Lost 4.10: Something Nice Back Home

Okay, show of hands - how many of you out there thought sure that Jack was going to find Bobby Ewing in his shower at the beginning of the episode? Patrick Duffy, I have no idea if you're still alive, sir, but if you are, I hope like hell that that scene gave you a nice little flashback of your own. If there is any kind of goodness left in the world, you are on the phone right now trying as hard as you can to make that an extra on the Season 4 DVD. Let's get Lost after the jump...

So bad jokes about bad television shows aside, "Something Nice Back Home" was a classic Jack episode. Loads of daddy issues, self-doubt, fear and loathing, desperation, and hey! A few bottles of Scotch and some pills to wash it all down with. Let's pop down the rabbit hole in Aaron's story book and take a little closer peek. Curiouser and curiouser...

JACK POPULI - Now, as annoying as some people find him, I can't help but sympathize with our fallen angel Jack. In fact, how his role has been written and expanded upon over the seasons is one of my favorite aspects of this show. When we first met him, Jack was the token hero, the savior for a group of people who seemingly REALLY needed some saving. He gave pep talks, fetched water, found newer, safer digs when the nice comfy beach started looking pretty shady, even in comparison to the Rape Caves. However, the more we learned about him and how much of a hero he truly wasn't, the more interesting the premise became of him being the lead player in the show. Who wants to watch a television show that stars a guy who couldn't hold a relationship together with duct tape and KrazyGlue? Or who always finds the need to go around saving people whether they need to be or not? Well, me, of course, but I'm obviously not alone. I think people see a lot of themselves in Jack, and not always for the best reasons, which just might be why so many of us relate to him so well. Jack does the things he does because they are What You're Supposed To Do. You're supposed to help people, and you're supposed to make the world better for them, and you're supposed to get people off of creepy jungle islands no matter how excessive or poorly plotted your singlehanded nature of doing so might be. See, my view of it is that Jack's always trying to save someone else because well, I don't think he's quite certain how to do it for himself.

Jack's a bonafide, Grade-A control freak, and we saw this personified in full when he asked, no, FORCED Juliet to let him watch and guide his own freakin' appendectomy. Jack's been in free-fall ever since he hit SEND on that sat phone at the end of last season, and now that his truly FUBARed 'rescue' mission for his little group of castaways has gone into the toilet, I think we're about to see our man fall even farther. Faraday's told him that they're not there to rescue anyone (now that the Morse code signal that we heard from last week seems to be gone, what does that say about the freighter? more on that in a bit), he's still seeing visions of his dead(?) father Christian in the future, and to top it off, he got engaged and separated from his true love Kate all over the course of a few commercial breaks.

Speaking of Kate, let's take a look at her place in Jack's world for a bit. A long look, that is - MAN, she looked incredible in this episode. Something nice back home, indeed. Jack's wanted Kate ever since she sewed up his back in the freakin' pilot, and now that he's got her, what does he do? Push her away. Replace her with drugs and alcohol. Remind her that she's not even related to Aaron in the first place. Suspect her of cheating on him when all she's probably really doing is watching over the estranged daughter of one of her closest friends, and yes, I mean Sawyer. Remember Clementine? So does he.

In answer to your question, Jack, no, I don't think you can maintain a stable relationship and in turn raise a family. Not yet, anyway. Maybe after you get yourself back to the island and figure out exactly why you got sick when everyone else was busy getting well, you can ask again. That's why Jack got appendicitis, and that's why he turned into a staggering, pill-popping drunk when he "fulfilled" his wrongheaded mission and got back home. The island has many lessons to teach, Jack, and apparently, you've learned none of them. I've thrown about theories that this entire show will wind up being about a supposedly second-tier character like Desmond, but after this ep, I'm not so sure anymore. Jack's "We have to go back!" in the mindfuckery of the Season 3 finale is far too iconic in the context of what the show has become for that to happen now, and the fact that it happened directly in the middle of the entire series at a crucial turning point can't possibly be construed as that much of a throwaway. We'll see.

All superstitious hokery-pokery aside, though, all I really have to say is this - poor Juliet. Getting dumped is bad enough, but getting dumped by the guy whose stomach you're in the middle of sewing up while his girlfriend watches you? Bummer. I bet she thought burning the muffins was bad.

SISTER CHRISTIAN - MAN, were we close to Jack finding out that Claire is his half-sister! I thought sure that's where the cliffhanger for this ep was going to leave us, but I suppose I wasn't far off. After having bigmouth Aaron almost rat them out to the psycho paramilitary captain guy while hiding with Sawyer and crew, Claire sees Christian Freaking Shepherd in the jungle, calls him "Dad" (which he is) and follows him into the night, leaving Aaron behind in the process. Now, leaving your child behind in a seriously dangerous place like that one is a stretch, but for Claire? Little Miss MAH BABY herself? Unthinkable, right? Well, yeah, so what the hell happened out there? What did Christian say to make her do such a thing? And what's more, how did Miles see it? As we saw in the scene where Miles detects the recent deaths of Karl and Rousseau, he's not pulling a Sixth Sense here. That is, I don't think he's "seeing" anyone. He may hear them, or smell them, or just know that they're there for whatever reason, but as for getting a full-on crystal clear visual? Nope. I don't think so at all.

So is Christian not dead, or what? Seeming the episode ended with Sawyer still yelling for Claire in the world's most jacked-up version of Ollie Ollie Oxen Free, I'm, well... I'm kinda stumped. This disappearance of our fair Claire is far different from when Ethan mama-napped her and shot her full of Dharma dope. This show tapdances on the very fine line of the supernatural and the dead-set scientific like its name was Ginger Rogers (everything backward and in high heels, natch), so I'm curious as hell to see where this one lands. Doc Jensen from EW.com has a theory that Claire died in the RPG attack last week and the version of her that we saw in this episode is merely a remnant of her, much like Eko's brother and Kate's horse, but I dunno. That guy's kinda nuts. I think he should be wearing some head protection while he's working late at night in the labs, too.

JIN FOR THE WIN - Nice to see my man Jin lapse back into his Ichi The Killer mindset and bring his pimp hand down on Charlotte to buy Sun a Get Off The Island Free card, too. I totally called Charlotte's being able to understand Korean when she looked back and snickered at the conversation that was going on between Sun and Jin at the entrance to the Arrow hatch (Faraday's got it bad for Charlotte! Hell, in those jeans, who wouldn't?), but what I did not at all foresee was Jin using that fact to get Charlotte to do as he wanted in exchange for his letting Faraday's fingers stay on his hand. Why does Charlotte speak Korean? Was it one of the reasons she was chosen to be on this mission? If so, that would (or at least might) mean that whomever sent her knew Jin and/or Sun would be there. Or it could just be a coincidence. Yeah, because those happen so very often on this show, right? Um, right. Or hey! What about this? What if Charlotte's Korean-speaking skills also come in handy when she's talking to Sun's father Mr. Paik? Is THAT why Charlotte's REALLY there? To get her bosses' daughter back? Discuss.

CRAZY BEAUTIFUL - Well, Hurley's certainly one of those, isn't he? I'm kind of enjoying the fact that Hurley really is nutsy-kookoo after he gets off the island. You don't see believable long-term character arcs for the certifiably insane on television nearly enough. It's weird how the one crazy person on the island is the one who kept everyone else laughing and sane the entire time. In fact, maybe that's what the island does to you - it does its damndest to try and coax you into becoming what you're not or could never be back in your regular life. Locke? Regular Joe Schmo who can't get a handle or find a purpose on anything back on the mainland, Captain Alpha Male being groomed for greatness while on the island. Sawyer? Good-for-nothing con man back home, stop-at-nothing protector on the island. A tie-in to the whole black & white thing? Good/bad? Up/down? Flashback/flashforward?

Well, perhaps, but more importantly, what of Hurley's visions of Charlie and his eerie message for Jack? "You're not supposed to raise him"? Hmm. Call me crazy, too, but I don't think that means what we think it means. Once again, I know this show is fairly straightforward when it comes to explaining open-ended situations like that, but hey - I'm a dreamer. Well, I'm not the only one. Then again, screw John Lennon. Richard Malkin TOLD Claire that she and she alone had to raise Aaron, remember? Keep it in mind, kids - only the crazy people make sense in a crazy world. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Rather ironic how Jack ended up asking his doctor friend to write him a scrip for the very same medication that Hurley's on, too...

MISSING PIECES - Remember the bomb that Michael tried to set off a few weeks ago? Well, like I said before, now that the Morse Code signal that Faraday received and lied about in last week's episode is gone, I'm thinking the freighter might not be there anymore, either. That's right, boom. Big boom. I think that the washed-up corpse of Doctor Ray isn't the only one we're going to be seeing, and I also think that there was a whole hell of a lot more in that bomb than a bunch of pop-up Bugs Bunny KAPOW flags. I'm happy that Sayid is a member of the Oceanic Six because it means he survived the blast (if that's really what happened), but what of Desmond? And Michael? And dammit, WHAT ABOUT ZOE BELL? Sigh. My heart will go on.

Okay, I bought Captain Keamy's survival of Smokey's deathblow (if only for plot purposes), but the whole crew? Come on! Smokey broke the indomitable Mr. Eko into bite-sized pieces, for chrissakes. I wanted a little more carnage than that. Seeing shabbily-buried dead bodies in the jungle floor on a nearly-prime-time mainstream television show was pretty sweet, though. Wake the kids up and boil some coffee!

Alas, poor Rousseau and Karl. I did not know them nearly well enough. Well, I knew Karl about as well as I needed to, but Danielle? Hell no. I still want her flashback, dammit. MONTAND'S ARM OR BUST!

Jack's newspaper telling him that the Yankees swept the Sox? Yeah, that happened in 2007. Ties right in with Jack's only-made-in-2007 cellphone that we saw back in the Season 3 finale, doesn't it?

Hey, the Millenium Falcon turned up in Jack's house! Fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy! Remember how Luke and Leia were brother and sister all along, but didn't know anything about it? Not only that, but just like Luke Skywalker, Aaron's apparently being raised by his freakin' uncle! Cool, huh? Neat little reference, or is Aaron really the Chosen One? I can't wait to hear Ben start talking about midichlorians.

Bad-ass exchange: Faraday in the Arrow hatch asks, "Where do you suppose all this power comes from?". Charlotte replies, "Put it on your list." Oh, believe me, Red - it's been on my list for a while now.

Since the episode ended with Sawyer, I'll follow suit - I found it rather interesting when Miles asked him in regards to Claire, "Who are you, her big brother?" Heh. No, but Jack is. ZING!

Okay, that's my time. Tip your waitresses and drive safe. Don't stop on any bridges on your way home, either.

Namaste,

-littlebigmouth.