My post about the latest episode of Lost is up. Here is a sample: click it for the rest.
For me the problem with the last episode was not that Richard did not have lots of mythology to show us, but that a lot of the story was uneconomical, and so slack on conflict — we knew so much of it already, and it was more powerful hinted at, and much covered ground we had already seen such as the attempt by the Man in Black on Jacob using a surrogate, or the theory that the island is Hell. My problem here is similar. I appreciate that the final season is the time to bring everything back, to appreciate the return of people and places. But so many Lost episodes this season have relied on that final punch of BAM — Widmore’s Back! Claire’s Back! Jin’s Back in the Alt U! plus all the little “everyone is someone” gags — that when Desmond is back! some of the necessary force is lost. Same with the way everyone in the ALt U is ending up at the hospital with Jack. The surprises need variety — the 5th time the magician does the same card trick I stop being so interested.
With seven broadcasts left, and so much to do, including a huge number of returning cast members coming back for multiple episodes if the reports are to be believed, it is hard to see how this wraps up in any kind of a satisfying way. Right now I am doing the same thing I did during BSG: saying to myself, well that was not the best episode, but that must mean the remaining ones will be unbelievably packed with awesome. We all know how that ended, but you never know. Part of the fun is seeing how the writers are going to get themselves out of what appears to us to be a corner. It is just like that magician again.
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4 comments:
i liked the richard episode much more than my fellow lost-watchers. i liked the specificity of mood, and the depth of the characterization. it also did not have many of the haphazard or lazy plotting that seem to plague this season.
this episode, while moving some plot points forward, seemed unfocused & did not bring further insight into any of the characters involved. the hit on the head, language lost thing was just awful -maybe even worse than the principal blackmail fail. i have liked sun & jin episodes quite a bit in the past, but this one just seemed like the same old story told in a slightly different way.
I thought is was an average episode. For me, Desmond Humme could not come fast enough.
So I watch the episodes on Tuesday and then again with my girlfriend on the weekend. On the second viewing, I watch the show as if Locke is just Locke and I find it quite compelling. Obviously, the writers want you to interpret this to a degree. For example, in this episode he refers to Jin as one of "his people", a phrase John Locke often used. It's a more bleak outcome, Locke's soul being turned to the dark side rather than an entity wearing his face.
Geoff's point about the ending is interesting. If they told Jacob to shove off,It would be the definitive statement of free will over destiny. As pointed out b4, how bad could it be if MIB gets loose? There's already plenty of evil in the world. Although Widmore's phrasing hinted that MIB might alter reality if let loose.
Crazy theory time: The flash sideways will be offered up to the candidates as a way off the island. One will refuse and become Jacob's successor.
I'm still with Neil's theory, though it's starting to look to me like the flash-sideways won't be the epilogue, but where (at least some of) the climax happens. I can see people somehow getting their memories of the Island back at some point.
That was me who said it should end with a rejection of both Jacob and Smokey! Though recent episodes make me think it won't - even if he doesn't turn out to be simply good (which he surely can't), it's looking like they're going to have to pick a side, and it will be Jacob's. Pity.
I'm actually wondering whether Jacob's successor, and it looks like there WILL be one, is going to maybe be the only person across the two timelines who retains knowledge of both.
And if that's the case, it could only be Hurley - he's been weirdly aloof when we've seen him in the flashsideways universe, and is the only one of the Candidates who hasn't had his own episode. Possibly because he's some sort of demigod-ish figure? (And think about the scene where he helps Locke get a job - didn't it seem like something Jacob would do and/or say to steer someone in a particular direction? And delivered in much the same way that Jacob might deliver it?)
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