LOST: THE REWATCH COLUMN: SEASON 5 EPISODES 9 & 10

Namaste & He’s Our You (S5, eps. 9 & 10)

Namaste (S5, ep. 9)

James: “You didn’t tell ’em?”
Jin: “No. I was waiting for you.”
Kate: “Tell us what?”
James: “We’re in the DHARMA Initiative.”

Thoughts:

Lapidus: “Hold on! Brace for impact!”

• If there’s one running complaint I have about Season 5 as a whole, it’s that the show’s budget really makes itself known during sequences like the Ajira landing. I’m not even sure, frankly, why we need to have CGI in this scene to begin with. It’s expensive, it’s obviously fake to my eyes, and seeing the plane’s exterior adds no real drama to the scene. All that said it’s still exciting to watch. Realizing that the runway on Hydra Island may have been built two seasons ago in anticipation of this scene is one of the many reasons why Lost is such an engaging puzzle of a show, and it solidifies the fact that Lost’s writers haven’t simply been “making it up as they go,” as some of the show’s detractors are fond of saying.

I hate that criticism, by the way. Not just because moments like this one illustrate that the writers actually did know where they were going (at least as far as the overarching narrative goes), but also because ALL WRITERS “MAKE IT UP AS THEY GO.” It’s their job.

Lapidus: “Where’s everyone else? Jack and Kate and Hurley–where’d they go?”

• Good question, Frank! Jack, Kate and Hurley have literally vanished. The bright light and the sound that accompanies it ought to be familiar. It’s similar to the light from the flashes on the Island and/or the flash that turns the screen white in the S5 finale, and the sound that we hear, interestingly, is verrrrry similar to the sound that we used to hear whenever the show would “flashback” to a character’s past. Does this imply that the early “flashbacks” are linked to or related to the time-travel shenanigans of S5?

• Notice also that the camera seems to rotate upside down just as the flash occurs, and that the view from the cockpit continues to rotate back to a “rightside up” position immediately following the flash. Is this a subtle visual clue that the plane is passing through a spiralling wormhole? Remember the symbol for the Orchid consists of a spiral with a flower (LaFleur) at the center.

• It’s interesting that 3 years have passed for both the O6 and the Island-marooned castaways. As far as I’m able to suss out, Locke leaves the Island at the beginning of that period, and spends his time visiting the O6 during the months/weeks leading up to their return. So, either Locke jumped forward in time significantly when he left the Island, or he spent an awful long time just kind of bumming around before going to see the O6. I’m inclined to think the former explanation is correct.

• Juliet seems to immediately sense that their time in “paradise” is over once Jack, Kate and Hurley return. Probably this is because she’s aware that James still carries a torch for Kate, but on Rewatch we also know that Juliet comes from a broken home, and that she’s been deeply wounded by that.

Radzinsky: “What, so you think if a plane landed on our Island, I’d be over there just building my model? That I wouldn’t have called anyone? That I wouldn’t have put out an alert?”

• Ah, Radzinsky – the Walter Peck of the Dharma Initiative. If William Atherton weren’t already slated to make an appearance on the 6th Season I’d say that Lost had missed a golden casting opportunity (and if the above sentence makes no sense to you, I suggest Googling Atherton’s name).

We know Radzinsky already as Kelvin Inman’s partner at the Swan Station, pre-Desmond. He’s the guy who supposedly blew his own head off after taking the time to paint a map of the Island and its Stations on the blast door of the Swan. After spending just a brief amount of time in his company however, I’m inclined to think that Kelvin just straight up murdered the dude – because Radzinsky is a DICK. Aside from said-dickishness Radzinsky is also the literal and figurative “keeper of The Flame” for the Dharma Initiative, in that he’s shown stationed at the Flame bunker, and that he’ll later paint the Dharma map on the blast door, presumably to help keep the memory of Dharma alive and to keep the Station Locations preserved.

• It makes no logical sense for Jin to raise Radzinsky’s suspicions this way, but it makes perfect emotional sense.

• You know what we haven’t touched on yet? The word “Namaste.” Given that it’s the episode’s title, I guess we should rectify that now. “Namaste” is a South Asian phrase, combining “I bow” and “to you.” It’s used in Hindu and Buddhist contexts, and given the Dharma Initiative’s interest in Eastern religion, it’s a sensible phrase to pick. It’s also notable for how it is typically ‘translated’ today. The “meaning” of Namaste now typically includes a more overt recognition of the divine, and can be used to mean “The divinity in me bows to the divinity in you.” Interestingly, the Hawaiian phrase “Aloha” apparently has similar meaning – the presence of a divine spirit between people.

Dharma’s use of the phrase can be seen two ways: (a) as a signifier of spiritual/metaphysical intent behind their operations, or (b) as a signifier that this spiritual aspect has been degraded/distorted/misused.

Radzinsky: “Grid 325. Motion sensor alarm was tripped. We got a Hostile inside the perimeter.”

• Poor Sayid. The man cannot catch a break. In a mirror of Season 2, Sayid is captured by Jin as a Hostile. We talked about this instance of mirroring back during that season, and I’ll refresh everyone’s memory of it in the column for “He’s Our You,” which is coming up after the page break.

Jack: “Did you say Faraday? He’s here?”
Sawyer: “Not anymore.”

• First off, the moment when Jack leans forward to ask this question (pictured above) is inexplicably amusing to me. He looks like a confused 10 year-old.

Second, this is our first indication that Daniel has left the Island, and that he’s working for Dharma now.

• We learn that “Code 14-J,” which we heard repeated over Ben’s phone during Season 4, is a holdover from the Dharma days, and was designed to alert Dharma to any “Hostiles” that enter their territory. It’s ironic, then, that the code alerted Ben and Locke to the presence of Keamy and his “Hostile” forces.

Lapidus: “I thought you trusted this guy.”
Sun: “I lied.”

• Possibly Sun’s finest badass moment on the show so far. Watching her clock Ben on the head with an oar is deeply, deeply satisfying to me. And now we know how Ben ended up among the people who were hurt in the crash.

• And speaking of Ben – did you notice how he tugged his arm from his sling and stretched it? “The Island” has healed him – something that it didn’t do when he had a tumor. What’s changed, if anything? Was it the tumor that was the problem (we’ve talked about the icky similarities between cancerous growth and baby growth before)? Has Ben somehow regained some luster in the eyes of whoever/whatever grants the healing on this magic Island? Or is the healing self-generated?

Dr. Chang: “Of course it isn’t here…”
Jack: “What’s that?”
Dr. Chang: “Your file. Could they be any more disorganized on the other side? Sorry. Namaste. I’m Pierre Chang. Welcome to the DHARMA Initiative. How was your ride in?”
 
• Jack comes face-to-face with Marvin Candle/Edgar Halliwax/Pierre Chang. It’s potentially interesting to note the language that Chang uses here: “on the other side,” “your ride in.” Those words may emphasize that the sub needs to pass through a kind of Looking Glass in order to arrive on the Island – a Looking Glass that may be a kind of electromagnetic wormhole.

• Jack’s assigned “Work Man” duty, just as Ben Linus’ father was (echoes within echoes, like Russian dolls). Unlike Roger Linus, Jack is not angered by this. He’s amused. And that acceptance of things is an abrupt about-face for Jack’s character. He’s gone from bull-headedly insistent leader to compliant follower (for now) and the change seems to suit him. It’s a lot easier to like Jack, and to enjoy Fox’s performance, when the character isn’t in weepy/snarly jackass mode.

• Phil’s brief scene with Kate in the processing center makes it clear that, next to Radzinsky, he’s the biggest threat to the castaways out of the members of the Initiative. I really enjoy the way that Patrick Fischler can go from gregarious to spooky and intimidating at the drop of a hat.

• Radzinsky (I’m already sick of typing the guy’s name) wants to kill Sayid immediately, claiming that Sayid has seen the model of the Swan Station, and that “he could have seen the survey of where we’re building it.” Of course, the fact that Dharma has explicitly agreed not to build anything like the Swan on the Island doesn’t seem to bother Radzinsky one bit.

• Frank and Sun hear the Monster when they arrive on the main Island, and we see the sign of its passing, but it doesn’t reveal itself. Why is this potentially significant? Well, it’s because of who appears almost immediately afterward: Christian Shephard.

CHRISTIAN: “Follow me.”

• Christian manifests to Frank and Sun (he’s now appeared to Jack, Locke, Michael, and Claire) and shows them where Jin and their friends are – back in 1977. Once again, as in almost all of the scenes with Island-Christian so far, there’s a serious sense of spookiness to the proceedings.

• When Sun and Frank arrive, the Dharma Barracks are abandoned and falling apart. I’m probably wrong, but I don’t remember the signs for things like Dharma’s “processing center” being displayed during the Others’ time here. So why do we see that sign, half-hanging from one of the buildings in the Island’s “present”? Have I missed that detail? Or is it an inexplicably NEW detail?

If so, it may serve the same sort of purpose that the changing picture frames in Miles’ first flashback – marking subtle differences.

James: “I heard once Winston Churchill read a book every night, even during the Blitz. He said it made him think better. It’s how I like to run things. I think. I’m sure that doesn’t mean that much to you, ’cause back when you were calling the shots, you pretty much just reacted. See, you didn’t think, Jack, and as I recall, a lot of people ended up dead.”

• James bores a hole straight through Jack here, and while he’s a little cocky about it, he’s also pretty much right. Jack’s actions in Season 3 were reactive at best, borderline-nutzoid at worst. That’s not to say that you or I would do better in his situation, just that James’s point of view isn’t wrong. Jack seems happy to hand the reins over to someone else, and it’s probable that he agrees with at least some of what James says, despite his weak protest.

• What I love about this scene is how completely it redefines our sense of who these characters are. Put this scene side-by-side with any scene of them from Season One and you have what amounts to total 180 degree shifts in power and character while still (and this is the really impressive part to me) maintaining the essence of who these characters have always been.

This is great storytelling. We’ve seen this sort of evolution in other shows, but I’d argue that it’s been done this organically and believably very rarely. Wesley on “Angel” and Al Swearengen on “Deadwood” are the other two examples I can think of. Care to offer up your opinions?

Ben: “I’m Ben.”
Sayid: “It’s nice to meet you, Ben.”

• Such a good ending.

• Check out the Rewatch Column for “He’s Our You,” after the page break!