![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thornyrose42 And that feeling is not happy.
So I've just finished watching the fifth season of Lost and while in general I absolutely loved it the final episode made me realise exactly how the Janto fans must have felt about CoE. I now understand why they went and metaphorically shouted at James Moran on his blog, why they threatened to find RTD at ComicCon and do violent things to him with a baseball bat.
Of course since I have manners and morals and stuff I won't do any of those things. (Also I'm so late to the party that everyone has pretty much recovered from the hangovers and is waiting eagerly for their invitation to the next bash. If I did run in and start jumping on the metaphorical furniture everyone would look at me like I was crazy. So I won't... because of morals and stuff, yeah...)
Anyway you can probably guess what has got me so mad. I've always liked Sawyer. I like his sense of humour, his practical side, the fact that he messes up and his lack of rose tinted specs. He reads with taped up specs and isn't as cold as he would like people to thing he is. Also he is a hell of a lot more self aware then Jack is so he learns from his mistakes and grows because of it.
I also like Juliet. She is awesome, unless the writers are writing to serve the plot and throwing all her character notes out of the window, calm, controlled, practical and mature. I love her to bits.
So I was very happy when the writers seemed to be moving away the Geometric Shape of Doom and Boredom and investing in a Juliet/Sawyer relationship. For most of the season, in fact right up until the last episode, I was very happy with the way they handled it. They spent several episodes establishing the fact that they worked well together and then left a suitable time period so that when we met them again you could believe that they had fallen in love. Something that the show is generally quite bad at, it has a tendency to throw couples together and then go "Okay they are in love now" after a couple of episodes and not many more days. Also they just seemed to work as a couple. I really felt that they had built a life together and so it did feel tragic that their world was being slowly cracked apart by the arrival of the O6.
At the end of the day I believed that they did have each other's backs and thus when the final episode came I was angry as hell when the writers suddenly decided to throw all of that out of the window. Obviously they needed Jack to blow up the bomb and obviously an IC Juliet wouldn't let him. So we get the previously very mature Juliet suddenly deciding that her husband/boyfriend of three years who had never previously given her any reason to doubt him is going to run off with Kate based on One Fucking Look and that since this is obviously going to happen it would be better for them never to have met at all.
I mean it makes no sense. At least Kate's motivation for agreeing to Jack's frankly insane idea was sort of understandable and IC if only barely but Juliet's... it makes no fucking sense.
Through out the whole episode I was just waiting for someone to someone to hit Jack over the head a couple of times and then tie him up for a really long time because the whole plan was just completely insane. And staying IC only Jack and Sayid had any reason to want to carry it out. The rest of them were in worse places at the start of the series then they were at the end, with the possible exception of Jin, although even with him I would argue that he should know that it was being on the island that brought them back together as a couple. So yeah, I hate Jack.
On the other hand I though that this was in general a really good season for Kate who deserves so much better than Jack. A tiny part of me thinks that the real reason why she agreed to the bomb plan was that she thought that prison was better than having Jack be obsessed with her.
So basically my wish list for the next season goes something like this:
1) Juliet isn't dead.
2) She and Sawyer get back together after she confesses that, I don't know electromagnetism made her irrational for a while.
3) Kate tells Jack to piss off and he falls down a cliff or gets eaten by the smoke monster.
4) They all leave the island.
5) Juliet finds her sister. Kate invites Claire's grandmother to stay in America and raises Arron next door to Clementine and her mum. Juliet and Sawyer visit regularly and they all live happily ever after. Also Miles pops round sometimes and he and Kate have a bit of a thing but nothing really serious.
How much of this do I think is going to happen? Precious little. Mostly because there wouldn't be much of a season. But at the very least I want Jack to get beaten up a lot and maybe shot a couple of times and please fandom gods let Juliet be alive! Please!
So I've just finished watching the fifth season of Lost and while in general I absolutely loved it the final episode made me realise exactly how the Janto fans must have felt about CoE. I now understand why they went and metaphorically shouted at James Moran on his blog, why they threatened to find RTD at ComicCon and do violent things to him with a baseball bat.
Of course since I have manners and morals and stuff I won't do any of those things. (Also I'm so late to the party that everyone has pretty much recovered from the hangovers and is waiting eagerly for their invitation to the next bash. If I did run in and start jumping on the metaphorical furniture everyone would look at me like I was crazy. So I won't... because of morals and stuff, yeah...)
Anyway you can probably guess what has got me so mad. I've always liked Sawyer. I like his sense of humour, his practical side, the fact that he messes up and his lack of rose tinted specs. He reads with taped up specs and isn't as cold as he would like people to thing he is. Also he is a hell of a lot more self aware then Jack is so he learns from his mistakes and grows because of it.
I also like Juliet. She is awesome, unless the writers are writing to serve the plot and throwing all her character notes out of the window, calm, controlled, practical and mature. I love her to bits.
So I was very happy when the writers seemed to be moving away the Geometric Shape of Doom and Boredom and investing in a Juliet/Sawyer relationship. For most of the season, in fact right up until the last episode, I was very happy with the way they handled it. They spent several episodes establishing the fact that they worked well together and then left a suitable time period so that when we met them again you could believe that they had fallen in love. Something that the show is generally quite bad at, it has a tendency to throw couples together and then go "Okay they are in love now" after a couple of episodes and not many more days. Also they just seemed to work as a couple. I really felt that they had built a life together and so it did feel tragic that their world was being slowly cracked apart by the arrival of the O6.
At the end of the day I believed that they did have each other's backs and thus when the final episode came I was angry as hell when the writers suddenly decided to throw all of that out of the window. Obviously they needed Jack to blow up the bomb and obviously an IC Juliet wouldn't let him. So we get the previously very mature Juliet suddenly deciding that her husband/boyfriend of three years who had never previously given her any reason to doubt him is going to run off with Kate based on One Fucking Look and that since this is obviously going to happen it would be better for them never to have met at all.
I mean it makes no sense. At least Kate's motivation for agreeing to Jack's frankly insane idea was sort of understandable and IC if only barely but Juliet's... it makes no fucking sense.
Through out the whole episode I was just waiting for someone to someone to hit Jack over the head a couple of times and then tie him up for a really long time because the whole plan was just completely insane. And staying IC only Jack and Sayid had any reason to want to carry it out. The rest of them were in worse places at the start of the series then they were at the end, with the possible exception of Jin, although even with him I would argue that he should know that it was being on the island that brought them back together as a couple. So yeah, I hate Jack.
On the other hand I though that this was in general a really good season for Kate who deserves so much better than Jack. A tiny part of me thinks that the real reason why she agreed to the bomb plan was that she thought that prison was better than having Jack be obsessed with her.
So basically my wish list for the next season goes something like this:
1) Juliet isn't dead.
2) She and Sawyer get back together after she confesses that, I don't know electromagnetism made her irrational for a while.
3) Kate tells Jack to piss off and he falls down a cliff or gets eaten by the smoke monster.
4) They all leave the island.
5) Juliet finds her sister. Kate invites Claire's grandmother to stay in America and raises Arron next door to Clementine and her mum. Juliet and Sawyer visit regularly and they all live happily ever after. Also Miles pops round sometimes and he and Kate have a bit of a thing but nothing really serious.
How much of this do I think is going to happen? Precious little. Mostly because there wouldn't be much of a season. But at the very least I want Jack to get beaten up a lot and maybe shot a couple of times and please fandom gods let Juliet be alive! Please!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-15 06:57 pm (UTC)Ooh, it’s great to hear all your thinky thoughts. I can’t wait to discuss new episodes with you next year.
That finale was just like an ordinary LOST finale, but with twice the cliffhanger. S1: We open the hatch. S2: Our heroes have been kidnapped. S3: Not Penny’s Boat. S4: *gasp* Locke is dead? S5: Juliet blasts the bomb and the whole screen goes white. Is Sayid dead? Is Juliet? Who is the evil Not!Locke? CAN WE CHANGE TIME OR NOT? My brain literally couldn’t function for about an hour.
The ‘we must blow up of the bomb’ was probably my least favorite thing about this season and maybe in all of LOST. It just seems like such a ridiculous idea that I have a lot of trouble believing that any of our characters would actually go along with it. If it works, time gets reset and their lives are just as miserable as they were at the beginning of show. If it doesn’t work, they all die. WTF? Sawyer and Kate and Juliet and Jin and Hurley and Sayid and, yes, even Jack are not that stupid.
The only person that I can accept this from is Sayid because his life would actually be much better if the plane had never crashed. Sawyer would still be a con man who would never meet Kate or Juliet or Jack (his true love) nor would he ever get the closure of having killed the real ‘Sawyer’. Kate would be in jail. Juliet would be on The Island, dealing with Ben’s leering looks. Jin would have a wife who hates him and no baby. Hurley would still be haunted by The Numbers. And, Jack would bury his father, go back to being a surgeon and never meet Kate. I know Jack makes his fair share of bad decisions, but this is beyond even Jack-stupidity. Going back in time would NOT mean that he and Kate would live happily ever after. I think Jack’s decision is just as out of character as Juliet’s. Say what you will about Jack - he is logical and I think it was very out of character for him to be the head of this very illogical plan.
(The only way I could accept the Bomb-Plan is if they stress all the people that could be alive if the plane hadn’t crashed. I can’t remember if any of the characters really brought that up…? But the plan seems less idiotic if they justified it with Boon, Shannon, Charlie, Echo, Ana Lucia, Libby, Michael, Daniel, Charlotte etc.)
Kate & Miles, huh? Interesting. It’s kinda cool because Miles is like the new snarky Sawyer. They needed a new one because, in the last two seasons, Sawyer became the hero of the show.
Really? No thoughts on the Jacob-Locke-Ben-Not!Locke story line? Because that was the part of the finale which I found most interesting. Probably because I think Ben owns the entire show. Also because I smile every time it becomes clear that Locke isn’t ‘special’ at all. Aaand, are you not at all concerned over Sayid’s possible death? Most of the fandom just brushed over that, but I was upset.
((Are vehemently anti-spoiler? Because there are a few that may interest you.)
Oh, I just realized that LOST is probably one of the few shows where the fandom’s most hated character is not a woman. Kate takes her fair share of animosity, but it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t hate Jack completely. (In fact, I’m the only one I know.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-16 12:27 am (UTC)My brain couldn't function either but mainly because of all the RAGE!!!! I was shouting at the screen for several minutes after the episode had finished and not in the good " cliff hangery way of say Doctor Who but in the "What the fuck was that load of craptastic FAIL?!!" way of Heroes after they stripped Elle's character away and then fried her. I suppose it would have been different for someone who wasn't invested in Juliet as a character and the relationship between her and Sawyer and, don't get me wrong, the modern day bit was suitably gripping but I was too distracted by the stupidity and character assassination going on way back when to really get into it. Also to answer your last question: NO YOU CAN"T CHANGE TIME YOU IDIOTS! YOU ARE JUST GOING TO END UP CREATING THE INCIDENT IN THE FIRST PLACE. LISTEN TO MILES! NOT JACK! ONLY ONE OF THEM IS SPEAKING SENSE AND IT ISN'T THE ONE WHO SPENT THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS BEING AN ALCOHOLIC AND HAVING A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. DO NOT LISTEN TO TEHCRAZY!
Oh look I just had a fit of CAPSLOCK! Sorry bout that. Will try to control myself better in the future.
I did actually believe that Jack would not see the craziness of the plan. Mainly because this season was his tipping point, the point where he finally gave up on logic and really believed in the island's power. He had relied on logic and he had screwed his life up. So he jumped at the chance to have a purpose again. He took the leap of faith that Locke had always wanted him to take, he convinced everyone to go back to the island and let go of logic because he needed the idea of destiny. He tells everyone else he is doing it to save their friends and maybe he believes that, but really I think, he wants to save himself.
(Personally I think he needs a good kick up the backside but maybe that is just me. :) )
But when he gets to the island he gets told, quite a lot, that he screwed up again. That the island doesn't have a purpose for him. That he has screwed everything up. Again. I wasn't surprised that, when Daniel came back with his grand plan, Jack jumped at it. This was the reason why he had come back! To fix everything! Everyone! This was what he was supposed to do!
So yeah, I can believe that Jack grabbed the idea and ran with it before actually looking at it properly for two seconds. But, as you say, apart from Sayid it is completely OOC for the rest. It was a complete case of the writers going "We need this to happen. This is what the characters have to do. No matter what. Right, Railroad Ho!"
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-16 12:28 am (UTC)That was one of the few things I liked about the seventies plot. Sawyer stayed IC all the way through and proved that he had become a leader and a hero. He has grown up so much over the course of the series and when this season put him on the spot he rose to the challenge. Which contrasted nicely with Jack's decent into crazy possessive drunkenness. I don't hate Jack. Its... its complicated. I think that the writers did a damn good job in creating him and writing him. I like the fact that he was set up to be the hero of the show and that as the series goes on his weaknesses and flaws are exposed and brought to the surface. I still think he is one of the least interesting characters on the show and when he isn't being dull I find him infuriating but still believable as a human being which I am grateful for.
I think I talked a little about the present story line (i.e. the only bits I could bear to watch) on your recent journal post so yeah... I did find it interesting. Lost is the Ben and Locke show really. I have faith that the writers will deliver up a really interesting knotty story next season where, hopefully, everyone will start acting IC again. But ranting is more fun than talking about that!
Sayid... I think I just assumed that the show would want to keep the actor in. :)
Actually don't generally like spoilers especially in a show like Lost but the next thing I did after writing my rant was check whether Juliet was coming back. I wasn't entirely reassured. Going to say stuff that has casting spoilers in it ...........
It seemed that she was more of a guest star the next season which, Lost being Lost, could be flashbacks and ghosts and any number of things apart from her being alive. Grrr!