Category Archives: Behind the scenes / elsewhere

Michael Emerson talks about the statue, Alpert, Egypt, John Locke, and more

Posted on March 18, 2009 | 2 comments

Here’s Michael Emerson (who plays Ben) in an interview last month with the Washington Post:

Liz: Will we find out what the deal is with the four-toed statue?

Michael: You are going to learn more about the world from which that statue came. I don’t think we’re going to see the statue again in context, but maybe. You’ll certainly know from whence it is a relic.

He also repeats the claim I’ve seen before (most notably in a Wikipedia article), that Richard Alpert is not wearing eyeliner:

Liz: Is Nestor Carbonell — who plays Richard Alpert — wearing eyeliner?

Michael: No. But he has a kind of genetic beauty that is a rare thing in men or women. No, that’s what he looks like when he wakes up in the morning. It’s hard not to study his face and admire it.

Ha! But Alpert has a dark line that goes straight across the bottom of his lower lid! Was he really born with that, or is everyone who makes that claim just pulling our leg?

Also from the interview:

Liz: Well you’ve probably just put to rest several theories about Alpert being a transplant from ancient Egypt.

Michael: Ah. Well, hold that thought about Egypt. That’s all I’ll say.

So whether or not Alpert is from ancient Egypt, the statue may very well be.

Emerson also says that he has “some crackerjack scenes — epic, vintage Ben and John Locke coming up — in ways you would never expect.” That’s great! The Ben-Locke pairing is one of my favorites.

There is lots more in the interview, including Emerson’s thoughts on whether Ben is purely evil, or if he’s a good person doing whatever it takes to reach his goal, and what kind of roles Emerson would like to play in the future.

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Posted in Alpert's eyeliner, Ben (Michael Emerson), Egyptian mythology and hieroglyphics, Four-toed statue, Interviews, Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell)

The giant four-toed statue

Posted on March 7, 2009 | Leave a comment

The four-toed statue as seen in 5x08 "LaFleur"

In the beginning of LaFleur, the Lost-ies were startled to see the back of this giant statue.

It is, of course, the famous four-toed statue that we first saw in the finale of Season 2.

From episode 2x23

This past December, producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, in one of the “Dharma Special Access” podcasts they made to keep us entertained during the long off-season, had promised that we would see the statue again in Season 5 — and so we have — and that we would see it even more extensively in Season 6.

So I guess we’re going to have to wait until next year for the mystery of the missing toe to be solved.

(The part about the statue starts at 3:40):

The statue reminds me of the poem Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away

I found a clearer picture of the statue, along with two pictures that compare it to possible inspirations: Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead, and Taweret, a goddess in the form of a hippopotamus who was a protector of women in pregnancy and childbirth (!). The resemblance of the Island’s statue to Taweret is striking. Both have similar toes and are wearing virtually identical headpieces. Take a look.

You KNOW, Jack. You know that you’re here for a reason.

Posted on March 3, 2009 | 11 comments

In this week’s official video podcast, Matthew Fox talks about the evolution of his character Jack.

The podcast starts with a clip from the Season 4 finale, where Jack and Locke, on top of the Orchid Station, are having another one of their arguments about destiny.

Locke tells Jack that he is not supposed to go home. Jack gets mad and yells, “What am I SUPPOSED to do?”

Then he says, “Oh, I think I remember. What was it you said on the way out to the hatch?”

He is referring to their argument in the Season 1 finale — the same argument that I wrote about in my previous post.

This is a great example of the crazy intricate way that LOST works. A conversation starts in Season 1, then picks up again, three years later, in Season 4, then is referenced on the internet in a podcast in the middle of Season 5.

I think this conversation is coming up in the podcast now because finally, after four-and-a-third seasons of Jack and Locke having the same conversation over and over, something is starting to shift.

In the Season 1 argument, Locke said that Jack may not believe the Island is his destiny, but he will believe it at a later time.

That later time appears to be now.

At the Orchid Station, Jack says to Locke that back at the hatch, Locke had told him that crashing on the Island was their destiny.

Locke says, “You KNOW, Jack. You know that you’re here for a reason. You know it.”

“And if you leave this place,” Locke continues, “that knowledge is going to eat you alive.”

Which is exactly what we saw happen in the flashforwards.

In the podcast, Matthew Fox talks about how Jack has always needed to be in control, but now he is starting to give that up.

I have mixed feelings about that in terms of the dramatic possibilities. I do like seeing Jack’s character develop and grow, but if Jack gives in completely to his sense of destiny, what will happen to the tension between Jack and Locke that has been such an important part of the show so far?