Meet Kevin Johnson

LOST is Thunderdome – anything goes. The show has constantly evolved on every level; characterization, story-telling methodology, and the mass introduction of new characters. And while we’ve been distracted by all that, the show has very subtly gone from spending more time off-island than on island. Two seasons ago, when chicken-suited Jin warned us that everything was going to change, we had no clue just how much.




Sawyer’s smirk rocked the room this meeting – I think Ben even seemed a little alarmed by it. Looks were very big in this scene. Watch Ben’s face as he stares at Aaron… a baby born on the island, a reflection of his biggest failure. All the plans he made, all the people he manipulated - yet this was the one thing he couldn’t do. He smartly approaches Alex, the only one he could possibly convince of anything. He tells her the men on the Freighter are dangerous. ‘More dangerous than you?’ Ben pauses dramatically here, knowing he has to convince his daughter to go. ‘Yes, but your mother will protect you’. Foreshadowing, or does Ben know exactly what’s going to happen next? My guess is he already knows that Danielle and Karl are going to take bullets in lieu of Alex. Watch Danielle’s reaction as Ben says this… it’s almost as if she guesses the same thing. She glances back at him quizzically, looking twice before closing the door.

At this point it’s easy to think that the Temple-dwelling Others shot Karl and Danielle. After all, Ben did send them down that way (or did he?) It’s possible that Ben’s convenient little map was a crock of shit. He could’ve stamped the Temple logo anywhere – neither Alex nor Karl knew there even was a Temple site. I think the gun-happy freighter jocks did the shooting. Last I checked the Others didn’t have silencers, and if they’re still in league with Ben, they don’t kill ‘innocent people’. Going along with that, I find it hard to believe Ben didn’t know where and when the gun squad would show up. Judging from his track record of being ten steps ahead of everyone else, I’d say he knew precisely what was going to happen. Telling Alex they’d want to use her against him was Ben’s way of planting the seeds that saved her from being shot. He knew it was the only way to keep her alive, and quite possibly get her into a position where he could use her later on. Sneaky, underhanded, selfish… but when you’re playing chess with human pieces you sometimes have to sacrifice pawns to gain position advantage on the board.

I also think Danielle will live – that chick is tough as nails. If she does, you can bet your ass she’ll be going very Rambo II in her efforts to get Alex back, especially since the last time she lost her it was for about two decades. This possibly lends even more credibility to Ben’s future sight, with his words about Danielle protecting her.

Hurley puts Miles right into season 4 check though: ‘Dude… we knew that like, forever ago’.



Since the dawn of LOST, we’ve seen recurring themes, people, places, and numbers. But the most interesting to me, have been the recurring objects. Some of them are innocuous, like chessboards and McCutcheon’s whisky. Others are a lot harder to explain, such as why the same Geiger counter in Locke’s season one apartment showed up in the Swan hatch with Desmond. Or why the alarm clock in Desmond & Penny’s flat sounded exactly like the countdown timer.

This episode, the Freighter’s klaxon horn is a 100% reproduction of the Swan’s two-minute warning siren. Sorry, but I’m not buying any more uncanny coincidences. If the island can have a conscience, an agenda, and even (if we are to believe Mr. Friendly this episode) an influence on people in the outside world… I give it enough leeway to have influence over the flashbacks, flash-forwards, and just about anything else in the show.

No one can ever accuse Michael Dawson of being lucky. If we are all children of the Universe, Michael is definitely not one of the fortunate sons. All indications are that, as an artist, he was never more than mediocre. As a father, he was an even more spectacular failure. Trying to find escape for his son, he got him kidnapped by wig wearing savages instead. And that was only the beginning. Like Cain, Michael escaped from Eden with innocent blood on his hands, and now, like Cain, he is condemned to wander the Earth as permanently damaged goods, too rotten and vile for even a mother to love. But the Island isn’t done with him yet. After taking away his son and his name and his soul, the Island has one more thing it plans to take from Michael; his own free will. As bad as it seems, I wonder if there might possibly be an upside in all this for Michael. Without free will, how can he be responsible for anything he does? If the Island chooses what Michael will do, then who is responsible for the things Michael does? Free will is a slippery metaphysical eel. Is it possible that free will is only an illusion we believe in because it feels true? Maybe all those times we think we’re making free choices, we’re only doing the thing it was always planned we would do. Maybe things just happen the way they do because there is no other way they could possibly happen. And even our free will, and the results of our free choices, are just part of the unalterable chain of causes and effects that can never be anything other than whatever it is they end up being.



The Hindus have a very simple understanding of this idea:

Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality.

You got that?

"You can check out any time you like. But you can never leave." - The Eagles

Karma. Still the ultimate bitch.

Even if we believe that some acts are freely willed, we have to concede that free will has limits. Even if you think you have free will, it will only get you so far. A man can freely decide to jump off a building, but once he’s free falling he can’t freely decide to stop falling. Free fall is about where Michael is when we return to his story in this episode. Michael may or may not be responsible, in the metaphysical sense, for the harm he’s created. But either way, he feels like he is. He’s being haunted by the ghost of his most innocent victim still carrying the blankets she held in the instant he ended her life. He’s lost the only treasure that mattered to him. Stripped of his Constant, Michael’s soul has come unmoored. Banished to a world where his free will is irrelevant, all of Michael’s hopes and dreams have been sucked into the black hole of nihilism. The only escape left for him is to pin a note to his jacket like a little lost boy and hope the Universe will have mercy on his soul. But the Island won’t even allow that kindness. Michael's tortuous journey through the despair of irredeemable sin is a profound topic. And Harold Perrineau got his chance to shine - another wonderful side effect of the End of The Jack Show has been watching so many fine actors strut their stuff this season. The concept of Redemption isn't nearly as neat and simple as fan discussions sometimes make it out to be. There's a vicious circle at work here, where the consequences of all actions will be forced upon those who commit them. There is no escape. Sayid may self righteously revile Michael for doing Ben's dirty work. He may think that's unforgivable. But we already know that Sayid will soon be doing even dirtier work for Ben. And we also already know no power on Earth will save Sayid from that fate. The story, where it stands right now, is in a very dark, very fatalistic place. It's completely understandable that Michael wants to get himself the hell out of here. But the Island isn't giving him any options. His suffering goes on. But hang on, Mike. One way or another, the Island can't hold you forever.

Or can it?

The great thing about suicide is that it's not one of those things you have to do now or you lose your chance. I mean, you can always do it later. - Harvey Fierstein



We found out exactly what Michael and his boy have been doing since leaving the island at the end of S2: Walt’s been battling puberty from his grandmother’s protective fortress, and Michael has been trying to turn over a new leaf. It’s extremely impressive that Michael had enough balls to tell Walt exactly what he did to get them off the island. He never thought to see any of those people again, and could’ve cruised through fatherhood without ever being found out. Putting Walt in a place where he’d be better off, even though it meant he couldn’t see him anymore, was a very unselfish move - part one of Mike’s long redemption process. Unable to live with his actions, he was genuinely guilt-ridden to the point of rocketing himself into a dumpster. Step three was buying a gun and pulling the trigger – another key moment of indisputable penance. And finally, with his son already safe, Michael was willing to go back to the island - something worse than even killing himself - on a mission to keep his castaway-mates from danger.

I’m not forgetting Mike gut-shot a pair of women who were just chilling out in the Swan hatch. But I am saying that Kevin Johnson is very different than the man who drove the boat off the island. By triggering the bomb sequence he passed his final exam - Ben was testing him to see if he was serious about redemption. At that moment Michael became ‘one of the good guys’ in Ben’s eyes. But then again, list-happy Ben might not exactly have 20/20 vision when it comes to what’s right and wrong.



Michael’s story filled in a hell of a lot of blanks for us. We learned that ‘some’ people can somehow leave the island, and I seriously doubt it was by submarine. Between the time the sky went purple and Jack/Kate/Sawyer woke up at the beating zoo, Friendly managed a trip to NYC and back, a nice penthouse suite, and maybe even a male escort. We got confirmation that Friendly is gay, although we could’ve surmised that from the way he throws a football and how light on his feet he can be in a darkened alley. Tom had been following Michael, and knew he’d been to the pawn shop to sell Jin’s watch. This was obvious when the first thing he said to him was: ‘Sir, you got the time?’

The island does have an influence in the outside world, at least on the people who were unlucky enough to spent time on it. Jack not being able to jump at the end of last season and Michael not being able to die… the writers would have us believe the island isn’t done with these people yet and still need them for something. Perhaps this is akin to Locke surviving his gunshot wound and Mikhail surviving just about everything else.



If you still need proof that the island’s reach extends beyond its shores, Libby came to Michael in the hospital. They dressed her as a nurse to open up the possibility that Mike was hallucinating as he woke up, mistaking the real nurse for Libby, his crushing guilt manifesting itself in the form of one of the people he killed. But nah – it was Libby. And she showed up carrying blankets, just as she did when Michael drilled a bullet through her solar plexus.

The second time Libby appeared in the engine room she was dressed in her death-garb, appeared for a split second, and then vanished like umbrella-less Harper, or underwater Charlie, or the rain-slicked Walt who appeared to Shannon.
Anyone else believe that after Sayid declares to the captain the Kevin/Michael is a spy on the freighter that the very first thing out of his mouth will be; "I know."? Watch Gault’s reaction as they present Michael to him - he’s not even the least bit surprised. In fact, he looks almost disappointed. I think he and Widmore knew exactly who Michael was from the very beginning, and were planning on somehow using that knowledge to find Ben. Sayid and Desmond just blew it for him. He intentionally called Johnson to “clean up this mess” to see if Michael’s ex-friends would approach him. Check out how he watches them over his shoulder on the way back to his quarters. I actually think Gault expected them to secretly buddy up together… he had no way of knowing that Michael committed double-homicide and was totally hated. The captain was completely caught off guard by Sayid turning him in.



“So he’s one of us now?” No, sorry honey. You’re one of THEM. Claire has it backwards. Ben hasn’t joined the 815 club, it’s more like Team Locke has joined the Others. Ben is currently employing Michael, he’s got Sayid working for him in the future, and now he’s pushing into position on Locke. Not only is Ben free, but he’s a few steps away from leading his own little group once again. And if they hook up with Richard and crew, it’ll be a much bigger group. The way Ben manipulates things to his advantage makes him so awesome. He moves people and resources around the island, revealing knowledge only where and when it leads others into doing what he needs. As I watched him send Danielle, Alex, and Karl away to their ultimate fate, I was reminded sharply of something Locke said a long time ago, when he was describing the game Mousetrap (which happens to also exist in Ben’s rec-room) to that little boy in the store:



“Well you start with all these parts off the board. And then, one by one, you build the trap – shoe, bucket, tub – piece by piece it all comes together. And then you wait until your opponent lands here on the old cheese wheel. And then if you set it up just right, you spring the trap.”



This is the very heart of LOST, summed up for us in season one.