And The Cat's in the Cradle

Some like Some Like it Hoth. And I am one of those. In an hour of father-son dynamics examined against the backdrop of freaky sci-fi elements, it was only right that LOST tip its hat to the episode’s obvious inspiration: Star Wars. Let’s take a look.

Portrait of the Ghost Whisperer as a Young Man
Miles didn’t learn to be special, he was born special. He first learned this on an innocent trip to his apartment complex’s vending machines, where the dying thoughts of a neighbor crept into young Miles’ conscience, terrifying him, his mother and the apartment superintendent all at once. If older Miles is arrogant about his abilities, his younger self was terrified of them. Really cool scene.

In The Circle, The Circle of Trust
Back in 1977, Miles is asked to erase the evidence of Kate and Sawyer’s meddling in the life (and near-death) of young Benjamin Linus. Miles obeys, while Sawyer impresses my girlfriend with his Head of Security badge. Who the hell does he think he is?

Miles’ mission is interrupted by Horace, who tasks the intermediary with a DHL (Delivery of Human Lifeforms) job. Horace unceremoniously inducts Miles into the “circle of trust,” empowering Miles and distracting him from asking troublesome questions like, “Why am I holding a body bag?” and “Why are you making me drive the Dharma van into Hostile territory?”

Those answers came quickly, though. Radzinsky’s men load a dead body into the bag and stuff it in the Dharma van. The only non-mysterious element of this corpse: it’s clearly an Other, and it certainly didn’t die by falling into a ditch, as Radzinsky attempted to posit. Miles is sent back to Camp Dharma, but he doesn’t leave before using his powers to ask the body, “What really happened?” Cue LOST logo and me wetting myself.

Papa Was a Rolling Stone
Looking like an extra from The Fast and the Furious, teenage Miles goes to visit his dying mother, whose cryptic and unsatisfying answers do little to quell her son’s suspicions about his father and his abilities. She tells Miles that his father is dead, has been for a long time and that his body is “somewhere you can never go.” At this point, I thought, “Ahh, Miles went to the Island to communicate with his dead father.” As it would later turn out, I was dead wrong (pun most definitely intended).

Like a pinball bouncing erratically between Island superpowers, Miles is redirected by Horace to take the body to Mr. Chang at the Orchid. Miles’ face speaks volumes here, as he weighs his duty to the Dharma Initiative, his desire to fly under Horace’s radar and his natural aversion to encountering Mr. Chang (who we first assumed, and later learned, is Miles’ deadbeat dad). Ultimately, he bites the bullet and heads back to the van. And as the fates of comedy would have it, Hurley needs to go the Orchid, too. And off goes the most hilarious LOST couple since Nikki and Paulo.


Give Me Back My Son!
Meanwhile, the whereabouts of an ailing young Ben Linus are beginning to stir up trouble. Kate debriefs Juliet on young Ben’s condition, conveniently leaving out the whole, “We left him in the care of the eyeliner-laden Other who promised to erase his memory and rob his innocence before carrying him into a temple,” part ("Or, N.A.M.B.L.A."). But there wasn’t time for explanation, as a hysterical Roger Linus entered the infirmary and grew irate at his son’s “disappearance.” “Well,” said Juliet in her masterfully calm, cool tone, “here we go.”

Later, as Roger Linus swings drunkenly on the Dharma playground, he grows suspicious of Kate's seemingly disingenuous, a-little-too-concerned motherly worries. And Kate’s unyielding quest to make just one parent feel good about their child hits yet another snag.

“What About You, Sideburns? You Want Some of this Milk?”
In keeping with his janitorial duties, Jack takes over Roger Linus’ cleaning rounds. First stop: the school, where a cursory overview of – get this – Egyptian history is scribbled on the blackboard. The blackboard makes mention of “Tripling ideograms,” “determinatives” and various stages of Egyptian history. I wonder why they want the kids to know these things. Oh. Right. Because the Island is the sole remnant of the historic Egyptian civilizations. That’s right. Eventually, Ben covers for Kate, deeming her a good person in order to settle Roger down.

Interesting turn of events here. Remember the first couple seasons, when our new arrival castaways couldn’t comprehend the actions of the Island inhabitants? The Others consistently vouched for certain people, referring to themselves as “the good guys” and the castaways they abducted as “good people.” Well now, here’s Jack, sitting squarely on the other side of the equation. Whether he believes it or not, he’s singing Kate’s praises in order to serve the greater good: protecting his ass, and that of his friends. He even empathizes with Roger by justifying his drinking, a very Otherly tactic. Is this a commentary on the early-season Others, implying that their savage means justified their well-informed ends? Or is Jack’s protection of Kate a mere bastardization of the Island’s “good and evil,” principles, employed by Jack to keep himself out of trouble? I report. You decide.

And That is Why You Brush Your Teeth. Because Fillings Will Murder You.
En route to the Orchid station, Miles’ conscience gives way to the unexpectedly heavy day placed upon him, and he comes clean to Hurley about the corpse in the back. “His name’s Alvarez, he was digging a hole…he felt this sharp pain in his mouth, which turned out to be a filling from his tooth being yanked right out of its socket and blowing through his brain.” Whoa. “How does a filling get blown through someone’s head?” asks Hurley. Good question. I bet you a case of Apollo Bars it has something to do with the Island’s electromagnetic properties, and I bet you two cases that that’s why Pierre Chang wants the body. I think that Alvarez stumbled upon the eventual site of the Swan Station, or whatever it is around the Swan Station that eventually necessitates the whole button-pushing madness.

After debating whose ghostly communicative abilities were superior, Hurley delivered the line of the night: “You’re just jealous that my power’s better than yours.” Awww, snap.

Side question: there’s exotic matter beneath the Orchid Station. There’s some electromagnetic something beneath (or around) the Swan Station. And somewhere, Jughead is buried. How does it all match up?

I’ll Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes
Back in 2005, Miles eases a grieving father’s guilt before being encountered by Naomi (damn!), whose employer might be interested in hiring him. They venture to a restaurant, but not to eat (hopefully). It’s a job interview, as Miles is asked to assess the thoughts and circumstances surrounding the death of a man named Felix. Little did Miles know, this job interview was his first step into the harrowing rabbit hole of the Linus/Widmore War for the Island.

Miles discovers that Felix was delivering photos of empty graves and a purchase order for a plane to a “Mr. Widmore.” This essentially confirms that Widmore staged what the rest of the world believed to be the crash of Oceanic 815. Naomi fills Miles in on the mission of finding Ben Linus, and offers him a spot on the team. Miles initially opts to take the equivalent of the blue pill from the Matrix, choosing to let this hot, accented woman keep her crazy goose chases to herself. But when she sweetens the pot with a $1.6 million offer, Miles promptly swallows the red pill and descends into the rabbit hole (sans Laurence Fishburne).

Well Don’t Look at Me Like I’m Frikkin’ Frankenstein, Give Your Father a Hug
Did they just use the word “douche” on LOST? Classy.

The interplay between Dr. Chang, Hurley and Miles was solid. Hurley somewhat insensitively poked and prodded at the father-and-son combo. And when he stepped over the line, Dr. Chang threatened him with Polar Bear Pooper Scooper duty, serving what he called, “their ridiculous experiments” on Hydra Island. Again, we see Pierre’s contempt for any non-Orchid-related Dharma activity. Clearly, this man has a singular focus, and all the Polar Bears and paperwork that clog up the process are serious annoyances to him. As I’ll argue in a bit, Chang’s perception of the seriousness of his work will have its consequences.

First Leaf-Covered Secret Door on the Left
As the Dharma van rambles on, Hurley pries, asking Chang about his work and his family, all-the-while blatantly alluding to the fact that his son has time traveled back to 1977 and is sitting next to him right then. But Hurley’s shenanigans are interrupted by Pierre, who opens a secret passageway in the jungle (awesome, by the way, I want to see more of these) and leads the Dharma van into a massive hole in the ground. And as we learned with the engraving of some very special numbers on a very special door, that was no ordinary hole in the ground. It was the early stages of the Swan Station. “They’re building our hatch,” said Hurley, “…the one that crashed our plane.”

Hurley’s face here was really interesting. He seemed to be contemplating whether or not he could prevent the last 5 catastrophic years of his life by somehow stopping this station from being built. But then, the lessons of Miles and Faraday kicked in, and Hurley realized the futility. Either way, we saw Hurley watch the construction of a structure that he knew would eventually change his life drastically. And that was cool.


You Owe Me a Fish Taco and One Hell of an Explanation
Scene of the night: Miles’ brief abduction at the hands of Bram and his henchmen. Remember, Bram is the Ajira 316 passenger who partnered with Ilana during the coup d’ etat. Turns out, that coup was no coincidence. Bram’s in on the game. And we can now assume that Ilana is, too.

Bram accosts Miles, warning him that working for Widmore means working for the enemy. “Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue,” asks Graham, issuing the litmus test that he and Ilana would eventually try on Frank and the other Ajira 316 castaways. Bram interprets Miles perplexed non-answer as a sign that he’s not ready. And then, Bram goes all Ben Linus on Miles’ ass. He promises him answers about who he is, who his father was and why he can do what he does. He dangles the carrot of understanding – Ben Linus’ greatest weapon – right in front of Miles’ nose. Miles doesn’t chase, and when Bram can’t double Widmore’s $1.6 million offer, the conversation is over.

“All the money in the world isn’t gonna fill that empty hole inside you, Miles,” warns Bram. God. This whole exchange just smacked of every manipulative Ben Linus conversation we’ve ever seen. Which leads me to the conclusion that Bram and his associates are working for one Benjamin Linus. We’ve already seen what Ben can do off the Island, and that he’s not without resources (guns, vans) and confidants (the butcher lady and possibly Hawking). I believe that he (and the Others) have this network in place (and that people like Australian psychic Richard Malkin are part of it). I also think this means Ben knew Ilana before Ajira 316, and that she is not working for the family of a man that Sayid killed. My take: she, Bram and a few others are Island exiles who are on a mission for redemption. Regardless, the Ajira 316 takeover storyline just got a ton more interesting.


Just Tie the Rope, And Kick the Chair
You know who sucks at erasing security tapes? Miles. You know who’s annoyingly good at finding them? Phil. And you know who’s got a hell of a cover-up job in front of him? Jim LaFleur. “Get some rope,” he quips to Juliet after knocking out the gnat-like Other who knows too much. I can’t help but think we’re seeing the beginning of the end for Sawyer and Juliet’s Dharma Utopia. The house of cards is about to come crumbling down.

Dreams From My Father
Miles quickly revisits the dead boy’s father he spoke to earlier before boarding the Kahana, admitting that he lied about communicating with the boy. He then admonishes the father: “If you needed your son to know that you loved him, you should’ve told him while he was still alive.” Here, Miles is still carrying some daddy angst. And so this scene perfectly set up the gorgeous ending of Some Like it Hoth.

Throughout the episode – and upon he and Miles’ return to camp – Hurley fails in his attempts to get Miles to cut his dad some slack. Miles wants nothing to do with Dr. Chang. That is, until, Hurley’s heartfelt account of forgiving his father seems to hit home with Miles.

And as Hurley leaves Miles, the typically sarcastic, detached ghost whisperer peers into the window of his childhood home and catches a rare glimpse of a kinder version of his father. Dr. Chang is holding his son and reading to him, until duty calls and Chang is called out to work yet again.

It then dons on Miles. The mistakes that parents make are not so black and white. After a long day of watching his father wrestle with the enormity of the Island’s power, then come home to try and be a father to a son who he knows will grow up in a hellish alternate reality, Miles finally acquires some sympathy and understanding. His father didn’t kick he and his mother off the Island because he didn’t love them. Quite the opposite. His father didn’t want this precocious little boy to grow up in a land where electromagnetic forces randomly murdered people walking in the jungle. Where a smoke monster lurked in judgment of every soul on the Island. Where a man being a mere man – or a Workman – is simply not enough, in a place that demands so much from its inhabitants. Pierre Chang didn’t banish his family from the Island. He spared them from it. And from his workaholic self.

Just as this realization washes over Miles, his father emerges from the house to ask for a ride to the docks. It's another summons to another obligation that robs Pierre of yet another night with his family. But this time, Miles doesn’t run from his father. With his newfound understanding in mind, he accompanies his dad to the Dharma van. It’s time to be a man.

After casting off decades of resentment to help out his father, Miles arrives to the docks to see none other than Daniel Effing Faraday emerge out of the sub. To me, it seemed like the Island rewarded Miles’ trust and understanding by reuniting him with Faraday. His old friend. And the man who may very well be the key to solving the remainder of this whole sordid mystery.

Namaste.
Charlie