MEGAN. MEGAN. It is still technically March 3rd where I am, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY! As your ~gift~, here is me watching the series 5 finale of Lost while yelling a lot about Juliet.
The video files are located here:
“The Incident, Part 1”
“The Incident, Part 2”
As y’all know, I loved season 5 of LOST the most. I enjoy how the writers were able to advance the plot a LOT while also spending the time analyzing how these characters had changed from the first season. It’s hard to deny that season 5 mirrors season 1 in many ways, too! God, just thinking about this, it’s clear that Sawyer and Jack have both changed roles drastically compared to the beginning of LOST, and that’s a focal point of “The Incident.”
But at the time I watched this, most of the tension came from the fact that we didn’t know if Jack was actually making the right decision. Of course, that goddamn cliffhanger didn’t help. AH, IT WAS SO ENRAGING! Instead, what was more shocking to me about “The Incident” was how the entire episode was framed around the re-contextualization of all five seasons prior to this. The introduction of Jacob and the Man in Black is one of my favorite things about this show. (I also love “Ab Aeterno” and “Across The Sea,” though I understand if folks don’t enjoy those episodes.) There is perhaps no single episode of this show that changed the series more and was a pure delight to re-watch. I NOW UNDERSTAND SO MUCH OF THIS SHOW. And it’s fitting that a show that featured the idea of cons as a narrative device and a method of character development would hit us with a long con that last FIVE FUCKING YEARS. Plus, it gave us the good part of season six: the characters on LOST seeking out their own agency and dismantling Jacob’s rules. (I’m a firm believer that, by and large, season six is probably the show’s weakest season, despite that three of my favorite episodes are in it.)
All this being said, I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy the fact that Juliet dies at the end. Ugh, it is too much for me. I get that she wanted to do V, and it added one hell of an emotional moment to the finale, but take it back. (For real, how did Elizabeth Mitchell and Josh Holloway not get an Emmy nod for that whole scene alone?)
Anyway, my calendar didn’t remind me that I had agreed to put this up on March 3rd, BUT I REMEMBERED AT THE LAST SECOND. So Happy Birthday, Megan, and y’all are welcome to discuss this finale in the comments.
