Marco and I agreed to put this one at number 2, but in my book it’s 1A. I’ll be honest, I fucking love this episode. I can remember getting off from work, coming home at 3 am and watching this immediately and being so fucking floored I think I just ended up staying awake all night.
After this episode, you will need a drink. And maybe a cigarette.
I think that after the series is over, people will look back at “Through a Looking Glass” as the narrative climax. Everything comes to a head and it’s all crashing down on poor, flawed Jack’s shoulders. This is Jack Shephard’s crucible.
Previously? on Lost. The castaways have set up and ambush for the Others on the beach.
Nadler, Jarrah and Kwon, Attorneys at Law
And Charlie has swam down to the Looking Glass underwater Dharma Station to push a button, only to find it filled with feisty OtherBabes.
I’m not even going to bother recapping the whole thing here, just go watch it if you haven’t. And if you have, watch it again.
This is the episode that turns the whole show on its head. You think you’re watching a JackBack to a dark time in his life, when you’re actually watching a flash forward. The writers have the balls to say, “yep, they get off the island, and it’s a huge fucking mistake,” and then fold the entire story back in on itself like a crease in space-time.
My least favorite character on the show dies, and it turns out to be the most moving death in the series. Charlie warning Des and then signing himself as he drowns is gut-wrenching and uplifting at the same time. I think this is partly due to Charlie somewhat redeeming himself in the prior episode, but he was helped by the fact that “Greatest Hits” remains the only time where we get to see a flashback to when a character is happy.
I think this scene, which starts with Charlie punching out a Beach Boys song on a keypad and getting a surprise call from Penny, and ends with his sacrificial drowning, is the finest 5 minutes in all of Lost.
But I also want to talk about Jack. Even though Charlie steals the best moment, this is the definitive episode for Matthew Fox and Jack. The JackFace is off the charts. I mean, just check these out:
Damn. Jack was at the end of his rope when the episode started, in both timelines. And then things got worse.
These two are totally screwing in Season 5.
Off the island, he misses the chance to kill himself because he’s such a goddamned hero (I think we can assume now that the Island wouldn’t let him die; fate being a fickle bitch).
And on it, his plan just keeps getting worse. The ambush fails and Jin, Sayid and Bernard are captured. Then Ben shows up and pretends to have them executed. And just when things are looking up, John Locke shows up to put a knife if Naomi’s back.
Fox does a great job both with Jack’s stoned distress in the future and his pained determination in the present. His biggest moment of action, beating the shit out of Ben, isn’t his moment of strength, it’s his moment of weakness.
Jack is at his absolute breaking point here, and, perversely, we know from the 4th season that things get progressively worse for him every day after until he leaves the Island. It’s not hard to imagine how he came to pill-popping in the future.
Remember kids: doctors store their good shit between the menthol and cherry cough drops
And there were like 50 other great moments in the episode, too:
- We finally get to see the Radio Tower that the French Woman was broadcasting from.
- We see undead Mikhail without his eyepatch.
- We learn it’s “not Penny’s boat” *sniff*. Russo reunites with Alex.
- Sawyer kills Mr. Friendly. Jack gives Juliet the weakest “I’m only doing this cause Kate is watching” kiss of all time.
- Waaaaalllllttt!! reappears.
- Mikhail: not dead! And then he dies! No, wait, he doesn’t! Well surely he must be dead now? (I fully expect him to return).
- The writers find a way to redeem that cheesy Hurley episode.
- Sayid kills a guy with both hands tied behind his back, which we always knew he could if he wanted to.
Oh, and the coffin.
Sigh. What a phenomenal 2-hours. And this was just the second best episode of Lost so far. Tomorrow, the best, and also, the Season five premier in just 40+ hours.
We have to go back, Kate.
We have to go BACK!
You’re right. This episode is breathtakingly awesome and it’s just #2 on our list, so I think that says quite a bit about the enduring greatness of this show.
Such a perfect character study of a man not only under a microscope, not only carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, but of a man that is slowly being doused in gasoline and lit on fire. I love how the show balances perfect “highs” with the utter lows of a character, like at the end when Jack finally makes the call, only to cut to the mind blowing ending, in which we discover that all the flashbacks are in the future and that that phone call was a very, very bad idea.
They did something wonderfully similar with “Something Nice Back Home” in the following season. Once you realize that Kate was the woman in Jack’s shower, you knew, just knew, that something bad was about to happen as it all unraveled in front of us.
And you’re right about Charlie. Man, I wish that Ethan’s noose had taken him out in the first season, but “Greatest Hits” set up the long march to redeem his character in this finale, something that could only be achieved with his sacrifice (that the island demanded?), and “Greatest Hits” really should be considered part 1 of this finale.
But, that ending! Each season the producers give a code name to their finale’s ending, something mysterious but fitting as they talk about it. The first two seasons had names I don’t remember, and season 4′s was “Frozen Donkey Wheel,” which is literally fitting, but this episode’s was perfect in summing up how the ending makes you feel. “Snake In The Mailbox.” You see it and you jump back in fright and shock, suddenly very, very much alert and curious as to how that got there.
Another thing I wanted to mention: This episode was so good that I think it’s partially responsible for the demise and (eventual, you know it) cancellation of Heroes. There was this whole (now ridiculous) rivalry all year between the two shows because Heroes was the new shit and Lost had some early-season doldrums. Then Heroes had a finale that fizzled and the Lost finale redefined the narrative possibilities of television. It was like a teen shoving the popular BMOC and making him stumble, only to get punched so hard in return his shoes came off and he landed 20 feet away. That’s the kind of humiliation you never live down. Lost so thoroughly crushed Heroes that the show was never the same again.
I pity the fools on some other blog struggling to write their top 5 of Heroes episodes. Ha ha ha ha ha ha, suck it, bitches.