Last Thursday’s season finale of LOST was odd. Good, but odd. I’m still not sure how John Locke moved the island, how he died, why everyone was calling him Jeremy Benthem, why Ben can’t go back to the island or even things as simple as how Aaron survived the helicopter crash. But one thing is for sure, LOST is awesome.
While the finale was great, it definitely doesn’t live up to the massively high bar that last season’s finale set. With Charlie dying, the castaways making contact with the freighter and everything else going on, the end of season three was heart wrenching. And then, of course, there was the ultimate moment. The absolute game-changing scene that set LOST up for its best season (season four) to date.
When Kate got out of that car to face a crazy, bearded Jack I just about lost it (no pun intended). That was seriously the most mind bending moment I have ever experienced in my days of watching television. They had us looking one direction and then BAM! they come at us with the flash forward jab from nowhere. It was almost as powerful as when I saw the Sixth Sense, knowing nothing about Bruce Willis’ from-the-grave performance.
But more than just the mind-blowing aspect, last season’s finale did something that a lot of shows are unable to do. It absolutely changed tracks and made the show better in the process.
Most TV shows, after the first season just aren’t the same. After 22+ episodes, the initial novelty of the show goes away and the story changes… mostly for the worse. LOST was a perfect example of that (the OC is an even better one, but that’s a subject for another date). It was originally a show about a bunch of people who crash landed on an island and were alone and fighting to survive. That was the core in the first season.
But after that, things changed. They had to. There’s only so many plot lines you can develop without adding new characters, ideas and story lines to the fold. So, in season two and three, the others, the tallies, Desmond and the Dharma Initiative came into play. That changed the show for good, and because of that season two and three suffered. It was not longer just about crash survivors trying to stay alive on the island.
With the flash forward, and subsequently this past season, the creators took the show in a whole new direction that had made the show something completely different than it began. But it’s something better. Hopefully that trend continues as things change yet again in season number five.
