LOST — Page 14

You notice that Hurley said that Luke found out Vader was his father, kept fighting and lost his hand, when in the movie, its the other way around?  Is this Hurley mis-remembering, or did he re-write it and Lucas actually use it, and the new version is creeping backwards through time, affecting his memory?  My brain just exploded.

I think it is more the writers mis-remembering. Hurley said he had seen the movie so many times he had it memorized. Or you could brush it off as one of Hurley's improvements to the story. As he said he was making improvements. I don't remember Chewie throwing his "fury" arm up in victory after blowing up the spy robot thingy. 

I think it was a fun idea, and it made it's point. As soon as the show said that went to 1977 a few episodes ago, I was thinking that I would have been on that sub and on line at Star Wars...

I found the ending far less satisfying that previous finales. Usually there is something to give you hints of what you might expect next season. Season one's Walt getting kidnapped and staring down into the open hatch. Season two's revealing the Others and the capturing of the main characters. Season three's "We have to go back, Kate." Season four's Ben and Jack conversation and Locke in the casket reveal. They all gave us a fairly good idea of what might come next season.

This ending wasn't bad, but it is the first time a season of Lost ended and left me clueless of what to anticipate next season.

I thing we are safe to assume that Jack did this exact same thing before, and is in fact the cause of the incident. After the whole 'trying to kill Ben is essentially what turned him into a monster' plot, I think a lot of us assumed Jack trying to stop the incident is what caused it to happen. But then Miles comes along and spells it out to us, setting it nice and cleanly on the table, which now has me thinking things might change, and that Miles line was thrown in there to knock us off stride.

White Flash at end of finale: Nuclear explosion or... time travel flash?

My review

Thar be Spoilers below:

"The Incident"

Season 5 finale

Lost

ABC

What lies in the shadow of the statue?

“Ille qui nos omnes servabit”

“He who will save us”

Genesis, Sigmund Freud, the Odyssey, Flannery O’Connor, Carl Jung, “Dr. Strangelove” — Wednesday night’s season finale of “Lost” was so chockablock with archetype, mythology and cultural references it was like watching Joseph Campbell on crack. A better look at the statue would seemingly lead one away from the gods Tawaret and Anubis, introducing another Egyptian Diety as the island’s potential avatar… Sobek.

A powerful and frightening deity, it was Sobek who first came out of the dark waters of chaos to create the world. Sobek was often thought of as being beyond good or evil, though he was seen as a repairer of evil that had been done. In one reference, Sobek was also said to call on suitable gods and goddesses required for protecting people in need, effectively having a more distant role, nudging things along, rather than taking an active part.

Sound familiar? If you watch Lost it does.

It opened with a man (in a cave, so throw in Plato) hunched over a spinning wheel (Ghandi? Penelope at her loom? Or just a reference to the Blood, Sweat and Tears song?), then cut to two men on a beach. Their garments vaguely period, their speech decidedly modern, they argue over a frigate in full sail on the horizon. One man (in black) says in disgust that he knows they are coming because the other man (in white) brought them.

Clearly Jacob, previously a mysterious authority, has been around for a while. (We later learn that he has in fact visited each of the key characters at significant moments of their life.) But who is he really? God? And does that make Mr. Black some incarnation of Satan, the two perpetually battling over the basic nature of the human soul? Is the island then Eden, existing outside space and time to serve as a kind of spiritual laboratory?

The rest of the episode never quite lived up to the opening.

You’re trying to prove me wrong.

You are wrong.

They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt.
It always ends the same.

It can only end once. Everything before that is progress.

~Jacob and The Man in Black

And so it goes, the eternal back and forth between these two timeless adversaries. Both manipulating people and events in an ongoing conflict that is a game with set rules, not the least of which being that they are barred from killing one another. It’s been hinted at as far back as season one, when John Locke explained the game of backgammon to Walt as being a contest between two players, on black and one white.

The Man in Black finding the loophole and, in the guise of John Locke, leading Ben to slaughter Jacob. But Jacob seemed almost eager for the killing blow, offering himself up like an aged Jedi prepared to “become more powerful that you can possibly imagine.

Jacob was assembling his army, pushing and prodding the Losties toward their destined Island venture so that they in turn could be his chess pieces in his little game of redemption, absolution, and perhaps the exercise in free will.

Look more closely at the paths he laid out for them.

Kate: Busted for shoplifting, he paid off the shop owner to keep him from calling her parents. Had she been disciplined, how different would Kate have been?

James: Jacob offered up the pen in which the boy could write his vengeance-fueled letter, the defining moment in the young boy’s life, that carried him through to adulthood and forging him into a mirror of that which he hated most.

Locke: Forgiveness and hope offered to a broken man betrayed by his father.

Jack: A little push in the right direction, with an Apollo bar no less.

Sayid: Poor Sayid, was culled from harm's way as Nadia was struck down, opening up for him his path to revenge-fueled, killing machine madness.

Is Jacob good or evil? Is he beyond these simplistic classifications?

“It’s always something with you people.”
~Rose Henderson

Rose and Bernard who quickly inform them the fresh off the sub Sawyer, Kate and Juliet that they are not at all interested in either the Dharma/anti-Dharma, the hydrogen bomb/no hydrogen bomb or even the old favorite Jack/Sawyer conflict. They are “retired” and disappointed to find that their old beach comrades are still looking for ways to shoot each other. Bernard and Rose, the island’s John and Yoko, just want to be together.

Sawyer and Juliet’s relationship was tossed into the abyss last night, with destiny and a hydrogen bomb.  She dies wearing a red shirt and I could care less.  Their relationship seemed contrived and ridiculous and her poorly acted death ( on Josh Holloway's part, god his acting was so bad in that scene)

Of course there was another little matter that took  me no time to figure out…

R.I.P. John Locke.  In the end, John Locke… the real John Locke, not the black shirted, smoke monstered doppelganger… was what he’d always been: a failure. A led around by a ring in his nose, self-defeating, screw up who was played and manipulated by everyone and everything. The Man of Faith… and in the end, he was weak and pathetic, despite how hard he tried to be otherwise. Is there still hope for redemption for John Locke? God, I hope so, he deserves better, and as Jack said never give up on John Locke.

Did they succeed in resetting Time? How has the nuclear detonation effected the present? In a nutshell, where do they go from here?

The writers have positioned themselves perfectly. At this point, anything can happen. We are now completely and utterly lost… cast adrift in a sea of uncertainty. Much like the new Star Trek.  We are connected but nothing we know works anymore.

And it’s a odd feeling.

 In a negative reflection of “The Sopranos” finale, the screen goes white.

One thing we know for sure, there is a war coming and season six can't come quick enough.

Only a few more weeks till this show returns for it's final season.

Is anyone as excited as I am?

I'm re-watching favorite episodes until it starts. I'm still feeling the urge to make a fan edit of all seasons into a shorter chronological story. But that all depends on how it all turns out in the end. So I am holding off on a complete re-watch till after season six ends. Don't want to burn out. Yet. 

I'm so afraid Season 6 will suck.  In fact, I was coming here to start a thread called, "Lost Season 6 Will Suck (and ruin Lost)".  Season's 1-5 have been primarily building up to... something.  Very little of it has been paid off.  Very few of the show-driving mysteries have been solved, and some of them have been forgotten.  Those that have been solved have been underwhelming (the numbers, the four toed statue).  We've been watching, loving, discussing a show that promised to deliver amazing answers to incredible questions... and recently I strongly doubt that they have these amazing answers at all.

It's sort of like a religion that promises to get you into heaven... and then mostly has a sign at the end that says, "Sorry folks... but all we got is Jersey."

How was the 4-toed statue was resolved?  I don't remember.

Totally agree with what you're saying though... not sure they'll be able to deliver.  Personally I'm not feeling the whole 'Jacob and his brother' thing... if it turns out to be two Gods having fun with the humans I'll be disappointed.

The writer/producers claim that they have had this master plan and they are simply (for the most part) executing it.  (Sound familiar?)  That's where the sense of that comes from for the fans, I think.

Carlton Cuse said last year (I'll have to google it) that the numbers wouldn't be discussed any more after Season 5.  That when Hurley pulls up next to the Swan site in the Dharma van and sees them stamping the numbers on the hatch lid... that that was the, er... "swan" song for the numbers.  He gave the final off-screen description of the numbers as part of the Valenzetti Equation- a description offered during a season 3 or so ARG game.  But he said that that explanation would not appear on screen in Season 6- mystery closed.

My disappointment with the last several episodes to season 5 was that it didn't really resolve the "big question" of the season.  Can you or can't you change history while timetraveling?  The finale itself seemed to be very close to answering the question, but it ulitmately didn't.  Seemed like the writers themselves couldn't make up their minds during the season and they came to a stalemate at the finale.  Faraday's "What's happened, happened." seemed like a good rule for the show.  But when he showed up saying, "I forgot to include the variables!  And do you know what the variables are???"  No, Daniel... tell me what the variables are!  "The variables are us!  People, xhonzi... they are the variables!!!"  So, wait... you assumed that time was unchangeable because you forgot that people could make changes to it?  What else would have changed time, dirt or possibly monkeys?  Anyways, I thought that business came across as really poorly written and wishy-washy.

I'm hoping they do drop an awesome bomb that totally makes it all work.  I'm just managing my expectations because they probably won't.  Much like the Star Wars prequels, nothing could match the hype co-created by the sho creators and the rabid fans.   Unlike the prequels, hopefully it fails to match the hype but is still somewhat good.  :)

Except for Ewan McGregor.  He was excellent.

The identity of the four toed statue somewhat is the instigator of my cause for concern.  The producers and the ABC website have all publicly said that the statue is supposed to be the Egyptian Female Hippo Goddess "Taweret"  But the art department, as far as I can tell, has delivered an Egyptian Male Crocodile God "Sobek."  And then, after years of wondering what the statue is... it seems that this will probably be another casualty of not having enough time left in season 6 to do much with it.

It reminds me a little of In-n-out.  Several years back, I had a friend from California whose wardrobe was primarily 6 or 7 In-n-out t-shirts.  He probably wore pants as well, but that's neither here-nor-there.  When asked about In-n-out, the conversation went like this:

HIM: Have you ever had In-n-nout?
ME:  No.
HIM: Well, let me tell you, it is the best burger place on Earth.  It is SOOOOO great!  You'll never be able to have a burger anywhere else after you have one!  You have not really lived until you have one.
ME:  Sounds great!

Years later: I had an In-n-out burger.  It was decent.  But I didn't buy any t-shirts.  Then I run into this friend.

ME:  So, I had an In-n-out burger.
HIM: And how was it????  Did it blow your mind?  Did you almost die right on the spot from how good it was?  Did you divorce your wife so you could marry it?
ME:  No.  I thought it was all right, but I didn't really think it was much different from most of the other burgers I've had.  I think I like those $.59 hamburgers that come in kids meals about the same.
HIM: Well... everyone has personal tastes....

Everyone DOES have personal tastes!  This is true.  But that didn't matter when I hadn't ever had one before.  He told me it would blow my mind etc., not that I might or mightn't like it based on my personal taste but that due to his personal taste, he quite enjoyed them!

So... back to the statue... I think it was like, "Can you solve the mystery of the statue?  It's a clue to the mystery of the whole island!"
ME:    So it's Taweret.  Or maybe Sobek.
THEM: Yeah, it's not really that big a deal.  It's just Jersey.