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Lost: This Season Had To End Sometime

by DICK CHENEY

When I was six I had a chicken that walked backward and was in the Pathe News. I was in it too with the chicken. I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been anticlimax.

-- Flannery O'Connor

As this gratuitious and bizarre season of Lost ended, we were reminded of just how many characters and twists this show has contained in its short time. Francis Ford Coppola released a chronological version of his Godfather trilogy for TV purposes. Surprisingly seeing events in the order in which they occurred loses nothing from the original chopped up version of his masterpiece.

That won't be the case for Lost, a drama entirely dependent on how it is told for its oomph. Here's where we left the characters of the show at the end of the last season finale in the show's history:

a good man is hard to findJacob

Job: Sandy-haired deity of the island

Bangs: Never, lacks human genitalia

Dead? Most likely

It was the casting dilemma of the millennium: what would a deus ex machina look like if you had to hire an actor to play him? Spurning the desperate pleas of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Anthony Michael Hall and Philip Baker Hall, the powers-that-be hired the guy who washes my car.

He then proceeded to spend the better part of two hours saying hi to all the castaways but only really doing one thing -- killing Sayid's gf. He's clearly omnipotent, but he is also mortal if the Esau-looking dude at the beginning of the episode is to be believed - you know, the one who later inhabits Locke's body. In short, this was the most disappointing reveal since I lost enough weight to be able to see my penis for the first time since 1963.

"jacob, you got hard for me. no one's done that before."Jack Shepard

Job: Faraday's houseboy, doctor, fixer

Bangs: Kate until she got bored of it and fixated on her stolen baby instead

Dead? Richard says he watched him die, so yes

Jack's ill-fated plan to bring the bomb to the blast site was undermined by Miles' smart aleck comments and Sayid's annoying flesh wound. His buried desire for Kate surfaced once again - clearly he didn't see the flop sweat she was displaying so prominently through the episode. It's unclear what exactly was so great about Jack's previous life that he wants to return to it, but what is clear is that he's not going to, since then the show would be over.

"I do not give you permission to do her!!!!!!!!!"Juliet

Job: housewife of LaFleur

Bangs: Sawyer

Dead? [crosses fingers]

The blonde was seemingly written off the show, until the 135th deus ex machina of as many episodes wrote her back on it. If she never appears on my television again, great, but Elizabeth Mitchell seems destined to start the long awaited lesbian bee stung lips storyline on Grey's Anatomy. Did she detonate the bomb? Sure. Destiny found.

The Four-Toed Statue

Job: Houses "the one who will save us" as Richard put it in some language I don't understand

Bangs: He licks Carlton Cuse's clit with his tongue

Dead? Most likely never alive

Sobek's ambiguous nature led some Egyptians to believe that he was a repairer of evil that had been done, rather than a force for good in itself, for example, going to Duat to restore damage done to the dead as a result of their form of death. He was also said to call on suitable gods and goddesses required for protecting people in situation, effectively having a more distant role, nudging things along, rather than taking an active part.

The completed four-toed statue matches common depictions of the Egyptian god Taweret who is frequently shown with the head of a crocodile, (as was Sobek, another Egyptian god). Taweret was the counterbalance to Apep, the original Egyptian god of chaos and evil. This adversarial relationship is not unlike the one Jacob appears to have with the other man on the beach.

Word.

life is like a box of chocolates you dead cuntLocke

Job: Stirrer upper

Bangs: No one

Dead? Yes

Now that Locke has been revealed to be the third deus ex machina by which some force kept in check on the island hopes to upset Jacob's rule, sides are going to be taken. Shit is going down. This unknown force enlistened the smoke monster and counts the temple as its home, but it's also free to visit Jacob and say hi and stuff. He wanted Jacob dead from the beginning...of the episode. Rightfully, this should have been the tease at the beginning of the season, but that would demand that the show's writers think ahead further than one week, and they smoke too much herb to accomplish that.

Richard Alpert

Job: Advisor to the island's leader, a job "he has had for a very long time."

Bangs: probably a god like Jacob and New Locke, so gets his carnal
pleasure from toying with humans

Dead? No. Possibly immortal.

Like a fallen angel doomed to fret among the mortals, Richard didn't appear to have much in the way of free will. He serves whoever the leader of the island is, a job that was held by Eloise Faraday. Who preceded her, we have no earthly idea. Richard's service to Jacob has now come to an unexpected end, so it would seem that the final season holds much in store for him.

Hurley

Job: calorically challenged misunderstander, angel

Bangs: Michael tragically robbed him of the ability to crush Libby under him during an ill-fated sex attempt

Dead? Probably not.

Hurley's insightful cab ride parallels my experience with most Washington D.C. area cab drivers. Whatever is in that guitar case, it's probably going to be a disappointment to Hurley unless it's sliders or pesto chicken sandwiches. The idea that Jacob gives you a choice in the matter has the Wachowski brothers filing a lawsuit in Superior Court as I write this word. Damn you Carlton Cuse.

"mister, you looking for a girlfriend?"Kate Austin

Job: second guessing strong men so they turn into indecisive fops, shoplifter, runner

Bangs: Sawyer she thinks until Juliet ruined their eye contact and made LaFleur kick Jack in the scrotum

Dead? Only if she can still run in Hell

Kate's mission was to stop Jack, until she was convinced after LaFleur kicked the doc's ass. She's the most frustrating character in the history of broadcast television, and she looks more like the captain of a field hockey team than an ingenue at this point. I'm more attracted to a wax replica of Rachel McAdams.

Ilana

Job: Jacob's standard-bearer, leader of the Israelites

Bangs: The David Ben-Gurion looking guy who carries her corpses for her

Dead? More alive than you or I

Ilana's biblical sounding name and devilish rear end came into our lives when she captured Sayid and brought him aboard an Al Ajira flight on her boss' say so. She met Jacob's enemy in Lockian form while on the beach and offered him a mango. She also apparently revealed that Jacob's enemy had occupied the cabin, posing as Christian Shepard and manipulating Claire. To save his sister, Jack's gonna have to kill his dad. That is if he survived a hydrogen bomb. Why am I still watching this show again?

Esau

Job: Jacob killer who can't raise an arm against his island bro

Bangs: No one, hopefully Kate in the final season

Dead? His corporeal form might be gone, but he has Terry O'Quinn's hardbody to tool around in

It was Eloise Faraday's elaborate plan that allowed Esau to inhabit Locke's form. Over the course of the season Ben and Richard commented that Locke seemed different. When they asked him how he knew he had to instruct himself to die, he said that the island told him. That could well be true, but we have little in the way of an idea of why Esau wants to kill Jacob, or what Ben doing so means for the rest of the island. But hey, at least the finale was competitive with Idol in the ratings.

Kris Allen

Job: John Mayer-esque acoustic crooner of Kanye's "Heartless" (mp3)

Bangs: His vapid-looking wife who looks like Juliet did during this episode and will be dumped shortly after the finale next week

Dead? No

Kris' dark horse run has taken him all the way to the finals. Despite Molly's liveblog, it's clear the Adam Lambert backlash has begun. Who exactly are fans of Danny Hokey more likely to vote for? And why did Adam scream the lyrics to U2's "One." I hate that song.

LaFleur

Job: Former director of security, he used to be a rebel, now he's a whipped man.

Bangs: whoever he wants

Dead? "What's done is done"

LaFleur bb, we had such hopes for you. Now you just listen to whatever Juliet tells you, and when she contradicts you, you tell her you have her back. You used to read Ayn Rand. Now you're a fucking collectivist. You represent everything bad that happened to a show I love. Remember when the light went on in the hatch? Remember when the Others took Walt? Remember when that storyline was abandoned when the actor playing Walt got too old? Remember when is the lowest form of conversation, but it was the highest form of televison drama. You had us, and you lost us.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. You can find his previous Lost recap here.

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