First Impressions

Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount. - Clare Booth Luce

First impressions can be dicey things. Sometimes what you see is what you get. And sometimes you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. The former adage seems to apply fairly handily to Jack Shephard’s character in the premiere episode of Lost. On the surface, he’s a heroic guy, putting the needs of others first like you’d expect a doctor to do. Underneath he’s a genuine person with a couple of flaws and quirks, but nothing so deviant you rethink your first impression of him. Let’s look at the primary female lead of Lost and see if the writers employed the same strategy to unveil the castaway who is Kate Austen.

By the time Kate makes her entrance, Jack has already rallied other survivors to rescue a fellow passenger, applied a life-saving tourniquet to his leg, shielded the pregnant Claire from certain doom, assigned Hurley as protector, revived the unconscious Rose, and improvised a surgical kit with hopes of mending his own injury. All in ten minutes. Talk about your full day’s work. Jack is on the brink of accepting his limitations when Kate totters into his private copse. Grasping her wrist, she takes a moment to realize someone has called to her. Little wonder, considering her flight was torn to pieces by the devil’s own turbulence. That she isn’t curled into a tight ball drooling is a testament to her strength already.

Jack queries: Has she ever used a needle? Patched a pair of jeans? I need a little help. Dr. Shephard, master of understatement. Jack turns to expose the gouge carved into his torso. Kate closes her eyes as if to stave off a variety of things – fear, nausea, revulsion. The urge to faint. Her voice betrays a tremor as she repeats his request. Despite growing discomfort, Jack is ever the leader, guaranteeing she can stitch him up. No problem. He knows she can do it. If you wouldn’t mind.

That’s the clincher. He doesn’t want to put this on her, but he’s in a bad way. The guy who waded through wounded has an emergency of his own. And he’s in pain. He doesn’t voice this – we already understand he wouldn’t manipulate an innocent that way – so we hang on the next breath. We’re emotionally invested in Jack. We need him to be okay. We also feel for Kate. Stick a perfect stranger with a needle and watch flesh pull and blood pool? Sign me up! Sorry, no. Sooner stick a needle through my eye. But we expect more of Kate. We need her to succeed. If she does, so does Jack.

Reluctant and apprehensive, she agrees. How can she not? Human decency demands an affirmative response. Kate has a conscience, or at least a generous supply of mercy. She disinfects her hands with a mini bottle of vodka. When presented with the variety of thread in the sewing kit, she asks, “Any - uh…color preference?”

This is the first true break in tension for Jack, one he badly needs. We instantly love Kate for this. He manages to find the humor and assures her standard black will do. What’s more, this glimmer of personality shows (not tells) Kate uses humor as a coping mechanism, a skill that comes from experience. She not only has the backbone to get through this, she’s trying to ease Jack’s suffering as best she can.

Despite her own show of grit, she’s amazed by Jack’s composure. As she patches him up, he relays his first spinal surgery story (see Get Lost, Doc for details). How things went wrong. How he gave the fear five seconds – he counts – and it was gone. How he saved the girl and salvaged his career. Kate’s sure she would have run. Jack disagrees: I don’t think that’s true. You’re not running now.

Kate pauses to look at him. Says nothing. Humble? Or hiding something? For now, we are left to wonder.

Darkness falls as Jack kneels beside a critically injured passenger. The man has a piece of shrapnel the size of a wrench wedged in his chest. Kate asks Jack if the guy will make it. Jack looks up. Do you know him? She hesitates before answering. He was sitting next to me. The unnerving disclosure of someone who owes her life to the fickleness of fate? Or something more?

Jack and Kate rehash what they can about the crash. Jack remembers the initial turbulence, the sudden and devastating loss of altitude, then . . . nothing. He passed out. Kate was not so lucky. She was conscious for the whole thing – the drop, the tail section ripping away, the front of the plane dropping off. The audience is humbled by this, the courage it takes to endure such trauma and not descend into madness. Kate is rattled, but remarkably poised and level-headed. Admirable.

And tenacious. When Jack makes a case for finding the cockpit, ergo the transceiver, Kate recalls seeing smoke up in the valley following the crash. She insists she accompany him. It’s at this precise moment they hear indecipherable noises slam through the jungle. Everyone on the beach is paralyzed by its fury. Welcome to the tropical Twilight Zone. Could things get any worse?

Never say never. This sways neither Jack nor Kate from their commitment to find the transceiver the following morning. In light of the invisible jungle monster, Jack makes an effort to give Kate an out, but she won’t budge. He further recommends she get better shoes, forcing her to scavenge among the dead for decent hiking boots. The fact that she can – albeit with great remorse - further reinforces Kate’s mettle. Which is fortunate because she’s going to need it.

Their duo increases by one when Charlie Pace, a jittery Irish rocker, volunteers to join their search party. Jack isn’t thrilled to endanger more people, but Charlie is adamant. A sudden, torrential downpour pounds them during their trek. In the watery miasma, they stumble upon the front of the plane, nose up against a sprawling tree. Inside is a nightmare of dangling oxygen masks, drooping cables, and dislodged wall panels. Washed-out light leeches all but the color yellow - the color of danger. A portent? On this show? Count on it. They must fight gravity and the gruesome remains of ghost-white passengers still strapped to their seats to crawl up the passageway to the cockpit door.

Jack batters the locked handle with a fire extinguisher until the door flies open, ejecting the corpse of the co-pilot down the aisle between our terrified trio. Again, Jack tries to deter Kate from following him but she’s resolute. He pulls her up beside him and they scramble into the cockpit to explore the interior. Kate leans over the body of the pilot only to leap away when he sucks in a breath and regains consciousness. He’s alive! Jack assesses his injuries, declares he has a concussion, and pours some water down the pilot’s parched throat so he can speak.

The news it grim. Before the crash, the plane lost radio contact. The transponder went out. The crew decided to turn around and head for Fiji when the turbulence hit – one thousand miles off course. Any rescue effort will focus in the wrong direction.

Wonderful. At least they find the transceiver. While the pilot fiddles with it, Jack realizes Charlie’s missing. Kate drops back to the head of the cabin, calling Charlie’s name. He practically falls out of the lavatory when he bangs the door open, guilty as a kid caught shoplifting. Before Kate can question him, the bugle-like bellow of the jungle beast trumpets nearby. The fuselage trembles from its discordant, mechanical-monster approach. A giant shadow circles the plane, predator to prey.

Currently out of the loop, the pilot wants to know what the hell is going on and decides to have a look-see out the broken window on the nose. Great idea. You know this can’t end well.

The pilot leans forward, thankfully dumping the transceiver on a chair before sticking his head out the busted opening. A horrible metallic screech echoes through the plane before it shudders again. The bugle call competes with the hideous screams of the pilot as his body is jerked, not once, not twice, but three times through the opening before he springs upward out of sight like a puppet on a string. Immediately, a backlash of blood splashes the side window near Kate’s head.

Outside, the shadow creature attacks with such violence the fuselage wobbles and flops onto its belly. Jack clambers for the transceiver then all three blast out of the broken plane like cannonballs. Kate races through the rain with Jack and Charlie hot on her heels. The creature pursues, giving off all manner of ravenous, conveyer-belt clinking while remaining unseen. Divided by the gloom, Kate takes shelter in a fortress-like stand of branches and vines. Crazy with fear, she clings to the prison cell limbs, shaking and sobbing. Oh, God. Where’s Jack? She shrieks his name. Thunder is the only reply. Struggling for command, she starts to whimper: One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . using Jack’s trick to sooth the savage fear inside her.

After an agonizing commercial break, Kate emerges from her tree haven only to have Charlie shave ten years off her life by appearing out of nowhere. She’s so frightened she knocks him to the ground and demands to know where Jack is. Charlie explains they got separated. Kate is not happy with this explanation. She won’t abandon Jack. But there’s a certain gargantuan quality to this beast, Charlie warns. Fine. Don’t come. She’s already moving off without him. Resigned, Charlie rolls up and follows. The rain stops but an eerie blue fog hugs the muddy forest floor. Something catches Kate’s eye. When she approaches, she recognizes pilot wings lodged in the mud. She shifts her gaze to the reflection in a nearby puddle. The silhouette of a body lies cradled in the canopy of trees overhead.

Beyond horror, she and Charlie look up. What is that? Jack emerges from the thicket, unharmed, and informs them it’s the pilot. The very dead, mutilated pilot. At least thirty feet in the air. Charlie is dumbfounded. How does something like that happen?

So ends the first hour of Lost. Not exactly The Waltons, is it?

What have we learned so far about Kate? She’s no Mary Ellen, that’s for sure. Her decision to stop and help Jack sew up his wound tells us boatloads about her – she’s tough, empathetic, and willing to put herself out there when another human being is hurting. She’s courageous enough to enter a jungle harboring a big nasty and steadfast enough to go back in when one of their search party goes missing. She’s also adaptable. Though out of her mind with fear, Kate had the sense to apply Jack’s advice and get through a hairy moment. Jack set the bar high in terms of character, but Kate bears up well under the pressure.

Now, what don’t we know about her? What’s missing in her character sketch that we got almost immediately from Jack? We don’t know her characterization yet. We learn her character first – what she’s made of vs. who she is. In Jack’s case we glean his characterization almost immediately – dedicated doctor - while the nuts and bolts that make up the man slowly unwind through the engine of story. Kate’s profession, her station in life, are still a mystery. Why?

What don’t the writers want us to know about her? Would it alter our perception in a negative way? Up till this point, we’re feeling pretty positive about Kate. This woman has steel in her spine. Her cover shouts gutsy, ferocious, loyal, compassionate. I’d read that book, give it glowing reviews. What could possibly alter my opinion, make me throw the book against the wall?

Hints have been subtly inserted. She was holding her wrist the first moment she walked on scene. An injury? It didn’t affect her ability to stitch Jack up. As she worked the needle and thread, she told Jack she would have run in his shoes. Jack’s response: You’re not running now. Her silence sits like the elephant in a room. Later when Jack asks if she knows the man with shrapnel in his chest, she doesn’t answer the question. Instead, she states, He was sitting next to me. Coincidence? Or something more sinister?

That answer in the next post.

Get Lost, Doc

Start with action. Explain it later. -- John Grisham

I’m back! Okay, enough about me.

Picking up where we left off in Paradise Lost, character development is the topic, featuring a key cast member from the mysterious action adventure series, Lost.

Lost embraces the action-packed premiere like few series on TV today. That’s great for winning over the coveted 18-49 male demographic, but it can strip characterization naked as a skeleton - a disappointing byproduct for those who prefer some meat on their bones. Lost avoids this side effect with short, succinct character insights that nail you to the sofa and don’t let go.

Rather than introduce Dr. Jack Shephard in business class of a large airliner chatting with a flight attendant in a been-there, done-that regurgitation of his life story, he’s dumped on an uncharted tropic isle unconscious. No explanation. Bam! We’re immediately caught. Who is this man? Why is he lying on the ground? We can’t change the channel now. That’s like asking a New Yorker to drive by the scene of an accident and not rubberneck. Please.

Next we wonder how an average guy survives being projectile-vomited 40,000 feet from a plane to wake without liquefied internal organs. Ah…. They never do address that. We’re so horribly immersed after the first minute and a half, we don’t let issues like credibility or basic biology intervene. This is ABC, after all, not Discovery Health. But it’s great television because it’s great story. And great story comes from great character development.

Character development, according to Robert McKee, starts with characterization - who he appears to be. He’s then thrust into a dilemma that challenges his humanity; forced, under pressure, to make difficult decisions, exposing his true nature. Such revelation prompts a change in behavior, but for now we’ll concentrate on the initial character-revealing choices of Jack Shephard.

When Jack first opens his eyes, he’s flat on his back, breathless and disoriented, tangled in bamboo. Since his designer suit is mottled with dirt and blood, we’re pretty sure he didn’t start his day this way. A stomach-churning whine draws Jack toward the beach. He staggers out of the trees to discover the shoreline littered with trauma patients. The source of the noise is a detached jet engine disobeying the laws of physics by revving up and down in an arbitrary cycle amidst the charred ruin of Oceanic flight 815.

For many, this ghastly scene would inspire a panic attack. Not Jack. He jumps into the sea of wounded without a paddle. While others reel about in a daze - sobbing, shouting, or freakishly silent - Jack acts. Authority and adrenaline energize him as he enlists others to help rescue a man trapped under a row of seats just feet from the roaring engine. Once free, they drag him to safety where Jack assesses the man’s hemorrhaging leg and rips off his own tie to use as a tourniquet. Next he attends a pregnant woman, Claire, who’s having contractions. While trying to calm her, a man walks by at the precise moment the engine winds up, sucking him in before exploding. Jack hurls himself across Claire to protect her from the shower of flame and metal.

Jack earns serious brownie points here. If he ran off leaving Claire to catch fire, we’d hit the remote button and move on to something less harrowing, say, the Weather Channel. But Jack doesn’t run. He is who he appears – a committed professional putting his patients first. Classic characterization. At this point, we need that. We need someone to cling to, someone dependable and strong who can get us through this hideous nightmare. Jack delivers.

He hastens over to a woman, Rose, who is not breathing. Boone, a twenty-something male, is frantically applying CPR in such a way that he’s pumping air into the woman’s stomach, not lungs. Jack brushes him aside to take over. Boone asserts he’s a licensed lifeguard, to which Jack retorts he should give back the license. Boone hovers, insisting they need to make a hole in her throat with a pen. Jack knows better but sends Boone off in search of a pen just to be rid of him. Rose still hasn’t drawn a breath. Jack continues chest compressions, urging Rose to breathe, then glances up at Claire and her designated hero, Hurley. They are seated too close to a wing upended by the impact. Ominous cracking broadcasts bad news - it’s going down. Rose sucks in a breath and gasps out air, freeing Jack to leap up and scramble toward Hurley and Claire. He screams for them to run. Again, he shields Claire’s body as the wing collapses and heaves fire and fuselage all over the beach.

Wow. Someone get out the angel wings. This guy’s going to heaven. Too bad he got drop-kicked into hell first. Now, I like your garden variety champion as much as the next gal, but I also want to know Jack has some tarnish under his wings. No one is this perfect. If he remains so, the audience will slowly disconnect.

Jack makes sure Hurley stays with Claire - far from any combustible airplane parts - then wanders off. He’s reached the limit of his makeshift triage skills. He scans the area and shuffles toward the remains of the plane for supplies. The cockpit and first class sections are gone, the fractured hull turned so that the row of windows is now the wreckage-strewn floor. And the bodies…. For the first time, the enormity of what Jack has survived sinks in. Boone picks this exact moment to lope up beside him, holding out a handful of pens like a helpful toddler. He tells Jack he didn’t know which one would work best. Jack is speechless for a moment. Then, kindly, he tells Boone, “They’re all good. Thanks.”

This is the first glimpse of the man beneath the doctor. Harsh reality swamps Jack yet he finds it in himself to recognize the earnestness of Boone’s effort. Rather than a sarcastic brush-off, he thanks Boone with simple sincerity.

A period of calm ensues. Jack steels himself to rummage through the ruptured fuselage, looking for anything to supplement his non-existent medical provisions. Armed with a travel sewing kit, lighter, and t-shirt, he wanders off for a moment to himself. Grimacing, he pulls off his jacket, exposing a huge bloodstain soaking his dress shirt. He removes the shirt. A deep gash runs along his side and back - Jack’s one human concession to defying gravity. We realize he’s been treating people while injured. Selfless and unshakable.

He considers the possibility of suturing his own wound but discards the idea. Even he’s not that competent. He looks around. His gaze falls on Kate, our capable question mark from Paradise Lost. He asks if she could sew him up. Kate balks at the request but realizes Jack can’t manage it himself. With his shirt removed, an impressive collection of tattoos decorate one muscled arm. Well. Dr. Wild Thing. An interesting contrast to the do-right image.

As Kate sews, she marvels at his calm. Isn’t he afraid? Jack tells her about his first solo spinal surgery as a resident; it didn’t go well. After thirteen hours he accidentally ruptured the dural sack at the base of the spine. Nerves and fluid spilled out. He froze. Everyone was staring. If he didn’t act fast, the girl would be paralyzed. So he let the fear have five seconds. He counted - one, two, three, four, five - then powered through. His patient made a full recovery. Lesson? Everyone has that one moment where they define their relationship with fear. It either takes them or doesn’t.

Kate assures him she would have run for the hills. Jack points out she’s not running now. She looks at him, a stare of foreshadowing as Jack – and the audience – don’t yet know she is literally on the run.

Initially, Jack doesn’t pick up on this because more pressing matters vie for his attention - finding the transceiver and sending a signal to promote a rescue effort, to name a few. The survivors deserve genuine first aid, not the piecemeal attempts he’s slapping together like a medical MacGuyver. Kate saw smoke a mile off the beach after the crash. The cockpit? They decide to search for it at first light.

At sunrise, Jack wakes and flashes back to the plane. The first shudder of turbulence prompts Jack to nervously snap on his seatbelt while explaining to a woman across the aisle - Rose - how normal turbulence is. Seeking to soothe even though fear clatters inside him like a bag of marbles. When the plane suddenly drops two hundred feet, he grips the seat rest like a man clinging to the edge of a cliff.

Jack’s true character is slowly rising off the surface like steam off a lake. His fear of flying helps put an ordinary spin on his extraordinary feats of heroism. A real guy with real fears. You can’t help but like him.

There’s a whole lot more to Jack then this, but so far, so good. In a nutshell, he’s a dedicated neurosurgeon with an overpowering fear of flying. A universal phobia that can cripple, yet it doesn’t paralyze him. In fact, it has the opposite affect. As soon as he’s mobile, he throws himself into the business of healing with little more than sheer will and guts. That’s character. It also crosses the line from dedicated to driven. Perhaps pathologically so, foreshadowing further revelations down the road. He’s kind (tries to soothe Rose), decent (his kindness toward Boone), and - it goes without saying – heroic, yet he has tattoos decorating one arm like war paint. Not your average, every day doc. He’s made mistakes – at least one major one during surgery – but he turns it into a learning experience, one he has the emotional courage to share with Kate.

Even his name has significance. Shephard, as in shepherd – a guardian who protects, guides, and watches over a flock. In this case, the survivors of Oceanic flight 815. As a result of his take-charge actions, he becomes the de facto leader, a role that later burdens him both emotionally and psychologically.

But that’s a post for a different day.

Summertime Blues

"If your parents never have children, chances are you won't, either." Dick Cavett

This isn't a particularly relevant quote other than I think it's pretty ironic and my kids are partially to blame for my current blogging drought. When summer approaches, I always harbor the same misconception. I think I'm going to have so much more time to write with the kids out of school. Every year, I'm proven wrong.

How is it possible that I have less time to write than more? They're teenagers now. It's not like I have to potty-train or chaperone outdoor activities or even make them lunch anymore. They're fully functioning humans now. But somehow that doesn't matter. They are masters of distraction despite having the ability to occupy themselves. My son is practically wired to his computer and my daughter is addicted to every reality dance show on the air, yet they still sabotage any quiet time I manage to scrape together. They'll burst into my office to announce how bored they are or shout from the couch, "Mom, come here. You have to see this."

When they're not home, I'm driving them all over creation - summer classes, jobs, dance camps, friends' house, dentist appts, etc. I've managed to cut back on driving (and shrink our carbon footprint just a bit) by having my son bike to his job and class, but that still leaves the dancing queen. Her social calendar is fuller than most debutante's.

Add to that physical rehab on two shoulders (tendonitis) and a knee (surgery) and I'm booked down to the ground. What's much worse is how far ahead we are in LOST now. We're up to the fourth season already! Yes, we're addicted. Revisiting season one is going to be a challenge given all the new character revelations to which I've been exposed.

Somehow I'll manage. I'm just not sure when. Family's coming to town this weekend. Birthdays are stacking up. School shopping is not far behind. It will be September before we know it. Thank God.

Hopefully I will be back before then, but since my parents decided to have children...well, you can fill in the rest.

The Star-Spangled Bananas

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I interrupt this regularly scheduled writing lesson to give you the following public service announcement: What the hell?? I don’t normally get political, but when people accuse perky, harmless Rachel Ray of seditious acts of style, I worry about the future of our country.

The blogging community went bananas last week when a Dunkin’ Donuts ad featured Rachel Ray wrapped in an innocuous black and white scarf. Critics, led by political commentator Michelle Malkin, charged Rachel Ray with “endorsing terrorism” and “hate couture” because some rocket scientist somehow managed to draw a parallel between her stylish rayon-blend swatch and a kaffiyeh, the traditional headdress of Arab men.

Say what? Please tell me they’re joking. This mockery passes for news reporting and issues of national security? They further complained about the possible meaning of the scarf. Meaning? You mean, outside of its function as apparel? Well, it’s possible that - I don’t know - her neck was cold? It’s not like she bound it around her head over a face-covering black hood while toting an AK-47. It was a simple scarf draped around All-American, non-violent Rachel Ray clutching a coffee cup, for heaven’s sake.

Were these people raised by wolverines? How can anyone possibly go from paisley scarf to the latest in guerilla fashion wear? Do they seriously believe her stylist used malice and forethought to select an accessory that venerates jihadists everywhere? Not to mention how insulting it must be to the millions of peace-loving Muslim men who wear kaffiyehs for no other reason than it’s traditional and it keeps them cool in a climate that is brutishly hot and arid.

The ad was successfully yanked. How can an ingenuous, inane thing as a donut spot whip people into a terrorist-fearing frenzy? Is this what passes for patriotism these days? What a hard, sad fact.

Rachel Ray may be guilty of a few things – among them, the overuse of such words as “yum-o”, “evoo”, and “de-lish” - but that’s hardly grounds for commercial castration. I’m appalled and saddened such power is wielded by dangerous, hate-spreading people. What’s next? Banning Dalmatians from Petco ads because their coloring promotes the symbolism of Yasser Arafat? Come on.

I guess I’m not terribly surprised. Turn on any info-tainment news channel – Fox News and CNN just to name a few – and they are loaded with reason to fear walking out your front door every morning. Have we nothing better to do than speculate whether Barack Obama was giving the finger – to whom, no one could sufficiently answer – during a speech when he was just scratching his cheek? Really? Is it any wonder the airwaves are bogged down with commercials hawking anti-depressants to get us through the day and sleeping pills to help us through the night? Who can live with themselves when they are glued to drivel like this?

It’s dehumanizing. And sad. And ridiculous. I recommend anyone with an ounce of compassion and sense go out and support your local Dunkin’ Donuts by buying at least a dozen donuts in protest. It’s the American way. Not to mention the sugary goodness will lift your spirits. Donuts are, after all, “yum-o” and “de-lish.”

Paradise Lost

Character is what you are in the dark – proverb

Thanks to the modern marvel of DVDs, my family and I are watching the first season of Lost four years after it aired. It’s a thrill ride of tension and mystery that fills the yawning gap of grief left behind when we devoured seven seasons of Buffy and five years of Angel only to realize we had no more Whedonverse to enjoy. Sadness. There is Firefly, but with its first and only season truncated by cancellation, the attempt to fully examine character is somewhat compromised by network executive narrow-mindedness. But I’m not bitter.

Lost eases the resentment. Aviatophobics take note: if you are on the fence about flying, this show might ground you indefinitely. Proceed with caution. The writers took the suggestion, “start with action”, to heart with astonishing abandon.

The premiere opens minutes after a plane crash in a gripping, gruesome tableau of scorched, smoking fuselage and bleeding, soot-covered survivors waking to the shrieks and moans of the dazed and dying. A giant, detached jet engine screams in wheezing ululations as one of the main characters, Jack Shepherd, stumbles forward. The visual horror stands in direct contrast to the swaying palms and dulcet tones of surf gently curling ashore. Despite disorientation, Jack immediately approaches the injured. His medical assessments mark him a physician. As a result, he becomes the unofficial leader of the group, a responsibility that proves both instinctive and burdensome.

Because of the large ensemble cast, each episode revisits brief yet relevant snapshots of history to reinforce theme, expose motivation, foster understanding, or generate empathy whenever current action requires explanation. At the heart of the season, the literary underbelly bubbles to the surface in pockets of literal and figurative significance. These folks are not just physically lost; they veered off course long before they boarded Oceanic flight 815 and plunged into paradise. One that harbors polar bears and a giant, invisible something that occasionally crashes through the jungle with bowel-loosening vigor and skin-shredding panache. Gilligan’s Island it ain’t.

The heavy reliance on backstory would not be recommended in novel form but it’s deftly handled here. These peeks into the past support each episode’s theme while peeling away a facade that hides the real deal. It embodies Robert McKee’s take on writing: story is the revelation of true character in contrast or contradiction to characterization.

We deduce characterization based on observable attributes – gender, age, profession, socio-economic level, personality type, etc. Jack, the accomplished, caring doctor, is a surgeon and son of an elitist chief of surgery at an LA-based hospital. Sawyer, the island’s bad boy, is an insufferable, selfish loner who oozes southern charm and cantankerousness in equal measure. You know from the get-go these two will collide. Need living, breathing proof? Enter Kate, the attractive, eager-to-help, capable question mark caught in the middle.

Characterization offers unique and specific individuals who conceal flaws they’d rather not expose to the general public. Until forced by conflict. As time goes by, the civilized masks slip via character choices substantiated by flashbacks.

Now we have character. Jack’s overactive sense of duty and responsibility hide self-esteem issues fed by a conflicted relationship with his domineering father. Sawyer, the scavenging opportunist, promotes ill will because he hates himself more than anyone else could. Why? He became the thing he spent most of his life hunting – a manipulative, reckless con man. His conscience is tearing him up. Kate, the executor of island law and order, is actually a fugitive from justice wanted for a crime that’s yet to be disclosed. Whatever she did warranted a handcuffed escort courtesy of a now-dead U.S. Marshal - one convinced she was danger personified.

True character beads the skin of characterization with the sweat of contradiction and choice. Who they appear to be (characterization) vs. who they are (character). Since character is story, I’m going in-depth with this concept for several castaways to observe how true character is slowly crafted. Fasten your seatbelts! Ha, ha.

Lie to Me - Part 4

The truth is rarely pure and never simple – Oscar Wilde

Previously on Lie To Me, Buffy follows Ford to the club. Ford is using her as bait to bring vampires down upon them so they can be turned. Diego locks them in with no way out. They are sitting ducks for the mob about to descend.

Chantarelle and Diego don’t understand why Buffy is so worked up. They will ascend to a new level of awareness as vampires. This is a beautiful day! Can’t you see? They have no clue what’s in store. Buffy begs Ford to let them go. He may have options, but his friends will not pass go, will not collect life everlasting. Besides, becoming a vampire is not what it’s cracked up to be. A demon sets up shop in your old house. It walks and talks and remembers your life but it's not you.

His friends don’t deserve to die. Maybe not. But Ford is dying. He has a cluster of brain tumors so excruciating he vomits from the pain. In six months his mind will be liquefied. He won’t die that way. Buffy sympathizes, but mass murder is not allowed on her watch. He has a choice, a crappy one, but a choice. His friends don’t. They’re fiend fodder. Ford almost capitulates then whacks Buffy over the head with a crowbar. Sunset is upon them.

Spike and his crew burst in. Spike falls upon Chantarelle while his men spread out and feed. Buffy wrenches the crowbar from Ford’s grip and slams him into a pillar, knocking him unconscious. Drusilla floats in behind the rest of the merry band and observes the party from the balcony. Armed with her new knowledge, Buffy leaps up next to Dru. She points a stake at Dru’s heart and shouts at Spike.

Stricken, Spike releases Chantarelle and orders his men to fall back. Buffy demands they let everyone go or Dru fits in an ashtray. Oh, the poetry. All the believers race out the door unchallenged. With Dru as her shield, Buffy edges over until she’s near enough to thrust Dru at Spike, dart through the opening, and slam it shut behind her. Spike glares at the door. Where’s the doorknob?

Outside, Angel, Xander and Willow arrive to tend the wounded. Buffy explains the situation and recommends they wait till later to come back. Come back for what? She looks at the closed door. The body. Inside Ford wakes to find Spike and company locked in. No Buffy. No one to feed on. Except him. Ford insists he lived up to his end of the bargain. Where’s his reward?

Much later, at Ford’s gravesite, Buffy doesn’t know what to say, what to think. So much simpler if she could hate Ford. But he was just a kid afraid to die. The truth is a painful reminder how fragile the line between good and evil can be. At her side, Giles agrees. Buffy fears the more she knows, the more confused she is. How do you know who to love, who to hate…who to trust? It’s called growing up, Giles tell her.

Does it get easier? Ford - now a vampire - erupts from the ground at their feet. Buffy stakes him without so much as a glance. You mean life? Giles asks. What would she have him say? Buffy thinks a moment. Lie to me. As they stroll away, Giles weaves a fairytale where good guys are always good, bad guys are always bad, and no one ever dies. Buffy hesitates. With affection, she mutters, Liar.

Let’s take a look at Ford’s GMCD. His goal: become a vampire (external) and escape the tenuous nature of life (internal). Why? He’s dying from a debilitating disease (external) and he’s terrified to die that way (internal). What’s standing in his way? Buffy. Not just the slayer (external) but an old friend whom he remembers with fondness (internal). How does it end? Disastrously. Buffy always gets her man (external), but she can’t hate him - which would have made Ford’s betrayal easier on both of them (internal).

Two prominent writing elements - theme and foreshadowing – headline a simple premise: a childhood pal re-emerges and gives Buffy the chance to experience friendship unfettered by her superhero status.

The thematic question – Is honesty the best policy? - reverberates through every major character. First, Buffy catches Angel in a lie. Her conjecture he’s seeing Drusilla is refuted, but the truth proves worse: Dru is a vampire of his own making. A gently bred girl he menaced and dehumanized before siring. How do you love a man who’s done such a depraved thing? The reality of Angel’s past begins to seep into their present, suggesting a less than propitious future.

Next, Ford hides his knowledge of her identity. Not a lie precisely. But it demonstrates Ford’s ability to keep things close to the vest when it suits him. And it suits him just fine, thanks. He’s not there to sing “Auld Lang Syne.” He’s chasing a top spot on Buffy’s to-be-killed list. She comes to grips with it because she must, but a straightforward task becomes far harder when he admits the truth - he’s dying in the worst way possible and will do anything to escape the agony. Even become an unrepentant monster.

Finally, Buffy contends with her friends’ subversion. Up until now, Willow and Xander have been an unshakable foundation of faith and fealty. Suddenly they join forces with Angel and snoop on Ford. Does it matter that their intentions are good? It doesn’t diminish the disloyalty she feels. Can she trust them as she once did? Is it wise to trust anyone that much?

Foreshadowing comes in two flavors: episode level and the season long variety. Drusilla implies Angel knows her from the start. This leads to the backstory disclosure that Angel sired Drusilla. When Ford meets Buffy at The Bronze, he jokes, I know all your darkest secrets. He’s already aware Buffy’s the slayer. In the same scene, Angel admits to Buffy there’s a lot you don’t know about me. This observation pulls double-duty. It hints at his bond to Dru and presages how much more we’ve yet to learn, especially one crucial aspect of the curse which reinstated his soul. The whole story arc will turn on this revelation – far too late to avoid disaster.

Several season long denouements are portended in the opening conversation alone. Angel’s warning: If you don’t leave…it’ll go badly. For all of us. Dru’s prediction about Buffy: Poor thing. She has no idea what’s in store. Her promise that this is just the beginning. All hint at future plot developments. Once the tide changes, things go south for any warrior that picks up a stake in the name of justice. Eventually it’s also bad for the villains as Buffy finds a way to extinguish the fuse whizzing towards human annihilation. But the solution proves lethal to someone Buffy loves and her series-long goal of being a normal girl is dealt a devastating blow.

The pressures of adulthood begin an inexorable push into Buffy’s teenaged existence. People aren’t good or bad. They’re a confusing mishmash of both. Ford converts to the dark side b/c of an inescapable death sentence. Steady Willow and steadfast Xander commit a friendship faux pas under the heading of good intentions. Spike - a creature with zero scruples - sacrifices an easy meal and a chance at the slayer to save fickle, fey Drusilla. And Buffy’s spotless champion, Angel, exposes some glaring blemishes on his white charger resume.

What’s her lesson? Take your pick. Friends are imperfect. Villains have layers. Heroes hide their fatal flaws. Weakness burrows beneath the surface of decency, integrity within the most decadent heart. Life isn’t black and white anymore. It’s grayer and grayer. Buffy’s first step into this shadowy realm - in the words of Drusilla - is just the beginning.

Dialogue in italics from “Lie to Me” by Joss Whedon

Lie to Me - Part 3

Men occasionally stumble upon the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened – Sir Winston Churchill

Previously on Lie To Me, we learn both Angel and Ford are hiding things from Buffy.

Something feels off about Ford so Angel goes to see Willow. She opens the door to her bedroom balcony but he can’t come in until she invites him. It’s a vampire thing. But what is once done cannot be undone - without some serious magical mojo. The decision hardly seems momentous here, but it will exacerbate a plot crisis in an upcoming episode when Drusilla’s premonitions bear fruit. Another foreshadowing slight of hand.

Angel asks Willow to look Ford up on the internet. Is he jealous? Angel never used to be, but yeah, with Buffy, he is. Willow pokes around and discovers something weird. Ford’s school transcripts haven’t been transmitted as he claims. Willow’s mother comes to the door and prevents further surfing. Willow shoos Angel out, promising to meet the next evening. He asks her not to tell Buffy. Lie to Buffy? Willow’s not good at lying. It’s like asking a cat to care. Never happen. He advises her not to bring it up then. It’s probably nothing, anyway. Sure. You know how bad things hardly ever happen in Sunnydale.

The next day, Ford and Buffy reminisce about prom night at Hemery when Buffy was forced to burn down the gym to destroy a nest of vampires. The worst moment of her life is seen differently through Ford’s eyes. She saved a lot of people. One minute you're a kid, living in your safe kid world, and then - truth hits you in the face. Vampires. I'll never forget that night.

Knowing what we do now, it’s clear this has meaning beyond what Buffy comprehends. It’s also significant beyond what the audience understands, but we don’t realize that until the end. We know he’s a fraud - but he’s not ready to reveal himself. He wonders why everyone in school acted like the fire in the gym never happened. Buffy replies, People ignore truths they don’t like. She will soon discover how true this is.

On the way to class, they pass Willow, who is edgy, bordering on manic, afraid her covert ops will be discovered. When she races off, Ford comments she’s a nice girl. There aren't two of those in the world, Buffy assures him. Another interesting presage, as there will, indeed, be two Willows loose in a couple of future episodes. You have to see it to believe it.

That evening, Buffy and Ford take a walk around campus and come upon a pair of vampires skulking near the admin building. Ford takes out his own stake and follows the female vamp while Buffy trails the bigger male. They separate. Ford catches his vampire but promises to free her if she tells him what he wants to know. By the time Buffy dispatches her vamp and rejoins him, he maintains he’s dusted the girl vamp.

Near the club, Xander, Willow and Angel are searching for Diego. Willow tracks some of Ford’s e-mails from Diego to this address, so Angel uses Ford’s name to gain access. Once inside, they cop to the vampire theme and are approached by Chantarelle. She explains vampires are the Lonely Ones, misunderstood as monsters who just want to suffer the mantle of immortality in peace. Angel’s seen this kind of thing before, kids making up bedtime stories about friendly vampires to comfort themselves in the dark. Lying to avoid truth. A theme resounds.

After sending Ford home, Buffy beeps Giles and Miss Calendar so they can discuss the sighting of vampires on school grounds. Then she spies an old photo of a woman in one of Giles’ books. Giles explains it’s Drusilla, the on-again, off-again girlfriend of Spike. Buffy informs them Dru is in town and was last seen in the company of Angel. Suddenly, the girl vampire Ford supposedly staked lunges out of nowhere, swipes one of the texts, and bolts away. Ford didn’t dust the vamp. He lied to Buffy. What’s going on?

In a darkened warehouse, Drusilla gazes into a birdcage, crooning to a dead bird. Spike, her peroxide prince of darkness, saunters up behind her, unhappy to learn she met Angel while out questing for humans. Angel is the enemy now. Dru prattles on, cajoling the bird to sing. Spike pronounces the bird dead. She didn’t feed it and now it’s dead, just like the last one. She pulls a pout until Spike offers to get her another.

Ford emerges from the shadows of the warehouse, his face aglow with Disneyland fervor. He didn’t go home like a good soldier. In fact, he’s been a very bad boy. He hands Spike the text he had pinched from Giles. Ford knows all about Spike and wants to be a vampire like him. Yawn. Spike is unimpressed and doesn’t feature Ford living forever. When Ford promises to deliver the slayer, Spike changes his tune.

Angel seeks Buffy out at home to tell her Ford isn’t what he appears. Who is, these days? Willow ran a check on Ford. Wait – he and Willow went behind her back? And Xander knew? And no one saw fit to fill her in? Betrayal. Point blank, she hits Angel with Drusilla. He confesses he lied, but he was trying to protect her. Sometimes the truth is worse than a lie. He’s lived long enough to know.

Drusilla was one of the most unconscionable crimes Angel committed as Angelus. Dru became an obsession. She was pure and pious and he turned her into something corrupt and profane. He drove her insane - murdered her family, tortured her for days. She escaped to a convent but he made her into a vampire before she could take her vows. Dru’s earlier assertion about Angel resonates with new menace. Of course he remembers Dru’s mother. He executed her. Who could forget that?

Somber, sincere Angel sired the demented, dangerous Drusilla. Certainly not the kind of thing you want to hear about the man you love. Buffy knows the truth now. She wishes she didn’t, but she asked for it. She can’t hide from it now. Well, she could, but that’s not how Buffy operates. She has to face the fact Ford is lying, too. No friend of the slayer would apply to a secret society that reveres vampires. Disaster in duplicate. Or triplicate, if you count her friends’ we-did-it-for-your-own-good conspiracy. Buffy is smarting.

The next day, Ford flags Buffy down and asks if they can go out hunting vampires again. He’s got a surprise for her. Oh, she bets he does. They make plans to meet later. She watches him go with a heavy heart.

Ford and the True Believers congregate at the club, discussing the coming event when they will be “blessed.” Diego hopes Ford’s friends don’t show up - they’re not true believers. Ford freezes. What friends? The two guys and girl who showed up last night, Diego supplies. They weren’t friends. Chantarelle worries this will interfere with the blessing, but Ford says it won’t be a problem.

Buffy materializes behind Ford and begs to differ. She wants to know what Ford’s up to. To be become a vampire, of course. Funny thing - vampires are picky about who they turn. Then Buffy realizes Ford offered her up as a trade for the “blessing.” At Ford’s signal, Diego locks them in with a special rig that can only be opened from the outside. No doorknob. No way out. They’re trapped. Vampires will enter and no one will leave. Not with a pulse, anyway.

We’ll wrap up tomorrow with the conclusion, review the writing elements spotlighted, and do another GMCD check.

Dialogue in italics from “Lie to Me” by Joss Whedon