1.615.713.2326
Tonight while you’re watching the LOST season finale (or before… or after), call the above number and leave a voice-mail about your thoughts. Then sometime tomorrow I’ll string them together chronologically and release it as a podcast.
ENJOY.
UPDATE I’m going to be leaving the line up through Thursday if you want to call and give your thoughts on the finale and what your predictions are for season six, then I’ll post a second podcast before the weekend. In the meantime, enjoy the calls AK, myself, and a few others made over the course of the two hours. [Spoilers, obviously]
LISTEN HERE
(Runs about 8 minutes.)
Since I’m terrible at verbalizing my thoughts, I didn’t bother to call and stammer through my reactions and theories. Once I am put on the spot, I usually forget a few things and ramble. I’m better at rambling a little more coherently with the written word, so here’s me taking a shot at it.
In a word: WOW.
Before launching into my analysis, a couple observations. First, what is with the Lost/Deadwood connection? Do they share a casting director or something? So far I have seen (going by their Deadwood character names): Calamity Jane, E.B. Farnum, Trixie, Joanie Stubbs and Silas. There’s probably a couple others that slipped by, but those are the ones I noticed.
I’ve also determined that there are few things more unsettling to watch than a half-dead Juliet pounding a thermonuclear weapon with a rock. There’s no way that can’t end terribly.
For the first time ever with a Lost finale, I don’t think I’ve ever been more in a tailspin about what will happen next. Every previous finale has succeeded in shocking me, but it usually gives a hint as to where they will go with the next season. Lindelof and Cuse said in their podcast that they liken the season five finale to that of season one where it cuts short of revealing something huge, thus pissing everyone off (and I can certainly see that). Yet I at least knew with previous finales that most of the characters were still intact and going to be able to recognize each other when we reconvened next season. The season 4 finale would have been an open-ended clusterfuck if it wasn’t for that final scene with Jack and Ben in the funeral parlor where Ben basically spelled out exactly what they had to do next, thus setting up season 5 perfectly. Granted, no one knew time travel would be involved, but we knew the survivors off the island had to go back to the island to make things right.
As soon as Faraday hatched the H-bomb plan with Jack and Kate two episodes ago, I had an overwhelming sense of dread that the finale would simply end with the blast, which I was right about. And like a normal person, I’ll actually have to wait 8 months with everyone else, as opposed to the marathon DVD-watching I did last summer to rush through every season without the hassle of waiting for cliffhangers to be tied up.
When Jacob said “they’re coming” before being kicked into a fire (awesome!), I can’t help but think he was referring to everyone in 1977 punching a hole through the time-space continuum and landing back in the present. If the blast did what it was supposed to, Jacob would have never been killed, which is what might be the frightening prospect for his enemy. It’s obvious that Jacob wanted Oceanic 815 to come to the island, and perhaps he enlisted their help to circumvent this event or put the pawns in place to fight back. It’s strange that Jacob and his enemy seem to have rules about killing each other, much like Ben and Charles. The episode where Charles told Locke that a war was coming seems to resonate with these characters, and perhaps is an inherited conflict.
I’ve been reading a lot of stuff that brings up the fact that this season really seems to be driving home the idea of free will vs. destiny. Much like the science vs. faith that was prevalent in prior seasons. Faraday also presents the conflict in scientific terms of being constants vs. variables. The beginning of the episode shows Jacob and his enemy seemingly personify that very conflict as they observe the arrival of the Black Rock. Jacob’s enemy seems determined that everything is destined to end the same in destruction. Jacob believes everything comes to an end, but everything BEFORE THAT is progress. So yes, Jacob believes there is free will, and the results of humans exercising it is considered progress.
This very argument is extremely relevant to the rest of the episode. In 1977, the bomb could very well be part of destiny, where they all kill themselves and it was part of the island’s history all along. Like Miles pointed out, they could have been the ones that caused “the incident,” as opposed to their notion that they’re preventing it. But according to Jacob and the idea of free will, the bomb was progress and not all in vain. Faraday’s interpretation was that they’re the variables and time is a constant, so they can do whatever the hell they want to alter history.
The destruction of the Swan raises a lot of questions, though. Without the Swan station, Desmond will crash on the island and never have a place to take shelter. He will most likely never be saved either (unless he joins the Others???). The poor guy never had a say in the whole matter, and he’s probably getting the worst deal out of the whole thing. Also, it would seem that Jacob is the one bringing all this trouble to the island through whatever means possible. Even without the Swan, there’s no getting around the fact that the pilot of Oceanic 815 was way off course anyway and will pass over the island regardless. If Jacob wants them on the island, I’d think he’d find an alternate method.
The beauty of all this is that I know the writers have all the answers and already know what’s in store for us, and it will be highly enjoyable. Aside from their finales, they’re also renowned for opening each season with some mind-blowing sequences, and I have a feeling that nothing’s off limits as to what to expect in the season 6 opener. We know that all of our main characters were not killed in the nuclear blast (maybe in the John Locke sense), but we simply don’t know what happens to all of them at the split second the bomb was detonated. I can’t even begin to guess.
Posted on May 15th, 2009 at 11:39 pmNow that I’ve had a few days to mull it over, a few thoughts:
1) Season 5 was the best end-to-end season to date. One was great but unfocused and with a lousy finale. Two was a mess but with a good finale. Three was up and down, but with THE SINGLE GREATEST FINALE IN TELEVISION HISTORY. Four was solid throughout. Five was awesome with a finale that only disappointed in its abruptness.
2) I see season six starting with either a) a complete reboot, much like the only episode of Star Trek TNG I’ve ever seen — the one where they’re trapped in a wormhole and keep getting reset every commercial break, slowly finding things out along the way. I could see something similar happening where everything is reset, but their memories have trace elements remaining; b) the explosion zapped our heroes back to the present, where god knows what will happen; c) Basically everyone is dead. Season six is just a rebroadcast of season six from Friends
3) If Locke is in-fact dead and the Locke we’ve been following is not Locke at all, then: bummer. That means Locke’s life and mission was an absolute waste. I don’t like this as a fan of the character, but I find this fascinating as a fan of television. Could a character this popular really have been killed off in such a pitiful fashion? And if so, how does that affect how we view the current version of himself?
4) That cold-open with the guy in black talking with Jacob was kind of the tits, no? Unfortunately, I don’t know how I feel about the focus of the show shifting from Locke to this character that is complete unfamiliar. It’s similar as Desmond’s more prominent position in the series at the end of season two, but at least at that time we had already gotten to know “Brother”-man.
5) Seriously, what am I going to do for the next eight months?
Posted on May 18th, 2009 at 3:43 pmHa, I typed a good chunk of text and your page automatically “refreshed” or flickered or something and wiped it all out. So here’s another go…
To respond to your points:
1) I’m thinking I loved season 3 most of all. The finale was an orgasmic icing on the proverbial cake, too. Granted, it had a lot going on and had a lot of different characters to focus on, but it was kind of the last hurrah of the survivors working in unity against a common enemy (the Others, at the time). I kinda miss the days of when we didn’t know about the outside world and were still exploring the island through the characters’ eyes. And I personally didn’t find the Nikki/Paolo episode as offensive as others did. I thought it was cool that they could set aside a whole episode for an unrelated side story with a Hitchcock-ian twist. The cold open with the episode of Expose initially had me so confused, it made me wonder if my DVD was defective. When season 4 rolled around, the pace took off in a sprint (mainly due to the writers’ strike) and was much much darker in tone. Season 5 was wonderful, yet I think it took a few episodes in the beginning to really get off the ground. It took some convincing to get me to buy into the idea of time travel being a good direction for the show. But after seeing the inner-workings of the Dharma Initiative and seeing our fish-out-of-water castaways totally fuck with and/or fix history (the handing over of Ben to the Others was a fantastic moment), I totally dug it. The finale definitely puts the ball in the writers’ court and puts a lot of pressure on them to deliver something amazing next season (which I’m sure they will).
2) I just don’t get where season 6 can go, so your theories are as good as anyone else’s. Your theory of the continuous resetting of time is interesting, because Cuse/Lindelof answered a question in their podcast about the passing of the compass between Locke and Richard Alpert and how, after a certain amount of looping, it will disintegrate into nothing as it wore down — something that would affect the loop in a big way once it was gone. The person who asked the question deduced that much at least, and Cuse/Lindelof more or less agreed and acknowledged that the idea of the compass being passed around endlessly was very intentional on their part. Also in the podcast, they mentioned that every finale they do is basically an early beginning of the next season (introducing crucial characters and initiating new problems) while winding down the current one. Meanwhile, their season openers finish off the last season and continue with the new stuff they introduced in the previous finale. I think a reboot would be cool for the sheer sake of getting the WHOLE original cast back for the final act. I don’t think any of them are doing anything important right now anyway.
3) I’m really bummed about losing Locke, too. When they dumped his corpse out of the crate, I had a “NOOOOO!!!” moment. Locke is so essential to the show, I’d be extremely surprised if this is truly his send-off. I don’t want to spend season 6 hating him (or at least the man inhabiting his body). He didn’t die the heroic death he deserved to die.
4) I agree that the cold open was kind of the tits. Part of me was frustrated that they just introduced a new character at the last minute and he appears to be an extremely formidable force, killing Jacob right after we finally got to meet him. It seems like this would have been a conflict best stretched out over a few episodes, yet it does tie into what I mentioned before about how Cuse/Lindelof treat season finales. But it was refreshing to get a finale we didn’t expect, or at least in the present tense storyline. I think we all knew the hydrogen bomb thing was definitely gonna happen once Faraday pitched the idea a couple episodes prior. I’m wondering if this new character will turn out to be someone/something that has already been prevalent throughout the show? It’s pretty notable that he wasn’t given a name. I’ve read many theories that he’s essentially the smoke monster. This theory holds water in the “Dead is Dead” episode where Ben got “judged.” Fake-Locke conveniently disappeared for the exact amount of time Ben spent in the chamber facing his judgment with his daughter, who convinced him not to kill who he thought was Locke. Hmm… Also, if the loophole that Jacob’s enemy was trying to find was inhabiting Locke’s body, you’d have to trace back quite a ways and figure this has been in the making for quite some time. Eloise Hawking could potentially be a big part of this and be a puppet master in this whole ordeal, seeing as how she arranged everything in the second plane crash for Locke to be “resurrected.” There’s probably some shady dealings between her and Jacob’s enemy, as they both seem to be strong proponents of hopeless destiny.
5) I don’t know either! I personally think I’m going to rent all the seasons out again and re-watch them. It would be interesting to watch it knowing everything I know now and spotting stuff they dropped in as hints before certain events happened.
Posted on May 18th, 2009 at 9:39 pm