I tuned in tonight hoping to see some answers to some of the questions posed through the course of this season. Instead, we got a whole passel of new questions. For once I'm not completely sure I'm disappointed by that.
I haven't reviewed Lost in a few weeks not only due to time constraints, but because I've discovered I enjoy it more if I don't try to write it up. Tonight was no exception--I took notes for about ten minutes, then stopped, and suddenly found the show much more entertaining.
So not so much with the recapping tonight--just some reactions to the major developments. The writers seriously messed with our heads here, mostly to good effect. Although I was about to tune out and never tune back in again for those fifteen minutes or so we thought Sayid and Jin were dead. Okay, Bernard, too, but I'm not so much invested in him. In fact, I thought it was a little weird that he and Rose just popped back out of the woodwork last week after such a long absence. I loved Hurley's last-minute charge to the rescue, and even though it's been telegraphed for the last several episodes, I disliked Charlie's death. It was a good, heroic death, but there were at least a couple of ways he could have gotten out of there before he drowned, and that bugged me. Also, how did Charlie know to play "Good Vibrations" with exactly those variations on the tune? And how did he know which numbers were which notes in the first place? I had some issues with that whole sequence. He could have remembered the numbers Bonnie gave him and worked it out that way, but I'm pretty sure she started out with 555, and Charlie didn't. (I also had issues with how emaciated Tracy Mittendorf (Angel) looked, but that's a very different sort of rant.)
Of course the biggest messing-of-heads was with Jack's supposed flashback, which turned out in the end to be a flash forward. This is either a move of pure genius on the part of the writers, or exactly the opposite. That'll depend on how they play it, naturally. I was frustrated that we never saw who had died that sent Jack off the deep end (almost), but this made sense as a story choice given that it wasn't a flashback. I'm also a bit unclear on some other elements of that section. Jack referenced his father--but we know his father's dead. Was he just that messed up, or was there something else going on there? And why is he so determined to get back to the island?
All this begs the question, too--is rescue really on its way? Will Naomi's boat show up and take them off the island and then the story will proceed from there to explain Jack's issues in the flash forward tonight? There are 48 episodes left to tell the story, which in current show-time is only about another month or so, give or take. Of course, that equation isn't set it stone, either.
Anyway, the twists and turns of this season still have me veering back and forth between sticking with the show and giving up. After tonight's episode, I think I'm leaning more toward the "sticking with" side again.
Good Vibrations--The Beach Boys
