What 10 Minutes Can Do

I don't know if I have ever spoken about it on my blog or not, I think I mentioned it, but over the last year and a half to two years, I became a rabid LOST fan. Quite simply, I think it is the greatest show ever produced for network television. What made it so great? The characters. The characters were developed in the most unique way, each episode delving deeper into their past, and later their future, which over time let you come to know these imaginary people and learn to love them all for their individual flaws and struggles. Combined with the genius of the writing of these characters, was a terrific and riveting story that always kept you guessing and built layer upon layer of a mysterious mythology that always left you craving more and more. The production quality of this show felt very cinematic in scope, and the artists involved were very meticulous about every detail, asking their audience to pay close attention to every scene, and every bit of dialogue, because it became abundantly clear, that they were making every little thing happen for a reason. Mid-way through the show, they shifted gears and some story lines got abandoned for others, but if you paid attention, the past didn't matter, because "what happened, happened," and the show drove ever onward toward a finale that promised to be beyond imagination. It became quite clear that every question the writers raised throughout the series would not be answered, but for fans of the show, the answers weren't all that important anymore, what was important were the struggles of the characters, the human element embroiled in this epic saga of light versus dark and being pushed to the very limits of faith and reason. There were a lot of great things going on in this show, and the writers always kept us enthralled. One of my favorite themes of the show, was the balance of faith versus reason, light versus dark, life/death, the fear of the unknown. It was awesome to me how they always kept this theme going, sometimes tipping the scale a bit one way or the other, but never actually tipping it all the way over. This was genius story telling because it allowed for a great degree of interpretation and debate among fans of the show as to what exactly it could all mean, and this I think was the true master stroke of the authors'. Characters would think they had it all figured out, and they would choose one side or the other, only to find out that they were wrong, and this would be so thrilling for the audience, because we would be wrong too. Characters who had been on one side of the fence would go through different experiences and flip flop to the other side of thinking. And we would be left to wonder why. Just as they kept you guessing who was really good or who was really bad, and who was going to live or die, they kept you wondering what was it all for, how would it all end.

Then, came the last season. The last season was executed nearly flawlessly as well, living up to the expectation that they had already set by the previous five seasons of the show. I warn you, if you are not a fan, and have not watched it, and plan to maybe one day give it a try, you should stop reading now because there are SPOILERS AHEAD. At one point in the final season, there was a scene with a scale. This scale had a white stone and a black stone on it, perfectly balanced. This was a perfect representation of the theme present in the series of light versus dark. After the death of Jacob, who supposedly was the light side of this struggle, the nameless Man in Black removes the white stone from the scale and tosses it into the sea, signifying that he thought he had won the war, and tipping the scale all the way in the favor of darkness. But of course, he had not won yet, because there was a list of candidates ready to fill in for Jacob if they were given the proper chance. So, it still seemed like the scale could be balanced again, and this was a pretentious move of the MIB to think he had already won. Later, when it is revealed that the purpose of Jacob on the island was to protect a source of actual LIGHT in a mysterious cave on the island, and he was to prevent the Man in Black/ smoke monster from putting the light out, the symbolism of light versus dark was brought to a cathartic level of obvious. It was explained that if that light went out, all life would end on earth, so in some way, this light was the source of all life/death on the planet. All of this symbolism was very ambiguous and very open to debate, be it religious or not. Another genius move by the writers.

Also in the final season, we were shown an alternate reality, with all of the characters leading very different lives, in which their original plane flight never crashed, and they were mostly happy, although troubled by some of the same character flaws we were already familiar with. Characters that were dead, in this reality were still alive. It became a very intriguing thing to the audience as to what this alternate reality was supposed to signify, and as the season drew on, it started to seem like the realities were going to be intrinsically connected, because some of the characters started remembering things from the Island reality, and started trying to get the ones who had not remembered to see it themselves. As it drew closer and closer to the finale episode, more and more of the characters were remembering the Island and being driven toward a common goal, the catalyst being Demsond, who was known as the Fail Safe, because he was the first to see both sides after surviving a huge blast of electro-magnetic energy.

Then came the finale. With all of this potential and exposition, it promised to be the most exciting two and a half hours of television ever aired. And for two hours and twenty minutes it was. Then, something went horribly wrong. The writers built this massive locomotive of mystery and excitement, got almost to the finish line, and then decided to derail the train. How did they do it? Let me explain. To put it simply, instead of re-balancing the scales, they picked a side. They ruined the theme of the show by doing so. They killed the alternate reality, literally. Instead of having it be connected to the Island reality, they made the sideways world a dream created by the dead characters of the show, and they all met up, basically so they could go to heaven. I wanted to scream what the fuck!? Doing it that way, basically negated the entire season of what we had watched these sideways characters go through. Jack's son was not even real. The characters were remembering things just to be pulled back together because "they were so important to each other." What really ruined this idea was the fact that the best character of the show, John Locke, who was being made to seem like he still had a role to play in the outcome of the island, was really dead and therefore useless. To top it all off, the side they picked, was of course that of the light, basically the most optimistic and naive ending you could think of, not so metaphorically stating that it is possible to eliminate all evil from the world, when they literally killed his physical form in that of the Man in Black. It was a powerful moment in the show, but they turned it into another metaphor that was not so powerful to me, because it had been done so many times before. They turned Jack into Jesus. Jack chose to sacrifice himself for the Island, after not so subtly being stabbed in the side by MIB. Even this metaphor would have been okay with me if they had done it right. But they decided to really beat this dead horse with as much romanticism and sentimentality as possible. The characters all met in a church, with a huge statue of Jesus outside, met and hug around the pews, and then walked through a door into a bright light, once again choosing the side of light over darkness, once again choosing good over evil, choosing faith over reason, in effect saying that reason is the bad guy.

What a load of shit. Where was the theme of the show? The struggle? The balance? They did it this way, because even though they claimed to be brave enough to kill any character at any moment, in reality, they were afraid of the backlash of actually doing that, and they wanted to have an ending where it seemed like everyone was really alive and hunky dory. But they couldn't even do that right, because of the glaring obvious absence of Mr. Ecko and Michael. Both of those characters redeemed themselves either on or off the island from what they had done in the past, Michael especially.

If someone could take the place of Jacob to protect the island, why couldn't someone take the place of the Man in Black, and be his adversary? The rules were set in place that they could not hurt one another, as long as the light was lit. They were twin brothers. Yin and Yang. Once they were brought onto the island that way, it makes no sense that one could ever be without the other, and in fact, thematically, it is so much more complex. The ending should have shown that there is no victory in this type of struggle, just like the last five seasons of the series had proven.

First of all, Claire should have killed Kate. How many times have we been told there is some kind of infection on the Island, and once a person is infected they are never the same? Claire was supposedly infected. And insane. The fact that Kate changes her by just talking to her is absurd. Claire shoots Kate, Sawyer shoots Claire. Sawyer carries Kate to the plane. She dies in the plane.

It would have been better if they made Ben fight Jack at the light source, Ben becoming the gollum of the moment, and trying to stop Jack from restoring the light, because in his heart, Ben was tired of the island, and him saying he wanted to go down with it was a trick. The fight could have ended with Jack knocking him out so he could put the stone back, or Hurley coming out of nowhere to stop Ben from shooting him, then it looks like it doesn't work again, Ben wakes up and shoot Jack and Hurley, then the light comes back. Ben shoots himself, but it turns him into the new monster, and restores Jack's power before he can die. Hurley dies because the ritual wasn't complete, and he is already dead before the light hits him.

In alt world, Locke is still important because get this: not only does the island need protecting, but all realities need protecting. Get this: they meet at the church where Eloise took them before and tell them it's not over. Someone has to be the guardian. As the world starts ending on the island, it starts ending there too, and it becomes urgent that someone agrees to stay. And Locke volunteers, although Jack tries to of course, but Locke tells him, "No, Jack, I've already died once. It's my turn to live. You go be with the one you love." Jack shakes his hand and hugs him and they lead Locke away, down into another sublevel, where there is an actual Dharma station called "The Gateway." There are Dharma folks there, but they are panicking because they don't know what to do. Locke realizes he has agreed to push a button like before. Has to enter the code again into a screen, the countdown began the moment the light disappeared from the island. There were instructions for the Dharma people to enter a code if the alarm ever started sounding, but none of them know what the code is they are supposed to enter. The alarm had never sounded before. Locke says, "It's all right. I know the code," and he sits in the chair. Him entering the code is what really makes the light come back to the island. And everyone else gets to move on to their next life. I liked the pseudo reincarnation aspect of that.

Then instead of a reversal of the opening scene, they replay it exactly, except when Jack opens his eye, he sees the plane fly off. He goes to the beach and sits cross from Ben. His new rival. Ben says, "You see, Jack. I always told you that you and I were the same."

Jack says, "I am NOTHING like you."

Ben says, "Well, it's only a matter of time before I figure out how to win."

Jack says, "It's only a matter of time before I stop you again."

Ben says, "Well, we've got all the time in the world, don't we?"

Fuck you, Damon Lindelof. Fuck you.