SPOILER WARNING:  This blog entry will reveal some of the plot/events that took place on the television show ‘LOST’ that aired on 3/13/08.  If you haven’t seen that episode, and you don’t want the show spoiled, you may want to not read any further.

Last night’s episode of LOST was the worst ever.  I mean, EVER.  In order to create suspense and tension, the show resorted to lying to the audience– withholding information that would have been easily available if they’d been truthful; and outright deception.  What’s disappointing about this is that it marks an enormous break from how the series normally creates suspense, tension, and dread.

LOST has been very successful in keeping millions of viewers in suspense– some would say in the dark.  This is the fourth season– we’re starting to anticipate/expect answers now.  We’re getting some of them, but last night’s episode utterly broke my expectations.  That is, I’m not sure that I can trust what the show tells me any longer, because the writers went out of their way to manipulate me into believing something that was not true.

It’s acceptable  to keep your audience in the dark; it’s fine to withhold information from the characters (and possibly the audience).  It’s not fine to LIE.

Here’s the set up:  Sun is in labor.  She’s rushed to the hospital where she keeps calling out for her husband, Jin.  The doctors and nurses state that they are trying to contact Jin.  We are shown Jin rushing into a store and purchasing a stuffed panda for someone in a maternity ward.  He gets a phone call, and says he’s on his way to the hospital right now.  Cutback to Jin, she’s in pain, wants her husband.  Cut back to Jin, he loses the panda, has to buy another, gets another phone call, and “YES I’M COMING TO THE HOSPITAL RIGHT NOW!”  The baby is born, Jin is not there.  Jin rushes into the hospital, carrying the stupid panda– and we find out that he’s taking the panda to a completely different woman.  And he states he and Sun have only been married two months.

Jin’s scenes were all pre-Island.  Sun’s scenes were all post island.  Jin’s really dead, and Sun had been calling out for him in her pain-killer induced delirium.

The stupid panda should come to life ala-Hobbes (or the pvp Panda) and maul the writers.  I imagine them now, sitting in their swanky LA offices, sipping on double-mocha-Irish-toffe-spritz-of-smarm coffee and smirking about how clever they are.

“Tom, you’re so clever.”

“No, Abram, you’re clever.”

“Haw, haw!  What’s that panda doing in here—AWRRRRKguuurgle!”

Yes.  It’s that serious a crime.  Manipulating the audience’s emotions by presenting to them what the characters believe to be truth (but isn’t really) is A-OK.  Manipulating the audience’s emotions by GIVING them the truth, and hiding the truth from the characters  is A-OK.  Manipulating the audience’s emotions by hiding the truth from them when the characters know the truth, when the truth is salient and pertinent is NOT A-OK.  It’s not even B-OK.  It’s panda-attack worthy, because it destroys the audience’s trust in the writer.

How can we trust anything that the writers on LOST tell us now?  We can’t.  It was difficult enough to keep going, with all the shifting back and forth between flashbacks and present-time, between future and present.  Now, we’ve got to contend with the writers of the show LYING to us?  As my two year old would say, “No.  Unh-uh.  No, man.”

Fifty whacks with a perturbed marsupial.  And no more lattes.