LOST
**SPOILERS - don't read if you didn't see the season finale**
Here it was, the Return of the Jedi episode of Lost. Desmond and Charlie on the moon of Endor (the Looking Glass station), trying to knock down the Empire's force fields (er, jamming frequency), while Sayid, Bernard and Jin do the air (beach) battle and Jack et. al. have one last confrontation with the Darth Vader (Ben).
But that's not we're all wondering about, is it?
I loved the site of Jim Morrison-era Jack - bearded, bloated and drugged out. The entire show I tried to figure out where in the timeline this was - before/after he went to Thailand? Sometime around 1993, hence the blaring Nirvana ("Scentless Apprentice")? My girlfriend even pointed out Jack's cell KRZR phone was an anachronism - but it still didn't dawn on me. We're in the future - sometime after the events of the island we've been following for three seasons. This was the turning the show on its head moment I've been hoping for.
But it was terribly, terribly sad. Life post mysterious island has not treated the Shepard kindly, now that he no longer has his flock to lead. He spends his weekends flying on free Oceanic air mileage, hoping his plane will crash. Ben and Locke we're right all along, it seems - they weren't supposed to leave. He knows it too (we can assume that those maps in his home were island-related). I can't begin to speculate what's s happened between the scene at the radio tower and Jack's meeting Kate at the airport. That scene was both heartbreaking and mystifying at once. What's he “tired of lying” about? Who does she have to get back to? Whose funeral did no one attend to? Why do Jack and Kate seem so distant from each other? Is Kate still a fugitive? In the hospital Jack says that he’s not as drunk as his father is upstairs – does that mean he’s alive (Jack also claims his dad wrote him an Oxycontin prescription, but that he’s “out of town”)? Why was the naturally beautifully Kate covered in make-up? All questions that'll have to wait till January, 2008.
I'm going to miss Charlie. I hoped he wasn’t going to die. I thought he’d play his keypad version of Good Vibrations, save the day, and avoid drowning. Of all the characters, he had gone through the greatest transformation, from washed up, junkie rock star to family man and hero. Even when he only had moments to live, after Mikhail launches a grenade to flood his room with water, Charlie used his last remaining moments to warn Desmond that Naomi was not sent by Penny.
We all knew Hurley was going to save the day, but I didn’t see the return of the Volks Wagon van. I also didn’t see Sawyer killing Tom (aka Mr. Friendly) after he’d surrendered. The warm and fuzzy Sawyer (i.e., Han Solo) of season 3 is truly no more. Very well done.
The return of Walt was a welcomed surprise, puberty victim hood and all (yet still wearing the same kid clothes - my friend Dan recently theorized they removed Walt from the show because the writers would be unable to explain his rapid physical transformation). We don’t know whether he was the actual Walt or merely in Locke’s mind. Whatever the case, with Ben Linus having killed too many of his own people, now tied up and beaten to a bloody pulp, the ascension of Locke as the new master of the Island is clear. He even kills the mysterious Naomi, but is unable to shoot Jack. Speaking of Naomi, if Penny did not send her then who did? Why was she carrying a picture of Desmond? Perhaps Penny’s father, Charles Widmore, sent her.
There are more questions and observations, of course, but I’ve run out of time. I’ll pick up the slack later with comments.
14 comments:
I thought last night's episode was insane. I never get these things right, but for some reason I knew the Jack "flashback" was post-Island. I'm still guessing (and yes I'm biased) that there's some sort of alternate reality thing going on here, and this isn't necessarily the way things end up, but I can't think about it clearly enough to properly articulate it. In fact, despite all that occurred in the episode last night, the "flashback" is all I keep thinking about. What was it?
That being said, the scene where Sawyer killed Tom was an all timer, "I didn't believe him" an all time line said with all time emotion. Lost was somewhat 24-esque last night, both in that scene and when we believed (for a moment only) that Sayid, Jin and Bernard were all executed, and I have to admit for a few minutes I was banged up. Nice to see some humanity out of Jack when he beat the shit out of Ben immediately after. Ben was due for that ass kicking.
The Locke schtick at the end was somewhat troubling and annoying. You have to believe Ben is telling the truth, and Naomi is affiliated with some nefarious organization diametrically opposed to The Others. Where else can they go for 3 more years?
I always found Charlie a horrible character, but the last few episodes he's grown on me and I loved his last minute a cappella version of "You Are Everybody". Tough to see him go, but nice to know the show isn't always about happy endings. Which brings us back to Jack and Kate. Who's funeral was it? Ben's?
Apparently Hoffs Drawlor (sp?), the funeral parlor Jack visited, is an acronym for Flash Forward.
Thanks for the shout out for noticing Jack's phone--I've seen that phone at the verizon store and I KNEW it couldn't be the 90s.
But no props for my astute observation that Charlie mysteriously cleaned up after having the shit kicked out of him by Tracy Middendorf (I knew I recognized her as the Steve-Stalker from 90210!)? Where did all his injuries go? Also, why couldn't he swim out that porthole once the water pressure equalized? I don't want sweet little Merry to die.
Also, you are the best blog writer ever. I'm sorry for any crap i gave you.
The Count makes some good points - I certainly believed Bernard, Jin and Sayid were goners. I don't understand the logic of the Other's disobeying Ben's orders, but it made for good drama. Too bad Sawyer didn't spare Mr. Friendly, as he had spared his friends. Not that I entirely blame him - Sawyer probably has suffered the most of anyone from the Other's torture.
For more, Doc Jensen recap at EW is a must-read:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20040061,00.html
I think the Doc points out that Tom and the fellas were never supposed to kill those 3, there was a code to fire 3 shots but to keep them alive.
How about that Oceanic was supposed to have gone out of business after 815 went down (as per the Oceanic website, I think) but last night Jack was tooling around the friendly skies on Oceanic post crash??
Because Oceanic going out of business was off the show stuff, I'm going to let it slide.
The more I think about it, the more amazed I am with the episode. They really took flashbacks as far as they could go (excluding new characters). If they move to a new flash-forward structure, it'll be like Season 1 again, where the flashes gave us genuine insight. In fact, they should be more powerful than ever since we already know and care for the characters, and there will be actual mystery to them. I would guess that the flash forwards will tell the story of how the survivors get back to the island, while the island story moves forward to the point of their departure. However it works out, I now have total faith in the writers.
I'm assuming my brother is too busy with the baby to have seen the episode - I'm looking forward to his thoughts. He is like the Jack of our nerd comments.
Correct. Matt is our fearless leader and has found his calling, like Jack has on the Island. Matt is king of the nerdy blogs, long live the king.
Wow! Where to begin? Harris was correct, due to work and Baby situations (mostly work), I was unable to catch the LOST finale at it's regularly scheduled time. I finally watched it last night, and whooooey! Before I get to my thoughts, I appreciate Harris's compliment about me being the "Jack" of our LOST group. However, I feel my contribution is more akin to that of the Late Mr. Artz, the Junior High School Biology teacher who attempted in vain to parley his rudimentary understanding of the natural world into a position of stature among his people. Of course, unlike yours truly, Artz was occasionally correct about some things, chief among them, the unstable nature of 19th century dynamite and the paralytic effects of certain spider bites. Anyway, on to MTINPO:
1. Either I have an amazing simpatico with my Brother, or the finale brought the same reaction in all of us--I was thinking the exact same things Harris wrote in this post--the Return of the Jedi nature of the storytelling (a nice bookend to last season's Empire Strikes Back-style ending), Jack's Jim Morrison look and persona (though I technically remarked that Matt Fox looked like Val Kilmer's portrayal of the Druggie Door in Oliver Stone's movie). I also made the same remark about the anachronistic nature of "Flashback" Jack's '07 flip phone and his way cool aviator shades (which did not make their triumphant return to the fashion forefront until the 21st Century. (on a side note, I have been paying close attention to cell phones in the flashbacks ever since Season 1, when the LOST producers were playing coy about the time period of the show, suggesting it had a "timeless" quality--I found it difficult to accept that when we saw Shannon Rutherford gabbing away on a pink Motorola on several occasions).
2. The FlashForward thing finally hit me late in the episode, when they showed Jack sitting alone in his house with the Oceanic tickets on the floor and maps strewn all over the place. It was almost like I had a Sixth Sense-esque montage playing in my head: way too modern cellphone-PING, new Chief of Surgery at the Hospital--PING, pregnant Julie Bowen and bearded Jack--PING, Jack a frequent Oceanic passenger with a sudden interest in cartography--PING. Finally, I said ominously to Deb, "this isn't a flashback at all, is it." And then, the made up (and less attractive) Kate Austin appeared, confirming my worst fears. The producers turned the show upside down, in a way I knew my Brother would LOVE. Yes, LOST pulled a Battlestar on us, and I had the exact same amazed/forlorn/exited/dreadful feeling I had when I watched the Cylon Centurions marching through New Caprica--what have we done?? In truth, once Penny Whidmore confirmed that Naomi's was "Not Penny's Boat", my heart began to race--so much so, that I was afraid for my newborn daughter who was fast asleep on my chest. This is what TV should be. All I can say again, is "WOW".
3. Doc Jensen and Harris are right--the flash-forward concept, if it is indeed the new Way of Things on LOST, will inject some awesome juice into the show. It also spares us the many years of wondering about the "where are they now" that would have happened had the series ended with a rescue. Still, I hope we will still be treated to some flashbacks from the Island's more intriguing (and more permanent) residents--Danielle, Richard, more from Ben. There is still a lot of the Dharma/Hostiles/Purge arc that needs to be told.
4. RIP, Charlie. I'm sure we all wondered why Charlie slammed the door shut on his means of escape, but I think Doc Jensen was correct that the spiritual Charlie believed he had to drown in order for the rescue to happen. Of course, knowing that Naomi's was "Not Penny's Boat" might have changed his mind about whether rescue was, indeed a good thing. Maybe it was too much to digest when Patchy pulled the pin. In any case, it was nice redemption for a character that many viewers had over the course of Seasons 2 & 3, grown to despise.
5. RIP also, Tom (Mr. Friendly). While he certainly wasn't the most compelling character (or even the most interesting Other--would anyone really care to see a Tom flashback?), he was the O.G. of the Others--the only one to speak in Season 1 and the giver of the famous "Light 'em Up" speech in Season 2 that sent notice that the Others were here to make trouble for everyone. He will be missed.
6. I agree that it's good to have the "bad" Sawyer back. Is Josh Holloway growing up before our eyes? I loved the "I didn't believe him" line after he shot Tom. Cold stuff. I also liked Rousseau's first words to her daughter at their long-awaited reunion--"do you want to help me tie [Ben] up?"
7. Good job spotting the Steve Sanders stalker. I also recognized the blonde Other in the Looking Glass as Gabrielle, Lucy Lawless's sidekick on the sapho-erotic fantasy epic, Xena, Warrior Princess. Another previously-seen guest star was the new Chief of Surgery, played by the Guy who was the valet on Las Vegas. If you're keeping score at home that is now: 2 actors from Las Vegas (the surgeon and Naomi, who played the sexy British pit boss), 2 actors from Ed (Julie Bowen and the guy who played Ed's best friend who was a falsely imprisoned Tailie ultimately offed by Goodwin in Season 2), 3 actors from OZ (Michael (who was Augustus Hill on OZ), Eko (who was Adebesi--only the scariest character in the history of TV) and Juliet's husband (who played the Governor on OZ and the Serbian terrorist in Season 1 of 24),.
7.Okay, questions--first, of the plot-hole variety: (i) so the signal jamming at the Looking Glass station was a secret to all of Ben's people except for Ben, the two chicks doing the jamming and…Juliet? The Other-come-lately was in Ben's Inner Circle? Okay., (ii) Ben really thought he could just convince Jack that Naomi was with the "bad guys"? Was Ben even aware of how little credibility he has with Jack and the Castaways? Maybe Ben was just being desperate, but it was a pretty shitty plan, if you ask me, (iii) I don't know what to make of the return of Walt and how creepy he looked at age 13 still wearing his 10-year-old clothes
8. Real show questions--(1) Who died in Jack's flash-forward? I can't think of a single character on the show who would have died and (a) had such a profound impact on Jack that he would contemplate suicide (or, at least, drive him over the edge if he was already contemplating it), but (b) qualified as "neither" friend nor family to Jack, but also (c) Kate would not consider attending the funeral. More importantly, given the fact that black people on the show are either exiled, killed or written off for seasons at a time, who would have had a viewing in Crenshaw or South Central?, (2) as Harris asked, what is Jack "tired of lying" about and who was Kate sneaking away from to meet Jack?, (3) who sent Naomi's boat? It seems that even if Naomi's crew were "the Bad Guys", they were not an impediment to the rescue of Jack and Kate, (4) so Jack's flying back and forth on Oceanic, hoping for a crash? This doesn't sound like the obsessive, determined Jack we all know and love. I mean, if Jack REALLY wants to go back, couldn't he at least try to find another way? Desmond found the island on a sailboat; there's the whole Mittelos Bioscience connection--surely the Doc has the ability to seek out the Island besides hoping for a 1 in 1,000,000,000 possibility of a plane crash. Maybe he doesn't really want to leave his cushy surgeon job.
I'm sure there's plenty more, but I would like to do some work today before enjoying the three day weekend with my wife and daughter. Please, please do me a favor and continue this thread for another day before moving on to politics or something much less important. Thanks.
I don't think Ben thought he could convince Jack not to trust Naomi because of some good guy, bad guy speech, but by threatening to kill Jin, Bernard and Sayid.
The question of who's in the coffin is an interesting one. And I also thought it bizarre the funeral was in South Central, given the pedigree of the show. Indeed, it could be Ben, but it could also be someone we haven't met yet.
Jack's language in the ending suggests that in his post-Island world, he's taken a page from Locke's "fate" play book. This might explain his feeble attempt to fly Oceanic Air, hoping a crash will send him back to the place he wasn't "supposed to" leave. If it were Ben in that coffin, the guy who told him several times of the gravity of the mistake in leaving, this might explain his suicidal reaction to the news of his death. Again, pure speculation and frustration that will have to wait another year to resolve the mystery.
Perhaps story of Jack and the others (small "o") returning to the island will reveal some of the other mysterious regarding Wigmore and Mittelos Bioscience. Although I wouldn't want to see the show turn into an X-Files like caper...
Also, wouldn't it have been funny if the code for the jamming device in the Looking Glass station was: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42? I guess they've stopped being cute with the numbers.
This episode got me. Although I never react outloud to books/tv/movies, I did make a little noise when Sayid snapped that dude's neck. And I was very happy they managed to tie in the car, which I thought was silly so many episodes ago.
ANYHOO...
We can't know about the flashforward. My best guess is that it's Desmond-eque. As in Jack and Kate and whoever else were somehow allowed to go back, but BACK IN TIME to before Jack's Dad died, to before Kate killed stepdad. That would explain how Christian Shepard may still be alive and was able to write a perscription. It would also explain why Kate was free. It plays to the idea that Jack thought he woud happy, saving his father, but things never work out like we want. His father's still a drunk, his marriage still went into the toilet, and somehow, perhaps indirectly, someone's died. Locke? On the interweb, the name starts "Ja". As in Jacob?
Only problem, it doesn't explain the "golden ticket."
In the spirit of the McFly, wouldn't having Jack and Kate go back in time create all sorts of paradox's in the space time continuum? That is, there'd be two Jacks and two Kates running around?
It's an interesting theory, but I don't think the truth is that complex. Also, that theory doesn't explain why Jack is using a 2007 model cell phone.
I kinda felt that it was Sawyer that was in the coffin. Jack never considered him "friend or family" and there were references to the whole Jack/Kate/Sawyer connection throughout the show that suggested to me it might be Sawyer. I never felt that the newspaper clipping almost pushed Jack literally over the edge. Unless it was Sawyer that Kate was sneaking away from. And yes, Kate all caked up just wasn't the same. She looked fake.
And perhaps Jack's 'living a lie' comment was just the fact that they weren't supposed to leave the island, although I feel it's a bit juicier than that.
I think we'll be seeing our beach dwellers needing to team with the remaining Others to take on the next evil group (the Not Penny's Boat).
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