Lost Season Ends and Answers Some Questions; Leaves Many More

So, last night my season of television watching finally and officially ended. No, I do not and will not watch the horrendous piece of crap known as “American Idol.” That entire show, cast, judges and crew could (and should) go down in a plane crash and I would not bat an eye. No, there was an actual show, with actual writing, actual acting and an actual plot ending its season just down the channel. Last night was the season finale of the mind-bending show known as “Lost.”

I don’t really know if it lived up to all of the hype that I was hoping it would, but it certainly kept me on the edge of my seat and left me scratching my head and anxious for next season. So, when you look at that, I guess it was a successful end to the season.

We found out that, for some reason, the Dharma Initiative is experimenting with electromagnetic energy. That the “button” needs to be pushed every 108 minutes to discharge the build up of electromagnetic energy. That the mysterious Desmond ended up on the island after a storm and was sort of suckered into the job of pushing that button every 108 minutes. Now, exactly why you have to enter a code that must be entered exactly to stop the build up of electromagnetic energy rather than just having a button to push, is not explained. It is mentioned many times that if this electromagnetic energy builds up it could, conceivably, destroy the entire world. Why would you make it so complicated, then, to get rid of this energy? Wouldn’t a button without code numbers be easier and safer? Then again, why quibble.

Meanwhile, Michael, Kate, Sawyer, Jack and Hurley trekked across the island for their fateful encounter with “The Others.” Michael was instructed to bring them there by the Others and his deception is revealed. The Others succeed in kidnapping them and Michael is given a boat, coordinates and his son and putters off into the ocean. Hurley is sent back to tell the remaining survivors not to look for the rest of them and the rest of them are taken by the others. Why the others have all of this medical equipment, disguises, and technological equipment but no shoes and ragged clothing is not really explained either.

Then, just to make things more confusing, several characters are in a boat trying to get around to the other side of the island to help Jack and the rest with “The Others” and they discover the foot of a Colossus-like statue near the shoreline. A giant stone foot are all that remain of some ancient statue. However, as the character Sayid says, it is more disturbing that there is a statue there at all or that the remaining foot only has four toes. What does that mean? Lord, and the writers, only know.

Exactly who “The Others” are is still unexplained. What two guys living in the arctic have to do with the island, a scene that plays out right at the end of the episode, is also not explained. Why they put a call to the woman who was Desmond’s girlfriend at the end is also not explained. I guess you have to leave something for next season or why would anyone want to tune in.

So many questions are left I could fill pages just with them. What happened to Locke and Ekko? Are they dead? Is the hatch destroyed completely now? What was the deal with the electromagnetic energy? Why did the Dharma people have others in a different hatch taking notes on the people with the Button only to have those notes pile up uselessly in the middle of the jungle?

Wow. So many plot points. How the writers manage to keep these stories straight, I have no idea and I wonder if they actually do. Is there a writer somewhere who actually knows every plot point and where this show is going? Are they making this up as they go along? Is there a secret writers room somewhere with the plot lines and characters maybe charted out on a wall?

So, the theories that are out there still have to make you wonder. Are the survivors actually still on earth? Why did Desmond’s boat, headed West, only end up back at the island? What’s with the four-toed thing? Are they in some other dimension?

I still wonder if all of this could possibly come to a conclusion that would make it all satisfactory. The writers had better not cop-out and suddenly everyone wakes up on the plane all at once, having shared some group hallucination or dream. There had better not be an autistic boy staring into a snow globe at the end of this thing, dammit, is all I have to say.

Oh yeah, Taylor Hicks won the “American Idol” thing. Like anyone gives a rip and his songs are going to do anything to make the radio a more pleasant thing to listen to. If you still want your “Idol” fix you can go down to your local bar and listen to karaoke any night. It’s the same damn thing.