5.24.2010

LOST: The End

"Remember. Let go. Move on."
~Damon Lindelof, Twitter, May 23, 2010, midnight

My God, where do I even begin? There is no way I can do a thorough recap so soon, so I will give you my immediate, knee-jerk reaction (which often times is the most reliable): I thought that it was, by far, the best series finale I have ever seen. It was about as close to perfect as it could have been, at least for me and what I was wanting out of a finale. Would it have been nice to have had the mythology of the show addressed a little more directly? Perhaps, but certainly not at the expense of anything we saw last night.

I have dissected (or tried to dissect) the mysteries of this show right along with the geekiest of LOST geeks, and the tantalizing weirdness of LOST was a big part of the appeal for me. A great television show, however, does not survive on mythology alone. How far would The X-Files have gone if it weren't for the iconic Mulder and Scully? And look at how much the series finale of that show suffered for its emphasis on tieing up an already messy mythology. No, for me, the plot should always serve the characters, and not the other way around, and I would have lost interest in LOST very early on if I hadn't gotten so invested, so quickly in these characters.

There was so much about the finale that I loved, but let's get a couple of questions out of the way, first:
  • So what exactly happened when Juliet detonated the bomb? Nothing? I was assuming it had because of her saying "It worked" to Sawyer right before she died; but we now know that "it worked" was really just what she said to Sawyer about the candy machine trick. Was it the detonation of the bomb that created the sideways place?
  • Why was the Island at the bottom of the ocean in the sideways world? Perhaps this one is connected to the first question.
I know I have more questions than that, but these will be a good start.

I'm going to take the easy way out and bombard you with bullets. No! not the kind that are always flying around on this show, this kind:

My favorite parts on the Island:
  • Rose and Bernard are alive! Vincent is alive! Richard Alpert is alive! Frank Lapidus is alive!! Man, that was a great way to start things off.
  • I admit to laughing out loud when poor Ben got hit in the face one last time by Sawyer
  • Jack and Locke's epic fight on the cliff was the best fight scene on LOST, ever. As well it should be.
  • I'm not a huge Kate fan, but I was pleased that it was she who shot Locke and then got to carry out one last badass move and jump off of that cliff before Sawyer did.
  • The scene where Jack hands the baton to Hurley was note perfect.
  • and, of course, the final scene. By the time Vincent came and laid down next to Jack, I was a blubbering idiot.
My favorite Sideways parts:
  • Hurley's face when he saw Charlie. So much love and affection.
  • Sun, Jin and Juliet - that's where the crying began.
  • Then Claire, Kate and Charlie had me nearly sobbing.
  • But it was Sawyer and Juliet who put me over the edge, especially when he whispered, "I got you, baby" in her ear.
From that point to the end I was crying like a baby. I was wrecked.

I think the thing I took away from the finale - and the show as a whole - is that it is our relationships with others that sustain us through our life and beyond, and that what was important was the they all found each other again. Live together, or die alone.

OK, that's about all I can write for now. What did you all think?

This is my final review of LOST. I can't believe it. I want to thank everyone - however few you may be! - who took the time to come here, to listen to my ravings, and to share in the discussion. I will miss watching LOST, miss it terribly, and I will miss talking about it with you.

Namaste.

5.23.2010

LOST

So this is it.

For good or bad, there was never a television show like LOST - innovative and interactive, at times frustrating but mostly rewarding - and I doubt there will ever be another one like it.

I'm not sure what to expect tonight, but I am almost certain I will love it no matter how it ends. This will be the very last LOST episode, ever. Enjoy it.

5.22.2010

LOSTapalooza III

Jimmy Fallon grills Fox, Lilly and Garcia:



Remember this?

LOSTapalooza II

Fabulously long Vanity Fair interview with Michael Emerson

Mo Ryan's favorite LOST characters (i.e., just about all of them!)

A graphic guide to LOST

The entire series of LOST re-enacted by cats in 1 minute:

5.21.2010

It's a LOSTapalooza

I'm just going to keep posting LOST stuff all weekend, as I find it, until it's over.

Jorge Garcia says goodbye to LOST. *sniff*

Auditions for the Smoke Monster:



The shirtless men of LOST, ladies!

5.19.2010

LOST Reading Recs

Alan Sepinwall loved it.

Mo Ryan liked it

I don't think Vanity Fair's Mike Ryan liked it.

Televisionary really liked it.

And Tom and Lorenzo called it the most satisfying episode of the season.

LOST: Episode 6.15

What They Died For

"We're very close to the end, Hugo."
~Jacob

What makes a LOST episode great, amazing, unlike anything else on TV? I'd say it was a combination of things: emotionally resonant character interaction, heart-stopping action, moments of humor, and just plain freaky shit. (Richard! No!) And that pretty much describes last night's fantastic episode.

What did I love about it? I think just about everything, but mostly the great character moments. Let me count the ways...

Alt-Desmond - well, the night was an embarrassment of riches for him, wouldn't you say? Particularly the scenes in the jail and the prisoner van.

Ben - I think the same can be said for Ben, in both timelines. The selflessness of alt-Ben, juxtaposed with the self-preservation skills of Island Ben. I love that the rumored romance for Ben (which frankly I had forgotten about) turned out to be with Rousseau. When his breath caught after learning he was like a father to Alex, I almost lost it. Loved the kidnapping line, too.

Alt-Locke - He was amazing in the scene in Jack's office. What an expressive face TOQ has.

Jack - His acceptance of Jacob's job has long been predicted, yet it didn't feel anti-climactic to me. I think it's because his character as come so far to get here. I loved the breakfast scene in the alt world. I hope that happiness doesn't get shattered by the real world.

Sawyer - Poor, poor Sawyer. What a shitty week or so he's had, huh? I am so glad he acknowledged his part in the sinking of the sub, but my heart broke for him.

Even Alt-Sayid and Alt-Hurley had their moments - Sayid's snarky "Oh of course, sure, I promise!" and Hurley's effusive "Hey, Ana Lucia!" - in the middle of all the madness. And Miles, of course, rocked the smartass stuff. I guess when you spend 6 years building strong characters it only takes a line or two.

OK, the random stuff and the questions:
  • When Desmond started the car I actually said out loud to an empty room, "He's not going to try again, is he?!"
  • Who let our Desmond out of the well? Sayid told Jack he was in there, so it wasn't him. Claire, perhaps?
  • What's going on with alt-Jack's neck? And what purpose does telling him that the airline found his father's coffin serve?
  • Has Ben regressed to his old ways? I don't think so. I think the memory of Alex's death was fresh (because of Miles), that when he saw Widmore all he wanted to do was to get revenge. Then when he saw what MIBLocke did to Richard (Richard! No!), he knew he had no chance of defeating him, at least not on his own. He's got something up his sleeve. He always does.
  • So all of the events of the sideways world are leading up to the concert - I'm assuming David's concert is the same as the museum one. Attending so far: Jack, David, David's mother (Juliet?), Miles (with Sawyer?), Desmond, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid. I wonder how (or if) Jin, Sun, Ben and Locke will get there?
So what do you think? Will MIBLocke succeed in destroying the Island (remember, the Island is at the bottom of the sea in the alt world)? And will that be the point at which "none of this will exist anymore", leaving the sideways world as the "real" one? I can totally see that happening. And I can imagine the final scene - or at least one of the final scenes - being Juliet, after meeting Sawyer at the concert, asking him out for a cup of coffee. I will bawl my eyes out, but I think I could deal with that ending.


Oh, and one more thing: Kate? the next time a sexy Scotsman gives you a little black dress and tells you he's taking you to a concert in a smokin' red Camaro, just say "OK".

5.18.2010

Three and a half hours and then it's over.

Tonight is the penultimate episode of LOST, which will be leaving our TV screens forever - FOREVER! - in less than a week. This time next week, it'll all be over. GAH!

The Internet is of course awash in all things LOST in the lead-up to "The End", so I thought I'd point out a few things that you may have missed.

New York Times interview with Lindelof and Cuse

Reflection on LOST from the stars, fans and bloggers

Dana Carvey's LOST Spinoff:



Televisionary previews tonight's episode - without spoilers:
While "Across the Sea" felt like an entirely different series, a parable slotted in right after a particularly tense and heartbreaking episode, "What They Died For" feels entirely like a penultimate episode of Lost should: it sets the stage for the final chapter (airing Sunday evening, of course) and kicks the action into high gear, signaling in no uncertain terms that the end is about to arrive.


Enjoy the show.

5.15.2010

5.12.2010

LOST Reading Recs

Alan Sepinwall liked it (the discussion in his comments really illuminated some stuff for me)

Mo Ryan hated it

And Tom and Lorenzo can't get over the "big, glowing vagina."

LOST: Episode 6.14

Across the Sea

WARNING: Heavy Exposition Work Ahead!

This one? Eh. I'll take it for what it was: Backstory and exposition. We need it, they have to give it, so here it is. I had very little emotional connection with any of the characters, but I did love the last 10 or 15 minutes.

This is what I think went down:

Mother is one in a long line of Island protectors. I think her years (decades? centuries?) of isolation on the Island have made her a little crackers, as well as a bit homicidal. She sees the opportunity for recruiting candidates for the replacement position when a pregnant woman washes ashore. So, after the babies are born, she kills her and raises the twins herself, Jacob and the one with no name, who I will continue to call MIB. She shows them a stream leading into a cave filled with a golden light, telling them that is what they need to protect, but they can never enter it. Whoever did would suffer a fate worse than death. "Mother" favors MIB, possibly because he seems to be the brighter of the two, but his intelligence/inquisitiveness/thirst for knowledge will eventually lead him away from her and Jacob.

30 years later, and MIB is thisclose to getting off the Island for good when Mother ruins everything - destroys his donkey wheel contraption and murders all of his "people". Afterward, Mother annoints Jacob as her successor, letting him drink from the cup of everlasting life. When MIB discovers what Mother has done, stabs her with his special dagger and kills her. Then Jacob in a fit of rage beats MIB and tosses him into the golden cave where I believe his soul is ripped from his body and released in the form of the Smoke Monster (pure rage?). Right? Sounds downright Shakepearean, doesn't it? Or maybe Biblical is a better description.

And if I'm looking at this screencap correctly, the light has gone out of the cave. So Jacob had the job for what? A few hours before he destroyed the source of all life or whatever that light is supposed to be? The Island seems to be the source of all life, right? Or maybe just the soul?

Anyhoo, Jacob finds MIB's dead body, which he brings back to the cave and places next to Mother's body, placing with them the small pouch with the black and white stones. Adam and Eve explained. The origin of the Others, where the statue came from? Not explained.

Does all of that sound about right?

Some random thoughts:
  • I did think it was interesting that MIB was the one who was supposed to have the job, and that he was 'special' like Hurley, with the ability to see dead people. Jacob, on the other hand, seemed more than just naive - he actually seemed a bit dim. Jacob also seemed to be the one with the violent tendencies, almost beating his brother to death those two times. MIB not only seemed more on the ball, he possessed a cynicism and world-weariness even as a boy.
  • Here are a few things that I did not like about the episode (and they were kind of big things): 1) I thought that Allison Janney, who I usually love, was miscast. Her affect was too flat; 2) I thought the dialogue was very clunky, and suffered from the fact that MIB had no name; and 3) You're telling me that these ancient people understood the electromagnetic powers of the Island/its light and figured out that if you build some kind of contraption, hook it up to the light and install a donkey wheel, that you can turn that donkey wheel and get off the Island? Maybe end up in Tunisia somewhere? Come on. I would rather have not had that answer!
  • The writers have said that they knew all along who Adam and Eve were - thus implying that they pretty much had the story mapped out in their heads from the beginning - and we would have proof of that when we found out who they were. Just the identity of the man and woman, though, wouldn't have been enough to convince me that they knew from the beginning - they could make any scenario work at this point, e.g. Rose and Bernard, or Jack and Kate - and pretend that they knew it was going to be them all along. It's the black and white stones in the pouch that Jacob places with his Mother and MIB and that Jack and Kate found with Adam and Eve way back in season 1 that leave me convinced that they really did know how things would end when they started.
Well, now that we've gotten the Jacob/MIB origin story out of the way - and I do think we needed this episode - let's get back to the people we really want to see!

5.11.2010

LOST Scraps

A few tidbits in the lead-up to tonight's episode...

New York Post Michael Emerson Interview

Hurley gets the EW with Sawyer on the cover (so did I, but I'm not complaining!)

Dharma product labels, just in time for your LOST finale party!

(all links via tvtattle)

Maybe it's really a head bandage *disguised* as a bandana?

OK, before I say anything else, I want you all to know that I am very happy that Bret Michaels seems to have recovered nicely from his cerebral hemorrage. Really, I am. He's a cheeseball with terrible taste in women, but he also seems like he's a pretty nice guy.

So anyway, I was just wondering if anyone finds it hilarious that he's wearing his bandana in that inset photo? I bet he's got his guyliner on, too.

Today's Tweets

Via @CuteOverload - Baby Otter Webcam!

Via @Movieline - Lost's Jeff Fahey on the Fate of Frank Lapidus and that Machete Trailer

Via @fuggirls - Anne Hathaway really knows how to pick 'em.

5.05.2010

LOST Reading Recs

I thought I'd point you in the direction of some great reviews/recaps of last night's LOST episode. Enjoy!

Alan Sepinwall's review

Televisionary Jace's review

Tom and Lorenzo

and

Mark Lisanti's "23 Questions About LOST Episode 614 Answered"

A big thank you to all of the above for helping me to make sense of what I just saw.

LOST: Episodes 6.13 and 6.14

THERE BE MAJOR SPOILERS HERE!

I am still reeling. It is no lie when I say that my heart was still racing when I went to bed a full hour an a half after I finished watching. Was "The Candidate" a good episode? Um, I think so. The massacre at the end has kind of obliterated, for now, the forty minutes that came before it. Oy!

Before I get to last night's episode, a few brief words about the one I neglected,

The Last Recruit

Two weeks I've had, and I still didn't manage to get a post up for this episode, and I am really sorry about that. It was a solid episode that spent a lot of time moving people around like pieces on a chessboard, and blowing up a lot of stuff. While it felt a bit too brief and/or understated at the time, after last night Sun and Jin's reunion at the end of "The Last Recruit" will probably play a little better upon rewatch. They barely had time to say hello when the guns got whipped out again.

I loved how we got to see all of the players finally come together. This show always works well when everyone plays a part, imo.

I don't really have too much else to say about this one. If you'd like to delve more deeply, please check out Alan's review and its comment section.

Now, on to last night's soul-crusher...

The Candidate

Sayid: "Because it's going to be you, Jack."

Me, after it was over: "I wish Sawyer had believed him."

My God, where do I start? Honestly, I have no idea where this thing is going anymore. Well, I never actually KNEW, but I felt I could give an educated guess. Not anymore. And I'm sort of afraid. That's not necessarily a bad thing - it probably means that the writers are doing a good job - but it's scary to be afraid!

(Warning: If you couldn't tell already, this thing is going to be all over the place because that's what the inside of my brain is like now)

With the end so near, I was preparing myself for the inevitable shocking deaths but Jiminy Cricket! FOUR people in ten minutes?! That's more shock than my heart can take, thank you very much.

Frank Lapidus - My favorite wise-crackin', honorary LOSTie. There's no way he survived getting hit by that bulkhead and drowning. Is there?

Sayid - The one thing that MIBLocke did not count on, and that was a human being's capacity for good, for choosing to do the right thing, even if he is a zombie with an infected soul. Like Hurley said, you can always come back from the Dark Side. I was pretty confident that there would be no other ending for Sayid but death, and I am glad that it was a redemptive one.

Sun and Jin - I don't know what to say. I think I'm still processing it. This is not the ending I wanted for them, not by a long shot. Their story, however, was done being told, and I suppose there is comfort in the knowledge that they died together, at last. *sniff* Doc Jensen at EW posted a short interview with Lindelof and Cuse in which they talk about some of the stuff that went down in "The Candidate". This is what they said about the Kwons' death:

“Because now you know this show is willing and capable of killing anyone,” says Damon Lindelof...Why was it so important for Lost to prove that it can be downright homicidal during its last season? To establish once and for all that the Locke-ness Monster is the true villain of season 6 and quite possibly all of Lost. “There is no ambiguity,” says Cuse. “He is evil and he has to be stopped.”

Point well-made.

I'm just going to put everything else into a bullet point list because I just can't be prosy right now.
  • I don't think Widmore put the C4 on the plane. I think it was Richard, Ben and Miles - isn't that what they went to do? Get explosives from Dharmaville and rig the plane to blow? No? Whoever put it there, MIBLocke already knew it was on board - why else would he have taken the dead guy's watch before he climbed into the plane?
  • Jack was 100% correct about MIBLocke's intention with regard to the bomb. If they let the clock run out, the bomb would not have gone off (just like the dynamite in the Black Rock). MIBLocke was counting on Sawyer doing exactly what he did, including his betrayal.
  • I enjoyed all of the alt-timeline, watching the veil between the sideways world and the real world slip away a bit more as Jack starts making connections between Oceanic 815 people (Bernard!) and more of the real world begins to seep into their subconscious minds ("I wish you'd believed me", "Push the button", "What happened, happened", Catch a Falling Star playing on the music box). Great shot of Jack and Claire in the music box mirror, btw. Terry O'Quinn was amazing in the final scene between him and Jack in the hospital hallway.
  • That final scene on the beach killed me. Killed me! To see them all so devastated, to hear Hurley sobbing and to see the pain in Jack's face...Jesus, show!
I need to wrap this up because, in my real world, I'm supposed to be working. Like I can concentrate now.

What did you think?