With five seasons spent crafting an enrapturing mystery with dozens of questions left to be answered going into its final season, LOST had a lot of things on its agenda and to be fair it didn’t really give fans what they wanted or needed. Would they get off the island? Would any of the characters get the closure their stories had been hinting at? Yes, but mostly no. With each episode a badly needed answer was crossed off the list, but the mystery of what the whole story meant received a tacked on ending with characters whose derivation seemed like a desperate grab at a rationale that wouldn’t contradict too many of the arbitrary rules and events they’d turned into canon while making sense of others. It didn’t work.
The most important addition to the LOST story is that of Jacob and The Man in Black, who for most of the season has the appearance of John Locke (Terry O’Quinn) or the black smoke monster. The story of Jacob and his brother doesn’t even start until midway into the series when Sawyer (Josh Holloway) has already sunk into a (deeper) funk after his girl smashes a rock against the hydrogen bomb sitting inertly next to her in the pit which she and it were sucked into when the Dharma Initiative group hit the pocket of energy at the heart of the island. She hits the bomb. It explodes. Does anything change? It’s unclear – unless you can see in two separate realities, which we can. From the first episode we begin seeing a glimpse of the lives of the survivors as they go about as if the flight had never crashed. One by one their lives intersect until the closure they never had on the island seems to come together in a far too clean “it’s destiny” sort of way. And now, back to the half-assed story inserted to make the events of the island meaningful.
Jacob and his brother, whose mother died at the hands of a very out of place Allison Janney (really, it’s comical when she shows up), who teaches her two impromptu adoptees to fear mankind for their selfish ways and to live for one reason: to keep the secret of the island safe from them forever. Only, they can’t, and soon enough the darker-spirited brother runs off to be with the humans on the island, joins their society and then pays the price for his betrayal. And so the story of the two brothers unfolds; Jacob must protect the island’s source of power from man, and his brother attempts to kill Jacob (indirectly) and escape the island to wreak havoc across the planet.
As far as endings to epic television series go, it’s hard to find a more dissatisfying ending than this. Even the oft-bemoaned finale to The Sopranos made complete sense within context (assuming you accept the sudden blackout to be Tony’s own gangland assassination) and didn’t feel hideously out of place or like it only had any relevance to the events of the final season’s second half. That’s LOST’s finale all over.
The plus side of the final season of one of television’s great triumphs is the appearance of Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick). One of the show’s best character’s since he burst out of the hatch back in the second season, his story line came to an unfortunate end – so his reemergence here as a primary character is welcome and badly needed in a season that seems to be in a tailspin after the first few episodes. While the ending of Demond’s storyline in the final season is the more saccharine of the two coalescing plots, it represents the more interesting series of events and, I daresay, could have continued on as its own show for another season if it weren’t a device intended to tie it all together.
The show’s beautiful locales make the Blu-ray investment a worthwhile consideration as the tropical hues definitely shine through in hi-def.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Word was leaked months before the DVD and Blu-ray release of the final season that a mini-episode would be included, and “The New Man in Charge” doesn’t disappoint, nor does it really fill any knowledge gaps left behind. It’s really nothing more than further exposition of a few key events that happened in a way that helps some of the slower viewers get caught up. Otherwise its value extends no further than letting fans see characters they’ve invested so much time in for just a little while longer. Beyond that featurette, the offerings vary wildly in quality. Perhaps the most interesting is hearing producers and executives discuss the challenges of finding suitable closings to long-running series, an issue that plagues any program with a devoted following. One of the worst extras is a paltry analysis of who in the series is a “hero”, as the experts consulted define them. A behind the scenes piece and fun look at the sideways jumping parallel story round out the standard extras.
In terms of Blu-ray exclusives, the big finisher is one that you’ll remember from previous Blu-ray LOST releases: LOST University. Though now it seems we’re in Grad School. The “classes” are interesting and make good use of the cast. It’s a worthwhile investment of time for those craving more LOST in a world where the spring has run dry.
"LOST: The Complete Sixth Season" is on sale August 24, 2010 and is not rated. Adventure, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi. Directed by Jack Bender, Paul A Edwards, Stephen Williams. Written by J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Lieber, Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, Adam Horowitz, . Starring Daniel Dae Kim, Evangeline Lilly, Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Matthew Fox, Naveen Andrews, Terry OQuinn, Yunjin Kim.
