and this week we delve into…

23 Thoughts About The Mid-Season Finale of Doctor Who:

1. Well, the episode certainly felt epic as shit.

2. From the opening to the middle to the very end, I am starting to think that the biggest recurring flaw to Doctor Who, at least under the current creative administration, is the constraints of television. The rules, the limitations on time and budget, the fact that you can take the spectacle and the content only so far, and not much farther than that. This is a dumb question, I know, but how tremendously awesome would a Doctor Who movie written by Steven Moffat be?

3. In that thought though is the gist of my overall feelings about “A Good Man Goes To War.” There was not enough of certain things, like general story, for example, or time to get into and play with that story. It was nice to see the Doctor and his associates take on their enemies through cunning sneakiness and ambushery, but there was a lot of elements that we just didn’t have enough time to invest in. Like the idea of the angry Doctor at war, or the characters, like the thin/fact gay married Anglican marines, or even Lorna Bucket (the Amy Pond who wasn’t).

And then there’s River Song… Always the best part of any episode she’s been in before, yet here in the episode where we get her big revelation (or one of, more on that later), she just feels sadly… kind of tacked on, you know?

4. River Song is Cable from the X-Men. Only way hotter, of course. And minus the glowing bionic eye.

I mean… seriously.

I guess that means that Amy Pond is Jean Grey and Rory is Cyclops, which makes kind of sense, only with the Phoenix thing reversed for Rory as “the last centurion.” That’s some total nerditude for you.

Speaking of nerditude… For now reason at all, this:

from here.

5. Speaking of which… I love that Steven Moffat teased that Doctor/Amy coupling as the cause of the baby until the very last.

It’s fascinating (and fun, to me, I guess), but sooo verrryy Steven Moffat. A lot of what Russell T. Davies wrote had, at its heart, a goofy or a very sweet core. Moffat can do that too, but a lot of where his stories and characters come from seems to be rooted in sex. In something very naughty and very human, and I like it.

6. A moment ago I mentioned the first of River Song’s revelations, the biggest of course being who she is? But that’s kind of splintered into a second question of what she is? A la is she the Doctor’s  future girlfriend/wife? Or, other wife?

And who did she kill? Who was that very good man, a hero to many? Is he the same one who went to war here in this very episode, I wonder?

7. Also, during the ending there, was I the only one who felt for a moment there like they were implying that she was the Doctor from the future? What, with the Gallifreyan writing on the crib, his crib, that is supposed to reveal who she was, and his shock at the kissy kissy they’ve made in the past, and the question about how he looks. I mean, right? Who would make a better mirror for you other than yourself from the future?

I wonder if they’re going to suggest that at some point the Doctor has to have a hand in raising young River Song…

8. “Flesh Avatar.” That just sounds like a porn version of the Jame Cameron film.

I mean, right?

9. Good news: The show is definitely coming back for a seventh series/season and so is Matt Smith as the Doctor.

10. Bad news: It’s looking more and more like Amy and Rory will be leaving at the end of this series/season.

11. And them leaving does kind of make sense, regardless of what happens with the Melody Pond/River Song situation. Once you’ve gotten married, traveled through space and experienced everything that ever happened or ever will happen, then died a bunch of times, then lived for two millennium as a Roman centurion made of plastic, then had a baby in captivity that was fashioned as a weapon against your best friend, and then met that same child when they’re a badass doctor of archaeology… well, there’s not too many higher levels you can take it to from there, I’m guessing.

12. I guess, going back to questions/queries/complaints about this episode, that one of the bigger of those three things is who these villains are? Presumably this is the same militarized Church that we heard about in “The Time Of Angels,” and the Headless Monks were also mentioned first in that episode, I believe. And then there’s Madame Kovarian, whom we didn’t get too much info about, but who are these people, really?

Even though I felt like they didn’t do nearly enough with it, the alliance of baddies seen there at the end of “The Pandorica Opens” made sense. They were all recognizable villains and the cause for joining in together to take down the Doctor made sense from a certain perspective.

And how do the the Silence fit into all this (if at all)?

13. I’m a simple guy, but…

…the idea of a Sontaran breastfeeding a baby is one of the funniest things in the world to me.

Also, interesting that a nurse finally died in this episode, just not the one we were expecting.

14. Now, again, while I felt like it was odd to put the thin/fat married gay Anglican marines in the episode for a bit of exposition and then a tragic death that you didn’t have much time to ponder over, nor car about, on the other hand, the gay couple that I did fall in love with this episode was…

Fuck yeah.

And no, it wasn’t just because everyone likes fictional lesbian power couples. At least, I don’t think so. But come on, just imagine a spinoff about an interspecies lesbian couple that hunts Jack The Ripper with swords in Victorian times. That would blow Torchwood out of the fucking water.

from here.

15. I read somewhere that Captain Jack Harkness was intended to make a cameo if nothing else in this episode but it couldn’t be worked out because of Torchwood now filming in America. Too bad considering that Captain Jack is always better back at home in Doctor Who.

16. Also, Fuck Yeah Catrin Stewart!

When they released a picture of her character in “A Good Man Goes To War” a while back and listed the character’s name as Jenny, people just freaked out. The return of the Doctor’s daughter! But recast! Had that been the case, though a highly unlikely case though it would’ve been, it would’ve made a little bit sense since I believe that Georgia Moffett is currently super pregnant, right?

Also, concerning Catrin Stewart: I think I’m in love with a girl who will never like me back. Equal parts that she is probably gay and also because she is fictional. Sigh. Isn’t that how it always goes? People are always telling me that I should watch Misfits and I think I heard she was in an episode, so maybe that’ll happen now.

17. Steve Wonder sang in 1814, but shhh, we must never tell him!

18. It’s River Song’s birthday. And the day she was born!

19. Running, both in fear and in excitement, makes a recurrence yet again, but so does the idea of a separate war between the head and the heart.

20. Some fun facts about Frances Barber, who plays Madame Kovarian: She’s previously dated Danny Boyle and her best friend is Ian McKellen, who had built a library in India in her name.

21. This:

Also: this. If, for nothing else, for the musical choice.

22. Maybe I’m weird, but I’m always fascinated at the teasing of the Doctor’s dark side. Especially this season I’m always curious to see more from him than the excited manchild adventurer. I think Matt Smith does that very well but I guess I just like seeing him take it darker or playing the character as the demented old man that he really is. Its’ a rare thing.

So I was especially intrigued by that brief moment when River Song did finally show up at the end of the episode and he tore into her. No “Spoilers!” and no “Hello, sweetie,” just anger and reality checks. It was certainly a lot more raw than what we saw him give Colonel Runaway earlier in the episode. For an episode about the Doctor finally unleashing and going after his enemies for a change, I think it’s surprising that, as one reviewer of the show already put it online, David Tennant’s Doctor already got angrier most weeks, and usually with even less in the way of provocation.

I like the idea of Matt Smith sticking around for a while, but it makes me laugh to think that perhaps the next Doctor could have some ferocity to him, like a young Ray Winstone or Ian McShane, that kind of quality. I’d like to see a Doctor who could terrorize the paint off of walls with just the sound of his voice, I think.

22A. I mentioned the RTD era earlier, and he did correctly posit that the Doctor turns people into weapons as he needs them, whether intentionally or unintentionally. I think a lot of people really wanted Moffat to just throw out so much of what Davies did previously but I think he actually did the smarter thing: He built on a lot of those concepts and followed them to their next stages.

Especially here with the idea of people being turned into weapons to be used.

23. I watched this episode last Saturday, but have just kind of let this post slide til now, unfortunately. Partly because of a busy personal life, whatever that is, but honestly also because I’ve not been entirely sure what to say, or at least in the sense of focusing down to some key points. Only seven episodes into this season and it’s already been a wild ride and the several months between us and the rest of the season could not expire fast enough as far as I’m concerned. In fact, if I did have a time machine, I’d already be in the middle of episode 8. I guess I’ll see you there.

Next time: See you again in a couple months’ time and then “Let’s Kill Hitler!”

…from Sunday’s season finale of The Venture Bros., “Operation P.R.O.M.,” as discussed here.

1. This…

…is hilarious to me. Art by a fella named Murray Groat mashing up TinTin with the Lovecraft mythos. Something about Hergé’s ligne claire style of art mixed with that lovable scamp Cthulhu is just perfect to me. I’m looking forward to Spielberg’s upcoming TinTin movie mostly because it seems like it’s Spielberg just geeking out and that seems fascinating to me since even when he’s at his zaniest, he’s still very controlled, very measured, never what I think you could call “excessive.” How great would it be to see that little French kid taking all tentacled Old Ones from beyond the stars that inspire madness at their very mention? That’s a recipe for box office success, yo.

2. Rumor: Matthew Goode as Superman in the Zack Snyder reboot? That’s bullshit.

I guess that’s better than Gerard Butler, Patrick Wilson, or Billy Crudup though. But, that said, if you’re worried that I’m going to complain about every little bit of news that pops up about Zack Snyder’s Superman movie, then… well, I have nothing to suggest otherwise. There’s a very good thing that I may do just that.

And, yes, also bullshit: That they’re still trying to push forward with the big screen Buffy The Vampire Slayer reboot. We’ll see if it actually makes it to movie theaters. But you should read the always classy Joss Whedon’s reaction to the latest news of the matter.

from here.

3. ast night’s season finale of The Venture Bros. was nothing short of amazing and more than made up for what was not so much a bad season but an unspectacular one. There’s just too much to talk about with the episode but I think the show found a niche that I’d like to see it explore more in the future (if it has a future): a one hour running time, which both allows the plotlines to breathe and run on but doesn’t ever stifle their growth. And, Jesus, they managed to wrap up like 15 storylines there too.

If this was the last episode of the show ever (a very sad but quite possible outcome), it was a worthy one. The show went back to it’s well: Balls to the wall failure and immaturity. Hank and Dean got a home school prom. All of the manly men struck out, dreams weren’t just crushed but stomped into the ground, and women are more than a whole other genre to the males of the show, they’re a whole other monstrous species. At first I was amazed at how long the “Rusty Venture” sex act gag went on and then it reached a point of equilibrium where I never wanted it to end. Al and Shore Leave were some of my least favorite characters (mostly because they, like Sgt. Hatred, were an incredibly funny idea that was literally beat into the ground over and over), but I kind of like that they’re the only ones that found happiness.

Is it sad that I not only loved the montage that ended the episode but almost found it as poignant as the final very musical moments of Lost from earlier this year. And, as if showrunners Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer didn’t have enough geek cred, I adored that the montage was set to Pulp’s “Like A Friend,” a song about how relationships are hard and that it’s easy to be yourself if you suck…

August Bravo: No matter what we thought, well, maybe a little, or what we thought the writers might have thought, this episode, and season for that matter, was about Don Draper, or as some know him, Dick. Lives, businesses, relationships, friendships, and all those other ships we thought were sinking, didn’t. Like Marco told me earlier, this finale wasn’t as upbeat as last season’s. It showed slim promise and some possibilities, but didn’t leave you thinking, “What the fuck is going to happen next?”

Marco: Well, I’d definitely say it leaves you wondering what happens next, but more so than usual, I think you can guess what’s going to happen next and you’re worried that it may not be so great for the characters. Don, especially.

August: Don’s somewhat “redemption” was almost completely omitted from this episode making everyone believe that crises was averted or that it may play a role in his probably inevitable divorce with Megan. Is it Megan?

Marco: “Megan… out there?” as Roger puts it so perfectly. As Joan says, Don’s grinning like an idiot, as if he’s the first schmuck on Madison Avenue/in professional New York/the world to marry his secretary, but having Roger be surprised adds a very special symmetry, especially since Don’s pulling a Roger there, and it’s kind of weird.

Can you imagine the Don Draper version of Sterling’s Gold?

August: The somewhat reference that the rest of the cast ACTUALLY exists was finding out, which we thought we knew, but thought it might be too obvious, but I guess wasn’t, was that…

…Joan is in fact still pregnant.

Marco: I love that Mad Men is such a unique show that amongst it’s many other wonderful qualities, still has it’s own rhythms and ways of going about the rules of storytelling, counter to other popular ideas about narrative. There is a certain pattern you can expect from each season, we’ve finally learned, isn’t there?

It’s usually: The season starts with some intriguing signs of where the characters have landed since the previous season. Intriguing ideas and/or questions are brought up. Should they actually answer those questions, it’ll be in a relatively vague though still meaningful way. That question, which literally started off this season was: Who the fuck is Don Draper? We’ve gotten a multi-faceted answer to that, certainly.

From there, certain problems and dramatic conflicts will arise around mid-season. They’ll seem massive – Oh no, the government is about to discover that Don Draper is a liar and a deserter! – but will fizzle quickly, leaving you curious as to their placement at all. Certain things will pop up, which will make you suspect where the story is going – did Joan actually not get that abortion? – but you’ll think, “No, that’s far too obvious. They won’t go there.” They will, friends. Then, whatever the endgame of the season is, it won’t appear until the last two or three episodes and it will be an all consuming fire.

August: Except for Megan. That carrot was dangled in front of us and we’ve just been waiting for Don to take bite after bite after bite.

Marco: True. It’s funny how we believe certain things from this show. When Dr. Faye said to Don that he’s the kind of guy that would be married again within the year, I think we all believed that.

Though, of course, I don’t think I stand alone when I say that we hoped that it would be Dr. Faye that we hoped Don would end up with, or that she’d be the kind of partner he’d strive to find happiness with. The fact that she’s a feminist and someone who has pushed Don to accept himself, and possibly integrate his two personas as it were, didn’t hurt. She’s helped his business, helped his mind, and helped his soul, as it were, yet there’s certain things she couldn’t provide Don that seemed to really make him look elsewhere.

August: She couldn’t be a caregiver to his children while he was off doing whatever he wanted to. She’s the anti-Betty.

Marco: That and she couldn’t worship him the way Megan seemingly can. Plus, I think that as much as Don wants to be able to stop hiding and stop running from the spectre of Dick Whitman, a part of him enjoys the lies that come with the running and hiding. Don Draper is the greatest product he’s ever advertised, and with Megan, he can find a fresh start at that.

August: But Henry Francis says there are no fresh starts!

Marco: I can’t believe that Henry Francis has lingered this whole season.

Sadly, we’ve really dropped the ball this season, August and I, because there’s so much we could say about this episode, so much that needs to be said, but it all ties into this past season and that’s a dialogue that I’m incredibly sad that we haven’t had here at Counterforce. On behalf of us and directed at the three people who actually reads these Mad Men posts from us, I apologize. I had some shit going on and August didn’t have cable. And refused to buy the episodes on itunes. And couldn’t figure out megavideo.

from here.

August: You just knew where it was all going once Stephanie handed Don that engagement ring from the real Don Draper.

Marco: Oh, seriously. Chekhov might as well have come out to California with Don and the kids and fired that ring out of a gun right at Megan.

It’s funny that I posted this picture from Videogum the other day…

…and sadly it came so true, in a lot of ways, since we’re speaking of Megan and Dr. Faye and Sally and… Well, have we mentioned Sally yet? Cause if we haven’t, we should be talking about Sally this season, right?

August: We haven’t mentioned her yet.

from here.

Marco: Sally! I believe I kept mentioning in our conversations about the show last year how much I liked Sally’s character, how interesting I thought her storylines were, and I feel like that’s only been compounded on more wonderfully this season. Bobby’s still kind of useless, but I’m glad that Sally has really stepped forward and is becoming a real person, even at such a young age, though, again, it’ll be interesting to watch her grow into herself and who she’s going to be while still being the child of Don and Betty Draper.

Anyway, so that once picture: Sally telling Dr. Faye that she’s fired. Ha ha, funny. But kind of eerily prescient in a way, considering that episode, “The Beautiful Girls,” when I know that a lot of people read that one scene there, Benjamin Light included, as Sally kind of picking Megan out of the rest of the “beautiful girls” that surround her father. And maybe Don picked up on that.

I mean, we knew Don wanted to fuck Megan. That notion was exploding louder than bombs for a handful of episodes before it happened, but this picture from Videogum…

…is kind of funny for how very accurate it had become.

August: I can’t write too much about this episode because in my head I’m still processing how to feel about it all. The bit I particularly enjoyed the most was Don telling Peggy that Megan(??) looked up to her, and had the same sort of spark, and Peggy being completely jealous. Maybe Peggy will be wife number 3 (or is it number 4??) Her childlike jealousy really made this episode. To see Don slowly turning into Roger (maaaaybe), or to see the evolution of Betty, and I guess Peggy’s, unhappiness/jealousy, or maybe Megan’s (yes, it is Megan) slow transition into the life of being Mrs. Draper/Whitman will be the most interesting thing to watch next season.

Marco: I don’t trust Megan. Well, no, that’s not true. But she’s very manipulative. And Jessica Paré is, I think, very good at playing that so subtly. Megan’s incredibly smart, but dumb and silly in all those ways that a 25 year old would seem or should see to a 40 year old man who should know better – though Don has two addictions in his life: women and the sauce - but it’s not hard to see the way she’s worked the situation with Don to her advantage.

That’s not particularly insidious because all stabs at romance are some form of manipulation, if you think about it, no matter how well intentioned and wholesome they seem. But she’s told Don exactly what he needs or wants to hear, especially that she doesn’t care about his past, just who he is now. For a man who’s finally started to accept that he has all his life ahead of him, what he really wants to do is live in the now. Especially with a girl like Megan, who seems to adore him, but I think will be much better at getting what she wants or deserves than Betty was.

Maybe this really will be “happily ever after” for Don, but I doubt it. But really, it’s not the happily ever after I would’ve picked for this character. I suspect that he’s traded in one “lost weekend” phase for perhaps another? But let’s face it, Don’s not a guy who will get a classical happily ever after, is he? He’s too prone to a life of solemn remorse.

That said, I would disagree with your take on Peggy. Jealousy? Maybe. But I think that was a very, very small part of that look she gave Don. I think if we could’ve heard her thoughts or seen them in a comic book word bubble floating over her head, they would’ve read as: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? HER?! HUH? WHAT?

But Peggy’s defined her life by Don to a lot of degrees. She has, in her own small way, just saved the agency by finally signing some new business, no matter how small, and here’s Don, her mentor, running around like an idiot. And his comment to Peggy about how Megan reminds him a lot of her is the ultimate slap in the face for a great many reasons. For a season that contained the show’s best episode, “The Suitcase,” in which Don and Peggy finally bond in kind of a real way, it was kind of hard to watch their interaction this year end like this.

But, that scene with Joan and Peggy immediately after was perfect. A Joan/Peggy show? I’d watch that. I hope that next season shows those two really claiming some of the power around SCDP (or will it just be SDP?) that they more than rightfully deserve.

August: I think this season had a lot of ups and downs, but mostly ups. Overwhelmingly ups. Like I said, the storyline I’m most interested in for the next year is the stuff with Don and Megan, should Don and Megan really work out. They didn’t leave us with a lot of answers this season, but we maybe that’s because we were all asking too many questions.

Marco: I think you’re right about that. The status quo’s been changed, some things and people are gone, and some are still with us, just amplified. We think we’re ready for what tomorrow will bring, but we have no idea. Just like Don there, we’re laying awake in the dark with a near stranger sleeping beside us as stare out at the night.

…and it happened. How do we know? Because you’re sitting there, right there, right now, in your comfy chair, or on your couch, or perhaps laying in bed, or wherever or however you read your friendly neighborhood Counterforce. Well, or so we think. It sounds nice. Exploding into being, from essence to existence by way of KA-BOOM! That sounds good, right? But this thing, which we can call “Event One,” it happened, and because of it, the universe as we know it was created.

And then something happened. A serious of events that lead to the total and utter collapse of the universe and all reality. Well, they didn’t just collapse, but they began a severe process of collapsing. But the universe is big and vast and this took a little bit of time. How long? Well, roughly 2,000 years in theoretical time, but in subjective time, about 45 minutes or so.

And all of that happened, and then happened again in tonight’s season finale of Doctor Who’s fifth series, “The Big Bang.” Following last week’s ridiculously intense episode, the universe collapsed, or rather, began the process of collapsing until there was a second big bang, and everything was re-created again.

The reset button for the universe was hit, not once, but twice, and not in a totally unsatisfying way.

And that was today, June 26, 2010, both in reality and in show. It’s the date we’ve been hearing about for some time now on the show, “Amy’s time,” the date that Rory and Amy were to get married…

…and get married, they did.

I’ve watched this episode twice now since it aired (in England)(I guess it’ll air here stateside in a few weeks), and it’s nothing short of stunning. People tend to complain that Moffat is “too clever” or “too complicated” or “too smart” and they express desire to see the emotional wringing of RTD again and I think you got both of those modes here, the best of both worlds.

from here.

The best of both multiverses, really.

The universe ended, or is in the process of ending. The Doctor and his fez and the vortex manipulator (the same device that Captain jack and the other time agents had). The Blinovitch Limitation Effect in action. Only, not really. Amy in the Pandorica and Rory taking the lone path as her protector, “the lone centurion.” A world without stars…

…and Richard Dawson and his star cult (one of my favorite bits)(don’t forget that Dawson was in “Journey’s End” talking about the stars). The creepy museum at the end of the universe. Stone Daleks. A peek into the hidden workings of River Song? The girl who waited. The boy who waited. The girl who doesn’t make sense. And Big Bang Two!

The Doctor pilots the Pandorica into the exploding, burning TARDIS and then travels back through his own timestream as he’s slowly erased from the universe, revisiting moments from this past season (solving the jacketed Doctor question from “Flesh And Stone“), but only in audio visitations (makes even more sense why Amy’s eyes had to be closed then), and then he goes and visits young Amy as she waits in her garden for the Doctor to return way back in “The Eleventh Hour,” only this time he does…

And he tucks her into bed and tells her a bedtime story in an extremely touching moment: The story of him. And her. And their travels through time and space. And if something can be remembered, then it can come back. Time can be rewritten!

And rewritten, it is. The story changes and Amy Pond finds her parents are alive again. Rory and her get married and in a very RTD-esque moment, she recieves a gift from a mysterious woman passing by (River Song), and its’ a book. A familiar looking book, one that used to be filled with spoilers, but only now the pages are blank. And Amy gets up and tells a story to everyone at the reception. And her words bring her imaginary friend from childhood back, the Raggedy Doctor.

All in all, it was a tense, clever, emotional hour. It was full of ridiculous moments and leaps of imagination and silly superpsuedoscience, but that’s what Doctor Who is about. That and, of course, so much more.

Matt Smith, I think it’s fair to say, is now fully the Doctor, an old man in a young man’s confused, out of place body. Amy Pond is the perfect companion, hilariously odd in places but always retaining an amazing sense of sexy. And Rory’s grown on me, as well. And I really liked young Caitlin Blackwood’s performance as young Amelia, the little girl who made no sense and believed in fairy tales. How fitting was it that she’s Karen Gillan’s cousin?

I’ve had some issues with this series, and I think a lot it has been everything in the middle. Everything Moffat has been perfect, but the other writers haven’t necessarily been able to keep up, to keep the stakes as high, the stories as clever. But I liked that we didn’t get an ultimate “big bad” just yet, that a lot of the questions and mysterious weren’t answered/addressed. We don’t know why the TARDIS exploded yet, or at who’s whim, whoever it was that was so keen on the idea that “Silence will fall.”

from here.

Nor do we know why/how Matt Smith could be/is dating Gavin Rossdale’s daughter and British model du jour Daisy Lowe. And we don’t know why they picked Amy and Rory’s wedding day to do it, or why there are no ducks in that duck pond in Leadworth (if that matters) or why does Amy Pond have a staircase in her house that goes nowhere, but I like that it gives us purpose going into the next series.

Nor did we get any definitive answers on River Song, though the Doctor’s unintended and comic proposal was lovely (is she a future version of the Doctor himself? Another Time Lord/Lady in hiding? Someone he used to know like Captain Jack?). But just like Molly Bloom, and just as exciting and confounding and mysterious and simple and wonderful as Molly Bloom, she said yes…

Moffat’s playing a wonderful long game here, and as joyously as this episode/series ended, I’m definitely along for the ride.

Next time: Well, the next time is a long, long time away, and we’ll have to wait til Christmas to see more of the Doctor, Amy, and Rory, but if that phone call at the end is any indication, then they’re going called by royalty to come deal with an Egyptian Goddess set loose on the Orient Express in space, and that’s a hell of a honeymoon, right? Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a time machine to go there now, but it’ll be worth the wait, right? And until then, this will have to be goodbye…

That’s the one thing you really need to take away from last night’s finale of Lost, super appropriately entitled “The End.” Your favorite TV show is going to end some day (and it was probably yesterday), but not just that, your friendships may end some day. Your relationships. Your circumstances will change. You will have amazing journeys in your life, but even that, some day, will come to an end.

And then…

To me, what the finale did was, in a lot of ways, a truly amazing feat. It gave everyone resolution, not just all the characters, but the audience as well. Everyone got what they wanted, whether they realized they wanted it or not. And they definitely got what they needed. And creators/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were certainly honest about something heading into this last episode about what you should be expecting from it, and that was an answer to just one question: “What is the Sideways world?”

More on that in a second.

Cause this seems to be an episode that, if initial internet reaction is to be believed, has been just about 90% hated. I’m okay with that, but also… not. It only confirms for me further that Lost is our Seinfeld this decade, so of course the ending was despised (and, in that regard, were the 90s about “nothing” and the 00s about “everything?”). But I think it’s a shame that people didn’t like and/or didn’t get the ending. One person on twitter said something to the effect last night of “the finale made me feel like the previous six years were nothing but rape now.” I think that’s a bit strong, but there’s also a meta-answer to that in there somewhere. More on that in a second too.

First things first: This was a wacky, crazy, amazing, beautiful, tragic, mystifying sci fi show about polar bears on a magical island, time travel, synchronicity, esoteric theorizing, faith and hope and both the depths and heights of the human condition. But it was first a show about the characters. I’m sure the producers would have loved to have tackled time travel and paradox theories in the first season, but they couldn’t. No one would’ve watched it, so they got smart and they put the characters first. The show didn’t always succeed, there were some pacing issues here and there, and of course some answers we’d still love to possess (like who was shooting at our heroes on those outriggers in season 5?), but has any show ever came and succeeded as hard as this one?

From episode to episode, you weren’t just watching the show to see answers to questions, you were watching the show to see where the characters went next, and what would happen to them. You cared about that. Sure, the crazy shit going on the island was wonderful, and really, it was a mystery show. But a mystery show with characters at it’s heart. And the mystery aspects only strengthened the human element to all of this.

But for the people who say, “but this is just a TV show!” perhaps don’t understand why we tell ourselves stories. Or why we do TV, or how rare it is for it to actually work out this well. And a mystery is nothing but a story, and that’s what Lost was: a TV show about stories. And it’s a show that asks you to do a little bit of thinking.

On Island last night: Jack is the new Jacob. He’s got to find Desmond, who’s the key to everything, either sinking the Island or it’s salvation. The Locke-ness Monster is also after Desmond, firmly believing that he’ll be the key to putting this Island on the bottom of the ocean. Desmond’s been rescued by Rose and Bernard, and he’s all too happy to go with Locke (to save Rose and Bernard).

On their way to the Source, Locke, Ben, and Desmond encounter Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, and Kate. Jack and Locke have a truly sassy showdown and, classically, have a difference of opinion. They both want to go to the Source, and both want to lower Desmond into it to do what he has to. They just think the other’s wrong.

I think there’s an interesting message here potentially: Regardless of right and wrong, good and evil are the same. They’re just words.

I’m not going to go recap every single moment here, but eventually Locke and Jack work together to lower Desmond down into the cavernous room below the waterfall which is the Source of the Light. The Man In Black seems so eager, in some ways, to be Locke, to fit into a dichotomy with Jack like Locke, and Jack puts him in his place. And at the bottom of the waterfall, Desmond finds what is essentially a cork and when he pulls it out, the Light goes away. The “goodness” seeps away and is replaced by something darker, more red…

And the Island begins to self destruct.

And I’ve said this before, but one of the things I’ve always loved about Lost is that there are answers for everything. You may never get them, but it’s there somewhere. When you look at the room where the Source was, it’s so clearly designed by someone. And all of those skeletons! Memento mori, yes, but… There’s a story there. Probably quite a few, in fact. You’ll never know what it is. That’s up to you. You decide what it is. And if you don’t want to think up some heavy, almost scientific and fantastical reasoning, then the show never really stops you from saying…

From there we get some truly great moments: The Man In Black is corporeal again, a real human. Jack was wrong, and the Man In Black makes a move for the cliffs by where Jacob’s cave was and where the Man In Black has a boat waiting. And that’ll be the scene of Jack and Locke’s final battle there, in the rain, with Jack orchestrating a truly impressive flying punch, and getting his ass handed to him. It wouldn’t be any kind of finale to this show if Jack wasn’t having the stuffing beat out of both his body and his spirit. The Man In Black’s knife finds Jack’s gut and later nicks his neck and we see those same scars and cuts that have been plaguing Jack in the Sideways universe…

Meanwhile, Richard Alpert and Miles are making their way to Hyrda Island, still thinking they need to blow up the Ajira plane and along the way, they find something we’ve all wanted to see again: FRANK LAPIDUS.

And eventually the Man In Black finds what all humans eventually find: death. At the hands of Kate, no less. And now Sawyer and Kate have to get moving, to get to the Hydra island to meet Lapidus and Miles and Richard Alpert (who may start aging and live out the rest of his life?) and take off while there’s still ground to take off from. But first… Kate has to say goodbye to Jack.

And then, back at what used to be the Source, Jack has to transfer his powers and duties and responsibilities. And as much as Hurley believed in Jack, so does Jack believe in Hurley. And as much as Jack being the protector of the Island made sense, it makes even more sense for Hurleybro to have this job. And for Jack to do something else for the Island: to become it’s fixer, because after what Desmond has done, what the Island needs now is a Doctor.

Just look at that one more time:

from here.

And Jack goes down into that cave and he pulls up Desmond – I kept wanting him to say “You’ve got to lift it up,” but he didn’t, and it was okay – and tells him to go home and be with his wife and kid and live his life. And Jack put the cork back into the Island (was that Hell leaking out, as Jacob originally said?). And it took everything out of him. And watching it took everything out of me.

It was amazing seeing Jack be wrong again, then finally being right in a way that really mattered. And now the Island has  new God/messianic figure, one with a proclivity for saying “Dude,” and who makes copious references to Star Wars.

But let’s go back to the Sideways world… It was brilliant in a lot of ways, which I find myself so surprised saying because it was one of the things I looked forward to the least this past season. It kept seeming like the “Wouldn’t it be nice?” world and it was. Everyone went to the concert and then everyone found their true love or their true purpose and in doing so, they remembered who they were.

All except Jack, who resisted because… well, there’s a lot of interpretations there. For a man who spent most of this past season trying to kill himself in some way, shape, or form, perhaps he’s the man who most clung to life?

All of those beautiful moments: Locke’s rebirth after his legs worked again. Sawyer and Juliet at the vending machine and their lovely call back to “LA X” with “Want to get coffee some time?” Hell, just the fact that Juliet was back at all was amazing to me, as she literally lit up my TV screen, easily glowing as bright as the light at the heart of the Island. And Kate finding Jack, remembering who she was because of him. “That’s not how you know me.” I like that Jack was probably Kate’s true love, but she wasn’t his (something we’ve been saying here for a while now). No, Jack probably couldn’t have allowed himself to really feel that, not when he was so tightly wound, so strong lost in his own past…

And then there’s the very end and Jack finds his father. He’s not in the coffin. He’s there, standing before, with love in his eye, and he explains. And Jack understands. He’s dead. Everyone in the Sideways world is dead. It’s a kind of purgatory, or rather, a sort of limbo, a holding place, if you will, that they’ve all created together in their collective unconscious, united by the amazing things they did on the Island, and a place for them to maybe work on their karma and to find a balance missing in their lives before they move into the afterlife.

I mentioned before how similar Lost was to The Invisibles, and this is exactly how The Invisibles ends: At the end of the world, no one dies, but instead enters the Supercontext, a place created by their collective unconscious in which they can find a balance and be happy. It also puts forth the notion that the ultimate ending, the one that is more possibly than we usually realize, is one in which everyone gets exactly what they want. We love Buddhist ideas here in the West. We also love An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge and The Third Policeman and Jacob’s Ladder, yes.

It’s kind of funny to watch the internet reaction in that regard. “It’s a rip off of Jacob’s Ladder!” some cry out. Or, “They totally stole that from An Occurence At Owl Creek Bridge!” I love seeing the way people skew there. Those who know of Jacob’s Ladder don’t know of The Third Policeman or haven’t ever heard the name Ambrose Bierce. Or Alan Moore’s Superman tale, “For The Man Who Has Everything.” But… It all fits. It all works. It’s all beautiful, and just another piece in the puzzle.

And I said that the ending to this episode was perfect for everyone, right? Cause it is. On one hand, for those of you who wouldn’t want to see your characters get an amazing resolution in the Sideways universe, you have real Island endings: Jack dies. Hurley and Ben will now run the Island. They won’t do things the same, they won’t continue the patterns they’ve inherited. Kate and Sawyer and Claire and Miles and Richard Alpert and Frank Lapidus will fly away to safety. Jack will go to his resting place, to the spot between the bamboo trees where he first awoke on the Island and he’ll watch his friends’ plane fly away overhead and Vincent will come and keep him company in his last resting place…

And the Sideways world negates none of that. Not a single thing, nor does it betray the interest you’ve developed in this show over the years, and it shouldn’t harm the connection you’ve made with it. It just shouldn’t.

from here.

As Christian (loved Kate’s line: “Christian Shephard? Really?”) said, “Everyone dies.” Some of the people in that church died before Jack and some died after. And it makes clear that everything was real. Whatever happened, happened. But they came back together at the end, and remember how we were talking about how time didn’t seem to make sense in the Sideways world? Well, that’s because, there is no time there. There is no now. And when they’re ready and they’ve accepted who they are and who they were, they’ll move on. And those who aren’t ready yet, like Ben or Faraday or Ana Lucia, they won’t go yet. They’ll stay behind and work out what they need to and then, as Lord Of The Rings put it, then they can “sail west.” They can go to the Gray Havens.

In fact, they really should’ve filmed that Jimmy Kimmel special in a church just to echo those last moments with everyone together. I don’t really like Jimmy Kimmel, but the special was interesting, especially watching it pretty near after the beautiful, almost immaculate ending of the episode, when you’re still in shock, still coping.

Right after the end of the episode I went back to watch the beginning of “LA X” and… it works nicely, in my opinion. Jack looks out the window of Oceanic 815 and then looks around the interior of the plane almost as if he’s startled to be back there, struggling to recognize something. The plane hits turbulence and he clings to the arm rest for dear life and it’s broken by Rose’s gentle voice, telling him it’s okay, and that “you can let go now.” It’s so pointed and beautiful when you watch it with new eyes.

And of course the Island is sunk in the Sideways world because in that existence, it’s out of everyone’s mind. They’ve sunk together.

And we can argue about when the happy Sideways reality begins, of course. It’s Jack’s story, of course, so it probably ends the moment Jack closes his eye and that Ajira 316 plane flying overhead could also be metaphorically his Oceanic 815 of his dreams, and Jack’s closing his eyes, going to his final sleep, perchance to dream, a dream of flying. But it all depends on your read: Maybe the Sideways world really did start when Juliet beat the hell out of Jughead at the bottom of that shaft. Or maybe that explosion just used the electromagnetic time travel energy of the Island to send them back to the present. Maybe in your view, Oceanic 815 crashed and everyone died and… Maybe the Sideways world only existed in Jack’s head alone, his final dream of a better life… Whatever way you look at it, you choose your own level of meaning and understanding.

“We should get coffee sometime.” Michael Giacchino. Jack Bender. The actors, every single one of them, not just in the finale but always. “I may not believe in a lot of things, but I believe in duct tape.” The fact that we got as little Boone as possible. How Kate looked in that dress. The idea of Hurley and Ben running the Island together. The fact that the Source is fed from two different streams. That flying punch! The weird shots of the castaways’ beach on the Island, featuring the wreckage of Oceanic 815, (an insert by the good folks at the American Broadcast Network) but devoid of people, reminiscent of the ending of Antonioni’s L’Eclisse. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a pilot.” All those amazing awakenings and FLASHBACKgasms. The fact that you even have to relook at the episode titles of this past season with new meaning (“LA X” no longer refers to just another universe, but a crossroads of sorts). All of the episodes really, referenced tonight (“The Long Con”) or not (Just think about “Enter 77″ now). The idea of Aaron with two moms (that’s a spin off that is literally dying to happen). Hurley saying to Sayid, “You can’t let other people tell you who you are,” because, well, we all play parts and roles. “I’ll see you in another life, brotha!” There’s so many things that we could be talking about, so many great things…

Watching the finale last night, I kept my eye half on twitter during the commercials and it was interesting seeing people saying a lot about how the finale was a love letter to itself and spent a lot of time self referencing. And I agree. And I think it worked beautifully. For a sci fi show about characters and people, I think the end is about us. We’ve all got to come together on this one, and accept it and appreciate it, and then it’s time to move on…

And in that vein, because I don’t want to philosophize on Lost alone (nor would I want to push that button alone), so I asked some of my fellow Counterforcers to weigh in and I want to share with you what they had to say, and then, despite everything happened in “The End,” the very last thing I want to say about this show is exactly the same, not changed at all, and I’ll share that with you, but first…

Benjamin Light: In a nutshell, I can sum up my thoughts on LOST with a text I sent to Marco as the episode ended. I wrote: “This episode feels like falling in love, over and over and over again.”

I could have watched a dozen more “awakening” moments in the sideways world, they were just perfect TV.

It dawned on me at about the 2 hour mark that, rather than wait for a big explosive end to explain everything, the writers instead were just going to willfully ignore some of the big mysteries. And I wasn’t annoyed at all. One of my favorite things about the show is speculating on the mysteries. Having those long, quasi-scientific conversations with friends about even random strangers about what something might mean on the show was half the fun. Lindelof and Cuse decided not to take that away from the fans. Sure, they could have just told us the island is a spaceship from the future and the smoke monster is evil nanotechnology, but why bother? If that’s your theory, it still holds water. This was a show that was famous for its fans’ speculation and debate; the way they left certain mysteries open to interpretation feels very much in keeping with its history.

Conrad Noir: I still don’t know what to think. I’m content with what happened but I don’t know what to feel at all. Maybe nothing, maybe so many things. What I do know was that was the most dragged out event in TV history. Did it really have to go to 11:30?

Oh yes. I believe I read somewhere that the finale was exactly 103 minutes. I would’ve killed for just an extra five more, if you know what I mean, but apparently there’s going to be an extended cut on the DVDs with 20 more minutes.

Benjamin: After the episode ended, I got up to take a leak. After that, I walked down the hall and suddenly started crying. I wasn’t happy or sad. It was like someone had reached inside me and turned all my emotional knobs up to 11. I was like Daniel Faraday, crying at the news of Flight 815 being found and not knowing why.

That’s how good the finale was.

Take a bow, Lost cast and crew, you did it.

Lola: Sometime ago I wrote a post asking whether or not I really wanted answers from LOST. I guess that Lindelof or Cuse are regular readers of Lovely Entropy because the finale contained next to no “answers.”

I watched the finale with my dad and when it ended, I turned to him and said: “What just happened?”

“What is the Dharma Initiative?” he asked me.

“I don’t know!” I yelled. “Where was Walt? WAAAALT!!!”

I think we all felt like that little necked kid in the Tootsie Roll Pop ad:

“What was up with the Hurley Bird? The world may never know.”

I was annoyed at first so I did what I always do when I’m annoyed by LOST: called my brother to complain while searching the internet for answers. As I was searching and complaining something dawned on me: everyone was confused and everybody wanted to talk about it. People were posting theories, they were cracking jokes or they were just outright complaining to people in the room with them, friends over the phone or outright strangers on the internet. Sure, there are people who are going to be annoyed no matter what happens, but the more I think about it the more I kind of liked the finale. It’s open-endedness gives it’s nerdy fanbase enough food for thought to last us until Terry O’Quinn & Michael Emerson’s pilot gets picked up. And not only that, but it saves us all from having to sit through anymore of the writer’s awful, half-assed answers (the whispers were dead people? Seriously LOST?). The finale, in my opinion, was genius in its laziness. The writers are happy because they don’t have to try to find answers that would appeal to everyone. The nerds are happy because they can keep talking about the show they love and ABC is happy because they made a boatload of money last night.

So, anyone have any idea what that church was about?

It’s about everything. And everyone. It’s a story about stories and all stories end.

They can be reread time and again though, revisited, and relived. Just like your favorite song. Just like a game, if you want. It’s adaptive. You can make up your own versions for where the story ends, if you want, your own back stories, your own ideas for what happens to your favorite and least favorite characters after it fades to black.

But you know what else you can do when the story and the song and the game ends? You can start it over, you can return and begin again. You’ll see all the connections you missed, and the little moments will resonate even stronger with you…

So, with that in mind, mektoub, let me just say…

KATE!

WE HAVE TO GO BACK!

Take a deep breath. There’s this heavy fin de siècle vibe hanging over the air. A circle closing, all it so deep and meaningful and exciting and… Lost ends tonight. With a two hour clip show, then a two and a half hour finale, and then after the news, some kind of retrospective/after party with the cast and crew on Jimmy Kimmel.

Last night I was having a deep text message conversation with my friend, Lia, who thinks she never gets mentioned here, and we were talking about how meaningful it is for this show to end because, unlike real life, the ending of your favorite show gives you an experience, a journey, and then closure and resolution at the end of it.

Fictional characters are so much kinder to us in that regard. They give us what we need because, if nothing else, they simply reflect back whatever level of meaning we bring to the experience.

Earlier in the evening yesterday, another friend called me, apparently having just seen their calendar, and then deciding to wake me up (what was I sleeping at this point, who can say). “OMG!” she squealed so loud that my ears are still vibrating, “I just realized what the date is! Tonight’s the last episode, right?” Yes, it is, I told her and I walked outside as we started talking. Looking up, I noticed that it was dark, probably because of the weather here yesterday, but I couldn’t see the stars. I mentioned that and we started talking about how the stars you see out there in the sky are all dead, and their long burnt out light is still transmitting towards us. As we pondered whether or not that was a romantic notion, I started thinking about tonight’s finale, which the writers have surely been thinking about for many, many years now, and the episode was written probably months ago, probably finished filming a month and some change ago, and has been edited and done for a few weeks. And it’s only now transmitting to us. Just like the stars sending us their light, and we’re philosophizing about what it all means long after it was sent.

Mektoub. It is written. That’s basically what I said to her then.

I have just about an hour before the clip show starts. I need to go and get ready and do whatever I need to do before that. It could be an emotional rollercoaster, this night. But that’s okay. It’s okay to get hung up over a TV show sometimes. Especially when you know that you’ll probably never get something like this again. And if it’s an experience you’ll never have again, find your own level of enjoyment in it. Get ready for your own drinking game that goes with it, if you want. The important thing is to have fun and to enjoy yourself. This kind of thing only ends once, and all of this progress has lead us to the here and now.

from here.

Anyway, here at Counterforce, we only really got into writing about individual episodes somewhere last season. It was something I really grew to enjoy and something that always surprised me with how much it informed on other things that I’d like to be talking about or, at least, writing about. I’ll let you discover last season’s write ups on your own, if you want, plus all those links yesterday, but today I’ll leave you with links to this past season, the sixth and final one of Lost…

01. “LA X.”

02. “What Kate Does.”

03. “The Substitute.”

04. “The Lighthouse.”

05. “Sundown.”

06. “Dr. Linus.”

07. “Recon.”

08. “Ab Aeterno.”

09. “The Package.”

10. “Happily Ever After.”

11. “Everybody Loves Hugo.”

12. “The Last Recruit“

13. “The Candidate.”

14. “Across The Sea.”

15. “What They Died For.”

And tomorrow we’ll be writing about the very last episode, “The End.” Who knows what we’ll have to say, but I feel like it’ll be the very last time we really write about Lost here on Counterforce. At least, the real last time for me, I think. Maybe I’ll blag (blag = my typo combination of “blog” and “blab”) on about the 23 enigma or the law of fives, but it’s like the show itself, you choose your own level of involvement, and you get back what you give to it (and more).

It’s kind of funny to think that, regardless of where we go tonight and wherever we end up on the other side of this show, I already know what the last sentence of my last write up about the show will be. Mektoub. “It is written.” See you then.

Had that been the case, the producers’ plan was for another castaway to step up and become the de facto leader of the castaways from Oceanic 815, to lead them through their trials and tribulations on this mysterious Island. That particular passenger? One Kate Austen, of course.

But then again, that would’ve been a different Kate Austen then the one (no, two) that we’ve gotten to know over the past six years. One who presumably had a husband who perished on the flight. So, think more of… a little bit of Rose, minus Bernard, and cross that between your typical boring action/mystery show heroine, whoever that would be.

Instead we got the Kate we all know and love (depending on your definition of the word “love” on the internet, that is). The Kate of the Pilot episode is a tremendous character, interesting and enticing and incredibly human. She is, of course, beautiful (I remember an initial sneak preview review of the show calling her “the obvious female lead because she’s the woman who looks the nicest in her underwear”), but she also reveals herself to be incredibly, smart, resourceful, and compassionate. They say that there’s two kinds of people in a crisis and Kate’s the kind that wants to chip in and help, to always be on the move, to be contributing, and that’s certainly who she is in the pilot. And she is incredibly, tragically, beautifully human as well, which I think you can see a little of in what is still one of my absolute favorite scenes from that first episode all those years ago:

John Locke has always been an amazing character, charming and insightful, funny and disarming, a man who can reach for the greatest heights because he’s known the greatest of depths, but even at his finest, he’s also always been incredibly creepy. He is a man who can only be in his element when others are out of theirs. You watch that clip above and you imagine the bevy of emotions Kate is going through, having to literally rob the dead of something so simple as shoes just so she can survive. This is a grim time and there’s Locke, who only wants to bring some cheer to her life, to distract her with something silly, but it’s not the right time. Of course it only makes her feel worse.

And like everyone, Kate’s got a dark side and some secrets, things she’s ashamed of and would do anything to get away from…

Season 1 progressed and I feel like we all liked Kate just fine, though battle lines were drawing in the contest of her love triangle with Jack and Sawyer. Sawyer was the obvious bad boy, but who also had something of a noble side that he kept hidden well. And Jack was the good guy, the smart and successful doctor – a surgeon, even – but he wasn’t without his own insecurities and deep, dark side. And Kate was definitely a bad girl, and was drawn to those like her, even if she could be better than that. And these two guys brought  out both the best and the worst from her.

Somewhere in the second half of season 2 I think I began to grow displeased with Kate, though I’m not sure how much I knew it then. I wasn’t loving her choices, and I certainly wasn’t understanding that given how far she had fallen, and the options presented to her, there was no way she was going to make good decisions. But by mid-season 3 I have to tell you, Kate was not my girl. At that point I was firmly in CAMP JULIET, but I think I was alone there. Jack Shephard had one foot in Camp Juliet, but just barely, and he was constantly keeping his eye out for a chance to sneak back into Camp Kate. Hell, I’m not sure that even Juliet was in Camp Juliet as much as me.

It seems like it took until season 4 before the rest of the world saw my point of view. And definitely by season 5 we were all kind of saying the same thing: Man, Kate fucking sucks. Especially the Kate-centric episodes. It felt like a rehash of all the same things, not just the same bad patterns, but the constant return of the Marshall and the wannabe con woman that Sawyer knocked up. Kate was always on the run and always dragging the same lame baggage with her. And that baggage is heavy, weighing her down, keeping her really moving forward, getting someplace new and safe and healthy.

For a while she was off the Island and motherhood looked good on Kate. And I’m not just talking about the fact that she wore actual dresses then (supplied by Sun in at at least one case). She gave love a chance with Jack, but his insecurities were only fueled by his alcoholism and eventually she had to throw him out. She kept Aaron (who was actually related to Jack) and I think the thing we don’t really talk about is how much better Kate was without Jack then, and without Sawyer. For all her fucked up-ness, there was a real person inside Kate, someone who had something to offer, including love, and she found that outlet in Claire’s possibly orphaned baby.

And that’s probably where Kate should’ve stayed, that should have been her happily ever after. I don’t think Kate wanted to go off and become a writer or a doctor and start a career or something. I think she wanted to just have a family and settle down and find an excuse to be happy. But fate was seemingly not done fucking with Kate and neither were the people in her life.

from here.

I remember reading an interview with Evangline Lilly – who should be highly praised for her performance on this show as a young actor who little prior experience and who has carried this character and her part of this story on her back so admirably and professionally these past years – right before the airing of season 5. She talked about how Kate was maturing in season 5 (with the Aaron stuff) and what interesting it was for her, having embodied this character for those five years, and how she could feel herself maturing along with the character. I wonder how it must’ve felt to have made that connection and then to have dealt with it all being snatched away from the character by the end of the season.

And Evangeline Lilly’s story is an interesting one as well, having gotten so much out of this show. It brought her to America first of all, and it made her famous. She began a relationship with one of the actors and luckily for her, when their relationship ended, so did his tenure on the show (not that anyone is complaining).

I mean, you think a TV show is just a TV show, but this has been 1/5th of her life and that’s not nothing. Where will she go next? Like the rest of us, in our own ways, what will she do next?

It’s kind of funny how Kate was marked as a target by the men of the Island from almost the day of the crash. Jack always treated her with respect (at first), but of course he was into her. Sawyer’s intentions were blatantly obvious, but there was no respect there, which was something Kate responded to. Charlie hit on her pretty quickly. The Marshal’s attitude towards her wasn’t just one of a guy doing his job, but of domination and conquest. There’s certainly the inference that her stepfather/biological father, Wayne, didn’t exactly have a healthy relationship with her. Benjamin Light and I are in agreement that Sayid was definitely after Kate at first, before moving onto Shannon. Locke seems to be a little into her, as does Ben. Really, this is an Island full of men seizing opportunities and going after vulnerabilities. Imagine Kate’s genuine shock when Tom Friendly tells her that she’s not his type.

And we talk about how Kristen Stewart in the Twilight movies is kind of a cipher, a kind of blank that’s there for the typically young emotionally inexperienced viewer to insert themselves into, and live vicariously through. Perhaps, like the Team Jacobs and Team Edwards out there, a choice between Team Jack or Team Sawyer is really a decision about how you want to suffer.

Lately I’ve started to wonder if the reason Kate always does the opposite of what everyone tells her to do (or expects her to do) is because she’s told to do it (or expected to). She’s a fascinating character, one of the first sympathetic female leads to a TV show who is not only a known fugitive, but also a cold blooded murderer. But she’s someone who someone else is always trying to control. Sometimes it’s the men who think they love her. Sometimes it’s the men who watch her with another man. I think everyone wants to run away with Kate, but none of them really know where they’d take her. And rightfully so, she wants to be impressed. I can seriously imagine that she’s attracted to winners (the swaying plotlines and power struggles between Jack and Sawyer over the years would seem to confirm this), and the last thing she wants is to be controlled. Or have expectations placed upon her. Or be bored. She wants to be, and that’s it. And when something comes closer to harming that, she’s on the move.

And though she’s played by an Canadian actress, Kate feels so incredibly American of a young woman. Or, she’s the kind of woman you want to sit around with and listen to American soft rock songs. Or write soft rock or cock rock about. Or maybe youtube compilation videos of her set to Ben Folds Five’s “Kate.”

A lot of the criticism about her character is about, if not the constantly letting someone down by doing the opposite of what they want, the constant crying. Right?

And it’s unfair to get mad at Kate for crying when we tend to praise Jack for constantly crying. In fact, with Kate, I don’t blame her. I expect it, actually, just because everyone around her has taken up all the other points on the emotional spectrum and set up camp there. It’s like Kate’s not allowed to get angry, or not allowed to be happy, or any of the myriad of points between those two ends. Kate’s allowed to cry and to run, and seemingly that’s it. Well, that and copious amounts of climbing trees (something that Evangeline Lilly apparently loves in real life).

In fact, while others are busy either crying or shouting at one another, Kate’s on the move. Maybe she’s not stopping to think everything out first, but that’s because she’s an impetuous creature. She follows her blood, lets it lead her. She may not be great at dealing with her lot in life, but at least she’s not immobilized by it. And a bit part of this show is it’s sense of duality, and I feel it’s mostly strongly felt in the real human beings (not including Locke or Sayid, one who is a supernatural entity and the other who has come back from the dead infected by… something) like Kate and Jack. We haven’t really had a chance to know Jack since probably the start of season 4. He’s just been an off the rails mystery to us, and we can understand him, but I feel like he’s kept the audience at the distance the same as he’s kept those who truly love and care for him. But I feel like Kate diverged from us somewhere in season 2, closing off to us as a defense mechanism. Her actions were a mystery to us, and probably to her as well. And a lot of that has to do the with the general mystique of the character but also with how tough it is for mole male writers to really capture a complicated female character. And love her or hate her, you have to admit that Kate is certainly complicated.

We’ve seen “What Kate Did” and we know “What Kate Does” but we’ve only kind of gently probed why for either of those. And now it’s too late for that. Sure, there’s been mistakes along the way, but now isn’t the time to obsess over that.

But the show is coming to an end soon and so are my ramblings. This is by no means a definitive take on Kate, nor an authoritative attempt to crack her shell and really analyze her. This is me coming full circle, or trying to, from liking her to disliking her, to really, really disliking her, and now liking her again. Appreciating her. Realizing that I’m going to miss her. Kate’s run is going to come to an end soon and I want wherever she ends up to be somewhere fitting. And nice. I want it to be a happy ending. I want to feel her character resolved, and maybe for the ending to be similar to Buffy‘s or the ending to Magnolia. I want to see Kate smile. I want to see her laugh and be happy.

You’ve had to heard Benjamin Light and I say by now that we’ve always thought that had the castaways put Sayid in charge since the beginning, they probably would’ve been off the Island in about a week, and maybe that’s true, maybe not. But I think that maybe the same could be said for Kate.

Imagine if Jack had died in the Pilot. Without him to expect something from her, perhaps Sawyer’s cheap charm would’ve never had an effect on her, at least not the one it did. This is a woman who, for some reason, is an expert tracker and who also made the drapes in her apartment. Perhaps it’s a bit strong of me to suggest that Kate’s been denied human agency in this world because of the maze of the male gaze that she crash landed into, but I keep thinking of this whole other Sideways world she wasn’t carrying those theoretical chains with her. Maybe in that world she just started running and never looked back. Or maybe in that world of possibility what Kate did and what Kate does are exactly the same: Anything.

And that was only a small part of last night’s penultimate word of Lost, the appropriately and devastatingly titled “What They Died For.” And much in the same vein as last week, but vastly more important, let’s tackle 23 stray observations about last night’s episode…

1. Eye See You!

We open the episode on Jack’s eye again (in the Sideways universe) which is a familiar image on this show, certainly, and that’s a good thing. The show has always been good creating a certain visual language for itself (the motif of opening episodes on eyes, especially since we deal with so much perspective), one that tells you how understand and translate this episode into yourself. And one that tells you how to feel and teases those same feelings (example: the pan reveal to Locke in the casket in “There’s No Place Like Home,” which is the same pan reveal of Locke in Bram and Ilana’s box at the end of “The Incident”). I mention this only because it worries me, or, well, it intrigues me. Part of me just assumed that the finale would open with an image of Jack’s eye, or, possibly, close on that same image. But I do like the fact that now is the time for safe assumptions about coming full circle, which will keep you warm and happy, and can only be wrong.

2. Similarly, mirrors! Jack sees himself there in the mirror in the Sideways world, just as Ben will see himself as well. This has, of course, been a recurring thing in the Sideways world, a slow hint towards these characters seeing themselves and really seeing themselves for the first time, and looking past that image and through the looking glass…

3. It goes without saying, but things are coming together, merging both excitedly and under a dark cloud of fearful symmetry. Jack and Claire are living together. Ben is starting to see himself for realsies and having dinner with Alex and Rousseau, playing all nice and domestic. Locke is possibly accepting fate, exploring the swarming veins that connect coincidence and fate and synchronicity and realizing that he has a choice about what kind of man he is going to be. Oh, and of course…

4. Motherfucking Desmond “See you another life, brotha!” Hume.

Our favorite Scottish bastard started off as a mad man who had been beaten down and had the shit kicked out of him by destiny and by mysterious connections that held the world together. He struggled towards his saving grace, Penelope, and finally found happiness. But the universe wasn’t done with him yet, not ours and not the Sideways one either. Desmond has become a smooth, suave motherfucker (well, perhaps the motherfucking is to be more of a Ben thing in the Sideways world now?), hasn’t he?

It’s like he’s the wet nurse to something new, something that only his mojo can bring into existence. He’s got a master plan and he’s working to it, slowly at first, but now more steadily, with a higher velocity, and he’s lighting up more circuits and connections on the way.

And, yes, both Benjie and Lola and I actually sat there last night, staring dumbfounded at our TVs, thinking to ourselves, “Holy shit, is Desmond really going to hit Locke with his car again? In the same fucking parking lot where he did before?” Of course Ben ruined that, but you know what’s interesting? I really think that Desmond probably would have. But because he’s Desmond, his master plan can be interrupted and still work to his advantage, can’t it?

5. I love that Jack is now the one stitching up Kate, a lovely reference to their first real scene together in the pilot, and also a nice turn around of that moment. The basic black thread is there, of course, the only thing missing, actually was Jack’s “Count to five” story. But Kate had plenty to say about what had just happened to all of them, and more on that in a moment.

6. But, going back to Desmond for a moment here before I forget, when last we saw him, he was down in that well, and now… he’s not. The Man In Black/The Locke-ness Monster doesn’t know where he is, only that someone came to his rescue, and I have a theory about who that was. In fact, to me, it feels rather elementary:

Rose and Bernard, of course.

6. Fathers and daughters.

Island Ben has been on a redemptive white horse for most of this season now and of course the only thing that can throw him off of it is the mention and literal grave of his daughter, Alex. And then he’s back to the old him, but something worse, something more ruined and destroyed and lost. Throw in Widmore and Zoe, and the fact that nothing in Ben’s life will probably matter anymore because his death at the Locke-ness Monster’s hands is probably a foregone conclusion, and he’s more than dangerous. Of course he’ll shoot Widmore, not just to possibly stop him from whispering the secrets into Locke’s ear, but because, “He doesn’t get to save his daughter.”

But don’t forget that that’s what Kate used to try and get Jack primed up there on the beach as he was stitching her up, the reminder that Jin and Sun had a daughter, a daughter that Jin had never even gotten to meet. And for that, Kate said to Jack, we need to kill him. For the moment, Crazy Jackface is gone, all those tears cried out, all those drops in the ocean taken away on the tide. Jack just nodded his head and said simply, “I know.”

7. The title of this episode, “What They Died For,” is one I heard a while back from the SUPER SPOILERY NEW DEPARTMENTS of the Internet and it blew me away. I mean, it absolutely floored me. Initially, it was incorrectly reported as the title of the last episode and that was heavy, man. That was like gravity dropping an Acme piano on me. Then I found out that it was actually just the title of the second to last – or “penultimate,” if you will – episode and it still felt heavy, possibly in comparison to the last episodes very fitting title. (You notice how we only ever use the word “penultimate” when talking about TV shows these days?) And for something so big, something dealing literally with the mourning after of such chaos and death, this episode wasn’t a downer, nor super sad. All those tears were cried out, like I said. This episode was coping and fast and intriguing and surprisingly funny in places.

It’s interesting though how a word or a phrase can mean something so clearly when you hear it out of context, then mean something else when you hear it again, immersed in it’s proper place. It’s kind of like what you think of when you first hear the word “Might.” Is it a threat or a possibility to you when you first hear it? And “what they died for,” while sounding scary and ominous and morbid from far away, now feels hopeful and exciting to me. The “what” in “what they died for” carries over well into a question we’re all turning over in our brains now: “What’s next?”

8. Speech is for confessions. One of the things we’ve been hearing since she made her first appearance on the show is how important the Zoe character would be. She had secrets to spill, we were told. But if she won’t spill them, then what good is she?

There’s a fine line between all the girls and boys on Lost, but especially those that have passed on to the other side. Some perished with their mouths shut, their secrets taken to their graves with them, and there’s those who died with their tongues loosed, their sins laid bare and confessed and the Island was then done with them.

9. Music is a transcendent form, a primal force for magic. It can bring people together and it can change them, and I think we’re going to learn that in the Sideways world as seemingly everyone collides there. Seemingly David’s (Jack’s son) concert is the same as the one that Daniel Faraday was putting on, right? The same one that I’m willing to bet also features Driveshaft (not that anyone is asking for that). And it’ll be at the museum where Pierre Chang and Charlotte work, right? And Hurley and Sawyer Kate and Sayid and Desmond will all be in attendance too, I imagine? It would certainly seem that way.

Provided, of course, that you don’t pay too much attention to the actual chronology of the Sideways universe. Time seems a bit wonky there, going fast in some places, and moving glacially in others. Benjie and I were talking about this earlier, trying to work it out and I believe at one point I actually said this, “So Sawyer went back in time to arrest Sayid, who then sat in a jail cell for a few weeks, right?”

How great of a spinoff would this be?

10. I’m going to amend my statement from last week slightly: I do think there are certain things we deserve in the last episode of the show…

And I did say last week that there were certain answers that I just don’t think we were going to get and that we really shouldn’t be getting. You’ll notice that that’s me being all enlightened and shit. I’ve “let go” of things like that and moved into a place of acceptances. Much like characters in the Sideways universe. From now on, in the last 2 1/2 hours of the show, I think the answers that do come should all be important and organic (like the revelation of why Kate’s name was crossed out in the cave: She became a mother).

But while I do think that we’re not only owed, but need to know what exactly the deal with the Sideways world is, I think there’s another question we desperately need: What is “The Source?” Or, if you will, “The Light?” Those home fires that Jack in GOD MODE now has to protect? WTF is that?

11. Real quick, this is something that Benjamin LIGHT and I are desperately hoping for next week: Actually seeing (not intuiting or be told, but seeing) the form of John Locke convert into the Smoke Monster. Or vice versa. That’s an image I want to take away from this show. Perhaps because I’m a nut.

12. Also real quick: Benjie and I are in agreement that Richard Alpert is probably not actually dead yet. It seems like Locke wanted him out of the equation for a while and gave him a good thumping, possibly sending him flying through the air, who knows. But that would be a terrible ending for a character that has meant so much, and in such subtle ways, to both this show and it’s mythology and the history of the Island.

13. Let’s get to it here: JACK is the new JACOB.

14. This:

from here.

15. Is that it for Jacob on this show? That’s both good and bad. We see him in his youthful form and then we see him as he looked when he actually died. He summons are remaining living heroes from Oceanic 815 and finally really addresses them. He promises them answers but no, they don’t really get any. Gods and supernatural beings are hard to get straight talk out of. I didn’t find his argument for why they need to do this thing all that persuasive, really, but I don’t think it needed to be. They were there and then and probably knew what he was saying was true since it’s been building up within them for a while now. Yes, the motivation for so many actions on this Island, the reason behind them had to do with a man making a mistake and feeling lost because of it. So he sought out others like him, those who had found themselves astray and needed to be found and to find themselves. They needed something bigger. And so he brought them to his crazy, magic Island to slay a dragon for him.

Why hadn’t he ever said any of this to them before now? Well, first you should be asking why none of these characters have ever really shared some of these mega important details that had popped up over the years with each other when it was super important to do so. Maybe because you don’t always know what’s important at the time. And maybe because you’re a human being (or once were a proper human being). And because, as Jacob told Richard Alpert many, many years ago over a jug of wine at the foot of a destroyed statue of a fertility goddess: It’s not doing the right thing if I have to tell you to do the right thing. Sometimes you need to feel like you have a choice, even if it was never really yours.

But then again, fate and free will and destiny and the psychology of fucked up people is a tricky thing, yo. Remember Mrs. Hawking telling us that when the Universe/Time goes off track, it’ll always course correct to fix the error? The important thing there isn’t necessarily that the house (of fate) always wins, but that things can go off track. If you try hard enough you break free of your chains and disturb the Universe just enough that it has to get off it’s ass to course correct because of your actions. You can obliterate the solipsistic barriers. And if you can do that, if you fingerbang the very threads of existence and reality then, well, I imagine you can do anything.

16. And then, ladies and gentlemen, there’s Jack. The new Jacob. Two guys pretty much cut from the same cloth, hardened and forged by their haunting pasts. But Jack has just leveled up, as they say. The new guardian/protector of not just the Island, and the Source, but everything the Island represents. Jacob picked up some of the waters of the river, did an incantation, then had Jack drink it after accepting the job. He took the communion wine as his friends looked walk, musing about how this was fitting for a man with an already sizable God complex. And who may now very well be about to start passing judgment over the living and the dead. And that leaves us not just with the chess pieces all taking up the proper places for the endgame, but also…

17. … a few questions! Is Jack now immortal? Does Jack now have magic powers? Can he travel on and off the Island just as Jacob did? Can he touch people, and imbue them things, or nudge them into a different path? Does he now possess all of Jacob’s knowledge/memories? Or, really, just the knowledge? Will people listen to him? And, perhaps most importantly, perhaps echoing his father’s words to him all those years ago, does Jack Shepard have what it takes?

18. I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?

19. This:

from here.

20. Numbers. They’re everywhere! Not just the ones in the cave that correspond to the candidates, nor “the Valenzetti equation,” which we never actually heard talked about on the show, but the magic of numbers in general. Just like words, they are their own language, and one that haunts and delights and confounds us in ways. Just a reminder that the finale airs on May 23, this Sunday, a mere five days after “What They Died For.”

21. Just a theory: Remember the start of the Sideways world this season? Someone brought this up to me and now I can’t stop thinking about it, but remember how we saw the Island there at the bottom of the ocean? What if that’s not just (part of) the beginning of the Sideways universe, but what if that’s also (part of) the end of the Island we’ve come to know and love and be obsessed with over the past six years?

Also, Kate slumping into Sawyer there, was that her making a choice? And if so, will that choice be (dramatically) negated when Sawyer (most likely) has to make some epic sacrifice somewhere in the finale? Cause that’s all he really has to offer us now, right? Or was that moment just because it was what Sawyer needed it? And she was the strong one who could provide it at that point? And, take a moment, nerds, to appreciate how important this love triangle has been. Better than the TEAM ANGEL/TEAM SPIKE debates on Buffy? Kind of, but only because that was such a one sided contest, cause… Team Angel? Fuck off! And don’t even mention TEAM EDWARD/TEAM JACOB because, frankly, that’s lame. I mean, come on, a love triangle is a hard thing to maintain when one of the members in the trio suddenly has powers over time and space. And besides, I imagine that this love triangle was already hard to maintain since Kate was the focal point of it.

Yeah, I said it.

22. I could not believe how excited I actually was to see Ana Lucia/Michelle Rodridguez.

I kind of half suspected it would be her when Desmond mentioned the driver of their van, but then… well, I was excited and happy, let’s just say that. And I never in a million, billion years, not even in a Sideways universe, ever thought I’d be thinking that, let alone expressing it to you weird fuckers in Internet land.

from here.

23. Things squirm and wiggle and change as they get closer. As they slouch towards birth and Bethlehem. “The End” is really going to be the end of so many things. Not just of the show, but of us. Sure, we’ll always have this, sure, but it’ll be different. You can always pop in your DVDs and watch these episodes again but it’ll be all nostalgia and fond memories of this time, this right now, this haecceity, and it’s all fading away. Time is speeding up and will soon be disappearing. Newbies will discover this show in the future and be amazed by it and they’ll still be lacking this. This thisness. Right here and now, you, me, and everyone else, we’re all in this together. As I’m sure August Bravo would tell you, we’re all sword fighting and bumping our Lost Boners together. But it won’t last, so it has to be appreciated now. The wait over the next few days will be excruciating, but it’s worth it. You’ll never have this again. I can’t say that again. And not just with Lost, but can you honestly ever imagine a story striving for this level of EPIC in your lifetime again? For all the morons (especially on the internet) who hate this show, there’s something they’ll never be able to deny: How many shows actually strive and make the attempts for the layers and the storytelling that Lost has tried? Regardless of it’s failures and successes, only Lost has done this. We’ll all be sad when this show is over, and that’s appropriate, of course, but it’s okay to be excited. In fact, you better be.

I feel like we’re five days away from a party. And everyone’s invited. You all everybody! You just have to want to be there. All of us in one place (spread out over time zones, of course)(and internet viewing the next day, sure, but whatever!), and we want to feel all those sweaty ups and downs, the tugging of our heartstrings, the reaching for the kleenex, the cheering, all of it. We’re going to do it together and it’s going to be a massive celebration. Sometimes the party you want is a bonfire to dance around and sometimes that bonfire is a viking funeral. And we’re all going to sing and dance and hold onto this thing until the last little bit of that light goes out…

Last night was the end of Nip/Tuck.

This amazed me, that it was finally ending, and the ending was an understated one. It coasted I think on the characters’ long journey to here and now, was light on the crazy trashy drama, but ultimately didn’t touch me nearly as much as the ending of The Shield, the FX network’s other big show (since I’ve only seen maybe an episode and a half of Damages) that I used to watch.

Why? Partly because Nip/Tuck probably felt like it ended a year or two ago.

The last real episode I saw before last night’s was the one where Christian and Liz come back from their honeymoon, Christian no longer has breast cancer, and cuts Liz loose. Sean is suddenly dating Rose McGowan out of nowhere. Julia was still fucking around, Kimber was still doing whatever, and Matt… Jesus. Fucking Matt had dropped out of medical school to become a mime and start robbing people. And I thought, “You know what? Fuck this.”

This show used to soar in it’s depths of ethereal trashiness and that lurid hard on of the glamorous nasty just felt forced and medicated. The high was probably the Carver storyline.

But I do have some love for the Sanaa Lathan season (just as I have massive love for Sanaa Lathan). Or any of the other seasons with the countless other over the top dirty sexy fun storylines that we’ve accepted.

And the Famke Janssen season as well.

…who returned last night for the swan song. And maybe it’s a make up thing or just how Janssen has aged, but this time I really felt her character in that she looked quite, uh, tranny-like (?) to me. But she was still fantastic in her role, waxing poetic about not being a monster, but being a victim of society that craves adoration. And then there’s the pathetic Matt whom can only offer adoration to someone and nothing else.

And perhaps it should have. I think trash can always be sustained, but you can’t just keep hooking it up to an IV of dayglo filth and call it a fountain of youth, like this show. You need substance. Or, in the case of the continuing narrative of Nip/Tuck, you desperately need substance and something tangible or more to say about the evils of our society that’s so very much obsessed with looks. And when you shine a light on all of our dark places, there needs to be something there to see.

And Nip/Tuck hasn’t had that for a while. And then… it didn’t.

It’s a show that’s changed so many times, putting itself through facelift after facelift, giving you a dazzling and rapid succession of new status quos to swallow harshly. And what it really needed was some mental surgery. Beauty fades, age gracefully, and know when it’s time to go.

But perhaps there was something in there, not just about the facades we worship, or the exploitation of youth (or a depiction of one of the most continuously fucked up family dynamics on TV ever), but something crueler and more interesting: a study of severely flawed masculinity.

Could you call the ongoing saga of Doctors Christian Troy and Sean McNamara anything else? All the women that have passed through their lives, that they’ve traded like briefly interesting toys and mirrors, it’s all come back to them and how devastatingly uncomfortable they were in their own skin.

Was Nip/Tuck the end result of a truly American journey that was started in Mad Men?

Whatever. This is half a post. I just have nothing to say. It’s like this show turned upon itself, much like Christian did to Sean, and said, “Tell me what you don’t like about yourself.” And the answer?

Everything.