Episode IV: A New Home

HEY EVERYONE!! This blog has been on and off. Mostly Off. But we love everyone for coming here, and seeing what we had to say.

With the new podcast comes a new site.

You may find it HERE!!

http://theflashbackspodcast.blogspot.com


The new site is where all the information about the new show will be. Hope to see you there.

The Flashbacks Podcast

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Friends on Facebook will actually be able to win prizes. This is not a joke. Prizes will probably be gift cards and such, because there will be CONTESTS!!

THE RETURN!!

Sorry this blog died. Life intervened. Well, that plus not knowing how to continue.

On MAY 23, 2011 we will return! A new format, new shows! It's going to be a lot of fun!

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

The End, Part 1

Hey everybody! This is the first of many posts about the series finale. I'm not sure how many there will be, but I do know that this will be my soap box to get out everything i've been thinking about. Since the finale, I've been on the line of 3 different Lost Podcasts, for a total of about 16 hours. Granted 10 hours of that was The Lost Flashbacks, but that's still a lot. My point I guess is I still have more to say, and this way people can choose to read it or not, and won't be forced to listen to my voice. I'm even getting sick of it.

So, this first part will be about the things that shocked me. Not necessarily the shocking or surprising moments of the episode, but more things that shocked me about myself. I've always considered myself a mythology junkie. I loved everything about the history of the Island, and the crazy science experiments DHARMA was doing. I couldn't get enough of Locke and his journey to learn the secrets of the Island. That's probably why he became my favorite character early on. I am not a religious person at all, so I was very excited that Locke's quest was not based on any religion, but his faith in the Island. The faith that lead him to be an early mentor to Jack in his time of need in White Rabbit. The faith that lead him to the hatch, and then drove him to discover its secrets. I wanted to know what was in that hatch just as much as him! His faith lead to Boone's death, and that lead to the beginning of the Jack vs. Locke battle that would continue all the way to season 5. And that faith is what drove Jack back to the Island, and gave him faith that it was his destiny to drop Jughead down the Swan Station. It was that same faith that lead Jack to believe it was his destiny to be the Island's protector, and in doing so defeat the Man in Black, and save the ones who were left.

That's an interesting paragraph, maybe to long, but I've never been a grammar guy. I start out by saying I'm into the mythology and science, and finish by saying it's all about faith. Faith? This from an agnostic. Well friends, that's one of the things that really shocked me. I thought I was watching for science fictiony coolness, and mythology filled revelations. Turns out I wasn't watching for that at all. I was watching because I connected with these characters, and their journey became my journey. As I said in the previous post, the show was never about getting answers to questions. I don't know about anyone else, but as season six wound down, I found myself wanting answers less and less. I didn't care how the glowing light worked, or who built it and why. I didn't care about the timeline of events that connected the temple to the statue. I'm not saying they aren't amazing mysteries, but I firmly believe that that was not the point of the series.

I'm reminded of Jack in A Tale of Two Cities. Being taunted almost by Juliet when she has a huge file all about Jack's life. She knows he wants to know about Sarah's new life, and it caused him great pain in the past. In this moment, Jack doesn't ask for specific details about Sarah's life, nor does he try and get answers to the personal mysteries that have tortured him for years. He simply asks if she is happy. Juliet says that Sarah is indeed very happy, and unlike old Jack who craved to know everything about her life, this Jack is satisfied with that, and it brings him peace.

I bring this up because it's similar to Lost fans. Asking who Sarah is with and where they are living, is like asking about the Egyptian era on the Island. Yeah, it would be good to know for our obsessive brains, but it serves no purpose knowing it. Same thing with the Smoke Monster. The exact nature of the Smoke Monster is probably beyond comprehension, and would only serve to annoy or bewilder. I'm not even sure I want to know what it was. This way Big-O can have his nano-bots!

These thoughts were very shocking to me. The idea that I could confidently say the answers were not important, story was important would have totally pissed off the Josh that was in the middle of season two. In the end, Lost was about these people who came together as total strangers. They fixed each other, loved each other, fought each other, and saved each other. That's what life is all about. You don't have to live every day to the fullest, or treat everyone amazing all the time. Carpe Diem is a great way to live, but it's exhausting. That is not the point of Lost. For me, the point is simply that life is about your interactions with other people. They can be good, they can be bad, but every person you come in contact with is touched by you, and you by them. The group in the church at the end, they didn't love each other all the time. Hell, sometimes they were trying to kill each other. But their struggles, and their conflicts built the bond between them just as much as their love for each other.



I'll save my character discussion for a different post, because there is a lot to say there. We invested six years in them, and the lessons they learned in the end really were meant for us. So really, in the final analysis, the thing that shocked me the most was that all this time I thought I was watching a TV show. In reality, I was getting a lesson on how to live my life.

What We Watched For

Howdy all. This is a pretty sobering post. This is the last time I will be updating the blog while Lost is still on the air. The amount that I love you guys, and want to thank you for listening is beyond words. We would not still be doing the podcast without you guys. Originally we had planned to simply do a hiatus rewatch just to keep our sanity following the season three finale. All that changed once we started hearing from you folks. We knew we had to keep going, and every week had so much fun chatting about the show, and even more fun hearing from everyone in the chat and on the blog. Lost is an amazing show, but I firmly believe it's the fan community that made it what it is. We've been on a wild ride, and it's almost over. For the rest of my life I'll be able to look back on my time watching Lost, and while I'll remember all the great moments, I'll remember the friends I've made and the great moments with those friends even more.

I really hope everyone in the East and Central time zone can make it to the chat on Finale Night, and I really hope everyone can make it to the show on Monday night. It's going to be quite an experience. We are going to talk about the episode, but really guys, it will be mainly about you all, and the fun we've had together. We're gonna reminisce about old episodes, and theories, and all the fun we had.

The title of this post really gets to me because this is what we all watched for. It wasn't simply to get an ending. In a way, part of me thinks Lost is a story that can never end, and with us fans introducing Lost to friends it never will. The reason we watched was to get caught up in an amazing journey and then talk endlessly about it with people who share our passion. I've never in my life seen a show that leads to the type of theorizing and debate and discussion that Lost does. BSG comes close, but that's more so about the reading between the lines. On Lost, every episode was a new adventure opening the door to new possibilities and even better, new theories. And yeah, almost all my theories turned out to be totally wrong. But that's ok, it makes it more fun.

I started this post expecting to talk about the episode, but I really don't have anything to say beyond what was in the podcast. It was like 3 hours long. Instead, I'd really like to open this up and have you guys post your favorite memories from both the podcast, and of course Lost. When did you start listening? What moment stands out? What's your favorite in-joke(we have MANY?

In case you don't already know, our plans have changed. We will NOT be attending Big-O's finalecast on Sunday because he's not doing a finalecast on Sunday. He is doing one on Tuesday. So, here's the plan. The chat will open at 8:00 PM ET, and i'll leave it open until we are done for the night. I will be called in so that the chat doesn't close, but I will not start the show. This will allow us all to be together to chat and experience Lost together. After Lost we're gonna watch Kimmel, and then possibly start the show around 12:30. Don't know exactly what that show will be. It might simply be us choking back tears and going on and on about the show we all love. We are STILL doing a Monday night show. We are not 100% sure when that show will start, could be as early as 8:00 PM ET. Trust me, that show will be LONG, so I hope everyone can make it. West Coasters, people from around the world, everyone. If you've ever listened to the podcast, you really need to be there, or at least call in. I will be unmuting people like it's a bodily function. This event will be epic!

There's nothing more to say, except hope to see you guys on Sunday and Monday and STAY LOST!!

As promised here is trailer for the new Lost Podcaster's Documentary "Audibly Lost" It really looks amazing! If you look closely you can easily see Josh and Amanda chatting about LOST!

"Audibly Lost" The Movie Trailer from Audibly Lost on Vimeo.