LOST: The Final Season (Spoilers)

[LightPhoenix]

Sayid episodes are always good for some interesting moral questions (unlike Jack or Kate or Kwons). This one did not disappoint.

You know you are evil when Ben Linus looks at you and says "nope, he's gone." I suspect this means we can also officially remove Sayid from the list of candidates.

Aside from Sayid, my favorite part was Alana's "strike team". I wasn't expecting it at all, so when they showed up, it was pretty cool.

 

[Mark]

Sadly, with the separation of Linus from the other survivors (Miles and company) it seems to set up a sort of redemption scenario, ALA Gollum. We'll see how it shakes out but I'm getting a bad feeling about how they might bring things full circle to tie up the loose ends.

 

[David Howery]

man, Claire has gone completely around the bend. You'd think she'd be happy that her child was off the island, safe and secure. You'd also think Kate would mention that the kid is with Claire's mom, too....
One of the most annoying things about this show is that the main characters never seem to ask the obvious questions when they have the chance. I mean, they're stuck in that temple with the Others for hours and hours, and never once does anyone ask, "Okay, just who are you people? Where did you come from? Who are Jacob and Smokey?" Only Sayid managed to ask 'Locke' "What are you?", and never really got an answer. If it had been me, I'd have interrupted him and said "No, really, just what the hell are you?"

 

[Remus Lupin]

Yes, Claire has gone the full evil.

Although, I was thinking about this earlier today. As I look at how the Locke/Jack teams are shaping up, it occurred to me, that if I knew in season 1 that there would be a show down in the end between "good" losties and "evil" losties, and was asked, about midway through the first season, to pick who would be on which team, I would have more or less gone with the way things are shaping up. Obviously, there are some wild cards. We don't yet know where Jin or Kate will wind up, though they're both with Flocke. And Ben is in the end likely to be out for himself, though it looks like he may not last till the very end anyway.

NB., Claire is a notable exception to my thesis.

 

[Felon]

Well, team evil is shaping up nicely with the show's major bada**es. By the last scene, it was clear that Sayid had embraced his dark side completely, accepting that he is, in fact, pretty evil, despite all of his protestations to the contrary. It's interesting that he doesn't seem to escape that fate in the alt-verse either.

On the other hand, it was good to see Keemy get killed again.

Yes, Claire has gone the full evil.

Although, I was thinking about this earlier today. As I look at how the Locke/Jack teams are shaping up, it occurred to me, that if I knew in season 1 that there would be a show down in the end between "good" losties and "evil" losties, and was asked, about midway through the first season, to pick who would be on which team, I would have more or less gone with the way things are shaping up. Obviously, there are some wild cards. We don't yet know where Jin or Kate will wind up, though they're both with Flocke. And Ben is in the end likely to be out for himself, though it looks like he may not last till the very end anyway.

NB., Claire is a notable exception to my thesis.

OK, I'm callin' it now. Team Evil is actually Team Good. Jacob is the real bad guy and Smokey is the closest thing to a savior around.

Note that when Dogen tells Sayid that the torture machine measured good and evil, he says that Sayid's "tipped the wrong way". We naturally assume that means evil, but have no real reason to do so. Dogen was perfectly content to give an order to kill Jack and company in cold blood when they initially came to the temple, and then did a few other sinister things afterwards, so why should we be so quick to paint him as a good guy?

 

[Remus Lupin]

I'm open to that possibility, but I'm not yet convinced, for a few reasons:

1. It just smacks of cheap irony. It's just too easy to say, "see, we'll make it seem like they're evil, but they're REALLY GOOD!

2. Hurley.

3. Flocke's offer to Sayid was straight out of the New Testament: Fall down and worship me and all of these things will be yours."

4. While I'm not going to go so far as to say that Jacob was good or has acted good, and certainly I wouldn't say his followers have, there seems to be a clear moral distinction between Jacob and his behavior towards both his followers and his enemies, and Smokey. Jacob has never acted in a wrathful or violent way, has never sought revenge, and has put people into a position to make decisions (albeit often manipulated by Jacob) for themselves. Smokey has repeatedly killed, threatened, directly coerced, lied, etc.

5. Look who is now on Flocke's team: Con-artist-murderer Sawyer, torturer-murderer Sayid, thief-murderer Kate, crazy woman murderer Claire, mob go-between Jin.

6. Look who's on Jacob's team: Doctor Jack, all around decent guy Hurley, mother/nurturer Sun, unknown quantities Lapidas and Miles, and multiple murderer Ben. Plus the members of team jacob that came on the plane, plus, by all appearances, Richard. Now, I may be missing something. I didn't watch the show religiously for a good chunk of its run, by I don't recall any of these characters intentionally killing someone, except for Ben, maybe Richard, and the plane people. But of the core characters, the candidates, none have blood on their hands.

Now, the teams may change up over the course of the coming episodes, and I think it's highly likely that Kate and Jin will switch teams. But when you look at the moral quality of these two groups of people, is it really hard to pick which are the bad guys?

 

[Fast Learner]

Smokey's behavior -- cruising around and killing people -- hardly seems like it could be considered good. Even if by some chance all the people we see him kill recently are long-time bad-guy islanders, how about the original pilot and other miscellaneous early survivors.

I don't know that Jacob's good, but it'll be damned hard to convince me that Smokey is.

 

[Demmero]

6. Look who's on Jacob's team: Doctor Jack, all around decent guy Hurley, mother/nurturer Sun, unknown quantities Lapidas and Miles, and multiple murderer Ben. Plus the members of team jacob that came on the plane, plus, by all appearances, Richard. Now, I may be missing something. I didn't watch the show religiously for a good chunk of its run, by I don't recall any of these characters intentionally killing someone, except for Ben, maybe Richard, and the plane people. But of the core characters, the candidates, none have blood on their hands.

Technically, Sun shot and killed that Other woman who tried to hijack Desmond's sailboat while she was hiding on it (Season...3?). And in Season 1, it was strongly implied that Jack finished the job after Sawyer's horrifically failed attempt to shoot the marshall and put him out of his misery. So those two have a bit of blood on their hands...they just haven't been shown to be cold-blooded murderers.

 

[Remus Lupin]

Technically, Sun shot and killed that Other woman who tried to hijack Desmond's sailboat while she was hiding on it (Season...3?). And in Season 1, it was strongly implied that Jack finished the job after Sawyer's horrifically failed attempt to shoot the marshall and put him out of his misery. So those two have a bit of blood on their hands...they just haven't been shown to be cold-blooded murderers.

Ok, point taken, but I do think "cold blooded" enters into the equation here. There's a substantial moral difference between Jack at his worst, and Sayid.

 

[Demmero]

Ok, point taken, but I do think "cold blooded" enters into the equation here. There's a substantial moral difference between Jack at his worst, and Sayid.

Yes, absolutely. Just as there's a less substantial difference between killing in self-defense (Sun), a mercy killing (Jack), and feeling responsible for deaths that you may or may not have caused accidentally (Hurley's collapsed balcony incident that landed him in the loony bin). But there ARE subtle differences, and these may come into play in the weird little game that Jacob and the Man in Black seem to be playing in regards to which candidate will take over guardianship of the island.