Lost Finale: Now I Get It (No I Don’t)

SPOILER ALERT! LAST NIGHT’S LOST! IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Lost season finale! What the F-U-Double Hockey Sticks. Wait. That spells full. What the H-E-C-K. Wait. That spells heck, which technically works, but really lacks the appropriate oomph. There are nuns in vows of silence who were cussing after that ending. As a foul-mouthed agnostic, I was cussing throughout. Sometimes at the screen. Sometimes at the God who may or may not exist. Sometimes at the ghosts of Libby and Charlie, who haunt me/watch Lost with me. There was one moment that was especially uncomfortable between us:

LIBBY
Bennnnnnn.
CHARLIE
Bennnnnnn.
LIBBY
Bennnnnnn.
BEN
What? Why are you speaking in ghost voices again?
CHARLIE
Weeeeeeee neeeeed toooo…
BEN
Seriously. Dude. That’s annoying.
CHARLIE
Sorry. We need to warn you of something.
BEN
Can’t it wait until the commercial?
LIBBY
No. We need to tell you now.
BEN
Fine. But be quick. Hurley just got into the car with Jacob.
I don’t want to miss this.
CHARLIE
Yes you do. Change the channel.
LIBBY
You need to change the channel now.
BEN
What? No way.
LIBBY
You really should change the channel.
BEN
What’s going to happen? Does this have to do with my destiny?
CHARLIE
Uhhh…Sure.
BEN
You guys are up to something. I think I’ll keep it right here.
LIBBY
Shit.
BEN
Hey, you guys are still hanging out with Hurley? You told me
it was just me. I thought I was special.
CHARLIE
You are special.
BEN
What the F-U-Double Hockey Sticks. Wait. That spells full.
You guys know what I mean.
LIBBY
Actually we don’t. You could mean either fuck or hell.
BEN
Either way. You guys are dick.

But hey, that’s for me and my ghost whisperer to work out. My ghost whisperer will be able to do nothing, however, about the image of  John Locke’s man boobs perma-lodged in my brain.

Locke should know better than to go off on a perilous voyage without the support of an all-purpose brassiere. Poor Ben Linus can’t even look at him. Watching those titties bounce, I must’ve missed five minutes of dialogue. Thank God (maybe) for torrent downloads. In part because they allow me to replay missed scenes. And part because they allow me to screen grab and draw arrows on Locke’s man-humps.

Enough about excess estrogen. Back to the episode. I have no idea what happened in the episode. Do you want to talk about boobies again? No? Okay, let’s just sit here in silence.

…

…

I guess we could talk about “the fight.” I love how Lost waited so long to give us the uninterrupted Sawyer-Jack brawl that we lost all desire for it. I used to want Jack to kick Sawyer’s ass so badly. Then I wanted Sawyer to kick Jack’s ass even worse. Then Jack. Then Sawyer. I finally want them to hug like brothers and instead they fight like…brothers. This never would’ve happened with sisters. If it did it would’ve been way sexier. And I’d have a third reason to thank someone for torrent downloads.

All episode long Jack put the “M.D” in commando. Shooting, killing, fighting, bleeding, nuking, talking about his feelings. Y’know, Rambo shit. In general, the feelings were laid on a little thick. Jack and Kate. Sawyer and Juliette. Ben Linus’ emotional reveals. Miles calling Dr. Chang dad. Locke’s boobs (I had to sneak it in one more time). Save the tearful goodbyes for the end of summer camp. We watch Lost for jungle kidnappings and weird science.

Weird science there was a-plenty. Just not the weird science we had been studying in Lost class all semester. The 1977ers took two hours to do what we knew they intended to do last week, then as soon as it was completed, the show ended. To be continued. Meanwhile, the 2007ers set off on a mission to kill Jacob, a character introduced at the beginning of this episode, and succeeded. What? That storyline just began. They spent five months building a plot that ended in a cliffhanger, but felt confident introducing and murdering the island’s magnanimous supernatural presence over the course of 85 minutes?  

I recognize that this “loophole” phenomenon is a taste of Season 6 medicine, it just felt a little hard to swallow in such a large dose so quickly. Jacob, this intangible spirit that rules the island, suddenly appears all Thom Yorke-looking and chillaxed, telling Oceanic peeps to be cool during all these awful moments. And then he is killed by simple knife-stabbing inside his home, a giant boot statue that someone escaped everyone’s gaze for the last forever. Oh, and not to mention there are two John Lockes, one of them is dead and other is a transplant reincarnate from the distant past.

Did you see all that coming? Short answer, no. Long answer, yes. Lost is like a murder mystery where the killer has not yet been introduced. Season 5, essentially, answered every question this show has ever raised. The Hatch, the Others, the Dharma Initiative. Who is Jacob? Who is Charles Widmore? Who is Dr. Chang? Then it revealed that all of this is not the actual story.

Our protagonists still might not know where they are. They might not even know when they are. But at some point along the course of realized destiny, I think they actually stopped being “lost.” We the viewers forever will be.

My name is Ben and this blog has no season finale. 

Lost & Found

SPOILER ALERT! LAST NIGHT’S LOST! TURN BACK YE WHO HATH NOT WITNESSED!

It makes too much sense. Never in five years of Lost have I felt more confident I understand what’s going on. Which, of course, means I probably know less than ever. I have conceded this because, on Lost, confidence is a confidence killer. No show on television utilizes the ‘always calmest before the storm’ tactic better.

For the first time ever, predicting the direction of Lost seems as simple as choosing a direction. Either our protags have been dumped in 1977 to create or recreate the future. Signs point to both, which means it will probably be neither. We all decide it’s either regular, old apples or oranges, Lost then delivers a supernatural, time-travelling banana.

We are due for a Richard Alpert episode very soon. Eloise and Charles will probably share an episode. Sayid in the jungle. Sayid in the jungle may not actually happen (I’ll still keep my man-crush boner close), since it doesn’t appear much happened to him there. And with Sayid, they can always just tell us he blended into the forest as a tree for like two weeks and we’d have to believe it. It’s mu’fuckin’ Sayid!

Every season of Lost has had a different theme. I’ll list them:

Season 1 – Lost (Plane)
Season 2 – Lost (On the Island)
Season 3 – Lost (In the World)
Season 4 – Lost (Island)

Season 5, obviously, has been Lost (In Time). Back in January, when this whole time-twist started, I must admit I was skeptical. But I think they have really pulled it off. My one objection is, according to Season 5 logic, Charlotte was like five to ten years older than Miles. There’s no ways that’s true. Even discounting this minor concern, the Charlotte character was rather useless. And the speech Farraday gave her as a child would’ve given me pedophile nightmares for a year. If their goal was to make Daniel as creepy as possible before killing him, they succeeded.

I knew they were going to kill Farraday early in that episode because of a very easy tell that Lost uses: You always know a character’s days are numbered when they start telling everything that they know. This is television, no one can die with a secret. So if it seems like a character is saying an awful lot, it’s probably the last time they will say anything. Farraday explained his purpose and the Lost-espoused theory behind time travel, and then he was no longer needed.

Time travel isn’t a science, it’s a theory. Lost imparted a theory and has been ironclad sticking to it. One can argue with their postulate, but come on “One!” This is Lost, not Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. It’s pretty heady stuff for pop television. And since nobody else has the answer to this absolute hypothetical, all Lost is responsible for is consistency.

I am pleased to say this season has been remarkably consistent. So consistent, in fact, that dumb lugs like me think we have the pattern figured out.  This is exactly where Lost wants us. I feel like one of the Others right now: Certain I have finally been leveled with, unknowingly on a mission to kill Jacob. It’s better this way. If I ever actually figured out the show it might feel like finding out Santa isn’t real. Sorry, y’all. I probably should’ve put a spoiler alert on that Santa thing.

My name is Ben and I am lost in blog.