True Confessions (or, My Secret Shame)

[sinanju]

Deep in my secret heart of hearts I look at the people who are still watching LOST and I point.  And mock.  And laugh.

How can those deluded fools keep coming back for more when there is clearly no "there" there?  The writing sucks.  The PTB have admitted in interviews that, among other things:

1. The mysterious numbers have no significance, they're just there to be cool and mysterious.
2. They don't think they'll ever be able to explain all the mysterious stuff that's happened--and will happen--on the island.
3. They don't expect they'll ever even TRY to wrap up all the mysteries.  Or any of them, most likely.
4. They think the show is all about the character development (despite the fact that all the character development apparently took place long before they reached the island, and we're going to be treated to every character-forming moment in excruciating, repetitive detail....)

It can also be inferred from what they've produced (though they have never stated it openly) that they believe/think:

1. Viewers can't get enough of Jack.  And Kate.  And Sawyer.  And the UST between them.
2. They have no idea how to write the original characters, hence the murder of Boone and Shannon, and the character assassination on Locke.
3. Therefore, they continue to introduce more new characters than the producers of Gilligan's Island had tromping across the island every week.
4. Human beings never communicate with one another except to shout and snark, never to exchange useful and important information.
5. Viewers can't get enough of Ana Lucia, though from what I've seen on the net, she's almost universally reviled.

As I say, I look at LOST viewers and point.  And mock.  And laugh.

But--and here's the awful, awful truth.

I'm just like them.  Only my drug of choice is SMALLVILLE.  I keep trying to get away, but then I weaken and I go back.  I watched the 100th episode last night.

OMG! Clark took Lana to the cave!  He told her his alien origins!  He showed her his super powers!  He asked her to marry him!
She said yes!  The fool!  The foolish fools!  Both of them.  Don't they get it?  Don't they understand?  She'll be dead before the episode is over!

I was wrong.  She was dead before the second commercial break (including the opening credits).  Pa Kent beats Lex like a red-headed stepchild in the Senatorial campaign and wins the seat.  Lana goes to see Lex, who is doing his best to climb into a bottle of no doubt very expensive booze.  Lex, with his keenly honed homoerotic senses, instantly realizes that Lana is privy to Clark's hot, throbbing secret.  They fight.  Lana flees.  She calls Clark on her cell phone.  Lex's fancy sportscare races up beside her.  Lex tries to get her to stop so they can "talk."

Lana's car gets T-boned by a speeding bus.  Clark hears it all on the phone.  Arrives just in time to find Lana really most sincerely dead.  COMMERCIAL BREAK.

I'm so f'ing happy I could cry.  Yay!  Lana's dead.  At long, long last she's gone.  The angst-ridden on-again, off-again relationship is finally, blessedly, gloriously OVER!

I'm such a trusting fool.

Clark goes to his Fortress of Ignorance and browbeats Jor-El's ghost to save Lana.  Jor-El says it can't be done.  "We are not Gods," he says...just before he presents Clark with the magical golden ticket (well, okay, magical crystal) that will allow the bearer ONE FREE REPLAY.  Can't ever be done again, think carefully, yadda, yadda, yadda.  All Clark hears is "FREE REPLAY" echoing in his shell-like ears.

So Clark goes back in time and chokes on his date to tell Lana the truth.  She breaks up with him.  Clark plots to keep her safe, lest--in FINAL DESTINATION fashion, Fate decides to take her out anyway.  And, in classic FINAL DESTINATION fashion, Fate does it's best to kill Lana.  But Clark prevails!  Lana lives!

Meanwhile, Pa Kent has an altercation with Lionel Luthor in the Kent family barn.  Then has a heart attack and keels over deader than a pet shop parrot in a Monty Python skit.

Oh the angst!  Oh the irony!  Clark is consumed with guilt, AS WELL HE SHOULD BE!  But Ma Kent, ever the loving mother, ignores the fact that if her selfish, super-powered adopted child hadn't FUCKED WITH TIME to save the object of his obessive attentions, her husband of [mumblety-mumble] years would still be alive!  She tells him it's not his fault, a patently absurd untruth.

Cut to the funeral in (suddenly) snow-covered Smallville.  Clark is stoic (or just badly acted).  Ma Kent is broken up.  Lana is there with Clark, but lets go his hand after the funeral is over and walks away.  Lionel Luthor cruises past the grieving attractive widow with a look that says, "Uhmmm, tasty.  Attractive AND useful.  You're mine, you just don't know it yet."

I can't believe I watched this!  I can't believe I thought Lana was really-o, truly-o dead.  I should know better.  God knows they've "killed" people on this show over and over again, only to bring them back.  I guess I just wanted it to be true so badly that I ignored all those years of experience.  It hurt!  It burns!

And yet...I know that while I'll probably skip half the remaining episodes this season, I won't skip them all.  I'll keep watching.

Help me.