So I watched episode 14: “Exposé.” It was a weird episode. It almost seemed experimental. It left a bad taste in my mouth. When I looked it up on Wikipedia, the section labeled “Reception” said the fans and critics didn’t much care for it, either.
So of course I said, “I’m going to write a blog post about ‘Exposé!’” The first question is, “Why don’t I like it?” The second question is, “What does it say about Lost?”
But, first, the summaries of the episodes I watched last week, to refresh your memories…
Episode 3.9 (“Stranger in a Strange Land”): In the past, Jack had sex with a Thai woman and got a tattoo? Okay… In the present, Jack promises to continue helping Ben in exchange for Juliet’s safety.
Episode. 3.10 (“Tricia Tanaka Is Dead”): In the past, Hurley’s dad was Cheech Marin! In the present, Hurley, Charlie, Sawyer, and Jin get an old VW van rolling. So, yeah. That happened.
Episode 3.11 (“Enter 77”): In the past, Sayid was captured by the husband of a woman he tortured back in Iraq. In the present, Sayid, Locke, Kate, and Rousseau go off to rescue Jack but instead find Mikhail, a.k.a. Eyepatch Dude. Eyepatch Dude says he’s the last living member of the Dharma Initiative and is not an Other. So of course it turns out he, in fact, is an Other. Locke blows up his house.
Episode 3.12 (“Par Avion”): In the past, Claire crashed the car, leaving her mom a vegetable. But Daddy Shephard is also Claire’s daddy! Because Jack’s dad is everywhere. I’m sure he’s Hurley’s long lost uncle and that he was in the army with Kate’s dad, and he started drinking because he got conned by Locke’s dad, who is also the original Sawyer. Anyway. In the present, Claire tries to catch a bird so she can have it fly a note home, but Desmond keeps screwing it up in order to save Charlie’s life. Meanwhile, Mikhail’s brain melts in the sonic weapon fence, and the rest sneak into the Others’ gated community. But then comes the scariest cliffhanger in the show so far. Jack. Is playing. Wait for it. Football. Dun dun dunnnnn!
Episode 3.13 (“The Man From Tallahassee”): In the past, Locke’s dad threw him out a window. In the present, Jack reveals he’s made a deal with the Others that if he stays to treat Ben, he’ll get to go home in a submarine with Juliet. But then this happens:
Ben: You have a choice, John. You could have the submarine… or the mystery box.
Locke: What are you, crazy?
Ben: Wait, not so fast, John. A sub is a sub, but a mystery box could be anything. It could even be a sub!
Locke: I’ll take it!
I’m pretty sure that’s how that scene went. (Incidentally, I was looking on Google for video of the mystery box scene from Family Guy and accidentally found myself at some forum filled with pictures of the Dharma Initiative seal. So then I typed in “Family Guy mystery box video” and what should pop up but a TED lecture by J.J. Abrams about Lost’s mystery box! The spoilers… they’re… they’re everywhere! I wasn’t actually spoiled, but it was close. Too close. I’m never Googling again.)
Anyway, the mystery box is filled with Locke’s dad.
Asian Reporter Tricia Tanaka is dead.
Episode 3.14 (“Exposé”): We’ll get to it.
Episode 3.15 (“Left Behind”): In this episode, the people on Jacob’s good people list are transported up to Heaven during the Rapture. Oh, never mind. That’s a different Left Behind. Actually what happened is this: in the past, Sawyer’s ex-dupe girlfriend helped Kate meet up with her mom, who apparently loved Kate’s creepy murdered step-dad. In the present, Kate and Juliet wake up in the jungle, handcuffed, because the Others gassed them and skipped town, along with Locke. The two ladies have a wet, muddy, handcuffed cat-fight in the rain. I’m not a guy, but it didn’t seem all that sexy to me. Meanwhile, Hurley cons Sawyer—who, by the way, is good at the offensive side of conning but terrible at the defensive side—into being a nice guy.
Episode 3.16 (“One of Us”): In the past, Juliet was brought to the Island to deal with the issue of all the pregnant women dying. Ben also made a deal with Juliet that he’d cure her sister’s cancer if Jules stayed on the Island. ‘Cause Ben can cure cancer. *shrug* Anyway, in the present, Jack, Kate, Sayid, and Juliet go back to the camp, but no one trusts Juliet (except Jack, who has turned into a real idiot lately) until she saves Claire’s life. Except… [dun dun dun] this is all part of Ben and Juliet’s secret plan to infiltrate their base! Oh, man! Some crazy shit is about to go down, my friends! I can feel it!
And now, the post.
Exposé, Exposed
The writers of Lost were in a pickle. They had introduced two new characters into the main cast—Paolo and Nikki—but for some reason the characters didn’t take. Though they barely appeared on screen and spoke very little, the fans seethed at them with a burning hatred. There was only one thing left to do: kill Paolo and Nikki off.
Well, technically, they didn’t have to do that. Technically, they could have just ignored them, like most of the main characters did. Paolo and Nikki? Who are they? But Lost’s writers never did like to let a character go to waste. If an actor is going to leave the show, by golly, that character is going to die.
This all led to the inception of Episode 3.14, ‘Exposé,’ a happy little morality tale from the point of view of two ascended extras. Paolo and Nikki weren’t just two annoying side characters. No, they too enjoyed interesting backstories. She was an actor; he a chef. She seduced a wealthy Hollywood player; he killed him. Together they stole his diamonds and flew to Los Angeles. But fate had a different story in mind for these crooks. They were meant for the Island.
(Also, Nikki worked with Billy Dee Williams. Was that stunt casting meant to foreshadow her eventual betrayal of her own Han Solo, Paolo? I like to think so.)
"You look absolutely beautiful. You truly belong here with us among the clouds."
Anyway, the episode plays out as part murder-mystery—“Who killed Nikki and Paolo?! I must know!”—and part clip show, as the dastardly duo make their way through the important plot points of Lost’s first and second seasons: the crash landing on the island, the discovery of the heroin plane, the discovery of the briefcase in the lake, the opening of the hatches, and so on. Paolo finds the diamonds and hides them from Nikki. Nikki finds out about the diamonds and throws a paralyzing spider at him. The Island finds out and throws paralyzing spiders at both of them. Sawyer and Hurley bury them alive. Everyone learns a lesson about not killing your employer and stabbing your co-criminal in the back. The end.
What’s wrong with this episode? It’s not terrible. There aren’t any gaping plot holes or weird character inconsistencies or anything like that. Nevertheless, as I said above, the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. Why? Because it was a morality tale.
When I saw “morality tale,” I mean it in the old-school sense of the word. It had a very medieval feel about it. Like Nikki represented Vice or Greed and Paolo represented Lust or Timidity. Or they were both witches and the Island was metaphorically burning them at the stake. Or you could look at it in a slightly more modern way. “Exposé” was an old-school horror flick in which the lusty, sinful teens get their comeuppance. Maybe it should have been called, “I Know What You Lost Last Summer.”
A slightly more generous reading would say it’s like Reservoir Dogs, another film that was technically superb but also left a sour taste in my mouth. For some reason, stories that seem to be shouting, “Watch as these bad people die horribly as their comeuppance for being bad!” aren’t my thing.
But at least the guys in Reservoir Dogs had style. Nikki and Paolo, on the other hand, weren’t only Bad. They were completely unlikeable. Not a Pet the Dog moment to be seen. If they had worn black hats and twisted their mustaches, it would have been about as subtle as the episode itself. And that’s why I didn’t really like “Exposé.”
But here on Overthinkingit.com, we don’t review; we analyze. So now that I’ve explained why I didn’t really like “Exposé,” I’d like to move on and talk about what an episode like this says about Lost as a whole.
Lost's complex moral alignments, season 3. This was hard to make and probably not accurate. I left off Juliet for the time being. I'm not really sure where to put Locke.
Midnight in the Island of Good and Evil
Last week, I talked a little bit about Lost’s relationship to the concepts of Good and Evil when it came to the character of Mr. Eko. I claimed that Mr. Eko was a personification of the moral gray area, especially when it came to the concept of “the ends justify the means.” At once, Mr. Eko was a gangster and priest. He was a priest who murdered, or a drug dealer who worked to save his brother’s soul. He killed three to save a village. He stole to feed the hungry. Like I said last week, the image of the Virgin Mary statue with the drugs inside is a good symbol for Mr. Eko’s complex moral alignment.
But his death at the hands (teeth? smoke?) of the Monster showed that the Island didn’t buy his complex morality. Mr. Eko refused to apologize for his actions, and therefore he was killed. Like Ben Linus, the Island is a moral absolutist, and the Island doesn’t forgive, especially if you don’t beg for forgiveness.
But then in the comments, you guys told me the only reason this all happened was because Mr. Eko’s actor, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, wanted to leave Hawaii and the show. That’s very similar to what led to the episode, “Exposé.” Paolo and Nikki were also killed by the Island not because the Island decided they needed to, but because Lost’s writers decided they needed to—after all, their characters were so damn unlikeable. Wikipedia also suggests that Ana Lucia might have been killed off because the producers found her “intensely unlikeable,” too. (There’s also some speculation that it had something to do with Michelle Rodriguez’ DUI.) The question is: if these episodes came about because of circumstances external to the show, should we consider these episodes canon?
Of course we must. We can’t know what the writers were planning on doing before life and ratings changed their plans. (Well, maybe we can in special features, but I said I wouldn’t watch those until after I finished the series.) What is interesting is that whenever the writers needed to remove a character from the show, they did so by giving him or her a karmic death.
And so we turn back to the question I brought up starting week two of this series: is the Island a Total Karma Island? Is the Island place where the Good are rewarded and the Bad are eaten up during random encounters with the smoke monster?
In the cases of Eko and Paolo and Nikki, yes. In the cases of everyone else, no. Sawyer is clearly not a Good person. He’s certainly not on Jacob’s List, whatever that is. But he ain’t dead. The only karma that came to him was when he was chased around the island by a pig back in the first season. Likewise, Kate blew up her step-dad, but she didn’t get blown up in a deliciously ironic fashion. (Yet.)
Then again, Sawyer and Kate aren’t black-hatted twirly mustache villains like Nikki and Paolo. They are complex, human, morally-gray characters. Did Sawyer kill a guy in cold blood? Yes, he did. But did he do it by accident? Yes, he did. But did it do it out of revenge? Yes, he did. And afterwards, did he work to help out the government? Yes, he did. But did he do it for a shorter prison sentence? Yes, he did. What’s more important here? His actions, or his reasons behind them?
Or take Kate: did she blow up her step-dad? Yes, she did. But was he an abusive asshole? Yes, he was. But did she do it for selfish reasons? Yeah, probably. But is she a good person now on the Island? Well, for the most part, she is. Is she going to get a karmic death or not?
Moral grayness. I appreciate that. That’s why I will say this loud and clear, though I never thought I would. Kate Austen, I appreciate you as a character. You may not be as interesting as Mr. Eko or Desmond, and you may not be as likeable as Sawyer or Hurley. But, man, in comparison to Paolo and Nikki, you are gold, lady. Pure gold.
Kate Austen: Not as bad as we thought.
Sorry, I got off track for a second. Anyway, based on all this analysis about Good and Evil, here’s what we have so far: the Island is Total Karma Island when the writers need to kill someone off, but Total Redemption Island when it comes to the main characters like Jack and Kate and Sawyer. Now let’s complicate things even more. What about the Others?
The Others, apparently, have a list of Good People. Jacob made this list. Jacob loves me. That’s nice. Who the hell is Jacob?
The Others also write up their own lists. In three days, Goodwin managed to write up a list of the tail section of the plane. Ana Lucia, understandably, didn’t make the cut. For some reason, neither did Bernard. I’m going to guess that Bernard is a puppy rapist. That’s the next Bernard-related flashback, right?
Ethan was sent to write up the list for the front section of the plane, but he never got to it. He was too busy kidnapping Claire and getting shot in the chest. Locke was apparently so Good that Ben Linus himself went out into the jungle to pick him up. I wouldn’t be surprised if Juliet infiltrated their base in order to continue filling out that list. I’m not exactly sure why she needs to meet them to accomplish this task—after all, doesn’t she already have files with all their personal information inside? I’m also not sure how she’d be able to figure out in a week who is Good and who is Evil. If I had to write up such a list, having watched two and a half seasons of this show complete with flashbacks, I’d have a pretty hard time of it. Apparently Jack’s not on their Good list, but I haven’t yet seen anything to prove that Jack is a bad person. A stupid person, often, but not a bad person. Shows what I know, I guess.
Anyway, it seems the Others are building some sort of Garden of Eden filled with only Good people and no Bad people. Except for the fact that the Others don’t seem too nice to me at all, what with their random kidnappings and hangings and trapping people in cages and stealing babies. But a Garden of Eden it is: no one gets sick (except for Ben, for some reason), and no one has babies. Juliet is their Cain, who was marked and cursed to live out with the savages. She might also be their Eve, if she can ever figure out how to make the pregnant women stop dying.
So, we have the Others and the Monster, who believe in a strict line between Good and Evil, and who don’t believe in forgiveness, on one side. We have and Lost’s writers, who do seem to believe in moral gray areas and forgiveness unless external circumstances make them think otherwise, on another side. Moreover, as I mentioned last week, we have the notion of fate, wrapped up in Desmond, the psychic. Where does someone like Desmond fall in the map of morality? As I said before, if the universe is controlled by a fate-principle, it’s not really fair to call people “Good” or “Evil,” because their actions are not in their control. Good and Evil can only exist in universes with free will. (I know there have been philosphers over the years who have claimed that, yes, you can mix morality with determinism. Philosophically and academically speaking, I think their arguments are poopy-headed and dumb. Nyah! So there.) Desmond is quickly becoming a fatalist: everything is determined, nothing can be changed, there is no free will, and it’s probably better to just sit back and accept it. There something to be said for the fact that Desmond is trying to change fate, anyway, but I think eventually he’s going to give up on that and say “to hell with morality.” In a deterministic universe, there can be no such thing.
Lost's wheel of morality... Now, in JPG form!
We have three different sides here: the moral absolutists—the Others, Jacob, the Monster, and possibly John Locke, though I can’t tell yet; the moral grays—Mr. Eko, most of the Islanders, I think possibly the writers; and Desmond the fatalist. Who will win in the end? I guess we’ll just have to keep watching to find out.
Next week on Overthinking Lost: Hopefully, I’ll have more information about the mystery box and be able to talk about that. Mystery box! Oooooohhhh. Spooky.
Remember: No spoiling, please.
Also: I enjoyed this.