There's an anime series I really liked that, with only four episodes left until their finale, killed off at least one major character per episode until there was simply no one left. I remember thinking, "Now THAT'S how you end a series."
Lost has apparently decided to do something similar, as in last night's episode, Sayid blew up, Sun and Jin drowned, Kate got shot, and Sawyer's head is bleeding (hey, I just realized, what happened to Lapedius?). So, now we're apparently left with unquestionably faithful Jack and "I see dead people" Hurley vs Smoke Monster Locke and Crazy Claire.
Now I'll admit that I'm pretty sad about Sun and Jin, but I did feel something like that coming. The two have had a whole "tragic love story" vibe for a while now: Jin almost dying to save Sun, then Sun coming back to the island to find him, then they were both looking desperately for one another, and even when they found one another I was scared that it wouldn't last long. And it didn't.
I really liked last night's episode, and the series is building up to a really good finale, but I will say I've had issues with this last season. For starters, instead of "answering questions" at the beginning, they just started adding characters who they then just killed off, which has always been an issue with the series, bringing people to light just so they can have someone die: "Hey, here's some people we've never noticed before, oh, they're all dead." Also, the flash sideways thing seemed like a waste of time, until they started linking them directly to the island action.
I realize that all (and probably even most) of our questions will not be answered or possibly even addressed (Why is the island so special? Why are these specific people candidates? Who built the statue? Why did Jacob never get a new weaving machine?), but I don't think I'll have a problem with that, provided they give us a good ending that doesn't require too much explanation. I am hopeful of this, despite a lifetime of disappointment.
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I also thought that it was a good episode, and was building well to a finale. Then I read an interview with the producers, where they were bascially breaking their arms patting themselves on the back. "We had to kill main characters to prove that no one is safe" they said, as closely as I can remeber. The problem with this is, is that they have always killed main characters, not just people introduced to at the beginning of the year to be killed off (I'm thinking of Boone, Charlie, and Shannon in particuler, with Boone maybe the most shocking of all). The producers didn't really did anything different last night than they have did off and on all series long. They still won't touch the group of Hurley/Kate/Jack/Sawyer, and even soft pedalled the death of the other memeber of the Big 5, Locke, by bringing him back as Smokey. Actually, they soft pedalled all these deaths, beacause all these characters are still "alive" in the sideways world (we actually saw Jin walk by sideways Lokce in the hospital after his big death scene). Way to have your cake and eat it, too, writers. The more surprising death would have been Kate, a member of the core 5 who isn't a candiate, thus expendable. Having her die in Jack/Sawyer's arms while the other pulls the one still alive away to saftey would have been more shocking than Jin or Sun (we all knew that Sayid was doomed as soon as he became a zombie. At least he went out trying to do the right thing). Oh, and you forgot that Desmond still lives in the well, and that Richard/Miles/Ben are still roaming the island somewhere, so the other four have back up aganinst Smokey and Claire, who will probably flip on him any minute. But to go back to my orginal point, I now fear, mainly thanks to this interview, that the writers and producers have let all the praise about how "different" their show is (much like David Chase with the Sopranos) get to their heads, meaning we could be heading for a very unsatisfying conculision, much like Sopranos. I hope not, but now I fear it...but hopefully the interview was a little of smoke screen, and the really have a good plan to end it. Hopefully
ReplyDeleteSo Jack, Sawyer, and Hurley are sitting around a fire eating while Journey's "Don't Stop Believin" plays on the soundtrack. Then we see Kate walking to them through the jungle, arriving late. Then we see Hurley looking suspiciously into the jungle as if he sees/ hears something- CUT TO BLACK.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that would be a terrible ending, wouldn't it?
ReplyDeleteAnyhoo, you mentioned the "shocking" deaths of the series, but I think Shannon's was more shocking than almost incestous Boone, due its abruptness. (We heard whispering and then Ana Lucia shot blindly and that was it.) With Boone, we basically spent an entire episode building up to him dying, and a big point of the episode was Jack accepting what he couldn't do anything about, which turned out to be Boone's death.
As for the finale, ABC isn't HBO, and I doubt they would let the producers have an ending as unsatisfying as Soprano's, but there's really no way it will leave us all happy. Though I do think that before the "last battle" between Smokey and our remaining stars, Ben, Richard, and/or Miles will join Sun, Jin, and Sayid as formerly alive. Smokey thinks Desmond is dead, so I think he's safe until Jack brings him back into play.
One final note: you put Hurley as one of the "Big Four" and he certainly is, now, but not originally. At first, he was kind of comedic relief, surrounded by people with bigger stories with more drama. It's just interesting to think that he's become such a big deal, maybe because the producers realized how much the viewers all liked him.
Good call on Hurley, who became such a fan favorite that they made him an important character on the show, and now need him for the finale because of his ablility to talk to the dead. The other 3 of the Big 4 are needed because the whole series seems to have played as a redemption arc for both Jack and Sawyer, learning how to be better men than they were before and learning to accpet the things they can't change or the people they can't save. And Kate? Well, umm, err, because she's hot? I got nothing for her, and stand by the fact that if the producers really wanted to make a splash, they should have killed her off in the last episode. Then we would have really known that all bets were off. Your point on Shannon's death on the show being more surprising was true (same goes for Libby, accidently shot by Michael because she was a drunk driver...wait, I mean because she walked into the Hatch at the wrong point as Michael was trying to free Ben-the actress and Michelle Rodriguez were both charged with DWI's right before their characters were offed from the show, leading some to speculate that just maybe the two were connected) but my point on Boone is that it was most surprising because we had spent a lot of time with that charcater during the first season-even finding out about his sort of incest with his stepsister-then they killed him off halfway through the year. That proved to me that all bets were off, that anyone could go at anytime. Of course, it didn't take long to figure out what characters were never going to be killed off (Locke, Sawyer, Jack, Kate) with Hurley added later. Oh, and since you also get EW, I will assume that you will read the article about what the producers/writers are planning for the finale, which, according to the author of the piece, says the "drama intends to leave the airwaves in a heartbreaking, head-spinning blaze of Wow and Wha?" and that it will be "bold, implicitly clear yet open to INTERPRETATION" followed by the producers going "radio silent" after the conculision because they won't be rushing to explain what happens in the end. Huh...now should we be worried more or less or should we trust that these people know what they are doing? It really is a toss up at this point, isn't it, but the fact that they are leaving a TV show up for intrepretation seems a little silly, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteFirstly, something can't be both implictly clear AND open to interpretation, that's a contradiction, and I would hope the writers of Lost would know that. Second, I avoid reading anything that might give something away I haven't seen yet, so I probably won't read the EW article until after the finale, just in case I learn more than I want to know. Finally, just based on what I've heard from you and other sources, Lost's writers/ producers really are just arrogant as hell, and do make me worry more about their idea of what constitutes a good series finale.
ReplyDeleteAs for Boone, it has become kind of standard for a show now to have a "major death" or other big, game-changing thing to happen every so often to keep the audience's interest up. Building Boone up to as big a character as he was just to kill him off was brave on the creators' part, but it is done more now than it used to be.