The next episode of Lost's first season is centered around Locke. And I think it's a sterling example of exactly why I wanted to watch the series again from the beginning; this episode plays much better on a second viewing than it did the first time around.
First of all, this is the episode in which Boone receives the injuries that will lead to his death. In past reviews, I've mentioned the sort of shell game set up by the writers, who had tipped their hand about killing off a major character sometime during the first season. After false starts with
Shannon and
Charlie, here's the first of a "two-part episode" in which they make good on their threat. And without the audience trying to avoid being fooled again here, the drama plays much better (as I'll get into momentarily).
Secondly, there's a great flashback storyline involving Locke meeting his father, forging a bond with him, and then being conned by him. It's a really powerful and emotional tale, and Terry O'Quinn's acting is stellar. But here again, the drama couldn't quite be appreciated for what it was the first time around. A first time viewer has only one question on his mind right now regarding Locke's past: how did he end up in the wheelchair? Learning anything else feels like a stall. And this episode even messes with the audience on that issue. Early on, we see Locke hit by a car. "Ooo! Is that it? Is that how it happened?" And then he agrees to donate a kidney to his father. As the two men are prepped for surgery, you think, "Ooo! Is this it? Are there going to be complications?" When we learn nothing of how Locke was paralyzed by the hour's end, it was hard not to feel cheated the first time around -- particularly when the on-Island story involved him beginning to lose his newfound ability to walk.
But those two major distractions really got in the way of appreciating a fine episode. It was actually the very first one to be written together by the two men that would run Lost for the duration, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. Not much can be said of director Robert Mandel, though; this was his only work on the series.
The episode begins in a meticulously crafted manner, inside Locke's flashback at a time when he worked in a toy store. He's setting up a game of Mouse Trap, and explaining it to a young boy, saying it's his favorite game. He delivers a very carefully written monologue that talks about the wheels within wheels nature of not only the plot we're about to see with Locke's father, but that reflects on the series Lost itself.
Then a woman shows up, played brilliantly by Swoosie Kurtz. She says just the right things to get Locke's attention, and he finds her in the parking lot moments later. This is his mother, whom he has never met, and she's just on the other side of crazy. She tells Locke over coffee that he's special, part of a great design. She also says he has no father, and was immaculately conceived.
The episode lets us off the hook on that one in only a few minutes, but I have to confess that the first time around, I did a bit of a double take. We'd just seen
Hurley win the lottery with supernaturally cursed numbers; maybe this show really
was going to tell us John Locke was immaculate conceived and mean it.
But no; she's just a loon that seems to not want Locke to meet his father. (Though this is all "part of the plan.") Locke feels compelled to hire a private investigator, who first confirms that Mom is who she says she is. (And also drops that she spent some time in the same mental hospital where Hurley was a patient.) He then tries to talk Locke out of pursuing his father, claiming an intuition that it's not going to end well. Locke won't have it, presses for a folder of information the PI has already gathered, and is off to meet his father.
Anthony Cooper lives in luxury behind a guarded gate, but does agree to see Locke, and the two begin to forge a bond. He takes Locke hunting for the very time, a neat story point that goes to show us how different past Locke is from Island Locke. He calls Locke "son" at a very key moment, and it clearly has a profound effect.
He's "accidentally" caught by Locke using a kidney dialysis machine, and "reluctantly" reveals his urgent need for an organ donor. And over the course of three or four carefully woven flashbacks, Locke eventually agrees to be the donor -- an idea that Anthony Cooper himself never suggests.
It's revealed that this is all a con. Locke wakes up after the surgery, and his father has already left. He's rushed off to hide behind his iron gate, and this time he will not let Locke in. Locke's mother reveals that it was all a con, for which she herself received some much needed money for her participation. And Terry O'Quinn makes us feel the full weight of betrayal by two parents Locke had never even known before now.
Much later on in the series, we'd learn that Anthony Cooper was the "Sawyer" that conned young James Ford's parents and set him on his quest for vengeance. I was surprised and thrilled when the connection was revealed, but on watching this episode a second time, it feels almost obvious. Or if not "obvious," then at least inevitable. The con we see Anthony Cooper run here is so similar to the one we saw Sawyer (our Sawyer) run in
his first flashback episode. The goals are of course very different, but the
methods -- to make the mark think the whole thing is his idea -- are precisely the same.
Sawyer is actually the focus of the Island subplot in this episode, though not in any context that would have helped a viewer make that connection between he and Locke. In fact, they don't even share any scenes together in this episode. Sawyer's story is a comedic bit of background where he's suffering from headaches, but is too proud initially to approach Jack for medical advice.
Jack enjoys messing with Sawyer for a while before revealing his diagnosis -- Sawyer needs glasses. His far-sightedness had never been an issue before all the reading he's been doing on the Island. Sayid improvises a welded pair of glasses from two separate sets recovered from the crash, prompting Hurley to quip that Sawyer "looks like someone steamrolled Harry Potter," and in all we have a nice bit of light relief from the very serious material of the episode's primary storyline.
That, of course, centers on Locke, and his adventures with Boone. It begins with another failed attempt to get inside the Hatch, using a makeshift trebuchet. Locke's leg is injured by a piece of shrapnel that flies off the broken device, but he doesn't feel it or even notice it until Boone points it out. Later that night, Locke test his legs with a needles, and finds he has no feeling in them at all. Is he losing the miraculous gift given to him by the Island?
Actually, before I go on, what the hell
is going on here? This is something that is never really explained -- not in this episode, not in the entire series. And I'm at a loss to come up with the "man of science"'s explanation for it; I can only offer what the "man of faith" would say. It really does seem to be like some outside will is messing with Locke in this episode.
We know the Island has healing powers, as evidenced by Locke and Rose, and seen more subtly in the fast healing times that characters have after getting the stuffing beaten out of them on a regular basis. But we also know that sometimes, the Island's healing properties just don't work. Ben's spinal condition is the prime example, and Jack's appendicitis is another notable one that figures prominently into the plot. From this episode, add Locke's momentarily relapse (if that's the right word), losing his ability to walk. Hell, add Sawyer's vision if you want; if the Island can cure cancer and paralysis, why can't it cure farsightedness?
The only path to a possible solution that I can see lies in the fact that pregnancies are also a problem on the Island, a problem that while never directly explained, is strongly implied to be a consequence of "the Incident" at the site of the Swan. It's also kinda-sorta implied that Jacob, in his capacity as Island guardian, could exert some mojo to undo this damage, but either ignores it or chooses not to.
Or, to put it directly: when something goes wrong with the natural healing properties of the Island, Jacob is to blame, either by indifference or by choice. And since Locke was walking perfectly fine before this episode began, it seems that it cannot be the former. Perhaps Jacob has chosen this moment to pull the rug out from under Locke. A test? A lesson?
If it's not Jacob, it seems like there is
some force at work here, because it also gives Locke a very specific nightmare. He's accosted in his dream by an angry Boone, who tells Locke to give up on trying to open the Hatch. In rapid fire succession, Locke sees his mother, sees himself in a wheelchair, and sees Boone suddenly bloody and battered, chanting "Theresa falls up the stairs, Theresa falls down the stairs," over and over. He also sees an image of a small prop plane crashing on the Island, and vows to pursue it upon waking.
This is no random nightmare, because so many details of it are absolutely true. Locke asks Boone about the meaning of Theresa, and Boone is very shaken at the memory. She was a nanny who would always run up and down the stairs to entertain him as a boy, and she fell doing it and broke her neck.
Also true is the vision of the plane crash. The two men find the plane, stuck high up in a tree. By this point, Locke has almost totally lost the ability to walk, and so he puts Boone in the role of "Theresa," urging Boone to climb up inside the plane to investigate.
Inside, Boone finds a stash of heroin (later to be an important story point for Charlie), a dead body (later to be revealed as the brother of the not-yet-known Eko)... and a working radio! As the plane shifts precariously, he sends out a mayday, identifying himself as a survivor of flight 815. You're just barely able to make out the responding voice, who says, "
We're survivors of flight 815..." before the plane falls from a great height. (We'll later learn that voice belonged to Bernard, but it's hardly of importance at the moment.)
Locke crawls into the wreck and finds Boone bloodied exactly as he saw in his nightmare. He also finds that he's recovered the ability to walk again, and hoists Boone over his shoulders to carry him to Jack. Lying awkwardly about how Boone "fell off a cliff," Locke slips away in the commotion before Jack can press for any more information.
He slips off to the Hatch, and has an emotional breakdown perfectly synced with the one in his flashback over his father's actions. Locke rails against the Island itself, screaming "why did you do this to me?!" And then a bright light appears inside the Hatch, concluding the episode. (It's interesting, because amid so much material in this episode that never is really shown to have a "normal" explanation, this final moment actually
does have one. We later learn that Desmond, working alone inside the Hatch, simply heard someone beating on it and turned on a spotlight to investigate. Not nearly as momentous as it seems purely in the context of this episode.)
And so there you have it, an episode full of strong character drama and topped with excellent acting -- though you do have to just roll with it and accept the too-timely loss of Locke's ability to walk.
One last thought here, which would never had occurred to me myself without sifting through the Lost Wiki. According to the fans that meticulously tracked the passage of time on the show, reckoning events from the known date of the crash (September 22, 2004 -- the same
actual date the first episode of Lost aired), the events of this episode fall on Halloween. No mention of this is made within the episode itself, but with all the spooky events going on, I do briefly wonder if the writers were aware of this themselves when they put the story together.
In any case, I rate Deus Ex Machina a B+. It's a solid episode, and very important in the story of Lost.
Not long ago, I wrote about This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a documentary looking at film ratings, particularly the dreaded NC-17 that basically ensures no one will ever see your movie. In the course of watching the documentary, I found out about a handful of films that seemed like they could be interesting; wouldn't you know it, the NC-17 rating had indeed made certain that I'd never heard of them.
