Tuesday, June 22, 2010

"I'm Letting Go Of Season 6"

Homer Simpson once said, "There's no moral to this story, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened!" That generally sums up how I feel about Lost (the TV show, not the entire experience) now that it is all over and done, and I've seen the finale. Unfortunately I have to place myself in the category, deemed by most fans who enjoyed the finale, of those who just don't get it. But that's OK. I'm happy for viewers who agreed with TPTB on how they ended the tale, I wish that I did.

Whether I got it or not, Season 6 and the finale just didn't seem to do anything for me, compared to the long strange trip that made up the first five seasons and hiatuses.The FS world didn't grab my interest at all for some reason, and the S6-present sort of felt almost like another show to me. Most of it just looked like people running to, and from, and back to again, MIB as he ran amok zigzagging through the jungle to get his holy revenge on. Revenge is best served cold? Not in his case apparently, and now we know how much 2000 years of hate can make you crazy and ruin the punchline for your resentment, haha. S6 also seemed really rushed to me as we were watching it unfold, but also at the same time felt like time was seriously a-wasting concerning the many interesting aspects that were open-ended at that point.

There were so many fascinating details in and about Lost that TPTB wrapped around our minds and hearts. We all know the unanswered questions, I won't go into them here, but the Lost storyline was like a huge octopus that branched off on vast arrays of subjects which spiraled into images in our minds like never ending fractal pictures! This was mostly due to the hiatus material that we got to play with, via the summer ARGs. What a glorious trip, I enjoyed it thoroughly. But now I almost wish that there hadn't been any ARGs and the side-stories of DHARMA, etc., because all that made me take the gory details very seriously and to expect much more than I got (IMHO) for a payoff in the end. Sort of how the pre-movie hype for Cloverfield all led to nothing in the actual movie. I know that the ARGs weren't meant to be a part of the show, but once your eyes and mind have been opened to the mysteries of the universe, there's no going back to stupid.

Even though the FS and the Limbo-verse doesn't jive with what I needed from the finale, of course I do understand all the purposeful parallels that TPTB forced, ahem, played on in the last season, and what they all are supposed to mean. Alas I fall into the minority who would have liked to see some closure in the real Universe too, and on the island (which TPTB insisted was a character of the show), not in the Afterlife universe where everything is apparently perfect and shiny and happy as long as Jack is happy. For the record, I didn't really like the end of Return Of The King with the long drawn out sappy scene of the Hobbits leaving with the Elves on the ship to Golden Land either. Man, I'm crabby, aren't I ?! :o)

But even in ROTK we got to go back to Hobbiton and see the real life that Sam had made for himself where real things happen to real people. I wanted to see people like Hurley, and yes even Kate, "work out their own salvation" as the apostle Paul put it, in the real world or on the island where their actions really mattered to me. Not in the Razzledazzle universe where amazing miracles happen only after we are tricked into thinking that it was another reality with real events, and the inhabitants finally realize that they're dead (with Des taking over for Jennifer Love Hewitt) and walking into the light. In the end the Limboverse did actually feel like the dreaded "snowglobe ending" to me. I'm really sorry.

Damon and Carlton insisted from the beginning of our guessing that purgatory had nothing to do with the show, so I guess that they made up their own kind of cross-over-ville. But did they give us a hint that we missed? The wise man Alvar Hanso, who was partially quoted by Tom in the jungle, was recorded in the TLE-ARG as saying, "The future need not be an undiscovered country". Lostpedia notes that the term comes from Hamlet and refers to the unknown that comes after death. Was that indeed a hint way back then, or just a coincidence? Well, I guess that I don't care too much now, I've let go. Namaste lost friends, I love ya all and I had a lot of fun watching and experiencing Lost with you! xo