L O S T

OK ok, after a number of texts and emails from people looking for my thoughts on the second-to-last episode of Lost, I watched this week's ep again this week, and here are my thoughts.

In general, I thought this was a fairly mediocre show. Ultimately, in my view this episode continued very well along with the main Season 6 themes of answers that are too pat to be believed, and just generally bad storytelling that here at the end shows just how far the writers have strayed from anything they ever thought of even earlier this season, let alone last year or in earlier seasons.

This week's episode had a lot in the "too pat" category as we have seen more and more of heading towards the end of the show. For example, how convenient that Ben just happened to have four huge bars of C4 hidden in a secret safe in his old barracks? We never heard about that before. And wasn't it convenient how now, when the story kind of "needs" them to, all of the Losties can now suddenly see Jacob. And speaking of Jacob, something tells me that we might have just seen the only explanation we're going to see for why a young Jacob appeared randomly around the island this season following MIB succeeding in killing Jacob through Ben Linus -- it was a young Jacob, and they will both likely disappear once the ashes burned down in that fire Jacob set. And don't even get me started on Richard. If that wa Richard's death scene that we just saw with the smoke, that was -- well -- fast. Too pat. I would say it was a horrible death scene, but given the last few weeks of this show it is basically par for the course as far as how these writers have been killing our characters off of late. I don't buy that we've seen the last of Richard though -- he will have to have some role in this finale, even these writers cannot be that demented to leave Richard out of the series finale, could they? After that ignominious death scene? Come on. It's almost like the writers have turned bitter and angry and are taking it out on the viewers here as the show winds towards its conclusion.

The bad storytelling is the other big aspect to this week's show, and it applies equally well to this entire season and really Season 5 of Lost as well. Fr one thing, am I the only one who feels like the writers kinda shot their wad here in the second-to-last episode? I mean, sure we still need to see how the story ends up getting resolved, but really, with Jack taking over the helm for Jacob so willingly here, and assuming there is going to be some kind of ultimate happy ending to the show, what suspense really is there left for the finale? And plus, amazingly we still have Sideways world completely unresolved heading into the finale! Ugh. Here we are going into the final episode of this epic series, and the big secret is the thing that never even existed until earlier this season. In fact, that's the problem with the whole story these past couple of years on Lost -- there is simply no relationship whatsoever nowadays to the story from the first four seasons of the show. Period. It's become a story of Jacob vs MIB, rendering everything we watched for four seasons -- the caves, Dharma, all the stations hidden all over the island, the Hatch, all of it -- totally without any significance at all. Shit, why'd they even bother introducing Dogen, and Weird Al, and the temple with the crazy rejuvenating spring and such, given that none of it has any meaning whatsoever in the end with this show? Wazzup with the writers needing this much filler during the final season of a show that used to be so ridiculously rich in story and suspense.

And while we're on the topic of Jacob and bad storytelling by the Lost writers, how does Jacob say that Kate can be his successor even though her name was crossed off the wall (let's put aside btw the fact that Jacob said he crossed her name off because she became a mother, which she did not wtf -- don't even try to go there with Aaron, come on now?!). I mean shiat, so it turns out that anybody can be the next Jacob when Jacob is done huh? What about me? If I appeared on the island just now, could I be the one too, even if my name wasn't up on Jacob's wall either? Come on, writers! "It's just a line of chalk on a wall, Kate. If you want the job, it's yours." Come on with that. Then wtf have we been paying attention to this whole notion of the "candidates" for all season? Why did you writers tell us that was important if it actually has no meaning at all?

And while we're at it, this whole thing about Jacob having brought these Losties to the island because none of them have anything to go back to? Sorry, but I gotta call bullshit on that one, too. Kate? Sure. She was in handcuffs, going to jail, a murderer and the most annoying biatch in LA as far as we can tell. If you want to argue Sawyer was facing a similar situation, with absolutely no one to go back to, reeling from having killed an innocent man in Australia as I recall before boarding Oceanic Flight 815, I suppose I can buy that too. Claire as well I suppose. But everyone else? Come on now. Jack had nothing to go back to? Why, because he didn't have a wife and kids? Come on. For a long part of my life, I didn't have a wife and kids, and at some points I was also a raging alcoholic like Jack. That doesn't mean I had nothing to go back to reality for, though, not by a long shot. What about Jack's job? His family? Please, with the "nothing to go back to" crap. OK, and Sun and Jin? They had "nothing to go back to"? Yes, they were having problems, and Sun was going to leave Jin, but how can you say she had nothing to go back to? I'm sure she felt that she had everything to go back to now that she had finaly decided to leave Jin. Hurley, sure he believed he was somehow cursed, but he did have 165 million reasons waiting for him to go back off the island. And this doesn't even get in to the other Losties from years past -- Charlie had nothing to go back to? Shannon? Boone? Come on with that, Jacob, your writers should surely be able to do better than that. It's just yet another too-pat answer to a long-running question on this show -- why them? Why did Jacob choose them, specifically, to come to the island? And that, my friends, is one shittyass, silly, over-simplified answer. Come on, they were all "flawed"? Who could you plug in there that isn't "flawed" in some way or another?

Then there is the way that Jack just up and chose to take over for Jacob. This whole thing about Jacob giving them "the one thing he was never given -- a choice" would have resonated far more with myself and all the viewers if we had learned Jacob's story more than one week ago. That is just bad storytelling, plain and simple. Same thing when Jack drank the water and then Jacob said to him, "Now you're like me", just like his mother had said to Jacob some 2000 years before. If we had seen that scene with Jacob taking over for his mother five years ago, now that would have been powerful to hear again this week. Instead, once again, it's just another plot device that the writers completely swung and missed with. And Jack in just seconds is standing up and volunteering for the job, without even knowing what the job is, what it means, anything? He gives up his life as a successful spinal surgeon. His life with his mother. His friends, presumably he has some of them. His money -- as a well-known surgical specialist like he is, he is likely quite rich. He just up and gives it all up, on a dime, no thought needed, oh and btw at the same time gives up his right to ever return to the Earth. Uh huh.

And the last part of bad storytelling from this week's ep came in the final scene, which ended with Flocke starting into the camera and saying in his sinister, angry voice, "I'm going to detroy the island." Did we not already basically know this already? Is that an appropriate level of cliffhanger for the second to last episode? Come on, you could tell by the music and the closeup camera angle that the writers thought they were really messing with our minds with that. Oh my god he's going to destroy the island! Who cares?!!

For the finale, I think we will still need to find out what Widmore's real motiviation here is, because does anyone possibly think Widmore was actually visited by Jacob like he claimed, saw the err of his ways, and then found out from Jacob just how to get to the island to make things right? God no, what an idiot story. I wouldn't have thought even the Lost writers would try to pass that one off as true. And, we're going to need to hear from Ben again as well, because I don't believe that he has once again turned all bad, either. Sideways world will resolve in some way -- I don't really care how -- and otherwise while I will watch the show on Sunday of course, it is hard to imagine how they are going to fill another 2.5 hours with this story.

Who woulda thought it, all this rich story and mystery and mystique and intrigue, and in the end I can't even imagine what they're going to fill 150 minutes with in the finale.

It's been a sad, sad ending to a once-proud series, that is for sure.