Lost: Week 1 Review
ZOË RICE: So begins the final chapter. Lost might be the finest–or at the very least most compelling–example of episodic storytelling in my lifetime. And so its sixth and final season began with more anticipation than I can remember feeling for any TV premiere ever. How could LA X Parts 1 and 2 possibly live up to the expectation? And yet, I am satisfied. At least for now. I was riveted. (Spoilers ahead!)
The stage has been set with new questions added to the old, and my greatest hope is that enough of these questions will have been answered by the series’ May 23 finale. For now, we say good-bye to 1977 and hello to Alternate 2004. It’s not the same ’04 we saw back when we were naively watching the series’ pilot. Some differences are large: Where are Michael and Walt on that plane? Shannon is missing; are the tailies there? Hey Hurley, look at you, luckiest man in the world. Holy cow, Desmond! Oh snap holy cow, the island sank! And some differences seem small: Cindy the stewardess hands Jack one bottle of vodka instead of two (the second of which would be used as antiseptic after the crash). Whereas before Rose was the nervous flier and Jack the comforter, now their roles are reversed. Does Charlie somehow know he’s “supposed to die,” or in this timeline does he have to live? The final missing pieces on that plane, Christian’s body and Locke’s knives…well, we couldn’t have seen the last of them, could we?
But lest we only be dazzled by a new, skewed alternate timeline–or the “Reset” we’ve been anticipating–writer/producers Lindelof and Cuse have given us a whole new world on our familiar unfamiliar island. We have the Temple. And a spiritual Japanese dude in a leather vest. And some hippies. And Cindy and the kids. The other Others, and they know Jacob. But something has muddied up their magic Temple waters, and something goes wrong with Sayid. Obviously the stage has been set for forthcoming spookiness. And Smokey’s on his way.
Terry O’Quinn as Locke and Not-Locke in these two episodes was a revelation. His penetrating stares and quiet menace on one end and his complacent defeatism on the other were alternatively chilling and poignant. In fact of all the cast, there wasn’t a bum performance in the group. Watching these characters, you can’t help but want to know more about them, and I attribute that almost as much to the actors as to the writing. This cast is giant, and now it’s squared–we have two of everyone! How will the story manage its dozens of moving parts? I am certainly hoping it will be as skillfully handled as it was here.
What we’ve been given with these first two episodes is pure Lost. We did get some answers. Evil Locke is the smoke monster! (Well, duh.) We’ve finally seen the inside of the temple. We’ve know what’s in Hurley’s guitar case. But more, a whole new slew of questions–almost innumerable–has opened up, and with them a greater anticipation for the next episode than I can remember feeling in a while. Does Rose still have cancer? Where did Desmond go? Was Juliet’s “Let’s get coffee” moment part of the alternate timeline? Who has Sayid’s body? (Lindelhof and Cuse have said it’s not Jacob.) What is “fate’s” role if Charlie says he was supposed to die, and yet Jack says “Nothing is irreversible”? When will we find out every single thing about Richard? Okay, what’s that nick on Jack’s neck? The new mysteries, big and small, have paved a road I can’t wait to travel.
This season of Lost will be a thrill ride. We all have front row seats.
TED BERG: Oh, Lost.
They promised this season would be different. They said they were going to start wrapping things up, and answering questions right quick.
But the whatthefuckathon continues.
So now, instead of flashbacks and flashforwards, we have a flashsideways, a look into some alternate reality in which Oceanic 815 didn’t crash after all. We’re led to believe that this had something to do with Juliet detonating the nuclear bomb at the end of Season 5, somehow initiating split timelines. But I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll learn, at some point, that the alternate reality actually stems from something the survivors do later in the season, perhaps in the finale, that decisively changes the past and somehow definitively alters their fates and characters — Sawyer is now a nice guy, Hurley is now a lucky guy, and Boone is now a living guy, set to land in LA and head straight to the beach to hang 10 on some righteous a-frames.
And on the Island, same deal: More mysteries, few solutions. We learn some things we had already pretty much surmised — that Jacob’s nemesis is the smoke monster, and had been inhabiting Locke — but they come alongside new questions. Who’s this Japanese dude? What the hell is that bubbling cauldron, how does it heal Sayid, why do they then drown him, and how does he come back to life? Why do they shoot off the flair? Why does the smoke monster hate being shot so much, even though it’s made out of smoke and so obviously unaffected by bullets?
Look: It’s not that I’m pissed off. We had to learn what was going on in the temple eventually, and it stood to reason that there would be some new people in there doing creepy and bizarre shit. But with every episode, it feels like the show’s producers are further testing the faith of the viewers, probing the limits of how long one can watch before saying, “OK, this is too fucking ridiculous, I’m switching to NCIS: The One With LL Cool J.”
The absurd plotlines covered up some pretty abysmal dialogue, too. When Sawyer’s all pissed off at Jack because Jack’s harebrained scheme killed Juliet, Jack says, “I thought it would work!” Sawyer responds, “Well it didn’t!” Awesome.
Still, even with all my complaining, I’m massively intrigued. This is the frustrating thing about Lost. It’s like crack or something. You know it’s fucking with you, and you can’t stop crawling back. Why is the smoke monster disappointed in the people? Where is the home he wants to return to? Was Richard Alpert a slave on the Black Rock, or was that comment about chains some sort of metaphor?
And why does Jack not recognize Desmond from the stadium when he sees him on the plane? Because he totally recognized him when he saw him in the hatch in the original timeline, and this time he just looks vaguely familiar. Could it be that whatever happens that puts the Island underwater kills Charles Widmore, and so there’s no boat race for Desmond to be training for in that stadium?
And why does Juliet say “it worked”? Does she know about the alternate timeline, or is she just referring to something lame like her dying so Sawyer can be with Kate?
And mostly, how are they going to answer all these goddamn questions in 16 more hours? How did Yemi’s plane get to the Island? Make with the information, boys.