In this series of features, we’ll take a look at six episodes of LOST – one episode from each season. These are not recaps or reviews. Instead we will be mostly be discussing the formal construction and storytelling modes of each episode and what that form reveals about a particular season or the series as a whole. Needless to say I will be freely discussing SPOILERS; if you haven’t seen the show yet…what are you waiting for? This week, we start with episode 1.04, “Walkabout.”
It’s taken awhile for me to let go. When LOST ended in May 2010, it stuck with me for weeks. Just as the acceptance began to wash over me, the complete series set arrived and I soon launched a rewatch with friends who hadn’t seen it yet, and soon again with my stepdad. And to think, a year earlier, I had been about as pure a LOST agnostic as one could imagine. I suppose there’s no zealot like a convert.
I wasn’t trying to be a snob. It was just a bandwagon I had missed – and from what I could tell, a particularly geeky, cultish bandwagon. Who needed that sort of addicting entanglement, with a full class schedule and a part-time job? But my roommate finally wore me down and we began to watch Season One.
I admired the cinematic style of “Pilot” and “Tabula Rasa,” and I could see that the writers would be addressing weighty social and philosophical issues in the compressed setting of the castaways’ beach. As much as I admired it, I was still holding it at arm’s length, making snide observations or joking at some of the more absurd or formulaic aspects – it was still, after all, a network TV drama.
I continued this not very respectful viewing approach as we started the fourth episode of Season One, “Walkabout.” By the end, boy, did I shut up. For many LOST fans, including my original enabler, “Walkabout” holds primacy of place. It’s the turning point that convinces you to tag along for the rest of the ride, the moment that promises the show will be going to some thrilling and possibly transcendent places.
“Walkabout” is the earliest refinement of LOST in its classical form, defined by the now iconic flashbacks. The flashbacks were borne out of a practical problem when the series was in development: how to make a true series out of a show about a plane crash? First, slow the island story down completely (more on that later). Next, fill out the running time with flashbacks showing the lives of characters before the crash.
A typical LOST flashback would be considered an external analepsis, a scene that takes place before the narrative started. In the first season, the analepses almost exclusively follow certain structural limitations. First, excepting the bookending premiere and finales, each episode’s flashback is limited to the narrative point-of-view of one of the castaways, or the POV of a natural pair such as Sun and Jin who shared a life story to that point. Second, these stories are contained chronologically before the crash (the start of the ongoing narrative of the series). “Walkabout” is the only episode of Season 1, and the first of the series, to feature an internal analepsis, a scene which takes place earlier within the narrative; in the case of LOST we can define this narrative starting point as Jack waking up in the jungle after the plane crash.
The first on-island flashback, which begins “Walkabout,” shows John Locke waking up on the beach in the aftermath of the crash. Taking a moment to focus on his feet (which have lost their shoes in typical plane crash style), he slowly stands up and starts helping the other survivors. The cold open instantly signals to the viewer that the episode will focus on Locke. From this scene, we cut back to the Island A- and B-story, the search for food and the preparation to burn the crash victims’ bodies. This early in the series run, the elemental survival aspects are prominent.
Locke announces a plan to hunt the wild boar on the Island. As one of the castaways, speaking for the audience, asks who this self-styled knife hunter is, we cut to a close-up of Locke answering a phone in an office setting. Addressed as “Colonel Locke,” he appears to be military personnel, until he is summarily interrupted by his “douche” boss and revealed to be a miserable clerical worker. (Adding to the indignities, Locke reveals in a later episode that his employer was actually a box company, which we know from The Simpsons, is the most boring thing ever.)
As Locke, Kate and Michael start their hunt, they quickly encounter a boar, which knocks Locke down. Locke seems particularly stricken as he lies on the ground, glancing at the boots on his feet. This triggers the next flashback, revealing the “rendezvous” set up during the phone call to be a military strategy board game. The boss Randy mocks Locke’s hobby before bringing up the titular walkabout. Locke is planning a trip to Australia to participate in the famous “journey of spiritual discovery” in the Outback; Randy openly tells John that he won’t be able to do it. Locke cites the story of a blind man who climbed Everest and delivers his signature line: “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”
As Michael and Kate split off to act out the C-story, Locke marches on alone. The story flashes to Locke, sitting upright in bed and phoning a woman he calls Helen. He sheepishly invites her on the walkabout; it becomes clear that she is a phone sex worker. So far the flashbacks effectively portray Locke as a pathetic poser, a man with aspirations to greatness and adventure but lacking the courage or ability to do it. From the phone call, we return to the jungle where Locke encounters the Monster face-to-face.
Locke returns to camp with the fresh kill. At the funeral pyre that evening (the first of many, many funerals), Michael asks Locke about the Monster, triggering the last sequence of flashbacks. At the guide’s office, Locke forcefully argues for his ability and his right to join the walkabout. The guide refers to Locke misrepresenting his “condition” and refuses; as he stands up to leave, the camera goes wide to reveal Locke is in a wheelchair. Locke desperately explains that he’s lived this way for four years and pleads, angrily yelling his new catchphrase. Then we cut back to the opening flashback scene of Locke waking up on the beach and looking at his feet. What seemed like an artful but inconsequential moment before is now recontextualized by the new information about Locke’s handicap, and the reveal is fully driven home: Locke was paralyzed, but on the Island he can walk. The tantrum at the office probably seems silly now, as Locke realizes he is now on the ultimate walkabout. The editing effectively links John’s spiritual and physical renewal to the Island and the presence of the Monster, foreshadowing the journey Locke will take and his…unique relationship with the Monster.
Upon repeat viewings, with the knowledge of Locke’s paralysis, it’s shocking how little the producers try to hide it. Mostly they just play into the viewer’s assumptions: we saw Locke walking around the Island, so there was no reason to suspect that he had been unable to before. As astute viewers, we are always searching for some thematic or narrative unity, and with crucial information missing, the sad sack nature of Locke’s character seemed like the only unifying aspect of the flashbacks. The only deceptive technique the filmmakers use is a lack of any wide shots showing Locke in his wheelchair.
The daring twist of “Walkabout” serves as a template for many of the most memorable moments and aspects of the series going forward. What they all seem to have in common is taking the avid and astute nature of LOST viewership and turning it on its head. That is, rather than a Usual Suspects-style twist that crudely and unnecessarily deceives before yanking out the rug from underneath, LOST lets natural audience assumptions of form and structure do the leg work, before adding a vital piece of information that upends those assumptions.
These flashback scenes comprise less than nine minutes of the 42-minute running time. The episode is still mostly concerned with island business such as the boar hunt, Jack grappling with being the hero, and Hurley fishing. It’s a testament to the cumulative effect of the flashbacks that they so thoroughly dominate any fan’s memory of “Walkabout.” After establishing the hooky premise of LOST in the first three hours, “Walkabout” starts broadening the scope of the show in an unanticipated new direction – if paralyzed men can suddenly walk around, is there something special about the plane crash or the Island? And what other amazing secrets might the other survivors hold?
