Lost: The Final Season Takes Unexpected Twists

Filed under Lost, TV

It’s tough to ask for much more from Lost lately. The last few weeks have been incredibly enlightening, and when they haven’t answered those dangling questions that have kept us hanging for the past 6 years, they’ve at least provided great setup, proving that those questions will definitely be addressed. While we don’t have any answer as to what caused the flash-sideways, or if there was actual a cause at all, they’ve nonetheless managed to be an intriguing addition to the show.

First, I’m beginning to question whether the flash-sideways are in fact caused by the smoke monster (we currently know him in the form of John Locke (Terry O’Quinn)). Granted, this would discount my previous theory on the cause of the flash-sideways. Evidence of this mainly occurs in episode 6, focusing on Sayid (Naveen Andrews). Sayid meets Locke in the woods, where Locke tells him he could have anything he wanted, even the one thing Sayid claims is gone forever (Nadia). In the flash-sideways, Nadia is alive, but the hangup is that she is married to her brother…he doesn’t have her. Similarly, Ben’s (Michael Emerson) flash-sideways shows him as a lowly History teacher, but he is a great mentor for his student Alex (or his daughter from the island). When given the chance to blackmail the principal but the principal in turn threatens to keep Alex from getting into the college of her choice, Ben puts what Alex wants before his own aspirations. In Sawyer’s (Josh Holloway) flash-sideways, he carries all the same baggage, but rather than become a con-man, he’s a cop.

The flash-sideways may be part of a deal the smoke monster offers some of the characters, but him causing them simply hasn’t happened yet. He seems to need people to get off the island, and maybe this is part of a deal he forges with them, but unfortunately, what everyone wants comes with strings attached. Sayid wants Nadia to be alive, but he doesn’t have her. Ben wants a second chance with his daughter, but it means he is unimportant. Sawyer is a cop (similar to his role as Head of Security for Dharma, which seemed to be the happiest time of his life), but he’s still tortured by his past. Now it’s more than likely that this theory is completely wrong, so I digress.

But hey, the flash-sideways haven’t been the only interesting part of the show. It was a big shocker to see that Sayid has indeed succumbed to the darkness. Same goes for Claire (Emilie de Ravin), she’s pretty psycho, and both are currently aligned with Locke, who claims he just wants to leave the island. Being that he attacked the Temple, killing all those refusing to go with him, we can safely assume that he’s probably got more sinister plans. Consummate rogues, Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer, are also with Locke at the moment, albeit not necessarily on his side. Basically, they want a way off the island.

Meanwhile, Jack (Matthew Fox) and Hurley (Jorge Garcia) crossed paths with Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), who has gone a bit haywire since Jacob (Mark Pellegrino) died and has pretty much been running around the jungle like a madman. After convincing him not to kill himself, they returned to the beach where it all started, meeting up with Ben, Miles (Ken Leung), Ilana (Zuleikha Robinson), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey), which is great. When groups of characters condense, it generally means the story is ready to really take off for the rest of the season. Oh and it is, because as Jacob mentioned, someone is trying to get to the island, and as most might have predicted, that someone is most definitely Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) with a black-clad crew and submarine in tow. Bad plans? Good plans? Too soon to tell. Hell, we don’t even know if this guy is a good guy yet.

And now, something we’ve really been waiting for. Hey, it’ll be great if we see some serious action this week, but it’ll be good enough just learning about Richard…’cause, uh, I don’t know if anyone noticed this before, but the dude doesn’t freaking age! And we finally learn just what the hell is up with that this week, so it’s definitely bound to be a good one. The final season just keeps getting better and better, and we keep getting closer and closer to all those damn answers.

PS: Two questions.

Can we see Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) return to the fold?

Can Detective James Ford have his own spin-off? We’ll take an hour-long drama or maybe a sitcom. Either one.