“Lost,” season 4
There comes a time in every season of “Lost” where we start to feel the first prickles of frustration, a time when a simmering feeling that not much has been discovered blossoms into a full understanding that, really, not much has.
The glory of the season’s opener has started to wane, and, in true “Lost” fashion, we find ourselves asking the same dreaded question: are we ever going to find out what’s really going on?
Now on a three-week hiatus because of the writers’ strike, the flurry of excitement over—finally!—getting some answers in this fourth season, of seeing at least a tiny, glimmering hole of light at the end of the long tunnel, has been replaced by questions, questions and more questions.
So until “Lost” returns, all there is to do is dissect the season’s many victories and failures.
“Lost” has always been heavily debated among critics and the general public, and this season is no exception. It’s one of those shows that you either love—usually in a borderline unhealthy, message-board-frequenting and clue-obsessing kind of way—or you loathe.
Or maybe you loved it until the second season, when you jumped ship after realizing that watching “Lost” is quite a commitment. Answers will not be spoon-fed. Sometimes, it won’t make a lot of sense. A lot of the time, you’ll leave an episode with less information than you thought you had in the beginning.
But to the true Lostie, that’s what makes this show the best one on television.
With the season’s first episode, “The Beginning of the End,” flash-forward segments replaced the show’s quintessential flashbacks. It seemed like a daunting task for the show’s creative forces—primarily Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cruz and J.J. Abrams, the show’s core writers and producers—to undertake, but it’s been a welcoming reprieve to a formula that was starting to get stale.
“The Beginning” introduces the season’s primary theme—the Oceanic Six. Through a series of flash-forwards, starting with Hurley Reyes (Jorge Garcia), we learn that at least six people eventually escape the island. Even more, they’re famous. They’re hounded by fans. And they’re haunted by their decision to leave.
Along with Hurley, Kate Austin (Evangeline Lilly), Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), Sun Kwon (Yunjin Kim), Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) and baby Aaron have escaped.
But it’s not definite which of the aforementioned characters make up the Oceanic Six—some, like Sayid, who now appears to be working for Ben, follow a different course post-island.
At least we can finally stop wondering if they escape at all. Now, we just need to know how they escape—and why some of them seem so desperate to return. (”I don’t think we did the right thing,” Hurley tells Jack. “I think it [the island] wants us to come back! And it’s going to do everything it can. ”).
And because no “Lost” season is complete without welcoming new faces—how can a show that takes place on a deserted island find so many opportunities to introduce new characters?—we meet a group of potential rescuers, who may or may not be there to save the plane-wrecked gang.
We meet Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), a physicist with a penchant for crying and neuroticism. We meet Miles Straume (Ken Leung), who can apparently speak with the dead. We meet Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader), an anthropologist who is captured and taken hostage by Locke’s group. Then we meet Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey), who was supposed to be the pilot on Oceanic 815. Oy.
It’s almost impossible to watch “Lost” these days without taking notes. You gotta keep up, or you’re gonna get left behind.
But unlike season three’s Nikki (Kiele Sanchez) and Paulo (Rodrigo Santoro), who were promptly killed off after viewers protested their addition to the show, this new group of characters fits. This group can actually act. They offer new back-stories and possibilities for plot development (it appears, at the moment, that the foursome is working for the nefarious Charles M. Widmore).
This season has largely been written by the show’s creator, J.J. Abrams, who brings the same tight, crisp, witty style his previous shows (“Alias,” “Felicity”) are famous for. The dialogue has never been sharper or funnier (when Jack asks Juliet why the Others need therapists, she responds: “It’s very stressful being an Other, Jack”).
After an entire season of one-liners, the Sayid- and Hurley-centric episodes, both marvelously performed, feel especially gratifying.
This season has really given the core cast of characters a chance to reclaim center stage. These are the people (not the Others, not the Dharma Initiative) that we tune in year after year to watch.
A particularly affecting moment of the season—and the entire series—is Jack’s desperate confrontation with Kate. He tells her that he uses his “golden Oceanic ticket,” a consolation prize from the airline, to fly across the world every Friday.
“I want it to crash, Kate,” he says. “I don’t care about anyone else on board. Every little bump we hit, turbulence… I actually close my eyes, and I pray… I pray that I can go back.”
The camera zooms in on Jack’s face, consumed by an overgrown beard. His eyes fill with tears of frustration.
The camera shoots back and forth from Jack to Kate, her smooth hair and made-up face a sharp contrast to her rough-and-tumble appearance on the island.
And this, folks, is what “Lost” is all about. Supremely acted, brilliantly edited and filmed (the series’ primary cinematographer and director of photography, John S. Bartley, always makes the show look like a multi-million dollar movie)—“Lost,” even in its fourth season, is still going strong.
With two confirmed seasons left in “Lost’s” run, it’s time for some answers. We can only hope that, when the series returns, the build-up will start to pay off.
But those that learn to love “Lost” learn to love its masochistic quality, the exquisite pain of guessing, of wondering, of dying for answers.
Because in the world of “Lost,” nothing is black or white. But you can sure learn to appreciate its myriad grays.
