LOSTIES! It's the beginning of the end.

[fruitbat]

I watched the first season of Lost then gave up when I read somewhere that the creators had no plan and were making it up as they went along.

However, I watched the 2 hour pre-show and so was interested enough to watch the finale.

My question: is Foodie correct?

..... "they were dead the whole time" ....!

Were all of them dead the whole time? Some died immediately, some later, but the whole Initiative thing, did it actually happen? The sideways thing is what would have happened had they not crashed?

I read some reviews/blogs that said the writers went with the characters' story-lines and not the mysteries/questions. If that is the case, I think I'd be really pissed off if I'd actually watched this series.

[Jacq58]

I can't see how they could be dead the whole time because at one point they were back in the States, unless that was another "universe"?!?!

[Angel Tavington]

I think I'm the only one on the board that has never watched LOST.

*coughs* No, grannybear, you're not the only one...


~me

[Marie]

No they were not dead the whole time. As Christian (Jack's father) put it - they all died at various points but were not ready (until now) to move on.

[Jacq58]

There was one thing that I found confusing towards the end where Hurley and Ben are sitting outside the cave after Jack goes down. Hurley says to Ben about he being a great number 2. I didn't understand that until I watched The View when Whoopi Goldberg said that the two were part of the island all along. So, I understand that to be they were the guardians of the light!

It'd be interesting to watch the series over again knowing this, although I thought I read somewhere that the two writers/creators of the show didn't have a grand plan of where the story lines were going or how it would all end.

OK, I just read that fruitbat mentioned it about the story line.

[Helen8]

Jumping in late, as always.

The SideVerse was the creation of those who had passed—and accepted that they were dead—to try to get the others (lowercase) to this "place" to help them accept and move on so that they could all get together. That's why Boone, who was the first to die on the island, said, "What took you so long?" It's a place where each one who dies and accepts their new reality is greeted and honored by those who died/accepted before them.

The reason that this "place" is just for the Oceanic 815 survivors is that you/one spends eternity with the group that represented the time when they were at their best. All of them did things for the greater good of the group at one point or another. Some more or greater than others: Jack, Hurley, Juliet, and Desmond to name a few.

Walt wasn't in the church because the island didn't represent the point in his life when he was at his best. Since he mostly grew up away from the island, he has a much broader canvas to choose his afterlife from.

I was bummed about the SideVerse not being the reality of 815 making it to LA because I wanted Jack to have this great son that he could be a good father to. But, no. Rats.

And, as much as I hated Ben Linus ('cause he was easy to hate, and as I said on more than one occasion, "You can't beat the pulp out of Ben enough for my money."), I felt a little disappointed that he didn't want to go inside the "church." I thought he had redeemed himself at the end by helping Jack against Flocke, using the walkie talkie with Miles to coordinate with the other group, and staying on the island to number two Hurley. I guess he felt (and was previously) too despicable to join them yet.

The island has always been there. There had been many people before Allison Janney protecting the "light," and many after Hurley and Ben protecting it since. The Dharma Initiative were only interested in the properties of the island, so that's what they were there for. Thus, the shark, the polar bear, etc. (remember the cages that Kate and Sawyer were locked in?). Charles Widmore, too, was only interested in the island's properties. But lucky for the Losties, he brought Desmond back for his own purposes, but Desmond ended up helping them instead.

The last two minutes where Christian is explaining things to Jack was the six years summed up in a few sentences. DH and I had to go back and replay it to make sense of it because, as I mentioned before I wanted the SideVerse to be reality. So I needed to rehear what it was. All in all, for me it was emotionally satisfying (not intellectually because of all the science stuff that they left unexplained) that all of them—and those who will eventually accept their deaths and come later—are/will be together in death as they were in life, with the most important people in their lives at the most important time in their lives.

Okay. I'll admit it. I bawled my eyes out when Vincent came out of the bamboo and laid down next to Jack who was dying because cats and dogs have that sixth sense. Man, I'm tearing up as I write this.

The science stuff that they didn't bother with was probably plot devices to throw at the Losties to see how they would deal with them. They weren't as important to Lindcuse's story as were the people and overcoming all the obstacles.

Why did anyone want to destroy the island?
I *think* Locke was the only person who wanted to destroy it. A small minority interest merely wanted to exploit it's power.

Faux Locke, right? Not John Locke, who could now walk due to the island's properties.

And as if you hadn't heard enough from me, my next post will be about the Paley LostFest I attended on Saturday. Sorry. Lindcuse were not forthcoming with any insights, but there was a lot of behind the scenes talk.

[Helen8]

What I remember of Saturday's Paley Center LostFest:
At the first screening, Lost the First Season 2005, the actors playing, Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, Sayid, Michael, Charlie, and Richard, as well as, producers J.J. Abrahms and Lindleoff (Cuse was off getting married) were on the panel. Matthew Fox, called Foxy by everyone there, was very shy and talked only when asked something. Naveen was pretty quiet, too, but he had on a leather duster, which was too cool for words. [slurp] The gregarious/joking ones were Dominic ("Merry") Monaghan, Josh Holloway, and Jorge Garcia, who was a revelation: He was a standup comic in a previous life and had all of us (the panel, the 2005 audience, and us—2010 audience) in stitches. Can't remember most of his jokes. Sorry.

Fox had actually auditioned for the Oceanic 815 pilot role!!! The producers loved him and said to each other that they couldn't let this guy have 3 pages worth of lines and then have him killed by Smokey. So, they offered him the lead, Jack. Both audiences applauded with approval. Dominic had originally auditioned for Sawyer!! Jorge commented, "luckily he didn't get it 'cause there wouldn't have been so many no-shirt-showing-Josh's-pecs scenes." Both audiences applauded with loud approval.

J.J. said that he had heard about the purgatory theory and thought that it was a really good one but that it's not what the show is about. (Still, I felt vindicated as that's what I thought after several eps.) When asked, J.J. also said that the characters were not all planned out at the beginning, though the plot was (yeah, sure, says I) because the actors made the characters their own, so the writers picked up on that and wrote the characters to that. So, the actors had a lot of input as to how their characters reacted. That's pretty nice to know that they collaborated. And since it took 2 weeks to film the pilot, the actors really meshed and felt comfortable with each other, which made them trust each other implicitly. So, they were a cohesive group from the start. There was such a camaraderie among them that early in the show's run.

At one point, someone's cell phone started ringing, and Jorge said to Josh, who was sitting next to him, "What is your cell phone doing in my pocket?" [huge laughter]


At the second screening, Lost, The Final Season, filmed in February 2010, the only actors were Locke, Ben, and Richard. Lindcuse and the three writers, two of whom could only be described by the Twilight Zone theme, which makes sense because they'd have to be a little loony to come up with this stuff. But besides that, they were pretty funny, so you could see where all of Hurley's, Lapidus's, and Miles' great lines came from.

Carbonell was asked about how it was to act when there were unexpected downpours. He pointed out that Michael Emerson (Ben ) was always prepared performer, probably due to his stage background, and had a mini umbrella that he would pull out and cover himself with thereby preserving his bloody, beat-up face. [roaring laughter, especially from me] Carbonell also pointed out that the rain played havoc with his "Guy Liner" as well. [more roaring laughter] He also relayed a story about being on line . . . that's in line for non New Yorkers . . . at a grocery store where he could feel someone behind him really giving him the once over. The man said, "Man. Those lashes really are thick!!! You don't wear mascara."

Cuse said that many questions were on the list to answer, but may not get answered. It is all about Jack's journey. [In retrospect, now that we've seen the finale, none of the scientific questions were answered. They were more interested in the relationships than the mechanics. Arrggghhh!]

Edward, the weirdest of the writers, talked about when they've worked 16 hours on a script that they think is incredibly good, and then break to go home and get some sleep, they come in the next day and the script is absolute crap. They blame it on the Shit Fairies f*cking up their work overnight.

They really sang the praises of Michael Giacchino, the show's composer, who has written hundreds of pieces of music for Lost over the six years and how much his music added to the episodes.

After that, they showed the World Premiere of the Enhanced Pilot at 4:00, before everyone else saw it on TV at 8:00.

Well, that's all my memory will allow. It ended up being an all day thing, with leaving home at 9:30 in the morning, watching the stuff at Paley from 12:30 to 6:00, and then the drive home. We got in at 8:15 and rewatched the pilot. Now that's dedication.

If you have specific questions to ask me, do so, because it might jar my memory about something that I left out.

[Gillian]

Thanks for the overview, Helen! Sounds like it was a LOT of fun!!

Something I've always wondered--were the actors allowed to ad lib? At least within the context of their characters/storyline? For instance, Sawyer and his nicknames. When I watched the enhanced pilot Saturday night, at one point Sawyer calls Locke "Mr. Clean", which Terry cracks up at. (More so than you'd expect from his character.)

BTW, Josh is quite the card. I loved the bit on Jimmy Kimmel's "Aloha to Lost" when they played a taped message from the "set" of Josh's new film "Snakes on a Plane: Electric Boogaloo", and he begins to breakdance. Terry looked like he was gonna fall out of his chair laughing.

Another revelation was Michael Emerson, who was also quite funny that night.

Any stories of people wanting to beat him up on the street?

[Foodie]

I watched the first season of Lost then gave up when I read somewhere that the creators had no plan and were making it up as they went along.

However, I watched the 2 hour pre-show and so was interested enough to watch the finale.

My question: is Foodie correct?

..... "they were dead the whole time" ....!

Were all of them dead the whole time? Some died immediately, some later, but the whole Initiative thing, did it actually happen? The sideways thing is what would have happened had they not crashed?

I read some reviews/blogs that said the writers went with the characters' story-lines and not the mysteries/questions. If that is the case, I think I'd be really pissed off if I'd actually watched this series.

No, what I was saying was one of the biggest theories all along. That they all died in the plane crash originally and the entire show has been them in Purgatory. I never believed it which is why I had a moment of disappointment when I saw where they were headed. What I didn't realize until a couple minutes into it, was that it went way deeper than that. And then the disappointment was replaced with amazement.

[Helen8]

Another revelation was Michael Emerson, who was also quite funny that night.

That's really a testament to his acting. He looks really quite docile in real life, but as Ben Linus, he had a look on his face that made him look diabolical. He and others are actors whose careers I plan to follow. Though, I'll pass on Snakes on a Plane II.

Any stories of people wanting to beat him up on the street?

As a matter of fact, I saw Emerson on a talk show not long ago and he told of a time he and his wife, late one night returning from a Broadway play, were on the NY subway sitting at the far end of a car when he noticed someone staring at him suspiciously. The man walked slowly over to the couple. Emerson was convinced that they were about to be mugged, but the man said, "You play one mean bastard on TV." He smiled sheepishly and said thank you.

[Jacq58]

Thanks Helen so much for all that info! It makes more sense to me now with the side-verse!

[Marie]

I've been impressed with the actor that played Locke for a long time (he has been on a number of TV shows) but I have a new appreciation for both he and Emerson. They did a fantastic job with their roles. Also impressed that Fox was only going out for the pilot role and wound up getting the lead! He is also an excellent actor. I will miss this show a lot. Not much on TV that interests me - just a small handfull of shows.

[Helen8]

You're right, Marie. I think we'll all experience some withdrawal, too. The show really made you think, even if we were way off on our theories or lacking in memory cells (me), we always had lively discussions about the plot.

[Heather]

I LOVED IT!! And yes tissues were required everytime they remembered. Sun and Jin and Sawyer and Juliet particularly. Thank you for your post Helen, that cleared up a few things I was wondering about.

And now Brotherhood is about to start! The perfect Friday

[Marie]

Gillian - you were right! I laughed my butt off when I saw the "alternate endings". Very cute! Especially the Newhart one!