So...Lost. Right? Sigh. I really enjoyed the first season. After that it was more of an obligation; I was too invested not to watch the mysteries unravel. Then they didn't unravel. They just rolled away, out of view and (the writers hoped) out of mind. A coworker, Beer, and I discuss this show almost daily. I said a few weeks ago that there was no way the show could be concluded to my satisfaction.
"At this point, everyone could die and I'd be okay with it," I said.
"Really? You'd be okay if everyone just died? Interesting," Beer replies. Beer is an incubator, not at all reactionary. A typical response from him on Lost theory is "Oh...I hadn't thought of that." followed by silence, as he thinks of that. If there is a downside to Beer's introspection, it is that he lets me
talk waaay too much. I digress.
I was right, though - everyone did die. Not the way I thought they might, but they did. I wasn't okay with it, though. Let me just point out that I would have been okay with it, if more plot lines had been solved. It might also have helped if Sayid had ended up with the actual love of his life, Nadia. But that's just the smallest fly in this very contaminated ointment.
See, I didn't want the island to be this mystical, unexplained gold light. Just write in a geologist character to tell Jack and Hurley that it's because of the very high level of minerals Y and Z that the island has this crazy electromagnetism. Tell Locke and Desmond that pressing the button every 108 minutes released a synthetic compound created by Darma to counteract this effect so it would be contained to the island itself and not, you know, cause airplanes to crash and shit.
I conclude that the island was indeed real - and I have read on multiple websites that the majority of Lost finale watchers do, too - because as dear old dad
said, "the most important time of your life was spent with these
people." I guess surviving a plane crash would have quite a profound
effect on shaping the rest of my life as well, and if there were other
people with me I wouldn't be likely to forget their names if I ran into
them at Target. "Sun! Right. Didn't we work together at the mall? Duh!
The Oceanic crash, how silly of me. How's your husband Jim?"
Since the first flashback I have believed that without
the mythology, without Others and Jacob and mysticism, Lost would be
an interesting show. Get the survivors off the damn island and back to
real life to resolve the frayed ends of existence they left dangling
before the crash. They could do that with or without each other, but it
would be great to see Locke show up at his dad's front door, sans
wheelchair. Sayid torn between mourning for Shannon and searching for
Nadia. Jin and Sun on the run from her father. Hurley, swept up in his
newfound fame, cheats on Libby. Claire and Jack discover their
relationship, Claire decides to stay in the States, and we watch as
she struggles to make ends meet. Sawyer keeps being intense and
brooding. I don't care, really, just put him in a scene now and then for me
to ogle.* Jack and Kate - Fuck Kate, Jack,she is seriously too messed
up. You are a leader! Get over her conflicted ass already! *Ahem* Sorry.
All this isn't to say that I wasn't entertained by the Others. I loved
Juliet and her back story. I'm just saying the show never had
to go that far and it would still ave been a good show. But, since you
had to get all mystical...
Just tell us what the light is. Show us the first guardian of the island.
Show us the 4-toed inhabitants. Let us see the kids that the Others
whisked back home discovering their new found abilities to hear dead
people, like Miles. Show us Hurley bringing people to the island once he's
in charge, or stopping people from reaching the light - by kicking some ass.
Another thing - I wanted to see Claire reunited with Aaron, though I suppose I understand that the
writers needed the shot of the plane flying over just before Jack
closed his eyes. It seemed to me, though, that they were building up to it and we never saw the payoff.
Everyone could have ended up the same in the end (dead), but I found it...lazy
to go out this way. And don't try to tell me I'm the lazy one for not using my imagination to conclude for myself what these remaining mysteries are. I don't want to use my imagination when I watch TV. I reserve my
imagination for unillustrated books and conjuring a world where my son
no longer pees in his pants. Of course, I'm not a professional scriptwriter, so tell
me: how hard was it to come up with this ending really, on a scale of
petting your cat to petting your ego? Be honest.
*Husband, you did not read this sentence.
