Lost Re-view: Special

Back watching the first season of Lost the first time around, I was pretty sure Michael was my least favorite character. Having now seen his entire run on the show, I'm sure of it. Yes, I hated him even more than Ana-Lucia.

I hope that the writers were intentionally trying to create such an unlikeable character, because I scarcely think they could have done a more thorough job if they'd tried. Michael systemically picks fights with all the most beloved characters on the show, has a very one-note story line, and is never really shown to have any redeeming characteristics to balance his fly-off-the-handle temper.

And this flashback episode centered around him showcases all of this. (Technically, one flashback scene keys off Walt, making this the first episode since the pilot to feature multiple perspectives in flashbacks.) The episode was written by David Fury, the Joss Whedon alum I praised for his earlier efforts on Lost. He does his best with the story he's given, but with the whole writing staff evidently conspiring against Michael, things are largely out of his hands.

The episode begins in the expected fashion with a closeup on Michael's eye. He's tromping through the jungle, screaming Walt's name. (Also expected.) Two very loaded and telling lines occur right at the top of this episode. One comes from Hurley, who observes of Michael that he seems to hate being a dad. Hurley once again serving as the voice of the audience. The other occurs when Michael runs into Jack and asks him (in regards to Walt) if Jack listened to his father when he was 10. "Maybe I listened a little too well," is the reply. We certainly know a fair amount about Jack at this point, but it's still somehow even more revealing about how deep the resentment there goes.

Walt's out getting knife throwing lessons from Locke. Locke talks about seeing the mark you want to hit in your mind's eye. "See it before you do it." And he does, much to the amazement of Boone. Following Walt's uncanny backgammon skills in an earlier episode, this sets up the theme spelled out in the title -- this episode is going to be able Walt being "special." More on that as we proceed.

Michael shows up at the knife lesson and flips out. Okay, I can understand a father maybe not wanting a strange man to let his son play with knives. But Michael escalates it to the point where he's actually threatening Locke with a knife himself. Way to parent by example there, Michael. Locke puts Michael in his place: "You know why he's formed an attachment to me? Because I treat him like an adult and you still treat him like a boy." Locke thinks that here on the Island, Walt should be allowed to realize his potential. First Charlie, then Boone, now Walt. An odd slate of characters targeted for Locke's philosophy of redemption and transformation.

The character to actually show sympathy for Michael is Sun. They have a clandestine conversation (her English skills still not widely known), in which Michael reveals his worry is that Walt might have to grow up on the Island. So he hatches the scheme to build a raft and escape, the beginnings of another story (like the Hatch) that would run for the rest of the season. He tries to enlist Sayid, Jack, and Shannon to help, but they all claim varying levels of disinterest. (Though Shannon later changes her mind, tries to get Boone involved, and gets shot down. Boone is definitely over her now.)

Michael then drafts Walt, who sees it as punishment to work with his father. So at the first opportunity, Walt slips away and goes back to Locke. Locke actually abides by Michael's wishes, and is telling Walt that they can't spend time together anymore just when Michael storms in and throws another fit. In the span of 60 seconds, he yells at his boy ("I don't want to hear from you"), threatens Locke ("I catch you with my son again, I'll kill you"), and burns the Spanish comic book that has been one of Walt's few sources of entertainment on the Island. (A comic that includes a polar bear shown very prominently to the audience.) More classy stuff, Michael!

No surprise, this does nothing to make Walt inclined to obey, so he slips off yet again. And no surprise, Michael's all up in Locke's grill immediately. This time, though, Walt's on his own. Locke not rising to the bait for a fight, he offers to help Michael search for the boy.

Turns out he's out being attacked by a polar bear! In the full scope of Lost, we know this is one of the bears experimented on by the Dharma Initiative, escaped or released from Hydra Station. But in the confines of this episode, we're very much made to wonder if "special" Walt didn't somehow conjure up a polar bear after seeing one in the comic. In any case, Locke and Michael manage to rescue Walt, who in a contrasting irony from the beginning of the episode, is given a knife by his father to help defend himself. And now, Locke and Michael may finally be okay. Until the next time Michael flips out, anyway.

If this plot all sounds rather repetitive... well, frankly it is. But it's very cleverly disguised, being broken up by perhaps the largest number of flashbacks to appear in any episode yet. How did Michael get to be this way?

It begins a decade earlier when he and his girlfriend Susan -- who refuses to marry him -- are buying a crib together for the son they're expecting. (Michael actually looks much younger in this scene, in a bit of very nice work done by costuming and makeup.) But a few years later, it's ending. Susan wants to take a job in Europe, she's taking Walt, and because she isn't married to Michael, he doesn't really have a say in the matter.

As a personal aside, I know one or two guys in real life who've been thoroughly and truly screwed in custody battles because of the legal system's bias toward the mother. (No matter how screwed up she is, apparently.) You would think this background might make me more inclined to feel sympathy for Michael. The fact that it really doesn't I think speaks volumes about how despicably he's written in the "present."

Jump ahead a few more years. Susan has met someone in Europe. Michael's upset, and plans to come to Europe to do... well, something. But he never gets the chance; he's hit by a car immediately after hanging up the phone. (Another bit of very clever work, this time by the editors and visual effects team, who use a couple of extras to conceal a camera edit. The result makes it look like actor Harold Perrineau hangs up the phone and then actually gets hit by a car all in one take.)

So now Michael is in the hospital, expecting a year of physical therapy. Susan comes back to the U.S. to see him, and offers to pay the bills. But there is sort of a "price" for this. She's marrying her new man Brian, and he wants to adopt Walt. She very astutely forestalls Michael's likely fit over the idea by simply asking him about his reluctance to let go of Walt: "Are you doing this for him? Or for you?"

Skip more years... almost up to the present. Susan dies quite suddenly, and Brian shows up unexpectedly at Michael's door. He says the truth is he never wanted to adopt Walt at all, he just did it to get Susan. Now he wants Michael to come to their current home in Sydney to take Walt permanently. This marks perhaps the only time in all of Lost that a character manages to "underclass" Michael; the man wants a 10-year old boy to lose both the only mother and father he's ever known in the span of a week or two.

But Michael agrees. He shows up in Sydney, and receives from the nanny the box we saw him looking at in the previous episode. It contains letters with drawings -- everything Michael ever sent to Walt over the last decade, none of which was ever shown to the boy.

Walt, unsurprisingly, doesn't want to go with a total stranger back to the U.S. So Michael lies and says he's forcing this, that Brian wanted to keep Walt, but he won't allow it. The consolation prize is they can take the dog Vincent -- who turns out to not even be Walt's dog. I suppose you can understand this tactic by Michael, but I question whether starting off with your "new" son by casting yourself as the bad guy is a wise move. Then again, it's not like Michael knew they were about to be stranded together on a strange Island somewhere. But it is very telling of why the relationship between Michael and Walt is so strained. Not only have they actually spent more time together on the Island than they ever did before the Island, but that entire time together began with a statement that was both a lie and engineered to make Walt angry.

In addition to these flashbacks breaking up the rather cyclical plot, there are a couple of subplots as well. Sayid is still trying to get to the bottom of Rousseau's map, but he thinks he's finally figured out that it points to a particular location on the Island that he wants to go investigate. It's very vague to those watching it the first time around, but there are enough clues within the episode to tell the repeat viewer that we're about to see the Black Rock for the first time.

Meanwhile, Charlie remains despondent about the missing Claire. People still talk of her as missing and not "gone." I wonder if this is why, in the midst of all this speculation about a character on the show possibly being killed off, that I never once considered that it might be Claire the first time around?

Having been unable to keep her safe, Charlie now wants to at least protect her diary. Except that it's gone missing. He suspects Sawyer of stealing it, and enlists Kate's help to go confront him. Turns out, weaselly Sawyer in fact did take the diary, and a quick fistfight ensues over it. Charlie punches Sawyer in his lingering stab wound and manages to seize the upper hand.

The subplot finishes off with a very humorous scene in which Charlie struggles with whether to read the diary or not, and then with a darker scene in which he finally does. There are some nice words about Charlie himself, but then a dark passage about something she sees in her dreams, something also mentioned by Rousseau, a "black rock." (See? It's all connected!)

The episode ends on two scenes, one sweet and one cliffhangery. Michael gives Walt the box containing all those drawings from the past 10 years. And Claire emerges from the jungle, returned from wherever she's been! Definitely ending on a strong "tune in next week moment."

So, I've saved one crucial scene for last -- the one flashback keyed off Walt rather than Michael. It's just prior to his mother's death, when they and Brian are all living in Australia. Walt's looking through a bird book and feeling ignored by his parents. When he somewhat archly calls to them, "you're not looking," a bird smacks into the patio glass and is killed. Brian gives us a horrified expression, and composer Michael Giacchino gives us a seriously ominous piece of music. Intercut as it is with Walt being attacked by a polar bear that might (we think at the time) come from his own imagination, this is the big "Walt is special" moment. And in case you miss it, Brian later spells this out as the reason he wants Michael to take Walt back later: "There's something about him. Sometimes when he's around, things happen."

Here we have another real question about Lost, much like the question of whether Claire's psychic is for real. Is Walt special? Does he have powers? Wow... this is kind of a tough one.

On the one hand, it would be much more interesting for the narrative (in my opinion) if he did. And certainly, his abduction by the Others in season two tells us they think there's something special going on with him too.

On the other hand, we know that the Walt plot never really goes anywhere. The sudden growth spurt of a young actor on a show where only a few weeks are supposed to pass every season suddenly necessitated the need to write him out. We barely ever see Walt after the end of season one. We later find out the the mysterious polar bear he may have summoned with his mind isn't really his doing at all. We don't ever really get closure on this whole plot. (Unless you count The New Man in Charge. I don't.) So unless you want to just dwell in unresolved frustration on this story point, the better thing to do is to say that Walt is not "special" and assume that everyone got it wrong.

But that doesn't explain the "apparition Walt" that would show up in seasons two and three.

So I'm just stuck here on this episode. There's some good acting. There's a script that's actually crafted well... for a show trying to keep things open-ended at the time. But I also regard this subject as the single greatest unanswered issue on Lost, and I find myself at a loss to think of any explanation that tidies it all up.

Plus, of course, there's an awful lot of the worst character on the show in this episode. Somehow, I compile it all together and come up with a weak B- as my grade for the episode. Yes, warts and all, it's still better than the "Kate steals a toy airplane" episode.