The finale has aired. I saw it Thursday. It was perhaps the most important 2 hours of TV viewing I’ve done in my life. Bob touched on it below but I must affirm that indeed serialized genre shows are on notice. Lost owns you all and may render all others obsolete.
I had to do an overnight Wednesday at 11 so I couldn’t watch it then despite offers from Brandonicus as well as one to join Bob and his lovely young engenue Kerri. But on the way to work it hit me. But I had to decline in order to serve my fellow man. But at least I had widescreen hi def Lost to console me. And if you haven’t seen widescreen hi def Lost well then you haven’t seen Lost.
But on my way to work around 10:30 I had a revelation. I was thinking Lost and suddenly the tumblers clicked into place. I knew what the twist was and I wanted proof out there that I thought of it before 11 and before I watched it at all since most people I knew were aware of the fact that I was working an overnight. So I pulled over to text Bob in order to have a time signature as proof. It made so much sense. It worked on so many levels and I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it sooner considering how well the idea jibed with previous predictions of mine which had at least in part been proven valid.
So what was my amazing intuitive and intellectual breakthrough? What did I want on the record so badly I risked a car accident as I started typing while still driving which more importantly than possibly ending my life would have cost us overtime at work? What would the reveal at the end of Lost be?
Jack was a Dharma Initiative operative all along.
As Charlie would say, “brilliant.”
And totally wrong.
Although it still could work. But I’m kind of glad. I wasn’t to Jack to be what Jack appears to be. Even if what he is could turn him into a pathetic junkie.
But it did make some sense. Jack was sent there by Dharma to marshal a force against the Others after the Purge so DI can reclaim their territory and resume whatever they were doing. It made sense. Dharma and science equals Jack and reason vs Others and quasi mysticism equated with locke. Everything Jack had done on the island so far still made sense in this light as opposed to the idea of him being an Other a few weeks back, which made none. There were no immediate contradictions I could think of. Jack could still be noble and idealistic within this revelation though with a level of calculation and narrowness added.
But of course after watching it Thursday looking for clues to support this idea through his flashbacks I find out otherwise. I was so sure though that I did see clues pertaining to my idea fix I ignored how they suggested either the show was screwing up its continuity again or was taking place in the future/present. I noticed Jack using a cell phone I didn’t think was around in 2004 or before but wondered if a connection to Dharma might get him access to cutting edge technology. I thought drunken and bereft Jack may have been a stage he was saved from by Dharma coming to him with their utopian, science based mission. I thought it would be Naomi emerging from that car at the airport.
A bit after 11 Brandonicus called me at work. He knew he couldn’t say much because I hadn’t seen it but he had to say what he could. I told him my theory and he dutifully had no reaction. He’s one of the few people on the planet I would trust to say something like that to and know they would be on the ball enough to not give off some tell that I could figure out. It is one of my talents to read people in this way. But I still felt like I had nailed it and he was busting to congratulate me on my insight.
But of course the mess of Jack Shephard we saw is post island Jack and the game changer more to do with the format of the show and the way it tells its tale. I don’t really consider this a major plot jolt we were led to believe we would get so on a level it was disappointing. But it still worked and I was also relieved they didn’t do something more silly than invisible Jacob or smoke monsters.
As for it changing the game from a storytelling point of view we’ll have to wait and see if they go in this direction regularly. We don’t know that it will flash-forward all the time but there is an indication it will do so some more. I lean away from the flash-backing to island from a present off island, theory because if Jack was doing that then how’s he seeing Charlie, Sayyid etc?
And oh poor, poor broken Jack. You can kind of see how he could get that way. He’s an obsessive and addictive personality that geared his perhaps hereditary addictive issues into fixing and saving things and people. In the future he has no where to go with this and when you combine that with guilt and angst issues that his on island actions in the finale may create with whatever we may find out in the next 48 episodes, you get a guy channeling those qualities more in his fathers direction with drugs and alcohol.
Perhaps his split with Kate is over her knowing that it was that obsessiveness and narrow minded focus that enabled him to cross a line when he allowed Sayyid, Bernard, and Jin to die for a phone. I think maybe it was there that Jack’s recent change in attitude noted by other Losties flipped to a whole other level of pathological blindness. He compromised on that damn button but he couldn’t on the lives of those 3 people? I love Jack and what he represents and I can understand him but you got to give up the phone there and hope to find another way off the island. I think everyone would understand even though there is good reason to believe Ben would kill them anyway because Ben’s way with the truth may make him a Fox News hire if he ever looks for work off island.
And who was in the coffin many are asking?
My first guess was Locke. I quickly moved to Ben.
Then i froze the screen on the newspaper blurb and decided it was no one we know. Perhaps one of the 40 odd Losties. Another failed re-acclimation to post island life Jack blames himself for? Apparently there have been more comprehensive screen captures and the paper said something along the lines of either of those 2 examples:
The body of Jeremy Bentham of
New York was found shortly after 4
a.m. in the ___ block of Grand
Avenue.
_d ____, a doorman at The
Towers (luxury apartments?), heard loud
noises coming from Bentham’s loft.
Concerned for Bentham’s safety, he
opened the door and discovered the
body hanging from a beam in the
living room.
And another:
“The body of John Lantham of New York was found shortly after 4 am in the
4300 block of Grand Avenue.
Ted Worden, a doorman at the Tower Lofts complex, heard loud noises coming
from the victim’s loft.
Concerned for tenants’ safety, he entered the loft and found the body
hanging from a beam in the living room.
According to Jaime Ortiz, a police spokesman, the incident was deemed a
suicide after medical tests. Latham (sic) is survived by one teenaged son.
Memorial services will be held at the Hoffs-Drawlar Funeral Home tomorrow
evening.”
If this means anything and it’s someone we know it points to Michael. Teenage son. From N.Y. Funeral home in black area (although if he was living in luxury apt in L.A. and from NYC why be shown at inner city parlor?) I guess it’s possible he changed his name for some reason but then how do they know about Walt?
But I tend to think either they screwed up bad with a meaningless prop or more likely we’ve yet to meet Jeremy Bentham and perhaps never really need to if he’s one of the many background players.
I even got to thinking about Jack playing Nirvana’s In Utero on his way to the funeral home. He was listening to Scentless Apprentice a very unfriendly radio song not likely to be playing on the air. Most likely Jack made a conscious decision to play the 15 or so year old album. Part of it could be Jack on a downward spiral nostalgia kick. I can see him being a grunge fan while in college and med school back in the 90′s and now indulging in the angst and despair in the music once again. Solace in the familiar recall to better times and an appropriate soundtrack to his despair. The album is kind of dark and depressing.
Also Kurt Cobain killed himself just as Jack tried to do and the person he was going to see apparently did. But the album has a lot of fertility imagery both in lyrics and art work. Lots of abortion, semen, parasite stuff which kind of connects with some island themes. And its a symbol of lost hope. I think alot of people are like me and when they hear that album have a bittersweet feeling of something that was a new beginning but also an abrupt end. So maybe that’s why they used it because at that point maybe Jack’s feeling that way about the island.
And then we have Charlie.
I knew it was most likely coming and I didn’t want to see it happpen. But Charlie died a good death. So good a death that I wouldn’t want to undo it. It’s like he reached a pinnacle of coolness and Charlie-ness that could go nowhere else. His Charlie-ness was doomed to explode. He exploded so cooly it hurt me to watch. But it hurt so good, made me want Charlie back so much, that I wouldn’t undo it because the indelibility of the emotion, the imprint of the scene and its meaning, are forged too deeply and full of so much meaning.
And hey he’s not a real person.
I don’t like the forces of pre-determinism winning out over those of free will with all this future sight/destiny stuff. But Lost offers enough that I just have to accept they’re also throwing bones to mysticists, religious, and in this case Calvinists and Mormons.
And it was awesome that we got to see my fair Penelope. And so did Desmond. When she heard Charlie call him I cheered. One of a few cheers during the show along with Hurley and the van, the reveal of the fake gunshots (even though you kind of knew, but I was glad I didn’t have to wait until February to find out for sure), “This is for taking the kid off the raft,” and Rose saying, “If you say live together or die alone I’m going to punch you in your face,” Jack listening to In Utero, and Walt.
But as I said a year ago it’s all about Penny and Des for me. Sure that’s an exaggeration. But I must see them reunited. And for a second they sort of were. At least they knew they were there. She looking and he on an island waiting to be found. And when you have enough money you can find anyone.
And I just really like her face.
And accent.
Also on that paper clipping. It said Man Found Dead. Rather anonymous for a returned castaway don’t you think? Even more so if many are dying. Which could still mean a name change but why this person and not Jack?
And why isn’t Kate in jail? Also a new identity deal of some sort? We’re the public told only certain castaways survived? If so what are they others including Latham covering up or escaping from and why would authorities find whatever Kate knew or did worthy of dismissing a murder charge?
Could some kind of island alternate reality-time changing aspect explain both these things? And can JAck’s future be altered or is the flash-forward as immutable as the flash-back? And in light of Desmond’s second to last one is even the flash-back immutable?
There’s alot more to say but I’ve wasted enough space for the moment. We have until February to ponder more. I may have to buy the first 2 seasons and the 3rd when it comes out later in order to revisit and stay acclimated in the Lost world. Watch 1 or 2 a week until February. And extras. That’s how I feel after the past couple of months and this finale.
Although I still want to know what the hell smoky is and the significance of the numbers before May 2010.
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