UK Gets Lost (Take 7)

[lost-in-love-pingu]

Lost Episode 1.7 - The Moth by Tom Pengelly

Charlie's episode. We can immediately assume drugs are going to be involved. And possibly something to do with Driveshaft. And this time, there were no "Last time on Lost" features to help me ascertain these facts. NONE! (Although my download skips the credits as well, so). I might write cruddy reviews, but hey, I'm not that thick. Unfortunately though, I'm not a Lost character, so we better get back to the point. The Moth is an episode I would deem the most controversial episode to date. Speaking of dating, we have the whole "Will They, Won't They" aspect of the lady digging the doctor and the doctor digging the convict, and to include with this horrible, controversial onscreen-but-not-realised romance, we have the hope that a certain killed boar wasn't really a live being when it screamed from fear of Locke, the talk of orgies and lesbian sex in a confession booth, a certain character, who is rude, cocky and self-righteous, feeling what some humans would call emotions... and the worst offence of all, leaving us viewers with the most horrific cliffhanger to date!

The first flashback we see is probably one of the most shocking. Firstly, Charlie is a churchgoer! Secondly, he's confessing his sins!! Thirdly, the had a threesome!!! Pardon me, "relations." Well, the third one we expected, the only thing connecting flashback Charlie to present Charlie. It does manage to confuse us as to how Charlie is like he is now, relations excluded. And it gets worse. There's talk of quitting his band. If this was the end of the episode, this would be extremely frustrating. But luckily, it isn't, so JJ + Damon escape unharmed... this time. Other things that surprise us is Liam. The contrast between the two brothers, christian and rocker-who-is-suspiciously-stoned-with-his-oddly-misty-eyes, how did that get about? Dammit though, our right to think about this question is cruelly taken away with a diversion ie. Charlie agreeing to the band. However, things get hairy. Charlie predicted this, his "fine-print" to the agreement. And there's trouble and it's only the middle fo the episode, never a good sign ie. he's possibly gonna split. But wait, didn't Charlie say the band were still together in episode 1? That reaction was defensive... like there were rumours. The trouble may be resolved, although it is pretty apparent Liam is taking up the spotlight, and blames Charlie for being angry. One, Charlie isn't the one who is off his head, that's some very satirical irony coming from the stoner. Two, if Charlie is the so-called baby brother, why does Liam care more about drugs and birds, to the point where he's saying Charlie is worthless. This is some weird form of team spirit and all for one and one for all (although it's not a weird form of sibling rivalry). How can you win an argument by saying you are either in the gang or your worthless, but your worthless anyway? Liam really is stoned. Shame thing is this is the final straw. Third flashback approximately, seems like at least one year, and Charlie has now been reduced to drugs to abstain away from this depression that has been placed on him by Liam. Unfortunately, drugs always lead to more depression, but that's a long term cause. People with low-self esteem only focus on the short-term problems, the present. Because the future isn't theres, it is their captor's, their punishers. They don't though realise that giving into temptation has consequences, and just traps their futures even more. No one who starts drugs does.
When Charlie visits Liam what appears to be a few years later, we see further confusion, yet more sense also. The tables have turned, and so have the personalities. Liam is now a family man, what some could say is the ultimate christian, repenting for his sins. Charlie is now the druggie with a problem with the word "no," just like Liam was. But Liam has to get his way again, he controls everything, and Charlie gets so angry he leaves for the fated plane (pre-empted by a fantastic slow-down of film time, with the accommodating flashback whoosh). Charlie has so much anger towards Liam, which is understandable, people with depression usually do have a lot against their aggressors. It's just annoying that Liam is getting his way, we see that easily. He's controlling, he has the final say. Charlie even showed us that by going to his house and asking Liam to restart the band. Earlier, Liam forced Charlie to stay. Even though Liam made good choices, we hate him because he led the way for Charlie to make bad ones. We know he knows that, but we can't let go, and neither can Charlie. The hatred comes from us, like the hatred comes from Charlie, except we aren't druggies. Scary thoughts, we are actually thinking like a druggie in effect. What's worse, we are actually judging Liam on his past. Maybe I for example am not that accepting and understanding as I thought i was. There is clearly some childhood psychology being played out through the whole flashback, Liam being the dominant, Charlie being the submissive, Liam being the druggie/repenter, Charlie being the repenter/druggie. Even though these opposites exist, and even though Liam was a totally different person, Charlie's drug habit came from being bullied, and bullying has a single pattern to it. Liam's trip was forced onto Charlie. So who tripped Liam? It could possibly be Charlie, the brothers have hoops running round the both of them left, right and centre, but bullying goes through generations, ending only through a strong person, but it doesn't have a beginning that we can see easily. So someone upset Liam. What's also apparent is Charlie is trying to act like Liam. He tries to force Liam into the band, he repeats what Liam says, about it being all about the music, and then he lays his problems on Liam when everything falls apart and his strategy to do what Liam did fail. Just like a younger brother would do, learn by copying, and resort to desperate measures when your knowledge leaves you. Yes, Liam helped, and it is such a shame that this bullying led Charlie to be the total opposite of what he wanted to be, but Charlie accepted the temptation and made the choices there on, Charlie can't escape all of that blame.
This is a recurring theme. The questions always manage to surround the background characters in flashbacks, Jack's dad, Sun's dad/Jin's boss, Locke's "friend" Helen... They always present the biggest questions of a character's past. Charlie is mostly figured out for now, we want to know about Liam. Well I do, anyway (and not because he's hot). Why was he such a <expletives> <expletives> to his own brother, bandmate, #1 fan... Why did he turn a prospering Christian into a druggie? The whole Karen being his wife... he had female roadies, how big was the time difference between the band and his marraige, the birth of his daughter, the final flashback? How bloody long has Charlie actually been using? Where's the sense, in Liam's actions, AND in this damn series? I guess there is a possible to answer this, but it's not an uplifting answer - you can't lose what you don't have. When you become "Lost" under the influence of addiction (heroin, coke, TV, etc...), you have in effect anti-sense to it's extreme effects from the very beginning, becoming almost anti-you, no matter what you or anyone, especially the creators of a certain series, say. This could explain why the characters on Lost have evolved so much, in their flashbacks, they've depended on people, like an addiction. Their loss of that drug has turned them around, mostly to better people, with exception to Jin (well, at this point). But the crash is an extreme example of disconnection, and from the very beginning mostly, the anti-sense has taken place. The evolution has begun.

The characters are starting to become rivals. Boy vs. girl, brother vs. sister, skank vs. skunk... now it's beach vs. caves. The people have set up camp in the caves, while beach life pretty much stays the same, minus some tweaks in characteristics. Now that the lovebirds are going to be separated, Jack is curious about Kate. Oh, NOW he's curious. Let's all side with Sawyer and his recently shown chest and get him.... well... his stubbornness is rewarded well. Kate doesn't tell him, HAH!.... wait NO, WE NEED TO KNOW! But she decides to go girly girl and criticise her mugshot instead. Unless this is a hidden clue, i shall remain p*ssed at Jack for quite a while. Sayid is starting to get testy. His attitude has become more militial with the increase in activity, although he does retain some humour with his blessings on firework smugglers. Even though this is probably a self-defense mechanism (so he doesn't lose control of the situation and himself), it is kind of scarily drawing reference from present day events, possibly another controversy to the portrayal of foreign muslims if you want to get politically correct (and this is airing in Europe? Shocking! [If you don't understand, look up political correctness and EU, you should find the phrase "taking the p*ss"]). Contrary to his "striking" evolution, he does start to play a central role more of a sudden in the mystery of the plane, finding the signal, asking about the crash; they're very key to the main plot, and his inquisitive nature is almost as big as ours. Something is bound to happen to him, curiousity killed the cat of course... Does that mean someone thing is gonna happen to us? Uh-oh! Hopefully, curiousity will just give us kittens. Speaking of cute animals, Vincent is not getting enough screentime. A cameo shot playing ball at the end is not good enough for the sexiest star of the series!
The rebels are massing. Firstly, Sawyer is unsurprisingly piping in, dishing out the nicknames to the script rebelling against his character. It seems Sawyer has a jealousy problem with Jack. You don't give someone a title as a joke without a reason for it (ie. St Jack). However this is usually only present with Kate. It's with Kate he gets petty....er than usual, he actually gets offended by one of Kate's comments and he's trying to be nosy. Does someone have a crush? Sawyer gets offended by Kate, despite his arrogance and joking about being offended, and we know this because he refuses to tell Kate about Jack, after a time to think of something to get Kate back. His next sign of being offended is when he tells Kate 10 minutes later about Jack and the cave-in, clearly trying to upset her. His expression turns sour, and he starts offending Kate. He's b*tching back to Kate. He's usually b*tching to people, eg. calling Sayid Muhammed. With his behaviour backwards when Kate's around, that must mean that when Kate is around, he actually feels emotions! (The islanders have no hope now, let's just admit it, they're all going to die!!!!... or not, we like the series after all, and we do need the totty). However he is also making fun of Kate, by poking fun at her actions, and also making fun of the doctor, waving him odd, praising the lord for him etc... He knows about the Hollywood couple. Does Sayid know as well? He does tell Kate to avoid him, even if she can handle him. The second rebel is Sun. God bless her probably-cotton tank top. Jin starts to chastise Sun about her flesh showing, but she stops him, and says in the best voice I've heard from her, that it's too hot. The tone of her voice puts fear on Jin's face, and that is one of the best comedial moments of the episode. Officially, she's speaking in a matter-of-fact tone. Unofficially, she is telling her husband DUH! This must mean an immediate rise in self-confidence, boosted by Michael's correction regarding their heritage? You can sense a great relationship is going to happen with those two either way. Michael's background is indirectly revealed. 8 years in the construction business. One thing it does do is create a reason for Walt to be proud of his dad. Hurley also gets some limelight for his captive audience also, ie. the viewing audience. He becomes leader temporarily, which is awesome, and character-delving. He also delivers a new genre of humour (again), through obvious sarcasm. One important thing about Michael though is that he's forgiven Jin. He says "they're" Korean, he's protecting Jin as well, who still has the cuffs on, out of random observation. Boone also appears to be in people's good books, that is, until he entrusts Shannon with Sayid's task. She almost forgets, and even jokes about acting dumb to Boone, but she still does it, like Sawyer does. Although Sayid thinks it was Boone and Kate. One huge example of dramatic irony. Sayid's prayer was just desperate enough. Sayid's mention of religion grounds the series again in reality which we can understand (if we're not redneck hicks that is), something that will hopefully be mentioned in later episodes. In this episode, we had christianity with Charlie, Islam with Sayid... could there anyone on the island who worships Cher?

We have a very clear theme in this episode, the theme being on the open topic of drugs (and possibly animal cruelty if you were disgusted alongside me at (hehee, me-at... sorry) the way Locke killed that pig... i can handle my gore but not my distress), and the subtopic of struggling. The struggling was playing right before our eyes, in the form of music partly. Charlie's drugs problem constantly created minor tones, and a very hollow, evil rhythm alongside it. Drugs are evil, no matter how much fantasy is shrouded regarding them (or you when you take them), just like the music with high sharp fantasy tones or nice clinking bells. The same hollow, evil music plays for Liam, when he starts telling Charlie he's useless in the band, and gets worse when Charlie takes the drugs. You can almost hear the music when Jack tells Charlie he's not needed, or when he realises he caused the cave-in. However, at the end, it's all better. Charlie rises, so does the music: the violins, the woodwind, the triumph, the pride. Everything comes together, harmonises, all that should happen at the end of a struggle, no more evil hollowness, no more dissonance (clashing sounds for you non-music theorists). Though this could only have happened with opportunities. With Charlie, he may have been the cause of problems and told he was useless, but he was given chances to redeem himself, going through the cave, relocating Jack's collar bone, being messenger, and most importantly, being given help to stop the drugs. Locke's help teaches us a lesson on temptation as well as the importance of struggle. "Struggle is nature's way of strengthening it." If we let our temptation to help get in the way, we weaken things (NB. helping and giving opportunities of independence and struggle, despite being made similar by my writing, are different). Such as the moth at the end of the episode. If Locke hadn't let it survive on its own, then maybe Charlie wouldn't have saved Jack's day by finding an escape route from the cave. We certainly also wouldn't have a fantastic ending sequence with the moth flying higher and higher in synch to the harmony mentioned earlier, with tremolos singing to us, the end of a struggle, even if it may sound anti-climactic unlike what a cliffhanger does. (Speaking of, If JJ ever pulls off one of those stunts EVER again, I'll be the one with the very big stick *angelic smile*. I'm not denying it's brilliant, but waiting for answers constantly is NOT nice). The main idea of this episode, despite to create some funny controversy, is to get across that not only are drugs bad, getting off them is worse, getting onto them and realising how you did is nowhere near as good, and getting trapped in a cave in with the man who doesn't believe in you and who's arm you dislocated is neither here nor there. It's also to remind us that not only do we need to struggle in our lives, to overcome our problems and evolve into better people, people who can be relied upon, who truly deserve compliments, but that one simple speckle of temptation can bring it all down again, possibly lower than ever. Hopefully, Jack's dad shall not re-enter the series and cause Jack anymore self-esteem issues, otherwise Sayid and Kate are going to have major problems running the island. This further proves that you can achieve the status of rock bottom, even if it is not through fault of your own. Life is a B*tch, and people like Liam and Jack Senior are out there to remind you of that, and are out to make sure you give into that temptation, be it through bullying and desire to feel better through drugs or self-harm, or through peer pressure and trying out smoking. But if Liam can reform (well, his drug habit, if not his manners), then I can say that we all can reform, so no struggle is impossible to overcome. Now let's finish and imagine how different Charlie is going to be in the next episode. Gone past one hurdle, now he can relax with the aussie.

[LOST_2005]

holy hell tom wonna write more :P

good stuff though :)