Lost
Why are we here? Is there an intelligent force controlling our destiny? How am I connected to others in the grand scheme of things?
Rarely does a network TV series ponder such existential issues. But on the Emmy-winning drama Lost those questions haunt every castaway who survived the crash of Oceanic Air flight 815—not to mention the legion of young fans tuning in each week before scurrying to share theories about the show's latest developments on social networking sites.
When that doomed plane came down on a jungle island populated by polar bears, a freaky smoke monster and a group of people called the Others, the place's peculiar magic seemed to undulate and swell. It makes it possible for the lame to walk, the dead to visit the living and for the whole place to travel through space and time.
It's confusing without question. And it's not for either the faint of heart or the sporadic viewer. Lost's ever-changing cadre of characters—Jack, Kate, Locke, Sawyer, Sayid and Hurley have remained at the core—has seemingly been just as befuddled as the rest of us. But as they live their lives on the island (and in the past and a very flexible future), slowly they've come to terms with some of the pain they brought with them—guilt, sin, unresolved family issues. A few find themselves in the midst of an interesting paradox: Sometimes it takes getting lost before you can find what you're really looking for.
Episode Reviews
February 2, 2010
TV Parental Guidelines Rating: tv14
"LA X (Parts 1 and 2)"
The twist that starts Season 6 (Lost's last go-round) is that everybody's been split into two realities: In one scenario, they land safely in Los Angeles on Oceanic 815 as if nothing ever happened. In the other, they're still on the island, where a cataclysmic showdown is brewing between the Others (those who have adhered to Jacob's rules and whims for time immemorial) and those who have stumbled along behind the raging leadership of John Locke. Or rather, Locke's apparently evil doppelgänger, who reveals himself to be Jacob's longtime (eternal?) adversary—and the island's resident smoke monster.
It's a complicated thrill ride or mess, depending on your perspective. And if you haven't avidly followed the show to this point, you'll likely not care to start now. The fact that this season's premiere is sprinkled with profanity ("d‑‑n," "b‑‑ch" and "h‑‑‑," for starters) and burdened with nearly continuous bloody violence will be further reasons not to tune in.
For fans, though, we want to spend a bit more time exploring a subject this two-part episode suggests will become even more prominent as the season progresses: spirituality, spiritualism, faith and the occult.
When Jack meets Locke in LAX and tells him the airline doesn't know where his dead father is, Locke responds by saying, essentially, how could they know? Oceanic might've lost Christian's body, but it's well out of an airline's purview to cast judgments on where his soul might be.
On the island, meanwhile, Sayid's been raised from the dead in a mysterious temple and Jacob's directing traffic from beyond the grave. Characters can communicate with the dead, by the way. (And do so.) Locke's smoke monster twin seems positioned as either the island's resident serpent (Satan) or a judgmental, Gnostic-like god. Jacob seems to stand in as a Christ-like figure, even going so far as to allow Ben (at the smoke monster's whim) to kill him without protest.
So what we get is an intertwining of Christian themes and necromancy. Clear-eyed faith and blind occult power. And there's nary a decoder ring in sight to sort it all out. (Past episodes have incongruously featured, among other things, depictions of the staunch faith of a martyred African priest and the heretical assertion by one influential character that Jesus' baptism by John was orchestrated to absolve Christ of His "sins.")
Clearly, we should come down on the side of caution when it comes to getting Lost ourselves.
Will Jacob rise again? Has he already done so using Sayid's body? Will the smoke monster be defeated? Will Eden be restored or merely reinvented? Lost has always raised more questions than answers, and don't think for a second that just because ABC is wrapping up the series we'll suddenly be told what it all means.