Well, here we are on the verge of the finale, and its all coming to an end. I haven’t written about the last few episodes because they are so linear in nature, they are just finishing off the story without too much cryptic writings.
I was a little miffed over ‘Across The Sea’, the hole of light was a little too much, I could almost hear George Lucas thanking the writers for topping the whole Midichlorian business. However, in the context of the story, it is possible that they referred to it, in that day and time as the light that is in all of us whereas the modern day Dharma folks referred to it as exotic matter. For me, that was the biggest part to swallow and it went down dairly easily.

What I did have a more persistent problem with is the fact that the writers only have a few hours of story time left, with a little bit of story to tell and a whole lot of mysteries to answer. Island pregnancies, psychics dead daughter coming to life, Ben and Widmore unable to kill each other, Christian appearing off island, the whole culty religious thing we saw with the Others over the death of Picket’s wife, and the mark on Juliets back. Why did The Others have to disguise themselves as a primitive tribe, what was special about Walt, what was the deal with the dead birds? The list can go on and on, but I’m sure we will not see many answers to these.
In the last couple of episodes, we have been given some answers, but at times the answers have been incomplete, or lead to more questions. Is Smokey his brother or not? The body still exists, so he wasn’t consumed by the monster, was their mother an instance of smokie? How else does she fill in the well and raze the village to the ground. Who installed the donkey wheel? We almost got that answer, but dearest mummy botched that one for them.

In the last few hours of the show, it seems a bad idea to start teasing with the answers. It’s like kids will be home in 20 minutes, time to quit the foreplay and just get on with it.

I’m sure a good portion of these answers will be told, either specifically, or in a general way. I just finished reading The Third Policeman and without wanting to spoil it for anyone, regarding the book, the author wrote that when the story is taken out of the context of reality (i.e. its all a dream or whatever) you can alter the laws of physics and everything else as much as you want. I hope this isn’t a part of the mechanism for providing answers (i.e. it just is because we are all in Vincents dream).

I thought Adam and Eve was a let down….we knew it was 2 humans, that was never in doubt, what we really wanted to know was who, and I think a lot of us were hoping for some loopy time traveling where 2 of our losties ended us as Adam and Eve only to be discovered by their future selves. Alas it was not to be, and it was MiB and his mom who we only just met. Heck, why not go for total mediocrity and make it two of the people in the village that got burnt down, it would only make for slightly less relevance.

Also, who is left to give any answers? Jacob is gone, Ben and Richard, who at one point we would have given our right arms to have answers from, seem to know nothing about the whole story (a repeating theme it seems). BTW, I think Ben is totally conning Flocke and is still a good guy.

Interesting that Jack, the man who seems to fail at everything, is Jacobs replacement. In the scene with Jacob around the campfire when he asked who would replace him and Jack takes the job, I half expected everyone to groan with mutters of “there goes the island”. Of course, it still could turn out that Flocke is in the right and Jacob/Jack is in the wrong.

Either way, I think it will be heck of a finale, and I’m sure there will be plenty of questions, and I’m hoping the final answer is going to be something that makes us go back and re-watch with enlightened eyes. Given that the full pilot was show the night prior to the finale, I think the final answer will give it new meaning.

Bring out yer dead!

At various points throughout the show, there have been numerous dead bodies and with it, a strong urge to bury the dead. Consider even when Rousseau and Karl were shot by Mercenaries, they took the time to bury the bodies, and it’s not like their arrival was going to be a secret for long. in LaFleur, when Sawyer and Juliet killed the others attacking Amy, they had to bury the bodies in accordance with The Truce. Now this might be a way to hide the killings, but it also may mean that any dead bodies must be buried. After The Purge, the bodies were put in a shallow grave, but not covered.
(more…)

By now, the repetitions that we have seen across several seasons are coming thick and fast, another Lostie faces a ‘test’ and fails, Kate almost ends up delivering Claires baby, Sayid is strapped to a bed and electrocuted and tortured and we have another woman who comes to the Island pregnant, delivers a baby which is stolen and then she goes a delightful mix of crazy feral. When Kate tells Sawyer she never should have come after him, Sawyer asks “Which time?”. Even the characters are pointing out the repetition.
(more…)

I’m linking this vid as a must see. Not only is it a great song (Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing), but it is an awesome version of the song. I would say almost better than the original except for the band section in the middle which sounds synthesized, and a lack of rock edged guitar in a song which had very little to start with. The pilot for Glee was shown a few weeks ago, but the series won’t show until Fall. I found the show somewhat amusing, the stereotypes were a little forced and over the top but but I think it can be a hit if they pick their songs and their revamps right. This song was certainly a huge hit with viewers. It has been compared with High School Musical, which I don’t think is quite fair. This show seemed to be geared towards family as opposed to being a product of the tween targeting Disney machine, and it seems like it will contain a blend of serious drama elements. Regardless this song absolutely rocks!

Man, this video takes me back to choir and orchestra when I was at school.

(updated : Switched youtube link since the original was removed because of Fox claiming the copyright (even though you can get the episode online for free). The link (like many) now only has the music which is slightly different from the video version).

If you would like to see the extended trailer, you can see it here

Well, Follow The leader was a nice setup episode leading up to the Season Finale tomorrow night which I’m looking forward to. It put everyone in their places so we can start the finale running. Points in no particular order, I’m still not liking the new Locke too much. Before I was didn’t think that Locke knew everything he thought he did, but was choosing to act like he did which is just cocky. Now though, after knowing the time and place of future Locke’s arrival with a bullet wound, I’m not sure. I’ve always believed Richard to be somewhat neutral in Lost. He goes along with Ben, but disagrees with a lot of his ideas, and is fair, non-aggressive. If RIchard is uncertain about Locke’s ideas, then I’m with him. Of course, Richard has proved to be surprisingly unaware of the goings on with the island. He seems as bewildered as the rest of us when the gang turn up in the 1950’s and in the 70’s and Sawyer gives him some time travel hints in LaFleur. He seems totally oblivious to the Island time traveling which I think was a surprise because I think many viewers assumed Richard was not only the man with all the facts, but he was a time traveler himself visiting Locke at different stages in his life without aging.
(more…)

In my brief set of lost thoughts, most of which were wrong, I referenced Jacks magically growing beard from the episode “The Beginning of the End”. In this scene, Jack and Hurley play basketball and chat. At one point, Jack mentions that he’s thinking of growing a beard, at which point he misses his shot with a thud. In each subsequent shot of Jack, his beard is growing longer and darker. Near the last shot, he has actual whiskers as opposed to just a shadow on his face. The original video is linked below : (more…)

One enduring question on Lost is whether Ben Linus really is a ‘good guy’ or not, particularly in comparison to Charles Widmore. We encountered it more recently in “The Life And Death of Jeremy Bentham” where we saw Charles try and sell his side of the story to John Locke. Personally, I still go with Ben being a force for good. As Samwise Gamgee said “I think a servant of the Enemy would look fairer and feel fouler.” which applies to Charles Widmore as opposed to looking foul and feeling fairer, which I believe applies to Ben. After all, this is the man who let Michael and Walt sail off into the sunset simply because his people gave them their word, even though he disagreed with the bargain. Can’t say fairer than that! (more…)

I’m going to cover all three into one here since they are all essentially the same piece of the story from different perspectives in that they fill in the details of how the Oceanic 6 ended up on the Island, what happened to Locke when he got off the Island, and what happened when they landed on the Island. These three episodes have been somewhat unsatisfying for me as they haven’t seemed to moved the story along, more a case of filling in the details, although they did give a few nods to unanswered questions (4 toed statue & what got Jack back to the Island) as well as adding some new ones. Since we are at the mid point of the show, I’m guessing it is “The deep breath before the plunge” so they are somewhat forgiven, I just think we could have covered that in 2 weeks, especially coming back after a week’s hiatus to a setup episode like Namaste. I know a lot of people think these were strong character episodes and that is fine. I enjoyed seeing Sawyers transformatin in LaFleur, but it is rare to get 3 such episodes consecutively. If you were going to tell someone the story of lost, exactly how much time would you spend detailing how Locke got them on to the Island, or how Sawyer moved in with the Dharma Gang or how he got Jack, Kate and Hurley in the initiative? (more…)

Usually, I’m pretty poor when it comes to interpreting art since being a programmer makes me a bit of a literalist. However, the themes in this episode were hammered over our heads so stongly that even I couldn’t miss them. In a word, the episode was about faith. From the title, to the church settings, to Jack’s leap of faith into the water, to Ben’s telling the story of Doubting Thomas, to John Locke guilt tripping Jack from beyond the grave, to final acceptance and belief from Jack. (more…)

Ok, so Sun wasn’t after Ben which does beg the question of how she knows that Ben was ‘responsible’ for Jins death. What can I say, Sun going after Jack would have been more interesting and disruptive to the group, but oh well. FYI, I am one of those people that think Ben is a Good Guy in all this. He works hard shuffling people along, manipulating them because he has to and because telling them outright wouldn’t work. Poor guy needs a break! (more…)