Friday, May 21, 2010

IF WE DON'T GET SATISFACTORY ANSWERS IT WILL BE DAMON AND CARLTON'S FAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUULT: One thing that frustrates me about the end of Lost is a key mystery that I doubt will be resolved yet isn't on the level of mere trivia: What is so special about Walt Lloyd?
MS. KLUGH: How old was he when he started speaking?

MICHAEL: I, he...

MS. KLUGH: Did he have any illnesses growing up? Headaches? Fainting spells?

MICHAEL: What? No! I don't -- I wasn't there. He was half way around the world. Why are you asking me all these questions?

MS. KLUGH: Did Walt ever appear in a place he wasn't supposed to be? You say he was half way around the world -- did you see him?
However mythic and sci-fi the island itself and the phenomena on it are, the people on it are recognizably human with two exceptions: Desmond, with his time flashes and imperviousness to electromagnetic radiation, and Walt, who can do this:



We are told that Jacob wanted him on the island. We see him luring an Australian bronze cuckoo to its death. We know that he's the one the Others wanted to take from the raft:
MR. FRIENDLY: Just sit down, Jack. Nobody's going to hurt you. I come in peace.

LOCKE: How do you know our names? [Mr. Friendly just smiles.]

JACK: You took Walt.

MR. FRIENDLY: Walt's fine. He's a very special boy.
But why? Why did Walt seem to understand the island so soon? Why did he warn Locke about opening the hatch before Walt knew it existed? Why did he appear to both Locke and Shannon as a vision? What is the nature of his gift? Of all the unanswered questions, it is the disappearance of Walt from the final story which frustrates me the most. Clearly, there was at one point a plan for Walt, but it certainly seems to have been abandoned. A nudge towards an answer to all this is something I'd like Sunday night to complete the series.

The thing is, we're going to have to take the boy.

19 comments:

  1. lisased9:11 AM

    I still remember the chill I felt when he said that.

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  2. piledhighanddeep9:21 AM

    SPOILER ALERT, I'M NOT KIDDING:

    At last evening's NY Times Live Chat, Carleton and Damon said we would be seeing Walt in the finale. So there's a very good chance you're going to get some sort of answer to your dilemma.

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  3. christy in nyc10:06 AM

    My fondest hope this whole time is that Walt will end up swooping in at the end and saving everyone, either literally or metaphorically. Because when you watch those early episodes, you're right, it's so clear how important Walt was always meant to be to the story.

    Of course, the other tantalizing lost LOST story is that of Mr. Eko. What did they have planned for him? Was any of it adapted into other characters' stories or was it just totally dropped? Of course, with Mr. Eko, they had no way of knowing that the actor would end up wanting to leave Hawaii badly enough to leave the show. They should have known from the beginning, what with how slowly they were moving time forward on the show and how real time keeps on moving forward regardless, that Malcom David Kelley would grow up at some point.

    So, he's 18 in real life, and 13 in the original timeline. Even in the great TV tradition of playing down in age, that's a bit of a stretch. But if they really wanted to do it, they probably could. But in the sideways timeline, they could introduce him as any age. Sayid is apparently five years younger in the sideways timeline.

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  4. Joseph J. Finn10:46 AM

    My one fond hope is that Vincent will be revealed to have been in on it. I still don't trust him after he lead Shannon to her death.

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  5. Andrew11:31 AM

    That remains one of the absolute best moments of the entire series. It was chilling and unexpected. Unfortunately, WAAAAAAAAAAALt is the one character who the show abandoned. Damn you, Malcolm David Kelly's growth spurt.

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  6. Couldn't the actor's growth spurt be explained on the show by the fact that three years have gone by in show timeline? Isn't that true - that they started in 2004, many of them went back to 1974, they spent three years there (while the O6 spent three years in L.A.) and then they time jumped back to 2007? (Or did they jump back to 2004? So confused). Anyway, if this works, an 18 year old actor could play a 16-year old boy.

    But yes, I really, really wish that they would get back to the Walt issue in the final episode, which remains my #1 mystery. But I don't expect them to.

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  7. Matt B11:51 AM

    As much as I miss Walt, that little "webispode" posted above is pretty horrible.

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  8. isaac_spaceman12:06 PM

    I guess I'm okay with them not solving this one. There are a ton of other mysteries that they dropped. I want them to finish the story, not solve the mysteries.

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  9. If I may, from the end of Season 4:

    [Sawyer grabs Ryan's gun off the ground, and jumps out round the front at the male Other. Sayid kicks him, knocking him down before he can fire at Sawyer. Sayid then wraps his legs round his neck, breaking it before Sawyer shoots. Jin, Bernard and Sawyer all look with surprise, as Sayid nods to Sawyer. Tom crawls to another gun on the ground, but Juliet grabs it and steps on his hand, causing him to cry out with pain]

    JULIET: [Points the gun at him] Stay right there, Tom.

    TOM: [Turns to Sawyer] OK. I give up.

    [Sawyer pauses, then shoots him in the chest, surprising Juliet]

    SAWYER: That's for taking the kid off the raft.

    HURLEY: Dude it was over, he surrendered.

    SAWYER: I didn't believe him.

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  10. Andrew12:17 PM

    Any television show is going to have plot threads that are dropped, characters who don't fulfill their original intentions, but also will have things that end up working far better than the original intentions would have.

    Would Lost have been a better show if they killed off Jack in the pilot? Well...

    So while it's a shame that the Eko and WAAALT stories dropped, at least Eko went out in a relatively satisfying way.

    But knowing what we know now about the Island, was Walt savvy enough to become an Other, but not skeptical enough to be a Candidate?

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  11. christy in nyc12:31 PM

    Yes, three years have passed. But he was 10 at the time of the crash, so he's 13 "now" (2007).

    We did see legitimately-tall-Walt twice in the post-rescue original timeline. Locke visits Walt, and Walt visits Hurley. Those weren't long before Ajira 316 brought a bunch of them back to the island, which seems to have been really, what, a week or so before what's happening now? (I swear, the actual just normal forward movement of time on this show is even more confusing than the time travel bits).

    I felt like those little moments were always so brief because it was like they had to give us something, but they didn't want him on screen long enough for us to really start thinking about how old he seemed versus how old he's supposed to be. Then again, hey, some kids go through puberty early. I've tutored in fifth grade classrooms where 12-year-olds towered over me.

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  12. piledhighanddeep1:28 PM

    At the session last night, the creators said that some of Eko's stuff ended up with the character of Ben, but I got the sense that this was one character that they really regretted losing. They often use the analogy to J.K. Rowling: Rowling has complete control over her universe--she and only she can dictate what will happen. A TV show, on the other hand, is a collaborative effort between over 400 people, and sometimes things don't work out as you plan.

    Michael Emerson said that Mr. Eko was one of his favorite characters, because of the gravity he projected and the amazing backstory he had. I, too, feel sad that we lost him so quickly.

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  13. Jenn.2:48 PM

    I'm not one of the viewers who is clamoring for every last mystery to be resolved---unlike, say, my boyfriend, who will be P-I-S-S-E-D if the Egyptian statue is not explained---but I do tend to think that they should explain WAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT.  Even if it is very short, I'd like his importance to be explained.

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  14. bill.5:12 PM

    The Room 23 clip - I'd forgotten about that. Yeah, that's the Lost I wish they'd kept doing instead of all the time-shifting and pseudo-Gods.

    Season 4, episode 11: In flashbacks, Locke is shown to have always been destined to become the next leader of the island.

    Oops, guess not.

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  15. 1961: "Five-year-old John is playing backgammon in a living room when his foster sister Melissa rudely knocks the pieces off the board, taunting him. His foster mother Florence scolds her before telling John that there is a man there to see him, and that he should be on his best behavior. Richard Alpert walks in the house and sits down at the table across from him. He introduces himself as Richard and tells John that he runs a school for special children and has reason to believe that John is one of them. Richard asks John if he minds if Richard shows him a couple of neat things, to which John shakes his head (indicating he does not mind). Richard notices a drawing on the wall of the room of a man lying on the ground while a mass of black springs from the ground and hangs over him, resembling an attack by the smoke monster. When asked by Richard if he drew the picture, John nods his head."

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  16. christy in nyc6:17 PM

    Yes, I've heard them say the Rowling thing on the podcast, and that Eko's departure freed them up for more Ben stuff, but it's hard for me to imagine what in Ben's storyline would have reasonably been part of Eko's if the actor hadn't left. I do think there's quite a bit of post-Eko Sayid material that would have made a certain amount of sense if it had been Eko, but not so much Ben. I hope someday they reveal some of those foiled plans in more detail, you know, once there's enough time passed that it's not a big deal.

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  17. piledhighanddeep8:35 PM

    If you haven't been looking at the Entertainment Weekly recaps, you should.  The video clips/skits for "Across the Sea" are particularly hilarious, and feature the actors who portray Jacob and MIB:

    <p><span><span>http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20313460_20386359_12,00.html</span></span></p>

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  18. This is my one thing. We are having 9 people at our finale party, and all 9 of us want different things explained, but the importance of Waaaaaaaalt is mine.

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