Tuesday, January 14, 2014

LOST Rewatch: Hearts and Minds

Credit:tle1lost.wordpress.com
If the previous episode, Whatever the Case May Be, was a chess piece moving episode that helped get people from here to there--then Hearts and Minds is an episode where you truly get to question the motivation of the outward personality being presented by John Locke. Up until now, he was a benevolent sort of helpful guy. He was stocked with knives, woodsman skills, and plenty of homespun opinions about how people should do things. He was good at backgammon and seemed to be a nice, if odd, sort of fellow.

But, things seemed to switch when he began accurately predicting the weather and especially when he and Boone discovered the metal hatch down in the floor of the jungle. For the last two days, Boone and Locke have been out there slowly excavating it . . . while everyone thought they were a.) searching for Claire--which NO ONE is trying to do anymore and b.) hunting for boar--which Hurley seems increasingly interested in. And while Boone is trying to convince Locke that they need to come clean about their activity (especially to Shannon) . . . Locke is convinced that it is not everyone else's business. He doesn't come out and say it in this episode, but surely he believes that they Found this Hatch for a Reason.

(And, as we will come to learn, Locke with a Firm Belief is a steadfast rock that won't be moved.)

But . . . Locke is also wondering why Boone is so determined to tell Shannon. And why is Boone so jealous of Sayid's polite (oh, so polite and gentlemanly) advances on Shannon. What hold, exactly, does Shannon have on Boone?

FLASHBACK FACE . . .

Credit: www.lostpedia.wikia.com

So, we learn that Shannon and Boone are half-siblings. And that Boone has been in the habit of coming to rescue Shannon when she gets mixed up with the wrong sort of man. (And it increasingly seems that the wrong sort of man is anyone but . . . Boone. But I'll explain that a bit more later.) So Boone's latest rescue mission was extracting Shannon from a relationship with some dude in Sydney. But maybe it was all a setup that Shannon was orchestrating? Because his mom (her stepmom) had denied Shannon a cut of her inheritance or a piece of the lucrative wedding business that Boone helps oversee?

So, it is not a surprise that Shannon is manipulative. We've already seen that a lot on the Island. But it might be a surprise to see that Boone and Shannon have had (at least one) romantic encounter. And I know that Shannon was totally twisting Boone around her little finger to get him to do whatever she wants.

So, Shannon . . . sick and not at all cool.
Boone? Deluded and ill-equipped to make his own decisions.

Both of these things, we've seen already. What we haven't seen is how Mr. Miyagi John Locke is going to teach another of his Castaway friends an Island Lesson by a.) hitting him over the head, b.) smearing the wound with some sort of Jungle paste to prevent infection and c.) tying Boone up to properly motivate him.

What this really means is Boone is forced to almost dislocate his shoulder to get out of the ropes in order to save Shannon from the Monster . . . or so it seems. He can't save her in the end and she is mauled and killed by the mysterious Jungle Creature . . . or so it seems.

When a shattered Boone comes back to camp and tackles Locke in anger, we see that it was all some sort of Mystical Journey brought on by Locke's Jungle paste. Shannon is fine and still flirting with Sayid by the evening campfires. But what Locke wanted Boone to realize is that he's better off without Shannon's deadweight. (And that he should totally enlist in John Locke's Island School of Mystical Apprenticeship instead.

And that is something that now Boone is ready and willing to do.

Not much else of real significance happened in this episode except:
  • Hurley got in lots of comedic stuff worrying about the lack of boar and his belief that Jin is angry with him. Hurley tries to learn to fish alongside Jin, gets stung by a sea urchin, and they make a tragic and comedic pair flailing about in the surf. Jin shows Hurley that he's learning to be a stand-up guy by giving him a fish anyway--already gutted and cleaned.
  • Sun and Kate start working on a Flight 815 garden. And Kate realizes that Sun understands and speaks English very well. Kate agrees to keep the secret because she's exhausted by the effort of always keeping her own secrets each episode.

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