Underpants On The Outside

Lost has a habit of setting up dozens of mind-boggling mysteries and solving NONE of them. My friend Jordan, whose use of imagery is nothing short of genius, describes the experience of watching the show as frustrating as “Dry Humping a Supermodel”.

This week’s mystery: Visions.

The visions are one of the larger blue-ballings that the Lost writing staff has given me. Early in the first season, Dr. Dreamy kept seeing a man in a suit, standing at the edge of the jungle. As it turned out, the man was Jack’s father, which makes sense, because Jack’s father was also on the plane. Except he was in the cargo hold.

See, Jack’s dad died in Australia, and Jack was bringing the body and a lot of emotional baggage back to the States when the plane went down on Blueball Island. So when Jack sees his father, I can believe that Jack’s subconscious is conjuring up hallucinations with the hopes that Jack will finally come to terms with his dad. After all, he’s spending a lot of time in the sun, eating nothing but fish and mangoes, and every time something threatens their camp he has to run off and get beat up by it. There’s no mystery there, until Jack goes wandering in the forest and finds a section of the plane. Wouldn’t you know it, lying in the wreckage is a coffin. Even though the coffin is shut and intact, does anyone believe there’s going to be a body in there? Of course not. This was back in season one. In the dry-humped supermodel analogy, season one took place around 10:00 at night. Me and the model, we’ve had some drinks, she’s got her hand on my thigh, and I’m making a list in my head of all the people I’m going to call and tell that I JUST HUMPED A SUPERMODEL!!!! I couldn’t wait to find out how Jack’s dad was alive and moving around.

Turns out, I could wait, and I’ve been waiting for a long friggin time. Back to the analogy, the model’s long gone, I’m taking a cold shower, and I’ve got a dozen voicemails asking “so what happened with that model? Did you hump her? She was hot!”

But Jack’s not the only one with father-issues. In fact, his are rather amateur-hour. Kate blew her father up. And speaking of Kate, she’s seeing things too. Every so often Kate turns around and there’s a black horse staring at her, and she goes apoplectic. This doesn’t make a lot of sense. As impossible as it is for a horse to be on the island, Kate was there when someone shot a POLAR BEAR. How does a horse impress her after that??? There’s a reason zoos don’t have a lot of horse exhibits. Meanwhile, the writing staff is juxtaposing the horse and the story of Kate’s father, like they’re suggesting that Kate’s dad is appearing to her as a horse, which is probably a better choice than as a pile of chunks they’d need the dog to find. So we now have two people hallucinating, and no reasons why.  Fool me once…

Which brings us to last week’s episode. Before the episode, Charlie was no longer welcome around Claire and little baby Aaron, because Charlie was carrying around a statue filled with heroin, and as a GI Joe episode once taught me, babies and heroin don’t mix. (How’d he get heroin on an island, you ask? A plane of drug runners crashed there. That’s how I get all my drugs too.) I feel a little bad for Charlie. He started hitting on Claire when she was nine months pregnant, so obviously he was looking at her as a long-term investment, but just when he’s looking to cash in his Sex Bonds he gets kicked out.

It’s Charlie’s turn for the visions. He hallucinates that Aaron is drifting off into the ocean, and Charlie can’t save him. Charlie’s next vision is of his mother and Claire posed as the Virgin Mary and I think Mary Magdalane, but I’m not exactly up to speed on the New Testament. (I don’t know how Charlie’s mom got in the visions; did he kill her? You never know.) The two of them are repeating that the baby is in danger, and they’re right, because when the vision ends, it’s the middle of the night, Charlie’s holding the baby, his feet are in the ocean, and Claire’s screaming that her baby has been taken. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Charlie believes that there is another, non-Charlie threat to the boy, and when he goes to see Eko, the island priest, he becomes convinced that Aaron is in danger because he has not been baptized, even though Eko said nothing to this effect. Right on, Charlie. Mixing two parts crazy with one part religion always has good results. You should go on some kind of crusade or something.  Again, Charlie believes the baby is in danger, and if there is no danger… well, Charlie’s gonna make some. He lights a fire, and while everyone is busy putting it out he takes Aaron down to the ocean for Baptism 2: Charlie’s Revenge.

By the end of the episode, everyone is fine, and Charlie is every bit the unwelcome crazy ex-junkie he was at the top of the hour. The whole episode accomplished nothing except for the prediction that Aaron is in danger, but I don’t believe these visions anymore. Until Jack’s dad rides up on Kate’s dad and explains what the hell is going on, these visions are bullshit.

I’m not even going to buy this supermodel a drink.

If any members of the Lost writing staff ever read this: please, give me something. I’m starting to get a little pissed, and it’s time to solve a mystery or two. Or at least give me more shots of Kate in the shower*, but with less towels this time. Oh yes, and please kill off Michelle Rodriguez’s character.

*If you’re wondering how there’s a shower on the island… that’s the most drily humped supermodel of them all.