Journey to The End, Chapter 2

Here is the next section in my on going series of posts about each season, or Chapter of LOST. In this post I cover Season Two and how the events and main ideas of it were directly reflected in The End.

Chapter Two - The Swan Station

Once again, I know you all are going be like "The Swan, it imploded! How could it be important in The End?" That's a decent point, and maybe i'll be able to convince you. Now, before I get into the main idea here I'd like to say that I think had Lost had a known end date at this time I think the entire season would not focus as much on the Swan. With that said, I can't see how the events of "Live Together, Die Alone" could have occurred earlier than the finale so who knows.

Season two was about discovery, just as the whole series was. This time we started getting a lot more information about the history of the Island. The Dharma Initiative being the biggest revelation from the Island's long and mysterious past would not explained until Season five. The time spent in the hatch would also continue to increase the tension between Jack and Locke. They would fight over destiny, faith, a man named Henry Gale who was from Minnesota, and their roles on the Island. The introduction of Ben in "One of Them" is one of the most important moments of the series, and is the launching off point to several story lines, some of which never ended. I'm still amazed that Jack was the one defending Ben early on, and then later was the one who probably hated him the most. Sayid early on hated Ben and blamed him for the death of Shannon, but in season four we would see him working for Ben. He would become the great villain, then a sort of pathetic character, and finally in the end, he's loved by the fans and the Losties just as much as anyone else.

The other major character introduction in season two was Desmond. Originally, he was just the crazy guy in the hatch who spent one night in a stadium with Jack. However, by season 4 he would be given some of the best episodes of the series, and his quest to be with Penny again would become the best shipper story of the entire series. Desmond quickly became a fan favorite, and at the end, he played a pivotal role in bringing the Losties together in the flashsideways.

While Ben and Desmond are amazing, they still don't answer why I think season two was all about the Swan Station, and what that means for the end of the series. The Swan Station represented something vital to the series. An Answer, and it was a big one. For us yes, but more so for Locke. Season one Locke was driven to open the Hatch because he thought "hope" was inside. He thought finding that hatch and opening it was his destiny, and that everything that had happened had been leading him to that moment. When it was opened though and he found out what was inside, he was let down. He didn't show this, and tried as hard as be could to "believe". As the season went on, and he discovered the Pearl Station he was even more disappointed. Season Two Locke is very different from Season One Locke. Was the death of Boone worth this? Could Locke really be special if all he's supposed to do is sit in a station entering numbers into a computer? I feel that Season Two is about the loss of faith. Faith in the Island, faith in ones self, faith in other people.

The Tailes are clear representation of this. They are an example of a group that had no doctor, no boar catcher, no fish catcher, and a group that was tormented by the Others from very early on. None of them had a belief that the Island was special, and none of them were all that positive. They had no "Live Together, Die Alone" Speech, so they were marked by infighting and paranoia. They never found the cockpit, or Rousseau's transmission. This left them totally in the dark. This was a group that had lost all faith, except for Mr. Eko who had taken a vow of silence. In Season two see what the Others are capable of, but learn almost nothing about them. Where Season One had been about learning who the Losties were and why they were here, Season Two became much more dark, and showed us what happens when you stop believing in yourself, and in others.

Season one had uplifted us and shown us the magic of the Island. Even in times of great pain, the Losties came together. Season Two had torn that all down and showed that simply believing in something is not enough. Jack was right, they needed each other more than anything else. More than the Dharma food, more than a gun with one bullet, and more than a computer that can save the world. This shift in view would be felt all the way to the series finale. It was one thing for Jack to believe he was destined to protect the Island, but it was a much bigger revelation that he needed to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Locke believed blindly in the power and mystery of the Island, and in the end that is what left him open to be duped by the Man in Black.

So in the final analysis in season two the Losties did in fact learn that if they didn't live together, they would all die alone.

If you guys still don't agree, you don't have me to contend with cause here's JACK!!

The End, Part 2

Hey Lost Fans. Time for part two of my Post-Lost wrap up. We're now more than a week removed from the finale, and the buzz is starting to fade. I don't think that's a bad thing. It's obviously a good thing. I'm sure it'll kick back in once the DVDs are released and various rewatches begin. I for one am going to follow Jay and Jack as they rewatch the series. We however are not going to do a full on rewatch. Why you ask? Well several reasons, but mainly it's that neither Amanda nor I really want to. We are still a bit unsure of the future, but there will be episodes coming, and it'll be a fun and exciting summer on the Lost Flashbacks Podcast.

So with that said, I'm ready to move on to the main idea of this post. Last week I talked about the things about the finale that shocked me. This week, I think I'll talk about a more series related idea. The idea of Chapters. Now, a different show that will remain nameless named it's seasons and episodes "Volumes" and "Chapters". Lost obviously(and thankfully) did not do this. But there were clear differences in each season as a different idea, motif and device was used. I hear people saying that since the show didn't answer various questions, the on island mysteries and conflicts didn't matter so much. I disagree and I wanted to try and discuss each "chapter", and go briefly into why it all mattered so much in the end.Originally, I had all the chapters in the same post, but it became VERY long and I was holding back. So I've decided to release them separately but much more often.

Chapter One - The Losties

I know I know, the whole series was about the Losties. But the 1st Chapter was the one where they were the main focus every week, and we learned the most important things about who they were. It's not a surprise that every episode that season is amazing. It was Lost at it's best. We learned important things later, but if you want to know who someone was when they arrived? Then you watch their season one episode. In "What They Died For" Jacob says he brought them all to the Island because they were flawed. Just like J.J. Abrams' famous statement "They are not only Lost in the world, they are Lost in their lives." The conflicts, and issues we see these characters go through both on island and in their flashbacks reverberates all the way until the end. Jack's need to fix and save everyone leads him to understand that it's his destiny to sacrifice himself for his friends, and the Island. Sawyer, shackled his whole life by hate and a need for vengeance becomes a great leader once he rids himself of Cooper. Locke, always being told what he can't do, being made a fool of, and tormented by Anthony Cooper finds peace, and a true destiny on the Island that eventually leads Jack to do what he does. As promised, I'll have more about the characters later on.



Season one also introduced almost all the major mysteries, some of which would not be resolved until season six. These mysteries include The Smoke Monster, the Whispers, Adam and Eve, the Sickness, Polar Bears, the Others, the Hatch, and even the cable leading into the ocean gave us the Underwater Station theory from Jack from Jay and Jack! With all these mysteries, and no answers though it could not be about those mysteries. It was all about the characters, and how they were just as dumbfounded as us. We were all discovering the Island together. Its secrets, its mysteries, its wonders and it was INSANE. We wanted to get in that hatch just as much as Locke, I'm still terrified of William Mapother(Ethan), and we felt so much hope(and then terror) when the raft was launched. The penultimate sequence of season one, featuring our Losties boarding Flight 815 remains one of the most moving in the entire series, and perfectly highlights how far we had come in our relationship with these people, and their relationships with one another. There are literally whole books about season one of Lost so I'll stop there, but one last thing. Many people thought that season six would have a very season one type feel. It did at times, but in my opinion we could not get that feeling back again. We could not get that feeling of total mystery back because we knew the characters so well. The true mystery of the first chapter of Lost was the mystery of these castaways, and why they were all LOST