I've already spoke my peace. But there are some genuine feelings of "we got screwed" concerning last night's Lost finale that I haven't seen since 1997 when Vince McMahon called for the bell in Montreal. To give a voice to these angry masses, I give you Lee Rubenstein - Writer for Upright Citizens Brigade Maude Team, High Treason. And one pissed off Lost fan. Lee, you have the floor.
With that final fade to white, I flipped off my TV. I didn’t turn it off though. I just sat there, middle finger outstretched, watching the credits roll. I knew in my heart that, somewhere out there, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were rimming each other and murmuring softly about how they don’t owe anybody anything.
It would take days to write out all the ways Lost finale failed as a piece of fantasy (or sci-fi, whatever you want to call it). And I’m not going to bother, because apparently, I wasn’t watching it for that reason. I was watching it for the characters. For the love stories. Ok. Sure. Let’s say I was.* HOW THE FUCK WAS THAT A REASONABLE OR SATISFYING CONCLUSION IN THAT CONTEXT?
1. Apparently you must be a certain height to ride the great space coaster into the white light. And apparently it takes you to Fuck-Palace 7 where you just bone all day. That’s the only reasonable answer, right? Because even though parenthood and the proper raising of children were such huge themes in Lost, no one seems to care about meeting their children in heaven. Not even, say, the child we are told is SPECIAL and IMPORTANT and MUST NOT BE RAISED BY ANOTHER. Where’s your child Claire? “Who cares, I’m going to go angle-fuck this drug addict.”
2. But that bad parenting pales in comparison Jin and Sun. Jin chose to die instead escaping the island to raise his kid. And Sun let him. Jin has only had two motivations on the entire show: Protecting and providing for his family, and finding his family so he can protect and provide for it. And how did he end his life? By, you know, maybe sacrificing himself to protect and provide for his family? NOPE. He died doing the exact opposite. Because that’s good writing, right? If you close your eyes, you can literally feel Damon Lindelof pissing on your face.
3. Is Sayid evil? Well, he did torture all those people, both in Iraq and on the Island. And then he did murder a shit ton of people across the world and on the island in cold blood. But, to his credit, he did choose to not shoot a dude sitting in a well. But good, evil, apparently doesn’t matter, cause he gets to go to heaven with his true love, Nadia.
4. Wait, what? Where the fuck is Nadia? What do you mean, Nadia who? FUCKING NADIA. The strong, independent women that Sayid based all his adult life around loving and protecting. Is she not-WHAT THE FUCK IS SHANNON DOING HERE? Get her out of here or it’s going to be awkward when Nadia shows up! So for reals though, was the big plot twist of Lost that Sayid is really Tiger Woods with his hair grown out? Sayid’s entire life is based on what he would and wouldn’t do to be reunited with Nadia. Turns out though that he’d throw it all away for an eternity of whiny, shallow sex with some chick he knew for less than a month.
5. Desmond and Penny, where is baby Charlie? Wait, sorry, I’m done talking about not going to heaven with your kids.
6. So Ben kills like a million people in cold blood, but he can still be redeemed. Then, after he gets redeemed, he kills two more people, just for good measure. No worries, he can go to Heaven after he lives out his dad fantasy with Alex and Rousseau. But Michael, under extreme duress, trying to protect his HUGELY IMPORTANT son (sorry, I momentarily forgot that none of the fantasy plot points mattered at all), shoots one person on purpose and another accidentally, and he’s forever trapped as a ghost? Yup, a good resolution to that character, just as I wanted from my character drama.
6. Why was Jacob and MIB’s mom a ghost? Who did she shoot? Doesn’t matter.
7. John Locke, fresh out of his wheelchair, is apparently going on the space coaster solo. Sorry Kathy Segal, at least you’ve still got Fry.
8. You must never let the light go out…or else you will have to turn it back on again. What a pain, am I right?
Ok, I’m straying back towards discussing the MASSIVE PLOT HOLES instead of the nonsensical behavior of characters in a supposed character drama, so I’ll stop for now. What a fucking waste of time.
*It’s weird, as much as people want to tell me this was why I was watching, I really don’t remember going from website to website, pouring over in-depth analysis of Kate and Sawyer’s breathy exchanges. I don’t remember reading long, speculative blog posts about whether Jack and Juliette’s flirty banter was well-earned. I don’t remember spending off-seasons playing long and convoluted mystery games about finding the location of Locke and Kathy Segal’s first date. Weird .
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Funny post. I agree that one of the more troubling takeaways is that guys like Sayid and Ben who did some pretty bad stuff get a pass, but Michael is somehow stuck on the island. It almost seems like the message was no matter what horrible stuff you do, you've still got a shot at redemption or heaven. It kind of makes you wonder if evil dictators would get a pass in the LOST version of heaven. By the way, I did sort of like the way Sayid went out by blowing himself up to save his friends (inversion of the suicide bomber, as many pointed out).
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that when Darlton come out of "radio silence" they may explain it this way:
Sayid sacrificed himself to save the folks who then went on to kill MIB and then save the light that's in all mankind, so that outweighs any other evil stuff that he did in his life. And as for Ben, how do you know what he did as Hurley's #2? Maybe he went on to amazing, humanitarian things and found the cure for cancer on the island, and this was somehow shipped out to the rest of the world, and ultimately he ended up saving more lives than killing.
One thing I speculated on throughout the season was that the Sideways world was MIB's creation, and that the big reveal at the end was that the Locke in Sideways world actually was evil too, but created this world so that our heroes would think that everything in their lives were good, but there was actually evil stuff happening that we weren't seeing. But I guess that had already been done in The Matrix. I don't know if that would have been a better twist. Oh, and I'm stereotyping here, but do you think that the final episode had more appeal for female watchers of LOST than male watchers, in general?
Also, Chris, you mentioned Star Wars in your other post, and I'm curious how you feel about that saga and it's internal consistency (or lack of it)? The consensus seems to be the Lucas pretty much screwed it up with Episodes I and II only to come back with a pretty good III. Some may say that VI already showed some troubling signs with the Ewoks. Are you troubled that Darth Vader gets a pass and somehow still can pass off into Force Heaven or whatever it is despite the millions he killed? And does Lucas get demerits for explaining that it's your midichlorian count that determines how much Force power you have? I know some friends of mine were incredibly bitter about the prequels, even though Lucas supposedly had the saga written out in his mind and had years to get it right. Certainly, it's disappointing when any story doesn't meet expectations, but I guess it is what it is. It does make you wonder if you'd get more satisfaction out of fanfic.
Having this discussion has made me think that maybe I ought to just turn off the TV and actually take up the novel (ha ha) concept of reading books again. It's been awhile since I've read a novel, and it would be interesting to compare the logical consistency of a classic book vs. LOST or whatever the great TV and movie sagas are of our time, many of which are based on books to begin with.