.I.P. Charlie. May you live on in the backstories of the Lostaways for three more seasons.

Charlie and other heroes
A few folks have wondered why Charlie locked himself in the airlock (effectively committing suicide) when he could have easily escaped and lived to escape the Looking Glass with Desmond. The answer is simple: Charlie believes in Desmond’s flash forwards and believes whole heartedly that if he lives, Claire will not be rescued. Charlie died for Claire and that makes him a hero.

Hurley wants to come along with Sawyer and Juliet back to the beach to help save Sayid, Jin and Bernard but Sawyer tells him basically that he’s too fat to be of use and he would just get in the way. Sawyer, in his own abrasive way also acted a little heroically here to save Hurley. It’s Hurley though who’s the big hero: storming the beach in his hippie bus and saving the shooters from captivity.

In Jack’s front story, Jack is called a hero twice over. The second hero label is applied for saving the woman from the accident. The first time the label is applied is presumably for his role in getting the 815 survivors off the island. In both cases, Jack is not truly a hero even though all of his actions were heroically intended; they have all resulted in devastating consequences.

Best lines of the night:
Bleeding Ben laying on the ground, still acting the creepy host of the island: “Alex, this is your mother.”
Sawyer to Juliet: “You screwing Jack yet?” Juliet: “No. Are you?”
Rousseau’s first words to her daughter: “Do you want to help me tie him up?”

Ben is not as evil as he seemed
He’s still as creepy as ever, just not evil. Locke and Ben are playing for the same goal: the best interests of the island. Ben’s methods were corrupted because his leadership was being threatened by Locke, which made him desperate and insecure and caused him to make the “mess” he now has to clean up. Ben lives, but the real power of the island has now passed to Locke. The story is all about the island and I believe the next three seasons will show what fate has delivered to our Lostaways after their rescue. However, I don’t think that they are off the island yet and I believe that the flash-forwards only represent one possible outcome. The balance of the series will be a continuance of the struggle between the man of science and the man of fate.

The difference is that now we all believe in fate.

Now What????
Ok, so now we wait until February for the next fix. In the meantime, I will probably re-watch the entire series (season three when it comes out on DVD). I will, as “g” suggested, re-read The Stand and I suggest you all do the same. I’ll probably periodically update fishbiscuits.blogspot.com and hopefully if any of you have any cool theories to share we can discuss them out there.

Huge props to “S” for scoring the Dharma Beer Cozy from the P&S Lost party last night. You are my hero.

Quite simply, the best storytelling I have seen in a long time, maybe ever. I pity anyone who is missing out on this event. Peace out, people.