Lost- Defensive Specialist

As a tv enjoyer first and a critic second I'm going to try and both understand the implications of the finale and the season as a whole better and defend it as an unbelievable piece of entertainment that achieved everything it needed to. In one of a couple of pieces I'll probably do in the next few weeks, I'm going to address one of the biggest criticisms of Lost as a whole entity.

Just because I absolutely loved the finale and thought it was a perfect ending to my favorite television show since I started becoming an enthusiast back in 2004, it doesn't mean I can't understand when others have differing or even opposite feelings towards it. Sawyer was my favorite character on the show, that doesn't mean I don't get why some people enjoy Sayid the most (who I can't stand). And just because I will now go on to explain why I think Lost benefited from one of its most widely hated aspects, that doesn't mean that I don't agree with those critiques in some way. Everyone watches and understands things differently. This is my point of view as a first and foremost Lost defender.

The biggest criticism I've been hearing and reading since the series ended on May 23rd is that the mythology of the show never added up. In a long Gchat with Jaydon this afternoon he talked about how he loved the show, but if the mythology was even 30% better it would have been in a league of its own. In my opinion, the mythology did exactly what it was supposed to do, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

The mythology of Lost, in my view, has been a vehicle to paint a portrait of these characters and the story they are in. The mystery that arose since the smoke monster was first heard in the Pilot, became a great backdrop to give the audience a great adventure of love, shootouts, revenge, etc. Within each season, and from season to season, new mysteries came about, making the audience ask question after question. While this was a clever way to keep the viewers on the edges of their respective seats, it was never what Lost was about.

Having said that, I still think the mythology all worked out in the end. Across the Sea, although it was questionable in its execution, helped me come up with my own explanation of the mythological aspects. When we were introduced to the Glowing Cave of Light that was the Heart of the Island, I gained a new perspective on the questions I had regarding mythology. Every question I had, in my opinion, I thought I could chalk it up to the Magic of the Island. I knew this was a fantasy show as soon as I saw the Smoke Monster, so I was fine with this magical aspect.

Why were the numbers important? Because the Island is crazy mystical. Why was Walt so special? Because this is a magical, mystical world. So on and so forth.

In a moment during the finale I got a new perspective on things that made me even more of a defender of Lost mythology. When Hugo accepts the position of protector of the Island and signs Ben up to be his number two, Linus conjectures that maybe we can run this Island differently. And in that moment I came up with a new explanation. Jacob was both an angry and crazy man with no real grasp on humanity. I could now chalk a lot of things up to the combination of the magical Light and Jacob running the Island as a complete jerk who really had no idea what he was doing.

Why was there a problem with pregnant women on the Island? Because Jacob ruled the Island that way. Why did it change? Jacob changed his mind on that idea. He never really understood what was the right way to do things and came up with new 'rules' now and again as he protected this place.

Now was there a clever wrap up to any of these burning questions that viewers had? No, but you can easily come up with your own explanation for every single one of them. Now if they had summed up all the mythology in a more concrete answerable way, I argue that the journey could have easily been much, much worse.

The fact that they knew they were going to leave most things unanswered (and up to your imagination), in my case that Jacob and the magical Island were responsible for all of the plot dead ends, they could ignite the viewers' emotions any way they felt like. They came up with interesting story lines, exciting events and burning questions. These were some of the best aspects of Lost. Many of these great moments in the show might not have been attainable if there was a solid mythology involved and the creators knew they were going to have to answer every little thread at the end.

So the way I see it is that when Hugo takes over, the Island becomes a much less complicated place. Sure it is still magical, but because he's such a down to earth guy who loves people, things just make much more sense during his tenure. He helps people out. He doesn't bring people to the Island to kill each other. People can have babies and not die from it. That's just not the story we were watching (although I wouldn't mind seeing Lost 2: Hurley and Linus rule the Island). In our story, these characters were in a battle to survive on this crazy Island that kept on changing as they stayed longer and longer.

So when most current defenders explain it that Lost is a character piece first and the mythology came a distant second, I'll agree to a point. But then again I think the mythology ended up working out, depending on how you watch the show, and in the end it was a way to build great stories. It wasn't just about the characters. The the fantastic action that occurred over the past six seasons was allowed to occur because of the crazy mythological aspects the show introduced. If they didn't all weave together the way you liked the oh well, but for me it worked immensely well.

Lost- Changing the Rules

It has been three days since the airing of what I think was a fantastic episode of Lost. What made Across the Sea so good was that it was so very polarizing. So many people either really liked, or really hated this episode. Anything that is close enough to the median where the majority of people are thinking it's just okay, it obviously is the wrong thing. As James Poniewozik of Time said, "'Awesome' and 'awful' are actually closer to each other on the continuum of quality than either is to 'meh'." What an ep like this does is get people to talk about the show. For better or for worse, it was an epic episode.

A few more things about the substance of the episode. A question has been raised about whether the Fake Mother is actually the protector of the Island or actually a previous version of the Smoke Monster. Well first off, maybe she's both. But in the favor of protector are that she talks about it like she is (although we've seen what a liar she can be), we never saw her take the form of the smoke, and she accepted her death just as Jacob did in The Incident. Reasons she could be Smokey are that she destroyed the Roman Others and filled in the well so quickly and easily, she may have been using smokey to appear as dead Claudia, and she might have wanted to die to get out of the terror of being a monster.

Speaking of Smokey. Another question out there is about whether or not the Light went out once MIB was flushed down the chute and came out as Smokey. It is hard to tell if the Light actually went out when Smokey emerged from the cave. It most certainly could have been put out, but it also could have been that the smoke coming out of the tunnel was blocking our view of the Light. The Light shouldn't have been put out, because isn't the Light what helps turn the donkey wheel into a transporter? We've seen it get used for such a thing a long time after Smokey emerges. But if the Light did go out, does that mean that the Smoke Monster took all of its energy and now is the Light in which Jacob is protecting (hence why Jacob can't let him leave)?

So how about all of the rules? The Mother keeps talking about all the different rules she put in place. The fact that Jacob and MIB can't hurt each other or the fact that MIB can never leave the Island. Or even the idea of the Light and someone needing to protect it. Did we ever actually see either of them try to kill each other? Did MIB ever attempt to leave the Island and fail? We know that the Mother is a liar. What if she was lying about all these rules? And these two boys just never tried to disobey any of them, because they were continually looking for ways around them. This has really been a recurring theme in Lost. Whether it was Ben, Widmore, Locke or Jack, they've all used manipulation to get what they wanted.

So what's the end game gonna look like with Lost? Across the Sea showed us that the game has been played for a long, long time. Stealing babies, manipulating, trying to leave the Island, crazy mothers. In other words, "They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same." Well in Ryan McGee's Lost Podcast he thinks that it will either end with a new iteration of the game beginning, or the destruction of the game for all of time. Although the ending scene of Jack and Locke sitting on the beach talking about how much they want to kill each other would be great, I think I'd rather see our favorite characters be the reason this horrible game of senet came to an end.

You see as Jacob said, "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress." I thought they were epic words at the time and I can't disagree with myself now. Just as Smokey has been spending an eternity manipulating people into getting what he needed to win the game versus Jacob and get off the Island, Jacob too has been structuring everything just right so that he can win and end this thing so that it never happens again. You see when MIB made up the rules to their game of senet, Jacob complained and was told by his brother that some day he'd be able to make up his own rules. I think he did.

Maybe MIB has been playing by an outdated set of rules this whole time, so killing Jacob and the rest of the candidates isn't really going to help him get off the Island. Jacob made his own set of rules and is making it so that whatever Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, etc. do in the next few hours will stop all of the horrible Island stuff from happening to anyone ever again. It will be very satisfying to see that our favorite characters are the ones that help save the day.

I'll come back after this Tuesday's episode and apologize to myself for how wrong all of this is.

Lost- I Wanna Go Home

Mother- "A little bit of this very same light is inside of every man, but they always want more."

Jacob- "Can they take it?"

Mother- "No, but they'll try. And if they try, they could put it out. If the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere."

I've watched Across the Sea twice already, have four pages of notes, and had two long gchat convos, but I think I'm just gonna start wingin' it here. According to Jaydon some people didn't like this episode and in his words, "that's poppycock."  The only thing I can say to that is, what are you nuts? This episode in and of itself was pure entertainment. As it pertained to the five and half seasons we've watched before, it was magical. The slight problem with it was how it may have fit with the series pacing. A lot of mythological background was shoved into one episode. I might have liked to have seen this play out through three or four episodes throughout seasons five and six. Having said that, all of the mythology involving Jacob, the Man In Black and their mother is merely background to showcase the characters (Jack, Sawyer, Hurley) that we've grown to love over the years.

How good were all four of these actors during this 45 minutes. I was captivated the entire time. As Jaydon remarked to me, "The casting of the kids was on point. Were they the children of the actors?" Not only did they resemble the Jacob and Man In Black that we know, but they managed to make me love the both of them. Why would the Lost people want me to feel so sympathetic for the Boy In Black at this point? They've spent the entire season gearing up to last episode where we have grown to hate him for killing all of our favorite characters, and being basically pure evil. Now they come up with this back story episode and I fall completely in love the original Man In Black.

Before his twin brother* shoved him down into the warmest and brightest light you'll ever see, the Boy In Black was just a normal kid who wanted to go to his real home. Sure he had a few anger issues, but rightfully so once he found out that his adopted mother killed his birth mother seconds after being born. All he wanted to do was go home, and once his fake mother knocked him unconscious, filled up the donkey wheel well, and killed all of his people, I have no problem with him mirking her.

*my reaction when the pregnant lady washed up on the beach, "Twins! I knew it!"

Both twins had good and evil in them. Jacob pummeled the Boy in Black to a pulp early on and then did it again once he saw that his brother killed their pseudo mother. The future protector of the light was so angry that he threw MIB down the light hole and turned him into the smoke monster (something he knew was much worse than death). Which one of these brothers was the evil one before that event? They both had their moments of weakness, but you could make a case for either one. Now there's almost a part of me that is rooting for UnLocke so that he could somehow turn back into his normal self and return home. I don't know if that's a good thing.

The fact of the matter is that this episode may have brought up more questions than answers for some people. Not me. I'm accepting all of this stuff at face value. The twins' fake mom has a huge amount of power as the protector of the Island? She can make rules like Jacob and MIB can't kill each other...MIB can't leave the Island? Yes. That is what it is. Whether she is some type of god or supernatural being, I'm fine with it. Let's use that information to form the rest of the story with our characters.

The same thing goes for the all powerful light. It has some serious magic. It is "life, death, rebirth...It's the source, the heart of the Island." It's all that is good (and normal) about the world as we know it. As opposed to the Smoke Monster you become from trying to go down into it (which is evil, eternal life of smoke and deception). It is very spiritual and very magical and I'm accepting it for what it is. I don't need any more explanation. Let's just see how it affects Jack, Sawyer, Hurley and the rest of our friends as they learn about the light in the hours to come.

Some Other Thoughts

-MIB can see dead people. Jacob can't. Or is the dead mother just a manifestation from a previous Smokey? Is there any connection in this to the fact that Hugo can see dead people?

-MIB will never be able to leave the Island. Is this just one of the mom's rules we need to accept? When did the rule become Smokey has to kill Jacob/candidates in order to leave? Because before he turned into Smokey he seemed to have figured out that turning the donkey wheel was a way to leave the Island (which we saw happen with Locke and Ben earlier in the series).

-Love that the baby, the kid, and the adult versions of Jacob and MIB all wear white and black, respectively.

-Mom, "Jacob doesn't know how to lie. He's not like you." Isn't lying bad? So that would make MIB bad right? Or is lying smart? And Jacob is just a dumb trustworthy guy who follows his mothers orders? MIB's intelligence was what made him the SPECIAL one?

-If Jack is the incumbent candidate to take the role of protector, who is going to feed him the wine and show him the light? Case the Base seems to think Hugo will be put through the paces by Jacob and I like that idea.

-I guess MIB was talking about his fake mother when he told Kate that he had a crazy mother too. That whole conversation seems much easier to sympathize with now that we've seen this episode. Maybe things would've been different...

UnLocke: "Because... my mother was crazy. Long time ago, before I... looked like this... I had a mother, just like everyone. She was a very disturbed woman. And, as a result of that, I had some growing pains. Problems that I'm still trying to work my way through. Problems that could have been avoided had things been different."

-And we got an unbelievable flashback to the sixth episode of the entire series! "Our very own Adam and Eve" It's awesome that they found a way to work that broad theming into a specific event having to do with mythology that we all know they hadn't even thought of yet.

-Jacob- "You wanted it to be him, but now I'm all you have." I really felt for him here.
-Mom- "It was always supposed to be you Jacob."  Why don't I believe her?

What did you think?

Lost- Becoming Jacob

There are only four and a half hours of new Lost left to air. In last week's post I went on and on about how Jack was becoming the new Jacob, but would they really be this obvious about something? Lost has made a habit out of making you think one thing and then going another way with it. Of course I personally still think that Jack is destined to become the new Jacob and rule the Island for another eternity, but there are plenty of other scenarios I can see coming in the near future.

Jack Becomes Jacob
I've been saying for a while that his new laissez faire attitude, and transition to the man of faith, has seemed very Jacob-esque. He wants to be on this Island because he knows it has a greater purpose for him. That being said, it is a bit of an obvious choice, right down to the point where Sayid flat out says, "it's going to be you Jack." Now sure there are only four episodes left, and maybe finding out who the new Jacob will be is not something to be saved for the final episode, but it still seems a little too perfect.
Odds: 2-1

Ben Becomes Jacob
So a theory that I think came from the mind of Doc Jensen is that Ben is destined to become the new Jacob. The point here is that Jacob has made up all of the candidates to fool everyone, including the Man In Black, to not worry about Benjamin Linus. This way he has an easy path to taking the throne. Jacob wasn't really testing all of the people on the Island by bringing them there, he was testing Ben. And although Ben did some bad things, he has also been heroic and good. His decision to go with Ilana instead of Smokey might have been the turn of the corner.
Odds: 5-1

Desmond Becomes Jacob
Now we all know that Desmond is special. He flashes the future, he can withstand electromagnetic energy, and now it seems he may have the ability to go back and forth between two parallel universes. Is he special enough to become the new Jacob? Maybe. The Man In Black did order Sayid to kill him after all. Many people are saying that the two universes will end in somebody or many people sacrificing one world for another. Now since Desmond is really the only one who has a better Island life (married to Penny, beautiful baby Charlie), what if he has to sacrifice that life by becoming the new Jacob in order to allow everyone else live happily ever after in the sideways world?
Odds: 6-1

Locke Becomes Jacob
Although he is dead in the Island universe, Locke is very much alive in the sideways world. When Jack told him that he was a "candidate" for spinal surgery, don't tell me you didn't have a few strange thoughts about that? In some sort of universe convergence theory, what if Locke was able to cross over to the Island world to become the new ruler? Highly unlikely, but if anybody deserved a chance to take charge over this magical place, it's John Locke.
Odds: 10-1

Nobody Becomes Jacob
There are too many scenarios to play out, in which nobody comes to take Jacob's place. Does the Island blow up? Does it disappear? Does the Man In Black die and therefore the Island needs no more protection? Did it never need protecting in the first place, hence he needs no replacement? A lot of different ways this could go, but it seems like one of these outcomes could be the most likely.
Odds: 3-1

Jacob Becomes Jacob
You know that little "Peter Pan" boy we met in the jungle back in The Substitute? And then saw in Everybody Loves Hugo, looking quite a bit older? This sure as heck should be Jacob right? He first tells Smokey that he can't kill Sawyer because he "knows the rules." This is very Jacob-esque. The theory here is that after Jacob died either he or a reincarnate of him is back to life on the Island and aging rapidly before our eyes. The Man In Black now has to kill all of the qualified candidates before Jacob returns to normal age, and then is allowed to take back his spot as ruler of the Island.
Odds: 8-1

Me and JJ were talking about the fact that at the end of the day a fantastic finish to the series would be if the final scene was two people sitting on the beach having the exact conversation Jacob and the Man In Black had at the beginning of the season five finale. Whether that is Jack and Locke, Jack and Sayid, Desmond and Ben, the new deities of good and evil discussing what continues to occur on this Island would be fantastic.

Man In Black: "They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same."
Jacob: "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress."