Dear Timmy Sean;
Remember that show we really loved (until we didn’t, but then we hate-watched it until the end), LOST? On, I think it’s the Mary Sue website, someone has been watching it and talking about it, as part of a 20-year looking-back exercise, and that got me thinking about it. So I decided to rewatch it. I mean, I remember us really liking the first few seasons, and then I remember us NOT liking the last few seasons. And one of the things the person was talking about (which me reading then told the algorithm overlords I wanted to see more of, so now my Google “News” page usually has at least one LOST article a day)….. one of the things they talked about was how the finale was really misunderstood. I didn’t remember all the specifics about the finale (do I have to give a spoiler warning for a 20-year old show?); just that Hurley stayed on the island as the caretaker or something, and that everyone was really dead the whole time.
BUT WERE THEY???
One of the articles I read recently said that the showrunners really didn’t consider everyone dead the whole time, that the Island wasn’t Purgatory (like most people thought) but more like the “bathtub stopper” between the forces of good and evil. So, yes, the church scene at the end with everyone who had died (well, most people who had died) WAS the afterlife, what happened on the Island was not.
So, anyway, I’m rewatching it to see if new information and/or twenty years behind me makes a difference in how I feel about it.
And do you know what I forgot?
How fucking GOOD that first season was! So many twists, turns, questions! Remember the end of that episode with Locke, him yelling “don’t tell me what I can’t do!” and the camera pulls back and for the first time, we see him in a wheelchair?!?!? When it turned out the Black Rock was AN OLD PIRATE SHIP and not a literal rock??? How glad we were to see Mira Furlan in the show, because she was so good in Babylon 5? How much we liked all the actors, even though we’d never seen most of them before? And holy shit, having to WAIT A WEEK between each episode? Spending a week talking about what happened, and what might happen???? Gah! Streaming has definitely changed things like that. In fact, I think that might have been before we had a DVR, so we even had to watch it when it was on, or miss it!
In this rewatch, I’ve found that I like most of the characters just as much as I did when we watched it originally. In fact, I actually like Shannon better than I did before. Maybe that’s seeing the actress in a couple of other things by now? I really liked her in Fear the Walking Dead; maybe it gave me a new appreciation for her acting. There are a couple of scenes with Shannon that ring a lot better. Boone, however, has not improved with time, and in looking up to see when he died, I was reminded that holy cow, this show has a BODY COUNT. Wowza. And remember how much we hated Ben, played by Michael Emerson? And then how long it took us to warm up to him in Person of Interest? I’ve been watching Evil since it came out, and he’s just as loveably hateful in that as he was in LOST.
And of course there are many actors from LOST that I like so much, I’ll watch shows with them in it even if they are bad shows. I stuck with Hawaii Five-Oh a lot longer than I should have, because of Jin and Hurley. Michael, even though he was relegated to running around the island screaming “WAAAAAAAAAAAAALT,” we’d already loved because of OZ. I’d watch him eat a bag of chips. Or run through the jungle screaming his son’s name at the top of his lungs, sigh. (he deserved better). Charlie, of course, we had loved as a Hobbit. So, so so disappointing when he died, even if he was able to tell Desmond it wasn’t Penny’s boat.
Also, remember when there were twenty-something episodes per season in a show, instead of eight???? Ugh. Times have not necessarily changed for the better.
Anyway, I’ve been reading quite a number of articles about LOST lately, and here are some things I don’t remember from later in the series —
- I don’t remember it being confirmed that the Smoke Monster and The Man in Black were the same person/entity
- I don’t remember most of the pre-crash deaths
- In fact, I don’t remember most of the deaths post Season Two
- That the moving through space and time was actual, literal; not just bullshit (in the LOST universe, not in Real Life)
- That the “flash-sideways” stories were Purgatory!Light; the place you go before you move on but after you die… but the Island wasn’t purgatory. Just the flash-sideways lives
- That the Man in Black took over Locke’s body in Season 5
- The polar bears were real, and breeding; not imagined into life by Walt’s comic book
Will I remember these things if I keep watching? Do I want to keep watching? I remember not liking the ending, but what if I just misunderstood the ending? For example, one thing I’ve been reading is that the mid/post credits fly-over of the plane wreckage, that we thought meant they’d been dead all along, was put in there not by the directors but by ABC as a way to say goodbye to the series. They had no idea of the twenty years of confusion it would cause.
Anyway, I guess I’ll keep watching. Maybe the ending will make more sense this time.
PS. You got a little Artz on ya.