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Lost Redux
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I have read a possible explanation about the purge. Dharma came to close to the light of hte island. Like mother killed all the people after brother had told them about the light and his fellows were getting to close, perhaps this was also the case with the dharma purge? They came to close to the light Jacob had to protect?theslime said:
Here is also a nice explanation for the need of Desmond:
[spoiler:21m05y9g]Desmond and the Source / there is a correlation between the Electromagnetism and the Source.
When the Man in Black was thrown into the water and drawn into the Source, his tainted soul bonded with the Source, creating the Smoke Monster. Three things happened as a result: 1: MiB cannot be killed. 2: MiB cannot leave the island as long as Jacob/replacement for Jacob exists, as Jacob/future Guardian protects the Source. 3: The Source, i.e. the heart of the island, has been corrupted through this bonding, resulting in things like the Sickness. The island itself is sick.
Jack needs Desmond for some reason. Desmond is the only one who can survive exposure to high-level electromagnetism.
So... Desmond (a pure soul) will need to enter the Source and sever the MiB's bond to it. This will either kill the MiB or allow him to be killed. This might bind Desmond to the Source. This will heal the island but also make Desmond--the eternal prisoner!--unable to leave. This is something Desmond will know and will willingly accept for the greater good; it is the sacrifice (remember what Widmore told him) he'll be asked to make. He'll do so, giving up on ever seeing Penny and his son Charlie again and remaining on the island--the very place he never wanted to be--forever. Jack will replace Jacob, and it will be Jack and Des on the island.[/spoiler:21m05y9g]
theslime
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That is pretty much my theory too, I'm just not 100 percent sure that Jack is needed in that scenario. If "Locke" is destroyed, would they need a Guardian? Possibly, to avoid a thing like the Smoke from happening again. I don't know.
A variation of this theme is indeed a very likely outcome at this point. And alright with me. It would tie the series together nicely, and with some nice character moments it will work. It looks to be a logical culmination from where I stand, not the messy bugfix some make it out to be.
PS: About Adam and Eve, I never really bought that a backwards anagram message in a non-essential episode three years prior was supposed to tell the truth about that. The actual backwards non-anagrammed message sounds much more Lostian to my ears, and could be said to foreshadow both time travel and moving the island.
A variation of this theme is indeed a very likely outcome at this point. And alright with me. It would tie the series together nicely, and with some nice character moments it will work. It looks to be a logical culmination from where I stand, not the messy bugfix some make it out to be.
PS: About Adam and Eve, I never really bought that a backwards anagram message in a non-essential episode three years prior was supposed to tell the truth about that. The actual backwards non-anagrammed message sounds much more Lostian to my ears, and could be said to foreshadow both time travel and moving the island.
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Quick theory:
[spoiler:1mzw43q5]Since "Adam" went into the light/source he is now bound to the light/source and this is what holds him close to the island (He has left the main island, so he can go a little ways it appears). With Jacob now dead, If there is nobody left to take on the responsibility of protecting the source (no more candidates) then the light will be extinguished, and the remaining darkness, embodied by the smoke monster, will be set free on the world.[/spoiler:1mzw43q5]
Edit: Just read the post a few before and that's pretty close to what was said there.
[spoiler:1mzw43q5]Since "Adam" went into the light/source he is now bound to the light/source and this is what holds him close to the island (He has left the main island, so he can go a little ways it appears). With Jacob now dead, If there is nobody left to take on the responsibility of protecting the source (no more candidates) then the light will be extinguished, and the remaining darkness, embodied by the smoke monster, will be set free on the world.[/spoiler:1mzw43q5]
Edit: Just read the post a few before and that's pretty close to what was said there.
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Making 'Lost' Last, and Seeing It Home
AFTER six twisty seasons filled with time-traveling castaways, mysterious happenings on a tropical island, fervid arguments about faith versus reason and enough hook-ups and smackdowns to rival Craigslist and "Raw," "Lost" comes to an end on May 23. And on the first Monday of May, with just hours to go before the show runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have to finish the final cut of the two-and-a-half-hour finale, the bungalow that houses the creative team of "Lost" on the Disney lot here had a forlorn air to it.
Most of the writers had been gone for weeks. Packed boxes lined the walls. Even the video arcade games in the common area ââ¬â Asteroids, Battlezone and Multicade ââ¬â were uprooted that morning and returned to their owner, J. J. Abrams, a creator of the show with Mr. Lindelof. But the simpatico team of Mr. Lindelof and Mr. Cuse, who joined early in the first season to help oversee the show, appeared upbeat despite a week of little sleep. Concluding the popular series may be bittersweet, but the two men are going out on their own terms, having persuaded ABC three years ago to grant them this creative closure even if the show were still riding high in the ratings.
Over breakfast (which they literally shared), Mr. Lindelof and Mr. Cuse spoke about the show's most important big theme, the role of fate in their own story telling and just how much of the ending was known from the beginning. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q. You both have decided to pull a David Chase: that like the creator of "The Sopranos," you weren't going to answer questions about the ending and the larger meanings of the series. Why did you make that decision?
CARLTON CUSE We've kind of done the same thing every other year too, which is, we haven't talked after the finale for some period of time because we want the audience to have a chance to digest the show and arrive at their own conclusions. We think it would be sort of enormously both presumptuous and frustrating for the audience to have someone say, "No, what you think is wrong because this is what Damon and Carlton said." We think one of the things that's been the coolest about "Lost" is that there's a lot of intentional ambiguity, and there's a lot of room for debate and discussion.
Q. Your show traffics in a lot of big themes ââ¬â fate versus free will, good versus evil, faith versus reason, how often Sawyer should be shirtless. Ultimately, what were the most important themes for you in this series?
DAMON LINDELOF If there's one word that we keep coming back to, it's redemption. It is that idea of everybody has something to be redeemed for and the idea that that redemption doesn't necessarily come from anywhere else other than internally. But in order to redeem yourself, you can only do it through a community. So the redemption theme started to kind of connect into "live together, die alone," which is that these people were all lone wolves who were complete strangers on an aircraft, even the ones who were flying together like Sun and Jin. Then let's bring them together and through their experiences together allow themselves to be redeemed. When the show is firing on all pistons, that's the kind of storytelling that we're doing.
I think we've always said that the characters of "Lost" are deeply flawed, but when you look at their flashback stories, they're all victims. Kate was a victim before she killed her stepfather. Sawyer's parents killed themselves as he was hiding under the bed. Jack's dad was a drunk who berated him as a child. Sayid was manipulated by the American government into torturing somebody else. John Locke had his kidney stolen. This idea of saying this bad thing happened to me and I'm a victim and it created some bad behavior and now I'm going to take responsibility for that and allow myself to be redeemed by community with other people, that seems to be the theme that we keep coming back to.
Q. These are big themes for not necessarily the most hospitable host, a network series. How do you find a way to work these themes in while dealing with the constraints of, you're not on cable channels like AMC or even HBO, you're on ABC, and you still need that significant audience?
CUSE I think it's because we always put the entertainment value first. While these ideas are very important to us, we try very hard to not be precious or pretentious about it. One of the concepts we always talk about is this idea of intensity ââ¬â that we want an episode of "Lost" to provide a very intense emotional journey, and it's funny because people who actually read our scripts are kind of amazed because they're incredibly blue. And this is because we are writing the show here in Burbank and we're sending it 3,000 miles electronically to Hawaii, and we want everyone who's prepping the show ââ¬â the directors who are directing the show and most of all the actors who are watching the show ââ¬â to understand that even though we're on network television and the characters can't say that word, it conjures for them a notion of intensity and kind of conviction to whatever the emotion is that we're trying to sell in a given scene. The thing that we actually do is we take the nemesis of network television ââ¬â the act structure ââ¬â and we try to turn it to our advantage. We have six commercial breaks in an episode of "Lost," and so our goal is when we're breaking stories, how are we going to really make each one of these commercial breaks really exciting. Those questions led to a lot of really intense scenes and cool reversals and surprises, and I guess it must have been how Dickens would cliffhanger the end of his serials in the newspaper when he was writing them to try to get people to show up the next day.
Q. When you look at even what an AMC can get away with "Mad Men," do you feel hindered as storytellers because you can't show that passion or express that language or really show some of the violence that you could otherwise?
LINDELOF There is a certain label that gets stuck on a show, even an HBO show, where it's sort of highfalutin. I really want to watch "Treme," but I also feel like it's going to be intellectual and intense and it's going to make me think, and I don't really look at it as entertainment first, I look at it as art first and then entertainment. We have no shame whatsoever ââ¬â in fact, we're quite proud of saying that our job is to entertain ââ¬â but if you start watching the show, these themes begin to permeate.
Q. One criticism of the show over the years has been that it throws all these big ideas in by giving characters names of philosophers: Hume, Rousseau Locke and the like. There's a concern you're just sort of tossing it into this gumbo and giving the show an intellectual veneer when those characters' actions and motivations don't correlate to their namesakes.
LINDELOF One of the things that we completely own is that in many ways "Lost" is a mash-up/remix of our favorite stories, whether that's Bible stories from Sunday school or "Narnia" or "Star Wars" or the writings of John Steinbeck. Carlton and I both had to take philosophy classes when we were in college, and we talk about philosophy, so when certain ideas started to present themselves on the show, we just wanted to let the audience know that these philosophers are in our lexicon as storytellers.
Q. The question I get most from readers and friends, beyond what it all means, is: How much did the writers and the creators know going in about how things were going to end?
LINDELOF In answering that question you have to bifurcate the creative construct of the mythology of the show and the series as a whole into two periods. The first period is where we didn't know how long the show was going to go for. So there's a certain degree of wheel spinning that Carlton and I have talked about ad nauseam in the Season 2, Season 3 period, where you could only do middle. We did have extensive conversations about certain mythological elements of the island: why these people couldn't be discovered; that we would do time-travel-related storytelling; and, most importantly, the Others on the island and their relationship with this character named Jacob and who he might be and what his relationship was with the island. Who would end up with who, who would live, who would die, who would make sacrifices. But none of those things could be implemented or talked about in any real way until we negotiated an end date.
CUSE The literal last scene of the show was something that we concocted very early on in the first season of the show. But the last episode is an amalgam of ideas that started with our first mythology conversations in the first season when we realized after the pilot came out and the ratings were huge that the show was going to go a long time.
At the end of each season we would sit down and we would have these writers minicamps for a month, where we would think in much more detail about what the sort of structure of the next season was, and then during the year we built the thing. And just like if you're building a house, there's a lot of change orders. We were testing various relationships out on the show, one of which was we had this idea: What if we put Sawyer and Juliet together? And we were very unsure, most of the other writers were unsure and the actors themselves were very dubious about whether there would be any success to this relationship, but our opinion was: Let's try it. And lo and behold, this thing blossomed forth that no one was expecting, which was there was sort of a mature kind of love between these two characters.
CUSE On the other hand, we had all these fantastic intentions for this character Mr. Eko, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. But the guy got down to Hawaii, his whole crew that he rolled with was in London, he was 8,000 miles away, and he hated being there. So we were forced to completely cut bait on Mr. Eko. It's not like J. K. Rowling; we don't control every aspect of our world. We work and collaborate with many other artists, and he didn't want to be on the show. Now, by pruning that branch, that ended up giving us room and space to do more with Michael Emerson's character, and so suddenly Ben sort of blossomed forth, perhaps sooner and maybe to a greater degree than he would have had we been servicing Mr. Eko. So, those are the kinds of things that we're kind of rolling with. We're kind of steering this ship towards these demarcation points, but the journey of that ship is completely influenced by our reaction to watching things we see and then real-world issues like actors and their happiness quotient or all sorts of other things.
Q. Michael Emerson was originally just signed for three episodes. Did you always have in mind that there was a leader of the Others and then, when he was doing so well, you made him the leader?
CUSE If we get into trouble we have to either improvise or we have built-in escape hatches. In the case of this story our idea was, wouldn't it be great if they capture a prisoner of war and that that prisoner of war, after he gets away, turns out that they actually had the leader? So then again, as our normal process, we thought about actors, and we had both remembered Michael Emerson from this turn he had done in "The Practice" playing the serial killer. We call him up in New York, he's walking down Fifth Avenue during a sleet storm, and said, "Hey, do you want to go to Hawaii for three episodes?" Emerson got down there, and he was so good and was so intriguing that we didn't want him to disappear from the show.
It was very apparent to us that we needed the leader of the Others. One of the hardest struggles on the show was to figure out what are the forces of antagonism, and we were kind of flying blind because "Lost" was not the 10th iteration of a cop show or a medical show or a legal show. So in the first season a lot of the work we were doing was basically, what does an episode of "Lost" look like? What is the paradigm of the show? And so you throw different things up at the wall, and eventually you start figuring out what is the shape and structure of an episode. At the beginning you kind of quickly exhaust the natural forces of antagonism ââ¬â you can only have your search for water or shelter, medication, things like that. But ultimately, particularly in a long, ongoing narrative like television, the only really interesting forces of opposition are other people. Obviously these other people on the island had to have a leader, and that character had to be incredibly compelling.
Q. Are there any episodes that you wish you could do over?
CUSE I would just say this: I think that our belief is that even our mistakes were necessary and that we learned as much from our failures as we did from our successes, so it's not fair to say we would take back the episode where Jack is flying the kite with Bai Ling; that was a necessary step in our growth and our learning process.
LINDELOF It was also Exhibit A in "the show has to end." I think if we hadn't stumbled we never would have been able to make the creative case for the series.
Q. What didn't work in that episode in your mind?
LINDELOF Where to begin. The first was that after we spent six episodes with Kate and Sawyer locked in the cages and they escaped, we had to lock Jack back up in the cages again just to slow down the storytelling again, and so you're like, "Wait, we've already done this." The second was we had to begin to explore the Others' culture, so we saw what a funeral looked like for them and that they had a sheriff.
CUSE The revelation of the flashback is how Jack got his tattoos. I mean, really? Where does that stand up in the kind of pantheon of what's important to the characters?
LINDELOF And this is the hero of our show that we have to do this with. So the mistakes had to happen, but we actually like talking about the worst episodes of the show because at the end of the day we made 121 hours or something like that of "Lost," and I would say that probably only like 15 of them were subpar/stinkers. That's not bad. If you're going to have 15 stinkers, that means that 15 of them are actually going to be awesome. You cannot have awesome episodes without stinkers. It would be nice.
CUSE It's like a roller coaster. You can't just have the exciting parts, you also have to have the clank, clank, clank climb up to the top before you get the whoosh down the backside.
LINDELOF The awesome ones were almost written in response to the stinkers.
Q. Last season you guys doubled down on the science fiction with the time travel, and this year you introduced a much more religious overview. What drove that shift?
CUSE We view each season of the show like a book in a series, and so last year was the time travel book, and that story had a beginning, middle and end. This season is significantly spiritual. We felt the mission of the final season of the show was to bring the show full circle. And that if we were going to be discussing what was really important to us, which was how do these characters' journeys conclude, that journey is a spiritual journey.
Q. As you look back, what do you think were the episodes or the character relationships that resonated most with your audience?
CUSE It's far more about the character relationships that resonate. The thing is that people talk a lot about the mythology of "Lost," but we probably spent 85 percent of our time in the writers' room talking about the characters, and I think that's why the show was a broad audience show as opposed to a genre show. While the mythology was important, first and foremost the show was about the characters. I think that a lot of people care much more about what's going to happen to Kate. Is she going to end up with Jack, is she going to end up with Sawyer? That's why we feel like a lot of shows that have tried to imitate "Lost" make the fundamental mistake of having the characters just focus on the mythology. If you watch certain shows like that, you'll see all the characters are talking about is, "What's that dinosaur in my bathtub?"
Q. Which shows might you be talking about?
LINDELOF [After some laughter] "Surface."
Q. The episodes that seem to have resonated most with viewers are ones involving Desmond and Penny, particularly the Constant episode in Season 4. What made writing that so satisfying?
LINDELOF The thing about that episode is it's very simple storytelling, but very, very complicated storytelling at the same time. The simple part is that this episode is called "The Constant," and the whole point of it is, is that there is somebody else out there that is your other half. And again, it plugged into, in this very sort of obvious way, this theme that we were discussing earlier, which is: Nobody can do it alone. Desmond was unhooked or lost, he was a castaway bopping around through time, and his only possible salvation was finding the woman that he loved and telling her so and saying, "I need you to rescue me because I'm lost." This fundamentally tapped into every single theme of the show. You're basically saying emotion trumps mythology.
Carlton and I have long said that when the characters were stuck in cages at the beginning of the third season metaphorically, we were stuck in cages. But the metaphor that we rarely talk about but plays even better is that Desmond's our boy, and the reason he's our boy is because for that year we felt like we were pushing the button every 108 minutes or the world would end. And so when he ran away in the third episode and basically said, "You guys push the button now," we were setting him free. He was sailing around the island trying to escape in the Season 2 finale, he washes up, and it will just not let him go. In many ways Desmond is the guy that we identify with because he brought them to the island. So Penny represented our salvation too. The idea that there was a happy ending for this guy, so whenever we write Desmond episodes there's this real sense of identification. As much as we love Sawyer, I cannot identify with Sawyer in any way because he's so much cooler than I am.
Q. What are you guys trying to accomplish this year with the sideways world, a parallel existence seemingly caused by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb at the end of Season 5?
CUSE To answer that question would be to spoil the show, and that's also one of those questions that we feel is going to be a really healthy and cool debate when the show is over. There is a conclusion to the sideways story, but it's one that we feel will provoke discussion.
Q. Do you think a show like yours ââ¬â big budget, serialized, very intense, lots of characters ââ¬â can still work on network television?
CUSE One of the nostalgic elements of experiencing the end of "Lost" is that I also think it's the end of an era. The media landscape has changed dramatically even in the six years of this show. Here we are, we're shooting a show, there are somewhere between 425 people who work on the show, 325 in Hawaii and 100 here in Los Angeles, we shot the show on Panavision, 35-millimeter film, we had two full crews ââ¬â the scale and the scope and the size of this, this is the most expensive television series made anywhere in the world. And in this media landscape, it's incredibly hard to capitalize something the way "Lost" has been capitalized. We have a fractured media environment, and there are many more choices, but as a result there are smaller resources for every show that gets made, and so we feel a little bit like we're blacksmiths in the Internet era. It's kind of sad because we are big fans of action-adventure and genre and things like that. And when you see the "Lost" finale, it's like a movie, and just as fans of television, it's sad to realize that there just won't be that many rolls of the dice of this size and scope.
AFTER six twisty seasons filled with time-traveling castaways, mysterious happenings on a tropical island, fervid arguments about faith versus reason and enough hook-ups and smackdowns to rival Craigslist and "Raw," "Lost" comes to an end on May 23. And on the first Monday of May, with just hours to go before the show runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have to finish the final cut of the two-and-a-half-hour finale, the bungalow that houses the creative team of "Lost" on the Disney lot here had a forlorn air to it.
Most of the writers had been gone for weeks. Packed boxes lined the walls. Even the video arcade games in the common area ââ¬â Asteroids, Battlezone and Multicade ââ¬â were uprooted that morning and returned to their owner, J. J. Abrams, a creator of the show with Mr. Lindelof. But the simpatico team of Mr. Lindelof and Mr. Cuse, who joined early in the first season to help oversee the show, appeared upbeat despite a week of little sleep. Concluding the popular series may be bittersweet, but the two men are going out on their own terms, having persuaded ABC three years ago to grant them this creative closure even if the show were still riding high in the ratings.
Over breakfast (which they literally shared), Mr. Lindelof and Mr. Cuse spoke about the show's most important big theme, the role of fate in their own story telling and just how much of the ending was known from the beginning. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q. You both have decided to pull a David Chase: that like the creator of "The Sopranos," you weren't going to answer questions about the ending and the larger meanings of the series. Why did you make that decision?
CARLTON CUSE We've kind of done the same thing every other year too, which is, we haven't talked after the finale for some period of time because we want the audience to have a chance to digest the show and arrive at their own conclusions. We think it would be sort of enormously both presumptuous and frustrating for the audience to have someone say, "No, what you think is wrong because this is what Damon and Carlton said." We think one of the things that's been the coolest about "Lost" is that there's a lot of intentional ambiguity, and there's a lot of room for debate and discussion.
Q. Your show traffics in a lot of big themes ââ¬â fate versus free will, good versus evil, faith versus reason, how often Sawyer should be shirtless. Ultimately, what were the most important themes for you in this series?
DAMON LINDELOF If there's one word that we keep coming back to, it's redemption. It is that idea of everybody has something to be redeemed for and the idea that that redemption doesn't necessarily come from anywhere else other than internally. But in order to redeem yourself, you can only do it through a community. So the redemption theme started to kind of connect into "live together, die alone," which is that these people were all lone wolves who were complete strangers on an aircraft, even the ones who were flying together like Sun and Jin. Then let's bring them together and through their experiences together allow themselves to be redeemed. When the show is firing on all pistons, that's the kind of storytelling that we're doing.
I think we've always said that the characters of "Lost" are deeply flawed, but when you look at their flashback stories, they're all victims. Kate was a victim before she killed her stepfather. Sawyer's parents killed themselves as he was hiding under the bed. Jack's dad was a drunk who berated him as a child. Sayid was manipulated by the American government into torturing somebody else. John Locke had his kidney stolen. This idea of saying this bad thing happened to me and I'm a victim and it created some bad behavior and now I'm going to take responsibility for that and allow myself to be redeemed by community with other people, that seems to be the theme that we keep coming back to.
Q. These are big themes for not necessarily the most hospitable host, a network series. How do you find a way to work these themes in while dealing with the constraints of, you're not on cable channels like AMC or even HBO, you're on ABC, and you still need that significant audience?
CUSE I think it's because we always put the entertainment value first. While these ideas are very important to us, we try very hard to not be precious or pretentious about it. One of the concepts we always talk about is this idea of intensity ââ¬â that we want an episode of "Lost" to provide a very intense emotional journey, and it's funny because people who actually read our scripts are kind of amazed because they're incredibly blue. And this is because we are writing the show here in Burbank and we're sending it 3,000 miles electronically to Hawaii, and we want everyone who's prepping the show ââ¬â the directors who are directing the show and most of all the actors who are watching the show ââ¬â to understand that even though we're on network television and the characters can't say that word, it conjures for them a notion of intensity and kind of conviction to whatever the emotion is that we're trying to sell in a given scene. The thing that we actually do is we take the nemesis of network television ââ¬â the act structure ââ¬â and we try to turn it to our advantage. We have six commercial breaks in an episode of "Lost," and so our goal is when we're breaking stories, how are we going to really make each one of these commercial breaks really exciting. Those questions led to a lot of really intense scenes and cool reversals and surprises, and I guess it must have been how Dickens would cliffhanger the end of his serials in the newspaper when he was writing them to try to get people to show up the next day.
Q. When you look at even what an AMC can get away with "Mad Men," do you feel hindered as storytellers because you can't show that passion or express that language or really show some of the violence that you could otherwise?
LINDELOF There is a certain label that gets stuck on a show, even an HBO show, where it's sort of highfalutin. I really want to watch "Treme," but I also feel like it's going to be intellectual and intense and it's going to make me think, and I don't really look at it as entertainment first, I look at it as art first and then entertainment. We have no shame whatsoever ââ¬â in fact, we're quite proud of saying that our job is to entertain ââ¬â but if you start watching the show, these themes begin to permeate.
Q. One criticism of the show over the years has been that it throws all these big ideas in by giving characters names of philosophers: Hume, Rousseau Locke and the like. There's a concern you're just sort of tossing it into this gumbo and giving the show an intellectual veneer when those characters' actions and motivations don't correlate to their namesakes.
LINDELOF One of the things that we completely own is that in many ways "Lost" is a mash-up/remix of our favorite stories, whether that's Bible stories from Sunday school or "Narnia" or "Star Wars" or the writings of John Steinbeck. Carlton and I both had to take philosophy classes when we were in college, and we talk about philosophy, so when certain ideas started to present themselves on the show, we just wanted to let the audience know that these philosophers are in our lexicon as storytellers.
Q. The question I get most from readers and friends, beyond what it all means, is: How much did the writers and the creators know going in about how things were going to end?
LINDELOF In answering that question you have to bifurcate the creative construct of the mythology of the show and the series as a whole into two periods. The first period is where we didn't know how long the show was going to go for. So there's a certain degree of wheel spinning that Carlton and I have talked about ad nauseam in the Season 2, Season 3 period, where you could only do middle. We did have extensive conversations about certain mythological elements of the island: why these people couldn't be discovered; that we would do time-travel-related storytelling; and, most importantly, the Others on the island and their relationship with this character named Jacob and who he might be and what his relationship was with the island. Who would end up with who, who would live, who would die, who would make sacrifices. But none of those things could be implemented or talked about in any real way until we negotiated an end date.
CUSE The literal last scene of the show was something that we concocted very early on in the first season of the show. But the last episode is an amalgam of ideas that started with our first mythology conversations in the first season when we realized after the pilot came out and the ratings were huge that the show was going to go a long time.
At the end of each season we would sit down and we would have these writers minicamps for a month, where we would think in much more detail about what the sort of structure of the next season was, and then during the year we built the thing. And just like if you're building a house, there's a lot of change orders. We were testing various relationships out on the show, one of which was we had this idea: What if we put Sawyer and Juliet together? And we were very unsure, most of the other writers were unsure and the actors themselves were very dubious about whether there would be any success to this relationship, but our opinion was: Let's try it. And lo and behold, this thing blossomed forth that no one was expecting, which was there was sort of a mature kind of love between these two characters.
CUSE On the other hand, we had all these fantastic intentions for this character Mr. Eko, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. But the guy got down to Hawaii, his whole crew that he rolled with was in London, he was 8,000 miles away, and he hated being there. So we were forced to completely cut bait on Mr. Eko. It's not like J. K. Rowling; we don't control every aspect of our world. We work and collaborate with many other artists, and he didn't want to be on the show. Now, by pruning that branch, that ended up giving us room and space to do more with Michael Emerson's character, and so suddenly Ben sort of blossomed forth, perhaps sooner and maybe to a greater degree than he would have had we been servicing Mr. Eko. So, those are the kinds of things that we're kind of rolling with. We're kind of steering this ship towards these demarcation points, but the journey of that ship is completely influenced by our reaction to watching things we see and then real-world issues like actors and their happiness quotient or all sorts of other things.
Q. Michael Emerson was originally just signed for three episodes. Did you always have in mind that there was a leader of the Others and then, when he was doing so well, you made him the leader?
CUSE If we get into trouble we have to either improvise or we have built-in escape hatches. In the case of this story our idea was, wouldn't it be great if they capture a prisoner of war and that that prisoner of war, after he gets away, turns out that they actually had the leader? So then again, as our normal process, we thought about actors, and we had both remembered Michael Emerson from this turn he had done in "The Practice" playing the serial killer. We call him up in New York, he's walking down Fifth Avenue during a sleet storm, and said, "Hey, do you want to go to Hawaii for three episodes?" Emerson got down there, and he was so good and was so intriguing that we didn't want him to disappear from the show.
It was very apparent to us that we needed the leader of the Others. One of the hardest struggles on the show was to figure out what are the forces of antagonism, and we were kind of flying blind because "Lost" was not the 10th iteration of a cop show or a medical show or a legal show. So in the first season a lot of the work we were doing was basically, what does an episode of "Lost" look like? What is the paradigm of the show? And so you throw different things up at the wall, and eventually you start figuring out what is the shape and structure of an episode. At the beginning you kind of quickly exhaust the natural forces of antagonism ââ¬â you can only have your search for water or shelter, medication, things like that. But ultimately, particularly in a long, ongoing narrative like television, the only really interesting forces of opposition are other people. Obviously these other people on the island had to have a leader, and that character had to be incredibly compelling.
Q. Are there any episodes that you wish you could do over?
CUSE I would just say this: I think that our belief is that even our mistakes were necessary and that we learned as much from our failures as we did from our successes, so it's not fair to say we would take back the episode where Jack is flying the kite with Bai Ling; that was a necessary step in our growth and our learning process.
LINDELOF It was also Exhibit A in "the show has to end." I think if we hadn't stumbled we never would have been able to make the creative case for the series.
Q. What didn't work in that episode in your mind?
LINDELOF Where to begin. The first was that after we spent six episodes with Kate and Sawyer locked in the cages and they escaped, we had to lock Jack back up in the cages again just to slow down the storytelling again, and so you're like, "Wait, we've already done this." The second was we had to begin to explore the Others' culture, so we saw what a funeral looked like for them and that they had a sheriff.
CUSE The revelation of the flashback is how Jack got his tattoos. I mean, really? Where does that stand up in the kind of pantheon of what's important to the characters?
LINDELOF And this is the hero of our show that we have to do this with. So the mistakes had to happen, but we actually like talking about the worst episodes of the show because at the end of the day we made 121 hours or something like that of "Lost," and I would say that probably only like 15 of them were subpar/stinkers. That's not bad. If you're going to have 15 stinkers, that means that 15 of them are actually going to be awesome. You cannot have awesome episodes without stinkers. It would be nice.
CUSE It's like a roller coaster. You can't just have the exciting parts, you also have to have the clank, clank, clank climb up to the top before you get the whoosh down the backside.
LINDELOF The awesome ones were almost written in response to the stinkers.
Q. Last season you guys doubled down on the science fiction with the time travel, and this year you introduced a much more religious overview. What drove that shift?
CUSE We view each season of the show like a book in a series, and so last year was the time travel book, and that story had a beginning, middle and end. This season is significantly spiritual. We felt the mission of the final season of the show was to bring the show full circle. And that if we were going to be discussing what was really important to us, which was how do these characters' journeys conclude, that journey is a spiritual journey.
Q. As you look back, what do you think were the episodes or the character relationships that resonated most with your audience?
CUSE It's far more about the character relationships that resonate. The thing is that people talk a lot about the mythology of "Lost," but we probably spent 85 percent of our time in the writers' room talking about the characters, and I think that's why the show was a broad audience show as opposed to a genre show. While the mythology was important, first and foremost the show was about the characters. I think that a lot of people care much more about what's going to happen to Kate. Is she going to end up with Jack, is she going to end up with Sawyer? That's why we feel like a lot of shows that have tried to imitate "Lost" make the fundamental mistake of having the characters just focus on the mythology. If you watch certain shows like that, you'll see all the characters are talking about is, "What's that dinosaur in my bathtub?"
Q. Which shows might you be talking about?
LINDELOF [After some laughter] "Surface."
Q. The episodes that seem to have resonated most with viewers are ones involving Desmond and Penny, particularly the Constant episode in Season 4. What made writing that so satisfying?
LINDELOF The thing about that episode is it's very simple storytelling, but very, very complicated storytelling at the same time. The simple part is that this episode is called "The Constant," and the whole point of it is, is that there is somebody else out there that is your other half. And again, it plugged into, in this very sort of obvious way, this theme that we were discussing earlier, which is: Nobody can do it alone. Desmond was unhooked or lost, he was a castaway bopping around through time, and his only possible salvation was finding the woman that he loved and telling her so and saying, "I need you to rescue me because I'm lost." This fundamentally tapped into every single theme of the show. You're basically saying emotion trumps mythology.
Carlton and I have long said that when the characters were stuck in cages at the beginning of the third season metaphorically, we were stuck in cages. But the metaphor that we rarely talk about but plays even better is that Desmond's our boy, and the reason he's our boy is because for that year we felt like we were pushing the button every 108 minutes or the world would end. And so when he ran away in the third episode and basically said, "You guys push the button now," we were setting him free. He was sailing around the island trying to escape in the Season 2 finale, he washes up, and it will just not let him go. In many ways Desmond is the guy that we identify with because he brought them to the island. So Penny represented our salvation too. The idea that there was a happy ending for this guy, so whenever we write Desmond episodes there's this real sense of identification. As much as we love Sawyer, I cannot identify with Sawyer in any way because he's so much cooler than I am.
Q. What are you guys trying to accomplish this year with the sideways world, a parallel existence seemingly caused by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb at the end of Season 5?
CUSE To answer that question would be to spoil the show, and that's also one of those questions that we feel is going to be a really healthy and cool debate when the show is over. There is a conclusion to the sideways story, but it's one that we feel will provoke discussion.
Q. Do you think a show like yours ââ¬â big budget, serialized, very intense, lots of characters ââ¬â can still work on network television?
CUSE One of the nostalgic elements of experiencing the end of "Lost" is that I also think it's the end of an era. The media landscape has changed dramatically even in the six years of this show. Here we are, we're shooting a show, there are somewhere between 425 people who work on the show, 325 in Hawaii and 100 here in Los Angeles, we shot the show on Panavision, 35-millimeter film, we had two full crews ââ¬â the scale and the scope and the size of this, this is the most expensive television series made anywhere in the world. And in this media landscape, it's incredibly hard to capitalize something the way "Lost" has been capitalized. We have a fractured media environment, and there are many more choices, but as a result there are smaller resources for every show that gets made, and so we feel a little bit like we're blacksmiths in the Internet era. It's kind of sad because we are big fans of action-adventure and genre and things like that. And when you see the "Lost" finale, it's like a movie, and just as fans of television, it's sad to realize that there just won't be that many rolls of the dice of this size and scope.
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JasonN said:Oh, there was plenty of things that were quotable in that interview, but that Kate one really pushed my buttons and burned my ass that particular day.
second that... i couldn't care less who ends up with kate it is one of that useless storylines they keep in the show to have a lovetriangle and ratings
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So had this idea to watch the best eps of the series until the season finale.
here are my fav:
THE CONSTANT
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS 2
NUMBERS
DEUS EX MACHINA
PILOT
and i never saw EXPOSE in it's original run. saving it for last. :smile:
here are my fav:
THE CONSTANT
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS 2
NUMBERS
DEUS EX MACHINA
PILOT
and i never saw EXPOSE in it's original run. saving it for last. :smile:
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Complete description of tonight's episode, don't know if it's true:
[spoiler:136khxvp]Well, I just got back a little bit ago from Lost Live. It was awesome! Overall there were about 20 actors there, plus Damon and Carlton, the writers and Jack Bender. The orchestra set was great and it was a perfect exclamation point on the series to hear the music performed live.
The penultimate episode was shown in it's entirety and I thought it was great; one of the best of the season so far. Here's the spoilery stuff:
Sideways Jack wakes up with the familiar blood stain on his neck and goes to eat breakfast with David. David makes sure Jack is going to his concert that night and Jack says he would be and inquires if David's mom will be there. Jack gets contacted by Oceanic telling him his father's casket was located, but it turns out it's actually Desmond on the phone. On the island, Jack patches up Kate's shoulder and Kate laments that Locke killed Jin and Sun and that they have a daughter, one that Jin will now never see. Kate says that they have to kill Locke and Jack agrees. Jack says that if Locke wants Desmond, they need to get to him first and they (Kate, Jack, Hurley and Sawyer) head off to the well to retrieve him. In sideways world, Desmond watches from his car as Locke gets out of his van; his first day back at school after being run down. In a similar situation Des starts the car and seems poised to run Locke down again until Ben interrupts him and stops him. Des gets out and says he wasn't trying to hurt Locke, but help him. Ben asks how and Des starts punching him; at which time Ben begins to have flashes of his "other" life. On the mend in the nurses office, Locke arrives to check on Ben and Ben tells him the story as Locke calls the police. Ben stops him and says that he believes Desmond when he said he was trying to help. Alex meets up with Ben outside the school and invites to drive him home with her mom. At first Ben declines, but then a "cleaned up and non crazy" Rousseau insists. Back at their house after dinner, Ben asks Danielle what happened to Alex's father. She says he died when she was 2 and muses that is why Alex has taken to Ben so much; he has an interest in her and believes in her and is the father she never had. Ben gets misty from hearing this.
Back on the island, Richard, Miles and Ben are heading to Ben's house to get his stash of C4 to blow up the plane. While there, Zoe and Widmore arrive. Widmore explains that after the freighter was blown up, Jacob visited him and explained what he must do. Widmore orders Zoe to go sink their boat and she leaves. Widmore explains that he brought Desmond to the island because of his immunity to electromagnetism. Zoe calls up on the walkie explaining that Locke has arrived on the island. Widmore orders her to return and when she is on her way Widmore says they all need to hide in Ben's closet. Miles leaves on his own while Ben and Richard decide to confront Locke; thinking they can either buy time or get him to leave. With Widmore and Zoe in the closet walk outside. The black smoke slams into Richard and tosses him into the woods. Ben sits and Locke approaches and says that there are some people he'd like Ben to kill and in exchange, Ben can have control of the island after Locke leaves. Ben accepts and tells him that Widmore and Zoe are in his closet. Locke promptly slices Zoe's throat and tells Widmore that if he tells him what he wants to know he won't kill penny when he leaves the island. At first Widmore doesn't seem to trust him, but relents and tells him of Desmond. When Locke asks why Desmond, Widmore doesn't want Ben to hear. Ben turns around and he whispers inaudibly into Locke's ear. Suddenly Widmore is shot numerous times by Ben, with Ben explaining that he (Widmore) "Shouldn't have the opportunity to save his daughter" and then asks Locke if there are others he wants him to kill.
In the woods, young Jacob appears to Hurley and demands his ashes from Hurley. He takes them and runs away and Hurley gives chase, and comes upon adult Jacob in the woods around a campfire. Hurley brings Jack, Kate and Sawyer to Jacob, who they can now see and communicate with. Jacob explains that he made a mistake when his actions made his brother into the smoke monster and he knew that eventually he'd find a way to kill him; so the candidates have been his preparations for his eventual demise. And that protecting the island is what the others "have all died for." He says that he must have a successor before the fire burns out; once it does, he is gone for good and "it would be very bad" if there isn't someone to take his place. Sawyer complains that his life was fine before Jacob brought them there, but Jacob interjects that they were all lost, lonely and broken, like he was. Kate asks why she was crossed out and Jacob explains that it's "just chalk on a wall, he crossed her out because she became a mother and the job is still open if she wants it". No one accepts at first, until Jack stands and says this is what he was meant to do and accepts the "job". Jacob explains that the light is the heart of the island and is what must be protected from extinguishing; which is what MIB wants to do. Jack asks if they're supposed to kill him (MIB) and Jacob says that he hopes they can. Jacob gets a cup from Jack, says a "prayer" to the water and gives it to Jack to drink; when he does, Jacob says "Now we are the same".
In sideways world, Locke goes to Jack and explains that maybe fate is what cause his accident and maybe Jack is supposed to fix his spine. Jack accepts (after the uttering of a few familiar phrases).
On the island, Locke and Ben reach the well to see that Des is not there. Ben asks what it was that Widmore said to him about Desmond. He says that Des was Jacob's "Failsafe" in case all of his candidates were killed; but that Desmond will be useful to Locke now because Desmond can do what Locke has never been able to do, "Destroy the island".
LOST
- Ben kills Widmore. Locke tells widmore if you tell me why you brought desmond then i wont kill your daughter. ben shots widmore because he said his daughter doesnt get to live.
- Locke kills Zoe. Slices her throat
- Jacob explains why he chose the candidates. and why kate isnt one.
- Jacob becomes visible to the 4 remaining candidates including Kate and explains this to them directly
- Jack becomes Jacob's replacement. Including a ritual where Jack drinks from a stream and Jacob says "now we are the same"
- Sayid didn't kill Desmond. all we see is an empty well with a rope
- Desmond beats up Ben in flash-sideways. Desmond beats up Ben and Ben has a flash of when he got beat in the OTM
- Locke wants Jack to fix his spine in flash-sideways. yes after he realizes this might be fate. and jack says the lines dont mistake coincidence with fate.
- Desmond turns himself in for running over Locke. Then breaks Sayid and
- Kate out of jail with the help of Ana Lucia and Hurley.
- Desmond is getting all the Oceanic 815ers to congregate at the concert.
- Richard gets slammed by the smoke, I would be shocked if he were alive
- Ben is following Flocke around after this, seems aligned with him
- Widmore reveals the purpose of Desmond, part of it is whispered to Flocke, the word "failsafe" is used
- Flocke announces his intention to "destroy the island"
Read more: http://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... z0oGNCTGcx[/spoiler:136khxvp]
[spoiler:136khxvp]Well, I just got back a little bit ago from Lost Live. It was awesome! Overall there were about 20 actors there, plus Damon and Carlton, the writers and Jack Bender. The orchestra set was great and it was a perfect exclamation point on the series to hear the music performed live.
The penultimate episode was shown in it's entirety and I thought it was great; one of the best of the season so far. Here's the spoilery stuff:
Sideways Jack wakes up with the familiar blood stain on his neck and goes to eat breakfast with David. David makes sure Jack is going to his concert that night and Jack says he would be and inquires if David's mom will be there. Jack gets contacted by Oceanic telling him his father's casket was located, but it turns out it's actually Desmond on the phone. On the island, Jack patches up Kate's shoulder and Kate laments that Locke killed Jin and Sun and that they have a daughter, one that Jin will now never see. Kate says that they have to kill Locke and Jack agrees. Jack says that if Locke wants Desmond, they need to get to him first and they (Kate, Jack, Hurley and Sawyer) head off to the well to retrieve him. In sideways world, Desmond watches from his car as Locke gets out of his van; his first day back at school after being run down. In a similar situation Des starts the car and seems poised to run Locke down again until Ben interrupts him and stops him. Des gets out and says he wasn't trying to hurt Locke, but help him. Ben asks how and Des starts punching him; at which time Ben begins to have flashes of his "other" life. On the mend in the nurses office, Locke arrives to check on Ben and Ben tells him the story as Locke calls the police. Ben stops him and says that he believes Desmond when he said he was trying to help. Alex meets up with Ben outside the school and invites to drive him home with her mom. At first Ben declines, but then a "cleaned up and non crazy" Rousseau insists. Back at their house after dinner, Ben asks Danielle what happened to Alex's father. She says he died when she was 2 and muses that is why Alex has taken to Ben so much; he has an interest in her and believes in her and is the father she never had. Ben gets misty from hearing this.
Back on the island, Richard, Miles and Ben are heading to Ben's house to get his stash of C4 to blow up the plane. While there, Zoe and Widmore arrive. Widmore explains that after the freighter was blown up, Jacob visited him and explained what he must do. Widmore orders Zoe to go sink their boat and she leaves. Widmore explains that he brought Desmond to the island because of his immunity to electromagnetism. Zoe calls up on the walkie explaining that Locke has arrived on the island. Widmore orders her to return and when she is on her way Widmore says they all need to hide in Ben's closet. Miles leaves on his own while Ben and Richard decide to confront Locke; thinking they can either buy time or get him to leave. With Widmore and Zoe in the closet walk outside. The black smoke slams into Richard and tosses him into the woods. Ben sits and Locke approaches and says that there are some people he'd like Ben to kill and in exchange, Ben can have control of the island after Locke leaves. Ben accepts and tells him that Widmore and Zoe are in his closet. Locke promptly slices Zoe's throat and tells Widmore that if he tells him what he wants to know he won't kill penny when he leaves the island. At first Widmore doesn't seem to trust him, but relents and tells him of Desmond. When Locke asks why Desmond, Widmore doesn't want Ben to hear. Ben turns around and he whispers inaudibly into Locke's ear. Suddenly Widmore is shot numerous times by Ben, with Ben explaining that he (Widmore) "Shouldn't have the opportunity to save his daughter" and then asks Locke if there are others he wants him to kill.
In the woods, young Jacob appears to Hurley and demands his ashes from Hurley. He takes them and runs away and Hurley gives chase, and comes upon adult Jacob in the woods around a campfire. Hurley brings Jack, Kate and Sawyer to Jacob, who they can now see and communicate with. Jacob explains that he made a mistake when his actions made his brother into the smoke monster and he knew that eventually he'd find a way to kill him; so the candidates have been his preparations for his eventual demise. And that protecting the island is what the others "have all died for." He says that he must have a successor before the fire burns out; once it does, he is gone for good and "it would be very bad" if there isn't someone to take his place. Sawyer complains that his life was fine before Jacob brought them there, but Jacob interjects that they were all lost, lonely and broken, like he was. Kate asks why she was crossed out and Jacob explains that it's "just chalk on a wall, he crossed her out because she became a mother and the job is still open if she wants it". No one accepts at first, until Jack stands and says this is what he was meant to do and accepts the "job". Jacob explains that the light is the heart of the island and is what must be protected from extinguishing; which is what MIB wants to do. Jack asks if they're supposed to kill him (MIB) and Jacob says that he hopes they can. Jacob gets a cup from Jack, says a "prayer" to the water and gives it to Jack to drink; when he does, Jacob says "Now we are the same".
In sideways world, Locke goes to Jack and explains that maybe fate is what cause his accident and maybe Jack is supposed to fix his spine. Jack accepts (after the uttering of a few familiar phrases).
On the island, Locke and Ben reach the well to see that Des is not there. Ben asks what it was that Widmore said to him about Desmond. He says that Des was Jacob's "Failsafe" in case all of his candidates were killed; but that Desmond will be useful to Locke now because Desmond can do what Locke has never been able to do, "Destroy the island".
LOST
- Ben kills Widmore. Locke tells widmore if you tell me why you brought desmond then i wont kill your daughter. ben shots widmore because he said his daughter doesnt get to live.
- Locke kills Zoe. Slices her throat
- Jacob explains why he chose the candidates. and why kate isnt one.
- Jacob becomes visible to the 4 remaining candidates including Kate and explains this to them directly
- Jack becomes Jacob's replacement. Including a ritual where Jack drinks from a stream and Jacob says "now we are the same"
- Sayid didn't kill Desmond. all we see is an empty well with a rope
- Desmond beats up Ben in flash-sideways. Desmond beats up Ben and Ben has a flash of when he got beat in the OTM
- Locke wants Jack to fix his spine in flash-sideways. yes after he realizes this might be fate. and jack says the lines dont mistake coincidence with fate.
- Desmond turns himself in for running over Locke. Then breaks Sayid and
- Kate out of jail with the help of Ana Lucia and Hurley.
- Desmond is getting all the Oceanic 815ers to congregate at the concert.
- Richard gets slammed by the smoke, I would be shocked if he were alive
- Ben is following Flocke around after this, seems aligned with him
- Widmore reveals the purpose of Desmond, part of it is whispered to Flocke, the word "failsafe" is used
- Flocke announces his intention to "destroy the island"
Read more: http://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... z0oGNCTGcx[/spoiler:136khxvp]
theslime
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I'm sure as hell not gonna read that. (I could never understand people who search out spoilers - no offence.)
KBM, you should watch Walkabout and White Rabbit too. I just watched them, and I was surprised how season six it was. This conversation from White Rabbit is telling:
LOCKE: I'm an ordinary man, Jack, meat and potatoes, I live in the real world. I'm not a big believer in magic. But this place is different. It's special. The others don't want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it. We all feel it. Is your white rabbit a hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that happened here, happened for a reason? What if this person that you're chasing is really here?
KBM, you should watch Walkabout and White Rabbit too. I just watched them, and I was surprised how season six it was. This conversation from White Rabbit is telling:
LOCKE: I'm an ordinary man, Jack, meat and potatoes, I live in the real world. I'm not a big believer in magic. But this place is different. It's special. The others don't want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it. We all feel it. Is your white rabbit a hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that happened here, happened for a reason? What if this person that you're chasing is really here?
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Wha? wuz wit da radio silence? or is everyone devastated with last nite's eps?
and didn't this explain why we had to do last week's Jacob/TMIB centric eps?
and didn't this explain why we had to do last week's Jacob/TMIB centric eps?
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i thought last nights was pretty good. but everything that happened wasnt at all shocking to me. its just watching the pieces fall where I already figured they would.
liked lockes on screen ruthlessness though.
liked lockes on screen ruthlessness though.
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I had some issues with it like...
[spoiler:1gx0wjfx]Widmore. what the hell was he doing in the field? he's like Picard. He can't go on an away mission! Also, why so few people on his side? He's got an entire airport and jacob's support. so why isn't he flying in the marines? or have several cargo ships full of troops/support staff?
So here's my thinking: Since Desmond is the ace in the hole for Jacob and since TiMIB says he wants to destroy the island and since the start of season 6 starts with the island apparently underwater and destroyed then it follows that the sideways is really the future/result of TIMIB winning and destroying the island and desmond is doing what jacob had hoped he'd do. fix things.
So all along we have thought that the sideways was a result of the A Bomb detonation but it's not. It's the result of TIMIB winning and destroying the island.[/spoiler:1gx0wjfx]
[spoiler:1gx0wjfx]Widmore. what the hell was he doing in the field? he's like Picard. He can't go on an away mission! Also, why so few people on his side? He's got an entire airport and jacob's support. so why isn't he flying in the marines? or have several cargo ships full of troops/support staff?
So here's my thinking: Since Desmond is the ace in the hole for Jacob and since TiMIB says he wants to destroy the island and since the start of season 6 starts with the island apparently underwater and destroyed then it follows that the sideways is really the future/result of TIMIB winning and destroying the island and desmond is doing what jacob had hoped he'd do. fix things.
So all along we have thought that the sideways was a result of the A Bomb detonation but it's not. It's the result of TIMIB winning and destroying the island.[/spoiler:1gx0wjfx]
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Well, it was better than last week's, but I still had a few (yet kinda big) issues:
[spoiler:355uayf3]- Goodbye, Widmore, I knew you.... wait... no, I didn't know you!! :x
It's not like Widmore was just a random character introduced this last Season (cough*Jacob, Illana, Dogen, Zoe, Bram, Jack's Son*cough), he's been a prominent figure in the story since the end of Season 2! They couldn't give us ANY information on him since he left the Island??? No explanation behind his constant searching of the Island? No motivation behind what he wanted to do with it? Just a brief pointless "Oh, Jacob sent me and he's shown me the error of my ways" BS?!
God, these Season 6 writers are fustrating the sh*t out of me. :roll:
- Is Richard dead now? I kinda doubt it given that he's been shown to be immortal till this point, but... who really knows anymore?
- Can't believe I had to wait 8 episodes to see that stupid Zoe get her throat cut.
- If the writers were just gonna have Ben go evil again, then what was the purpose of that "Illana-Redemption" subplot in episode 7?
- Man, young Jacob's a real little d*ck, ain't he?
- Jacob's explanation as to why he brought them to the Island is rather flawed, in that I can sorta see his explantion relating to Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, but definitely not Hurley (who was not broken and flawed, but just incredibly unlucky due to the influence of the Numbers).
- The reason why Kate's name was crossed off? Bullsh*t, sheer absolute total bullsh*t.
Oh, and she can still HAVE the job if she wants it? F*ck you, writers! :x
- Sawyer's "God complex" joke summed up my thoughts exactly.
Also, am I the only one hoping and praying that Hurley's "I'm just glad it's not me" isn't just a random throwaway line, but a foreshadowing to the Finale?
- Again, there'd better be a damn good explanation behind this Sideways Reality (one that's not an excuse for the writers to have a giant cast union segment, which is what it's kinda looking like...)
- The more I watch him, the more I think that Sideways Desmond has most of if not all the memories of Main Desmond. Same thing with Sideways Hurley.
- Got a big laugh out of Sideways Hurley:
"Hey, how you doing Ana Lucia?"
"Do I know you Tubby?"
"Uhhh...."
- "When I leave this place, I'll leave the entire Island to you, Ben"
Plus: 40 minutes later, "I'm going to destroy the Island"
Equals: WTF, script?[/spoiler:355uayf3]
[spoiler:355uayf3]- Goodbye, Widmore, I knew you.... wait... no, I didn't know you!! :x
It's not like Widmore was just a random character introduced this last Season (cough*Jacob, Illana, Dogen, Zoe, Bram, Jack's Son*cough), he's been a prominent figure in the story since the end of Season 2! They couldn't give us ANY information on him since he left the Island??? No explanation behind his constant searching of the Island? No motivation behind what he wanted to do with it? Just a brief pointless "Oh, Jacob sent me and he's shown me the error of my ways" BS?!
God, these Season 6 writers are fustrating the sh*t out of me. :roll:
- Is Richard dead now? I kinda doubt it given that he's been shown to be immortal till this point, but... who really knows anymore?
- Can't believe I had to wait 8 episodes to see that stupid Zoe get her throat cut.
- If the writers were just gonna have Ben go evil again, then what was the purpose of that "Illana-Redemption" subplot in episode 7?
- Man, young Jacob's a real little d*ck, ain't he?
- Jacob's explanation as to why he brought them to the Island is rather flawed, in that I can sorta see his explantion relating to Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, but definitely not Hurley (who was not broken and flawed, but just incredibly unlucky due to the influence of the Numbers).
- The reason why Kate's name was crossed off? Bullsh*t, sheer absolute total bullsh*t.
Oh, and she can still HAVE the job if she wants it? F*ck you, writers! :x
- Sawyer's "God complex" joke summed up my thoughts exactly.
Also, am I the only one hoping and praying that Hurley's "I'm just glad it's not me" isn't just a random throwaway line, but a foreshadowing to the Finale?
- Again, there'd better be a damn good explanation behind this Sideways Reality (one that's not an excuse for the writers to have a giant cast union segment, which is what it's kinda looking like...)
- The more I watch him, the more I think that Sideways Desmond has most of if not all the memories of Main Desmond. Same thing with Sideways Hurley.
- Got a big laugh out of Sideways Hurley:
"Hey, how you doing Ana Lucia?"
"Do I know you Tubby?"
"Uhhh...."
- "When I leave this place, I'll leave the entire Island to you, Ben"
Plus: 40 minutes later, "I'm going to destroy the Island"
Equals: WTF, script?[/spoiler:355uayf3]
theslime
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[spoiler:2m9gzjwf]I actually believed that from the start. The flash-sideways as a result of the bombing felt weirdly like a Fringe episode, not something I would think would belong on Lost. (Then again, it's a strong enough thing to dislodge the "course-correcting", thus ripping open the time/space fabric to create some true strangeness.)
My reasoning back then was that The Incident fit all too well with established continuity. The Chernobyl reference in season two was the main thing for me (i.e. nuclear fallout being strongly hinted at), but the episode was even called The Incident, the very same thing Chang named it on the Swan orientation film. Then it was Miles spelling the whole paradox out just before they blew it up. And then they ended up at the exploded hatch, and later Chang turned out to be alive and well and working at the Museum in L.A.
But after a while I'm not so sure anymore. Why reference Daniel's equations again if they weren't right the first time? And why is it only 2004 if the island sank in 2007? There's something that's not right.
Oh, and I'm getting more and more sure that Jack - in the flash-sideways timeline - causes John's "miracle" (being able to walk again after the crash) - in the main timeline. That is actually of the niftier time/space/dimension paradox/plot devices I've seen.[/spoiler:2m9gzjwf]
My reasoning back then was that The Incident fit all too well with established continuity. The Chernobyl reference in season two was the main thing for me (i.e. nuclear fallout being strongly hinted at), but the episode was even called The Incident, the very same thing Chang named it on the Swan orientation film. Then it was Miles spelling the whole paradox out just before they blew it up. And then they ended up at the exploded hatch, and later Chang turned out to be alive and well and working at the Museum in L.A.
But after a while I'm not so sure anymore. Why reference Daniel's equations again if they weren't right the first time? And why is it only 2004 if the island sank in 2007? There's something that's not right.
Oh, and I'm getting more and more sure that Jack - in the flash-sideways timeline - causes John's "miracle" (being able to walk again after the crash) - in the main timeline. That is actually of the niftier time/space/dimension paradox/plot devices I've seen.[/spoiler:2m9gzjwf]