If you weren't already a fan of the crankiest, most ghost-whispering character on Lost, then let me tell you, tonight's episode will change your mind. Miles Straume has been a sarcastic mystery during his stint on the show, but tonight we got to learn the origins of his ghostbusting gift, confirm our suspicions about his parents and his background, and get even more hilarious banter between him and Hurley. Lost always gets flack when it spends an episode focusing on character rather than plot, but this is one character-driven episode I was entirely on board for.
1. "I need you to tell me why I'm this way." We start with Miles as a wee one, discovering a dead body in a motel room and not understanding why no one else can hear the corpse talking. Later, as a stupid-looking teenager full of spiky hair and piercings, he demands that his dying mom tell him about his father and how he got to be his ghost-whispering self. She won't really tell him anything, including the facts about his father, who abandoned the both of them when Miles was an infant. Obviously this is paving the way for us to learn even more about Miles's daddy issues (because everyone on this show has daddy issues), which leads us to... the Orchid station!
2. "That douche is my dad." Back on the island in 1977, Miles has been invited into the "circle of trust" by Horace (why does Horace always talk like a hippie?), which involves delivering a body bag to Radzinski, delivering that body bag (complete with body) back to Horace, then taking the body bag, and the body, and Hurley for some reason, to Dr. Pierre Chang, at the still-under-construction Orchid Station. Hurley quickly figures out that there's a dead body in the back of the Dharma van, and Miles admits that he's talked to the corpse, and the corpse had a metal filling that had flown through his head, and how can that happen? (Those of us who remember the crazy electromagnetism of the Swan station may have a clue). Hurley tells Miles he can also talk to dead people, given that he's had visits from Charlie and all, and tries to engage Miles in a silly competition in their silly powers. Then they arrive at the Orchid, and Dr. Pierre Chang is there being a brisk, business-type jerk, and when Hurley comments on it, Miles admits the guy is his dad! Just as we pretty much all suspected/hoped!
3. "What lies in the shadow of the statue? Back in the present/recent past, Miles is recruited by Naomi, who tests him by having him ghost-whisper a guy who had been in charge of delivering papers about faking the Oceanic 815 wreckage to Charles Widmore. Naomi tells Miles they'll pay him $1.6 million to go on the mission to the island, and Miles basically gets dollar signs in his eyes and makes a cash register noise. But before he can ship off to the Freighter of Doom, he's basically kidnapped by some masked dudes in a van, including Bram! One of the Ajira Air castaways, who asks him the same cryptic question that Ilana demanded of Lapidus last week. He tells Miles that Widmore is the wrong side to fight for, that it won't give him the answers he's looking for, and he and his kidnap-crazy cohorts are part of the team that will win. Is that Team Ben? Some other crazy violent team? Either way, Miles is still only interested in the money, and the rest of that is history... or the future, if you're in 1977. Ah, that familiar time travel headache.
4. "Get some rope." Amid the awesomeness of the Miles and Hurley story, there was some brief, stupid subplot about Kate trying to make Roger feel better about Lil' Ben's disappearance, and in the process making him suspect that she helped him escape. Uh, duh Kate, haven't you learned by now to keep your mouth shut? Roger mentions to Jack that he suspects Kate, and Jack, who seems seriously interested in nothing but playing by the rules, gives Sawyer and Juliette the heads up. Meanwhile Sawyer has tried to erase the surveillance tapes that show him and Kate helping Lil' Ben escape, but good ol' Phil, a.k.a. Jimmy Barrett, found them anyway. Just when he's arrived at Sawyer's house to accuse him of spiriting the kid away, Sawyer punches the guy in the face! And tells Juliette to "get some rope," and she walks off, perhaps knowing a bit too well exactly where the rope is stored. I guess she and Sawyer have had some time to be creative in their three on-island years.
5. "That was Luke's attitude, too." Freed from his kitchen duties, Hurley has decided he's going to play matchmaker between Miles and his estranged dad, and makes conversation with the two of them as they trek off to meet with Radzinski again. Miles makes a nasty face when his dad reveals an interest in country music, and says over and over again he has no interest in getting to know the guy. They pay a brief visit to the construction of the super-secret Swan station, and Hurley watches the workmen pound the serial number in the door of what will become the hatch-- 4 8 15 16 23 42, of course. The return of the numbers! On the way back to Dharmaville Miles' frustration with Hurley's attempts at father-son bonding comes to a head, and he steals Hurley's journal, only to find out that all his frantic scribbling has been rewriting The Empire Strikes Back. Because it's 1977, of course, and George Lucas will be wanting a sequel for Star Wars soon. So Hurley uses Luke and Darth Vader's relationship as a metaphor for Miles and his dad, and suddenly it makes sense why everyone on this show has daddy issues-- the writers are totally obsessed with Star Wars! Miles is just about ready to approach his dad and make friends, and enjoys the totally surreal experience of standing outside his childhood home, watching his dad hold his infant self on his lap. But soon Dad brings him to the dock to help him bring in a new shipment of scientists from Ann Arbor, and one of them needs some extra help with his stuff-- and it's Daniel Faraday! So that explains where he's been for the last three years? Hanging out in the Diag and eating at Dominick's? (University of Michigan references courtesy of Boyfriend Michael).
So here's my one burning question from this episode. Miles knows that his dad is going to be killed in the Dharma purge-- he tells Hurley as much. So why doesn't he wonder what's going to happen to himself and his mom? And why doesn't he accept that-- an event completely beyond his dad's control-- as the reason his dad wasn't part of his life? Does no one else think that's a perfectly reasonable explanation?
Otherwise, though, nice episode. Can't believe we have to wait two more weeks for a new one, and that there's just three left before the end of the season! But the recent return of the numbers, the smoke monster and even the four-toed statue (as promised in the promos) suggests that the Lost writers are circling back to the basics to answer some questions before tossing us into the final season, kicking and screaming.
