Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Lost

Last Saturday we watched the last episode of Lost. (Not all of us—one member hates the show.) I know the show finished weeks ago, but what can I say, other things were more important.

I’ll admit up front that I’d turned my back on Lost last season. After Ben was found “not guilty” by the smoke monster, I threw up my hands in protest and resigned myself to never watch the show again—I’m a huge believer in justice.

However, a couple of friends convinced me to give it another shot. I think they just wanted someone they could talk to about the show. So I watched random episodes this year. And I have to admit that the sideways flashes were interesting, even though I was being manipulated to like certain unlikeable characters like Ben.

I geared up for the finale. After all, the writers had showed real creativity in early seasons, and I figured that they might have something amazing for the final episode.

I was wrong. The white chapel with the symbols of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, etc., etc. Please. I realize that they chose to go with non-offensive American religious inclusivity, but that was just hokey. While the credits were rolling at the end, two of my teenage boys said, “Said is seriously bummed.” “Why?” I asked. “He didn’t get his seventy virgins,” they said. “He got Shannon.” None of my boys liked Shannon—she was/is an uber-whiner and they hate whiners. I explained that Said was probably atheist and didn’t die during jihad so it didn’t count. “Oh,” they said. Any wonder why they watched the finale?

Part of the disappointment for me is the writers went for the easy out—the characters are in all process, maybe to heaven, but you can pretend not if you find that offensive. Several seasons ago, I was hoping that the island was purgatory and that the characters were redeeming themselves from their past sins. Now I’m not Roman Catholic and I don’t believe in purgatory, but it would have been a cool concept and very Dantesque. Even the holding back evil on the island was fascinating concept that could have been a much bigger part of the ending. They could have gotten all Greek on us and tied the ending into the whole Pandora’s box thing—Jack is only thing between us and a descent into utter chaos.

I guess I wanted a full-orbed purpose for the story. Maybe it’s the novelist in me. Or maybe it’s the years of studying literature. I wanted a purpose for the character’s suffering, even if it was post-modern purposelessness. It just felt like they tacked on a non-offensive happy ending.

Time to watch Leverage.

7 comments:

  1. I 100% agree with your boys--Shannon was the most useless character! I'm pretty sure we cheered when she bit it...(Ana Lucia, too...). And the chapel was hokey. I would have been less annoyed had it just been a church...it felt weird to try to make it so inclusive.

    I quasi-gave-up on Lost after the season finale that had the Donkey Wheel of Doom and time started swapping around--Lost, I like to say, lost me. And scampered away without me.

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  2. Connie...(sorry to post this here) but wanted to let you know you were one of the two winners for a copy of SHADOW OF BETRAYAL from the contest I ran a couple of weeks ago. If you email me your info to:
    contest
    at
    brettbattles
    dot
    com
    I'll get it sent out to you!

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  3. I really dont like LOST. It is so...blech. I saw one episode where this really chubby guy was admitting that he stole all the food. I turned it off. I guess I was feeling....lost..

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  4. Yes, let's go watch Leverage. I gave up completely on the show when the characters decided that they needed to go back to the island after they just got off it. And just for the record, Ben needed to have his bowels consumed by rabid wolves. I would have watched the finale if that happened.

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  5. My mathteacher love(d) LOST, and will always go on tangents concerning it. He was quite annoyed by the ending, though.

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  6. I haven't gotten sucked into the whole Lost phenomenon, but I know what you mean about the purgatory concept being a cool one to explore (and I'm a protestant). A recent read I enjoyed that seems to be a purgatory-type story is Lauren Oliver's _Before I Fall_. It's worth checking out.

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  7. Okay, I watched every episode of LOST. I got totally hooked on the unique storyline and interesting characters, and I will admit, I was of the same attitude as yours: they could do such an amazing job with the ending! I hope it's good! I was sorely disappointed. I almost puked when I saw the pan-religious window in the chapel and they started saying wishy-washy crap about gathering for their "afterlife journey" or whatever. I don't understand why they were so afraid to make the end even a tiny bit edgy or at least leave me with some interesting moral or spiritual question. Instead they went belly up and surrendered to the pacifism/tolerance beast. Lame.

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