Chris Kirkman

“The End” Recap and Analysis …

Previously, on Lost:

Goodbye to all my friends at home,
Goodbye to people I’ve trusted,
I’ve got to go out and make my way,
I might get rich you know I might get busted,
But my heart keeps calling me backwards,
As I get on the 707,
Riding high I got tears in my eyes,
You know you got to go through hell,
Before you get to heaven,

Big ol’ jet airliner,
Don’t carry me too far away,
Oh big ol’ jet airliner,
Cause it’s here that I’ve got to stay …

This week, on Lost: LA X. Christian Shephard has finally reached his destination – or at least a package with his name in big, bold stencils indicates as such. While his coffin is loaded on board a truck by a pony-tailed baggage handler, AlternaJack sits in his office, going over x-rays. Jack prime washes his face, and ponders his wet, aged hands. AlternaBen steeps some tea with his good arm, while Ben loads a cartridge and ponders how long he’ll have to continue killing people. AlternaLocke takes one last look at his wheelchair as he’s wheeled away on a gurney toward his healing surgery. AlternaSawyer wraps up his day in the police force, as Sawyer takes a seat next to Freckles on a log and checks her gunshot wound. AlternaKate sits in the AlternaCamaro as the Oceanic delivery truck pulls up to a church, and AlternaDesmond meets the pony-tailed delivery guy and signs for the package. The two lift the coffin onto a dolly and Desmond asks pony-tail to wheel it around back. As Desmond heads back to the Camaro, we know it’s time to start. Let’s get to it.

“His name is Christian Shephard? Seriously??” Seriously, Freckles.

Kate wants to know why she’s here, but Desmond can’t tell her that – and he especially can’t tell her why she’s here. As for why he’s here with her – well, Des has to show her. I’d like to have a nickel for every time Kate Austen has heard that line.

On Island Prime, Jack is shin-deep in a pool of water, either zoning out or realizing his destiny – it’s tough to tell which. Sawyer shows up, wondering what the hell just happened all up in here, but Jack has absolutely no idea. All he does know, however, is that Jacob said they have to head over to the local Home Depot, just past their bamboo forest, because that’s where the light at the heart of the Island resides. Sawyer postulates that Desmond is key, because Ol’ Smokey needs him to snuff out the light. Jack says that Jacob didn’t say anything about Desmond, but Sawyer shuts Jack up real quick-like, saying that it doesn’t seem like Jacob said anything about anything. YEAH. “It’s kind of true, dude … he’s worse than Yoda,” says Hurley. DOUBLE YEAH.

Sawyer heads out into the brush to find Desmond, and Hurley admits that he has “a bad feeling about this.” Star Wars geeks around the world rejoice.

Cue the last swirling Lost!

LA X. The Flightline Hotel. Hurley’s Hummer pulls into the parking lot, and Hurley shows Sayid a tranquilizer gun to try and jog his memory. It doesn’t work. Hurley jumps out, telling Sayid to stay put and to trust him, dude. There’s no indication of trust just yet, but Sayid does as he’s told. Upstairs, Hurley knocks on a door and Charlie answers, looking like Richard Alpert, wearing a ton of mascara. Hurley grins like a sodding idiot, announcing that he’s there to pick him up for the concert, and Charlie tells him to bugger off. Hurley apologetically tranqs his bass-playing ass.

Downstairs, Hurley loads the hobbit into the trunk. Sayid asks what that was, to which Hurley responds, “That was Charlie.”

On Island Prime, Jack, Kate and Hurley trek along with the Giacchino trekking music in the background, and Kate and Jack have a little moment about destiny versus free will. Hurley notes that it would all be so sweet if they weren’t all about to die.

Over at the well, Locke is curling some rope, while Sawyer looks on from the bushes. It’s not long before he pulls a Kate and finds himself at the business end of Ben’s rifle, becoming a hostage. Sawyer and Locke engage in some witty repartee in which Sawyer admits that he knows Smokey needs Desmond in order to destroy the Island. Then Sawyer realizes that Ben’s most recent bruises are starting to clear up, so he elbows him in the face and exits stage left. Ben wonders why Locke isn’t going after Sawyer, but there’s no need – oh, and he’s really sorry about destroying the Island, but Ben is more than welcome to join him on his little boat when it all sinks to the bottom of the sea. Sounds fun.

Locke kneels, noticing tracks. “I think there was a dog here,” says Locke.

I really want a Vincent.

VINCENT! Rose, Bernard! Desmond! It seems as though Rose and Bernard rescued the Scot from the well, but Rose doesn’t mince words, telling Des that as soon as he’s up and able, he’s able to get the hell out of their camp. She and Bernard are through with the A-Team’s adventures. It’s about that time that Bernard returns from fetching breakfast, and he’s caught more than fish – Locke and Ben come slithering into camp. Locke whips out his giant knife and informs Des that if he doesn’t follow his every word, he’ll gut the lovers and make it hurt. Des has no choice but to do what Smokey demands.

Locke, Des and Ben trek off through the Jungle of Mystery, past some banyan trees. Smokey eyes them warily. He remarks that Desmond has no idea where he’s taking the Scot, but Des says it’s probably somewhere with a bright light. Just a hunch, says he. There’s a burst of static, and Locke asks what that was. “What was what?” asks Ben, his usual cat-that-ate-the-canary look across his face. Locke turns to walk off and Ben hides the walkie talkie in his pocket. Smooth, Benjamin. Real smooth.

Miles is on the other end of the walkie, wanting to know where Benjamin is lurking. Seems he’s founds something. That something is Richard Alpert, who has seen better days. Richard tells Miles that they need to stay on mission – they need to blow up the plane.

Over in LA X, Miles sees Sayid drive by in the HurleyMobile and gives Detective Ford a call. They need to keep Sun safe, since she’s the one who identified the Iraqi. James heads over to the hospital to check on the Koreans.

At the hospital, Sun and Jin are discussing the suckier parts of being shot, when Juliet pops in for a visit. Wait, JULIET?? Yes! It seems as though Juliet Carlson is alive and well in LA X, and an acting OB/GYN. Juliet squirts some of that magical sonogram gel on Sun’s pregnant tummy and they all have a look-see. That’s all it takes for Sun and Jin to have a full-on awakening, as they get the mystical flashes from their lives on Island Prime. The lovers are ecstatic, and Juliet doesn’t know quite what to make of it. They inform her – in English! – that the baby is a girl, and her name is Ji Yeon. It’s pretty awesome that the awakenings can even transfer language skills. It’s sort of like the Matrix. I half expect the next person to “awaken” and say “I know Kung Fu.”

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Joel Murphy

Whether you loved or hated this past Sunday’s Lost finale (for the record, I loved it), there is no denying that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse gave us a definitive ending to the series. The evil smoke monster was defeated once and for all, Hurley and Ben took over as island protectors and the majority of the surviving cast members made it off the island to start the next chapter of their lives.

While we know that ultimately these characters were all eventually reunited in a flash sideways “purgatory” upon death, we don’t know what their lives post-Lost entailed. So while Chris Kirkman will be around later today to share his insights and thoughts on every other aspect of Lost’s final episode, I thought I would take the time this week to speculate on how the surviving castaways spent their remaining years on this earth before ending up in Christian Shepard’s non-denominational ghost church …

Kate Austen, the only member of the famed Oceanic Six to make it back to civilization, uses her Oceanic settlement and her celebrity status to open a chain of self-defense schools teaching women how to avoid being captured by armed assailants. She has a brief fling with Sawyer, which fizzles out after they both find themselves thinking of someone else during sex (oddly enough, they both think about Juliet). With Sawyer out of the picture and Aaron returned to Claire, Kate decides to follow in the footsteps of countless other celebrities and adopts a child from overseas – Ji Yeon. After a week of being with Ji Yeon, she finds herself pining for Aaron once again.

James “Sawyer” Ford and Miles Straume become celebrities in their own right after writing and starring in a series of buddy cop films. The franchise goes downhill when Brett Ratner signs on to direct the fourth movie. Fifteen years later, Sawyer and Miles have brief cameos in an awful reboot of the series that features Justin Bieber in the Sawyer role.

After being reunited with Aaron, Claire Littleton discovers that raising a real child is much more difficult than raising squirrel baby. Aaron’s constant questions about his “real” mom Kate and sweet Uncle Jack do little to help Claire’s ever-worsening mental state. Things continue to go downhill when Aaron starts elementary school and is embarrassed every day when she picks him up sporting unkempt hair and a tattered flannel shirt. Eventually, she snaps and ends up doing something like this.

Desmond Hume uses the ship left behind on Hydra Island to return to his beloved Penny and their son Charlie. His attempts to explain how he heroically saved the entire world by pulling the drain out of a giant golden shower are met with blank stares.

Richard Alpert discovers aging isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as he begins to lose the trademark good looks he’s become accustom to after all these years. His vanity causes him to undergo a series of plastic surgeries that leave his face so tight and unnatural that even Mickey Rourke and Sylvester Stallone pity him. Alpert dies tragically while under the knife of the only plastic surgeon left in Tijuana willing to operate on him.

Walt Lloyd lives a quiet life in New York with his grandmother. They both continue to wait in vain for someone to tell them what happened to Michael after he smuggled himself aboard the freighter. Walt occasionally impresses his friends at parties by appearing as a backward-talking taller ghost version of himself, although no one can explain why.

Hugo “Hurley” Reyes and Benjamin Linus get off to a rough start as island protectors as Ben quickly tires of Hurley’s constant Star Wars references and the incessant giggling that ensues every time he refers to Ben as his “number two.” Eventually, once they realize that they are the only two people left on the island besides Rose and Bernard, they begin to form an Odd Couple-like bond. Except for the fact that every time Hurley leaves a glass of water lying around, Ben drinks it in hopes of gaining his powers, things work out swimmingly.

Rose and Bernard Nadler spend their twilight years eating Dharma food and taking care of Vincent. They remain, until the very end, incredibly adorable together.

Vincent the dog gets a stern talking to from the Nadlers after attempting to play fetch with the bones of “Adam and Eve.”

And finally, “Chesty” Frank Lapidus retires from the airline business after realizing that one way or another every single aircraft he flies ends up on the island. He grows back his glorious facial hair and spends his days sipping beer on his front porch with his shirt unbuttoned all the way down to his navel. While his neighbors all think of him as loveable, happy-go-lucky Lapidus, deep down he secretly remains resentful that in spite of the fact that he managed to save the day by flying survivors off of the island on two separate occasions, none of the other castaways were even remotely concerned about his whereabouts when he seemingly didn’t make it off the exploding sub with them and no one bothered to invite him to their flash sideways purgatory, even though both Keamy, who tried to kill them all, and Charlotte, who was far less relevant and useful (and, well, chesty) than Frank, were.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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By now, I’m sure all of you Lost fans have seen the finale. (And, if you haven’t, what are you doing on the Internet? You are just asking for spoilers.)

I’m sure some of you loved it, others hated it and a few of you were confused by it. Whatever camp you are in, make sure to check back for Chris Kirkman’s always informative Down the Hatch recap, which will be posted tomorrow afternoon instead of on Thursday.

But don’t feel that you have to come here right away on Tuesday to read it. If, like Ben Linus, you need to sit outside and wait a little while before you are ready, we completely understand.

- Joel Murphy
Editor-in-chief

Courtney Enlow

This week, we said a fond farewell to a show that brought us so much joy, sadness, confusion and intrigue for almost six years. A series of crazy and unforeseen happenstances, filled with shock and sometimes terror.

That show? I like to call it “Lindsay Lohan collapses into a big pile of powder and freckle.” And with jail in her near future, we’re saying goodbye. At least, for now.

My strangely schadenfraudey fascination with the great ginger downfall is well documented. And I still wish her no ill. But I don’t feel sorry for her, and if something happens to her, she will have had it coming.

This is cold and horrible. Of this I am aware. But the fact is, Lindsay has shown no responsibility. She has lived in a cocoon of idiotic denial for years now. And this is entirely her doing.

So if you need a round-up of her two weeks of crack-induced assholery, let me lay it out for you.

May 13 - TMZ releases word that Lindsay has seven days to complete four more alcohol education classes, or her ass is going to jail.

May 14 – Lindsay does the honorable thing and goes to her classes to remain in the judge’s good graces. OH WAIT, no she doesn’t. She decides to go party at Cannes. Cannes is a film festival. Lindsay hasn’t been in a film in about two years. Somehow, she is not laughed out.

May 16 - Lindsay arrives in Cannes, despite needing to be back in LA on the 20th for trial.

May 16-18 - Bitch got drunk.

May 18 - You know that Icelandic volcano that effed up all European flights there for a bit? You know how that was pretty much national news? Well, apparently Lindsay is unaware that this shit peaked weeks ago, because she tried telling the judge that she can’t come home for her trial because of the volcanic ash. Unless she went over to Cannes and then back in time a month, this is absolutely not true.

May 19 - Lindsay learned how national news works, then realized she had to come up with another excuse. So she went with a classic. The dog ate my homework. My dad stole my passport. No, for realz, she thinks that. Cocaine’s a hell of a drug.

May 20 - She immediately reports her passport stolen and orders a new one. No, she does neither of these things. Instead, she parties on a boat dressed like Cher circa the bagel boy.

May 20 - Judge Awesomesocks defies all California history and issues a bench warrant for the arrest of 85 Pounds of Fun. She will also strap a SCRAM bracelet to her ankle and subject her to weekly testing. Being LA, this is the equivalent to death by stoning and Robocop.

After that, Lindsay gave herself a few extra days to enjoy fancy Europe land before heading home. This fun included more boats, lots of vodka and being photographed next to mirrors with lines of mysterious white substances. “What?! That’s a set up, that’s so untrue.”

Look for yourself.

Lindsay Lohan is a dumb bitch is what I’m saying.

As of press time, the judge is about to throw her into an orange jumpsuit to hang out with Big Ethel from a Snapped episode. Or, being California, she’s about to sentence her to a sugar-free Fudgecicle. There’s really no way to tell. But one thing is for sure – this ho’s career is DONE.

And when it’s the big kind of done, as in, you know, dead, I hope her parents receive some form of horrific punishment.

Open letter time:

Hey, Michael and Dina Lohan, you raised a complete piece of shit drugbag. You could not have done a worse job as parents if you tried, and everything that she is and everything that happens to her is your fault. You've piggybacked for fame and money, you've used her and aided in her delusions, you've killed her and she's not even dead yet. There is no circle of hell deep enough for horrible parents who ruin innocent children, but whatever is closest, that's where you're going. Nice job, fuckers.

I feel as though I’ve brought you all down. … Frankly I’m not sure how to pick it back up. Here’s some pictures of cute baby piggies.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

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Not ready to say goodbye to Lost just yet? Then do what the Oceanic survivors did in season five and jump back in time to February 2009, when we interviewed Michael Emerson about the show. He talked about the complexities of Lost, the lighter side of Benjamin Linus and having microwavable food thrown at your head. Emerson also shared his thoughts on how he thought the show would end, so you can now go back and see how well he did.

If you missed the interview then, enjoy it now:
http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2009/02/11/one-on-one-with-michael-emerson/