Lost Re-view: The Moth

So here is the Charlie-centric episode I was expecting last time. Having set up Locke as an obstacle of sorts between Charlie and his drugs in the last episode, now it's time to delve deeper into his addiction and his back story.

This is a very meticulously written episode, the most deliberate since Walkabout, full of metaphor, juxtaposition, irony, and careful repetition of patterns -- chiefly the number three. (I'll talk about these things as they come up.) The script came from first-season-only staff writer Jennifer Johnson and an apparent freelancer who never worked on the show again, Paul Dini... I guess an unlikely pair to contribute something that I think ends up being very powerful.

But before getting to the Charlie material, I actually want to start with the other things going on in this episode. In a couple fun trivia tidbits, this is the first time the humorous confusion of Scott and Steve occurs, a running gag about two minor characters that would continue for a long time to come. It's also the first time that two flashbacks at different points in the episode actually occur chronologically one right after another. (Charlie's in a church at the start of the episode, then right outside talking to his brother in the next flashback.)

The prominent side plot of the episode sees Sayid lead an effort to triangulate the source of the French distress signal. He and two other people (there's one of the threes) need to head to specific positions on the Island and act in concert to make his plan work. Sayid recruits Boone and Kate for the job, but neither one is able to see it through to the end because of the cave-in that traps Jack.

First, Boone decides he needs to bound off to help in the rescue. He hands off his signal-triangulation duties to Shannon, a moment that makes all of us in the audience clench and cringe. The obvious assumption is that she will fail in even this basic task, but it's a pleasant surprise that Shannon turns out not to be completely useless. A nice step for her character.

As for Kate, she too heads to Jack's rescue, but several hours after the fact, as Sawyer withholds his predicament from her for his own amusement. Kate and Sawyer are especially adversarial this week, in perhaps the episode's only bit of awkwardness. I mean sure, Kate's a criminal, and we suspect at this point in time that Sawyer is too (and he is -- a con man), so you can expect some "it takes one to know one" friction between them. Still, this episode kind of goes from 0 to 60, with Kate just sailing in out of the blue to belittle Sawyer, and him responding in kind like a bit of a moody teenager.

Of course, we didn't know it the first time around, but Sayid and Kate have quite a bit in common too. Both are people who did bad things, but don't want to give in and think of themselves as bad people. They have some camaraderie between them in this episode, with one or two scenes even making you wonder if maybe the writers were just playing with the notion of putting them together as a couple at some point down the road.

Sayid's efforts are thwarted near the end of the episode when an unseen person clubs him from behind and knocks him out just when he was zeroing in on the location of the distress signal. It's played for mystery, but I find it interesting that if you don't actually remember this plot point, the mystery is deeper the second time around. With all of Lost under our belts, we know that among the Island's inhabitants are the Others, the disciples of Jacob (living in the Temple), and the very object of Sayid's search, Danielle Rousseau. Maybe one of them could have clocked Sayid?

But no, at the time, we only knew about our survivors, and it pretty much can only be Sawyer or Locke that attacks Sayid. Sawyer is deliberately not shown lighting his signal rocket to attempt to create doubt here, but really, Locke seems the only possible culprit in our core group -- and indeed, we later learn that he was the guilty party. (As to his motives? Well, let's talk about that in a future episode.)

Not only does Shannon get a bit of "character rehabilitation" in this episode, but so does Michael. First of all, he's softened a lot in his treatment of Sun and Jin this episode. He even sticks up for them a bit when Hurley (of all people) slams them a little. Clearly, Michael's behavior is more from sympathy for Sun than understanding for Jin, but it's a big step for him.

Michael also takes charge in trying to free Jack from the cave-in, saying that he spent eight years in construction. But then Kate shows up later and basically starts bossing him around. Not to mention that the whole effort is moot anyway, since Jack escapes from the cave-in with Charlie's help instead. So Michael doesn't quite get the boost that Shannon does.

Oh, and briefly, on that cave-in: do you want to make anything of the fact that the cave was stable for thousands of years until Jack and Charlie were arguing in it and it gave way exactly at that moment? Personally, I don't. Dramatic device.

So then, on to the main Charlie storyline. We begin with the revelation that Charlie was the Drive Shaft member initially wary of the excesses of success. Before the band had even hit the big time, the temptation of the women alone had him going to confessional, and he exacts a promise from his brother that if things get too serious, they will give up the band. The ironic twist is that at the end, Liam has has a revelation in his daughter's birth and gives up the band, but it's now Charlie who wants to start again.

What ultimately drives Charlie to drugs is a feeling of uselessness. He's the bass player in a rock band, often the most overlooked member of a group. (The movie That Thing You Do even made a joke of not giving the bass player's character a name.) But he has his moment in the spotlight, as he's the one who sings the chorus on their hit song, "You All Everybody." When his brother Liam takes that away from him one concert, it's more than a simple rock spat, or a quarrel between brothers, it goes right to Charlie's core. And in a later argument, Liam spits it out point blank: "if you're not in this band, what the bloody hell use are you?"

The situation is paralleled on the Island, as Charlie strives to find a way to fit in at camp, trying to find something useful to do. He gets rebuffed at every turn. And with Charlie's "pathology" so specifically mapped, every time he feels useless, he feels the keen need for a fix. Finally, he does find a "use," helping rescue Jack from the cave-in. Jack and Charlie have some interesting scenes, with it first appearing that our dear doctor doesn't recognize the symptoms of Charlie's withdraw. Later, we realize he's known all along, but was trying to help Charlie by not making an issue of it.

Fittingly, Claire doesn't appear in this episode. Knowing the later relationship that she and Charlie would develop, you could imagine that her presence here would have thrown Charlie a possible lifeline which, for dramatic purposes, he can't have.

I speculated a bit last episode about why Locke takes such an interest in Charlie, and this episode makes me wonder about that even more. You almost wonder if Locke battled addiction at some point in his past, a detail we never actually got to see during the series. More likely, Locke just sees a similarity in Charlie's substance abuse and his own obsession with his father, and how that destroyed his life. In any case, keeping with the episodes theme of "threes," Locke tells Charlie that he can ask for the drugs three times, and then he'll stop withholding them.

Choice is a recurring theme of the episode. First, the priest in Charlie's flashback tells him that "life is really nothing but a series of choices." Second, Locke echoes this on the Island, specifically referencing the drugs. The third time, at the episode's conclusion, Charlie burns his own stash, choosing to be free of drugs.

The moth of the title appears three times as well, a carefully chosen metaphor for Charlie. The first time, Locke spells out to us that if the moth didn't have to struggle to free itself from its cocoon, it wouldn't be strong enough to survive. The second time, a moth leads Charlie and Jack out of the cave-in. The third time, it appears after Charlie burns his heroin.

The final scene between Locke and Charlie boasts powerful acting from both Terry O'Quinn and Dominic Monaghan. Locke's disappointment when Charlie asks for the drugs the third time is so profound, followed immediately by his pride when Charlie burns them; Charlie's tears at the moment of release are deep and poignant. Until this point in the series, Lost has thrilled and surprised, but I think this is the closest it has come to moving the audience to tears.

In all, The Moth is the best episode since Walkabout, and gets an A- from me.