Last night was the two-hour season finale of Lost. As with all things Lost, it was drastically over-hyped. But it was pretty good. Here are my thoughts on it, in case you're interested.
Body Count
Confirmed dead: No one, except an Other shot by Sawyer. This is surprising, given the fact that the title of the episode was "Live Together, Die Alone." But then again...
Very likely dead: Desmond, who suddenly became really important in this episode. Desmond was at the epicenter of the magnetic freakstorm, and the sense of things was that he was sacrificing himself to save the island in some unexplained way. But he could still be alive, for reasons which will become apparent below.
Probably dead: Locke and Eko. Both were in the hatch when the hatch imploded/exploded, so their survival seems unlikely. From the producers' standpoint, however, it would be surprising if they killed off Locke and Eko, since the two characters are extremely popular (especially Eko). Popularity aside, however, the writers seem to have made a hard turn toward full-frontal Sci Fi and away from all that spirituality crap they've been carping on for the past two seasons, so killing off the Island's two spiritual leaders may be a dramatic way of sealing that deal. With the mystery of the button revealed, Locke and Eko's dueling faiths have lost their place in the show. Also, now that Charlie has thrown all the heroin into the ocean and made his peace with Claire, he doesn't seem to need spiritual guidance anymore.
Possibly dead, or in serious danger: Sayid, Jin, and Sun, who promptly vanished from the plotline as soon as Sayid discovered that the hut city was fake. The radio silence from that end of the storyline really bothered me.
New Information About the Hatch
This was the big selling point of the show: They were going to reveale (1) what happens when countdown goes past zero and (2) why the plane crashed. Since Lost is too stingy to make more than one big revelation per show, these two things are the same thing. It turns out that pushing the button every 108 minutes discharges some build-up of electromagnetic energy, and failing to press the button causes an electromagnetic shitstorm. How do we know this? Because the last time Desmond didn't press the button, the plane crashed! Damn you, Desmond!
New Information About the Others
Not much. I was hoping for a big show-down with the Others at the end of this episode, but there wasn't one. The Others pwnt the Castaways, just like always. The only thing we really learn is that NotHenry is the leader of the Others, which is kind of cool but doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But, given the demeanor of NotHenry in the final scenes and Beardy's terror at having to explain to "Him" why Ethan messed up the list project, I think that when NotHenry said the man in charge was a "great man, but not a forgiving man," he was actually speaking accurately about himself, not just making shit up.
We also learn the real names of Beardy (Tom) and Mrs. Clue (Bea).
There are also some hints that the Others aren't/weren't part of the Dharma Initiative, which would be a big surprise. Kelvin refers to "hostiles" when he talks about leaving the hatch, so he could be talking about the Others. Then again, he could have been lying to keep Desmond from going outside, or he could himself have been fooled by the DI higher-ups as part of the mind experiment. The Others, meanwhile, at some point were in charge of the medical hatch, but they may have taken that over. Also, if the Others were part of the Dharma Initiative I would have expected the compass bearing they give Michael at the end to escape the Island would be some permutation of "the Numbers," but it wasn't. It was 325. 324 would have been 3 x 108 (108 is the number of minutes between button pushes and also the sum of the Numbers), so the magic compass bearing is one number off. Very strange.
At the end of the day we still have no idea who the Others are. When Michael asks, "Who are you people?", NotHenry's response is "We're the good guys." So all we know is what we've known all along: The Others are some weird culty group driven by an odd definition of "good" that includes deceit, murder, and kidnapping. If I had to guess, I'd say the Others are Scientologists (oh snap!).
The hut city was revealed to be fake, but we already knew that. What was surprising was that the hut city hatch was also fake. It seems like they're setting up a lot of complicated questions regarding the Others and the Dharma Initiative that will fuel the action next season as Jack, Kate, and Sawyer begin their lives as kidnappees.
New Information About the Island
Again, not a whole lot. And nothing really concrete. We know that Desmond has been sailing for two months trying to get to Fiji, but ended up back at the Island. He says that there's no outside world, and that the Island is a "snow globe," which is an interesting concept and one that has certainly been thrown around. But, in the final scene we see a team of Russian scientists monitoring electromagnetic activity (on a computer with an English user interface!), and they seem to pick up on the freakstorm that Desmond unleashed. So there's enough outside world to observe the Island. But, the fact that the Russian scientists were in a cold, snowy environment lends some additional meaning to Desmond's "snow globe" comment.
Not really any new information on the plague, the security system didn't make an appearance, and no sign of Rousseau except one of her traps.
New Wacky Connections
The big one, obviously, is that Libby gives Desmond the boat that lands him on the Island. This is the third incarnation of Libby we see: a smartly dressed, affluent widow with strawberry blonde hair. This Libby will later turn into a brunette with a debilitating mental illness, and crazy Libby will eventually become sandy-blonde Psychologist Libby. Rumor has it that we're going to learn Libby's story through flashbacks next season, even though she's dead.
Also, Kelvin was the U.S. Army guy who in Iraq who turned Sayid into a torturer. Thanks to JMV for alerting me to that.
My Theory
Penny's father is connected to the Dharma Initiative. He knows that Desmond is going on this sailboat race, and somehow sets it up so that he ends up on the Island. Once on the Island, Kelvin dutifully keeps Desmond locked in the hatch for two years, long enough for Penny to finally forget about him and marry whoever Penny's father wants her to marry. But Penny gets wise to this and figures out that she'll be able to find Desmond by looking for electromagnetic anomalies. In the final scene of season two, Penny's scientists call her and tell her that they may have found Desmond (this would be one reason for Desmond to survive the clusterfuck, since that would enable us to learn more about Penny, Desmond, and Penny's father next season).
Meanwhile, we'll learn a lot about the Others, through the eyes of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. Alex will probably become a principal character, since she's an Other but not fully on board with them. Hurley will return to camp and tell his sad tale, and Sayid and Jin will lead an expedition to rescue Jack, Kate, and Sawyer that will take at least half the season to get off the ground. If Locke and/or Eko are still alive, they'll join the campaign. Otherwise it'll probably be Brand New Charlie. Michael and Walt will probably return at some point, and Michael will help rescue Jack/Kate/Sawyer to atone for his fatherly sins.
That's a pretty solid wrap-up, Matt. Thanks.
awesome. i enjoy reading your take on 'lost' so much since i have no one else to talk to about it. other than kristen who i used to watch it with. but all i can say to her is that sayid takes his shirt off in the first half of the finale. shirtless sayid! she'll like that.
my-not-really-thought-out-thought on the heading given to michael to escape the island: first off, i am delighted by your whole 324 thing. however, maybe the reason it's 325 and thus 1 off is because there's no way to escape the island if you stick within the parameters of the inherent island numbering system. by being 1 digit off, maybe michael will be able to trick the island into letting him go. like a tiny sliver of a back door that he has to sneak through. and personally i hope he and walt don't come back. fricking michael, he irritates the shit out of me.
good stuff. i totally didn't catch the kelvin thing.
what about the possibility that the others *are* the good guys and cate/jack/sawyer "convert" to other-style.
re: The Island.
Lets not forget about the giant bird-thing and the 4-toed statue foot.
Right, the bird and the statue are weird. I didn't have much to say about them beyond "WTF?" Also, the voices when the Others launch their blowdart ambush.
I don't think Jack/Kate/Sawyer will convert. The Others have been working on Alex from birth for sixteen years and she's still not drinking the Kool Aid.
Michael may not come back, but Walt may. After all, Bea seems to think Walt can teleport.
More discussion to read here
Who was Bea?
Bea is Mrs. Clue's real name, assuming I heard it right.
Oh.
What about Kate and Jack's exchanged glance and Sawyer's pissed-off look (all right before the sacks were pulled over their heads) -- why don't I see this discussed here or elsewhere? I suppose people just don't give a hoot about that triangle anymore.
that triangle is kind of boring.
yes though, the statue with 4 toes! i was totally intrigued, i admit it. stupid island with polar bears, you'd think i'd be over any sort of interest by now, but 4-toed statues apparently do it for me.
How far south is the island supposed to be? How the hell were the Russian observers in a snowy place? There's talk that maybe they were in Iceland, but the island's not meant to be anywhere NEAR Iceland.
And I was really expecting one of those guys to blow a Dentyne Ice bubble or something. Nearly stopped watching there.
i don't think the russian guys need to be anywhere near the island to measure EM activity.
do any of you do the crazy and canvas the hanso webpages and call the numbers from the commercials for clues/info/passwords?
I read the wikipedia entries looking for spoilers, hoping that other people have done the crazy for me.
I do occasionally follow links to the Hanso sites, but I don't search them very hard.
I like the TV show, and it's neat that they're trying to create a world outside the TV show, but I don't have the time or energy to explore it. I'm not going to read "Bad Twin" either.
I like the concept of the alternate-reality game that they're creating, and they seem to be doing a pretty good job of it.
That said, I don't actually have the desire to expend lots of effort looking for all the little easter eggs, so I just read about ones other people have found.
A couple of geeky corrections:
- It's Kugh, not Clue, although the obvious homonymic insinuation was no doubt intentional on the part of the writers.
- The "Russian scientists" were Portuguese. At least they were SPEAKING Portugeuse.
And two obvious (hee) questions:
- How does Penny know that looking for magnetic anomalies will help her find Desmond?
- Now that he can communicate with animals, will Hurley start having conversations with Vincent the dog?
Great wrap-up!
Correction to my correction: It's *Klugh*, not Kugh or Clue. Ha.
i will totally read 'bad twin'. i'll let you know how horrible it is. since i'm sure you don't already know that by everyone else saying it's bad.
i take it back. i'm not reading it.
i've never seen lost. is that scooter libby? i heard he's creating all kinds of trouble.
Don't be too hasty, Michele. I think "Bad Twin" might have animals/teenagers/vampires in it.
*i* think you'd be heavily mistaken if you really believed that, sean. besides, i've got a book to read with vampires and evil slug-toads which is co-written by an actress from buffy the vampire slayer. it's based off a BBC produced animated web "feature" she also directed. and let me tell you something--it is not any good.
There's some sort of code on the Hanso sites. Some of the letters in the job descriptions are different colors. Not sure what it means.
If the whole "lawyer" thing doesn't work out, at least lawschool has left you endowed with snappy television analysis.
Just to put in my random two cents, I thought the scientists were at the north pole and that perhaps they were noticing the effect the island magnetic craziness had on the north pole....that was what I immediately thought of.....
but otherwise I want to know what freakness Walt is going to display. There has always been that insinuation that he is "special". I want to see what the hell he can do.
I dont know if I am going insane here, I was looking at some of the photos from the season finale. So I need someone else's opinion on this, from the following link: http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/gallery/223.html?photo=89. Is the russian / portugese guy who makes the call, Jack??? or is it just someone who looks like him.
Wow. That could definitely be Jack with a prosthetic nose. Maybe it's Jack's brother? There's already a rumor floating around that Claire is Jack's sister, and that she's the woman that Jack's dad is trying to see in "Two for the Road."
There's no Russian scientists (yes, i know, they're playing chess, but they are not Russians ;) ). They speak portuguese, so they must be portuguese or brazilians.
Desmond said that he wants to sail to Fiji... it's really near from Australia, but it's really far from Nigeria (where Eko brother's plain come from).
Let's think about the stone foot... mmm, it remembers me one of the Wonders of the World... The Colossus of Rhodes. But it was on the Greek island of Rhodes (very far from Australia, too).
So... where the hell is the island????
Sorry, i know that i write a horrible english...
Thanks for the link, Karl! I feel very validated in my insistence that one of the Portugese guys is Jack's twin! Look at that photo next to this one: http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/gallery/103.html?photo=31
great wrap up Matt..
want to say that walt is indeed 'special'.. it was walt who created the polar bear, and i don't think he can teleport so much as project an image of himself, as we saw him do on numerous occasions to Shannon in the jungle, though he was dripping wet, as though his body was still out at sea with the Others.
my personal theory is that the Others are growing some chronic experimental drugs on the island, somehow being enhanced by the regular geo-thermal electromagnetic pulses, and the pollen floating around the joint is making everyone hallucinate (not just Hurley). Although I believe the vaccine makes you immune to it's effects, so claire might start acting 'strange' from everyone else's point of view (they're still high)... in reality they've only been on the island for twelve hours and rescue will shortly arrive... However, as we experience the show from the castaway's perspective, i think the next twelve hours could stretch for at least another three or four seasons...
whaddya reckon?
admittedly, it was a long time ago now that i saw it, but from that map...that they look at...it seemed as if the 'others' were on the part of the island that was walled in because they were the guinea pigs for the experiments on human exposure to the electromagnetic field.
where the fuck was this map? what am i remembering? i think it was desmond and the old guy in the hatch and he was showing desmond the map when he first got there.
man i was hating the show so much of this year that i'm still trying to wrap my brain around how much i enjoyed the last couple episodes.
do you mean the map in ultra-violet ink on the blast door, which Locke sees while trapped underneath it and spends a couple of episodes trying to recreate?
The map that Kelvin shows Desmond is the map that Locke sees when trapped under the door, so yes, I believe that's the map Michele was referring to. Around when the map was first revealed there was a high-res screen shot floating around, but now I can't find it.
It hadn't occurred to me that the Others were guinea pigs in revolt. I always figured they were Dharma devotees that took the "utopian society" spiel too far. Like Mennonites on steroids.
Alb's theories are intriguing as well.
Here's a cap of the map:
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/dharmadoor.jpg
noooooo, not that map. an actual map of the island map. dammit, am i imagining this? i wouldn't put it past me. i'll watch the finale again and get back to you--assuming my mother still has it on tape.
i don't believe this! i totally made up an entire map!
i just watched the season finale and there's no map. maybe it was in the episode where locke goes to the other hatch...
argh!!!! how can my brain make up an entire map? i am so delusional!
That is weird. The only other map is the one that Locke draws from his memory of the UV map. He sticks it into the hermetic tube in the Pearl Hatch, and it's later found amid the pile of canisters.
yeah, no. my memory shows me an aerial view map of the island. like a typical topograhic map of anywhere, with land features and sticky-out bits into the ocean. and the wall enclosing the big peninsula on the north side where the 'hostiles'/'others' live. which, see, they got out of when desmond didn't push the button in time and crashed the plane. the EM release fucked with their prison wall too.
BUT I'VE TOTALLY MADE THIS UP IN MY BRAIN, HAVEN'T I? stupid brain is always deceiving me about something. this is going to bug me for a long time until i can either prove that i really did see the map somewhere, or the show somehow proves my delusional map induced theory.
why is no one speaking about what is with the little pictures that appear when the button isn't pressed what the hell does it mean?
I just assumed the Portuguese/Brazilian dudes were in Antartica, lot closer to Australia, and certainly cold as shit. Also, I know one of the pictures on the ticker is a flame, one is a bird, one looks like a wierd "e", and one looks kind of like a syringe... flame and bird could be about the stations, but I have no clue of their relevance. And why the fuck was Charlie so chilled out after that electrostorm?
Hi, interesting stuff guys, I just saw the last episode, can't believe I have to wait so long for decent answers!!! (ever feel like you'll be waiting for ever...)
Anyone elso notice that the guy (Kelvin) who showed Desmond the button and forced Sayid to become an interrogatior is also possibly Kate's father? he looks at a picture of a young looking kate during one of Sayid's flashbacks before asking Sayid if he has a family...
Plus wtf is libby all about? is she evil or what?
and, I agree, thet definately is Matthew Fox as one of the Portugese scientists... soooo strange, clones perhaps?
actually Mrs. Clue's name is NOT Bea, but in actual fact it's 'Dee' as I had the show on subtitles and that's what came up!! anyway's sorry for being petty!! great write up, the final just aired tonight in britain, months behind the US!! bummer!!