through the looking glass

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To spoil or not to spoil, that is the question?  Whether ’tis better to suffer the slings and arrows of plot and character unprepared, or to walk boldly into a fated outcome with head held high.

Okay, waxing a little dramatic on the season finale of LOST, but I think it’s warranted.  Unlike my beloved hubby (who was completely spoiler-free) I read each and every spoiler I could get my grubby paws on before the show.  And I still don’t know which of us was better off.   No, I wasn’t surprised by any of the twists and turns.  But I was also not, like Chris, feeling compelled to immediately rewind the tape and rewatch the thing to see what I missed the first time around.  In the end, it doesn’t really matter–we watch the show in fundamentally different ways.  Moving on.

So poor Charlie, unlike Boone, Shannon, Eko, Ana Lucia or Libby, chose to die.  Knowing that everything was playing out according to Desmond’s vision, and that if it continued to do so, Claire and Aaron would be rescued, he sealed the door and his fate.  Could he have survived?  Maybe–and that’s what made his death unique.  He passed up the chance of survival for what he felt was the surety of salvation for those he loved.  And not before passing on a warning to Des about the boat that wasn’t Penny’s.  Excellent, excellent acting job by Dom.  He managed to take an event we knew was coming for months and still make it compelling and heart-wrenching.  Monaghan and the writers played us like a $2 fiddle, and I for one enjoyed it immensely. 

Locke made it out of the Dharma Pit of Despair with a little help from a friend.  Of course, Walt looked older, and came with a mysterious to-do list that we never heard.  Anybody doubt that the bullet passed through where his kidney wasn’t-but-would’ve-been? 

Chalk one up for the contingent that believes revenge is not a dish served best cold.  It certainly seemed to have turned Sawyer’s stomach.   Anyone else notice that he’s now calling people by their right names?  Don’t breeze over that.  Sawyer is a Three, and it’s very significant to his character development.  Tawk amongst yourselves.

Hurley has completed the transformation he began when he first attempted to fire up the Dharma Beer Van of Doom.  He went from being the “useless one” that got sent back by the Others to tell the survivors not to come looking for their friends, to being a hero in his own right.  Listen to Jorge’s delivery: “I told you, man.  I saved them all.”  Hurley needed that.  He needed to know that he had power of his own, power to change the outcome of a bad situation.  For a Nine, that is the biggest lesson they’ll ever learn. 

And Jack… Jack is probably a post all by himself.  Jack did what Ones do: the right thing.  And as the flashbacks revealed, he got bit in the hindparts by the same thing that bites all right-doing Ones.  Sometimes you’re wrong about what’s right.  Sometimes all the empiricism and common sense in the world leads you to the wrong conclusion.  Sometimes you just screw up because there’s no way you could know you’re screwing up.  And we see what happens when Jack loses faith in his ability to judge the right thing.   It ain’t pretty. 

So where does the show go from here?  Well, after Flashes Before Your Eyes, we know that what’s been done in the past isn’t necessarily unchangeable.  The writers gave you a tremendous clue in “LOST: the answers” when they said “This show is all about these characters: who they were, who they are, and who they’re going to become.  By the end of the show, that will make up the story of LOST.” 

I for one am looking forward to three years of finding that out. 

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