Flight 402: The Sideways Doppelgänger in Awake 1.05 by Pearson Moore

“The world needs a few of us to see it … sideways.”

Thus spoke Gemini, Michael’s doppelgänger in the green-hued world of Rex, Tara, and the exclamation-accented Bay Street Café. His words were not a call to destiny, but an appeal to Michael’s paramount desire and primary sense of purpose. To Michael, and to his evil twin, Hannah’s Red World and Rex’s Green World are not the inevitable result of powers unusual or supernatural. Rather, the distinct and independent realities are maintained entirely by force of will. “This thing works because I make it work. Nothing’s gonna change that. I won’t let it.”

Midas’ dreams, once realised, forced him to surrender love for lust, relationships for possessions. Do Michael’s dreams—his two-fold insistence on the Midas touch—likewise force him to surrender enduring needs for fleeting desires? If reality can be pounded into a mold created by the will, are there no natural consequences to the creation of unnatural worlds? Does the maintenance of a forbidden good lead to the emergence of inevitable evil?



The Awake Doppelgänger



“You see, that’s the thing about guys like you and me: There’s no other way for us to be. You take away what makes us us and what’s left … No. Don’t let them do that to you. The world needs a few of us to see it … sideways.”

Michael, no less than Gemini, is a member of the elite Sideways Fraternity. They are not just brothers, though. Visual cues throughout the episode, and especially the sequence in which Gemini prepared his scalpel kit, indicate the men bear physical resemblance to each other as well. Michael and Gemini are twins; Gemini is Michael’s doppelgänger.

Physical resemblance is intentional, but similarities in facial structure do not constitute the primary unifying element in the relationship between Michael and his sideways twin. This is not Duck Soup, and we’re not watching Chico and Harpo impersonating Groucho.



(see the famous mirror scene at Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKTT-sy0aLg)

In the aftermath of the investigation of the abandoned Mountain Top Moving and Storage building, we see Gemini again, this time dressed as a police officer. His physical appearance is similar to Michael’s, but more importantly, his mannerisms and the way he moves are nearly identical to Michael’s assertive, self-confident projection of himself. We begin to suspect that the striking similarities in physical appearance are intended to draw us into a thoughtful consideration of affinities of personality and outlook.

At the very least, we know that both Michael and Gemini are comfortable in their artificially constructed worlds. They move about entirely certain of themselves and their place in the manufactured Sideways Reality. But they share much more than confidence and assertion of self. They do not only assert. They demand. They impose upon the Sideways World the full weight of their expectations and desires.

At least one world will contain Rex, one will contain Hanna, and one will allow Gemini to express connection to humanity through a desire to manufacture mirrored deaths. “This thing works because I make it work. Nothing’s gonna change that.” Both Michael and Gemini play God. Both determine the life and death of those they consider subordinate to their dreams.

The portrait of Bill Clinton and Kim Jong Il is chilling. Their meeting could only have been anticipated as an indication of rapprochement, but the portrait itself, in which both leaders adopt menacing stares and nearly identical body posture, has quite a different psychological significance to anyone viewing the photograph. We see in the North Korean/North American split image some sense of shared vision or desire. We wonder, as we ponder an image that proclaims unanimity of belief and expression, what could possibly be shared between a man of good will and a despot who thought nothing of imposing poverty and premature death on millions of his subjects. Is Bill Clinton the secret doppelgänger of North Korea’s dictator, or does Bill Clinton’s posture indicate an subconscious desire to wield unopposed power?

We unconsciously connect outward expression to inner disposition. If Michael bears similarity to Gemini in both appearance and bearing, might he not share in qualities normally considered antithetical to hero and model of character? Does Michael’s fanatical defence of manufactured reality require that he acquire the form and substance of the very same type of person he investigates and imprisons?

The Parallel Worlds Hypothesis



“Kate is Enough”, we learned last week. But a single Kate did not suffice. We needed two Kates, one a “successful” investment banker, the other a despairing and psychologically distraught junkie who never recovered from her sister’s untimely death. In one world she is the magnanimous provider of venture capital funding, in the other world she is the victim of her own warped perception of the world and her inability to move on after tragedy.

Kate is Enough—that is, two is enough. If last week’s episode tended to give support to the Parallel Worlds Hypothesis, tonight’s episode tended to pull away from any association with this idea. This most recent installment of Awake showed us a strange and unexpected evolution of the primary doppelgänger that has been a recurring and central motif throughout the first five episodes.



Since the first scene of Awake we have been accustomed to the Good Cop/Bad Cop relationship between the challenging Dr. Lee and the touchy-feely Dr. Evans. Tonight we saw something new: Unanimity of opinion.

The strange coalescence of thought between sour-faced Dr. Lee and unicorns-and-rainbows Dr. Evans seemed both an invitation and a warning to Michael when he expressed his decision to move with Hanna to Oregon, that place of hope where “the grass is always greener”. Both psychologists believed the move would challenge and ultimately destroy Michael’s artificial dream world. “I think your ability to maintain these two worlds,” Dr. Lee said, “relies heavily on the fact that they’re largely the same.” By moving with Hanna to Oregon, and staying behind with Rex in Los Angeles—that is, by creating two entirely independent worlds—Michael would lose touch with the artificial or imagined aspects of his reality. “One [world] will begin to seem more and more like what it is: a fantasy,” Dr. Evans said.

We are already familiar with the notion that Red depends on Green and vice versa. A street address in one world becomes a parking stall number in the other world. A victim’s name in one reality is the name of the parallel victim in the other reality. A red exclamation mark painted as graffiti on a boarded up pawn shop in the Red World is a clue to a coffee shop in the Green World. At least in some sense, then, we are used to the idea of the worlds existing as complementary to each other rather than as disconnected parallel tracks.

Crossover



Adherents of the Parallel Worlds Hypothesis will correctly point out the flaw in my analysis. Crossover between parallel worlds is not only possible but necessary. Mr. Spock can occupy the captain’s chair in neither the Federation of Planets reality nor the brutal parallel reality of the Galactic Empire. Just as Spock’s logical mind was the crossover point between worlds in “Mirror, Mirror” (ST-TOS 2.33), the two therapists act as connecting nodes between realities in Awake.

I grant the validity of this analysis of “Mirror, Mirror”. I’ve been puzzling over this episode since the fall of 1967, when the episode first aired. While first impressions are valuable, and analyses made in the context of more recently acquired wisdom also have merit, I gravitate toward arguments that emphasise the primacy of first principles. Spock is half human. Gene Roddenberry did not assert that all sentient beings are equal. He did assert, most vehemently, that all human beings are equal. Uhura’s presence on the bridge was a strong statement regarding racial equality; Star Trek TOS depicted the first televised example of an interracial kiss, for example (ST-TOS 3.10, “Plato’s Stepchildren”; the kiss was between Uhura and Captain Kirk). But by 1967-1968 racial equality was not nearly the controversial subject it had been even a few years earlier, and Star Trek needed something stronger to shock the audience.

Roddenberry found his shocker in Ensign Pavel Chekhov. A network television drama in 1968—during the height of the Cold War—depicting a Russian in a positive manner was challenging and often amusing, but it addressed the conceptual core of Roddenberry’s vision: Humanity will transcend its current problems (race relations, the Cold War) and move into a better future.

“Mirror, Mirror” was a strong corollary statement of the Great Bird’s philosophy. The crossover aspect of Spock’s character was logic, but only superficially so. Both the Federation of Planets and the parallel evil Empire were structured hierarchies created by human will. In the Federation reality, humanity was present in its completeness. Spock could not occupy the captain’s chair because he was only half human.



Spock represented the logical, scientific side of human nature. Dr. McCoy represented the emotional, loving side of our inner selves. Only Captain Kirk, who was the perfect synthesis of McCoy and Spock—the perfect representative of our humanity—was worthy of making life-or-death leadership decisions. In the topsy-turvy Empire reality, on the other hand, the mirror-Kirk and his subordinates were ruled entirely by emotion and will. It was the even-tempered, human side of Spock—the aspect of our humanity untouched by volatile emotion—that restrained him from the dangerous presumption and arrogation of power. Of all the players in the brutal realm of coups and assassinations, Mr. Spock, in his quiet maintenance of human virtue, was the most suitable leader of all.

I believe that something like this—a very human and yet emotion-free quality of our humanity—is at play in the therapists’ crossover point in Awake. Michael is allowing his emotions to run free to such an extent that his psyche cannot imagine existence in a world which obliges him to cede intimate relation to physical reality. While I cannot rule out the Parallel Worlds Hypothesis, I believe the relentlessly recurring instances of complementarity between the two worlds—especially the motif of shared clues—is an indication that something more substantial than two independent parallel worlds is being depicted in Awake. Awake’s producers, like Gene Roddenberry, are trying to make a statement about aspects of human nature more valuable than emotional attachment, even attachments as fundamental as those between husband and wife and father and son.

Love and Autonomy



Michael never would have thought of moving to Oregon. Probably he never would have considered painting the walls of his house. He doesn’t think of preventing Hanna from doing these things because he values her autonomy. Perhaps he instinctively realises that only in allowing Hanna to forge her own path can he prevent her from drifting away. This loss of relevance in relationship is, after all, the primary danger facing all married couples. As Dr. Lee said, couples do not end up in divorce due to sudden life-changing events. Rather, couples slowly lose interest in each other. Love cannot prevent a significant other from pursuing independent dreams. In fact, a love grounded in recognition of the other’s inherent worth will never seek to coerce or enslave. Real love is marked by a willingness to let go.

Michael truly loves Hanna, and this means he is willing to let go, to allow her to pursue her dreams. But this attitude toward Hanna is not reflected in his absolute insistence on maintaining the reality in which she lives and moves and has her being. Michael will coerce and cajole and enslave—and if the intimations of shared brotherhood are taken to their ultimate end—perhaps even murder so that his split reality might endure all challengers.

But if Michael continues to grant full autonomy to both Hanna and Rex, it seems inevitable that his worlds will be eroded from within, not due to any deficit of his own will, but resulting entirely from his loved ones’ abilities to assert themselves independent of his desire. Seen from this point of view, Michael’s maintenance of dueling realities is inconsistent with the expression of love. He cannot have his cake and eat it, too. He cannot be loving father when doing so forces Rex to concede the existence of some world which he is prohibited from entering. “I wish I could be as strong as you,” Hanna said. “That’s just something you have that I don’t.” Hanna’s recognition that she lacks what she perceives to be Michael’s ability to adapt to unpleasant reality is now forcing her to identify some other means of coping. Even now, even when Hanna does not consider Michael’s dreams a crutch, his Green Reality is nevertheless driving a wedge between him and his bride.

The Enemy Within



Television fiction references many kinds of doppelgänger. The two images of Captain Kirk are drawn from “The Enemy Within” (ST-TOS 1.05). This modern interpretation of the Jekyll and Hyde story takes the interesting position that the selfish side of human nature is not something to be supressed (as Robert Louis Stevenson argued in his novel and as Sigmund Freud would conclude in his psychoanalytic work decades after the writer), but must be fully integrated into the complete person. The compassionate Kirk lacked the ability to prioritise the competing needs of others for whom he felt unlimited love. The selfish imposition of limits on compassion allowed the whole Kirk, who contained within himself both the compassionate self and the self-absorbed maniac, to render the immediate command decisions required of anyone in his position.

This integration of ego and id, or social person and selfish person, is certainly lacking in Michael’s overriding desire to maintain both worlds. He has unleashed Selfish Kirk thinking this will allow Compassionate Kirk to serve the needs and desires of Red Hanna and Green Rex. But Selfish Kirk, unchecked by compassion, can only destroy. Whether Michael’s worlds are parallel or complementary, the wisdom of the now-united therapists seems to render invalid any possible counterargument: Eventually, Michael’s worlds will fall apart.

The Sideways World



Gemini used a curious word in describing the reality he shared with Michael. Why would he have used the word “sideways” to describe their vision of the world?

The word “sideways” was never used in LOST, except parenthetically in script instructions to the cast and crew. The term was first employed by showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carleton Cuse to denote what they claimed was a new narrative technique, essentially a depiction of a parallel reality in which characters worked out personal issues, mainly around the central motif of redemption/reconciliation. Interestingly, Dylan Minnette, the actor who plays Rex Britten, portrayed David Shephard, Jack Shephard’s son in the Sideways World. David Shephard was unique in that world since he never really existed; all the other characters populating the Sideways World had existed in the Island reality or the off-island Oceanic Six world. David Shephard was a figment of Jack Shephard’s mind, an entity created with the sole purpose of allowing Jack to reconcile with his father.

I doubt that the placement of the term “sideways” indicates Awake will reproduce without deviation the idea of a Sideways Purgatory. I think it remains entirely possible that Michael Britten is dead, and that his son and wife live on, in a strange kind of twist on The Sixth Sense. However, I believe the obvious placement of the significant word “sideways” is at least meant to remind us that Awake may be looking at the question of parallel or complementary realities in ways we have not yet fully embraced or understood. While it is tempting to believe Dylan Minnette is simply reprising his role in LOST, I have to believe something more substantial is underway in Awake. If Awake is a depiction of purgatory, it will at least invoke unique thematic elements around a thesis substantially different from LOST’s central idea (see LOST Humanity http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Humanity-Mythology-Themes-LOST/dp/1463548702/ for a full discussion of the thesis of LOST).

Flight 402



“But if your worlds are completely different, these connections will erode, and eventually one will begin to seem more and more like what it is: A fantasy.” The most chilling scene in tonight’s episode was not the grisly corpse in the park, covered with Gemini’s bloody tattoos, but the scene in the airport at the very end of the episode.

We find it difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a scenario in which both of Michael Britten’s worlds are real. One must be a fantasy, as even Dr. Evans is now saying. How can one man exist in mutually exclusive worlds?

But the Green World Michael Britten is in less trouble than the Red World Michael Britten. The Michael Britten inhabiting the Green World is at least stable enough to continue living in Los Angeles. The more adventurous Michael Britten, in the Red World, is about to move to Oregon.

Here’s the thing, though: Gemini called Michael from LAX, about to board Flight 402. He was not calling from the Red World, but he might as well have been. Green World Michael is not going anywhere. Only the Red Reality Michael is moving to Oregon. Gemini, though, who apparently has the ability to cross into both worlds, and aware of Michael’s ability to do so, too, is moving to Oregon from the Green World.

When we next see Gemini, I fully expect we will behold his cynical, evil-bent smirk not in the cool green tones of Rex’s world, but rather in the warm orange glow of Hanna’s world: Gemini, like his doppelgänger twin, crossing over into a world in which neither of them belongs. How can one man exist in mutually exclusive worlds? The chilling final scene in tonight’s episode seemed to say not one man, but two men have been able, entirely by force of will, to create a reality in which they jump about between worlds. “If your worlds are completely different, these connections will erode,” Dr. Evans said. If anything, though, the connections seem to grow stronger. Michael’s will may weaken, but others’ force of character apparently grows stronger. Red exclamation marks appear out of nowhere. Crazy homeless men hear “broadcasts”. And now a murderer, a man claiming identity as kindred spirit, invades not one but both of Michael’s realities. It is a chilling thought, and something to ponder in this strange sideways reality.

PM
March 30, 2012