Friends on Flicks

On November 13th I lost my job, so I decided to take it one step even FURTHER and get lost on a deserted island. Get it? You’re in for a wild ride here. I began my first time Lost viewing just a few days after getting laid off. I figured, I had time, why not. I quite literally had nothing better to do.

Mind you, I knew nothing about this show while going in. I figured that I should stop my cycle of rewatching The Office over and over until I die. I also recently finished Grey’s Anatomy (well I got through 11 seasons and figured I got the entire gist of it) so I needed more drama in my life. I only knew that the show featured a plane crash, something about a smoke monster (a possible metaphor for pollution in the 21st century? We’ll get to that later if I feel like it) and some iconic scene that involved a boat (or not boat? A boar maybe?) and writing on a hand. I initially tweeted about wanting to start the show, which led to many people telling me NOT to watch it. I hate being told what to do, so I ignored them all. I finished the first three seasons in a little over two months. Here are some thoughts I had.

Season One

I had heard that Lost is full of mythical creatures, so when a dog showed up in the first scene of the first episode, I knew that something was going down. Turns out it was just a regular dog. That’s fine, I guess. I quickly learn that I don’t know any of the names of the survivors, which makes it really hard to keep up.

The “survivors,” as they are called, are all sweaty, all the time. Like, absurdly sweaty. My number one question was always involving bathrooms (Where did they go? Did the women get their periods?) but they never seemed to answer that. Perhaps in a spinoff?

Every time I searched for a character, Google decided it would be a good idea to add “‘s death” or “why did _____ kill ______” which meant that I simply could no longer Google the names. Instead, I was left thinking that the guy who played Locke was the same guy who played the other bald guy in Breaking Bad (haven’t seen that show either, perhaps I’ll get to that one once I lose another job). At other times, I was left thinking that Locke’s character was played by Creed from The Office. This made the show a lot funnier, so I just stuck with that for a bit. Imagine Creed Bratton in the jungle? Hire me, NBC!

Anyway, there is some weird stuff going on this here island. A giant “roar” ends the first episode and you just know that this isn’t just your typical Lord of The Flies ripoff- there is some Twin Peaks in here too. I’m in it for the long run. Jack clearly has issues with authority, so he becomes the leader at some point.

People keep showing up on the island which is weird because it’s…a deserted island. Actually, they might not be new, but they are just characters that weren’t introduced in the first few episodes, so it seems like they just appeared. I guess they just needed to fill out the budget and hire more actors, or maybe the characters just landed on the wrong side of Hawaii and are too lazy to walk over to the other side so everyone just moseys on over to them. There is a constant debate on who is Scott and who is Steve. I feel that.

A few episodes in, I declare Sawyer as my mortal enemy. Not only is his attitude unhelpful, but his hair is just so perfectly highlighted, it completely shatters the illusion. He and Kate kiss and I scream for thirty minutes straight.

I have a hard time believing that these guys are mentally and emotionally stable. They went through a major trauma, and now they are all playing golf and chilling? There are little plot points that get solved with a happy ending, which causes inspirational music and emotional montages. Great – but did we forget the part where they are on a fucking island? Why are we are all deciding to ignore the roaring beasts and play Never Have I Ever around the campfire? Whatever.

I begin to think that I should go into movie editing and string together every time a character says “Jack!” and make a fun YouTube video out of it. I quickly talk myself out of that after realizing there are six seasons of this show. Speaking of six seasons, how long can they drag this out? I’m stressed. I’m stressed about a lot of things.

Soon we learn that Ethan was NOT on the maifest and all hell breaks loose. I don’t even know what a manifest is but I guess it’s bad. He takes Claire, who has the lungs and screaming capacity of a Banshee.

The woods seem to “whisper” and I have absolutely nothing to say about that. There are also polar bears, which I guess will be explained at a later point, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are never mentioned again. Kate doesn’t seem to have any underarm hair the entire season, which means she must be hiding something.

I think the flashback scenes are really cool, mostly because they try to make the characters look younger, which looks hilarious.  The numbers though? That messed me up. John’s episode was pretty freaking iconic and I may have cried, I’ll leave that to your imagination. Boone dies which was pretty sad. He went off to become Damon in “The Vampire Diaries” but I had hoped that they would have a crossover episode. None yet. Claire finally has her baby after being pregnant for about three years.

So, they built a freaking raft. They’re all happy and cheering and I don’t buy it since there are still five seasons left of this thing. Oh, they found a hatch? I don’t know. The Others are coming, too? Maybe the Others can help, though? I guess not.

Season recap: a lot of weird shit happened. I’m into it, I live and breathe Lost. I do not for one second think they are actually leaving the island.

Season Two

There is a hatch. There is a guy who LIVES in the hatch. Okay! His name is Desmond, and he has a cool accent so I’m fine with him. For some reason, they keep playing the whole scene of them meeting over and over, as if I wasn’t sitting here watching it. JJ Abrams, are you good? Turns out he just presses a button, which is now Jack/John/everyone else’s job.

They seemingly accept the fact that they need to just press a button every 108 minutes. A metaphor for corporate America? You decide.

We also get to know Ana Lucia who, honestly, sucks. I knew someone named Ana Lucia, but her name was pronounced “Lu-CHIA” and I couldn’t shake that from my Italian brain. That’s not why I hate her, though. I hate her because I don’t trust her. Also because she wears the same low rise jeans in every scene she is in. Do you wash your clothes, Ana Lucia? Aren’t you uncomfortable in those jeans? Everyone else is sweaty, there is no harm in cutting them into shorts.

We also get some other new people, including Libby, who seems to have some dark secret but then again so does everybody so who am I to hold it against her.

Walt has been missing forever, and a couple Google searches lead me to believe it is because the actor actually got too old for the part. Dark.

We are now introduced to “The Dharma Initiative” and I finally get that one reference Dwight Schrute makes. I’m pretty spooked but also really into the idea of a secret government lab on this island. If they end up actually being in Hell I’m going to be SO pissed. Is the government lab a metaphor for Hell? You decide.

Oh MAN. They meet this guy calling himself Henry and I can’t decide if I can trust him or not. His face freaks me out so I’m leaning towards not. Also- people are just getting pregnant all over the place. Not sure what to make of that yet.

They find another station. I’m beginning to think there are a lot of stations on this island. I’m actually beginning to think that this isn’t an island at all, but a very elaborate section of Epcot.

They make some sort of plan that confuses me and get betrayed by one of their own. Michael, WHY! He rats them out and then they are caught by the “others” who – spoiler alert- wear fake beards. A metaphor for Americans? You decide. Probably not, I’m not sure why they wore beards.

Season recap- I still don’t know what’s happening.

Overall recap- I’m officially a Lost fanatic, just about 14 years after I should have been. It’s fine though since if I had to wait every week to watch one episode I would have lost my mind and abandoned it on episode 2. I think the most interesting part to me is that there are over seven thousand Wiki pages about this show, which means that if I truly wanted to, I could become a Lost scholar. It also sort of stresses me out that there is so much (useless) information out there and yet I need to know every single detail and will not give up until I know it. I’ve heard some stuff about how the show gets worse as the seasons go one but I’m pretty much obsessed at this point so it’s safe to say I’ll be here for a while, mostly just to make sure the dog survives.