With the debut of the new fall shows, it's time for the annual proclamation of certain shows as "the next LOST". Last year it was FlashForward (a bad show that I enjoyed); this year it seems to be The Event (which, from what I saw of the pilot, is just a flat-out bad show).
The notion of "the next LOST' is familiar to sports fans; players are often anointed as the "next Willie Mays" or the "next Michael Jordan". The easiest way to illustrate the folly of this rhetoric is to ask "Who was the first Michael Jordan?" (or "Who was Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan?"). Almost always, the answer to this question is that there was none. True greatness is unique.
That doesn't mean that there were no players of equal value to Willie Mays before he arrived; certainly Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth (and arguably others) were equally valuable players. It doesn't mean that there were no players of equal value after Mays--certainly Barry Bonds has a great case to having been a better player than Mays. However, the key point is that Cobb and Ruth and Bonds weren't really like Willie Mays, except in the degree of their greatness. They all had unique styles, different strengths and weaknesses and personalities.
So there may have been other shows that came along before LOST that you consider equally good, and there may be shows that come after. But there will never be another LOST. Any show that is truly close enough to LOST to be considered the next LOST will not be a great show, because it will be easily recognizable as a ripoff.
Now, there certainly is something to be said for taking the lessons of what made LOST great and applying them to a new show in a unique or creative manner. The shows that have aspired to be the next LOST have not done that at all; they have instead attempted to copy as many LOST characteristics as possible with absolutely no shame.
Consider The Event. I did not watch much of the pilot; for goodness sake, there was a baseball game on. But what little I did see was packed with ripoffs of LOST:
* a tropical Island
* a cliff on the coast of the tropical Island ("Dave", "The Substitute", "The End")
* a plane crash or a potential plane crash
* what sounded and looked like electromagnetic humming
At the end, some creepy woman told the President "They saved us." When he asked who, I fully expected her to say "The Others".
It was said so often (especially in defending "The End") to be considered cliche, but LOST really was a show about characters first. The characters were at the center in Season One, and they were established as the mythology was being rolled out. In fact, it probably wasn't until around the terrific trio of episodes 1x9-1x11 that the true scope of LOST's intricate mythology was even hinted at. Prior to that, there was certainly intrigue (why no one had come to rescue them, the Monster, Adam and Eve), but the mythology explosion had not yet begun. One could even argue that the true blossoming of LOST's mythology didn't come until the first orientation film was screened in 2x3.
FlashForward and The Event have made the mistake of defining their mythology clearly in terms of a single moment. The plane crash which starts our LOST viewing experience is only the latest in a long line of similar events. The plane crash brings our characters into the world of the Island, but the other shows define their weirdness in terms of the initial event, and so there's no time to define characters before diving head first into mythology.
The LOST equivalent would be if the fundamental mystery of the show was not "What is the Island, and what does it want with these people?" but rather "Why did the plane crash?". If the focus of the show was why the plane crashed, then immediately upon arriving on the Island, the Lostaways would have had to begin investigating that. Instead, they simply tried to survive, and gradually became aware that they were on a very special place and caught in some extraordinary circumstances. In The Event or FlashForward, that realization is immediate.
The mythology of LOST certainly made the show for me. The characters were good, and ultimately made the journey worthwhile, but the mythology made it a must-watch every week. If you knew it was going to be an episode featuring a character you really couldn't stand (Charlie would be the best example for me), you still had to watch. It could be an episode in which Charlie has bizarre dreams; or it could be an episode in which Charlie shoots an Other, or in which Charlie swims down to a previously unseen DHARMA station.
The closest thing to LOST on TV today, as far as I'm concerned, is AMC's "Rubicon". Rubicon is nothing like LOST in so many ways, but it has compelling characters and an interesting serial story. It's not good enough to be worthy of the "next LOST" tag, but if a show ever comes along that is, it will look a lot more like "Rubicon" than like "The Event".
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Epilogue: The New Man in Charge
As is surely the case with anyone who happens to stumble across this blog, I watched the LOST epilogue "The New Man in Charge" online the day it was released. I actually felt sort of bad about doing it, but has I not, I would have had to avoid any LOST sites or news for two weeks or so, for fear of being spoiled. Accordingly, I have been waiting until the DVD release was official to blog my thoughts on the epilogue, and I have not read much if any of other people's reactions to it.
Bottom line: it was an enjoyable and entertaining piece, one that didn't really provide a lot of new information (for those who were paying attention) but that did well to close the story (at least to the same extent of anyone else in the LOST-verse) of Walt. The epilogue also maintained the right tone; it was meta in spots, but it felt like LOST. Had the material been too overwrought or emotional, had the revelations been too big, it would have taken away from "The End". It also could have been much cheekier than it was, and thus failed as a part of the greater LOST whole. It avoided those pitfalls nicely.
We learn that drones, not planes, are used to make the food drops, and that the men in charge of packaging the food (even formally putting labels on it) don't know where it is going, as the coordinates always change. Ben is closing down the assembly facility, pays them a lot of money to go away, and allows each to ask one question about what the heck is going on (the "just one more question" and "that's all we have time for" elements are so blatantly meta that it almost goes too far). Of course, one wants to know about the polar bears.
The polar bear issue has always mystified me. How could someone watch LOST and still have not understood where the polar bears came from? Did you miss Jack, Sawyer, and Kate locked in polar bear cages? This was a mystery that was solved in Season Three for anyone with a modicum of intelligence, but some people need it spoon-fed to them--they need the scene with Joop smoking his pipe and spilling the secrets of the universe.
So Ben shows them the Hydra station video, and Dr. Chang asks that his identity not be divulged as he doesn't want to resort to aliases. Sorry, Dr. Candle, no can do. There is a caged Hurley bird, which Chang explains is a "hy-bird", and they'd liek to see how they adapt to the properties of the Island. There is a lecture on proper care of the polar bears, with a hilarious shot of a man with a fake arm taking food to them. We also learn that the electromagnetic levels at the Orchid are harmful to any polar bear pregnancies, and that offers some idea of what causes the human pregnancy problems. Perhaps the electromagnetism was not strong enough to complicate human pregnancies until after the Orchid drill team almost tapped the pocket of negatively-charged exotic matter near the frozen donkey wheel (as seen in "Because You Left"). That sits on the timeline after Amy gave birth to Ethan and thus between the last known full-Island pregnancy and birth.
Next we learn that DHARMA is capturing Hostiles and transporting them to Hydra Island for research. They are interrogated, particularly about their origins and the "Island deity they refer to as 'Jacob'". After the interrogation, they are brainwashed with the video in order to wipe their memories of the event.
This does answer a minor question I've always had about the Room 23 video, which is why what appeared to be a DHARMA video included the line "God loves you as he loved Jacob". Now that we know DHARMA was aware of the concept of Jacob, it seems to be an attempt to replace Jacob with the more familiar (from their perspective) notion of God. This also illustrates that they didn't have a great understanding of the Hostiles' belief about Jacob, since he is always referred to as a man and not as a deity.
His work at the processing center complete, Ben heads to Santa Rosa to see Keith Johnson, who of course is Walt. (How cute, Kevin and Keith). Ben tells Walt that he's special and that he has work to do--starting with helping his father. When Walt objects that his father is dead, Ben explains that he can still help him.
They go out to a DHARMA van in which Hurley is waiting. Walt says that he's been hoping someone would come back for him and tell him he's not crazy. Hurley affirms that he's not crazy and that he just needed to be back on the Island where he belongs...and Hurley wants to talk to him about a job. Island Protector in training, perhaps?
Bottom line: it was an enjoyable and entertaining piece, one that didn't really provide a lot of new information (for those who were paying attention) but that did well to close the story (at least to the same extent of anyone else in the LOST-verse) of Walt. The epilogue also maintained the right tone; it was meta in spots, but it felt like LOST. Had the material been too overwrought or emotional, had the revelations been too big, it would have taken away from "The End". It also could have been much cheekier than it was, and thus failed as a part of the greater LOST whole. It avoided those pitfalls nicely.
We learn that drones, not planes, are used to make the food drops, and that the men in charge of packaging the food (even formally putting labels on it) don't know where it is going, as the coordinates always change. Ben is closing down the assembly facility, pays them a lot of money to go away, and allows each to ask one question about what the heck is going on (the "just one more question" and "that's all we have time for" elements are so blatantly meta that it almost goes too far). Of course, one wants to know about the polar bears.
The polar bear issue has always mystified me. How could someone watch LOST and still have not understood where the polar bears came from? Did you miss Jack, Sawyer, and Kate locked in polar bear cages? This was a mystery that was solved in Season Three for anyone with a modicum of intelligence, but some people need it spoon-fed to them--they need the scene with Joop smoking his pipe and spilling the secrets of the universe.
So Ben shows them the Hydra station video, and Dr. Chang asks that his identity not be divulged as he doesn't want to resort to aliases. Sorry, Dr. Candle, no can do. There is a caged Hurley bird, which Chang explains is a "hy-bird", and they'd liek to see how they adapt to the properties of the Island. There is a lecture on proper care of the polar bears, with a hilarious shot of a man with a fake arm taking food to them. We also learn that the electromagnetic levels at the Orchid are harmful to any polar bear pregnancies, and that offers some idea of what causes the human pregnancy problems. Perhaps the electromagnetism was not strong enough to complicate human pregnancies until after the Orchid drill team almost tapped the pocket of negatively-charged exotic matter near the frozen donkey wheel (as seen in "Because You Left"). That sits on the timeline after Amy gave birth to Ethan and thus between the last known full-Island pregnancy and birth.
Next we learn that DHARMA is capturing Hostiles and transporting them to Hydra Island for research. They are interrogated, particularly about their origins and the "Island deity they refer to as 'Jacob'". After the interrogation, they are brainwashed with the video in order to wipe their memories of the event.
This does answer a minor question I've always had about the Room 23 video, which is why what appeared to be a DHARMA video included the line "God loves you as he loved Jacob". Now that we know DHARMA was aware of the concept of Jacob, it seems to be an attempt to replace Jacob with the more familiar (from their perspective) notion of God. This also illustrates that they didn't have a great understanding of the Hostiles' belief about Jacob, since he is always referred to as a man and not as a deity.
His work at the processing center complete, Ben heads to Santa Rosa to see Keith Johnson, who of course is Walt. (How cute, Kevin and Keith). Ben tells Walt that he's special and that he has work to do--starting with helping his father. When Walt objects that his father is dead, Ben explains that he can still help him.
They go out to a DHARMA van in which Hurley is waiting. Walt says that he's been hoping someone would come back for him and tell him he's not crazy. Hurley affirms that he's not crazy and that he just needed to be back on the Island where he belongs...and Hurley wants to talk to him about a job. Island Protector in training, perhaps?
Monday, July 12, 2010
You and Me
This morning I happened to get "You and Me" by the Moody Blues stuck in my head. As I turned the lyrics over, a few of them just struck me as being apropos for LOST. I've bolded those and added some comments in brackets:
There's a leafless tree in Asia
Under the sun there's a homeless man
There's a forest fire in the valley
Where the story all began
[I don't think the Heart of the Island is in a valley, but it would very appropriate if it was.]
What will be our last thought?
Do you think it's coming soon?
Will it be a comfort
Or the pain of a burning wound?
[I think of Jack, of course, who had a burning wound but thoughts of comfort as he watched his friends leave the Island]
CHORUS
All we are trying to say
Is we are all we've got
You and me just cannot fail
If we never, never stop
[This brings to mind the live together, die alone ethos and the idea that the Lostaways are uniquely connected to one another through their experience on the Island].
You're an ocean full of faces
And you know that we believe
We're just a wave that drifts around you
Singing all our hopes and dreams
We look around in wonder
At the work that has been done
By the visions of our father
Touched by his loving son
[Hard not to think of Christian, Jack, and the sideways.]
There's a leafless tree in Asia
Under the sun there's a homeless man
There's a forest fire in the valley
Where the story all began
[I don't think the Heart of the Island is in a valley, but it would very appropriate if it was.]
What will be our last thought?
Do you think it's coming soon?
Will it be a comfort
Or the pain of a burning wound?
[I think of Jack, of course, who had a burning wound but thoughts of comfort as he watched his friends leave the Island]
CHORUS
All we are trying to say
Is we are all we've got
You and me just cannot fail
If we never, never stop
[This brings to mind the live together, die alone ethos and the idea that the Lostaways are uniquely connected to one another through their experience on the Island].
You're an ocean full of faces
And you know that we believe
We're just a wave that drifts around you
Singing all our hopes and dreams
We look around in wonder
At the work that has been done
By the visions of our father
Touched by his loving son
[Hard not to think of Christian, Jack, and the sideways.]
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Not Quite Ready to Let Go
This may or may not be my last post on "The End". There are a few things that I want to say, mostly in response to other comments on the finale I've seen:
* The debate continues over whether and to what extent the plot/ending of LOST was known ahead of time, or whether they made it up on the fly as they went. I am completely dumbfounded by the question itself. Now that the show is over, who cares?
When the show was ongoing, it was a question with at least some relevance, because people wanted to know if the show was going somewhere or was doomed to collapse on its own weight. Of course, it was always silly to believe that the entire story could be written ahead of time--that's just not realistic for any work of fiction. But now that the show is over, you don't have to worry about whether to invest your time in it or not. You can view the work as a complete story, and make your own decision about whether its worth revisiting or whether you should try to forget about all the time you wasted on it.
If everything was planned out all along, but you thought it stunk, does that somehow make it better? If they made it up every week, but you found it to be a compelling and moving story, then what difference does it make?
* The final points all deal with technical story points of "The End". One that comes to my mind is the mobisode "So It Begins", in which Christian Shephard tells Vincent to go wake up his son as "he has work to do". We can believe that this manifestation of Christian was the Monster (as it was in "White Rabbit", at least according to it), in which case it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or we can believe that this manifestation of Christian was somehow tied into 2004X Christian and the work that Jack needs to do to get to that phase. (Or we could chalk it up to any number of things, in which case it doesn't really play into a discussion of "The End").
I don't really have an answer to this--I just think that the mobisode in question is one that people should go back, watch, and weigh in on.
* There were a number of people asking technical questions about how the cork worked, why Jack didn't get turned into a monster, and the like. First of all, going to deep into it takes away the magic of the show, as the producers have said many times. Setting that aside, I thought it was fairly clear. No one was quite certain what would happen if the light was turned off, and what happened was that it removed the source of the Monster's power and caused the Island to go into fall-into-the-sea mode.
Intellectually, I think the connection between the cork and the Monster makes a lot of sense. After all, the Monster was created by being exposed to the energy in the source. It makes sense that with that energy unplugged, he'd become a mortal again.
Others wanted to know why Jack was not transformed into a Monster by being present when the cork was put back in place and the energy returned. I think it's easy enough to chalk it up to the person needs to be exposed to the energy at its full potency to suffer the ill effects we saw in "Across the Sea".
Inherent in the question seems to be the premise that turning into a Monster makes one evil. I think that what "Across the Sea" was striving to show us was that this isn't the case. Jacob and MiB weren't inherently good or evil (although they have made intrinsic character traits that pointed in that direction--MiB's mischievousness, Jacob's honesty), and MiB did not become evil when he became the Monster. MiB's choices that followed--the manner in which he pursued trying to escape his de facto prison--were what made him evil. So even if Jack had been transformed into a monster-like state, there's no reason to believe he would automatically have been Hurley's antagonist.
* Christian told Jack that time doesn't matter here [2004X]. I'll leave it up to the reader to determine how people crossing over from 2004X to the Island timeline could explain many of the weird phenomenon of LOST (think Eloise, appearances of Charlie, Walt, ...)
* Some people believe that the white light of the church was the same as the light at the heart of the Island. I have to admit this never really crossed my mind. There are two (not necessarily mutually exclusive) ways to think about that. The first is that the journey the Lostaways were embarking on together was back to the source, a sort of Eastern concept of a spirit comprised of all souls. The other way is to consider that Jack, by saving the Island, saved the light. So when people warned of everyone dying should MiB achieve his objective, they didn't mean it in a literal sense, but in a spiritual sense.
Questions like this are the kind of thing that might be debated for many years to come, and also have the potential to give the 2004X the powerful meaning that the producers claimed they were going for.
* The debate continues over whether and to what extent the plot/ending of LOST was known ahead of time, or whether they made it up on the fly as they went. I am completely dumbfounded by the question itself. Now that the show is over, who cares?
When the show was ongoing, it was a question with at least some relevance, because people wanted to know if the show was going somewhere or was doomed to collapse on its own weight. Of course, it was always silly to believe that the entire story could be written ahead of time--that's just not realistic for any work of fiction. But now that the show is over, you don't have to worry about whether to invest your time in it or not. You can view the work as a complete story, and make your own decision about whether its worth revisiting or whether you should try to forget about all the time you wasted on it.
If everything was planned out all along, but you thought it stunk, does that somehow make it better? If they made it up every week, but you found it to be a compelling and moving story, then what difference does it make?
* The final points all deal with technical story points of "The End". One that comes to my mind is the mobisode "So It Begins", in which Christian Shephard tells Vincent to go wake up his son as "he has work to do". We can believe that this manifestation of Christian was the Monster (as it was in "White Rabbit", at least according to it), in which case it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or we can believe that this manifestation of Christian was somehow tied into 2004X Christian and the work that Jack needs to do to get to that phase. (Or we could chalk it up to any number of things, in which case it doesn't really play into a discussion of "The End").
I don't really have an answer to this--I just think that the mobisode in question is one that people should go back, watch, and weigh in on.
* There were a number of people asking technical questions about how the cork worked, why Jack didn't get turned into a monster, and the like. First of all, going to deep into it takes away the magic of the show, as the producers have said many times. Setting that aside, I thought it was fairly clear. No one was quite certain what would happen if the light was turned off, and what happened was that it removed the source of the Monster's power and caused the Island to go into fall-into-the-sea mode.
Intellectually, I think the connection between the cork and the Monster makes a lot of sense. After all, the Monster was created by being exposed to the energy in the source. It makes sense that with that energy unplugged, he'd become a mortal again.
Others wanted to know why Jack was not transformed into a Monster by being present when the cork was put back in place and the energy returned. I think it's easy enough to chalk it up to the person needs to be exposed to the energy at its full potency to suffer the ill effects we saw in "Across the Sea".
Inherent in the question seems to be the premise that turning into a Monster makes one evil. I think that what "Across the Sea" was striving to show us was that this isn't the case. Jacob and MiB weren't inherently good or evil (although they have made intrinsic character traits that pointed in that direction--MiB's mischievousness, Jacob's honesty), and MiB did not become evil when he became the Monster. MiB's choices that followed--the manner in which he pursued trying to escape his de facto prison--were what made him evil. So even if Jack had been transformed into a monster-like state, there's no reason to believe he would automatically have been Hurley's antagonist.
* Christian told Jack that time doesn't matter here [2004X]. I'll leave it up to the reader to determine how people crossing over from 2004X to the Island timeline could explain many of the weird phenomenon of LOST (think Eloise, appearances of Charlie, Walt, ...)
* Some people believe that the white light of the church was the same as the light at the heart of the Island. I have to admit this never really crossed my mind. There are two (not necessarily mutually exclusive) ways to think about that. The first is that the journey the Lostaways were embarking on together was back to the source, a sort of Eastern concept of a spirit comprised of all souls. The other way is to consider that Jack, by saving the Island, saved the light. So when people warned of everyone dying should MiB achieve his objective, they didn't mean it in a literal sense, but in a spiritual sense.
Questions like this are the kind of thing that might be debated for many years to come, and also have the potential to give the 2004X the powerful meaning that the producers claimed they were going for.
Monday, May 24, 2010
The Day After The End
If the test of an episode is the degree to which it lingers in one's brain, than "The End" has succeeded. It's been less than 24 hours since I saw the finale as I write this, so it hasn't been a long time yet. However, usually by the time the alarm clock sounds the next morning I am ready to move on from LOST, ready to think about other things--always ready to reconsider LOST, mind you, but not trapped into thinking of nothing else. Today is a little different, and it's not just the finality of it all--the episode hit the heart first, and now the impact has matriculated to the brain.
I am going to assume, for the sake of discussion, that the truth of what really happened last night is as I wrote it above: the Island was real, their experiences there were real, Jack sacrificed himself to save his friends, 2004X was a sort of purgatory for them after they died in the real timeline. That seems to be the consensus view, but there is ample room for debate and interpretation. I will need to be convinced to change the outlook just described. I don't suspect that will happen, but never say never dude.
I am still trying to come to grips with the last fifteen minutes of the episode, and whether I like it or not. I don't hate it--I'm just not sure it was necessary. To know if it was really necessary, one must know what it was supposed to mean. And that is open to interpretation.
One common school of thought developing is that, despite the universalist, unitarian symbolism and the sketchy theology, Jack's journey stands as something of a Christian allegory--at the very least, a generic literary Christ figure, whether it carries any specific religious weight or not. I seriously doubt that was the intention of the producers, but there's enough supporting evidence to make a case. Start with the name Shephard itself, and of course the even more obvious name of Christian Shephard (Kate even scoffed at it last night). Jack's wound--in the side, like where the Roman spear was said to penetrate Christ. They even made a point of having him feel it as he laid down to die. In "316", Jack and Ben talked about the painting of doubting Thomas touching the resurrected Jesus' wounds, and it comes full circle in the same church.
Of course the parallels aren't perfect. Jack was unsure of his mission, at least until he was anointed by Jacob. Jack was for the longest time the skeptic; in the end, that makes him both the man of science and the man of faith. Of course, what is the difference between a man of science and a man of faith when the truth, whatever it may be, is revealed? If God exists, and came to you and demonstrated his power and his omniscience, and you believed in him, would that make you a man of science or a man of faith? Both, I'd say, but does it really matter anymore?
I want to get back to that strain of thought in a second, but I need to finish the disjointed thought about Christian allegory. If the true goal of the final scene was to give us a message along those lines (or something similar--it doesn't have to be Christian, it can be derived from any other religion, from humanism, from whatever), then it served its purpose. We'll probably never know the true goal, and it's better that way, but it also leaves the weight of the final scene forever indeterminable.
Because if there is no greater message, if the church reunion is just to leave us with something other than Jack's soul-crushing death, then it falls flat. I don't need it. I don't need a happy ending--I'm okay with Jack (and so many others through the seasons) sacrificed themselves to help save their friends, which ended up being a very small group at the end. I can find meaning and resonance in that myself, without needing to be served a reunion scene in the afterlife (as emotional and beautiful as it admittedly was).
After all, LOST has always stressed the importance of community ("Live Together, Die Alone"), and eventually all of the Lostaways (even Sawyer, who at one time embodied the opposing philosophy of "Every Man for Himself") came around to that point of view, embracing it, living for it, dying for it. It was reinforced in little ways too--"Ride Captain, Ride" being a trivial example that immediately popped into my head. I don't think I needed to see Jack and Kate together again happy to know that it was all worthwhile, that they all lived/died for something (although while I'm not a shipper, I am glad that it was Jack + Kate in the end).
Jacob saw these lonely souls out there in the world, and he was right when he told his final candidates that they needed the Island as much as it needed them. The time they spent on the Island, the connections they made, the relationships those connections led to, and the community they forged was the greatest thing that any of these people have ever been part of. It was special, and it was made so by being trapped in a set of circumstances (read: the mythology of the Island) that are rationally absurd, but make for an amazing yarn.
Getting back to the dichotomy between a man of science and a man of faith, recall that the season two premiere was called "Man of Science, Man of Faith". A lot of people took that to be a reference to the debate between Locke and Jack--but in fact, the producers said it was about Jack. Jack was both a man of science and a man of faith, at different points in his life and to varying degrees of exclusivity. Locke, unfortunately, was too gullible a man of faith, and it led to his downfall.
Locke was also the victim of an elaborate con, the greatest con in LOST history, by the Man in Black (I still can't get over how flipping brilliant I think this was. Some time I'll write a post trying to trace every maneuver in this masterstroke, but for now suffice it to say that Locke was told he was special and desperately searched for meaning). Locke was too faithful to fulfill the mission. It had to be someone like Jack, who only through repetitive exposure and emotional distress could fully embrace the role of Island Protector. Eventually, it made no difference--there was no longer any distinction between being a man of science and a man of faith.
If Seinfeld was a show about nothing, than LOST is a show about everything--and nothing. From what little I have been exposed too so far, a lot of people's takeaway is the opposite of their own worldview. Atheists see a Christian allegory or religious hoakum. Believers see a humanistic but incomprehensible philosophy under-girding the end. Those who care about relationships above all see an end in which no one is happy--nobody, save perhaps Desmond and Penny, end up together in this life. People who think happily ever afters are silly see the ultimate happily ever after--forever together, not in this life but in heaven (after all, fairy tales never tell you that Prince Charming died at age 76, and his widow lived for six years before suffering a massive stroke and wasting away). People who were wrapped up in the minutia of mythology see a cornucopia of unanswered plot threads, but people who were interested in the broad strokes see an answer to what the Island is that might be a little too tidy.
I'm sure that I'm overstating my case here, but I think that the takeaway is pretty sound--there was something for everybody, but everyone thinks the other guy's pet cause was better serviced. In the end, that probably means the writers did their job. The people who aren't tied to one particular view of the show are a much better judge of how well the show did on that score than those whose interest clouds their vision.
I am going to assume, for the sake of discussion, that the truth of what really happened last night is as I wrote it above: the Island was real, their experiences there were real, Jack sacrificed himself to save his friends, 2004X was a sort of purgatory for them after they died in the real timeline. That seems to be the consensus view, but there is ample room for debate and interpretation. I will need to be convinced to change the outlook just described. I don't suspect that will happen, but never say never dude.
I am still trying to come to grips with the last fifteen minutes of the episode, and whether I like it or not. I don't hate it--I'm just not sure it was necessary. To know if it was really necessary, one must know what it was supposed to mean. And that is open to interpretation.
One common school of thought developing is that, despite the universalist, unitarian symbolism and the sketchy theology, Jack's journey stands as something of a Christian allegory--at the very least, a generic literary Christ figure, whether it carries any specific religious weight or not. I seriously doubt that was the intention of the producers, but there's enough supporting evidence to make a case. Start with the name Shephard itself, and of course the even more obvious name of Christian Shephard (Kate even scoffed at it last night). Jack's wound--in the side, like where the Roman spear was said to penetrate Christ. They even made a point of having him feel it as he laid down to die. In "316", Jack and Ben talked about the painting of doubting Thomas touching the resurrected Jesus' wounds, and it comes full circle in the same church.
Of course the parallels aren't perfect. Jack was unsure of his mission, at least until he was anointed by Jacob. Jack was for the longest time the skeptic; in the end, that makes him both the man of science and the man of faith. Of course, what is the difference between a man of science and a man of faith when the truth, whatever it may be, is revealed? If God exists, and came to you and demonstrated his power and his omniscience, and you believed in him, would that make you a man of science or a man of faith? Both, I'd say, but does it really matter anymore?
I want to get back to that strain of thought in a second, but I need to finish the disjointed thought about Christian allegory. If the true goal of the final scene was to give us a message along those lines (or something similar--it doesn't have to be Christian, it can be derived from any other religion, from humanism, from whatever), then it served its purpose. We'll probably never know the true goal, and it's better that way, but it also leaves the weight of the final scene forever indeterminable.
Because if there is no greater message, if the church reunion is just to leave us with something other than Jack's soul-crushing death, then it falls flat. I don't need it. I don't need a happy ending--I'm okay with Jack (and so many others through the seasons) sacrificed themselves to help save their friends, which ended up being a very small group at the end. I can find meaning and resonance in that myself, without needing to be served a reunion scene in the afterlife (as emotional and beautiful as it admittedly was).
After all, LOST has always stressed the importance of community ("Live Together, Die Alone"), and eventually all of the Lostaways (even Sawyer, who at one time embodied the opposing philosophy of "Every Man for Himself") came around to that point of view, embracing it, living for it, dying for it. It was reinforced in little ways too--"Ride Captain, Ride" being a trivial example that immediately popped into my head. I don't think I needed to see Jack and Kate together again happy to know that it was all worthwhile, that they all lived/died for something (although while I'm not a shipper, I am glad that it was Jack + Kate in the end).
Jacob saw these lonely souls out there in the world, and he was right when he told his final candidates that they needed the Island as much as it needed them. The time they spent on the Island, the connections they made, the relationships those connections led to, and the community they forged was the greatest thing that any of these people have ever been part of. It was special, and it was made so by being trapped in a set of circumstances (read: the mythology of the Island) that are rationally absurd, but make for an amazing yarn.
Getting back to the dichotomy between a man of science and a man of faith, recall that the season two premiere was called "Man of Science, Man of Faith". A lot of people took that to be a reference to the debate between Locke and Jack--but in fact, the producers said it was about Jack. Jack was both a man of science and a man of faith, at different points in his life and to varying degrees of exclusivity. Locke, unfortunately, was too gullible a man of faith, and it led to his downfall.
Locke was also the victim of an elaborate con, the greatest con in LOST history, by the Man in Black (I still can't get over how flipping brilliant I think this was. Some time I'll write a post trying to trace every maneuver in this masterstroke, but for now suffice it to say that Locke was told he was special and desperately searched for meaning). Locke was too faithful to fulfill the mission. It had to be someone like Jack, who only through repetitive exposure and emotional distress could fully embrace the role of Island Protector. Eventually, it made no difference--there was no longer any distinction between being a man of science and a man of faith.
If Seinfeld was a show about nothing, than LOST is a show about everything--and nothing. From what little I have been exposed too so far, a lot of people's takeaway is the opposite of their own worldview. Atheists see a Christian allegory or religious hoakum. Believers see a humanistic but incomprehensible philosophy under-girding the end. Those who care about relationships above all see an end in which no one is happy--nobody, save perhaps Desmond and Penny, end up together in this life. People who think happily ever afters are silly see the ultimate happily ever after--forever together, not in this life but in heaven (after all, fairy tales never tell you that Prince Charming died at age 76, and his widow lived for six years before suffering a massive stroke and wasting away). People who were wrapped up in the minutia of mythology see a cornucopia of unanswered plot threads, but people who were interested in the broad strokes see an answer to what the Island is that might be a little too tidy.
I'm sure that I'm overstating my case here, but I think that the takeaway is pretty sound--there was something for everybody, but everyone thinks the other guy's pet cause was better serviced. In the end, that probably means the writers did their job. The people who aren't tied to one particular view of the show are a much better judge of how well the show did on that score than those whose interest clouds their vision.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
6x17: The End (Series Finale)
This is just a very quick reaction post; I'll need to watch it again before I can really give my full opinion, and I'll edit this post as a I go.
I would have liked some more mythology in there, but it was all about character at the end, as promised. 2004X was purgatory of a sort; everyone needed to work through their issues and find each other to move on to the next life, together: Jack and Kate, Juliet and Sawyer, Claire and Charlie, Penny and Desmond, even Sayid and Shannon. Ben is not quite ready to go yet; he's aware, but he still has some issues to work out.
Jack sacrificed himself to save the light, allowing Frank, the now-mortal Richard, Miles, Kate, Sawyer, and Claire to leave the Island. Jack saved Desmond, installed Hurley as the new Island Protector, and Ben became his adviser. Ben urged him to run things differently, and allow people to leave the Island. Presumably Desmond was the big beneficiary of this policy.
Jack made his way back to the bamboo field and closed his eye and died a hero, just as he opened it in "Pilot". He had finally achieved his goal as a shepherd, getting flock off the Island. The tennis shoe was rotted, showing us how long it's been. We don't know how the lives of those that left played out, nor how Hurley and Ben's time as Island guardians went.
But everything was real, and Jack really died. But everyone gets a happy ending, as they all have come together to move on to the next stage--heaven, presumably, together.
Again, it's not my story, so talking about my expectations and hopes is self-centered. I'd hoped for a little more ambiguity. But confirmation that everything that happened, really happened. Awesome. The knowledge that the Island continues on? Comforting. Bittersweet? Check, although I am bummed that Jack didn't get to serve a longer run as Island Protector.
People are sure to say that they were lying about it not being purgatory. I disagree. The Island was real. The work they did there, the character growth they achieved--that was real. And in the end, as Rose told Juliet, Sawyer, and Kate in "The Incident", being together is all that really matters. Now they're together.
Of course there are still questions. Is 2004X a type of purgatory that everyone goes to? Or did someone like Hurley create it so that everyone could be reunited?
If I'm rambling here, it's because my thoughts are all over the map. Perhaps the Island story was underwhelming, but the emotion of the 2004X reunions and the final scene is undeniable. I'll see you in another life, brother.
Or, to sum it up in Twitter length: Short on mythology, but long on emotion. Bittersweet and open to interpretation, clarified by repeat viewing. Yeah, sounds about right.
People will complain about the mythological threads left dangling, but as I pointed out in the pre-post, most of the key mythological questions were already addressed (note I said addressed rather than answered, because no matter what there will always be another question to ask). What was left was a wrapup for these characters. They got it, in the next life--which is a theme that Nadia and Desmond have been hammering into our heads for as long as the show has aired. It also told us this with the clip from "Little House on the Prairie" in "Recon": "Hey, you heard that? Now that's what life's all about. Laughin' and lovin' each other. And knowin' that people aren't really gone when they die. We have all the good memories to sustain us until we see 'em again."
My regret is that I didn't figure out what was up until Christian and Jack talked; I should have seen it when Kate said "I have missed you so much". WEWS in Cleveland is going to be on my crap list for a long time to come.
As I sit here pondering it some more, what Kate said to Jack is haunting me. It's just so damn sad, yet poignant at the same time.
Comments added intermittently the day after, drawing upon the commentary of others (obviously there is plenty of ambiguity to be found; the declarative statements that follow are obviously my take, not a claim of absolute truth):
* Hurley has always been the voice of the audience, and so him becoming Protector was the show's way of passing the torch to the fans. The story of the Island is one that stretches across time, with no clear beginning or end. Handing the reins to Hurley was a way of saying "This is your story, this is your Island now."
* Why was the Island underwater in 2004X? Because the Island only matters in our real world, it doesn't affect the afterlife.
* Neither MiB, Desmond, or Jack was correct about what would happen if the light was turned off. The light turning off started the process of sinking the Island, but it also took away the Monster's great powers. Could MiB have even achieved his off-Island objectives anymore?
* A lot of people think that having a sort of purgatory is a cop-out, a way of circumventing the fact that people figured out that the Island was purgatory during the first season. Possible, but I disagree--there's a big difference between "the Island is purgatory" and "everything that happened on the Island was real, and then they moved on to purgatory". The former makes the whole series more spiritual, but removes any real-world stakes. The latter is a way to provide closure to characters we loved for six years, and for the producers to make a statement about the most important aspects of life.
* It is predictable but still annoying to see people who didn't like the show and didn't watch it weighing in. Many of them seem to have gotten "they died in the plane crash" as the takeaway. Others who didn't watch the show don't understand how emotionally moving it was. In order to get that, you couldn't just watch a few episodes--you had to be invested in the Lostaways and their fates.
Of course there are many loyal fans who have complaints, and that's to be expected. I'm interested in hearing their perspective. I'm not interested in hearing what people who never like the show to begin with have to say.
I would have liked some more mythology in there, but it was all about character at the end, as promised. 2004X was purgatory of a sort; everyone needed to work through their issues and find each other to move on to the next life, together: Jack and Kate, Juliet and Sawyer, Claire and Charlie, Penny and Desmond, even Sayid and Shannon. Ben is not quite ready to go yet; he's aware, but he still has some issues to work out.
Jack sacrificed himself to save the light, allowing Frank, the now-mortal Richard, Miles, Kate, Sawyer, and Claire to leave the Island. Jack saved Desmond, installed Hurley as the new Island Protector, and Ben became his adviser. Ben urged him to run things differently, and allow people to leave the Island. Presumably Desmond was the big beneficiary of this policy.
Jack made his way back to the bamboo field and closed his eye and died a hero, just as he opened it in "Pilot". He had finally achieved his goal as a shepherd, getting flock off the Island. The tennis shoe was rotted, showing us how long it's been. We don't know how the lives of those that left played out, nor how Hurley and Ben's time as Island guardians went.
But everything was real, and Jack really died. But everyone gets a happy ending, as they all have come together to move on to the next stage--heaven, presumably, together.
Again, it's not my story, so talking about my expectations and hopes is self-centered. I'd hoped for a little more ambiguity. But confirmation that everything that happened, really happened. Awesome. The knowledge that the Island continues on? Comforting. Bittersweet? Check, although I am bummed that Jack didn't get to serve a longer run as Island Protector.
People are sure to say that they were lying about it not being purgatory. I disagree. The Island was real. The work they did there, the character growth they achieved--that was real. And in the end, as Rose told Juliet, Sawyer, and Kate in "The Incident", being together is all that really matters. Now they're together.
Of course there are still questions. Is 2004X a type of purgatory that everyone goes to? Or did someone like Hurley create it so that everyone could be reunited?
If I'm rambling here, it's because my thoughts are all over the map. Perhaps the Island story was underwhelming, but the emotion of the 2004X reunions and the final scene is undeniable. I'll see you in another life, brother.
Or, to sum it up in Twitter length: Short on mythology, but long on emotion. Bittersweet and open to interpretation, clarified by repeat viewing. Yeah, sounds about right.
People will complain about the mythological threads left dangling, but as I pointed out in the pre-post, most of the key mythological questions were already addressed (note I said addressed rather than answered, because no matter what there will always be another question to ask). What was left was a wrapup for these characters. They got it, in the next life--which is a theme that Nadia and Desmond have been hammering into our heads for as long as the show has aired. It also told us this with the clip from "Little House on the Prairie" in "Recon": "Hey, you heard that? Now that's what life's all about. Laughin' and lovin' each other. And knowin' that people aren't really gone when they die. We have all the good memories to sustain us until we see 'em again."
My regret is that I didn't figure out what was up until Christian and Jack talked; I should have seen it when Kate said "I have missed you so much". WEWS in Cleveland is going to be on my crap list for a long time to come.
As I sit here pondering it some more, what Kate said to Jack is haunting me. It's just so damn sad, yet poignant at the same time.
Comments added intermittently the day after, drawing upon the commentary of others (obviously there is plenty of ambiguity to be found; the declarative statements that follow are obviously my take, not a claim of absolute truth):
* Hurley has always been the voice of the audience, and so him becoming Protector was the show's way of passing the torch to the fans. The story of the Island is one that stretches across time, with no clear beginning or end. Handing the reins to Hurley was a way of saying "This is your story, this is your Island now."
* Why was the Island underwater in 2004X? Because the Island only matters in our real world, it doesn't affect the afterlife.
* Neither MiB, Desmond, or Jack was correct about what would happen if the light was turned off. The light turning off started the process of sinking the Island, but it also took away the Monster's great powers. Could MiB have even achieved his off-Island objectives anymore?
* A lot of people think that having a sort of purgatory is a cop-out, a way of circumventing the fact that people figured out that the Island was purgatory during the first season. Possible, but I disagree--there's a big difference between "the Island is purgatory" and "everything that happened on the Island was real, and then they moved on to purgatory". The former makes the whole series more spiritual, but removes any real-world stakes. The latter is a way to provide closure to characters we loved for six years, and for the producers to make a statement about the most important aspects of life.
* It is predictable but still annoying to see people who didn't like the show and didn't watch it weighing in. Many of them seem to have gotten "they died in the plane crash" as the takeaway. Others who didn't watch the show don't understand how emotionally moving it was. In order to get that, you couldn't just watch a few episodes--you had to be invested in the Lostaways and their fates.
Of course there are many loyal fans who have complaints, and that's to be expected. I'm interested in hearing their perspective. I'm not interested in hearing what people who never like the show to begin with have to say.
Series Finale Pre-Thoughts
* I rewatched all five season finales in preparation for the grand finale, then made sure "Pilot" was the last episode I watched. One moment in particular struck me in light of "What They Died For"--the flashback scene from "Exodus" in which Sawyer is hauled into an Aussie police station.
The cop runs down a list of all of Sawyer's crimes and concludes by asking "How do you live with yourself?" Sawyer defiantly replies, "I do just fine", to which the cop replies "Do you?" It is very much like the exchange he had with Jacob last week, and in both cases the authority figure calling him on his bluster seems to land a blow.
Another great moment I hadn't really noticed before, albeit one that is completely frivolous, is in "Pilot". Shannon announces she's going with Kate and Sayid on their hike to send a signal with the transceiver, sparking a heated argument with Boone. The look on Sayid's face as he takes it in is priceless.
* I don't believe that Richard is dead. I think the best evidence of this is MiB's chat with Ben on the porch, in which he says something like "Just the man I wanted to talk to." MiB is done with Richard; he doesn't really care about him one way or the other. He knows that Ben is the malleable one who can be made to do his bidding for the right price, and he simply tossed Richard aside like the now irrelevant pawn that he is (to MiB, at least). I do believe that Richard will die in the finale, as this is what he really wants and would reunite him with Isabella. But not yet.
* Some people are angry that Widmore went down with such a whimper, considering he was once the Big Bad on the show. There is certainly room to criticize the ease with which Chuck folded and told MiB everything he wanted to know, but I disagree with the notion that he was ever the Big Bad. Ben painted him that way, but I don't think he ever was. Ben and Charles are both evil--they both act only for their own side. That means that sometimes they are in opposition to the forces of the light and sometimes their interests align.
* One thing I glossed over at the end of the episode was that MiB's stated intention of destroying the Island called into question the veracity of his promise that Ben can have the Island to himself after MiB is gone.
* Doc Jensen offers an excellent theory on why Jack, Kate, Sayid, and Hurley were flashed off of Ajira 316 while Sun and others were not--they were candidates. Sun probably was a candidate but was crossed off when she became a mother.
* It appears as if the concert is going to be the singular event in 2004X that brings everyone together. I fully expect all the major players to be there, but I'll still list the ones that have an obvious reason to be there and the ones for whom we don't know how or why they will be:
Desmond & Kate--he's taking her there
Faraday, Widmore, Eloise--all main players in the staging of the concert
Penny--Faraday's sis and likely performing as well
Charlie--slated to perform with DriveShaft
Jack, David, Claire, unnamed ex-wife of Jack (Juliet is my guess)--family of player
Hurley, Sayid--obviously Hurley is in on Desmond's plan and will act accordingly, not to mention Hurley is a benefactor of the museum
Dogen--son is likely performing as well
Miles, Charlotte, Dr. Chang--museum employees and family
Sawyer--will probably be corralled into going by Miles, or there chasing the escapees (Ana-Lucia could be there for the latter as well)
Libby--likely Hurley's date
Unclear: Ilana, Boone, Shannon, Locke, Ben, Alex, Rousseau, Eko (don't expect to see him), Jin, Sun, Michael, Rose, Bernard, Frank
Some of the people in the unclear group have never even been seen in 2004X and might not be of any importance.
* The first thing about Season Six that I have a big problem with is the finale title. I have hoped ever since "Live Together, Die Alone" that the series finale would be called "Our Mutual Friend", although using that as the name of Desmond's boat was a blow to that dream. The title is authoritative, but unimaginative. On the plus side, the episode title won't have anything to do with how much I enjoy the episode, and it doesn't tip anything about the content.
* Carlton Cuse did a very good podcast with Bill Simmons. One of the things they talked about was what drew people to certain characters, and during their discussion I realized one of the big reasons why Jack has always been my favorite character that I'd never considered: Jack's journey with regard to science and faith with respect to the show mirrors my own. At the beginning of the show, Jack is always searching for rational explanations for everything that happens on the Island. And I too thought the show would be better if it was explained by pseudo-science rather than deus ex machina and light caves and the like. But as the show progressed, Jack began to accept that there were forces at work that could not be explained rationally, and I began to embrace these elements of the show even more. Now Jack is all in, drinking the stream water and accepting the role of Island Protector. Sign me up.
* Last year I used the pre-finale post to predict how the finale would go down. It was a ridiculous exercise, and the prediction was as off as possible (Desmond or Ray Shephard = Jacob is the highlight, but the whole thing is a train wreck). So just for kicks I'm going to do it again.
MiB will execute a two-pronged assault on the Jacobians. First, he'll dispatch Ben to try to assassinate Jack. Ben will succeed in stabbing Jack in the throat, Keamy-style, but Jack will not die and Ben will see the error of his ways, somehow sacrificing his life to allow the remaining candidates to escape. Meanwhile, MiB will capture Desmond and take him with him to the light cave.
In the course of running through the jungle, Miles will stumble across the caves, and read the thoughts of MiB and Mother. This will give him an insight into how to kill MiB which he will eventually relay to the candidates.
In 2004X, everyone will arrive at the concert, leading to Eloise Hawking having some sort of fit. Something she says will trigger a mass Island awakening among all of the appropriate parties. At that moment, their consciousness will travel to the Island timeline and imbue their doppelgangers with key information. Some of the deceased folks will appear as a whisper chorus, and they will help guide the candidates on their way. 2004X will be revealed to be a scheme hatched by Eloise to bring her son back to life, but will ultimately collapse as the key players in the universe realize their true destiny lies in the Island timeline.
With all of this information at their disposal, the candidates will be able to defeat MiB once and for all in a climactic showdown at the light cave. Sawyer and Desmond will both sacrifice themselves in the course of this struggle.
That will leave Kate, Jack, and Hurley among the major Lostaways. Jack will be healed after the 2004X awakening, and will use his newfound powers to allow Miles and Claire to return to the real world and Richard to be released from his duties and his immortality. He will leave out the rest of his years in a peaceful Island existence. Jack will then allow Hurley to make a choice--leave the Island, accept a job as his Richard-like advisor, or remain mortal but choose to stay on the Island. Hurley will choose the latter and start a new Island society, but one devoted to living peacefully in this newfound tropical paradise rather than servicing a shadowy agenda. Since Jack can now make his own rules, he'll tab Kate to serve as his co-guardian of the Island.
The preceding faux-episode summary is the perfect encapsulation of why I am a sabermetrician for kicks, not an aspiring fiction writer. It also is offered in the spirit of enjoying what Damon and Carlton have planned for us--it may not be what you expect or what you want, but it will be a helluva lot better than whatever the average internet hack dreams up.
* To address the broader issue of what the show should resolve in the finale, I have to say that I am already satisfied with the mysteries that have been resolved this season. Before the season I made a list of the essential questions that LOST needed to address, and said "If most of those questions are addressed adequately, then I will be very satisfied with LOST." Those questions were:
1. What is the true nature of the Jacob/Black Robe conflict? Good v. Evil? Shades of gray? Are they gods, demigods, ageless mortals in the mold of Alpert?
Obviously there is more that could be mined out of this, but I'd chalk this up as answered. It's good v. evil with shades of gray, but they are not inherently good and evil--they chose those paths themselves. Jacob is an ageless mortal, MiB is actually the Monster.
2. What destroyed the statue? Was it related to the pregnancy problems? And if not, what caused those?
Half-answered; the tsunami that brought in the Black Rock destroyed the statue, and it was apparently not related to the pregnancy problems, which are presumably not going to be addressed.
3. What is the history of the Hostiles/Others? Are they simply the people Jacob has drawn to the Island? What is their mission, and what is the Temple?
Largely answered--the Others are the people Jacob has drawn to the Island, apparently dating back to the arrival of the Black Rock. We don't exactly know what their mission is, but that's appropriate because they don't either. The Temple got plenty of screentime.
4. What are the Whispers?
Answered--the whispers are the voices of Island dead who can't move on, personified for us in "Everyboyd Loves Hugo" by Michael.
5. Who are Adam and Eve?
Answered--Adam is the mortal body of MiB, and Eve is the body of his "adoptive" mother, who he killed. They were laid to rest by Jacob.
6. What is the Monster? More specifically, I don't need to know how a cloud of black smoke is sentient; I just need to understand its relationship to other forces on the Island and what it is judging? What is its moral code, so to speak?
Answered--it and the MiB are one, its mission is to escape the Island, and it was created by the MiB being thrown into the light cave.
Six questions I wanted answered, and for the most part they have been. While we don't have complete answers for all of them, elements of each have at least been touched on. None of them have been completely ignored.
Season Six has raised other questions of course, but only one that would be able to stand aside the big six. That is the nature of 2004X and it's relationship to the Island timeline. That is, by default, the major question which the finale must resolve, and I have full confidence that it will be crucial to the outcome of the story.
* Leaving aside ridiculous predictions about what the end of LOST will be, what should it be? I believe that it should be true to the nature of the show. I'd like to believe that all LOST fans could agree that the end of the show should be true to the nature of the show in its entirety.
That still leaves it up for the individual fan to define what makes LOST tick. For me, the greatest characteristic of LOST is intrigue and mystery. I know the producers like to say that it's a character-driven show, and I understand what they mean by it and why they view it that way. I don't think there's any conflict, though, between having a satisfying end to the character's journey and continuing to foster mystery.
The very best endings to LOST episodes are the ones that make you say "What the heck did I just watch", the ones that make you reconsider a dozen other things that have happened in a new light. Scenes like Jack's flashforward, Sayid working for Ben off-Island, the numbers being embossed on the side of the hatch.
LOST is also a show steeped in ambiguity. This season we've been getting a lot of exposition scenes in which a mystery is explained (ex. Michael confirming Hurley's theory about the Whispers, Jacob's fireside chat with his candidates). That's fine, and necessary in some cases, but it's not the trademark way in which LOST resolves mysteries. LOST is a puzzle that the viewer needs to piece together himself for it to reach maximum efficacy. As long as the TPTB give us the picture on the front of the box and don't hide too many of the pieces, we'll be okay. It's more fun that way.
Finally, LOST is a bittersweet show. There haven't been a lot of happy endings so far, but there have been satisfying endings--endings achieved after a character has made real strides, endings that allow us to feel good about that person's life again (Sayid is a classic example). LOST shouldn't end as a barren wasteland of despair, but it also shouldn't have a syrupy-sweet ending. Some shows demand such an end and don't get it; LOST is not one of them.
So at 11:30 tonight, I'd like to feel conflicted--satisfied but not happy, and wondering whether I wasted 119 hours of my life (just on first viewings). Because if I never spend another hour thinking about the implications of the show, I know I will have wasted 119 hours.
In that vein, there are a lot of things to be said about the show as a whole and its legacy, but I'll save that for after the finale when there's nothing else left to write about.
Remember, it only ends once--anything that's happened before that is just progress.
The cop runs down a list of all of Sawyer's crimes and concludes by asking "How do you live with yourself?" Sawyer defiantly replies, "I do just fine", to which the cop replies "Do you?" It is very much like the exchange he had with Jacob last week, and in both cases the authority figure calling him on his bluster seems to land a blow.
Another great moment I hadn't really noticed before, albeit one that is completely frivolous, is in "Pilot". Shannon announces she's going with Kate and Sayid on their hike to send a signal with the transceiver, sparking a heated argument with Boone. The look on Sayid's face as he takes it in is priceless.
* I don't believe that Richard is dead. I think the best evidence of this is MiB's chat with Ben on the porch, in which he says something like "Just the man I wanted to talk to." MiB is done with Richard; he doesn't really care about him one way or the other. He knows that Ben is the malleable one who can be made to do his bidding for the right price, and he simply tossed Richard aside like the now irrelevant pawn that he is (to MiB, at least). I do believe that Richard will die in the finale, as this is what he really wants and would reunite him with Isabella. But not yet.
* Some people are angry that Widmore went down with such a whimper, considering he was once the Big Bad on the show. There is certainly room to criticize the ease with which Chuck folded and told MiB everything he wanted to know, but I disagree with the notion that he was ever the Big Bad. Ben painted him that way, but I don't think he ever was. Ben and Charles are both evil--they both act only for their own side. That means that sometimes they are in opposition to the forces of the light and sometimes their interests align.
* One thing I glossed over at the end of the episode was that MiB's stated intention of destroying the Island called into question the veracity of his promise that Ben can have the Island to himself after MiB is gone.
* Doc Jensen offers an excellent theory on why Jack, Kate, Sayid, and Hurley were flashed off of Ajira 316 while Sun and others were not--they were candidates. Sun probably was a candidate but was crossed off when she became a mother.
* It appears as if the concert is going to be the singular event in 2004X that brings everyone together. I fully expect all the major players to be there, but I'll still list the ones that have an obvious reason to be there and the ones for whom we don't know how or why they will be:
Desmond & Kate--he's taking her there
Faraday, Widmore, Eloise--all main players in the staging of the concert
Penny--Faraday's sis and likely performing as well
Charlie--slated to perform with DriveShaft
Jack, David, Claire, unnamed ex-wife of Jack (Juliet is my guess)--family of player
Hurley, Sayid--obviously Hurley is in on Desmond's plan and will act accordingly, not to mention Hurley is a benefactor of the museum
Dogen--son is likely performing as well
Miles, Charlotte, Dr. Chang--museum employees and family
Sawyer--will probably be corralled into going by Miles, or there chasing the escapees (Ana-Lucia could be there for the latter as well)
Libby--likely Hurley's date
Unclear: Ilana, Boone, Shannon, Locke, Ben, Alex, Rousseau, Eko (don't expect to see him), Jin, Sun, Michael, Rose, Bernard, Frank
Some of the people in the unclear group have never even been seen in 2004X and might not be of any importance.
* The first thing about Season Six that I have a big problem with is the finale title. I have hoped ever since "Live Together, Die Alone" that the series finale would be called "Our Mutual Friend", although using that as the name of Desmond's boat was a blow to that dream. The title is authoritative, but unimaginative. On the plus side, the episode title won't have anything to do with how much I enjoy the episode, and it doesn't tip anything about the content.
* Carlton Cuse did a very good podcast with Bill Simmons. One of the things they talked about was what drew people to certain characters, and during their discussion I realized one of the big reasons why Jack has always been my favorite character that I'd never considered: Jack's journey with regard to science and faith with respect to the show mirrors my own. At the beginning of the show, Jack is always searching for rational explanations for everything that happens on the Island. And I too thought the show would be better if it was explained by pseudo-science rather than deus ex machina and light caves and the like. But as the show progressed, Jack began to accept that there were forces at work that could not be explained rationally, and I began to embrace these elements of the show even more. Now Jack is all in, drinking the stream water and accepting the role of Island Protector. Sign me up.
* Last year I used the pre-finale post to predict how the finale would go down. It was a ridiculous exercise, and the prediction was as off as possible (Desmond or Ray Shephard = Jacob is the highlight, but the whole thing is a train wreck). So just for kicks I'm going to do it again.
MiB will execute a two-pronged assault on the Jacobians. First, he'll dispatch Ben to try to assassinate Jack. Ben will succeed in stabbing Jack in the throat, Keamy-style, but Jack will not die and Ben will see the error of his ways, somehow sacrificing his life to allow the remaining candidates to escape. Meanwhile, MiB will capture Desmond and take him with him to the light cave.
In the course of running through the jungle, Miles will stumble across the caves, and read the thoughts of MiB and Mother. This will give him an insight into how to kill MiB which he will eventually relay to the candidates.
In 2004X, everyone will arrive at the concert, leading to Eloise Hawking having some sort of fit. Something she says will trigger a mass Island awakening among all of the appropriate parties. At that moment, their consciousness will travel to the Island timeline and imbue their doppelgangers with key information. Some of the deceased folks will appear as a whisper chorus, and they will help guide the candidates on their way. 2004X will be revealed to be a scheme hatched by Eloise to bring her son back to life, but will ultimately collapse as the key players in the universe realize their true destiny lies in the Island timeline.
With all of this information at their disposal, the candidates will be able to defeat MiB once and for all in a climactic showdown at the light cave. Sawyer and Desmond will both sacrifice themselves in the course of this struggle.
That will leave Kate, Jack, and Hurley among the major Lostaways. Jack will be healed after the 2004X awakening, and will use his newfound powers to allow Miles and Claire to return to the real world and Richard to be released from his duties and his immortality. He will leave out the rest of his years in a peaceful Island existence. Jack will then allow Hurley to make a choice--leave the Island, accept a job as his Richard-like advisor, or remain mortal but choose to stay on the Island. Hurley will choose the latter and start a new Island society, but one devoted to living peacefully in this newfound tropical paradise rather than servicing a shadowy agenda. Since Jack can now make his own rules, he'll tab Kate to serve as his co-guardian of the Island.
The preceding faux-episode summary is the perfect encapsulation of why I am a sabermetrician for kicks, not an aspiring fiction writer. It also is offered in the spirit of enjoying what Damon and Carlton have planned for us--it may not be what you expect or what you want, but it will be a helluva lot better than whatever the average internet hack dreams up.
* To address the broader issue of what the show should resolve in the finale, I have to say that I am already satisfied with the mysteries that have been resolved this season. Before the season I made a list of the essential questions that LOST needed to address, and said "If most of those questions are addressed adequately, then I will be very satisfied with LOST." Those questions were:
1. What is the true nature of the Jacob/Black Robe conflict? Good v. Evil? Shades of gray? Are they gods, demigods, ageless mortals in the mold of Alpert?
Obviously there is more that could be mined out of this, but I'd chalk this up as answered. It's good v. evil with shades of gray, but they are not inherently good and evil--they chose those paths themselves. Jacob is an ageless mortal, MiB is actually the Monster.
2. What destroyed the statue? Was it related to the pregnancy problems? And if not, what caused those?
Half-answered; the tsunami that brought in the Black Rock destroyed the statue, and it was apparently not related to the pregnancy problems, which are presumably not going to be addressed.
3. What is the history of the Hostiles/Others? Are they simply the people Jacob has drawn to the Island? What is their mission, and what is the Temple?
Largely answered--the Others are the people Jacob has drawn to the Island, apparently dating back to the arrival of the Black Rock. We don't exactly know what their mission is, but that's appropriate because they don't either. The Temple got plenty of screentime.
4. What are the Whispers?
Answered--the whispers are the voices of Island dead who can't move on, personified for us in "Everyboyd Loves Hugo" by Michael.
5. Who are Adam and Eve?
Answered--Adam is the mortal body of MiB, and Eve is the body of his "adoptive" mother, who he killed. They were laid to rest by Jacob.
6. What is the Monster? More specifically, I don't need to know how a cloud of black smoke is sentient; I just need to understand its relationship to other forces on the Island and what it is judging? What is its moral code, so to speak?
Answered--it and the MiB are one, its mission is to escape the Island, and it was created by the MiB being thrown into the light cave.
Six questions I wanted answered, and for the most part they have been. While we don't have complete answers for all of them, elements of each have at least been touched on. None of them have been completely ignored.
Season Six has raised other questions of course, but only one that would be able to stand aside the big six. That is the nature of 2004X and it's relationship to the Island timeline. That is, by default, the major question which the finale must resolve, and I have full confidence that it will be crucial to the outcome of the story.
* Leaving aside ridiculous predictions about what the end of LOST will be, what should it be? I believe that it should be true to the nature of the show. I'd like to believe that all LOST fans could agree that the end of the show should be true to the nature of the show in its entirety.
That still leaves it up for the individual fan to define what makes LOST tick. For me, the greatest characteristic of LOST is intrigue and mystery. I know the producers like to say that it's a character-driven show, and I understand what they mean by it and why they view it that way. I don't think there's any conflict, though, between having a satisfying end to the character's journey and continuing to foster mystery.
The very best endings to LOST episodes are the ones that make you say "What the heck did I just watch", the ones that make you reconsider a dozen other things that have happened in a new light. Scenes like Jack's flashforward, Sayid working for Ben off-Island, the numbers being embossed on the side of the hatch.
LOST is also a show steeped in ambiguity. This season we've been getting a lot of exposition scenes in which a mystery is explained (ex. Michael confirming Hurley's theory about the Whispers, Jacob's fireside chat with his candidates). That's fine, and necessary in some cases, but it's not the trademark way in which LOST resolves mysteries. LOST is a puzzle that the viewer needs to piece together himself for it to reach maximum efficacy. As long as the TPTB give us the picture on the front of the box and don't hide too many of the pieces, we'll be okay. It's more fun that way.
Finally, LOST is a bittersweet show. There haven't been a lot of happy endings so far, but there have been satisfying endings--endings achieved after a character has made real strides, endings that allow us to feel good about that person's life again (Sayid is a classic example). LOST shouldn't end as a barren wasteland of despair, but it also shouldn't have a syrupy-sweet ending. Some shows demand such an end and don't get it; LOST is not one of them.
So at 11:30 tonight, I'd like to feel conflicted--satisfied but not happy, and wondering whether I wasted 119 hours of my life (just on first viewings). Because if I never spend another hour thinking about the implications of the show, I know I will have wasted 119 hours.
In that vein, there are a lot of things to be said about the show as a whole and its legacy, but I'll save that for after the finale when there's nothing else left to write about.
Remember, it only ends once--anything that's happened before that is just progress.
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