Last night's 'Lost': Empire falls

The following post discusses "Some Like It Hoth," last night's episode of "Lost."

In an interview at the start of the season, executive producer Damon Lindelof offered up the "cherry pie" theory of "Lost." I'll quote from that section of the interview:

"When I was a latchkey kid and had to fix my own dinner, I would eat these [Hungry Man dinners]. I would buy a baked fish dinner because it had a cherry pie. I never ate the fish, I would just eat the cherry pie.

"The point being, as long as there is cherry pie in an episode of 'Lost' for everyone who watches it, they will sit through the entire dinner. They may not touch their entree, but if there’s a little bit of Marvin Candle, they’ll sit through anything. For some people, their cherry pie is the mythology, and for some people, their cherry pie is the romance story, for some people their cherry pie is Hurley. You just make sure that there is always something for everyone."

Well, for me, the following "Lost" elements that have that cherry pie flavor: Hurley, Miles, Hurley and Miles quipping, Dr. Pierre Chang, Sawyer as Jim LeFleur, Phil. Those things vary in their cherry-pie-ness (for instance, Chang is a 10 on my personal cherry pie scale, while Phil is about a 4), but put them all together in one episode and throw in a conversation or two about "Star Wars"? I'm totally down for that. 

[To digress, here are more of my cherry pie faves (and there is no way I'm going to remember all of them, this is just off the top of my head): Pierre Chang videos, anything Dharma-related from the '70s, Sayid going all ninja/Jason Bourne on people, Ben Linus doing pretty much anything, ditto Charles Widmore, ditto Juliet, Juliet and Locke, Faraday, Desmond and Penny, Richard Alpert, the sunny/weird/culty aspects of Dharmatown and Horace Goodspeed, Also Lapidus. 

[And some of my anti-cherry pie elements include: The Sawyer-Kate-Jack comance (I'd call it a romance, but it puts me in a coma), Kate episodes, Jack acting like a dope or a jerk, Locke's character doing a 180 for the 20th time, too much time-travel math.]

So, for me, in "Some Like It Hoth," there was a healthy helping of the good cherry pie stuff and not really much of the bad (aside from Kate's supreme lapse in intelligence).

All things considered, you can't go wrong with a Miles-centric episode, and putting him with Hurley was a  logical and excellent idea. And Ken Leung gave a wonderful performance as Miles. When he teared up at the end as he watched his father read to his younger self, it was heartbreaking to see his defenses finally melt. And to hear his voice break as he said, "You do?" to his father, who had called out, "I need you" -- well, it was hard not to get a little choked up.

[Digression: Was Chang purposely not reacting to the idea that another Asian-American male named Miles was on the island? I mean, that's one hell of a coincidence.] 

I don't have a ton to say about this solid episode, except to note that they're certainly setting up the idea that things are going to blow up soon in Dharmaville. A guy turns up dead, Ben is missing, Roger is restive, Kate is not helping the cause (what a surprise) and overall, things are taking a dark turn. The Circle of Trust is looking pretty ragged indeed.

Some small things I loved about the episode: The way Miles glared at Chang when Chang said he preferred country music to jazz; Hurley's attempt to liven up the atmosphere in the van as he, Chang and Miles rode around the island ("He was totally down for that beer!" Hurley said later, trying to put the best spin on an otherwise glum commuter trip. As James Poniewozik wrote, "Hurley in a microbus? Never not funny!"); and the way that Chang's arrogant attitude was eclipsed by that tender moment with his baby son.

And the idea of Hurley re-writing "The Empire Strikes Back" to eliminate what he sees as its problematic aspects -- come on. That scene was genius. Even though I'm not quite sure how a father-son chat at the end of "Empire" would have fixed any and all problems in the original-flava "Star Wars" trilogy, his attempt to change the course of film history was both daffy and amusing (though, like Alan Sepinwall, I'm not sure what about "Empire" needed fixing, anyway). Though let's face it, if Hurley did somehow find George Lucas in the '70s (or at any point, really), his time would have been better spent trying to convince Lucas not to make the prequel films. Or Hurley could have just rewritten them. Or thrown the negatives into the ocean. I'm just sayin'.  

All in all, I think what happened in "Some Like It Hoth" re-affirms some ideas I was noodling around with in this recent piece about "Lost" -- the episode re-affirmed the idea that personal redemption and individual initiative still matter, no matter what occurred in the past or what will occur in the future.

Despite the fact that no major events will be altered (I think) in the overall Dharma timeline, Miles still got to learn that his father loved him. And that knowledge matters. Perhaps not to the universe or to the space-time continuum, but to him. Maybe that's enough.

Finally, a question: What does lie in the shadow of the statue?

And a prediction: I'm guessing we're not going to see Ewoks on the island.

Photos: Ken Leung as Miles, a photo of the cake (from the "Ace of Cakes" crew) celebrating "Lost's" 100th episode, and a cute widdle Ewok. Gotta tell you, I can't bring myself to be hatin' on the Ewoks (though yeah, the Ewok dance party at the end of "Return of the Jedi" was kind of cheeseball, I'll grant that). They are not only cute, they are super-fun in the Lego Star Wars Wii game. So there. 

Beltway Bandits, And A Newspaper Hero In Pursuit

A seasoned D.C. reporter teams up with a novice blogger to solve the murder of a beautiful young woman — who happens to be a congressman's assistant. A demanding editor and billion-dollar stakes ratchet up the action.