LOST: Season Finale Review, Brother

LOST Season Finale:

Okay, I am definitely still wrapping my head around that. Or trying to. But here's the thing, kind of the process I went through with this finale, similar to what I often go through with this show. As I watched last night's two-hour finale - I was loving it, for the most part. For most of those two hours I was glued to the screen, trying to make heads or tails of what was going on, trying to decipher the show, paying attention to each new clue, and caught up in the drama of it all. But as the show reached its endgame, I began looking at the clock. I noticed there were only thirty minutes left, then twenty, then ten, and so on. Normally, I try to avoid doing this while watching something, and try to just let myself just get absorbed into the story. But with Lost, I've become extra concious of the amount of time left in each episode. Because after last year's similarly nail-biting finale, I end up hoping against hope that things will get a proper wrap-up, because I have learned that while Lost is great at the setup, delivering any kind of satisfying payoff is not exactly its strong suite.

When last night's episode ended, I was once again angry and frustrated with the show. It's not that I was expecting THE ultimate set of answers to all the show's questions or anything, but I at least wanted the plot at hand to wrap up in some kind of sensible way. Instead, the Lost writers once again take cheap ways out of delivering any payoffs by cutting corners dramatically. If they played fair, then I would have no problem with being kept in the dark. But they don't - they littered the episode with gaps in logic that were never addressed, random bits of plot that came out of nowhere at the expense of long-lingering questions, and quite simply, poor storytelling. But it's funny. With a show like this, it's the viewers who are doing much of the work and not the people actually involved in the show. What do I mean? I mean that the questions of Lost's mythology are left SO open that half the fun at this point is just talking to others and tossing around in your own head what directions the show could possibly go in. It's like a writing excercise where you're given a basic setup and asked to run with it - you just let your imagination do the rest. But what about the show itself? It has to do more than just ask US to imagine where the story goes. It has to TELL US the story. And what story, exactly, did last night's episode tell? Was there a beginning, a middle, and an end? Here's putting it a different way -- what is a good mystery? A good mystery is when the pieces are in front of you, the clues are there, the culprit is there, its just a question of putting the pieces together. What does it say about Lost's storytelling ability as a show when the CLIFFHANGER, rather than building on previous plot threads to produce a stunning finale, instead hinges on introducing a TOTALLY NEW element to a story already bursting at the seams with threads that remain unaddressed or left by the wayside?

But here's where the third stae of my Lost viewing comes into play. As I alluded to above, the show leaves you frustrated but somehow pulls you back in because the story is so open-ended that literally ANYTHING could happen. And when you hear other people's ideas about what the answers are or mull it over yourself, you of course come up with the coolest possible situations. Which of course invariably leads to letdowns when anything on the show actually, um, HAPPENS.

Take a look at last night's dramatic buttons-not-being-pushed scene. I mean, preactically all of America was dyin' to know: what the %$@# happens when you don't push those friggin' buttons. The build up was intense - these guys working on Lost know how to build up tension like no other show, that's for sure. So then the buttons aren't pushed - system failure - holy crap - what is gonna happen? Desmond's flashbacks mentioned something about electromagnetism - about how not pushing the button, as many had speculated, caused the plane to crash in the first place. So sirens are going off, silverware and laundry machines are flying all over the place ... on the island outside of the hatch there's a blinding white light, an ear-piercing buzz, what the hell is going on? This is it! This is huge! Did they rip open space/time? Did they alter reality? Did they unleash a disembodied energy force that is gonna kill them all? At the least, did they cause another plane to crash?!?! Damn, for a second there, all of America was on the edge of their seats about to freaking soil themselves in anticipation ...

And what happens NEXT? The light stops. The sound dies. AND EVERYONE ON THE ISLAND GOES ABOUT THEIR BUSINESS LIKE NOTHING JUST HAPPENED!

WHAT THE HELL!!!

Unless there's a DAMN GOOD story explanation for this, then this is just emblematic of what's wrong with Lost. It doesn't have the guts, the intelligence, or the creativity to actually follow up on and ADDRESS the big moments of the show. Just like nobody ever cared that an invisible monster was stalking them, or that a mysterious organization was doing something weird on the island, or even wondered who the hell these Others were or why they look like hillbillies and wear fake beards. Just like all that, now we get Charlie coming back from being at the epicenter of the Big Bang itself and not even telling people what just happened. Okay ....

And so meanwhile, you have Michael heading off with his son - okay, that story was handled extremely well and came to a great conclusion. The thing keeping this show together dramatically for the last few weeks has been the very intriguing character stuff surrounding Michael and his willingness to do anything, even murder, to get his son back. But what about Jack, Kate, and Sawyer kidnapped and taken "home." Um, ending with the three of them still tied up and bound with the Others, and Sayid still off somewhere else isn't a cliffhanger, and it's not very dramatic - it's just a lack of anything happening whatsoever. Again, pretty weak.

And finally, the big cliffhanger. The mysterious Ms. Whidmore, of the mysterious Whidmore Industries, receiving a call from some anonymous foreign guys somewhere where it's very, very cold. They have detected the electromagnetic pulse ... finally, they've found it. See, it's another example where I'm torn. When I first saw this, I like many others I'm sure was thinking how random and weird it was. Because the fact is, this scene had ZERO dramatic buildup and really did kind of come out of nowhere in the larger context of this episode. Sure, maybe if you've studied the Lost websites, read Bad Twin, and listened to the Lost podcasts this may have made a little bit of sense, but again, within this episode and within the context of what had happened prior, it was not an impactful way to END the finale. Had it been in the middle of the episode, it would be a different story. But as a cliffhanger, it REALLY leaves you hanging, and NOT in a "oh damn Jack Bauer just got kidnapped by the Chinese - bring on Season 6 of 24"-way.

But here's the thing ... now that I've talked to others and heard about Whidmore Industries and seen the speculation that that one foreign guy looked a lot like Matthew Fox / Jack, I gotta say I am now even more curious than ever what is going on, and all kinds of scenarios are running through my head. Are the Others looking for alternate versions of certain people, maybe trying to find an alternate version of "Him?" Are they trapped in some dimensional waystation, blinking in and out of existence? Is Ms. Whidmore not only looking for Desmond, but for the secret to her father's secret connection to Dharma? I wonder about all these things, but it has to be a two-way street. All these possibilities exist, all thes question are posed ... but will there be a follow through? Will these new mysteries even be addressed? Or will it end up like the Black Rock, the Smoke Monster, Claire's Baby, the Polar Bear, et al and be just another set of random Lost tidbits that are thrown against the proverbial wall and that may or may not stick?

Okay, with all that critiquing out of the way, it should be obvious by now that yes, this episode was one hell of an intense finale, and I give it a lot of credit for that. As always, the acting was top notch and my favorites like Terry O'Quinn as Locke were superb as usual. "I was wrong" was a great moment. The guy who plays Desmond is great at doing the crazy / intense stuff, even if his character is kind of cartoonish (walking around with a vodka bottle and ending every sentance with "brother" -- might his "Bad Twin" be Hulk Hogan, brother?). And man, Michael has just been acted superbly of late - great performance there for sure.

And BTW, Clancy Brown friggin' rules. How great to see such a badass actor back on Lost. And yeah, hope you're watching, Kevin Spacey - that's THE voice of Lex Luthor right there, and you can see why, as Clancy exudes badassness. Now he is the same guy as the one who took in Sayid from the Iraqi army, but who was his "brother," Radinsky or whatever? Yet ANOTHER unaswered question. Come to think of it, as good as Brown is, most of his scenes were totally mystifying ... but more on that later ...

And yeah, there were a TON of random but most definitely intriguing and exciting things going on in this episode ... the four-toed (!) statue, the talking bird (!), the fact that Clancy Brown tells Desmond that he's "saving the world" by pushing the buttons ...

I mean, what the hell is that statue? Four toes? Is it a reality where Homer Simpson is worshipped as a deity?

And who is this Whidmore guy? Caleb Nichols from the OC, yes, but is he part of Dharma, part of Hanso, funding them, not related, what's the deal?

And just the fact that we saw a moment occuring in the present that was NOT on the island, well that's pretty big, in a way. Who are these people that have been monitoring electromagnetic activity?

And why was Libby (or "Elizabeth") in Desmond's flashback? Did she really have a boat to give him or is she some kind of Dharma recruiting agent who goes around manipulating people to get caught up in the manipulaitons / experiments of the group?

And what was even the deal with the boat race anyways? And why was Desmond dishonored?

All intriguing questions, and at the moment you see them for the first time they work as "hmmm, interesting ..." moments. Especially the statue, that was most definitely epic and a "holy $%&*" kind of reveal. But will these questions ever be answered? What about why Kate, Sawyer, and Jack are the three who the Others want? What about the Others? Who are they anyways? And why the fake beards? Geez.

So yeah, on one hand I am now, to an extent, totally caught up in the mystery. So if the goal of the Lost producers was to create a maddening puzzle that might even compel me to look at websites, check out what careers the Hanso Foundation is offering, or, god forbid, read that book "Bad Twin," well, yeah, they have created one hell of a sideshow around their little nonsensical TV Show. But as for the TV Show itself -- it's riding the VERY fine line between adding up to something meaty and satisfying and just being a complete and utter mess. With all the logic gaps and lack of direction in the show however, I am leaning more towards it being a mess ...

You have Eko believing that not pushing the button will kill everyone on the island because ... why? You have Eko igniting dynamite in an enclosed hatch against a nuke-proof door because ... why? You have Desmond doing ... what now? ... to apparently save everyone on the island. There's the electromagnetic pulse strong enough to bring down a plane and crush metal in the hatch but does nothing to the people on the island? You have Clancy Brown who works for Dharma but is trying to escape on Desmond's boat but who lied about the disease but who was truthfu labout the button ...?!?!

When you really think about it, this show is potentially a complete cluster unless there are some damn good answers or overarching mythology waiting in the wings. And it's too bad because the great moments (awesome scene as Kate, Jack, etc were taken down from afar by the Others) and the great performances (Henry Gale, Locke, Sayid, etc) are overshadowed by the all-encompassing feeling of "WTF!?!?!" that permeates this show. Don't get me wrong -- mysterious and creepy and ambiguous is GOOD. But internal logic holes, cutting dramatic corners, and biting off way more than one overstetched show can chew is NOT.

So like others I leave scratching my head and theorizing and half-sick of this stupid show and half-totally caught up in it. As a drama that sucks you in and keeps you glued to the TV, Lost is still top-notch, and proved it again with last night's finale. But as something more? As a modern day epic story that inspires wonder and awe? As a gripping (let alone COHERANT) sci-fi drama for the ages? As a show that has real depth and substance once you peel away the outer layers of cool characters and random ideas? Maybe in the long-run, but to quote Gladiator: "Not yet ... not yet."

My Grade: B