Lost (spoilers)

Started by MacGuffin, October 07, 2004, 01:10:26 AM

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Jeremy Blackman

One of the Game of Thrones podcasts (A Storm of Spoilers) has now become a Lost rewatch podcast: The Storm. It's pretty excellent, thanks to Joanna Robinson, who is great.

They just reviewed 106 - House of the Rising Sun. I rated this as the second-worst episode of all time and said this: "Garbage writing. Ultra-cringey dialogue prematurely suggesting a Kate/Jack romance. Sun's flashbacks are cliche-ridden. The watch plot is nonsensical."

So what did these podcasters have to say about 106? "Such a great episode," said one co-host. But when they started to talk about the actual scenes, they could not manage to find any particular merits, and it was mostly a discussion through gritted teeth about cringey moments. Okay, but it's "such a great episode"?

It seems like people have an affection for early Lost that's rooted in nostalgia. But oh boy, some of those episodes are just objectively bad. I'm very curious to see what they think of 114 - Special, which I have as the worst episode of the series.

polkablues

"Stranger in a Strange Land" is the worst episode of Lost, and I'll entertain no arguments to the contrary.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Jeremy Blackman

Here's my argument to the contrary (from my rewatch notes):

The flashback is pointless. The island stuff is more than passable, though. Not the sharpest episode, but hardly the worst ever, as many believe. It benefits from Matthew Fox's full commitment.

Jeremy Blackman


Jeremy Blackman

I'm watching Season 6 along with The Storm and discovered that sideways-Alex cheerfully sports a confederate flag on her backpack. About to find out if they mention this in the podcast ep.

(Worth noting that she's an enthusiastic member of the history club, but still...)


Jeremy Blackman

They mentioned it and were equally weirded out.

Although... I'd like to believe Alex wears that patch solely as a history-nerd-conversation-starter so she can "well actually" people about how the confederate battle flag is not technically the flag of the Confederate States of America.

Drenk

Maybe she's a Kanye West fan:

Ascension.

Jeremy Blackman

I finished the rewatch of Season 6...

I will never understand why people hate the finale—I sincerely think it's the best episode of television of all time. HOWEVER, I now have a much better understanding of people's complaints with the season in general.

Lost is a genre nesting doll. At first it's a mystery adventure show. Then that layer cracks, and you realize it's actually science fiction, with time travel and everything. There's even a physicist! But when he dies, so does the science, and Lost reveals what it truly is at its core—a full-blown mythic fantasy story. There's a reason Faraday is dead; he wouldn't have a scientific explanation for the cork, and we wouldn't want him to.

That genre trajectory happened to be exactly what I wanted. But I can only imagine the disappointment of fans who were not on board for it.

Damon & Carlton were always vocal about closing the show with a focus on characters. That's consistently true in the flash-sideways, but on-island... actually not so much. In fact, the character work is the weakness of the island story. Sun is probably let down the most. Notable missed opportunities: Dogen, Ilana and crew, and Sayid. Saywer has no character movement past 604. And Zoe... just why?

It never made sense to me that Jin sort of suicides. I mean yes, technically, oxygen was limited, and Jin sacrificed himself to let Jack escape with the unconscious Hurley. So Jin's attempt to unstuck Sun was already a bit of a long-shot in terms of either of them surviving. But emotionally, the scene still reads as Jin deciding to die so he can be with Sun in her final moments and they can drown together Titanic-style. This seems like a clear case of the performance (and a poor directing choice?) overriding what might've been a good scene.

"Across The Sea" is less bothersome every time I watch it. Allison Janney is still awful, though—her midwestern-accent Latin is the apex of cringe.

The fantasy aspects are so strong for me that they sort of blast through all of that. I appreciate Season 6 for its highs—the highest highs of the series, in my opinion—and I can very easily overlook the lows. LAX, Lighthouse, Ab Aeterno, Happily Ever After, What They Died For, and the finale... this is what LOST is all about.

The finale—and most of Season 6, really—was pretty much carried by Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly. I know it's an uninteresting take, but I think it's true. They were the MVPs from the beginning. I always think back to their scene in 306 when Kate visits Jack's glass cell and pleads with him. Absolutely explosive.

WorldForgot

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on August 28, 2021, 02:22:16 AM
I finished the rewatch of Season 6...

"Across The Sea" is less bothersome every time I watch it. Allison Janney is still awful, though—her midwestern-accent Latin is the apex of cringe.
:lol:

In the first three seasons, even four maybe, the ensemble is playing off scripts that are as good as what Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly work with 'til the end.

But for sure, the ensemble itself starts to feel like a grabbag of quality near the end that I think might have tainted the finale for people who had latched onto the concept of lore being what ought to satisfy.

Jeremy Blackman

Evangeline Lily attended the anti-vax-mandate rally in DC and spoke out against mandates: "This is not safe. This is not healthy."

And apparently she's been COVID-skeptical since the beginning.

Evangeline Lilly apologizes after refusing to self-quarantine amid coronavirus pandemic

She posted a lot of "anti-hysteria" & "pro-freedom" content at the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020), but it's too depressing to include here.