Deadline.com and EW confirm that Terry O’Quinn, LOST's Locke, will star in the upcoming ABC pilot, 666 Park Avenue. The new show is about a couple who move to New York and manage a historic building where "supernatural happenings" endanger the building's occupants. O’Quinn will play the role of the building’s owner, Gavin.
Now some wonder if this is going to be the Locke character trapped inside a supernatural building rather than trapped on the Island. The "666" number indicates the sign of the devil, so demonic events are sure to happen. Or not.
As the building owner, one suspects that O'Quinn will be in the center of action, which is a good thing. But the confines of the building proper has to limit the types of mysteries, monsters, spooks and story lines (unless the writers construct an Alcatraz style show format: a new character per week assembly line plot arc).
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
THE NEXT LOST
Jorge Garcia was the first hire in JJ Abrams sci-fi series, LOST. One of the reasons may have been to find a secondary anchor character that would place viewers into their own screen surrogate in Hurley. Another reason was the initial plan to kill off a lead (Jack) quickly in order to heighten the danger element of the show.
Garcia has joined the cast of the next Abrams sci-fi series, ALCATRAZ. Still not wanting to get sucked into a seemingly weak premise in the adverts leading up to the premiere, I passed on viewing. But I did read the initial reviews which were mostly positive, but led to some critical flaws in the story construction and plot movement.
ALCATRAZ appears to be a combination of the X-Files, in a secret government conspiracy within shadow organizations, and Lost, in another Island as a main focal point for supernatural elements. In this case, prisoners had vanished from the high security prison before it closed and now, decades later, they begin to appear in modern day San Francisco with evil intent.
This new Lost has an X-Files nicotine free Smoking Man, a cute street wise female police officer who suddenly gets transferred (for no logical real world reason) into the secret organization tracking down the re-appearing menace of Lost Prisoners. Garcia's character is an academic who has studied Alcatraz in minute detail, including the missing prisoners, so he is drafted to be the police woman's non-trained law enforcement partner (yes, that is another real life stretch).
The reviewers said that unlike LOST, the pilot episode had a self contained resolution of the first prisoner's story, and then threw in some real plot twists at the end. Reviewers thought that the creators of this show were aware of the LOST story arcs that went into tangential dead ends were the main criticisms when LOST concluded and the writers made a conscious effort to tie up story leads quickly in a clear, understandable way.
I will probably still wait and see how the reviewers see how the show is progressing before wading into another Abrams show pool. Then, it may get a chance during the television re-run season.
Garcia has joined the cast of the next Abrams sci-fi series, ALCATRAZ. Still not wanting to get sucked into a seemingly weak premise in the adverts leading up to the premiere, I passed on viewing. But I did read the initial reviews which were mostly positive, but led to some critical flaws in the story construction and plot movement.
ALCATRAZ appears to be a combination of the X-Files, in a secret government conspiracy within shadow organizations, and Lost, in another Island as a main focal point for supernatural elements. In this case, prisoners had vanished from the high security prison before it closed and now, decades later, they begin to appear in modern day San Francisco with evil intent.
This new Lost has an X-Files nicotine free Smoking Man, a cute street wise female police officer who suddenly gets transferred (for no logical real world reason) into the secret organization tracking down the re-appearing menace of Lost Prisoners. Garcia's character is an academic who has studied Alcatraz in minute detail, including the missing prisoners, so he is drafted to be the police woman's non-trained law enforcement partner (yes, that is another real life stretch).
The reviewers said that unlike LOST, the pilot episode had a self contained resolution of the first prisoner's story, and then threw in some real plot twists at the end. Reviewers thought that the creators of this show were aware of the LOST story arcs that went into tangential dead ends were the main criticisms when LOST concluded and the writers made a conscious effort to tie up story leads quickly in a clear, understandable way.
I will probably still wait and see how the reviewers see how the show is progressing before wading into another Abrams show pool. Then, it may get a chance during the television re-run season.
Monday, December 19, 2011
THE LOST EFFECT
Heather Havrilesky, the Los Angeles-based television writer for the New York Times uses the analogy of lab rats lured through a maze by the promise of false treats to blast the current writing trend started with The Ending of Lost to current dramatic television. She concludes that "Lost" ruined the market for nuanced, character-driven dramas in the same way that the Star Wars franchise dumbed down action movies. Her immediate point is her disappointment in "Homeland" and "American Horror Story." From the Times piece:
"[Lost's] finale was the crowning disaster, the Scooby-Doo ending to end all Scooby-Doo endings. After hinting for years that their nonsensical mess would add up to something, not only did the producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof fail to address a tiny fraction of the trillions of mysteries they introduced, but they threw out the Lostpedia with the bath water, scrapping all of those riddles for the equivalent of Lucas’s teddy-bear victory dance: a celestial moment with the survivors, hugging and holding hands in the afterlife.
"This is all ancient history — or would be, if not for the fact that the implosion of “Lost” was like a dirty bomb that made the world unsafe for serial dramas to this day....
"The problem lies in the fact that the dead-end suspense and pill-popping, knife-wielding darkness of today’s TV dramas shove more subtle pilot candidates out of the way. The empty thrills, the ticking clock that never runs down, the pointless twists and turns that are neither motivated nor resolved, all degrade the audience’s palate until all we can taste is blood, all we can see is teenagers in hot pants, all we can hear is flat dialogue and all we can expect at the end of season is a giant, flashing question mark.
"And that’s sad, because it’s also true that television writers are taking big risks in their laboratories these days. They’re experimenting with speeding up and slowing down the time line, trotting out unlikable characters and testing our tolerance for crazy, for demented, for morbid. Instead, they should focus on testing our tolerance for smart, complex characters and nuanced stories, just as “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” and “Mad Men” did. Because some of us have been burned too many times to head back into that jungle maze yet again."
The analogy of writers using "thrill pills" to lead lab rats (viewers) through a dead end plot arc dead ends through a maze of story lines to a WTF? conclusion was a long running criticism of the LOST anthology and brought up here several times.
It is a cheap story format to throw out bizarre events, cloaked clues, mysterious dangerous secondary characters to scare, threaten, or haunt your main characters - - - but just throwing elements at them is like endlessly shooting bullets in a video game that leads to no where except shooting more bullets.
Maybe the most inadvertent Easter Egg of the whole lost series was Daniel Faraday's lab rat (Eloise, named after his mother) time maze which meant nothing in The End.
"[Lost's] finale was the crowning disaster, the Scooby-Doo ending to end all Scooby-Doo endings. After hinting for years that their nonsensical mess would add up to something, not only did the producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof fail to address a tiny fraction of the trillions of mysteries they introduced, but they threw out the Lostpedia with the bath water, scrapping all of those riddles for the equivalent of Lucas’s teddy-bear victory dance: a celestial moment with the survivors, hugging and holding hands in the afterlife.
"This is all ancient history — or would be, if not for the fact that the implosion of “Lost” was like a dirty bomb that made the world unsafe for serial dramas to this day....
"The problem lies in the fact that the dead-end suspense and pill-popping, knife-wielding darkness of today’s TV dramas shove more subtle pilot candidates out of the way. The empty thrills, the ticking clock that never runs down, the pointless twists and turns that are neither motivated nor resolved, all degrade the audience’s palate until all we can taste is blood, all we can see is teenagers in hot pants, all we can hear is flat dialogue and all we can expect at the end of season is a giant, flashing question mark.
"And that’s sad, because it’s also true that television writers are taking big risks in their laboratories these days. They’re experimenting with speeding up and slowing down the time line, trotting out unlikable characters and testing our tolerance for crazy, for demented, for morbid. Instead, they should focus on testing our tolerance for smart, complex characters and nuanced stories, just as “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” and “Mad Men” did. Because some of us have been burned too many times to head back into that jungle maze yet again."
The analogy of writers using "thrill pills" to lead lab rats (viewers) through a dead end plot arc dead ends through a maze of story lines to a WTF? conclusion was a long running criticism of the LOST anthology and brought up here several times.
It is a cheap story format to throw out bizarre events, cloaked clues, mysterious dangerous secondary characters to scare, threaten, or haunt your main characters - - - but just throwing elements at them is like endlessly shooting bullets in a video game that leads to no where except shooting more bullets.
Maybe the most inadvertent Easter Egg of the whole lost series was Daniel Faraday's lab rat (Eloise, named after his mother) time maze which meant nothing in The End.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
THE MAYAN EXAMPLE
The Island had a mix of artifacts from ancient to modern civilizations. There were Egyptian temples to modern science research facilities. There were many places where tests were conducted, and/or where the LOST characters had to pass test in order to survive.
In trying to find an analogy to help clarify the concepts lost by TPTB when the series concluded, one can find context by examining the Mayan culture.
In the Mayan culture, the underworld was called Xibalba, as a place below the surface of the Earth associated with death and with twelve gods or powerful rulers known as the Lords of Xibalba, often referred to as demons and are given commission and domain over various forms of human suffering: to cause sickness, starvation, fear, destitution, pain, and ultimately death. These Lords all work in pairs to sicken people's blood; to cause people's bodies to swell up; to turn dead bodies into skeletons; to hide in the unswept areas of people houses and stabbed them to death; andto cause people to die coughing up blood while out walking on a road. The remaining residents of Xibalba are thought to have fallen under the dominion of one of these Lords, going about the face of the Earth to carry out their listed duties.
Xibalba was a large place and a number of individual structures or locations within Xibalba, among these was the council place of the Lords, the five or six houses that served as the first tests of Xibalba, and the Xibalban ballcourt.
Xibalba seemed to be rife with tests, trials, and traps for anyone who came into the city. Even the road to Xibalba was filled with obstacles: first a river filled with scorpions, a river filled with blood, and then a river filled with pus. Beyond these was a crossroads where travellers had to choose from between four roads that spoke in an attempt to confuse and beguile. Upon passing these obstacles, one would come upon the Xibalba council place, where it was expected visitors would greet the seated Lords. Realistic mannequins were seated near the Lords to confuse and humiliate people who greeted them, and the confused would then be invited to sit upon a bench, which was actually a hot cooking surface. The Lords of Xibalba would entertain themselves by humiliating people in this fashion before sending them into one of Xibalba's deadly tests.
The city was home to at least six deadly houses filled with trials for visitors. The first was Dark House, a house that was completely dark inside. The second was Rattling House or Cold House, full of bone-chilling cold and rattling hail. The third was Jaguar House, filled with hungry jaguars. The fourth was Bat House, filled with dangerous shrieking bats, and the fifth was Razor House, filled with blades and razors that moved about of their own accord. A sixth test, Hot House, filled with fires and heat, is identified. The purpose of these tests was to either kill or humiliate people placed into them if they could not outwit the test.
This underworld contained 9 levels. For those souls who could finish their journey, there was the possibility of 13 levels of heaven.
What was the LOST series to the characters but "rife with tests, trials, and traps for anyone" who came to the Island. Much of the island action centered upon long treks through the jungle, fighting off unknown forces, and dealing with people like Ben whose main purpose was "to confuse and humiliate people."
What greater "test" was Ben bringing Sawyer to the cliff face of the island and pointing to Sawyer's chest scar to tell him he implanted a device that would explode if he ever left the island. Was it true? Was it a bluff? Was it shear madness? But it did cause Sawyer to change his own plans to stay on the island until the miracle Ajira plane take off at the End. We do not know when Frank got the plane off the ground whether Sawyer's chest sprayed the cabin with his blood and guts, but we do know that Sawyer found his way to the afterlife party.
Jacob was another character to used, abused, confused and tormented other people that he brought to his Island realm. Jacob may have thought it a evil diversion with his brother, using human pawns, like two Lords of the Mayan underworld playing a game.
Since the biggest unanswered LOST factor was what the Island actually was, we can only speculate on what it could represent in order to fashion a coherent, orderly and plausible end result.
In trying to find an analogy to help clarify the concepts lost by TPTB when the series concluded, one can find context by examining the Mayan culture.
In the Mayan culture, the underworld was called Xibalba, as a place below the surface of the Earth associated with death and with twelve gods or powerful rulers known as the Lords of Xibalba, often referred to as demons and are given commission and domain over various forms of human suffering: to cause sickness, starvation, fear, destitution, pain, and ultimately death. These Lords all work in pairs to sicken people's blood; to cause people's bodies to swell up; to turn dead bodies into skeletons; to hide in the unswept areas of people houses and stabbed them to death; andto cause people to die coughing up blood while out walking on a road. The remaining residents of Xibalba are thought to have fallen under the dominion of one of these Lords, going about the face of the Earth to carry out their listed duties.
Xibalba was a large place and a number of individual structures or locations within Xibalba, among these was the council place of the Lords, the five or six houses that served as the first tests of Xibalba, and the Xibalban ballcourt.
Xibalba seemed to be rife with tests, trials, and traps for anyone who came into the city. Even the road to Xibalba was filled with obstacles: first a river filled with scorpions, a river filled with blood, and then a river filled with pus. Beyond these was a crossroads where travellers had to choose from between four roads that spoke in an attempt to confuse and beguile. Upon passing these obstacles, one would come upon the Xibalba council place, where it was expected visitors would greet the seated Lords. Realistic mannequins were seated near the Lords to confuse and humiliate people who greeted them, and the confused would then be invited to sit upon a bench, which was actually a hot cooking surface. The Lords of Xibalba would entertain themselves by humiliating people in this fashion before sending them into one of Xibalba's deadly tests.
The city was home to at least six deadly houses filled with trials for visitors. The first was Dark House, a house that was completely dark inside. The second was Rattling House or Cold House, full of bone-chilling cold and rattling hail. The third was Jaguar House, filled with hungry jaguars. The fourth was Bat House, filled with dangerous shrieking bats, and the fifth was Razor House, filled with blades and razors that moved about of their own accord. A sixth test, Hot House, filled with fires and heat, is identified. The purpose of these tests was to either kill or humiliate people placed into them if they could not outwit the test.
This underworld contained 9 levels. For those souls who could finish their journey, there was the possibility of 13 levels of heaven.
What was the LOST series to the characters but "rife with tests, trials, and traps for anyone" who came to the Island. Much of the island action centered upon long treks through the jungle, fighting off unknown forces, and dealing with people like Ben whose main purpose was "to confuse and humiliate people."
What greater "test" was Ben bringing Sawyer to the cliff face of the island and pointing to Sawyer's chest scar to tell him he implanted a device that would explode if he ever left the island. Was it true? Was it a bluff? Was it shear madness? But it did cause Sawyer to change his own plans to stay on the island until the miracle Ajira plane take off at the End. We do not know when Frank got the plane off the ground whether Sawyer's chest sprayed the cabin with his blood and guts, but we do know that Sawyer found his way to the afterlife party.
Jacob was another character to used, abused, confused and tormented other people that he brought to his Island realm. Jacob may have thought it a evil diversion with his brother, using human pawns, like two Lords of the Mayan underworld playing a game.
Since the biggest unanswered LOST factor was what the Island actually was, we can only speculate on what it could represent in order to fashion a coherent, orderly and plausible end result.
Monday, November 28, 2011
POST LOST CAST UPDATE
With the lack of a powerful ending in the End, and the lack of peer acclaim at the Emmys, the cast of LOST seem to have their careers fade away quicker than a normal series. As an ensemble cast, it would appear supporting television guest shots and supporting roles in B movies seems to be the norm. From the net, a cast update:
Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje (Mr Eko): He was in "Faster" (also featuring Maggie Grace, Shannon).
Sam Anderson (Bernard): Guest starred on an NCIS episode and has a small role in a movie called "Water for Elephants."
Naveen Andrews (Sayid): ????
L Scott Caldwell (Rose): An episode of Grey’s Anatomy; theater work.
Nestor Carbonell (Richard): Guest in episodes of PSYCH and is in an upcoming movie "Cristiada" a Mexican film, in English with Andy Garcia and Eva Longoria.
Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond): Did two episodes of Law and Order SVU
Jeremy Davies: Has a supporting role in ‘It’s Kind Of a Funny Story’ but be sure to see him in ‘Justified’ he has a recurring role in Season 2. Kick ass show.
Emilie de Ravin (Claire): Two B movie roles announced.
Michael Emerson (Ben): Has new show "Person of Interest."
Jeff Fahey (Frank): B-movies projects.
Matthew Fox (Jack): Working on a movie in Cleveland, where he got arrested for an off-set altercation with a bus driver.
Jorge Garcia (Hurley): He stars in the upcoming ‘Alcatraz’ television show which may be hit or miss on the schedule.
Maggie Grace (Shannon): Was in ‘Faster’ with Mr Eko and will be in the next Twilight movies.
Josh Holloway (Sawyer): Guest appearance on "Community" and linked to several potential film projects.
Daniel Dae Kim (Jin): In the bad reboot of "Hawaii Five-O!"
Yunjin Kim (Sun): Nothing in America.
Ken Leung (Miles): Guest appearance on "The Good Wife."
Evangeline Lilly (Kate): In the movie ‘Real Steel’ with Hugh Jackman.
Rebecca Mader (Charlotte): Television appearance and role in a Jim Belushi B movie.
Elizabeth Mitchell (Juilet): Lead in "V" TB reboot.
Dominic Monaghan (Charlie): Has movie role.
Terry O’Quinn (Locke): Was pegged to team up with Michael Emerson on buddy script pilot which went no where; wound up with role in "Hawaii 5-0."
Harold Perrineau (Michael): In two indie films, ‘The Hungry Rabbit Jumps’ with Nicolas Cage and January Jones and ‘Cooler’ a indie comedy with Jim Parsons and ‘Inferno:A Linda Lovelace Story’ in production.
Michelle Rodriguez (Ana Lucia): In sci-fi film, "Battle Los Angeles"
Ian Somerhalder (Boone): In the "The Vampire Diaries."
Julie Bowen (Sarah), stars in "Modern Family."
Katie Sagal (Helen), in acclaimed cable series, "Sons of Anarchy."
Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje (Mr Eko): He was in "Faster" (also featuring Maggie Grace, Shannon).
Sam Anderson (Bernard): Guest starred on an NCIS episode and has a small role in a movie called "Water for Elephants."
Naveen Andrews (Sayid): ????
L Scott Caldwell (Rose): An episode of Grey’s Anatomy; theater work.
Nestor Carbonell (Richard): Guest in episodes of PSYCH and is in an upcoming movie "Cristiada" a Mexican film, in English with Andy Garcia and Eva Longoria.
Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond): Did two episodes of Law and Order SVU
Jeremy Davies: Has a supporting role in ‘It’s Kind Of a Funny Story’ but be sure to see him in ‘Justified’ he has a recurring role in Season 2. Kick ass show.
Emilie de Ravin (Claire): Two B movie roles announced.
Michael Emerson (Ben): Has new show "Person of Interest."
Jeff Fahey (Frank): B-movies projects.
Matthew Fox (Jack): Working on a movie in Cleveland, where he got arrested for an off-set altercation with a bus driver.
Jorge Garcia (Hurley): He stars in the upcoming ‘Alcatraz’ television show which may be hit or miss on the schedule.
Maggie Grace (Shannon): Was in ‘Faster’ with Mr Eko and will be in the next Twilight movies.
Josh Holloway (Sawyer): Guest appearance on "Community" and linked to several potential film projects.
Daniel Dae Kim (Jin): In the bad reboot of "Hawaii Five-O!"
Yunjin Kim (Sun): Nothing in America.
Ken Leung (Miles): Guest appearance on "The Good Wife."
Evangeline Lilly (Kate): In the movie ‘Real Steel’ with Hugh Jackman.
Rebecca Mader (Charlotte): Television appearance and role in a Jim Belushi B movie.
Elizabeth Mitchell (Juilet): Lead in "V" TB reboot.
Dominic Monaghan (Charlie): Has movie role.
Terry O’Quinn (Locke): Was pegged to team up with Michael Emerson on buddy script pilot which went no where; wound up with role in "Hawaii 5-0."
Harold Perrineau (Michael): In two indie films, ‘The Hungry Rabbit Jumps’ with Nicolas Cage and January Jones and ‘Cooler’ a indie comedy with Jim Parsons and ‘Inferno:A Linda Lovelace Story’ in production.
Michelle Rodriguez (Ana Lucia): In sci-fi film, "Battle Los Angeles"
Ian Somerhalder (Boone): In the "The Vampire Diaries."
Julie Bowen (Sarah), stars in "Modern Family."
Katie Sagal (Helen), in acclaimed cable series, "Sons of Anarchy."
Saturday, November 19, 2011
WAS IT ALL ABOUT JACK? (Part Three)
The "opening" of Jack's eye in the pilot to the mirror image closing of it in The End was supposed to symbolize . . . . something. A circle of life analogy, perhaps, as he began the LOST journey in the same field, in the same prone position, and basically ended his island existence the same way.
What was the great redemptive journey of Jack?
Did he make amends with his father? No.
Did he find true love? No.
Did he make any lasting, trustworthy friends? Not really.
Did he make a huge sacrifice for his fellow survivors? Maybe.
Jack took the Jacob gig really by default. No one else wanted it. And, if you look at the awkward writing of the light cave scene, there was no magical morphic event between Jack, Hurley and Ben. Jack just made it up. It was like the last semester high school senior transfer student taking the blame for a prank in the school cafeteria because he had no friends and was mad at his parents for making him move from school to school.
After choosing Hurley as his replacement, Jack descended into the Light Cave, and according to several sources "saved the Island from destruction by sinking into the ocean" and being teleported to the field, he sees the Ajira plane fly away, "he knows that he has fulfilled his purpose and ultimately his destiny."
We really don't know that: because we don't know what the Island was or what it's true purpose is. We know Hurley and Ben took over the Island for a period of time. But we don't know what they did. We know Hurley's time as Island chief folded back immediately to Jack's awakening at the church. So one could argue that Hurley was the man behind the curtain all along, gathering the 815ers in the church, and not Jack.
It was Hurley who was left behind with the mission. And the sideways world construct, with the characters all living a seemingly normal and happy life, was all a fabricated dreamscape until Hurley came back to and awakened most of them after Desmond became conscious of his island past with Eloise. Who created the sideways holding pen? Hurley, so he could gather all the LOST souls in the afterlife? Eloise, who wanted to keep her son close to her? Only a person "alive" in island realm could create the sideways "dead" world to know about both worlds simultaneously.
And Jack never seemed to have the imagination and interpersonal traits to create an entire functioning new world construct. Who had the greatest psychic imaginative traits? Walt and Hurley. But Walt had been written out of the main plot and the Ending, so that leaves Hurley, not Jack, has the probable key character in putting the lost souls in place at the End.
What was the great redemptive journey of Jack?
Did he make amends with his father? No.
Did he find true love? No.
Did he make any lasting, trustworthy friends? Not really.
Did he make a huge sacrifice for his fellow survivors? Maybe.
Jack took the Jacob gig really by default. No one else wanted it. And, if you look at the awkward writing of the light cave scene, there was no magical morphic event between Jack, Hurley and Ben. Jack just made it up. It was like the last semester high school senior transfer student taking the blame for a prank in the school cafeteria because he had no friends and was mad at his parents for making him move from school to school.
After choosing Hurley as his replacement, Jack descended into the Light Cave, and according to several sources "saved the Island from destruction by sinking into the ocean" and being teleported to the field, he sees the Ajira plane fly away, "he knows that he has fulfilled his purpose and ultimately his destiny."
We really don't know that: because we don't know what the Island was or what it's true purpose is. We know Hurley and Ben took over the Island for a period of time. But we don't know what they did. We know Hurley's time as Island chief folded back immediately to Jack's awakening at the church. So one could argue that Hurley was the man behind the curtain all along, gathering the 815ers in the church, and not Jack.
It was Hurley who was left behind with the mission. And the sideways world construct, with the characters all living a seemingly normal and happy life, was all a fabricated dreamscape until Hurley came back to and awakened most of them after Desmond became conscious of his island past with Eloise. Who created the sideways holding pen? Hurley, so he could gather all the LOST souls in the afterlife? Eloise, who wanted to keep her son close to her? Only a person "alive" in island realm could create the sideways "dead" world to know about both worlds simultaneously.
And Jack never seemed to have the imagination and interpersonal traits to create an entire functioning new world construct. Who had the greatest psychic imaginative traits? Walt and Hurley. But Walt had been written out of the main plot and the Ending, so that leaves Hurley, not Jack, has the probable key character in putting the lost souls in place at the End.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
WAS IT ALL ABOUT JACK? (Part Two)
In "White Rabbit" episode, in a flashback, Jack as a young boy lies on the ground in fear as a playground bully threatens him, while his friend, Marc, is being beaten by another bully. Jack, seemingly out of character, attempts to intervene, resulting in him getting a black eye from the bully.
Later on, Jack explains the fight to his father who tells Jack about his day at the hospital. Christian, while drinking whiskey, says that he is able to cope with the difficult job of surgeon because he "has what it takes." He claims that he can make life or death decisions daily because even when he fails, he can live with the consequences. He concludes that Jack should not "decide," because if he failed, he wouldn't "have what it takes."
On the island, Locke claims Jack's White Rabbit is the vision of his dead father, an illusion to a character in Alice in Wonderland that leads the main character down the rabbit hole and into a dangerous fantasy world.
If LOST was all about Jack, was the trip to Australia to retrieve his estranged father's body the cusp of his life suddenly falling (literally from the sky) into a dangerous fantasy world on the Island?
In life, Jack was told he was not a leader because he could not handle the "wrong decisions" which would cost people their lives. On the island, survivors came to him to make decisions for them - - - life and death decisions on survival, which path to take, who to trust, and where to go.
If one takes all the plot elements, flashbacks, island time, and flash forward arcs, nearly all of Jack's decisions were the "wrong decisions." He really did not have a good instinct at reading people's inner motivations. He really did not want to make close friendships because that would lead to trust. His story is really one of being beat up, physically and emotionally. By the time Jack gets on Flight 815, he is spent. He is lost. He cannot change his relationship with his father. He can never show his father that he was wrong when he said he could not handle the consequences of life and death decisions. Only in a fantasy world could Jack face his White Rabbit.
So how does Jack actually meet his father in "real time?" His flashbacks are mere memories. He finds his father dead in Sydney. His interaction with his father on the island is mere illusion because it cannot be real: is Christian a guardian angel? a fellow traveler trapped in a fantasy-purgatory realm? is Christian a mere delusion? There are two ways to reconcile this premise: the plane crash sent Jack into a fantasy world made up by his mental images or Jack perished in the crash with everyone else and this was his Egyptian style journey through the underworld.
The only time Jack speaks to him on the same plane of existence is in the church at The End when it is revealed that they are both dead. But that short conversation never solved or resolved the deep "daddy issues" Jack had throughout the series.
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