Saturday, May 22, 2010

HEY, HEY, DON'T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME. YOU DON'T KNOW WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH. DON'T EVER TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO, EVER. THIS IS DESTINY. THIS IS DESTINY. THIS IS MY DESTINY. I'M SUPPOSED TO DO THIS, DAMMIT. DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO. DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T... Unlike ER, The West Wing and The Sopranos, we haven't endeavored to do full team retrospective coverage of Lost in anticipation of the finale with all sorts of lists the way we've done before. For me, at least, the nature of the mystery-filled plot makes me feel like I can't fully evaluated the show's greatness until it's all over and (mostly?) explained, until it's clear how much of this was conceived as a whole piece (or at least skillfully retrofitted with the early clues) as opposed to a jerry-built mishmosh for which some of the pieces never truly fit. (Hurleybird, anyone?)

That said, when you take a look at this list of top 50 unanswered questions from the end of season two or this list of 100 from April 2009, I'm actually pretty confident that remaining questions worth answering will largely be resolved, and that Damon and Carlton will take care of the audience in the end. Maybe even WAAAALLLLT! too.

As you prepare for tomorrow night's finale -- and do review Isaac's 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2010 summaries when you have a moment -- how about we just delight in listing all the little things about this show which have entertained us, moved us, surprised us or made us smile since Jack Shephard woke up in a field of bamboo. I'll start with a few:
  • Dharma sharks
  • The Pierre Chang orientation videos
  • "The Constant" and "The Variable"
  • The reveal at the end of "Walkabout"
  • "Kate, you're not my type."
  • Not Penny's Boat
  • "Dude, you've got some ... Arzt ... on you."
Your turn.

added: Before this season started, we opened a Final Season Prediction Pool, with questions ranging from "Who are Adam and Eve?" to whether the Kwons or Humes would live happily ever after to identifying three characters who would die this season -- and a lot of you named Sayid. Your answers are compiled here.

28 comments:

  1. christy in nyc1:42 PM

    I think my favorite non-obvious-choice episode is Solitary from season one. Meeting Rousseau, hearing a bit of her weird back story, the suggestion that there are Others on the island, all told to a strapped-down Sayid. Dark and mysterious and sexy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carmichael Harold2:05 PM

    "We've got to go back."
    All of the Season 5 Juliet/Sawyer relationship.
    The opening scene of Season 2 (Desmond in the hatch). 
    Though I think this is probably a minority opinion given the response to this season, but the Jacob/MiB scenes in "The Incident".

    By the way, I'm pretty sure none of this conceived as a whole piece, given that the writers have said about the process of Season 1.  Also, I think there's a difference between pieces never fitting, and mysteries unresolved.  I'd put the Hurleybird in the latter category, as there's nothing about it that explicitly doesn't jibe with what we've seen, whereas something like the Dharma drops doesn't make sense given what we know. 

    ReplyDelete
  3. Maret2:51 PM

    Any/all of the Sayid fight scenes.
    The endlessly entertaining nicknames Sawyer had for people.
    Ethan, who was the scariest bad guy (at least to me.)
    The first time Mr. Eko stated down Smokey.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, Sayid breakdance-fighting is always on the list.

    One of my favorite sweet moments: the Rose/Bernard scene in The Incident.  As for Sawyer's nicknames


    http://www.youtube.com/v/ODByPPenRYk&feature" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="170" height="140

    (seasons 4-5)

    ReplyDelete
  5. And I might as well say this here: I really liked Expose -- the Nikki/Paolo episode.  It was inventive, funny and appropriate -- for a series of this length, it needed a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern episode.

    Here's what we all said about it then.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I liked how the summer after that first season they created these fake Oceanic Airlines websites where if you plugged in hurley's numbers or clicked on things in the right order you could find hidden info about the *cover-up* of the crash of flight 815, or frantic messages from missing loved-ones ... "Tell my wife I love her!!!!" ahhh, good times.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous5:32 PM

    Make Your Own Kind of Music
    The earliest Ben episodes when he was pretending to be Henry Gale
    Juliet and Ben's book club in New Otherton
    Pretty much anything with Daniel Faraday

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous5:33 PM

    That was Marsha, right above this.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Part of the reason why we haven't needed to recap is that ABC's done such a fine job of that--in addition to 2.5 hours of finale, we get a 2 hour pregame/recap show and the Jimmy Kimmel postgame show.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Jennifer J.6:21 PM

    Adam: Would you be willing to put up a link for the questionnaire you posted prior to Lost, Season 6 airing? Is there a way to see our answers again before the finale? When will you guys be tabulating and posting the results? Thanks! :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. An excellent thought.  I'll add it.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Jennifer J.7:09 PM

    Thank you so much! :)  Happy weekend to all!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm sure I'll have more, but one piece that I ADORED was the near-end of Season 1's "Exodus," in which we see all the players boarding Oceanic 815.  It was a tremendous cap to the season, which had done a spectacular job of telling us who all these people were and what brought them to that moment in their lives.  

    ReplyDelete
  14. "I'm going to need to watch that again."

    "<span>We did find your balloon, Henry Gale, exactly how you described it. We also found the grave you described -- your wife's grave. The grave you said you dug with your own bare hands. It was all there. Your whole story -- your alibi -- it was true. But still I did not believe it to be true. So I dug up that grave and found that there was not a woman inside. There was a man.  A man named Henry Gale." </span>

    Almost any scene involving Daniel Faraday.

    Charlie's "Greatest Hits."

    ReplyDelete
  15. sconstant11:20 PM

    You have to put up a Anything But Lost thread on Sunday for those of us who just couldn't care less.  I've never been so eager for a pop culture craze to be over since my mom wouldn't let me buy a Benetton rugby.  Thus, the eighteen threads here, the five million tweets and status updates on Facebook, the EW issue devoted entirely to it, all are making me slightly demented. 

    My Lost prediction: people will be disappointed and this will make them keep talking about it.  Eventually, blissfully, they will stop.  Then, later, there will be a movie and a brief half-hearted revival of interest.  In twenty years, our TabletPadReaderAndPersonalHelicopter implanted in my brain and forearm will remind me that it's been twenty years since the finale of Lost, and for some reason that I will have long forgotten at the time, I will briefly think about Benetton rugby shirts.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Jessica12:38 AM

    I love LOST but this is hilarious.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Jennifer J.2:41 AM

    Agreed.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Jennifer J.3:00 AM

    Everything. :)

    Almost every character, big or small. Really. :)

    I love the parallels and parity between seasons.

    Sawyer nicknames, quips and, of course, shirtless scenes.

    Miles quips.

    Daniel Faraday.

    Libby.

    Hurley and his 'dudes'.

    Imaginary peanut butter.

    "So you're mother is an other?"

    The scene in "The Variable" when Dr. Pierre Chang questions Hurley about history.

    Giacchino's music. 

    The Constant; Through the Looking Glass... too many others.

    The epic acting of Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson.

    The pleasantly surprising acting depth Josh Holloway was allowed to bring to Sawyer, esp. in Season 5.

    That even now, the Pilot still gives me goose bumps.

    "It only ends once, everything before that is just progress."

    Titus Welliver

    Least fave thing: Jacks' beard ;)p

    Least favorite character *ever*: Radzinsky 

    ReplyDelete
  19. calliekl9:44 AM

    Mr. Eko's story about the boy in the church who killed the dog.

    Seeing Dharmaville for the first time.

    Any scene involving Hurley, Charlie, Desmond, Miles, and NotHenry Gale.

    Subsequently, Miles attempting to explain time travel to Hurley.

    Sawyer and Kate in the bear cage.

    Sawyer's nicknames.

    How suspenseful the beginning was, when the Others were just sets of dirty feet marching through the woods.

    Lando Calrission's guest spot.

    Pretty much anything not including Bai Ling, rewriting history to include Nikki and Paolo, having to watch Kate never be able to make up her mind between Jack and Sawyer (how much do I want them both to just lose interest in her by the end of the series).

    I am so torn about the end of this series. A huge part of me is so happy to get closure, any kind of closure, and just to know how the story ends. Another par of me is sad that this whole Lost community is going away- I feel like I need to find something else to watch, to get other people to watch, so we can spend time dishing about every episode. I can't even tell you how many people have gotten my copies of the dvds, so that I could share the experience with them. "Just try it," I say, "just try one episode. You'll see."

    Sad/happy face.

    ReplyDelete
  20. The golf course in Season 1.

    All of the conspicuously placed books.

    "I always have a plan."

    <span>“How many times do I have to tell you, John? I always have a plan.”


    "So I guess this means I'm out of the book club."

    "<span>"What did the snowman say to the other snowman?"  "Do you smell carrots?"</span>
    </span>

    ReplyDelete
  21. <span>The golf course in Season 1. 
     
    All of the conspicuously placed books. 
     
    <span>“How many times do I have to tell you, John? I always have a plan.” 
     
    "So I guess this means I'm out of the book club." 
     
    "<span>"What did the snowman say to the other snowman?"  "Do you smell carrots?"</span> </span></span>

    ReplyDelete
  22. calliekl12:48 PM

    I forgot another one... Hurley chucking the hot pocket at Ben. Hilarious.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Jennifer J.4:44 PM

    Red...Neck...Man. Touché.
    Agreed on Hot Pocket!
    Locke making Claire's baby bassinet on her birthday.
    Hatch Lock-Down/seeing the black-lit map of all the stations.
    The Economist.
    Anthony Cooper in "the box".
    Agreed on the golf course and all books!
    Sayid is a bad-ass.
    "See you in another life, brutha."
    Bernard & Rose in The Incident, Part 2 (esp. Bernard saying, "son of a bitch").
    All of Sawyer's many and varied "son of a bitch" lines.
    "Let's look death in the face and say, 'Whatever man...'"
    "What, like Fonzie times?"
    All the eyes opening.
    All the records started.
    Helen.
    Vincent!
    Lapidus: the looks he gives; his demeanor; his quips; his dry sarcasm ("I'm no tree-hugger...")
    "We're not going to Guam are we?"
    I'll say it: Across the Sea...that's right! :)p
    I'll say it: Season 6! 
    I'll predict it: happy and satisfied with the finale while sobbing my bloody eyes out (as I'm completely open to what it will be).
    Callie: I'll miss the community of it all, too. I don't know that I want another show to fill the void though.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Kate was the fugitive on the plane! (I remember this as the first big, surprising revelation on Lost, along with the fact that Rousseaus' transmission had been running for 16 years.)

    "We're going to have to take the boy."

    The revelation that Locke was in a wheelchair...and then the revelation why.

    The main in the box.

    Miles and Hurley talking about the confusion of time travel.

    Live together, die alone.

    Rose and Bernard being reunited when the Tailies finally made it to the rest of the gang.

    Pretty much any Hurley comic relief scene.

    Sawyer jumping out of the helicopter. 

    The Constant, especially when Eloise tells Desmond that he doesn't buy the ring.

    Penny and Desmond's reunion.

    Sawyer holding on to Juliet before her plunge down the well in The Incident.

    ReplyDelete
  25. calliekl6:25 PM

    We just finished Part I of Lostapalooza- rewatching of the Pilot (both parts). It was hard to shut off, the show had such a great ability to suck you in in the beginning. I feel like it has lost that a bit over the years, but the complexity of the story has definitely increased since then.

    We're taking a break, then the recap! Thank goodness I did the groceries this morning!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Jennifer J.6:35 PM

    Callie: I have to do groceries tomorrow! ;) Luckily, hubby did some today. I have really been able to immerse, feel fortunate for it. All of Season 6 except Across the Sea and What They Died For; re-watched The Pilot; Through the Looking Glass (parts 1 & 2); The Constant; The Variable; The Incident (parts 1 & 2). I think I'm just trying to keep my mind off things! ;)p

    To all...enjoy!

    Namaste.

    ReplyDelete
  27. calliekl7:04 PM

    Namaste!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Eric J.7:58 PM

    "DriveShaft? More like Suck Shaft."

    ReplyDelete