Sorry for the long delay in posting this rewatch blog for "Hearts and Minds," the 13th episode of Season 1 and Boone's only centric. While certainly not the greatest episode of Season 1, there are a few fairly interesting things to pull from this episode. As always, these blogs will attempt to make connections from the current episode's issues, themes, and plotlines to later parts of the show.
For me, the most interesting part of the episode, given what we know and have seen now that the series is over, is the beach-side conversation between Jack and Locke. Jack comes over and asks about whether Locke sees a ship, and asks "Mind if I join you?" Does this sound familiar? It should if you watched the opening scene to Season 5's finale, the famous beach conversation between Jacob and the Man in Black. Jack comes to Locke asking him if he sees any ships, and The Man in Black comes to Jacob asking him about the Black Rock. Both Jack and the Man in Black use the line, "Mind if I join you?" And to top it all off, in both instances there is a conversation about the nature of humanity. Locke proclaims that humans are the most dangerous predator of all, while the Man in Black proclaims that humans are inherently flawed and corrupt. This scene contains some outstanding foreshadowing, and tells me that Damon and Carlton probably had this Jack/Locke scene in mind when they were writing the opening scene of "The Incident."
This episode, like so many other episodes of Lost, shows a character's struggle to let go. While most "letting go" episodes involve Jack, this one involves Boone and his sister/lover Shannon. I found it interesting that Boone was so vehemently against Sayid and Shannon's relationship in this episode, yet after he died, he helped Hurley bring Shannon and Sayid together so they could move on together. By the time Boone dies in "Do No Harm" he has let go of his somewhat creepy attachment to his sister, and once he enters the afterlife/flash-sideways he makes it his job, just like Desmond, to bring people together so they can let go. Did anyone else find Shannon and Boone's relationship incredibly creepy and awkward? I never thought a primetime TV show would ever deal with incest, but Lost pushed the envelope just a bit here. I know it's not "technically" incest, but still their sex scene at the end of the episode was just plain weird.
I've always enjoyed scenes with Hurley and Jack, and we get a funny one in this episode where Hurley awkwardly asks Jack about his digestive troubles. There are also some great scenes with Hurley and Jin in this episode, as evinced by the blog title. It's great to see Hurley and Jin finally start to get along in this episode. We'd later to see them become friends (as Hurley did with almost everybody) and fix and ride an old Dharma bus in "Tricia Tanaka is Dead."
Sayid provides the show's first mention of the electromagnetic weirdness that is central to the island and its mystical powers. In the end, Damon and Carlton gave a blanket explanation for the powers of the Island by just saying it was all electromagnetism. The Heart of the Island, The Swan, and the Orchid were all electromagnetic hotspots on the Island that contributed to many of the Island's interesting attributes. The spring in the Temple was probably connected to the golden waterfall o' light in some way. Electromagnetism, which would play a huge role in Season 2, Season 5, and Season 6, is innocuously introduced in this episode.
We also get another appearance, albeit a dream/drug version, of the Monster in this episode. Maybe it's just me, but it seems to my eyes that this episode has the first appearance of the "black smoke" so readily associated with the Man in Black. Right after the Monster appears for the second time to Boone and Shannon you can see a tree get uprooted and a cloud of black smoke for a split second. It conceivably could be the debris from the uprooted tree, but this could be the first time we really see the Monster.
In this episode, Charlie tells Jack, "No offense, mate, but if there's one person on this island I would put my absolute faith in to save us all it would be John Locke." This statement always led me to believe that in the end, Locke would be the one to save everybody. As we see, it was Jack who actually ended up saving everybody by killing The Man in Black. But if you analyze Jack's saving of everybody a little closer, his transformation to a Man of Faith, one that would believe in the need to take on the Island's protectorship, and sacrifice himself for the good of the Island, was supremely influenced by Locke. In the end, Jack acknowledges that Locke was right about the Island, and if you think about it that way, Locke really did save everybody as Charlie prophetically said in this episode.
That's it guys. Hope there are people still around on Lostpedia to read these. Thank you for reading and commenting. Stay tuned for "Special," Walt's first centric. Happy rewatching, and I'll see you in another life, brother.
-Doug