Paradise Lost

All right, so admittedly, March wasn't the best month for blogging. I'm not gonna make excuses, but feel free to make them for me. Unfortunately (or not, depending on your point of view) April doesn't look a whole lot better, so expect another month with an entry total closer to 10 than to 20.

Anyway...

"But I guess where I was originally going is that nobody wants to write endings in television. They want to sustain the franchise. But if you don’t write an ending for a story, you know what you are? You’re a hack. You’re not a storyteller. It may not be that you have the skills of a hack. You might be a hell of a writer, but you’re taking a hack’s road. You’re on the road to hackdom and there’s no stopping you because stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end." - David Simon (read the full interview here)

When I read this quote, the first thing it made me think of was Lost. Specificially, how hard it's going to be to create a satisfying ending. I guess we're about halfway through the final season, and, to this point, I'm cautiously optimistic that the ending is going to work well.

I wonder, on the one hand, if we basically have all the necessary information with the exception of what this alternate reality is about -- which, granted, is a pretty big exception. I suppose the the good vs. evil thing is the only thing grand enough for the ending to a show as epic as Lost, but part of me actually kind of longs for the mystery of wondering about the Others and Dharma and about who's good and bad and in-between. Also, keep in mind, I was never really one to complain about not knowing what was going on, isn't that the fun of a mystery?

So it seems, to me, that there are three competing powers: Jacob wants a successor to keep up the good fight/defeat the Man in Black; the Man in Black wants to get off the island, which will either destroy the world or destroy everyone who's involved with the island; and Widmore wants, possibly, to just blow the island up and end the whole fiasco.

My Widmore theory is possibly unsubstantiated, and I'm not sure why he would want to blow up the island, but his motives have been all over the place from the POV of the viewer, so I'm just guessing here. Also, perhaps tying into this possibility, as we've seen, blowing the island up doesn't necessarily blow the island up in all realities, so maybe Widmore knows this and his plan is much more complicated than I think. Especially since it seems like he wants Desmond to guard the island or something.

As for Jacob's plan, I'm curious as to whether it makes sense that Jack will be the New Jacob. Jack was, initially, the single main character of the show, though his role has kind of lessened as the show's gone on. It would be fitting on the one hand, completing his full-arc as a man of science to a man of faith, but I could see it being just as fitting for a resurrected Locke (the real Locke that is) or even Sawyer. Or, maybe, as some have suggested, it's Aaron or Sun and Jin's baby that will be the successor (or at least provide some loophole). Maybe that's why Desmond is back? We'll see.

Speaking of Desmond being back, I'm glad he's around again. I remember at one point (after "The Constant" one of my favorite episodes, the one where Desmond calls Penny on Christmas Eve) feeling like he was, in the grand scheme of things, the most important character. Of course, then we didn't see him for about a season and a half (maybe not that long) and I was proven wrong, but his episodes are always great and I find his romance is the most engaging. He's also gotten a raw deal so many times (from Widmore and from the sacrifice he had to make for the island) that he's easy to empathize with.

Anyway, as you can see, it's hard to write about Lost without being a super-hardcore fan, but now you at least know that I have indeed been watching it and that I haven't completely forgotten about my blog.

Back tomorrow or Monday.