The Office: Starting the Final Season

Only one episode in, The Office's swan-song season already feels more like an epilogue than a finale, and its aura of denouement started as early as Pam and Jim's "what I did over summer vacation" interview in the cold open. Perhaps these characters, and the office itself, have told all the story they need to tell. Pam herself admits it: sure, she and Jim had some entertaining drama in the first few years, but that's all over by now. Look at how far they've come, she emphasizes. They're settled down now. Pam's life is boring, and as she'll defend to Dwight later, that's how she likes it. It's a maturity that acknowledges things were more interesting in the past than they are now. And it's the first indication that finally, this adventure is about to be over.

Pam's next comment is even more striking: "How much more do you need? It's just a paper company." In addition to being a meta-nod to the consensus that the show should have ended by now--perhaps a long time ago--it's a deeply reflective rhetorical question, as if Pam and everyone but the documentary's filmmakers know that the yarn is spun out and the story told. It's followed by a comment from one of the filmmakers himself, a rare acknowledgement of their existence as characters, and a reminder that what we know as "real" in The Office is merely an impression of reality. That impression will soon come to an end.

If Pam was the first person to point out that the story has run its course, Jim is the first to emphasize that there will be life outside of Dunder-Mifflin. Even though his new business proposal sounds more like a Ryan Howard pipe dream than a solid career bet, it's the first time in years that he's actually made concrete plans for a job outside paper sales. Nobody (save perhaps Dwight K. Schrute) actually likes being a middle manager or paper salesman at Dunder-Mifflin; it's a stepping stone to an executive position or a sales job at a more prestigious company. Jim has liked it least of all. But his passive-aggression has finally turned to action.

And in what will certainly become a recurring theme over the course of the season, two of the office's employees have already decided to take their talents elsewhere. Though Ryan and Kelly haven't exactly been cornerstones of the story since season 2, their exit underscores how much the times are changing at Dunder-Mifflin. So does the hiring of new guys Clark and Pete. Promptly nicknamed Dwight Junior and Young Jim, meeting them took us back nine years when we met real Dwight and Jim.

If we're having to face the characters finally moving on from Dunder-Mifflin, the other side of the coin is that Dunder-Mifflin is moving on from its old cast of characters. After a few years of relative stability, followed by mergers and layoffs, executive scandal, and a buyout and company-wide restructuring, it looks like order might be restored in the office once more. David Wallace, long the lone voice of reason in the insanity of the corporate hierarchy, has stepped in to impose some structure. The company is obviously doing well enough to bring in new talent. And Dwight's client list is so long that he has leads he doesn't even have time to pursue. Even though we won't be witness to it for much longer, all signs indicate that Dunder-Mifflin is going to survive just fine without us, an oddly comforting notion.

Michael Scott's departure a year and a half ago hit hard, a more sincerely emotional moment than it even tried to be. Our final moments in the office are likely to be even more poignant. Until then, we can simply watch the season play out, a year-long catharsis, a retrospective as much as a commencement, a group of characters suddenly left without they reality that they--and we--have taken for granted for nearly a decade. But at least we'll depart knowing their stories have been told.

3-Sentence Reviews: November Sweeps 2011

Rather than reviewing television shows at the beginning of the season, this year I've waited until the November sweeps to see what survived, both in terms of my interest and the ratings.

The promise of "Steven Spielberg does dinosaurs on TV" was enough to draw me into Terra Nova, and a month or two in, there's not much keeping me there.  Shows have tried very hard to claim the "spiritual successor to Lost" title and largely failed because they never learned the lesson that Lost was more about the characters than the setting or mythology.  Dinosaurs, time travel, and mysterious antagonists are fine and good, but this show is going to need interesting characters besides Commander Taylor if it wants to survive.

It's been clear to me for some time that eventually, at some point, I would stop being able to bring myself to care about the psychological insecurities of doctors on House, and that point is now.  Park and Adams are okay--and this season is much better than that disaster of a seventh season we just had to endure--but the show has been in decline since the end of the third season.  With any luck, this eighth season will be the last, and the announcement of an end date will spark a return to form for the rest of the year.

Zooey Deschanel vehicle New Girl knows it's a Zooey Deschanel vehicle, and at least it's been true to its mission.  While none of the characters are as interesting as Deschanel's Jess, the show has enough laugh-out-loud moments per episode that I'm still watching.  Its biggest trap is going to be becoming too relationship-y; The Big Bang Theory went from excellent to awful when it became "geek Friends," and New Girl desperately needs to avoid becoming "quirk Friends".

That The Office has managed to keep itself afloat without Michael Scott says a lot for the quality of the writing and the rest of the ensemble.  The old tone and character is still there, and the brilliant Ed Helms portrays boss-Andy just as engagingly as he did worker-Andy.  My only reservation is new big-boss Robert California; instead of the comedic ineptitude that we're used to from the show, he gives us unsettling corporatism.

Points for my new favorite show of the year go to Person of Interest, a very CBS procedural starring Jesus and Ben Linus Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson.  It's disorienting but refreshing to hear Michael Emerson not lie whenever he talks, and if nobody has managed to become to spiritual successor to Lost yet, Caviezel's Mr. Reese may well have become the spiritual successor to Jack Bauer.  I'm not sure I need the Detective Carter storyline, and we'll wait to judge the overarching Elias plot until the end of the season; for now, I'm just enjoying the weekly antics of Finch and Reese.

I'm a little angry at The Mentalist for (apparently) breaking the Megatron Rule; in keeping antagonist Red John alive, they've completely negated the impact of the show's best episode, last year's season finale.  Maybe the show will finally move past Red John at some point.  But even if it doesn't, it remains one of TV's best procedurals, with trademark deadpan, snarky tone, and one of the most memorable and likeable leading characters on TV.


Currently listening: "Congratulations," the Juliana Theory

Game of Thrones, Season 1 (Part 2 of 2)

If you missed yesterday's post where I mention my surprise that Game of Thrones has an audience and talk about my dislike of some of the more egregiously "HBO" scenes, read it first.

One of the reasons it's been such a pleasure watching Game of Thrones (the TV show) is how well it's followed A Game of Thrones (the first book in A Song of Ice and Fire--won't it be nice and confusing next season when we're watching Game of Thrones based on A Clash of Kings?).  I haven't read the first book in a long time (maybe a decade?) so I don't remember its fine details well, but nothing seems jarringly out of place.

While the Unburnt scene is the proper denouement for the first book/season, and probably the one that's going to have the most important consequences for the series as a whole, my favorite scene in A Game of Thrones has to be the King in the North scene.  And it turned out awesome--if the Greatjon taking out his sword and saying "there sits the only king I mean to bend my knee to" doesn't give you chills, you're watching it wrong.  It could have used some broad shots of various castles in the north raising the Direwolf (one part of the book that I definitely do remember, and vividly).  But otherwise, that scene--and virtually all of the first season--is both good television and a good match to the books.

Where the TV show has really excelled, though, has been in the characters.  Sean Bean expectedly nails Ned Stark, and the rest of the Stark family is pretty spot-on too.  The Lannisters are comparably well done: Cersei and Jaime are great, Tywin is better, and no discussion of the first season would be complete without praising Peter Dinklage's Emmy-worthy Tyrion Lannister.  Because I read the first few Song of Ice and Fire books at around the same time that the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I couldn't deconvolute the two series' "dwarves," and I've had this ridiculous mental image of Tyrion as looking like Gimli for the past decade.  Credit to Mr. Dinklage for showing me exactly how Tyrion is supposed to look, act, and behave.

That's been the best part of the television adaptation: getting reasonable depictions of all of the characters.  Some characters are relatively important to the plot, yet if you asked me based on the books to describe them, I'd be at a loss.  In particular, Syrio Forel and Littlefinger are shown much more vividly in the TV show than I could have envisioned them.

Only a few characters were portrayed significantly differently than in the books.  The biggest misstep was probably Renly Baratheon; where the Renly of the books is a charismatic, influential adviser to the king, the Renly of the TV series is reduced to Loras Tyrell's gay lover.  Robert Baratheon's drunkenness and misogyny are emphasized at the expense of his former diplomatic ability and skills as a warrior, which is not as much a mis-portrayal as a difference of opinion.  And both Cersei (in emphasizing Robert's lechery) and Tywin (in showing that he has a sense of honor, albeit a self-serving one) are portrayed much more sympathetically than in the books, an interesting and not unwelcome take.

Next season, I'm looking forward to seeing Stannis, Mance Rayder, Jaqen H'ghar, and Roose Bolton.  But I'm most interested in seeing Melisandre; a good decision in casting her could lead to the most evocative TV villain since the smoke monster from Lost.


Currently listening: "Is Patience Still Waiting?", the Juliana Theory

Game of Thrones, Season 1 (Part 1 of 2)

There's something I can't figure out about Game of Thrones.  It's not what the relationship between Houses A, B, and C is.  It has nothing to do with whether Character X's motivation to betray Character Y had something to do with Character Z.  And it's not even the true parentage of that bastard, or the true allegiance of that eunuch.

It's why the show has any mainstream appeal at all.

I say that as a huge fan of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, the epic fantasy book series that Game of Thrones is based on.  It is awesome.  It's probably the best fantasy fiction being written today.  But it also has plenty going against it, especially from the standpoint of being a successful TV show.

First, it's complicated.  Martin has described his books as having a "cast of thousands".  You don't have to keep close tabs on all those thousands to understand the story, and not all of them are around in the first book (i.e., the first season of the TV series).  But A Game of Thrones does have a dozen or so characters who could rightly be considered "main characters" and another dozen or so supporting characters with complex personalities and enough relevance to the story that you do need to keep track of them.

Similarly, while you don't need to have the membership of all eight or nine Great Houses committed to memory, you do need to understand the interrelationships among four of them to follow A Game of Thrones, and the series only becomes more demanding as it progresses.  And you don't need to be a scholar of all seven millennia of Westeros's history, but knowing the last fifty years or so provides some very necessary background.

Second, it's a "genre show" if ever there was one.  Find two people who are familiar with Battlestar Galactica.  Ask one of them "is BSG a drama?" and the answer will most likely be "yes."  Ask the other "what sort of show is BSG?" and the answer will most likely be "sci-fi."  If a TV show (or book series, movie, etc.) can be classified as fantasy (or sci-fi, or Western, etc.), it's overwhelmingly likely that it will be.

TV series like this are often referred to as "genre shows"; despite really only being dramas dressed up slightly differently, there's a propensity among critics to over-classify.  And it can be to the series' detriment.  Some people aren't "sci-fi people" or "don't do Westerns," but they're actually closing themselves off to good entertainment just because of the setting.  If anything, the stigma is worst with fantasy.

Finally, the story isn't told yet.  After a six-year wait following A Feast for Crows, we're finally getting the fifth book next month.  Nobody (save George RR Martin) has any idea how this is going to shake out, and at the current rate, we probably won't know this decade.  But even for fans of the TV show who haven't read the books, there are still plenty of stories untold.

Remember that time when Ned Stark told Beric Dondarrion to take a hundred dudes and track down Gregor Clegane?  How about when Barristan Selmy stormed out of the Red Keep after Cersei forced him into an early retirement?  Is Walder Frey serious about his demand for Robb to marry a Frey daughter, and will Robb keep the promise?  And who's this Stannis Baratheon character everyone keeps talking about?

Having read the books, I know the answers to all of those questions, and most of them turn out to be relatively important points.  But to someone who doesn't already know the answers, they seem like gaping plot holes.

Yet, despite all of those reasons why it shouldn't, Game of Thrones has succeeded, commercially, critically, and artistically. The one area where it's been less than stellar is its over-"HBO-ification".  Yes, Martin's world is a gritty one, with sex, violence, death, and vulgarity in every corner.  And no, I'm not the sort of prudish viewer who immediately dismisses a show with the first sex scene.  But there are scenes that advance the plot and/or the characters, and then there are HBO scenes.  One particular scene (with two random girls in Littlefinger's room) was actually hard to watch--I had to plug in earphones lest my roommates start asking questions.

Aside from the one scene per episode where you can't help but wonder "did we really need to see that?", Game of Thrones is a rousing success, following at least the first book perfectly.  In the next post, I'll talk more specifics about the series and the books: what matched, what didn't, and where either the books or the show were better.


Currently listening: "So What," Miles Davis

3-Sentence Reviews: End of the 2010-2011 Television Season

To bookend the season properly...

I can’t give a proper three-sentence review to The  Event because I stopped watching it mid-season.  What began as a promising political thriller a la 24 with a touch of Lost-like supernatural intrigue turned into a bland mess of aliens over the course of about three episodes.  The acting performance turned in by Zeljko Ivanek was a much-needed bright spot, but sadly the writing was so uninspired that I can’t even remember his character’s name.

Against all odds, Michael Scott leaving The Office just might have breathed new life into the show.  The last few episodes of this season, beginning with a surprisingly touching farewell to Michael, were the strongest the show has been in years, and the B plots (like Angela marrying a gay state senator) are firing on all cylinders.  As long as new boss (and I’m thrilled that it’s not going to be Will Ferrell’s DeAngelo) creates the same inane dynamic that Michael carried through seven seasons, The Office has at least a few more years of life in it.

The number of people who wrote off Outsourced without giving it a chance (“oh, it’s set in India, so it must be racially offensive”) continues to astound me.  After performing reasonably well in the fall despite that negativity, NBC shipped the show off to the death slot of 10:30 pm, where it had expectedly miserable ratings leading to its cancellation.  That’s a pity, because Outsourced’s Vaudevillian-meets-absurdist comedy was like very little on television, but at least fans got the relative satisfaction of a reasonable season-turned-series finale.

This season of Survivor only went to prove the point that a cast filled with less-interesting-than-average people leads to a season that’s less interesting than average.  I didn’t hate the redemption island mechanic as much as a vocal contingent of fans apparently did, though I agree that its impact was lost when it crammed in four people (erroneously calling it a duel) and having everyone but the guy who came in dead last “win”.  And CBS, if you subject me to the Rob Mariano or Russell Hantz season one more time, there’s a good chance I stop watching your show; the novelty of bringing back old players has long worn off, and I’m already skeptical of next season because of it.

After a mostly solid season, The Mentalist shocked with a season finale that might have been the best-ever episode of the show.  The constant one-upmanship between Jane and Red John took some seriously inspired writing and acting, but everyone pulled it off.  The only question now is where does the series go from here?

House burdened us with some real clunkers (see the horrible attempt at a Pulp Fiction tribute episode where House decides to spend a few days hanging out at an elementary school), and storylines like Taub’s ongoing marital issues aren’t nearly as interesting as the show thinks they are.  Worse, we had to endure an entire season of “Huddy” detracting from the snarky medical drama just to hear a restatement of the show’s main theme that everybody lies and nobody changes.  Now that the show has it out of its system, and especially with Lisa Edelstein’s much-publicized departure, maybe House will hearken back to its brilliant first three seasons as inspiration for its last.

I laugh, on average, about three times per episode of The Big Bang Theory.  It's become oddly romantic comedy-y, with even Sheldon, the caricature of social ineptitude, settling into his approximation of a relationship.  Bernadette and Priya add basically nothing to the show, there's been virtually zero character development over the course of the show's sixty-plus episodes... yet each of those three jokes is genuinely hilarious enough for me to keep watching the show.

Currently listening: "Underneath the Sycamore,"  Death Cab for Cutie

Lost: The Complete Collection

I just bought myself a belated birthday present: Lost: The Complete Collection on Blu-Ray.  It goes without saying that I'm such a Lost fan that I'd have been completely happy with it even if it just contained every episode of the series... but this is Lost, so we should expect nothing so mundane.  Instead, we get a superbly crafted mini-pyramid of mysteries that manages both to contain the series and encapsulate it.

In addition to thirty-five Blu-Ray discs, this thing includes (in increasing order of esotericness) a guide to all the episodes, a map of the Island, a (slightly secret) copy of the Blast Door map, a sheet from the Black Rock ledger, a Dharma Initiative blacklight keychain, a senet board complete with black and white rocks, and an ankh with a "secret message from Jacob".  This all sounds absurdly made up to anyone with a life, but trust me, it's geekily glorious to us fans.

The blacklight lets you search for hidden messages within the collection.  That's the surest sign that whoever was responsible for this package really hit it out of the park, because that's exactly the sort of thing that someone willing to throw down $170 on a bunch of discs of Lost would be excited about doing.  Through careful exploration, you can decode the "secret message," find the hidden thirty-sixth disc (requiring you to, cleverly enough, "move the Island"), and learn to play senet.  You can also explore the hidden messages on the Blast Door map and find some hidden illustrations in the disc sleeves.

Of course, you also get the entirety of Lost, which is pretty cool too.  I popped in a season 6 disc just to make sure they worked, and 44 minutes of "Dr. Linus" later, I'm reminded how incredible this show really is.  If you're a fan, do yourself a favor and buy this set.  The brilliance of Lost was that you got out of it as much as you put into it--and you could put an astonishing amount in.  Somehow, Lost: The Complete Collection manages to pull that off too.


Currently listening: "Mutiny, I Promise You", The New Pornographers

3-Sentence Reviews: September 2010 Television (part 2)

Continued from part 1...

The Big Bang Theory is the only conventional laugh-track sitcom I've liked since Seinfeld, and it's one that anybody who went to a tech-oriented school or had a lot of science-major friends will be able to appreciate.  Its fourth season is as strong as ever, and the show is on a definite upswing now that it's gotten the Leonard/Penny romance out of its system.  We're still ever closer to getting "The Sheldon Show," where everyone else is basically a supporting character, but that almost doesn't matter given how good Jim Parsons is.

I have a strange criticism of $#*! My Dad Says (pronounced "bleep my dad says"), and it has nothing to do with its unorthodox inspiration.   Instead, I don't like this show because it's nowhere near offensive enough.  The entire entertainment from the Twitter feed was the titular dad's vulgarity, bigotry, self-righteousness, and iconoclasm; at 8:30 pm on broadcast television (instead of a later timeslot or a cable channel), it can't feel anything but watered down.

While it really should have ended a year or two ago, The Office really better end after this season when Steve Carell departs.  The seventh season so far isn't as strong as the first three or four, but at least it has avoided the miserable drama of the most recent couple.  BJ Novak is still frustratingly underused, and the "Michael irrationally despises Toby" story/joke is not nearly as funny as the writers think it is, but new guy Gabe fits in perfectly, and the Dwight/Pam "we are stuck" moment was classic, hilarious, brilliant Office.

I probably would never have watched Outsourced had I not stumbled upon (and generally liked) the film of the same name (and inspiration for the television show).  This show illustrates how difficult the movie to television conversion is: the movie had about 100 interesting minutes, and when it had used them up, it ended; even though we're only on episode 2 of presumably 20-25, we've already seen 43 minutes of content from the show, and I honestly have no idea where the show might go after its fourth or fifth episode.  Still, I appreciate the change from love story to workplace comedy, and I like that the show isn't trying to make some grand statement on US/India relations, just pointing out that things one culture takes for granted are laughably bizarre to another.

In its last three seasons, The Mentalist has quietly emerged as the best procedural on television.  There's just enough House-esque snarkiness--but less abstract pontificating on the nature of lying and a whole lot less unnecessary drama with the eponymous character dating his by-the-book female boss.  Better yet, the series has finally hit its stride, including just enough Red John episodes to keep the overall arc moving forward but not so many that we get tired of it.

Alone among reality shows, The Amazing Race has redeeming value: the chance to be educated about all sorts of awesome things and places all over the world.  It's almost enough to make me want to do The Amazing Race... then I look at the ridiculous things the contestants are made to do, and I realize I really do not want to do The Amazing Race.  So far, I don't have a team I'm strongly rooting for--but then again I don't really hate many of the teams, so this season seems like it should be especially watchable.


Currently listening: "High Art, Local News", The New Pornographers

3-Sentence Reviews: September 2010 Television (part 1)

It's that time again: television premiere season!

The ultimate irony of House is that as it's become more ostensibly character-driven, the characters have become less interesting; Thirteen's "I have Huntington's; should I stay or should I go?" two-dimensionality is a good example.  But the nail in the coffin for character-driven House, the premiere episode of season 7, and potentially for the series as a whole is "Huddy": watch that miserable excuse for a scene where House opens the champagne bottle, and ask yourself if it is ever okay for House to smile with genuine affection and happiness.  On a more positive note, the season's second episode was very strong, giving me hope that the writers have figured out how to balance "Huddy" with the House that we actually want to watch.

When you brand your show as "24 meets Lost," as The Event has done, you're not only marketing your show directly to me, you're setting some impossibly high standards as you compare yourself to my two favorite shows of the last decade.  I'm enjoying it so far: I actually like the copious nonlinearity, though I appreciate that it won't be everyone's cup of tea, and I'm not sure I needed the explicit confirmation of aliens as early as episode 2, but I'm optimistic that I'll warm up to it.  The biggest stumbling block I foresee for this show is that it could forget the Lost paradigm of characters first, mythology second.

I've never been particularly excited about theme-tribe seasons of Survivor, because they mostly end up as gimmicks.  In that one season where they divided tribes by race, it's not like we actually learned anything about racial dynamics or differential ability; in Fans vs. Favorites, we never did get a conclusive answer about whether Survivor novices or veterans are better at the game; so in this edition, I don't expect any grand revelations about old people or young people being better at Survivor.  But there are enough big personalities and potentials for explosive conflicts that I think it'll be a great season anyway.

Some seasons of Hell's Kitchen are good because the contestants are legitimately good chefs.  Others are good because they're terrible chefs.  This one looks to be good because all the contestants are complete morons, and there's no telling how much crap they're about to take from Ramsay because of it.

Criminal Minds continues to be criminally underrated by my demographic.  It's one of the best procedurals on television today.  In its sixth season, it's still excellent, and the psychological chess matches are only getting more intense.


Check back soon for shows from the rest of the week!


Currently listening: "The Bleeding Heart Show," The New Pornographers

Lost Speculations and Observations: It Only Ends Once, Part Four

To conclude my discussion of Lost, I'd like to give another retrospective, this time talking about my favorite episodes of the show. Two themes I've noticed are that these episodes are either ones that fundamentally changed our notion of what was going on, what to expect, and how to interpret what was going on, and/or they're ones that provide intense and satisfying moments for some of the show's greatest characters. In order of original airdate:

"Walkabout", season 1 episode 4, John Locke flashback

"Walkabout" was the first truly great episode of Lost. The Pilot was what got us hooked, but it was necessarily more expository than narrative. "Tabula Rasa" got the ball rolling with the character-centric format that would carry more than three quarters of the show, and its title foreshadowed one of the most important philosophical debates that the show tackled... but it was after all a Kate episode.

But with "Walkabout", we get the first iconic centric episode. In the same way that "The Man Behind the Curtain" is essential Ben, "The Constant" is essential Desmond, and "The Long Con" is essential Sawyer, "Walkabout" is the defining John Locke moment. It also offered the first big twist of the series, when we find out that Locke used to be in a wheelchair.

At the same time, it showed the first Island miracle: John Locke's healing. Until "Walkabout", the Island was dangerous, and the undercurrent of each discussion was the hope of rescue. "Walkabout" dared to introduce the possibility that the Island was beautiful, and it added an element of purpose and destiny to the conversation. In doing so, it began the exploration of science versus faith, coincidence versus fate... and Jack versus Locke.

"Through the Looking Glass", season 3 episodes 22 and 23 (season 3 finale), Jack flashforward

"TtLG", as it has come to be known, is the pinnacle of Lost, its pièce de résistance, the first-among-equals in a collection of excellent episodes. Just when everyone had thought Lost was settling into a routine, just when we were comfortable assuming that the series finale was going to involve these people finally getting rescued, the entire directional temporality of Lost gets turned on its head.

In one fell swoop, we learn that there was (or is, or will be, or will have been) a rescue. Even though we don't end up seeing the rescue itself until the end of season 4, it becomes immediately clear that there is life beyond the rescue. And even more shockingly, that off-island life isn't exactly the fulfillment that that survivors of Oceanic 815 thought it would have been.

We finally understand why that is: as Jacob pointed out in his fireside chat, he brought those people to the Island because they needed the Island as much as the Island needed them. The quest to find a purpose--for all the castaways and especially for Jack--becomes the cornerstone of the next half of the show.

And that's not even to mention all the rest of the episode that often gets overshadowed by the brilliance of the flashforward. Charlie's heroic death. Alex meeting her mother. The culmination of the "us versus them" conflict of the survivors of 815 against the Others. Hurley's DHARMA van "moment"... and that's barely scratching the surface.

"The Constant", season 4 episode 5, Desmond flashback

"The Constant" is probably the biggest cliche of "best of Lost" lists. Practically every one you see has glowing praise for this episode, so before I committed it to my own list, I decided to go back and re-watch it, to make sure it was as brilliant as everyone says it is and as I remember.

Don't worry, it is... but here's the thing about "The Constant". The plot is basically irrelevant to the macro-story of Lost. Sure, we see some advancement of the freighter story line, and we see some development of Keamy as a villain. But mostly the plot deals with some pretty esoteric stuff: the time discrepancy on the Island? Faraday's 11-hertz oscillator? Eloise the rat's nosebleed? Even Desmond's consciousness traveling through time, which looked like it might become an important installation, didn't pay off until the second half of season 6.

"The Constant" was light on mythology too. The auction scene established some tenuous connection between the Hanso family, the Black Rock, and Charles Widmore, but that was pretty much it. Finally, for a show so ostensibly focused on characters, the only main characters besides Desmond that did much of anything were Sayid, Charlotte, and Faraday.

In short, this episode has no apparent reason that it would be any good, and it doesn't have a "turn the perception of the show on its head" moment like "Walkabout" or "TtLG" did. Why was the episode so beloved then? Simple: the Desmond-Penny relationship is one of the most sincere and inspiring ones in the show. The writing, acting, music, and editing all come together beautifully, especially in the climactic phone call scene at the end, to create the most genuinely emotional moment in the entire series.

"Jughead", season 5 episode 3, Desmond flashback

If "The Constant" is the biggest cliche of my top five list, then "Jughead" has to be the biggest surprise. It's admittedly a little esoteric too: let's watch Locke and Sawyer traipse around 1954 and run into a hydrogen bomb? Uh, okay. But unlike "The Constant", and much like "Through the Looking Glass", "Jughead" is instrumental in changing the way we look at time and its passage through the story.

Prior to season 5, our understanding of the timeline was discrete and simplistic: our people crashed in 2004, the DHARMA Initiative did their thing in the 70s and 80s, some ancient civilization built a statue and a donkey wheel thousands of years ago, and the Others showed up somewhere along the way. It would be impossible and uninteresting to fill in every year or even every century along the way, but Jughead takes the step of starting to bridge the gaps.

Even though it's technically a Desmond-centric episode, and Desmond is one of the best characters on the show, the parts that made "Jughead" so great didn't involve Desmond at all. Instead, the on-Island 1954 plot made the episode intriguing. The Others have been here for at least 50 years, and possibly a whole lot longer if that Latin is any indication. The whole "Richard/Locke/compass" arrangement makes sense now! Widmore was an Other! And yet another layer of the "mythological onion" is peeled back.

"Dr. Linus", season 6 episode 7, Ben flash-sideways

Amidst an exceptionally strong slate of episodes in season 6 ("LA X", "Ab Aeterno", "The Candidate", and "The End", just to name a few), it's all too easy to forget "Dr. Linus". And that's a shame, because "Dr. Linus" is Ben's finest hour. We don't realize it as we're watching for the first time, but it's not Ben's confession to Ilana that ends his story, it's him realizing in his afterlife that he still has some making up to do with Alex before he can truly "move on".

But the confession is probably the most important thing that happens to his character. It directly follows the climax of his character arc, which happened in "Dead is Dead" and continued through "The Incident", where Ben realizes he has done some truly terrible things in supposed service to the Island.

Michael Emerson himself said that if you never saw Ben's character again after "Dr. Linus", you would still be wholly satisfied. It's high praise for the episode, and completely deserved. Unlike many episodes of Lost, "Dr. Linus" manages to be relevant and important to the plot and characters, but also a hell of a television episode in its own right, something that you can watch by itself and get something out of, even if you're not a fan.


And just like that, we've come to the end... at least as far as the series proper is concerned. I'm sure I'll find ways to work Lost into future blog posts, of course, and there's a good chance I'll do a rewatch sometime, which is bound to generate all sorts of crazy ideas. To all the fans who have read what I've had to say, thanks for the support and the comments that added to the conversation. To all the non-fans that have read my posts anyway, or at least put up with them, I appreciate that too--and having been through the whole experience of Lost, I vouch for the show's quality. Watch it. You will not be disappointed.


Currently listening: "A Winner Needs a Wand", Sufjan Stevens

Lost Speculations and Observations: It Only Ends Once, Part Three

(or: all the ridiculous crap I've predicted over the years that wasn't close to true)

I've predicted a lot, and it wouldn't be feasible for me to analyze every single one of my prognostications. I will hit some of the highlights--and a lot of the lowlights.

My first ever Lost post was at the end of season 2. In it, I predicted/wondered/considered:

• Maybe the Others' camp that we see in season 2 is a fake (it was).
  
• How the Others know about the Pala ferry and the magic bearing to leave the Island (probably an artifact of what Ben knew from the DHARMA days).
  
• "What's up with the four-toed statue?" Ah, if only...
  
• Whether Radzinsky knew anything about the workings of the Swan station and how he could be traced back to the DHARMA Initiative. Of course, by now we know that he was the guy who designed the Swan, but it would have been a stretch to have predicted that back in season 2.
  
• I offered a willingness to bet that Widmore "knows something about what's going on on the Island." It seems so ludicrously obvious in hindsight.
  
• What would happen with the season 1 dangling power cable; turns out we'd have to wait for season 3 to see the Looking Glass.
  
• That the Others were the remnants of DHARMA who banded together after they found out Alvar Hanso was doing something terrible. Like many fans, I bought way too much stock in Hanso during season 2, thinking that he'd end up being important to the story at all.
  
• Finally, quoting my own earlier post: "So how did Hanso come to fund the Dharma Initiative at all? Magnus Hanso (whose "resting place," according to the Blast Door Map, is the Black Rock) was Alvar's father; he was the captain of the Black Rock. Alvar first came to the island while he was looking for his father. At this time, he became aware of the strange electromagnetic fluctuations coming from the area around the Swan. Hanso decided to fund the Dharma Initiative to study those fluctuations." Turns out Magnus is actually Alvar's great-grandfather, but I still think the rest of that theory is entirely plausible.

Being in France at the end of season 3, I didn't make a post then, but I was back in full force at the end of season 4. My thoughts from then:

• In one of my favorite bad theories from several years ago, I thought that Richard's agelessness was because he was a manifestation of the smoke monster.
  
• I actually did put forth the theory that Christian was another Yemi-like manifestation of the smoke monster, but I don't seem to have believed my own theory, probably because of the inconsistencies with his presence in Jacob's cabin.
  
• Another "ah, if only...": "How in the hell did [the smoke monster] get on the island, and who put it there? Why?"
  
• I wondered if Rousseau's expedition, Widmore's boat race around the world, and the real Henry Gale's balloon ride were Widmore's pre-freighter attempts to find the Island. We now know that Widmore was still on the Island when Rousseau's team landed, but my theory stands for the other two.
  
• What are the "rules" between Ben and Widmore? We never really find out. I think they're akin to a "gentleman's agreement" where Widmore's exile came with some sort of implicit rules that Ben and Widmore wouldn't interfere with each others' lives following the exile.
  
• How do we reconcile the similar but not identical sets of orders given to the two teams (the science team and the mercenary team) on the freighter? Good question. Given the Widmore sent the freighter, and put both Keamy's and Naomi's people on it, why is there so much discord between the two teams?
  
• Another theory totally off-base that I get a kick out of now: Matthew Abbadon worked for DHARMA, who sent the science team to the Island to get revenge on Ben for the Purge.
  
• I think by this point, we can reasonably conclude that Widmore put the wreckage in the Sunda Trench to distract the worldwide media from the possibility that Oceanic 815 crashed on his beloved Island.

In seasons 5 and 6, I started much more in-depth analysis posts roughly every month. Among my gems in season 5:

• In my proudest moment, I did predict that Jacob and/or his people had been on the Island since Roman times.
  
• Widmore was forced to turn the Wheel. Later in season 5, we learn that his exile was a much more mundane walk down a pier, but this wasn't too far off.
  
• When Eloise suggested that the Island "wasn't finished with Desmond" yet, I expected Desmond to have to trek back to the Island to save Penny, or that she'd die and Desmond would have to return to the Island to "bring her back" (to whatever extent the Island allows). Happily, no fate this tragic ever befell Penny.
  
• At various moments, I suspected that the Statue was Horus, then Sobek, and I had reasoning for both of them far better than "it looks like Taweret." According to the producers, the Statue is meant to represent Taweret, but I'm still in denial.
  
• Now I think that Richard's immortality comes from his "creative use of time travel", which is a more plausible theory than "Richard is actually the monster," but still not close to the truth.
  
• I'm back to waffling on Christian Shephard by the end of season 5. Apparently I bought into the Man in Black's lie that "Christian" had the authority to speak for Jacob.
  
• And I never came close to calling that the Man in Black and the smoke monster were the same entity.

Before the season started, I started forming theories about the episodes, centricities, and major plot points of season 6.

• I did predict the Richard Alpert reveal episode near the middle of the season, where he decides his allegiance for the final battle. I predicted it would be called "... At Sea" in a nod to some season 1 titles (and secretly, I still like my title better, even though "Ab Aeterno" is fine too).
  
• I did predict the volcano showing up at some point, and Desmond having something to do with it. But my theory was way wackier than what actually happened. I thought that the volcano would explode halfway through the season and that Desmond would have to work the second half of the season using his electromagnetic immunity and time travel abilities to undo it. In my defense, I did call that "Desmond’s unique talents are the Chekhov’s gun that has to be used before the end of the show."
  
• I also predicted that the Jin/Sun reunion episode would be far earlier than it actually was, and that it would be called "...Love" in another shout-out to the season 1 patterns. I did predict a late-season episode called "The Candidate", but like most fans, I read way too far into Ilana and Bram's speculation that Lapidus was a "possible candidate".

Finally, throughout season 6, I made a whole of awful predictions about the flash-sideways... but who didn't?


Currently listening: "Funnyman", KT Tunstall

Lost Speculations and Observations: It Only Ends Once, Part Two

While Lost was always a show about its characters, and its artistic legacy will be for its characters, its significance to pop culture and the motive force for people to have watched the show through the years have been its mysteries. We've gotten plenty of answers, but naturally a show with the size and scope of Lost couldn't possibly hit everything. The mysteries that weren't specifically addressed on the screen generally fall into one of three categories: 1) mysteries that really were addressed, but that you have to read between the lines to understand; 2) mysteries that weren't addressed but then again don't matter so much to the plot, characters, or mythology; and 3) mysteries that weren't addressed but legitimately needed to be. Fortunately, there are only a handful in the third category. I'd like to go through several and explain why I thought the mystery was addressed, or didn't need to be, or was actually lacking.

Who were the Others? Honestly, this one couldn't have been more clear to me. Whether it was Richard's people in 1954, or the Hostiles in DHARMA times, or the Others that our people fought against, there has been a tribe of people living on the Island for at least half a century. They speak Latin, are advised by Richard Alpert, and ultimately proclaim allegiance to Jacob. From Jacob's "cork chat" with Richard back in 1867 that we see in "Ab Aeterno", we learn that Jacob has been bringing people to the Island for a very long time, but that he's not necessarily that great at interacting with them. Thus is born Richard's job of adviser to the Others and liaison between the Island and its people. Those people die gradually, but more are brought every so often as well. This amalgamation of people that Jacob has brought to the Island over the years 1867-present are collectively the Others.

How come we see Christian in the hospital and on the freighter? This one is trickier, and I think the answer does matter because it speaks to one of the core disputes in the conflict between Jacob and the Man in Black. The confusion is this: we know that every time we see Christian on the Island, it's actually the Man in Black. We also know that the Man in Black cannot leave the Island. Then, how is he able to go to the freighter or to Los Angeles? The freighter makes sense if you consider the water immediately surrounding the Island as part of the Island. It's Desmond's snow-globe; sure, you can sail away from the shores of the Island, but unless you know the magic bearing to escape the Island entirely, you're for all intents and purposes still on the Island. When the freighter crossed into the Island's "zone of influence", it became part of the Island, so the Man in Black could get to it. As for the hospital, it's a less fulfilling explanation, but chalk that one up to Jack's less-than-capable mental state and influence of drugs.

What's the deal with "mother"? I still say this one doesn't matter, because none of the main characters ever met "mother". The reasonable thing to conclude from "Across the Sea" is that "mother" is a pre-Roman or early Roman sea traveler who washed up on the Island, got curious about the Source one day, and became the Island's protector. (I still think she was also the smoke monster, but the evidence for that is much more circumstantial.) Her unequal treatment of her two assumed sons is probably the biggest influence on the prevailing sociological and philosophical opinions of Jacob and the Man in Black. That's all the story we need, because it's all the story that's relevant to our characters.

How did Jacob leave the Island? As the Island's protector, he of course knew the magic bearing that let him leave. Nothing was preventing him from leaving and instilling some small seed of purpose in each of his candidates at crucial junctures in their lives. The Man in Black, and most of the Island's inhabitants, weren't allowed to leave simply because Jacob didn't want them to. But Jacob, making his own rules, could leave any time he wanted. Yes, this is every bit as hypocritical as it sounds.

What ever happened to Annie? Doesn't matter. I like to think she left the Island when Faraday sounded the alarm right before the Incident. Or maybe she died in the Incident or in the Purge. The reason Annie was important was 1) to lay some foundation for Ben being so possessive of Juliet, and, more importantly 2) to show that Ben is capable of feelings after all. The Annie scenes (along with the Alex scenes) prove that Ben, while having done some truly terrible things, at least retains some of his humanity.

Why couldn't women have babies on the Island? The most reasonable pseudoscientific explanation here is that it results from the Incident. Massive discharge of electromagnetic energy plus massive dose of radiation equals less-than-hospitable environment for human procreation. A more spiritual explanation is that it's the Island's punishment to Ben's people for some of Ben's sins. As Ben's tenure as the leader of the Others became more violent and paranoid, the Island gradually rejected him. It denied him its healing properties, like we saw at the beginning of season 3 with the spinal surgery moment. Either or both of these explanations might be true: we know that Amy had no problem conceiving and giving birth to Ethan, and that was before both the Incident and Ben's accession to leadership.

Who built the Temple/Frozen Donkey Wheel/Four-Toed Statue/volcano plug? Ancient civilizations that were on the Island before our people's time. The Temple looks Mesoamerican, so Mesoamericans probably built it. The Statue is definitely Egyptian, so the Egyptians probably built it. The volcano plug has some cuneiform on it, so Sumerians probably built it. How did any of them get there? Likely the same way that Claudia and her people did, an unfortunate shipwreck. As for the Wheel and all the wells, it was the Man in Black and his adoptive village, like we found out in "Across the Sea".

What was the polar bear, and why was there a skeleton of one in Tunisia? The polar bears are definitely DHARMA experiments. The Hydra was their zoological research station, where they kept polar bears in cages. We know from "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" (among other episodes) that Tunisia is the "exit" from the Island when you turn the Wheel. DHARMA knew about the Wheel and about its time travel properties, if not necessarily about the exit, as we learn in the season 4 finale "There's No Place Like Home". It happens to be really cold at the bottom of the well, and it takes a lot of force to turn the Wheel. What's large, already on the Island, and comfortable in cold climates?

What about Aaron--was he actually "special"? Sort of. Aaron was special in that he was born on the Island and that Claire didn't seem to suffer any of the late-term pregnancy issues that the recent Others did. What about him being "raised by another"? That one is interesting looking back on it, because now we know that Kate raising Aaron is what "disqualified" Kate from being a candidate. The implication is that Jacob already lost "Littleton" as a candidate when Claire had Aaron, and he didn't want to lose a second candidate by Claire letting another person raise Aaron. Did Richard Malkin know any of that? Probably not; he admitted to Eko in "?" that he was a fraud.

Why did the DHARMA food drops continue? This is a relatively minor one, but a little explanation here might have been nice. DHARMA effectively stopped supporting its operations on the Island in the years between 1985 and 1987 (which we know from the blast door map and the Lost Experience), and the Purge occurred in 1992 (which we know from "The Man Behind the Curtain"). Although Alvar Hanso himself guaranteed that the supply drops would be made "in perpetuity", it would make little sense for the Initiative to continue them without Hanso's funding and without personnel on the Island to benefit from them.

What happened with that one time flash when Juliet shot someone on the outrigger chase? Short answer: we don't know. This came in the episode "The Little Prince", and the pursuers earned the nickname "The Other Others" from Sawyer. Again, this is a minor point in the grand scheme of the show's mythology and story, but it was an intriguing plot point that could easily have been answered in season 6, as part of the season's theme of connecting to all the other seasons.

Who was in Jacob's cabin? We see the cabin several times, and the answer changes each time. In "The Man Behind the Curtain" and "The Shape of Things to Come", there's some mysterious shadowy figure inside the cabin. Ben assumes it's Jacob, but then again he never actually meets Jacob until he stabs him in "The Incident". Later Ilana tells us that Jacob hasn't been using the cabin lately, so it seems that this figure is not Jacob at all. It could be an elaborate charade by the Man in Black, but then again the cabin is surrounded by a circle of ash. We don't know why or how, but we do accept that the Man in Black can't cross ash. And why would the Man in Black be pleading for help?

The "Cabin Fever" visit to the cabin is much easier to sort out. There's no ash circle this time, so the Man in Black has no problem entering the cabin and masquerading as Christian Shephard. He already has Claire under his control, and he manipulates Locke into using the Frozen Donkey Wheel by saying he can speak on Jacob's behalf. Undoubtedly, the Man in Black wanted the freighter folk (who he, rightly or wrongly, would have associated with Jacob) gone, and using the Wheel to move the Island accomplished that. But the reason the Man in Black insisted that Locke turn the Wheel was probably so he could kill two birds with one stone and discard one of Jacob's candidates by forcing Locke to take the "exit" from the Island.

What ever happened to Walt? This is the granddaddy of "poorly explained Lost mysteries". For two whole seasons, we're told that Walt is special, that he can do extraordinary things, that he's a very important person to the Others and to the Island. We even see some evidence of this: Walt communicates with the rest of the survivors both as an apparition and through the DharmaTel computers by means unknown. And then, when the 14-year-old Malcolm David Kelley gets too old to play the 10-year-old Walt, he's shipped off the Island and not seen again until season 5, when the time travel mechanics make it possible for Malcolm and Walt to be the same age again.

Internet speculation is that Walt was originally meant to be the Desmond figure, immune to electromagnetism and the ultimate failsafe in the case that everything goes to hell. But surely someone would have thought ahead enough to realize that Walt would out-age five or six seasons of the show? After the first third of Lost was so consumed with Walt's "specialness", to have the matter dropped entirely in its latter two-thirds just because of the aging of a pubescent actor is frustrating.

Agree? Disagree? Did I miss anything?

Next up is the long-promised "I make fun of all my bad theories" post, then finally, I'll spill my top 5 episodes of the series.


Currently listening: "Caring is Creepy", the Shins

Lost Speculations and Observations: It Only Ends Once, Part One

As a television producer, it is virtually impossible to make a final episode of your series that appeals to all of your fans. Some finales, like Seinfeld's, are largely disliked by the fan base, mostly because the show was so immensely liked over its nine-year run that it would have been impossible to give the show what its fans deemed a "proper" sendoff. Some, like The Sopranos', are polarizing and divisive. Others, like Fawlty Towers' and Black Books' (the trend seems to be prevalent in Britcoms), end with a mildly climactic episode that is good and serves as a fine season finale but lacks the resonance and heft that fans might prefer from the series finale.

Ken Jennings argues that the Lost finale is the third sort--he says it wraps up this season's arc involving Jacob and the Man in Black, and the flash-sideways, in a "pretty competent fashion". But, he's not convinced that it addresses important points from the entirety of the show. At least he's not the sort of fan who's disappointed that the release of the polar bear into the jungle and the construction of the four-toed statue don't show up on screen. But plenty of fans apparently did want that. That's why I think this finale will go down in history as the second sort, one that a large fraction of the fan base detests for one reason or another (with some even saying, ridiculously enough, that it "retroactively ruined the series"), and an opposing and equally large fraction adores and thinks it's the perfect finale to the series.

Why would some people dislike the finale? I don't think it's because of the resolution of the on-Island plot. Sure, it's nothing that we haven't seen before or couldn't see coming: Desmond uses his unique immunity to electromagnetic energy to do something special; Ben flops allegiances about a dozen times before he finally settles down on the side of "decent dude after all"; Jack has his fight scene with the Man in Black then makes a heroic sacrifice to save the Island. In fact, the final image of the series, Jack's eye closing as he lay in the bamboo field with Vincent, was so predictable and so symmetric with the beginning of the series that I don't know why I didn't think of it. But here's the thing: none of this predictability was bad. In fact, most of it was fitting and enjoyable.

Even so, I won't claim to have predicted everything that happened on the Island in the finale. Frank Lapidus back in action was a huge surprise, and definitely a pleasant one. Another surprise that I probably should have seen coming was the volcano finally making its appearance. We've known that there was a volcano on the Island ever since Olivia Goodspeed taught it to Ben's class back in "The Man Behind the Curtain". It looks like in addition to the metaphorical cork holding the Man in Black on the Island, there's a literal cork that keeps the volcano at bay. And I really didn't see Jack's tenure as protector of the Island ending so early, nor did I ever predict Hurley succeeding him.

Before moving on from the Island plot, I'd like to speculate on the Source a bit. As Desmond treks through the Source, we see several skeletons. Obviously people have been down here before--and not just the Man in Black, because his body is accounted for. I think this lends credence to "mother" and others having been the smoke monster before the Man in Black was. And I think if Desmond weren't uniquely resistant to electromagnetism, he would have become Smokey as well when he made his way to Shiny Golden Light Pool. Instead, he withstood the intense energy long enough to "decork" the Island.

It's important to note that neither Jack (Jacob's successor by this point) nor the Man in Black was correct about what would happen when Desmond reached the Source. This lends further credence to their equivalence--and it turns out that it was essential for Jack to interact with both of them to fulfill his ultimate destiny. No, the Man in Black is not a good man. Yes, he did some terrible things, and yes, he was the season's (and in some ways the entire series') primary antagonist.

But that doesn't make him the "embodiment of evil" like Jacob's man Dogen suggests--nor does it make Jacob anything close to "good". My final take on Jacob is much the same as it's always been. He's not special or mystical--just an average guy who became superhuman through the power of the Source and used his new-found immortality to conduct millennia of philosophical and psychological experiments to grasp at some truth about human nature.

In that case, did the Island and the Source actually need protection? Maybe. The Source does confer some unique powers and abilities--immortality, polymorphing, healing, and clairvoyance, to name a few--and in the wrong hands, that could be disastrous. Call me crazy, but I still don't know that the Man in Black's are the worst hands they could have been in. I legitimately believe that all the Man in Black was ever trying to do was make it off the Island--a goal that he'd had two thousand years to become obsessed with.

And it's fantastic that even with the body of the show over, and with as much predictability and finality as the Island plot line had, we can still have that debate. It's like I said at the beginning of the season--both the "Jacob is the good guy" and the "neither Jacob nor the Man in Black is really that good" sides have more ammunition for our arguments, but neither is really more compelling. That's yet another reason that I have to think most fans of the show were satisfied with the outcome of the Island story.

If not the Island plot, then, why would fans be disappointed? One reason would be that "not enough mysteries were answered." I agree--there were some big questions that were left unanswered. I disagree that many of them mattered. One of the other posts I'll make in the finale suite of posts will be about those mysteries--which of them were answered, but people don't seem to think so; which of them were left unanswered but don't actually matter; and which of them were legitimately important but unresolved.

Another reason might be that the finale wasn't "mythological" enough for some people. But like Damon Lindelof and Carleton Cuse have said over and over again, Lost is not really about the mythology. It's about the characters, and while the mythology is certainly intriguing, its function is as a vehicle to develop the characters and a motivation for us wanting to watch the characters and their interaction. Some fans have never understood that, so they balk when the last episode of a show about characters is about... the characters.

The more important reason that people would be disappointed is the resolution of the flash-sideways timeline and its impact on the entirety of season 6. First of all, let's make sure we're all on the same page: yes, the Island is real. Yes, everything that we saw over the past six seasons actually happened. No, the Island was not purgatory the whole time. No, everyone did not die in the crash. The "epilogue" scene that played over the end credits and showed the wreckage of Oceanic 815 alone on the beach was meant as reflection: we've come a long way from the pilot episode, and the crash of that plane had indelible impacts on both the plane and the Island... and everyone dies.

By the same token, the flash-sideways also matters and is very much real. When they had their chat in the Universalist Back Room of the church, Christian tells Jack that he sure hopes he's real, even though he was dead. The "afterlife" we see in the flash-sideways is not a series of throwaway scenes or a superfluous epilogue; it is actually the denouement of the entire story and the graceful resolution of the arcs of virtually every main character. In that way, the flash-sideways and the Island timelines were both necessary to define each other and give them both meaning: the Island without the flash-sideways is unfulfilling, and the flash-sideways without the Island just doesn't happen at all.

What, then, was the flash-sideways? "The afterlife" seems too simplistic; Christian's suggestion of "the place you all made to be with each other" is just a bit trite. My answer is that it's Jack's reward for having done what he was "meant" to do. It's like the "good ending" of a video game: had Jack pursued his destiny less thoroughly, or had he given up on the Island and just remained in Los Angeles after he was rescued, his afterlife would have been less positive.

That raises one last question: what is it that was Jack meant to do? Conventional wisdom might suggest that he was meant to defeat the Man in Black and save the Island from destruction. However, I'm going to take the existential route and argue that Jack was meant to come to the Island and discover some sense of purpose for his life. It's not an answer that appeals to the sci-fi/mystery elements of the story and the fan base, but it is a deeply fulfilling answer to the philosophical side of things. If everything until "The End" was "just progress", then Jack's time on the Island wasn't about what happened at the very end or his role in resolving the Jacob/Man in Black conflict. It was about the personal transformation he made in getting there, becoming a man of faith, being an agent for love, learning to believe in his friends.

When Jack finally gets there, we see the most emotional scene in Jack's entire story: his reconciliation with his father Christian. Probably the central theme of Jack's entire arc was him seeking acceptance, especially from his father. By fulfilling his destiny of finding a purpose in his life, Jack finally does something worthy of his father's acceptance, and Christian finally accepts something that Jack has done. That, and not necessarily saving the Island from its destruction, is what lets Jack "move on".

Jack's is not the only character arc that wraps up nicely in the flash-sideways. Cameos from just about every main character and a good many of the supporting characters from the rest of the story helped the core cast of characters each reach a reasonable and satisfying end. It was a real shame not to see Mr. Eko again, and I might have liked to see Frank and possibly Richard in the flash-sideways, but seeing Boone again and finally letting Francois Chau get some credit for his iconic portrayal of Dr. Chang almost make up for it.

The only character whose story retains a little shred of ambiguity is Ben's, fittingly enough. But it's not his usual good guy/bad guy moral ambiguity--the big push in "Dr. Linus" nudged him forever in the direction of decency. Instead, Ben's decision not to enter the church was him realizing that there's some responsibility that comes along with this whole "good" thing, and that he has some amends to make before he can "move on" as well.

It wasn't just Ben's story. The finale as a whole was a little ambiguous, and it required a lot of processing even for the most dedicated fans. But I wouldn't have had it any other way. For a show as deeply complex and multifaceted as Lost, the only fitting ending is one that doesn't just allow some contemplation even after the show ends, but practically requires it. An ending that tightly sealed the canon, allowing only one interpretation, would be deeply unfulfilling. As it stands, a final episode that stands up to as much discussion as the fans can throw at it is the greatest lasting tribute to the show's brilliance.


Finally, I have a few one-off observations, mostly humorous, about the finale:

• I would totally watch the Detectives James Ford and Miles Straume spinoff starring Josh Holloway and Ken Leung. Turns out they're pretty excellent together--Miles as a straight man sounds odd at first, but we've seen that it works unexpectedly well.
  
• The internet seems to be more in favor of a "Hurley and Ben as the new Jacob and Richard" spinoff. I don't know that I need any more canonical Lost (which is why I like the idea of the cop show better), but Hurley's presence in the church at the end does suggest that he either didn't accept the immortality part of the Jacob package, or that he relinquished his protectorship of the Island at some point.
  
• For at least several years now, the producers have promised that Vincent wouldn't die--and he was the only character they were willing to say would live through the end of the series. Guess who didn't show up in the church? Hmm...
  
• Absolutely loved the Target commercials that aired during the finale. In case you missed them, they were a shot of the smoke monster followed by an advertisement for a smoke detector, a shot of the Swan station computer followed by an advertisement for a keyboard, and a shot of the boar running through the jungle followed by an advertisement for barbecue sauce.

Next up: a retrospective on the series' many mysteries, taking about which (if any) of my theories were any good, and going through some of the most satisfying answers and biggest omissions.


Currently listening: "Into the Dark", the Juliana Theory

Lost Speculations and Observations: May 2010 Edition

Lost fans are inevitably drawn to the arena of speculation and prediction. And most of what we predict, we get wrong. Most of what we do predict correctly doesn't really matter. So when we get one right, it's a cause for celebration. I think a long-standing theory of mine was proven correct in "Across the Sea", the Roman origin of Jacob and the Man in Black. Roman Latin, check. (I have to believe that the switch to English three minutes into the episode was for the benefit of the audience and the actors, not a representation of a sudden linguistic epiphany on the part of Claudia.) Woman with a Roman name (Claudia) and Roman attire (toga and sandals), double check. Technology consistent with two millennia ago, check. And--unverified but my best evidence--Mark Pellegrino telling an interviewer that the episode took place in the year 43 AD, check. This one feels good, especially knowing that I got it on the variety of Latin alone. Thank you, Dale Buff.

(Don't worry--I've gotten many, many predictions dead wrong. After the finale, I plan to devote an entire blog post to all the screwy stuff I predicted that didn't even come close to the truth.)

"Across the Sea" was the mythological capstone of season 6, and arguably the entire series. It provided us with probably a dozen answers to mysteries as mundane as "who built the wells?" to ones as deeply significant as "where did the smoke monster come from?" Equally as importantly, it detailed how the Man in Black and Jacob came to embrace their particular philosophies. The Man in Black, with the limited sample size of twenty or so Romanesque dudes, observed that all of them were greedy, destructive people and (reasonably) concludes that every person is inherently like that. Jacob has absolutely no sample size whatsoever, just the ambiguous nature of the Source, and therefore concludes that every human has an innately ambiguous morality, tabula rasa, open to influence from their environment.

The Island continues to serve as a reflection on, and a symbol of, human nature. We see that any time two disparate groups of people appear on the Island, a Lord of the Flies-style "us vs. them" mentality emerges every time. Whether it's "mother" versus the hut-dwellers, or DHARMA versus the Hostiles, or our own people versus the Others, the Island's inhabitants are always drawn into conflict with each other. Maybe it's the desire to grow closer to the Source, to enlarge that spark of the divine in all of them.

The Source (radioactive-cheesy as it was) provides one united explanation for virtually every supernatural or pseudo-scientific phenomenon on the Island. The Swan station's "electromagnetic pocket", the strangeness of directions and passage through time, the healing powers, the magical mirror in the lighthouse, and even the spring in the Temple, are all probably effects of the Source's power. The Source also echoes a theme found in many world religions and philosophies. Judeo-Christian thought places a small measure of God in each one of His followers. Mormonism takes this a bit farther and teaches that everyone becomes a God in their own right after their death. The Dharmic religions (Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism) have a greeting that roughly translates to "I acknowledge the divine in you."

"Namaste".

Once again, the clueless hippies of the DHARMA Initiative hit closer to the truth than they could have guessed. (See also their use of Egyptian hieroglyphs and their location of the stations right on the Source's pockets of energy.) But their attempts to control it--like those of everyone else who has ever tried--ultimately led to disaster. Pierre Chang and Stuart Radzinsky were brilliant men, but they were not candidates, not chosen by the Island, and thus powerless to control it.

"Across the Sea" reminds us that people have been on the Island, and attempting (to various degrees of success) to control its power, for a very, very long time. But it also chastens us not to expect answers about all of them. When "mother" tells Claudia that every answer leads to more questions, the narrative purpose is to get Claudia to stop being so nosy. But in the meta-narrative, the dialog between the storytellers of Lost and its audience, this is a way of saying that we're not going to get answers to every single question we might have. We've seen "every answer leads to another question" as a theme throughout the show, and I mentioned it last month as well: as soon as Tom Friendly becomes something less than mystical, we meet Ben Linus. Ben gives way to Widmore, then Richard, then Jacob, and DHARMA is peppered throughout for good measure.

Now that we have Jacob's "mother", the cycle ends here. The mythological "onion" of the setting is infinite, and we could keep peeling back enough layers to fill twelve seasons of the show, but we don't want or need to. The only thing the story of Lost is concerned with is what affects our characters, our people, and our plot lines. Jacob and the Man in Black certainly do; that's why they merited a centric episode of their own. Jacob's "mother", perhaps not so much. It doesn't matter where the woman who raised Jacob and his brother came from... but we might already know more about her motives and abilities than we think we do. The root of this theory lies in the pre-Jacob era of the Island's history.

Even by the Roman era, there were civilizations on the Island that had come and gone, the Egyptians chief among them. Perhaps one or two thousand years before even Jacob and the Man in Black arrived, some Egyptian civilization thrived on the Island, playing a little senet, and building a magnificent statue of one of their deities. But not everything was fun and games in the Egyptian era on the Island--the carving below the Temple that we see in "Dead is Dead" suggests they had their own smoke monster problem to deal with. Some entity taking the form of a pillar of smoke has existed on the Island as long as the Island itself has been there.

Is it possible that "mother" held the office of "smoke monster" before the Man in Black did? (This is one of those theories that I can't take credit for coming up with on my own, but many of the supporting details are mine.) She warns her adopted children never to enter the warmth and beauty of the Source (invoking the Pandora's box myth), suggesting that she knows very well what happens when you enter the Source. She destroyed Hut Village and filled in the Man in Black's well, which would be difficult for a middle-aged woman, but trivially easy for the smoke monster. Most likely, "mother" was a woman who washed up on the Island, entered the Source when she found it, and merged with some ancient protective entity already on the Island to become the smoke monster before the Man in Black. It's likely that even before her, the same fate befell a curious Egyptian.

Then the smoke monster is not inherently evil, nor is it inherently good or inherently moral at all. The disposition of the monster at any given time is more directly a product of the agenda of whomever assumed the role of smoke monster. When "mother" was Smokey, it was a paranoid, protective, and secretive force. Now that the Man in Black is Smokey, it's more destructive and vengeful. This suggests that if a truly good person enters the Source and becomes the next smoke monster, it may serve as a force of good itself.

Here's a screwball theory (almost certain to be featured in my later "litany of bad theories" post): Jack was always destined to become the next Jacob--social ruler of the Island and selector of candidates--and now he's finally agreed to it. So how about a reformed John Locke, restored to his humanity when the realities are reconciled, is going to stay on as the smoke monster, champion of the Source and guardian of the Island? In yet another nod to the Dark Tower, the story we've been following ends with the beginning of a new cycle of the exact same story... except this time, maybe things will finally work out, maybe we're one step closer to the ultimate "happy" ending.

I theorized before that Jacob and the Man in Black, while not exactly two halves of the same entity, were the opposing factions in a dualistic pantheon. Now it appears that they're something else close to both of those thoughts: inheritors of two different halves of Island power. Jacob got the ability to bring people to the Island and to pick his successors, while the Man in Black got the smoke monster power. "Mother" had both of these sets of abilities.

In the ultimate irony of the story, then, the Island actually intends the Jacob figure (that is, the person with the Jacob portfolio) and the Man in Black figure (the person with the smoke monster portfolio) to be the same person, or failing that, to work together to protect the Source and decide how best to use the power of the Island. Under the Jack/Locke theory, maybe the conclusion of the story is the reunification of these halves of the island-guardian force, if not to the same person, then at least to two people who will work together instead of opposing each other for two thousand years. It would be especially appropriate for that reunification to come at the hands of Jack and Locke, who have carried the torches for white and black, science and faith, for the entire time they've been on the Island.

The scene where "mother" literally passes the torch to Jacob is a powerfully symbolic one. "Mother" offers some wine to Jacob, saying "drink from this cup." Then I imagine every Catholic in the audience began to subconsciously recall the Eucharistic prayer:

"Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
this is the cup of my blood,
the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.
It will be shed for you and for all
so that sins may be forgiven.
Do this in memory of me."

Does the wine actually do anything, or is it merely a ritual? How you answer that question might depend on if you're a Catholic or a Protestant, but either way, it's symbolically relevant. Then, as if the Communion reference wasn't overt enough already, "mother" tells Jacob "now you and I are the same." This mirrors the Scriptural basis for Communion and the Eucharistic prayer: "whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him" (John 6:56). The Island mythology combines the Eucharist with another important Catholic tradition, apostolic succession. Catholics hold that the priesthood is sacred because every ordained priest was consecrated by another, and so on all the way back to Jesus. This succession and ordination is symbolized by the laying on of hands. In the same way, the office of "guardian of the Island" can be traced from "mother", through Jacob, and to his own "laying on of hands" on each of his candidates.

The Man in Black, of course, would prefer to disrupt this apostolic succession. His smashing the bottle of wine in "Ab Aeterno" gains a greater symbolic relevance, as it represents not only escaping his prison, but breaking part of the succession ritual. He very nearly succeeds in "The Candidate". If "Across the Sea" was the mythological capstone, then "The Candidate" is the narrative capstone of at least season 6, if not the entire series. Every plot development and character interaction--every science vs. faith moment, every power struggle, and every decision whether to leave the Island or stay on it--came to a head in "The Candidate".

So many of the recurring character arcs from the series are resolved in "The Candidate" that it's hard to list them all. Jack has accepted the mantle of "candidate", at last completing his transition from "man of science" to "man of faith". Jin and Sun, reunited at last, make the conscious decision never to be apart again, even if that means they die together. Sayid's toeing the fine line between redemption and succumbing to his lethal nature ends when he tips irrevocably toward "good" in the instant before he dies. With Ben's and Richard's arcs concluded in their own respective centric episodes, Ilana's abruptly over when the Island was "finished with her", and Desmond's tantalizingly close, it finally seems that the series is headed toward a conclusion.

Therefore, "What They Died For" becomes the linchpin to the entire series. It has the unenviable task of not only serving as the "prologue to the finale" (see also "Greatest Hits", "Cabin Fever", and "Follow the Leader"), but also integrating the narrative and mythological climaxes of the story into the denouement of the finale.

And amazingly, it succeeds. Mythology and character development are integrated beautifully with Jacob's fireside chat, where the answer to one of the greatest mysteries of all (second only to "what is the Island?") is finally revealed: why these people? We learn that it has to do with purpose, and with reason. "Maybe all of this is happening for a reason," many characters have suggested in one form or another throughout the series, but what we don't find out until the series' penultimate episode is that the Jacob job is the reason, the purpose they never knew they wanted or needed. We also find out why (besides death, of course) your name might be crossed off of the candidate cave: if you do find your purpose in life, then Jacob no longer needs you. The chalk line that struck through "Austen", for instance, is presumably the same one that struck through "Linus" (when he started raising Alex) and "Chang" (when he and Lara had Miles).

Jack has been accepting all of this little by little, beginning with when he tells Kate in the first flash-forward that they "have to go back." He formalizes his decision to inherit the Jacob job at the fire, but his mind was made up at the end of "The Candidate" when he saw his friends die. Jack barely hesitates when Jacob puts the decision of who to succeed him on the table. Then Jacob, having already laid his hands on Jack and ordained him a candidate, consecrates some water. Jack takes his communion, and now Jack remains in Jacob and Jacob in him. Then, fall Jacob.

It's Jacob's second "death"--of course, he is not really alive here, merely using his ashes and a little Island trickery to temporarily make his spirit corporeal again. His actual death came at the hands of Ben Linus in a very Julius Caesar moment. Ben has never been afraid of killing people, and he makes no exception in "What They Died For". His scheming, treacherous ways seemed to be at an end after his redemptive confession in "Dr. Linus", but here we see Ben once again playing the role of killer. And in a way, the Ben Linus in "What They Died For" is a culmination of every aspect of Ben Linus we've seen so far: the conflict that underscored much of the story (especially during seasons 4 and 5) is resolved with three quick gunshots; the Ben Linus that has played both sides of every conflict he's been involved in without mercy or remorse is once again trying to align himself with the stronger power.

But here's the thing: while Ben certainly shed no tears over killing his archrival of twenty or more years, revenge wasn't his sole motive. He killed Widmore with the intention of stopping him from divulging the secret of Desmond to the Man in Black. While Ben may not end the story on the side of "good", he at least must end it on the side of righteousness, or else the powerfully redemptive episode of "Dr. Linus" doesn't mean anything at all. Ben's killing Widmore--and his subsequent offer to kill people for the Man in Black--is just his way of manipulating himself into the Man in Black's good graces. Ben will never be truly heroic, and he will always be at least a little self-serving, but he has the chance to finish his story with his humanity reclaimed.

One interesting thing about Widmore: back when the Widmore-Ben conflict took center stage in the middle of season 5, I remarked that Ben and Widmore weren't very different at all--their approaches may have been diametrically opposed, but their motives, rhetoric, and attitudes were essentially the same. In his final moment, Widmore reveals one more facet to his personality that's exactly like Ben's, and ironically it's the most human one of all: love for his daughter. Ben's love for Alex was strong enough for him to question his entire existence on the Island when he failed to save her. Now, Widmore gives up his ultimate mission to the Island for the prospect of saving his own daughter, Penny.

The secret that Ben didn't quite prevent Widmore from telling the Man in Black is that Desmond is Jacob's failsafe, his electromagnetic means of destroying the Island--and thus preventing the Man in Black from reaching the Source--in case all his candidates were killed or declined the job. It doesn't look like that's going to be necessary, with Jack's accession to "protector of the Island" status. But Desmond remains an important player nevertheless, mostly because the Man in Black considers him so important. The thing that not even the Man in Black can comprehend is that Desmond is even more important in an alternate reality, where he is marshaling the forces of the Island to collectively "remember" their parallel existence.

Last month, I predicted that the big reunion was going to happen at St. Sebastian's, but now it appears that it's headed for the Widmore benefit concert instead. All our major players are headed there, and I suspect some minor but important ones (Juliet and Shannon for sure, like I mentioned last month) will turn up as well. And then? Desmond drops the "bomb", everyone suddenly "recalls" the Island, and that leads to the Man in Black's defeat? It seems a long way to go, but it has the makings of two and a half hours of an absolutely sensational finale.


Currently listening: "Sick Muse", Metric

Lost Speculations and Observations: April 2010 Edition

As there's no new Lost this week, I'm happy to provide all you fans with some Lost-themed entertainment... and reading my post won't even take an hour. You might be done in time to tune in to the "Ab Aeterno" rerun and watch the "cork" analogy again!

The biggest question that season 6 has raised is the question of the flash-sideways. Not "what are the flash sideways?" per se; that was easy enough to answer as early as "LA X". They're fragments of another reality, one in which Jughead's explosion sank the Island and ultimately allowed Oceanic 815 to land safely in Los Angeles. No, the bigger question has always been "so what?" Why do we care, what's the significance, how does all this matter? The past four episodes have finally started to put those pieces in place. As soon as Widmore revealed his "package" to Jin, the flash-sideways has slowly started to make sense. (And really, Charles Widmore, are you trying to intimidate Jin or pick him up at Blake's in Midtown?)

The biggest reveal so far (regarding the flash-sideways, at least) is that the flash-sideways reality is very much... real. It's not a hypothetical, "what-if" exercise in character contrast that I figured it might have been back in February. Instead, experiences from the Island timeline can surface as "memories" in the flash-sideways, and at least if you're Desmond, experiences from the flash-sideways can translate back to knowledge on the Island.

Let's talk a little more about Desmond. Over the objections of several fellow fans, I've echoed Eloise ever since "316" and insisted that the Island isn't done with Desmond yet. Apparently Charles Widmore agreed, kidnapping our favorite Scotsman and bringing him to the Island to conduct some electromagnetic experiments on him. The result of all that was Desmond getting torn away from Penny yet again... and reuniting with Penny, his constant, in a different universe. It's no coincidence that Desmond's constant, the love of his life, and the force that brought him to understand the simultaneity of the two realities are all the same person.

As moving as Desmond-Penny scenes always are, Penny was not the only important person to trigger Desmond's epiphany. Charlie and Daniel, in welcomed cameo appearances, provide important stimuli to Desmond as well. Notice that they both died in the original timeline. Who was responsible for Daniel's own revelation? Charlotte, who died in the original timeline. And then when Hurley starts to "remember" the Island? It's Libby that jogs his "memory", Libby, who died in the original timeline. There's some connection here, as if death in one world opens you more to remembering it in another world, but what that connection is we don't yet know. Another natural question to ask here is what happens if you die in the flash-sideways but you're alive on the Island? Do you start to "remember" the flash-sideways on the Island?

A little speculation: if Charlotte sparked Faraday into "remembering" the Island, and Libby did the same for Hurley, then how about Sayid "remembers" the Island when he meets Shannon in the flash-sideways, and Sawyer when he meets Juliet? It would fit both the established pattern of recalling the Island, and the motif of bringing back old dead characters for season 6 cameos.

That, of course is a matter for the third act of season 6. If "Sundown" closed the curtain on the first act by wrapping up the Temple storyline, then "The Last Recruit" opened act 3 by moving everyone into their right place. It's one of those necessary-evil sorts of episodes where nothing dramatic is happening, so it's naturally going to be open to criticism from fans (and mid-season multi-centrics do seem to be disproportionately weak; see "Namaste")... but I thought all the positioning was sort of cool.

On the Island, we have Ben, Richard, and Miles traipsing through the jungle on Mission Blow Up the Ajira Plane; Locke, Jack, Desmond, and Sayid are hanging out (mostly against their wills) at Camp Locke; and Sun, Jin, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Claire, and Frank are not finding Camp Widmore too hospitable either. In the flash-sideways, Creepy Desmond, Sane Claire, and Ilana (though I'd imagine her appearance in the flash-sideways is more Faraday-style cameo than necessary condition of reconciling the two timelines) are at the law offices; Sawyer, Miles, Kate, and Sayid are at the police station, some freer than others; and Sun, Jin, Jake, Locke, and Ben are at the hospital. Hurley is unaccounted for here, but I imagine he'll find a reason to head to St. Sebastian soon enough.

It all has the distinct air of battle lines being drawn, and I think "battle lines are drawn" is as fine a theme and summary as any for act 2 of season 6. That makes act 3 the final battle, and "The Last Recruit" fired the first shots of that battle with Zoe's bombardment of Locke's beach.

Before we get ahead of ourselves speculating about the rest of act 3--the last five hours of Lost ever!--there were two important revelations from the two most recent episodes. The "whispers" reveal didn't strike me as the most brilliant thing Lost has ever done. It's not even that I didn't buy it. We've been accepting for five seasons now that it's possible for the Island to force you to stick around if it's not "finished" with you yet; why not force the spirits of dead people to stick around in the same case? No, it was more that the reveal was clumsy. Hurley's "oh, I think I know what the whispers are!" came from pretty much out of nowhere--its sudden insertion into "Everybody Loves Hugo" didn't help it as an episode, and I don't really see the greater significance of those dead spirits in the storyline or mythology of the setting.

The next reveal went down much better. Jack asks the Man in Black if he was impersonating Christian, and the answer is a simple "yes." One of the oldest mysteries from the show, dating from episode 4, has finally been put to rest. (Oh, some fans will continue to speculate about it, never being satisfied with a direct answer, but the rest of us should be content.) The character of the Man in Black is fitting for this stage of the narrative, even becoming a symbol of it. Instead of getting fleeting smoke, we're finally getting something concrete, though we may not like what we hear.

I can't help but think that we're not going to like a lot of what we see, either. A lot more than Locke's beach and Ilana are going to explode in the next five episodes. Who's safe, and who's doomed? My take is that your chances of survival increase proportionately to your time on the show. Obviously it's not a perfect correlation--Miles has lasted way longer than I thought he would have, and it still surprises me when I remember that real John Locke has been dead for over a season now--but it looks generally true, especially if Ilana is any indication. My take:

Characters who have a good chance of living:

Jack has always enjoyed a sort of "first among equals" status, the closest thing to a "main character" that you'd see from an ensemble cast. I've said before, and I still believe, that Jack is going to be the "winning" candidate, the man destined (or doomed, if you prefer) to replace Jacob as guardian of the Island. Whether Jack is still alive at the end of the series is a completely different question... I can easily see the Island requiring him to sacrifice his life for its protection.

Kate has been the most consistent female character in a setting where female characters' job prospects are about as strong as those of a Whig politician circa 1856. (For the sake of comparison, Kate and Sun are the only two female characters to have been main cast every season; compare that to Jack, Sawyer, Jin, Locke, Hurley, and Sayid on the male side.) If any female character sticks around, it's going to be Kate, and at least one has to to keep the finale from being a total sausage-fest.

You absolutely, positively cannot kill Hurley. He's got the season 1 thing going for him, the candidate thing, and the comic relief thing, all of which help his chances considerably. But the thing that guarantees Hurley's survival is his role as the everyman. Where Jack rushed to the leadership position he always wished he could assume back in St. Sebastian, Sawyer became the Leader of the Opposition just to provide a check on Jack's power, and Kate got caught up between them; where Locke started pontificating about fate and destiny; where Sayid consistently toed the line between redemption and falling back into his dark past; Hurley has been just a normal guy. Sure, a normal guy who is enormously rich and who talks to dead people, but one that doesn't assign any special significance to either of those things. He's always been the one character who can step back and look at the situation without any assumptions, as if he still wanted it to make sense with the non-Island world that he knew. That analysis has been invaluable trying to make sense of the series, and it will be equally as important trying to digest the finale.

If any character deserves his happy ending, it's Desmond. Lost and "happy ending" are not really things you put in the same sentence a lot, but the Desmond-Penny relationship has been one of the most emotionally rewarding aspects of Lost and one that we've been cheering for since the second season. Desmond has been through so much and yet remained so loyal to Penny that when all is said and done, it wouldn't seem right if he were apart from her.

I can see either Jin or Sun living, but probably not both. The last string of episodes is going to be full of tragedy, and I think this one is going to hurt.

Sawyer might stick around. He has "candidate" and "season 1 character" and "historical ties to Jack" going for him, but I'm not sure what else he brings to the table. I see Jack a lot easier than Sawyer in an endgame showdown against the Man in Black.

There's a good chance that Sayid will live long enough for his redemption to happen. When Hurley made the analogy to Anakin Skywalker, he didn't even know how accurate it was. Powerful warrior shows great potential but also an affinity for the dark side, tragedy befalls the woman he loves, he is reborn as a servant of the dark and does some terrible things. But even through all that, Anakin retains his humanity enough to overthrow the Emperor at the end of the Star Wars trilogy. Maybe Sayid will be the one to defeat the Man in Black.

Characters who have a less good chance of living:

Ben and Richard were the subjects of the two best episodes so far this season, and I think that hurts their chances of staying alive. Both of their stories concluded intelligently, resonantly, and logically, both characters have been "de-mythologized" like I talked about last month, and both have come full circle in terms of explaining their greatest mysteries. They represented themselves as the most important servants of Jacob--and perhaps that was true, for a while. But now that Jacob is down to five candidates, Jacob is finished with both--and consequently the Island is finished with both. I can't help but assume that Ben's worry about what will happen to him once the Island is done with him (after it clearly showed it was done with Ilana) was foreshadowing more than it was idle speculation.

I've grown to love both Miles and Frank, and they're the only contenders to Sawyer's long-held title of "most hilariously sarcastic character", but it seems to me that they're both a little late to the party. If some people die, it would make a lot less sense for Miles and Frank to be the ones left standing than for Sawyer and Hurley--and some people are going to die. Frank has a narrative use as a pilot, and maybe Miles has a narrative use as someone who can commune with the dead, but we're rapidly approaching a point in the story where having a narrative use is no longer good enough--you need a mythological purpose as well.

Absolutely no chance that Widmore lives. Despite not being a candidate, and not really having been involved with Island leadership for twenty-five years, he's sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong and proclaiming himself savior of the Island--without Jacob's approval. There's still a chance that Widmore will die a hero, saving himself to protect one of the candidates, or something like that--but the only question is how will he die, not will he.

In the second-most heartbreaking moment of the next five hours, I think it's likely that Claire will die. She's getting turned around, to be sure--Kate has picked up Ilana's torch of providing respite and acceptance for people who feel like they've been cast out. We can expect that turnaround to continue just long enough for Claire to achieve redemption. I can see her sacrificing herself to protect Jack (now that the brother-sister thing is out on the table), or maybe Claire's unrelated death at the hands of the Man in Black will be Jack's ultimate emotional catalyst to accept the mantle of candidate.

One final theory on the role, purpose and nature of the Island, and it relates to the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. In those books--a major influence on Lost--the eponymous Tower is the linchpin of all reality, and the only physical constant among all possible worlds. It can only be entered through one specific world--Roland's native All-World--but a manifestation or representation of it exists in all worlds. Then, the reality where 815 crashed on the Island (that is, the "main" timeline from seasons 1-5) in is the only one where it's possible to interact with the Island, although a manifestation of the Island is present in every conceivable universe (such as the sunken Island in the flash-sideways). The 815 survivors' realization of this (and probably a pilgrimage to that sunken Island) is going to be critical to reconciling the two realities.


Currently listening: "Fourside" from from Mother 2 - Giygas' Counterattack