Lost Re-view: Exodus (Part 1, Sort Of)

The finale of Lost's first season, Exodus, was actually a triple-length installment aired over two weeks when originally broadcast. But it was definitely conceived of as a piece, all written by the king duo of Lost, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and all directed by crown prince director Jack Bender. As such, I decided to sit down and watch it as one giant episode, in one single sitting.

I wanted to review it that way too, but when I actually set down everything I had to say on the episode, the result felt like a month's worth of blog posts in a single entry. So, like the episode itself, I will break my re-view into two parts. Unlike the episode itself, I'm separating the entire three hours by flashbacks and non-flashbacks. (Hence why I say this is Exodus, Part 1, Sort Of.)

Let's deal with the flashbacks first, an interesting component to this finale. Instead of focusing on one character, the finale -- like the pilot -- offers flashbacks for multiple characters. But where the pilot kept a fairly tight scope, taking us back only to Jack, Kate, and Charlie's experience on board the flight, this finale serves up one flashback for every major character -- all set on the morning of flight 815's departure from Sydney.

At least, I think that was the concept. It unfortunately breaks down in a few places. First of all, Sawyer's flashback doesn't appear to be the "morning of," but more likely the "night before." And then poor Claire is completely left out of the mix for reasons that aren't clear. Was something filmed and cut for time? Did the writers feel there was nothing important going on in her life on the morning of the flight?

Sayid also is not the focus of any flashback, perhaps because his recent episode poignantly told us everything we need to know about what happened to him just before he boarded the plane. Still, he does at least appear in the flashbacks of a couple other characters, notably Shannon's.

Which is another point of interest here -- this is actually Shannon's first flashback of the series. It's easy to overlook this detail, since we know her past by way of Boone's flashback episode. Make no mistake, though, that installment was entirely from Boone's perspective.

So a fun concept, but already slightly undermined in its not-quite-perfect execution. It's then brought down another notch or two by seeing just what some of those flashbacks are. Though some are excellent and deepen the story, many are completely disposable, there only to give (almost) everybody a flashback scene in the finale.

Let's sift through them all. First comes Walt and Michael in a scene clearly from the boy's perspective. Walt wakes up early on the morning of the flight and starts blasting the TV purely to annoy Michael. He tries storming out of their hotel room, screaming "you're not my father" to any other patron in earshot, but to no avail. It makes for a nice juxtaposition against the better bond the two now have on the Island, but doesn't really offer anything we didn't already know.

Next comes Jack, in a scene at the airport bar that seems to serve two main purposes. First, it introduces Ana Lucia to the show in advance of her formal season two debut, laying a tiny bit of ground for her to be a maybe-possible love interest for him. Second, it establishes that Jack is no longer married. It's funny that this second point even needs to be addressed. Throughout the first season, there was never any inkling that Jack was married -- no ring, nothing in his interactions. Then came the revelation near the end of the season that Jack was married. I'm sort of surprised it took even a couple episodes before it was made clear this is no longer the case, running the risk of making Jack look bad in the whole "love triangle" aspect of the show. Oh well, done and done.

One last point worth mentioning in Jack's flashback is the final line, spoken by Ana Lucia: "Jack, the worst part's over." Sure, it works as a bit of irony given the plane crash they're about to be involved in. But (probably coincidentally) it works at face value in the entire Lost story of Jack. A distraught future Jack would later basically admit that arriving on the Island was the best thing to ever happen to him. Ana Lucia could never know how on the nose her words truly were.

Next up is Sawyer, hauled into a police office after getting in a bar fight. The cop smacks him around verbally with his record and his real name, and then says Sawyer is being deported. A basically unnecessary bit of business, I think.

Then comes Kate, in the most infuriating flashback of the episode. The marshal has her in custody and is checking his case of guns with airport security, who asks why so many guns, and what's the deal with the little toy airplane? The marshal then launches into a two-minute monologue where he explains the entire events of the two season-worst episodes centered on Kate. He does it quickly and with personality, cracking a few jokes and getting in several good digs on Kate. In short, this single three-minute flashback could have saved us two rather poor episodes of Lost.

Next is Shannon, lounging in the airport, asked by Sayid in passing to watch his bag for a minute. When Boone returns with the news that he couldn't get them into first class, she throws a fit. This just makes him goad her about her inability to do anything, and her completely illogical (but therefore rather in character) way of showing she can do something is to tell airport security that "some Arab guy" just left his bag unattended. While this flashback doesn't really contribute any new knowledge of Shannon's character, I give it a pass because it brings back Boone for one more appearance after his death, and because it shows Shannon being cruel to Sayid long before they would enter a relationship with one another.

Sun's flashback has her waiting on Jin at the airport, and overhearing a couple (who thinks she can't understand English) snarking about her geisha-like behavior. Not much to tell here, until the Jin flashback that immediately follows. (Well... sort of immediately. Actually, the break between parts 1 and 2 of this episode actually splits these two flashbacks; all the more reason to watch Exodus in one sitting.)

Jin heads into the bathroom at the airport to clean up, and is accosted by a Korean-speaking, American-looking man who also works for Mr. Paik. He knows Jin is planning to run away, and this is a threat to deliver the watch and come home. If he does anything else, he will lose Sun. "You are not free. You never have been, and you never will be." It's a chilling scene that outlines the stakes well for Jin, though it does make you pause and think about events earlier in the season.

In Sun's episode, we learned of the significance of the watch. In Jin's episode, we learned that he was planning to run away with Sun from her father. Separated by half a season, the viewer didn't really have to reconcile these two facts together. But being reminded of it all in this flashback, you have to stop for a moment and wonder: if Jin had decided to run, why did he care at all that Michael had found and kept the watch? I think I choose to explain this by saying that early on, when Michael found the watch, they'd only been on the Island a few days and were all still hopeful of a quick rescue. Whether Jin was still planning to run or not, he was likely to have to face Sun's father again, so he'd better get that damn watch back!

Next is Charlie, waking up the morning after an all-night drug bender with some girl he met in a bar who is clearly even worse off than he is. Though it's simple to describe, this is probably the single most important flashback of the hour. It shows how far Charlie has come, playing against his heroics on the Island in this episode... but it also shows how far he can fall again, as he'll learn of the Nigerian plane's heroin in this episode too.

Michael's flashback is next, showing him making a phone call in the airport to his mother. He worries he won't be able to raise Walt alone, and then asks if she will take him, declaring "he's not supposed to be mine." Walt overhears this, but plays it off like he doesn't. It's probably a good thing I already didn't like Michael's character by this point in time, as this revelation does him no favors. After an episode with flashbacks solely engineered to tell us how much Michael wanted Walt, but couldn't have him, here we see he doesn't actually know what the hell he wants. Am I saying a parent isn't allowed to have moments of stress or doubt over their children? No. But when it comes as yet another mark against a character with so many other marks against him? Ugh. I hate you, Michael.

Fortunately, relief comes in Hurley's flashback. I will first acknowledge that it adds absolutely nothing to the story of Lost, or our understanding of Hurley. The thing is, though, it's just plain fun. Set to some fantastic music by Michael Giacchino, it's an extended sequence of everything going wrong for Hurley that possibly can. He wakes up late on the morning of the flight because of a power surge that blew out his alarm clock. The elevator is full. The electrical system on his car goes haywire. A super slow airline agent messes with him. He has to buy a scooter off an old man to keep running for his flight after he reaches exhaustion. 4s, 8s, 15s, 16s, 23s, and 42s are everywhere. And of course, worst of all, he makes the flight, the gate agent ironically telling him: "this is your lucky day." Fun stuff.

Last is a simple flashback for Locke, who has to suffer the indignity of being carried onto the airplane when the special wheelchair used for loading disabled passengers can't be located. Not any more illuminating, really, but it's worth including for the performance of Terry O'Quinn, who makes you feel every pang of Locke's humiliation.

See? All this, and I've only finished covering the flashback portion of Exodus. That's what happens when I take on basically three episodes of Lost at once. So here's where I break for now, with the rest of my re-view to follow tomorrow.