My Soul Consumption

slashfilm posted:

Michael Emerson, who plays Ben Linus on ABC’s LOST, says that the season finale for Season Five will make you want to eat your soul.

I went into the season five finale of Lost cold. All I saw was a cut off preview after the end of Follow The Leader, but surely not enough to have predicted what would happen last night. Right from the opening you knew this episode was going to be different, and having what Michael Emerson said in the back of my head I was prepared for anything…how naive I was.

It feels like the fifth season just started and now I begin the last eight to nine month wait for the final season to return. Last nights episode was everything I could have hoped for and then some. If you had not seen the finale then turn back now because I will be talking about episode specific things.

The beginning sequence set the tone for the episode with the introduction of the infamous Jacob, and perhaps the Black Rock approaching in the distance. Jacob appearing as a background character in the lives of Oceanic 815, at critical times in their lives was a huge thrill. It almost became a game of ‘guess who the character is’ when you went through a flashback. Jin and Sun’s wedding vows, the “count to five” surgery Jack had always talked about, Kate and Tom getting their memory lunch box, Sawyer’s letter, Nadia’s death; little pieces of history coming together.

The first hour was so packed with plot and development that I was exhausted when it was all over, and then the final hour flew by. Juliet’s death was so much more painful after you see her parents flashback and then the quick (and long overdue) conversation with Rose and Bernard, the incredible reveal of what was in the Ajira 316 cargo box and finally Ben’s rage on Jacob. Everything was coming to a brilliant end, my brain was reeling from the last few minutes. Then, just when you cannot take enough the screen goes white and…

…the ultimate cliffhanger.

Everything about this show is now uncertain. Whatever I had figured out is now rewritten. What is going to happen next? Better yet, what can happen next? Even though 30 years separate the events will the death of Jacob be affected by Juliet setting off the bomb? Or was Miles right and the Incident Jack was trying to prevent was actually him that caused it and nothing will change? Will next season start with them landing at LAX successfully or has all of this happened before and will continue to happen?

Today the countdown starts, I will just close my eyes and count to five. One…