6.17 The End Part I

Random thoughts. This was a poorly written season and finale. LOST was the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. Viewers invested 6 years of devoted interest, and the show never paid off for their trust. I just want to throw my past season DVDs away. What point is there to ever re-watch this show? A show that was so terrific for 5 seasons lived up to my worst fears and never even tried to properly wrap up anything. The complex story lines painted the writers into a corner and they were too afraid or too incompetent to resolve anything. They simply chucked the first 5 to 6 seasons of story into a dumpster and pointed in a new direction, trying to distract you with a box full of new born puppies. The finale was a disgrace to any logical human being. Those who say they loved the ending should send Bernie Madoff a love letter because you are in love with the concept of being a sucker. Nearly every single major plot line was left not only unresolved, but not even mentioned. I’m not talking about the finer details and hundreds and hundreds of unresolved questions, I’m talking about major story lines. But at least the assh0le characters are all dead, so we have that to be thankful for. In fact, this place they created for themselves as flawed unredeemed characters, I’d like to think they are all in great pain and ended up in a bad place. A High School Reunion in Hell, where only the cool kids are apparently allowed to show up. The finale became a cliché. A happy Hollywood ending suckfest. Hey man, like the people man really like Hurley and stuff man and we can’t kill him dude and everybody loves Kate bud so we can’t show her being killed man so let’s make them all immortal somehow dude. May locusts kill the first born child of every LOST writer. Fock it. Not first born. Every dam child. Oh, so you say this show is about characters? You know what else has character? A 5 dollar giant box of wine. And I don’t see too many Hollywood elite drinking that swill. Well, let me explain something to you. Follow the seasons. One, the Losties. Two, the Tailies and Desmond. Three, the Others especially Ben and Juliet. Four, the Freighties and Widmore. Five, Dharma. Six, Jacob MIB and the Temple. Every focking season new characters were introduced to keep things moving and interesting in between what used to be the theme of the show, the whacky island. But this last season, they went back to the beginning, and recycled the same tired characters of Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Sun, Jin, Sayid, Claire. I didn’t care about any of them after their backstories were told. Their stories were done by the middle of Season Two. But to focus the final episodes of your show on those boring slugs was unforgivable. Those characters stunk. No redemption for Locke in the end? None? Seriously? And then MIB, the most endearing character on the show. You let that pig Kate shoot him in the back? I started to rewatch the finale about 2 weeks ago, and it took me this long to get halfway through it. It was just so boring and made me angry. Since I’m halfway there, let’s try to put some of my emotions into typed words, since I’m sure I’m being vague about how I felt about the final installment of show that should have ended at the end of Season 5. You want to talk about emotional? That scene of Juliet falling, and then banging on the bomb….that was fantastic television. Season 6, we get a purgotary LAX timeline that was a complete waste of time. Even Jack’s sissy son is a figment of his imagination. COMPLETE. WASTE. OF. FOCKING. TIME. Everybody hated the flashsideways crap, and it had no payoff. NONE.

We start at the airport in Los Angeles, with a slow motion montage of a coffin being unloaded. It’s Christian Shepherd. Whoop de friggin do. The montage continues with shots of Jack doing paperwork in his doctor’s office, Ben making tea, Locke being taken to surgery, Sawyer looking into a mirror, some gratuitous shots of the same characters on the island, some grass growing, some paint drying, and real time orbit of Pluto going around the sun. Exactly one minute in, I’m bored. I stop the online stream, and come back 4 days later. Fantastic job of not grabbing out attention right off the bat. That’s going to keep people tuned in, especially during the 19 commercial breaks? The coffin is delivered to a church, and Desmond signs for it. Hell, he’s already run over a guy in a wheelchair, so what’s a little mail fraud between friends? Desmond gets into a car with Kate. Of course, if I were behind the wheel at that moment, I’d step on the gas pedal and drive straight into an abutment. Kate has a haughty laugh at the name “Christian”. Yeah, God’s going to let her into heaven or purgatory or whatever. Sure. Kate demands answers since she is enveloped in her self importance. Desmond is acting coy and mysterious. I’m slowly going insane. A vein on the surface of my forehead starts to throb. On the island, the only story line that matters, Sawyer asks Jack what is next. Find the heart of the island, the light, Smokie wants to put it out, the Smoke needs Desmond. Sawyer: Jacob didn’t say anything about anything. Fock, that’s the theme for this whole focking finale. Sawyer volunteers to go get Desmond, but doesn’t leave until he does some flirting with Kate. I just threw up a little in my mouth. No, correction. I just threw up a lot. Heart of the island, huh? So, let’s personify the island, but let’s not explain how and why. Ever.

Hurley brings Sayid to what appears to be the motel where Sayid killed a guy with a dishwasher back in Season 4. Not only did Sayid completely abandon his Iraqi accent for his nasally British one, he just doesn’t seem to care anymore. The zombie stuff hid his disinterest for a while, but he has mentally checked out. Hurley encourages Sayid to stick around, something about trust I guess, I’m barely paying attention right now. A fly currently buzzing through my house is infinitely more compelling. Hurley knocks on a door and starts to grin in a most annoying way when he lays his eyes on his good friend Charlie. He immediately rams his meaty fist into Charlie’s whiskey soaked mouth, and runs around the parking lot yelling “Charlie bit my finger.” Charlie is to perform at a benefit concert with Driveshaft and Daniel Faraday, but is less than excited about it, as would anybody with the gift of hearing. Hurley shoots Charlie in the back with a tranquilizer, a running theme in the show this week I guess, shooting people in the back. Hurley tosses him in the trunk like a sack of wet cats. Jack is trying to explain his motives to the rest of his buddies. J: I took the job because I was supposed to, this island is the only thing in my life that I haven’t ruined. Kate: you haven’t ruined anything. Irony, since I believe I used the phrase “Kate ruins everything” quite a few times in my last writeup. And don’t correct him, Kate. Jack is right. He has ruined everything in his life. Sawyer is caught by Ben at the well. S: I came for Desmond, you want him to destroy the island, we’re not candidates anymore. Sawyer then punches Ben, because Ben’s contract specifically states that he needs to get clobbered at least once every week, and runs off. MIB is a bit befuddled that Sawyer knows his plans, that there is a new protector of the glow stick cave, and that there are dog tracks around the well. Ben complains that MIB wants to sink the island, since Ben was promised to take over once MIB left. Change in plans, as Ben is to leave the island with MIB now. The plan is constantly changing with MIB. Tough break for Ben, since he was eager to kill again for MIB, but now has no carrot at the end of the stick. Rose, Bernard, and Vincent rescued Desmond. Of course this breaks their rule of not getting involved. Rose and Bernard look really old and awful. The island living just doesn’t agree with these folks. They need a vacation. MIB and Ben quickly find the camp, and MIB threatens to kill Rose and Bernard unless Desmond leaves with him. Unfortunately, Rose and Bernard live, along with Vincent, a dog that looks like it’s wheezing and on it’s last legs. Well, a dog on an island probably isn’t getting proper nutrition. Vincent probably gets the Mango squirts every day. MIB makes some kind of promise that doesn’t matter, and away they go. Rose and Bernard story wrapped up when they found each other back in Season Two. At least the writers had the decency to kill Sun and Jin the next episode after their reunion. They’ve kept these bumpkins around for another 4 seasons. Of all the stuff they could have answered, they had to go to Rose and Bernards island existence. Again. I hope when the island got shaky, they fell into a fissure, never to be seen again.

Desmond is limping along with a bamboo stick for support, something that no other character mentions, something never explained, and something that never plays a part in the story line. Lovely. I’m an idiot for paying attention for all these years to the little stuff….anyway, that’s why I’m breezing through the summary now. Desmond explains to MIB that he is taking him to a place with a very bright light. MIB is a bit baffled at how all these characters all know his mysterious plans and the secret of the island, which will never be explained to the viewers. Desmond knows how much, exactly? For a long time, I thought characters knew stuff because the characters were living in loops, repeating in time, but it turned out just to be shoddy writing and witless dialogue. Silly me. Miles is trying to radio for Ben with that walkie talkie he just happened to grab last week. Gee, that’s a stroke of good luck. He has found Richard, and Richard is alive. What a bunch of crap. You can toss Mr Eko around like a ragdoll and he dies. But Richard doesn’t die after being thrown like a spiral across two football fields. And another thing, what happened to the part where Richard told Sun last season, upon seeing a picture of Jack, Hurley and Kate in Dharma in 1977. “I watched them all die”. Well, explain that. Oh, that’s right. It’s some secret we are supposed to figure out, despite it making NO SENSE in the context of this God forsaken show. Anyway, after all that’s happened, Richard has come up with a brand new plan to save the day. “Let’s blow up the plane.” Well, spank my britches and call me Shirley. Miles the cop spots Sayid riding shotgun with Hurley. He calls Sawyer to get him to go to the hospital and protect the only living witness to the murders that Sayid committed, Sun Paik. Which is all well and good, but when you realize you have escaped prisoners, three of them, and they are murderers and attempted murderers, shouldn’t there be a police hunt under way. And maybe Miles should skip the concert? Meh, whatever. This is a poorly written season and poorly written finale. Sun’s baby doctor is Juliet. Well, there’s a non shocker. Since we found out Jack had a kid in this meaningless waste of timeline, we assumed Juliet was the mother of the kid, and now we see her working in the same stupid hospital as Doctor Idiot. Juliet’s last name is Carson, not Burke like the real timeline, and not Shepherd like Jack’s awful last name. Jin is wearing a purple tie. Purple, purple, purple, and never an explanation for all the purple clothing. “The sky turned purple” and that was from season two. That’s it. So, as Juliet uses an ultra sound machine, I have to wonder, doesn’t that machine look kind of old, considering we can now carry around the internet in a tube of lipstick and stop disastrous oil spills in less than 50 days with our best interest at heart government. Oh, that’s right, we can’t. Sun flashes back to the medical hatch, Jin flashes back to the island, they know the kids name, and can speak English. Yet, no acknowledgment that the baby is an orphan or how they died horrifically by suffocating under water. Sawyer runs through the jungle until catching up with Jack, the Invisible Woman, and The Thing. Jack is not worried. They are all going to the same place, and then it ends. Hopefully the world. I don’t want to live in a world where Jack has power. Well, Jacob had a bad first day on the job, and I guess Jacob and Jack are now the same. Given that your one most important responsibility is to protect some mystical cave, nobody seems to be able to get the hang of this duty right away. Jack and Locke joke around in the hallway before surgery, guffawing about missing coffins, Locke dying, and finding closure. Miles and Richard are at the dock preparing to paddle over to the Hydra when Miles in a very metrosexual yet even more uncomfortable way plucks a gray hair from Richard’s head. Men do not groom each other. They ridicule, they punch each other in the face, then have a beer afterwards. Then don’t talk about window treatments and eyelashes. Richard has now realized that he wants to live. Well, stupid, Jacob is dead, so I guess you aren’t immortal anymore. So, Jacob tricked you when he gave you the ability to not die. It was simply not die while Jacob was alive. You fool. And NOW you want to live. As Dorian Gray and Miles paddle across, and we never saw who shot at Locke and Sawyer and Juliet during the time travel boat trip, they start to hit corpses from the sub. Some of them rotting, some of them looking like they fell out of Cheech and Chong movie. Frank is alive. So, the unconscious pilot sank to the bottom of the ocean, woke up at some point, didn’t have an oxygen tank, fought off the water pressure, surfaced, and held onto life jackets for about 24 hours without the sharks with Dharma symbols nibbling on his toes. Terrible writing. Frank says why blow up the plane when they can fly off the island? Richard immediately agrees, after 4 days of being obsessed with blowing up a plane, he changes his mind after a 3 second conversation with Frank. Swell. Frank reminds everybody that he’s a pilot, never mind that he’s been wearing a pilot’s shirt for the whole season. There is nobody in the audience that forgot you are a pilot Frank. That is the only thing you bring to the show. To remind us you are a pilot, every focking week, you stupid fock. Jack and MIB’s respective groups bump into each other in the jungle. Kate grabs a rifle and starts to shoot at MIB, while Desmond and even Ben are merely a couple of feet away, in danger of getting hit in the cross fire. Jack really needs to slap Kate across the face and tell her to shut up and sit down. MIB scoffs. He examines Jack. So, it’s you. Jack: I volunteered, you think you will destroy this island, I’m going to kill you and it will be a surprise. Alrighty, Maximus. Jack is talking a big game, and has a brain like a frozen pea to back it up. How can anyone take him seriously? Reality is that MIB destroyed some of the island, Jack didn’t kill MIB, MIB actually killed Jack, and it was a surprise to Jack to die. Other than that, spot on.

Well, they reveal that Juliet is Jack’s ex-wife. And I’m annoyed that Juliet would have married a pumpkinhead, but at least had the good sense to divorce him. Still, I don’t know how realistic it is for ex-spouses to pretend to be such good friends. It rarely happens. Juliet is supposed to go with Jack and David to the ridiculous museum benefit concert, but Jack has to wash his hair, so he’s out. Was that really an excuse back in ancient times, the 1960’s, when girls said they didn’t want to go out on a date because they needed to stay in on a Saturday night and wash their hair. With what, molasses? How long does it take to get water on hair and let it dry? Half and hour? And is this something only happening once a week? So, for 6 days, you watch a girl walking around with oily, gnarled hair, and one day it’s nice and clean and shiny, she doesn’t leave the house? Was everybody dating girls that looked like Claire? Jack can’t go, so Claire is the candidate to replace him. Get it? Candidate. Sawyer shows up at the hospital. On the island Sawyer asks Jack about his plan. Jack: Desmond is a weapon, and I’m going to use him to hit MIB in the head. Sawyer: that’s a hell of a long con by Jacob. I’m going insane at a slightly faster pace. I want to glue forks to my kitchen floor, sticking up, and repeatedly fall on them. Jack, MIB, and Desmond head to the cave, leaving the other folks behind. Why? I don’t focking know. Storm clouds are gathering. I used to think rain meant something on this show, but it’s focking random. Locke and Boone found the hatch when it was raining, a good thing. Mr Eko died when it was sunny. The Black Rock arrived on the island when it was both rainy and sunny, depending on which episode you watched. At the cave where a yellow sign blinks “Vacancies”, they tie a rope around a tree and the other around Desmond, as they mean to lower the tree into the cave, then change their mind, and want to lower Desmond into the cave. Desmond makes a last ditch attempt to talk to Jack: This doesn’t matter, the destroying each other and the island, I’m going to go someplace else, to be with the ones that we love, you are there too Jack, the plane never crashed. Poor, sad Desmond. What he doesn’t realize is that you have to be dead to be in that other place. So, instead of living life to the fullest and then trying to enjoy the afterlife, Desmond is unwittingly trying to talk Jack into suicide. How morbid. OK, that’s a bit whimsical and amusing. Jack: there are no shortcuts, whatever happened, happened, all of this matter. What the fock is he talking about? I rewound that several times, listened to Jack say that over and over, and now my head hurts. All of this matters? You will die and end up in Candyland. The End. What matters is when the last season of Dexter comes out on DVD, because I need to wash the stench of this season of LOST off, and watch something good. They enter the cave.

Hurley explains to Sayid that they have to follow the rules. What, there are rules in an imaginary existence? So, what are they? Oh, that’s right. Rules are never explained to us in this show. Ben and Widmore had rules. MIB had rules. Jacob had rules. Mother had rules. Richard showed a Book of Laws to young Locke. Juliet was branded at a trial in Dharmaville. No truck parking between 6 PM and 6AM. You can only wash your hair on Saturdays. Rules, rules, rules. We were simply never told what the rules were. Hurley: you are a great guy Sayid. Other than the people you tortured. And assassinated on Ben’s list. And shot a teenage Ben. And killed Keamy and his friends. And twisted the head off a chicken. And shot and killed one of the true loves of his life, Elsa. And killed Dogen and Lennon in the Temple. And stuck bamboo shoots under Sawyer’s fingernails. But he is a swell guy because Hugo the purple dinosaur says so. A fight breaks out at the side of a bar, a girl tries to stick her nose into the middle of it, and rightfully gets tossed into a pile of leaky garbage bags. Sayid is a man of action, and not wanting to see garbage bags treated so rudely, jumps out of the vehicle and runs to interfere. Sayid assists the girl up and sees that it is Shannon. Instead of remembering all the happy times he spent with Nadia, the woman he practically traded his soul for with the MIB, Sayid recalls the happy 3 days he and Shannon had on the LOST island, by far the shortest and most meaningless tryst Sayid has ever had in his life. So, Hurley’s big plan was for Boone to get beat up, Sayid to rescue Shannon, and live happily ever after while Nadia is in some plane of existence, screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, watching Sayid and Shannon kissing, standing in garbage, brushing stale beer, cigarette butts, and rotting fruit out of each other’s hair. They stink and I don’t like them. Did everybody forget how Shannon slept with her brother. Sick twisted focks. Miles radioes Ben. They are on the Hydra island. However, the person never invited to any parties, Claire shows up with a gun. Richard tries to talk her into leaving with them, basically the same manipulation MIB and Kate and Jin and others have laid on her recently. Claire simply turns them down and walks away. I’m not sure if I’d go anywhere with that collection of creeps, the guy that doesn’t age, the guy that talks to corpses, and the guy that never buttons his shirt. Desmond is lowered into the cave as MIB reminisces with Jack about Desmond and the hatch and the pushing of the button. After many years of Jack treating Locke like a joke, he now takes reverently about him, which is too bad because Locke is dead and can’t hear any of it. Jack: you are not John Locke, he was right about almost everything. MIB: he wasn’t right about anything. Here’s a tip. How about you tell us what he was right/not right about, and let us judge? How about not keeping us in the dark about what you are arguing about? Was it that John liked tea? John liked to whittle? John enjoying moon lit strolls on a sandy beach? That John had to die? That John felt banana leaves were good to wipe with after a hearty morning jungle dump?

David, Claire, and Juliet arrive at the concert at the museum. Juliet gets called away to wash her hair. Charlie is woken up on a couch backstage by Charlotte. Daniel, wearing the world’s most awful hat, introduces himself to Charlotte. No matter how many planes of existence Daniel enters, the skeletal Charlotte still won’t give him the time of day. Over at Table 23, Desmond and Kate are greeted by Claire and David. Kate looks more perplexed than usual. Dr Pierre Chang, looking younger than his son Miles, introduces Daniel Faraday and Drive Shaft. Somebody needs to fire the booking agent of Drive Shaft. What an awful gig to get roped into. A classical concert pianist with a rock band. Hell, it didn’t work for Metallica and some symphony orchestra, so it’s never going to work for anybody. I’d rather listen to 3 hours of a jackhammer pounding a street. I’d rather watch somebody chewing aluminum foil with their mouth open for 3 hours. I’d rather listen to Ben Folds Five. Claire sees the heroin junkie bassist giving her the evil eye stare, or maybe that’s just Charlie’s eye liner, feels sick, and skedaddles. Kate follows. She needs to start planning on how to steal the baby, and can’t let Claire out of her sight. Desmond reaches the bottom of the cave. There are a number of skeletons all around. How did Charlotte get down here? You would think they would actually care enough to tell us about the skeletons. Probably more people shoved into the cave by Jacob over the years, willy nilly. Like a Slip and Slide. A light is emanating form a pool of water, giving off a faint hum, reminiscent of the electro magnetism in the Swan hatch. I like to think of it as the place where the island farts. Desmond steps into the water, screams because he must have stepped on a jelly fish, can’t find anybody around to pee on his leg, walks up to a stone cork, and takes the drain out of the pool. Gurgle. The water fall stops. The light goes out. Steam starts to rise from the hole in the pool, like the start of a volcanic eruption, or what your toaster oven looks like when you are trying to make a really crunchy bagel. Now, we also saw the light go out when the Smoke monster emerged after Jacob threw his brother in, but we were not told when the light went back on, or why it went out then. How did his brother get all the way to the water, as Desmond had to travel a short distance to get there? Of course, we don’t know why the Smoke monster was created, why and how it scans people, why it judges, why it allows some to live and some to die, and how it can take the shapes of the living and dead, and why it wants to leave the island and can’t now when in past seasons it’s been off the island. Anyway, the hero MIB turns to the villain Jack, and tells him you were wrong. Jack cowardly tackles MIB from behind outside the cave punches it in the face. MIB is bleeding. J: you were wrong too. Well, the island being destroyed vs a cut lip. Um, not the same kind of wrong. But clearly, Desmond turned off a switch on the island, and MIB is mortal, as is Jack. The island isn’t working anymore. I guess at this moment, Rose’s cancer came back. Much like Mother would have, MIB picks up a rock and whacks Jack in the head. Unlike Mother, MIB does not have the common sense to kill Jack, finish him off. MIB’s flaw is his heroic nature and compassion.

As Claire is attracting a crowd backstage, Eloise creeps up and sits down next to Desmond. Eloise, a woman that knew a great many things in the real timeline, and we will never know how and why. Eloise: I asked you to stop. Desmond: I chose to ignore you. Desmond informs that once “they” know, they are leaving, but he will not be taking Daniel away from his mother. Eloise is acting very selfishly, trying to manipulate the afterlife of Daniel just so she can spend some time with her son. I’m troubled by Desmond saying they are leaving, but they are leaving people behind. AnaLucia wasn’t “ready yet”, so does that mean she can never “leave”. Desmond is a colostomy bag full of smaller colostomy bags full of colostomy stuff. Claire is having the fastest contradictions in the history of ever. Within 2 minutes, she goes from enjoying some shitty music to ready to spit out her deformed kid. I suppose I could make a Sara Palin joke here, but that just wouldn’t be classy. So I’ll just continue to wish AIDS on the children, pets, and furniture of Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. Charlie stops by, then runs off to find a towel. As Douglas Adams has taught us all, Don’t panic and always bring a towel. They try to recreate the birth scene in the jungle from Season One, where Claire and Kate give birth to Aaron. Well, not so much Kate, but Claire is the one that passed that big headed kid out of her baby maker, probably cursing her with a hernia forever. Kate, Claire, and Charlie have a flash threesome, then look around for cigarettes. I’d like to know when Claire is supposed to get on that helicopter with Aaron; after all, that is why Charlie died, to get them rescued on that helicopter, the one which Claire never boarded. It never happened. Sure, I throw in an occasional unanswered questions, but the writers started it first. Kate to Desmond: now what? The island is shaking like a glass of scotch in a drunken Michael J Fox’s hands. A tree falls in the woods, and it apparently makes a sound as Ben pushed Hugo out of the way. Instead, Ben is clobbered and pinned by the tree. Jack wakes up, it’s raining pretty hard. The big plan right now is to run into the cave and yell for Desmond. Crickets. Plan 2, pull on the rope. Nothing at the end of it. Crickets. Jack tries to think. Crickets. The rest of the gang can’t lift the trunk of the tree off Ben, no doubt pinned forever, so they will have to leave him to die. Or not. But he is pinned and they make sure to point out that they can’t move the tree even a little bit, even with leverage. Sawyer: Locke was right. Miles radios in that they are taking the plane and will be leaving in an hour. Kate responds with “when was the last time any plane took off on time” or something. The whole island is still shaking like a baby that just won’t shut up and is in the grip of a frustrated babysitter, as is Hydra island. Why would the shakes affect the other island? Frank and Richard are using scotch tape, glue, spit, Legos, and grey hairs to piece a wrecked plane together, something that has no business flying. Ben explains to Sawyer, Kate, Hurley gang that MIB has a boat. Of course he does. This is the 17th boat we’ve seen this season on the island. Everybody is hiding a boat. Vincent has a different yacht for every day of the week. Jack catches up with MIB and yells at him. Both get running starts and head towards each other with clenched fists. I guess this is as good of a spot as any to stop Part One, 55 minutes done of 105, Soon, I will finish off the tale of MIB’s wrongful death, the terrible choices in the church, and the sheer idiocy of Hurley ruling the world. Hurley couldn’t manage a chicken shack, or did we all forget Tricia Tanaka already?