Lost: The Final Season (Premieres Feb. 2)

Devil, I think Leo1 put it well. I'm a viewer, so it's really not my job to get to the end point and they say "This is how it needs to end." Frankly, I think in retrospect, the writers of this show lost the thread that tied it all together -- it's hard to pin down exactly a point when that happened -- and so once you get to the end and you have to try and pull everything into a nice, tight knot, it's impossible. I can't tie the knot for Lindelof and Cuse. It's like knitting a sweater, I guess. When it comes time to make the collar, you can't get annoyed when it's a mess and you have 30 loose threads and say "Oh yeah? Well, you fix it. What you need to focus on is how pretty the threads are and how much it emotionally affects you when I give this sweater to my grandma."

As I sort of said in my initial post, what sort of mystical, super-important, message is Lindelof trying to convey here?

For starters, that an undefined, unnamed, unexplainable glowing life force of good is at the bottom of a well, and it is the duty of those who value good, like, for instance, C.J. Craig, to protect it, often sacrificing themselves and occasionally murdering people so that the light does not go out?

And that these protectors of the glowing knowledge -- which by the way we never heard bupkis about until two episodes from the final -- are sort of chosen randomly and don't really ask questions about what they're sacrificing themselves for? I suppose you can say it's about faith or commitment to a higher power, that we're all guardians of the underground glowy night light, but if that's your fuzzy point, what new and interesting thing are you saying?

Even George Lucas had enough sense to try and explain The Force as a man's connection, or oneness, with nature or all other things in the universe. We just got a glowing mystical tidal pool at the bottom of a well. I don't need them to say it's knowledge or love or God or hit me over the head with it. But you can't just be intentionally vague and say "It represents all that+good" because you're basically saying "We don't know what the hell it represents." But we do know a good person can touch it, but a bad person can't, lest he turn into a shape-shifting, body-slamming, smoke monster who, at lest in recent years, has reminded me far too much of the Coors Light Silver Bullet train. But black.

Viewed in reverse, this show tried to be so many different things, in the end, it couldn't really say what it was about. Faith verse science? How societies are formed? The state of nature? Power corrupts? Existentialism? Meta-physics? Christian allegory? Reincarnation? Fate? Redemption? Closed-loop time travel theory? All that hugging and heavy-handed Michael Giacchino score managed to cover up the fact that, by trying to say it was about a little of all those, they made so messy, their only out was ... All Islanders Go To Heaven. Arnzt and Mr. Eko and Miles and Daniel not included, I guess. But hey, you CAN get a ticket on the "Let It Go, Jack" Express Bus To Heaven if you fell in love with Desmond, even if you never set foot on the island like Penny, I guess because the rules still don't apply to him, even in the spirit world. (See ya in another unexplained contradiction, brother.)

In the end, it seems the real standard for getting into that church was "The fans liked you." The show would have been a lot more interesting to me if, say, Sayid or Kate had not been redeemed. This show was pretty much a clinic on acting (Evangeline Lilly aside) in recent years, to the point where Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson and Jorge Garcia and Josh Hollaway and Naveen Andrews and even Mathew Fox (at times) were able to beautifully portray a conflicted soul as well as anyone has on television. But the point of their characters, in the end, after all that subtle oscillation between "good person and selfish, sometimes bad person" is that they're all good dudes who just needed to work through their issues?

All of our major characters, save Ben, are good and capable of redemption? And they loved one another so much, that love created an alternate reality to work through those issues so they could all get into heaven, and btw, can Shannon come too because she's hot?

If you look at the macro stuff, you're ultimately going to be happy with this series, I guess. Because as I said before, it was an entertaining ride with some great acting. An to be fair to Evangeline Lilly, she could really wear a pair of jeans. But if you dare try to pull together the micro stuff ... holy shit what a mess. The point of all that time travel was ... to get them all back to the island together so they could ... um ... mortally wound Sayid so he could become a bad guy (sort of) and then ... accidentally kill half of them in a submarine and um ... reengage in a centuries old feud between brothers who are really into this fate vs. free will debate and ... hey, it's time to fight the smoke monster dude!

And that's why Mitch Albom inspired the final scene. That was the only way out. That any glowing tidal pools with stone corks. I mean, if Jack didn't re-plug the pool, and they'd all have died anyway and man would have been corrupted by evil, wouldn't their shared love had created a sideways universe to get them into heaven anyway? How did saving the world ultimately alter their vague destiny?

Being intentionally vague means you can project your own theories onto the canvas. It also means, in my opinion, these two jokers didn't know what the point of their own story was, and so they decided to fake it the best they could.

 

You're too kind, Elliotte.

No kidding around, though, I'll trade it all right now for the chance to be handsome, kind, clever and Canadian.

Let me know. Enjoy the Cup.

 

I like anything that has the word bupkus in it .

You raise a lot of good points, but the main thing (which you said) to me is if you care about all the little plot points the most, the ending was unsatisfactory. If you just wanted to see an overarching resolution for each of the main characters than you got what you wanted.

I think I fall somewhat in the middle, as I didn't hate the finale but definitely wanted some other plot points answered that weren't.

 

Oh,and DD, they did reference the light earlier in the series. At some point, I can't remember which point but I'll note it when I do a rewatch, John talks about seeing this bright light, a light that encompasses him fully. It's then that he knows he needs to protect the island.

But, yeah, they definitely bit off more than they could chew with the mysteries.

Overall, I'm happy with it. I just hope the show continues to be as cool when rewatching as it was the first time I saw everything.

 

Same with me. I liked the sentimental parts where everyone found their significant friend/lover. But I thought there were just some parts that just could have been done better.

I would have ended the sideways world at the concert, where everyone just happens to end up, either by accident or on purpose, and then everyone sees Charlie bringing Aaron and Claire on stage before playing a Drive Shaft song.

And while I liked the Jack/Vincent final scene, the scene before, I would have had Smoky come back from Locke's body and have Hurley kill him, followed by a 'Dude, glad I never talked to him. He was weird," line to Ben.

 

I was listening to the dude who plays Hurley's podcast and he was talking about the finale. Some interesting tidbits.

Apparently, no one but the couple of people in the room know about the Jack/Christian scene. Hurley wasn't even allowed on set, it was that secretive, and it wasn't in anyone's script.

Also, in the script, the scene was called "Jin and Sun's Wedding" and they even had a woman who looked like Sun in a wedding dress walking around backstage, just in case anyone happened to sneak in.

The thing I found most interesting was the scene where Flocke stabbed Jack. Apparently, they weren't liking the way the collapsible knife looked so they shot most of it with a real knife. The plan was for O'Quinn to switch the real for the fake at the last second. He forgot to on the first take and nearly stabbed Matthew Fox. Luckily, Fox had put on a pad as a precaution. Funny thing was, of all the pads Fox had, the only one that would have stopped it was the was he was using. It was made of Kevlar.

 

If anyone wants to be disappointed and or thrilled, ABC is rebroadcasting the finale and the Jimmy Kimmel special again tonight (Saturday).

I was setting the DVR for hockey and saw it then.

 

I may actually watch the finale tonight but if I do, it'll be the saved copy on my DVR. Commercial free, baby!

 

DD, I love the idea that the Island's power is the power to give us the Sideways World. All good people will eventually enter the Sideways World, and MIB was trying to take that away.

Jacob's gift to the 815ers was that they would have never reached the Sideways World without his help. I can accept that. This show was about lost people and their lost souls. It was not about lost people in time or lost people at sea.

 

All people on the Island are candidates and thus lost souls. A child is a blank slate, and thus their soul is not yet lost.

Remember that Kate was crossed off when she became a mother.

 

Dammit. Cried as much as I did the first time. I've just torn up my man card.