Category Archives: Daddy issues

It wasn’t Daddy issues. It was MOMMY issues!

Posted on May 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

Wow.

That’s all I have to say.

Oedipus LOST — a theory about Jacob

Posted on January 31, 2010 | 5 comments

Oedipus Rex

Getting in one last theory right under the wire before the new season begins …

We know that Jacob brought the LOSTies to the Island, and before that, he brought the Black Rock ship, and before that, he brought other people — the ones who came, fought, destroyed, and corrupted, in the words of the Man in Black.

The big question, of course, is why is Jacob bringing all these people to the Island?

One thing we know about the LOSTies is that, as a group, they have an extraordinary number of Daddy issues.

What if that were actually the reason that Jacob chose them?

And if that were the case, then why?

Suppose that Jacob himself has Daddy issues. Suppose, also, that Jacob is on the Island not because he wants to be, but because he has to be. There’s a hint of that, I think, in Jacob’s oddly impassive reaction to the Man in Black when the MiB said he wanted to kill him.

Combine the two ideas: Jacob having his own Daddy issues, and Jacob being stuck on the Island for centuries against his will. That suggests some sort of crime and punishment, with the Island being a place of exile, a prison. Because of the Island’s strange time-warping properties, Jacob’s sentence spans far more than a normal single lifetime.

Such a long sentence implies there must have been a horrible crime. And the worst crime that exists that involves Daddy issues would be patricide. Maybe, like Oedipus Rex, Jacob — way back in his original life, eons ago — had killed his father.

And now he is stuck, seemingly forever, on an Island prison. Maybe there is only one way for him to end his sentence — by restoring some balance to the world by doing something that would counteract his terrible crime. Only in that way could he atone and be forgiven.

Maybe Jacob’s task is to heal people who have been harmed by terrible rifts with their fathers. More precisely, maybe he is trying to show them how to heal themselves. Success in this task would be the only thing that could release him from his centuries-long sentence.

Perhaps he has tried, and failed, with all the previous groups he brought to the Island — which is what was frustrating the Man in Black. But the current LOSTies do seem to be responding to Jacob’s guidance, and many of then have, while on the Island, come to terms with their Daddy issues and grown beyond them.

Two possible holes in the theory: (1) If the Island is a prison, how did Jacob get off so many times? and (2) What is the role of the Man in Black?

Perhaps Jacob was able to leave only when certain conditions were right, and only for the purpose of choosing people to bring back. As for the second question, maybe the MiB was a participant in, or at least an accessory to Jacob’s crime. Since the MiB does not believe that Jacob will ever be successful in his task, maybe the MiB sees killing Jacob as the only way to bring his own long exile to a close.

And perhaps Jacob could not succeed in his task of guiding enough people beyond the Daddy issues which had warped their lives. At the end of “The Incident,” when Jacob told Ben that he had a choice — he could choose to listen to notLocke, or he could choose to walk away –Ben was so caught up in his Daddy issues, projecting onto Jacob all the rejection he had felt from his own father, that he could not make the right choice. Ben, at that moment, could not get past his Daddy issues, and for Jacob, that meant both failure, in his task as a guide, and death.

Picture of Oedipus Rex from an 1896 production, via Wikipedia

(edited 1/31/10)

5 Comments

Posted in 5x16-17 The Incident, Ben (Michael Emerson), Daddy issues, Jacob (Mark Pellegrino), Man in Black (Titus Welliver), Oedipus Lost

Mini recap of 5×15 ‘Follow the Leader’

Posted on May 6, 2009 | 1 comment

Miles and Jin watching the people get on the submarine

Although the episode title refers to a “leader” in the singular, there are actually two leaders in this episode who set out on parallel treks in different times — Jack in 1977 and Locke in 2007. Each is convinced that he is finally acting out his destiny. And each has Richard Alpert tagging along, as fresh and dewy-looking as ever.

Jack wants to carry out Faraday’s plan to explode the bomb, in order to put things back the way they were. Kate’s not interested. If everything is undone, she will just become a fugitive again, and will never have met Jack. Besides, she thinks, not unreasonably, that it’s irresponsible to go around detonating hydrogen bombs.

Ellie, though, is glad to show Jack where the bomb is. She knows she has just shot her future son and of course would want to see that undone. Not to mention that the bomb is right under the village of her enemies, the Dharma Initiative.

Sayid pops up (I had forgotten about him!) and rescues Kate from being shot by a Hostile. Kate takes the opportunity to head back to Dharmaville, where she is captured and put on the submarine in the impromptu prisoner’s quarters already occupied by Sawyer and Juliet. They were gazing into each other’s eyes and reveling in their sweet Suliet-ness until being rudely interrupted by Kate’s arrival.

Jack, Sayid, and Ellie, accompanied, for some reason, by Alpert, enter some very cool-looking underground tunnels and find the bomb, which apparently was not encased in concrete after all.

Meanwhile, Hurley, Miles, and Jin are in the hills above Dharmaville. Poor guys! Sawyer, who was supposed to lead them to the beach, is on the sub, apparently not caring that he was leaving them behind.

Miles, though, learns something important about his past. He watches his father, Dr. Chang, yelling at his mother, who has baby Miles in her arms, telling her she has to leave. Grown-up Miles understands that his father is yelling not because he is cruel, nor because he wants to get rid of his wife and infant son, but because he knows that yelling is the only way he will get his wife to leave — and save herself and baby Miles. And so the Island, once again, seems to have healed one of its character’s painful lifelong Daddy issues!

Thirty years later, in the Hostile’s camp, John Locke is glowing with alpha male energy. Alpert (who John aptly describes as a kind of adviser who has had that job “for a very, very long time”) and Ben appear submissive, but seem to harbor mutiny in their hearts, as they follow John on a trek to find Jacob, who no one has ever seen before.

Alpert had told Sun that he had seen all the 1977 Losties die. Locke told her that Jacob can bring them back. But Locke told Ben that he really wanted to find Jacob in order to kill him.

There’s a mind-bending scene where Locke tells Alpert that his time-tripping self is going to appear in the jungle with a bullet in his leg (just as we saw him earlier this season). Locke tells Alpert to tell the other Locke that he has to bring everyone back to the Island, and that in order to do that he will have to die.

So Locke’s instructions came from …. future Locke. So it’s all a big circle? Excuse me while my head explodes.

Screencap from Lost-Media, (c) ABC

1 Comment

Posted in 5x15 Follow the Leader, Ben (Michael Emerson), Daddy issues, Destiny versus Free Will, Dr. Chang (Francois Chau), Ellie in 1977 (Alice Evans), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Jack (Matthew Fox), Jack versus Locke, Jacob (Mark Pellegrino), Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Miles (Ken Leung), Recaps and reviews, Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Suliet (Sawyer and Juliet), Time travel, Widmore in 1977 (David S. Lee)

“Almost-live” blogging 5×13 Some Like it Hoth

Posted on April 15, 2009 | 4 comments

Planet Hoth from Star Wars

Writing my first impressions during the show’s commercials …

9:07 Starts with a powerful scene showing Miles, as a boy, already having the ability to communicate with the dead. Back in Dharma time, Horace sends Miles on an errand, welcoming him to “The Circle of Trust.” Miles picks up a dead body (Hostile?) from Radzinsky, then opens the body bag and asks the corpse, “So … what really happened?”

I’m liking this episode very much so far.

9:15 Multiply-pierced Miles, in flashback, visiting his dying mother. He wants to know why he is the way he is, and he wants to know about his father. His mother says that his father is dead, that he left them, and that he never cared about Miles. (Daddy issues!!) Miles wants to know where the body is. His mother says that it’s somewhere he could never go. (Like on a remote Island, perhaps?)

Miles has to take the body to the Orchid. Hurley comes along, with a funny line about how global warming hasn’t happened yet. Meanwhile, Roger, Ben’s dad, freaks out when he finds Ben is missing. He storms off. Juliet to Kate: “Well. Here we go.”

I am still really liking this episode!

9:28 Hurley finds the body. Says to Miles: “You can talk to dead people!” Says his secret his safe, cause he talks to dead people too.

Flashback: Miles conducts seances for hire. Tells a Dad that his son always knew he loved him. Is this a real message, or is he making it up for the money?

Naomi!!

Back in Dharma: Roger, drinking. Kate tries to comfort him. Roger senses that she knows what happened.

Hurley and Miles have a wonderful dialogue. Hurley tells how he talks to dead people. Miles says “That’s not how it works!” Hilarious. They are arguing about how communicating with the dead really works! Hurley: “You’re just jealous because my power is better than yours.” So funny!

Hurley says that Dr. Chang is a douche. Miles: “That douche is my Dad.”

Wow.

I am loving this episode!

9:40 Flashback to Miles and Naomi. Miles “reads” body, gets offered job for 1.6 million dollars. (This number came up in an earlier season. (Editing to add: Actually it was the 3.2 million dollars that came up before.)

Jack and Roger have an encounter. Then back to Hurley, Miles, and now also Chang in the WV. Chang’s 3-month old baby (the one we saw in the opening scene of the first episode of this season) is named Miles!! Wow.

Secret construction site — cool! They’re building the hatch! With the numbers on the cover!

I am totally loving this episode!

9:51 Flashback. Miles kidnapped by guys in a van. They say they want to talk him out of working for Widmore. One asks, “Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue?” Ooooh!

Who are these guys? They tell Miles that they can tell him about his powers and about his Dad — the things he had asked his mother about on her deathbed — but Miles says he no longer cares, he only cares about money. They toss him out, tell him he’s “playing for the wrong team.”

Back in the van in Dharmaville, Miles grabs Hurley’s notebook. He’s writing the sequel to Star Wars — ha ha! — which hasn’t come out yet, and which he hopes to sell to Lucas! (There’s the tie-in with the title.)

Underling Phil tells Sawyer he knows Sawyer took Little Ben. Sawyer punches him, tells Juliet to get the rope.

I’m still totally loving this episode!

10:01 Miles goes back to see his client, says he wants to give him his money back. So he was faking after all! I’m thinking it is his conscience prompting him to return the money because he didn’t do the job he was hired for but, instead, Miles says “If you needed your son to know you loved him, you should have told him when he was alive.”

More Daddy issues!

Back in Dharmaville, Hurley talks about how he gave his Dad a second chance. Then he makes an elaborate Star Wars analogy, which goes way over my head, as I’m not a big Star Wars geek, but the gist of it is that he is trying to tell Miles that he should talk to his Dad.

Big Miles watches his Dad and Baby Miles!

Then Chang and Big Miles go out to meet the sub. And Faraday gets out!! And says, “Long time no see.”

Love, love, love this episode. It has so many of my favorite things — flashbacks, humor, Hurley and Miles riffing off each other, Daddy issues, and even the Hatch and the numbers!

Screenshot from The Empire Strikes Back (c) Lucasfilm, via Wikipedia