And that was the end of that chapter

One thing that kind of pisses me off about the way media and culture is disseminated these days is the instant judging of everything. So many voices, screaming into the internet ether, "Listen to me and value my thoughts on this thing that I just watched on television!" or something to that effect. Opinions are like assholes. And yes I get the hypocrisy in posting these sentiments on a little-read blog. This is my reason for not putting anything up about the Lost series finale until now.

I read something somewhere sometime that said how the internet's instant processing of cultural ephemera actually diminishes the ephemera's already short shelf-life. Which makes a certain kind of basic sense. Like, the more people talk and rehash and consider something now, the less need there will be to think about it later. Participation value was involved somehow. Oh right, it was on Mark Cuban's blog. So congrats, Lostophiles, with your high participation you are reducing the need for anyone to consider this show in the future. Thank god.

Quick summary: I laughed, I cried, I shook my head in quiet bewilderment. I said various things in a Desmond accent, brutha. I watched Jack attack Locke with a flying knee-punch of some sort which was clearly the best moment in the entire series (spoiler!).


One thing I sorta liked was how it sorta came together, in a forced deux ex machina way. As my roommate pointed out: The series opened with a tight shot of Jack opening his eye, and ended with the same shot, except this time, he closed the eye. The producers (or as I refer to them in my mind, Carldamon Lindecuse) had that shit planned from the start. At least those two shots with Jack's eye. That symbolism is gold! The rest was made up as they went along, especially the numerous exploding boats. But those who watched the two-hour recap/masturbathon beforehand surely knew what parts were important, especially when those same things were flashed to in each alterna-character's remembrance scene. Guh.

Which brings us to what I think actually happened in the end? They are all dead in the church, moving on to the next life, which may or may not be bathed in golden light. The entire flash-sideways universe was created by the castaways as a way to reunite in death or whatever. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of quantum mechanics can tell you that when the most important events of people' lives occur on an electro-magical island, they will join each other in the afterlife, and also return to how they looked at that time. Either that, or it was all a dog's dream (suspect the dog). Also, Jacob was a gnostic archon.

Oh and one more thing: Much has been made about how the characters names in this show are so clever, in that they are the same names as various philosophers and scientists and shit from the past, eg John Locke, Faraday, etc. Which is all well and good, but if you really want to get into some crazy shit with names, read some postmodern (sorry Sean!) books. edit: The argument could be made that this is a very postmodern show (for lack of a better term) because the references and easter eggs go far beyond just the names of characters. Less concerned with plot, etc.

Ben Linus, on the nose

Ominous shrubs. That's what I thought of while watching Lost the other day, during the scene where Linus gets seduced by the sweet ankle restraint removing powers of the smokey/evil Locke. It seems a bit stupid now, in hindsight, probably because it is no longer taco tuesday. The blood should be riddled with both booze and mexican food for optimal Lost viewing, I have found through rigorous research. Double blind studies and so on. I think that focusing on the Locke concealing bushes (I'm just going to call him Locke, fuck it) was due to how stupidly obvious and on the nose everything had seemed to that point. And they looked scary and/or smoke-like? I don't know.

Meanwhile, in an alternate reality: Linus is a history teacher, under the thumb of Principal "Jerkass Newsguy from Die Hard" who makes him monitor detention despite his Ph.D. It's enough to make a pathetically single man just puke! Also there was the actress who played his daughter now as a student who is trying to get into Yale and blah blah blah this plotline was limp, except for the part with the always popular double reverse blackmail from Principal Dickless. It was also indicative of the island's powers, e.g. making Linus's daughter no longer his daughter, genetics be damned.

More entertaining was when Jack went all zen-crazy and was like, "There's no way this old-ass dynamite will blow us up because we are destined to do something in regards to the future and also pertaining to the island and Jacob, most likely. Also the smoke monster." This new faith-inspired yet still recklessly impulsive Jack is intriguing, despite the failure of the explosive suicide pact. He saw his childhood home! I did like the part when Richard fondled those slave chains though. Because it inferred his former slaveness -- which he escaped into another form of slavery, this time to the island, via Jacob touching. This show is mad deep, yo.

now point to where Jacob touched you

But boy did does this show lay it on thick sometimes. Lecturing about Napoleon's exile and quest for power, ON AN ISLAND? Subtle. Locke encouraging Ben to act out and make a play for principal? Ben's infirm dad wondering what would have happened if they had just stuck it out with the old Dharma Initiative? There are levels here people. This thing is mildly similar and comparable to that thing! ESOTERIC.

Lingering questions:
What was the deal with that shovel Linus was using to dig his own grave? Could it be more ineffective?
Will I ever delve into whole the "fate v. free will" theme after it got spiked from this post?
How did Ana Lucia Ilana separate the Jacob-derived ash from the other ash in the firepit? A strainer of some sort?
Where the fuck is Sawyer?

It's a trick, get an axe

"Axe to the chest! Axe to the chest! Axe to the chest! Axe to the chest! Yeahwooooooooo!"
-yours truly

I don't know if its ever come up before, but I am shamelessly pro axe in media. Axe Cop for example. So when feral Claire started sharpening one on "Lost" last night, it was so exciting I started yelling loud enough for my landlord/neighbor to hear. It's OK though cause I got him drugs one time. Also: A giant goat(?) skull in a baby carriage is a normal thing to have, if you are fucking crazy and your friend is a giant evil pillar of smoke. That was a dark scene, and one that intrigues me. Are there any other main guys still at the temple? Methinks some smoky/axe mayhem may be afoot.

Skullfur baby!

Later due to drunken fumbling of my remote while fast forwarding through the commercials, I thought that Jack and Hurley went into a magical lighthouse, where they found a piano recital. But that would be too Lynchian of a scene, even for this show. Lost isn't Muhlholland Dr. even if it does make about the same amount of sense. So there was some number mumbo-jumbo so Jack goes all "My childhood home? Greagh, stupid island! I smash mirrors now!" and then stares out to sea/reflects on what he has learned/meditates on his unborn teenaged child. Spoiler alert.

Lingering questions:
What's the body count going to be next week?
Screencaps from Hulu Y/N?
Perhaps a Dingo took Claire's baby?

The show of a thousand questions

As per request, here is a "humorous" take on the season premiere of LOST. Although I am hesitant to devote much time to writing about television, because, ugh, TV blogging. Hey look everyone, we watched the same show, and now we can talk about it in some sort of virtual water-cooler/comment section. A hearty congratulations to all for watching the same program that is beamed into our homes through cables and satellites. We have truly achieved something to be proud of: A shared experience through the miracle of modern technology!

Cynicism aside, LOST is one of those shows where a deconstruction can add value, or at least understanding. This particular post will likely do neither. But I'd much rather write about this, as opposed to something disposably wretched like "Jersey Shore" or "Hoarders," which are barely worth thinking about during viewing, let alone after the fact. No, LOST actually has something to it. Themes and such. Also it's plenty confusing/convoluted. This interactive timeline is handy in that respect.

So, we come to the episode. A quick disclaimer: Don't look to me for clues and facts about what is going on, plotwise. My knowledge of this show's mythology is spotty at best, considering I didn't watch most of seasons 3 and 4. If you want that, by all means, go read some other shit somewhere else. Lord knows it's out there. That is not to say there won't be SPOILERS below for people who care about such things. Anyway: The premiere starts right after last season's cliffhanger ending, with the aftermath of the flash that happened when Juliet decided that banging on a nuclear warhead with a rock was a good idea/would work out. But wait, it did work out, because now all the castaways are back on the plane and it doesn't crash!

But wait again, how is that possible? Because if they never crashed in the first place, then none of the time-travelly events that led to that nuke-smashing would have taken place. I smell paradox! So obviously the answer that this non-crash world is an alternate reality, where Jack and Locke form the natural friendship of a paraplegic and a spinal surgeon, forged through the mutual experience of lost luggage containing knives and dead father. Meanwhile, in the narrative where the plane still did crash, the "blow up electromagnetic energy" plan didn't work, shockingly, but still transported everyone back to the present? Although Juliet says it did work, and then promptly dies, presumably to return to her child-molesting/murdering ways back on the mainland (oh, a Running Scared reference, clearly necessary).

Which puts us where? The smoke monster in human form, then not, then again? Kate beating the hell out of some U.S. Marshall-type figure, and then going on the run, like Harrison Ford or dare I say Wesley Snipes? The two realities having vague, non-descript parallels, until somehow merging into one mid-season? Desmond popping up in random places/times, because the rules don't apply to him? Sawyer sounding suspiciously like the voice of the dog from A Boy and His Dog? Space coyote?

Tune in next week, when none of these questions will be answered, and 10 more will be introduced.

Well of course the rules don't apply to Desmond

Don't know if any of you are big "Lost" fans. I'm not, but still caught the season premiere last night. Actually the first hour was all I could handle because it appears this season they are finally resorting to that most confusing of plot elements -- time travel. Oh God why.

As if this show needed a more labyrinthine narrative. Even the writers seem to be struggling with it -- they already are exempting characters from the rules of space-time. So the character can wake up after experiencing a change in his past and say something like, "That wasn't a dream, it was a memory." It's gonna need a lot more of gun-toting Hurley to maintain its DVR status.

This got me thinking -- what TV shows have successfully used time travel. Quantum Leap and Doctor Who are the only ones I could think of that don't completely suck. Uh, Heroes? I guess that worked out OK for a while. Yeah wikipedia's got nothing. Seven Days? Christ. Although that Outer Limits episode sounds promising.

What's weird about this is that time-travel works so well in other media. There are tons of well thought out films and books that deal with traveling through time, from The Time Machine to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Something about the small screen seems to make it bad.

I think that inherent crappiness is because often traveling through time is resorted to as some kind of plot cure-all. Your basically granting the writer's god-like powers to sew up any dangling plot string. Shot in the leg and bleeding to death? ZAP, now you are in a time/place where there is someone with crack bullet-removing skills. It's just too easy, lacks the kind of payoff the viewer of such a convoluted show deserves. Explain the black fog monster and the polar bear goddammit!

They should make a show where a different person goes back in time every week to kill Hitler.