Meet Kevin Johnson

The series begins on December 26, 2004, three months after the crash of an Oceanic 815 flight. Most of the series takes place on the Kahana ship, owned by Charles Widmore , who sent him to the island to capture the leader of the Other Benjamin Linus ( Michael Emerson ).

Captain Golt ( Grant Bowler ) stops two crew members trying to escape from the ship. He beats them, shouting at the same time that this is done for their own good, so that the same thing that happened to George Minkowski does not happen to them. The next day, Said Jarra forces Michael to talk about what happened to him during the time he was absent on the island. Michael's story is presented as one of the longest continuous flashbacks in the history of the series ^[10] .

Having sailed away from the island , Michael and his son Walt ( Malcolm David Kelly ) return to New York . Due to remorse, he tells his son that it was he who killed Anu Lucia and Libby ( Cynthia Watros ) in order to save him from the captivity of the Others. After this confession, Walt does not want to live with Michael and moves to the house of his grandmother - mother Michael (Starlett Dupois). Michael suffers from nightmares in which the Libby spirit comes to him, and tries to commit suicide. After leaving the hospital after he tried to die in a car accident, Michael decides to shoot himself. To buy a gun, he sells watches that Gene gave him in the finale of the first season . When he tries to shoot himself in the street, Tom ( M.K. Gainey ), the Other, abducting Walt, approaches him. Tom says that the Island will not let Michael die, and reports that Michael needs to board the Kahana ship under the pseudonym Kevin Johnson and kill anyone who could harm the survivors on the Island. To this end, Michael goes to Fiji and is hired on a ship. Miles tells him that his name is not Kevin Johnson, but on this ship everyone is lying about something. But Michael does not dare to begin sabotage until he sees Martin Kimi ( Kevin Durand ) and his henchmen training in shooting on a ship. After he tries to detonate a bomb carried with him, but sees that it is fake, Linus contacts him and explains that he ordered the fake bomb to be issued, since he is against killing innocent people on board. When Michael tells his story, Said tells Golt about who he really is. ^[10]

On an island in the former village of Others, where some of the surviving passengers live, group leader John Locke gathers people for dinner to discuss the problem of aliens from the ship. At dinner, Benjamin reveals the secret that his spy on the ship is Michael Dawson. After dinner, Ben persuades his daughter Alexandra to go to a certain temple, because, he believes, it is safer there. She leaves with her mother Daniel Russo ( Mira Furlan ) and her friend Karl ( Blake Bashoff ). Along the way, they are ambushed by the Kimi people. Carl and Daniel die, and Alex is taken prisoner ^[10] .

Casting

In “Meet Kevin Johnson,” Cynthia Watros first appears in the role of Libby from the time when her character was killed in the second season. Despite promise that there will be an episode in the second season in which Libby will be the main character ^[11] , Libby became the first hero to whom no episode was dedicated, but which was among the main characters. After that, executive producer and screenwriter Damon Lindelof promised to reveal the past of the heroine in the third season ^[12] . But he later stated that Libby’s story will be told via flashbacks of the new hero, which will appear in the fourth season ^[13] . Screenwriter and executive producer Carlton Cuse even said that these flashbacks will be present in many episodes ^[14] . But these promises remained promises: Watros appeared in only a few scenes of Meet Kevin Johnson in the form of a hallucination , being to Michael. The authors said that they still shed light on this heroine in the fifth season ^[15] . Later, the authors revised everything once again, and Cuse stated that Libby’s participation was over ^[16] . When Watros appeared again in the series, her name in the credits was not highlighted as if she was an invited “star”, she was simply among the actors of the main cast.

Malcolm David Kelly, a member of the first season's cast, appeared in a small scene where his hero, ten-year-old son Michael Walt, watches his father from the window of his grandmother's house, but his name was not in the credits. Fifteen-year-old Kelly claimed that he was made up to look younger ^[17] , but Lindelof and Cuse stated that special effects director Mitch Saskin simply changed his height on the screen, fitting it to growth in the first season ^[18] . Since Kelly was so obscured and his name was not in the credits, television critics were sure that in the role of Walt was someone else. Steve Heyzer from Time Out magazine wrote:

You have to shake hands with the Lost Screenwriters: For weeks, people have been arguing about how they plan to deal with Walt’s inevitable growing up. After all, the series began in 2004 and the plot only took a few months after the crash. But in reality, years passed, and Kelly matured. And what did they do? They just didn't show it. Cleverly.

Original text

You gotta hand it to the Lost writers: For weeks, people have speculated about how they were going to treat Walt's inevitable pubescence. See, the show's set in 2004, and only a few months have passed since the plane crash. Yet ... it's been years, and ... Kelley has become a man. So what did they do? ... They just didn't show him. Clever.

- ^[19]

The reviewer considered that “not showing Walt is a reasonable way to hide the fact that he was one foot taller”, and also decided that the creators would never show this hero again ^[20] . Nicky Stafford from Wizard magazine stated that “the child standing in the window was definitely not Malcolm David Kelly” ^[21] .

Having starred in six episodes of the third season and in two episodes of the fourth, Blake Bashoff got the role of Moritz Stiefel in the Broadway musical Spring Awakening ^[22] . He warned Lindelof and Cuse that for half a year, starting in December 2007, he would not be able to star in Lost, because he would be busy at rehearsals. The scriptwriters did not keep him and rewrote the story, killing his hero, although they had some plans for him ^[23] . But according to their plans, Karl still had to die, the question was only in time. In one of the subsequent episodes, one of the characters, Miles finds Carl's buried body in the jungle, but in this scene, an understudy was shot instead of Bashoff. Bashoff said the authors hope he can return to the series and star in a scene similar to Tom's from Meet Kevin Johnson ^[23] . He also said that he loved the series and would like to know more about the biography of his hero ^[23] .

Script

On the day that the script for the series was completed, a strike began at the US Scriptwriters Guild ^{[6] [24]} . The authors wanted to hold eight episodes until they could finish the season, because the episode was quite interesting, but not enough to be the climax of the season ^{[25] [26]} , they called it “the end of an exciting chapter, but not the end of the novel” ^[27] . The ABC decided that these eight episodes will be shown in January – March 2008, regardless of whether the remaining episodes will be filmed ^[28] . On February 12, 2008 , after the end of the strike, the authors began to ask ABC to show “Meet Kevin Johnson” on April 17 , along with the second half of the season, because “the eighth episode is quite unusual and is the beginning of something new” ^{[29] [30]} . Jorge Garcia , who plays the role of Hugo , agreed that “this is a rather shocking end, but it is inferior to the previous finals” ^[31] . But ABC management decided that the new episodes of Lost, The Ugly , and Anatomy of Passion will be shown from April 24th ^[32] .

Despite the strike of the scriptwriters, co-producer and screenwriter Adam Horowitz said that this series “brought a lot of pleasure when working on it, because we waited so long when we could talk about what happened to Michael” ^[33] . Carlton Cuse said: “We felt that the audience had the right to know what happened to him and Walt after they sailed on the boat” ^[34] . Coordinating producer Elizabeth Sarnoff said that “Michael’s goal throughout the season is to die in order to redeem himself” ^[34] . Co-producer Edward Kitsis added that “the moment Walt doesn't see Michael is quite heartbreaking ... I always respected the fact that he told his son about the killings ... Even though he knew that this could cause a break in their relationship, he wanted to to be honest ... For this he can be respected ” ^[33] . Harold Perrino, playing the role of Michael, concluded: “He stumbled, committed misconduct, which led him to a bad situation, but still he is a good guy” ^[34] . Instead of alternating flashbacks with scenes from the main plot, the creators decided to show them as a single inextricable block, framing scenes from the main storyline. Prior to this, such a technique was used only in the series “ Flash before the eyes ” from the third season. The continuous flashback from the Meet Kevin Johnson series turned out to be the longest in the history of Lost ^[5] . Horowitz explained it this way: “Since we were breaking the story, it finally happened, and we got the longest flashback at the moment” ^[33] . When Lindelof was asked why Michael’s pseudonym is not an allusion to a literary or historical character, like many characters in the series ^[35] , he replied:

If Others had given him the surname Darwin or Dickens, Widmore would have suspected something was wrong and would have thought: “there is someone with a strange name on my ship, most likely he is Linus’s spy,” and so they came up with the most ordinary name that could be - Kevin Johnson.

Original text

If the Others ... had chosen ... Darwin or ... Dickens, then ... Widmore would have gotten suspicious: he'd go like, 'oh, now there's somebody on my boat with a literary allusion in their name, which sounds very much like that's a Benjamin Linus alias', so they picked the most innocuous name they possibly could, which was Kevin Johnson.

- ^[36]

Lindelof called the coincidence that a real person with that name exists ^[36] .

In one of the episodes of the series, Michael comes to Tom's hotel room and finds him with a lover - Arthur (Francesco Simon): so the audience becomes aware that Tom is the only homosexual from the heroes of the series. The debate about Tom’s sexual orientation began after the first episode of the third season was shown, where Tom tells Kate ( Evangeline Lilly ) that “she is not his type” ^{[37] [38] [39]} . A few weeks later, the authors hinted that the character will ultimately turn out to be gay ^[40] . Warming up the suspicions of the Internet community ^{[41] [42]} , M. K. Gainey began to play his hero in a different way, forcing him to flirt with Jack ( Matthew Fox ) ^[43] . After “Meet Kevin Johnson” appeared on the screen, Cuse and Lindelof confirmed that the storyline focusing on Tom’s orientation had been going on since the beginning of the third season, but they felt that it was necessary to clearly reveal it. Lindelof noted that this was far from a subtle hint ^[36] . Edward Kitsis said that “it was great to see Tom and understand that he was a real gentleman” ^[33] . M. K. Gainey described it this way: “In any group of people there must be someone different from everyone, and Tom turned out to be that person,” and Harold Perrino noted that he considers Tom’s orientation a good scenario ^[34] .

Tom says the Island somehow controls the possibility of heroes dying after Michael tries to commit suicide three times. Kitsis considered this an interesting move ^[33] . In subsequent episodes, Martin Kimi ( Kevin Durand ) also tries to shoot Michael, but the gun misfires again ^[44] , and before the explosion of the Kahana ship, Michael incarnates the island in the image of Christian Shepard ( John Terry ) ^[45] . Lindelof also said that the “intervention” of the Island caused a car accident that prevented Jack from committing suicide in the final of the third season ^[46] . After the end of the fourth season, Lindelof said that this power of the island also prevents Linus and Widmore from dying ^[47] . Cuse stated:

Fierce debate is underway about the role of goodwill and the role of fate, and the story that happened to Michael is an argument for the power of fate. Fate connects him with the island much more than he expected, and probably more than the audience expected.

Original text

There is a raging debate on the show about what constitutes free will and what constitutes destiny and Michael's story was sort of an argument on the destiny side of that equation. He had more destiny to fulfil with that island than he anticipated and maybe the audience anticipated

- ^[34]

Elizabeth Sarnoff also said that the island does not allow heroes to get rid of it until they fulfill their mission ^[34] .

The second episode of the series shows a scene in which Captain Golt beats up two crew members who are about to escape from a ship. Grant Bowler, who performed the role of Golt, explained this scene as follows:

This scene is about how quickly the number of uncontrolled events on the ship grew ... It shows his ability to control the ship, the ability to take any measures to maintain order. This scene is about his status, about the need to be balanced and to control himself.

Original text

It was a scene about how far and fast things were spiraling out of control [on] the freighter ... It was also about his ability to run the ship and that he was willing to go to such great lengths to keep order. It was about status, and keeping level-headed, and being in control.

- ^[48]

Filming

Filming began in early November 2007 and ended on November 27 ^[49] . The strike stopped writing the script for the next episode, and because of this, the time spent filming Meet Kevin Johnson was longer than the average time spent filming the series Staying Alive. Filming of different episodes usually did not overlap ^[50] , but at the same time, Jack Bender shot mobisodes , and one of the executive producers Gene Higgins shot one scene from the first episode of the season ^[51] . Perrino hoped that the audience would enjoy the return of his character ^[52] . Lilly called Meet Kevin Johnson “one of the best episodes of the first eight.” ^[53]

The scenes, which take place on the decks of the ship, were shot on a real ship, while the scenes, which take place in the interior, were partially shot in the scenery, and partly on the ship ^[54] . Initially, it was assumed that the scene in the engine room of the ship, in which Michael was going to detonate the bomb and saw the ghost of Libby, would be shot in the real engine room, but this idea had to be abandoned. There was a rather high temperature (about 40 ° C ), and the film crew decided that under such conditions it would be impossible to shoot ^{[55] [56]} . Sculptor Jim Van Houten created a seven-meter model of the engine from urethane foam ^[56] .

One of the scenes that took place in New York was shot in Honolulu , on the same street that was used as the scenery for Berlin in the Economist series and London in the Flash before Eyes series ^[57] . The final scene, in which Alex, Karl and Rousseau walk through the jungle, was shot on a Dillingham Ranch near the northeastern tip of Oahu , not far from the beach, where the first episodes of the first season were filmed ^[58] . According to the plan, the scene was supposed to end with the appearance of snipers in camouflage uniforms emerging from the forest, but the end was cut out ^[23] . Cut frames with snipers were used in the next series ^[59] .

Editing

Despite participating in a strike with other screenwriters, Carlton Cuse, a member of the Screenwriters Guild, led the series's post-production at the end of November. ^[60] When negotiations between the Guild and the and Television Producers reached an impasse in early December, he boycotted his duties and returned to work only after the end of the strike ^[61] .

In addition to the original music of Michael Giaccino , the series also used other music. In the scene where Michael is trying to commit suicide by crashed in a car from being hit by a container in the port, the song “It's Getting Better” performed by Mom Cass Elliot plays on the radio ^[62] . The song is heard again during an episode in the engine room. In the second season , the song “ ” by the same artist was used in several scenes ^[63] .

Ratings

The series, entitled The Most Anticipated Lost [episode] of the season ) ^[ Newsday ^] , was watched live and recorded for five hours after aired 11,461 million viewers in the US ^[65] . Despite the ninth place in terms of the number of viewers of the week’s telecasts ^[66] , Meet Kevin Johnson set a kind of anti-record, getting the lowest rating among the Lost series ^[67] released at that time, although this result soon overlapped the series “ Everything good that awaits us at home ”, which showed an even lower rating ^[68] . Meet Kevin Johnson took fifth place ^[69] in the age group from 18 to 49 years with 4.6 points out of 12 possible ^[70] . Considering watching it during the week after the show, 13 386 million viewers watched the series ^[8] . In Canada, the series gathered 1,421 million people on the screens, putting Lost in eighth place in the rating ^[71] . In Australia, 618 thousand people watched the series, which put it in twenty-fourth place in terms of the number of viewers among the programs of that evening ^[72] .

Reviews

Journalists and fans criticized the authors for seeming to disregard the time frame ^{[73] [74]} . Based on the events of the third season, the audience could correlate the time of the events that happened with Michael with the time of the events that happened on the island. John Kubitschek, a journalist at BuddyTV, wrote about this:

The time frame leads to quite serious perception problems ... There is almost no point in it ... After Michael sailed on the boat, he had to find help, swim to the shore, somehow explain who he was, fly to New York, send Walt to live with his grandmother, find an apartment, get into a car accident, lie in the hospital and only then meet Tom. Either the authors play over time, or Michael had the most eventful week in world history.

Original text

This timeline results in some serious issues fans should have with time ... This makes almost no sense ... Michael left in the boat, he had to find help, come ashore, somehow explain himself, get on a plane back to New York City, drop off Walt to live with his grandma, find an apartment, get into a car accident, recover, and only then did he meet Tom. Either the writers are playing fast and loose with the concept of time, or Michael had the busiest week in the history of the world.

- ^[75]

Based on Lostpedia , the Nikki Stafford from Wizard magazine concluded that the series does not coincide in chronology not only with the third season, but also with other series of the fourth season ^[21] . Damon Lindelof, responding to these accusations, said that the criticism turned out to be rather caustic, although they found fault with trifles, but in his defense said that such were the laws of television ^[76] .

The climax, in which Alex and Russo are killed, while Alex screams that she is Ben's daughter, caused an ambiguous reaction ^{[77] [78]} . In his review, which rated Meet Kevin Johnson 8.8 out of 10, IGN journalist Chris Cabott called the scene completely inappropriate and appeared at an unnecessary moment ^[79] . Jay Glatfelter, a journalist for The Huffington Post , called this episode a “shocker,” but wondered which of the audience could worry about Karl’s death, saying that all Karl’s virtues were his hairstyle that didn’t make him an interesting hero ^{[80 ]} . Digital Spy columnist Ben Rawson-Jones, despite calling Meet Kevin Johnson a series worthy of the finale of the season, wrote that the climax was not as spectacular as expected because the collective fate of Alex, Daniel and ultra-used "Carl, few people were interested ^[81] . Jeff Jensen, a reviewer for Entertainment Weekly magazine, rated the series “B” and criticized the final scene and the lengthy flashback. In his opinion, the final turned out to be unimpressive, and this happened because of the desire to make the series the end of the first half of the season, and he considered the lack of flashback to be its duration, because of which, in his opinion, the inherent dynamism of Lost was lost ^{[ 82]} .

Opinions about the development of Michael's character and his emotional struggle were mostly positive. Alan Sepinwall, a journalist for The Star-Ledger, described the centerpiece as “very good,” and praised Harold Perrino's play ^[73] . He also described all of Michael’s actions to save Walt as a good example of how authors can use the emotional impact of past events ^[73] . Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper also praised his game and called the unusual find Tom Gay ^[83] . The reviewer of Variety magazine , Cynthia Littleton, wrote that Perrino played a man who was trying to do the right thing all the time, without tantrums and “chewing” ^[84] . Ben Rawson-Jones, who rated the series 4 out of 5, also praised the staging of flashback and the transfer of Michael's status ^[81] . Dan Kompora, a columnist for SyFy Portal, praised Perrino and the actors who played the roles of dead characters in his review, but criticized the work of actors outside the flashback ^[77] . Jay Glatfelter responded positively to Meet Kevin Johnson, but wrote about Tom’s sexual orientation:

It looked rather strange, like the action from the category “And let's make one of the characters gay?”, But it all turned out fine ... there was no excess.

Original text

It seemed a little oddly placed, kind of like 'Let's make one of our characters gay just for the heck of it' but still it's cool that the show has a perfectly normal ... not over-the-top gay character.

- ^[80]

The way the storyline of the relationship between Michael and Walt was implemented in the series, critics rated it worse. Steve Heyzer from Time Out magazine described this line as very predictable ^[19] . The TMZ.com reviewer called Meet Kevin Johnson a good but not exciting series and wrote the following:

The series was too short ... It feels like we got only half the story of Michael. It was interesting to look at his depression ... And how they explained to him the reason why he should work for Ben ... But I can’t get rid of the feeling that we missed a good opportunity. <...> Tom appeared in the image of a great football coach - his convincing speeches are amazing.

Original text

This episode fell a little short ... I feel like we were kind of robbed of half of the 'What Happened to Michael?' story. It was interesting to see how far into depression he sunk ... And they did give him a pretty good reason for working for Ben ... But I can't shake the feeling that we missed a good opportunity.

<...>

Tom would make a great football coach —— his motivational speeches are awesome.

- ^[20]

Erin Martell, TV Squad journalist, wrote that the story of how Michael and Walt got to the mainland remained unsolved due to the fact that Malcolm David Kelly grew up ^[85] . Oscar Dahl, a columnist for BuddyTV , ranked Meet Kevin Johnson in seventh place among the first eight episodes of the first half of the fourth season ( Opponent became the eighth) ^[86] , and his colleague John Kubitschek said that the flashback, in fact, did not tell nothing particularly new ^[78] .

Rewards

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has nominated Robert Anderson, Frank Morron and Scott Webber for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Design for 1 Hour Series ( Outstanding sound mixing) for a comedy or drama series (onehour) ) for their work in the Meet Kevin Johnson series. On September 13, 2008 they received this award ^[9] . Anderson also said that “Lost” is sometimes filmed just two hundred yards (180 meters ) from Kamehameha Highway and the noise from the road and cars drowns out the words of the actors as well as the noise of the waves, and therefore the dialogues had to be duplicated later ^[87] .

• " Meet Kevin Johnson on the Internet Movie Database
• Meet Kevin Johnson (rus.) On Lostpedia
• Meet Kevin Johnson on TV.com