Lost - The Lighthouse Episode...which sucked, but what can you do?

[shadowkat]

Didn't really like Lost last night. Lost seems to be an every other episode deal. That said did read two opposing reviews that are worth looking at:

1. The first is selenak's whose review I pretty much agree with. Why write your own when someone else articulates what you thought about the episode? Nice time saver that. Go here: http://selenak.livejournal.com/557994.html?style=mine#cutid1

2. For a completely different take on the same episode go see frenchani here: http://frenchani.livejournal.com/387757.html?style=mine#cutid1

Proof that you can see the same episode and pick up completely different things from it, yet similar things as well. Very cool.

I love meta reviews.

My own thoughs? Outside of the fact that I thought last night's episode mostly sucked beans? What can I say? I don't like Jack-centric episodes. But I do have some thoughts in addition to the above two reviewers.

I really really hope that we aren't doing a Team Evil vs. Team Good a la Stephen King's the Stand. Because that would be really lame. I hated The Stand, it falls into the category of books that I could not finish and almost threw across the room in disgust. Also, it probably does not bode well for my viewing pleasure that I'm rooting for Smock's team and not Jacob's. Jacob is a manipulative passive aggressive ass. And his team - currently made up of Jack, Hurley and the Temple people/Illana folks - I could do without. I do however think that the Jack may well end up taking Jacob's place at the end on the Islandverse, with everyone else dead.

One interesting tid-bit - that I picked up on. Jack in the Sideways reality appears to have memories missing. While no one else does. He's the only one who seems to be bewildered, and almost aware that there's something off. Ironic and in a way repetitive of a pattern that's emerging with Jack. Jack wanted to leave the Island, would do ANYTHING to do so...and he finally accomplishes it - takes Sayid, Sun, Kate, Desmond, Hurely, and Claire's son Aaron with him. But he's tormented. Broken. And spends the whole time off the island seeing his father's ghost, haunted, and then trying to get back to the island again. He finally accomplishes getting back - taking the people he left with, except for Claire's son, back to the island.
But he goes back in time. Where he gets it in his head to destroy the island and undo the event that caused the plane crash. So he accomplishes this, sets up a sideways verse, only to wonder about things he can't remember.

That said - the Sideways verse appears to be providing each character with closure and a happy ending. They accomplish the thing they desperately wanted to on the island. Locke gets closure with Helene, his father, and a job that he cares for as well as dealing with his injury.
Kate saves Claire and her child and ensures Claire will raise it. Jack comes to terms with his father - by becoming a father himself and doing something different with his own son.
None of these things happen in Islandverse - the opposite happens, Kate taking off with Aaron denies Claire her son and Claire goes insane, Jack is still tormented and lost, still at odds with his father and his childhood, Locke is well dead. And it is in the islandverse that Jacob watched them and manipulated their destinies. So, this begs the question how can Jacob be good?
I think he's a manipulative ass. And why would anyone route for him? Think about how he touched each person and when - he pushed Kate to steal, he pushed James Ford to pursue vengeance, he pushed Hurley to go back to the island, he pushed Sayid to seek vengeance for Nadia's death.
Without Jacob in the Sideways verse - we have happy conclusions. With Jacob in the Islandverse - we have tragic ones.

Also it's hard to blame Claire for going nuts and hating the Temple folks. Her attitude reminds me a lot of Danielle's towards the Others. And we appear to be paralleling Claire/Sayid with Danielle/Sayid. Also her Dad did find her - as happened at the end of S4. The loss of Charlie probably was part of it. I'm guessing Smokey played her Dad. Apparently Smokey could change who he was until Jacob died. Because he played Christian in the cabin (to Sun and the Pilot)
and Alex (to Ben) - while Not!Lock was wandering about. It's either an error in continuity or he didn't get stuck as Lock until after Jacob was killed? (shrugs).

At any rate, I can see where Claire is coming from - she got stranded on the island by herself - half the group zapped through time, half off the island. And she was tortured by the Temple folks, who then tried to kill her. Plus grieving over Charlie and the loss of her child.
I'd go nuts.

I don't want Claire to kill Kate, but if she chose to take out Jack? That would be fine by me.
Won't happen though. Jack, like it or not, is the protagonist of this piece. This show seems to like killing off or doing away with all its female characters. We have two left. We had: Shannon (dead), Juliet (dead), Danielle (dead), Alex (dead), Ana (dead), Libby (dead),
Claire (crazy). Only one's left are Sun, Kate, and Illana. I know this is a sexist and male chauvinistic show and Hollywood is incredibly sexist, but please.

Comments

[rahirah]

Jack annoys me SO FREAKIN MUCH.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Can't decide if it is the actor or the role.

But have come to the conclusion that there is a certain trope in tv show/fiction that annoys me - I had the same problem with Angel the Series (although they admittedly made fun of it). It's the whole - "I have a destiney and will be the one to save the world, I'm your champion - look at me!! Look at me!!! Look how cool and nifty I am."

Granted Buffy was the chosen one too...but she was reluctant, didn't want it, and more or less dealt with crap and ignored destiney, prophecies, fate and that stuff.

Jack and Angel? They seem to take if for granted that they are the stars, or should be. So the whole character arc is built around kicking them down and showing them that they aren't the central focus of the universe. It's an annoying trope.

[rahirah]

Someone pointed out recently that Jack and Sayid were the characters most likely to get you killed. And I pondered that for awhile and decided that the reason I still like Sayid despite his enormous flaws is that Sayid knows he has enormous flaws. He knows that by most people's measure he's a bad person, but he neither wallows in guilt nor makes excuses for himself.

I suspect, though, that Jack IS the central focus of the universe in this case. :P

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Good point on the difference between Sayid and Jack.

Sayid isn't whiny. Jack is.

And that may well be my problem with him? ;-)

That and Naveen Andrews is just hot, while Mathew Fox is not my type.
(I remember Fox from Party of Five.)

I'm hoping that Jack isn't the center of this universe. I can argue it either way. ;-)

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Not a Jack fan, either.

But I did catch the memory thing. The sideways verse isn't real, I don't think. That memory thing played the way dreams do. A detail crops up, the dream assimilates it -- but there's that moment before the assimilation happens.

I love the idea that Jacob is really evil.

As long as Juliet and Sawyer get that coffee, I'm happy with whatever else they decide to do.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Jack oddly enough reminds me a great deal of Angel. Similar character trope, which I'm not a huge fan of. Which is unfortunate because it is a central part of Lost.

The sideways verse isn't real, I don't think. That memory thing played the way dreams do.

This occurred to me too. Until a couple of things happened that made me rethink it. 1) Juliet said what they did worked. 2) We are in points of view that Jack can't possibily know.

I suppose you could explain one and two easily enough - it is a shared dream amongst everyone on the island. But if that is the case - what about Lock? Who is dead.

I admittedly hope you are wrong because I find the dream tactic a bit annoying not to mention a television cliche. They did it first on Newhart. Then St. Elsewhere. Then Dallas. And a whole lot of other tv shows since, have referenced it to death. It's as bad as the reset button. It can be done well, I suppose...
but this isn't it. ;-)

As long as Juliet and Sawyer get that coffee, I'm happy with whatever else they decide to do.

Sigh, me too. me too. I'm really hoping we'll see that in the episode that shows' what happens to Sawyer - assuming of course we get one.

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

Can I just say how much I miss Juliet? She had a strength and nobility that I find sorely lacking in Kate, our supposed heroine.

I also miss drunken, desolate Jack. Jack trying to be noble fails miserably.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Word

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I don't think it sucked but that's probably because I focused on the way they told the story rather than on the story itself.

Jack is the most boring character ever, and I would rather have Locke-centric episodes every week, but the Powers That Be obvioulsy have decided that Jack is the core of the show and I have to cope. Their show, their game, their rules.

I don't think it's Evil Team vs Good Team, at least, like you, I hope it isn't so. Jacob is no better than Man In Black, just like Charles Widmore was no better than Ben Linus, and The Others were no better than our Losties, even though they all claimed that they were the good guys and that the other side was therefore evil. It's convenient. The big players have always been all manipulative to the pawns they have chosen(or taken) because they want to win the game.

Having said, it's likely that the finale will disappoint me and that I will say that it sucks! Because I'm a player too, and I don't like to lose the game. :- )

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I really really hope that we aren't doing a Team Evil vs. Team Good a la Stephen King's the Stand. Because that would be really lame. I hated The Stand, it falls into the category of books that I could not finish and almost threw across the room in disgust.

I"ve yet to be convinced that Jacob or Man in Black qualify as "good" (I think they may qualify as representing fate and free will, both of which are problematic in their ways).

If we speculate that the sidewaysverse is Life Without Jacob/Island Influence, I don't know that we state he's a particularly positive presence. The characters seem to be making the redemptive choices on their own with or without them.

And, no, I don't trust Man In Black, but he does have a point about Jacob hogging all the information.

Basically, I don't think either can be seen as all good or all bad.

(Re: The Stand, I read King's memoir On Writing and one interesting part of that was his confessing that The Stand stalled midway through where he was just totally lost with what to do with it and where to go and had it not already been a thousand pages long, he probably would have shelved it. ... And that's when he decided to blow the darn thing up and kill half the characters. :) Personally, I enjoy a great deal of The Stand, but find the ending to be weak... a not uncommon problem for King.)

Oh, and I'm all for Jack hate. My greatest moments of joy with Lost are when Jack is proved to be massively, devestatingly WRONG.

I'm rooting for Hurley to take Jacob's place, because Hurley would be a benevolent island god...

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

I liked the episode, except that the Los-Angeles reality more and more looks like an AU human fanfic to Island's canon. (If we speak in Buffyverse terms).