Lost Focuses on Plot, But Ploddingly So

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


claire-aaron-and-sun.jpgAfter last week‘s action-packed, mind-bending episode of Lost, I had high hopes for this week’s installment. I hoped that there would be allusions to physical laws, mathmatical theories, and the theory of relativity. Or that the series, which is now a blogged about by the Washington Post and has legions of intricately-researched fan sites, would give me some new twist to investigate. So did it? Eh, not so much.

The plot did move along, though, in a way it didn’t in the last season. But it felt like the writers were simply going through the motions, dutifully moving the plot along, without having much fun along the way.

But, the show’s creators, true to their word, did answer questions. They showed us that Claire’s baby Aaron makes it off the island, possibly making him one of the Oceanic Six, and that John Locke, the former employee of a box company, is a serious bad-ass. Locke’s putting a live grenade in a captive’s mouth and having him hold down the pin with his teeth is a tactic even veteran interrogator Sayid would approve of.

There were also some nuanced allusions to the time lag on the island and its other special properties, which I had hoped for more of. There is a reference to the film Hugo watches, Xanadu, which emphasizes the idea the island is in its own space/time bubble. While Hugo watches the movie, Sawyer is reading The Invention of Morel, a novel about a man on an island who creates a machine capable of reproducing reality (a reference to the “magic box” that reproduced Locke’s father on the island).

One more nuanced, but notable visual clue to future plot points was Aaron’s survival off the island. It reminded me of what the Australian psychic said to Claire before she got on flight 815: “It is crucial that you raise this child yourself.” Aaron may be little, but my prediction is he’s going to be a huge part of this season’s plotline.

Photo courtesy of ABC

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate