Lost’s Ironicly-Titled Premiere: The Beginning of the End
BEWARE THE SPOILERS
Note: If you missed this episode, or any episodes, you can watch them on ABC.com
Lost gained instant fame with its fresh ideas, excellent acting and brilliant writing over three years ago and so every subsequent season premiere has been something of an event. However, none has been more hyped and anticipated than last night’s “The Beginning of the End,” because its been six months since last season, and because there’s been very little on TV lately to watch. Probably one of the most fascinating things about the episode is its title, apt for a variety of reasons. Like many of Lost’s titles, this one has a double meaning for the show’s plot: both Ben and Charley say that the people on the boat aren’t who they say they are and that everyone on the island is in danger if they go with them. And lock says that they “aren’t supposed to leave.” It’s also the beginning of the end of their lives on the island, at least six of them, who we know from flash-forwards definitely (presumably under no uncertain terms) WILL get off the island.
Lost is show about questions and the premiere certainly asks a lot of new ones. Who are the people in the boat? How does Ben know about them? Why is Locke so sure they (and not just himself) should leave, to the point that he shot and killed someone to make certain it didn’t happen? How do Jack, Sawyer, now Hurley, and apparently only three others eventually get off the island? Will that happen sooner or later? The show is often criticized for asking too much and not revealing enough, but these are the questions that set up the rest of the season and give us reasons to continue watching, as opposed to nicely wrapping up a cliffhanger, as many other shows might, and forcing us to start with a virtually clean slate next episode. At one time, I was getting a little impatient with all of the questions myself, mostly because I had a difficult time keeping them all straight. There are a lot of characters, they each have complicated pasts that the viewer must recall to memory at any given moment, and a lot of those characters have unexpected connections to each other, which it is also important for us to remember. But a lot has been revealed, especially about who the Others are, where Ben came from, and what happened to Dahrma. The most pressing mystery continues to be the nature of the island itself, what powers it really has, and how all these people who definitely did not meet by accident wound up on a plane together and then on this island. I suspect those won’t be fully answered until the final episode, yet I’m now willing to wait it out because I trust the writers to ultimately tell us. They’ve followed through so far with virtually every arc and left few things dangling– and I’m sure that those that still are dangling haven’t been forgotten about.
I wonder if every episode from here will be pushing toward the “Oceanic Six” getting off the island, or if that will happen before the final episode. I also wonder if the whole rest of the show will be fast-forwards rather than flashbacks. I have a hard time imagining that working, because the flashback element works with all the characters, and only six are supposed to get off the island. The story could be especially strange to tell while watching the futures of characters still on the island. Plus, their pasts are important because of how they’re all connected, and I suspect we haven’t seen every connection these characters have. I personally love the flash-forwards– I’m glad to know some people can leave the island and it’s fun to know things about characters they themselves aren’t aware of yet. But I would like to know if we can trust them. Are the flash-forwards definitely what happens in the future, or are they only a possible future? If that future can be changed and is changed, I’ll feel slighted, but so far, I think it’s a bold and fresh technique.
Speculation time: who are the other three members of the Oceanic Six? We know that Jack, Kate, and Hurley make it back. I’ve heard rumors on the net that Locke is supposed to be one of them, and if so, that would mean he’s somehow forced off because he doesn’t want to leave. It would be quite ironic for him though, and fate plays a lot of mean, ironic tricks on John, so it’s possible. There are clues. In the final episode of last season, future Jack goes to someone’s coffin– we don’t know who it is but we know no one went to the funeral. That could be Locke, that character “nobody wanted” as the narration says in the 1-hour recap played before last night’s episode. However, I would have expected his ex-girlfriend at least to attend. Could that person be Ben? After all, he hasn’t lived off the island since he was a kid, so he wouldn’t have any friends, and Kate asks Jack last season, “why would I have gone to the funeral?” The problem with Ben, though, is that he wasn’t on the plane, so “Oceanic Six” would no longer be an apt name. Locke is more likely. Claire is almost a given since Desmond saw her get into a helicopter in his vision, and his visions always come true– plus, a helicopter shows up at the end of this episode. Her baby might be the sixth, then. But then there’s Sawyer, who I took to be the “he” Kate says she has to get back home to. I’m glad this episode gave us a number, because now we know how many possible flash-forward characters there can be.
I don’t like the split camps at the end– some go with Jack who wants to get them off the island, and the rest go with Locke, who says they can’t trust the people who are coming to rescue them. Locke is right– Charley died warning them about the people in the boat, so they shouldn’t go with them, and I think Jack is an idiot for not listening to him. Jack’s character makes less and less sense to me as the series continues, and if I have any real problem with the show at the moment, it’s him. Locke learns from his mistakes, then he makes new ones, then he learns from them. Usually he has to blow something up first, but he learns. He uses logic to make decisions and when he’s wrong, he adjusts his logic. But not Jack. He has multiple people warning him about the same thing and doesn’t listen. He tries to save everyone when he knows he can’t, and it screws everything up. And then he just keeps doing those things all over again. And now we have two groups, John and Jack as enemies, and the whole thing is a little too Lord of the Flies for me. I’m not saying John should be the leader of the whole group because he’s back in communion with the island and Jack has every reason not to completely trust the island. But Jack, being the leader, needs to make more sense.
Sadly, the title also has a third, accidental meaning. It’s the beginning of the end of a short season that will only be half as long as it’s supposed to be, due to the writer’s strike. The final three seasons are planned to only be 16 episodes each. And with this show planned so meticulously right up until the end, I can’t help but wonder where those other 8 will fall, or if the show will be forced to tell the rest of its story without them. More pressing, of course, is the question of how long we’ll have to wait for a new beginning to Lost’s end.
Tags: ABC, John Locke, Lost, Television