Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A+ | 958 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT The Island's Done With Who, Now?
By Cindy McLennan | Season 6 | Episode 14 | Aired on 2010.05.04
Sidebar 1 of 3: Okay, is Bernard more tuned into reality (both realities), since he and his Eve (hey, a Rose by any other name) are living like a natural man and woman in the Islandways, and not sweating the small (or even the big) stuff in the Sideways? Or is it something else? Cast your mind back to "LA X Part I": Bernard's in the lav when Sideways flight 815 hits a rough patch. Rose and Jack ride it out, together. When Bernard returns to his seat, he grumbles about how he almost died in the turbulence. Did he have a Charlie/Desmondesque near-death experience then? He knows something, right? He at least knows when coincidence isn't just coincidence. He knows when to have faith.
Sidebar 2 of 3: Did you notice the camera work, angles and blocking in this scene? When Jack first shows up at Bernard's office, we get a long shot of the space. Jack and Bernard are over on the righthand side. There's a divider running up the middle and nobody's over on the left. Many languages are read from left to right. Left is older. Right is newer. To get from left to right, and vice versa, you have to move Sideways. After the good Sideways doctors discuss how weird it is that they were on the same flight with John Locke, Bernard rises, walks to the end of the dividers, and passes back to the lefthand side, first. Jack follows him. I don't know. It just struck me. Shut up. I have no mind left. I'm doing this with just a brain stem.
Sidebar 3 of 3: It occurs to me that there are four ways in which people/groups react to the island. 1: There are those who want to escape/be rescued (nearly everyone at some point). 2: There are those who learn to accept it for what it is, and the more full their acceptance, the more bounties they reap (e.g. Rose and Bernard). 3: There are those who want to uncover its secrets (e.g. Locke). 4: There are those intent on exploiting it (e.g. Radzinsky, and arguably Widmore). Other than Rose, most of the more fully realized characters have had a few of these reactions. Original Recipe Locke floated between 2 and 3, for sure, and probably 4, as well. Chang, and Dharma in general, seem to waffle between 3 and 4. This week, I can't stop thinking of Bernard and Rose as Adam and Eve -- restored. Of course, I'm referring to the rape cave skeletons, but I mean something more, too. See Genesis 3:21-24 (KJV): "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." In this comparison, Jacob and "Esau" might be our cherubim. And in his Smokey form, "Esau" could be the flaming sword, as well. The island is Eden -- is paradise -- but only for those who, with childlike faith (a good thing in New Testament writings) accept that it is paradise will gain (or regain) admittance. So far, that's Bernard and Rose, although I imagine a time when Sawyer and Juliet were almost there. By the way, I'm not trying to say Darlton is reframing the Bible. I'm using the Bible as a frame of reference in which to examine Lost. I know that itches some people and excites others, so there's more on that here, if you're interested (or angry, or both).