If you commit, as I have done, to seeing an effort through until the end -- well, then, you ought to do it, even when it's not easy. In this case, when I committed to posting weekly forums for fellow fans to discuss Lost's final season, it was after a raucous and exciting two hour season premiere. This week's episode -- technically the third in the season -- put the "eh" in "meh."
Nonetheless, there is fanning to be done!
There is a discussion on Slate where two of the three people who volunteered to cover the last season of Lost are palpably hating the prospect of the next few months and the fact that they have to be nice to readers/fans; luckily, one of them is Jack Shafer so all that pain is schaadenfreudelicious. A disgruntled commenter on that site reported there are at least of couple of actually good weekly reviews of Lost out there, especially if you're geeky about it. Unfortunately, they won't fit in the introduction box of this diary so you will never see them. You'll just see this:
SPOILERS BELOW
Oh, wait, now that we're past the commercial break I'll completely contradict myself: you will see them after all.
(Did you see how I did that there? That there is one of the problems with Lost.)
If you want to go full geek on the series, check out the discussion at the Onion's AV Club or at the effusive Entertainment Weekly. But if you want to discuss it with your Kos Monster friends, you can do it right here. And again I say:
SPOILERS BELOW
Weak second-week episodes after impressive and exciting premieres are sort of a Lost tradition (as opposed, sadly, to a lost tradition), and this season is no exception. (Some people think that episodes focusing on Kate are also traditionally weak; I won't take that view here despite it's being inarguably true. Whoops!) The idea is that after the big premiere, they have to grab the storyline by the handles and send it winging down the ice -- or something -- to put us where they want us to be. In this case, where they want us to be is confused. That is, every indication that we saw of where we were and where we were going in the premiere ended up largely undercut. Well, I still like my theory from last week -- that the Island is a prison for the god Esau/not-Jacob/Set/Smoke Monster/UnLocke -- and that the castaways are going to have to band together and defeat his angry godness. But, of course, they did their best to stomp the juice out of that one, which to me is proof (PROOF!) that it must be true.
Here's what we know:
- Sawyer is insufferable and moody. Check. Got that one down looooong ago.
- Kate chases things and can't resisted mending little birds' broken wings.
- Sideways Claire is going to have to raise Aaron herself and Island Claire has been through the Rousseauvanator.
- Jack's role can actually be written in a way that makes him less insufferable.
- The Others (that is the barefoot others, led by the Japanese baseball fan Dogen) want to kill Sayid because he's been "claimed" and the "infection" is "spreading." Claire is way deep in her infection.
But wait right there for a moment. The Others are perfectly capable of killing Sayid if they want to, with, say, bullets. (Speaking of which, I thought that Sayid's deeply affronted and astonished "They tortured me!" gets "Line of the Show" honors, at least for people who aren't devoted enough fans to get the "I don't want to stick any needles in you" gag from Sideways Ethan.) So, why do they need to kill him with a poison pill? Do they think that no one would notice if, after giving him the questionable pill, Sayid died? It's stupid if taken at face value -- as everyone seems to be doing -- so my fearless bettin'-against-the-odds prediction is that the pill isn't poison, that they just wanted Jack not to take it because maybe it would hurt (i.e., be poison to) him but would have a positive effect on Sayid. Does this make any sense? Not really. But that's what the second episode of the season can be like -- pushing us down the road of being messed with by the authors.
Better things are in store for week three -- Locke is Back!