Lost: One Last Time

Way back when I first started watching Lost, I was drawn to the show because of all the mysteries.  While the characters were somewhat interesting, I watched because I wanted to find out more about the Island.  As the seasons progressed, sure, I liked the characters, but I wanted to learn more about things like the DHARMA Initiative, the smoke monster and the frozen donkey wheel.

Well, tonight was Lost’s final episode.  And not all of my questions have been answered.  But the finale was so emotionally satisfying, especially for the show’s characters that I find myself not caring about the mysteries.

Funny how these things work.

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It Only Ends Once

Twenty-four hours from now, one of my favorite television shows will start its final episode.

While other people have expressed despair about LOST ending, I’m not feeling it.  I know I’ll miss the show once it’s not on the air every week from January through May.  But this is a day that I’ve been waiting for since I watched the first episode on DVD during the summer of aught-five.  Some questions will be answered, but more importantly, the story of Jack, Locke, Desmond, Sawyer, Hurley, Ben and all the rest will be over.  I’m not glad that it’s over, but I’m glad that we’re at the end of the story (if that makes any sense).

To prepare for the final episode, I’m going into a blackout mode.  Since I first got into Lost, I’ve followed other Web sites (like DarkUFO and DocArzt).  But because the end is so soon, and apparently, spoilers are out there, I’m enacting radio silence (or, more accurately, Web invisibility) until after tomorrow’s episode.  I’ve been spoiled for things in the past, but I want to go into tomorrow with a blank slate.

I really don’t have any theories as to how it will all end.  While I’m not as hostile to the Sideways universe as I was at the beginning of Season Six, I hope the story ends on the Island in the universe we’ve been watching these six years.  It would be great to get some more answers to the questions we’ve had along the way, but if they don’t answer everything, I’m cool with that.

I did have one thought the other day- Desmond and Jack first met in a stadium following Jack’s performing surgery on Sarah and had the following exchange:

DESMOND: Ah, a girl, right?

JACK: A patient.

DESMOND: Ah, but a girl patient. What’s her name?

JACK: Her name’s Sarah.

DESMOND: What’d you do to her then?

JACK: Do to her?

DESMOND: You must have done something worthy of this self-flagellation.

JACK: I told her — I made a promise I couldn’t keep — I told her I’d fix her and I couldn’t. I failed.

DESMOND: Well, right. Just one thing — what if you did fix her?

JACK: I didn’t.

DESMOND: But what if you did?

JACK: You don’t know what you’re talking about, man.

DESMOND: I don’t? Why not?

JACK: Because with her situation that would be a miracle, brother.

DESMOND: Oh, and you don’t believe in miracles? Right. Well then, I’m going to give you some advice anyway. You have to lift it up.

JACK: Lift it up?

DESMOND: Your ankle. You’ve got to keep it elevated. It’s been nice chatting.

JACK: Jack.

DESMOND: Jack, I’m Desmond. Good luck, brother. See you in another life, yeah?

You have to lift it up. In the Sideways universe, the Island is at the bottom of the ocean.  What if all Jack has to do is lift it up?  Stupid idea, but I just thought I’d share.

If you’re a Lost fan, I hope you enjoy tomorrow as much as I do.  If you’ve never seen the show, it’s not too late to start watching.  I may not have a post up until much later after the finale, but I’m sure I’ll have some sort of reaction.

See you in another life.

Desmond: Making Sure Everyone Lives Happily Ever After

In any Lost universe, Desmond Hume is special.

We’ve heard characters who are familiar with the intricacies of time and space tell Desmond he’s special.  We’ve seen Desmond’s consciousness go back and forth in time.  And now, we’ve seen Desmond serve as a one-man link between the on-Island reality we’ve come to know over the past six years and the Sideways reality Lost’s final season has been based around. Continue reading “Desmond: Making Sure Everyone Lives Happily Ever After”

Poor Richard’s Test of Faith

Every time I write an entry about the night’s episode of Lost, I like to try and work in the episode’s title cleverly in the headline.  But because tonight’s episode of Lost, Ab Aeterno is a Latin phrase meaning something along the lines of “from the beginning of time,” I’ve got little to work with.

Hence, the titular line of this entry is more a description of what happened tonight.  Although for Lost viewers, it was much more than a job interview.  Not only did we get the backstory four years in the making, Ab Aeterno was chock full of Island mythology, the struggle between good and evil and possibly foreshadowing where the overall story is going.

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On the Beat With Officers Ford and Straume

Perhaps the biggest surprise during the last season of Lost was the transformation of Island conman Sawyer into an authority figure.

It’s been quite a character journey for Sawyer, starting out as the guy who gave away snappy nicknames and pretended to hoard asthma medication to the guy who enforced the law for the DHARMA Initiative.  While still giving out snappy nicknames.

As the Oceanic Six returned to the 1977 version of the Island, Sawyer’s LaFleur’s carefully constructed lie of a life came crumbling down.  Sawyer had to cover for simple things like assimilating Jack, Hurley and Kate into the DI and much more complex ones, like figuring out how to save Sayid.  As events unfurled, Sawyer lost everything, including the love of his life, Juliet, who sacrificed herself to cap off Jack and Faraday’s plan to change the timeline.

Now, in Lost’s final season, Sawyer is back to being the resident Island conman.  With nothing but bad memories of his three years in the seventies, Sawyer wants off the island. Sawyer has no allegiance to anybody but himself and has made deals with both sides to get what he wants.

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Sundown At The Temple

Last week on Lost, after being told that Kate was the one who took her son Aaron, Crazy Claire promised that she’d kill Kate.

In tonight’s episode of Lost, Sundown, Kate admitted to Crazy Claire that she did take and raise Claire’s son as her own.  Crazy Claire glared and seethed from a hole in the ground in Kate’s general direction.  As everyone with a clue vacated the Temple before sundown, fLocke attacked and laid waste to the Temple inhabitants (saving two in particular for someone else).  Kate and Claire walked out of the Temple together following fLocke.  During last week’s promo for tonight’s episode, we were promised answers.  Here’s one question that I’d like answered in the wake of tonight’s Lost episode:

When will Claire kill Kate??

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Candidate Party At The Lighthouse

Over the six seasons of Lost, Dr. Jack Shepard has undergone an amazing character journey.  From an annoying man of science with meaningless tattoos, Jack has seen enough miracles and other amazing things happen on the Island to turn him into a man of faith who is somewhat tolerable.  At least on the Island.

As seen in tonight’s episode of Lost, The Lighthouse, the off-Island/sideways Jack is still an unsufferable bore.

But he is a candidate.

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John Locke: Don’t Accept The Substitute

A few weeks ago, in Lost’s sixth season premiere, LA X, there was a scene between Ben and Fake Locke (henceforth referred to as FLocke) where FLocke said that the real John Locke was, quite basically, a loser.  At the time, I felt sorry for John Locke, and thought he was misrepresented, that sure, his off-Island life may not have been the best, but through his determination and will, he was able to overcome all of his obstacles.

Over the weekend, I watched some of Locke’s original flashback episodes (Walkabout and Deus Ex Machina) and I realized that FLocke was right about off-island Locke: he was pathetic.  Sure, he had a lot of bad luck and was repeatedly taken advantage of by his father.  But he allowed himself to be victimized and focused too much on the past rather than wheel on towards the future.  His only chance for redemption was the Island, which gave him what he wanted.  Too bad that he allowed himself, once again, to be taken advantage of.  And in tonight’s episode, The Substitute, we’ve seen Sideways Locke, and I’m not sure he has it any better in this other timeline…

 

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What Kate Does is Annoy and Bore Me

I’ve been blogging about Lost since Season Two, and I’ve waited for five long seasons to use that as a title.

It’s fitting though, that here in Lost’s last season, in what’s hopefully the very last Kate-centric episode, that I would be frustrated with an episode centering around my least favorite Island castaway.  Kate seemingly has nothing to do with the larger Island mythology.  I can see no discernible reason why two otherwise likable characters would dispel all rational behavior in favor of acting like a bunch of idiots while fawning over her.  And most importantly, she’s not that interesting.

So in the third episode of Lost’s final season, we wasted an episode on Kate.  But we did get one big question answered:

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