Sky One
“Dr Shepherd – what’s the worst that could happen?”
OK, you’ve got your series finale. Two things have to work. It must be logically satisfying (loose threads left in the story picked up and woven together) and emotionally satisfying (love, death, happiness, misery and redemption all responsibly portioned out). Lost concentrated solely on the latter and screwed it up spectacularly with a crass, bloated and ultimately meaningless finale that took a two-hour, eye bulging, trousers-round-the-ankles dump on the show’s legacy. They brought together the couples we love (Sun and Jin), the couples we tolerate (Jack and Kate), the couples we don’t buy (Sawyer and Facelift), the couples who don’t exist (Claire and Charlie) and the couples who everyone had forgotten existed proving they were always poorly conceived, badly written and thrown in as an afterthought (Shannon and Sayid) and the couple who walked straight out of a Richard Curtis script Two Timelines and a Coprophiliac (Desmond and Penny Future Knickers). The only people satisfied by all this are Desmund&Penni 4 EVAH!! fan fic writing goons and the kind of emotionally crippled shitsack who only turns on their television set to dissolve into tears.
“The only people satisfied by all this are Desmund&Penni 4 EVAH fan fiction writing goons and the kind of emotionally crippled shitsack who only turns on their television set to dissolve into tears.”
The main points of the ending are as follows. The island is real. Everyone on it either died there or lived fruitful lives to die later where they went to a nice alternate reality Purgatory (the season-long flash sideways where Oceanic 815 never crashes, Desmond keeps running over Locke and Charlie is miraculously still a twat) where they all meet up in a big stupid church where they move on together into whatever comes after the thing that comes after death. Capiche?
They find each other by those montage memory flashbacks, triggered by physical touch with the one they ruvved in their island life. People need to remember, let go and move on you see. This is all explained to us by Jack’s dead, pissed dad who apparently is some kind of tour guide of the spirit world (Jack Daniels presumably his speciality). So far, so Highway to Heaven and so very pointless.
“All is explained to us by Jack’s dead, pissed dad who apparently is some kind of tour guide of the spirit world (Jack Daniels presumably his speciality).”
In the meanwhile-back-on-the-island timeline, a series of events now totally redundant and of no dramatic consequence at all take place regarding all that smoke monster destroying the island nonsense. Jack has the fat lad drink some magic water like Big John, Little John so he can now protect the island – a reign we will never see and therefore never care about. Hurley as Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of Nothing. Cos-mic. There’s a lot of Starship Enterprise hitting an asteroid belt style rocky camera effects as the island quite literally loses its cork (turns out it was a real cork in the hole not a metaphorical one). Give me a break.
Locke and Doc have a meaningless turd joust over the island’s holiest of holes. Locke fatally wounds Jack but ends up dead at the bottom of the cliff after Kate shoots him in the tits. Elsewhere on the Island of Fatuous Redundancies, Lapidus flies a few of them off by the power of duct tape. Yeah, whatever.
“Dominic Monaghan can’t act and Charlie is a horribly written character complete with a back story that demonstrated a stunning ignorance of rock music, Englishness and group dynamics containing every 10 minute MTV feature on Oasis cliché they could be bothered to dredge-up.”
The couples killed it from me. Claire never wanted Charlie to put his cock in her and it’s never love if that’s not there. It’s what you feel for a lame elk you’ve just run over as you prepare to curb stomp it out of its misery. Not only is Dominic Monaghan small and ugly with no charisma, he can’t act and Charlie is a horribly written character complete with a back story that demonstrated a stunning ignorance of rock music, Englishness and group dynamics containing every 10 minute MTV feature on Oasis cliché they could be bothered to dredge-up. Every time I saw that needy smackhead shitbird I wanted to kill him. And of course there’s a Driveshaft concert in Purgatory. That first bar of You All Everybody will get you heading towards the light in no time.
“Vincent the dog held up his role in this shaggy dog story very well, lying down beside Jack as his life expired. Nice dogging, Vince.”
Sun and Jin I gave a fuck about. I always did. They always handled that beautifully. But we all know Sawyer should be with Kate and Juliet with Jack. And as for the risible Sayid and brotherfucker reunion – I do not care and neither does anyone else. They even had Boone in the queue for heaven, a man whose death elicited not a flicker of concern and whose reappearance not a flicker of comprehension. Who was his great love – himself?
Sentiment driven fan-fic hook-ups scored with stirring strings are still utterly trite. I can barely count the storytelling cop outs and they just moved the St Peter in the courtyard thrice denied Purgatory ending to a different timeline, like Benjamin moved the island — because he all-of-a-sudden, just like magic could and it was the easy option.
Interestingly, the three island black guys Taller Ghost Walt, Michael and Mr Eko were nowhere to be seen in heaven’s waiting-room and no Daniel, Charlotte, Miles, Richard or Frank either (not that I cared about any of those cracka-ass crackers).
The only thing I really enjoyed about this was seeing Vincent the dog who held up his role in this shaggy dog story very well, lying down beside Jack as his life expired. Nice dogging, Vince.
“Not leaving. Moving on.” said Christian Shepherd. Probably best if we do the same.
The verdict on Lost series finale: Plane crash end to a great show.
Marks out of 10: 3
Imagined: Monday, May 24, 2010