It’s been awhile, and after mulling it over, I realy didn’t like the way this season of “Lost” ended. I’m one of those fans who thinks that the ride is what I enjoy, not the very final destination. Love the acting, writing, etc. Don’t get too flipped out over plot silliness and inconsistencies.
But - the more I’ve thought about it the less I like the way this season ended. Juliet apparently killed off. Jacob killed. Jack & Kate have become one-dimensional selfish bastards. (I know some think they always were). Desmond & Penny seemed to have been phased out. Sayid was screwed over, plot-wise. Daniel was another interesting character brought in just to be abruptly killed off.
Now I realize that the introduction of time travel, etc., into the series may allow the writers to rectify some of what I see as errors. But in the meantime, which is until January I guess, it’s just left a bad taste of disappointment.
Thoughts?
I liked the finale, but agree with most of your analysis of the season.
By the way, we did talk about this extensively in the season finale thread.
It was stupid. And as such, perfectly fitting with the theme of the show.
And yes I still watch, why do you ask? 
The motivations of the characters was really weird through the season. They kept oscillating between various goals, deciding not to do something, then going ahead and risking everything to accomplish it. It’s possible that this was a demonstration of their fight against fate, but it seemed a bit sloppy.
In previous seasons, when Fate wanted her way, she’d figure out some other way to make it happen, not just make someone change his mind (like Charley biting it). Each time Charley was supposed to die, it was some accident or another, not that suddenly Jack had his brain overwritten to kill him or Charley decides to shoot himself or something.
Given that they were all at the center of a nuclear blast, it makes just as much to declare them all dead, not just Juliet.
I thought Jack was a bit off, but there really wasn’t much for him to do once he went back in time. He was essentially the main character of the show, and I think it was a bit hard for the writers to figure out how to make him be not the main character.
Kate was the victim of the oscillating thing I spoke of. She just kept doing whatever was necessary for the story without any particular display of logic or character-specific logic to it.
Desmond was my favorite character, so I’ll miss him. But at the same time, I’m happy that he finally gets to be freed of the curse of the island and get some lovin.
Well, he was better than his lady-love. She never did anything beyond snark a few times in the first episode or two she was in, and after that did nothing more than look big-blue-eyed.
I’m not counting out Desmond just yet. After all, Hawking said the island wasn’t done with him yet.
I will withhold judgement until next season’s finale. I still have hope they can pull this through.
I enjoyed this season quite a bit, but I agree with some of your points. I think one problem is that there wasn’t enough time for the amount of plot they stuffed into this season. It’s a bit ironic considering they had the opposite problem in seasons 2 and 3, but I think things probably would have flowed better with the same events extended over a few more episodes.
For example, look at the Jeremy Bentham episode. They have to hit all these plot points: Locke meets Widmore, meets Jack, meets Kate, meets Sayid, meets Hurley, meets Walt, meets Ben, and gets killed. There’s no time to really develop anything - Locke goes from trying to convice everyone to OMG suicidal in like 30 seconds of screen time.
The same thing happens with the different characters changing their minds. If it were explored more, it might make more sense. As it is, Kate goes from “never” to “ok” based on one scene in a supermarket, and Juliet goes from “never” to “nuke the future” just as fast.
I’m not so sure. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Widmore and seeing as though Penny is his daughter I doubt we’ve seen the last of her and Desmond.
His timeline, including his death, served several important purposes to the plot and to illustrate the show’s posture towards time travel and the fixed nature of events through time (often called “fate”). He was not just a red-shirt.
I would be interested to hear what you think are errors. There my be some issues with the writing (such as some of the character development issues you mention) but I don’t see that as errors.
There are, of course, lots and lots of unanswered questions but to me one of the big themes and the most important question is fate vs. free will, and I am eager to see the show put forth a final, resolved viewpoint on that issue (although philosophers will still discuss it for centuries). We have the “what happened, happened” theme, but then late in the series Daniel introduces the “we can change things” notion. I don’t happen to buy that, and I think we’ll find that the explosion didn’t change a thing, and in fact, probably caused everything that happened afterwards. It’s not clear how much destruction it caused; remember, it wasn’t the full bomb but just the detonation device (albeit a credible bomb unto itself).
The biggest plot questions then remain what happens to all the Losties who are in 1977 (we can probably surmise that Juliet died, barring another massive time shift), and who is coming (as referenced by Jacob) and what will happen when they come.
No doubt the final season will rock ‘n’ roll.
Well, Cookingwithgas - thanks for your responses. I guess my problem isn’t with plot "errors’ so much as character development errors. Jack killing people randomly. Going back to the island and changing everything - so he can get back with Kate? Juliet giving up on a 3-yr relationship because of a look Sawyer gives Kate? Kate giving up a child she’s raised as her own for no good reason? Ben should have been too smart to kill Jacob, I think. And Sayid was more than just the murderer he was shown to be this season. Etc. Loose ends plot-wise don’t bother me as much as character assasination. It’s unfair to the actors who do such a fine job bringing the characters to life.
I generally agree with you, but I think there is supposed to be a context to these things that was just not clearly given. There’s only so much you can do in 43 minutes a week.
Jack killing people randomly.
He killed people who were attacking him and probably would have killed him, IIRC.
*Going back to the island and changing everything - so he can get back with Kate? *
Changing everything would not get him back together with Kate. In fact he would never have met Kate.
Juliet giving up on a 3-yr relationship because of a look Sawyer gives Kate?
It wasn’t just a look. It was realizing that if she stayed with him she would always be competing against Sawyer’s memory of “what could have been” with Kate, yet Sawyer would still honor his commitment (whatever that might be) to Juliet. Although this is an odd take on Sawyer who has been firmly established to be self-serving, not one who would choose honor over testosterone. BTW I never bought the Juliet/Sawyer relationship anyway, never worked for me. I can’t decide if it’s a lack of chemistry between the actors, or the total incongruity of pairing these two characters.
Kate giving up a child she’s raised as her own for no good reason?
Good point. I still don’t understand why Kate was willing to go back to the island. We just know that we are not supposed to ask…
Ben should have been too smart to kill Jacob, I think.
The point being made here is conning the con man. Ben was manipulated by Jacob’s enemy (in the guise of Locke) the same way that Ben manipulated everybody else. It shows that even a cold, calculating scumbag like Ben can be overcome by emotion, and in fact I think he said as much just after killing Jacob. I’ll concede that this could be more of a literary device to create irony than one that is completely in sync with the character. And of course, we won’t know the consequences of this act until next season, so who knows, maybe it turns out to be smart.
And Sayid was more than just the murderer he was shown to be this season.
Well, yes he is, and the show takes great pain to show it through the seasons. But he is painted as a hero with a fatal flaw, that he is really good at and repeatedly drawn to violent action. This is certainly not because he enjoys it, and in fact has an ongoing internal struggle over it. It shows that he is losing the struggle.
My main concern (in retrospect–I didn’t get this at the time it aired) was that there were STILL no real answers.
- What IS the Island?
- What does it want with them?
- Why them in particular?
- What is Widmore’s relationship to the Dharma folks?
- What of Hanso and…um…the other company?
- How did Dharma find out about The Island and what were they trying to accomplish? (They were WAY too well funded to be just a bunch of hippies playing around)
- What about The Numbers? Why are they magical*? Why did the Dharma folks broadcast 'em for 20-some years?
- Why did all contact with the outside world stop in 1977 (culturally) if the Dharma massacre wasn’t until 1992? Say what you want, I just rewatched S2/3 and there’s not one single thing in The Hatch that was made after 1977-ish. If nothing else, why isn’t there a cassette player and new music plugged into the stereo?
- Who/what is Richard? (Sorry…I really did forget his name–the immortal guy)
- Why was/wasn’t Locke so special? What was wrong with him picking the stuff he did when he was a kid?
and that’s just off the top of my head. Yeah, they touched on some of these, but these are all questions that were around before S5 and are still around after with no major changes.
They’ve got a LOT of work to do and only 20-some episodes left.
Plus the characterization was all over the place this season. Take Kate for one obvious example. I still don’t get why she’d risk everything to save L’il Ben (remember, she hadn’t worked out the time travel stuff yet). She’s never been shown as anything other than grossly self-absorbed. I don’t buy her burst of altruism there. Also, why the drama about what she did with little Turnip Head? (“DON’T EVER ASK ME THAT!!!”) when she just gave him to his grandma. Wha’?
*And we KNOW they are. We’ve seen too many instances (in the first two seasons at least) where they literally worked magic. The obvious one being Hurley on the rickety bridge.
Well, I bought the Juliet/Sawyer thing.
Anyway, some more good points, CookingWithGas. And Fenris, I don’t know how the writers can wrap it up satisfactorilly in the amount of episodes left, either.
They answered this one in an off-season extra-curricular thing. They have magical properties because they do. If I come across a link, I’ll post it.
Well obviously it’s God’s home. So the real question is…
What does God need with an island?
My guess is that the Sixth and final season, we’ll get a lot of explanations when we finally get to the Temple. This is a big shaggy dog story and even as I’ve been re-watching it from Season 1 this summer, I’ve still thoroughly enjoyed it. There are pieces I’m seeing how they’re tied together. That said, I’m not disappointed with how Season 5 ended because I’ve seen that there has been a reason for everything, including Jughead.
Or a starship 
Most of these questions are pretty good, and of course, haven’t been answered yet. I expect nearly all of them to be answered in season 6.
I dunno but probably a direct result of “The Incident.” Perhaps after that they withdrew for some reason.
It’s Richard Alpert. I expect we’ll find out all about him, too. Some have speculated he arrived on the Black Rock in the 1800s.
I think Richard believed that Locke was special because he arrived amidst the Others in 1954 from the future. That’s when Locke told Richard where and when he would be born. Then Richard showed up to check out the story. My speculation about the objects was that Richard showed Locke items, one or or more of which would actually belong to Locke in the future, and he wanted to see the if the kid was prescient. By “already yours” he meant (IMHO) “already yours, except not actually now, but at some time in the predestined future because really this whole ‘time’ thing is like a linear dimension where it just all is but we experience it sequentially and most people just call that ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’.”
The explanation that we’re asked to believe is that she (and Juliet) wouldn’t allow a child to die, regardless of who that child would turn out to be.
What did that have to do with the numbers? I don’t remember them coming into play there. If so that would have been the second positive thing to happen to Hurley regarding the numbers (the first is winning the lottery but he ends up thinking that was a negative thing anyway).
I think we’ll find out that the entire story was Jacob’s enemy’s way of creating the loophole to kill Jacob. If we trace back from Ben’s stabbing Jacob, you can go backwards to see a long chain of events starting from the crash that would culminate in that event.
I have a few nagging questions that may not be answered because the answers may not be necessary to advance the story:
Who were all those people Ben was getting Sayid to kill, and why? The guy on the golf course knew he was in trouble as soon as Sayid said he was one of the Oceanic Six.
How did Ben become the leader of the Others in the first place? And how could he lead a group so dedicated to Jacob if he never actually saw Jacob (and possibly never communicated with him in any way)?
If Jacob is so damn powerful, why would he allow Ben to stab him to death?
Why were the Others so willing to look to “Locke” as their leader?
They were employees of Widmore, I think. I’m pretty sure Ben wanted them dead to try to exact some sort of revenge on Widmore for his having killed Alex.
Well yeah, but this is certainly the sort of question, along with what the smoke monster is, that is reasonable to expect to have to wait til the finale to found out.
In the most recent episode, given the conversation between Jacob and his adversary, and Jacob’s tendency to touch the Losties in their flashbacks, it would seem that Jacob is luring people to the island for some purpose related to the conflict between him and his adversary.
He’s still with the Others when Dharma first comes to the island, so no relation other than adversary with a temporary truce.
What of him? And what other company? I think Hanso will just end up being minor trivia.
Although they might choose to explore this and make the explanation more interesting, from the LampPost station we know that they were aware of the US military’s expedition there. The main purpose of Dharma seems to be saving humanity from destruction through exploring the variable of Valenzetti’s equation, and the island would seem to be just n ideal place to conduct those experiments.
They were the variables in the Valenzetti equation which determines when humanity will end. Their experiements attempt to change those variables, which were currently the numbers as we know them. They were broadcast so Dharma headquarters would know if they had managed to change any of them. I think the producers have expressly said that they won’t address “why” the numbers have magical properties like appearing in weird places and cursing gambling results, because any explanation would take away from their aura of mystery and likely be lame. My own explanation is just synchronicity.
Well they explicitly mention that the washing machine is new, and of course there are on going Dharma drops. But yeah there’s a lot of weirdness with respect to the timeline of what happened in the late eighties, and with what was happening in the Swan after the Purge, and why there are still Dharma drops and what happened to the off-island Dharma.
In the last episode they pretty much said that he is Jacob’s liason - he brings messages from Jacob to the Other’s leader, and Jacob keeps him alive.
This seems to have been mostly a time loop artifact - Locke is told by Richard that he will be the Other’s leader and is special, so when he goes back in time, he plants the idea in Richard’s head that he is special and will be the leader. Originally it seemed as though Richard’s test was the universal Others leader test, similar to the Dali Lama test, but in later episodes I started getting the impression that it was specifically geared towards Locke with regards to the compass that passed back and forth between him and Richard. You’ll notice Richard asks Jack about Locke because he still has doubts about him in the past. The thing that seems to convince him and the other Others, besides Jack’s glowing recommendation, is that Locke’s legs are healed by the island. Of course, Jacob’s adversary seems to have manipulated some of Locke’s path as well.
Not that it was a great explanation, but Jack specifically asked Kate that question in the finale.