Dear Mr. K. Dilkington,

Since it’s been over a week since the series finale of Lost and I’ve had some time to mull it over I feel I can do a little write-up here. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am a huge fan of the show of course (greatest show ever), but not necessarily the show in and of itself, but what comes along with it. For the past 6 years I’ve probably spent as much time watching the show as discussing the plot, reading the blogs and the forums, coming up with theories and speculating with friends. To me the show was like a giant puzzle that the world was working on and if you found out someone liked Lost, you instantly were friends.

There were (sucks talking in past tense) really two types of people who watched Lost. There are those who were genuinely fascinated with the story, the possibility, the questions, the characters, and the journey – and those who just wanted ANSWERS and to know how it ended. I have to admit, when I first saw the pilot episode, all I wanted to know was what is this monster? I remember saying if they don’t show the monster in this episode I’m not going to continue watching. They didn’t show the monster. I kept watching. Not because I wanted to know what the monster was (although that was definitely one of the reasons), it was because the show sucked me in. The mysteries, the drama of the characters, the writing, the music, the themes, and the questions it brought about in my life regarding faith vs science, fate vs free will, etc.

I feel like somewhere around season 4, I started to get the feeling that the show would be less about say what IS the island, and what IS the monster, and more about what COULD it be? I got the feeling that it could go anywhere and there was never any set resolution in mind from the beginning. But I actually embraced that idea. What if the show was anything you wanted it to be?

From interviews I had read with Damon and Carlton it became obvious that they were pushing it solely as a character show, which to me that seemed to be a cop-out so they would never have to explain the mysteries. But should they have to explain all the mysteries? Let’s face it, they are writing a show to keep you interested week to week, so that their network can make money selling ads. It’s one giant tap-dance, and on top of that, if your ratings suck – you’re going to get cancelled and this certain mystery may never get resolved. Also, how can you plan a giant six-season story arc full of mythology in the beginning if you have no idea how long you’re going to be on the air? From a writer’s perspective, you have to be pretty flexible.

I really feel like if the show ended in Season 1, the finale would be we found out they all died in the plane crash and they were in Purgatory. Well, there’s a variable here. The show became popular and they needed to figure out what to do next. So you see towards the end of the first season other people show up on the island and there’s a hatch. More questions, more mysteries. Inside the hatch is a button. And a guy who presses a button every 108 minutes or the world ends. Then you see there actually is an outside world. And you see there is an ancient statue on the island. As time went on the world got bigger because the writers needed it to.

So people who diss the show because the writers “were making it up as they go along” really are pretty dense. Also the people who complain about the answers that we did get can’t have it both ways. I’ve been pretty satisfied with all the answers we have been given (well, with ONE major exception) – but I’m also incredibly satisifed with the open-endedness of the series finale because it still leaves the discussion open for a lot of the questions, which is what the show has been about all along. The writers did an amazing job with this series considering what they took on. The show got bigger and bigger every year and I’d continue to keep watching it for years just to see what it would transform into next. Unless it became like the X-Files last few seasons.

However, I am going to call the writers out though for several things.

But I guess on one hand them talking so much really did the job of managing fans’ expectations of what they would be getting in terms of the final seasons so maybe they really did know what they were doing.

Because going into the final few seasons and the finale with the mindset of it’s about the journey, it’s about the possibility rather than just the endpoint, I was incredibly satisfied and moved by The End. Just to see where we’ve come in six years is mind blowing. To see our characters reconnect in this seemingly pointless Sideways world really seemed to bring the show back down to Earth, while at the same time Jack is plugging in a hole of a magical cave filled with light and water to save the world. The finale was indeed epic like I had imagined years ago, and definitely lived up to my expectations. And it seems to me we may have been right all along about what the show really is about. The writers will say they had the end in mind from the beginning. By that, I believe they knew it would end with Jack’s eye closing. Did they know there would be a Man in Black who would become a monster and try to destroy this island and later this guy in a wheelchair would crash on a plane and be able to walk again and then eventually get off the island, and then get killed by this other dude who was part of these other native people on the island, then come back to the island in a coffin and then this Man in Black would take over his body? Not really. Does that matter? Not in the slightest.

I’m still processing the finale. I need to re-watch it as soon as possible (without the momentum-killing commercials), completely digest it, and then maybe I can write an update on general reactions to the finale as well as the series as a whole. I haven’t stopped thinking about it, and the more I think about it, the more I love it. I’m wondering if I still need this blog now that Lost is over? In the meantime, check out the pictures on the right-hand side to see the amazing Lost island cake Julie made for our finale party.

I wish all the episode titles were also titles of Weezer songs. What would be some other good ones? Only in Dreams? Say it Ain’t So? Island in the Sun!

Anyways, wow, I really can’t believe that most people didn’t like this episode. People are bashing this left and right on the boards and all the critics are as well. I actually really enjoyed it and thought it provided an amazing origin story to the characters Jacob and the man we’ve come to know as The Man in Black. We found out they are twins, which is by itself a cool revelation. Anyone remember Bad Twin? I wrote a short little review of it here.

My only disappointment is I believe this is the last mythologically-driven episode we’ll ever get because the writers believe we only need to get character resolutions. To me, after 6 years of questions about a Mystery Frickin’ Island, anything that tells us more about the history of the place is cooler than if a character who says 1 line per episode reunites with another character who says 1 line per episode. But that’s just me. I have several gripes with this season as a whole so far (too much time in the Temple, alternate timeline crap) but this episode was solid.

There is one piece that I think most people are missing about this episode, however. The Mother is in fact both the Protector and the Monster on the Island. She needed both Jacob and MIB to be her replacements.

She has obviously been there for a long time, and she never ages. She also seemed to have to die by the ancient dagger that was once provided to Richard as well as Sayid to kill the Monster. She had to have some powers to purge the other people that MIB went to live with, she couldn’t have killed all of them herself. She definitely had monster-like characteristics. She says “Thank You” when she dies, because she is finally free of her job and now her “adopted” sons can be her replacements. One good side to Protect the Source, and one evil dark side to be the security system or Monster that kills all the greedy, corrupt people seeking to use the Island’s power.

Since Jacob has been killed, I believe Jack will be his replacement and either Sawyer or Desmond will be Man in Black’s replacement. Why is Desmond in that well? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s so close to the light again. Perhaps this is the sacrifice he has to make.

It’s about time, right! Well, at least I made it in time for the Oscars. As you can see not many of my top movies were nominated for Oscars. For that, I am proud.

I’m also doing top 12 instead of top 10. Not that this was a particularly great year for movies, I just liked all of these on my list and don’t want to leave any out. Without further ado:

12. The Box – Richard Kelly (writer/director of Donnie Darko) takes on the short story of “Button, Button” which was also remade into a Twilight Zone episode. Super creepy and suspenseful.

11. The Brothers Bloom – Rian Johnson’s follow-up to “Brick.” Great acting, funny, captivating story that keeps you guessing.

10. Sugar – Character story about what it’s like moving through the baseball farm system.

9. Up in the Air – A lot better than Juno.

8. Invictus – Clint Eastwood does it again. Not sure why no one saw this movie. It makes me wish rugby was on TV here in America. Of course it’s about much more than rugby.

7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – The best Harry Potter movie yet. It’s also the best looking. Incredibly faithful to the book.

6. Adventureland – This year was a great year for comedies. Got one more coming up in the “top 12.” I worked at a place like this called FunTown one summer for three hours before I walked off.

5. District 9 – Actually nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. I think they are throwing them a bone and just including it as a token “sci-fi” picture, but it’s an incredible movie. It was made with a $30M budget but looks like it was $100+. It’s a sci-fi movie that actually makes you think, with themes such as racism, xenophobia, and the apartheid.

4. The Hurt Locker – Lived up to the hype. Tense, character story about a bomb squad in Iraq. It wasn’t politically-driven at all, it was just about the characters. Very moving.

3. I Love You, Man – Super funny, several LOL moments

2. (500) Days of Summer – Ever felt like a movie was made just for you? I think lots of people had this feeling with this movie. Me included.

1. Moon – Halfway through this movie I felt like I do sometimes when I think about Lost. It could go this way, or it could go this way… oh, “it’d be really cool if it was this”. It was made by a first-time filmmaker, and with the budget of James Cameron’s personal assistant on the set of Avatar. A must-see.

There ya have it. What do you guys think are the best movies of 2009?

“It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”

As I’ve said time and time again, I believe the season 3 episode, Flashes Before Your Eyes is one of the most important episodes of the series as a whole. At hour 57, it falls almost exactly midway through the entire series run, and the title is a reference to its purpose at a meta level. I believe in this episode the writers were giving us a glimpse as to the final end game of the series. I believe now in Season 6, what we are viewing as the “alternate” timeline is in fact the timeline that Desmond gets a peek into when he turns the failsafe key in Live Together, Die Alone. Perhaps he even creates the timeline when he turns the key. This sideways timeline is everyone’s life “flashing before their eyes” to see what it could have been. To see what they need to change. To see how everyone’s lives are to play out in order to bring on “the” end.

Immediately after turning the key, Desmond is thrust into the other timeline, back in 1996 where he starts to become aware of another life on the Island. He remembers the hatch. He runs into Charlie in the street and remembers him from the Island. This time Charlie isn’t on drugs. There are differences, much like in the Season 6 premiere “alternate” timeline. Oh and the title of that premiere episode? LA X (note the space.) In “Flashes,” Desmond begins to freak out as he becomes aware of the Island and goes to see his physicist friend, Donovan. Donovan is in the library talking to a colleague and says, “Your thesis is a bit neat. The wild card part which is unpredictability — run the same test 10 times — you’ll get 10 different outcomes.” Perhaps, LA X is the 10th iteration. This is the one that they will get right in order to bring on “the” end. The wild card is Desmond.

Back to LA X. I didn’t notice this myself, but saw a screencap online that on the LA X Oceanic flight, Desmond has on a wedding ring. In this timeline, he obviously hasn’t run into Hawking feeding him these lines as she does in “Flashes”:

This is wrong. You don’t buy the ring. You have second thoughts; you walk right out that door. So, come on, let’s have it…. Well, breaking her heart is, of course, what drives you in a few short years from now to enter that sailing race — to prove her father wrong — which brings you to the island where you spend the next 3 years of your life entering numbers into the computer until you are forced to turn that failsafe key. And if you don’t do those things, Desmond David Hume, every single one of us is dead.

In this timeline he keeps the ring and gets married to Penny, rather than throwing the ring into the Thames. Why? Because Widmore is never there to stop him from marrying his daughter.

Widmore never makes it off the Island because the explosion of the Jughead in the Incident caused the Island to sink and everyone to die. I’ve always found it strange how evil Widmore has been to Desmond, for really no reason at all. This has to be resolved. Does he know about the button in the Swan Hatch? I don’t think we can say for sure. But he must be aware of Desmond’s special power and his necessity in the end game. Perhaps he’s read his son, Daniel Faraday’s journal.

When Desmond wakes up from his flash, he sees the photo of him and Penny, and cries and pleads asking for another time to “make it right.”

Little does he know that he will be given another chance… all because he himself came to the Island. He pushes the button, he then fails to push the button on 9/22/04, crashing Oceanic 815, which brings new people to push the button as well as a doctor to save Ben, a few weeks later they don’t push the button, which makes the Island visible to the outside world, which brings Penny to the Island, as well as Widmore’s people / Naomi (note: this could have been Penny all along, however Season 4 is a result of Desmond saving Charlie that day in the woods during Catch-22), which leads Ben to eventually move the Island to protect it, which causes it to flash through time, which leads the Losties into 1977, which leads them to cause the Incident, which leads to a new TIMELINE.

Desmond is the key to his own happiness, his destiny, and perhaps the redemption of all the characters. So far in Season 6 we’ve seen Kate stay still, Locke be comfortable with his paralysis, and Jack resolve his daddy issues.

The only question is how will the timelines resolve in the show? I’m not sure how this will be shown, but I have faith that it will be cool. I think it has to involve Desmond, I would think.

Oh, and one more thing. We’ve never seen or heard about Desmond’s parents on the show. Doesn’t this seem strange to anyone else? Every other character has an extensive backstory and we have no idea about his family. In “Flashes” he mentions he had to “take care of his three brothers after his father…” and is abruptly cut off by Widmore. Very odd writing, if it isn’t supposed to mean something.