LOST: Beginning of the End
I kid, I kid!
I’ve been meaning to write this post since last week. Perhaps I’ve been putting it off because my denial over the upcoming end of the best show on TV is pretty deep at this point.
That being said, some thoughts (if you haven’t seen the season premiere, this has spoilers for it):
- First off, if you’re not reading Jeff Jensen’s weekly recaps, you are doing yourself a grave disservice. I don’t know what he knows about anything else, but when it comes to LOST, he’s my own personal Einstein.
- Same goes for Jorge Garcia’s blog. Hurley is one of my favorites, and the actor who portrays him is equally awesome. He doesn’t actually discuss LOST that much, but it’s still a worthy read.
- I like to think that (some missteps aside) (Paolo and Nicki anyone?) the writers don’t do anything without a good reason. Which is the only thing I can think of to explain why, after the incredible finale last year when Juliet got sucked into the hatch and we all cried (or blubbered for about half an hour after the show ended, if you’re a loser like me), they would bother bringing her along back to 2007 with the other Lostaways only to die all over again. She had a perfect death scene, dare I say epic!
So, the only thing I can think of is that gibberish Juliet babbled at Sawyer (”lets get coffee sometime, we could go Dutch”) before finally kicking it will come back into play. THEORY ALERT! Maybe they re-meet in the alternate universe she created by setting off the bomb, and fall in love all over again. Personally, while I know many people are tickled by this theory, I think it’s a bunch of bullcrap. Because….
- If the alternate reality ends up being the final story (ie, that everyone on the island dies or something and ends up living the alternate life), I will basically firebomb ABC. As we’ve learned in just the first episode, there are many things that are quite different about this reality. Frankly, if we’re going by a “butterfly effect” thing here, where this alternate universe where the plane never crashed isn’t quite the same (notable differences include: Sayid being from Iran (?), Shannon not being on the plane, Desmond being on the plane, Charlie’s suicide attempt, Hurley being “lucky”, Sun (maybe) not speaking English), that means that these aren’t the characters we’ve invested years in rooting for. I don’t care about them. It was nice to see Boone again (mainly because he is smoking hot), but I could honestly give a crap–in my eyes, Boone died back in season one. And will the alternate reality give us updates on Libby, Mr. Eko, and Ana Lucia–or are we just supposed to forget about them?
- The Temple is totally unnecessary. Oh, I see, there obviously wasn’t enough freaky shit going on, we need to add an entire new layer and an entire new slew of “Others” into the mix. And oh, just to be original, we will have them dress funny and act mysterious and refuse to answer questions even though Jack and the gang are finally actually asking questions after five seasons of just accepting things at face value. Totally unnecessary.
- Dead!Juliet couldn’t have elaborated to Miles a little more? He seemed to have full convos with the dead in the past, yet all she gave him was “It worked”? It seems that his talent is only as limited as the writers need it to be for script purposes.
Don’t worry, there were some things I loved:
- Fake Locke (aka The Man in Black) revealed as Smokey. Phenomenal.
- Explanation of the ash that we’ve previously seen surrounding Jacob’s cabin: it acts as some sort of shield against Smokey. So was the smoke monster trapped inside the cabin, or did Jacob really “live” there and use it to keep him out? We assume Jacob knows about the ash, because he told Bram about its use (leaving out the fact that Smokey can sumo you out of your little protective ash circle with a boulder and impale you on a handy spike, RIP Bram)…what is it? How does it play into Smokey’s mechanics?
- Solid reveal that Hurley, like Miles, really can talk to the dead. He also does Miles better by showing he can see them as well. So, now we know that Charlie visiting him in the mental institution after he left the island was for real, along with, perhaps, some of his other hallucinations over the years. But it of course leads to more questions—why can’t he see everyone? Lots of people have died on the island…why doesn’t he see everyone?
Other questions:
- Is Claire still pregnant in the alternate reality?
- Is Sayid really alive or is he now a new Fake Locke? We know that Fake Locke was really Smokey the whole time, and Locke’s corpse remained in the coffin, so posession of a dead body doesn’t seem to be his MO. Did the dirty water just have a delayed reaction? Is he Jacob reincarnated?
- Does Rose still have cancer in alternate reality? Because that would be a BUMMER.
- Speaking of Rose, did her and Bernard also shift out of 1977 and into 2007 with the others when the bomb went off? If so, where are they? I’ll bet they are going to be pissed that Jack ruined their “retirement” without asking them. What a douche he can be.
- Now that they are in the same year, when will Jin and Sun be reuinited?? For christ’s sake, I sat through all of season 5 with them apart, let’s have something good happen, okay?
- Was Richard a slave on Black Rock?
Questions from Over the Years that I Want Answered Before We Wrap this Thing Up:
- What’s the deal with the “virus” and the “quarantine” and all those numbers-marked injections Desmond used to take?
- How does Smokey show you images from your life? What’s that clicking sound he makes? Can he only “appear” as dead people?
- What was with the polar bear experiments?
- Did they ever explain why The Others kidnapped the children? What were the “tests” they did on Walt?
- Speaking of Walt, what was the deal with him projecting himself into spots on the island? And the creepy talking backwards business?
- Who really killed Sayid’s wife? Who were the men Ben had him assassinating?
- What was with the “sickness” that overcame people on the freighter and caused them to go crazy?
For more nagging questions, please view this epic video. This stuff will make your head spin after a while so I’ve got to end it here. Share your own LOST thoughts in the comments, especially after tonight’s episode!
