The End (American Pie, Don McLean)

Working through my feelings on the end of LOST a couple weeks ahead of time. Darlton, are you listening?

The End (A LOSTie’s Salute)

A long, long time ago,
Back when television was an idle, passionless routine,
An epic promo stopped me cold.
It seemed like cinematic gold
Created for a more convenient screen.
A fiery crash, a pressing query,
A score that sounded more than eerie.
I embraced this new show,
This fresh Robinson Crusoe,
This stunning tale of tattered lives.
Even if I’m pleased with who survives,
It’s sure to cut like John Locke’s knives
The day The End arrives.

A dry eye will be hard to come by.
No more series, no more theories,
No more castaway high,
And at this point, I’d be a fool to deny
That I hate to bid the Island goodbye.
Hate to bid the Island goodbye.

Do you know I came to love
All the folks who fell from far above
In September of ‘04?
And I soon made room inside my soul
For one crazed Scotsman in a hole
And Ben, who isn’t Henry anymore.
I’ve envisioned Richard as a sage
Since I noticed that he doesn’t age.
Fantastic Frank’s a find,
And I dig dear dizzy Dan's mind.
I sympathized with Dogen’s tragic case,
And Ilana touched me with her quiet grace.
I just don’t see how I can face
The day The End arrives.

I guarantee a dry eye will be hard to come by.
No more series, no more theories,
No more castaway high,
And at this point, I’d be a fool to deny
That I hate to bid the Island goodbye.
Hate to bid the Island goodbye.

Now for six years, it’s been on the air.
No other series can quite compare
In terms of sheer complexity.
Every episode hides a crucial clue.
Stranger in a Strange Land matters too,
Though tattoos are not exactly key.
Who’d’ve thought that run-down DHARMA van
Would fuel a hero’s rescue plan?
Who knew the code equates
To Jacob’s Candidates?
You’ve dropped crumbs along the twisted trail.
What tiny Season One detail
Will clinch who wins and who will fail
The day The End arrives?

I’m convinced a dry eye will be hard to come by.
No more series, no more theories,
No more castaway high,
And at this point, I’d be a fool to deny
That I hate to bid the Island goodbye.
Hate to bid the Island goodbye.

Faith and reason, loyalty and treason,
Enigmas deepening every season.
Cuselof, I tip my hat.
The polar bears, Hurley bird
And ancient monster are so absurd;
I appreciate it all the more for that.
There’s a four-toed statue on the beach.
When wet Walt spouted garbled speech
And Jacob’s cabin shook,
I had to take another look.
How do pylons form a Smokey shield
And why are Temple bathers healed?
What mysteries will be revealed
The day The End arrives?

I guarantee a dry eye will be hard to come by.
No more series, no more theories,
No more castaway high,
And at this point, I’d be a fool to deny
That I hate to bid the Island goodbye.
Hate to bid the Island goodbye.

Now all those phrases are in my head,
Like “Are you him?” and “Dead is dead”
And “Live together, die alone.”
“Don’t mistake a coincidence for fate!”
And Jack’s cry, “We have to go back, Kate!”
By leaps and bounds, the lexicon has grown.
It’s always a hoot to spout the names
So snarkily assigned by James.
Though “Jabba’s” kinda mean,
I’m keen on “Mr. Clean”.
All the allusions make me feel obtuse.
How many more will you produce?
My library card will get some use
The day The End arrives.

I’m convinced a dry eye will be hard to come by.
No more series, no more theories,
No more castaway high,
And at this point, I’d be a fool to deny
That I hate to bid the Island goodbye.
Hate to bid the Island goodbye.

I said farewell to Jin and Sun.
Sadly, Charlie’s rock star days are done -
In this dimension, anyway.
Scott and Eko had violent deaths,
And I always will remember Seth’s,
Since you deigned to turn the pilot into prey.
From fatal falls and time disease
To filicide (curse you, Eloise!),
You’ve shown a special talent
For killing off the gallant.
Michael wound up a remorseful ghost.
Sayid repented and then was toast.
I wonder who I’ll miss the most
The day The End arrives.

I guarantee a dry eye will be hard to come by.
No more series, no more theories,
No more castaway high,
And at this point, I’d be a fool to deny
That I hate to bid the Island goodbye.
Hate to bid the Island goodbye.

I’m convinced a dry eye will be hard to come by.
No more series, no more theories,
No more castaway high,
And at this point, I’d be a fool to deny
That I hate to bid the Island goodbye.

God Help Us All (God Only Knows, Brian Wilson / Tony Asher)

Ben: What happens if I can't get them all to come back? Eloise Then God help us all.
- The Lie

Eloise and Ben don't seem to like each other very much. Here, to the tune of the Beach Boys' God Only Knows, she tries to impress upon him the urgency of his mission.

God Help Us All

I saw you light that candle.
So, is this job too much to handle?
Are six recruits too many?
Good gracious, have you got any?

God help us all if you don’t collect them.

In seventy more hours,
We’ll have to trust in higher powers
If your talent still proves lacking.
Come on, Benjamin, get cracking!

God help us all if you don’t collect them.

God help us all if you don’t collect them.

In seventy more hours,
We’ll have to trust in higher powers
If your talent still proves lacking.
Come on, Benjamin, get cracking!

God help us all if you don’t collect them.
God help us all if you don’t collect them.
(God help us all if you don’t collect them.)
God help us all if you don’t collect them.
(God help us all if you don’t collect them.)
(fadeout)

Penny Milton (Pretty Woman, Roy Orbison)

Desmond: I don't know...I don't know what I felt.
Daniel: Yes, you do. You felt love.
Desmond: That's impossible, because I don’t know anything about this woman, I don't know...I don't know where she is. I don't even know if she exists. She's...she's an idea.
- Happily Ever After

Desmond and Penny are fated to find each other, but there always seem to be complications. Here, Sideways Desmond battles Eloise before getting some help from Daniel about Penny's whereabouts, to the tune of Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman.

Penny Milton

Desmond: Penny Milton. That’s the name they said.
Penny Milton. But is it in my head?
Penny Milton.
I have to struggle to understand
The words I saw on Charlie’s hand.
Penny...

Penny Milton. Could it really be?
Penny Milton. Is she the one for me?
Penny Milton.
I need some answers, Eloise.
Let me see that guest list, please.
Now!

Eloise: Penny Milton? Just forget.
Desmond, you’re not ready yet.
Your arrival is a threat to me.

Desmond: Penny Milton. So surreal,
And I can’t conceal my zeal.
Penny Milton, now revealed to me.
But this Penny, does she exist?
Would it be crazy if I persist?

Penny Milton. I’m losing steam.
Penny Milton. Is she a dream?
Penny Milton. I know what I feel. It’s real.
But am I chasing a mere ideal?

Daniel: Now there’s no reason for such gloom.
She’s my half-sister, Mr. Hume.
Take it from me.
I can tell you where she’ll be.
Yes, I know just where she’ll be.
You’ll find Penny Milton.

Blow Up the Island (Blow Up Your TV, John Prine)

Daniel: I think I can negate that energy under the Swan. I think I can destroy it. If I can, then that hatch will never be built, and your plane... your plane will land, just like it's supposed to, in Los Angeles. Kate: And just how exactly do you plan on destroying this energy?
Daniel: I'm gonna detonate a hydrogen bomb.
- The Variable

Daniel had a crazy plan for fixing the castaways' predicament. Here's a song about that, to the tune of John Denver's version of John Prine's Blow Up Your TV.

Blow Up the Island

Daniel: I caught a sub here from Ann Arbor, and you know why I came back?
That photo in the paper of your DHARMA welcome, Jack.
Well, it seems my mother fed you her old talk of destiny.
You gave her a say and you tried things her way,
But now lend your ears to me.

Blow up the Island!
(Jack: Blow up the Island?)
Daniel: It’s the variation
(Jack: Crazy variation!)
Daniel: In the equation that is the key.
We can change what happened.
(Jack: Can we change what happened?)
Daniel: We can strike your stranding. Yes, Jack.
(Jack: Can we strike our stranding?)
Daniel: Make it a landing. We’ll be free.

My mother is an Other. She’s the one who brought you here.
But I bet she didn’t say you’d wind up in another year.
She left that little detail out, and she clearly led you wrong.
She can show how to go back where we all belong.

Blow up the Island!
(Jack: Blow up the Island?)
Daniel: It’s the variation
(Jack: Crazy variation!)
Daniel: In the equation that is the key.
We can change what happened.
(Jack: Can we change what happened?)
Daniel: We can strike your stranding. Yes, Jack.
(Jack: Can we strike our stranding?)
Daniel: Make it a landing. We’ll be free.

In just a few more hours, at the site you call the Hatch,
The DHARMA folks will blunder into a hidden patch.
Since that energy is fatal, they will seal it and keep it at bay.
If the Swan and the button are gone, you’ll never crash that day.

Jack: Let’s blow up the Island!
(Kate: Blow up the Island?)
Jack: It’s the variation
(Kate: Crazy variation!)
Jack: In the equation that is the key.
We can change what happened.
(Kate: It won’t change what happened.)
Jack: We’ll strike our stranding. Yes, Kate,
(Kate: It won’t strike our stranding.)
Jack: We will make it a landing. We’ll be free.

Blow Up Your TV

Jughead (Whispering Jesse, John Denver)

Richard: How do I know you weren't sent here on some suicide mission? That I'll take you out to the bomb, and you'll just detonate it?
Daniel: Because... I'm in love with the woman sitting next to me. And I would never... I would never do anything to hurt her.
- Jughead

After Ab Aeterno, that scene in Jughead in which Daniel's love for Charlotte wins Richard over seems even more meaningful. At the time, I took it as a mark in Richard's favor, that he's noble enough to recognize the value of true love, but it goes deeper than that. Like Daniel, he has loved deeply, so he empathizes, and I think he senses Daniel's sincerity. Daniel, who I have come to think of as "the little prince" referred to in the episode that followed and who never has seemed more authoritative than in this brief stay in 1954. Here's a recreation of their conversation to the tune of John Denver's Whispering Jesse.

Jughead

Richard: So you are the leader, and I hear from Ellie
You don’t want to tell me where your comrades have gone.
Daniel: And why would I do that? You just want to kill them.
Richard: We didn’t start this, friend. The battle lines have been drawn.
Your people came calling with evil intentions.
Did Ellie here mention that they fired first?
Daniel: We weren’t with those soldiers. We’re on a mission.
Let me disarm that bomb before it can burst.

I think the device is in need of new casing,
Which I am basing on these burns on this man.
If you send me over there, I know I can fix it.
Richard: I wish I could trust you; don’t know how I can.
I ought to fear you because you might be here to
Detonate Jughead and blow us away.
Daniel: I love this woman who’s sitting beside me.
I never would hurt her. Believe what I say.

Richard: Detonate Jughead?
You won’t, you’ve convinced me.
Your manner is princely.
You’re guided by love.

Whispering Jesse

Eloise (Edelweiss, Richard Rodgers / Oscar Hammerstein)

"This man walked into camp and put a gun to my head, and Eloise... reacted."
 - Richard, Follow the Leader

One of the moments on LOST that has stuck with me the most is the death of Daniel Faraday. I've written about it from two different perspectives. Here's a third, the sage Richard's, which is later echoed by Jack, to the tune of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Edelweiss, from The Sound of Music.

Eloise

Richard: Eloise, Eloise.
Must you be such a hothead?
Look at me. Do you see
Who it was that you shot dead?
That was your son, so what you have done
Brings no satisfaction.
Eloise, Eloise.
What a fatal reaction!

Richard: Eloise,
Jack: Eloise,
Richard: Eloise.
Jack: Eloise.
Richard and Jack: Must you be such a hothead?
Richard: Look at me.
Jack: Look at me.
Richard: Do you see
Jack: Do you see
Richard and Jack: Who it was that you shot dead?
Jack: That was your son, so what you have done
Brings no satisfaction.
Eloise, Eloise.
What a fatal reaction!

Crazytown (The Orange and the Green, traditional)

"What about you? You wanna stay here in Crazytown or help me rescue the geek?" - Sawyer, Jughead

LOST's book-loving Sawyer is a natural-born storyteller. I had fun last year wriitng a parody in which he recounts his experience in LaFleur, and this is the same basic idea, but instead it's The Lie and Jughead, and it's addressed specifically to Juliet, to the tune of the Irish Rovers' version of The Orange and the Green. (Hat-tip to Amanda at GritFX, who partly inspired this one with one of her awesome designs.)

Crazytown

I said, “I’ll give you two options.
Which challenge will you seek?
You wanna stay in Crazytown
Or help me save the geek?”

While we sat there on the shoreline,
Just regrouping with the rest,
We saw a flaming arrow
Hittin’ Frogurt in the chest.
Well, of course, we ran for cover;
I yelled, “Meet at the creek!”
And we got separated from
The redhead and the geek.

I said, “I’ll give you two options.
Which challenge will you seek?
You wanna stay in Crazytown
Or help me save the geek?”

I guess it wasn’t quite so smart
To give away our mark.
Yeah, it would’ve worked out better
If we’d kept ‘em in the dark.
Well, thank goodness for the Colonel.
Yes, I bless his big bald head,
For if not for him and his huge knife,
We’d probably be dead.

I said, “I’ll give you two options.
Which challenge will you seek?
You wanna stay in Crazytown
Or help me save the geek?”

We asked the hothead Others
About where they came from.
You busted out the Latin,
And I felt a little dumb.
But not as dumb as Rambo,
Who went to talk to Rick
While Dan was bein’ death marched.
Oh, it kinda made me sick.

I said, “I’ll give you two options.
Which challenge will you seek?
You wanna stay in Crazytown
Or help me save the geek?”

You saw her with a rifle
Aimed right at Faraday
And offered, “Hey, why don’t we all
Just put our guns away?”
Your voice was calm and quiet,
But you still were firm enough
To rattle Miss Attila
And to prove to me you’re tough.

I said, “I’ll give you two options.
Which challenge will you seek?
You wanna stay in Crazytown
Or help me save the geek?”

Well, just then we flashed through time again,
And she whizzed out of sight.
But Blondie, you’ve got chutzpah
And I guess that you’re all right.
I thought that back with Freckles,
My love life hit a peak,
But now I see you with new eyes
Since we rescued the geek.

I said, “I’ll give you two options.
Which challenge will you seek?
You wanna stay in Crazytown
Or help me save the geek?”

I said, “I’ll give you two options.
Which challenge will you seek?
You wanna stay in Crazytown
Or help me save the geek?”

Before He Had Been Born (The Wind That Shakes the Corn, Traditional)

One of the saddest stories on LOST is that of Daniel Faraday, the gentle, addled quantum physicist killed by his own mother. In an earlier parody, I imagined that he died believing that she had led him as a lamb to the slaughter. Here, I take her perspective, and I imagine something a little different - that she insisted so intensely on his studies in hopes that he would find a way to undo her fatal moment (without ripping a gaping hole in the space-time continuum).

For this, I picked another tragic tale of love lost in wartime: the traditional Irish ballad The Wind That Shakes the Corn, as sung by the Irish Rovers. (I'm also assuming that Daniel was born after the Incident - that he was the baby with whom Eloise was pregnant at the time. If that's not true, this parody has a fundamental flaw...)

Before He Had Been Born

I stepped in on a shocking scene. 
I stepped in with my gun.
Back then, I was the Island queen, 
The boss, the number one.
I meant to rescue Richard, though 
He greeted me with scorn
When I took aim and shot my son 
Before he had been born.

I watched his fingers fleetly play 
The music he adored.
I made him cast his dreams away; 
It pierced me like a sword. 
But still, I set him on his path, 
Although my heart was torn,
In hopes I wouldn’t shoot my son 
Before he had been born.

He grew into a physicist 
With such a brilliant mind.
I thought, “If only I had missed!” 
He was so sweet and kind.
And still he seemed a shattered man, 
So frazzled and forlorn,
Yet unaware I’d shot him dead 
Before he had been born.

“Whatever happened, happened” was 
His often-heard refrain.
I hope that he was wrong because 
If not, I strove in vain.
I pray he’ll somehow change the past 
So I’ll no longer mourn
That in coldest blood, I shot my son 
Before he had been born.

My Mother Was Armed (Brothers in Arms, Mark Knopfler)

With The Variable, LOST has now reached the 100-episode mark, and what a momentous episode it was. Eccentric physicist Daniel Faraday finally got the limelight to himself, but it wasn't such a pleasant experience for him. Here are some thoughts I have running through his head in the last moments of the episode, to the tune of Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms.

My Mother Was Armed

So here's the fulfillment of my grand destiny.
All my life, she pretended to care about me.
Upon my return here to send out the alarm,
She knew I would be burned here. My mother was armed.

The advance toward destruction began as a child.
My dreams were worth nothing; they were dashed and reviled.
"Because you are gifted," she said as she smeared on the smarm.
She guided and grifted. My mother was armed.

In the slowly seeping stain that started with her gun,
Will she see the pain of her disillusioned son?

Who am I to rebel and to want to know why?
If I've done my job well, then it's worth it to die.
But her message in my journal is no longer a balm.
How brutal to learn that my mother was armed!

A Flash Before My Eyes (Same Old Lang Syne, Dan Fogelberg)

It's Desmond time again, from the same episode as before. Here, he's grumbling to himself about his recent experience following an attempt by Charlie to find out what he's been up to. To the tune of Dan Fogelberg's Same Old Lang Syne.

A Flash Before My Eyes

I'm sorry, brother; you don't want to know -
And if you knew, you'd not believe -
What I have felt, the things I've heard and viewed,
All the insights I've received...

I struggled to enlighten John at first
And said his plan was suicide.
But when that failed, I made the whole hatch burst,
Hoping Kelvin hadn't lied.

With crimson droplets drying on my hand,
I woke bewildered on the floor,
Beholding Penny, who I cherish
And I had feared I'd see no more.

Still dazed and wondering if it was true,
I sought her father for a chat
To speak the words I hadn't dared before,
But he pounded my dreams flat.

He drank a toast to privilege,
So icy and high-brow,
As his derision drove me to the edge.
Could I defy him now?

Armed with a second chance, I wouldn't let
The moment pass. I had to try.
Forget her father! I would make a stand
With the best ring I could buy.

Yes, I intended to propose to her,
But in another flash I knew
That I must leave her, though it tore
My tarnished heart and soul in two.

That creepy woman from the jewelry store
Declared to me while my head swirled
That hurting Penny was my destiny
And I had to save the world.

He drank a toast to privilege,
So icy and high-brow,
As his derision drove me to the edge.
Could I defy him now?

He drank a toast to privilege;
I stammered in surprise,
Reliving my abasement in
A flash before my eyes.

I sadly stumbled to the pub that night,
Reviewing my distressing day.
Was it self-sacrifice or just self-doubt?
Did it need to end that way?

Was I heroic or was I a fool?
I contemplated it, and then
I opened up my eyes and I was on
This island once again.