That douche is my dad.
A so-so episode filling in more of the mythology of Miles, one of the two more interesting cast additions from last year who are still with us. (The other one shows up at the end of this episode.) This was a total fanboy (or fangirl) episode in that we return to the geeking out over the numbers and of course Hurley’s awesome Star Wars dissertation at the end. Heavy themes of father son relationships have permeated the whole series and this episode was another piece in that mosaic.
The origins of the Maelstrom
The scene opens with a shot of the microwave clock showing 3:16 which is the number of the flight that brough back Kate Jack Hurley, et al. Young Miles is about five and we see his “ability" in more depth. Miles knows when an incident has occurred and the dead “speak” to him. He suspects something has happened at the new apartment complex where his mother is renting an apartment and follows his instincts to an apartment. He gets into the apartment by finding a key—that’s under the White Rabbit. He can “hear” the dead man speaking to him.
Later, we see a pierced teenage Miles looking very much like his mutant character in the X-Men. Miles is visiting his dying mother at the old apartment. He needs his mother to tell him why is the way he is. Where is his father? He wants to know. “Your father kicked us out when you were just a baby. He didn’t want anything to do with us. The less you knew, the better. He has been dead a long time.” Miles’ mother explains. “Where is his body?” Miles asks. Miles’ mother knows why he is asking. “Somewhere you can never go.”
Miles is meeting with a client to talk to his dead son. He is a bit taken aback when he finds that the boy has been cremated. The distraught father, Mr. Gray, only wants to know if his son loved knew that he loved him. After Miles tells him that it’s going to cost extra, he says, “Your son says he knew that you loved him. He always knew.” He lies. He pockets the money and walks away. As he is leaving, he is approached by our old friend Naomi. Naomi brings Miles to a restaurant where there is a dead man in a body bag. This is Miles’ “audition” to join the Widmore expedition. “What can you tell me about this man?” Naomi asks. “His name is Felix, he’s on his way to deliver something to a guy named Widmore. Pictures of empty graves, purchase order for an old airplane.” That’s enough for Naomi. “I’m leading an expedition to an island. I need you to find a man. There are many dead people on this island that he killed that may lead us to him.” Miles is not interested in looking for a mass murderer and passes. “My employer is willing to pay you $1.6 million dollars,” Naomi says. Miles is interested.
Later, Miles is eating a fish taco (and by the way, “fish taco”? Yuk!) and is jumped by some men in a van. “My name is Bram.” The leader tells him once he gets him in the van. “Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue?” Miles does not. Bram tells him he’s not ready to go to the island and tries to convince him to work with his guys instead of Widmore. “If you come with us you’ll know. You’ll know why you have a gift, you’ll know who you are. You’ll know who your father is.” “I don’t care about my father,” Miles protests. “I care about money. So if you want me to join your team, your going to have to double Widmore’s offer. $3.2 million dollars.” Bram shakes his head sadly and dumps Miles out. “You’re playing for the wrong team.” “Oh yeah? Which team are you playing for?” Miles counters. “The one that’s gonna win.”
Before Miles leaves on his expedition, he re-visits Mr. Gray. “I’m about to go on a boat trip,” he says as he gives back the money. “I lied to you. I wasn’t able to talk to your son.” “Why are you telling me this? You could have let me go on believing,” Mr. Gray wants to know. “If you needed your son to know you loved him, you should have told him when he was still alive.”
The Circle of Trust…and Life
Sawyer calls back to Miles at the observation post and asks him to erase the tapes that show him and Kate taking Lil Ben over to the Others. Miles has just finished complying when Horace walks in asking for LeFleur. Miles covers for him so Horace has no choice but to bring him into the “Circle of Trust”. He hands something to Miles and tells him to give it to Radzinski in sector 334 and bring back whatever Radzinski gives him. “Isn’t that hostile territory?” Miles wants to know. “Just bring it back, no questions asked.” Horace tells him.
When Miles gets back from sector 334 (and after asking our man in the body bag what befell him) Horace tells Miles to bring the body out to Dr. Chang at the orchid (home of white rabbits) which Miles is clearly uncomfortable doing. What a coincidence, Hurley is going there too. He hitches a ride with Miles since he is clearly clueless at the hints Miles is giving him about his secret mission. By the time Hurley figures it out, Miles has given up and Hurley is along for the ride.
Meanwhile, Kate has returned and updates Juliet on Ben’s delivery to Richard Eyeliner. Then Roger bursts in and wants to know where Ben is. Juliet give him some lame, half finished response about how she left for ten minutes and came back to find him gone. Roger is so panicked that he doesn’t even question it—he leaves in a huff.
We next see Hurley and miles on their way out to the Orchid. In spite of fabulous dialog and interaction between Hurley and Miles in the rest of the episode, this scene felt not only forced, but contrived with Hurley “smelling something foul”. But whatever. The whole purpose of the scene was to advance the following plot points:
A) For Miles to reveal how the guy died. “His name was Alvarez. He was digging a hole when he felt a sharp pain in his mouth, which was a filling that then blew through his skull.” Working on building the Swan, are we?
B) For Hurley to discover that Miles can talk to dead people and to promise that his secret is safe with Hurley because….
C) Hurey: “I can talk to ‘em too.”
Back at New Old Otherton, Roger is getting drunk on the swingset. For some strange reason, Roger inspires sympathetic tendencies in Kate and she feels like consoling him about Ben. “I just have a feeling that he’s gonna be ok,” She tells Roger. “Wait. A ‘feeling’?” Roger is suspicious. “You know something don’t you?” Clearly, this was a big mistake. Kate starts to walk away shaking her head. “I’m just trying to help.” “Well next time,” Roger calls, “Mind your own business.”
Now we’re getting to some good Miles/Hurley dialog. Miles is incredulous that Hurley talks to dead people, but it’s not the same as how Miles talks to them. “You have conversations with them, like they’re your pals? What I can do has nothing to do with talking, it’s just a sense.” Hurley retorts, “You’re just jealous that my power’s better than yours.”
Hurley and Miles arrive at the Orchid. Dr. Chang/Candle/Halliwax is pissed that Miles is with Hurley. “You were supposed to come here alone.” “He came here to deliver lunch,” Miles explains. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about the body,” Hurley promises. Dr. Chang is still in a high state of agitation.“You stay here till I get back,” He barks at Hurley. “Dude, that guy’s a real douche,” Hurley observes. “That douche is my dad,” Miles admits.
To Hurley, this revelation is the coolest thing ever. “How weird is that your dad was in all those movies?” Dr. Chang rejoins them before Hurley can get too far into it and threatens to assign Hurley to Hydra Island where he will be doomed to weigh Polar Bear feces for his entire stay on the island if he talks. “You got it?” “Polar Bear poop, got it.” Hurley replies. “What happened to the body?” Miles wants to know. “What body?” Dr. Chang answers.
Back in New Old Otherton, Jack is having a little janitor on janitor action with Roger. “This room is on my rounds,” a drunk Roger whines. “I figured I’d cover for you on account of your kid,” Jack offers. Roger, who really never has anything nice to say to anyone tells Jack, “Kate’s got some sort of weird thing for my kid. I’m beginning to think that she’s got something to do with this. I should go to Horace and report her. What do you think?” Jack thinks it’s a bad idea and he thinks Roger is drunk. Furthermore, “I know that woman and she’d never do anything to hurt your son.”
The ride with Dr. Chang was a priceless piece of Hurley antagonistic dialog and totally overshadows that previous awkward conversation on the way out.. “So! Dr. Chang! What is it that you do you do here?” “That’s classified.” “Really, so you can’t tell your wife or your kids?” “No. And my son is only three months old.” “What’s his name?” “Miles.” “Miles! What a coincidence! Isn’t that YOUR name, Miles? Small world! We should all get together AND HAVE SOME BEERS. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
Miles and Hurley drop Dr. Chang off at the Swan building site---in sector 334 where they are not supposed to be. Two workers are working on the hatch. “What’s the serial number?” We all know it “4 8 15 16 23 …”. But of course the last number is smudged. “42.” Says Hurley. “How’d you know that?” Miles asks. “Because. They’re building our hatch. The one that crashed our plane.”
On the way back to New Old Otherton, Hurley continues his wonder at the awesomeness of Miles discovering his dad on the island. ”This is kind of awesome for you. He was totally down with that beer. Maybe he’ll let you hold baby you.” Miles angry, annoyed and frustrated by Hurley, insists he doesn’t want to know his father because his father was never around. “He’s dead! He’s gone!” “Dude, he’s not gone. He’s here.” Miles has had enough of this. He steals Hurley’s copy book and starts reading what he wrote. It's the opening scene of The Empire Strikes Back. “It’s 1977, right?" Hurley explains. "Star Wars just came out and it’s a huge hit. Since I’ve seen Empire Strikes Back like a million times, I though I’d save Lucas the trouble and send him the script. With a few improvements.” Miles thinks that’s the dumbest thing ever, but I think it’s a great idea, except for the fact that Empire was the best of all the Star Wars movies. Now if he could go back in time and re-write “Revenge of the Sith”, that’s something I could totally get behind.
Sawyer reurns home after a tough day at the office. “What a day. D’ya ever feel like that little Dutch boy with his finger in the dam?” Juliet demurely clears her throat to indicate that Jack is there. Jack informs Sawyer that Roger thinks Kate had something to do with Ben’s disappearance. “She talked to him, tried to make him feel better. Her heart was in the right place.” “Thanks for filling me in doc.” Soon after Jack leaves, Phil shows up. “We’ve got a development. I know who took that kid.” “Who?” Sawyer asks. “You.” “There’s an explanation for that. Did you tell Horace yet?” Sawyer says as he leads Phil into the house. Phil, feeling like after three years of working together thinks he owes Sawyer some loyalty, never really gets to finish his thought because Sawyer knocks him out. “Get some rope.” He tells Jules.
Hurley, meanwhile , is not letting up on the dad thing with Miles. “My dad left when I was 10 Best thing I ever did was give him a second chance.” Miles says he never knew his dad and doesn’t want to know him now. Hurley begins to analize Miles in the context of Empire Strikes Back, which is priceless. “That’s was Luke’s attitude too. Darth Vader was his father and Luke didn’t want to put the light sabers down and talk it out. But at what cost? It got his hand cut off. Two Death Stars destroyed. Boba Fett got eaten by the Sarlak. And we got Ewoks. Ewoks, dude. And let’s face it, Ewoks suck.” Amen brother!
Miles is observing Dr. Chang play with baby Miles through the window, contemplating the great circles of life, Ewoks and unknow fathers. Maybe Dr. Chang is NOT on the dark side, Miles thinks. Then he comes out of the cottage and asks Miles for a ride down to the dock. “There are scientists arriving from Ann Arbor.” When they arrive at the dock, climbing out of the sub is Daniel Faraday. “Dan!” Miles says, surprised. “Hey Miles!” Daniel says. “Long time no see.”
Next week:
I’m confused. Is there a new episode, or just a new “special”? Is there something more special about the 100th episode as opposed to the 99th, assuming this episode was not the 99th?
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