Lost: Dead Men Talking

I probably wasn’t supposed to like this episode more than last week’s Ben-centric “Dead is Dead”, right?

I mean, I didn’t even realize that I WANTED a Miles flashback episode revealing the first manifestation of his ability to communicate with dead people (in a pretty chilling opening sequence) and his journey to the Island. Whether my expectations were too high for last week’s episode (or too low for this week’s outing), all I know is that “Some Like It Hoth” absolutely delivered.

(At the very least you have to admit that the hair and makeup department did a MUCH more convincing job of making Ken Leung look like a young man than they did with Michael Emerson.)

Of course, I should’ve known that any episode with a reference to my favorite “Star Wars” movie in its title (Hoth was the ice planet in “Empire Strikes Back”) would be my cup of milk (sorry, I don’t love tea). It also makes perfect sense that this consistently WTF show — in which pretty much every major character has serious daddy issues —would reference the movie with the biggest paternal WTF in pop culture history.

Despite featuring a seriously good performance from Leung — how great is this show that the 12th most important actor in the cast gets a showcase like this? — this was definitely one of the lighter and funnier episodes of “Lost.” I believe we have Jorge Garcia to thank.

With other, more serious-minded characters running around shooting kids and debating whether to save those same kids from dying because of how it may affect the space-time continuum, how fantastic is it that Hurley’s big contribution to altering the past is rewriting “Empire Strikes Back”? It’s such a geeky, sweet, stupid, innocent and, well HURLEY thing to do. I also loved his idea for preventing global warming and watching him gently, unsubtly annoy/try to help Miles by asking Dr. Chang questions about his infant son named Miles.

The fact that Miles Straume is Dr. Pierre Chang’s son isn’t exactly a huge shock. The show was smart enough to know that by having Miles confirm the news to Hurley (and us) early on in the episode. Still, the scene where Miles delivers the dead body to douche-y Dr. Chang was great, thanks largely to Leung’s great, subtle work. (I watched it a second time and I loved the way Miles could barely look his father/boss in the eye.)

The reason Miles was carrying around a dead body was because LaFleur/Sawyer was missing and Horace Goodspeed needed someone to pick up and deliver a “package” from Radzinski, who was working on the Swan station in Hostile territory. After not getting a chance to erase the incriminating tape of Sawyer and Kate taking Young Ben to the Others, Miles completed his task and found out that the man (Alvarez) was killed after one of his fillings was yanked through his skull. The electromagnetism in the Swan has sure caused a LOT of trouble! (In case you think Jorge Garcia is just a clown, take a look at the deadly serious/pensive look on his face when he realizes Dharma was working on the Swan/Death Star.)

I counted two interesting developments with the Dharma Initiative. 1.) It’s become increasingly clear that the DI weren’t just a bunch of peace-loving hippies. In fact, there’s a streak of cruelty in the way members of the “circle of trust” treat those they consider to be below them. (Kinda makes me not-quite-as-sad that they get wiped out.) 2.) There seems to be dissention within the upper ranks of Dharma as well, given the way Dr. Chang dismissed the polar bear experiments on Hydra Island as a waste of time. Seems odd, since the polar bears were likely trained to turn the time traveling wheel in the Orchid station that Dr. Chang was working on, so you’d think the two projects would be related.

In a not-at-all interesting development, Kate was back to acting stupid. I get that she’s drawn to damaged men the way Hurley is drawn to garlic mayo, but come on! Her heart was in the right place in trying to comfort Roger Linus, but she pushed the “Everything’s going to work out” thing WAY too far. I’m not totally convinced Jack’s gentle bullying to his fellow workman will make a difference. Even if it does, Sawyer and his increasingly crumbling world have to deal with a knocked-out Phil, the Dharma guy who found the tape of him and Kate taking Ben into the jungle.

Anyway, let’s get back to Miles, who we learned was raised by his mother. On her deathbed (she was dying from cancer, we can assume), he asked about his father, and she revealed that his father had sent them away when he was a baby and that his dead body was someplace Miles could never go. We also learned that Miles needs to have a dead body to communicate with for his ability to work after he conned a father that had cremated his son.

Up until this episode, the Miles we knew was 92% sarcasm and 8%, um, snark. In this episode, we saw he was less a 100% cold-hearted hustler and more of a damaged young man who used money to try in vain “fill the hole” inside of him (in the words of Bram the van guy) left by his unresolved daddy issues.

Money is what drew him to the Island after Parachute Naomi auditioned him and hired him on Charles Widmore’s behalf to go to the Island and find Ben. Two curious things about this scene were 1.) the guy Miles talked to died while trying to deliver photos and evidence of the Oceanic 815 fake crash site cover-up to Widmore. 2. We learned why Miles asked for $3.2 million when he tried blackmail Ben last season. It was double the amount what Widmore was paying him. (I seriously thought that was one of the most random things EVER.)

So after spying his mom in a Dharma cafeteria line, Miles realized he finally had a chance to reconnect with his father. Sure, the two don’t travel “in the same circles”, but after some gentle nudging from Hurley throughout the episode (LOVED the comparison to Luke/Vader), Miles seemed willing to give the relationship another go. Putting aside all the paradoxical weirdness this could create(how could adult Miles’ interactions with Dr. Chang affect baby Miles’ life?) I like the idea. Watching Dr. Chang play with baby Miles at the end of the episode was sweet (and Leung’s acting in that scene was touching) and it makes me think that the reason Dr. Chang sent his wife and baby away in the first place was to protect him from whatever horrible thing is coming.

So what’d you think of this episode? Are Bram (seen last week on Hydra Island with Illana) and his van-dwelling, statue-riddling buddies with Ben or are they a completely different group? (I’m thinking they’re part of the same group the mysterious butcher shop lady in L.A. — who hung on to Locke’s body while Ben tried to get back to the Island earlier this season — belongs to. Meaning they maybe work with Eloise Hawking.) What did Dr. Chang do with Alvarez’s body? (“What body?”)

What did you think of Faraday’s return? (Daniel’s new self-assuredness, black wardrobe [also worn by Radzinsky and the Swan hatch crew in the episode] and disappointing lack of an inappropriate necktie oddly make me feel like he might be up to no good.) Finally, what improvements can Hurley and his horrible grammar make to “Empire Strikes Back”? (Methinks he should’ve chosen to rewrite “Return of the Jedi” instead.)