“Missing
Pieces” and “Find 815”
Mobisodes-
“Missing Pieces”
Between seasons three and four, a series
of mobisodes (mobile episodes) debuted, to whet our appetites and shade in a
few moments before the show returned. Here I will briefly discuss each one, in
order from least important/interesting, to most important/interesting.
Jin Has a Temper-Tantrum on the Golf
Course:
Jin
loses a golf game to Michael and freaks out.
Of all the mobisodes, this is the one
whose purpose I am completely clueless on. We don’t learn anything new, and
although it’s a little amusing to see Jin go apeshit, it doesn’t fit with his
character in season one to get explosive – especially something as small as a
putt.
The Adventures of Hurley and Frogurt:
Hurley
sneaks a bottle of wine for his date with Libby, and a jealous Frogurt
questions him about her.
The legendary Frogurt finally appears,
trying to cockblock Hurley. It’s a little too much, and is less funny once you
remember that Libby is about to be murdered. Also he doesn’t appear again until
season five so it just feels tacked on.
King of the Castle:
Jack
and Ben play chess, and discuss Jack’s impending departure. Ben says the island
may not let him, and that if he does leave he may want to return.
Sets up a little dramatic irony for “We
have to go back”, but otherwise it’s nothing notable. The checkmate is an
overused trope.
Operation: Sleeper:
Juliet
tells Jack that she is a sleeper agent for Ben and plotting to kidnap the
pregnant women.
Fills in a crucial gap that was relevant
to the endgame of season three. But nothing we didn’t already know.
Buried Secrets:
Michael
stumbles upon Sun burying her American drivers’ license, who tells him she was
going to leave Jin. They very nearly kiss.
I’m not sure why this one was included,
as Sun and Michael have very little to do with each other in season four, so
this is just a tease for something that never comes. Still, it’s not bad.
Tropical Depression:
Arzt
catches a medusa spider, and tells Michael he made up the warning about monsoon
season. He reveals he was in Australia to meet up with a woman on the internet.
They clearly needed to backtrack on the
monsoon season comment, and I guess this explanation is as good as any. Shades
in a nice little backstory for Arzt, while retroactively loading the Chekov’s
Gun with the spider.
The Deal:
In
captivity, Michael is visited by Juliet who offers to trade Walt for Ben.
Michael questions why she is still here if she made a deal with Ben to leave.
Self-explanatory. Interesting to see
Michael and Juliet together.
The Watch:
While
preparing to get married, Jack receives his father’s watch as a gift and a
request that he treat his child better than Christian did.
I’m sure there’s some kind of metaphor
for the watch, but I haven’t figured it out yet. But that aspect alone is
enough to elevate it above the first ones I listed.
The Envelope:
While
preparing for the book club, Juliet almost shows Amelia a copy of Ben’s x-rays.
I rank this one up here just because it
involves Amelia, who is one of those minor characters that seems like she
should be more relevant but we never learn about it.
Arzt and Crafts:
Sun
and Jin discuss Boone and Shannon’s relationship. Dr. Arzt urges people not to
move to the caves, and reveals that he saw Jack chasing after his father in the
jungle. He changes his mind when he hears the monster noises.
The interactions with the characters are
pretty fun. The only weird thing is the monster noise coming out of nowhere and
treated as a punchline. Really takes away its menacing authority. Also why did
it make a noise and then just disappear?
Jack, Meet Ethan. Ethan Jack:
Ethan
and Jack are introduced to each other. Ethan comments that Claire may have to
give birth here, and claims his wife died in childbirth.
I’m not sure if Ethan is telling the
truth when he said his wife and baby died. Possible? Sure. It might explain his
personal attachment to that case. He might also be lying to Jack, though the
music implies he probably isn’t. In any event, it’s an attempt at making him
more sympathetic, which is fine, but he still kinda killed Scott and almost
killed Charlie. But, if it’s true then it’s a pretty important revelation from
what is essentially between-season filler.
So It Begins:
After
the crash, Vincent encounters the apparition of Christian Shephard in the
jungle who tells him to wake up Jack because “he has work to do”.
So this is iiiiiiiiinteresting. There is
still some uncertainty as to whether every appearance of Christian in the show
was actually the monster (season four finale, I’m looking at you). For this one
to work, Smokey would have had to scan Jack while he was unconscious, then
shifted into Christian so as to not scare Vincent. Does it matter that he says
“my son” as opposed to something else? And what is the “work” he has to do,
from Man in Black’s perspective? His goal is to kill everyone, so what does it
matter if Jack is there or not? The ambiguity of that is why I put this
mobisode only at number two. But it’s definitely worth the price of admission.
Room 23:
Walt’s
special abilities are causing havoc in Room 23. Juliet shows Ben a handful of
dead birds that flew into the side of the building.
I think by far this is the most
revealing of all the mobisodes. Walt’s tantrum in Room 23 now makes it clear
why the Others were so ready to give him back up to Michael. And they return to
the bird thing, making it clearer than ever that the moment in “Special” was
not a coincidence. Remember the theory that he bends the electromagnetic field
towards him when he is angry or scared? Well he would certainly have those
emotions if he was kidnapped, strapped to a chair, and brainwashed. The birds
might have felt the change in polarity, and flown right to their deaths. It’s
too bad Malcolm David Kelley was too old to portray a younger version of
himself. I’d like to see what it looked like within the actual room.
Find
815
ABC did another ARG game in between
seasons, this time concerning the real world’s reaction to Flight 815. It
involved clips and mini-games. Lindelof and Cuse said that it was not canon, in
the sense that it would not factor into the show in any way. I’m still going to
treat it as part of the story though. It is divided into five chapters. You can
view the video portions starting here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQVEeYM4YyI
Chapters 1-3:
Oceanic Airlines IT tech Sam Thomas
films a video diary claiming his girlfriend Sonya was on the plane and that
Oceanic is going to suspend its search, which he disagrees with. He receives an
email with a picture of Sonya that his tiny clues written on it, and believes
it was sent by the Maxwell Group. One of the clues directs him to the Sunda
Trench, and he also emails his friend Tracey to ask about the Christiane I, a boat.
In Jakarta, Sam finds the Christiane and offers to fix broken equipment in
exchange for a spot on the ship. The owner, Mr. Ockham, vouches for him while
another passenger, Oscar Talbot, thinks Sam is hiding something. Sam emails
Tracey to look up Oscar Talbot, and he hears an old broadcast on the
disappearance of Amelia Earhart on the radio. Tracey sends him information on
the Black Rock ship that disappeared, which is the Christiane’s mission. Sam
investigates Talbot’s room and learns he is employed by the Maxwell Group, a
division of Widmore Industries. Talbot catches him snooping. Sam witnesses
weird electrical phenomenon on the boat, and learns that the namesake of the
Maxwell Group was a pioneer in electromagnetism. He theorizes that some numbers
he received in an email may be geographic coordinates to the Black Rock.
Chapters 4-5:
Sam fiddles with the coordinate plotter,
and Talbot confronts him once again, where Sam reveals he knows about Maxwell.
At night he sees an Aurora in the sky, which Tracey says is the result of
magnetic activity but usually occurs at the poles. An email from Maxwell ends
in the phrase, “Love you madly”, which Sam and Sonya frequently used with each
other. Sam tells Ockham about the coordinates, and Talbot says he received his
set of coordinates from Magnus Hanso’s journal and that there is no reason the
numbers that Sam received should be any more important than the others. Upon
arrival at the location, they believe they have discovered the Black Rock below
them. They send down an ROV to search for it but instead find Oceanic 815. Back
home, Sam sees the news report of the wreckage being found, and Talbot being
sympathetic to him in an interview. Sam ultimately believes there is more to
the story than is being reported.
Review:
This ARG had a lot better production
values (minus the ridiculous 1980s-era TV news titles) and acting than The Lost
Experience (TLE), and also seemed a bit more straightforward as it didn’t have
all those websites to explore. While TLE’s found-footage type production gave
it a cool vibe of being “real”, it clearly used very amateur actors. Find 815
did well with what was essentially a three-man cast – and Aden Young (Talbot)
went on to do good work on SundanceTV’s “Rectify”. The storyline here is also a
lot less sprawling than what we got with Hanso the previous year, and only
sheds light on a tiny piece of the story as opposed to what TLE did in
deconstructing the entire purpose for Dharma being on the island. But overall
it was a nice little diversion.
It remains unclear who exactly sent
those emails to Sam, and why. We know that Widmore staged the fake wreckage,
which means that he (and presumably Talbot by association) knew the exact
location. I saw on Lostpedia the theory that this was all a con by
Talbot/Maxwell/Widmore to get Sam onto the boat in order to make the wreckage’s
discovery more legitimate. Thus, Talbot was never looking for the Black Rock at
all, but was feigning conflict with Sam in order to stumble upon the plane.
This makes some sense, though I fail to see why they needed Sam at all. I think
just stumbling upon the plane while searching for ships wouldn’t exactly raise
suspicion.
Oscar Talbot also shares his last name
with the family from “The Man from Tallahassee”, who are also wealthy. No other
reason to suggest they are related, unfortunately. The Aurora in the sky and
the electrical equipment malfunctioning indicates that they were probably near
the island in some way. Finally, the Black Rock ledger that Talbot mentions (which
contains the coordinate list) is seen being bought by Widmore in 1996 in “The
Constant”.
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