Lost Re-view: Walkabout

Whenever a new season of Lost was about to begin -- or end -- you'd inevitably find web sites running stories about "the best episodes of Lost," or "the top 10 Lost episodes," or some such. Every time, Walkabout would make the list, often even placing at number one. I certainly remember that it blew me away at the time. But now that I've seen the whole series, now that I'm going back to this episode for a repeat viewing, is it really that good?

Well, in a word: yes. It's that good. It's that good because there's more to it than the shell game of Locke's secret; it's an incredibly well-structured script besides that, and has a number of great moments for other characters too.

That script was written by David Fury, a "graduate" of the "Joss Whedon writing academy." That is, he wrote for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and I liked his work there enough that I was actually excited to hear he was working on Lost. After turning in scripts like Walkabout, I was also disappointed that he decided to leave Lost after just one season, opting instead to become a writer for 24, where he stayed until the bitter end. (He was not in charge for the decline of 24, nor do I think that one person alone can be blamed for the downturn; nevertheless, he was one of the crew that steered that ship into the rocks.)

But now I too am drifting off-course, so back to Walkabout. Of course, what made it brilliant the first time around was the surprising "twist ending," where we learn that Locke was confined to a wheelchair prior to the crash on the Island. The thing about twist endings is that if someone tells you that a story has one, you start paying extra-careful attention to every moment, trying to guess the ending before you get there. The first time around, no one knew a twist was buried at the end of this episode, and so the surprise was masterful. (And I think anyone who claims they figured this one out is at worst bullshitting you, or at best knew ahead of time to be looking for "the twist.")

On subsequent viewings, Walkabout is spectacular for entirely different reasons. First of all, it "plays fair" in dealing with the twist. All along the way, there are little clues dropped: seeing Locke in bed with an electro-nerve stimulation machine on his nightstand; hearing him talk of the double amputee that climbed Mount Everest. The script even tells you that it's misleading you in Locke's first flashback, where his phone call about his lunchtime war game is meant to make you think he might be some kind of military leader or super-spy or something.

Secondly, the emotional elements of this episode actually play stronger once you have the whole context. Terry O'Quinn brings you to tears (of sadness and joy) with his brilliant performance. There's nuance too. Take the moment when Locke is knocked over in the jungle while hunting boar, and you see his disorientation and panic when it seems for a moment like he may have already lost his newfound ability to walk. Or look at Locke's utter humiliation at the hands of his co-worker, Randy. (Why in the hell is Randy such a jerk to a good-natured guy in a wheelchair, anyway?) And then there's his phone call to a "Helen," a woman he's paying to pretend is his girlfriend. As pathetic as that made Locke look at the time, it makes you even more sorry for him in retrospect when you know there really was a Helen, and that Locke lost her and "replaced" her!

Thirdly, you can marvel at the tight narrative construction which achieved all of this. There are actually very few flashback scenes in this episode -- only four that take the action off the Island, I believe. But every scene informs the whole perfectly.

Because Locke's back story is dealt with in such a small space of time, there's room in the episode to deal with other characters too. These early episodes of Lost were truly dense with character development, even for characters who weren't that week's focus. And the subplots here are strong too.

Boone challenges Shannon to catch her own fish, and she responds by buttering up Charlie and getting him to do it for her. The rivalry between the siblings is great -- and carries extra resonance in retrospect, since we know they're step-siblings, not actually a blood relation. And not only is it a fun way to see these two, but it ends up being an even better story for Charlie. The moment where Charlie realizes he's been used is the first truly sympathetic moment for him in the series. Until this point, he's just been "the drug addict rock star." Without a single word of dialogue, Dominic Monaghan shows us just how big a punch in the gut the disappointment is. (Extra added irony on this subplot: we'd later find out that Jin was a fisherman. Shannon asked the wrong man to help her!)

There's also a subplot involving Jack. On one level, it's just setting up for the Jack-centric episode to come, as he sees the "ghost" of his father from a distance in this episode. But within this episode, Claire tries to recruit him to lead a memorial service for the crash victims. He flatly refuses, saying it's "not his thing." There's a lot to make out of this in retrospect. Is he simply raw about the idea of a funeral because he'd just lost his own father? Or is he speaking in more general terms, that faith is "not his thing?" I tend to think the latter, and it's interesting to note that the "science vs. faith" theme that would play such an important role in the series had its beginnings right here.

There's also the Rose subplot in this episode. At the time this episode was written, no one could have known how appropriate it was for her to feature in the same episode as we learned about Locke's miracle; later, we'd learn she experienced a miracle of her own, being cured of a terminal cancer. Within the confines of this single episode, Rose's story of hope to be reunited with her husband is a simple but well-done "faith vs. realism" runner on the plot. Of course, now we know that she was right all along, her husband did survive, and they would even end up living "happily ever after." So her stalwart hope here, in the face of so many others assuming she was wrong, is even more uplifting.

Somehow, one script held all of that without feeling cramped, and still found room for other fun little moments too. The episode begins with a close-up on Locke's eye, the first time of many that the show would call back to the opening shot of the pilot. Jack notes that Kate seems to have a "problem staying in one place for very long" -- and we're just coming off an episode that shows us how true that is. We get Michael making an ass of himself charading to Sun, when we now know she could understand him all along. (Actually, Michael makes an ass of himself on the boar hunt too. The seeds of him being an unlikeable character were certainly planted early.) Claire finds the photo of Nadia and returns it to Sayid.

And of course, that perfect line of Locke's: "Don't tell me what I can't do!"

Other details about the episode aren't necessarily triumphs of great writing, but are just fun to go back and see after the series has concluded. They burn the plane fuselage at night, for example, in the hopes someone at sea might spot it. (Ah, the innocent time when Lost was about trying to get off an island -- lower-case -- rather than the weirdness of The Island -- upper-case.) There's the moment where Claire and Jack are actually introduced to each other. (Funny, since we know they're half-siblings.) There's the first time you get to see Evangeline Lilly's monkey-like skills as she climbs a tree in a single take without a stunt performer jumping in.

For the big "mythology" people, this episode is also the first time that anyone actually sees the Smoke Monster, when it comes across Locke in the jungle and lets him live. The story ultimately unfolded in a way that this behavior does make sense -- Locke was one of Jacob's candidates, and thus could not be harmed by Smokey. (But to think about what a strange connection the two would eventually share!) The only real mystery here is why Locke later lies about encountering the monster -- but that can be explained easily enough if you imagine he didn't want to scare the crap out of anyone else... and/or that he just didn't know what to say about how and why he was allowed to escape alive.

Both the first time around and coming back to it later, from any angle you look at it, Walkabout is a truly brilliant episode. About the only false moment in the entire thing is one lame "gotcha" in a statement by Jack. He says that the bodies of the dead must be burned because with the boars around, "any bodies we bury aren't gonna stay buried very long." ("Aha," says buzz-killing nitpicker, "then how come they made a graveyard for all the other people who died later?!" "Shut up," says I.)

Walkabout is grade A Lost, surpassing the pilot episode, and really proving how special the show was going to be.