“Lost”: Caught in the maze of questions

The final season of the island thriller unravels in our clutches. So why can't we look away?

By Heather Havrilesky

John Hawkes

Topics:Lost, I Like to Watch, Television

How did a character-driven drama with metaphysical undertones and a sociopolitical allegory at its core slowly devolve into a maze of dead ends and lingering questions? And how is it that every question posed on “Lost” (9 p.m. Tuesdays on ABC) is answered with another question?

These are the questions, questions, questions that haunt us when Tuesday night’s second episode of the final season of “Lost” begins – yes – with even more questions: How did Sayid come back to life? “What happened to me?” he asks, and then “Who are these people? What do they want?”

“It’s the Others, dude,” Hurley answers. “They caught us … again.”

Oh dear. It’s the Others (again), and they caught us (again). And just in case the repetitive nature of this show is, ahem, lost on you, the entire episode seems to be made up of nothing but questions.

“Who are you? Why are you holding us here?”

“I just lied to him, didn’t I?”

“So did they tell you why they burnt me with a hot poker?”

“Who do you care about, Kate?”

“So, what happened to your handcuffs?”

“Why are they after you? What did you do?”

Of course, after the discovery of the hatch or Charles Widmore’s evil corporation or the Dharma Initiative’s disturbing experiment, things really had to get simpler. Blaming misguided scientific experiments or some corporation? Maybe in 2005, but these days that stuff is beyond played. It’s the bread and butter of “Fringe” and, Christ, “Eureka!” and probably five or six shows on Nickelodeon and ABC Family, for that matter. No, far better just to scrap all of that and go back to the one thing that everyone scoffed at in the very beginning: the smoke monster!

And by the smoke monster, of course, we mean a pure, simple force of evil, now embodied in the dead, eeeeevil Locke. So even as the questions fly about, we’re just biding time, because all of the various folds that made this show intriguing – character studies, well-scripted flashbacks, unpredictable power struggles, retro eeriness that conjured up the Milgram obedience experiment – all of these things are flattened out into Good vs. Evil. In fact, everything about the current course of events feels like a retread of a really bad Indiana Jones movie (“Indy, cover your heart!”).

So mystical guy/other Other Dogen tortures Sayid as a “test,” then admits to Jack that they were planning to poison Sayid:

Dogen: We believe he has been claimed.

Jack: Claimed? By what?

Dogen: There is a darkness growing in him, and once it reaches his heart, everything your friend once was will be gone.

Jack: How can you be sure of that?

Dogen: Because it happened to your sister.

Oh my god! Finally a truly shocking revelation: Locke is Jack’s sister!

No wonder they, like, totally never, ever got along at all, dude!

OK, sure, he’s probably talking about Jack’s half-sister, Claire. Another question answered with a question. Claire is evil now? And yes, it’s almost enough to keep you watching, if you didn’t suspect that, in the end, it will all boil down to explosions, fisticuffs and a few mediocre revelations trumped up to be shocking and weighty. But then, if there was one thing we knew when we started watching this show six years ago, it was that the ending would be a disappointment. That’s just the smoke-and-mirrors nature of the smoke monster.

Don’t tell that to the promo team at ABC, though. Immediately after the last scene of Tuesday night’s episode, we cut to a preview for the next episode with a voice-over that bellows, “This is it! The final episodes of television’s biggest phenomenon are here! The time for questions is over!“

Come on, guy. The time for questions is so not over. But you had to go and say that, didn’t you? Now we’ll tune in next week in spite of ourselves, hoping for some real answers for once, and at the end of another hour, we’ll say to ourselves, “Yep. They caught us … again.”

: Heather Havrilesky is Salon's TV critic and author of the rabbit blog. Her memoir, "Disaster Preparedness," published in 2010. More Heather Havrilesky

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The show's creator invites fans to write their own endings. Don't choose one of these

By Drew Grant

Series' finale still "Lost" on viewers.

Topics:Lost, Television

Over a year after the widely criticized finale of “Lost,” creator J.J. Abrams finally addressed disgruntled fans:

“For years, I had people praising Lost to death, and now they say: ‘I’m so pissed at you for the end of ‘Lost.’ I think a lot of people who were upset with the ending, were just upset that it ended. And I’ve not yet heard the pitch of what the ending should have been. I’ve just heard: ‘That sucked.’”

He has a point: By the last season of “Lost,” there were too many loose ends to tie up in a way that would have left everybody satisfied. When it turned out that the alternate reality presented in the sixth season was purgatory (kind of), where everyone was waiting for Jack and his dad, Christian Shepherd (YIKES!), to lead them into heaven, the dogmatic community of “Lost” fans suddenly turned on their formerly favorite show. They demanded a more satisfying conclusion than the “They’ve been dead this whole time!” cop-out.

Where were the answers to all the mysteries? We still don’t know who the original inhabitants of the island were, why Hurley’s lottery numbers were bad luck or what the hell that giant foot statue was about.

It was a Catch-22: answer any of the island’s puzzles, and risk taking the magic out of the series. (See: Trying to explain the polar bears, the food drop-offs and the trippy Dharma Initiative room.) Leave everything ambiguous and vague, and fans feel like they’ve been conned. (But not long-conned.)

I doubt that anyone could have come up with a more satisfying conclusion for “Lost” without rewriting the entire last season. But for all the outrage and disappointment, maybe we should just feel grateful that the show didn’t end in one of the following clichés:

“It was all just a dream”

Taking a cue from “Dallas,” Jack wakes up on Oceanic 815 as it is flying back to L.A. from Australia. He vows to never again mix Ambien with scotch. This fake-out was hinted at the end of Season 5, when we do see Jack wake up on Oceanic 815, but he’s also still on the island. The rest of the season follows the two separate realities until they merge into one — a much more satisfying conclusion than finding Patrick Duffy in the shower.

The unexplained cliffhanger

When ABC put “Twin Peaks” on hiatus in 1991, David Lynch refused to ever air the episodes he was planning. So we never found out if Audrey blew up with the bank, why Josie Packard’s soul was trapped in a doorknob or if Dale’s soul will ever be saved from the Black Lodge. At least “Lost” tried to explain some of its mysteries; “Twin Peaks” just gave up on them after killing off Leland Palmer. “Lost” provided some resolution, even if it was a maudlin one.

The truth is not out there

When “The X-Files” aired its final episode in 2002, it raised approximately 400 new questions for every one it tried to answer. Who was Scully’s baby’s daddy? Did we prevent an alien invasion, or are the government’s super-soldiers proof that the Syndicate has been in league with them all along? What happened when Mulder was abducted? Why was he hallucinating during his trial for the death of Knowles Rohner? The Smoking Man, Mulder’s sister, all the “big” questions of the show were addressed but never answered.

“X-Files” is probably the most comparable show to “Lost” in terms of frustrating finales, but at least fans didn’t leave the island behind with the vague sense that Damon Lindelof was holding out on them to drum up ticket sales for the movie.

The flashback/The gang’s all here

OK, the first three seasons of “Lost” were almost all flashbacks, used to flesh out characters the audience knew nothing about. And then they flashed forward. And then sideways. But at least we were spared an ending like the one on “Seinfeld” where a trial serves as a plot excuse to bring back former characters for brief cameos and reuse old clips for a sadly lackluster “best of” episode. Compared to shows that don’t resolve their mysteries, “Seinfeld’s” finale just left fans disappointed. At least they got to see an alternate conclusion when Larry David brought the show’s stars on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” to create a less-sucky ending.

“The Sopranos”

Need we say more? “The Sopranos” even ruined Journey for its fans, and that is an unforgivable sin. So: Has there ever been a satisfying conclusion to a mystery show? And if “Lost” had to resolve itself, can you think of a better conclusion than the one the writers came up with?

: Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant

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Today's catch includes: "True Blood's" Sam Trammell with kittens, Ryan Adams being metal, and Woody's latest film

By Drew Grant

Sam Trammell loves kittens!

Topics:Pop five, Celebrity, Lost, True Blood, Viral Video, Woody Allen, Television

1. Creepy “Lost” update of the day: Evangeline Lilly may be in “The Hobbit,” but 51-year-old Doug Hutchison (who played Horace, head of the Dharma Initiative) just married a 16-year-old “aspiring country singer.”

2. Terrible names for Woody Allen movies of the day: “The Bop Decameron,” the Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Greta Gerwig and Allen picture that will be set in Rome and hopefully translates to “I’m sorry about this title.”

: Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant

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The former "Lost" actress will appear in Peter Jackson's prequel to "Lord of the Rings"

By Drew Grant

Evangeline Lilly, pre-elf.

Topics:The Hobbit, Lost, Peter Jackson, Movies

Due to her ability to look sort of like Liv Tyler, we imagine, actress Evangeline Lilly has just been cast in Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” as an elf. Evangeline is most famous for playing Kate on “Lost,” probably because she has had no other speaking roles in television or film since the show. Jackson has faith in Lilly though, sending out a Facebook note in lieu of an official announcement that spoke to the star’s talent:

: Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant

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Today's catch includes: Jason Sudeikis dishing about masturbation and a "Lost" actor wishing he was on "True Blood

By Drew Grant

Charlie Day on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

Topics:Pop five, Guillermo del Toro, Internet Culture, Lost, Star Wars, True Blood, Television

1. Masturbatory comment of the day: Jason Sudeikis on how he got his technique for “Hall Pass”:

“I did all my research for that scene by going on Chatroulette, that website where guys masturbate for strangers. My moves in Hall Pass are an amalgamation of, I don’t know, maybe 20,000 different dudes. I took the facial expressions from SexHog22; I took the hand motions from GrizzlyBearDong. Those guys really know what they’re doing.”

: Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant

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J.J. Abrams expertly mimics Spielberg in this loving tribute to '70s cinema and childhood

By Andrew O'Hehir

Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney in "Super 8"

Topics:Horror, Lost, Our Picks, Movies, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Steven Spielberg, Super 8

So “Super 8″ is more like a mannered impression of a great ’70s summer movie than the real thing, but that makes it just about perfect for our age of simulated sincerity. It’s an expertly constructed thrill ride with wonderful atmosphere and tremendous good humor; if its heart of gold is artificial, that won’t stop you from enjoying the heck out of it. This much-hyped collaboration between writer-director J.J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg, who have known each other since Abrams was a child, is such a meta-conscious movie-movie fugue state that it goes well beyond concepts like homage or tribute into realms like “demonic possession” or “priestly ritual.”

As you probably know by now, “Super 8″ is a monster movie about a group of small-town kids in 1979 Ohio who are making a monster movie, and I guess it’s that faint touch of postmodernism that makes it not exactly like a Spielberg project that didn’t quite get made 30 years ago. Otherwise, the Spielbergian impersonation is uncannily complete, from the half-disillusioned, half-idealized portrayal of chaotic suburban family life to the secret confraternity of kid culture to the faint stirrings of political correctness to the overdetermined, almost architectural sentimentality of the last act. I kept fighting off the feeling that “Super 8″ had actually been made by, say, Michael Haneke or David Lynch, in an opaque conceptual-art spirit of mockery. Or that some form of illicit horror-movie congress has occurred between director and producer: They merged, like the two women in Bergman’s “Persona.” Or Abrams has eaten Spielberg’s brain and is wearing his skin.

Anyway! Short version of all that: Fun movie, but an odd viewing experience. Across all his film and TV work (“Lost,” “Star Trek,” etc.), Abrams has distinguished himself as an expert craftsman without a distinctive artistic signature, so perhaps it’s fitting that his most autobiographical work is so strongly in another filmmaker’s style. “Super 8″ looks tremendous; it’s a beautiful widescreen picture (complete with presumably intentional lens flares, à la “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”), rich in detail and atmosphere, that captures its “My Sharona” era and small-town setting without overdoing it. (Hearing the Commodores’ “Easy” in the background at some mediocre “fine dining” establishment almost gave me hives.) The cinematographer is Larry Fong, a first-rate young Hollywood talent who shot a lot of “Lost” and made “Watchmen” and “Sucker Punch” with Zack Snyder.

Instead of Spielberg’s Southern California ‘burbs, we’re in the beaten-down, muscle-car-infused Rust Belt town of Lillian, Ohio, where young protagonist Joe Lamb (the screen debut of teen actor Joel Courtney) has just lost his mother in a grotesque industrial accident, as we learn in a wrenching, compact prologue. Joe’s distant, uncommunicative dad, Jackson (Kyle Chandler of “Friday Night Lights”), is a sheriff’s deputy and, fortunately for our story, a darn good one. But he’s not the world’s most empathetic pop; he wants to ship the dreamy and sensitive Joe off to baseball camp for six weeks rather than let him shoot a Super 8 zombie movie with his portly aspiring filmmaker pal, Charles (Riley Griffiths).

All the kid actors in this film are terrific and unaffected performers — seriously, for all the ways that American movies have arguably gotten worse, child acting is way better than it used to be — and Abrams’ script lovingly captures the in-between character of early teen existence. Griffiths and Courtney may get the best scene of all, when they must confront the fact that both of them made the movie mostly so they could get to know the alluring Alice (Elle Fanning), who plays the lead — and then must face a major plot twist seconds later. As for Fanning, everybody who saw her in “Somewhere” or “Reservation Road” or “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” knows what a scary-good actress she has become at a tender age (she’s now 13), and Abrams uses her obvious professionalism and air of being older than the boys around her to killer effect in the movie-within-a-movie here.

I won’t spoil that terrific moment for you, except to say that it’s one of the occasions when some powerful emotion sneaks through the pretty, pop, halfway arch surface of “Super 8.” Oh and yeah, there’s other stuff I’m not supposed to talk about too. Stuff that, by the way, is totally not surprising at all once you understand the movie’s basic setup. Joe and Charles and Alice and the rest of their junior-high moviemaking team head to the town’s railroad depot one summer midnight to shoot a crucial scene, where they miraculously survive (and accidentally record) a horrendous train wreck that seems to have been caused on purpose by their science teacher. When the Air Force appears out of nowhere, led by Noah Emmerich as a standard-issue villainous military spook, and enforces a clampdown on Lillian, it becomes clear there was something on the train that nobody’s supposed to talk about or know about.

If the mystery turns out to be exactly what you think it is — and for all intents and purposes it’s a darker-hued borrowing from Spielberg’s biggest hit — “Super 8″ is definitely about the journey and not the destination. Abrams does an excellent job of withholding precise information about what’s going on in Lillian, and builds an M. Night Shyamalan mood of chaos and menace. All the dogs have fled town. Electrical wire is ripped off power company poles; engines disappear out of cars and microwaves out of appliance stores. There’s a terrifically creepy confrontation between the sheriff and the unknown thingummy at a lonely gas station, complete with excerpts from Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” In a pitch-perfect town meeting, one lady expresses the dominant mode of paranoia: “Unless you can tell me who’s been messing around with our stuff, I think it’s the Soviets.”

Well, no, it might not be the Russkies, but it might just be that a gang of plucky kids obsessed with model-building and George A. Romero movies might be able to solve the mystery and heal the ruptures in the adult world that are tearing Lillian apart. And if there were dangers to be faced and, let’s say, entities to be communicated with and beautiful damsels to be rescued on the way to a conclusion that’s so melodramatic and sentimental and all-out magical that it’s like Spielberg in drag, well, Joe and his buddies might be the guys for that too. Throw in some Keep on Truckin’ posters and a little of “Le Freak” and a range of references that includes 9/11 pre-echoes and the “Phantasm” horror movies and “Stand by Me” and Stephen King’s “It” — there’s nearly as much King in here as Spielberg — and you’ve got a misshapen, lovable monster of a summer good time.