Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Lost, "The End": "I don't believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape"

Lost: The Animated Series by Michael Blaine Myers
As someone who's watched every single episode of Lost since the still-amazing pilot and recapped the series' entire fourth season for another blog (and never got paid for writing those recaps--as Chris Rock would say, what kind of gangster shit is that?), I'm still processing the events of Lost's lukewarmly received and sometimes frustrating series finale. I wasn't expecting the finale to answer every remaining question about the series' mysterious goings-on. How could it do so in one episode, even with an extra half-hour? I just wanted a finale that gave proper farewells to the characters and brought the goods action-wise like those eps when Sayid busted out his badass breakdance fighting moves, and "The End" delivered in the character and action sequence departments. But was all that time spent in the sideways universe during the final season worth it? I don't think I'm completely satisfied with the reasoning for the sidewaysverse. That whole business with the giant cork didn't make much sense either. Bullet time:

-My favorite recurring Lost theme was the conflict between a man of science (Jack) and a man of faith (Locke). The final season resolved that conflict beautifully, with Jack finally accepting Locke's beliefs in the specialness of the island and dying the way he wanted to (which was seeing his remaining friends leave the island safely) in a pitch-perfect final image that referenced the pilot's first moment and showed how much of an influence the Watchmen comic had on Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof.

-I'm glad Ken Leung's Miles, the character who provided the above one-liner about duct tape, lived to see another day. Bloggers like angry asian man and DISGRASIAN were disappointed that their favorite pair of Lost characters, the supercouple of Jin and Sun, was offed in "The Candidate" (some have even cried racism over the demises of the Kwons and Sayid), but I think the death of Miles, the show's sole Asian American regular and one of the few APA guys in prime-time who's neither a martial arts expert nor a coonin' buffoon, would have been a bigger letdown. (Speaking of Asian stuff, spoken-word artist Bao Phi wrote a nice post earlier this season about Lost's huge Asian American following.)

-I was also jazzed to see Miles' fellow freightie Lapidus alive after the submarine debacle in "The Candidate" because Jeff Fahey, who was underused on Lost but served as great comic relief whenever he did get screen time, is a master at making something out of nothing, ever since his laconic turn as the eccentric title hero of ABC's short-lived '90s procedural The Marshal. One of the reasons why the Star Wars prequel trilogy was an epic fail was because it lacked a Han Solo-esque figure who would wittily comment on the mystical goings-on and serve as a relatable audience surrogate. I like to think the Lost creators took notice of that flaw in the prequels, so they gave us not just one Han Solo-esque foil, but four: Sawyer, Miles, Lapidus and the not-as-cynical-or-snarky Hurley.

-The sci-fi geek in me who enjoyed all the time-travel material during my favorite Lost seasons, four and five, was disappointed that neither the nuke in "The Incident" nor the island's funky science was the reason for the sidewaysverse. The afterlife angle pretty much shot down my theory that Desmond or some other character with extraordinary powers created the sidewaysverse to hide his friends in there from the homicidal Smokey. On a superficial note, Sidewaysverse Kate looked slammin' in that black miniskirt.

-So Hurley and Ben are basically Mr. Rourke and Tattoo now? I bet the new island protector begins each morning by greeting everyone else with "Smiles, everydude, smiles!"

-Since when is Shannon the love of Sayid's life? I thought he was into Nadia. Whatever, man. I'm sure the Sayid and Shannon shippers got their panties wet that night. God, I hate that term "shippers." Other terms I hate are "squee" and "bromance." All those terms should be taken out back and shot and given a burial like the one Rick Rubin gave to the word "def" when he removed "Def" from the name of his label American Records.

-Yes! Lt. Van Buren is cancer-free! Woops, wrong series finale.

3 comments:

  1. Yeah, I didn't understand the Sayid-Shannon thing either. I have the hardest time believing that Sayid made a deal with Smokey to get back to HER. His true love was Nadia, fer shure.

    Like your theory about a super-Desmond creating the sidewaysverse. Also like that I'm not the only one who's a little sketchy on the stone cork deal.

    I really, really wish I could see just one day in the far future of the island during the reign of Hurley and Ben.

    All in all, I was pretty content with the finale, character-wise. I feel my Losties are safe and happy, even the dead ones. But the techie-geeky part of me wanted a bit more closure.

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  2. I was listening to Bill Simmons' ESPN podcast about the finale, and I was amused by his description of the sidewaysverse as way too What Dreams May Come-ish. The sidewaysverse reminded me more of the equally vague and poorly thought-out Nexus from Star Trek.

    "I really, really wish I could see just one day in the far future of the island during the reign of Hurley and Ben."

    You'll get your wish because Michael Emerson has been saying in interviews this week that he and Jorge Garcia filmed an epilogue for the upcoming Lost season six DVD's extras that shows Hurley and Ben running the island. I'd like to see an extra that shows what life is like on the mainland for the now-aging Richard. I bet it involves a lot of Matlock rerun-watching.

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  3. Ha! My fbook status up until this morning was: " So here's the spin-off I'm looking forward to: "My Cousin Alpert," in which Richard moves in with Lapidus, who in turn introduces him to topless bars, gambling, drive-thru fast food and Burt Reynolds movies."

    Man, that sounds great about the Ben-Hurley epilogue. I'm hoping it's in earnest and not all jokey like the Kimmel alternate endings. Which were hilarious as hell, I might add.

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