Epilogue: The New Man in Charge

As is surely the case with anyone who happens to stumble across this blog, I watched the LOST epilogue "The New Man in Charge" online the day it was released. I actually felt sort of bad about doing it, but has I not, I would have had to avoid any LOST sites or news for two weeks or so, for fear of being spoiled. Accordingly, I have been waiting until the DVD release was official to blog my thoughts on the epilogue, and I have not read much if any of other people's reactions to it.

Bottom line: it was an enjoyable and entertaining piece, one that didn't really provide a lot of new information (for those who were paying attention) but that did well to close the story (at least to the same extent of anyone else in the LOST-verse) of Walt. The epilogue also maintained the right tone; it was meta in spots, but it felt like LOST. Had the material been too overwrought or emotional, had the revelations been too big, it would have taken away from "The End". It also could have been much cheekier than it was, and thus failed as a part of the greater LOST whole. It avoided those pitfalls nicely.

We learn that drones, not planes, are used to make the food drops, and that the men in charge of packaging the food (even formally putting labels on it) don't know where it is going, as the coordinates always change. Ben is closing down the assembly facility, pays them a lot of money to go away, and allows each to ask one question about what the heck is going on (the "just one more question" and "that's all we have time for" elements are so blatantly meta that it almost goes too far). Of course, one wants to know about the polar bears.

The polar bear issue has always mystified me. How could someone watch LOST and still have not understood where the polar bears came from? Did you miss Jack, Sawyer, and Kate locked in polar bear cages? This was a mystery that was solved in Season Three for anyone with a modicum of intelligence, but some people need it spoon-fed to them--they need the scene with Joop smoking his pipe and spilling the secrets of the universe.

So Ben shows them the Hydra station video, and Dr. Chang asks that his identity not be divulged as he doesn't want to resort to aliases. Sorry, Dr. Candle, no can do. There is a caged Hurley bird, which Chang explains is a "hy-bird", and they'd liek to see how they adapt to the properties of the Island. There is a lecture on proper care of the polar bears, with a hilarious shot of a man with a fake arm taking food to them. We also learn that the electromagnetic levels at the Orchid are harmful to any polar bear pregnancies, and that offers some idea of what causes the human pregnancy problems. Perhaps the electromagnetism was not strong enough to complicate human pregnancies until after the Orchid drill team almost tapped the pocket of negatively-charged exotic matter near the frozen donkey wheel (as seen in "Because You Left"). That sits on the timeline after Amy gave birth to Ethan and thus between the last known full-Island pregnancy and birth.

Next we learn that DHARMA is capturing Hostiles and transporting them to Hydra Island for research. They are interrogated, particularly about their origins and the "Island deity they refer to as 'Jacob'". After the interrogation, they are brainwashed with the video in order to wipe their memories of the event.

This does answer a minor question I've always had about the Room 23 video, which is why what appeared to be a DHARMA video included the line "God loves you as he loved Jacob". Now that we know DHARMA was aware of the concept of Jacob, it seems to be an attempt to replace Jacob with the more familiar (from their perspective) notion of God. This also illustrates that they didn't have a great understanding of the Hostiles' belief about Jacob, since he is always referred to as a man and not as a deity.

His work at the processing center complete, Ben heads to Santa Rosa to see Keith Johnson, who of course is Walt. (How cute, Kevin and Keith). Ben tells Walt that he's special and that he has work to do--starting with helping his father. When Walt objects that his father is dead, Ben explains that he can still help him.

They go out to a DHARMA van in which Hurley is waiting. Walt says that he's been hoping someone would come back for him and tell him he's not crazy. Hurley affirms that he's not crazy and that he just needed to be back on the Island where he belongs...and Hurley wants to talk to him about a job. Island Protector in training, perhaps?