More Lost talk
Apr. 10th, 2011 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalBeen working my way through season 5, generally as a procrastination tactic, since I have papers due, lol.
Hahaha, where do I even begin with this season? I am finding it enjoyable, though I am more confused than ever, of course. Because really, what this show needed was a little erratic time travel to make things more convoluted. The whole "linear time" thing is so 2004. But at least the show subscribes to the "whatever happened, happened" theory of time travel, which is my personal preference when it comes to these sorts of things. (Yes, I have ~opinions about time travel theory. Shut up.)
I will say this - I don't think I have laughed out loud as much as I did during this stretch of episodes. My favorite being Sawyer's "Three years, no burning buses. Y'all are back for one day..." along with anything that comes out of Miles' mouth, lol.
So, okay, I guess the best way to do this is to break it up a bit. Let's start with the Oceanic Six. And hey, let's just jump right into things I don't understand:
1. Is it just me, or is there something off with the timeline in the flashbacks? Because when we first saw Jack, totally off the rails, popping pills, with a full beard, Locke had apparently just died. But now we see that Locke visited Jack - who presumably was still functional - then visited Kate, then tried to kill himself, only to hear from Ben that Jack had booked a plane ticket, presumably the first of his many trips. And then Ben kills Locke.
So, basically, in the span of time it took to plan Locke's funeral, Jack had time to take several trans-oceanic flights, spiral into addiction and hirsuteness, and get himself fired? Either that, or it took a loooong time for someone to find Locke's body.
2. Why is Sun holding Ben responsible for Jin's death? She didn't know about the dead man's switch (which, btw, doesn't make any sense, either - why would Keamy have thought that would stop Ben from killing him?), and she doesn't know Ben's the one who killed Keamy. Locke's the only one who knew that, and he didn't go see her. All she knows is that Jin was on the freighter and it exploded. I could see her holding Ben responsible in a generic "Ben is evil and everything is his fault" kind of way, but still. You'd think she'd hold Widmore slightly responsible, too, considering it was HIS freighter that exploded. But instead she's willing to team up with him? (A partnership which, it seems, didn't actually go anywhere.)
3. Just so we're clear, the method of getting back to the island makes absolutely no sense, right? "You have to recreate the circumstances of the original crash"?? WTF? I mean, in general, I'm okay with this show having its own crazy logic - polar bears and smoke monsters and a big frozen wheel that moves the island - but this seems a little too "fuck you, it's magic" for me. It's not like they even met the criteria. What, so six passengers from Oceanic 815 (one of them dead) and a guitar make for "recreated circumstances"? If they knew where the island was going to be, why couldn't they just rent a private jet (and, you know, NOT risk killing a whole plane full of people) and go there directly? And perhaps ensure that they have some way of getting OFF the island again, since they ostensibly went there to rescue the people they left behind?
Also, is there any particular reason why Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid ended up in 1977 while Sun, Locke, Ben, and Lapidus are in the present along with the rest of the passengers? I can see why Ben and Lapidus wouldn't time travel, since they weren't on the original Oceanic flight, but shouldn't Sun and Locke have ended up with the rest of the group? It seems like the only reason they didn't is because the plot needs them to be split up.
On the other hand, Desmond and Penny! Squee! And baby Charlie! Who, for reals, had better not be dead, no matter what Ben said to Widmore. Do not mess with my happy family, Show!
So, back at the ranch, things have basically gone bananas. The time jumping was kind of fun, and served a purpose at the same time, because we got lots of hints and revelations about the history of the island. At some point, I'm gonna need a chronological timeline of events on the island, though, seriously. Thank God for Lostpedia.
Again, I have to ask - what is it that makes certain people time travel and others not? The Others, specifically, since Juliet IS an Other, but not Othery enough to stay put, I guess? What about Cindy the flight attendant and the kids the Others kidnapped from the tail section? Are they having the flashes, too? Does anyone remember they still exist?
YAAAAAYY Jin is alive!!!! But WHERE ARE ROSE AND BERNARD? I AM WORRIED.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the island flipping its shit had nothing to do with the Oceanic Six leaving, am I right? Because obviously people have been going to the mainland for decades - first the Dharma Initiative, and we know some of the Others have traveled back and forth, and apparently Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking got banished at some point. And it didn't seem to want Michael and Walt back. And then all the time traveling stopped once Locke turned the frozen wheel again, so it seems like the island was really just bent out of shape about Ben doing it wrong. Which means there is NO GOOD REASON for the Six to have come back. Wow, sucks to be them.
I kind of love Lost: That '70s Show. Seriously, can we stay in the 1970s for the rest of the show? We don't ever have to go back to the present. I actually like this new LaFleur guy. He looks an awful lot like Sawyer, but I'm pretty sure he's not the same guy, because he's all friendly and polite and shit. In all seriousness, it's kind of nice seeing him step into the leader role, now that Jack's gone, and actually being good at it. I admit, I totally saw Sawyer/Juliet coming - even if I hadn't been spoiled and knew they were a couple a lot of people shipped, they definitely developed the same kind of "we are the couple in charge here" vibe that Jack and Kate usually have. The Mom and Dad of the survivors, the ones everyone else looks to for answers and direction.
But the whole thing where we skipped three years and suddenly they're a couple? It's making it kind of hard to get on board. I mean, I believe that they love each other and all, and I don't think Jack and Kate returning is gonna break them up. It's just that I feel like we're missing something by not having seen the relationship develop. The emotional investment isn't there. It is kind of funny to see the four of them all walking on eggshells, though, not knowing who still has feelings for who.
In general, it's a lot of fun seeing Jack and Kate come back and realize their roles have reversed. Before, Jack was the leader and Sawyer was only out for himself, Kate was integral to the group and Juliet was the outsider. And you know what? I love it. I'm not a huge Jack and Kate fan to begin with (you may have noticed...), so I find it kind of delicious to watch them be out of their element and uncomfortable with things. Plus, the new not-giving-a-shit Jack is so much more tolerable than the Jack with a hero complex. He's always been a self-centered, arrogant jackass, but at least now the show's not trying to make us admire him for it. :)
Uh... wait a minute, what happened to Faraday? He's apparently no longer with the rest of them? And WHERE ARE ROSE AND BERNARD? God, this show. They just lose people and then the other characters seem to forget they existed. Like, remember when people cared about Claire? She was possibly still alive when time went wonky, but no one even considers that maybe they should look for her.
I admit, when Sun and Lapidus saw Christian at the barracks, for a minute I had this crazy hope that we would discover Rose and Bernard had been living there by themselves for three years, having a dandy old time. Alas.
Speaking of the goings-on in the present, I am kind of confused as to why they killed off all the redshirts from Oceanic 815, only to crash-land a whole new plane full of passengers. I thought for sure that the Oceanic Six would just disappear and the rest of the flight would go fine and they'd land in Guam, since the writers clearly didn't want to bother with 40-some extras milling around anymore.
Oh, and Locke is apparently not dead. Unlike Jack and Sawyer, I dislike new!Locke. I mean, I pretty much disliked old!Locke, too, but now he's even more insufferable, because he's a big know-it-all and is apparently right about everything, despite having no good reason WHY he knows things. I hate people like that. When I'm kind of rooting for Ben to kill you (again), that's not a good sign, dude.
Oops. Sayid just shot little Ben. Well, that can't be good.
Hahaha, where do I even begin with this season? I am finding it enjoyable, though I am more confused than ever, of course. Because really, what this show needed was a little erratic time travel to make things more convoluted. The whole "linear time" thing is so 2004. But at least the show subscribes to the "whatever happened, happened" theory of time travel, which is my personal preference when it comes to these sorts of things. (Yes, I have ~opinions about time travel theory. Shut up.)
I will say this - I don't think I have laughed out loud as much as I did during this stretch of episodes. My favorite being Sawyer's "Three years, no burning buses. Y'all are back for one day..." along with anything that comes out of Miles' mouth, lol.
So, okay, I guess the best way to do this is to break it up a bit. Let's start with the Oceanic Six. And hey, let's just jump right into things I don't understand:
1. Is it just me, or is there something off with the timeline in the flashbacks? Because when we first saw Jack, totally off the rails, popping pills, with a full beard, Locke had apparently just died. But now we see that Locke visited Jack - who presumably was still functional - then visited Kate, then tried to kill himself, only to hear from Ben that Jack had booked a plane ticket, presumably the first of his many trips. And then Ben kills Locke.
So, basically, in the span of time it took to plan Locke's funeral, Jack had time to take several trans-oceanic flights, spiral into addiction and hirsuteness, and get himself fired? Either that, or it took a loooong time for someone to find Locke's body.
2. Why is Sun holding Ben responsible for Jin's death? She didn't know about the dead man's switch (which, btw, doesn't make any sense, either - why would Keamy have thought that would stop Ben from killing him?), and she doesn't know Ben's the one who killed Keamy. Locke's the only one who knew that, and he didn't go see her. All she knows is that Jin was on the freighter and it exploded. I could see her holding Ben responsible in a generic "Ben is evil and everything is his fault" kind of way, but still. You'd think she'd hold Widmore slightly responsible, too, considering it was HIS freighter that exploded. But instead she's willing to team up with him? (A partnership which, it seems, didn't actually go anywhere.)
3. Just so we're clear, the method of getting back to the island makes absolutely no sense, right? "You have to recreate the circumstances of the original crash"?? WTF? I mean, in general, I'm okay with this show having its own crazy logic - polar bears and smoke monsters and a big frozen wheel that moves the island - but this seems a little too "fuck you, it's magic" for me. It's not like they even met the criteria. What, so six passengers from Oceanic 815 (one of them dead) and a guitar make for "recreated circumstances"? If they knew where the island was going to be, why couldn't they just rent a private jet (and, you know, NOT risk killing a whole plane full of people) and go there directly? And perhaps ensure that they have some way of getting OFF the island again, since they ostensibly went there to rescue the people they left behind?
Also, is there any particular reason why Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid ended up in 1977 while Sun, Locke, Ben, and Lapidus are in the present along with the rest of the passengers? I can see why Ben and Lapidus wouldn't time travel, since they weren't on the original Oceanic flight, but shouldn't Sun and Locke have ended up with the rest of the group? It seems like the only reason they didn't is because the plot needs them to be split up.
On the other hand, Desmond and Penny! Squee! And baby Charlie! Who, for reals, had better not be dead, no matter what Ben said to Widmore. Do not mess with my happy family, Show!
So, back at the ranch, things have basically gone bananas. The time jumping was kind of fun, and served a purpose at the same time, because we got lots of hints and revelations about the history of the island. At some point, I'm gonna need a chronological timeline of events on the island, though, seriously. Thank God for Lostpedia.
Again, I have to ask - what is it that makes certain people time travel and others not? The Others, specifically, since Juliet IS an Other, but not Othery enough to stay put, I guess? What about Cindy the flight attendant and the kids the Others kidnapped from the tail section? Are they having the flashes, too? Does anyone remember they still exist?
YAAAAAYY Jin is alive!!!! But WHERE ARE ROSE AND BERNARD? I AM WORRIED.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the island flipping its shit had nothing to do with the Oceanic Six leaving, am I right? Because obviously people have been going to the mainland for decades - first the Dharma Initiative, and we know some of the Others have traveled back and forth, and apparently Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking got banished at some point. And it didn't seem to want Michael and Walt back. And then all the time traveling stopped once Locke turned the frozen wheel again, so it seems like the island was really just bent out of shape about Ben doing it wrong. Which means there is NO GOOD REASON for the Six to have come back. Wow, sucks to be them.
I kind of love Lost: That '70s Show. Seriously, can we stay in the 1970s for the rest of the show? We don't ever have to go back to the present. I actually like this new LaFleur guy. He looks an awful lot like Sawyer, but I'm pretty sure he's not the same guy, because he's all friendly and polite and shit. In all seriousness, it's kind of nice seeing him step into the leader role, now that Jack's gone, and actually being good at it. I admit, I totally saw Sawyer/Juliet coming - even if I hadn't been spoiled and knew they were a couple a lot of people shipped, they definitely developed the same kind of "we are the couple in charge here" vibe that Jack and Kate usually have. The Mom and Dad of the survivors, the ones everyone else looks to for answers and direction.
But the whole thing where we skipped three years and suddenly they're a couple? It's making it kind of hard to get on board. I mean, I believe that they love each other and all, and I don't think Jack and Kate returning is gonna break them up. It's just that I feel like we're missing something by not having seen the relationship develop. The emotional investment isn't there. It is kind of funny to see the four of them all walking on eggshells, though, not knowing who still has feelings for who.
In general, it's a lot of fun seeing Jack and Kate come back and realize their roles have reversed. Before, Jack was the leader and Sawyer was only out for himself, Kate was integral to the group and Juliet was the outsider. And you know what? I love it. I'm not a huge Jack and Kate fan to begin with (you may have noticed...), so I find it kind of delicious to watch them be out of their element and uncomfortable with things. Plus, the new not-giving-a-shit Jack is so much more tolerable than the Jack with a hero complex. He's always been a self-centered, arrogant jackass, but at least now the show's not trying to make us admire him for it. :)
Uh... wait a minute, what happened to Faraday? He's apparently no longer with the rest of them? And WHERE ARE ROSE AND BERNARD? God, this show. They just lose people and then the other characters seem to forget they existed. Like, remember when people cared about Claire? She was possibly still alive when time went wonky, but no one even considers that maybe they should look for her.
I admit, when Sun and Lapidus saw Christian at the barracks, for a minute I had this crazy hope that we would discover Rose and Bernard had been living there by themselves for three years, having a dandy old time. Alas.
Speaking of the goings-on in the present, I am kind of confused as to why they killed off all the redshirts from Oceanic 815, only to crash-land a whole new plane full of passengers. I thought for sure that the Oceanic Six would just disappear and the rest of the flight would go fine and they'd land in Guam, since the writers clearly didn't want to bother with 40-some extras milling around anymore.
Oh, and Locke is apparently not dead. Unlike Jack and Sawyer, I dislike new!Locke. I mean, I pretty much disliked old!Locke, too, but now he's even more insufferable, because he's a big know-it-all and is apparently right about everything, despite having no good reason WHY he knows things. I hate people like that. When I'm kind of rooting for Ben to kill you (again), that's not a good sign, dude.
Oops. Sayid just shot little Ben. Well, that can't be good.
no subject
Date: Apr. 10th, 2011 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Apr. 10th, 2011 11:59 pm (UTC)Now I need a Desmond icon, because I love him, too! :)
no subject
Date: Apr. 11th, 2011 12:04 am (UTC)Speaking of time travel, what exactly is the "Whatever happened, happened" theory of time travel?
no subject
Date: Apr. 11th, 2011 12:15 am (UTC)It kind of has a sense of destiny about it, because whatever happened, happened, so the characters aren't really in control of their choices. The choices they make are the choices they always made. Which can be frustrating in some circumstances (what's the point if the characters don't have free will?). But considering how much destiny/fate is a theme of the show, it fits.
I happen to like it because the other way is just sooo messy. You go back and change things and then things are different and there are ripple effects or alternate universes created, or you disappear like Marty McFly, or occasionally a paradox that collapses the space-time continuum. It's just MESSY.
no subject
Date: Apr. 11th, 2011 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Apr. 13th, 2011 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Apr. 14th, 2011 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Apr. 11th, 2011 02:34 am (UTC)ROFL.
But the whole thing where we skipped three years and suddenly they're a couple? It's making it kind of hard to get on board.
Total word. I was thinking, 'hey I could get behind this' but then the show was like OH WAIT FUCK THAT DEVELOPMENT SHIT. So I'm pretty *shrug* about the quadrangle, full stop.
Haha, Jack chills out A LOT in the last couple of seasons. I haven't actually rewatched the first few seasons in years, so it's possible that when I think about Jack I'm thinking of the guy at the end, who's a world of difference away from the guy at the start.
no subject
Date: Apr. 13th, 2011 06:36 pm (UTC)Yeah, I mean... from what I've absorbed via fandom, it seemed like Sawyer/Juliet was a REALLY popular ship, so I was surprised at how little attention it actually got. (Then again, Spander got zero attention and it's spawned a huge ship, so...) As soon as Sawyer and Juliet were abandoned on the island, I figured it would happen, since they'd have three years of being together and bonding. I just kind of expected to SEE more of the three years...
no subject
Date: Sep. 11th, 2013 08:10 pm (UTC)AHAHAHAHAHA
I liked Sawyer and Juilet too, to the point where I actually did think the big changes in the character made a lot of sense. Between finally having some stability in his life on the island, and Juliet being very good for him without being a ~special angel of morality he felt pressed to fake it for, I thought it worked to see him developing the better parts of his personality.
He's always been a self-centered, arrogant jackass
THEREFORE MY FAVORITE, lol.
no subject
Date: Sep. 12th, 2013 04:08 pm (UTC)