Lost Upset

*disclaimer: I will be talking about some of the things from the latest season of Lost.*

Oh, LOST, how I love thee. Except now that you're messing with my mind in ways I never thought possible. Apparently, after Juliet set off the hydrogen bomb, we now have two alternate realities going on at the same time--one on the island in present day and one back on the plane (that doesn't crash this time). At first, I was like, "Yay! Now none of my favorite characters actually die!" But then, as we are introduced to the beloved characters again, we see them as they used to be, before the island changed them. I was not so excited anymore.

Take Charlie, for example, my all-time favorite character. I was ecstatic to hear that he would be coming back to the show, because, I mean, why couldn't he come back to life? This is LOST we're talking about. But he wasn't the Island Charlie; he was Plane Charlie, the heroine addict who hated the world. I was devastated for his character, and I realized that, though the Island ultimately killed him, it was necessary for him to have been there. It was where he struggled to overcome his drug addiction and where he met Claire. His relationship with her and her baby (affectionately known as "Turniphead") was monumental and endearing. Seeing Charlie grow into a caring and functioning human being throughout the seasons made me love him all the more and made his death that much more heartbreaking. But not as heartbreaking as it was to see him back where he started, barely recognizable.

And let's talk about Sun and Jin, the Korean couple who had many things--family struggles, work issues, infertility--going against them before the crash. Their time on the island taught them how to relate to each other as a couple. No outside restraints, no cultural dictations. Just them. Watching them rediscover their love and respect for each other was so very beautiful. And the fact that the island "gave" them a baby was the icing on the cake. Everything was going so well. Until they were separated by space and time. Talk about another one of those super emotional episodes, the one where we think Jin has just been blown up on the freighter and Sun screams in agony. Still gives me chills. So, you'd think that with the new season, I'd be excited to see them back together. Au contraire! There they were on the airplane, Sun dreaming of the love she wished she knew and Jin scolding her for being immodest and headstrong. The old walls were intact, the old bitterness brewing, the old regrets lingering. Not what I wanted for them.

But with LOST, all this "old character" business could be an illusion. Or a way to show us how sometimes bad things happen to serve greater purposes. If it's the latter, then the writer's are geniuses. And also very daring. I couldn't imagine putting a character I created through difficulties and growing pains only to put them right back in the problem again. All that hard work of redeeming the character going to waste! Yikes! I wonder if I should try it sometime, though, just to see what it feels like...