Land Locked

Judge a tree by its fruit, not by its leaves – Euripides

One of the things I like about Lost is the depth of characterization. Just when you think you have someone figured out, a weed from the past sprouts up and strangles their belief system. Some characters, like Jack, have obvious merit and self-worth, but their heroic acts screen hidden stores of conflict. Others, like Kate, are light on details but heavy with admirable traits so that any zingers revealed don’t knock us completely off the love train.

No one, however, took quite as long to evolve as John Locke. He doesn’t speak a word of dialogue until the second hour of the pilot, giving new meaning to the phrase, “strong, silent type.” Despite the lack of verbal discourse, Locke still makes an impact. Let’s take another look at the pilot and shine the spotlight in John Locke’s direction.

Pandemonium prevails after the crash. Jack’s unflinching emergency services take center stage, so we barely register when Locke walks on. He’s one of two men assisting Jack in the rescue of a trapped man. Locke is eager to help, but wastes no energy on idle conversation. Once Jack works his way through the primary wave of injuries, an uneasy cadence settles over the crash site. Alone, Locke sits by the water’s edge, contemplating the vast, empty sea. Dusk trickles ashore. The jungle monster makes its cacophonous debut, trampling palm trees inside the green felt valley adjacent to the beach. Locke is one of many who turn in bewilderment.

Our first preview of Locke comes day two when Kate commandeers a pair of hiking boots from a dead passenger. Regret looms large as she searches for a pair her size. Successful, she catches Locke peering at her. His expression is pinched into a tight-lipped grimace. She stills. Does he know the person whose shoes she’s just pilfered? Guilt inflames remorse. Locke suddenly smiles. His lips strain around an orange slice, obscuring teeth and context. He chomps the wedge like Magilla Gorilla then looks away.

Huh? The moment leaves a strange taste in our mouths. While most main characters are drawn together in communal comfort, Locke isolates himself. An abrupt downpour scatters survivors like ants. Everyone scurries for cover - everyone but Locke. He’s seated amidst a circle of plane debris, drenched to the bone. Glancing skyward, he lifts his arms, a sinner rinsed clean by liquid redemption. A queer duck, to be sure.

His first words do little to dismantle the myth. He unearths a backgammon game and assembles the board. Michael’s ten-year-old son, Walt, wanders by. Is it like Checkers? Locke finally replies, Not really. It’s a better game than Checkers. Locke likes games. We know this is symbolic. Dialogue is never throwaway on this show. Every word counts, especially with a man stingy with them.

Locke asks if Walt plays Checkers with his pop - not father or dad. Pop. Informal, unstuffy. Walt discloses he’s been living with his mom, but she died a couple weeks ago. Locke ponders that. You’re having a bad month. No artifice, just simple sentiment. Michael’s initial forays into parenting have been ham-handed and somewhat patronizing. Walt laps up Locke’s candor like a thirsty puppy. He kneels down. Locke explains the origins of backgammon. Remnants of the game were found as far back as ancient Mesopotamia. Older than Jesus Christ. Dice made of bones. Just the kind of entertainment that captivates a ten-year old. No doubt Walt is mentally adding it to his Christmas list. Locke elaborates: Two players, two sides. One’s light, one’s dark. More symbolism? Oh, I think so. Dualism is sewn into the fabric of the show.

Here’s where it gets dicey. Locke leans in and asks, Walt, do you want to know a secret?

If this were HBO or Showtime, an Amber Alert would surely follow. Fortunately Locke is family-friendly peculiar not serial-killer cuckoo. But the question underscores the struggle and uncertainty that shroud Locke season long. This tiny nibble is all we get in the two hour premiere. It’s not until the next episode, Tabula Rasa, that we witness the compassion that insulates his ideology.

The revealing act involves his new BFF Walt. Michael struggles with Walt’s fascination with Locke. Jealousy tarnishes his efforts to connect with the son he barely knows. Michael asks what he and Locke spoke about. Walt is non-committal. Some of it’s secret. Michael’s paternal hackles go rigid. He tell you not to tell me? No. Walt relents. Mr. Locke said a miracle happened here. Michael shrugs. It’s a miracle any of them survived. He doesn’t want Walt hanging out with Locke anymore. Walt is furious – Mr. Locke’s his friend. I’m your friend, too, Michael reminds him. Walt begs to differ. If you were my friend, you’d find Vincent. Vincent is Walt’s yellow lab, missing since the plane crash.

Michael doesn’t believe Vincent survived, but he issues the standard platitudes – yes, he cares about the dog; of course he’ll do everything he can to find it once the rain stops.

Guess what? The rain stops. God’s own paternal prod. Make good or eat crow, buddy.

Despite giant reservations about entering the forest, Michael tramps in only to get chased out by something he doesn’t stick around long enough to see. Well, he tried, didn’t he? Meanwhile, Locke is whittling a small block of wood into a whistle. The main plot of the episode - the fate of the marshal – straddles these brisk snippets of Locke, Michael, and Walt. By the time Sawyer makes his fateful decision, forcing Jack to act, we’re ready for an emotional pick-me-up.

By dawn the next day, we get it. Locke parks himself on a spit of sand, facing a wall of dense vegetation. He blows into his whistle. The high-pitched frequency softly resonates. In the distance a dog barks in response. Out trots Vincent; happy, hardy and whole. The camp is just stirring when Locke returns. He wakes Michael to tell him he’s found Walt’s dog. Locke points to where he’s tethered Vincent to a tree. I know that Walt lost his mom. I thought you should be the one to bring his dog back to him.

When Walt wakes to see his dad leading Vincent toward him, we are putty in Locke’s hands. Fresh starts abound among the survivors, but only Locke’s gesture make this Hallmark moment possible for father and son. Before we pronounce Locke Santa Claus, though, he logs in a course correction. As Michael and Walt are enmeshed in a euphoric display of fist-bumping, the camera pans to Locke. He scrutinizes their mawkish spectacle with the unsentimental glower of an alpha male forced to watch High School Musical. Is Locke rethinking his generosity? Judging Michael’s parenting skills? Fantastically constipated?

We don’t have enough info to say either way, but the next episode, Walkabout, exposes a startling secret, adding a fascinating layer to the crazy quilt that is Locke’s character.

Fox on the run

The game is nearly up, the hounds are at my door. – Tom T. Hall

In First Impressions, we examined Kate’s character as revealed in the first hour of Lost. The conundrum of Kate’s characterization isn’t fully realized for several episodes, but one giant piece of the puzzle is finally divulged. And it’s a doozy.

Hour two begins by explaining Charlie’s sudden outpouring of companionable magnanimity. A flashback reveals the likable rock star is a drug addict. Prior to the crash, Charlie hides a stash of heroin in the first class bathroom. He doesn’t offer to find the front of the plane out of some overdeveloped sense of citizenship; he needs a fix. He needs it so bad he’s willing to face an unseen menace to get it.

Focus shifts to Walt, the ten-year-old son of Michael. While searching for his dog, Walt unearths a pair of handcuffs. Michael’s reaction to this discovery is unspoken but clear: who on board had handcuffs? Why? Is there more than one threat lurking on the island?

Jack, Kate, and Charlie return to find two man battling on the beach – Sayid, a former soldier in the Iraqi Republican Guard, and Sawyer, the razor-tongued Southern with a penchant for political incorrectness. With Michael’s help, Jack tears them apart. What is going on? Sawyer accuses Sayid of bringing down the plane because his ethnicity suggests terrorist in Sawyer’s narrow world view. Sayid takes exception to this unflattering estimation and hurls a few epitaphs of his own.

The embers of unease flare when Michael presents the handcuffs. Sawyer jumps all over this as proof of Sayid’s duplicity. Kate intervenes: Stop! She’s been having trouble making eye contact since handcuffs became the topic of discussion but has more luck with the subject of transceivers. The one they found is not functioning. Can anyone fix it? Sayid offers, which twists Sawyer into a belligerent bunch. Good-natured Hurley - who has a teeny, tiny weight problem - takes a stab at diplomacy by encouraging fellowship in the communal interest of self-preservation. Shut up, lardo is Sawyer’s democratic response. Jack confronts Sawyer and demands he give it break. Antagonism rolls off Sawyer. Whatever you say, doc. You’re the hero. The battle lines between Jack and Sawyer are now drawn with indelible dislike.

Boone enters the conversation. So, they found the cockpit. Any survivors? Jack doesn’t hesitate. No. Kate and Charlie exchange a complicit glance. Really, it’s more or less true. Why frighten people more than they already are?

Sayid confers with Kate. The transceiver is functioning but the battery is low and there’s no reception on the beach. They must get to higher ground. He peers passed her to the giant mossy mountains deep into the island. Kate stares up at them, her gaze dragging along what stands between the beach and those mountains – the monster-infested jungle. The look on her face says it all. Oh, man. Not there. Not again.

Kate approaches Jack, who is working on shrapnel man. Jack considers removing the shrapnel. Yesterday he refused to contemplate it but he thought the guy would be in a hospital by now. If he does nothing, the man will die. If he removes it and controls the bleeding and the guy doesn’t go into sepsis and he finds some antibiotics then, maybe . . . . Kate explains why she must re-enter the jungle. Jack is dumbfounded. You saw what that thing did to the pilot. Kate doesn’t disagree but they don’t know they’re any safer on the beach. Jack can’t leave his patient so he pleads with her to exercise extreme caution.

Sayid and Kate prepare for their hike. Combative siblings – pugnacious, pampered Shannon and earnest, exasperated Boone - crash the party. Shannon’s impromptu decision is her first contribution to the rescue effort, but rankling her stepbrother is the main motivator. Boone is swept in by a mix of rivalry and chivalry. Charlie, sufficiently fuzzy from a heroin hit, decides to tag along. Is he for real? That must be some drug.

They pass Sawyer, who’s perched on a scorched section of wreckage: scowling brow, five o’clock shadow, cigarette dangling from his mouth. A vision of swarthy insolence. He withdraws a note from his pocket. Whatever it says has the power to slice through the bravado. Malice melts away, replaced by a searing vulnerability few would believe. He refolds the letter, stuffs it back in his jeans, and chases the hiking party. A changed man? Kate voices her surprise when he struts into their midst like a presumptuous peacock. I’m a complex guy, sweetheart. Hmm. Probably not.

They trudge for miles and reach a sparsely wooded area. Sawyer thinks this is a good place to try the radio. Sayid disagrees. Naturally. They square off like pit bulls until a strange rumbling silences the vitriol. Something bowls through the tall grass towards them. Everyone bolts but Sawyer. He braces, pulls a handgun from his waistband, and shoots. The pop of gunfire halts them in their tracks. They pivot to find a white bear charging Sawyer. It collapses a few feet from his position. They circle back and stare. It’s a . . . polar bear. On an island. Near the equator.

Recovering from astonishment, Kate wants to know where Sawyer got the gun. Off the body of a U.S. Marshal. Kate blanches. How does he know the guy was a marshal? The guy’s badge. Seeing an opportunity to even the score, Sayid theorizes Sawyer is the prisoner. That’s how he knows about the marshal. Insults are exchanged, hostility mounts, and Kate grows more agitated. Suddenly she grabs the gun from Sawyer and aims at him. Everyone – except Sawyer - tenses. Has Kate finally snapped? No. She wants to take the gun apart. Sayid walks her through the steps. She tosses Sayid the clip and offers Sawyer the empty pistol. Sawyer clamps a hand on her wrist and yanks her to him. Machismo crackles. I know your type, he murmurs. Kate meets his sizzling gaze with disgust and something close to shame. I’m not so sure.

Unsettled, she wrenches away and flashes back to her last minutes on the plane, pre-crash. She is seated next to shrapnel man, pre-shrapnel. Pensively she stares out the window. The man notes she looks worried. I’d be worried too, I was you. When she doesn’t react, he needles her. There’s always an off-chance they’ll believe your story. He says this with such malicious satisfaction, we dislike him. When he smirks, victor to victim, we hate him. Kate takes a drink and we see what we didn’t see before – her hands are cuffed. He is the U.S. Marshal and she is the fugitive being escorted back to the states.

Turbulence rattles the plane. Kate turns to the marshal to ask one favor. He smiles the reptile smile of the morally superior. Before she can finish, the plane freefalls two hundred feet. Everything not strapped down – including people - smash ceiling to floor. A metal suitcase flies out of the overhead compartment and cracks the marshal on the head, knocking him cold. Oxygen masks deploy, people shriek, engines whine, klaxons screech. Kate’s handcuffs are bolted down; she can’t reach a mask. Panic-stricken, she manages to extract the key from the unconscious marshal and free herself, grabbing a mask and snapping it on. Throughout her struggle we hear the horrendous stress the airframe is under as it groans with metal fatigue. Without hesitation, she grasps another mask and secures it to the marshal’s bleeding head. Agonizing seconds tick by as the doomed plane convulses with strain. Finally the wing section sheers off.

Jiminy Cricket! How Kate doesn’t wet herself is beyond me. I need a valium just writing this.

Meanwhile, Jack is performing emergency surgery on the marshal. His assistant, Hurley, faints when Jack pulls the shrapnel free and blood flows. Then the marshal wakes while Jack is sewing him up. Jack cannot catch a break. Rather than shout with pain, the marshal grabs a fistful of Jack’s shirt and rasps, Where is she?

Ominous. Most rational people would clamor for morphine. This guy wakes in blinding agony, his one and only priority Kate. As dislikable as the marshal is, we can’t help wonder: how bad is Kate? Does she pose a threat to the welfare of the other castaways?

Halfway up the mountain, Sayid pulls out the transceiver and gives it a try. There’s reception but they’re getting feedback – another transmission is blocking their signal. A transmission emitting from the island. A man on the radio intones a series of numbers, followed by a frantic woman pleading in French. The male and female voices alternate in a loop. Sayid realizes the male iterations indicate how many times the message has been repeated. While he calculates that figure in terms of time, Shannon attempts to translate the woman’s urgent request: Please help me. I’m alone now . . . Someone please come . . . the others, they’re dead. It killed them. It killed them all. The battery dies and everyone lapses into a bleak silence. Sayid fills it with this bit of good news: the distress call has been transmitting for over sixteen years. Someone else was stranded here before them. A long time ago. Were they rescued? Not likely, as the message is still broadcasting. Guys, Charlie finally mutters, where are we?

And so ends the premiere episode. The enigma of the island is just beginning as is our understanding of Kate Austen. Hard to imagine resourceful, courageous Kate a criminal, but the clues were there. The first time we see her, she’s holding her wrist – her un-handcuffed wrist. Jack’s ironic statement that you’re not running now. Her inability to make eye contact when the handcuffs are discovered. Her discomfort with the animosity between Sayid and Sawyer, stoked by the existence of the handcuffs and all they imply.

We see now why the writers kept this from us. Such information would have warped our initial impression. We would have formed a completely different opinion of Kate had we known. Regardless, there are still flashes of the Kate we’ve come to know and trust. She doesn’t hesitate to place an oxygen mask on the helpless marshal when the plane took a swan dive, even though his treatment of her was reprehensible. Sawyer hasn’t exactly endeared himself to anyone, yet she went so far as to disarm him to prevent someone from coming to harm – because of her, however inadvertent her influence.

Without the filter of suspicion, Kate embodied the characteristics of the primary heroine: likable, loyal, gutsy, and sympathetic. Now with specter of guilt hanging over her head, we question her integrity. Is she a danger? Is the hiking party actually more at risk from Kate than from jungle monster? Guilt implies conscience. We want to believe whatever Kate did, she was justified. But is that the case? And will others share that feeling when they learn Kate’s background?

Find out in the next episode.

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.

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.