Matt and Justin's Lost Rewatch

Man of Science, Man of Faith

JUSTIN SAYS:

Season Two of LOST is probably at the bottom of a lot of people’s lists when ranking LOST seasons . I think that has to do with how great Season One was getting to know the story and the characters for the first time and then how EPIC the show gets from late Season Three all the way through to The End. What Season Two will always be for me is the transition of LOST from my favorite TV show to an obsession. I mean, watching Season One, you knew you were hooked and would follow the show anywhere. But, with the introduction of Season Two, you begin to get swallowed up with the mythology of the show. Easter eggs are everywhere. Character connections abound. What is that hatch in the ground and what in the blue blazes is the DHARMA Initiative? All the answers and more lay ahead and begin with the first episode Man of Science, Man of Faith.

LOST has a great history of Season Premieres and Finale episodes. Man of Science, Man of Faith certainly did not disappoint and is an amazing episode of LOST. One other thing LOST did was it started every season with a scene/series of scenes that made you delirious and saying where AM I? What IS this? (Jack waking in the forest in Season One, Desmond in the Hatch, Season Two, Juliet’s house/watching the plane crash in Season Three, Hurley crashing the Camaro in LA in Season Four, Pierre Chang on the island in Season Five and On the airplane again in Season Six) I would say that probably my favorite opening scene of a season is the opening of Man of Science, Man of Faith. You are so discombobulated and going who is this dude and what is this place he’s in, you’re not even close to thinking he’s in the hatch that just got blown into at the end of last season. But then the explosion happens and he looks into that fancy mirrored spyglass system to see Locke and Jack peering down the hole and your whole world is rocked. Holy crap! There’s a guy down there! And he’s got modern stuff? WHAT IS THIS PLACE?! Cue LOST twirling in and the rest of what I noticed.

Our eye watch climbs another peg as the episode opens with Desmond’s eye opening to the sound of the Swan hatch computer beginning its countdown alarm sequence. The count stands at eleven.

There is so much amazing stuff to look at in that hatch as Desmond is running around playing Mama Cass, exercising, eating breakfast, doing dishes, showering and injecting himself with DHARMA meds. One thing I never noticed before is an open backgammon set on the kitchen table with the pieces all around as if in the middle of a game. Another thing I was struck by right away is the odd mix of old and new. You have all the old computer equipment, lava lamps, record players, film projectors, which screams vintage then some ultra modern stuff like front-loading laundry equipment. We also see the DHARMA symbol for the first time in multiple places in the hatch. Way cool. I want to live in the hatch.

Number Watch: The exercise bike is hovering around 16 MPH as Desmond is riding it. All the numbers are located on the medicine vial Desmond is seen injecting into his arm. Hurley is repeating the numbers over and over like Leonard. Mr Rutherford’s time of death is 8:15 a.m. It is mentioned that there are 4 guns left (just wait until they open the armory!). Sarah’s wedding date to that ultra douche bag is 8 months away. A large number 8 is on the cart sitting behind Jack as he waits for Sarah to wake up in her room after the surgery. The painting in the hatch has all the numbers, including the sum of them, 108.

We see Adam Rutherford, Shannon’s real father, who is killed as a result of Sarah’s head-on collision with him. Also of interest was that Sarah was on her way to a wedding shop, more than likely the one run by Boone and his mother. One thing I found compelling this time around is that Jack had to make a decision of who to save. Both Adam and Sarah were dying and Jack could only save one, a tough choice for sure. Interesting how Jack’s life would have been different had he chose to save Adam, not Sarah. Not to mention how different Shannon’s life would have been. And, was there a dural sac mention? I could swear I heard Jack say the “sac is ruptured” while looking at Sarah’s injuries. I ran it back several times but can’t be sure. Did you hear it?

The raft has been gone all of a couple of hours and Shannon has already let “the damn dog” Vincent run into the water after the raft and then run away. Not looking good Walt, not looking good.

In a common theme of the episode and really the series at large, Jack and Locke both were trying to get in the hatch, but for VERY different reasons. Locke wanted to see what was inside as he felt it was his destiny. Jack was looking for a way to save everyone. You know, that whole live together, die alone thing. Parallels how MIB wanted to find out how to work what was in the cave at the heart of the island for his own purposes and Jack wanted to know how to fix it to save everyone.

It’s really cool seeing so many of the props that were at the LOST auction last August on screen again. The hatch was there as well as the awesome QUARANTINE hatch lid. Seemed at this point that Sayid and Hurley were right – whatever was in that hatch was not good news.

I mentioned this in my blog for Hearts and Minds and had forgotten about this scene when I wrote it, but Shannon was so motivated by something so simple. She tells Sayid that “watching Vincent is the only thing anyone’s ever asked me to do”. Amazing what a little faith in someone does.

We see Walt appear to Shannon in the jungle. His appearance is preceded by whispers. He is soaking wet and says something that sounds quite unintelligible. I have never personally done it, but apparently, when played backwards he says, “Push the button. Don’t push the button. Bad.” Now some will wonder whether this is truly Walt or an appearance by MIB, and rightfully so. My take is that this is indeed Walt and not MIB for a few reasons. First, per a question posed by Ms. Klugh to Michael, we know one of Walt’s abilities is to appear in places that he shouldn’t be which seems to be the case here. Second, he is soaking wet and at this point, he is out in the middle of the ocean, either on the raft or on Tom Friendly’s boat, depending on the timing of what is happening on the island versus on the raft. Third, it is preceded by the whispers which we know are actually souls of old castaways trapped on the island and these voices have served to try and warn the LOSTies about certain things. What do you think? Walt or MIB?

You have to admire Hurley’s point of view about life on the island. First he calls Jack “Mr. Ha Ha” which is hysterical and elicits a laugh from even Jack. Then he says, “Life’s not so bad. Yeah, the others are coming to eat us all and once in a while someone blows up all over you, but you get to sleep in everyday”. I think I could live with that.

We get some more insight and foreshadowing to Hurley’s days in Santa Rosa Mental Hospital which we’ll see much more of later. And yes Hurley, Jack’s bedside manner does indeed suck.

This episode is the official beginning of LOST’s TERRIBLE hair pieces. What were they doing with Jack’s hair in the flashback! Oy!

There is an interesting transition between the scene where Christian tells Jack he needs to give his patients a little hope, even if it’s false hope and that scene at the caves where Jack does just that – gives the LOSTies what he truly believes is a load of crap about them being safe to see the sun rise.

We covered this before, but Jack’s line to Sarah sums him up in a nutshell: “I’m going to fix you”. It was said with such conviction too.

Locke was quite the gentleman to let Kate go down that hole first. What a guy! And, did anyone else get another dose of déjà vu and flash forward to the scene in The End where they lower Desmond down with the rope? We also get another nice shout out to the Pilot when Kate starts counting to five and letting the fear in as she’s lowered down the hole.

Then, the light comes on after Desmond opens and shuts a door down there, and I got chills once again, just like the first time. Amazing, amazing scene which brings to mind one of the most epic scenes in LOST history: John Locke banging on the hatch in Deus Ex Machina. Getting chills again writing about it.

We see Jack running in his “Tour de Stad” when he twists his ankle and meets his “brutha” Desmond. Interesting that Jack was running from his problems and Desmond was running towards his as he was training for the boat race that would eventually lead him to the island and being locked in that hatch pressing that button. Speaking of “that button”, here’s a picture of me at the LOST auction in Santa Monica last August, touching the actual Swan hatch computer used for filming. And yes, I completely geeked out, and yes, it was WAY awesome.

Then comes one of the most oft repeated and ill quoted quotes from LOST: “See you in another life, brutha” (misquoted because there really is no ‘brutha’ at the end). We thought it was cool when Jack sees him again on the island and put those things together with this “other life” Desmond talked about, but the phrase took on a whole new meaning when Desmond sat next to Jack on Oceanic 815 in the flashsideways in the opening moments of LA X. Another life, indeed.

Jack Bender’s painting featured on the wall of the Swan station was also on display at the LOST auction. Let me tell you it was spectacular in person. You can buy hand-signed prints of the painting here.

One HUGE thing that is sort of introduced and will be expanded on in an episode coming up very soon is the electromagnetic energy going on at the Swan Station. This is the second nod to electromagnetism as Sayid points out Locke’s compass was acting very odd and it would take a very significant magnetic anomaly to interfere with it like that in Hearts and Minds. We see the key to the Halliburton around Jack’s neck literally move towards the wall because the magnetic force is so great. Who would have ever guessed as of this point that Jack was present at the site of “the incident” that was the cause of the Swan being built all those years ago as he travelled through time to the 1970s! I think I’m getting a nosebleed.

Then the final scene where we get our first long glimpses into the work area of the Swan Station replete with its geodesic dome, reel to reel computers and of course the famous computer with blinking green cursor where the numbers were entered. “I wouldn’t do that”, Locke warns as Jack leans in to press EXECUTE. It is then revealed that Desmond, the runner in the stadium with Jack, is the one in the hatch. What are the odds. Jack sums it up perfectly with one word: “YOU?!”

And that my friends is the Season Two premiere. So glad to be back after our break and so glad to be on to Season Two. So many things to love about this episode. My favorite thing about it is the Swan Station. To me, it is quintessential LOST and just so, so cool. When I get rich winning the lottery (which by the way, yesterday’s California Mega Millions lottery numbers were 4-8-15-25-47-42. NO JOKE! Check them here) I will recreate the Swan Station as my LOST rewatch palace, complete down to the projector  and invite you all over for a hootenanny. But until then, we’ll just have to meet up here.

MATT SAYS:

Like Justin, the opening of this season is some of my favorite few minutes of the entire show. I remember, after seeing it for the first time, watching it with friends (as they watched for the first time) and looking at their responses as the music builds, as the camera moves from mirror to mirror and then it dawns on them that we’re underground and in the hatch, their jaw dropping open in amazement. Everything about it is perfect, so when it came time to mimic a scene for the opening of my final set of Finale Party Teaser Videos, this was the scene I just had to do. You can check it out here.

To take a quick step back, another thing I’ve always loved about the show is the quality menus on the DVDs and Blurays. The menus are always scenes from the show, but they come alive in interesting ways. In the case of the first disc of season 2, Jack and Locke are peering down into the hatch, with the different menu options overlaid as text, and as Locke moves his torch-holding arm, the shadows cast by the menu words react. A nice little touch.

Back to the episode…as I watched this episode, I tried to put myself in Desmond’s position, knowing what he knows. He has suspicions that the medicine Kelvin had him take for years is perhaps unnecessary, but takes it anyway (better safe than sorry) in the past few weeks, he’s accidentally killed Kelvin, rushed back to the hatch as it was initiating a System Failure, terrifying him of what could actually happen when the countdown reached zero…at some point, was visited by a time-traveling Daniel Faraday, sat in solitude for over 40 days by himself, contemplating suicide, until the letter from Penny falls out of his copy of Our Mutual Friend, and Locke starts banging on the hatch lid, restoring his hope.

So with all of that in mind, let’s look at the opening scene. It almost seems as if Desmond is content and just going about his day in the hatch. Perhaps this is because he knows, with someone banging on the hatch, that perhaps his replacement is trying to get in. He has a reason to live and is going to do his hatch duties and take care of himself until his replacement can actually get in. It makes me wonder if Desmond ever ventures outside to see if his replacement is hanging around. However, after the System Failure, I believe he wouldn’t dare risk leaving the Swan unattended.

So, when the explosion goes off, he’s noticabely freaked out. He doesn’t know how his replacement will show up (when Daniel knocks on the door in season 5, Desmond asks him if he’s his replacement) but the idea of someone blowing open the quarantined access route into the hatch is perhaps a bit surprising to him. He must take precautions, and this is why we see him turning the lights off, using the mirror mechanism and being generally paranoid about the entire situation (especially after Kelvin lied to him for 3 years).

Desmond types in spaces between the numbers using the space bar at the beginning of this episode, but in the next episode when he directs Locke to enter the numbers, there is no space bar used, as the computer automatically puts them in.

It’s interesting to think that in both this episode and The End, each time Locke and Jack are looking down a long tunnel, Desmond is at the other end in a sense.

Some other Locke/Jack future parallels: As Kate and Hurley are discussing with Jack and Locke what to do, stay at the hatch, go back to the caves, generally splitting up, brought to mind the beginning of season 4, where some of the camp goes with Jack and some go with Locke.

Justin is correct: Jack mentions a sac, but doesn’t clarify if it’s her dural sac or some other various sac, but because it’s Jack, i’m gonna say dural sac!

In general, and most likely because it’s a season premiere and they have to remind the audience what happened in last season’s finale, this episode features the most amount of survivors discussing things that have happened to them (compared to how many think the survivors never talked about all of the weird stuff on the island). In this ep alone, they discuss, among other things, the numbers, black smoke, the Black Rock, Arzt blowing up, the Others, Walt, the raft and the whispers.

While telling Jack all of the horrible things that happened after he won the lottery, we get a hint of what we’ll see happen to Tricia Tanaka in season 3, when Hurley mentions the chicken shack he worked at getting struck by a meteorite.

In light of The End, I found Kate and Jack’s discussion about Locke going down into the hatch interesting. Kate tells Jack, “But Locke’s going into that thing whether you like it or not. And if he falls and breaks his neck… Live together, die alone, right?” She’s very concerned about him falling and breaking his neck, however in the series finale, it’s Jack and Kate that ultimately kill “Locke” by pushing him off the cliff where he breaks, most likely, his back and his neck.

Kate does the Jack “count to 5” but only gets to cursed number 4.

Desmond tells Jack, “I was almost a doctor once.” Although it could have just been a small portion of his life, we never see anything to reiterate this in his flashbacks, do we?

Desmond also tells Jack, “You have to lift it up.” One could read this as foreshadowing to Jack lifting up and putting the island’s cork back into the hole in the finale (after Desmond has pulled it out).

Locke takes his shoes off before stepping into the hatch’s living quarters, reinforcing his respect for the island.

The Haliburton case key moving towards the magnet brought to mind the Dharma worker’s filling getting ripped out in season 5.

As we’ll find out in the next episode, Kate is up in the duct work above the computer room, yelling for Jack. If you listen closely, you can hear her yelling during the music blaring.

Finally, in a bit of irony, while Jack is asking where Kate’s at, Desmond raises his gun up and shoots directly at the air duct vent Kate is hiding behind (as we find out in the next episode).

Awesome episode and a great start to season 2.