'Lost': Orientation

Awww yea, Lost fans, it's Marvin Candle time, y'all. Been waiting to rewatch this one for a long time, even if sometimes it feels as if the We Have to Go Back project is my own personal version of pressing the button. Hey, least I don't literally have to post every 108 minutes, despite what my sign-off each day implies. I'd rather not fathom what types of theories I'd produce under such circumstances. They'd be along the lines of, "The smoke monster is just a disembodied zebra! A psychic zebra bereft of cohesive cellular structure!" And really, no one needs to read that.

Anyways, in lieu of hot zebra theory action, let's delve into this classic episode, shall we?

Orientation

4) In Short

"You got any Dharma popcorn?"

8) On the Island

We start immediately after the end of the last episode, in which Jin's going on and on about cows for some reason. Why is so concerned with udders...oh, OTHERS, that's what he's saying. Anywho, the alpha male of the group comes over, with Sawyer and Michael hypnotized by his manly pecs. This ends when Alpha Male beats the holy hell out of them with his stick. The group he's with then drag the bodies to a makeshift underground prison in the jungle.

Oh for the love of...we're replaying the Locke-Desmond-Jack John Woo-esque stand off for the third time in three episodes. You have GOT to be kidding me. This time Kate moves an extra few feet inside the vents, which counts as major progression in this storyline. After hopping down, she discovers the armory inside the hatch, grabs a gun, and makes her way over to The Neverending Standoff. She clocks Des on the back, causing him to fire his own gun...directly into the computer. I hope the guys over at the Dharma Genius Bar can fix that.

Jack's dubious about this whole "we're all gonna die" business, until Des directs his gaze to the analog time above (which shifts over to 97 minutes as we watch). Kate takes over "point the gun at Des" duty while Des tries to fix the fried computer. All the while, Locke gives this look of "I can't believe we're gonna be lab partners all semester" to Jack.

Des is rummaging through the hatch, looking for supplies to fix the computer. Locke sends Kate after Sayid, due to his extensive knowledge at fixing electronics. But before Des can try his hand at it, Jack asks how Des got here. And rather than paraphrase, here's what transpires:

DESMOND: It was 3 years ago. I was on a solo race around the world, and my boat crashed into the reef, and then Kelvin came.

LOCKE: Kelvin?

DESMOND: Kelvin -- he comes running out of the jungle -- hurry, hurry, come with me. He brings me down here. The first thing he does -- because there's beeping already -- he types in the code, he pushes the button, and it stops. What was all that about, I say. Just saving the world, he says.

JACK: Saving the world?

DESMOND: His words, not mine. So I started pushing the button, too. And we saved the world together for awhile, and that was lovely. Then Kelvin died, and now here I am all alone. The end.

Got all that? Good. 84 minutes until the end of the world. In the meantime, let's watch a film. Top shelf, behind Turn of the Screw. Ready, kids? Just a few minutes away from one of the great moments in Lost history.

Back at the beach, which frankly looks ridiculously after all this time wasting away again in Dharmaville (looking for our lost shaker of electromagnetic anomalies), Hurley remarks how he's glad everyone made it through the night, with nothing but clear sailing ahead. Enter Kate, looking for Sayid. Iiiiirrrroonnnnyyyy, it's such a lonely word.

Back in the Ditch of Despair, Jin and Michael try to push Sawyer up to the top. That plan ends when Alpha Male pokes Sawyer with his stick, sending him back to the bottom. He then momentarily opens the top, only to throw in a woman who looks an awful like the one Jack had a drink with in the Sydney airport. But enough about her for now: it's movie time!

Jack and Locke engage in Philosophy 101 as they set up the projector, with Locke taking the side of belief and Jack taking the skeptical position. It's a theme, people, learn to love it. Locke wonders if Jack's upset due to Desmond recognizing him. Well played, John. Onto the video, and let's actually watch it together, shall we?

In the Ditch of Despair: Ana-Lucia wakes up, and is surprised to find out her cellmates were also on Oceanic 815. Sawyer tells her that next time Alpha Male opens up the cage, it's peanut butter pistol time, peanut butter pistol time!

Jack interrogates Des further while he tries to fix the computer, suggesting everything is simply an elaborate hoax. Did Des ever think of that, huh? Huh? "Every...single...day." Oh, well, then, I guess he has. Des also notes that the concrete wall (the one that Jack's key edged towards in the season's first episode) makes his fillings hurt. Between the way Locke and Des school him in this episode, I never want Jack on my debate team. Ever.

Looks like Des isn't a handy man, as his attempts at fixing the computer short out the entire hatch. He bolts from the dome, packs up some supplies, and leaves the freakin' hatch. Locke gets the first pangs of real, pure doubt on the Island since banging atop the hatch in "Deus ex Machina," only this doubt is qualitatively different: the former came from a place of rage, this comes from a place of real fear. Amidst all this, Captain Jack Tact tells Locke he's on his own, then chases after Des.

In the middle of John's tears, in come Kate, Hurley, and Sayid, who immediately get to work fixing the computer. Hurley finds the food stash, setting up the next episode.

Back at the Ditch, Ana Lucia's all interested in Sawyer's gun: how he got it, why he didn't previously use it, if it makes him feel like more of a man when it goes off. Stuff like that. Sawyer's Spidey sense goes off, but not quickly enough as Ana Lucia gets the gun from him, punches him in the face, and has all three at gun point before you can say "drinking and driving don't mix." She then yells "Coming up!" at which point we realize she's working with Alpha Male all along.

Jack catches up to Des, who thinks Jack simply wants the code to the computer. What follows is a TREMENDOUS scene between the two in which Jack's facade cracks, and we realize just how much his faith has been broken since Sarah's miraculous recovery. (I really like Zap2it reader Phil's take a few days ago about how the dissolution of his marriage to her really played a part in his general position as Island skeptic. Makes total sense to me.) The scene ends with Des once again telling Jack he'll see him in another life. A very drunk life, it turns out.

In the hatch, Sayid rules all. He doesn't need to know why he's fixing a computer in a retro-futuristic hatch, he just knows he has to do so before the timer hits zero. The time for explanations for him is after that. Sayid rocks. Kate finds the breaker panel, taking the hatch back up to normal power. And just in time, as the beeping starts, marking the 4-minute countdown. Sayid fixes the computer, leaving John to input the code. Hurley freaks out when he realizes it's the Numbers, but calms down when Locke gets the last number wrong. But before Locke can press "Execute," Jack appears, telling him the last number is 42.

But we're not done, as Locke wants Jack to press the button. It's FANTASTIC to watch the beeping/buzzing freak everyone out, turning them from skeptics to "ok, maybe just this once we'll press it" in less than four minutes. John pleads with Jack, telling him he can't do it alone. No kidding, John. Finally, Jack gives in, and you can almost see him lose a part of his soul the moment he does. Locke volunteers for the first shift of the new world order on Lost.

15) Off the Island

John's in an anger management class, a few years after the events seen in "Deus ex Machina." He then magically transforms from "John Locke" to "Exposition Jones," catching all those who didn't see Season 1 up on his backstory to date. That being said, losing a kidney IS worse than losing $30, so I'll give him that. After the group finishes, a woman comes over to John, thanking him for saying all the things she wishes she could say herself. She also says she likes bald guys, which means she has EXCELLENT taste. Ur, um, moving on.

Aww yea, Locke, way to hit that! And way to sneak right out afterwards. He says he has trouble sleeping in strange beds, but all he wants to do is stalk his kidney-stealing father. And hey, I guess it worked because in walks one Anthony Cooper. See, he used to think John's Single White Con Victim act was funny, but not so much anymore. John wants to simply know why Anthony did it. Mr. Cooper points out that not every action has a "why," and that John should simply get over it. That could have gone more smoothly for Locke.

It's six months for John and Helen, and she's got a gift for him: a key to her place. Apparently she just can't get enough of him walking out after sex. Oh wait, there's a catch: he has to stop leaving to go to his father's house. That Helen, she's a catch. (I'm really hoping we haven't see the last of her on the show, and I don't mean simply in flash backs.) She gives him an ultimatum: it's her or him. He puts the key in his pocket. She's happy, which on Lost means she won't stay that way long.

And sure enough, next chance he gets, Locke sneaks off to Daddy's place. And sure enough, Helen chases him, because while Helen's momma raised a romantic, she didn't raise no dummy. The scene takes a twist, however, when Helen doesn't dump him on the spot so much as offer him yet another chance at redemption. "It's a leap of faith, John," she says, "You don't have to be alone."

16) The Mythology

Well, obviously the film itself marked a huge download of mythology information, and it's information that we're still processing to this very day. One thing we now know, which we didn't until just a few weeks ago, is that at least some of the Orientation videos were produced on the Island itself. We know this because in the Comic Con 2008 video, we see Marvin Candle (or, as we know him to be now, Pierre Chang) in New Otherton with two working hands. Thus, the Swan film seen in this episode was a Version 2.0 or sorts, which places the time of the Incident between 1978 (when the pinhole was opened to Comic Con) and 1980 (the copyright on the film). Which, again, as I've said before, proves without a shadow of a doubt that Billy Corgan is behind the incident. Shake down, 1979. Cool kids never had the time.

23) The Moment

Locke's reaction to the film is priceless.

42) In Retrospect

1. Given the events in "The Other 48 Days," the story of Walt's kidnapping should have affected Ana Lucia more. The kidnapping of the children under her care went a long way is hardening her character for Island survival, and thus Michael's inquiry about Walt should have either 1) led her to beat the crap out of him, or 2) instantly empathize with their plight. Yes, this is nitpicking, but Jesum Crow do I not like Ana Lucia so it's easy to nitpick.
2. Why the hell is Desmond running? Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Maybe he figured that the Swan would implode much like it did at the end of this season, but if the world's going to literally end, how could he run off of it? Moreover, given his eventual heroism across the board, this scaredy cat routine seems out of character. Yes, Widmore insists he's a cowardly man, and Des needs to have an arc to build towards in the season finale, but I like my Des strong and romantic, not weak and self-absorbed.
3. Locke's insistence that he "can't do it alone" in the Hatch is yet another clear signal from the writers of the show that only through combined effort can Jack and Locke actually save the Island itself. Sadly, the claustrophobic nature of the hatch did nothing except drive them further apart. Course, a future tenant of the hatch didn't help, either.
4. Can't help but wonder: why would Radzinsky want those watching the video to communicate via computer? After all, he spliced out the parts pertaining to forbidden uses for the computer and placed them in The Arrow for a reason.

108) In Summary

I couldn't wait to rewatch this episode. It's probably a Top Ten all time, not only in terms of mythological richness but the compression of time inherent to the episode. It's once instance in which the ridiculously compressed timeline of Season 2 works in its favor, as the countdown provides a natural source of tension for the episode.

The orientation film itself opened up the show in ways that weren't matched until the finale of Season 3. The idea of this other world literally below the one we saw in Season 1 gave the story an expansive feel, one that indicated we'd barely seen the landscape we thought we knew so well going into Season 2. It wasn't until "Through the Looking Glass" that we had a similar feeling that there was so much more story to tell.

All in all, a stellar episode, and one worth watching even with Terry O'Quinn's awful toupee in the flashbacks. Next up: apparently, people aren't terribly fond of Hurley.

Leave your thoughts about this episode below!

Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude, then peruses Zap2It's Guide to Lost Facebook group.