After really enjoying watching LOST season 5 this year, I was disappointed with the 2 hour finale that aired yesterday. Hearing the comments so far on Twitter and other blog sites, I seem to be one of the only ones, so I’ve decided to explain the reasons here, where I’m not limited to 140 characters.
SPOILERS AHEAD
First off, I’d like to say that I’ve never been a fan of Jacob and his “storyline”. He doesn’t bother me as much as the smoke monster but does so in a similar way. I didn’t like how they so simply inserted Jacob into all these significant scenes in the characters lives, it seemed kind of lazy. One of things I like about LOST is how they show things that don’t make sense episodes or seasons before (like Richard visiting John Locke when he was born, and as a child) and then explain them later on that makes sense. Where something like this is just put in as an afterthought, and never was thought out or pre-determined. Unless they can explain these the reasons for his appearances, they seemed a bit of waste.
Speaking of which, they destroyed what was once an awesome scene from the first episode of the series about Jack explaining how he overcame his fear and sewed up the lady from being paralyzed, into a scene about him fighting his father. I thought that was a cheap ploy to show a scene they had talked about before, while destroying the integrity of the conversation that originally happened between Jack and Kate.
Second, I wasn’t really sold on the “action” of the episode, where everyone was running around shooting, Sayid carrying a nuke getting shot, Hurley driving the van to the rescue, and then later at the Swan Station, where they ride in guns blazing in the van. It all seemed to forced, like they wanted all this shooting to try and make it more exciting, as opposed to setting up suspense (which there wasn’t any, because the ending was very predictable).
But, the biggest things that bothered me in this season finale, was how everyone started changing their minds when it came to detonating the nuclear bomb.
First Sawyer and Juliet are going to stay on the submarine, while Kate wants to go stop Jack. Then Juliet changes her mind and wants to stop Jack then beats up one of the Dharma henchmen. Sawyer reluctantly goes along. Then when they finally find Jack and stop the van, Sawyer wants to talk Jack out of it. I don’t believe Jack would stop for 5 minutes to talk to Sawyer WHILE SAYID IS BLEEDING TO DEATH IN THE VAN WITH A NUCLEAR BOMB. Then they go into the jungle, do some talking, then when Jack doesn’t change his mind, they of course, have to fight. Also this after Jack reveals his reasons for wanting to blow up the bomb (because he loves Kate???)
After Sawyer wins the fight, Juliet stops him and says she has “now changed her mind” and wants Jack to carry out his plan because when she was younger and saw her parents divorce, she didn’t want the same thing to happen with her and Sawyer? So Sawyer, now again reluctantly agrees, when all he wanted to do was take the submarine back to the rest of the world. Then later, Kate (who’s idea it was to stop Jack in the first place) decides to go along with Jack’s plan because she suddenly believes in him?
I’m a big fan of the LOST series, and am a big fan of this season, but for me the season finale was disappointing, and thought it could have been better. Why not actually have Sawyer/Kate/Juliet try and stop Jack all the way to the end? Why not insert more conflict between the characters and what their motivations are?
I’m not saying the finale was bad by any means, I was just expecting more, especially since the ending was predictable.
Let me know what you think below, I’m guessing more people were very happy with the finale, and I”m in the minority.
- Dennis
You make a lot of really valid arguments and points. I can see how the Jacob character (in terms of who and what he actually is) was something of an afterthought. It’s possible that they didn’t know what he was before this season – and this is why they had him in the form of Jack’s father in seasons past. But it seems more likely that Jack’s father was really whoever this oppositional character is (the man with Jacob on the beach in the beginning of the episode) – a character that it seems can only appear in the form of dead people – Jack’s father, then Locke.
cont…
I really like the new dynamic between Jacob and whoever this oppositional entity is and I love exploring the character of Jacob in more depth. That probably has to do with my personal preferences and interests in terms of mythology and theology. This is, simply put, right up my alley. These two seem to represent two opposing world views just as Locke and Jack represented the “science” vs. “Faith” argument initially. Which is what I loved about the Locke/Jack dynamic, a dynamic which got me invested in the show in the first place. And one I missed when the show moved away from it as a focal point.
cont…
I also was a big fan of the Science Versus Faith dynamic between Jack and Locke, but not really a big fan of this new "Good versus Evil", "God Versus Devil" dynamic with Jacob and this other "person". I think it's seems more generic, and not as interesting.
Dennis
I would say so too – BUT look at some of the things Jacob has requested or been there for…He gave Sawyer the pen for his revenge letter. He did not try and dissuade him from a course of revenge that would lead him o life of crime and selfish disregard for others. He seemed to be giving Alpert letters to give to Ben with fairly controversial marching orders – he seems to have been responsible for bringing people to the Island to play out some experiment with human nature. It isn't quite clear to me what good really means here – and I like that.
AS to Locke – I have to say – THAT was the most obvious plot twist of all. I knew what was in the box the minute they showed it to the pilot. Locke was acting far too out of character for anything else to make sense. It seemed obvious that “loop hole” discussed in the beginning of the show would be getting someone ELSE to kill Jacob. Perhaps it needed to be the only real living leader of the others. The predictability and forced (non-surprising) reveal of Locke’s body in the box bothered me a bit. But I forgive it because I am very interested in who and what these two new characters are. Is this a God and the Devil thing – it sure looks a bit like it.
cont…
As to Juliette, Kate, Sawyer and Jacks motivations. Well I am a believer that no matter how “rational” we claim to be as a species – it is in fact our irrationality and the behavior that is the result of said irrationality that divides us from the other animal species. If we take two minutes to think of our world and we see that this is true. Emotions are wild horses – and they are truly what drive us. Be it greed, lust, insecurity, revenge, regret or love – it is our emotions that propel through the stories of our lives.
I will say I have absolutely no idea what will happen as a result of that bomb going off –but I am pretty exiled to see where they will take us next season.
-Roth
I don't think its a question of rational or irrational (except that Jack stopped for 5 minutes while Sayid was bleeding to death with a nuke in the van).
Its more about how even when we are irrational, we as human beings don't change our minds that quickly on issues. Think how hard it is to convince someone to change their mind about little things. Even arguing this episode on Twitter, think about how inconsequential it is, and how people don't change their minds. Then especially with strong characters like Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate. Perhaps if it was Hurley, I could see it.
Dennis
To me, this was a great finale for Season 5. A lot of questions were actually answered instead of being answered with questions like they typically do on this show. My biggest problem with the finale was actually quite minor but it was just too corny to let go. In the scene with the incident, there was a part where Phil calls Sawyer and points the gun at him with this evil smirk like "Amidst all this chaos, I'm still gonna shoot you for locking me in a closet!". Then the structure falls on him and he gets stabbed by those metal rods. Reminded me of Final Destination or something and was just an eye roller for me. Just pointless.
And I like roth's last argument about the characters motivations. Never thought of it that way but that's a good point. When watching it I was thinking how lame for these women to be so wishy-washy and how Jack's reason for changing everything was for Kate. I'm sure he had other motives, like he felt so strongly about it, but I wish he would have kept the whole "doing it for Kate" thing to himself.
I too was wondering why the hell was Jack having that chat with Sawyer and not even acknowledging the fact that Sayid was bleeding to death. Come to think of it, that was a negative part in my book.
I didn't mind Jacob being in the character's past, I just wanna know exactly WHY he was there and why he chose them specifically. This wasn't the best finale, but it was very satisfying since a good amount of questions were answered. Season 3 is still my favorite cuz the whole time you're just like "wtf is going on?" then you hear Jack yell "We gotta go back Kate!" and your mind is just blown. Plus Charlie died and he went out pretty nicely. This one answered alot of questions but left us with one BIG ASS one. I have no clue what's coming next.
Yeah Season 3 finale was great. The whole 2nd half of Season 3 was fantastic, too bad the first half was so lame.____Yeah the part with Phil was stupid too, especially how long he waited and could have shot Sawyer, but then structure fell. ____The whole riding in the van shooting their guns was over the top. What am I watching? A-Team?____Where's Sayid? Did they leave him on the side of the road?____Dennis
Do you think this going back to the start of time
People speculate that the end of Season 6 will lead to the beginning of Season 1.
Dennis
I hope Season 6 isn't the beginning of Season 1. I don't think they can pull it off for the sole fact that they can't get Walt to look like a 12 year old boy again. That, and what if, for example, the actor that plays Boone in real life died, or was seriously injured, they wouldn't be able to get him back and it would suck to use another actor. UNLESS, they filmed season 6 while filming season 1 then they could get away with it, the bastards… I'm still hoping LOST isn't just some giant loop cuz that would actually really suck. All the mysteries and questions would just mean nothing.
One reason that people are speculating that is, if you play the video game LOST like I did, you play as this side character that goes through Season 1 and 2, and at the end when you "win", it loops back to the beginning.
Dennis
[...] Season 5 – Another really good season, though there are few rough spots here and there. While everyone loved the finale, I wasn’t quite as impressed as certain “character logic” didn’t make any sense (http://www.thinkhero.com/2009/05/14/lost-season-5-finale-review-disappointed-but-i-guess-im-the-only...) [...]