'Lost' Goes Spiritual in 'The End'

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the last ever fresh episode of Lost.*

Live together, die alone.

'Wired's' Got Lots of Intriguing 'Lost' Coverage

Wired Magazine has a large package of stories/interviews about Lost, including an interview with the show's mastermind showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, a short article on the show's continuity expert and a piece on various Easter eggs that either wound up having significance or were red herrings (that drawing by the young John Locke, of what looks like a Smoke Monster -- see below -- freaked me out).

Below are a few quotes of relevance from the Lindelof/Cuse interview in Wired:

Question about the sideways flashes: "You now have two timelines: life after the hydrogen bomb is detonated and life as if the plane had never crashed. Will season six end up making sense of how these two timelines fit together."

Lindelof responded:

"In previous seasons it was very clear that this happened before, and this happened after. Now you watch and you go, 'I don't know when this happened, because things are different.' It's not just what would have happened if the plane landed; now Jack has a son and there are these changes.

 The audience is saying, 'I hope they explain the relationship between these two stories,' and that, to us, is the only answer we owe. Because at this point, the characters are not aware that there's any timeline other than the one they are in. But if they were to become aware of the parallel worlds, what might they do about it? That becomes a fundamental question."

When asked whether the show will ultimately be shown to be a "man of faith versus man of science" story, Lindelof and Cuse have a variety of answers.

Lindelof said:

 "That’s right. It’s order versus chaos, which is what it always was. But first it had to start as science versus faith, because Jack is a doctor and Locke is a guy who got up from his wheelchair and walked. Now the question has been boiled down to its essential root—is there a God or is there nothingness?"

Another question was if there are "questions for which any possible answer is not as interesting as the question would be before you knew the answer." To this, Cuse said:

"These heady questions are ultimately unanswerable, and we know the audience is hoping that those things are going to be answered. The great mysteries of life fundamentally can’t be addressed. We just have to tell a good story and let the chips fall where they may. We don’t know whether the resolution between the two timelines is going to make people say, 'Oh, that’s cool' or 'Oh, f--- those guys, they belly-flopped at the end.' But the fact that we’re nervous about it and that we’re actually attempting it—that is what we had to do. We had to try to make the dive."

Don't know if this bodes well or ill for the prospects of some of my most pressing Lost-related questions will be answered by the time Lost airs its last scene.

Image credit: Wired Magazine and ABC (for the Locke drawing).

'Lost's' 'Happily Ever After' is Just What I've Been Waiting For

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Lost.*

This

is why

I love Lost.

We went back to the stadium where Jack and Desmond initially met eons ago, in the “Man of Science, Man of Faith” episode.

We saw Daniel Faraday Widmore, wearing the same kind of skinny black tie, that stringy hair and carrying a notebook.

There was Penny with her radiant smile.

Oh, and Eloise was there too and she was married to Charles Widmore.

There was a flash of Charlie’s hand, as he was drowning in the Looking Glass station, with, “Not Pennys Boat” written in pen. His band Drive Shaft's hit song.

Charles Widmore shared that super-expensive 60-year-old scotch with Desmond, the one he wouldn’t pour for Desmond back in the “Flashes Before Your Eyes” episode when Desmond asked Widmore for permission to marry his daughter Penny and Widmore told Desmond he wasn't worth it. But, in the life of a sideways-flashing Desmond, Widmore said, as he gave Desmond the liquor, “Nothing’s too good for you.”

And there was a white rabbit.

This is what I’ve been hoping this final season would be like. Just like this. Things tying back around to earlier Lost threads. Gave me the warm and fuzzies.

Loved hearing sideways-flashing Charlie talking about life's choices and truth and what's real, and Desmond responding, “There’s always a choice, brutha.”

Eloise, seemingly clued-in to all this alternate universe/sideways-flashing stuff, telling sideways-flashing Desmond, who was drawn to Penny and didn't fully understand why, to stop looking for her. “It is, in fact, a violation," she said. ". . . You have the perfect life. On top of it, you’ve managed to attain the thing you wanted more than anything, my husband’s approval.”

Her musician son Daniel, who was suffering from the same sense of déjà vu as Desmond, didn’t understand why he’d written a complex equation into a black notebook, given that he’s "just" a musician. “What if this wasn’t supposed to be our life?” he asked Desmond, a twinkle in his eyes. “What if we had some other life and for some reason, we changed things? . . . I don’t want to set off a nuclear bomb, Mr. Hume, but I think I already did.”

I was loving all of this was so much that I was really disappointed to have Desmond wake up from the electromagnetic sideways-flashing experience and be back on the island with crooked-glassed Zoe, with more gun-toting people and watching “claimed” Sayid ask Desmond to come with him.

I felt thoroughly satisfied after watching “Happily Ever After,” particularly in the notion it advanced: No matter what, people who are meant to be together are going to find one another one way or another.

What did you think of "Happily Ever After?"

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost:' 'The Package' . . . Unwraps Yet More Questions

*Warning, spoilers from the recent episode of Lost ahead.*

Waaaaiiittt a minute! Hold on just one second . . .

Sun is pregnant in her sideways-flash? With Jin’s baby or Jae Lee’s, the guy who taught her English? (Or did she not know English in her sideways-flash and had never met Jae Lee in the sideways universe? Wasn't clear on her linguistic abilities in the sideways-flash.) Why weren’t Sun and Jin married and what does their being married have to do with Oceanic not crashing? Why was Martin Keamy working for Sun’s father and not Widmore in the sideways-flash? What’s up with Mikhail (previously known as Patchy, a Dharma-ite) escorting Sun to the bank, only to be, ironically, blinded in one eye by Jin, after Mikhail shot Sun in the stomach?

Questions, questions . . . questions to which I fear we’ll never get satisfactory answers in the handful of episodes remaining, especially when new characters (Zoe with the crooked specs) are introduced at this late date.

I’m getting a bit weary from these massive shifts in momentum. First few seasons, here’s how it went: Get off the island. Get off the island! Get OFF the island!! (And stay away from the smoke, and that mean Ben guy.)

Then, it changed: Hey we’ve got to go BACK to the island to save our friends. We’ve got to go back Kate! We’ve got to go BACK! We’ve got to get a specific group of people (the candidates? the people whom Ben & Locke were collecting) to go back to the island TOGETHER. Remember the oldie but goodie: "Live together, die alone?"

Now that they’re all on the island(s), the mantra has become: We’ve got to get off the island! Oh, and we’ve got to get a certain group of people together in order to do this, however, if we do that, hell will be unleashed upon the earth, so, maybe we shouldn't . . . This time, the Man in Black is the people collector, trying to persuade the remaining candidates to replace Jacob to accompany him off the island.

On this subject, I found intriguing the Man in Black/Locke's comment to Claire about needing Kate to persuade the others to leave the island, even though Kate's no longer a candidate(?): “Once she does, whatever happens, happens.” (Another oldie but a goodie.)

Near the end of "The Package," it struck me that Jack -- after all he’s been through and all his mistakes -- had the chutzpah to act as though he’s the one to be trusted, to lead the group. He once led them some of them off the island. Then he led them back on. Now he seems to be leaning toward going to the Hydra island, where the plane is, and, perhaps, stopping the Man in Black/Locke. (Doesn't Jack look like he's blessing Sun in the above ABC photo? Hmm.)

Of all the scenes in "The Package," the one with Jin looking longingly at the digital photos of his daughter, whom he’d never seen, made me tear up. So while I was feeling great sympathy for Jin, Widmore dropped this nugget into the mix: “If that, thing, masquerading as John Locke ever got off this island, your wife, your daughter, my daughter, everyone we know and love would simply cease to be. I came here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“How?” Jin asked.

“Come with me,” Widmore said. “I think it’s time for you to see The Package.”

“What 'package'?”

“It’s not a what, it’s a who.”

Could he be speaking about Desmond? Ack! I allowed myself fall into the trap of trying to figure out what’s happening and trying to make it make sense, even though I vowed I wouldn’t do this. Damn, my head hurts now.

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost's' 'Dr. Linus' Made Me Smile (Except for the End)

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Lost.*

For several weeks now, I’ve felt let down and disgruntled by the time I reached the end of each new installment of Lost. (If you've been following along here on the blog, you know why.) But I was thrilled that I did not feel that way after watching the “Dr. Linus” episode and witnessed the redemption of Ben Linus in BOTH of his realities, in his uncrashed life and in his post-crash/post-Jughead life. Such dualities haven’t occurred for the other characters whose sideways-flashes we’ve seen.

After Locke – who’s dead and whose body has been claimed by the Man in Black/Smoky -- my favorite character on Lost was Ben Linus because he was so deliciously evil and unpredictable, yet he also had a vulnerable, insecure underbelly which I found intriguing. So it was a shock to see him, in this final season, rendered largely impotent, a bug-eyed spectator as post-crashed/Man in Black/Smoky Locke assumed control over the island after conning Ben into killing Jacob. Even Lapidus seemed to have more authority than Ben and that was depressing.

The full depth of Ben’s feeling of betrayal hadn’t been explored until this latest episode where he confessed to Jacob’s “bodyguard” – a character about whom I could care less about -- that he’d sacrificed and given everything he had to the island because he had faith in Jacob and that he was doing what he had to do to protect the island. Ben had even allowed the evil Widmore freighter guy to shoot to death Ben’s daughter in front of him because he thought that’s what Jacob would have wanted, for Ben to remain alive to take care of the island even as he had to sacrifice his child to do so. (My guess is that, before he killed Jacob, Ben would’ve justified his actions by quoting scripture about sacrificing a child for God.)

But to see Ben, tearful, exposed and utterly defeated -- like the story he told his history class about Napoleon in exile on the island who might as well have been dead because he was powerless -- because he believed he’d dedicated his life and allowed his daughter to be killed for nothing, was a revelation. It humanized the little nut job, in a good way.

Ben’s sideways-flashing high school history teacher did what the post-crash/post-Jughead Ben could not: Do right by Alex and make sure that she got what she needed to succeed in life, or at least get into Yale. Though still deceptively manipulative in his sweater vest -- as evidenced by the way he persuaded the biology teacher to hack into the school nurse’s e-mail account – this version of Ben had a heart that superceded his ambitions.

The uncrashed Ben was even taking care of his father, making him meals and changing his oxygen tank; by contrast, the post-crash Ben killed his father and donned a gas mask to protect himself from the poison gas he had gotten someone else to release across the Dharma compound in order to stage a coup and put himself in charge. (Get the irony, killed by poison gas in one scenario, made more comfortable with oxygen in the other.) The uncrashed Ben was still Ben, but hadn’t been twisted by the island, hadn't been brought to the Temple when he was mortally wounded as a child after Sayid shot him in order to be "saved," something that likely darkened Ben's heart.

So does this mean that the island – and the presence of the Man in Black/Smoky – twists people, takes the darker parts of themselves that already exist and amplifies them by forcing people to choose between the common good and a selfish good? Do you have to have had contact with Smoky, like child Ben did, in order for this to happen? Who knows?

I haven’t yet read up on the other blogs to see other folks’ reactions to “Dr. Linus,” but I’ll venture to guess that the reactions to the redemption of Ben are mixed. In my own house, my spouse was unimpressed. “I don’t like Redeemed Ben and Bad Sayid,” he grumbled. I’m not a fan of Bad Sayid either – though I’m not totally convinced he’s bad, I HATED Dogen and his weasel sidekick – but I was a fan of last night’s Ben-centric episode.
 
Do you think Ben will remain redeemed for the rest of the series or will Evil Ben rear his scheming head again? Did you roll your eyes at the poorly executed scene with the sub rising out of the ocean and spying on our Losties with Charles Widmore inside of it like I did?

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost Untangled:' The Substitute

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Lost*



Lots of Lost fans are busy around them there internets saying that they're pleased with the most recent Locke-centric episode, "The Substitute." I'm not one of them.

I know I'm supposed to be embracing this whole sideways flash novelty -- otherwise known as the parallel reality comparing the uncrashed Losties' lives against the post-crash/post-Jughead Losties' existence on the island. I completely embraced the flashbacks in the early days, the revolutionary flashforwards introduced in the season three finale to awesome effect. I was even willing to suspend the plaguing feeling I got when I worked really hard to follow along with the time travel business which occurred last season. I've loved wading through the literary, Biblical and pop culture allusions and the various clues. I've paused the show to examine what was on screen, like the map on the Hatch's blast door that had pinned down Locke in the season two episode "Lockdown."

But the sideways flashes conflict with everything we've come to learn about the backstories of the Losties.

While I watched "The Substitute" with my spouse, another Lost fan, and saw that Locke got fired for deceiving his boss about his Australian walkabout (pretended he went on a business trip paid for by the company), that Locke was with and getting married to Helen and that he was considering inviting his "father" to their wedding, we were thunderstruck. Did none of the previous episodes we'd watched over the years have any meaning? Were they all for naught?

I dug out DVDs of previous seasons to confirm how wildly divergent these sideways flashes were from the history of Locke we'd been presented. Previous episodes showed that Locke told his obnoxious boss that he'd saved up vacation days and was going on the walkabout, about which his pinheaded boss mercilessly harassed him. The love of his life, Helen, had left him, even when he was down on his knees offering up a lifetime of wedded bliss, because of his obsession with his con man of a father. His father pushed him out of a high-rise window rendering him paralyzed when John threatened to expose him as a con artist. Just before leaving for Australia, John had found a woman named "Helen" on one of those pay-per-chat phone lines (typically used for, well, you know), had been regularly speaking with her for eight months, and asked her to accompany him on the walkabout, only to have her tell him that she couldn't go out with a customer.

Events in people's lives would obviously have changed if Oceanic 815 hadn't crashed on the island and if the Dharma Initiative was halted in the 1970s following the detonation of Jughead. But, seriously, how would all of these other things have changed and how, in the short time that's left until the series finale, can writers possibly make all of this seem logical, logical in the world of Lost, that is?

The Numbers -- which we now know correlate with numbers Jacob assigned to possible "candidates" to replace him to be protectors of the island (very cool twist) -- were always bad luck for Hurley. He thought they were cursed. He thought he was cursed. People around him got hurt and he attributed that to the Numbers and his bad luck. Look at poor Tricia Tanaka. How is it possible that by preventing the Oceanic crash on the island and changing the island's history, that, somehow, Hurley would be a successful businessman? That he'd be a different person?

I was on board with the let's-see-how-this-alternate-reality-of-uncrashed-Losties plays out. Found it interesting, seeing if their lives would've been better (or worse) if their plane had safely landed in LA. But having fundamental bedrock stories about these characters' backstories become so radically transformed, I just can't wrap my head around it. After years of carefully constructing these characters, to toss out everything we've known about them as if the past never happened -- at least not as we've been told that events had occurred -- makes me wonder if the rest of the future episodes are going to tick me off in the way "The Substitute" did.

But it wasn't all bad. I DID like, totally bought and was thoroughly entertained by the scene with Ben Linus as a history teacher complaining that his colleagues had left an empty coffee pot and dirty coffee filter in the coffee maker in the teachers' lounge. It made sense because his father would've never gone to the island had Jughead gone off and therefore, Ben would've lived an entirely differently life, as opposed to the Hurley's suddenly lucky storyline.

Are the writers going to try to create some forced storyline about Locke's dad that, because the island blew up, he somehow never became a con man, therefore he never conned Sawyer's mom so Sawyer's dad never killed her and then himself, that he never conned Locke out of a kidney and later pushed him out of a window rendering him paralyzed? So Locke got paralyzed in some other way?

I'm with Jorge Garcia, who plays Hurley, who, when informed about these new sideways flashes, told USA Today, "I was like, 'What?' It's a lot to swallow.'" And feel similarly to a Boston Globe TV critic who said, "I'm enjoying this season, but only when I'm able to let go of that gnawing, and very human, hunger for logic and sense."

I really hope I'm wrong. I hope it's all going to work out in the end. Guess that depends on whether I'm a fan with faith or a fan who's become jaded because she fears she's being taken down a rabbit hole.