"Lost": Making It Hard to Hate It

I really want to hate “Lost”…

Executive Producers and co-creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are complete jerks. They constantly belittle other shows (especially “24” and “Heroes”) and they often belittle their fans for criticizing the complex mythology of their show…

I really want to hate “Lost.” But when Lindelof and Cuse give us a solid episode like last week’s two-hour season finale, it makes it really hard...

All of the promotion of the episode promised “a game-changer” of an ending. And boy, did we get it…

When Kate came out of that car in the final moments, I was so busy trying to figure out how she and Jack could have known each other before the crash and not remembered it, that I missed what was actually going on—until I started to process those last 35 minutes in my head. The “golden pass,” Jack’s maps, telling Kate they needed to go back—that’s when it all came together for me. This was not a look into Jack’s past, it was a look into Jack’s future after he and Kate were rescued from the island.

And as much as I hate to admit it, it was a really good twist…

Since I had already seen the ending, I tried to catch the possible clues I might have seen while watching the episode in its entirety. But I have to admit, I don’t think I would have caught them. I did make note of the newer cell phone when I saw it the first time, but I just thought that signaled a more recent flashback. And I didn’t give a second thought to Jack’s heavy beard…

If I was a bigger “Lost” fan, I may have caught that the name of the funeral home—Hoffs Drawlar—was an anagram for flash forward…

Plus, I have to admit that I fell for the red herring they planted by mentioning Jack’s father. Seeing it the second time around it was fairly clear that Jack was only raving incoherently (I think)…

Don’t be surprised if Matthew Fox doesn’t get a little Emmy love for this episode..

One of the things that really makes me want to hate “Lost” is that it’s so complicated. I hate shows where you have to surf the Internet for hours afterward to look at screen caps from the episode to see what’s going on. But there I was Thursday morning, giving myself a headache trying to read that mysterious newspaper clipping. Here’s what I was able to make out:

Los Angeles
Man found dead in a downtown loft
J-- --antham of New York…

Who is the dead person whose name begins with a J? The mind reels…

One person we know is dead is Charlie, who finally met his fate during the finale. My original reaction was one of confusion. I didn’t understand why Charlie had to die since he could have just run out and shut the door behind him. But then I remembered that Charlie believed he had to die in order for Claire and Aaron to survive, which made his death rather touching and heroic. And he managed to pose one more question before he died. Just who are the people coming to rescue the survivors?...

I’m so glad he had a waterproof pen handy to help him do it…

My theory is that the people that Jack called are not the ones who eventually rescue the survivors. I think this was just a taste of the future and the show will go back to the way it was.

But it was nice to see the show truly is going somewhere, although I’m sure all of those people with the purgatory/limbo theories were a little disappointed…

The real key, however, will be the season premiere in February (Yes, you have to wait that long.). I’ve always said that nothing ruins the buzz of a good cliffhanger better than a lousy resolution…

Stay tuned…