Episode 410 - Jack Squanders "Something Nice Back Home"

A big victory for the Jaters! A bigger victory for the Yankees!! Potentially an even bigger win for the Skaters!!! All this, plus lots of "connective tissue," in "Something Nice Back Home."

Foreword I - on Motifs
In Lost's nearly four years on the air, one of tits most effective devices has been the use of recurring motifs throughout an episode. Last week, in "The Shape of Things to Come," the motif was games or, more specifically, the game of Risk. This week there were two. On parallels to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (which Jack reads to Aaron in flash-forward), I suggest you check out Jeff Jensen's recap on ew.com today (accessible by clicking the title of this post). The other recurring motif was the consequences of eavesdropping. But we'll discuss that as it comes up.

Now, while this episode did not pack the mythological whallop of the previous Ben-centered outing, what we did get was a ton of detail that helps to tie in several previously unconnected elements, set up promising new developments, and explains a bit about timing.

Foreword II – What, No Pictures?
Folks, you’ll notice this week that I have chosen not to dazzle you with apropos screen grabs. “What’s the deal,” you must wonder. “Doesn’t he love me anymore?” I do, good reader, I do. But I didn’t see anything visually this episode that requires screencaps to do this recap. No offense to the actors or the camera crews – they did their jobs admirably. But this was an expository/ relationshippy episode. So, unless you wanted a nice shot of Kate in her panties or Jack in a towel, I think you’ll agree, no photos needed.

We start on the island...

Island Time - Jungle
As Sawyer leads his little group from New Otherton back to the beach, Claire is recovering from the exploding house - she says she is no longer seeing things. (Big note - according to Doc Jensen, a scene was cut from last week's episode in which Claire had some interesting visions, the nature of which I simply don't know. DVD bonus features, anyone?) Miles asks Claire what she was seeing, but before she answers, Miles starts channeling the last moments of Danielle Rousseau and Karl. He starts to dig, and finds them buried. Yup - they're dead.

Bum-mer! I was sure Rousseau would have survived the ambush. I know there is some debate as to her value to the overall story, but, despite her comment in last year's finale that she would not leave the island because there was nothing for her back in the world, I still thought there would be more to her arc, particularly with Alex’s death last episode to serve as a motivating factor. Still, the producers have promised us her backstory (and like to remind us that dying on the non-linear Lost doesn't always mean your story has been fully told), which I guess will have to be told through another character's perspective. Hmm...

Miles insists to Sawyer that Keamy and his crew are not his buddies, and that he "did not sign up for this."

Later, Miles eyes Claire, who is about to breast feed Aaron. Sawyer gets very big-brotherish, and issues a "restraining order" for Miles to stay away.

Back to Doc Jensen here - he surmises that Claire actually died in the explosion last week, and is only a ghost/ island manifestation here, which is why Miles is so interested in her. I disagree. This episode showed us what Miles experiences when he communes with the dead, and it appears to be a mostly auditory thing. That we would not be given any similar type of experience for Miles with Claire tells me he's talking to a walking, talking, living person. And, strange shared visions on the island aside, that Sawyer sees her and that Aaron is carried by her suggests Doc Jensen missed the mark on Miles' ghost whispering Ms. Littleton.

Frank comes stumbling out of the brush with a first aid kit. He tells them to hide, since Keamy is coming, and will kill them all if he sees them. With Keamy are five guys, one of whom is injured (so much for smokey's big scene last week - how come he can kill Eko with one strand of smoke but only wounds one of six mercs against whom he unleashed his full fury?). Keamy hears Aaron in the jungle, but Frank convinces him they need to leave immediately so they won't have to fly the chopper at night.

Have I mentioned how much I want to like Frank?

Later, as Team Sawyer sleeps around a campfire, Claire awakens to find... Christian Shepherd holding Aaron! Quizzically, she asks, "Dad?"

More evidence for Claire not being dead - we've never seen an indication that island manifestations believe themselves to be anything they are not. A "fake" Claire would not likely be surprised to see Christian Shepherd. Also, her confused state when she saw her father (still, we suppose, nameless to her) suggests her prior visions following the explosion were of something other than her dad.

Sawyer wakes up. Miles says Claire wandered off into the jungle in the middle of the night with someone she called dad. "I'd have followed, but I have a restraining order," he says through a smirk. Sawyer hears Aaron crying, and finds him, left alone on a bed of leaves. Claire is nowhere to be found, and the episode ends with Sawyer screaming her name.

Poor Emilie de Ravin. Ever since Roswell I have really liked her as an actor. But it seems that Claire's biggest moments on Lost - both in the first and fourth seasons - involve her sudden and unexplained absence. This disconnects the actor playing the role from the character's dramatic weight to the story, and, I believe, leads viewers to the general consensus around the message boards that Claire's only real contribution was to give birth to Aaron. Still, in an episode where both she and Jack saw visions of their shared father (more on Jack later), I have to feel they are getting closer to at least learning about their own relationship. This all makes the fact that Jack and Aaron are amongst the Oceanic Six while Claire is not all the more troubling...

Island Time – The Beach
The first shot of the episode recalls the first shot of the series – a close-up of Jack’s eye as it opens. Here, Juliet awakens Jack - but everything is blurry for him. They leave the tent, and see Bernard demanding truth from Daniel about why there is no response from the boat on the telegraph. Jack calms his troops: “Sooner or later their people are going to come back, and when they do, we'll be waiting for them.” Jack reiterates that he promised he'd get everyone off the island...then collapses.

Juliet diagnoses an inflamed appendix and says they're going to have to take it out. She asks Sun and Jin to get supplies from the medical station, but since Sun doesn’t know what all the items are, Daniel offers to help, and, over some initial objections, he and Charlotte join the party (though Juliet hands Jin a pistol and says to shoot them in the legs if they try to run).

Bernard tells Rose Jack will be okay, but Rose wonders why Jack got sick, on the day before they're all about to get rescued? People don't get sick on the island, she observes. They get better there.

Unless…the island has a reason for the person to get sick. Like Ben with his tumor. What was up with that, and why is Jack sick now?

Jack insists that he stay awake through the procedure to guide Juliet, and that he wants Kate to hold a mirror so he can see what’s happening. He then stumbles out of his tent, and Kate rushes to help him, as though inserting herself between Jack and Juliet. Jack starts to say, "If something happens to me..." as though the sentence would conclude, “you must lead them.”

Sun and Jin arrive at the medical station. Charlotte seems to be keenly aware of the Korean conversation about Daniel’s obvious attraction for her. Daniel wonders aloud where the power's coming from, and Charlotte comments he should add it to his list (and I shall have to add it to my questions, as well).

As Sun discusses her lack of faith that Daniel’s people will help them leave, and Jin reiterates his promise that Sun and the baby would get off the island alive, Charlotte continues to listen in (there’s that eavesdropping) begging the question – does she speak Korean?

After Sun’s crew returns with the supplies, Jin tells Charlotte he knows she understands Korean. She tries to pretend she does not, but Jin, in Korean, threatens to torture Daniel. She gives up the ruse, and he makes her promise to take Sun off the island when the helicopter returns. She asks why he doesn’t also express concern about the others, but Jin just reiterates - Sun has to go.

A lot just happened here! First, the first signs of an act taken by someone we know does not leave with the O6 to ensure that someone specific gets to leave. As Jin states several times this episode, his promise is that Sun will get off the island – not him, and, unlike Jack’s pledge, not anyone else. The other big thing is why on Earth Charlotte speaks Korean. The theory bandied about online today (especially by Doc Jensen) is that Charlotte is somehow connected to Sun’s father, Mr. Paik. After all, a cultural anthropologist arguably would have pretty extensive language skills. But for an Englishwoman who digs in Africa to know Korean? So why Paik? The hints have been dropped over the years that Paik may be every bit the island-connected heavy that Charles Widmore is. Paik may have even commissioned the Kahana (see The Lost Experience), and in one of the Jin/Sun flashback episodes, Paik and his Korean associates said in non-subtitled Korean something about working with Hanso people. Factor in Charlotte’s apparent familiarity with DHARMA bears, and there are some interesting connections to explore here.

Jack’s self-surgery plan doesn’t work out as he planned, and Bernard knocks him out to let Juliet work without instruction. Bernard comes out and tells Kate it went well. Kate goes in to see Juliet finishing the sutures (not the best-looking stitches ever, eh? Perhaps this is why Jack has to leave the island?) Juliet says to Kate, "you know he kissed me. It was nice. But it wasn't for me, it was for him. I'm pretty sure he was trying to prove something...that he doesn't love someone else." Kate thanks her, ostensibly for saving his life, but really for stepping aside. Kate leaves, and Juliet tells Jack she knows he’s been awake for awhile (more of that listening in…).

Does anyone else think Jack is not yet out of the woods on this illness? Also, strange how fast Juliet decided to let go of Jack. Then again, if loving him means Ben will kill him, maybe this is Juliet’s only real choice. But the understated heart of these beach sequences was clearly the non-verbal cues Kate gave Jack. Indeed, seeds of a Jater future are sown here…

Flashforward – Jack Shepherd
Amazingly, for Jack’s appearances in Kate’s and Hurley’s flash forward sequences this season, we made it ten episodes in before Jack got his own ep. And really, the major action this time around is in this ff which connects three other ff episodes and places them in time.

Jack rolls out of bed, throws some red panties into a cupboard, then trips over a Millenium Falcon (so presumably the owner of the panties has a little boy). After starting some coffee, Jack approaches the “mystery” woman in the shower, and it is, of course, Kate! And she steps out and gives him a huuuuuuge kiss!

Update to original post. I totally missed this on the first viewing, but did you notice that half-naked Jack had no appendectomeny scar? And after that Frankenstein stitching job done by Juliet? Does not seem like a continuity error to me. Rather, I'd say it's a clue about something...

So did Jack get over his Aaron issues? Is this his happily ever after? But this still clearly precedes Jack’s downward spiral from “Through The Looking Glass,” so what will go wrong?

Jack reads to Aaron from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which Christian used to read to him as a boy.

Seriously – read Doc Jensen’s column. His analysis of this Alice passage is fantastic.

More gratuitous groping and kissing after Kate expresses relief to hear Jack talk fondly about his father.

Back at the hospital, Jack thinks for a moment he sees his father walking the hallway from behind. A Dr. Stillman from Santa Rosa calls about Hurley, who refuses to take his meds, because he doesn't think the doctor exists. Hurley says the Oceanic Six are all dead, which is why he's not taking his meds. He points out that Jack, Kate and Aaron’s idyllic life is akin to heaven. "I was happy too, Jack, for a while, anyway, and then I saw Charlie." Charlie told Hurley Jack would be coming by, and Hurley was to give him a message - "you're not supposed to raise him, Jack." Jack demands that Hurley take his meds. Hurley says Charlie told him somebody would be visiting Jack, too, soon.

Ok…digesting here. So we now know how to put the ffs in order: Hurley’s narrowly predates Kate’s, which predates Jack’s in this episode. All of these predate Jack’s first ff from last year. And this episode we know takes place in 2007 – based on the headline Jack read that the Yankees completed a series sweep over the Red Sox with a 5-0 win…which means last season’s finale was essentially a flash forward, not just for Jack, but for us, the audience, as well. The question remains – how far forward?

Why isn’t Jack supposed to raise Aaron? Is this tied to Richard Malkin’s exhortation that only Claire can raise Aaron? And why would that be so?

Also, we know the Charlie visions have continued to haunt poor Hugo. And, given what comes next, I’m starting to think Charlie has some legitimacy to himself there. So what are these off-island visions?

After sitting outside Santa Rosa for a while, Jack returns home and awakens Kate. He lies and says he had to stop and get something, then asks if Kate really thinks Jack is good at the daddy thing, and she reassures him. He asks Kate to marry him, and she says yes, tears streaming from her eyes.

Happy tears? Tears of despair? And since we know Kate won’t be along for Jack’s downward spiral, their eventual parting just got even more tragic. Is there no happy ending for Team Jate?

Jack, working late, is summoned to the hospital lobby by a malfunctioning smoke detector. He removes the battery...and his father calls to him from a waiting room chair! When another doctor approaches, though, Christian is gone. Jack is visibly shaken. He asks for a scrip for an anti-anxiety medication, to deal with the stress he's under.

So…in the future (of this future), when Jack delusionally told his chief of medicine to call his father down there, it wasn’t just the drugs – it was a hallucination he had been having for some time, which he finally accepted as reality. And, to further turn that scene from last year on its head, it turns out that Jack started popping pills to cope with his daddy visions.

Jack comes home and Kate is on the phone, saying she thinks Jack will be at least another hour. She tells him it’s one of the moms from the park. Kate goes upstairs and Jack pops a pill...which he washes down with a beer.

In the words of Barney Gumble…”It begins!”

Kate comes in and finds Jack in a chair with lots of empty bottles. Jack wonders why the nanny was there late, and Kate says she was running errands. She wants to know why he was home so early. He confesses his visit to Hurley from earlier in the week, but writes Hurley off as "crazy" and says he didn't mention it so as not to upset Kate.

So Hurley is “crazy” for seeing Charlie visions, but Jack just suffers from stress because he sees his dad? Kind of a double-standard, eh Dr. Shepherd?

Jack has gotten paranoid about Kate's whereabouts. But she doesn't answer - instead she asks him to trust her. He gets upset at her dodge, and she finally admits she was doing something for Sawyer, that she made him a promise, but she can't tell Jack what it was. Jack angrily responds, “Sawyer made his choice, he chose to stay. I'm the one who's here, I'm the one who saved you.”

So…Sawyer is not an O-sixer by choice? Surely he wasn’t still clinging to the naïve belief that life was better on the island after he got shot at and Claire’s bungalow blew up? And how did Jack “save” Kate? Ironic twist, given the story the world heard about Kate saving the rest of them. Finally, that “I’m the one who’s here,” umm, settle much, Jack?

Kate says she can't have Jack around her son like this, and he says she's not even related to him...just as Aaron walks into the room. Realizing the damage he's done, Jack wanders off.

Maybe it’s just me, but the way Jack said that, I felt there was emphasis on it being Kate that’s not related to Aaron, i.e., Jack somehow had figured out that Aaron is his nephew. Did Christian tell him? Did Claire learn during her disappearance, which also began this episode? And, to reiterate, why did Aaron leave, and Claire stay behind on the island? Is this the moment Jack and Kate break up, leading to his collapse into pills, booze and bad beard day? And was it his father to whom Jack apologized before trying to kill himself on the bridge? And why do Charlie and Christian seem to want the O6ers to go back to the island?

That’s it for this week all. Namaste!