LOST

[maggie2]

It's been a long while since I cared much about LOST, but I did keep watching.  Some random reflections below the cut (full spoilers).

1.  They all go to heaven.  First, although it's supposed to be a non-sectarian heaven, launched from a church with icons from the world's major religion, it's got heavy Christian overtones.  But don't let that fool you.  It's not a Christian heaven they are talking about, which is not just a place we get to bask with our loved ones, but rather a place where we share our great love for God with our loved ones.   FWIW, which is not much.  In a secular world, even most religious people think that the end game is still all about us -- so it's probably a fair representation of what most religious people are hoping for. 

Second, I thought it was rather saccharine.  The music cues and so on were just too heavy-handed for me to enjoy.  Same thing happened to me with E.T., btw.   Every now and then I notice how hard the music is working to manipulate emotions and it kicks me out of the story.  That happened to me last night. 

Third, I did think the two endings were interesting, though.  In the real-life story on the island we're to be affected by all the tragedy and deaths.   It's impossible to imagine story-telling wherein the question of whether there will be a happy or sad ending isn't central.  Yet in actual life, everybody dies.  There can be better or worse paths to that ultimate death, but as long as we think of death as ending and separation, and therefore tragic, it's a 100% guarantee that we all get bad endings.  My mother died well.  But she's still dead and gone and I will never get to talk to her again.  So it was interesting to ponder the way Lost's happy ever-after stands in tension with an island story where there was a lot of unhappy ending.  Sawyer lost Juliet and as he flew off the island he was (purgatory/heaven aside) never going to see her again.  If we go with the happily ever after ending, that was just a blip on the road to what really mattered.  But then, doesn't that undermine the actual drama of what happened on the island?  The question of how the seriousness of the game of life can be maintained in view of an inevitable death that issues either in some sort of afterlife or sheer nothingness is an interesting one, and Lost gets serious credit for narratively exploring it.

2.  I long since stopped caring about magical numbers, polar bears, and mysterious fertility problems.  The show wants to tell us that none of that mattered and it's all about the characters.  Ducky.  But that means that a lot of the show was simply irrelevant.   Better drama uses all the plot devices to actually service and reflect on what's happening ot the characters (with it being understood that character should always be the point).   Not always, but mostly, the monsters and plot devices on Buffy have more complex relations to the story than simply to be obstacles the characters work around on their way to learning how to be better people.  It's worth thinking about what vampires represent in a way that it's not worth thinking about what time travel represents.

3.  Character development.  Lots of people are very happy with this aspect of the show, and I'm trying to figure out why I'm not.  A good chunk of it is because the story is mainly Jack's story, and while I finally managed to feel sympathy for him in season 6, it wasn't enough sympathy for me to want the whole Lost world to revolve around him.  Ben and Locke, happily, got very interesting development in their own right.  But once Jin stopped being a jerk there was no more story for him save to run around for literally years looking for Sun.  We never got to explore Sun's ruthlessness, though we got to see it was happening.   I love James/Juliet, but it was presented as a fait accompli, and while it was lovely to see that it led to good results for both of them it sort of obscured the fact that it's not obvious how these two very different characters connected in the first place.  I missed the first hour of last night's finale, but Sayyid/Shannon as an ending just underscores how not important Sayyid's story was on it's own terms (since we've been told repeatedly that Nadia is what it's all about for him).   And I so stopped caring about Kate years ago that I'm not going to even bother to figure out if her character had meaningful development in the show.  She's in lurve with Jack.  Swell.  Not sure what the mutual attraction is, but it seems to make them happy so yay for them.

4.  As Alan Sepinwell says in his review, the show did manage a lot of powerful moments, even if it's not clear that the narrative arc has any power at all, and I think that's exactly right.  I'm not sorry I watched the show.  It did a lot of cool things.  But big-picture wise I think the only thing that will hold up for me is the interesting tension between the drama of ordinary life against the backdrop of some absolute ending (whether you think of it as eternity or nothingness).  

Comments

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think the end had a lot of Christian trappings, but I don't think it was a Christian ending, really. The sideways could be a waiting station or purgatory or it could be a level of reincarnation. I've always felt that the show is somewhat suspect where organized religion is concerned but that it was a proponent of faith.

And I found the juxtaposition of happy/not happy ending interesting. The truth is, I think perhaps only Desmond and perhaps extraneous folks like Miles got happy endings. The rest were more complicated. Juliet was really dead. Jack was really dead. It would be interesting to read fanfic about what happened to Sawyer/Kate/Claire/Aaron. But it wasn't a happy ending in tied up in a bow sense. They went on and lived. How and how well, we don't know.

And I'm good with the purgatory/wait station because the writing is a little meta as well. They did work out many of their issues with one another. Jack did come to respect Locke. Juliet was a profound influence on Sawyer. Sun and Jin were a tragic, lovely love story... and as an audience we want that honored. They honored it. It's time to let them move on... so it's a bit of meta for the audience as well.

And I think it works on a sort of philosophical level. The island mattered because the journeys they took there mattered. It wasn't about cursed numbers or hatches, but how those struggles changed those people and brought them together and how that redeemed them a little.

And, I just love the ambiguity of Ben's ending.

Generally, the more I've thought about it, the more I've liked it, though I admit I was rather thrown and unsure of how to react immediately when the show ended.

In the end, I think in most shows we just want the characters we loved to be honored and I think they tried to give us that. Execution varies and it's not to everyone's tastes. They did try to give a lot of fan servicy happy endings to it (made bittersweet by their not having those happy endings in life). But I've seen a hell of a lot worse in a finale so I'm satisfied.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

They want the ending both ways, I think. It's not meant to be explicitly Christian, but there's enough Christian imagery to cause folks to want to react to that. (Dampersnspoons, for example).

I agree that the island was about the journey. But the elaborate plotty mcplot stuff is just one giant MacGuffin. The contents of that stuff just has no richness to add to/reflect on/ resonate with what it's doing for the characters. They were just objects to cause struggles and dilemmas and it didn't really matter what form those obstacles took. That's not me saying it's bad per se, just that it could have been better.

I did love that Ben ended up where he did. He's one of the characters who really was fascinating to watch. I'm more lukewarm overall than you because I hadn't maintained interest in most of the other characters. For me, most of the characters' stories were over seasons ago... and they were mostly here marking time. I'll go out on a limb and say that in season 6 there were only two characters getting any real development (Jack and Ben).

[prophecygirrl.livejournal.com]

They were just objects to cause struggles and dilemmas and it didn't really matter what form those obstacles took. That's not me saying it's bad per se, just that it could have been better.

Yes, this. I think it would have saved everyone a lot of hella frustration if they had just said this, up front. I'm sure the producers are congratulating themselves on getting people to read The Brothers Karimozov again, as part of a greater good, but I can't blame people for being pissed off.

I like what we got in the end -- I just think it was presented under false pretenses, I suppose.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I suppose you could say that's how life is. We get all absorbed by things -- build this monument, cross this new continent, blah blah, but life isn't that so much as how those endeavors form us. But I think it's a weak response.

Totally agree that it was presented under false pretenses -- and given all the massive fannish time spent trying to figure that stuff out, it's a bit more than annoying. I'm glad I'm not someone who got obsessed about theories about the meanings of the numbers and what not, and am surprised that I haven't come across many howls of protest from folks who did.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I thought that they did a good job of showing Sawyer move beyond Kate and winding up that triangle organically.

Sawyer loved Juliet. But when Kate returned, he still had feelings. I don't think it would've threatened his feelings for Juliet and he didn't turn away from Juliet as she feared. But I don't think that the Sawyer/Kate situation was truly resolved until Season 6. Juliet's death crystalized that his love. And I really, really loved the Sawyer/Kate scene on the dock where he and Kate talked about her following him, and his admitting that he'd asked Juliet to stay because he hadn't wanted to be alone. I felt like the dock scene really resolved the Kate/Sawyer relationship and that by the end the two of them had moved to real friendship. And I think there was a bit a symmetry in Jack feeling like he'd caused Juliet's death-- and Sawyer blaming Jack for Juliet's death mirrored in Sawyer feeling responsible for Sun/Jin/Sayid's deaths. And that mirroring then led to Sawyer/Jack coming to the point that they did in the finale. So I do feel that Sawyer had an arc, though not quite as explicit an arc as Jack.

And I do think that Sayid got somewhat screwed arc wise. I see the point of zombie-Sayid and the Sideways-Sayid who feared that he wasn't a good man. But I don't know that I ever really bought zombie-Sayid. So, while I can see the hints of an arc in Sayid's plot, I don't think it was done particularly well.

I was well satisfied with the Sawyer/Kate/Jack resolution, though. And then I was giddy/teary over Sawyer reuniting with Juliet with his whole heart.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

They did do that. And one can fill in the very many blanks in their story together and Sawyer's own arc. But it was totally to the side. The show seemed to lose interest in Sawyer after the Brig, and pretty much telegraphed the rest of his story. Though at least he had one, unlike some of the other characters.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

Random comment: The Brig is one of the series' most frustrating episodes for me. This is one of the few times where I can think that I was so attached to a personal reading of where a story would go that I never quite got over what happened. Through much of "The Man from Tallahassee" I thought it was a mixture of amazing and awful--Drew Goddard writes a great show, but by making Locke's accident about Daddy it flattened the character and reduced most of it to One Thing. Then when Daddy came onto the island at the end of the episode I thought I understood why: because this was an opportunity for Locke to confront his father, and decide (or not) how he was going to move forward in his life, but he wasn't going to be able to get out of having to deal with it. Then, he gets Sawyer to kill him instead, and then at the end seems serenely pleased with himself that his father is dead. This may well be the point--Locke found a way to avoid dealing with his problem, at the expense of one of his friends ("friends," I guess), and this was another step forward in his descent or whatever. But since they never really brought up his father again, it seemed as if Locke really did feel satisfaction from his manipulated revenge, and that made me lose tons of sympathy for him for, well, until maybe his suicide in season five--i.e. for the rest of his "real life" story.

(I did like The Brig for the Sawyer story though.)

[snickfic]

I haven't watched Lost or paid much attention since sometime late in S3, but I'm here reading the spoilers because I'm curious. Everything people have been saying confirms all my reasons for quitting, except: Sawyer/Juliet? Really? I find Sawyer moderately entertaining and generally interesting as a character, but I loved Juliet: strong, intelligent, stuck on the horns of horrible ethical dilemmas. So while I'd never think of shipping them, knowing the show went there intrigues me.

Otherwise... eh. yuki_onna has has some very on-target things to say about LOST's relationship with its, er, "worldbuilding." I recommend.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Sawyer and Juliet were left behind when the original Oceanic 6 left the island. When they got trapped in 1974 together, they developed a relationship and fell in love and were happy together for several years (in the 1970s) until the Oceanic 6 returned to the island and craziness started again.

[snickfic]

Uh huh. Well. I've very happy for them, getting a few crazy-free years together. However, I am not now inspired to finish watching the show.

*sigh*

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

They have a totally awesome reunion in the finale though.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I also adore Juliet. Sawyer became a better man with her. But all they show us is him persuading her to stay on the island when they get stuck in the 1970's (she could go home on the submarine). We don't get to see how they came together, which would have been interesting. It's like that's the story I wanted, but it was very much a side dish to the main story and not remotely the main story itself.

[rahirah]

I think what bothers me about all the "Well, it's all about the characters, if you're looking for plot that makes sense, you're really stupid going to be disappointed" is that... why should we have to choose? Why can't we have both interesting characters and a good plot? I liked a fair bit of the character stuff (Locke and Ben, Hurley and Ben, etc.) but... it all fell a bit flat for me.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

So that's why they were telling all the fans who spent years constructing elaborate theories to explain everything that it was a bunch of hot air? They don't get to have it both ways. The plotty stuff was foreground all the way through. They don't get to turn around and say it was really background noise.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

I think the final of season 2 of 'Ashes to Ashes' used this whole concept far better, and without so much clawing sentimentality too.

You should watch and compare If you get the chance.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

I like your point #1 very much. Blogger Waxbanks in his brief, angry review brought up "The Last Battle" from the Narnia series as one of the episode's launching points, and I think that has a similar tension between (spoiler) narrative sadness at the characters' deaths while taking heaven as the ultimate ending. I took this ending as a bit of a have-cake-and-eat-it, by giving fans what they wanted in a happy ending while giving themselves licence to be ruthless in the "real" ending, but that's not necessarily IN ITSELF a bad thing. It is pretty neat.

But yes, very saccharine. And ultimately I don't really think much of it is earned. Jack's conversation with his father, and especially the Ben/Locke forgiveness moment, I found moving. Much of the last few minutes I just didn't--I was resisting the emotional manipulation.

2. Yes. Either the plot stuff is all distraction, and the show could have about two seasons' worth of material shaved off it, or the plot stuff was important, in which this failed. The plotty stuff gestures towards philosophy often, but this finale was a great example: Jack and Smokey believe different things about Desmond, both are part right and part wrong, neither's reasons for believing what they believe hold water, so at best we can take away a message that sometimes two people can both be right. Great.

It's additionally worth noting that the time travel stuff becomes completely irrelevant to the show's big picture, since Jughead didn't do anything but reset the characters to the future. When we thought (for good reason--i.e. Daniel *telling us*) that the alternate universe was a result of Jughead, then there was a possibility it could have been meaningful. I guess it was there mainly so that Jack could reject it--"Whatever happened, happened, and I've learned that now."

3. Yes. Whereas on (i.e.) Buffy, characters do return to the same central issues, they are not defined to near-exclusion by them. You can see the bubbling of Willow's darkness or Spike's lightness for many years while they also have interesting other stories going on. Jin and Sun at some point became star-crossed lovers, Hurley a great guy who needs to step up to be a leader but doesn't know how (oh, and he was super unlucky but let's forget about that), Jack someone who wanted to fix things but needed to let go, etc., and the charactres rarely break out of those.

You mention Kate, well, Kate in season five dedicated herself to being a mother, than decided that the reason she was dedicated to Aaron was because "she needed him" because she missed Sawyer so much, and that was more or less the given reason for going back to the island--because all her motherly feelings were about missing Sawyer. When she got to the island she (thankfully) restated her mission as finding Claire, which makes somewhat more sense. But then her lurve for Jack still doesn't quite mean anything.

4. Pretty much.