I’m going to talk about Lost for a little bit here, so if you’re partial to waiting to watch important shows via DVR, then a) you’re a loser and b) stop reading now. No spoiler alert, just know that there could be plenty of Friday Morning Woods dedicated to the subject. Although if it’s popular enough, or I actually take the time to come up with another rant, perhaps we’ll just start an open thread for discussion/a separate post for what happened on the show.
Anywho, I completely forgot how fucking badass Abrams and Co’s show was. I knew. I really did. I never questioned the quality of the island while it was gone. But I think I forgot. When I fired up my DVR last night for the two hour spectacular, I was not immediately impressed. It was later than I wanted but I was going to watch both hours. Then it occurred to me that the first hour was just your standard season recap, something ABC is notorious for; they persistently used full week’s worth of time slots to recap what had happened throughout the first few seasons. And it’s the most annoying thing of all time, it’s what makes 24 such a great show. So when that shit went down, I wasn’t happy.
And I wasn’t particularly happy with the opening scene either. Like, who the hell didn’t know that that the person getting out of the car (I knew when I saw the fat fingers) was going to be Hurley?
Then my mind got blown.
As I waited for the opening credits to process I was a little bitter. “I’ve been waiting this long for a season recap and shitty suspense moment? Come on!” But they didn’t do that. (Of course they didn’t.)
The flash forward isn’t something that’s easy to grasp as a viewer, so I have no f’ing clue how hard it is to work up as a writer, especially since one of the premises of good creative storytelling is that you don’t give away important facts in the future because it crushes any tension if you hand out the wrong information.
That’s where the combination of the “Oceanic 6″ and the factional split on the island are so amazing. I just assumed that Jack’s group, including Kate, Rose, Bernard, etc would be the ones that made it back from the island. So how the hell did Hurley end up there??? And who else came with them??? Well played, Mr. Abrams.
Speaking of well played, don’t you have a fucking police unit to run, Deputy Commissioner Daniels? What are you doing playing a fake lawyer clearly out to find the rest of the people on the island? And that was a key point – besides getting me pumped to see ole’ Cedric, suddenly we know that there are a lot of people not only interested in getting everyone off the island (and believing that there are still people alive there) but there’s some evil group of authority that has known about it for a while…which is fantastic. Obviously the scientific Darma Initiative knew about the island, but to what extent is the government involved in the planning and maintenance of the island? (”Was” is probably a better choice…) And why haven’t they been able to find the island? Is Ben secretly gay or just a bag of douche? See? So many questions.
But the final thing I want to touch on, and it’s no longer a question, is the devolving of Jack’s morality. He pulled the trigger on Locke. Locke is not dead, as far as we know, but for all intents and purposes, Jack shot him. This sort of regression to a primitive behavior mode is pretty indicative of how Jack ends up barreling down the road popping painkillers and blaring “Sinister Minister”, but the writers did a superb job of veiling where that occurs in our now jumbled timeline. I assume that Jack tries to get back into the medical profession, some crazy shit happens and he ends up with a beard (he admitted as much in the faux-HORSE game that he wanted to grow one), dejected at the prospect of having to return to the island because he needs it.
Again, a superb job by the writers of bringing the maw-fucking heat back to Thursday night’s and making me forget that whole douchey writer’s strike thing. Or did that go down in the future? My shit is all turned around. Your thoughts about last night’s show and the future of Lost in the comments.
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I, unfortunately, missed the show on Wednesday. However, I find Lost to be one of the best shows on T.V. for multiple reasons. You have various hot women on the island, a bunch of mystical shit going down, and surprise after surprise to the point where every episode feels like it’s my birthday.
Since the show has several seasons left it’s going to be interesting to see when they finally answer some of the bigger questions we all have. A good part of me realizes that they’re going to toy with my emotions and not answer them though for another few seasons. Damn cockteases.
It is a cocktease, Brett, but I’ll be damned if I don’t tune in every week anxious for more.
I back the new flash forward style. I think we had harvested all the info we could from the pasts of these characters, but the FF means the writers can introduce a plethora of new questions that won’t get answered for weeks or maybe seasons.
Cedric Daniels’ appearance was perfect. He’s got that creepy stare and I love knowing there are suits out there keeping tabs on people from the island.
Opening with a Hurley episode was great.
“The Oceanic Six!” was a brilliant way to add in a a major question mark in this season.