Spotlight: Lost – Sundown

Although in this weeks Spotlight I will be talking about the events in episode 5 Sundown I will also touch on various points from the last two weeks.

Well… We certainly need more than a Spotlight to find our way through Lost these days, we could have used the Lighthouse, if Jack hadn’t smashed it up last week. Despite the series tagline “Answers are Coming” the creators still insist on bombarding us with increasingly silly questions and offering answers that make no sense.

I know some people love the “mystery” aspect of Lost, but for me, it stopped being a mystery at some point during season 3 because, truth be told, there are no logical answers to be had. A mystery can be solved by the application of logical deduction, the end game of Lost, however, is about giving the audience an answer they haven’t thought of. For example:

The Numbers

Despite the fact that 4,8,15,16,23,42 and 108 have all been around from series one, they have remained central to the mystery of Lost. Unfortunately the question “What do the numbers mean?” has been answer too many times! Now we find out that the numbers also correspond to names written on the wall of cave by a mystical figure, possibly centuries before the people therein named were born. We also discover that Jacob contrived events to bring these people to the island where, presumably due to the fact that most of them are crossed out, they all died.

However those people with names that match the mystically empowered numbers are not dead. Soooooo if the numbers 4,8,15,16,23 and 42 are so important then why all the other numbers in the cave? And how come all the people with corresponding names to the magical numbers all arrived on the same plane… Come on, that’s just a little too much coincidence.

In short, in trying to make the numbers significant, Lost has made them meaningless.

Sayid

Much of this week’s episode focused on Sayid. Despite being a member of the Oceanic Six, Sayid is one of the dullest characters on the show, in fact, when he was shot at the end of last season I assumed he was done and out. Not so. Now Sayid has died and been brought back by some malign spirit and this week he brings about the death of the rest of the Others by killing Drogen and Lennon and letting Smokey-Locke into the Temple.

Interestingly it now looks as if Sayid and Claire will join forces with Smokey-Locke to presumably fight the “War” we were told is coming. However, what makes that more interesting is that Kate seems to be with them. Is that why her name isn’t written on the wall? Or is she the other number we didn’t see… 108? And do we really care about the numbers at all any more anyway?

Is Kate joining forces with Smokey-Locke or is it simply a self preservation thing? My vote is for the latter, all though a final climatic battle between Sawyer and Kate could be fun.

Non-Crashed Sayid however is still in love with Nadia, although she is married to his brother. In fact it is his love of Nadia that convinces Island Sayid to join with Smokey-Locke. Anyway, his brother is in a lot of debt and so Sayid kills his debtor, none other than Martin Keamy and also rescues none other than Jin. Is it just me or is this “Course Correction” thing just a little far fetched?

Ilana and the Others

Ilana seems to have taken over as leader of the Others and Ben seems to have reformed and agreed to follow her orders. Frank, it appears is her right hand man. Together they bust into the temple and successfully save the main cast from Smokey, i.e. Miles Straume as only he hasn’t gone walk about after being “captured” by the Temple-Others

Drogen

In this episode Drogen reveals his back story as to how he was chosen to lead the Others and then he is promptly killed by Sayid. Clearly there is no more room in Lost for more mystery and killing Drogen off is easier than trying to explain anything about the Temple or the Others that reside within.

Jack and Hurley

Still seeing visions of Jacob, Hurley leads Jack to the Lighthouse, which seems to be a tool Jacob used to spy on all the people who’s names are scrawled on the walls of his cave. Jack however smashes the Lighthouse. It would seem the 815 survivors have a rather detrimental effect on the islands architecture…

Sawyer

Smokey-Locke led Sawyer to Jacob’s cave and showed him the names, explaining that they were the names of the Candidates to take over from Jacob. Sawyer was offered three choices, take the job, ignore the job or leave the island… He chose the latter. However, as we all know, Sawyer is a force for good and he will eventually accept the job and lead Jacob’s people into the war against Smokey-Locke. 

I think that pretty much sums things up… Ok, not in an in-depth way, but at this point reading too much into the Lost mythos is like trying to divine the future from the cooking instructions on a pack of oven chips. Pointless…

Until Sunday… This has been My Confused Two Cents…