LOST - Season 3 Finale:
- For the last two years, Lost has dropped the ball when it came time to close out its season. For some reason, the writers failed to put that all-important exclamation mark on the season, never delivering on the hype that was built-up to near boiling point levels.
Last night, holy crap, did they ever deliver. Last night's LOST was an insanely good piece of television, and I don't think it's hyperbole to say that it contained one of the most memorable narrative twists in the history of scripted television drama. I was very, very skeptical when Damon Lindeloff and co promised a true "game-changer" for last night's finale. But if there was ever a game-changer, then that was it. Dayum.
First, let's forget about the twist for a moment and just focus on the meat of the episode. This was, simply, one of those classic moments in a story when everything just comes together to deliver high adventure and pulse-pounding drama. For two hours, the tapestry of great characters, heroes, villains, and storyarcs seamlessly wove a riveting tale, and man, it was just a joy to watch.
Charlie has never been more entertaining or cool then he was last night. It was like suddenly, everything just clicked with his character and this was, right here, the Charlie that we've always wanted to see. Flippant, staring down danger with a smile, dare I say punk rock? If Charlie is really dead, then what a high note to go out on. No more angst or moping about for everyone's favorite ex-hobbit - he went out a hero, and with a character arc that had been brilliantly advanced and seen through to completion.
Everything with Charlie, Desmond, Mikhail, and the two VIPER Squad members in the underwater base was just 100% awesome. Classic James Bond-esque adventure and intrigue, I was eating up every second of it. I mean, how kickass is Mikhail as a second-tier villain? I actually hope he isn't dead because the PATCH must live on. I'm not sure what to make of the Penelope / Naomi thing. It's intriguing, I guess, but I need more info. But anyways, everytime Lost cut back to Charlie and co in the underwater hatch, I was lovin' it.
For a while now, Hurley has been kind of useless, even bordering on annoying. But dammit all, Hurley barrelling through The Others in his Dharma truck, after we thought he had returned to the group following Sawyer telling him to go back, was one of my favorite moments ever on Lost! That was legit smile from ear-to-ear stuff. The scene when Jack, after beating the snot out of Ben and picking up his walkie-talkie, was expecting to talk tough with some Others who had just murdered his friends, only to hear a victorious Hurley on the other end --- well, who didn't want to jump and cheer? Like Charlie, Hurley, the unlikeliest of heroes, saw his character arc come full circle last night and I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed it.
Locke ... Locke has been one of the most uneven characters on the show - the focus in some of the show's all time best moments as well as in some of its worst. But Locke, awaking from certain death in a mass grace, being urged on by the reappearing Walt to continue on with his mysterious mission, with Locke managing a knowing smile in reply as he gripped a gun ... that was classic Locke, and classic Lost. That whole scene of Locke's "resurrection" before Walt was just friggin' cool.
Like in the best ensemble stories, everyone had their great little moment. Think Sayid snapping that one guy's neck with his legs. Think Rose and Bernard, who were show-stealers despite this being their first real appearance on the show since last season! Think Jin and Sun, and the bond that Jin had formed with the other islanders. Think Danielle as she was reunited with her long-lost daughter, Alex. Her first words to Alex: "Tie him up." The man being restrained of course, was Alex's father Ben. Talk about a dysfunctional family ...
Sawyer, who has gone from villain to Han Solo-esque rogue to broken blank slate (after being manipulated into killing Locke's dad, aka the "real" Sawyer), got off the line of the night when he finally got one up on Mr. Friendly. "I didn't believe him." An instant classic.
The triangle romance between Jack and Kate and Sawyer saw some real developments as well. Jack told Kate he loved her, but before that kissed Juliette. Sawyer and Kate had some tense moments. All said, these characters are just the best on TV, and it will be a crime if people like Matthew Fox, Josh Halloway, and Elizabeth Mitchell aren't nominated for Emmys.
As always with LOST, a few things did bug me. Namely, the usual problem of characters (particularly Ben and Locke) speaking in riddles, which is totally counterintuitive when you're trying to win someone over to your way of thinking. Ben's M.O. has always been that of a liar and manipulator, and Jack and co are long since wise to this fact. So, why would Ben make a last-ditch effort to dissuade Jack from leading his people off the island by giving them more ambiguous warnings about how doing so would lead to their dooms? And the same goes for Locke. It's like, if you've got something to say, spit it out! What did Locke know that was so extreme that he killed a seemingly innocent woman?
Aside from these quibbles, I can't state enough how much I loved this episode. Now, about those "flashbacks ..."
First off, I freely admit that until the final minutes of this episode, I hadn't even considered that these might be anything other than standard-issue Lost flashbacks. Even with that mindset, I loved these flashbacks. Seeing the usually-composed Jack fall so far off the wagon was pretty jarring, and Matthew Fox did an incredible job with this material. The opening flash of him contemplating suicide was beautifully-shot and just so well done - it immediately drew you into the story in a way that many of the flashbacks fail to do, and set up a mystery surrounding Jack that I eagerly followed to the end. Of course, all through these flashbacks, something did seem off. Jack with a grey-speckled beard? Using a razor cell phone and wearing very modern-looking sunglasses? Whose funeral was he attending? What did the fact that a drunk, pill-popping Jack angrily referenced his father, as though his dad were still alive, imply about where in the Lost timeline these flashes were set? Still, I mostly just accepted that this was some as-of-yet unseen period in Jack's history, revealed to, as usual, parallel the events on the island and give some new insight into a dark period from Jack's past.
But then ...
HOLY $#%~!
This was an ending that I didn't see coming whatsoever, but one that left me with my jaw left hanging on the floor and my head buzzing on a euphoric high. Was this really Lost: One Year Later? So what we had just seen was ...? As in Memento or other similar fare, my mind was totally blown when I realized that what we had been watching all this time was in fact a Jack who had escaped the island with his fellow castaways and had been trying, largely unsuccessfully, to reintegrate back into the real world. Suddenly, the mystery of whose funeral he had gone to as the sole attendee took on a whole new urgency. Was it Ben? Sawyer? The blonde woman who was Jack's emergency contact had at first glance appeared to be his wife as previously seen in flashback, but it wasn't, was it? So, who was she? Why did Kate and Jack have such a strained relationship in this future timeline? Who was "him" that Kate had to get back to? Were allusions to Jack as being a hero solely in reference to him saving the woman from the carwreck, or did people know him as the man who rescued the survivors of Flight 815? And here's the big one - WHY did Jack want to go back to the island? Were some of the castaways still there? What became of Locke, Desmond, and the rest? Why weren't Jack and the rest supposed to escape, and what made Jack feel so wrong about leaving? And -- why had Jack been lying about the island - was he forced, coerced, unable to tell the truth?
DAMN. Like I said, my mind was blown.
But you know what - even without all these burning questions - how awesome was Jack's characterization in retrospect in those future-flashes? Knowing that this was a returned-from-the-island Jack, I was floored by this amazing depiction of a broken man who had just seen and experienced something so unbelievable that he held on to some hope of returning to that hell, because it was the only existence he could live with after all he had endured. Thinking about the episode's opening scene of Jack on the plane, with the reveal in mind, wow - what kickass characterization is that. In terms of narrative structure and intersecting plot threads and multiple layers of meaning woven into each scene - this was simply an amazing story, sci-fi at its best, scripted television at its utmost potential. And let me also mention some of the other aspects of the show's production. The direction and cinematography here was, as always, pretty spectacular. Truly a step above what you usually see on TV. The music here was superb as well - feature film quality scoring that really added to the drama and intensity.
I have no idea what the next season of Lost will bring - whether it will be set in the island's present with flash-forwards to the future, or focus on the newly-revealed future with flashbacks to how that future came to be, ala 52. But this is one of those cases where I simply cannot wait until this show returns. No longer am I saying "okay, I'll give Lost one more chance to impress me." That's it - they've impressed me, and whatever issues I had with the episode were far, far outweighed by the overall greatness of this finale. Congrats to the Lost writers, producers, crew and cast - you guys put on one hell of a show. This episode may need to be viewed in the context of what comes next to truly be judged in its proper context. But, as of now, I can, I think, fairly safely say, that this was one of the best and most memorable installments of a TV drama I've ever seen, and definitely and example of LOST at the top of its game. This one will be talked about for years to come.
My Grade: A+
HEROES Season Finale:
- I give Heroes a lot of credit. It brought comic book mythology to the small screen with a level of mainstream appeal that is certainly unprecedented. It introduced some great characters like Claire, the indestructable cheerleader, and Hiro, the humble office drone turned time-bending adventurer. Most of all, I give Heroes credit for getting better each week. When I first saw the pilot last year, I was disappointed that the greatness of the initial script had seemingly been lost in translation to the screen. And for those first several episodes, I couldn't bring myself to jump aboard the Heroes bandwagon. There were a few things I liked - Hiro, mostly - but many of the characters felt generic and thin, and the plot seemed to meander and get bogged down by angsty brooding and little sense of forward momentum. But somewhere along the way, business picked up. Sylar was introduced and brought a much needed villainous presence to the mix. The mythology of the show was broadened, and great actors like Christopher Ecclestion, George Takei, Eric Roberts, and Malcolm McDowell were brought in and brought much-needed dramatic chops to a cast that suffered from a few too many stiffs. And then "Company Man" happened. Suddenly, Heroes had shifted into another gear, with an amazing episode that narrowed the spotlight, focusing on HRG / Mr. Bennett / Noah and creating a dynamic, compelling backstory. With that episode, Heroes loosened the reigns and felt fresh, original, innovative.
All along, a certain contingent of fanboys, encouraged by the show's high ratings and breakout status, have been making noise about how Heroes, is, apparently, the greatest thing since sliced bread. While it wowed me with a few key episodes, Heroes has still never 100% clicked with me. There's too many plot elements and characters that feel ripped straight out of some other story. There's too many characters that feel thin and whose motivations seem contrived. Usually, I come away from Heroes having loved certain scenes, but rarely feeling like the show was firing on all cylinders.
For a show that has to some extent cruised along on hype (sorry, I'm not a fan of a marketing catchphrase becoming so integrated into a show's scripts), this finale was make or break.
Well, in the end, this one didn't really do either. It was a competent finale - some fun moments, a few cool twists, and a pretty great lead-in to next season that left you goin' home happy and excited with anticipation. But was this the huge, explosive finale we had come to expect? Not exactly. I realize this isn't a Michael Bay movie (and thank God for that), but I was still left wondering where all the fireworks were as things reached the climactic endgame.
Visually, I was kind of underwhelmed. These characters are fighting with superpowers in a public plaza in New York, and yet no one (in NEW YORK?!?! Come on!) is there to witness? The battle between Peter and Sylar could have been an awe-inspiring moment, with throngs of New Yorkers shocked at what they were seeing, filled with dread as they realize what's at stake in the battle. Instead, the heroes still exist in a vaccum despite all logic dictating otherwise. On a show whose conceit is that its superheroes in a real-world setting, I was disappointed at how unrealistic this version of New York seemed.
Meanwhile, the characters still seemed to kind of just get thrown around with little rhyme or reason. This was evident from the get-go, as new dialogue was thrown into the recap of last week to make it clearer what happened in the confrontaiton between Linderman and D.L. Then, Bennett is all over the place in terms of what he wants for Claire. Does he want her kept away from the bomb, or to be in the thick of things? Nathan Petrelli is still, to me, such a lifeless character. A character can't swing back and forth between being complicit in the murder of millions and being a hero - that's way too much of a stretch. That was the whole point of Watchmen - that Adrian Veidt believed himself a hero when in fact he was delusional - he couldn't be both a hero and a mass murderer. Nathan flying his radioactive brother out of harm's way was a twist that was neither here nor there - Nathan is such a blank slate that he could do practically anything and it'd barely register with me.
To add to that feeling of disappintment I had, the ep was just overwritten to the point of inducing extreme instances of eye-rolling. Did Richard Roundtree, in his fairly dull and confusing scenes with the younger Petrelli, really just tell Peter that all you need is love? What was that that Claire was crying about - fate and destiny not being written in stone? And the capper - the return of Mohinder's godawful narration, which basically was a lot of flowery prose that added nothing to the storytelling.
Don't get me wrong - there were a lot of fun moments, as per usual. Jessica / Niki's fight with herself was pretty cool, although she was useless later, randomly hitting Sylar with a pole despite not even knowing who he was.
Clearly though, Hiro, Ando, and Mr. Sulu owned this episode. They had all the best moments, with Ando's near-death at the hands of Sylar, Hiro's rescue, and then Hiro going Crouching Tiger on the brain-sucking badguy. I also loved the end of the episode, with Hiro transporting back to feudal Japan and being caught in the middle of some kind of battle between horse-mounted warriors. Good stuff, and I look forward to seeing where it all goes, and I am very interested in the whole "Generations" concept that looks to be the focus of Season 2. I mean, any good comic geek knows that you can't have a superhero universe without some generational legacy stuff (that inevitably ties into World War II in some way). Again, the problem is that this type of story has been told many, many times before, and very well (ex: Watchmen, JSA, The Golden Age, Planetary). It will be interesting to see what if any new spin HEROES has on this classic staple of superhero lore.
As for the episode - not spectacular like I'd hoped, but decent enough to keep me interested and reasonably eager for Season 2. I hope that this season was a kind of learning period and now, hopefully, the kinks have been ironed out. Let's hope that with season 2, Heroes really begins to live up to its full potential and that business really begins to pick up.
My Grade: B
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