Thursday, May 24, 2007

Lost

I will now show myself to be a “Lost” geek.

What a season finale! Whoa! And two hours of it! Jack revealed himself to be just as useless in flash forwards (sneaky “Lost” writers, darn them) as in flashbacks, although he had some fine moments in the present. I’m glad he didn’t cave in during his one-on-one with Ben.

Best part: Unexpectedly, Charlie. As sad and awful as his death was, he did a great job, exhibiting quick thinking and courage. The whole build-up to his final (? <-- obligatory question mark) scene had some good twists and just played out well.

Worst part: Locke killed Naomi. Every bit as egregious and near-inexplicable as when Michael shot Ana Lucia and Libby. Sure, he must have been inspired by a sense of I-must-stop-this-at-any-cost desperation, but obviously it wasn’t enough to motivate him to kill Jack. Or maybe the revolver wasn’t working. Fifteen years sitting in a tropical corpse pit might make it sort of inoperable.

For a show that primarily involves castaways on a tropical island, there sure are a lot of people killed or mangled by motor vehicles. Three more in last night’s finale, not including Jack nearly being run over as he crossed the street to the funeral parlor. And who was at the parlor? Kim suggested to me that it was Ben, and I think that’s probable, although Michael comes to mind as well.

Another annoyance, although it’s really a blessing: The ending really didn’t give us much more to speculate on over the summer regarding the nature of the island. Obviously, it has some sort of effect on the timeline, including events of the past. Not much more than that can be nailed down. Unless Jack’s references to his father in the present-tense was a product of his drug and alcohol abuse.

Who was Naomi working for? Why was Penelope transmitting to The Looking Glass station? In what way does rescue from the island end in regret or doom?

It looks like the whole dynamic of the show has now shifted. Next season seems likely to start with most or all of the surviving characters rescued, or put in a whole new form of peril.

I note that no core mysteries in the show’s mythology were solved. I hope that, when more is explained, I won’t regret ever getting hooked.

6 comments:

  1. After discussion with others, it occurs to me that there were some stupid things in the show. But I choose not to dwell on that. Because I am a Lost geek. Growing kohlrabi is stupid to, but I've chosen it as a pastime.

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  2. I'm still digesting the episode. It wasn't wholly satisfying for me, nor was it the sort of cliffhanger I was used to with this show. It was a good episode, but I didn't have that "AAaagghh!" feeling afterward like "Crap, now I have to wait 7 months for an another episode."

    But here's what I think is going on, at least with the flash forward device. The hint was in Ben's Map. Remember the camera kept showing Ben drawing on this map, and it was him sketching out the route he would take to intercept the Losties before they reach the radio tower. No biggie. But I thought that the choice of using a red grease pencil was odd. Why red? Perhaps there's a significance. I kept this in mind as I watched.

    Then when it all over, it struck me. That's the outline for the rest of the show. Imagine an X. The left side of the X represents the past, the right side the future, and the intersection represents the Crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Up to now, we have been seeing the left side of the X -- all the back-story, everything that led up to "the present" and made these characters what they are "now." The device used to do this, of course, was the flashback. Going forward, perhaps we will see more "flash forwards." We will see what the characters are like in some possible future, and the balance of the storytelling will be about how the present ties to this future.

    Or to state it another way, the reference frame of the show shifts from Island=present and Off-island=Past to Island=past and Off-island=future.

    The problem with this theory, as I see it, is that the future is malleable. Desmond's storyline seems to be saying to us that the future is not set in stone but in really firm play-doh or something. Certain events [deaths] must happen, but you may delay them or change the details.

    I don't know. <-- that's how every conversation I have about Lost ends

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  3. Interesting observations.

    Someone else pointed out that Charlie should have just shut the door from the outside. Oh well.

    Also, even Charlie and Desmond should have realized that on this island, if you want to make sure someone is dead, you should cut off his head and kick it into a corner. Especially if they have a Russian accent.

    Really, though, the way everything played out was great. It was well-paced, well-acted, and the violence was both jarring and cathartic.

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  4. In my first comment I misspelled "too."

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  5. lost addict here too. i thought it was great. i keep hoping they don't get too caught up in the kate/jack/juliet/sawyer soap opera, but i wondered if it wasn't juliet in that coffin. kate's whole "why would I go?" comment at the end... who knows.

    i wondered right away about jack mentioning his father in the future. i blame the drugs.

    i think that last scene will be the last scene of the whole series. everything now just builds up to that.

    really i just agree with ed. i don't know.

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  6. It will be a long wait for February.

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I'm eager to hear your thoughts!