Episode 4x10 -- Go Back, Jack, and Do it Again

Go Back, Jack, and Do it Again


INTRO: TIME OUT OF MIND

`Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!'

-- Alice, from “Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland”









Every episode this season so far has contained a flash-forward glimpse into the lives of the Oceanic 6 once they leave the Island. In addition, it appears that each one has been bringing us forward in time towards that airport scene from the season 3 finale “Through the Looking Glass” where Jack desperately screams to Kate, “We have to go back!”

“Something Nice Back Home” returns to Jack’s future at a point in time after Kate’s trial, yet before his ultimate breakdown and suicide attempt. Specifically, we get to witness the catalyst that actually triggers his dark spiral downwards.


CHARLIE FREAK

That catalyst that starts Jack’s decent into the mouth of madness would be Hurley, or actually, Dead but Here Charlie via Hurley. The greatly missed one-hit-wonder has been visiting our friend Hugo quite often, but when Jack visits him in this episode he is no longer the watercolor-painting, taco-loving, hoop-shooting patient we are familiar with. Hurley’s mind is no longer where it was, and he sits alone in his room just staring with his eyes glazed over. In fact he’s downright creepy, as if at any moment I expect him to pull out a static-filled TV set and proclaim, “They’re heeeeeeeere”.

We know that Hurley had previously spent time in a mental hospital for his propensity towards visions and hallucinations. But his new imaginary friend is not so imaginary. The Island appears to somehow have continued influence over his mind, and it has grown stronger. Hurley now exists on the flip-side, and can no longer seem to distinguish what is real or what is unreal, or who is alive and who is dead.

When Hurley then departs a message to Jack from Charlie, we all know he no longer just dismisses this as lack of medication. If a dead guy from a past I was trying to desperately put behind me told me that I was not supposed to be raising my “adopted” child, I would be freaked out a tad. Once Hurley adds that Charlie mentioned Jack would also be getting a visit, the doctor becomes even more spooked. Jack pretends he isn’t buying into it, and before getting the heck out of there, orders Hurley to take his meds again.

Jack certainly does not want to believe that what Hurley said is true - that they were not supposed to leave the Island. But we then see him begin to realize that he has no choice but to believe, as later he stalks the bench that Charlie frequents outside the mental hospital.

And that right there, my friends, is the beginning of the end.


RAZOR BOY

By now I think it is safe to say that Jack is an extremely controlling personality type. Who else would be so adamant about watching and directing his own appendectomy? Jack is also a very “surface” sort of guy, not really the kind to let himself go, and not one to accept what cannot be quantified. He even seems terrified to go unconscious during his operation, and begs repeatedly to be allowed to remain awake.

One could say that it has to do with his scientific background, but it also seems to have to do with his father, Christian. The flashback of Jack’s childhood from season one’s “White Rabbit” introduced us to his want to take control and help people at a very early age. However, when he failed to do so and became hurt in the process, Christian tried to warn his boy of the consequences when making such decisions, telling him, “You don't want to be a hero; you don't try and save everyone because when you fail… you just don't have what it takes.”

That moment has stayed with Jack throughout his life. He has allowed it to even define him to a degree, as ever since he has been in a constant struggle to prove his father wrong. Jack’s obsessive need to try and save people has played out on and off the Island over and over again. He has not always made the best decisions, and whenever he has failed, it has disturbed him deeply, basically proving his father to have been right all along.

I might have to agree with Rose that there is something odd about the fact that Jack would suddenly become so ill. I think Jack still has work to do. He has failed to take the opportunity to redeem himself by giving up this need to control everything and fix everyone. The Island allowed him to worsen instead of healing him because he has not learned the lesson it has been trying to teach him.

The lesson, I believe, is exactly parallel to the “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” references that surround him. The reason for Jack’s constant repetition of his own destructive cycle is his reluctance to follow the white rabbit, which represents the thing that has been holding him back (his relationship with his father), down the rabbit hole, or into his unconscious self where who he really is can be fully reconciled. The journey is not always pleasant, as Alice is met with all types of strange creatures (un-assimilated parts of herself) during this time spent within her psyche, and she encounters many confusing, cyclical situations that center on her identity.

I love the mirroring in this episode, which I will discuss more in a bit. Notice that the moment Jack is sent to dreamtime on the beach coincides with the flash-forward of when he encounters his father at the hospital. This is the first time that we have seen “dead” Christian also speak to Jack. Suddenly it does not seem so odd that the future crazed and depressed Jack would go around acting as if his dad were still alive, as it seems he had indeed been seeing him around.

The sight of his dead father also makes Jack shrink just like Alice. And just like her, he needs a drink to feel big again. The Island has now reached Jack, and he too witnesses the line blur between what is real and unreal. Jack joins Hurley in this waking dream, and thinks he can combat its effects by washing down anti-anxiety medication with alcohol, but we all know better.

It is noteworthy to bring attention to the SMOKE alarm, which Jack attended to the moment his father appeared. Is this yet another clue as to the origin of the dead we have seen traipse around on and off the Island? Another item to mention is when Dr. Stevenson said to Jack, “Thank you for keeping us safe”, when he removed the batteries. Not only is this a little tip to his personality complex, but somewhat ironic since removing the batteries totally disables the alarm which normally would save them.


HOME AT LAST

It is definitely time to wonder why everyone else is going bananas for the Island except Kate. The resident marathon woman is the only one of the Oceanic 6 who does not seem to be affected by the Island’s pull, and ultimately seems to be quite well-adjusted to her new life being a mommy. Do we add a “yet” to this summation? Is there something about Aaron that has helped to stabilize this woman who from what we have seen has not been able to stay in one place for long at all? With so many hints to there being some greater importance to Aaron, I wonder if the Island is not protecting him in some way by protecting Kate, his mainland mother.

I actually feel sympathetic towards future-Kate. She finally gets her man, and then finds out he is still plagued by the same issues that destroyed his first marriage. Control freaks do not have it in them to trust very easily. But then again, Kate is not the easiest person to invest that kind of blind faith in. Perhaps this is a bit of Karma coming back around on her, as she has not been the model girlfriend or wife in her past, either. At any rate we learn Jack seems to feel some kind of “entitlement” to Kate because according to him, he saved her. Once again there is irony here, as all this time Kate has been running, it appears she may have ran right into a cage by marrying future-Jack.

We all know Kate doesn’t do well with cages.


MY RIVAL

I have always held a love-hate fascination with Juliette, as her character is constantly riding the boundary between being trustworthy and having some secondary agenda. Remember just a few episodes ago she was still willing to take Ben’s orders and even kill for him. I became quite nervous as she assumed the role of chief surgeon for Jack. In fact, my initial thought was that the Others had placed into Jack the same type of device they placed into Claire in order to make her ill on cue.

When Jacked asked for Kate to be present, I started to feel a more optimistic, as Kate would more than likely have no problem calling Juliette out if she thought there was something fishy going on. Juliette goes to ask Kate to help out during the procedure, except she makes it sound as if it was her own idea and does not at all mention to Kate that Jack had specifically requested her and ONLY her. Why does Juliette have to be so damn conniving?

But then, Juliette returns to her flip-side. What seemed like yet another catty move on her part turns into a “passing of the torch” move. Juliette knew she could not be the other woman and stand in the way of these two people who obviously love each other deeply. She redeems herself to audiences and to Kate by stepping aside and outing Jack’s love for Kate. In this way Juliette was being honest with both of them as well as herself. My respect for her character went up several notches with this scene.


DON’T TAKE ME ALIVE

There is something unsettling about the explosion of Claire’s house from the last episode, and how she miraculously survived with just the smallest scratch. There are subtle hints, such as the way her feet stuck out from under the rubble just like the witch from the "Wizard of Oz". There are also some that are not as subtle. In the same episode when Claire is asked if she is OK and responds, “Yeah, a bit wobbly, but, uh, I'll live”, Miles immediately responds, “Well, I wouldn't be too sure about that.” Does he know something we don’t?

Miles continues to take an interest in Claire throughout this episode. He stares at her. He asks to carry the baby. He presses her for what she saw when she refers to “seeing things” after the explosion. Sawyer even takes notice of his strange attraction and calls him out on it.

We all know that Miles has a very special ability; he can hear and speak to the dead. It also appears that he can see the dead, or at least he saw Christian Sheppard before he and Claire went on their nature hike.

I am basically thinking, like some others already have mentioned, that Claire is no longer alive in the traditional sense of the term. She might just be Dead but Here just like Charlie. There is also the possibility that she survived that explosion because the Island is keeping her alive for some unknown reason as it did with Michael.

So why did she walk off into the jungle? It must have been important for her to just leave Aaron alone in the woods. When you add that she ran off with her dead dad, it is almost as if she had been taken. Is the Island telling her that she “has work to do”? Has Claire been summoned into action because of her relationship to Jack? Does the Island now look to the sister for help because the brother has failed to accomplish what the Island asked of him?


SYMBOL WATCH – DO IT AGAIN

This installment might just have more references to mirroring, duality, and wheels turning round and round than have ever been jammed packed into an episode yet. The entire time is spent showing us the other side of things or duplicating situations that have already played out before, but in slightly different ways. Here is just a sampling, as I am sure there are some I have missed:

* Jack is the one being operated on when it has usually been he who does the operating
* Kate plays nurse for Jack again
* Sun returns to the medical station again
* Claire disappears into the jungle again
* Jack is shown an x-ray of a tumor on the L4 vertebrae, same location where Ben’s tumor was
* Kate holds a mirror during his surgery
* Jack stands in front of double mirrors.

* Hurley and Jack take the same medication, Clonazepam
* Juliette makes a list
* Jin is on the opposite side of translation deception, as he recognizes that Charlotte can understand Korean
* The beeping alarm is reminiscent of the Swan Hatch timer beeping
* The decorations on Kate’s fridge are the same ones on the wall at Hurley’s mental hospital
* Sawyer mirrors Jack as leader
* Sawyer is asked if he is Claire’s big brother, which mirrors Jack as her step-brother

* Aaron carries a stuffed black and white whale


DADDY DON’T LIVE IN THAT NEW YORK CITY NO MORE

“You’re not supposed to raise him, Jack”, was dead Charlie’s message. Many may see this as directly echoing the season one episode “Raised by Another” where Claire is told by the psychic Richard Malkin that danger surrounded her child she herself must raise him alone. From that point there has been this intrigue surrounding Aaron and the general idea that he is of some importance to the Island, or important to the greater scheme of things.

In this our second glimpse of him off the Island and a couple of years older, there are more subtle hints surrounding him. Above his head in the bed is a mobile made of planets and stars, 6 of each, connected to a Bagua-shaped base, the same Buddhist symbol that the Dharma logo originates from. During the same scene we hear Jack reading the passage from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. I have often thought that something much larger than just this “earthly reality” is coming into play here in this show, but now I see it somehow involving this child as well.

The Others were sure interested in children, but we have yet to learn the exact reason why. Were they perhaps looking for someone…special? Could they have been searching for certain qualities that will later be revealed to be embodied by Aaron?

In addition, if the psychic was indeed imparting the truth to Claire, why is it so important that Aaron not be raised by anyone but her? Does it really have to do with Claire, or more to do with the Island? Part of me wonders if the psychic was responding to her desire to give the baby up for adoption at the time, and that what is more important is that he is raised on the Island. Now that he is on the mainland, will he somehow be susceptible to being manipulated towards some purpose that could lead to something detrimental to our characters, or even the entire world? We are only starting to get glimpses into how Aaron fits into the puzzle.

The final scene where we see the baby left in the forest was extremely unsettling. I honestly don’t believe Aaron was supposed to leave the Island at all, actually. It was almost as if he had been left there purposely for Sawyer to find, a replacement for the child he never got to even meet. Is it possible that Sawyer was supposed to raise Aaron instead?

CONCLUSION: PRETZEL LOGIC

Overall, for being an episode that focused mainly on Jack and some of the “smaller” questions, I found it to be very well done and still had its surprises. In the land of TV shows, when a season is nearing its end, there is always that episode that is about 2-3 away from the finale that almost seems out of place in its pacing. These installments are basically there to tie up loose ends and then set us up for all of the hell that’s about to break loose. This was an exceptional version of a set-up episode.

I for one am thoroughly enjoying where the story seems to be headed and am on the edge of my seat waiting to see the rest play out.


a.N


Special thanks to Nigel for inspiring this week's episode title with his LOST video "Do it Again"...



*I write about LOST because I love the challenge of deciphering the clues and adding the pieces together. My thoughts are based solely on the show, the LOST Experience, and random research, as I try to avoid spoilers, promos, and even future episode titles. I love to guess what is going on, but I also like to do so in a way that leaves some of the conclusions still up to you. I do not know the answers and am often wrong. Whatever the truth turns out to be, it has been the journey that has meant the most to me.*

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