Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Lost Season Five (Spoilers Aplenty!)

my question is what are the whispers we kept hearing throughout the series.

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Whisper_transcripts

i have read the transcripts, what or who do you think is talking is really my question.

Originally I thought the whispers were just a device used by the others to intimidate the people they were stalking. Reading the transcripts now though, they seem to be the voices of the dead (the guy Sawyer killed, Boone, etc). Still not sure why they seem to occur mostly around the Others' surprise appearances.

Which brings me to the single biggest hole in the show: The continued lack of information on the Others.

I love a mystery and I like that they've kept the Others mysterious, but Juliet has now been with the Losties for a long time and with Sawyer for three friggin' YEARS. Surely she would have spilled her guts out by now. I thought it was dumb that she was so easily accepted in the early goings without giving any hard answers, but to extend that time for years on end defies all logic.

In hindsight, I don't think Juliet ever really knew the very deepest secrets of the Others. I mean, she was recruited by them, what, 2 or 3 years before the plane crash? Compared to the bigwigs among the Others, that wasn't a very long time at all, insignificant even. It's also likely that played even some of the lighter secrets pretty close to the vest at first as they were feeling her trustworthiness out and presenting a certain skewed point of view of what they were all about to her.

I'll give her some credit; she was a smart lady and probably realized there was more than meets the eye to the Others very quickly. But that doesn't mean she ever knew nearly as much as Richard, Ben or even Tom. In a way Juliet was more like their prisoner and felt that helping them was her only way of eventually getting off the island on that sub in addition to repaying them for saving her sister.

A good reason for her to keep some secrets she did know close to the vest was to protect those she was still close to among the Others. For all she knew as she was integrating with the Losties, they might use that information to kill them.

That said, she probably revealed all that she knew to Sawyer over the three years, though. But what she knew wasn't ever really all that much.

It would be pretty cool if at some point in the final season Sawyer suddenly reveals he knows tons of information about Ben and various Others, and says something like "what, you thought Juliet and I never talked about this stuff for three years?" Given Sawyer's personality, the writers could basically insert that into any given scene and everyone would assume he'd just been keeping that info close to the vest like he does with everything.

I hope we get a clear explanation of what the whispers are myself. I had begun to think they had little to do with the Others until Ben made that comment late in the season to Danielle (in his flashback). But I bet it ends up being something the Others hardly understand themselves, like most things on the island appear to be.

I'd buy that if she wasn't shown to be an integral part of their society in the early goings:

She knew about room 23 and what was going on with Walt. She was also branded as part of their punishment rituals for her part in Kate and Sawyer's Escape. She obviously knew about the stolen kids and the runway building from her time on the Hydra. She knew about the other Dharma stations, but never said anything (particularly the Tempest, which could have killed everyone).

I just find her a poorly thought out addition to the show from a plot perspective because she stretches credibility so much, yet has been made so central.

According to the producers, the following three things will be revealed in the series finale:

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">
1. The significance of the four-toed statue

2. The true nature of the smoke monster

3. The identity of the cave skeletons (Adam and Eve)
</span></span>

Lost Season 6 begins on February 2, 2010!!

Groundhog's Day, eh?

So the season opener starts with a close up of Jack's eye, panning back to reveal him lying in a bed in a Punxsutawney hotel, as Sonny and Cher's "I Got You, Babe" plays in the background?


Seriously, though, I can't wait. I've already started the DVD rewatch from Season 1.

Same here, Ex. And there are a few things I've been thinking about this time around.

Not much of the first season predicts stuff in the subsequent seasons. Yes later eps have refrenced back to season 1. But other than a psychic warning Claire that her child must not be raised by another, it's as if the first season and the fifth were unrelated. That's not a complaint, merely an observation. I like the developements with Sawyer and Jin's characters.

I'm curious, who would lose in a fight- Boone or Ben?

Two months to go...

Here's a question for you guys: Last season, when Sawyer and the rest were on the outrigger and found themselves being shot at by people on another outrigger--we never found out exactly who was following and shooting did we?

I ask this because either: a) we're not through with time travel as the producers have hinted, or b) we still have a scene to come in the "present" (meaning after the events at the foot of the statue) still to come to explain it. [This of course assumes the producers intend to explain it]

If I'm right and haven't forgotten a resolution to this that happened, or that there are no other danglers, this is the only strictly time travel-related mystery not to be tied up. Am I correct?

We never had that explained and I think its likely your latter idea (it happening in the 'present') that will show it. Of course, there is the chance we won't see it at all--but actually, it could make for an easy 'action'/heightened danger sequence that could quickly be finished, and Lost always tries to sneak those into episodes. So its available for the creators to plug in where its needed (and have someone get killed as I believe Juliet iced some dude).

I'll have to refresh my memory about potential danglers. I do know they said they aren't going to "hand-feed" us explanations. So as far as they're concerned the "Adam/Eve" dangler might be tied up with Rose and Bernard revealed as them without anyone ever saying "jeepers! I bet Rose and Bernard were Adam and Eve!". I know some fans won't like this (I don't mind, really).

Lardi:

Wasn't he being shot at by the Dharma folks, after they realize that he was acquainted with Jack and Kate, who were betraying them?

I think Lardi is referring to one of the many time hops Sawyer's crew did before signing on with the Dharma group.

As for who was doing the shooting, I don't recall. For some reason, I keep thinking it was the new Losties.

The Final Season starts in 4 days

I'm gonna have to watch this online or on-demand. Pretty peeved that they changed this season to Tuesday's when it has been on Wednesday for the entire run. I'll be in school when it airs. Grrrr...

I just spent the past two months watching Lost seasons 1 through 5 on Blu-Ray. I'll have to wait until the season 6 boxset comes out in August to see what everyone else already knows (which is why I'm avoiding the "final season" thread).

There are definitely advantages and disadvantages to watching a large number of episodes over a relatively condensed period of time. One advantage is that the memories of previous seasons are fresher, so it's easier to catch the references to past occurrences and characters.

One disadvantage is the fact that you tend to notice the cliches and overused conventions that the show employs. The worst example of this is the excessive number of times someone is knocked out by being konked over the head by a gun/rifle, rock, or piece of wood. Seriously, it probably happens at least once every other episode. At some point, you wonder how it is that the force being exerted is always just enough to knock the person out, but not so much that they suffer brain damage. (The sole exception: when Desmond accidentally killed Kelvin by smacking his head on a rock.)

Another overused situation involves two people in a face-off, with guns pointed at each other. A shot rings out -- the "good guy" looks startled, as though he/she has just been shot. Seconds later, it turns out the "bad guy" was actually shot by one of the good guy's allies who was either hiding off to the side, or arrived at the last second.

Oh, and one more thing... don't stand in the middle of the street and attempt to continue a conversation with someone who's on the sidewalk -- you WILL get hit and killed by a speeding vehicle. (See: Juliet's ex-husband and boss; Nadia.)

And, after watching so many episodes in close succession, it becomes obvious that Matthew Fox is one of the weaker actors in the cast. He has pretty much the same go-to reaction whenever he's asked to do a dramatic scene. He'll frown slightly and lower his head. After a pause, he smile awkwardly with his teeth clenched, give a barely audible chuckle, and then slowly shake his head. An angry outburst, threat, or distressed utterance will then follow, as required by the situation at hand. He does this EVERY SINGLE TIME!

Of course, there are a lot of things I've liked as well. I think that character development is one of the show's strongest points, and season 5 excelled at this -- especially with Juliet and Sawyer (one of my favorite characters).

I have a tendency to identify with and favor the secondary characters in most stories (I could read an entire Harry Potter series focusing on the students in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff), and Lost is no exception. I really liked Danielle Rousseau, and was heartened by her reunion with Alex. The killing of Rousseau, Alex, and her boyfriend Karl affected me more than the deaths of some of the show's "marquee" characters; I always imagined that Alex and Karl would get to grow old together in a little hut somewhere, and that Alex would get to know the mother she'd been estranged from for so many years. Alas, that was not to be.

I also liked the freighter's science team. I'm glad that Miles and Frank are still around as of the end of season 5, and sad that Charlotte and Daniel were both killed. There was something touching about Daniel's awkwardness around Charlotte and his futile effort to warn her younger self about her tragic destiny.

And although I found the introduction of Nikki and Paulo to be handled clumsily, I really didn't mind the characters that much. (It didn't hurt that Nikki got to dance around in a diamond-encrusted bikini and make corny exclamations, even if it was as "Corvette," the pride of St. Paul.) The fundamental problem with the introduction of Nikki and Paulo to the main cast is the fact that you never saw them at all for two and a half seasons. In fact, you never saw any of the background survivors do anything at all other than mill around. Then, when they were all killed en masse by flaming arrows, the resolution seemed jarringly disingenuous. What's the point of having extras if you don't know what to do with them, and then have to resort to getting rid of all of them en masse because it's become too unwieldy to account for all of them in the storyline? The creators should have just had the central cast of 14 or 15 characters be the only survivors of the crash, since the presence of 30+ random people milling around uselessly did nothing to make the situation more realistic -- it only served to make the castaways' predicament more obviously a fictive construction.

If anything, the creators should have done more to pare down the "main" cast. I've never really liked Jack -- I find him to be an annoying tool. And my goodwill toward Kate rapidly eroded over the course of season 5, as she began to act as stubbornly irrational and overly emotional as Jack. I hope season 6 focuses a bit more on the other characters and not the main Jack-Kate pairing.

I actually think a lot of the "cliches and overused conventions" are intentional, much like the repeated dialgoue.

Some thoughts and predictions about season 6...

I really hope that the "Adam" and "Eve" skeletons don't end up being Bernard and Rose, especially with the black and white stones that Jack found next to the skeletons. Seriously... this better not happen.

Speaking of black and white, I hope that the upcoming "war" doesn't devolve into a trite battle between the forces of "good" and the forces of "evil" -- a little nuance would be nice. Even better would be the revelation that the Man in Black is actually the good guy, and that Jacob, the guy with the light-colored clothing, is in fact some sinister, controlling entity. I found those flashbacks where Jacob literally and figuratively touched the main characters to be creepy and unsettling.

I know there are going to be flash-sideways sequences in season 6. In fact, I was kind of wondering whether the "present day" scenes with Locke, Ben, Sun, Frank, and Ilana actually already take place in a different reality than the original. After all, the Ajira flight seemed to break through the clouds and approach the island immediately after Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid disappeared from the plane -- implying that those four did something in the past that instantly affected the future that the plane was still in.

When the group from 2007 stumbled upon their original camp on the beach, however, I started to doubt this theory -- if the past was changed, would the crash of flight 815 still have happened in the same way for a different reason? Of course, I still find the state of "New Otherton" (i.e., the former Dharma barracks) in 2007 to be odd -- there were Dharma Initiative signs on the buildings, even though the Others had occupied those buildings for years up until early 2005, and did not have those signs on the buildings then. Since it seems odd that someone would have put up Dharma signs on the buildings between the time the Others abandoned them in 2005 and 2007, the situation suggests a different reality where the Others never had taken over the barracks. (Or it could just be a big goof on the part of the production team.)

I'd probably be happy with any denouement so long as it's not overly Biblical, such as one where Jacob and the Man in Black turn out to be Abel and Cain, and the Island turns out to be the Garden of Eden.

Anyway, it's odd that everyone else already knows what's happened, while I'm still stuck at the end of season 5. It's like a little bit of real-life time displacement.

The repeated dialogue is clearly meant to be intentional, as it typically touches on central themes of the show relating to morality ("we're the good guys") and identity ("are you him?") in particular, and serves to feed into the show's overriding handling of fate vs. random coincidence in general.

A lot of the other conventions, however, really don't seem to be intentional because they're cliches that are overused in TV shows and movies generally, and not unique to Lost. The situation where two people are in a face-off with guns and a shot rings out -- leading the viewer to believe that the good guy has been shot -- is one of the most hackneyed means of creating a few seconds of suspense... just long enough for the protagonist to look down at himself/herself in shock and then realize there's no wound.

So, overall, how would you describe your enjoyment of Seasons 1-5, Arby? How high is your interest in this series compared to others you've enjoyed? Which surprises did you find predictable and which caught you offguard? The flashforward at the end of Season 3, for example, was probably the biggest shock of the series for me.

As for Season Six, without being spoilerish, I will warn you that it will NOT answer every question you ever had. In fact many are left unanswered. I think if you're a fan of the characters more than anything that Season Six will work for you, though. It's kinda slow at points and probably could've been condensed into fewer episodes.

And if it helps, the ending is not overly Biblical, as you fear. I would certainly not describe it as entirely un-Biblical, however!

Be sure to share your thoughts after you complete your collection in August!

Fave characters? Specifically, who has emerged over time as a favorite?