Rewatching Lost: Blargh

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost
The First 20 Episodes
Season 2, Episode 3
Stuff That I Don't Want to Forget to Notice
Analucia and Mr. Eko
Season 2
Season 3
I Don't Remember A Lot Of This
Season 4. Dear God, Why, Season 4?
Spit it Out, Farraday
Time Travel

Blech. I wish I could spit that taste out of my mouth. While watching season 6, all I kept thinking was, "what the hell are you even talking about?" First of all, I felt like the whole season they were just filling up time. Basically like 3 things happen. Jack vacillates between trusting and not trusting the fake Locke, and at the end they both lower Desmond down into the light together. Like nobody even knows what's going to happen. They're both just hoping that shit comes out alright for them.

The two episodes where they actually give a few answers are "Ab Aeterno", the Richard episode, and "Across the Sea", the Allison Janney Episode. The remaining 15 episodes are there because they promised a full season. In "Across the Sea" it is entirely ambiguous as to whether or not the man in black is actually evil and if his leaving the island would actually cause the end of civilization. When the man in black kills Allison Janney and asks her why she wouldn't let him leave, she says, "because I love you." She does not say, "because you are evil incarnate." or "because it would mean the end of civilization." There's really no reason to think that's the case. In the beginning of that episode this lady Claudia washes up on the island and she's mad pregnant and presumably Allison Janney brought her boat to the island in whatever way she and Jacob manage to do that. Then Claudia gives birth to Jacob and then unexpectedly to the man in black. Then Allison Janney kills Claudia. And the rest of the people on the boat colonize another part of the island. The man in black is "special", but that's never really explained.

Jacob is like super naive and doesn't seem to understand nuance of any sort. This makes me wonder if the whole conceit of the show is like a misunderstanding of some sort. Allison Janney is batshit crazy and the kid just wants to go home. It's entirely unclear to me why that kid is evil. And it would be an entirely plausible interpretation of the show that the man in black is not evil and nothing would happen if he left and Allison Janney just made that up because she lived alone on an island for a thousand years and went crazy.

There's clearly something magical about the island, but what it is is never actually laid out. The closest they come is that Allison Janney says that it's, "the source. Live, death, everything." Also interesting is that the island actually is purgatory all along. Michael is stuck there along with other people who can't move on. But then also at the very end people like Ben and Analucia and Ilana never have that flash moment where they realize they're dead and that place is also a lot like purgatory. Maybe the island is hell instead of purgatory, as many of the characters alluded to through the run of the series.

I didn't have any revelations about this show. It is not any clearer than the first time through. It is not any less frustrating. Every season was just a red herring for the shit that was to come. The Dharma Initiative is worthless. The Others, worthless. The Ben Linus vs. Charles Widmore rivalry, worthless. To a certain extent, even the Jacob vs. Man in black rivalry is meaningless. I mean, I guess that's what it came down to ultimately, but it feels really empty to me. Like it might not even be valid. The 815ers where there because they were all candidates to replace Jacob. Ok, I guess that's the main explanation for why they're there, but still we're wondering like what the fuck is this place?

And what was the point of the island before the man in black was born? It's clearly larger than just that guy trying to leave the island. It serves some other purpose. And I'm going to assume that Allison Janney at some point went into the light cave and then presumably became the smoke monster. Maybe I should assume. And when Jack went in the cave, did he become the smoke monster? It seemed like he just died. And what are Hurley and Ben protecting the island from if the man in black is dead? You know what, this is an exercise in futility. I was really interested in parsing through this stuff in the first 3 seasons. I think the posts will reflect that. I grew much more frustrated and much less interested in the last 3 seasons. It really just falls apart for me.

Rewatching Lost: Time Travel

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost
The First 20 Episodes
Season 2, Episode 3
Stuff That I Don't Want to Forget to Notice
Analucia and Mr. Eko
Season 2
Season 3
I Don't Remember A Lot Of This
Season 4. Dear God, Why, Season 4?
Spit it Out, Farraday

Whoa, season 5, whoa. Hold on there a minute. Right now I'm through 11 episodes of season 5. I've slowed down my watching pace mainly because I'm just not that interested anymore. At this point, I'm kindof just watching because I've decided to do it, rather than because the show is grabbing my interest. Before taking on this endeavor my recollection was that seasons 1 and 2 were awesome, 3 and 4 sucked, 5 and 6 were good, though disappointing in a big picture way. That is not my current experience. 1 and 2 were, in fact, awesome. Season 3 was really not as bad as I thought it was. Season 3 is actually pretty good, especially the second half. Season 4, however, no thanks. Right now, though, in the midst of season 5, I gotta say, it's pretty freakin' dumb. Yeah, freakin', I said it, with no G neither.

So, they go back to the island in order to save the people they left behind because Locke and Ben insist that they are in terrible danger. Except they're not in terrible danger. They're perfectly fine, albeit in 1977. Had they never returned, then the whole thing would never have gone to shit. It's likely that the Dharma Initiative would never have been purged, and Ben would never have been evilized after Sayid shot him because Sayid would not have shot him. Charles Widmore and Ben would never have engaged in whatever their whole power struggle deal is and Widmore is probably never exiled from the island. This is a fallacy in thought, I know, but like they caused all this shit. Consistently, the people who were on the plane want one thing to happen and then their actions cause the exact opposite to happen.

So, when they go back to the island Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid travel back in time to 1977 for some reason that is altogether unclear. Even more, unclear, however, is why Sun does not travel back in time. This is pure contrivance by the writers to keep Sun and Jin apart for as long as possible. And, I suppose that's fine if they want to keep them apart, but then there's got to be a reason for it. If you've created a mechanism through which the 815ers travel back in time, then it has to apply to all of them. You can't create rules and then break them within your universe, it's fucking annoying to the people who are following your rules. I get it that it's ultimately more satisfying when Sun and Jin are eventually reunited (and it feels so good), but think for like 5 extra minutes about something that doesn't violate the rules that you established. Like you want me to be happy with the idea that all the people on the plane land on the island in 2007 except for the 815ers who are transported to 1977. Ok, I'm with that. It's weird, but like, time travel and shit, ok, I'm with you. Except not Sun. Why not Sun? For no reason, that's why.

They keep Ben alive. Again. After Sayid shoots Ben (like finally someone took the bull by the horns), Juliet, Kate, and Sawyer all conspire to save him. Why? "Because he's just a kid." Except you know he's Ben. Don't be daft (I'm British now). Sayid had the good sense to shoot him and Jack had the good sense to refuse to treat him (except Jack has done a fair amount of listening to Ben in order to end up back on the island and Sayid has done a lot of listening to Ben when he became a serial killer on Ben's orders) and then those clowns go and save him. And Richard is all, "If we save him, he'll never be the same. He'll always be one of us." And still Kate and Sawyer agree to do it. The whole story is a Deus ex Machina through which the 815ers act against any logical judgment in order to keep Ben alive so that he can continue to fuck up their lives.

At this point in the show, they have written themselves into a corner on more than one occasion. And it's basically become an in joke that they are at an impasse between conflicting plot points and they are just going to scoff at the one they don't want at the moment and pick the one that's more convenient for them. One (of the several) example(s) of this is the conversation between Miles and Hurley about Back to the Future. Hurley is expecting to fade away because Sayid has shot Ben and they have no way to save him. Hurley recounts the events that brought them to that point, all of which involve Ben, so that if little Ben dies, they should fade away. Miles explains their time travel rules, which is basically that you can't change the past. Whatever happened, happened, so that since they know Ben is alive in the future, he must have survived. Fine, I'm with that. Then Hurley says something like, "Ok well then when we first captured Ben and Sayid tortured him, why didn't Ben remember that this was the dude that shot him?" To which Miles pauses, as if stumped and says something like, "Ooh, good question, I don't know." Or maybe Miles says, "I hadn't thought of that." I think it's the second one, actually. But on several occasions freakin' Farraday, who seems to know exactly what is happening, chooses to answer questions with, "I don't know", instead of an explanation. I'm thinking of when he's explaining to Juliet why Charlotte is dying. He answers half of the questions cryptically and the other half with, "I don't know." And this is basically the writers choosing to say, "We don't feel like answering that question and so we're not going to."

Something that I wanted to write about in a previous post but forgot to was about how people seem to come back to life on this island for no reason whatsoever. Mikhail initially is killed by the sonic fence (which is later revealed not to have been set at a lethal setting (set fence to stun (inception)) and I guess that's ok since later Sawyer and Juliet and Farraday and Miles are stunned by the fence even though Mikhail got much more fucked up by the fence than those other guys and also they felt his pulse) and then later on Mikhail is shot through the heart (and you're to blame) in the underwater station with a harpoon but comes back to life again in order to flood the station and kill Charlie (by the way, I know this is nitpicky, but Charlie had plenty of time to exit the room and shut the door, he did not need to lock himself in to save Desmond). There was someone else who came back to life just to serve the purposes of the plot, but I can't recall who it was at this moment. Presumably Mikhail is dead now, but one never knows.

Anyway, to end on topic rather than on a tangent, season 5 is not as good as I remember. It's kindof a clusterfuck and the events that bring them back to the island are not especially satisfying. And it's annoying that Jack vacillates between trusting and not trusting Ben whenever it's convenient to the plot. Also, in the big picture analysis, they've pretty clearly established that Sayid is not a good dude and that he's a natural killer, but he gets to go to heaven while Michael has to stay on the island. Mad racist.

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
Blargh

Rewatching Lost: Spit it Out, Farraday

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost
The First 20 Episodes
Season 2, Episode 3
Stuff That I Don't Want to Forget to Notice
Analucia and Mr. Eko
Season 2
Season 3
I Don't Remember A Lot Of This
Season 4. Dear God, Why, Season 4?

I am like 10 minutes into season 5, which is not much farther than my last post. Daniel Farraday is not at all surprised when the island moves in space and/or time and he seems to know exactly what and why is happening. Right when the sky changes color (for the second time now) and they are in the raft still next to the island he says, "we must have been within the radius." This statement implies that he knows that the island can be moved, the mechanism through which it is moved, what would happen when it moves, and that there exists a radius around the island which would become dislodged in space and time. They've already shown Farraday in the past as part of the Dharma Initiative in the Orchid station while it is being built. So presumably he knows something about it.

Next they show what happens immediately after the island moves. The people are there, but all the stuff is gone. Farraday says he needs to be taken to something man made on the island, presumably to determine where in time they are. But he doesn't ever explain this to anyone. At least not in these first ten minutes. He's a fucking Oxford professor, he needs to be able to explain himself better than he is. Instead of saying, "your camp isn't gone, it just hasn't been built yet," he could say something, anything, that is infinitely less cryptic than that. If I were Farraday, I would say, "Okay let's walk while I explain. The island has become dislodged in time. Here's why......."

Based on what he says he knows what happened, and that it's going to continue happening, and basically everything. He knows everything. Spit it the fuck out, Farraday. He has no reason to be so fucking cryptic within the context of the reality on the island. He's only being cryptic so the writers can let out information bit by bit, or not at all.

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
Time Travel

Rewatching Lost: Season 4. Dear God, Why, Season 4?

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost
The First 20 Episodes
Season 2, Episode 3
Stuff That I Don't Want to Forget to Notice
Analucia and Mr. Eko
Season 2
Season 3
I Don't Remember A Lot Of This

First of all, season 4 is only 14 episodes. But thank goodness for that. Season 3 ends with the helicopter and the Not Penny's Boat out in the ocean somewhere. The entire next season is about how the 6 people come to leave the island. This is Lost at its worst. Absolute worst. I didn't think season 3 was terrible in aggregate, though the first half dragged. Season 4 in total is just bad. Tons of new characters, tons of new plot lines, no answered questions, even a new Dharma Initiative orientation video for the orchid station, when Locke and Ben go to move the island. Oh yeah, they moved the island, that was a thing.

Again, the whole entire season was about the boat showing up and all the shit that happens until the 6 of them leave the island and the rest of them get moved when the island moves. Lord, Jesus, it's a fire. Ain't nobody got time for that. Charlotte is a useless character. Frank Lapidus is useless save for the fact that he's a pilot. Miles is probably useless, I don't really remember what he does later. Everything that they established in the first three seasons is irrelevant. The numbers, the Dharma Initiative, like everything.

Also, at least 10 different people on at least 20 different occasions had the opportunity and the motive to kill Ben Linus and no one ever did. And Occam's Razor says he should be dead by now, and then much of this nonsense would have been avoided.

The whole thing where "the island won't let you die", like with Michael and what not is utterly ridiculous. Also Ben has the ability to call the smoke monster, which he does when the army guys attack his house, but not until after they kill Alex. And then the smoke monster comes and appears to devastate the 6 to 10 army guys, but only one of them dies. So the smoke monster has killed 3 people in 4 seasons.

It's entirely unclear what the Others are doing there in the first place. I think they address that in season 5, but as for now, nothing. It's also unclear why they're taking people from the wreckage and not announcing their presence and being more friendly with the people who crashed on the island accidentally.

John Locke has been targeted since birth by Richard who doesn't age. Relatedly, a lot of shit happens by chance that also seems to be destined to happen. Locke ending up on the island and also Claire. Jack crashing on the island when Ben has a tumor. The dude from the Wire (awesome show) visiting a bunch of the people and being the guy who suggested Locke go on a walkabout. I feel like in the future Jacob is going to be visiting people either before or after they've gone to the island.

They've finally set up the time travelling, island moving, Jacob is in charge of the island, and Ben Linus vs. Charles Widmore things. Although that last one is another red herring. Useless. They haven't set up the smoke monster vs. Jacob yet. Also if the smoke monster is all the ghost people on the island, like Jack's (and Claire's) dad for instance, then he was the one in Jacob's cabin talking to Locke.

In conclusion, season 4, wherefore art thou?

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
Spit it Out, Farraday

Rewatching Lost: I Don't Remember A Lot of This

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost
The First 20 Episodes
Season 2, Episode 3
Stuff That I Don't Want to Forget to Notice
Analucia and Mr. Eko
Season 2
Season 3

So this is the second time I'm posting today for a couple of reasons. First is that in the last post I meant to say that I was going to try to remember who were the "Oceanic 8" that escaped the island. I forgot to write about that, though. Since then I have watched the first episode of season 4 and I've been reminded that it's actually the Oceanic 6. That's better for me since I could only remember Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid. Did they count Aaron? I know Claire didn't go. Was Locke one of them? That can't be. Except I know that the funeral that Jack went to where he was the only one who showed up was for Locke. At least I think I know that. And the coffin is empty. I think.

So I'm trying to remember the circumstances under which only 6 of them leave the island and I'm trying to remember exactly when Locke dies and is reborn as the smoke monster. Now that I'm thinking about it, it's possible that Ben killed Locke when he shot him and that is the point he turned into the smoke monster. And that is evidenced by the fact that he killed Naomi and Locke wasn't capable of murdering anyone, even his father who stole his kidney. Of course, I could be remembering incorrectly. And if it's Locke's funeral, then he must have left the island. Right?

I realized why all the stuff I remember from the flashbacks happened in the first two seasons. It's because after season 3, there are no flashbacks. Season 4 is flash forwards, and I think season 5 also. Season 5 is also the time travelling, so the flashbacks may be infused somehow. Season 6 is the flash sideways.

People who figure prominently in the end like Jacob, Man in Black, Charles Widmore, Farraday, Eloise Hawking, Miles, et al. have not figured to any extent in the first 3 seasons. Farraday appears for 5 seconds at the end of season 4, episode 1. Jacob is mentioned, never seen, and so far has said only "help me" to Locke. Charles Widmore was in one scene talking down to Desmond. Hawking was in one scene talking to Desmond about fate. Man in Black I guess has technically appeared since the first episode and every time someone sees an apparition on the island, but he has not appeared in proper, nor has his role been outlined whatsoever. Miles is coming soon, I think. (Fun fact: Miles is the son of a guy I used to teach with.)

I feel like the story is starting to get away from them. I just feel it spiraling our of control. It's not nearly as tight as it was in seasons 1 and 2. I know I'm biased, because this is the conclusion I'm trying to confirm, but also I think I'm right. I'm trying to be open minded.

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
Season 4. Dear God, Why, Season 4?

Rewatching Lost: Season 3

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost
The First 20 Episodes
Season 2, Episode 3
Stuff That I Don't Want to Forget to Notice
Analucia and Mr. Eko
Season 2

Season 3 of Lost. Ugh. Season 3. I gotta say, it wasn't terrible. The first half was bad. Like pretty bad. Also they dropped a thousand more hints that they were all dead. I'm gonna look into the idea that they actually are dead starting with season 4. I don't think it will fit outside the first 3 seasons, but it's possible. This is to say, the first 3 seasons definitely fit into the idea that they are all dead, and they play it up quite a bit at the end of the 3rd season. Anthony Cooper (John Locke's dad and the dude who swindles Sawyer's parents) talks about getting into a car accident and waking up on the island. Noami (the parachutist from Not Penny's Boat) says that they had found the wreckage of flight 815 and accounted for all the bodies. The people who get to the island do so after either having been in an accident that should have killed them (Oceanics, Anthony Cooper, Naomi, Richard who doesn't age) or after having been drugged or sedated (Juliet). Ben is the only one who seems to have arrived under fairly normal circumstances, but can't you imagine his shitty dad having killed the pair of them over the fact the he blames Ben for killing his wife, Ben's mother? You can also probably work the no babies can be conceived successfully on the island thing into there.

Basically in season 3 they kill the Dharma Initiative. At the end they show about how the original hostiles killed all the Dharma people in "the purge". I guess that's supposed to end all the questions about anything Dharma related, since it doesn't exist anymore. The only survivor was Ben. The only thing that doesn't exactly jibe is the fact that there are apparently still fresh food deliveries to the Dharma Initiative. Also in season 3 Locke goes crazy, hears Jacob's voice, blows up the submarine, and tries to prevent the second escape attempt as well. It's unclear to me why Locke is so opposed to everyone leaving the island. He could easily stay behind if everyone else left.

I'm trying to remember whose boat it is if it's not Penny's. It must be Charles Widmore's. Also they introduce Farraday's mother (Eloise Hawking) way earlier than you would have figured. She's in the episode where Desmond realizes he can tell the future as the person who tells him he can't change the universe's plan. She also appears in a picture on a monk's desk when Desmond is a monk (I didn't remember that either). She's not named yet, and it's not implied that you'll see her again.

The smoke monster kills the pilot (Matt Parkman from Heroes) in the pilot (episode). The only other person he kills in the first 3 seasons is Mr. Eko. It's not exactly a reign of terror.

I really love the Nikki and Paolo episode. It's basically a throw away, in that you could have missed that episode and really only missed the part where Charlie confesses that he dragged Sun into the forest. But it's really entertaining. Nice tone shift. I like how they set it up a few episodes before, too. I don't know if this was their original plan for those characters, but I like how it turned out. If Nikki had just waited in the jungle to get unparalyzed, then it wouldn't have turned out so badly. I know it's the lynch pin to the episode, but that was a really stupid idea.

The 2 part finale is the original flash forward. I remember being blown away when I realized it was a flash forward instead of a flashback originally. When I already knew it was a flash forward, then it's a pretty tedious exercise belaboring the point that Jack wants to go back to the island. It does not hold up, I guess.

Add to the list of murderers Juliet (one of the Others), Locke (Naomi), Sayid and Bernard (some Others attacking the camp to steal pregnant people), and Sun (one of the Others on the boat).

There's that thing of where Jack's dad is also Claire's dad.

Season 3 is real big on the fate vs. free will theme. Charlie dying and Desmond being fated to end up on the island and also Locke. Also some other stuff. It's a sticky issue, hard to say where they intend to come down on it.

Desmond is named Desmond David Hume. David Hume was another Enlightenment philosopher (like Locke and Rousseau) who wrote about human nature. He's often linked with Locke when it comes to empiricism. He wrote A Treatise on Human Nature. So more philosophers. The only one missing is Immanuel Kant.

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
I Don't Remember A Lot Of This

Rewatching Lost: Season 2

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost
The First 20 Episodes
Season 2, Episode 3
Stuff That I Don't Want to Forget to Notice
Analucia and Mr. Eko

I just finished season 2. It was very entertaining. If the entire rest of the series had followed this train of thought, it would have been fantastic. As it stands, however, just like season 1, season 2 has absolutely nothing to do with the ultimate story line. Like literally nothing. Season two is all about the hatch and pushing the button. Also they introduce the Dharma Initiative and we get to watch the orientation videos to the swan station and the pearl station. At the end of season two Desmond turns the failsafe key on the hatch, probably just so they don't have to keep writing someone in there pushing the button.

Again, what really bothers me about season 2 in retrospect is that it has nothing to do with the ultimate story line. It was massively entertaining and managed to answer a bunch of questions while raising a bunch more, specifically with the Dharma Initiative stuff. In the finale of season 2 they introduce Charles Widmore and Penny Widmore, the only plot points that will be relevant for the remainder of the series. I just wish they had focused on the Dharma Initiative instead of all the other stuff they introduced. As it stands, the Dharma Initiative has nothing to do with seasons 5 or 6 or the ultimate story they told. It was just a red herring. At least that's how I remember it.

There are tons of clues that they are in purgatory, too many to even list. Also they raise the possibility that the entire series is just taking place within Hurley's mind. This is never broached again, but I had forgotten this episode, and this interpretation is probably as valid as any other that's offered in the remainder of the series. I know it's not the intended interpretation, but it's certainly as valid as the rest.

I'm sortof already dreading watching seasons 3 and 4, and I'm wondering if I'll get through them without getting super frustrated. I don't know. I guess we'll see.

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
Season 3

Rewatching Lost: Analucia and Mr. Eko

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost
The First 20 Episodes
Season 2, Episode 3
Stuff That I Don't Want to Forget to Notice

It's hard to say exactly what the original plans were for Analucia and Mr. Eko. Michelle Rodriguez is apparently not fun to work with and got fired. Adewale long last name apparently hated being in Hawaii (what?) and didn't want to be on the show any more, so both characters were written out. I recall Carlton Cuse saying that Mr. Eko was originally going to figure very prominently into the story line, except then they had to write him out. Analucia, who knows. I think she probably served her purpose. Libby, I didn't really get to her storyline, but she was probably pretty useless. The thing where she was in the mental institution with Hurley never really went anywhere.

Some other stuff:
* After Analucia kills Shannon and she's talking to Sayid, they're both going on about how their lives sucked up to that point and you get the sense that neither one of them is really happy with themselves. Analucia says, "I feel dead." and Sayid in the same conversation says, "What good would it be to kill you if we're both already dead?" So they're feeding into the purgatory idea after most likely having decided that they weren't going to go that way.

* Mr. Eko has some gems: "Don't mistake a coincidence for fate." and another one, "You live in a world where righteousness and evil are very far apart. But that is not the real world." I think both of these lines are pretty important to the story they're trying to tell.

* I want to talk about the books they've referenced, but I don't have time right now. Specifically Watership Down, Turn of the Screw, and Lord of the Flies. Later for that. Turn of the Screw is most important of those. Ok, later.

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
Season 2

Rewatching Lost: Stuff That I Don't Want to Forget to Notice

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost
The First 20 Episodes
Season 2, Episode 3

First, Shannon's father (Boone's step-father) was killed in a head on collision with an SUV, which is to say that he was the guy that was killed by Jack's ex-wife when she was driving like a woman all over the place. I just watched the episode where Shannon gets shot. I had literally no recollection of that episode at all. Not a single thing that happened seemed familiar.

Second, when John Locke meets his birth mother, she originally tells him that he has no father, and that he had been immaculately conceived. This is obviously not true, but you could probably read this either way. If you want him to be the savior, then he is. If you want him to be the anti-savior, then he's that, too. Like Darth Vader, I guess. John Locke has a fucked up life to the point that he lands on the island. He's kindof a wimp, essentially the opposite of what he is on the island. Blank slate.

I guess that's basically it. I don't have much else to say right now. All of the tail end people don't last much more than a season. The only exception is Bernard who's on sporadically for the remainder of the series. Another example of them trying to expand the show beyond its original intention without much success. Also Bernard had a planned comeback from the very beginning, so he was in the original plan.\

Final thought, the music that goes with each scene is fantastic, wonderful, dramatic, all that.

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
Analucia and Mr. Eko

Rewatching Lost: Season 2, Episode 3

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost
The First 20 Episodes

Season one ends in a very dramatic but predictable way. Skip ahead to season two.

Within the first three episodes of season 2 we find out that The Others definitely exist and that Desmond is in the hatch and we watch the orientation video of the Dharma Initiative's swan station. Basically all of this happens actually in the 3rd episode. The first two episodes were a pretty clever telling of how they opened the hatch and discovered Desmond. Anyhow, this third episode is the beginning of the cluster fuck. Season one is basically irrelevant to the eventual story line as a whole, there is nothing revealed except the back stories. Incidentally, basically everything I remember about the back stories happens in the first season, with the exception of finding out what Kate's original crime was.

I get the feeling that they went home over the summer after knowing this was a big hit and they completely retrofit a bunch of stuff into what was going to be an otherwise fairly straightforward story line. It's like how Star Wars was accidentally awesome so George Lucas then had to flesh out a whole bunch of story after that, eventually ending up with Ewoks, and then super eventually ending up with Jar Jar Binks. This is the observer principle at work. Fucks everything up.

Meta-Observations:
* I know I'm reading a lot into this, but these three things all happen in season 2, episode 3.
- John Locke asks his father why he stole his kidney from him (dick move) and his father says, "There is no why. You think you're the first person who ever got conned?"
- After watching the Dharma Initiative orientation video, Jack questions Desmond about the need to push the button every 108 minutes. And he says, "Do you ever think that maybe they put you down here to push a button every 100 minutes just to see if you would? That all of this, the computer, the button, it's just a mind game? An experiment?"
- Shortly thereafter, Desmond runs away and Locke tries to convince Jack to stay and push the button with him and also the computer is broken at this point. And then Locke says, "It wasn't supposed to happen this way."

I'm going to offer those without any analysis because I'm clearly biased.

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
Stuff That I Don't Want to Forget to Notice

Rewatching Lost: The First 20 Episodes

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost

There are 25 episodes in season 1, and I am through 20 of them. I guess it would make more sense to write about the end of season 1, but I don't know, I just kinda feel like doing it now. I just watched the episode where Boone dies and Claire's baby is born. It was a really good episode. The episode before that one was the one where they introduce the numbers.

Random shit:
* Charlie dies early on in the series when he and Claire get kidnapped by Ethan. Ethan leaves him hanging in a tree and then Jack CPRs him and he doesn't wake up. And then like a minute later he wakes up. I want to call that foreshadowing, but I also feel like it would be a stretch.

* People who have killed someone so far include Kate (they haven't said who yet, but she's admitted to murdering someone. Spoiler alert: it's her dad.), Sawyer (the guy who he thinks conned his parents, but it was the wrong guy), Charlie (kills Ethan when everyone else wants to take him alive for questioning), Jack (kills the federal marshal in more of a euthanasia than a murder after Sawyer shot him in the lung instead of the heart), and I want to say Sayid, although maybe he's just about torture up until now, though that won't be true for the entire series. I mention this just to ponder the idea that Michael is not allowed into heaven because he shot somebody. I feel like it's Shannon (God, I hope it's Shannon) or maybe it's Analucia. Anyway, that shit's mad racist.

* Walt is magical and possibly evil. This subplot never goes anywhere.

* Twice so far Jack has made promises to people and they've used the line, "I know you promised, but I'm letting you off the hook." First was Rose, when Jack promised he would stay with her until her husband came back right before the plane crashed. Second was Boone, who Jack promised to heal, but then he died. Fun fact: Jack's (ex)-wife is Julie Bowen from Modern Family. This whole thing is a running theme where Jack is too committed to shit once he decides to do something. I'm not sure how this plays out in the end based on my memory, but I'll keep an eye on it. (Get it? An eye. As in at least 5 episodes have started on a close up of some character's eye.)

* John Locke is named after an Enlightenment philosopher who was very influential in developing the idea of empiricism. Short version, you are born a blank slate (tabula rasa) and you learn only through experience and rational thought. He was the first guy to write about man's right to life, health, liberty, and possessions, which was converted into the phrase you recognize from the Declaration of Independence. I don't think the writers wanted a super deep exploration of Locke's ideas, I get the sense more that they were interested in the "blank slate" that the island's John Locke got when he ended up there. Although it's also worth mentioning that John Locke was one of the first guys to deal with social contract theory.

* The French lady is named Rousseau, another enlightenment thinker who wrote a book called "On The Social Contract." Fun fact, Jean Jacques Rousseau was not actually French, he was from Geneva. Also, he wrote a famous book about the importance of education (Emile) but the five kids that he fathered were raised in orphanages. Anyway, the French lady is sortof the anti-social contract person of the island. She killed all of her colleagues on the island after having gone crazy or maybe they all went crazy, or maybe both. But both Locke and Rousseau are enlightenment thinkers and both dealt with social contract theory and I guess there's something to that.

* Jack's name is Jack Shepherd. Get it, shepherd?

* I assume Sawyer is supposed to bring to mind Tom Sawyer, known rapscallion, but ultimately pretty good guy. Also, I still have no recollection of the Sawyer story line. The only thing I remember about him were addressed in his one flashback episode this season, through episode 20 anyway, and even then there was stuff I didn't recall. I know he was there the whole time, but I don't recall what role he plays in any of the events that transpire.

* The Sun and Jin story line is much deeper than I remember. I recall by the end being really into their subplot, but that must have been the case from the beginning.

* I feel like this first season was set up for them to have been in purgatory all along, but then the writers changed their minds. I know they said that wasn't true, but I still can't shake that feeling.

* My memory says that the single best episode ever was the first episode of the second season. And I'm almost up to that episode. Also Desmond might be the best character, so I'm excited for that.

* This first season is super tight. There are no plot lines shooting all over the place. One solid through line about where are we, how do get off, are we alone on this island? The back stories blend perfectly with the episodes. It's just really well done.

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
Season 2, Episode 3

Rewatching Lost

So, really this blog has been about nothing if it hasn't been about Lost. And recently I started to rewatch Lost, as it is available for streaming on Netflix. I haven't yet decided if this is an exercise in masochism, as my feelings towards Lost haven't really changed since it ended. I felt like the writers let me down, especially in the last season. I felt like I invested a lot of time and energy into the series hoping some of it would get wrapped up in the end, and really almost nothing got wrapped up. Like, practically nothing.

I guess I decided to watch it again without having to be surprised by everything that happens and with the benefit of knowing what happens (at least what I remember) and decide if I really was led astray. I guess I'm giving it a second chance. I want to decide if they really bit off more than they could chew, or if all of that stuff was there for a reason. I have never seen any episode more than once, with the exception of the finale, which I watched twice.

And now I've rewatched the first 8 episodes. Here's what I got so far:
* In the very first episode, Locke teaches Walt how to play backgammon and describes it as light versus dark in sortof a heavy handed way, which would obviously come back into play later down the road.
* Locke doesn't get killed by the smoke monster early on, but it is implied that he faces him down and sees into the soul of either the island or what we would find out later is the smoke monster. They don't show him facing down the smoke monster, they only imply it. They also haven't actually shown the smoke monster yet, only wind and trees being bent. And I guess there's something to that and the fact that Locke would later become the smoke monster, or I guess the converse of that is more appropriate.
* Sayid has that picture of Nadia and on the back she writes, "You will see me in the next life, if not in this one." After setting that up and knowing that he gets with Shannon at the end still makes me mad.
* I don't really remember the Sawyer story line at all.

On the Next Episode of Rewatching Lost:
The First 20 Episodes

Lost, Dealing With My Pain

My three co-authors were all sitting at the table with me when I had like 4 glasses of wine and was literally pounding the table and yelling about how Lost, on the whole, sucked (and the other people in the restaurant started looking at us). And Open Bar, who actually quit the show at one point for the same reasons I was giving, was trying to defend it much to my surprise. I was willing to withhold judgement until the end of the series, but shit man, I'm really disappointed with the way it turned out. My general point, outside of the pounding and yelling, was that the pilot episode ends with the line, "Guys, where are we?", and after 125 episodes we still don't know. And in fact, we are no closer to knowing than in that pilot. Incidentally, I decided to try and crystallize my thoughts here after seeing Inception today. You have most likely just read the post I'm about to write on that movie, but the short version is that Inception was very good because it was intricate, challenging, and purposely ambiguous without being utterly ponderous. Think 12 Monkeys or even possibly The Usual Suspects. I will probably cut and paste those two sentences into the next post.

Anyway, Lost started the show with essentially two parallel story lines. The shit happening on the island was the sci-fi geeky shit about the nature of the island and what its function was and then the flashbacks were the character studies of the people before they got there and eventually after they left. And somewhere along the way they just dropped the geeky shit altogether and decided to just do the character studies. So it's really easy to decide who will ultimately like and who will ultimately hate the show. If you like the character study, then you liked it, and if you liked the geeky shit and the mystical theories, then you hated it. There's no right or wrong here, except that the show creators could have feasibly decided to finish telling both stories and then everyone would have been happy. I can't possibly fathom being satisfied with the ending of the show, so if you are (Bars, both Open and Side), then I'll just leave you to it. But please don't try and convince me that the story is anything other than 50% told.

At this point I'm really essentially certain of the fact that they just got in way over their heads with the geeky shit and just decided to not ever address it at all, except in the way it intertwined with the character study. The smoke monster, the voices in the forest, the flash sideways, whatever. If those things didn't play a role in the story about fake John Locke and Hurley and Michael and everybody, then they, just like a billion other things, would have been dropped.

It's not even worth making a list of questions that were unanswered. I could go on forever. But I'll say that what I was really hoping was to see the origins of Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking (who predated the Dharma Initiative), the origins of the Dharma Initiative (including how they found the island, how they know its importance, and some actual exposition on the whole Valenzetti Equation thing), the origins of the Egyptian iconography. And I'm not thinking about things that were addressed that just don't sit right with me (Sayid and Shannon?). That's entirely outside the scope of my little exposition here.

And in comparing it to Inception, I'm not the only one who's thinking this way. In the 11 Points list on Inception, there are some points that I think sum this up nicely:

Unlike the later "Matrix" movies, this isn't a complex story whose complexity comes from the fact that there isn't actually a definitive story. (replace "Matrix" movies with "Lost" TV show.)

and also

"Lost" was considered a smart TV show but part of the reason that smart people couldn't solve it was because there really wasn't something to solve. We could've taken Stephen Hawking off of his current workload and had him devote the past six years to trying to figure out why Libby and Hurley were in the same mental institution -- and he would've failed, because there was no answer.

Here's the best summary I can give about my feelings on Lost. Basically every individual episode was engaging, interesting, worth watching, and most importantly entertaining. And for most shows you would say that as long as you were entertained by those 125 hours, then you got your money's worth. I wasn't expecting meta-answers from Full House, I just liked to hear Uncle Jesse say "have mercy" and watch Dave Coulier do Bullwinkle impressions. But this show was different. Full house was a walk around the block and we made it every time. This show was a plane flight across the Pacific and we.....well, you see where I'm going here. On the whole it fell short. Like way short. To the extent that there simply is no feasible solution to a lot of the things I found most interesting.

And I know I've essentially said the same thing in previous posts and also to you guys in person, but now that I've said it one last time, I think I can let it go.

Reflections on the Finale

I really, really enjoyed the final episode of Lost last night. In many respects, it was perfect. In a few respects, it was a little weak. I have tried to organize my thoughts into coherent prose, but I am not sure whether or not I succeeded. Here are my observations on what I liked, what I thought was weak, and my lingering questions. Note: I read about six or seven reviews of the finale before writing this. I have given credit to any ideas I have borrowed, but I did not link to the specific review, because I did not keep track of which ideas I took from each review while reading (and it was too much of a hassle to go back and do it after writing this). But where I am tossing out someone else's theory, I have indicated as much.

Thoughts and Observations -- here is what I liked about the finale.

Jack vs. John

Mrs. Side Bar and I watched the season premieres and finales of Seasons 1 and 2 yesterday before watching the series finale. It was a clear reminder that the battle between Jack and Locke, even though it was ultimately not-Locke, had been brewing from the very start. Last night's finale did not disappoint in bringing this conflict to its climax and resolution. First, the actual scenes between them were excellently done (if somewhat murkily explained, see below). The two of them peering down into the glowy cave - an obvious reference to the two of them looking down into the hatch (so obvious that smokey even jokes about it) - was awesome. And the actual physical battle between them - with Jack leaping off of the cliff to attack John - was legitimately exciting. (Side note: as one critic pointed out, the commercials got a little tedious last night, but they did add to the drama. The best example of that was Jack leaping off the cliff to attack Locke, only to be suspended there by a commercial break - a literal "cliffhanger"!!! (not my line)). Coupled with the nice juxtaposition to their relationship in the flash-sideways, where they are trying to save, not destroy, one another, and I just do not see anything left on the table between these two characters.

Jack = Jesus

Some people may not have found the overt references to Christianity/religion too interesting or moving, but I liked them (particularly because the show had a sense of humor about itself (as it did throughout this episode). "Christian Shepherd"? Kate asks, incredulously. Yeah, right). And for anyone who was left wondering, the show pretty much came out and told us that Jack was a Christ-figure. This was not an altogether shocking revelation, but they made sure we got it last night. The chalice, from which he takes a ritual sip, and then teaches his disciple to do the same. The cut in his side, just before he is crucified so others can live. His reunion with his father after he has died (not to mention his trip through hell and purgatory to get there). Mrs. Side Bar also made a passing comment yesterday about Locke, Jack and Desmond being Father, Son and Holy Ghost, respectively. And that was before last night's episode, when the three of them enter the glowy cave together. A holy trinity indeed.

The Island Story

Notwithstanding one of my mild complaints/criticisms below, I think the show did an excellent job of telling the story of the Island. From "Across the Sea" we know that the Island must be protected, and that Allison Janney, then Jacob, then Jack will protect it. Last night, Jack surrendered that responsibility to Hurley, who enlists Ben to help him (in a Richard-like role). Some of us spoke earlier about wanting to know what was different about this cycle; why was this story being told, rather than the one of Allison Janney, or Jacob, etc. But I am not sure we need to know that. When Hurley remarks that no one can leave the Island, Ben says "maybe there is another way." In response to our question, then, maybe the answer is that each cycle is unique, or special, because of the person in charge. Either way, we know that Hurley and Ben remained on the Island as its protectors for a while, because they each compliment each other on the job that they did as "number one" or "number two" in the final scene. In fact, since Hurley was the one largely responsible for the other characters' awakenings in the flash-sideways, you could even wonder (as one critic has) whether the "other way" that Ben spoke about was this gathering: a "gift" from Jacob/Hurley/the Island to its one-time inhabitants. But maybe that's a stretch.

The Flash Sideways

I was equivocal about the flash sideways all season until last night, when we finally understood what it was. And then I loved it. I think the best way to look at the flash sideways is as the self-contained plot for this season. When you think about it, each season of Lost had a duality to it: it contributed to the overall arc of the show, but also had a self-contained plot (btw - "character arc," and "the show's arc" and all this other "arc" stuff has been just abused by everyone discussing and wring about Lost, but whatever). Season 2 told the story of the Hatch, Season 4 was about the Freighter and the Oceanic Six, Season 5 was about time travel and the Dharma Initiative, etc. Season Six was about the flash-sideways: a self-contained story about how each of the passengers' lives might have turned out, but didn't, and how they became aware of the fact that their lives had ended The shocker at the end of Season 3 was that we were seeing Jack in the future, not in the past. The shocker at the end of Season 6, as he appears to stand over his father's empty coffin, is that we weren't really seeing Jack at all. Brilliant.

The Awakenings/Enlightenments

The highlight of last night - and the reason that the episode will go down for me with "The Constant" as one of the best ever - were the moments when each character became aware of where they were, and who they had been. And, to the show's great credit, it wasn't the "wake me with true love's kiss" bullshit, it was more intimate, more simple moments. Sun and Jin seeing their daughter on the sonogram; John wiggling his toes just as he had done in the pilot; Claire and Kate delivering Aaron; Charlie seeing Claire and Aaron; Jack placing his hand on his father's coffin (I left out the Sayid/Shannon moment because it did not really work for me, but whatever). And, in what might have been the most powerful scene of the whole episode, Sawyer and Juliet finding each other again in the hospital. These scenes were really beautiful, legitimately moving, and -- for the most part -- not sappy or campy. Mrs. Side Bar was a puddle by the end, but the rest of us may have gotten a little misty-eyed, too. And, as a bonus, these scenes even allowed the producers make this a little bit of a clip show in a way that was not at all boring or lazy.

Jack and the Arc of the Show - the Last Scene

It may have been predictable, but the bookends of this show - starting with Jack's eyes opening in the first scene of "The Pilot," and closing in the last scene of "The End," were marvelous. After all that we had seen on the island, it felt incredibly cathartic and appropriate to close the circuit as neatly as they did. Even if they had no firm idea of what the large middle would look like, the creators of Lost plainly know where they were heading with Jack from the very start. The last scene of the show, cutting back and forth between Jack's death on the island and his awakening in the church before moving on to whatever lies next is stunning. And, as always, the music on this show took a good scene with good acting and elevated it to something almost breathtaking. I really, really encourage you guys to go back and watch that scene again; start it when Jack walks in to the rear of the church, then run it to the end. It is extraordinary.

Weak Points -- A couple of thoughts on places where I thought the episode missed a step.

The Glowy Cave

The show basically wants us to accept that the cork in the cave was holding down some evil, and when Desmond removed the cork, the evil got out for a second. Then Jack corked it back up. But what was really going on here? Jack's "plan" - if you could even call it that - seemed pretty instinctual and not altogether well thought-out. Likewise Smokey, who has had thousands of years to figure this shit out, only to be completely and utterly wrong about the impact of removing the cork. I will buy the mysticism to a point, but I thought that if this whole piece was not going to be explained more, it could at least have been developed a bit more so that we could try to explain it for ourselves.

Ben's Accident

Maybe I am being nitpicky here, but Ben was pinned by a tree, announced that Locke had a boat, and then was not pinned by a tree anymore. If the show was going to put us through the utterly pointless exercise of seeing Ben pinned under a tree (from which he could not escape but suffered no injuries whatsoever) I think it is fair to show us how he gets out. Not a big deal, but just a pointless thread to leave hanging.

Open Plotlines

I am not going to be one of these people who finds every little open question that remained unanswered and then complains about it, but there were some significant questions that were asked and then not addressed. Walt was a hugely important character in Season 1, but that importance was never explained (or, to borrow from my point above, developed so that we could try to explain it). Likewise the numbers (which Open Bar and Chuck have addressed already). Dogan and the Temple was a very weak open to Season 6, so maybe it is better that they left it alone. And if you think back to Season 1 and Season 2, there was much importance to who the Others were taking and why. Remember the two kids that got kidnapped and the lived with the Others? WTF? As Chuck correctly pointed out, I didn't ask these questions, the show did. So give me something to work with in resolving these questions. But having said that, it was clear once we got to the last episode that these important-but-not-paramount plots were not getting answered in the finale. So maybe this is a more of a critique of Season 6 generally, not last night's episode in particular.

Claire's Story and Return Home

I had a difficult time feeling anything other than indifference to Claire when she was, at first, refusing to leave the Island, but then ultimately agreed to go with Kate. One critic I read this morning proposed a "My Two Mommies" Aaron-based sitcom spin off. The silliness attending Claire's storyline this whole season, to me, suggests that it could have been done better, or not at all.

Questions -- for discussion (other than the first, I don't think these are questions that could be/should be answered; rather, they are just my thoughts today):

What was with the shots of the plane crash at the very end with no people around? Was this meant to suggest that everyone died in the crash? I really do not think so, but why was that shown to us? I found it odd and I insist it was shown for a reason.

Why did some people make it into the church and not others? Some passengers from 815 were missing, other were there. And some people who were not on 815 were there, too (Penny). If this was Jack's farewell, were these the people most important to Jack? I might like that explanation.

Why didn't Ben go into the church? Does he get to stay in the sideways world with Danielle and Alex? That would be sort of cute and nice, but I don't think it would be consistent with how we are supposed to think of the sideways world.

What did Eloise Hawkins know when she asked Desmond if Daniel was going to leave? Like Desmond, she has always had a heightened consciousness of shifting realities; did she understand exactly what was happening?

How long did Hurley and Ben protect the Island? Was there a hint when Christian told Jack that some of the people in the room died "long after" he did?

Thoughts on Lost Finale Without Having Discussed it With Anyone

Please feel free to post on top of this post as soon as you want to. I haven't really put too much thought into this. I liked the finale. I'll say that first because immediately after thinking that I liked it, these thoughts came into my mind.

You know, I never thought to take the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 and put them together for no reason. That string of numbers meant absolutely nothing to me until you guys spent like two seasons going on about how they were all important. If they really weren't all that important, then you shouldn't have brought it up in the first place.

Now, they did answer this question, albeit not actually on the show. Something about the numbers being the roots of the Valenzetti equation, which describes the end of humanity, and the purpose of the Dharma Initiative being to change the roots of that equation. They were unsuccessful, by the way. The whole plot line with the Dharma Initiative was essentially dealt with online and never really on the show. I have to do like extra credit work in order to understand the story you're trying to tell me.

I feel like they got in over their heads with the whole island thing. After the first episode we knew that there was an island that had a bunch of mysterious properties. After the 120-something episode run of the show we don't know all that much more about it. Something to do with electromagnetism relating to a light. I don't know how or why it's there. And not for nothing, but there wasn't a smoke monster trying to escape the island until Jacob created it. Why would it have been bad if Jacob's brother had left the island? In particular before he turned into the smoke dude. And it's all "How do you know that when you hook up that wheel and then run the water into the light that it's going to work?" and then the answer is, "Because I'm special, mother." So if Jack didn't put the cork back in, the island would have definitely been destroyed, but would that also have meant that the whole world would be destroyed? I didn't get that sense from the MIB when he talked about leaving. Although if it wouldn't have destroyed the world, then they should have just left it out.

Given that they never really told us anything about the island, what would have made for a really interesting show would have been to explore the roots of the Dharma Initiative, the Valenzetti equation, how they found the island in the first place, the efforts to change the factors, their ultimate failure, and the consequences of that failure. That story in conjunction with the Others already being there and serving some alternate and opposing function on the island were the most interesting story lines.

If my job was to protect the fate of the world and then I was hiring my replacement, I would be sure to explain the whole job to him. There's not really room for on the job training.

I figured it out, I think. Jacob had Asperger's syndrome. If that motherfucker had any social skills whatsoever, all of this would have been avoided. All he needed to do was explain himself clearly to one person at one point. Richard, maybe. Or Ben. Widmore. Jack.

So going into the light would be worse than death, and turned Jacob's brother into the smoke dude, but Jack just died. Desmond was special, fine, but Jack?

Ben, really? Out like a lamb.

So is Claire not evil? And who the fuck was that Japanese dude talking about evil people? Sayid wasn't all that evil at the end of the day, either. Again, why even bring that up? Looking back, when Ben said to Michael that the Others were the good guys, I guess he was right, but they clearly didn't know what they were doing.

I feel like the flash sideways was really successful. The dead thing was interesting. If it had been an alternate timeline after the bomb blowing up, I think that would have been interesting, too. In fact, there would probably more material to explore in that scenario, but given the show's capacity for doing too little with too big a story, I'm happy with this one. It's not like Michael was the only one who killed some people. Why doesn't he get to go to the party? It's because he's black, probably.

I feel like when they first conceived of the show they wanted the island to be purgatory and everyone would get their own personal reckoning at some point. But when all the fans guessed that the island was purgatory and they were like, "No, that's not it," then they had to come up with a new plan. But the in the end they came back to that with the flash sideways.

I don't need you to spoonfeed me, but if you're gonna open this can of worms, at least give me a lid so I can contain them once I get them back together. You raised all these questions, not me. What are you, Socrates now? At the moment, from my perspective, the island serves absolutely no function. Everything would be much simpler if it just wasn't there, Occam's razor style. I could be wrong, but I don't get the feeling that all the pieces of the puzzle are on the table. After a bit of perspective you realize that The Sopranos did give you what you were looking for, you just didn't realize it. When you take a step back from it, Pulp Fiction turns from a phrenetic mess into a fascinating tableau. I don't get that from Lost. Again, I don't have that perspective, but I don't see where the explanations are coming from. They seemed to go out of their way to not explain things.

I do think this is one of the better shows on television in the last little while, but that, I think, comes with a certain responsibility to live up to that. At the end of the day the arc of the show for me was this: Season 1, awesome; Season 2, good; Season 3 and 4, awful; Season 5, really good; Season 6, averaged to good, but with a huge standard deviation ranging from bad to amazing; Finale, about what I expected. I'll have more to say about this, most likely.

Lost's finale approaches

A by-no-means-comprehensive list of things I want from Sunday's finale:

1. The Glowy Light doesn’t matter.

Okay, so that's more like a guess of what's gonna happen, but it's like this: Much like Jacob’s answer to Kate when she asked why her name was crossed off, the whole Magic Glowy Light thing shouldn't be some all-controlling metaphysical force to which everyone and everything must submit. I'm hoping that now that Jack is Island Guardian, he'll be all "Fuck this stupid Light. I'm running shit now." And then the characters themselves will take control of their futures, ideally breaking the awful cycle that's existed on the Island for so long. That would be a good reason for telling us this particular story over the past six years. If everything just goes on like it always has, then why the hell did we just watch all this?

If that happens, that seems like it would be a good way to start merging the two timelines. I have no idea how that would work, but I have to think that dealing with the Light will be involved.

2. A shot of Locke becoming Smokey. Please show the smoke emerging from his mouth and then his body fading into the smoke. Bad. Ass.

3. To find out how Jacob leaves the island. Right now we know that you can take a sub, a plane, a boat, or pull the Frozen Wheel Thing and end up in Tunisia. Somehow, I think Jacob had a different way.

4. Ben to play a big role. Preferably by outsmarting and then killing Smokey.

5. Richard needs to return and demonstrate how important he is (like Ilana said). On Tuesday, Smokey kicked the shit out of him, but if he’s dead, that would be super-wack. “Ab Aeterno,” the Richard episode from a few weeks ago, was IMO the strongest episode of the season – due greatly to the staggeringly good performance by Nestor Carbonelli (sweet name, brah). The character deserves a proper sendoff, one in which he plays a consequential role in the final outcome.

Things I’m curious about, but don’t insist that the show address:

1. Why can’t Smokey go over water?

2. How did DHARMA find the island? Were they brought there by Jacob?

3. Is there a reason so much electromagnetism is concentrated on the Island?

4. Is there anything else we need to know about The Numbers, or are they just numbers?

Whatever happens, I'm sure we'll have lots more to discuss. Doesn't that please you, LJT?

More thoughts on 'Lost' because LJT doesn't watch it and screw him, he can write his own post if he's bored

I just found this list of questions I had about “Lost” that I wrote down prior to the start of season 5. That was back in my “Either this show answers some of my goddamn questions or it can go fuck itself” period. “Lost,” of course did not answer any of these at that time, so we had to break up. But we’re back together now, now that the show realized it was wrong and apologized and told me it was lucky ever to have me in the first place and besides it can’t hear that “Milkshake” song without thinking of me (it was our song back in ’04). Anyway, here's what I was wondering last winter:

1. What is the hell is the Black Smoke Monster? (not surprising that was at the top)
   
   
   
   
2. How did Ben “move the Island”?
3. What are the Whispers?
4. How did the Black Rock get there? What is it?
5. What was the goal of the DHARMA Initiative?
6. How do the Island’s healing powers work? (a la Locke, Rose)
7. What’s the deal with the pregnancy issues?
8. Why do the Oceanic 6 need to go back to the Island?
9. Who is Ben? What’s his deal?
10. What’s with all this seeing-dead-people stuff?
11. What are The Numbers?
12. How come Richard doesn’t age?
13. How can Desmond see the future?
14. What’s with this time-traveling stuff?
15. What is the source of the Island’s electromagnetic power?
16. How does Widmore know about the Island?
17. Who is the black guy from “The Wire”?
18. What is the four-toed statue?
19. Where’s Claire?

1, 3, 4, 10, 12, 16, 17, and 19 all got pretty clear answers, or were addressed enough so that we now have enough information to form valid interpretations or guesses. As I said after "Across the Sea," it's not the writers' job to fill in the whole circle -- just enough so that we can fill in the rest on our own.

For example, number 7 (the pregnancies) hasn't been directly confronted, at least not in the way that the Whispers was. However, after seeing what Mother (Alison Janney) did to Claudia after delivering the twins last week, my guess is that the Island has basically "cursed" childbirth. Not entirely, as we would later see Claire give birth on the Island, but it does offer an explanation as to why no woman who conceived on the Island could carry her pregnancy to term: The Island would not allow it. Of course, even if you do conceive off-Island, while you can still give birth there, your child will be kidnapped (Claire, Rousseau) or orphaned (Claudia, Sun). Or, worse, grow up to look like this guy.

(Okay, so partway through typing that stuff, I checked this out and realized that the whole pregnancy thing is a bit murkier than I thought. But anyway, moving right along…)

Most of the rest of them have since been further explored, if not fully answered (no. 5, 8, 9, 10, 14), or can simply be chalked up to the Island’s Weird Powers and Stuff (no. 6, 13, 15). No. 18 is Taweret, the goddess of childbirth and fertility, natch.

That leaves just two. As for no. 11, I’ve come to think that The Numbers are really just numbers. And I’m fine with that. It was Hurley who made the numbers The Numbers.

And lastly, no. 2: How did Ben “move the Island”?

Who gives a fuck. That’s probably the dumbest thing that ever happened on “Lost” -- including spending entire episodes on Jack's stupid tattoos and Hurley getting that van to work because Cheech was mean to him -- so if everyone just ignores it and pretends it never happened, that’s probably best.

Anyway, I've got some more "Lost" stuff coming up, but I figured we should kick off the conversation.

Here's one thing from last night -- it was minor, but I really thought one of the best parts of last night's episode was sideways-world Ben's reaction after Danielle told him how much he meant to Alex. It was, I dunno, really sweet and touching. And a great counterweight to the return of the utterly ruthless Ben in the Island world. I can't help but think that if anyone can outsmart Smokey, it's Benjamin Linus. With apologies to the Desmond-philes out there, I really think Ben's gonna go down as the best character on "Lost." We'll soon see what his fate is, but I for one sure am glad he managed to stick around for longer than the producers' original three-episode plan for him.

And then there were two ... more "Lost" episodes, following last night's basket of kickass

Interestingly, the grade I would assign last night’s “Lost” episode is the same as my answer would be if you asked me what I thought of it:

Fuck-ing A.

Finally, after six seasons of buildup and mystery-upon-mystery; after thrilling me with two of the best seasons of television I’ve ever seen; after frustrating me enough to force me to Will-to-Skylar-“I don’t love you”-style dump it; after its sweet song of “One last season,” I reluctantly returned; after countless utterings of “TELL ME WHAT THAT FUCKING SMOKE MONSTER IS ALREADY!” -- after all that, we got “Across the Sea.”

While the episode didn’t address every remaining question (nor could it, nor should it), it seems quite clear that “Lost”’s creators understood that it was about damn time to feed the starving viewers. And what we got weren’t scraps. We’re talking filet mignon. Exquisite endangered polar bear filet mignon. The best mignon.

There’s a great LA Times “Lost” blog, and in its recap of “Across the Sea,” it had this to say on the topic of Answering the Big Questions:

"To that end, as a "Lost" fan, the success of "Across the Sea" is almost wholly dependent on what happens in the three-and-a-half hours that will close out the season. The cave of softly glowing light? I suspect we'll get an explanation for that. What happened to the proto-Man in Black when he went down in there? I hope we'll get an explanation, but I fear the producers think "He became the Smoke Monster! Or something!" will suffice. Who was the Woman who raised the twins? How long has the Island been around? Where did any of these people come from to begin with? I fear that the producers think these questions have been adequately answered. I'm not going to say I need all of them answered to be satisfied with the ending -- I daresay the show could get away with answering none of them -- but by raising all of them at once this close to the end, "Lost" risks disorienting its audience even more than usual, particularly as we still don't have a terribly good idea of just what happens if the Man in Black gets off the Island beyond vague rumblings of doom."

I disagree with much of this. I need no further answers from the writers regarding the Glowy Cave, the origin of the Smoke Monster, who The Woman was, the age of the Island, or anything like that really. (Except for how Jacob learned to leave the Island.)

Contrary to what the writer says, it is those questions that I've spent years already wondering about (rather, DEMANDED ANSWERS TO!!!), and finally, I feel like my thirst has been quenched. After last night, we know these Big Things (though perhaps without 100 percent clarity, but come on -- it's incumbent upon the writers to fill in, say, 3/4 of the circle; it's our job to fill in the rest with our own imaginations and rolling discussions):

1. What is the Smoke Monster and how was it created? (ALWAYS my biggest question, since the pilot episode)
Smoky was “born” when Jacob, in a fit of vengeance after seeing his murdered mother, kicked the shit out of his brother and thrust him into the Cave, which we are told is “worse than dying.” My best guess is that the Brother’s soul or essence or whatever you want to call it was torn from his body, transformed into the Black Smoke, and imprisoned on the island -- forever prevented from that which he always wanted: to go home.

2. What makes this Island so special?
The Cave, which is “life, death, and rebirth.” In other words, it’s The Thing That Is Everything. We need no further specifics, but basically whatever metaphysical or supernatural explanation you want to use is fine, as long as it’s along the lines of the Cave being the Most Special Place in the World.

3. What the hell is going on in this freaking show?
Well, the basic gist, it appears, is that there’s this Cave on this Island with incredible powers and properties, and it has a Protector. The Protector has been at least two people whom we’ve met (The Woman and Jacob), plus The Woman’s mother, and presumably, one of the Oceanic 815 survivors, who will be the next Protector. From The Woman’s comment that “Every question you ask will only lead to more questions,” we can ascertain that this Protector cycle has been going on for a very long time, probably forever.

The Island, specifically Jacob, attracts people as a way of testing them -- to see if Jacob or his Brother is correct about the nature of man: Is he inherently good or evil? Once on the island, all the people there go through various and extreme trials in an attempt to reach a final answer to that question. Throughout, the Smoke Monster plays the villain, tormenting and even killing many of the Island’s visitors, while Jacob seeks an example to prove he is right about people -- a candidate, if you will. Thing is, it doesn’t seem like the Smoke Monster cares all that much about whether men are good or evil; he has made his choice: Men are “greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy, and selfish.” What he cares about is getting off the damn island, which is all he has ever cared about since his true mother visited him as a ghost when he was 13 and told him that “there are many things across the sea.”

I’m guessing that whoever winds up taking over for Jacob (I’m leaning toward Jack, the obvious choice, yes; though there could certainly be a surprise) will somehow change everything. Otherwise, what’s the point of the whole story we’ve been watching for six years? Why is this particular cycle worth telling so thoroughly? Maybe this will be the last cycle. Maybe the Protector job will end with Jack letting Smokey off the Island. I know we’ve been led to believe that TERRIBLE THINGS will happen if Smokey leaves, but seriously, how much damage could he possibly wreak off-Island? If your biggest weakness is water, then are you really that big a threat to a planet 70 percent covered by it? And from what we saw last night, Smokey’s goal of leaving the island was never to destroy; it was simply to go home.

Now, it’s possible that when Jacob condemned his brother by sending him into the Cave that the “good” side of the brother was killed, leaving nothing but evil and malevolence in the form of Black Smoke. And it’s also possible that the Cave, along with the Smoke thing, endowed this monster with other supernatural gifts. (He can also turn into ghosts, after all.)

And then there’s this, also from the LA Times thing:

“So what do we think happened to the MIB when he disappeared into the cave? Was some part of the Man in Black absorbed into the Monster, leaving the body behind? Or did his soul somehow co-mingle with the Life Force of the Island, meaning that, in a very real sense, he IS the Island, and if he were to leave, it really would mean the end of all things? The latter is my wife's interpretation, and I sorta think she's right. (Added evidence: The light in the cave goes out.)”

That sounds very convincing.

Anyhow, “Across the Sea” managed to accomplish two essential things: answer Big Questions, and perfectly set the table for the final three and a half hours. By learning what we did last night, we can all now devote our full attention to the fates of the characters we’ve been getting to know for so long. And that -- regardless of how awesome the Smoke Monster is or exactly what happens down in the Glowy Cave -- is what really matters on “Lost.”

UPDATE: Uh, spoiler alert?

Not Penny's Boat

Spoiler alert. If you are into Lost and have not seen last night's episode . . . blah blah blah.

This has never been a Lost blog, and it is not going to become one now so close to the end of the series. But with only seven episodes left (assuming you count the two-hour finale as two episodes, otherwise there are only six left), the show officially entered the gun lap with last night's installment, "Happily Ever After."

For those of you who came to the show in the traditional manner, watching each week and waiting several months in between seasons, your long-running frustration and love-hate relationship with the show has been well-chronicled here. And for those of you who, like me, came to the show via shortcut, the advantages of that approach are noted here.

Either way -- whether you are a dinosaur like Open Bar who watches TV the old-fashioned way, or a cutting-edge techie geek like me -- you could not help but appreciate "Happily Ever After." I will not try to do a long exegesis of the episode (and besides, this guy did a much better job than I could anyway). Instead, I will only say that with this episode, we are starting to see glimpses of where the show might be headed for its grand finale.

Perhaps the biggest question of this season -- other than the obvious "how's it going to end" thing -- is whether and to what extent there is any connection between the people who are on the island, and their mirrors in the so-called "flash sideways" scenes. When Daniel Faraday/Widmore tells Desmond that he thinks he already blew up a nuclear bomb, and when Desmond gets into his car and tells his driver that he wants to find the other passengers from the Oceanic flight, we know that the "flash sideways" sequences are going to unfold in a way that is not at all disconnected from what is happening on the island. (side note: did you recognize the driver? He was George Minkowski - the sick communications officer from the freighter in the Season 4 episode, "The Constant" (which is the single best episode of the show, in my opinion). "The Constant" is the other episode in which Desmond becomes vaguely conscious of the fact that he is vacillating between two realities, and in which his love for Penny anchors his ability to manage the strain of that experience. A nice juxtaposition there).

In fact, in addition to the significant development of the plot (indeed, one of the biggest criticisms of the show is that nothing happens -- questions are raised, never answered), there were a number of wonderful juxtapositions in this episode. The above-mentioned return of Minkowski, now as driver, but still a "guide" for Desmond as he navigates between two realities. Also, in the scene in which Desmond finds Penny running in the stadium, we see a complete reversal of the scene from Season 2 where Penny finds Desmond there, and they plan to be apart (he is preparing to leave for the yacht race) rather than together (for a cup of coffee, in an hour). Lastly - and by far most poignantly - as Desmond tries to rescue Charlie from the submerged car, Charlie places his hand on the glass . . . revealing, but not really, those fateful words from the Season 3 finale:

Not Penny's Boat.

Watching TV on TV or watching TV on DVD? Quien es mas macho?

This has nothing to do with anything.
But still, it's Cookie Monster Warlord. Your argument is invalid.

Following my post on Lost, Side Bar left a lengthy comment singing the virtues of watching TV series on DVD, rather than on a weekly basis. I'm gonna reprint that comment here, since I think what he brought up deserves its own post:

Lost is amazing. And last night's season opener was very encouraging.

But here is the thing: me and the wifey did not start watching Lost until about 4 months ago, and we watched seasons 1-5 on DVD.

There is no better way to watch a TV series than on DVD. It is an accelerator for great TV. It's like straining all that gross shit out of your orange juice and just having a nice glass of clean OJ.

The Wire. Sopranos. Mad Men. Lost. Whatever. These hour-long dramas come on for 60 minutes, once a week (sometimes less than that), and some of them are interrupted every 12 minutes by commercials.

Not on DVD.

On DVD, you can watch four episodes - a month's worth of programming for you first-run broadcast slaves - in less than three hours. You can get through a season in a weekend (as OB did with Season 5 of Lost).

And please, please do not talk to me about DVR. It is not nearly as good as having the commercials edited out, and 42 minutes of the show completely unadulterated.

There is absolutely no comparison. If the first four episodes of season 2 of your favorite show have a total of 45 minutes of just gripping drama in them, that's not too bad for the equivalent of a long movie. But 45 minutes of great TV over the course of a month? No thanks.

We had this experience with the Wire (watched 1-4 on DVD and loved it; watched season 5 every Sunday night and liked it, but it was not as good), Mad Men (1 and 2 on DVD, 3 on Sunday nights on AMC), and now Lost.

So yes, Lost is an amazing show, possibly my favorite ever. I loved Season 1, and was ready for a let down because everyone told me that the show didn't really get good again until season 5. But that was not our experience at all. We got all the way through season 5 without ever really picking a favorite, and without even really being able to distinguish one season from another - it was seamless.

But I am bracing for the DVD effect - if Season 6 of Lost is a let down, I'll know why.

I know of what he speaks.

As I wrote in my original post, I absolutely fucking loved seasons one and two of Lost. Season three annoyed me, and season four nearly drove me insane. I gave up on the entire show a few episodes into season five.

But now I'm back. Like the dumbasses on the show, I have returned to the island. Why? Well, I think what Side Bar had to say factors greatly.

I watched seasons one and two on DVD. Four, five, six episodes per sitting. Holyfuckingshit was it awesome. But then I had to do the week-to-week thing the rest of you peons do. And ugh, did that ever suck.

But this past weekend, when I was somehow uncontrollably driven to give this fucking dumbass piece-of-shit show that did nothing but infuriate me for two-and-a-half years another shot, I plowed through an entire season. And I loved it.

And after the season six premiere, I'm cautiously optimistic.

So, what's better? Watching TV as we've been conditioned to watch it -- as it's designed, one hour per week? Or in longer bursts, removing the commercials and the weeklong waits between episodes?

I'm really not sure. I don't know if my experience with Lost means that seasons one and two were outstanding (likely), while three and four were crappy (probably), and season five started out shitty but got better (almost certainly).

I'm kinda tired now. So here's something that -- like the picture at the top -- has nothing to do with anything I just wrote about. But if you've ever had a pet, maybe this will register (click the image to embiggen):