The Tail Section

A "LOST"less week, a dread "recap" show on the horizon,  the perfect time to reflect on the strange and wonderful commodity that is "LOST".

I’ve been fortunate with TheTailsection to have had some amazing conversations with fans from around the world;  folks that either see deeper, understand better, or just bring a fresh perspective to what has become, for me, the largest conundrum in exsistence. 

When I originally sat down to work on this entry I was going to name it "Give Lost a chance", but I was afraid the Plastic Ono metaphor might go over peoples heads.  I’m guessing "Love thy Lost" is going to be a little more on target regardless of whether you’ve read the bible or not.  What I’m trying to say here is… lighten up.

I’m not trying to make some generalized, wide swath of a criticism here;  it’s not that I think LOST fans have become uptight…  let me explain myself a little further..

The prompt for this piece was a conversation with a very perceptive fan that included a comment something like this:

"They better not end the season without revealing anything…  I mean showing us what was in the hatch wasn’t enough…"

I was floored for a minute.  Here is someone who I’ve talked with on a regular basis who has been a perceptive and supportive ally of TheTailsection for sometime, who suddenly doesn’t get it.  Worse yet,  when I look around at the internet at large,  I see a lot of people who apparently don’t get it, either.  What am I talking about? I’m talking about the fact that "LOST" has indeed given a torrent of answers.  More answers then season one for sure, and without a doubt answers to some of the biggest questions on the show.  The problem is the tried and true bitter truth of the entertainment industry,  it is easier to build anticipation then it is to satisfy it.

The answers have not always been of the magnitude we’d hoped; I was right there with you all when "What Kate Did" provided, in my estimation, a sub-par answer.  "Dave" was far from my favorite episode with it’s cliched nod to "Total Recall" and "The Matrix", (and probably some obscure piece of literature none of us have ever heard of.)

"Abandoned", on the other hand, not only explained why Shannon was such a beotch,  it made me want to hug her!  And how about the genius of "Lock Down", with Locke questioning his faith in the hatch under the irridescent memories of how his refusal to lose faith in his father cost him everything he loved. What happened to Jack’s marriage,  Sayid’s capture, how Sun met Jin, the orientation film, the medical hatch, the balloon, Widmore, Hanso, knick-knack, paddy-whack, give a dog a bone!  Season 2 is overflowing with answers and the best are yet to come.  By the end of the season what we learn about the others and the plane crash will be all we talk about all summer long.

So why do we feel like the series is going nowhere?  I have to admit, I’m with those of you who occasionally resort to bitter kvetching about the lack of progress in the show.  But I’m starting to learn to reel myself in, because y’know what?  I’ve started to learn to trust.  We have to remember the reasons why we love this show so much, and the fact that they are still in full effect.  The producers, directors, and writers of LOST are absolute experts at building anticipation.  The fact of the matter is,  this show revolves around a big mystery; as frustrated as you may feel, the mission is to sustain the mystery for as long as possible because to give us one huge, all inclusive answer would spell the end of the show.  To pine for the conclusion, the answer to everything, is not necessarily the best way to enjoy the show;  LOST talks about the "journey" alot, both in physical and metaphorical ways, it is about movement, redemption, the ghosts of the past, the hopes of the future, but most of all about the helplessness we face as a society marooned here on this island named life, surrounded by sinister and mysterious forces.

The answer is coming,  one day we will know all the answers, and at that time we will also be able to go back and judge the series as a whole and decipher whatever messages may be indelibly etched between the scan-lines.

But in the meantime,  your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to join me in going back over the second season of LOST, and marveling at the answers, enticements, and expansions going on with the LOST mythology.  On Wednesday,  while the rest of the world is watching clips, I’ll be posting the "Season Two" retrospective.  Every last easter egg, answer, and WTF moment from Season Two of LOST.  So if you think you were deprived of information this season, my challenge is to drop by and be prepared for a paradigm shift.