Lost: Ab Aeterno

Dear Lost: I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch to you these past couple of years. Please take me back.

Don’t get me wrong, though. You totally deserved the alienation of affection.

You kept insisting that it all meant something, that it would all make sense, and I just had to trust you. You, who would show up for a week or two, then disappear for weeks at a time. You, who would run for less than ten minutes, then go to commercial.

It was a terrible way to treat me, but I held on. I believed in you and kept coming back. Despite the idiotic Sayid-Shannon love connection. Despite the constantly changing the rules regarding the Others. Despite the cryptic behaviors and annoying secrets. I held on. Even though I didn’t really like you anymore. I’d held on for so long that I had to keep believing something would make sense by the end.

And it finally did.

“Ab Aeterno” was your single best episode, and not just because you finally produced some hard answers and provided context for the entire series. Any episode could have had clumsy exposition, woodenly delivered; but to remind us what it’s like to be new to the island, to be terrorized by the smoke monster, and have one actor carry the whole thing was effing brilliant.

BTW, Nestor Carbonell needs to have his own show. He was amazing.

“Ab Aeterno” changed the entirety of Lost for me. Now, it makes sense why everyone who survived Flight 815 was such a screw up – they were brought to the island to become better people, to prove that they could become better people without being pushed by. . . a guess a higher power or divine intervention is the only thing to call it at the moment.

You even defined the purpose of the island (with boozy visual aids!). A kind of cork, holding in evil. But, Smokey pointed out at the end that there’s still a way out: find a way to bust the vessel from outside.

Is it perfect? Of course not. It was, however, handled much more skillfully than spackle episodes of another show (I’m looking at you, BSG).

So, there it is Lost. You’ve redeemed yourself (mostly). Now, let’s spend your last remaining weeks on Earth together. I’ll try not to be such a nag if you promise not to be a hack.

Lisa Fary is a graduate of the creative writing program at Florida State University and holds an advanced degree in Special Education. Her earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She’s angry that it’s 2010 and she still doesn’t have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram.

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