'Lost': My recap for "The Incident" is live

Read the recap, and I'm going to need a roadmap to see how the characters made "out of character" decisions. Not that I disagree out of hand, but I didn't get that impression, so I'll need some pointers. It's entirely possible I'm not really analyzing these characters as scrupulously as I should.

I definitely agree that Jack Sheppard seems to be channelling Jack Bauer, and that is not good. WAY too many cheesy gunfights this season.

Despite this, my overall impression (after 2 viewings) is that this is the second best finale - next to Through the Looking Gl***. I feel very satisfied, and very eager to see the final season, wheras the finale of season 2 left me thinking "hrrrummph".

Ryan, I commend you for having the courage to tell it like it is.

Though I am surprised that so far the comments (22 have been posted as of this writing) aren't nearly as negative as I expected. Perhaps all of the depressed folks have already gone to sleep -- if so I hope they will make their voices heard en m***e tomorrow.

I admit that even I was glued to the tube this evening, still holding out hope for a great double-episode finale, even after the (in my opinion) horrible episode two weeks ago.

Why? Because I thought last week's episode ("segment" really), while not self-contained, was full of interesting scenes that had the potential to lead up to a great finale tonight. (Boy was I delusional.)

Frankly, even though I (along with others) predicted long ago that the finale would involve the detonation of the hydrogen bomb (as non-sensical as it seems to me that the magical energy of the island can harness the bomb's tremendous destructive energy for productive time-travelling purposes), I am still shocked that it was the final scene!

That is, I felt for sure that there would be a final post-explosion scene that would really give us something to talk about -- and take our mind off the hokey predictability of the bomb going off being the "surprise" fork-in-the-outlet ending of the season.

(And the idea that Jacob has the powers to visit all these various oceanic characters at various times in the past and yet can still be easily killed by a man with a knife is insane!)

I guess Darlton have come to care even less about the show (and its audience) than I thought.

(I bet that Lindelof has already spent more time working on the next Star Trek movie than he did on this season of Lost.)

(I haven't seen Star Trek yet, and at this point I plan to boycott it and anything else Lindelof, Cuse, or JJ are involved in until and unless the final season of LOST wins me back.)

There are so many little points I could make regarding why the finale was so bad, but it's late and between Ryan's recap and the commenters tomorrow they will probably cover them anyway.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with my doppleganger here; this season finale wasn't even in the same ballpark as "Looking Gl***" and "No Place Like Home." As I said in my comments under the recap, these whole 2 hours felt forced and the emotional connections we should be feeling but aren't is because the season ends feeling very incomplete. We still don't know:

- How the 77'ers get back to the present (if at all), why they were sent back in the first place, what the past's connection to Locke's deicide is, and what that Jughead stuff is about. I was really hoping we'd be done with the quantum ballet by tonight :(

- We still don't know what purpose Desmond serves and why Faraday and his mama thought he was so special.

- We didn't get to see the outrigger shootout from the other (Other?) perspective.

The history of Jacob and the war, the Alpert flashback we all know is coming, the explanations for Smokey and the final battle for the Island is all stuff I know and accept as strictly Season 6 material, I just think the above items could have and should have been wrapped up by the end of Season 5.

Over on Alan Sepinwall's site, he mentions that in "The Incident" podcast, Darlton specifically made the episode mirror "Exodus", the Season 1 finale, including that cut-to-white-and-explain-nothing ending. So tonally, it was like that - less on emotional connections (because back then, the show was new and we weren't invested in them yet), and more on pushing the pieces into play to setup the next season. And hey, it did bring us "Orientation", the Dharma Initiative and Benjamin Linus, so I wait with anticipation for Season 6.

The main problem with the finale was the pacing, especially in Dharma times. I had a feeling they'd end it with the bomb blowing up, so I guess I wasn't as disappointed than I would have been if I had expected something after that.

The flashbacks were a little dull, I'm sure we all got the point after the 2nd of Jacob's visitations.

The 2007 stuff was excellent however, especially once they tipped Locke's body out of the crate.

Overall, I can see many reasons why people would dislike this season as a whole; it was like a pre-finale episode extended for a whole season. I think that while it may not have been the best while we were watching it, it's certainly set my expectations high for season 6.

Also, Phil got impaled, how is that not enough for anyone?

RYAN: "I'm trying to not overanalyze this lest I get mad."

"I'm going to try and ignore the fact that the show's told us it [where Jacob lives] was the cabin for the past three years lest I start slamming my head against the coffee table."

"I would do anything for love, but I won't do that. And by 'that' I mean 'detonate a hydrogen bomb,' which I'm pretty sure is what Meatloaf meant as well."

"Sawyer's confused. That makes two of us. Why did she change her mind..? Kate, the center of the freakin' universe according to the show all of a sudden. One look from Sawyer to Kate showed Juliet that they weren't meant to be together, and while Sawyer would stay if she asked, and she loves him for it..."

"...you know what? This scene makes me angry. Extremely angry. Juliet is not this freakin' weak."

"There are ways for the show to put Sawyer and Kate together, if that's what they wish, without selling out one of its strongest characters, male or female, on the show."

"First Jack co-opts Jack Bauer's shooting skillz; now he's developed Bauer's velvet voice. Unbelieveable."

"As everyone mopes at the van, Miles finally asks the question that should have been asked an hour ago: 'Has it occurred to any of you that your buddy is going to CAUSE the thing he says he's trying to prevent? Perhaps that little nuke IS the incident? So maybe the best thing to do...is nothing? I'm glad you all thought this through.' And I'm glad the show decided to have someone say this so late in the episode. Really."

"As they see Phil and Co. race to the Swan, Sawyer looks to Juliet for guidance. 'Live together, die alone,' she replies. Now they are just TRYING to make me mad."

"Phil catches sight of Jack along the top of the ridge. Maybe it's because it looks like Jack's trying to sneak around with what looks like a bionic leg sticking high above his head."

"No Des, Penny, Horace, elder Eloise, or any-aged Widmore."

"Why bother showing Juliet's flashback without any Jacob appearance? Just felt sloppy."

"...it's not that they left us with a mutha of a confusing cliffhanger that will force us to wonder for months if the show just killed off half its cast... It's that to get to that point, the show chose a series of increasingly hard-to-swallow character decisions that made the climax almost intolerable..."

"...it's not clear to me why any of them are letting his plan go through. And because their hearts don't seem 100% it in, neither was mine."

"And only man who believed in the plan? He's doing it because of a failed relationship with Kate! Dude, write her a letter. Send flowers. Hell, make a mix tape. But don't detonate a hydrogen bomb with the hopes that second time around, you and the stranger in front of you will bond over handcuffs."

"A few shocking moments does NOT a stellar episode make..."

"it was the characters that let me down"

"...I blame the writers..."

Amen, Brutha.

Oops -- forgot to put my "name" on the previous (quote intensive) post.

I am finding it very hard to swallow that Jack's big epiphany is just about Kate- ugh. So weak, and I barely believed it. Usually Matthew Fox totally sells me in his scenes, but that just seemed forced and it was obvious. WTF??
Loved all the Jacob/MIB/Richard stuff, except the forced into the storyline visits from Jacob into the O6'ers pasts. The only one that matters is Hurley's. I do wonder what is in that guitar case, betcha it will be of great importance, along with Hugo himself- he will be the one to save them all... Also, I said in the other post, I believe that is Juliet's eye we saw at the end.

The most disappointing part about the Finale was how they tried to bring in and explain Jacob.
It was as if they sat down and said, how the hell are we gonna explain this guy, and quickly wrote him in the show; In one episode. Quickly showing he had met everyone in the past...This Really Cheapened The Show in my opinion...
The show has been so well written up until now. I was always hoping that they will tie everything just as well and bring it to a great believable conclusion, with everything making sense... Last night was the first time I felt these people have taken the show to a place where they don't know how to end it. Jacob was very poorly written in the show... I only hope I am mistaken and the show will live up to all we have come to expect.

Ryan, I read you every Thursday morning--I like the bit of clarity you provide and theories you propose. But, I think your "overtime" today made you a bit bitter :-(

I think the season finale mostly wrapped up the season nicely, minus some missing connections. I really like the idea that Man in Black was behind many of the island's events, perhaps serving in the role of Christian as well. With the talk of the "candidate" tonight, perhaps certain people can become "Jacob" in which, we can see why Walt may have been so special or Aaron...thoughts?

I agree completely, Ryan. This episode felt dead. I can't really put my finger on why, but it did. That was the weakest finale so far.