"Lost": The Tangled Webs We Weave
By Sarah Carlson
March 29, 2007
Either the "Lost" creators think we're stupid, want to teach us a "Twilight Zone"-ish moral lesson, or both. Last night's episode, "Exposé," focused on the new additions to the cast, Nikki and Paulo, at times playing on the fact that they were added this season and no one knows who they are, while at other times going to great lengths to build them into the first few seasons. A little digression from the main plot is fine, but not after last week's episode. Instead of the great character development and action we were treated with in "The Man From Tallahassee," last night we got another glimpse into "Lost's" identity crisis and my love-hate relationship with the show's writers.
The opening sequence might be my favorite of the entire series, simply because it was insane: We see Nikki burying something in the jungle before she heads off running, then it cuts to a flashback where she's dancing at a strip club. She's actually filming a TV show, "Exposé," in Sydney along with Lando Calrissian that played out almost like a porn, but probably not as entertaining. Her guest-acting stint on the show was over, but her relationship with her Creepy Older Director wasn't.
Flash back to present: She stumbles onto the beach in front of Hurley and Sawyer after running through the jungle, mumbles something and collapses. Sawyer's about to go get help until Hurley stopped him with "Dude, Nikki's dead," to which our favorite Southerner replied, "Who the hell is Nikki?"
Good question. To the chagrin of fans everywhere, Nikki and Paulo were introduced this season as the castaways who had always been there, you just hadn't noticed them, stop asking questions. For this episode, they actually went back and reshot the opening beach scene when the plane first crashed to get Nikki and Paulo in the shots. Although this provided a great opportunity to see Shannon and Boone (may they rest in peace) in wigs and the science teacher I forgot was even on the show reprise they're now-deceased characters, I couldn't help but feel insulted. I'll play along with polar bears and Smoke Monsters, but not with the notion that Nikki and Paulo had been there from the start.
I really started to feel cheated, though, when Paulo turned up dead as well.
I can't find an easy way to provide a run-down of the events this late at night, so bear with me.
Past: Nikki was only pretending to love Creepy Older Director to get at the diamonds he kept locked in his safe. Paulo was her accomplice in his murder, and they were leaving Australia with the loot until the fate of Oceanic Flight 815 hampered their plans. The bag carrying the diamonds -- and Paulo's much-needed nicotine gum -- was lost amongst the wreckage, but Paulo eventually found it and kept the diamonds hidden from Nikki. (They worked them into several plot points from the seasons that aren't worth detailing, although Science Teacher Guy did get another chance to shine in a scene where he showed Nikki the creatures he'd collected on the island, including a dangerous spider.)
Present: Now that Nikki and Paulo are corpses, the real castaways are trying to figure out how they died. Poison? Virus? Monster? Others? What did Nikki mumble, anyway? Hurley guesses "Paulo lies." Sawyer acts like he doesn't know anything about their deaths and leaves to do a "perimeter sweep" of the island, but Desmond tells Hurley he heard Nikki arguing with Sawyer just that morning about wanting a gun. Sawyer then confesses that, after they had noticed dead Nikki had dirt under her fingernails, he assumed she had buried something, went looking near where Paulo's body had been and found the diamonds.
Past, that morning: After talking with Nikki, Paulo heads off to get them breakfast, but leaves behind a devastating clue: a packet of nicotine gum. Nikki knows he must have found the bag after all and, wanting the diamonds and to teach Paulo a lesson, she goes to Sawyer for a gun. He won't help, so she leads Paulo into the jungle and confronts him about the diamonds. When he won't hand them over, she opens up a jar containing Science Teacher Guy's spiders and throws one on him. It's not deadly; it paralyzes its victim for about 8 hours, making it difficult for even a doctor to detect a heartbeat. It also has powerful pheromones, as Science Teacher told us in the flashback, and draws male spiders to her immediately. As Nikki watches Paulo stiffen and cry, finding a little too much comfort in his torment, she's bitten by one of the attracted spiders. She only has time to hastily bury the diamonds and make it to the beach in time to collapse. Her mumbled words? "Paralyzed."
Present: Nikki and Paulo are now in a grave, with the castaways saying a few last words and Sawyer sprinkling the diamonds in with the sand. The timing of the flashbacks was actually more dramatic than laid out here, and it's really as they're about to be buried that we learn they aren't dead, just paralyzed. But as Sawyer, Charlie and Hurley start shoveling sand, they're about to wake up; Nikki's eyes pop open just before sand hits her face. The next thing you know, the grave has been filled and Sawyer and crew are walking away, leaving the deceitful lovers buried alive. The end.
Although I'm happy to see such filler characters killed off -- but what a gruesome, disturbing way to do it -- this isn't the time for "Lost" to have such filler episodes. If the point was to show that you should think twice before killing someone over $8 million worth of diamonds, then lesson learned -- do it yourself, partners get in the way. But after you drop such a bomb with Locke's dad showing up on the island last week, how can you expect me to care about characters you didn't even care enough about to keep alive?
Nikki and Paulo were their own downfall, each so focused on coming out ahead that they forgot the bigger picture: a) Diamonds are worthless on a desert island, and b) $4 million each ain't a bad way to live. "Lost's" writers could learn from their filler characters: a) The show is losing viewers by the week, and b) We want answers that progress the plot. If they don't start seeing the bigger picture, well, you see where this is going.
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Comments
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Posted by: Jill on March 29, 2007 2:27 AM
What are you talking about!? It was a great episode! Definitely not as good as last week's episode, but it was still pretty solid.
I do hate that whole "lets pretend these characters were always here" bit, but I think they're going to stick around and have a bigger part to play later on.
I don't think they're dead, especially when you think about Locke's line that "nothing every stays buried on this island."