In “Collision,” the eighth episode of “Lost’s” second season, Locke’s in the Hatch working a crossword. He’s focused on the clue for 42-Down: “Enkidu’s friend.” Nearby clues are discernible: 36D: “Macbeth place,” 37D: “Belgian port”, 38D: “Robbed.” In the two grid blanks remaining, Locke fills in A and E to spell GILGAMESH.
Gilgamesh, which was forced into the puzzle by the writers (Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Leonard Dick), is an ancient king from Mesopotamian lit. His running bud Enkidu was a wild man created by the gods to distract Gilgamesh from oppressing the people. One knowing this (but who would?) might conclude that Locke is to distract Jack, the doctor and de facto king of the survivors. Or vice versa.
Or maybe that Mr. Eko, the wild Nigerian who’s en route to the Hatch carrying the wounded Sawyer, is to have mythic significance. But the crossword scene takes maybe seven seconds! Few viewers could be expected to absorb so much so quickly.
It seems Locke has finished the puzzle. Freezing that frame, though, I see that vertical answers–including Macbeth place IONA, Belgian port GHENT and RANSACKED (Robbed)–and some horizontal answers are fine. But the answers crossing GILGAMESH are not fine at all: GHARE, SIEND, ACOLNS and more.
Close examination shows the grid to be funkily asymmetrical and to have a two-letter word, ME, at a point where the asymmetry is egregiously suspicious–there are two dark squares (blocks) between ME and the non-word ALURGY. But for those, the word METALLURGY would fit (well, the A’s in the wrong spot, but that’s fixable).
At “Lostpedia” it’s speculated that Locke’s answer to 42-Down may be wrong, that SCRIPTURE fits better than GILGAMESH. Absurd! Some of the crossers turn into words if this is done, but they all need to be words! Besides, SCRIPTURE would never be clued as “Enkidu’s friend.” (Eko, in the next episode, discusses scripture with Locke and presents him with a hollowed-out Bible, but it’s an incongruent stretch to peg that subtheme to a puzzle answer that still would be wrong!)
I believe the “Lost” writers didn’t think someone would notice they’d altered a published crossword. I guessed the original puzzle’s 42-Down was SPRIG (making the crossers SHARE, SPEND, ACORNS, IMITATIVE and LAG). Darken the box after LAG, open the blocks to allow METALLURGY and volia! Symmetry’s restored to the grid.
Why didn’t the writers get a crossword constructor to assist them? Maybe they thought they were past deadline. They could have called me. I’d have made time for them, even though I was not a viewer at the time. This week’s I Swear Crossword is one I’d have made especially for that episode. So, clip this column and send it to your favorite TV and movie producers; tell them I’m on call for this kind of duty.
Excerpt of puzzle as shown on “Lost.”
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Ark., where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at vicfleming@att.net.