LOST Revisited: Season 5, Episode 13: “Some Like it Hoth” (Apr 15)
Miles drives up to the site, and Radzinsky steps out of the jungle with a gun. He’s not one of the first guys I’d pick to have a firearm. You look at his model, and he’ll pop a cap in you. Anyway, what Miles delivered was a body bag, and he’s got a body to fill it. He claims the poor guy “fell into a ditch”, but there’s a hole in his forehead. Everybody’s acting shifty. As soon as Miles gets a moment, he does his talking to the dead trick.
In the flashback, which actually takes place after the main body of the episode, Miles is going through a phase. Just check out those piercings! His mother is very sick, and he comes to see her and maybe get some answers. “Tell me why I’m this way.” He also wants to know about his father, but she assures him that he’s been dead a long time. Obviously, this isn’t a problem for Miles, only, as she tells him, his body is “somewhere you could never go”.
On the Island, Horace is on the phone with “Pierre”, who we know better as “Dr. Marvin Candle”, when Miles returns. Horace is worried that something was “caused by the electromagnetism”. Hey, that’s something we used to talk about a lot here. Horace sends Miles to bring the body to Dr. Marvin Candle at the Orchid site. Man, Miles is putting in some serious travel time this week. Anyway, Hurley has decided to carpool, since he has to bring lunch out to the Orchid. Yes, he’s putting sandwiches in the back of the van. With the dead body. You can already tell that hilarity will ensue.
In a brief scene, Roger brings some supplies for his injured son, only to find that he’s gone. He freaks out on Kate and Juliet, and neither of them even tries to come up with an explanation. You know who’d be good at lying his way out of this situation? Benry. Ironic, right?
In the van, Hurley’s writing in a Dharma notebook. (Which has the image of an apple in the Dharma logo. I want this notebook!) He asks how to spell “bounty hunters”, and the very fact that he’s asking means he thinks it might be one single word. Finally, he notices the smell, which results in poking around until he finds the body. Miles explains what he’s learned, that the corpse is a guy named Alvarez, who was minding his own business when suddenly something pulled a metal filling loose and yanked it out through his brain. Yikes. Also, that sounds like a powerful magnet, right? Miles tells Hurley that he can talk to dead people. So does Hurley! Only, in a different way. The way in which he might be crazy. (Hey, does Hurley still see ghosts on the Island now? Or because he’s happy, does he no longer hallucinate?)
In a flashback, the producers of Lost continue to pander to me by casting Dean Norris as Howard Gray. Norris plays Hank on Breaking Bad, and since you’re watching Lost, I have to assume that you enjoy things that are awesome. You’d like Breaking Bad. Also, the name “Gray” seems important, given the continual focus on dark vs. light, but he doesn’t appear to be tied into the larger mythology arc. He’s grieving his son, and wants Miles to assure him that his son knew that he loved him. Miles does not seem certain, since there’s no body. Still, he takes the money and then assures Gray that “He knew that you loved him. He always knew.”
As he’s leaving, Naomi Dorrit approaches him. You may remember her from the helicopter at the end of Season Three. Locke knifed her to prevent her from contacting the freighter, and Jack freaked out. Then the freighter people embarked on a campaign of mass murder, proving Locke right. She has a job offer for Miles, and I think we can guess where this is going.
Back in Dharmaville, Roger is getting wasted on the playground. Kate stops by to console him and also to make sure she incriminates herself as much as possible. (Seriously, how did she avoid Federal Marshals for as long as she did?) She assures him that his son is fine, and that just makes Roger suspicious and angry. At least we can count on him to make a measured, rational decision, right?
Back in the van, Hurley and Miles talk about the dead. It’s clear that Miles is writing Hurley’s visions off as mental illness. He explains that he doesn’t actually talk to the dead, since their brains stop working. Miles instead gets a sense of “who they were and what they were thinking”. Hurley get a great line with “You’re just jealous that my power’s better than yours.”
When they arrive at the Orchid, Dr. Marvin Candle is not terribly impressed with them. They are clearly not in his Circle of Trust. He threatens Hurley to keep his mouth shut, or else end up at the Hydra Station weighing Polar Bear poo. He’s a pretty serious jerk right here, and when he walks away, Miles tells Hurley that Myndi was right. Well, what he actually says is that Dr. Marvin Candle is his dad, but we know what he meant. That’s right, Miles is the baby from the first scene of the season premiere! Like Charlotte, he was either born on the Island or possibly nearby. (Amy indicated that they take pregnant women off the Island by submarine.) And with Faraday’s mom being an Other, that means Frank’s the only member of the Fantastic Foursome to not have roots on the Island.
Back in the future/past (the tenses are getting confusing in this episode), Naomi auditions Miles. She shows him a dead body and asks him to get the information. Miles tells her that they guy’s name is Felix. He was making a delivery to Widmore – photos of empty graves, a purchase order for an old plane. Awesome! We’ve confirmed it now, Widmore is the guy who planted the fake Flight 815 in the Ocean. Presumably, Felix was trying to blackmail him, and that’s why he’s dead now. (Why else would you bring him pictures of the empty graves he dug up to fill the plane? He knows there are empty graves already!) Naomi is impressed and tells Miles the plan. They’re going to an Island to find one man, and they need Miles to talk to his victims so they can track him down, and she offers 1.6 million dollars. Now, this is where I realized something, but I’ll wait until I get to the point in the episode when it becomes more explicit.
On the Island, Hurley wonders why Pierre Chang calls himself Dr. Marvin Candle. Hee. Too bad Hurley hasn’t seen the other films with his other names. That would blow his mind. Anyway, Miles figured out his parentage during their third day on the Island, when he saw his mother. So he’s been sitting on this for a while now. Dr. Candle returns and demands that Miles and Hurley take him to the work site to see Radzinsky.
In the school (which has some hilarious Dharma slogans on the walls), Roger’s surprised to see Jack. Jack knows Roger’s had a hard day of worrying and drinking, so he’s picking up some of Roger’s janitorial duties. Jack knows a thing or two about showing up to work drunk, after all. Of course, Roger is throwing sawdust on vomit, rather than operating on people’s spines, but the principle is the same. Roger shares his suspicions about Kate. He’s pretty sure she has something to do with his son’s disappearance. Jack talks him down, but Roger still seems pretty upset.
In the van, Hurley is being hilarious, asking all kinds of leading questions. My favorite is when Dr. Marvin Candles mentions his son, Miles, and Hurley responds with “That’s your name, too. Isn’t it, Miles?” Ha! They arrive at a big hole, and Hurley overhears two guys talking about a serial number. And of course, it’s made up of Hurley’s numbers. It’s the Hatch! Well, right now it’s an open pit, but it’s destined to be a Hatch.
After his meeting with Naomi, a van pulls up and some masked men kidnap Miles. Now, I’m pretty excited about this, because a background character I pointed out last week suddenly becomes pretty important. In the front of the van is Bram, who we’ve seen among the survivors of Flight 316. In fact, he helped Ilana beat up Frank last week. Bram tries to talk Miles out of getting on that boat and going to work for Widmore. Bram asks Miles if he knows what lies in the shadow of the statue, and then promises Miles they can tell him everything, including where his abilities come from. Miles offers to switch sides for $3.2 million, double what Widmore offered. Bram says they’re not paying him, and they release Miles.
First off, last season Miles offered to turn Benry loose for $3.2 million. That’s where that number comes from! He wants double his fee, or he’s not interested. That’s a pretty neat explanation for that bit of weirdness.
Next, let’s give some points to spunkybuddies Julie and Sara who suggested this in the Pre-Game Report. Bram is undermining Widmore by trying to win Miles over. Now, it’s safe to assume that somebody actively working against Widmore is probably working for Benry. Unless, as Kelli suggested via text message, there’s a third team. But I think Bram’s working for Benry. As soon as Benry left the Hydra Station, a group of survivors started to assemble, and it seems they identified each other with the phrase “What lies in the shadow of the statue?”. Benry, packed the plane with his people, probably with orders to carry out as soon as he left. And I’m assuming that they’re working for Benry, because Ilana is one of them, and being that she put Sayid on the plane, she’d almost have to be working for him. And now we have to wonder just what Benry has them doing…
I like that Bram comes off as some sort of religious zealot – that’s how the Others used to be portrayed until we found out more about them and started to uncover further layers of craziness. That’s probably how the Others shore up their numbers if they can’t have children – get to the mainland, convince some folks of the spiritual rewards waiting for them, and you’ve got a fresh batch of Others. This is pretty huge right here.
On the Island, Hurley is grappling with metaphysical and parental dilemmas. He encourages Miles to befriend his father, and suggest that Miles would be able to “hold baby you”. He also tries to explain the Hatch, and you can tell that Miles just doesn’t get it. As he keeps pushing Miles to embrace his father, Miles snaps and decides to poke around in Hurley’s business. He grabs the notebook and finds that Hurley is writing Empire Strikes Back. Ha! That? Is fantastic!
Sawyer returns to Dharmaville, where Jack is waiting in his house. He clues Sawyer in about Roger’s suspicions, which is just one more fire for Sawyer to put out. And then comes another. Phil stops by with a copy of the security tape that Miles was interrupted before he could erase! Sawyer invites him in and promptly decks him, making all Mad Men fans happy. Eat fist, Jimmy Barrett! Well, this is going to present a problem. Sawyer asks Juliet to get some rope. Oh, it’s getting out of control now.
By the way, and I can’t think of any better place to put this, it seems like there’s a very division in Dharma. Some people know that there is something specifically important about the Island itself (Horace, Radzinsky, Dr. Marvin Candle), and others think that the project itself is what’s important and the Island is just an island. So yeah, there really is a Circle of Trust.
In another flashback, Miles returns to see Mr. Gray and return the money. He admits that he lied about contacting his son, and that lying wasn’t fair to his son. Howard should have let his son know that he loved him, if it was that important to him.
On the Island, Hurley encourages Miles to get to know his father, citing his own experiences. And of course, he links their own issues to Star Wars, and in a really clever reference, he mentions that Luke Skywalker “got his hand cut off”. At least two of the orientation films show Dr. Marvin Candle with a prosthetic arm, so he really will be getting the old George Lucas treatment at some point. Also, the bike is in the background. It’s not a Dharma scene if you can’t see the bike…
Miles walks to his old house, watching his father and Baby Miles, giving us our first scene of somebody seeing their own past self. Dr. Marvin Candle is surprisingly warm with his son, and Ken Leung is getting some real emotion out of Miles. Nice job, everybody! It ends when Dr. Marvin Candle gets a call and leaves the house. He asks miles to come with him to pick up the “scientists from Ann Arbor”. Remember, the founders of Dharma were grad students at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. Are the DeGroots coming to the Island? As exciting a prospect as that is, it gets even better when Miles gets to the sub and sees one Daniel Faraday! Yes!
Now, all we know is that Faraday wasn’t around anymore, as Miles told the Oceanic Six. I really thought he went crazy and joined the Others or went to live in the woods. Apparently, he just left the Island altogether, probably to work directly with the Dharma braintrust. But you know if he’s coming back, something big has to be happening. Can’t wait!
But we’ll have to. Next week is a recap episode, and those are usually still worth watching. Still, we have two weeks before the next episode. Ordinarily, I’d be freaking out. However, next Wednesday, I’ll be competing for the title of “Funniest Person in Grand Rapids”, so my plate is kind of full. I figure that since there’s no new episode, and thus I don’t have to do a recap that night as well, that the Island wants me to win. It’s taking a week off for me!
