Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: B+ | 1070 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT The Mirror of Erised
By Cindy McLennan | Season 6 | Episode 5 | Aired on 2010.02.23
Claire's Lair: Claire returns to find poor Jin staring at Justin's remains. She explains that if she hadn't killed him, he would have killed her. Now Claire is all feral and out of her mind, but I don't think she's wrong about that. She sits next to Jin and adds, "Glad you didn't untie him." She also wants to know why Jin said Kate was raising Aaron. Jin thinks quickly. "I was lying." He explains he wanted to save Justin's life. Claire is not amused, so Jin adds, "But you were right; the Others have your baby. Aaron is at the Temple. I know because I saw him there, but you'll need me to get to him." Good show, Jin! He explains that there's a secret way in (though I'm not sure how Jin knows about that). Claire thanks him and adds that she's so glad he was lying. "Because if what you said was the truth -- if Kate was raising Aaron? I'd kill her." Jin doesn't have to hold his poker face too long, because just then the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, [comes] whiffling through the tulgey wood. Er... that is to say Faucke enters Claire's lair. "Am I interrupting?" Jin looks up at him in amazement. "John?" Claire smiles, cocks her head and addresses Jin like he's the silliest goose that ever did honk. "That's not John. This is my friend." Faucke and Claire smile at each other and then at Jin. Dun! Title card. Bad robot!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! It's finally over. I'm struck by how good "Lighthouse" is, considering that at several points, it made me want to take a brass telescope to my TV. Alice speaks for me about this episode, and probably the series writ large: "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas -- only I don't exactly know what they are!" [Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.] Right now, I'm wondering if Jacob and Esau are the Walrus and the Carpenter, or if they're Tweedledee and Tweedledum? Have I ever mentioned my middle name is Alice? Is this all just and only a game?
I keep flashing back to the young blond boy we saw in episode 6-4. In my head, I get a glimpse of two boys -- probably brothers -- stranded on an uncharted, magical island. They bury their parents (who maybe they ate) in a cave. I can't help but wonder how close to Lord of the Flies such a pair would come.
Next, I decide Jacob is God and Esau and/or Smokey-Faucke is a version of Milton's Satan from Paradise Lost. Then I start thinking about how each group of island inhabitants feels threatened by new arrivals and how they have battled for primacy, wittingly or not. I go from the U.S. Army and their hydrogen bomb, to Richard's group of natives, to the Dharma Initiative, to the hostiles under Widmore's de facto leadership, to Rousseau's crew, to the Others under Ben's de facto leadership, to the original Lost-Aways, to the Tailies, to the Strand-Aways under Locke and Sawyer, to the Returnees under Jack and Hurley, to Ilana's crew and so forth. Then I remember the statue of Tawaret, start pondering the Israelites' time of toil in Egypt, the lost tribes of Israel, the various permutations of the Temple in Jerusalem, and I wonder how far back it reaches. Then the nosebleeds start. I know I've gone long(er) this time, so I'll wrap this up with some stray thoughts and questions....