A Lost Farewell

It was almost six years ago when I watched the premiere of a show called Lost about a bunch of plane cash survivors stranded on a deserted island. From the very beginning I was captured by the mystery of a place that was home to polar bears, an unseen "monster" and an underground hatch. I was held in suspense during the fast paced pilot, right down to the famous, "Guys, where are we?"

But most of all, there were the characters. Jack and Kate and Sawyer, Charlie and Claire, Locke, Sayid, Hurley, Sun and Jin, Shannon and Boone, Walt and Michael and a dog named Vincent. Through a series of flashbacks we learn about their lives before the crash, their mistakes and failures and loves and losses. We learn that Kate is a accused convict and Sawyer is a conman and Charlie is a rockstar with a heroin addiction and Hurley is a lotto winner.

And through it all - the Dharma Initiative, polar bear cage sex, the Others, explosions and and a crazy French chick, the whispers, the Oceanic Six, a donkey wheel, time travel, more explosions, another plane crash, infertility issues, a button that needs to be pushed every 108 minutes, the numbers, ghosts, creepy creepy Ethan Rom, the return of the tailies, a mysteries source of light, baby stealing, more explosions, the freighter folk, the manipulations of Benjamin Linus, hydrogen bombs, daddy issues, flash forwards, flash sideways, names on a cave wall, the ultimate battle between dark and light, me screaming "WTF, show?!" at the end of every episode - through ALL that, we always had these characters.

Set to Michael Giacchino's incredibly mesmerizing score (seriously, I can't listen to the Life and Death track without wanting to cry) we've been taken on a journey, and I for one am satisfied with the outcome

Honestly, I still don't know the answer to the "Guys, where are we?" question. I don't know exactly what or where the island is. I don't completely understand The Source and the light and what happens if it goes unprotected. I don't know what the deal was between Widmore and Ben or why Walt was special or why Aaron had to be raised by Claire or why women on the island couldn't have babies or why time travel rules don't apply to Desmond and why why why a million other things. And yet, I don't really care. I'm okay with the unanswered questions. In the end, the only thing that really mattered to me was the characters. It was seeing a character like Jack, the man of science, finally finding faith, finally finding something he could really fix and truly believe in.

Maybe it was sappy and cliche  but I loved seeing Claire and Charlie together with Aaron, and Sun and Jim come to remembrance of their lives and Locke walking and greeting Jack like a friend. (Honestly, I think my favorite moment of enlightenment was between Sawyer and Juliet and mainly because I'd been hoping for it since the first episode of the season. I sort of fell in love with the idea of these two characters being in love and probably because we never see either of them as happy as they are when they are together in Dharma Hippyville). It was lovely to see characters like Boone and Shannon and Libby return and all unite in one cosmically beautiful reunion

I've read a couple of reviews from people who seem to think that this episode was implying that all the events from the past six years on the island were in fact some kind of manifestation of purgatory.  I'm sorry,  but if you think that, then you are wrong and you need to go watch the episode again. As Christian Shephard said, "I'm real. You're real. Everything that's ever happened to you is real." The events of the island happened. The characters that died on the island, died. The characters that eventually left the island -  Kate, Sawyer, Lapidus, Miles, Richard, Claire - moved on and lived their lives, however long after that happened to be. And the sideways world was somehow this place out of time and space, call it purgatory or whatever, where they all ended up to somehow be together in the afterlife. And as they slowly came to enlightenment together, they could finally let go and move on.

So that's how I'm choosing to read it. It's cheesy, it's hokey, it's deeply saturated in feeling and faith and heart and know some people don't like that, but it was enough for me, it left me satisfied.

So thank you so Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for bringing us six memorable years. Yes, there are questions unanswered but isn't that life? Maybe we're not going to all end up on a mysterious island somewhere in the Pacific with a bunch of attractive strangers with daddy issues, but we all go through tests and challenges and struggles. We all experience pain and we all search for redemption. And through all that, the most important thing, beyond the questions and the search for truths, are the people that we love. The people that struggle and rejoice and cry and laugh and live with us. And really, for the characters that I've gotten to know over the past six years, that's all I needed - a closure, a redemptive ending. And for that, for this show and for six incredible seasons, I am thankful.

I'll miss you.

Season Finale Round-Up

I sort of love television. A lot. Sometimes more so than movies. I think it's because I adore characters and learning about characters and watching them grow and change and experience life. And yes, good movies do give us memorable characters. But in television, we get to watch their stories unfold over time, we get to grow with them, we get to turn in each week and wonder what's going to happen.

So yes, I watch a fair amount of television. And that being the case, I've decided that I should talk more on this blog about some of the shows I'm watching, starting with a little roundup of thoughts on my favorite recent season finales. (Yes, I have chosen to start talking more about television at a time when most shows are on hiatus. Whatever.)

Season Finales

Community 

This show sneakily became my favorite show of the season. I've fallen in love with the antics and "weird little relationship" of Troy and Abed; with Shirley as the tough but sweet Christan single mom; with Britta's quirkiness and Annie's intensity and Jeff's snark; and yes, even with Pierce's oddly endearing ignorance. Meta humor abounds (the paintball episode that parodied Die Hard and 28 Days Later and basically every other action movie ever, was absolute epic perfection) and yet, there's a sweetness and a heart behind it all so that in the end you're really just rooting for this entire ragtag study group to always be BFF's 4Life.

The finale spun the typical love triangle drama as Prof. Slater and Britta battled it out for Jeff's affection (all this was interlaced of course with jokes about jumping the shark and the consumption of a giant cookie and men in dalmatian costume and Ken Jeong punching John Oliver in the face with a roll of quarters) but everything got turned on its head when Jeff ends up making out with Annie as the screen fades to black. And yes, I realize that there's supposed to be like a sixteen-some-odd-year difference between Jeff and Annie but I don't care. Joel McHale and Alison Brie have kickass chemistry and those kisses were kind of hot. Plus, their characters just somehow make adorable sense together. I don't expect that any sort of romantic entanglement will ever take center stage on this show but I'm intrigued to see how it will all go down next season.

Spinning, In the Art of Holding On

Hands inch around in steady ticking heartbeats
sweeping away at each moment, tick... tock... tick
A stopping starting endless merry-go-round loop,
up-down, up-down, ceaseless lull,
run full speed, to find the finish line at the start.

... and begin...

rivers of rain droplets slide down a window pane,
as we splash, laughing, through puddles,
and days stretch fingertips into hazy twilight
expand into day and a warm sun beats down,
leaving skin pink and freckled,
the salty sea air singing while sand slides between toes
and falling leaves will fall,
leave bare scraggly branches pointing crookedly to the sky,
as footsteps crunching over paths of golden browns and yellows
step in from harsh, biting, chill with red noses
to snuggle in deep and warm, clutching mugs of hot chocolate
and watch flickering shadows dance over the walls

End...

... And again...

rivers of rain pink and freckled scraggly branches shadows dance

Moments dance and leap frog over each other,
twist around like ribbons waving in the wind, in vibrant hues
of pinks and ambers and violets as music swells
with the steady echoing thump of drumbeats and deep bass,
spinning wildly in twirling circles, arms outspread,
feet dancing in perfect motion around and around
until the whole thing spins away.

Stuck in this wild spin until we fall, we bargain with hands folded,
eyes lifted for another moment, another breath,
swallow it up, store it away - each moment away
a drumbeat, a heartbeat, tick...tock...tick

...to begin again...

For a circle is unbroken, until it's broken
loose ends hanging empty into indeterminate space
Around and around - seconds, hours, days piling up, spilling over
falling fast behind - nothing but time until there's no time left
Until a stillness, roaring silence, useless clock.