Sunday, April 4, 2010


DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN



Another Tuesday night, another stop on the Great LOST Farewell Nostalgia Tour. Season Six is turning out to be like a trip back to the old neighborhood. Before it all ends, we're getting one more chance to see all the faces and places we remember. Look! There's the big bully who terrified all the locals.



Oh, and over there! The garden where Sun used to grow healing herbs, until she got conked over the head by Charlie so Sawyer could steal the guns.



Yay! Bpo Bpo lives!



And OMG! Whaddayaknow! There's that super kewl brainwashing room from all those years ago! Room 23!



The purpose of which was ...



... uh



... ?


Oh, whatever, it was wicked cool.




I've got to admit LOST is losing me. Here we are just past the halfway point of the grand finale season, a perfectly legitimate point at which to stop and take stock. So where are we? What has this season been all about? Where is it headed? Where are we going now that we're close enough for the end to be in sight? I don't know about you, but I'm totally lost when it comes to trying to figure out LOST.



I'll start with something fairly basic - the unmistakable pattern that has emerged, where each character's centric is framed as an homage to centrics past. This week it was KwonBack Time. For the last time.


The Kwons have become background furniture on LOST in recent years, but in this final season, it's only right that they should be honored for their rightful place in LOST history. As with other KwonBacks, in The Package Jin and Sun weren't two separate people. They were a pair.



Sun was playful and adventurous.



Jin was straitlaced, conservative, restrained ... and hard as a rock. Yeah, baby. Even Omar wanted a second look.



They had the same passion for each other.



They feared Sun's powerful father the same way.



OtherSun, just like original Sun, had made a careful plan to run away from home. Only since she'd never married Jin, she hadn't had a chance to hate him, she hadn't had a chance to cheat on him, hadn't had a reason to learn English from her English speaking lover and so therefore it wasn't Jin that she was dying to get away from. She was trying to run from Daddy. This time it was Jin she wanted to run to.



But just like Sun's plan to leave Jin ended in an unplanned disaster,


OtherSun's plan to flee her father ended horrifically as well.



In the Season One KwonBacks, ...In Translation and House of the Rising Sun, Jin insisted that Sun's father acknowledge him openly, that they marry, even if that meant he had to work for the sturgeon faced Mr. Paik.



But in OtherLOST, Jin and Sun were not that honest. They were sneaking around doing the wild thing while putting on a big front about booking separate hotel rooms.



Their hanky panky had aroused the wrath of the great and powerful Paik, and he had come up with a brilliant solution: OtherPaik sent OtherJin on a mission to L.A., to deliver a watch ...



... the same thing original Paik had sent original Jin to do.



We never found out who Jin was bringing the watch to. It ended up in a pawnshop in Brooklyn after Michael Dawson sold it to buy the gun that wouldn't kill him.



In OtherLOST we found out that Jin was bringing the watch, along with a fat wad of cash, to pay off Martin Keamy, who was then going to deliver services on the spot ... and kill Jin dead.



Jin was paying his own assassin. That's how much OtherPaik hated OtherJin. He wasn't going to just kill him - he was going to make him kill himself. A perfect closed loop of conserved energy.



Other circles and loops were closed as we took our weekly trip down Memory Lane.



Jin's "button your sweater" byline was recycled to good use in this episode. Jin's domination of Sun was tweaked seductively into Sun's ability to effortlessly control Jin.



In ...And Found, a Season Two KwonBack, Locke enters Sun's garden while she's working and asks her, "Bad day?"



In The Package, Locke's doppelganger, The Smoke Monster, approaches Sun the identical way and asks the same question.



In Glass Ballerina, Sun shoots Colleen in the stomach, killing her.



In The Package, Sun is the one who takes the gut shot.



Women dying from bullets to the belly is one of LOST's most hallowed traditions.



In fact, it's a rare woman on LOST who dies any other way! Does this mean OtherSun will soon go the way of Colleen ... and of Shannon, Ana Lucia, Libby and Danielle Rousseau?



It wasn't only Kwon memories that got reprised. Sawyer and Kate drank imaginary cocoa under the watchful green eye of Widmore's spies -



- a dimly lit shoutout to the imaginary peanut butter that once sustained Charlie and Claire during hard times.



Jack was acting very Season One doctorlike, calmly traipsing around with his backpack full of helpful life lessons.



His scene on the beach with Sun, where he gently offered help as a caring human being, reminded me of the scene long ago in Walkabout when he reached out to Rose in much the same way. Oh, Jack, where'd you go all these years?



And having Desmond and Sayid meet up again at the submarine dock,



while obviously under very changed circumstances,



couldn't help but remind me of the last time Desmond ended up one of Widmore's boats.




Like other Kwon centrics, this episode was slight, delicate, concise. There's a kind of origami feeling to all the Kwonbacks.



Sun was first introduced to us as the Korean wife who secretly knew how to speak English. In this episode, that talent left her. Apparently it got knocked out of her head by the tree trunk she ran into.



She can still understand English and she can write it. Just can't speak it anymore. Of course, Jin can speak English now. It should make for a very interesting kabuki dance when the two lovers finally reunite and try to have a conversation.



While Sun was forgetting how to speak English, we were watching OtherSun, who apparently never learned it.



This was one of the ways that the relationship between the two realities began to evolve in this episode. The correlations between LOST and OtherLOST are becoming more intriguing. Did Sun forget to speak English because she hit a tree trunk, or did she hit a tree trunk and forget to speak English because her OtherSelf never learned how?


Mikhail Bakunin was back in this episode, looking decidedly less grizzled with two working eyes and a nice suit on.



But then Jin put his eye out! So that's how Mikhail lost his eye, right?


Uh, except no. Original Jin didn't shoot original Mikhail. So even though Mikhail would always lose his eye, the way he lost his eye could be different in differing realities.



I'm sure that further explains the relationship between the two worlds as well. Except I don't think anyone can figure out exactly HOW it explains it. Which means it didn't explain much.



Of course the most important interdimensional interface, the only one that really matters, is this one.



Original Jin had been diagnosed as infertile, making it something of a miracle when Sun conceived a child on the Island. OtherJin's swimmers, on the other hand, do not seem to have ever had any such problems.



Since we're all tripping down Memory Lane these days, this reminds me of one of the first reviews I ever did.


Season Three's KwonBack, D.O.C., was an episode of unalloyed hilarity, where Juliet famously tried to date Sun's pregnancy by the date when she'd last had sex, proving that she may have been a fertility genius, but she'd skipped seventh grade sex ed class. That KwonBack was the episode that first introduced us to LOST's most outlandish male fantasy - Super!Sperm!



Super!Sperm! turned out to be one of the great blind alley wild goose chases for those of us who once regarded every kooky LOST plotline as an ingenious mystery to be solved. In the past, I could joke that maybe this was how the mystery would be solved.



And wouldn't you know it? All these years later, I think that's probably as close as we're ever going to get to solving that particular mystery!



When Sun conceived on the Island, it was feared the child was in jeopardy, since one of the Island's misogynistic properties was that it killed young mothers dead for the crime of having a working uterus. In this episode, we saw that OtherSun and her baby were similarly endangered.



Ji Yeon survived. Will OtherBaby make it? Is OtherBaby going to be OtherJiYeon? Or would a baby conceived from normal non-Super!Sperm! be an entirely different baby? Will we ever find out? Maybe. Maybe not.



One of the things I'm beginning to do with LOST is try and define it in terms of what it is not. Since I really have no frakking clue what it might actually be about these days, I'm trying to use the process of elimination to whittle down the possiblities.



As we were told long ago, it's not about Purgatory.



Even though last week they seemed to be hinting very hard that it might be about Hell.



I know there's still some science fiction fans hanging onto hope for some pseudo-scientific pseudo-explanation for the shenanigans of the Island. For years many have suspected that the freaky magnetic properties of the Island are the reason that Widmore has prized it and sought to possess it. It's interesting that scientists at MIT have recently discovered that magnets can distort our ability to make moral evaluations. Maybe that's what's at the heart of our story ... but I really don't think so. At this point, I'd say it's a fiction that any of LOST's mysteries will ever be explained by anything remotely resembling science.


I don't think it's a Christian allegory either, despite the enthusiastic certainty some fans have that it's all devolving down to some clearcut Calvinist demarcation of good vs. evil. I don't see that happening. Jacob's willingness to drag civilians into his family feud is too evil for me to ever consider him good. And there is nothing in the OtherLOST storyline that looks to me like either reward or punishment. I don't think the story is going there, though it's certainly putting on a fine show of pretending.


It's not a Buddhist allegory either.



Although there is an occasional nod to the concept of balancing good and evil, yin yang style, it's going to be a hard sell for them to make that philosophical point conclusively at this point. It's a great idea, and something LOST could have been about, but I no longer see it happening.



LOST has always been a confusing story, but nothing really has befuddled me as much as trying to piece together the reason behind this season's sudden lurch into an alternate reality. Yes, I know we're not supposed to call it an alternate reality. We were told that it isn't alternate or less real than the reality of the six year storyline we were striving so mightily to comprehend.



That leaves us with a Many Worlds concept of infinitely diverging realities.



With each decision, each turning point, a new set of possibilities and probabilities spring into being. In a Many Worlds universe each new possibility creates an entirely new, entirely unique reality. The new realities do not intersect. They go off into infinity as separate lines, always diverging, never converging. The moment of choice is like the moment of conception, where something that never existed before comes into being.



But now we see that on LOST, the realities are starting to converge. Mikhail's lost eye, Sun's lost English, the baby who may be lost ... all these things seem to be echoing between the two realities.



There are other echoes. Jack's new slaphappy demeanor seems to have taken hold just as we met an OtherJack who seemed a lot less type A.



OtherSayid seemed more deadeyed in this episode, just as Sayid has become more zombielike on the Island.



What is OtherLOST trying to tell us? The timespace for OtherLOST is 2004, while LOST Is taking place in 2007. Time travel has not stopped after all. If 2007 LOST is converging with 2004 OtherLOST, does that mean that a new past is being written? If consciousness is now skipping across time and space and theoretical multidimensionalities, then it's not really a Schrodinger's cat situation any longer. It's not like the cat is both alive and dead until we make a final deciding measurement. It's more like the cat itself is ping ponging through quantum states, interfering in the mechanics of its own hypothetical dilemma. I'm starting to get the real sense that the reason they've referenced Alice in Wonderland so often on this show is they want us to just shut up and bathe in the pure nonsense of it.



"That's one stubborn tomato."

Some have theorized that OtherLOST represents the final reality. That this time in the past will become the one true reality once the characters in the present resolve all their issues on the Island of Mystery.


This would mean a number of things. For one thing, it would mean that if this child exists,



then this one does not. Or vice versa.



It would mean that people who died on the Island could be alive again, at least for a little while.


It also means that some characters that now exist, no longer do.


In fact, since the characters of OtherLOST are not the same characters that we've watched evolve all these years, it would mean the entire story we've been watching all these years will have never happened.



We were just running around in circles, caring about and learning about and wondering about characters that never really existed. The joke was on us.


One fun fact about this episode is that it's the first since the Season Three finale where all the credited cast members made an appearance. The Powers That Be even found some facetime for the annoying new character they decided in their infinite wisdom to spring on us in this final season.



Nerds!



Ben and Ilana traded some choice snark, which was fun, but redemption seems to have worked its magic on Ben and made him kind of ... boring.



He can still bring the funny, but he's a neutered puppy. The devious mastermind, murderer, and once omnipotent overlord of the fearsome Others has become just a witty schlub tagging along for the ride.



Ilana seems to have quite the crush on Richard.



If only he could manage to forget dead Isabella.



Claire is still seething. She's realizing that even if she were to see Aaron again, she'd be a stranger to him. A batshit crazy stranger, at that.




But her friend, Mr. Monster, assures her that she'll still have a chance to punish Kate. He tells her "Whatever happens, happens", a telling change of verb tense that seems to give Crazy Claire carte blanche to murder Kate once his mission is accomplished.



Kate appeared in this episode, but aside from drinking imaginary cocoa and staring impassively into the fire, she was just a placeholder.



Sawyer's plan to walk The Monster into Widmore's trap didn't turn out as planned, so the elaborate set up in Recon seems to have fizzled out already.



He confesses to Kate that he's as frightened as she is, but he's hiding it, still trying to deke out the Monster's weakness and find a way to defeat him.



Jack, on the other hand, has become a zealot, a true believer, a faithful apostle of the Gospel of Jacob.



He tries in vain to convince Sun that having a Purpose! and a Destiny! is just the bestest thing ever, but she's not buying it. Poor Sun still seems to think she's got a chance of going home with her husband to their three year old.



Jin finds himself captured in both realities.



But we can see how his confidence has grown. On the Island, he demands that he be allowed to confront Widmore directly. And in the Other Reality, he takes command of the situation and does not hesitate to kill as needed.


At first I thought OtherKeamy seemed like a markedly less evil version, but then I realized that he was probably only sparing Jin long enough to get his paycheck.



Keamy has gotten a lot of facetime in this final season of LOST. We've seen more of him than we have of Rose or Boone or Charlie. I guess they figured we'd just like to watch him die a few more times. Bastards! You killed Keamy!



Since I have no idea where the storytellers are taking us with their parallel coexisting reality storyline that is bleeding into and out of their original storyline, I think I'll revisit a storyline of considerably longer standing - the Great Almost War of LOST Island.



The one that has been almost about to happen for going on three years now. It's not that they have always been at war. It's more like they have always been talking about how they're going to be at war. Like any day now.



In The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham, Widmore told John Locke that a war was coming to the Island. The Monster again had one of those deja vu moments where he experienced the memories of the dead man he was impersonating, and he repeated Widmore's line to Sawyer.


The NotLocke Monster and Widmore had a face down on the beach, separated by the pylons that Widmore erected to keep the Smokey One at bay. In Recon some questioned whether the Monster could have gone to Hydra Island and killed the survivors of Ajira Flight 316. We know that he can travel back and forth to the Island in his man form, so I assumed he did just that and then converted to Killer Smoke once he was there. But it's an interesting point. Perhaps the Island has been such an effective prison for the Smoke Monster precisely because he can not travel over water. Now that he's inhabiting a human organism all he needs is a seaworthy vessel.


However that does not explain the pylons, which appear to still be an effective anti-Monster shield. Do they also repel the Monster when he's inside his humanoid Locke shape? Or was NotLocke just respecting the boundaries that not-yet warriors must respect? I mean, Monster has been waiting for Widmore and now there he is. Why not just leap across the invisible boundary, turn into Smokey and swallow him down like a little tasty morsel?



The Great Monstro-Widmore War can't happen yet because that would be the end of the story. In the meantime, I guess we can still try to understand why it is that Widmore wants so badly to kill poor old Monster. Was this what Widmore was always doing on the Island? Was he Jacob's General, and if so, why was Ben allowed to kick him out? It seems pretty obvious that Widmore is here to lead the final charge for Jacob in the battle against the Monster.


His people used darts and tazers to subdue the Losties, just like the Others did.



We can see that the Others learned their tricks from Widmore.


Widmore speaks to Jin about the Monster in apocalyptic terminology. It's obvious that the Monster isn't just the embodiment of evil, or that evil is being kept out of the world by keeping the Monster on the Island. The world has plenty of evil in it, with or without the Monster. Plenty of death and destruction and cruelty and violence and sin. But Widmore describes the Monster as something worse than evil. It almost seems like the Monster represents total annihilation.



"If that thing masquerading as John Locke ever got off this island, your wife, your daughter, my daughter, everyone we know and love - would simply cease to be."

Cease to be. Is Widmore talking about this timeline, on the Island? Or does that go for all existence everywhere of everyone? Does the Monster have the power to obliterate all existences in every reality for all of infinity? Does he represent pure nothingness? Is he The Void?

I am become Death, the destroyer of Worlds.
- Bhagavad Gita
Maybe we're headed for a showdown where the Monster wins and wipes out this reality, but since OtherLOST is a reality already in progress, all of their consciousnesses can just hop skip and jump over there and go on as if nothing happened. Or maybe the Monster will be defeated and that will be how the Island sinks to the bottom of the ocean ... but everyone's consciousness will still get to hop skip and jump over to OtherLOST. Maybe that's why they zapped this other reality into the storyline at the last minute, to give our Losties a lifeboat after the Titanic of this hopelessly muddled storyline finally sinks into oblivion.



If that is where this is headed, then what to make of the everpresent Fate vs. Free Will contest that has shadowed the plot since its beginnings?


It was interesting to me that the Monster did not snatch Sun after she'd fallen to the ground while running away from him.


Clearly he must have her. Sun was told by Ilana that she is a Candidate. It struck me as a little weird that Sun could be important in that way, after spending the better part of two seasons restricted to a one note storyline.



But it seems to be the case. We are learning a few things about the making of a Candidate. First of all, a Candidate can not be killed - not by Jacob, not by the Monster, not by Widmore. Why? I don't think it's because they are unkillable. I think it's because they are all necessities. The winner in this game of unknown rules must gain possession of all six Candidates in order to prevail.


But the intriguing thing is that the Candidates must choose to align themselves with one side or the other.



The Monster can not win the game if he takes any of the Candidates by force. I am only guessing at this explanation and as with any other LOST theory, there are holes in it. Did Locke choose to be killed by Ben and donate his doppelganger to the Monster? I don't think so.


Did Sayid choose to be drowned in the dirtywater mikvah and be resurrected as a soulless zombie? Not really.


Sawyer has chosen to be with the Monster, but he's only there in body, not in spirit, only hiding out to try and game the system.


Now that Jin is lost, it will be harder for the Monster to ever convince Sun to join him.


And what does it mean that Widmore has now brought Jacob an unwilling "package" that quite clearly has NOT made the choice to be there?



And so at the midpoint of this last ever season of LOST, I'm not giving myself very high marks for figuring anything out. I can think of lots of things LOST is not - it's not much of a science fiction, it's not a monomyth, it's not holding together as any kind of philosophical allegory. It seems like maybe it could be entitled Six Numbers in Search of Characters in Search of a Plot that Might Tie Them Together.


Maybe it's an anthology of character studies wrapped up inside a fairy tale where the characters have stumbled into an ancient family feud and are being forced to play out parts in a story that has nothing to do with them. Once the feud is settled, perhaps the fairy tale world will just collapse, and we'll watch all the characters, the dead ones and the live ones, head out into a non magical mundane reality that is entirely incidental to the story we thought we were watching.


There's a problem with all this of course. We've known the Smoke Monster for five years, and have heard Jacob's name for three, but their overarching myth only began in last season's final episode. I hate to say this, but sometimes it seems like the gods came out of the machine just in time to wrap up a story that never had an ending of its own.



And as for OtherLOST ... how can OtherLOST ever become the one true underlying reality? Since all of it happened the way it happened only because Flight 815 never crashed on LOST Island, wouldn't that mean that for the last six years we've been watching an actual Show About Nothing?



Your guess is as good as mine.



What else can we do but keep guessing to the end? At this point we're all prisoners.

44 comments:

shauniqua said...

this post was a bummer, man.

Anonymous said...

I appreciate that you are as upset about this season as many of us. Deus Ex Machina indeed.

These guys took us all for a ride. Of course, I'll be watching to the end but I no longer have any faith that the end will be satisfying. Hell, I don't even expect it to be coherent.

Charlotte K said...

Hmmmmmm.....but what if it is a great story precisely because you can't predict it? Nothing would make me happier than a wonderfully original and unexpected outcome of this wonderful ride we've all been on. Why is predictability of the end to be desired?

Anonymous said...

Well the perfect sentence to describe how I feel would be, "Pot committed".. Meaning thast after all these years, I have to stay and watch the end.
Man I had so much hope for this final season, but I'm also lost, pun intended....
Funny how the name of the show is the best example of how fans feel about the show today..

The way I feel is that that the OtherReality is the one happening as they are also trapped in the island, and if the MIB escapes then that reality is going to continue, but if the LOSTIEs stop MIB then everything stays how its been for the last several years?.. God did I even make sense anymore?..

KingKrims

Anonymous said...

C'mon everyone have faith or maybe the show is destined to be a convoluted mess until a LOST Theory of Everything is discovered and explained in the finale or _____. I dunno, for now - EFYEAH LOST until proven otherwise.

SVfzfadasszxdasD said...

Fantastic post, as usual, Fish. Sums up what I'm sure many of us are feeling.

For me, the biggest problem is that the characters that we have come to know and love, the characters that once had fascinating stories and deep-seated motivations for their actions, have become ridiculously passive and inconsequential. What's the difference if they're in a paper mache temple, a magic lighthouse, or the old beach locale if they're just sitting around, waiting for things to happen to them, waiting, waiting, waiting. They're as clueless as we are. It's so frustrating.

I want to be surprised and look back and say, 'that was great in hindsight,' but it seems like it's getting harder to hope for that with each passing episode. Lost has truly become a parody of itself.

(Having said all that, I still get pumped for Tuesday nights... Lindelof said on his twitter that this week's upcoming episode will 'change the conversation.' I hope so)

Seabiscuit said...

GREAT post, Fish. I pretty much feel the same way. :/ The season started out with such promise, too. I think I'm staying with this show just to have something to do each week. Sigh.

"For me, the biggest problem is that the characters that we have come to know and love, the characters that once had fascinating stories and deep-seated motivations for their actions, have become ridiculously passive and inconsequential."

That was my problem with Juliet and Sawyer last season, and with Ben this season. Sad to see such strong characters go down like this, though at least Sawyer seems to be getting his groove back. But he'll never be the favorite he used to be.

Kyle from Kentucky said...

^ i love cheddars second paragraph. Totally feel the same way as fish too. I don't HATE the flash sideways but its pretty frustrating. Have the always thought to use this (Or at least since 2007) or is it just an escape?

I honestly donot give a shit about Jacob or MIB really because I care about the characters I've known and loved since 2004 but the stuff she was saying about Desmond did not choose this, Sayid did not choose this - ...
E
X
A
C
T
L
Y

Just enjoy the ride man.

Kyle from Kentucky said...

^ Sawyer will always be my favorite

Anonymous said...

Another amazing reflective post - thank you.

Goyt said...

I think they threw a bit of everything at us (sci fi,myths,religion)but i think most of it is just smoke and mirrors to distract from a simple story.Its like they saw that people loved the mysteries so they just kept throwing them outhere. But now people expect this big reveal that explains everything. And i dont think we'll get one.Because DARLTON dont know how to explain it all.So im with you fish i watch for the character's not the story.
Lost will be known for its exellent characters and average story. But that's better than B.S.G(GOD DID IT)i hope

Anonymous said...

I'm in this till the end. I do have hope that the meaning of it all will be satisfying and true to the story.
However, what matters is the journey not the destination and I haven't been loving the ride as much as I wish I was.

So much has been said about this season feeling like the first but I have to say the quality of the writing now could not be more different from what it was then.

I want to emotionally connect with these characters like I used to. But man, they're not helping me here.

Anonymous said...


So much has been said about this season feeling like the first but I have to say the quality of the writing now could not be more different from what it was then.


I agree. This season is NOTHING like the first season. It's as different as night and day. Season one had heart. This season feels emotionally empty. They're just going through the motions and riding their laurels and putting all their money inot the bank.

It's sad but at least it makes it easier to let go.

Brown Public Library Book Store said...

The only reason I'm still watching because I want to see what happens to Sawyer, the only character they've actually seem to care about development wise. For me, he's the only character they haven't hacked up, completely.

I think the show started going wrong with the Frozen Donkey Wheel and the silly Oceanic Six story. The whole ridiculous Sawyer/Juliet thing was another bad move, because it made no sense character-wise for these two to get together, and with just done to try and create a quad out of the triangle that they've been unsuccessfully trying to do since Ana-Lucia.

Character-wise Jack went from faux man of science to man of faith with no explanation. They've never given a crap about the Kate character and she's basically the POA in the storyline and she suddenly decided to find Claire for her reason to go back, when she had no guilt for three years and had no problem keeping Aaron from his real family, but a blonde woman in the supermarket with Aaron suddenly made her want to find Claire. Sayid was turned into a cold-blooded killer to the point he shot a child with no guilt. Hurley's special and talks to ghosts to giving him a bigger part in the story. Sun went from wanting revenge against those she blamed for Jin's death [although why Jack was never on that list is a mystery] to spending every episode asking if someone has seen her husband. Claire has been turned into new crazier Rousseau.

Sawyer is the only normal one left who still seems like a real person. They even explained why Sawyer suddenly betrayed everyone in Follow The Leader when Juliet got hit, because he felt guilty for getting her to stay on the island because he didn't want to be alone. He's really the only character Darlton care about writing for.

So I'm in it to see what happens to Sawyer and I hope it isn't ending up with that nitwit Juliet in the alt world, since it never made any sense character-wise for those two to be involved in the first place since Sawyer was never attracted to her in the least.

Anonymous said...

"So I'm in it to see what happens to Sawyer and I hope it isn't ending up with that nitwit Juliet in the alt world, since it never made any sense character-wise for those two to be involved in the first place since Sawyer was never attracted to her in the least."

I'm afraid you're up for a disappointment and that Sawyer's final scene will be his reunion with Juliet in the alt.

Anonymous said...

"
I'm afraid you're up for a disappointment and that Sawyer's final scene will be his reunion with Juliet in the alt."

Yeah I'm sure you know this. I have to agree the worst thing that happened from an emotional standpoint was the whole fake Suliet thing, and the fact that it was just what all the sexually repressed fanboys and old lady shippers had been waiting for. It's bad enough when Lost comes up with stupid empty plotlines but it's worse when the losers in this fanbase glom onto something really insipid and fall in love with it.

Look at what has become of Lost. I don't think anyone is enjoying it anymore and even in the media no one but the whack ass Doc Jensen has a thing to say about it. It died prematurely and I think we can blame last season's asinine storyline to thank for that. It gave them nowhere to go and now they're just throwing nonsense at us.

Unknown said...

This Season is great! and this ep was awesome too! Enjoy the show for what it is!!

Quirky Character said...

>> I hate to say this, but sometimes it seems like the gods came out of the machine just in time to wrap up a story that never had an ending of its own.

Hahaha, so far looks very much like it...

Anonymous said...

I can't wait to LMAO at the Suliet nutsos when this reunion turns out so much different than they think. What kind of idiot would even want to see a scene like we were told about? It would mean Lost has sunk to such stupid depths it would be a laughingstock. Plus it doesn't fit with anything else we know about the finale. How can Juliet remember being Jack's wife, his kid's mother AND Sawyer's gf from Dharmatown? It's SO stupid I am going to LMAO when it is shown up to be a faked scene. Lost may have fallen apart the past few years, but it has never been as stupid as that.

Brown Public Library Book Store said...

I know, the whole thing turns my stomach. The Sawyer/Juliet thing never made any sense for these two characters.

And in the alt, he seems JuJu and bam, he forgets all about Anthony Cooper to have coffee with the boring bland blonde? I don't think so.

What if in the alt James recognizes her as a past bed warmer and they agree to have coffee? And I highly doubt that's going to be Sawyer's last scene, as Darlton seem to care more for Sawyer than to make him the bland blondes dishrag, which is what the fanboys want.

This is just Darlton pandering to these nutjobs to give them their precious coffee scene.

Anonymous said...

My theory is the fanboys were always jealous of Sawyer because he was so hot and they loved Suliet because it turned him into a lame sexless nerd. It ruined everything great about him.

Then there were all the grandmas who liked him because he came home for dinner and behaved like a tamed dog just like they think men should.

It's so sad how much Lost got ruined by catering to these two disfunctional groups of fans.

Island Boy said...

Like one of the anons said above, the only useful thing about this season is that I won't feel so bad when the show ends. To say this season has been a major disappointment is an understatement, but it seems the that darltons shot their wad in the first three seasons and will never get back to that level. It really is sad, kind of like watching a favorite athlete age. They used to be good, but they just can't get around on the fastball anymore.

Anonymous said...

Wow! It's hilarious to read all those comments about how the show is bad now. Because of Suliet. Please don't be bitter. Lost is not just about the love polygon. There's much more to it than that. Terry O'Quinn, Michael Emerson, Josh Holloway and even Nestor Carbonell have been in really fine acting form this season. And please don't be so rude to the old ladies, you don't need to go around insulting people's mothers to express your opinion.

Also, thanks to Fish for the Tina Fey mention, I thought so too, when Sheila Kelley first appeared in Recon.

But let me ask you guys a question. How would like the show to end, in regards to those 4 characters that make up the quadrangle? And please don't just say x ends with y. That's abundantly clear already... What would constitute a clear, definite and satisfactory conclusion that x ends up with y? What do you guys want to see and what do you expect you will see?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for an honest commentary Fish, I think you spoke for a lot of us.

While I give the writers all the credit in the world for creating a show with interesting characters and a million twists and turns which I've enjoyed immensely for 5.5 years, I think I've finally hit the wall.

I surrendered the idea that the show would end up having a deep and interesting story a long time ago. Instead I was just happy to go along for a very fun and wild ride. But the more the writers try to build drama toward...who knows what...the more bored I get.

We keep hearing about the world ending, everyone dying, etc..., but since we've never been given any real insight into Jacob, MIB or the meaning of the island, why would they expect us to care about that at all? We don't know the stakes, and so we can't really get invested in seeing what happens. For all we know this is just a big game and everyone rises from the dead to go live happily ever after, or maybe they are all dead (or maybe it is purgatory and that was just a big psyche), maybe Jeff Probst will host the final show.

The beauty of X-Files (and now Fringe to a lesser degree), is that they let you in on the stakes, and though far fetched, they keep *just* enough connection to reality that our imaginations can do a lot of the work by themselves. When you know what's at stake for a character and have some grounding to put yourself in their shoes, that's a satisfying story. That's not to say you need to know everything, but certainly a little bit goes a long way.

However, even without knowing the stakes we invested in the characters and their twists and turns, because the start of the story was so good that we just trusted that the end would be too. But as Cheddar said, even the characters we've come to follow have been taken away, left to sit around the campfire and wait like the rest of us.

The flash sideways world, AKA, Fast Forward when Re-watching World, is meaningless without knowing the possibilities. If the characters were going to have to choose which life to pick, we'd at least have some drama trying to figure out what path they'd choose (I have no idea how that would work, but you'd think writers that like to associate themselves with Carroll and Rushdie and Steinbeck might be able to). If it ends up being just an alternate timeline, than that would mean there were infinite others, and why should we care about that one? Merging the timelines makes little sense either, but that seems to be the most obvious bet on where we're going. Unless the flash sideways world ends up being HUGELY important, to the the point you want to go re-watch them all after the finale, the writers will probably have made one of the worst decisions possible. Instead of giving us a final season with the characters we knew, they gave us what appears to be some weird reunion tour to help pump some residual money for their buddies during syndication.

Sorry for griping. I still look forward to the show every week, and I'm thrilled for free entertainment. Normally I wouldn't really care if a show became disappointing, but given that the writers have teased us with allusions to world religions, ancient cultures, science fiction, brilliant writers and legendary historic figures, they created the expectations for something special all by themselves.

Which brings me to one final gripe. I loved Ab Aeterno. As a standalone show it was fantastic, but as one of the last 10 pieces of the Lost puzzle, it left me disappointed. That's why I am so frustrated, because even in making something great, they managed to ruin it by telling us exactly what we'd all guessed all along, but not giving us anymore context to judge Richard's decisions by (instead we find out that Richard doesn't know anymore than we do...is there anything more unsatisfying than finding out your prophet is clueless?)

Almost Tuesday, lets hope I regret writing all of that blather

Anonymous said...


Wow! It's hilarious to read all those comments about how the show is bad now. Because of Suliet.


I don't think the show is bad now because of Suliet. I think the crap writing and fakeness of Suliet is an example of how it went wrong.

What I find hilarious is when people say Suliet must have been good because so many Lost fans online liked it. I have to say this is one of the weirdest, dumbest, meanest fandoms I've ever followed, so them liking a certain plot definitely should not be taken as a point in favor of that idea. If anything, the opposite.

Anonymous said...

On a related note, does anyone else think it looks like Sun has some kind of Borg implant coming out of her nose in that first photo?

Anonymous said...

I don't think the show is bad now because of Suliet. I think the crap writing and fakeness of Suliet is an example of how it went wrong.

Ok! Do you have other examples? Any ideas on how it could have been better done?

Anonymous said...

Any ideas on how it could have been better done?

Don't spring it on us out of nowhere between two characters that had no history at all together. Don't drag out the death scene in a way that even the actors thought was overkill. Don't pull a wedding ring out of nowhere, to milk the story some more, when if he had really been planning to marry her, he'd have told her when she was so insecure.

Basically write a good solid love story. Don't play gotcha with romance. It doesn't work like that.

I'm tired of talking about Suliet. It was never anything but a contrivance and now it's creating a whole second wave of pandering. It's an insult to just stick something like this on the end of a story they want us to believe was planned all along.

Brown Public Library Book Store said...

Well, my biggest problem is the fan pandering. Did we really need to watch Juliet die, twice. I was like, is she dead, yet? Then the whole engagement ring thing? Just to appease these fans that became hooked on a relationship that consisted of a class and an "I love you" and that was it. There's also the Libby thing. Darlton didn't want to do it, but now they're going to do something to appease the Libby fans. Desmond's story was pretty much over at the end of season 4, but they've brought him back in season 5 and season 6 to appease his fans, the same way they brought back Elizabeth Mitchell in season 6 when there was really no need to bring her back.

This last season was supposed to be about the remaining survivors of 815 and it's more the Smoke Monster/Jacob season with the survivors as supporting players.

Claire's some bad Rousseau wannabe and they're not even going to show what happened to her. Sayid is a living zombie. All Sun does is ask if anyone has seen Jin. Jin is the same asking if anyone has seen Sun. Jack is looking for his majestic destiny and ready to throw anyone under the bus to find it. Hurley's Ghost Jacob's mindless little puppet. Ben wants to be Ilana's whipping boy and not hatching some plot to outsmart the smoke monster like the real Ben would be doing. Lapidus isn't trying to go over to the Hydra where he knows there's an intact plane and trying to fix it and get everyone off the island.

Sawyer's the only one they're writing in character and I can actually understand why he's behaving the way he is. He's really the only character left that bears any resemblance to himself. That's why he's the only character I care about and if they kill him off, that will be it for me. There's just nothing left aside from Sawyer.

The answers to what mysteries they've solved have been pretty mundane. It's like finding out the thing under the bed is just a dust bunny.

Over all, I feel like they're just stalling for time so they don't have to answer too many questions. They'll never be an answer to Jacob's cabin, since they just burned it down...end of mystery.

Brown Public Library Book Store said...

That should be kiss not class.

And I agree with the above poster. Why hide an engagement ring under the floorboards if you were planning to marry this woman? They just put that in to appease these fans, but they don't get that the more they get the more they want. They'll never be happy. They'll always want more, more, more.

I read some comments where it's not enough they get their pathetic little coffee scene. Sawyer has to make it clear that he loves Juliet best, and that is not the way it was written.

If we believe the ring thing, he wasn't asking her because he was waiting for Kate and company to return and he only would have settled for her and married her when he gave up on Kate coming back.

It shows a total lack in artistic integrity to pander to these people and try to make something out of a rebound relationship that it never was. It was just a plot contrivance that a bunch of online twits jumped on like it was the love affair of the century, even though 99.9% of the thing happened off-camera.

It's why this whole thing sickens me. It's the last season. There's no need to pander to these twits, and yet they are.

Anonymous said...

"It was just a plot contrivance that a bunch of online twits jumped on like it was the love affair of the century, even though 99.9% of the thing happened off-camera."

Well according to some, Sawyer and Juliet were so amazing and epic when they were onscreen together, and Josh and Liz's acting was so out-of-this-world, that Suliet's full story didn't "need" to be shown.

LOL

Zoe G. said...

Hey Fishy, it's LimelightQueen. I'm a sometimes member of the Fishelage and a big member in the Skate forum on L-F. I love your reviews.

Although, one thing I miss from your blog is your comments on the fandom and the bubbleheads. Those always made me crack up. Any chance on you starting those up again?

If so, here's a great thread about bubbleheads. It's old but its hilariousness still shines through. Note that every other post is edited by our dear old Halfrek for baiting. Any comments bashing Jack-haters still stand of course.

http://www.flicksnshows.com/showthread.php?t=96682&page=2

Anyway, I loved this review! You always capture the heart and soul of each episode so well.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your responses guys. I will definitely agree that Suliet was a plot contrivance. But at the same time, try to put yourselves in Sawyer's shoes. Kate was gone, for all he knew she was never coming back. What was he supposed to do? Live a sexless life on the island until he dies? Shack up with some Dharma woman? That would have been absurd. Perhaps if he knew Kate would eventually come back, he would have waited it out, but he didn't. So, he did the next best thing.

@ SockeRock : Hiding the ring under floorboards was to ensure continuity. Remember how the others inhabited the barracks after purging Dharma? If Sawyer had left it in the open in 1977, it probably wouldn't be there 30 years later in 2007. And it's customary to make it a big surprise when you are about to propose to someone. Not a big deal, but that's usually the way it is, as futile as it may seem.

And fan pandering is subjective. I was never a fan of Desmond, yet I put up with it because it was clear he was needed every time there was going to be some reveal on electromagnetism. Remember, not everyone over-analyses the show in minute detail as Fish does. It's a TV show, they need to pander to some basic annoyances. ABC needs to sell ad$.

My guess is, whatever road Darlton take, there will always be a section of fans that are unhappy. Just relax, enjoy the ride and wait until May 24 to unleash all of your criticisms.

Anonymous said...

And it's customary to make it a big surprise when you are about to propose to someone.

Yeah but since Juliet was totally freaking out about how Sawyer loved Kate more than her, wouldn't it have made sense for him to tell her then how much he wanted to marry her? I don't think they thought of the ring until after S6 was wrapped. Contrivance, pandering, sloppiness. All really bad things in a story that used to want us to think of it as great. A show that would stoop to something as cheap as the Suliet pandering will never be considered great. We're seeing the flaws and holes all over the place. Suliet was just the canary in the coalmine.

Anonymous said...

Another important similarity of note is the relationship between the father, daughter and lover. Sun's father and Penny's father both are trying to keep their daughters away from their lovers. Could there be any more significance to this besides just the stereotypical overly protective father storyline?
Widmore tells Jin that if the smoke monster leaves the island "your wife, your daughter, my daughter...everyone we know and love will cease to be," is it possible to take him literally, as in, those specific people. Maybe he wasn't saying everyone everyone, but specifically for Widmore and Jin.

Brown Public Library Book Store said...

After last night's episode, I don't think I care for where this show is going. A happy ending for everyone as they'll all instantly remember the past:

Jack/Kate will see each other, and boom, true love.
Charlie/Claire will see each, and boom, true love
Sawyer and Sayid will end up with their blonde island rebound chicks and boom it'll be true love.
Jack will be able to make Locke walk again.

Just YUCK! If that's what ends up as happening, it'll just be a sad and pathetic ending to a once great show.

I officially hate the alt storyline now. Even if everyone drops dead on the island, I'll take it over this syrupy sweet Pleasantville world.

It seems like Darlton once again copping out because they don't have the guts to kill off practically everyone and let it stand so they came up with this alt world where everyone gets some syrupy sweet happy ending.

dom said...

@ Sockerock : why so angry? :o

You say you don't care, yet here you are, first person ranting about the show after a new episode. :P

Jack & Kate won't end up together, she's still a fugitive in reboot-world. Even if their memories can cross through realities, some things just aren't meant to be. And even if those things you mention end up happening, rest assured it will be delivered on screen in a satisfying way.

Why so much hate? Is there a better show to watch on TV? To quote good old Flocke : "But you're so close, James. It would be such a shame to turn back now."

I've read all of your comments on this thread, you're not very nice, somehow you're very angry at the show for it's not being written the way you would like it to be. You are being too obsessed with the ending. Lost has given us plenty of twists and turns over the years, just keep a little faith!

Anonymous said...

It's circular arguments like this I am going to miss once this is all over. Posts and comments like this are great entertainment all by themselves.

Anonymous said...

Fish...I appreciate the shot of Jin's reflection in the restaurant storage room door. I'm trying to watch for each characters mirror image and I missed that one. I look forward to your reasoning.

Brown Public Library Book Store said...

I'm not angry, I'm disgusted, and I'm not the first person to post here to rant.

You know, although I wouldn't like it, I also wouldn't mind if Jack/Kate get together, because they've been building their relationship from the start. It's not some two second relationship that a group of fans latched on to. All we saw on screen was a kiss and an "I love you" and that's it.

At the time Darlton even said the thing was over the instant Kate come back, now they're saying that Juliet is the love of Sawyer's life and pandering to this group of fans who latched on to this plot contrivance.

Lost was a great show and I hate to see it going out with a whimper instead of a bang, because Darlton are a pair of wimps who are pandering to these fans to make them happy and give them what they've been demanding, probably because most of the fans for this two second fling are the fan boys they seek approval from.

I'm sorry, considering all the lies these two have told and how they don't have enough artistic integrity to want to protect what they created in the name of pandering to fans, I have no faith in them.

In short, Darlton are the supreme BS artists of their genre.

Bottom line, they can write whatever fan pandering crap they want, doesn't mean I'm going to buy it. But the choice is ultimately theirs. If they want to trash their own creation just to appease a group of fans that will ultimately never be satisfied, since the more they get the more they want, that's on them.

It's just a TV show in the end. I don't buy the true love of Sawyer and Juliet anymore than I do Shannon and Sayid. Nadia has been written as Sayid's true love, and it also looks like their going to say Shannon is Sayid's true love, too. Again, it's on them.

And again, they can write one thing, and try to tell me it's another, and that doesn't mean I have to buy it.

Anonymous said...

@ Sockerock: Jesus Christ you have to take a break from lost massage board, fan site, darkufo ect. because they do no good for you. You’re not sure how this will end you only know bits of information, however, you created yourself a scenario and decided "that how it's gonna by" end of story, and the more you write about it the more bitter and angry you are. Just watch the show do not let other people opinion influence you.
And relax it's gonna by Ok :)

dom said...

Thanks for your reply @ Sockerock.

I don't know man, it seems to me whichever side they choose, the side not chosen will claim fan-pandering.

SDS said...

The Locke/Sun pics, and the belly-shot pics.... oh wow, so amazing!! Your eye for pictures is incredible.

lol @ the Desmond and Jin gif.

Thank you for joining the "Jacob can NEVER be called a good guy" camp - I've been feeling so alone!

Bathing in the pure nonsense, seems like a good idea to me.

All the cast appearing - that's a cool thing to know. :)

The Monster is The Void, Jacob is The Sentry and neither of them realise they are both the same person.

Finally, while I agree fully with the "deus ex machina", "pot committed" and "being taken for a ride" comments, come on guys and gals, I think you are answering you're own question - this is all Lost IS and EVER was.

The Monster, the Hatch, Ben, the Others, Dharma, the "bloody snowglobe", the Freighter, Oceanic 6, Constants, time travel, WE HAVE TO GO BACK, Jeremy Bentham, the War, the Incident, Jacob - heck, the fact they all survived the crash of 815 that was caused by Desmond not pushing the button due to Kelvin being an ass, but really no wait Jacob brought them there - ALL of this, it's ALL deus ex machina, all of them twists we DIDN'T SEE COMING and that we all willing WENT ALONG FOR THE RIDE THROUGH CRAZY TOWN for the sheer hell of it.

We are Neo. We are Alice. We're not meant to know our surroundings, the end game, or what in the heck is going on, or even question whether we are enjoying it or not. Either, like Neo, we wake up in a new world, or like Alice, we wake up back in our original world - either way, or both, it was the journey that mattered really.

SDS said...

Oh, and if Smokey is the Void, is John Locke "Robert 'Bob' Reynolds"? The 'normal' man trying to break free?

How creepy would it be if Locke was always part of this (un)holy trinity for all eternity?

He (Jacob) saves his own (Locke) life so that he (Smokey) can get himself (Locke) killed so that he (Smokey as Locke) can kill himself (Jacob) so that he (Locke as Smokey) can be reborn so that he (Smokey/Locke) can escape the prison that he (Jacob) made for himself (all 3 of them).

Sounds very much like The Sentry/Void to me, and if he escapes, that is simply too much power for the world to handle.

Not necessarily good, not necessarily evil, just insane.