'Lost': How to resolve the show properly
Yesterday, I tried to gauge how confidently "Lost" fans feel about the show completing its final season in a satisfactory manner. It was question both broad and unfair, but hey, that's how I roll around these parts. Montell Jordan does it his way, but this is how we do it here.
It's broad because one person's "satisfactory" is another person's "epic fail." And it's unfair in that while it's more than likely that the show will not end how we currently might predict it will, it's impossible to be sure if such a deviation will cause joy or depression. On one hand, an unanticipated ending could have us partying like Ewoks after the destruction of the second Death Star. On the other, the show's unexpected dénouement could make us feel worse than a double feature of "Million Dollar Baby" and "Leaving Las Vegas." It's just too early to tell.
Rather than try and tease out a dozen possibilities for how the show might end, I think it's important to look at what would make the final season "satisfactory." I think it's easy to make the mistake of trying to quantify its eventual worth in terms of "questions answered" versus "issues resolved." I feel like many people use the former as their barometer, whereas I feel like the latter should be what we should be using as a measuring stick.
As an example of the difference between "questions answered" and "issues resolved," let's go back to the moment in "Live Together, Die Alone" in which Desmond reveals that by not pushing the button in a timely manner, Oceanic 815 crashed on the Island. Many felt relieved to finally learn the reason why Oceanic 815 crashed. But they didn't learn the reason. They merely learned the mechanism by which it occurred. There's a difference. A big one. As we learned in "The Incident," there have been larger forces at work all along in this universe. The question isn't, "How did Oceanic 815 crash?" but "Why did Oceanic 815 crash?"
Take the smoke monster. (Please!) The mystery surrounding its composition isn't important; the reason behind its actions (or inactions, as the case may be) is. I need to know less about what it is and more about what it does and why it does it. Why attack Danielle's crew? Why kill the pilot? Why let Eko live in Season 2 only to kill him in Season 3? Why did it flash on Juliet? So on and so forth. I don't need an answer to each and every question, but the general understanding of the monster's ethos would be greatly appreciated, especially if that understanding contributes to the endgame.
Answers concerning the monster or any other lingering mysteries are mere trivia if they don't contribute to our understanding of the world of "Lost." It's unimportant if the show never reveals why Rose thought the monster sounded so familiar in the show's pilot episode...unless that throwaway line has an impact on why the monster acts like it does. The nature of the monster needs to be revealed in the context of some larger issue at hand. Say, for instance, the writers choose to use the nature of the monster as part of the War of the Island; in other words, the characters in the show need to learn something about the monster that is vital to both winning that war...but only gain that advantage through an understanding why it's behaved the way it has over the past few seasons.
In essence, revelation is only as important as the newfound understanding therein. It's one thing to have a missing piece of information. It's another thing to be able to apply it to the situation at hand and act accordingly. For five seasons, the major players from Oceanic 815's crash have found themselves surrounded by places, people, and imagery that are foreign to them. They've struggled to make sense of their surroundings, and as such have flailed about as best they could to decipher the cryptic world in which they find themselves. And while they have occasionally succeeded, they have mostly struggled.
Season 6, then, is about the show's mysteries finally coming to light. But more importantly, it's about what these particular people do with those realizations. Ostensibly, Jacob hand picked these people due to their unique natures, natures that potentially make them perfectly equipped to deal with whatever reality eventually presents itself over the final, crucial weeks of this show's run. How these people face these answers ties in intimately with how they can resolve the pain within each of them. Solving the mystery is the first and least important step. Using that answer to bring closure both to the War of the Island and the emotional war long aged inside each of these characters will truly bring us a final season to cherish.
Ryan invites you to join the hundreds already in Zap2It's Guide to Lost Facebook group.
Hey Ryan, are you still planning on writing up a recap of the Zap2Locke Con meeting? I was hoping I could pretend that I attended by living vicariously through your words.
I hope they leave a lot of questions unanswered. Sometimes ... life and events have no reason for occuring, but they do and we never know why. In Nature ... we know that certain forces attract to one another, pull them together, as we are told has occured often with The Island and those who have come there. The Mystery has to remain for life's questions to be pursued, the ever constant force of the unknown drawing us and pulling us in.
In the end ... all we have are more questions.
Concerning the reason why Rose said that the smoke monster sounded familiar...
When the show first came out, I am fairly sure that Darlton (or maybe Abrams...) said that they used the sound of a ticket being accepted at a NYC subway as part of the monster sound effects. This is why right after Rose says the line, someone asks "Where are you from?", and she said "New York". I would be surprised if this gets integrated into the actual story, but hopefully it explains the line...
@Shaun - It's NYC cabs, actually. And I never noticed the sound made by a cab receipt printer until I heard that interview. Now, whenever I'm in NYC (I live in Poughkeepsie, so it's a ~90-minute train ride) I always notice the sounds of the cabs printing their receipts, and it kind of freaks me out. Makes the hair on my arms stand on end.
And that's just one of the many reasons I love this show.
Sorry to hear that Wilson but I want answers.....I think as loyal followers of the show for all these years makes me and a boatload of others deserving of answers. This isn't Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise in "A Few Good Men"......I want answers and I want the truth and I can handle the truth.....You can't just write a show...have mysteries pop up constantly and wrap up a show without giving the customer satisfaction in why certain characters acted a certain way or why crazy things happened on an island...if so they have really let down the loyal fan who devoted his time and energy to just a tv show.
@wilson, @jacoby: I think it is possible to have satisfing resolutions of the CHARACTERS without necessarily having satisfying resolution of all the QUESTIONS. Leaving us asking more aint a bad thing. Leaving (most?) of the characters without resolution. I think I would be okay if some minor characters were not resolved but leaving out the Big Three would be unacceptable (caveat: without a really really good reason). Tyrol heading off on his own? Eh, ok. Kara Thrace vanishing? BAD.
EDIT: Leaving (most?) of the characters without resolution would not be OK.
I worry for fans that want answers for the sake of having them answered.
While I always joke about my obsession surrounding the glass eye found in the Arrow hatch, it's completely unimportant to the storytelling of the show and I'm fine that it won't get answered. There are a plethora of other questions like that which will probably never get answered. Some of them simply don't need answers.
It's clear that the big questions will be answered, because they're the ones that have lasted throughout the course of the show. What is the Smoke Monster, who are the Others, what is the destiny of the survivors, what is the Island, etc. are all questions that will have answers because they are the connective tissue of the show and will involve the journey of our characters in some fashion.
But for the fans that are already saying they're going to be mad if we never learn Libby's backstory or who Karl's parents are or what happened to the DeGroots or why there is an escape hatch in the Staff station... you're going to need to let go of some of those things. If your overall enjoyment of the show is tied up in minutiae like that, you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
Are we owed answers? Yes, in a word, but only those answers that finish the story and resolve the journey of the characters.
It would be a tremendous disservice to this wonderful show we all love to walk out of the final episode pissed off because your question wasn't answered and your therefore the whole show was a waste of time. I predict a lot of inane comments like that all over the web after the last episode airs.
Excellent essay!
Most of all, I hope they don't force hokey answers to questions (such as "Why let Eko live in Season 2 only to kill him in Season 3?") that we know were due to unfortunate production realities.
And I hope none of the answers make it hard to appreciate the magic of early episodes -- for instance, I really prefer that we not find out for sure if Charlie's guitar was placed up in that tree intentionally
(presumably by Jacob), or whether Locke just happened to notice it up there previously and realized he could help Charlie (with his addiction) if he waited for the right moment to reveal it to him.
I prefer this latter theory, as I think it reinforces the notion that we all sometimes have opportunies in life to help each other, if we choose to (and keep our eyes open!). Thus, to find out it was all Jacob's doing would be a bit of a let-down.
A small example, but think a good one.
And taxicab receipt printers notwithstanding, I still like to think the reason Rose thought smokey sounded familiar is because (like me) she watched "Forbidden Planet" a lot as a kid, and (in the pilot at least) smokey sounded a lot like the monster from the ID (primal subconcious) -- which could certainly tie in with the overall mythology of the show.
(Then again, maybe it's just my EGO that makes me type that.)
By the way, I second Yanksrule's longing for a recap of Zap2Locke.
Early in the 1st episode of Flash Forward, there's a billboard for Oceanic Airlines. So, I figure a crossover with Lost will help explain both shows. The only person awake during those 2 min, 17 sec. will be a Lostie like Jacob and the blackout will be connected to the island, where 4/29/2010 will be significant. [Just kidding, of course, but I was surprised to see the billboard.]