Archive for March, 2011

You may not like your path, Desmond, but pushing that button is the only truly great thing that you will ever do.

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

Pacôme, 35 — Paris (France) :

At that moment, I burst into tears. Those tears weren’t of joy or sorrow. Those were tears of gratitude because at that moment, Lost wasn’t talking about human will anymore, about how men end up getting what they want, about the necessity to fight for what seems right, as in so many fictions. Lost was speaking about the impossibility to think History in conditional terms — the show was always about that, and season 6 is a long meditation on the fact that everything that we do matters, that there’s no shortcuts, no do-overs, that “whatever happened happened”.
Lost was speaking about the impossibility to think the human will independently from the totality of the world, and thus the submission of the individual opinion to the Law — the Dharma Initiative-centered Seasons 2 and 5 tried in any way possible to play with this idea. Lost was implying the superiority of contemplation over action and the necessity to submit action to knowledge (from Locke’s Michelangelo monologue in season 1 to the “non-action” of Jacob in seasons 5/6, the submission of action to contemplation will be a constant in Lost).
So at that moment, I burst into tears, because I understood the need to accept everything I had gone through so far, independently from what I reckoned to be right or wrong, because it was impossible to keep on thinking otherwise. At that moment, I felt like Lost was speaking to me directly, and would never stop speaking to me. I didn’t doubt I would go from one wonder to another, and I had already the nostalgia of the moment that had just passed, because Lost would eventually stop, and each episode would bring me closer to the end. Before that moment, Lost was an excellent series that fascinated me. From that moment on, Lost became a destiny.

You don’t have a son, Jack.

Friday, March 4th, 2011

Tony, 24 — London (United Kingdom) :

Each episode of Lost gave an example of great storytelling, whether it had to do with the mythology or the characters. But as Lost ended, despite me not wanting to believe what the writers were telling us, I had to agree the only bit that mattered in this show was the characters and their relationships with one another. Through seeing flashbacks every week for six years, we all became invested with what these characters had been through. The finest example of all those tragic backgrounds was John Locke.
The ultimate contrast and the driving force of the show was Locke vs Jack, Faith vs Science. As a man of science myself, perhaps I should have felt cheated and angry, like many other viewers, with the religious ending to the show, but I honestly thought it was perfect. I felt one scene in particular resonated with me. At this point in the finale we could see that the characters that had died in the island-time were waking up and remembering their lives. Now although deep down I knew what was coming, especially concerning Jack’s fate – because, let’s face it, being the hero, he had to die – I, like Jack, didn’t want to let go.
What we need to do is go… Will you come with me?” John asks, to which Jack snaps back: “WE are not going anywhere.” The smile Locke then gives Jack was one of the saddest/happiest moments of the finale for me. He looked at him like it was the good old days, them disagreeing, a flashback to season one. Terry O’quinn, undoubtedly my favorite actor throughout the series, managed to display the sense of companionship and friendship Locke felt towards Jack. He was enjoying the fact they were still disagreeing even here, wherever here was. The fact that he wanted to go with Jack again was a really touching moment. And at the end of the scene, when Locke says “You don’t have a son, Jack“, I could see the signs that Jack himself knew this, that it was obvious he couldn’t deny what was happening for much longer, that he would remember and Lost WOULD end. This scene really sums Lost up for me.
At its best Lost was a story about love and friendship, about sacrifice and fate. I can understand some people NEED answers to every question but I don’t. I think what we all need to remember looking back on this show was what it was like to watch it at the time! The suspense and the not-knowing and theorising was the fun of it, but in “The End”, the characters’ stories needed to be concluded. True fans should be proud that the writers ended it on their terms and didn’t milk it for all it’s worth. No matter how much I want more, I hope they never make anything Lost related again. Then it will go down as one of the greatest television shows ever created.