It’s been virtually 20 years to the day since “Lost” premiered on ABC (September 22), which implies the drama sequence created by J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Jeffrey Lieber is as soon as once more making TV headlines for its main anniversary. To have fun twenty years of a present that undeniably modified the tv panorama, TV critics Emily St. James and Noel Murray penned “Lost: Back to the Island,” a sequence of essays taking readers via the sequence one episode at-a-time from pilot to finale.
With over 100 essays and 40 which might be deliberately longer to add additional context to key moments in the sequence, Murray and St. James mirror the journey of viewers watching “Lost” for the first time (or the second, or fourth, or tenth, or extra). This isn’t a present whose ending completely mirrored the starting, but it surely was additionally not borne of a time when exhibits like that have been the norm. With its chronological evaluation, “Back to the Island” illustrates how a lot that evolution and progress was an integral a part of the general “Lost” expertise and what makes the sequence so indelible to today. Sure, there have been questions left unanswered by the finish — however how would we discuss “Lost” right now (if in any respect) if every part have been tied up with a neat bow?
Beneath, an excerpt from the ebook underscores the thrill of those mysteries, and precisely why they took a backseat to the magnificent character work and performances being accomplished in each episode. “The Answers You Came For” is the essay paired with Season 5, Episode 7, “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham,” which additionally occurs to be when “Lost” answered the huge polar bear query. However do you do not forget that half? Or do you bear in mind Terry O’Quinn’s tour de drive and the tragic finish of a tragic character?
Excerpted from LOST: Back to the Island by Emily St. James and Noel Murray revealed by Abrams Press © 2024
T H E A N S W E R S Y O U C A M E F O R
SEASON 5, EPISODE 7 ORIGINAL AIRDATE 2/25/09
Why are there polar bears on the Island?
To today, once I strive to defend Misplaced as a sequence that resolved virtually all its many mysteries, I’m hit with that query as a supposed instance of one thing that Misplaced didn’t reply. It’s apparent why that’s the instance individuals leap to. The polar bear in the present’s pilot was one in all its preliminary massive, buzzy mysteries, and the sequence by no means had somebody clarify simply why these dang polar bears have been on the rattling Island in the first place!
Besides the present did reply that query. It simply did so in a method plenty of viewers didn’t discover. “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” snaps the final puzzle piece of that rationalization into place—and it serves as a helpful instance of how Misplaced resolves its mysteries and why viewers so usually miss the solutions the present offers.
However first: Why have been these polar bears on the Island anyway?
The Dharma Initiative first introduced polar bears to the Island as a part of its bigger experiments on wildlife in the unusual surroundings. They have been stored in the cages the place Sawyer and Kate have been stored in Season Three, the place the bears had to resolve puzzles to obtain their each day fish biscuit. Deep beneath the Island is a gigantic wheel that permits the Island to transfer in house* when turned. That wheel is in a really chilly location, and discovering an animal that loves the chilly and might be educated (say, to get fish biscuits from an elaborate contraption) could be a great way to flip stated wheel. An animal like, say, a polar bear. Why not simply have a human achieve this? Properly, pushing the wheel is a one-way ticket off the Island, as we discovered when Charlotte discovers a polar bear skeleton buried in Tunisia. Then, on this episode, Locke pushes the wheel and is dropped in the similar location in the desert, filling in the final little hole in the polar bear puzzle.*
* And finally time.
The factor is: No one ever sits down and says any of this inside the present itself.† All the puzzle items existed inside the present, however they have been unfold out throughout three seasons of tv from the preliminary reveal of these polar bear cages to the remaining second of Locke crash-landing in the des- ert. What’s extra, in the event you didn’t do not forget that, say, Charlotte discovered the polar bear skeleton in Season 4, you’d be unlikely to conclude “Oh, hey, Locke landed in that same place. I wonder if the polar bears were being used to move the Island?” You’d simply assume bizarre shit was hap- pening for its personal sake. Or, put one other method: You’d be a typical fan of the present who turned on it hardcore in later seasons.
The present’s stubbornness about not often, if ever, providing conventional info- dumps led to its popularity as a sequence that didn’t reply questions. But on the fan wiki Lostpedia—the on-line clearinghouse for Misplaced stuff—the variety of genuinely unanswered questions could be very, very small. With a few small exceptions,‡ they largely take care of character motivations which might be open to interpretation or mysteries so massive that the characters couldn’t fairly study the reply to them.§
* Plenty of viewers could have already stuffed in the Tunisia connection after the Season 4 episode “The Shape of Things to Come” as a result of Ben can be dropped in Tunisia when he strikes the Island. However “Jeremy Bentham” makes this connection crystal clear and explains that “the exit” in Tunisia is being monitored by Widmore for anomalies.
† A tremendously abbreviated model of this rationalization could be present in the present’s DVD-only epilogue “The New Man in Charge.” That epilogue additionally says that polar bears can stand up to electromagnetism higher than many animals, which isn’t one thing you possibly can conclude simply from the present correct.
‡ The 2 most salient ones: What was up with Walt’s powers? Who was firing at the castaways from the different outrigger early in Season 5?
§ The largest might be “What is the Island?,” a query the present solutions however so obliquely that it’s left to the particular person viewer’s interpretation. Extra on this once we get to the remaining season.
Misplaced’s solutions for questions reveal the way it uneasily bridges two TV eras. When it debuted in 2004, most American households have been nonetheless watching TV the old style method, tuning in as soon as per week at a des- ignated time, they usually have been largely watching the massive 4 broadcast net- works (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC). Sure, the TV-on-DVD field set was at its peak when the present was younger, and the DVR was coming into an increasing number of properties. However by and enormous, the method individuals watched TV hadn’t modified since the Fifties. In that world, answering a query like “Why are there polar bears on the Island?” with a sequence of puzzle items that snapped into place throughout three separate seasons of tv was a bit ridiculous. You couldn’t depend on individuals to have seen each episode, even when they have been discussing the present on-line.
By the present’s finish in 2010, DVR use was much more widespread, DVDs have been on the method out, and streaming had develop into the TV viewing technique of alternative for a lot of, traits that will solely speed up in the decade that adopted. When streaming, the place viewers can watch many episodes in a row, it’s rather a lot simpler to draw connections in the method Misplaced hopes you’ll, even when it nonetheless requires the viewer to make some logical leaps between plot factors. Perversely, nevertheless, the streaming period has develop into virtually as depending on dropping clunky exposition as the previous broadcast net- works have been, just because for a lot of viewers, what’s on Netflix turns into background noise.
Thus, whereas Misplaced’s “puzzle pieces for observant viewers” technique of thriller fixing appears to presage the streaming period to come, it’s best understood as the final gasp of a dying mannequin. Misplaced received away with answer- ing questions this fashion as a result of it aired in an period when community TV was guarding itself towards intruders from throughout. If Misplaced might be successful by letting observant viewers piece issues collectively on their very own—or with 1000’s of their different observant buddies on-line—ABC wasn’t going to sneeze at that.
And even in the event you weren’t inclined to hop on-line and draw connections between a polar bear skeleton and Locke touchdown in the desert, the present’s dedication to answering its mysteries solely insofar as the characters care about them at all times stored it on the proper observe. For an episode that fills in a shocking variety of puzzle items amongst a bunch of various Misplaced mysteries, the overwhelming reminiscence one could have of “Jeremy Ben- tham” is unquestionably the despair of Locke’s homicide at the arms of Ben Linus. Sure, there’s a man sitting on the seashore who seems and appears like John Locke, however he remembers Ben killing him. No matter occurred after the homicide, the expertise marked him profoundly.
Throughout the run of Misplaced to this level, Locke has been a determine with an virtually tyrannical sense of function. He, alone, can intuit what the Island needs, and he, alone, can be sure that will is carried out. That high quality has made him an antagonist, a essential evil, a messianic determine, a sur- vivor, and a charismatic enigma at numerous factors, and at occasions, he’s been all 5 directly. He’s maybe the single most fleshed-out, well-developed character in the present, and Terry O’Quinn is exceptional at enjoying each little micro-expression which may plausibly flutter throughout Locke’s face.
So, you may not have observed that “Jeremy Bentham” solutions the polar bear query, as a result of it’s additionally answering a personality query: “Who is John Locke, deep down?” And its reply isn’t notably flat- tering: He’s a little bit of a dupe.
Throughout the course of the episode, Locke endures loss after loss after loss, first dropping the Island when turning the wheel boots him off of it, then failing to persuade any of the castaways who left the Island to return. The leg harm he sustains from falling right into a effectively ends in him being put in a wheelchair once more, and he spends most of the episode being actually ferried round by an agent of Widmore. His function has been co-opted by different, extra bloodthirsty males.
I discussed in my write-up on “Walkabout” that Locke works inside the present as a sort of analogue for the angriest, most vengeance-driven voices in the United States in the post-9/11 interval. Throughout the run of the present, nevertheless, the sequence has taken nice pains to clarify how a determine like him can so simply be twisted and manipulated by others. The Island might need given Locke some form of divine function, however he’s solely a single man and may by no means wholly perceive what the divine says unto him. Maybe the determine on the seashore will reveal that Locke had a grand function and destiny in spite of everything, however at the second of his loss of life, Locke has been cornered into abject despair, to the diploma that Ben murders Locke by strangling him with the noose he deliberate to use in a loss of life by suicide.
Think about that second for a second. Think about that the circumstances of your life entice you in a dingy lodge room, the place, along with your previous couple of breaths, you notice that your supposedly larger function was largely to be manipulated by others, that your life is coming to a lonely, sorry finish, at the arms of your worst enemy. Think about the previous couple of ideas you might need as you realized you had been a dupe all alongside.
After which the episode additionally tells you why there have been polar bears on the Island? What an incredible present! —ESJ
“Lost: Back to the Island” is accessible in bookstores now.
