Week 1 Day 4: Secrets and Reveals – LOST

[Steven Delisi]

The verbal / drinking game is a great way to engage the characters & us the audience.

Sawyer finds a unique way to discover Kate’s secret by way of the verbal drinking game. It plays like he’s leading her (& us) down a path to the secret.

[Daisy Khalifa]

Aaah. I am so ashamed but…

at the risk of sounding like a cop-out, I cannot understand the relevance of the clips provided to the subject of SECRETS & REVEALS. The context is lost on me, pardon the pun:(

Seems I have missed out on not watching Lost, and in particular I have no sense of timing—how long were these secrets covered up and at what point in the relationships were they revealed?? This is an important lesson too. Secrets & Reveals are completely fantastic, and important to this aspiring writer!

I am certain I would be very invested in these scenes and in a discussion of the SECRETS & REVEALS, but I am at a loss on this lesson. I’ll try to go back to it and figure out how Lost makes secrets & reveals work well—I am sure it does! Sadly, I have to pass.

[Marti Wheat]

I’ve never seen Lost, so my brain just automatically filled in my own version of the backstory and future outcome. I thought the first scene was an interesting setup, with Marshall asking for the handcuffs in his pocket when in reality his purpose was to expose Kate’s crime through her wanted poster. Was this to dissuade Jack from having feelings for Kate, or did he have some ulterior motive?

The drinking game is wonderful on several levels. It establishes that Sawyer has existing knowledge of Kate’s crime, and ostensibly the nature of her crime, but sets the stage for him to draw it out of her in a seemingly harmless drinking game. What I found fascinating was that both Kate and Sawyer played the game honestly and without deception, revealing several other aspects of their character to each other before arriving at the most compelling fact: that they have both killed a man, which binds them together in their shared secret and crime. Establishes that in at least one way, they are on the same level, whether they choose to admit it or not.

Though I don’t know the story’s reason Kate kill’s the drunk guy, I have no problem supporting her decision to kill someone who presents as an abusive creep. I would need more detail to know why she chose to obliterate the entire house. Is she trying to erase every aspect of their past or is she bent on eliminating any possibility at all for them to have a future?

[Kristina Zill]

Hi, @Marti – I also had not seen LOST, and felt like I was missing some context. So I looked it up on Wikipedia, and there’s an entire entry called “What Kate Did.” lol.

[Neil Werenskjold]

I was a tad frustrated with understanding the context of these scenes as well. I have not seen Lost either.

[Kristina Zill]

How is Kate’s secret set up?
First with a warning that she’s dangerous, then her mug shot gives credence to that warning, and then with a confession during the drinking game.

What causes demand to know what the secret is?
As Jack tends to the dying marshal, he discovers Kate’s mug shots. We wonder what she did, and why the marshal warns that she’s dangerous.

As Kate & Sawyer play the drinking game, Sawyer suggests that she killed a man, and by drinking, she confesses that she did… making us want the details.

How is Kate’s secret revealed?
In flashback, we see Kate playing with the lighter. Her drunken stepfather wonders about a smell in the house, which Kate downplays. We don’t see her actually light the fire, but we can assume she did.

Watch 2nd time for:

What drama was this scene built around?
Revealing Kate’s wound.

What traits showed up in these character’s words and actions?

Kate:
• Sincere
• Sweet
• Wary of others (points to her wound)
• Wily

Sawyer:
• Selfish
• Manipulative
• Charming, Lothario
• Tough guy swagger covers a wound

[Christopher Phillips Phillips]

The Lost scenes are great examples of dealing with exposition while building intrigue around a character. In the first video, we have a man that appears to be near dying from wounds, but uses his last possible breaths to give a warning about Kate being dangerous. The next scene we have Kate playing a drinking game around confessions – we want to know if Kate will share the truth about her background. The next scene is a reveal – we see her blowing up a house with her drunk stepfather inside.

What we have are three scenes that build character through revealing their nature – survivor, dangerous.

[Pat Fitzgerald]

We learn about Kate’s secret from the reveal of Jack discovering the wanted poster with Kate’s picture on it.

The demand shows up during the “never did I ever” game. It’s interesting that Kate is honest about the killing someone statement, but Sawyer most likely would’ve seen right through a lie.

Later there’s the total reveal of Kate’s secret, when we see her blowing up the house where the drunken man is in bed.

The drama is built around Kate’s secret and how we find out she committed a murder.

Kate’s traits: stand offish, wary, kickass, honest

Sawyer’s traits: smartass, sneaky, lonely, insightful.

Kate is a great character because she may do the wrong thing, but for the right reasons – this K learned from having previously seen Lost. She’s also mysterious. Due to the gradual reveals of her secret, we’re curious to know more about her.

[Neil Werenskjold]

Week 1 Day 4: Secrets and Reveals

What I learned rewriting my scene/character is described below.

Not having ever watched this series, I feel handicapped. These three scenes showing Kate’s secret are a little slim on info. I figured out the marshal dying tipped Jack about Kate being dangerous. But I couldn’t find why the marshal was focused on her. Was he tracking her? Was she his prisoner that he was transporting? I could not tell the marshal’s relationship with Kate. Anyway, Jack finds out about her.

I don’t know whom he told or didn’t tell from the clips, so I don’t know why Sawyer was easing information out of Kate, slowly keeping her guard down and building trust by trying to find what they have in common. He finally gets to the kill-a-man question, and she admits she has. But there is not much context about that in these clips to show why she killed him.

In her reveal showing what she did, I realized that maybe he was an abuser, but I don’t know what pushed her over the edge to kill him. How she killed him shows it was premeditated. Again, I wonder why?

From Sawyer’s “I never” game, we learn a few things about Kate. She drinks, she kisses men, neither have attended college or Disneyland, Sawer wore pink, neither have ever voted, Sawyer has never been in love, Kate has, Sawyer has never been married, Kate has but didn’t last long, Kate makes fun of Sawyer because he apparently blamed a boar for a problem, not sure what that is about but shows Kate is grounded well in reality and doesn’t let extraneous things get in her way. Kate rejects Sawer’s indirect advance, I think? Kate feels guilty, 20 years, about killing the man. It seemed to spur Sawyer to admit he killed a man, and Kate responds positively to having done that. That is the biggest thing they have in common. Showing they both are dangerous.

So to sum it all up in my mind. Secrets get out from third parties. Maybe they are more powerful when they come that way because the letter created a vacuum of curiosity around the subject. When that happens, it ups the odds that someone will figure out the secret. Keeping deep guilty secrets can eat at a person with a conscience from the inside out when the secret is covered-up for a long time. Kate has a moral conscience, so she must have been mistreated very badly to drive her to think of a way to kill a man, then follow through and execute the plan.

The writer patiently pays out the information about Kate and her deep dark secret. That keeps people interested, watching for more clues. The secret must be a big secret with high stakes. Then at the end, the reveal has more impact. I get it. Slow but balanced clues build to the reveal.

Set-up: During a routine deployment, two military reservist families sadly on the verge of divorce realize what is paramount in their lives when a deployment turns deadly.

Ironically, while Samantha (Sam) and Bill are deployed, their spouses, Tom, Sam’s husband, and Mary, Bill’s wife, meet in a snowy grocery store parking lot for the first time. They begin a relationship unaware that their spouses are together during the deployment.

Act 2 Is about the two new couples getting friendly helping each out but human nature being what it is, sexual tension begins to grow. All the spouses know they should not be getting so close, but being on the verge of divorce they might have found a new spouse that’s a better fit then their current spouse.

In the Act 2 scene below, two military members during their deployment, one spouse from each doomed family, are sitting in an Army field chow hall in Honduras talking. Sam’s deepest darkest secret comes out…

[Judith Resell]

I liked the middle scene of the game. It’s interesting to find out in that way that each has killed a man. And to see that each is willing to disclose–which is contrary to expectations of concealment, establishing an interesting relationship. I didn’t like the first scene and think it would be better to leave it out.

[David Wywialowski]

Although I’d like to know where in the series these scenes happened, I can see that it is very effective to keep the audience engaged by setting up a secret and slowly revealing more clues, and then have a big reveal that explains the secret to us.

[Rosemary Lismore]

How is Kate’s secret set up?

Through the words of a dying man, who reveals he wants his cuffs and Kate- the printout of her in his pocket informs Jack she is dangerous.

What causes demand to know what the secret
is?

From the first clip, Jack has expressions on his face that show he knows Kate and that this is information he would want confirmed.

From the second clip, leading us down a path of confess and I will while drinking, we learn Kate answers she has killed a man, Sawyer reveals he has also killed a man and curiosity drives the audience to hear it out ‘who did you kill’ ‘ did you both know the other killed’

From the third clip, we see the reason why Kate is driven to her expression of extreme. We see the implied sexual abuse – when the house blows up, we know it is she who has ended her torment.

How is Kate’s secret revealed?

First scene – through the note on Kate, found in the dying man’s pocket –through someone who knows her background

Second scene – through a drinking game, she has had several shots of liquor and answers she has killed a man

Third scene – we have insight into why she did what she did.

What makes Kate’s character great is he decision to eliminate her problem. She doesn’t go for help and drag an audience through moaning and complaining, she blows him up! This gives us the idea that we will watch an extreme character – someone to follow and she what else she will do.