The Show that I No Longer Understand

Whenever I watch Lost these days, the experience is a little something like this:

KATE: They can’t take my son!
HUGO: Where are the Fritos, dude?
BEN: We have to go back to the island.
CHARLOTTE: I have a headache.
DANIEL: How is your headache?
CHARLOTTE: I still have a headache. Why are you looking at me like that? Do you know what’s happening to me?
DANIEL: Yes. I mean, nuh-uh.
SAWYER: Watch out for the flaming arrows!

Then, as it cuts to a commercial, I’ll sigh and say, “I don’t understand this show.”

“Me neither,” the Mont will reply. Then we’re into the plot again.

BEN: We have to go back to the island.
RANDOM WOMAN FROM TWO SEASONS AGO: They have to go back to the island.
LOCKE: They have to come back to the island.
DESMOND: This has something to do with the island.
SOME CHICK ON A BOAT: I don’t want you to go back to the island.
HUGO: Dude, where are the Hot Pockets?
DANIEL: How is your headache?
CHARLOTTE: Wow, my head hurts. Why . . . why are you looking at me like that? Do you know something?
DANIEL: I am doing my best to convince you that the nosebleed you get every time the island transports itself through time and space has absolutely nothing to do with anything and is probably just a case of the sniffles, while I wrinkle my eyebrows in obvious worry, and this is how you repay me? With questions, woman?
CHARLOTTE: I can see in your eyes you know something.
DANIEL: Oh, that. It’s probably just a sty.
SAWYER: Duck! It’s a nuclear bomb!

Another commercial. “I don’t understand this show,” I’ll murmur.

And I really haven’t understood Lost at all for the last three seasons. Week after week I watch it, through shocking revelation after shocking revelation, and though I have a vague grasp of the plot—I think it has something to do with them needing to go back to the island—I honestly couldn’t summarize in a succinct way where the show has been or where it might be going.

There are frustrations. I get a little bit baffled at how characters who weren’t introduced until last season are allowed to carry so much of the story now, while good characters like Juliet get to tromp around in the background with an air of “What the hell. I don’t know what’s going on, either.” A lot of the show’s mythology has gotten so complicated that it takes a flow chart or a real Lost-o-phile to get any of the nuances. Flaming arrows, nuclear weapons, time travel, hidden relationships, mysterious figures . . . Lost is so chock-a-block with them that I feel a little bit desensitized when the Next Really Important Thing happens. Explosions? Groovy, but I’ve seen them before. Strangers with guns? Oh, that’s so Season Two. Secret Dharma Initiative installations? Well duh!

I no longer understand the show. But I let it all wash over me and don’t worry about making sense of it all. It’s an enjoyable enough ride, so long as I don’t examine too closely what makes it go.