Tonight marks the beginning of the sixth and final season for ABC's landmark sci-fi drama Lost—much to the delight ("It's here!") and chagrin ("It's almost over!") of TV geeks everywhere. Lost is a potpourri of engrossing characters, literary references, time-travel tropes and thought-provoking musings about the interplay of religion and science, of fate and free will, of good and evil and the gray in between.
But at its core, Lost is really about a subject near and dear to Plugged In's core: family. Strip away all the white rabbits and mysterious hatches, and you're left with an island full of sons and daughters, lost and hurting because their relationships with their parents—particularly their fathers—aren't all they should be.
"I think father issues are very much a part of the show," Lost producer Carlton Cuse said at Comic-Con 2006, according to Lostpedia. "Dramatically, that is something that we deal with extensively. And if you look at the characters on the show, a lot of the characters have 'daddy issues.'"
Does Your Daddy Matter?
"Ironically, I had a fairly awesome (if not slightly complicated) relationship with my father," writer and producer Damon Lindelof tells Entertainment Weekly. "I suppose the fact that he died shortly before we began writing Lost had a great impact on where my head was at the time, but he was an amazing guy who is pretty much responsible for my love of all things storytelling-related. He never even tried to steal my kidney.
"That being said," Lindelof goes on, "I think, mythically speaking, all great heroes have massive daddy issues. Hercules. Oedipus, Luke Skywalker. Indiana Jones. Spider-Man. It all comes with the territory. We dig flawed characters on Lost, and a large part of being flawed is the emotional damage inflicted on you by your folks."
He's right, you know. Biblical characters have had some rocky times with their dads, too. Isaac was nearly sacrificed by his. Jacob and Esau had a pretty complex relation with theirs. Joseph's pop doted—perhaps too much—creating its own set of problems. And that's just Genesis.
Its flawed characters make Lost quite uncomfortable to watch at times. In addition to the typical problematic content we'd point out reviewing Lost—the violence, the swearing, the sexuality—viewers are confronted by lots of murky morality and very, very bad role models. Everyone on the island does things they regret (or should).
But the script, more often than not, suggests that their strengths and weaknesses are the product of how they were raised. And, so, all that negativity evokes a very positive—biblical—theme: That what you do as a parent matters. In a time when more and more children are raised in single-parent households, and in an environment where the role of a father in his children's lives is often minimized, Lost tells us something very true and very important: If fathers aren't around, or they're not paying attention, their children pay the price.
That echoes Scripture. Regarding idols, God told the Israelites in Exodus 20:5, "You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me." The fathers of Jack, John, Sawyer and Kate didn't bow down to graven images, as the Bible puts it, but they sure erected their own personal idols to worship. And we sure see how their sin is passed down. It's a vicious cycle—one that God understands and takes care to warn us about.
Why? Because fathers are central to His plans. The most critical moment in Christianity, after all, involves the Father, the Son and the most revolutionary sacrifice ever. And fractious fatherly relationships can pull lots of threads out of the spiritual tapestry we're all part of.
"In my opinion there are only two important themes [in Lost]," writes Entertainment Weekly blogger Jeff Jensen: "1. Science vs. Religion (or Reason vs. Faith); and 2. The Failure of the Father Figure." Jensen argues that many characters—Jack, Locke and others—are themselves surrogate father figures for the island's frequently disoriented inhabitants, and I buy it. Jack and Locke, in the midst of their own quests for purpose and redemption, must also help lead and guide the islanders who follow them. (It's no accident, I think, that Jack's last name is "Shephard.") And there's a sense that, if they somehow succeed—if they do what they're "meant" to do—the sins and scars their fathers etched on their souls, along with those of their own making, will be somehow wiped clean.
These sins are not necessarily forgiven, mind you, in the Christian sense. Rather, the show simply acknowledges that families—as messy as they can be—are critical components of who and what we are. And it also suggests that, even if our childhoods weren't perfect, we have it within our power to do better, to be better.
"Lost … isn't about burying the past," writes Jensen, "but finding the grace to live with it."
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