The Island is Done With Me

After the previous episode of Lost, “The Constant Part 2” (I can’t remember the real title), Damon Lindelof finally let loose with this revelation of what the show’s really about:

You are the very first person ever to get the meaning of the show. Yes. It is a love story. Always has been…always will be.

Yeah.

I’m all for artists coming up with a different interpretation of their work than may be obvious to the fans. I’m even all for the more cynical version, artists putting a spin on their work for the press. But I’ve gotta call BS on that one. The show about survivors of a plane crash on a tropical island haunted by a smoke monster has not always been a love story.

If the guy who made the show doesn’t know what it’s about, I guess you can’t expect anybody else to, either. “Everybody Loves Hugo” just felt like a writer’s meeting where everybody said “oh crap we’ve only got five episodes left?!”

Spoilers for this week’s episode “Everybody Loves Hugo…”

I’ve got no idea what that whole business with Gaia was supposed to be about. (That’s her name on Rome, anyway, I can’t remember her name on Lost). For starters, any time they pick the Black Rock dynamite, you know what’s coming, and I mean come on, guys: you’ve already done that one. They’ve spent all this time developing the character, only to have her accomplish nothing and go out like a chump. That’s not a shocking twist; it’s a waste. Especially when they had her complaining about how she had no purpose now that Jacob was dead. You can’t try to build up sympathy for a character and then just kill her off.

I was all excited at the potential that Libby was going to be coming back, but that was back when I thought they were going to do something with her. Who was her husband? What was the boat race for? Why was she in a mental institution? Again, it was build-up with no pay-off; instead they spent all this time following an imaginary story they just made up.

When they showed Sun writing a note to Jeff Fahey’s character, I realized I’d totally forgotten the whole bit about her sudden treebonk-induced aphasia. The reason I forgot about that: it’s yet another new little plot thing they’re introducing without any context, instead of tying up loose ends.

I guess that may not be fair; they did explain the whispers in the jungle with grace and subtlety. “OH HEY NEVER MIND I think I know what these whispers are after all. They’re dead people right, Michael?” “Yes. See ya.”

And also the smoke monster knocked Desmond down a well for no reason.

Now I’m on the edge of my seat wondering what are going to be the implications of alternate-reality Desmond running over Locke with his car, because they’ve spent a lot of time and energy setting that whole idea.