Lost--Season 6 - Spoilers Abound!!!

[lucimay]

in fact, cag, fox has several extremely good acting moments in s5.
his decent into the black hole of his own misery was pretty good.
i think he plays nutcase pretty well.
a lot of the time travel stuff they were messin with was very
interesting to me on a psychological level. how would it actually
feel to be in that situation,with all the baggage you (the general you, or, in this case, jack) bring to the table.

inside jack's head there's a tiny little scottish man screaming
SHE'S BRRRREAKIN OOP CAPTAIN!!!!

anyway, i thought fox did an excellent job in that season.

and IIW, i agree.

[Cagliostro]

Claire was all blowed up in her home. Watch the scene again when they get her into the house after hers blew up - someone asks her if she is OK and she says, "I'm a bit woozy, but I'll live." Then Miles, the Ghostbuster, says something like, "I wouldn't be too sure of that." Pretty telling.

I never bought that explanation. First off, only Miles would have heard her if she were dead, right? Second, I thought Miles comment had more to do with the mayhem going on around them.

Now, if someone can explain how dead Claire could carry Aaron, and why Miles tells no one that she's not alive, maybe I'd buy into it.

I assumed, since she was hanging out with Loophole (in Christian's guise), that she would wind up with the others. Now I'm not so sure. I just can't figure how Claire (and Aaron) fit into anyone's plans, yet Loophole apparently lured her away from Sawyer and the rest for a reason.

As for Miles not telling anyone that she's dead...he frequently tells nobody things, such as the scene with Charlotte when he says something about finding what she is looking for (the island), and she says, "What do you mean?" Miles then says, "Hmm...what do I mean?" He keeps things pretty tight to his chest, and pretty much only says things as needed. Like just about everyone else on the island, fer chrissake (something that has frequently annoyed me about the show).

As for Claire carrying Aaron - well, there is a history of dead or non-existent beings interacting with the characters. Christian Shephard for starters, Dave throwing a coconut at Hurley as another example.

And besides, I found it hard to accept that we were supposed to believe that she was in a house that frikkin' blew up with her inside it and she comes out simply feeling a little woozy. I was thinking the Lost writers were taking a few liberties too many until I heard what Miles said and put it together. Seriously, it feels like a given to me that this is the right answer.

But ultimately, what a lame death, so I hope I am wrong. Especially since she is the one who is "supposed" to raise Aaron. It's one of several lame deaths in season 4 (such as Rousseau, who I always wanted to see more of). I think the damn writers strike was what mucked up some of that storytelling. However, from what the creators are saying, we'll see more of Claire this next season, so I'm sure they are going to answer what happened.

[ItisWritten]

Seriously, it feels like a given to me that this is the right answer.

Perhaps the lameness of that death causes me to deny it. I did the same when Rousseau was shot ... until they found the bodies.

One more point against ... in the scene in the cabin after Claire disappeared from Sawyer, Claire and Christian were there when Locke got there. Now I believe this would be the first and only time 2 dead people have been seen at the same time. We've only seen (so far, of course) Loophole/smoky/the island appear as dead people.

Maybe the exception proves something to some, but not to me. I may be going crazy waiting for the answers.

[I'm Murrin]

A wizard did it.

[Zarathustra]

Well I've been a faithful fan of LOST since the first episode and while other friends and family have given up on the show over time I'm very glad I stuck it out. Actually my interest in the show has never diminished that I can recall.

Me too. I only missed one episode when it originally aired (and I just got a DVR for the first time a few weeks ago).

I felt that season 2 lost its way a bit, when I first saw it, but knowing where it goes now, I like S2 much better when rewatching it. Other than that, only the Kate episodes have been less than excellent. I can't stand Kate.

I want to know exactly why all of these characters are special, why they were chosen, how they are interconnected. By all rights there shouldn't have been any survivors of the original air crash. You don't experience a plane splitting in two, thousands of feet in the air, and live to tell about.

I think the crash is explained by the island and Desmond, and the connections are explained by time travel. These people are linked beause of what happens to them, rather than the other way around (i.e. this happening to them because they're linked). I know that they have connections that go back before the plane crash, but that paradox doesn't bother me at this point, now that we know definitively that we're dealing with time travel.

Don't forget there's a "god-like" figure who has been guiding these people at crucial moments since childhood. That wild card could be the final ". . . and then a miracle happened" explanation that gets the writers out of any plot holes they've created.

Hurley winning the freakin' lottery with the hatch numbers seems the most implausible thing to me. They show up everywhere. Time travel can explain some of it; for instance, maybe the guy who kept repeating the numbers in the mental institution was from the future. But it's still incredible that those exact numbers were also the hatch numbers. I suppose that someone from the future could have made sure the people in the 70s used that number. But that doesn't explain Hurley's odometer, or the cheerleaders in the airport, or the dozens of other examples.

Luci, you joined at the perfect time! You got to see almost the entire show without waiting (believe me, it was painful sometimes, especially during the writing strike), and now you get the waiting/suspense of the final season. Best of both worlds.

in fact, cag, fox has several extremely good acting moments in s5. his decent into the black hole of his own misery was pretty good.

I agree. His scene with Locke in the hospital, after Locke's crash, is amazing. That's the moment where he changes his mind and finally starts believing Locke--a moment that has been building since the beginning. That was a major character arc milestone, and he nailed it.

[lucimay]

I can't stand Kate.

omg i thought it was just me!!! i kept trying to like her. i mean she has some good qualities. i dig the girl badass-ness she displays sometimes and she is awful pretty, but... jebus h. make yer feckin MIND up woman about which of those men you want. i mean REALLY.
methinks the only person kate really loves is kate.

liked juliet much better.

and speaking of juliet...and time travel, etc.

okay so...wtf? so, she goes to the island 3 yrs before the plane crash right? prior to that she had no knowledge of the island or anyone connected to the island, right?

well then, she can't die in 1977 during the incident, can she? else she wouldn't be alive to come to the island in what...2001? (i suddenly feel like hurley, trying to figure it all out! )
it was 1977 right? when they stopped shifting and landed in the DI, that was 1974 right? when jack and co arrive at the DI, it's been 3 yrs right?
(i r become bumfuzzled a lil bit)
because she'd've known, right? she'd've known about the island when she came to it if, during the incident she lived and was transported back to her own time line, right?




oh...also, about walt and his place in the story. i think that was just some sloppy work on the part of the writers myself. they're never gonna explain that whole walt thing, his "specialness" etc. mark my word, they're just gonna leave him and michael out of the entire season six.

[sindatur]

On Juliet, if she dies, it's not an issue as the Hurley/Miles debate showed us. Juliet died in 1977, but, after she had lived her life up until the time travelling. 1977 Juliet would still be alive, it's present day Juliet who died in the past. If 1977 Juliet died as a child, then we would have an issue (This is of course assuming Juliet actually dies during the incident, and doesn't pull a Desmond when he blew up in the Swan Station destruction)

[Zarathustra]

Yeah, the Hurley/Miles conversation is the writers' attempt to talk "directly" to the audience about these very issues. Since there are *two* Juliets in 1977, the older one can die while the younger one goes on to experience the events of 2001-2004.

omg i thought it was just me!!! i kept trying to like her. i mean she has some good qualities. i dig the girl badass-ness she displays sometimes and she is awful pretty, but... jebus h. make yer feckin MIND up woman about which of those men you want. i mean REALLY.

Ki had the same reaction. So did her (very liberal) best friend. Kate on paper might look like a pro-active feminist role model, but in a story she's an indecisive, emotionally crippled fugitive. Maybe that was the point--to make her conflicted--but her emotional weakness makes her "tough girl" exterior more fake than complicated. I'm still waiting to see some strength from her. She hasn't had her "moment" yet. Everything she does is defined by fear.

I think Walt will get an explanation. I think it was one of the foundational mysteries.

[lucimay]

On Juliet, if she dies, it's not an issue as the Hurley/Miles debate showed us. Juliet died in 1977, but, after she had lived her life up until the time travelling. 1977 Juliet would still be alive, it's present day Juliet who died in the past. If 1977 Juliet died as a child, then we would have an issue (This is of course assuming Juliet actually dies during the incident, and doesn't pull a Desmond when he blew up in the Swan Station destruction)

Yeah, the Hurley/Miles conversation is the writers' attempt to talk "directly" to the audience about these very issues. Since there are *two* Juliets in 1977, the older one can die while the younger one goes on to experience the events of 2001-2004

OH! two juliets. got it. gotcha. sorta
so 1977 juliet could feasibly go visit her younger 2001 self? [insert eye-crossing emo here]

omg i thought it was just me!!! i kept trying to like her. i mean she has some good qualities. i dig the girl badass-ness she displays sometimes and she is awful pretty, but... jebus h. make yer feckin MIND up woman about which of those men you want. i mean REALLY.

Ki had the same reaction. So did her (very liberal) best friend. Kate on paper might look like a pro-active feminist role model, but in a story she's an indecisive, emotionally crippled fugitive. Maybe that was the point--to make her conflicted--but her emotional weakness makes her "tough girl" exterior more fake than complicated. I'm still waiting to see some strength from her. She hasn't had her "moment" yet. Everything she does is defined by fear.

god, i NEVER saw her as any kind of pro-active feminist role model!!
not even slightly for a second!
umhm. agree totally. she's completely motivated by fear. which, of course, would explain her vascillating on the men. jack *looks* like
he could be capable of getting them off the island (and he's kinda cute)
so she goes for that cause she's afraid, but then her ornery, rebellious self finds a semi-kindred spirit in sawyer (and he's effin HOT) so she goes for that, but not for LONG cause she is totally afraid of him cause HE'S the real thing where as SHE is NOT so she becomes afraid of him and flips back to mr. safetynet jack!! ugh. i hate her. i'm so glad sawyer bonked juliet!! he looked soooo cute in his glasses!!!!
(besides, i actually think sawyer has the better ethics btwn he and jack)

I think Walt will get an explanation. I think it was one of the foundational mysteries.

do ya now! foundational mysteries? do you mean you think there was an idea in the beginning of the series that had to do with walt that will pan out in the end? cause if so they sure as shit left it till the last possible moment to play it out!!!

[sindatur]

OH! two juliets. got it. gotcha. sorta
so 1977 juliet could feasibly go visit her younger 2001 self? [insert eye-crossing emo here]

LOL, nah, 1977 is the younger Juliet, so feasibly 2004 Juliet could visit her younger 1977 self, but, I don't recall if we have found out if there are consequences of two of the same person from different times interacting with themselves in the LOST Universe (In some time travel stories, there are catastrophic consequences from coming in contact with another time version of yourself)

[Ki]

Luci--Zarathustra told me you had discovered Lost so I thought I'd read what you'd been saying. How cool to read your take on Kate. I mean, I want to like her, but I agree with you.. her indecisiveness irks me. It would be cooler for her character if she were using them for her own benefit. Her bad girl image is a cop out. I think Juliet is more of a badass than Kate is. Though Kate does do tomboy things but there's nothing badass about climbing a tree (alright, I can't do it and if I could that would be totally badass) but she's supposed to be a killer. But she's a "I'm a victim" killer. But maybe Evangeline Lilly just isn't that great of an actress. (I read an article once in which she said when she was younger she would cry about how pretty she was...oh boo freakin hoo....maybe that's why I don't like Kate).

So, now I'm curious....how do you think Sawyer is better ethically than Jack? This will be fun to talk about with you!

[I'm Murrin]

They set up Kate with a certain image in the first series, with the episode where she used a group of bank robbers to get her airplane out of a safe deposit and then shot them, but after those few bits in season one I think they left that image of Kate behind and went in a different direction - which has resulted in her turning into a fairly uninteresting character.

But I find all three of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer pretty annoying through most of the show.

[Zarathustra]

god, i NEVER saw her as any kind of pro-active feminist role model!!
not even slightly for a second!

Well, yeah me neither. I just meant that she isn't presented as subservient to men, like for instance, Sun. The poor woman felt like unbuttoning one button on her shirt was an act of liberation in the 1st season. And Kate is presented as an equal to men in typical "male" activities like tracking, shooting guns, cons, etc. (not that I think they are male activities, just that they are presented this way).

[lucimay]

Luci--Zarathustra told me you had discovered Lost so I thought I'd read what you'd been saying. How cool to read your take on Kate. I mean, I want to like her, but I agree with you.. her indecisiveness irks me. It would be cooler for her character if she were using them for her own benefit. Her bad girl image is a cop out. I think Juliet is more of a badass than Kate is. Though Kate does do tomboy things but there's nothing badass about climbing a tree (alright, I can't do it and if I could that would be totally badass) but she's supposed to be a killer. But she's a "I'm a victim" killer. But maybe Evangeline Lilly just isn't that great of an actress. (I read an article once in which she said when she was younger she would cry about how pretty she was...oh boo freakin hoo....maybe that's why I don't like Kate).

So, now I'm curious....how do you think Sawyer is better ethically than Jack? This will be fun to talk about with you!

everything jack does is to get jack off the island or to resolve some problem for jack. his ego is all tied up in his abilities as a doctor so even when he's being doctor jack, it's all about HIM, that whole "fixing" things thing. even and especially the whole deal with him coming clean to the hospital board about his dad's being drunk in the surgery. he ruined his dad's career because he HAD to be right. he had to be "better" than his dad. if we could've seen jack as being tortured about the damage drunk dad could've done to patients that would have led us to believe that jack was thinking about someone other than himself, instead we saw a battle for dominance between jack and his father and jack having to prove that he was right, that he "had what it takes." it was all about jack and his ego.
nothing to do with ethics at all. not even an iota. he was driven to prove (to himself) that he had what it takes. but he doesn't. he's too self-centered.

whereas sawyer has show himself, several times, to possess a conscience and ethics.
the first time we saw a major selfless act from sawyer (or at least its the first time i can remember and certainly a defining act) was when he told jack about meeting christian in the bar. that thing right there is something jack would NEVER have done. selflessly giving someone a gift like that bit of knowledge. sawyer told jack that his father thought he was a better doctor than he was, that his father loved him and believed in him.
we should have seen a major shift in jack's actions and motivations at that point but we didn't. instead he got worse.
and i disagreed with sawyer's baby's mommy (can't remember her name but i love that actress, see her in a movie called Zero Effect, great movie) ANYway...i disagreed with her about sawyer's motivation for jumping out of the chopper. i think he *was* trying to give kate and the others the best shot at making it off the island when he jumped. i don't think he was running away from kate. and he'd already said, by that time i think, that he DIDN'T want to get off the island, which in essence was saying that he didn't want to be the man he'd become, that he was tired of being sawyer. he wanted to be james. and that played out when he was shifted to 1974 and the DI.

i just think that, ethically speaking, sawyer is the better man than jack.
he shows more selfless concern for others.
jack is willing to risk blowing everyone to kingdom come just on the OFF chance that it will "reset" everything and he can go back to life before the crash of 815. he wants all those deaths off HIS conscience. it's all about him, not anything to do with anyone else.

god, i NEVER saw her as any kind of pro-active feminist role model!!
not even slightly for a second!

Well, yeah me neither. I just meant that she isn't presented as subservient to men, like for instance, Sun. The poor woman felt like unbuttoning one button on her shirt was an act of liberation in the 1st season. And Kate is presented as an equal to men in typical "male" activities like tracking, shooting guns, cons, etc. (not that I think they are male activities, just that they are presented this way).

yeah i don't consider showing women as being capable of "typical male activities" is showing them as equal to men anyway. being able to shoot a gun or lift 50 pounds does not make men and women "equal." men and women are different. they have differing capacities. society has given them different roles according to their abilities (physical as well as emotional) and then society has put a value on those abilities and determined that having one ability is, in some way, better than having another. the fact of the matter is that women can do some things better than men and men can do some things better than women. we're equipped differently. acceptance of differences is more "equalizing" in my view. divide and conquer. each to his/her own abilities. so...with that in mind, i agree whole-heartedly that juliet is the better badass than kate. kate is no role model for ANYone, man or woman, just as jack has less ethics than sawyer. in fact, kate and jack are freakin peas in a pod if you ask me!!

They set up Kate with a certain image in the first series, with the episode where she used a group of bank robbers to get her airplane out of a safe deposit and then shot them, but after those few bits in season one I think they left that image of Kate behind and went in a different direction - which has resulted in her turning into a fairly uninteresting character.

But I find all three of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer pretty annoying through most of the show.

yeah, before we found out what kate had done i was thinking that she was probably some sort of victim of some kind of frame, that she hadn't done whatever it was she was accused of, that we'd find out that she was taking the rap for someone else or something. OR that the federal agent was correct about her, that she was very dangerous and some sort of sociopath or something. a "bad guy." one or the other. instead the writers muddied the waters in an attempt to make her emotionally complex. it didn't work. she's not believable as either a victim or a heroine.

[Cagliostro]

jack is willing to risk blowing everyone to kingdom come just on the OFF chance that it will "reset" everything and he can go back to life before the crash of 815. he wants all those deaths off HIS conscience. it's all about him, not anything to do with anyone else.

First off, nice analysis. I never thought too much about Kate as I find her kinda fun to watch (and I'm not speaking from an attraction as that has well died off by now), but you are totally right about her. I think I've dated a Kate as well (though she never killed anybody).

Jack has been annoying me for some time though, and I agree with what you say as well. And from what I quoted above, I took his desire to reset everything as he had blown his chance with Kate and wants a chance to clean it all up and try again, erasing his childish jealousy and drinking incidents.
I still haven't forgiven him for pulling the trigger on Locke (even though the gun didn't go off) in Season 4.

[lucimay]

jack is willing to risk blowing everyone to kingdom come just on the OFF chance that it will "reset" everything and he can go back to life before the crash of 815. he wants all those deaths off HIS conscience. it's all about him, not anything to do with anyone else.

First off, nice analysis. I never thought too much about Kate as I find her kinda fun to watch (and I'm not speaking from an attraction as that has well died off by now), but you are totally right about her. I think I've dated a Kate as well (though she never killed anybody).

Jack has been annoying me for some time though, and I agree with what you say as well. And from what I quoted above, I took his desire to reset everything as he had blown his chance with Kate and wants a chance to clean it all up and try again, erasing his childish jealousy and drinking incidents.
I still haven't forgiven him for pulling the trigger on Locke (even though the gun didn't go off) in Season 4.

yeah exactly on the locke incident.

and, for what it's worth, i think it's been Fox and how he plays the character that's made jack an interesting character to watch and discuss.
he's done a good job of...hmmm i don't know what to call this...
the writers of the show, along the way, were obviously flipping back and forth on this character and making up shit as they went along in an attempt to progress the storyline and leave jack as open as possible to whatever they came up with down the road...or maybe not "obviously" but it certainly appeared that way to me, and i think Fox really handled that very well.
when all the time shifting began and we had to watch jack's decent into stuporous confusion...man, some of fox's stuff was soooo good.

i think i've said this before but it put me in mind of the film Primer which had also to do with the psychological effects of time shifting. there was one episode in particular and now i can't figure out which one nor whether it was in season 4 or season 5 (i've been watching it on hulu and hulu doesn't post all of season 5 so i've had to watch the first part of seaon 5 on graboid and graboid doesn't give episode summaries so i can't figure out which episode it was) in which jack has grown his beard out and is starting to get *really* mentally unhinged, i'd guess it's probably the episode where he's gettin ready to jump off the bridge but i don't know for sure, but my god his acting was freakin brilliant.
it made me really think about the kind of psychological effects that the crash of 815 and all the subsequent time travel stuff would have on a person, how horrifyingly confusing everything would be, especially if a person was having seriously dibilitating emotional issues like jack and locke.

and speaking of locke, man, the guy just COULDN'T catch a break, could he? O'Quinn's work with this character was brilliant. it's just too bad that the writers didn't give him more "moments of clarity" and a few less tragic ones. i freakin loved that shot of john sitting in his wheelchair waving, from across the street, at walt. i love o'quinn's face. he's so expressive. you can see all the emotions he's having even when not being spoon fed by the script. same with jack in those bearded episodes.
everything there on their faces and in their eyes.
thats good acting folks.

anyhow, i'm blathering.

i truly never expected to like this show as much as i do. warts and all!

[I'm Murrin]

The ep where Jack had a full beard, was drunk, hopping on planes every night, and almost jumped off the bridge, was either the s3 season closer (the first ever flash forward) or early s4. If that's the one you meant.

[lucimay]

very well could have been, murrin. its all sort of a blur to me now as i watched it from beginning to endo of season 5 every night after wow, usually 2or 3 episodes a night, until i was caught up.

i remember after watching the episode looking up which it was that i was watching so i could remember but...obviously that didn't work. it didn't stick in my head.

no doubt i'll watch it all again eventually.

[Orlion]

Just caught up (on watching Lost, that is!). Seems like most of the discussion here is about Kate... whom I never really disliked, I think I only found Shannon and Claire to be truly annoying. I'm also hoping that Juliet wasn't vaporized, but if she is...well, I always have 'V' I think there's hope, though, since Richard said 'thirty years in the future' that he saw all those people die (Jack, Jin, Sawyer, Hurley, etc), and he wasn't around the Swan at the time (that we know of, anyway)... unless he was talking about seeing a big mushroom cloud in the distance...which is more likely...damn!

[lucimay]

ironically, i liked shannon (tho youre right, claire bugged me too, i just didn't wanna get into a bitchfest about stupid clair and charlie, heh)

and i was really diggin where shannon's storyline was goin. could totally see how and why she became so...broken inside. the more they gave her to acually do in the show besides argue with boone, the better she got at it i think. altho i wasn't keen on she and mr. doe eyes all that much.

pft. i thought that was soooo predictable that sayid jarrah would get a kick in the face from some woman. i wanted to kick him several times myself.

who was it said that they thought romeo and juliet (bones in cave) were rose and whatshisbutt?
hadn't thought that but now that its brought up, that would be kinda cool.
puts me in mind of a king crimson song...

you have to be happy with what you have to be happy with