Some Like it Hoth

Greetings Losties. Hopefully this Wednesday entry will help you get through your Lost withdrawal this week, as there is no new Episode tonight.

 ”Some Like it Hoth” is our first Freighter-Folk centric flashback/storyline. At 3:16 in the afternoon, a woman specs out an apartment. The number on her check is dated 3/16/1985.  Miles Straume is a little boy and inexplicably drawn to apartment #4. Wikipedia tells me that “4 is considered a bad luck number in Japan, Korea and China, as it is a homonym for the word “death” in Japanese, Korean and Chinese.” Either by finding or being told where the key is (under a white rabbit with a big number 8 on it) Miles is able to discover poor, dead Mr. Vonner, and claims that he can still hear Mr. Vonner talking.

 Our introduction to little “I can talk to dead people” Miles is fast forwarded to his teenage years of angst. Heavily pierced and visibly angsty, teenage Miles visits his dying mother, the women whom moments ago was seen starting a new life for her and her son. Her only response to Miles persistent questions about his father is that the man kicked them out long ago, and his corpse is buried in a place he’ll never get to.

 Years later, Miles seems to have him self a successful “Talking to the Dead” business (aka scam) and uses it to dupe a grieving Howard Gray. It’s apparent through this exchange that contact with the body of the deceased is essential to Miles’ ability. This is proven when Naomi appears requesting Miles interact with the body of a dead man named Felix. What Miles has to say about Felix is also very interesting. Miles claims that Felix was, “attempting to deliver cemetery photos of empty graves and a purchase order for an old airplane to Charles Widmore…” Theorists suggest that  this is a hint at Widmore’s plant of the fake Oceanic Flight 815. Dug up graves to provide the bodies, an old plane. You do the manth.

 Miles immediately agrees to accompany Namoi on the Kahana for $1.6 Million, no questions asked. Yet his willingness to jump aboard doesn’t seem to sit well with Bram and his crew who shove him in a van and try to convince him not to go. I ask again in my best Jerry Seinfeld, “Who AAARRRE these people???” Bram asks Miles the ever mysterious question, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?”  DarkUFO thinks they’re actually from The Dhamra Initiatve: The more we hear about Ann Arbor, the more we should realize that important stuff happens off-island while Dharma is pouring cement and building cool lab crap everywhere. When the D.I. presence on the island disappears all at once (the Purge) we can’t assume these people just forgot all about the island. Even if they couldn’t find it, they were probably always working on a way back to it – just like Widmore. Seems maybe they found it with the Ajira flight, just as Widmore’s freighter did once before. And no, I don’t think they were still making ‘food drops” Either scared out of his wits or content with his $1.6 million, Miles returns a stack of hundreds to the grieving Mr. Gray and makes way for the Kahana.

 On island back in 1977, Sawyer and Kate return from dropping little Ben Linus with the Others and Sawyer orders Miles to dispose of the security tape. Not the tape happens to be labelled Tape #4. Not a good sign. Miles is distracted by Horace’s order to take a package to Radzinsky, and to keep the news of this delivery to himself. When Miles learns that the delivery is actually a body bag, and the bag is then filled with a dude named Alvarez, Miles can’t help himself. He finds out rom Alvarez that he died of a filling that ripped itself out of his mouth and through his brain. Doc Jensen has a note on Miles ability. He says, “Time-traveling Miles is currently parked in 1977 – the same year that the Senate conducted an investigation into a secret CIA project called MKULTRA, which conducted research into brainwashing, mind-control, and even psychic powers. Heavy drugs were involved. And allegedly kids were used as test subjects. Very Room 23, if you ask me.”

 Miles is then ordered to bring the body to The Orchid to Pierre Chang and Hurley hops on the Orchid delivery bandwagon with som sammiches. Being a man of his size, Hurley’s nose never fools him and soemthing smells foul. On interrogating Miles about the body in the van, Hurley admits that he too sees dead people, and Miles finally has a confidant in his secret. This back and forth and later discussions are another look into the hilarity of the Miles/Hurley relationship. Hurley desperately needed another funny companion to bounce back and forth with after Charlie died, and I think Miles is filling that void quite humorously. Note that the title Some Like it Hoth is not only a Star wars reference (which we’ll get to later) but a reference to the Tony Curtis, Jack Lemon buddy flick Some Like it Hot, where the witty bantor and intriguiing dialogue was a standout.

 I also enjoyed the little nod to the numbers with Hurley, white as a sheet, saying them before they’re typed into the Hatch door. His look of utter petrification gave me the spooks and gave me the hint that Hurley may have some ideas up his sleave. Doc agrees, saying, “To the point: For most of Lost’s quantum leaping fifth season, the show has meditated on the idea of changing the past for the sake of a better future. And for the past several episodes, we’ve gotten stories that have dealt with the notion that personal and collective histories can be boiled down to defining moments – Sayid shooting Ben; Kate and Sawyer bringing Ben to the Others; Ben defying Charles Widmore and swiping Baby Alex. These stories have invited both the characters and the audience to wonder: What might happen if those defining moments were tweaked, altered, or removed altogether? Lost has given us two possible answers. Option A: The question is irrelevant. History is fixed. ”Whatever happened, happened,” in the words of Daniel Faraday, back on the scene as of last night, now a member of Dharma’s ominously clad Black Swan inner circle. (”Long time no see,” he quipped in the closing moment of ‘Hoth’, speaking also to legions of Faradasiacs who’ve been missing him since ”LaFleur.”) Option B: History is being altered. The castaways’ presence in the Dharma past is creating new history that is displacing and replacing old history. A few episodes ago, Hurley firmly adopted the latter position, and last night, we may have seen that perspective inspire a big, bold idea. No, not rewriting The Empire Strikes Back. I’m talking about the idea that I saw flickering behind his eyes as he beheld the Dharma drones building the Swan for the Dharma Alphas. ”They’re building our hatch – the one that crashed our plane,” he said to Miles, Translation: If only someone would stop those Dharma dudes from finishing that thing, we’d create a time paradox that will change everything. Yeah! It’s like ‘Star Wars’! The Hatch is our Death Star, and if we castaway rebels can just find a way to fire two photon torpedoes into its ventilation shaft – figuratively speaking – we’ll be liberated from the tyranny of the Island, and me and my friends (who won’t be friends anymore because in the subsequent time reboot I probably won’t know them) will live happily ever after….” Did you also notice in Roger and Jack’s little meeting that Jack was very slowly erasing a history lesson on Egyptian mythology? Kind as if they are all slowly erasing history?

 Another secret is revealed when Miles claims Pierre Chang as his father. Though we kind of alerady assumed this from the beginning of the season, it’s a nice confirmation. How weird it must be to be a part of the Dharma Initiative with one’s younger mom and estranged dad. The van ride back to Radzinsky proveds some further hilarious bantor for Hurley and Miles, with the oblivious Dr. Chang in tow. After Dr. Chang departs, we’re informed why the title of this episode is “Some Like it Hoth.” It seems that Hurley has been writing the script for The Emprie Strikes Back, and had plans to submit it to George Lucas. Doc says, “What I’m hoping is that ABC will publish ”Hurley’s Dharma Diary,” which could include his version of Empire, written in his distinctive Hurley speak. Dude, I would so buy that.”  This titles is a strange one to me. Very rarely does Lost  reference popular culture into it’s titles. It’s also weird that it’s Hurley’s quirk in Miles episode. They have done that before, however, with “Dead is Dead” referring to John Locke in a Ben-centric episode. Though a Lospedia theorist insists thie title is abut Miles, saying, “We’re talking Egyptian Mythology here, aren’t we? “Some Like I, Thoth” as in The Book of Thoth, the book buried in the City of the Dead. Thoth’s role as mediator is well-documented. It is he who questions the souls of the dead about their deeds in life before their heart is weighed against the feather of Maat. He is the great counselor and the other gods frequently went to him for advice.” I also like the allusions to Luke Skywalker and Darth Vaders relationship. Hurley says, “‘That was Luke’s attitude, too. In ‘Empire’, when he found out Vader was his father, instead of putting away his light saber and talking about it, he overreacted and got his hand cut off.” Hand cut off huh? Kind of like a certain Montand? AND Miles’ father himself, Pierre Chang?!!

 Later in the evening, Dr. Chang recruits Miles to come help him welcome new Dharma scientists at the submarine doc. Is a nice twist and surprise ending, Daniel Faraday pops out of the sub. Obviously, we’re going to see a Daniel flashback (I hope, I mean, Why did he leave?!? What happened?!? What’d he do off island in the 70s besides catch some Saturday Night Fever??!) Note that Daniel is wearing a Swan Station jumsuit. Could he be the scientist who creates the button pushin station to counteract the leaking Jughead bomb? Vozzek69 says, “As huge a proponent of the ‘Whatever happened happened’ theory Daniel’s always been, I’m willing to guess he might’ve been looking for a way to change that ideology. The Daniel who left the island was a gibbering, resigned, broken man. The guy who steps out of the sub looks newly confident and ready to rock. Just like Benjamin Linus, I think Daniel is now prepared to fight the inevitable. Whatever he did in Ann Arbor, it probably involved some rats and some mazes and some insane mathematics. I’ll bet he came back to save his friends, but mostly to save one other person from the inevitable: Charlotte.”

 I like Docs assesment of the moral of the episode: “Indeed, what made this Yet Another Episode About A Guy With Daddy Issues episode different and unique was how we saw another Lost character directly and actively participate in the processing of those issues. We don’t usually see that on Lost. Ever. Which has been part of the point. One of the season’s big themes has been the characters getting intimate and getting involved in the redemption project of their lives. For most of the series, they’ve been islands unto themselves; now they are building bridges. I like that. It puts a dynamic, spiritual spin on the whole ”Live together, die alone” thing. Honestly, I found the episode’s stated conclusions – Hurley’s ‘you gotta communicate’ speech; Miles’ ‘you shoulda told your son you loved him while you had the chance’ chastisement – to be a little trite. But what was more powerful and inspiring was seeing two characters ”get into each others’ business,” to use Miles’ expression. It was messy and it was awkward but in the end you got the sense that the journey had brought Miles to the precipice of profound change”

 A final  point of the title Some Like it Hoth/Hot title, Planet Hoth was an ice planet, yet everything seems to be heating up. DarkUFO points out, “Hot, heat, temperature… these things are found all throughout this episode. From the single white fire extinguisher on the door in the opening scene to row after row of red ones Miles passes as he walks along the rows of apartments. There’s a picture of a volcano spewing lava in the schoolhouse next to Jack. There’s a poster behind Naomi in the restaurant kitchen that reads ‘Think about Temperature’. Things are about to heat up, and we’re all getting a sense of it. As Juliet would say “Here we go”.”

~ by iamtheisland on April 22, 2009.