Lost: "Something Nice Back Home"

The introduction of flashforwards has had an unexpected jolting effect on the show's narrative style - more and more, the flashforwards carry the epic weight of the show's mystery mythology, allowing the writers to make the island stories more simple, more pulpy, the most straightforward (and most thrilling) they've been since season 1. Consider - in 3 of the 10 episodes so far in season 4, the island story has focused on a race against time: in "The Constant," it was "talk to Penny before Desmond's brain explodes;" in "the Other Woman," it was "chase those freighter folk before they release the killer gas;" in last nice's episode, it was "out out, damned appendix!"

Other episodes have focused on briefly crossing the no-man's-land between Jack's people and Locke's people - in "The Economist," Sayid brokered a prisoner trade; in "Eggtown," Kate brokered a deal between Miles and Ben to get information about herself. "The Shape of Things to Come" was supposed to be the start of the "war," but in classic "Lost" fashion, the whole was was stripped down to what was essentially a showlong standoff (shades of 3:10 to Yuma) with horrific, vivid battle scenes as bookends. The writers show a great confidence in their handling of the flashforward structure - most of the future episodes so far feature leaps in months if not years. Like a counterweight, the island stories have zeroed in more than ever on the moment-to-moment interaction of the castaways.

Consider - last night, we got great moments from everyone on the cast except for Locke and Ben - and better yet, none of those moments felt extraneous. Jin and Sun's plotline, for the first time in years, intersected with the main plotline - Jin demanded that Charlotte take Sun with her back to the freighter. (On Charlotte: this mysterious redhaired archaeologist vixen is fascinating, but, it now seems clear, we'll only get the full extent of her character next season - when, I'm betting, we'll start getting some serious excavation of Native culture.) Rose chimed in with a classical piece of genuine wisdom (unlike her saintly-whorish "you better show your man a good time!" advice to Claire), asking how Jack could have possibly gotten sick on an island that cures cancer. Bernard (like Rose, all but forgotten in season 3), helped Juliet with the surgery - and we remember, he's a dentist!

I've said before that the show works best when it's at it's smallest - tight little episodes like "The Brig" or "The Constant," with just a few cast members and as few b-plots as possible. But the creators have such a wonderful timing with their lever-pulling. You have to love it when Miles, Sawyer, and Claire run into pilot Lapidus, and then have to hide from Keamy. It's an entire masterpiece of a scene, conjured up in three seconds by placing just the right people in just the right place. And so many little tiny moments. Some were funny - when Sawyer gives Miles a restraining order, I could have died laughing and crying. Some were deeply creepy - when Miles dug up Rousseau (shit!) and Karl (yay!) and saw their cold, dead faces... is that the most disturbing image in "Lost" history?

(By the way - part of me is still upset over the death of Rousseau, because it seemed like there was such a wealth of mythology yet unexplored with her; and, honestly, part of me wonders if the writers didn't just stare at all the apparent holes in her story - how did she live here for so long without seeing anybody? what actually was that "sickness" that she claimed everyone else in her party died of? - and decide, fuck it, let's just killer her off. However, it's clear that Miles can speak to the dead. Am I crazy for hoping that, maybe next season or maybe not until towards the end, there will be a long, strange stand-alone episode where Miles, left alone to his own devices, will wander across the island - stopping by Boone Hill, and the mass grave of the Dharma Initiative - and commune with the spirits of the dead? Is it too much to hope for that we'll get to see Danielle Rousseau one last time?)

Of course, the center of the on-island story was Jack and Kate. Perhaps out of nostalgia, he demanded that Kate sit in on his operation - we remember that the very first time they met, she was fixing him (was that the last time that Jack ever readily allowed someone else to heal him, without insisting that he heal himself?) And, at the same time, we flashed forward to a time in the future when Jack and Kate, for a brief amount of time, lived happily together.

Man, was this episode pessimistic. You could tell it was going to be that way, because the start of the flash forward was so feverishly optimistic - Jack and Kate together in the shower, with the lightest derivation yet of Giacchino's love-happy music playing in the background. On "Lost," whenever people get exactly what they want, bad things will follow. Remember, Locke was settled into domestic tranquility once, too, before his dad reared his ugly head. Sawyer, Charlie, and Desmond all found women who loved them desperately and would have made them much better, more complete men, but they ran away - into betrayal, into drugs, into organized mostly-male organizations (Desmond ran away from women twice - the first time into the monastery, the second time into the army.)

Such marvelous subtlety! You could argue that Jack's move from doting boyfriend to jealous, paranoiac, alcoholic workaholic fiance was fast, but it was entirely in keeping with the doctor we've come to understand. It's not just that he's making the same mistakes as before; he KNOWS that he's being paranoid. That was where that magnificent piece of real acting came from, when Matthew Fox knocked back two anti-anxietates with a long, cool beer. You could see such desperation in his eyes - that it was either the drugs, or the distrust (of course, when you choose the first one, it always turns into the second one, eventually.)

Yet again, the flashforward story undercut everything about the island story. This would have been such a nice little moment for Jack and Kate - Juliet mediating between them, explaining how much Jack loves Kate, duh (Here's the rude, amused, bittersweet Juliet I know and love - "He kissed me. It was nice. But it wasn't for me." When she talks to Kate, you can really see just how far apart the two women are - in age, in understanding men and the world they inhabit). Instead, we see the complete dissolution of their life together.

Here's something wonderful - when I go back over the show, I can't decide whether or not the climax of the flashforward - Jack, walking away from the woman he has always loved, while that horrible woosh sound (what is that? reverb? the sound of an engine exploding, in reverse? the hurricane winds that blow along the outskirts of the island?) - was Jack's fault, or the island's fault - whether Jack was being a coward, or whether, in his own oblique way, he was following the orders that a dead man gave to an insane man, that he could not raise his own nephew, no matter how good of a father he could make.

Isn't that what it's all about, after all? Isn't that what Jack meant when he asked, "Do you really think I'm good at this?" - Am I a good father? Isn't that the wonderful thing - in an episode where Jack pulled a Woodrow Wilson, leading his people very nearly to his own death, he still doubts his own ability as an authority figure? Why is Jack so unhappy? Is it because he is not a good leader, or because he can never be a perfect leader?

Prediction: By my count, there are three episodes and four hours left. By coincidence, there are three main characters who have not had their centric episode yet this season - Claire, Sawyer, and Locke. Here's what I'm betting - because we still haven't seen any indication of Locke's presence in the flashforward future, the season finale, recently expanded to two hours, is going to be the two-hour Locke-focused take-your-breath-away episode we've all been waiting for - Locke's own version of Desmond's season 2 finale and Jack's season 3, where we'll get out first on-island flashforward (or, maybe, we'll find out how Locke managed to end up in the coffin - think about it!)

That leaves Sawyer and Claire. One of them is not going to make it past the end of this season - which means that, in the next two episodes, one of them is going to get their own "Greatest Hits." I think Sawyer lives - it's not just that he's goddam Sawyer, either. Jack noted that he chose to stay behind on the island - thereby confirming our seasonlong suspicion that the rest of the Oceanic people weren't dead (at least, not all of them), but just trapped back on the island.

As for Claire - I love Claire. She got straddled with a baby way too early in the show's run, but without fail, her episodes (one per season - only Shannon had a worse record, and she was eye candy) have always been interesting, and have shed some fascinating light on her background which has never really been explored on the island. She's got that wonderfully Australian utter lack of bullshit. The problem is, she's also a mother, and the writers have never quite figured out a way to thread the needle between her maternal side and her vivacious side. Here's a character who needed a few more Ripley moments - "Get away from her, you BITCH!" is still the most badass line in history, carrying so much more righteous fury coming from a woman than it ever could coming from a man.

Here's what I think - this next episode is going to be all about Claire. I imagine it's going to be at least a little bit trippy (part of me imagines a whole dialogue between her and Christian Shephard, but that's probably too much to ask.) I equally imagine that, by the end, she and Jack will know about their shared heritage. I also anticipate that, right as they figure this out, she dies - perhaps of wounds sustained when her FUCKING HOUSE GOT MISSILED. She was talking about seeing visions. You know who sees visions? People with bad brain bleeding. Sorry, Juliet, you can't cut that out.