I certainly didn’t expect two separate Lost Mobisodes involving Dr. Leslie Arzt. This week’s most recent episode of the online Missing Pieces series sees Dr. Arzt confessing feelings to Michael and explaining why a high school science teacher was ever in Australia in the first place. Perhaps Arzt’s now-second appearance is a result of the producers having a soft spot for the man they unceremoniously blew up. “Tropical Depression” lies somewhere in the middle in terms of these mobisodes and their relative importance to series mythology. It’s not totally superfluous, though the new information isn’t very enlightening.
Doc Arzt is bug hunting. He catches one in a jar to add to his collection. Michael finds him and asks what he thinks the weather will be like tomorrow, because that’s when he’s sailing away. Arzt admits that he doesn’t know much of anything about the weather – he’s a science teacher, not a meteorologist. Michael asks him what all his talk about monsoon season was about, then. Arzt admits that it was all a lie – he just wants a rescue team to come as fast as possible. He apologizes for the lie, then tells Michael (who doesn’t really want to listen) why he went to Australia – he met and fell in love with a woman on line. So, he saved up all his money to go visit her in Australia. However, he used a photo of his buddy on line instead of his own. She wasn’t very happy about this when they met at the airport. At dinner that night, she ordered a lobster, went to the bathroom and never came back. Michael doesn’t feel sorry for him and reminds Arzt that everyone on the island has a story like that. Arzt admits that Michael is right, wishes him luck for tomorrow.
This latest Mobisode does two things – it tells Doctor Arzt’s sad tale and it explains the lack of monsoon as originally predicted by Dr. Arzt. That second part is a house-cleaning issue from the Lost writers and its impact is fairly minimal. Arzt’s story is pretty pathetic, but the very end of the mobisode, it felt like Michael gave Arzt a push towards making peace with his lot in life, which maybe he found before exploding.
-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of Lostpedia)
Source: DarkUFO
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
