2010: The Year that My Nice Year System was Tossed Away in Favor of a Special Lost Interlude

So I haven't watched any Best Picture nominees in like two weeks. Partially because I get sick of watching them, they all seem the same after a while (and if they're different, I've probably already seen them). I was also busy with finals, graduation, and going to a wedding. But now that my life is boring again, I can have plenty of opportunities to blather on. And since I screwed up my perfect little lineup of years on the blog, I'll probably have more interludes in the future if I feel like it. I might do my long-awaited top 5 heroes, or what I like to call "film pariahs" which are movies people should like but they don't.

But for now, I'd like to talk about the other big plan I had this weekend, it was the culmination of the last six years of devotion: the finale of Lost. Just to tell you a few things up front: I'm writing things as though you've seen everything so don't read it if you haven't seen the finale, don't yell at me if you've only seen an episode or two and think you can adequately discern what I'm saying, and also remember: I think it was the greatest ending to a television show of all time. Which is exactly what I expected, and with expectations that high I was shocked that they delivered. Also, feel free to contact me with questions, I love to ponder stuff about the show and answer questions about it for people when I can. Before I get into the specifics of the finale, I'd like to address why a lot of people will probably be upset. They make themselves that way. Because they literally ask questions that they wouldn't ask on other TV shows, and then they get all upset when they're not answered. The show does such a good job of raising big questions and then answering them way later on, that people want to know EVERYTHING about everything on the show. That's just silly. Here's an equivalent, think about this for a second: applying the same logic, if someone is revealed to be an alcoholic on 24, would you say: why is he an alcoholic? When did he become an alcoholic? Is his father an alcoholic? What's his favorite whiskey? Of course not! You just roll with it. So when Lost shows you that there was a protector of the Island before Jacob, don't ask who they were, you're just supposed to accept that there have been protectors probably since the beginning of time and there will probably be more protectors until the end of everything. And I kept telling people this whole season that if you go back and look at the questions we had at the very beginning of the show, (what did Kate do? How did Locke end up in a wheelchair? Who are the Others?) those have all been answered. And if they haven't been answered explicitly, many of them are heavily implied and/or inferred. I guess people wanted the finale to consist of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse sitting in a chair running through a laundry list of questions and giving answers out. Instead of changing their artistic vision to suit angry viewers, they did what they wanted. And that's why it all ended so perfectly. In fact, the only time they gave in to viewer demands was when they added the characters of Nikki and Paulo, and then they got yelled at for doing so. There's no pleasing some people! So why try?

Now then, all of that being said, I read that there are 20 minutes of deleted scenes from the finale which address key points that they wanted to show but didn't have time for, which isn't surprising since the finale went on for an extra half hour as it was. I think some of those might show how Ben got out from under the tree, a more concrete escape from the Island by Sawyer and Kate, MAYBE showing Desmond leaving the Island, etc. But all of those were implied anyway, because you know that Desmond is going to reunite with Penny. You don't need to see it, that would take away from the effect. There were any number of great touches throughout the episode (aside from the last twenty minutes or so which I'll address later) from just what I call the "that was pretty cool" perspective. So in other words, things that aren't necessarily relevant to the overall theme of the finale but that I thought were nice moments. The first one that comes to mind is the death of the smoke monster. When the Island's power supply was cut off, he no longer had any supernatural abilities (because as we saw in "Across the Sea," he was created by the Island's power source). And for the last several centuries, all he's been trying to do is leave the Island and he has killed many people in order to do so, including his own mother and the arranged murder of his brother Jacob. And at the end, his body lay dead on the rocks: a few feet from freedom. The fact that he died mere inches away from his ultimate goal was outstanding. I also liked the little moment where Richard gets a grey hair and is thus overcome with the love of life once more, now that his immortality has left him (this scene also saw the return of Richard's Theme from "Ab Aeterno," one of Michael Giacchino's best compositions for a character). And some will ask: why is his immortality gone? Because Jacob is dead, and everything that he did was dead with him. That's why Ben could kill Widmore (in the final chilling and excellent scene from Michael Emerson) and that's why Richard could age. How does someone set these rules? With the power of the Island, that's all we know. That's all you should need to know. If you really need to see Jacob on the hatch computer writing up a bunch of HTML nonsense that dictates who can do what then that's just silly.

From the beginning, the show has been about redemption. Frequently, characters face similar situations on the Island that they faced in their lives off of the Island, but they make different decisions. An early episode that exemplified this was "The Moth," which was a Charlie-centric story that focused on his heroin addiction. In it, the idea of the moth coming out of the cocoon is likened to Charlie going through a hardship and emerging a better man. And that's essentially what happened to all of the characters in one way or another. And for many of them, when they attained a sense of redemption, they were killed. And NOW we know why. Because when they died, they went on to live the lives that they should have lived in the Flash-Sideways timeline which, as it turns out, is actually the afterlife. I'd like to point out that I actually predicted that way back. Ask people, they'll tell you. But much like anything else on the show, the afterlife is a journey too. Because the characters have to come to grips with the way things worked out. That's why Ben didn't go into the church with the others, because he still had some issues to work through. But they left you with the impression that someday he'd be able to forgive himself for what he had done and move on. Also: the scene between him and Locke was truly incredible. In fact, I liked where they took Ben's character in general this whole season. He ended up being not such a bad guy after all. And all of that started when Ilana (a character who I believe was brought to the Island for the sole purpose I'm about to mention) had her conversation with Ben, in a scene that proves why Michael Emerson earned his Emmy. I already spoke on his motivations in my Favorite Villains Volume 3 post, and it was nice to hear that I was pretty much in tune with what the writers had in mind. But to hear him say it, and then to say that he was going to go with the ultimate bad guy "because he's the only one that will have me" was heartbreaking. He had turned himself into a monster to be accepted by a father that didn't care about him anyway. And now he has no place in society. But then Ilana says, "I'll have you." And you can see the change on his face, someone finally said to him: "I know what you are, and I want you to know that it's okay and I forgive you." And at that moment he attained his redemption. He was still causing some trouble there at the end of course, but only because it was fricking awesome.

This idea of forgiveness is what the conclusion to the show was all about, and I thought it was well-delivered and powerful. So powerful in fact, that I'm not sure I can even watch the finale again. Much like how "The Dark Tower" series by Stephen King are my favorite books but I've never gone back and read them after I finished the series. Because it was too powerful, too perfect. But since I have the complete Blu-Ray set ordered for this show, I'll probably have to watch it again. I kind of figured that they were all heading to some sort of afterlife, and it was ultimately confirmed when Jack enters the church. Because within the church were artifacts from various religions, there was a cross on the wall but there were also paintings and statues from other religions. When he's standing above his father's coffin, behind him is a stained glass window that has on it: a cross, a star of David, a Yin-Yang symbol, and the Islamic crescent (also two I didn't recognize). Obviously no church would have this outside of some hippie communes, so I figured it was somewhere beyond the stars (or across the sea I suppose). And it is then revealed to us that at one point or another, everyone has moved on. Those that escaped the Island, eventually died. Ben and Hurley ran things on the Island for a while, and they died (side note: I'd love to see a comic book of them running the Island, that'd be hilarious). Eventually, everyone dies as everyone must. Where, when, and how isn't important. What was important was the connection shared between them. And in the end, they all found each other. Some were missing for logistical reasons, but I'd like to think Michael and Walt are off playing with Vincent somewhere and that Richard was finally reunited with the love that he lost all those years ago. And so the theory of the characters being in Purgatory turned out to be true, just not in the way we thought. The Flash-Sideways was a kind of Purgatory, a last trial for them to come to terms with their lives as they had been. And I cannot wait to rewatch this season with that in mind.

Nor can I wait to rewatch the whole incredible journey. As many know, I've seen every episode of almost 100 different TV shows (maybe over 100 at this point) so I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about. And as far as I'm concerned, there's Lost and then there's everything else. It achieved what no other show ever has: great in the beginning, great throughout, and a phenomenal ending. There were one or two sub par episodes, but for me it wasn't like most shows where you say: this season was bad, or that season wasn't quite as good. Every season had a different focus but they all came together to some common themes: forgiveness and redemption. And it could've been SO hokey, but it wasn't. And much like "The Dark Tower" series, it ended where it began. It ended with Jack on the ground of the bamboo forest, this time by choice, having gone through a major transformation. I think Jimmy Kimmel had some unusually profound and accurate insight into the show, that it was ultimately about Jack's trial. Because he kept trying bigger and bigger things to either leave the Island or change his destiny because he was a man of science. But he became the man of faith, and learned to accept the things that had happened to him and move on. And so did everyone else in their own ways.

And thus ended the greatest saga of television history. I must admit that I feel kind of empty now that it's all over. I've invested so much time into analyzing it and analyzing the music and talking to people about it that now I need a new hobby. But whatever my new hobby is will suck by comparison. However, I'd like to think that much like the end of the show, wherein everyone was reunited with the people that had the most profound impact on them, someday I'll be reunited with the experiences I've had throughout the run of the show. I graduated high school and college during its run. I changed a lot in those six years, and this show was my constant. But now, like Jack I must move on to other things. And someday I'll pass by poor Ben Linus and enter that church myself, and if it's up to me I'll spend my time watching the show with my closest friends that shared the experience with me. There are no Candidates for the show's replacement, and nor should there be.