LOST finale thoughts
My initial reaction is that the ending, well, sucked.
Not much has changed that reaction, but I'd like to offer a few specific things that I liked and didn't like about the way they wrapped up this pretty phenomenal show.
First, the things I liked:
I liked that Charlie found Claire and Juliet and Sawyer/James found each other (see problem below).
I liked that the sense of redemption came from the characters learning to ask for help, to let go, to trust in each other and in the life around them. In one of my favorite movies "Defending Your Life," a person can't move on unless they conquer fear; here they can't move on unless they trust in others. There's something very beautiful about that, I'll give 'em that much. Same people, same issues, different response.
I like that Jack took a while to get it. That's Jack for you.
I liked Christian's statement about the 'eternal now' of the afterlife-- it doesn't matter when a person dies, before or after you, they are part of your life and part of your moving on.
It makes you think. LOST as always done that, and I'm glad they didn't make it too simple. What's blowing my mind? Who the heck is Eloise Hawking/Farraday/Whitmore? What does she represent, constant presence that she is, knowing and overseeing whatever it is she does?
But the things I didn't like felt more major to me:
I didn't like Ben's "time out." I like that it was his choice, but if we're in an eternal moment, then what does it mean to need more time to work something out? If his own repentance and Locke's forgiveness was not enough for his redemption, then what would be? What about the other characters that we didn't see (I presume the actors just weren't available, but still)? Are they in time out somewhere too? Hello, Eko?!?
Sayid. Shannon. Gag me with a spoon. Why did the writers not appreciate Sayid the way the fans did?
Did Desmond get off the island and back to Penny? He wasn't on the plane, so it doesn't appear so (but of course Kate did, most horrible character on the show...), but we didn't even get to wrestle with that question in the scope of the show. That's of course because it's all about Jack.
I didn't like the focus on Jack-- I don't like to think of the whole thing as his story. I think that's part of what the writers were trying to do, but it didn't work for me, mostly because Jack was one of the weakest characters (in a number of ways) on the show. Despite his decision to succeed Jacob, he seems to have in many ways undergone the least amount of transformation over the course of the six seasons. He's still a weanie, emo, little brat with daddy issues and a messiah complex and until very recently a huge control problem (okay, I realize the irony of me making those criticisms; shut it). Anyway, other characters were far more interesting and I had a much deeper emotional connection with them; making the show mostly about Jack's death and afterlife (or at least suggesting that) cheapens the importance of those other characters. Why should I care about Charlie at all? Except that I do, desperately.
I didn't like the answers they gave about the island. Whether it was 'real' or not, ultimately it was set up as Jacob's little test farm for his replacement. This means a whole planeload of people crashed and died so he could find the six people he touched earlier in their lives? It was more meaningful when we all assumed it was purgatory, and everyone was working through issues-- and that's why children never stay (or are born) on the island, and why those who conquer their demons die. Nope, instead, the reason Charlie died wasn't because he was a hero or because he had conquered addiction and learned to live in love; it was because Jacob hadn't touched him, so he wasn't a candidate.
And the mention of purgatory brings me to another beef I have with the writers/producers. Long about season 2, viewers began to suspect that the island was a sort of test or purgatory or limbo or what have you. We assumed that, for the above reasons and more, this was the purpose of the story-- for these broken 'lost' people to find their strength and redemption and "leave the island" by dying. At that time, when internet rumors were flying wild, the LOST producers insisted beyond insistence that the island was not purgatory, that it was real and it mattered and the show was about more than conquering past demons and moving on. Nothing so simple, they said. Not about purgatory, they said. Not an afterlife thing, they said.
Bloody liars.
Of course the island isn't purgatory. It's a mystical place with a light (or red fire) at its heart that is the source of good and evil and needs to be protected so that the evil doesn't float out into the world the way wine would pour out of a bottle. It's a cork. A cork where some people can come and go, some people can live forever, some people are tested and found worthy or not, and some people turn into immortal evil-incarnate smoke monsters who are then vanquished by a bullet and a long walk off a short cliff.
The island isn't purgatory; the flash-sideways 'reality' is.
And that's my biggest beef. All this season, I've been rooting for the flash-sideways, hoping Charlie would find the blond beauty his heart remembers, hoping Locke would ask for help, hoping Ben would make a selfless choice, hoping Sawyer (James) would bump into a certain doctor, not with pointy earlobes and a tendency to whine about his dad, but with golden hair and a tender smile and enough chutzpah to match him. And when these things happened, each of them, I cheered and cheered and cheered. But it was all for nothing. That was the test, the consolation prize. These people did not find their so-long-as-we-shall live, but their pie in the sky by and by. Rather than find redemption and peace in this life, they find it only for the next. Is that supposed to make it all okay? Juliet sacrificed herself to blow up a bomb that she thought 'worked,' when in reality it didn't. It killed her, certainly, and sent her to her Los Angeles in the great beyond so she could meet James again at a vending machine and finish the kiss they shared a lifetime ago. But it didn't make this world any better. None of it did. It gave the viewers the solace of seeing their believed characters happy, but only as they prepared to move into their afterlife.
Theologically, I find this sort of thing repugnant. It's exactly the problem into which shallow Christianity (or any faith tradition, but I'll pick on my own) falls: the trap of believing that joy in the hereafter can justify or somehow alleviate pain and senseless suffering in this life. LOST's bait-and-switch reality reminds us of the ultimately unsatisfying problem of caring more about the next life than we do about this one, being ready to die or give up for dead those who suffer now, because they will find their happy place in some mystical realm later on. Should we care less that any of these characters died, Charlie, Libby, Daniel Farraday, Eko, Ana Lucia, Boone, Shannon (okay, I never cared about Shannon), Locke, Juliet, Jin, Sun, Sayid, (and oh yeah, Jack, but I don't really care about him either), just to name a few, simply because they all (well, almost all of them) found a happy place later? No, their suffering is still real and still part of Jacob's rather selfish and sadistic quest to succeed himself in attempt to make up for the sins of his own past. But the way particularly the last deaths are presented, it's okay, because they are going to a better place, a place where, once they remember how they died and who was important to them in life, they walk into the light, following their Christian Shepherd (but we swear, it's not a Christianity thing!). I cry foul. I cry bad theology. Boo to valuing easy answers in the hereafter at the expense of justice and the alleviation of suffering in the world around us.
That, and Sayid entered the afterlife with a selfish valley girl bimbo. Really?
Not much has changed that reaction, but I'd like to offer a few specific things that I liked and didn't like about the way they wrapped up this pretty phenomenal show.
First, the things I liked:
I liked that Charlie found Claire and Juliet and Sawyer/James found each other (see problem below).
I liked that the sense of redemption came from the characters learning to ask for help, to let go, to trust in each other and in the life around them. In one of my favorite movies "Defending Your Life," a person can't move on unless they conquer fear; here they can't move on unless they trust in others. There's something very beautiful about that, I'll give 'em that much. Same people, same issues, different response.
I like that Jack took a while to get it. That's Jack for you.
I liked Christian's statement about the 'eternal now' of the afterlife-- it doesn't matter when a person dies, before or after you, they are part of your life and part of your moving on.
It makes you think. LOST as always done that, and I'm glad they didn't make it too simple. What's blowing my mind? Who the heck is Eloise Hawking/Farraday/Whitmore? What does she represent, constant presence that she is, knowing and overseeing whatever it is she does?
But the things I didn't like felt more major to me:
I didn't like Ben's "time out." I like that it was his choice, but if we're in an eternal moment, then what does it mean to need more time to work something out? If his own repentance and Locke's forgiveness was not enough for his redemption, then what would be? What about the other characters that we didn't see (I presume the actors just weren't available, but still)? Are they in time out somewhere too? Hello, Eko?!?
Sayid. Shannon. Gag me with a spoon. Why did the writers not appreciate Sayid the way the fans did?
Did Desmond get off the island and back to Penny? He wasn't on the plane, so it doesn't appear so (but of course Kate did, most horrible character on the show...), but we didn't even get to wrestle with that question in the scope of the show. That's of course because it's all about Jack.
I didn't like the focus on Jack-- I don't like to think of the whole thing as his story. I think that's part of what the writers were trying to do, but it didn't work for me, mostly because Jack was one of the weakest characters (in a number of ways) on the show. Despite his decision to succeed Jacob, he seems to have in many ways undergone the least amount of transformation over the course of the six seasons. He's still a weanie, emo, little brat with daddy issues and a messiah complex and until very recently a huge control problem (okay, I realize the irony of me making those criticisms; shut it). Anyway, other characters were far more interesting and I had a much deeper emotional connection with them; making the show mostly about Jack's death and afterlife (or at least suggesting that) cheapens the importance of those other characters. Why should I care about Charlie at all? Except that I do, desperately.
I didn't like the answers they gave about the island. Whether it was 'real' or not, ultimately it was set up as Jacob's little test farm for his replacement. This means a whole planeload of people crashed and died so he could find the six people he touched earlier in their lives? It was more meaningful when we all assumed it was purgatory, and everyone was working through issues-- and that's why children never stay (or are born) on the island, and why those who conquer their demons die. Nope, instead, the reason Charlie died wasn't because he was a hero or because he had conquered addiction and learned to live in love; it was because Jacob hadn't touched him, so he wasn't a candidate.
And the mention of purgatory brings me to another beef I have with the writers/producers. Long about season 2, viewers began to suspect that the island was a sort of test or purgatory or limbo or what have you. We assumed that, for the above reasons and more, this was the purpose of the story-- for these broken 'lost' people to find their strength and redemption and "leave the island" by dying. At that time, when internet rumors were flying wild, the LOST producers insisted beyond insistence that the island was not purgatory, that it was real and it mattered and the show was about more than conquering past demons and moving on. Nothing so simple, they said. Not about purgatory, they said. Not an afterlife thing, they said.
Bloody liars.
Of course the island isn't purgatory. It's a mystical place with a light (or red fire) at its heart that is the source of good and evil and needs to be protected so that the evil doesn't float out into the world the way wine would pour out of a bottle. It's a cork. A cork where some people can come and go, some people can live forever, some people are tested and found worthy or not, and some people turn into immortal evil-incarnate smoke monsters who are then vanquished by a bullet and a long walk off a short cliff.
The island isn't purgatory; the flash-sideways 'reality' is.
And that's my biggest beef. All this season, I've been rooting for the flash-sideways, hoping Charlie would find the blond beauty his heart remembers, hoping Locke would ask for help, hoping Ben would make a selfless choice, hoping Sawyer (James) would bump into a certain doctor, not with pointy earlobes and a tendency to whine about his dad, but with golden hair and a tender smile and enough chutzpah to match him. And when these things happened, each of them, I cheered and cheered and cheered. But it was all for nothing. That was the test, the consolation prize. These people did not find their so-long-as-we-shall live, but their pie in the sky by and by. Rather than find redemption and peace in this life, they find it only for the next. Is that supposed to make it all okay? Juliet sacrificed herself to blow up a bomb that she thought 'worked,' when in reality it didn't. It killed her, certainly, and sent her to her Los Angeles in the great beyond so she could meet James again at a vending machine and finish the kiss they shared a lifetime ago. But it didn't make this world any better. None of it did. It gave the viewers the solace of seeing their believed characters happy, but only as they prepared to move into their afterlife.
Theologically, I find this sort of thing repugnant. It's exactly the problem into which shallow Christianity (or any faith tradition, but I'll pick on my own) falls: the trap of believing that joy in the hereafter can justify or somehow alleviate pain and senseless suffering in this life. LOST's bait-and-switch reality reminds us of the ultimately unsatisfying problem of caring more about the next life than we do about this one, being ready to die or give up for dead those who suffer now, because they will find their happy place in some mystical realm later on. Should we care less that any of these characters died, Charlie, Libby, Daniel Farraday, Eko, Ana Lucia, Boone, Shannon (okay, I never cared about Shannon), Locke, Juliet, Jin, Sun, Sayid, (and oh yeah, Jack, but I don't really care about him either), just to name a few, simply because they all (well, almost all of them) found a happy place later? No, their suffering is still real and still part of Jacob's rather selfish and sadistic quest to succeed himself in attempt to make up for the sins of his own past. But the way particularly the last deaths are presented, it's okay, because they are going to a better place, a place where, once they remember how they died and who was important to them in life, they walk into the light, following their Christian Shepherd (but we swear, it's not a Christianity thing!). I cry foul. I cry bad theology. Boo to valuing easy answers in the hereafter at the expense of justice and the alleviation of suffering in the world around us.
That, and Sayid entered the afterlife with a selfish valley girl bimbo. Really?