“Hello. My name is Dr. Marvin Candle and welcome to orientation at the DHARMA Initiative Swan Station.” And to another edition of Lost for Beginners! It’s been quite a while since we first saw that orientation film and learned of the DHARMA Initiative (3 ½ seasons, in fact—can you believe it’s been that long?) and we still have one hell of a lot of unanswered questions about this mysterious organization. One of the main purposes of the 2nd half of season 5 is to answer some of these questions for the viewers. However, since none of the original DHARMA Initiative members are still living, that eliminates the prospect of revealing these secrets via flashbacks. Couple this with the fact that our friends on the Island have been time-travelling for the past 7 episodes, and we’ve got a perfect way to fill in any DHARMA-related plot gaps that have been brewing for 3 ½ seasons.
Episode 8, “LaFleur,” opens in the year 1977 in a DHARMA station. We see two young Initiative members having a fling, and then a guy named Phil comes in, yells at them, and says he’s going to get LaFleur, the Head of Security. He knocks on the door of one of the houses in the barracks, and we see a rear view of a man going to answer the door. Now, I’ve watched the show long enough to realize that whenever someone is first shown from the back when introduced, this means that, when the camera rotates, we will be shocked by this person’s identity (it’s been done most recently with Eloise Hawking a few episodes ago). So I knew that “LaFleur” must be someone we’d seen before. Still, I honestly had no idea who it was going to be. So imagine my surprise when we see the scene from a different angle, and standing there in the doorway is Sawyer! Since the group stopped time-hopping in the previous episode, we know that they are stuck in whatever time they stopped, but we don’t know when that was…until now. Still, we’re thinking “How on Earth did these guys make a life for themselves in 1977 so quickly?” Soon enough, we get our answer, as we flash back to “three years earlier”—1974, and see the castaways when they first stopped time-hopping. With this, we’re able to infer that our friends on the Island have been living in the 1970s as members of the DHARMA Initiative for THREE YEARS.
Wow, that’s a long time! I mean, we knew 3 years had passed with the Oceanic Six on the mainland, but when Locke went back to the mainland, it had only been a few days on the Island since the Oceanic Six left, but the Oceanic Six had been home for 3 years already. Once Locke is back on the mainland, THEN the castaways on the Island have their 3 years to catch up with the 3 years that have gone by on the mainland. So, it’s been 3 years for everyone except Locke; it was only a few weeks for him. I kept trying to wrap my brain around the logistics of this, but eventually just decided to chalk it up to “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey,” and leave it at that.
So, putting that aside, I have really, really loved the second half of this season. Every episode has grabbed and kept my attention! I love seeing the characters in the 1970s, as the show flashes from 1977 back to 1974 periodically, to see how the characters built their new (old?) lives in the DHARMA Initiative. Here’s another case of the characters and the audience kind of being in the same boat; they have all the same questions we have regarding the DHARMA Initiative, and now they’re getting their questions answered by experiencing it directly, which proves way more interesting and fun for us than if we’d found out about it via some sort of exposition. It’s also a lot of fun getting to actually meet characters that, up until now, we had only seen in the orientation films (i.e. “Dr. Marvin Candle” AKA Pierre Chang) or in visions (i.e. Horace). We get to see them as real people, instead of just as memories, and we get to see how they interact with the characters we are already familiar with. It’s a really unique dynamic!
Now, I bet you all (everybody) remember “Tabula Rasa,” one of the first episodes ever. The castaways had just arrived on the Island, and the episode dealt with how crashing on the Island provides all the characters with a “clean slate” to start their lives anew. Since nobody else knows who they used to be, each character got the chance to be a new person, to have a fresh start. In the latter half of season 5, this “do-over” happens again. With the main characters all stranded in the 1970s among the strangers of the DHARMA Initiative, they have no choice but to essentially start over, even to the point of forgetting their previous time on the Island, for some of them. Along with forgetting their previous time on the Island, they seem to forget, or at the very least disregard, the roles they’ve previously played. Having a new start in a new time period, many of the characters reinvent themselves, unencumbered by previous status. Sawyer, for one, has become the leader of the group, something he had never been during the first four seasons. His street smarts and quick thinking helped him and his companions work their way into the DHARMA Initiative, and as a result they look to him as their leader and main decision-maker, a position that, up until now, had always belonged to Jack. Sawyer’s name change to “Jim LaFleur” reflects this change in status that he has undergone.
We really get to see the full extent of his newfound leadership in episode 9, “Namaste,” in which Jack, Hurley, Sayid, and Kate return to the Island, also stuck in 1977. The four of them are confused and disoriented, as well as concerned about how to plausibly integrate themselves into this society. In a reassuring manner that shows everyone he’s got things under control, Sawyer simply says “I’ll do the talking.” Is it just me, or has Jack said that exact sentence many, many times over the course of the series? Sawyer’s keeping his cool in a tense situation, just like a good leader should. He has a plan, just like a good leader should. Then, in a move indicative of both his cunning and of the amount of weight he now pulls within the DHARMA Initiative, Sawyer presents Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid as new recruits to the DHARMA Initiative, with all the evidence to back it up, and the DHARMA people buy it! So now, Jack and company are majorly indebted to Sawyer for helping them out. Still, when they all convene in Sawyer and Juliet’s house, Jack (of course) tries to reclaim his position as leader, challenging Sawyer’s leadership decisions. Sawyer berates him for “not thinking things through,” but the two continue to butt heads for the rest of their time in 1977.
One final note about all of this: at many points in the second half of the season, Miles and Hurley make remarks about how Sawyer “always has a plan.” They have the utmost trust in him as a leader and have faith that everything he does, he does for a reason. It reminded me an awful lot of what people used to say about Jack. Back in season 3 when Kate and Locke were spying on the Others, they saw Jack playing football with Tom Friendly. Kate immediately freaked out, while Locke assured her that Jack “had a plan.” This amazing amount of faith that the castaways placed in Jack has now been transferred to Sawyer, because they need someone to put their faith in. They need that one person who “always has a plan,” as their one comfort amidst all the uncontrollable chaos around them.
No “Lost for Beginners” post would be complete without a trip on some “Coaster,” so all aboard the Ben-Coaster! In the shocking episodes “He’s Our You” and “Whatever Happened Happened,” we get to see a major traumatic event in Ben’s childhood, a large factor contributing to who he is in the present. Turns out, the parties responsible for said event are none other than Sayid and Jack, two of our heroes! So now we have a crazy conundrum: in 2004, Sayid and Jack both hate Ben for the lying, manipulative bastard he is. Now that they’re in 1977, and knowing what they know about the kind of person Ben grows up to be, they try to alter the timeline and make it so Ben never grows up to be that person (never grows up at all, actually). They fail, and now innocent 12-year-old Ben is traumatized by what has happened. It’s to be inferred that this event is a large part of what made him untrusting of the DHARMA Initiative, of what later drove him to initiate the Purge. So who’s really the hero here, and who’s the villain? In 2004, Ben did inexcusable things to the innocent Jack and Sayid; in 1977, Jack and Sayid did inexcusable things to the innocent Ben! So who’s really at fault here for everything that’s happened with Ben? This is one of the many problems that arise when time travel enters the equation, and it’s one that really doesn’t have a definitive answer. Still, this whole ordeal made me feel a little bit more sympathetic for Ben, and helped me better understand the motivations behind his actions.
One final note: I haven’t really talked at all about the special features for each season, mainly because I haven’t been watching them for fear of spoilers about upcoming seasons. However, since the final disc of the season had only one episode on it, I felt the need to get my money’s worth (needing the disc in a pinch, I rented it for five bucks instead of borrowing it from the library like I have been doing—yes, I know, I’m cheap!), and so I watched some of the special features. There’s one in particular that I want to mention for its sheer awesomeness, and that is “Mysteries of the Universe.” Now, I’m not sure if there really was a TV show in the 1980s by that name; that was before my time. However, this extra presents itself as an episode from a 1980s documentary series that examines a different mysterious or paranormal occurrence in each episode. This “episode” focuses on the DHARMA Initiative! It’s done in true TV documentary style, with the eerie music playing, the somber voiceovers, and the same creepy photos being shown over and over again. It expands on what we already know about the DHARMA Initiative from the show. As well as mentioning Eloise Hawking and Daniel Faraday, the “documentary” also gives us some background information on the DeGroot family and Alvar Hanso, names we had previously heard only in the DHARMA orientation films (“On behalf of the DeGroots, Alvar Hanso, and all of us here at the DHARMA Initiative, we welcome you.”) This was really fun for me to watch. It was like those Harry Potter companion books: not fundamental to the understanding of the story, but adding a whole lot of information that will enrich the story for you. So definitely check that out.
Wow, I can’t believe we only have one season to go! I’m missing Lost already! In case you’re watching along with me, I’ll wait until my next post to discuss the shocking events that take place in the season 5 finale, “The Incident.” Join me next time as we enter the final season. Does Daniel’s ambitious plan work? Does the entire chronology change? Will we ever find out why Richard doesn’t age? Find out, in the next installment of “Lost for Beginners!”
