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Feb 2, 2010

LOST Season Preview Part 2


All right, back for Part 2, for Part I which covers the intro to the season and what is going on with the People off Island click here, now let’s get into the main plots and what is going on at the Island…

People on the Island – Current Time

Sun Kwon – As you may recall Sun went to the island to try to track down Jin, and instead found herself abandoned by her old Island buddies and left to fend for herself against Linus, some Jacob worshippers, and what she thought was John Locke in the current time, she’s been typically annoying, but thankfully relegated to a background player in the Mexican standoff between “Locke”, Linus and Alpert. Her goal for the final season is to reunite with Jin and her kid back in Japan. Our goal for her is no Sun-centric episodes this season.

Benjamin Linus – Old Linus really went off the deep end at the end of last season, his whole life all he’s ever wanted is to make Jacob happy, then he spazzes out and stabs the fella upon their first meeting. For a master manipulator like Linus, it has got to be embarrassing being played like a fiddle by Jacob’s enemy. Linus should continue to be a major player this season, and hopefully we’ll get some more backstory on him, those never fail to be interesting, I’m still wondering whatever happened to his girlfriend from back in the day, the producers have been threatening to introduce her for two seasons…

Ilana – Ilana as we know is the annoying bounty hunter that kidnapped Sayid and who couldn’t act; until she arrived on the island and we found out that she was some kind of Jacob groupie, but sadly still couldn’t act. She and her posse seem to have some insight into the island, they were the ones who figured out someone else had been using Jacob’s cabin (Enemy as Christian Shepherd), and they tried to warn Riccardus about the fake John Locke, but arrived too late, we’ll probably find out the back story behind this group and how Jacob recruited them, and how they came up with their little group question “What lies in the shadow of the Statue?” Frankly I think Desmond’s insider question was cooler, “What did one snowman say to the other?”

Jacob’s enemy – And here he is, this guy has been trying to kill Jacob since back in the Black Rock days, and as Jacob said to him in the finale, it looks like he finally found his loophole. The loophole was using Linus to kill him, evidently. From what we know of Jacob’s enemy, he does not age, can assume the appearance of dead people, gets trapped in circles of ashes, hates Jacob, and may or may not have some relationship with the smoke monster (or may be the smoke monster, I’m still a little confused on that one myself). Anyway as everyone figured out in the finale, he’s been posing as John Locke and playing Ben into killing Jacob, which apparently has been a plan in the works for quite a while, dating back to a time loop where he (as Locke) had Richard tell Locke to kill himself. He’s also posed as Christian Shepherd and Ben’s daughter, now that he finally achieved his goal of killing Jake, we will have to see where he goes from there, does he now assume leadership of the island, will he and Richard face off in duel of demigods? All we know now from the preview I saw, is it looks like he’s staying in Locke’s body for the time being, probably for the best since his original body back in the 1400s gave Walt a good run for worst actor.

Frank Lapidus – Lapidus hasn’t been up to much, mostly just getting knocked unconscious by everyone, he is getting recruited by team Jacob, so he will probably be a player in the faceoff against Jacob’s enemy if he tries to take over the island.

Richard Alpert – Alpert really burst into the limelight last season being a major player in both the past and present plots thanks to his immortality powers. He seems to have all the answers, so obviously he’s going to be around as the answers unfold. He was pals with Jacob, and it will be interesting to see if he has crossed paths with Jacob’s enemy over the numerous centuries they’ve all been chillaxing on the island. Also let’s not forget that he told Sun he saw the whole Jack-Sawyer team die, though he wasn’t at the Swan so some more past events could unfold, only time will tell. One of the few interesting theories put forth by the Lost nerds is that Richard Alpert, or R.A., is actually the Egyptian god Ra, since the Island seems to be focused on Egyptian mythology, this one is interesting, I could see Jacob, Alpert and enemy all being Egyptian gods playing chess with all the people on the Island over the centuries.

People on the Island – Past

Jack – Jack went through quite a transformation in Season 5, he went from unquestioned leader to a background player and Locke disciple, finally making his big power play in the finale by killing a bunch of Dharmas and detonating a hydrogen bomb on the Swan. Jack still got the lionshare of touches off the island, as the focus was on him and Kate and their doomed relationship, so doomed was it that it motivated him to blow up half the island. Where this detonation lands him is still up in the air going into tonight, but at least we know he won’t just teleport to LA and go back to doing surgeries, that wouldn’t make much of an interesting Final Season.

Kate – Kate was still spazzing and running around getting into trouble all season, even if Jack was content to kick it in the janitor’s closet, Kate still hopped on any chance to get in trouble, whether saving Little Ben’s life, fighting off Dharmas to bring Faraday to his mother, recruiting Sawyer and Juliet to fistfight Jack, and then after that fizzled out, switching sides to join into a gunfight to detonate a bomb. Kate is obviously poised to be a major factor in the final season, let’s just hope they don’t rehash the tired Sawyer/Kate/Jack love triangle angle for yet another season.

Sawyer – Sawyer took over Jack’s leader duties during the season, and also settled down and became domesticated with Juliet. Sadly this really took Sawyer away from what he does best which is being a jerk, making snarky comments, and occasionally coming through in clutch to everyone’s surprise. Sure a little character development is expected over five seasons, but turning Jack into Locke, and Sawyer into Jack is a little bit of a stretch. They tried to have Miles assume a poor man Sawyer role, but it didn’t really pan out. Hopefully Juliet’s untimely death will give Sawyer some edge and maybe he’ll go off vigilante style in this final season.

Hurley – As discussed they are developing all the characters, except Hurley, who still is just as lame as ever and just hangs out calling people dude and doing stuff that is supposed to be funny, the only mildly amusing thing he’s done is trying to write Empire Strikes Back before Lucas, couldn’t they have made him go completely psycho after getting out of the mad house, that would at least be interesting, running around telling everyone on the island he’s a millionaire from the future and acting zany. The character is pretty stale, sadly I don’t think the actor has the range to pull of anything but fat, annoying guy with awful hair. It’s a safe bet he’ll just be in the background doing his usual Hurley things this season and not adding to the plot.

Sayid – Is Sayid going to make it seems to be one of the “cliffhangers” of last season’s finale. Sayid went off the deep end a bit after his wife was killed (by Widmore?), and Ben had him take out a bunch of Widmorians. Once he got back to the past he went rogue, tried to kill the young Ben Linus, then apparently roamed through the jungle for a month or so killing people at random until he joined up with team Jack again. Who knows what Sayid will be up to after he somehow survives that gaping bullethole in his gut, probably a safe bet that he’ll add to his team high kill total though.

Jin – Jin finally got his own plotline last season, as he skipped through time getting into some hijinks with Rousseau and her wacky gang of Frenchmen, it was a decent plot and filled in some blanks about Danielle and some early history of the Island. And of course, Jin was the “cliffhanger” “death” of last season, why the producers always feel the need to do these lame fakeouts is beyond me, no one is ever fooled, was anyone surprised when they “brought Jin back to life”. Jin unlike the rest of the gang doesn’t get his kicks from gun fights and blowing stuff up, he’s just looking to get reunited with his wife and go home, maybe meet his daughter. Let’s just hope if he ever does get reunited with his lost love, they don’t put him on the shelf like they did with Des.

Miles – Miles was mostly relegated to Sawyer’s sidekick during the season, I don’t think he even used his talk to the dead powers once. Miles however was the one who figured out that maybe them setting off an H-bomb was the Incident that his father was always talking about in those videos. Hopefully Miles gets a chance to chat with some corpses and if he bumps into Ilana and her team again maybe he’s figured out the answer to that “What lies in the shadow of the Statue” question by now, those guys did try to recruit him remember.

Rose & Bernard – Painful, just painful, is it really necessary for these two to make an appearance in every season, Paolo and Nikki were more popular. The fact that they are supposed to be the voice of reason, and were acting like they were too cool for the gang was again painful. Let’s just hope these two don’t appear in the Final Season, their flashback episode was hands down the worst, most pointless episode in the history of the show.


Hopefully that brings everyone up to speed for the big premiere tonight, let's just hope this final Season can live up to the hype and wrap up all these loose ends they've left, with a a satisfactory conclusion, and some solid episodes to finish this baby up strong...


4 people have chosen wisely: on "LOST Season Preview Part 2"

Univarn said...

Wow, great two posts! Even being the huge Lost fan I am I had forgotten some of this. Great refresher. Who knows what the final season has in store but it could make it either the worst show in history or one of the bests. That's a lot to live up to :).

Ed Howard said...

Wow, that's a lot of snark. Your opinions about this show are pretty much the opposite of mine on almost every major point. Case in point: the highlight of the great last season was seeing Sawyer unexpectedly settle into domesticity with Juliet, maturing into a leadership role that he'd long been too troubled, too angry, to assume. Last season made him into a very poignant character, and his relationship with Juliet was a big reason that her death at the end of the finale nearly ripped my heart out. There was more believable chemistry, more romance and heart, between those two than in pretty much any other romance this show has had other than Desmond and Penny.

Anyway, I'm real excited for the season premiere tonight. The last few seasons of this show have been fantastic, and I'm hoping the final one continues to tie things together in a satisfying way while delivering the fast-paced, densely plotted thrills it's been so good at since around season 3 or so.

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Fletch said...

Univarn - so far, not so good. I'm anxious to hear what Kid Vegas has to say about last night's show. I was largely unimpressed, but I'll wait to comment on the particulars until that post is up.

Ed - Kid Vegas is nothing if not a snark machine (and undependable).

The maturation of Sawyer was not only an important element of last season, it was downright imperative, since they had turned him into little more than a pouty0faced nickname machine.

Seems as though, if nothing else, the series has a habit of neglecting or mistreating characters for stretches at a time, then saving them in the audience's eyes. Kid Vegas would be hard-pressed to not admit that they gave Hurley more meaning and motivation last night than in all of season 5 combined. I'm liking how he and Miles seem to have some sort of bond/competition now.

I'm also liking the Richard Alpert = Ra nerd theory, though if that's Ra, then Ra can be a bit of a bitch sometimes.