December 9th, 2004 - 10:52 am
» you shame me, Lost
Lost sucked last night. It is now officially off my recommend-to-watch list. I will probably continue to watch it because it’s habit and nothing else is on Wednesday nights, and (mainly) because of my complete Naveen Andrews adoration. I want to have the man’s babies. Lots of fat, happy babies.
I knew I wasn’t going to like the episode the instant I realized it was Jack’s (which was as I was rewinding to the beginning and saw the first few minutes in quick reverse). So I gave it some mental leeway. I knew it was going to suck for me. But when they — oh, spoilers.
* * *
When they killed Charlie I was thrilled.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Charlie. He’s one of my favorite characters. But that the show did something like that — took one of their big-name stars and offed him — it was daring. It was bold and all up in the face of television convention. It was a Joss Whedon sort of thing to do. So I watched Charlie swing and I thought This is a defining moment. This show is either going to start really rocking or it’s going to suck completely from now on.
I kept waiting for the CPR to work. And it didn’t. And I kept getting more and more excited. I actually sat up on the couch and started really watching. (I’ve been working from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. the past two days, so I was lying down and sort of mentally schlumping my way through the program.) And when Jack gave up I was so freaking happy.
And then he spazzed out like the big arrogant jackass me-me-me-me-ME assface that he is and continued to beat the crap out of Charlie, and he miraculously came back to life.
Now, frankly, I don’t care whether or not this sort of thing is possible. It doesn’t seem like it should be possible. Maybe it’s one of those remote once-in-a-billion chances. And I say Fuck that. Cheap sell-out bastards. If the only way they can really touch their audience is to put a scantily-clad woman and some supposed-hero doctor sobbing and throwing themselves around in torrential rain while their lovable comrade lies probably-dead and then is Oh Miracle Oh Rapturous Miracle! suddenly revived — screw it. I’m so pissed at them for squandering their promise.
And screw you, Joss Whedon, for spoiling me and then quitting television. Screw you.
Bryce said: December 9th, 2004 at 11:51 am
I’ve heard that argument made about it being daring on the message boards too, but I don’t think so. To me, killing a member of an cast this size isn’t daring, it’s lazy. Shocking, yes, but when you have a character like Charlie that has story left to be told, killing him is easier than actually telling the rest of the story. Besides, can you imagine Jack with more guilt? -=shudder=-
Regardless of lazy or not, I don’t think it’s Jack’s CPR that saved him. The magic island played a part in it, because it did take unnaturally long for him to be revived. The island voodoo was hinted at two other times in the episode (Locke and Walt), so the set-up is definitiely there.
rachel! said: December 9th, 2004 at 1:34 pm
Hmm. I have to disagree. I think it’s lazy to kill a character at the end of their story. It’s too pat. You finish a character’s story so you kill them off. That’s predictable television. Killing a character when there’s obviously more waiting to be done — that’s out of the ordinary. That’s what I was hoping for in that moment.
And yeah, I can imagine Jack with more guilt. He would get really mopey and Sawyer would kill him, and then Kate would kill Sawyer and then everyone else would have to put Kate down like a rabid dog. And that would really solve a lot of my issues with the show.