Warning: This post contains spoilers for “LA X Part 1″ and LA X Part 2″!
Before I delve into the two part season premiere for the final season of Lost, a note. I’ve observed that it seems to be rather trendy lately to make a point of announcing, whenever Lost is brought up, how much one either dislikes the show or doesn’t care about it. Allow me to tell you how much I do not give a shit if you do not like Lost. Commentary of this sort serves no productive function, other than being purely annoying. Sort of how like it’s really kind of silly to go onto parenting sites and announce that babies are not cute, telling Lost fans that you do not like the show doesn’t really contribute in any meaningful way to the discussion1.
I don’t really care if you don’t like Lost or aren’t interested in it. Writing about Lost is a tiny percentage of the content on this site and you are welcome to simply not read what I have to say about it. This goes, in fact, for all of the things which I write about which don’t interest you. Something new does go up every day, after all, I’m sure you can find something more to your taste to read. In other words: I’d like to humbly invite all those with nothing to add to the conversation to zip it.
As for the Lost fans among my readers, let’s get down to business. If you have not seen “LA X Part 1″ or “LA X Part 2″ please stop reading now! I mean, unless you enjoy being spoiled. This is your final spoiler related warning.
I think that Sayid pretty much summed things up with the last line in the episode: “What happened?”
The bomb worked, but it also…didn’t? Our characters have been plunged into parallel worlds; one in which the plane landed in Los Angeles uneventfully, and one in which it did not. It’s currently unclear if any of the characters currently in Los Angeles are aware of what happened or not; there seem to be hints here and there, though.
I must say, this is kind of what I thought might occur when I first heard the name of the episode. I noted that there was a space in “LA X” and I thought “aha! There is a catch!” I mean, of course there’s a catch, it’s Lost. The mystery is how the catch will play out, and that’s what I was curious to see.
These episodes also felt like Old Home Week. We got to see a lot of old friends. It doesn’t seem practical to keep them in, so I am curious to see how they work this, and it’s fun to note that the show transitioned from a flashback format to a flashforward format to a parallel present format. Which may have been where things were leading all along with all the intense time looping and perhaps everything really is in the present and oh I think my brain just broke?
What’s definitely clear is that this season is going to reinforce the body/mind disconnect. We’ve got dead characters running around all over the place, parallel-Locke talking about how Jack’s father isn’t lost, just his body, and the spiritual aspects of life in the temple. I also like that they are kicking things right along; just in case anyone was in doubt, currently-on-island-Locke is the monster (Esau?), for example.
Some notes about this episode which made me uneasy:
It appears that the love quadrangle is back. We had painful bathos with the Juliet death scene followed by tender bathos with Kate sponging Sawyer’s forehead and Jack looking surly. I personally could have done without seeing, thinking about, or hearing from the love quadrangle ever again and I can’t say I’d be much happier to see a love triangle. So I’m hoping they did that as a nod to people who are into that sort of thing and will get back to the good stuff.
Locke. Wheelchair. People. Could it have been made any more obvious that being a wheelchair is the worst thing ever? Was it the agonizing transfer scene in the airplane? Perhaps currently-on-island-Locke informed Ben about just how miserable and pathetic Locke’s life was when he was using the chair? Or the prospect of a miracle cure in the final Locke-Jack scene? Take your pick. It was all pretty awful.
And there’s something that has simultaneously troubled and elated me about his characterization throughout the series. Locke didn’t let people tell him what to do, but that the same time, he was framed as a figure of pity and heartbreak. I am really curious to see where they go with this, because it could get very icky.
I think that the split realities we’re seeing in the premiere play into the larger good/evil theme over the course of the whole series. And I also think I agree with something I read somewhere and now can’t find (so if you find it please tell me so I can link it) which was discussing the idea that this season would show us the characters back in Los Angeles, but illustrate how unhappy and miserable they all were before they came to the island, and how even though they were all desperate to leave, it was the best place for them and perhaps they were even meant to be there. I think that was really heavily done with Locke in these episodes, of course, but it’s going to come up again and again, I bet.
So far, attempts to manipulate and change things have backfired, often pretty spectacularly. As the ladies of Feministe point out, the show has been getting more and more Biblical, and I think we’re going to be getting into some fate/determinism stuff here but quick.
- Now, if you want to have a conversation about problematic aspects of the show and how those contribute to your dislike of it, by all means, let’s have that conversation, because my liking of the show does not erase or excuse the fact that it is sometimes extremely problematic in nature. As I’ve discussed on numerous occasions, you can like something which has issues. You can also dislike something which has issues! Liking and not liking are a matter of personal taste and just as I don’t impose my taste on you, I ask that you not impose your taste on me. ↩