Absolutely horrible television, this episode was. Here's why:
1. Richard and Locke's conversation - perfectly good chance to get some answers and we get nothing but a meaningless exchange that did not move the plot forward one inch. That whole conversation could have been edited out of the episode and we would be no less informed.
2. Sawyer's change of heart to go with Locke - so they make it abundantly clear that Sawyer has given up on life, cares about nothing and noone, and is pretty much going to drink himself to death. Then in the span of 2 sentences from Locke... "Guess I better put some pants on." We're supposed to buy that?
3. Locke chasing the kid - so they made it clear that Locke can dodge bullets or at least bullets pass through him, and that he can willingly shape shift into the smoke monster. Yet he struggles to catch up to a kid when chasing him in the forest and get this, TRIPS OVER A VINE??? We're supposed to buy that? Why would Locke not just turn into the Smoke Monster, catch the kid, and force him to tell him everything?
4. The burial scene - noone bats an eyelash when Ben says "I'm sorry for murdering you." Are you serious right now? Not one of the other three goes "Whoa wait a minute what do you mean murder him? We're about to go prancing off in the jungle with you and you tell us you murdered someone? You best start explaining yourself!!!!" No, we get 3 people who barely raise an eyebrow and just accept the fact that the guy is a murderer??? Come on man..... I'm sorry but you have to come up with something stronger than that.
5. The climb down to the cave - showing Sawyer almost buy it was pointless. What did it add to the story? Nothing. They should have just cut to them in the cave. The 1 minute spent trying to add dramatic emphasis to a simple climb down a ladder was entirely unnecessary.
6. The cave scene - so arguably the most central theme to this show, the numbers, is finally there in all it's glory for the big explanation and what do we get? "What's with the numbers?" "Jacob had a thing for numbers." That is some of the worst "We'll just force to the viewers to accept this nonsense writing" I have ever seen in my life. If anyone who is a fan of this show or, like me, was a fan and is just watching to see how it ends since we've invested 5 pathetic years of our lives on this show accepts that and doesn't let it bother them, they are not from this planet.
7. The entire alt timeline - meaningless, unncessary, and most importantly, pathetic. We know that you can't tell Locke what he can't do. Do we really need 20 minutes of that? Do I really need to see Locke question why he is paralyzed and how much his life sucks any more than I have in the previous 5 seasons?
8. The kid - are you **** serious right now? In the last season with so little time to go you are going to introduce a character like this and expect us to just accept him as there to advance the plot line? Horrible effort at writing there...
and lastly my biggest gripe...
(CAPS INTENTIONAL)
STOP ADVERTISING THE TIME FOR QUESTIONS IS OVER WHEN YOU CONTINUE TO DO NOTHING MORE THAN RAISE QUESTIONS AND FAIL TO PROVIDE ANSWERS TO INFINITE AMOUNT OF QUESTIONS WE HAVE. IT'S CALLED FALSE ADVERTISING AND YOU ARE MAKING YOURSELVES LOOK LIKE BIGGER FOOLS WITH EACH PASSING MINUTE OF EVERY EPISODE.
I can't emphasize that enough... stop misleading your audience please. You are not providing answers, because as it stands now, noone knows anymore than they did prior to the airing of this episode.
And to those of you who are going to argue and say "What are you kidding me, bro? We know why they are on the island now!!!" I say "Oh yeah that's right we do know. They are candidates to replace Jacob. And what does/did Jacob do? That's right NONE OF US KNOW so in reality we don't know any more than we did prior to the episode. Locke might as well have told Sawyer that they were brought to the island to be candidates for the new Pizza Hut franchise because as far as we know, that might as well have been JAcob's job, running a damn Pizza Hut.
My point is you don't know what Jacob did, thus you don't know what they are candidates for, so you still don't know why they were brought to the island..
Last edited by Myha; 02-18-2010 at 04:33 AM.
Reason: Circumventing language filter.
Actually, this episode was great television, it wasn't great Lost though, because we've come to expect more from Lost than for it to be JUST another entertaining show.
I'm also getting really annoyed at the promo spots with their "IT'S TIME FOR ANSWERS" nonsense. We have yet to get one conclusive answer and we're already four episodes in.
You forgot another really dumb screw up:
When Sun & co. travel from the Satue to the site of the old beach camp, it appears as though absolutely no time has passed.
You kidding me? It takes Sun, Jin, and Sayid half a day to travel the BY BOAT.
They could of at least shot that scene at a much later time of day, to give the illusion that time has passed.
I just don't think they give a crap anymore.
In the final season of a show they should be giving it their fullest effort and utmost attention to detail, not phoning it in like this.
What scares me most about this season, much more than not answering the mysteries or the meandering plotline, is that I'm not moved by any of the scenes between these characters I used to love. Last week, Sawyer and Kate's scene at the dock left me cold, and this week, I felt nothing for Helen even though I loved her interactions with Locke in his flashbacks. Even Rose and Locke left me unaffected. I don't know if it's the clunky dialogue, or the contrived situation, or the unnaturalness and randomness of the plotlines. In Season 1-4, the flashbacks related to the characters' current on-island emotional state and thematically, the episode pulled together. In this episode, they are flashing between on-Island Flocke, and off-island Locke, and they're not even the same person. And last week, they did no better with on-island vs. off-island Kate - there was no coherence between them.
I didn't hate it (I rarely hate any episode), and every episode this season has had a few moments of goodness. But I'm disappointed nonetheless.
I am so done with this show. I don't even care what happens. It's going to be DVR from now on. No more staying up late for it. They ruined their own show. Where's the answers? So disappointing. I should have known better.
I was actually *bored* watching this. Upon rewatch, it wasn't any better.
It felt like a mockery of the show and the characters that I had come to love. These people we're seeing this season, I just can't seem to care about. The closest I came was when Sawyer was swinging on the rope ladder and I thought maybe the writers would surprise us and have him fall and die. Why was that whole stupid climbing down the ladder scene stretched out like that? Ben's fit over the coffee, the whole "what kind of animal are you?" shtick at the temp agency...completely stupid. I can't believe that with everything left to cover in this final season they need to be adding this kind of filler.
Lost started out like roller coaster, then became something of a tour bus, and now it's a stationary bike -- the pedals are going but the story isn't moving.
We're born, we die, and we make a lot of mistakes in between.
Hey show, in season three you made it clear, that Jack is not on Jacob's list. Now he is and Kate, who met Jacob as a kid (!) is not? Keep your continuity straight please. On that: Why is Helen with Locke? Them breaking up had nothing to do with the crash or the island existing. It feels that the AU is just a way to fill the time with some "wouldn't that be cool if the plane landed".
And why would I want to watch an episode that only features two characters heavily while a good portion of the others doesn't seem to exist?
*Juliet repeatedly smashes down on the undetonated bomb with a small rock until it explodes* End Scene!
Damon: We did it! The show… is a rap! Great ending! Lets get on to another Star Trek.
Production Assistant: Uh…What? There’s one more season to go, DL.
Damon: Another Season?!?!? WTF…Really. What can we possibly write about for anther season? Wait… I got it. First, we’ll advertise that all the questions we’ve failed to answer over the last 4 seasons will be answered throughout this season. That’s money in the bank regardless of shows content. As far as each episode goes we’re going to need some serious fill. Let me think. Eurika! We fill half the episodes with flash sideways where we show an alternate version of our character’s stories. We won’t even have to really be creative. All we have to do is show the exact same stories we’ve already shown but in a different environment and only slightly askew. It will seem new and fresh…Trust me. Then we fill the other half of each episode with a bread crumb or two of info that’s leading to an ending that we’ve yet to think of- That’s worked for the last 3 seasons already. We’ll show it all at a turtle like pace as to not to blow our wod during the first part of the season. Oh yah, we can also throw in a few scenes of classic Lost banter where the clueless losties, who want nothing more than to know what the hell is going on, ask obscure questions and then feel satisfied with even more obscure answers. That will drive our disciples ape s***. We could even give them answers that may not even really be true. Just so the cattle feel like we are feeding them something before we slaughter them with what is destined to be an unsatisfying ending. We’ll write about topics that got this show moving in the first few seasons…The numbers, the smoke thingy, we could show that hatch place again, more tromping through the forest, maybe we could get some old characters from s1 and s2 for a few lines of useless dialogue. The tromping through the woods bit really eats up the minutes. They’ll love it. We should be able to write the entire season in a day or two. Booya!!! Wait… Does this mean I have to do more podcasts?
Yeah, another bum episode. At least it focused on Smokey, but I didn't like him being distracted by the kid or falling over a tree root or whatever it was. Nonsensical. I really think they need to think about what they're writing, you can't just keep this babble coming out of characters' mouths. So Smokey is stuck being Locke now, why? And how would Llama know that anyway? The reason why he is stuck is because the writers want to keep the actor around, surely. Numbers, I thought earlier it was revealed (outside the show) that they had no meaning. So I wasn't expecting an explanation, but there they are in the cave. Now that they have brought them back again, I am still hoping there is more explanation than we see in this episode, but if that's all, then that is nincompoopery at its finest.
All the character has been drained from this show, what I used to like about it is completely in the toilet and I can't see how it can be salvaged. I am at the point where I watch the show to be entertained by the lack of writing and just how stupid things are getting. I still go back to season 1-3 and it is like a different show.
The whole sideways narrative business makes LOST less enjoyable for me, even to the point of me not being bothered if I don't get to to watch an episode for days after its Tuesday night premiere. And since I believe that the sideways storyline will continue for most of the season, I am seriously considering just waiting until the last season comes out on DVD--by then I'll know if the writers saved the story or not or I won't care even if they did.
Basically, I'm considering taking door # 1 in Flocke's equation: do nothing and see who all of this plays out because I'm rapidly losing all my enthusiasm for this show.
I hope someone that works on the show is reading this and letting TPTB how they've made so many of their truly dedicated followers feel completely cheated.
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