Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Lost...in books

I was introduced to Lost at the end of its first season. My parents (who never watch TV shows) set up the computer with the TV because the parents (who never download anything) had downloaded every Lost episode off of iTunes. And they proceeded to watch me watch Lost. I watched the first episode with an eyebrow raised. By the fifth episode I was hooked.

And for the next 6 years, like everyone else, I kept coming back to it--because of the questions, because of the numbers, because of the name calling, because of the flashbacks, because of imaginary peanut butter and songs about the sea, because Sayid is really hot.

I almost gave up on the show a couple of times. Like after the first flash forward when I knew they got off the island, when we got gypped half our episodes in season four, when Charlie died, when in season five, I had more questions than in season one, when we pulled out an atlas and based on the flight plan of 815 and the size of the small plane carrying drugs, tried to locate the island and found it impossible, when the logic just plain didn't work, when they completely ignored and left Walt's character unfinished, unanswered.

But I stuck with it through the finale. Yeah--about the finally. I loved it and I hated it. The Jack/Locke fight on the cliffs in the rain on a shaking, sinking island simultaneous with Locke's operation was very cool. The quality of love being the very thing that triggered everyone's memories of the island was an interesting concept.  Hurley had some great scenes, love the spectrum of his character. There were lots of edge of the seat moments and lots of questions answered--finally. Basically everything the finale needed to be...until the last 10 minutes. They presented the whole dead thing and I was silently screaming No, no no!! That was the conclusion I had reached somewhere mid 3rd season. What if they're all dead, if they all died in the crash. And I spent the rest of the show hoping they would find a different way to end it. My biggest problem in the theory: You can't kill someone who is already dead. It makes every death we've mourned for nothing. Shepherd Sr.'s statement some died before and some after was key, but still, dead?

So Lost is over. Some people have written ballads of mourning and posted them on YouTube. I'll closing out these six years of "obsession?" a different way--with a reading challenge. I'm working my way through all the books Sawyer read during his six years on the island. Might give me an interesting perspective.

3 comments:

Heather said...

I had a slightly different take on the closing scene.

As I understand it, the people didn't all die in the crash. Some died on the island. Some got off the island and died later. Some (Hurley, Ben) stayed on the island and died later.

The key is that all of them died at some point, and met in the church--a location that exists outside time ("There is no 'now' here," as Christian stated).

The gist I took away is that the time on the island, the connections forged there, were what truly mattered. Not until the Losties understood that, and specifically until Jack understood that, could they all "move on." (Whatever you read "moving on" to be, but that's another story.)

Others have phrased it much better, but that's my take on it. I loved the finale, and I'll truly miss the show.

Stephen said...

I like that they made the book worm NOT a nerd. Nice to see a portrayal of you can be cool and a reader.

Heather said...

Heather--I got that they didn't die in the crash. I'm glad they didn't. It would have ruined the show. But it does mean that that in the entire Flash Sideways they were dead. I guess it was a little too Sixth Sense-ish for me. Still love the show. It was definitely one of my favorites, maybe second favorite. I think I liked 24 a little more.

Stephen--also interesting that you can be a total jerk and still be cool. I love how the show played with and then tore apart all stereotypes.