Finishing the 'Lost' Puzzle

I love doing 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzles, though when you first break open the box and begin the hunt for all the straight-edged border pieces, the process is rather tedious.

But as one progresses, and you begin to fit together certain sections, such as the blue, cloud-scattered sky, the row of towering trees, or the large red barn in the foreground, it starts to become much more interesting. (At least to puzzle freaks like myself.)

After working on such a puzzle for weeks or perhaps months, the exhilaration crescendos as you approach the final stages. Everything speeds up, as fewer pieces remain, and chunks of pieces fit together.

A similar sense of excitement is what I and my fellow “Losties” are now feeling as “Lost’s” two-hour season 5 finale will be aired this evening (Wednesday, May 13) at 8 p.m.

I consider the show the best network television drama of all-time. (I differentiate network series from cable series, as such commercial free cable shows as “The Sopranos,” “Dexter,” ‘The Wire,” and “Six Feet Under” stand in a class by themselves.)

But for network television, “Lost” is far superior to most if not all of the somewhat mindlessly-juvenile shows produced by NBC, ABC, CBS, and of course Fox.

While I enjoyed the first couple of seasons of “Lost,” at times it seemed like the show was just going in circles. But once the producers set a definite end date and decided to begin moving the plot line forward much more rapidly, I and millions of other fans got caught up in the complexities of a show that is unbelievably complex.

When I say “fans,” I recognize that there are three categories of people who watch “Lost.” Of course like all television shows there are probably some casual fans, though I have difficulty imagining how anyone can just casually or occasionally watch this show.

The casual fan group probably consists mainly of those people for whom the show became far too complex, as the flashbacks of the early years turned into flash forwards, and this season morphed into just plain flashes, as the Island moved back and forth in time, dragging its protagonists along, like shoes tied onto the rear of a “Just Married” car.

(No, that is too simple of an analogy; a better one would have those shoes bouncing back and forth from the road to the closets where they temporarily lived and back to the shoe store where they were purchased, and then back to the road, and then back to the factory where they were created, and then on to the feet…well, you get the point.)

In any case, most of those casual fans probably no longer watch the show. Again, I can’t picture someone just skipping a few weeks and then saying “Maybe I’ll catch ‘Lost’ tonight, just to see if Jack and Kate are still together.”

The next category of “Lost” fans is probably the largest, and I would include myself as a member. We are people who are obsessed with “Lost,” watch every episode at least once and usually twice, and make a serious effort to try and figure out exactly what is happening and where the show is going.

We love the characters, and I mean practically ALL of the characters. I have never watched a television show that had such a large ensemble cast and felt so involved with so many of them.
Here are just a few of my favorites. I can’t get enough of Ben, trying to figure out if I should love, hate, or pity him. And how cool is Hurley, who always says just what I (and most of the viewers) am thinking, seconds before he says it?

Then there’s bad boy Sawyer, with his nicknames for everyone and Richard Alpert, he of the eyelashes that most women would die for.

Of course I was devastated when Charlie drowned and when Daniel Faraday was fatally shot by his mother, Eloise, while she was pregnant with him (if that doesn’t make any sense to you, don’t ask), and Locke, who is an enigma wrapped inside a riddle.

Then there’s Kate. Even though I am happily married, I would run off with “Freckles” in a minute if she snapped her fingers, and my wife knows that but doesn’t care, because I know that she would leave me in a nanosecond if Sayid just whistled.

Anyway, do I understand all the plot twists and turns? Not really, but like most obsessed fans, I am going along for the ride and enjoying every moment. And when on my second viewing of an episode I finally figure out the significance of a particular reference to something that happened in Season 3, it is the same feeling I have when realizing that I can fit that section of flowers perfectly into the lower left corner of my jigsaw puzzle.

Finally, there is the third group of “Lost” fans whose extreme obsession with the show borders almost on psychosis. These are the fans who watch each episode in slow motion, freeze framing every moment in an airport scene so they can point out that while Jack was in line at the ticket counter, his dead father’s ex-girlfriend’s boss was reading a book whose title is an obscure reference to something that will occur three years from now.

I am not sure how large this group is, but I do enjoy perusing the “Lost” bulletin boards where they post their findings, and I must admit I have learned a great deal about the show by reading some of their postings.

So tonight is the season finale, and we know that one more season remains. I do believe with absolute certainty that I will watch tonight’s show and there will be moments when my mouth will drop open in shock and awe. I have absolutely no anxiety that tonight will produce a “Seinfeld-like” letdown.

And tomorrow morning I will read some of the psychotic fans’ postings to try and better figure out what actually happened. Then I will go into “Lost” withdrawal, having to wait about 8 months for the final season to begin.

Unless I can figure out a way to move the lever in the basement of my house so I can flash forward my television set to next February, and hopefully discover whatever happened to Bernard and Rose.