SCC and Lost
May. 18th, 2009 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe Aged Parents, being their kind selves, did not just bring themselves, they also brought me the Lost finale, which means a review. Also, the Warsaw situation (i.e. being in a hotel with wi fi) means I could depress myself by discovering The Sarah Connor Chronicles got cancelled. This is awful - the smartest and best show in the last two years, save none - with the only consolation being that the s2 finale was written in the way it was. I really hope someone will write a complete virtual season, the way they exist for Doctor Who, for example. Oh, Sarah, Cameron, John C. and John H., James Ellison, Catherine and Savannah Weaver, I shall miss you desperately. And no, the prospect of a new Terminator movie this year is no consolation. They lost me already when the producer said in an interview that none of the production staff watched SCC or paid attention to what the series was doing on tv. What do I care movie continuity then? The show is where my heart was.
This kind of fannish mood might colour my Lost review. On the other hand, I'm enjoying my Poland trip so much that I think the fact I thought this season finale wasn't up to the the ones of the last two seasons (and indeed not up to this season as a whole) wouldn't have changed even if the first news I found online would have been "SCC renewed for next five years". Doesn't mean there weren't elements I liked, and elements that make me very speculative indeed, or that I'm not urgently awaiting the sixth and last season, but overall, this strong season ended on a whimper.
In case you're wondering, what I think made this finale weak instead of strong wasn't the fact we're once more in uncertainty about what status is true for Locke; I'll get to this in a while, so briefly for now, this worked for me and was a good set up for the last season. No, the big problem was the way in which the 1977 part of the show was resolved. (And also that about two thirds of the finale were about them when more Locke-plus-one/Ben/Richard scenes and less quadrangle would have been a better choice, but that's the least of it.) Now, I always thought the Jack/Kate/Sawyer triangle was easily the dullest part of Lost, but this season, when at first one could fear we'd be in for a Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Juliet quadrangle, this for the entire season EXCEPT for the finale turned out to be not true in the sense I had been afraid. We didn't get endless subplots about the lovelives of these four, and nobody behaved childishly.
Alas.
Come the finale, the stupid virus of dull triangles past infects just about everyone except Sawyer (and who'd have thought he'd be the only sensible part of the group?). The only scene relating to this I really liked and enjoyed was Sawyer taking Jack for a time out in the jungle, sitting him down and point blank asking him why exactly Jack wants to retcon everyone's lives (and not buying Jack's initial "saves lives"/"err, Locke told me I have a destiny and I finally believe him?" reasons, but not declining them in an assholish way as would have happened in s1). It built on the understanding that had grown between them through the show. And given Jack's characterisation, I can totally buy that he'd be screwed up and selfish enough to conclude that as he screwed up his happily ever after with Kate after the return from the island, the thing to do wasn't, as an exasparated Sawyer suggests, simply talk with Kate, no, Jack would rather have the last three years back and never have met Kate to begin with (and Kate in handcuffs). (His flashback with Christian fits with this as well, but I'll get to this once I discuss Jacob.)
BUT OH SHOW, WHY MUST YOU LET JULIET SUCCUMB TO THE SAME TYPE OF IDIOTIC BEHAVIOUR?
I mean, seriously. There was no set-up for this, either. Yes, Juliet was observing Kate and Sawyer now and then these last episodes, but Sawyer never flirted with Kate, Kate never flirted with Sawyer, with the exception of not telling Juliet immediately that Jack, Kate and Hurley were back Sawyer never did anything wrong in his relationship with Juliet. So for Juliet all of a sudden go "zomg, you are so going to leave me for her sooner or later, I don't want that pain, I'd rather make the last three years not happen so I never know you and fall in love with you", i.e. the exact same emotional reason Jack has, comes out of nowhere. And makes her look incredibly stupid like nothing except her attack of "Jack, save me from Ben, I feel so helpless against his evil!" in The Other Woman did. It's infuriatingly sloppy writing, character succumbing to plot - Sawyer clearly wasn't going to be swayed by Jack, Juliet, if still against Jack, would find a way to incapacitate him and take the bomb from him, so they needed Juliet to come around to Team Jack and gave her this lame excuse. Head. Desk. At least Kate, whose sudden turnaround felt almost as unbelievable, got given "this way you will reunite Claire and Aaron and if Claire does give him up for adoption, it will be her choice" as a motivation, which as excuses go is a bit better.
The only one not succumbing to general idiocy in 1977 was Miles, who got the best line in the episode, too, by pointing out that Jack might very well trigger everything with his behaviour. Though the show put a question mark on this by letting the incident start before Jack arrives, but I still think it's true. Bomb + accessed magnetic field = The Incident. I also stand by my old claim that this will catapult everyone currently not belonging into 1977 in the present, and we'll start season 6 by finding them there. But not all together, so we can be a bit uncertain who survived until the s6 opening episode cliffhanger, because this is how this show rolls. Current guesses: neither Sayid nor Juliet are dead, and the explosive time travel will in fact heal them. I'm more sure in the case of Sayid then of Juliet, but I still rate her survival chances about 70 %. (Sayid's are 99%; the show is not going to get rid of Naveen Andrews.)
Meanwhile, in other time zones: of course, the big question is whom Jacob was talking to in the opening scene, and again via Locke in the next to closing scene. Let's call him - or maybe I should write "him" because I think the gender is by no means certain - X. Given Illana's "someone else has been using this cabin for a long time" observation and her reaction to the broken circle of ashes, I think two earlier speculations just became a bit more substantial:
- Christian Shephard, post-mortem, was in fact NOT speaking on Jacob's behalf; as for the other deceased people showing up to various Castaways plus Ben (i.e. his mother and Alex), some of them might be connected to Jacob but my current guess is they weren't
- they were, however, connected to the island, and not via Jacob.
The argument between Jacob and X - X says Jacob keeps bringing humans to the island and it always ends the same way, they fight and kill each other, Jacob says that's the price you pay for progress and if one day it ends differently, it will all have been worth it - could work as either an argument between Jacob and another entity who like Jacob lives on the island, or between Jacob and the island; in either case, the circle of ash wasn't designed to keep something in, but to keep something away; current guesses are Smokey who might or might not be identical with X, and/or X if X isn't identical with the smoke monster and/or the island itself.
Another current theory, if X isn't something/someone created by the island: at some point in Egyptian history, Jacob and X, both at this point human, end up on the island; maybe they're even sent there. They're supposed to be guardians and each other's check and balance, so neither gets too powerful (this is later echoed by Richard's status as consiglieri and kingmaker to whoever becomes leader), and there is something given to them that ensures they cannot kill each other; they also end up in a state where they can channel the forces of the island through themselves. But something happens that ensures Jacob gains supremacy. Presumably the fact he keeps bringing humans to the island who worship him as the man in charge whose orders the current leader has to obey helps. Perhaps Jacob even manages to, not to kill, but de-coporeolize X, reducing X to the island's security system, the smoke monster. Through the milennnia, X becomes very very pissed off at Jacob indeed. And then X gets his/her chance via Locke and Ben. Why them, and not any of the other humans who were on the island before and after? If it was just a dead body X needed for the "loophole", what was wrong with Christian Shephard's, whom X apparantly inhabits without a problem? If it's that the dead-person-walking avatar cannot kill Jacob through his own hands, Locke still wouldn't have been necessary; Alex could have been used to hand over "kill Jacob" instructions to Ben directly. Perhaps because a) both Locke and Ben were at different points healed via the island, and maybe that ensures Jacob wouldn't have been able to kill them, and because b) Locke had agreed to his death (not at this particular moment, but he had been ready to die for the island from the moment Richard told him, and Christian enforced the message) and Ben had come back against Jacobian instructions and had submitted itself to judgment not by Jacob, but by "the monster". Which meant X could finally make his/her/its move through them.
Which brings me to the question Sun asks. (Incidentally, I knew Locke's body was in the cargo box the moment Illana showed it to Frank.) I don't think it's as simple as "Dead Locke is the genuine article, and Walking-Around-Locke is X". There is a difference between Walking-Around-Locke and Christian (or any of the dead people Hurley talks to on a regular basis). Dead!Christian Shephard, as far as I can recall, never touched anyone, and thus obeyed genre rules for apparitions and ghosts. Walking-around-Locke, on the other hand, ate, drank, and touched a plenty. (He also evidently had no problem killing a boar, even if he couldn't touch Jacob until after Ben had used the knife on him.) There were also several very personal "Lockian" statements I don't think X would have made, such as "actually, I was just hoping for an apology" to Ben in "Dead is Dead" or his question about why Ben did what he did in Jacob's cabin in "The Man behind the Curtain". On the other hand, the person who says "you have no idea what I went through to get here" to Jacob clearly isn't John Locke, but X. So, current state of speculation: With Christian - or Alex, or any other the other dead 'uns - X is impersonating and/or (in the case of Christian, whose body is still missing) inhabiting completely; while he/she adopts speech mannerisms, etc., it's X, not the dead person. With Locke, it's a mixture, either in an amalgan or in a taking-turns manner, and the difference is because, in a manner of speaking, Locke had given himself over to the island before his death, which allows something of the core personality (or the soul, if you want to talk more metaphysical) to survive.
What I have no idea about: whether Richard is aware of X as Jacob's nemesis. If he is, I predict a possible season 6 opening scene, set in 2008 but playing out just before in 1977, Juliet finally succeeds in triggering the bomb, will be Richard, Illana & Co. bursting into Jacob's beneath-the-foot-of-the-statue lair carrying not so metaphorical torches and crying foul, or rather, "Fiend! You're not Locke, you're X!".
What I'm certain about: season 6 will not start by declaring Jack & Juliet succeeded and everyone lands in Los Angeles safely. Which isn't to say they might not have affected some changes. Jacob seemed awfully invested in getting the O6 on the island; maybe that literal blast from the past will get him out of the flames of the present and/or drive X to lose hold on its current shape, in which case Locke's dead body, just now conveniently nearby, might stun everyone again by becoming reanimated once more (after a Locke's mind/X separation).
What I really really hope for: a fast forward button if the s6 opener has such romantic characterisation stupidity as the s5 finale.
This kind of fannish mood might colour my Lost review. On the other hand, I'm enjoying my Poland trip so much that I think the fact I thought this season finale wasn't up to the the ones of the last two seasons (and indeed not up to this season as a whole) wouldn't have changed even if the first news I found online would have been "SCC renewed for next five years". Doesn't mean there weren't elements I liked, and elements that make me very speculative indeed, or that I'm not urgently awaiting the sixth and last season, but overall, this strong season ended on a whimper.
In case you're wondering, what I think made this finale weak instead of strong wasn't the fact we're once more in uncertainty about what status is true for Locke; I'll get to this in a while, so briefly for now, this worked for me and was a good set up for the last season. No, the big problem was the way in which the 1977 part of the show was resolved. (And also that about two thirds of the finale were about them when more Locke-plus-one/Ben/Richard scenes and less quadrangle would have been a better choice, but that's the least of it.) Now, I always thought the Jack/Kate/Sawyer triangle was easily the dullest part of Lost, but this season, when at first one could fear we'd be in for a Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Juliet quadrangle, this for the entire season EXCEPT for the finale turned out to be not true in the sense I had been afraid. We didn't get endless subplots about the lovelives of these four, and nobody behaved childishly.
Alas.
Come the finale, the stupid virus of dull triangles past infects just about everyone except Sawyer (and who'd have thought he'd be the only sensible part of the group?). The only scene relating to this I really liked and enjoyed was Sawyer taking Jack for a time out in the jungle, sitting him down and point blank asking him why exactly Jack wants to retcon everyone's lives (and not buying Jack's initial "saves lives"/"err, Locke told me I have a destiny and I finally believe him?" reasons, but not declining them in an assholish way as would have happened in s1). It built on the understanding that had grown between them through the show. And given Jack's characterisation, I can totally buy that he'd be screwed up and selfish enough to conclude that as he screwed up his happily ever after with Kate after the return from the island, the thing to do wasn't, as an exasparated Sawyer suggests, simply talk with Kate, no, Jack would rather have the last three years back and never have met Kate to begin with (and Kate in handcuffs). (His flashback with Christian fits with this as well, but I'll get to this once I discuss Jacob.)
BUT OH SHOW, WHY MUST YOU LET JULIET SUCCUMB TO THE SAME TYPE OF IDIOTIC BEHAVIOUR?
I mean, seriously. There was no set-up for this, either. Yes, Juliet was observing Kate and Sawyer now and then these last episodes, but Sawyer never flirted with Kate, Kate never flirted with Sawyer, with the exception of not telling Juliet immediately that Jack, Kate and Hurley were back Sawyer never did anything wrong in his relationship with Juliet. So for Juliet all of a sudden go "zomg, you are so going to leave me for her sooner or later, I don't want that pain, I'd rather make the last three years not happen so I never know you and fall in love with you", i.e. the exact same emotional reason Jack has, comes out of nowhere. And makes her look incredibly stupid like nothing except her attack of "Jack, save me from Ben, I feel so helpless against his evil!" in The Other Woman did. It's infuriatingly sloppy writing, character succumbing to plot - Sawyer clearly wasn't going to be swayed by Jack, Juliet, if still against Jack, would find a way to incapacitate him and take the bomb from him, so they needed Juliet to come around to Team Jack and gave her this lame excuse. Head. Desk. At least Kate, whose sudden turnaround felt almost as unbelievable, got given "this way you will reunite Claire and Aaron and if Claire does give him up for adoption, it will be her choice" as a motivation, which as excuses go is a bit better.
The only one not succumbing to general idiocy in 1977 was Miles, who got the best line in the episode, too, by pointing out that Jack might very well trigger everything with his behaviour. Though the show put a question mark on this by letting the incident start before Jack arrives, but I still think it's true. Bomb + accessed magnetic field = The Incident. I also stand by my old claim that this will catapult everyone currently not belonging into 1977 in the present, and we'll start season 6 by finding them there. But not all together, so we can be a bit uncertain who survived until the s6 opening episode cliffhanger, because this is how this show rolls. Current guesses: neither Sayid nor Juliet are dead, and the explosive time travel will in fact heal them. I'm more sure in the case of Sayid then of Juliet, but I still rate her survival chances about 70 %. (Sayid's are 99%; the show is not going to get rid of Naveen Andrews.)
Meanwhile, in other time zones: of course, the big question is whom Jacob was talking to in the opening scene, and again via Locke in the next to closing scene. Let's call him - or maybe I should write "him" because I think the gender is by no means certain - X. Given Illana's "someone else has been using this cabin for a long time" observation and her reaction to the broken circle of ashes, I think two earlier speculations just became a bit more substantial:
- Christian Shephard, post-mortem, was in fact NOT speaking on Jacob's behalf; as for the other deceased people showing up to various Castaways plus Ben (i.e. his mother and Alex), some of them might be connected to Jacob but my current guess is they weren't
- they were, however, connected to the island, and not via Jacob.
The argument between Jacob and X - X says Jacob keeps bringing humans to the island and it always ends the same way, they fight and kill each other, Jacob says that's the price you pay for progress and if one day it ends differently, it will all have been worth it - could work as either an argument between Jacob and another entity who like Jacob lives on the island, or between Jacob and the island; in either case, the circle of ash wasn't designed to keep something in, but to keep something away; current guesses are Smokey who might or might not be identical with X, and/or X if X isn't identical with the smoke monster and/or the island itself.
Another current theory, if X isn't something/someone created by the island: at some point in Egyptian history, Jacob and X, both at this point human, end up on the island; maybe they're even sent there. They're supposed to be guardians and each other's check and balance, so neither gets too powerful (this is later echoed by Richard's status as consiglieri and kingmaker to whoever becomes leader), and there is something given to them that ensures they cannot kill each other; they also end up in a state where they can channel the forces of the island through themselves. But something happens that ensures Jacob gains supremacy. Presumably the fact he keeps bringing humans to the island who worship him as the man in charge whose orders the current leader has to obey helps. Perhaps Jacob even manages to, not to kill, but de-coporeolize X, reducing X to the island's security system, the smoke monster. Through the milennnia, X becomes very very pissed off at Jacob indeed. And then X gets his/her chance via Locke and Ben. Why them, and not any of the other humans who were on the island before and after? If it was just a dead body X needed for the "loophole", what was wrong with Christian Shephard's, whom X apparantly inhabits without a problem? If it's that the dead-person-walking avatar cannot kill Jacob through his own hands, Locke still wouldn't have been necessary; Alex could have been used to hand over "kill Jacob" instructions to Ben directly. Perhaps because a) both Locke and Ben were at different points healed via the island, and maybe that ensures Jacob wouldn't have been able to kill them, and because b) Locke had agreed to his death (not at this particular moment, but he had been ready to die for the island from the moment Richard told him, and Christian enforced the message) and Ben had come back against Jacobian instructions and had submitted itself to judgment not by Jacob, but by "the monster". Which meant X could finally make his/her/its move through them.
Which brings me to the question Sun asks. (Incidentally, I knew Locke's body was in the cargo box the moment Illana showed it to Frank.) I don't think it's as simple as "Dead Locke is the genuine article, and Walking-Around-Locke is X". There is a difference between Walking-Around-Locke and Christian (or any of the dead people Hurley talks to on a regular basis). Dead!Christian Shephard, as far as I can recall, never touched anyone, and thus obeyed genre rules for apparitions and ghosts. Walking-around-Locke, on the other hand, ate, drank, and touched a plenty. (He also evidently had no problem killing a boar, even if he couldn't touch Jacob until after Ben had used the knife on him.) There were also several very personal "Lockian" statements I don't think X would have made, such as "actually, I was just hoping for an apology" to Ben in "Dead is Dead" or his question about why Ben did what he did in Jacob's cabin in "The Man behind the Curtain". On the other hand, the person who says "you have no idea what I went through to get here" to Jacob clearly isn't John Locke, but X. So, current state of speculation: With Christian - or Alex, or any other the other dead 'uns - X is impersonating and/or (in the case of Christian, whose body is still missing) inhabiting completely; while he/she adopts speech mannerisms, etc., it's X, not the dead person. With Locke, it's a mixture, either in an amalgan or in a taking-turns manner, and the difference is because, in a manner of speaking, Locke had given himself over to the island before his death, which allows something of the core personality (or the soul, if you want to talk more metaphysical) to survive.
What I have no idea about: whether Richard is aware of X as Jacob's nemesis. If he is, I predict a possible season 6 opening scene, set in 2008 but playing out just before in 1977, Juliet finally succeeds in triggering the bomb, will be Richard, Illana & Co. bursting into Jacob's beneath-the-foot-of-the-statue lair carrying not so metaphorical torches and crying foul, or rather, "Fiend! You're not Locke, you're X!".
What I'm certain about: season 6 will not start by declaring Jack & Juliet succeeded and everyone lands in Los Angeles safely. Which isn't to say they might not have affected some changes. Jacob seemed awfully invested in getting the O6 on the island; maybe that literal blast from the past will get him out of the flames of the present and/or drive X to lose hold on its current shape, in which case Locke's dead body, just now conveniently nearby, might stun everyone again by becoming reanimated once more (after a Locke's mind/X separation).
What I really really hope for: a fast forward button if the s6 opener has such romantic characterisation stupidity as the s5 finale.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-18 08:28 pm (UTC)Oh, blech!
no subject
Date: 2009-05-19 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-19 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-20 06:24 pm (UTC)