Avatar: The Last Airbender: A Fully Realized World

First up, I want to say that something pretty cool happened yesterday. I recently started taking Kung Fu lessons, and my Sifu told a few people in the class yesterday that he recently saw the film version, The Last Airbender, and that he liked it and thought that the story was true to Daoist notions of balance. In addition to the fact that the creators hired a sifu trained in various styles of Chinese martial arts (each bending style was modeled after a different kind of martial art) to act as consultant to ensure the animation accurately reflected the different styles, this shows that the creators tried to bring a level of legitimacy and accuracy to a "kids show," a genre not always known for realism or accurate portrayals.

This is further evidence of the show's maturity and ability to create a believable world, despite the presence of people who can manipulate the elements, flying bison, and active spirits. People still act like people, and are driven by various motivations, such as pride, greed, nationalism, morality, and survival, and the various world of the the series reflects this. Much like Joss Whedon's Buffy or J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, the fantastic elements of the series reinforce the realness of the world, rather than detract from it. For example, bending is not an inherently known skill, but rather benders must train and hone their skills. How people approach their training informs how they will use their skills (compare Aang, who is a reluctant fighter, with Zhao, a firebending soldier with little control over his skills and less desire to achieve control).

Avatar examined a lot of things that are relevant in our world but were presented in fantastic ways in the series. Similar to The Wire (though nowhere near as deep, gritty, or realistic, obviously), Avatar examined the "everything is connected" statement. The world of Avatar is divided into four nations: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. Each nation produces people who can bend their nation's element (not everyone is a bender, though), and each has its own culture and sub-cultures (for example, the Earth Kingdom capital city of Ba Sing Se has a metropolitan culture, while the island of Kyoshi in the Earth Kingdom has its own culture, based on the teachings of Kyoshi, a previous Avatar). Yet, the four nations are all part of the same world, and what happens in one can have drastic effects on the others. The most drastic example came in the Season 1 finale. Without going into specifics, the aforementioned Admiral Zhao tried to strike a blow to the Water Tribes that would likely have destroyed the world had he succeeded. His short-sightedness and desire for victory at any cost blinded him to the fact that his plan involved fundamentally altering the way the world operated.

Another example, which isn't explicitly stated in the series, but was addressed by the creators, has to do with one reason why the Fire Nation started the war that is at the center of the series. The Fire Nation is much more technologically advanced than the other three. The creators noted that it was experiencing a kind of industrial revolution; whereas the other three nations were still using wood ships powered by wind, the Fire Nation had created iron ships powered by coal. They developed tanks and other weapons of war with which the other three nations could barely compete. But the Fire Nation isn't that big, and most of its land is volcanic, so it needed resources. The Fire Nation believed that its needs justified a war, and in the process of acquiring more resources, people's lives were torn apart. A shortage of resources in one place led to catastrophic consequences elsewhere.

But as the years went on (the war had been going on for nearly 100 years by the time the series started), another justification was needed for the war, which brings me to another thing the series portrayed: motivation. The Fire Nation created an extensive propaganda campaign to convince its citizens that the culture of the Fire Nation was superior to that of the other nations, and that the purpose of the war was to "enlighten" the other nations. Of course, this created a strong backlash against the Fire Nation in the other nations (another example of connections and how every action has an equal and opposite reaction), and many, including lead characters Katara and Sokka, saw the Fire Nation as nothing but evil. Their history with the war motivated them to join Aang in his quest to take down the Fire Nation. Toph, another of Aang's companions, had never been affected by the war, but chose to join him in response to her oppressive home life. Two of my favorite characters, Zuko and Iroh, are Fire Nation royalty, and their stories may be the best in the series. Zuko is the exiled prince of the Fire Nation and Iroh is his uncle. Zuko begins by desiring nothing but to capture the Avatar, hoping that doing so will allow him to return home and "restore his honor," but as time goes on he is affected by the world around him, including Iroh. Iroh is a former general (among other things) who has grown tired of fighting and
joined his nephew in exile. Various tragedies in his past have brought Iroh to where he is as the series begins, and his outlook on life and the world, much different than those of Zuko, help guide their journey.

One of my favorite things the series did was humanize the citizens of the Fire Nation, many of whom didn't know better and were treated just as poorly by the Fire Nation army as was "the enemy." The series made sure to remind us that not everyone in an aggressor nation agrees with the aggression and is culpable (see also Persepolis). On the other hand, another character I really enjoy watching, Princess Azula, deserves all of the anger and hatred directed at the Fire Nation. I'm kind of shocked that the creators were allowed to include a psychopath like her into a "kids show" (on the other hand, her violence was strongly tempered). She is manipulative, unfeeling, and calculating. She lusts for power, and does everything to please her father, in hopes that she will one day ascend to the throne of the Fire Nation.

As I've said, even though this is a kids show on the surface, it has depths unheard of in most shows aimed at children. In many ways, it's almost Pixar-worthy (but not quite). The themes are very relevant to our world, and the characters are fleshed out and "real."

Up next: Welcome to 1965...

Avatar: The Last Airbender: Elements of a Great Series

For the most part, anime has a bad reputation in the United States, mostly because most people are only aware of things like Pokemon and Sailor Moon, which are aimed at children. I have mostly bought into this idea, and getting me to watch anime is like pulling teeth. I had to be convinced for years that I'd enjoy Cowboy Bebop before I actually gave it a chance (and loved it). Avatar: The Last Airbender wasn't made in Japan and imported to the U.S., but it was drawn in the style of anime. That was its first strike against it. The second was that it was on Nickelodeon. And third, it was a "kids show." So with three strikes against it, how did I ever get to watching it? Surprisingly, it took the release of a (reportedly) terrible movie, The Last Airbender. The film adaptation of the series was universally panned by critics, who all said the same things: the lighting and effects were terrible, the acting was bad, and it was a sorry adaptation of a great series. I soon learned that a few of my friends love the show, so I decided to give it a chance. I'm so happy I did.

Like me, many people are skeptical of the show. I tell them that Avatar* is like the Harry Potter of television. Like the book series, Avatar is marketed towards kids, but has many adult elements. It deals with the harshness of war, including the loss of loved ones that results, the demonization of the enemy, genocide, and the weight of responsibility. The characters are very well developed, and keep their personality traits from episode to episode, rather than changing to fit the plot. I was genuinely surprised with the depth and maturity of the events and characters.

The three seasons tell one grand narrative, with a planned beginning, middle, and end. Also, each season tells a smaller story, detailing a part of Aang's, the lead character, journey to become the Avatar, the spirit of the planet manifested in human form. Much like the Harry Potter series, in which each book told a complete story that fit into a grander narrative, the three seasons of the series tell complete but interdependent stories (they also have a "Star Wars original trilogy" vibe to them). And, also like the Potter stories, the characters grow naturally as the show progresses. People develop their fighting abilities, grow as individuals (one character began the show as a sexist who bought into traditional gender stereotypes, but lost these views as he became more exposed to the world), and reassess their worldviews in light of the journeys they take to places outside their homelands.

Up next: A world out of balance...

*For the sake of brevity, I will refer to the show as Avatar instead of typing out its full title each time. Please do not get confused and think I am talking about that fucking smurf movie; you will not find any praise for that film here.

The Walking Dead: Life After Death

AMC is on a roll. Of their four original series, three of them are absolutely amazing (I haven't seen Rubicon yet, and I intend to watch the first, and now only, season, despite its cancellation; also, I plan on going over Mad Men's fourth season and discussing Breaking Bad at some point). Their newest, The Walking Dead, is the first one that is based on an existing work, Robert Kirkman's comic book series of the same name. Only three episodes have aired so far, so this will be more of a primer than an analysis.

The show, much like its comic book origins, is about a small band of people living together in the wake of a zombie-pocalypse. And both the series and the comic have the same statement to make: even in the wake of a terrible tragedy that changes our very way of life, people will still be people. We will still be capable of great heroism and selflessness, but we will also still be capable of horrible acts. Racism, mistrust, and greed will all still exist, and they may actually be ratcheted up by the dire circumstances. When your survival depends upon being extremely careful and well-armed, you might not be willing to give a stranger the benefit of the doubt when they ask you for help. They may be trying to take something valuable from you to save themselves. On the other hand, strength in numbers has never mattered more, so wouldn't mutual trust and help benefit everyone?

So far, the show has been fantastic in pretty much every aspect. The actors are strong, the zombie effects are amazing, and the storytelling and direction have been incredible. The stairwell scene in the pilot is one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen (and if you've seen it, you know how much that matters, based on what happens... and what doesn't).

Anyway, I don't want to say too much else, so enjoy the real and fan-made opening credits:





Up next: Avatar state! Yip yip...

The Wire: Everything Is Connected

One thing The Wire does better than almost any other show out there* is show us how absolutely everything in Baltimore is connected; the fate of one institution or group has a ripple effect that impacts other institutions and groups. For example, a rivalry between a high-ranking police officer and a stevedores union official (having to do with a stained glass window in a church) has an impact on the drug trade because the dock workers are involved in bringing drugs into the city from abroad. Furthermore, the show points out how poor decisions high places, such as police command or city hall, can trickle down and affect the people who are supposed to be protected by the decision makers.

The former notion, that everything is interdependent upon everything else, is a very real concept. Although I hate to put things in such crude terms, when running a city, many things comes down to money, and when you shift money to one place, it is inherently shifted away from somewhere else. In addition, institutions are run by people who form relationships, and depending on how people interact, certain institutions may get more or less favorable treatment. Along those lines, politics and elections matter more than they should. Politicians desire to stay in their elected offices, so they might not make the same decisions in an election year as they would as newly elected or lame duck officers. For example, contrast the difference in Judge Phelan's attitude towards the Barksdale investigation in Season 1; in the series pilot, when McNulty tells Phelan about the reach of the Barksdale drug ring and the possibility of bringing them down, Phelan readily gets behind the idea. However, a few months later, when Phelan is up for reelection (he is a state judge rather than a federal judge), his support nearly disappears until he wins. As many elements of a police investigation are dependent upon court permission, this considerably hinders the investigation.

The police depend on the courts for essential parts of their investigation. The drug trade relies upon the dock workers to help import drugs into Baltimore. The dock workers, who are hurting due to the dwindling shipping trade and advent of machines that make them obsolete, depend on the drug trade to get them money on the side. The police need city hall for money, city hall needs "results" from the police department to keep incumbents in power. And things have become so ingrained that any attempt to make a positive change ultimately fails. As detailed in my last post, Colvin and Carcetti both tried to change the way things were done, only to be met with resistance.

The second point, about poor decisions in the conference rooms of city hall and police command have consequences on the streets is very cynical (as is most of the show), but The Wire very effectively illustrates how this can often happen. To go back to the Hamsterdam example, instead of using the whole experiment as a wake-up call about the ineffectiveness of bust-by-bust policing and viewing the drug problem as a "war," the department fired one of their most forward-thinking, reasonable, and honest commanders and brought back the status quo of putting dealers on every corner, causing innocent civilians to live in fear. Or look at the police station's preference to hold press conferences, complete with "dope on the damn table," rather than keep a low profile and continue investigations. When a task force seized a large amount of drugs and money from the lieutenant of a kingpin they were trying to capture due to information gained from a wiretap, command wanted to hit other "stash houses" turned up by the wire so that they could hold a press conference with all of the captured drugs in an attempt to show the public how good of a job they were doing. Never mind that doing so would potentially tip off the dealers as to the existence of the wire tap.

The Wire is more than a "cop" show. It's a show about a city, and is probably the most effective show ever produced about just how connected we are to each other, regardless of who we are, how much money we make, or what we do.

Up next: Death becomes them...

*Contrast this with Dexter for example. This write-up of a Season 5 episode explains that the plot point about how backlash against the police station in the press is hardly a threat because the show does not spend any time exploring the press or how the backlash affects the police department.

The Social Network: How to Make Friends and Influence People

Lately, I've been pretty depressed with movie news that I hear. Too many movies that are in development seem to be remakes or licenses of properties that were once popular and have a lot of nostalgia value (see: Transformers, G.I. Joe). Various kids cartoons are being adapted for the big screen into wholly brainless films (click on this at your own risk) and M. Night Shyamalan's list film was a live-action adaptation of the first season of an animated TV show. Now even board games are being adapted into films (I admit that Clue was a pretty great movie, but its more the exception to the rule that things without plots tend not to be good movies). So suffice it to say that I was not that excited when I heard that a "Facebook movie" was getting made. Then I saw this:



I had forgotten that Facebook had been the subject of some interesting intellectual property battles. I am training to be an IP lawyer, so the trailer really got to me (copyrights are my preferred area, and I never thought I'd ever hear anyone refer to copyright infringement in such a fear-inducing tone), but even if I weren't, the promise of "corporate" espionage and backstabbing over what would become one of the most defining elements of the decade was enough to completely change my outlook on the film. The more I learned, the more interested I got, and when the overwhelmingly positive reviews began popping up, I remembered why one can't judge a movie's abstract premise (a "Facebook movie" can be so many things, so one cannot possibly judge it on that descriptor alone).

The Social Network succeeded on every level; the story was riveting (made more so by the fact that it is true, or at least Hollywood true), the directing and structure was very well done, and the cast was amazing (I never thought that I would ever be creeped out/terrified by Jesse Eisenberg or be forced to take Justin Timberlake seriously as an actor). The film told the story of how a man with few friends and no social skills became a billionaire for creating a social networking website in which users have turned the word "friend" into a verb to describe the act of "acquiring" "friends." Eisenberg played Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, as a cold, selfish, and emotionally stunted man who's contempt for everyone around him, even his friends, was a manifestation of his barely masked envy.

The film was done as a frame narrative, and is probably the only one that I can think of which had two frames. We see the events of the founding of Facebook and rise of Facebook, Inc. as visualizations of testimony given at two depositions for two separate lawsuits, both of which feature Zuckerberg as a defendant. In one, the plaintiffs were three of Zuckerberg's fellow Harvard students who had hired Zuckerberg to program a Harvard-only social networking site which may or may not have also been intended as a dating site. In the other, the plaintiff was Eduardo Saverin, the original CFO and co-founder of Facebook and, until Zuckerberg betrayed him, Zuckerberg's best friend. Throughout each deposition, Zuckerberg makes glib and insulting comments to the plaintiffs and their lawyers, believing (or at least convincing himself) that they are all just jealous of his intelligence, ingenuity, and success.

The Saverin suit is much more emotional, as the two parties were once good friends (although the film portrayed it in a fairly one-sided manner, with Saverin giving unconditional friendship to a man who tried to undercut Saverin's success due to the resulting envy) and it was clear that what Zuckerberg did was wrong and vile. In creating Facebook, Zuckerberg created the idea (potentially) and programmed the site while Saverin financed the project and acted as CFO and business manager. However, the two had a hard time agreeing on the direction of how the site would earn money. Eventually, they met Sean Parker, the unstable/slimy creator of Napster. Parker charmed Zuckerberg into bringing him into the company in a role that made Saverin redundant. Eventually, Zuckerberg and Parker forced Saverin out in an extremely cruel and sneaky manner (note to fellow law students/lawyers: did Saverin's comment about his belief that the Facebook lawyer was his lawyer, thus contributing to him not having the contracts reviewed by independent counsel make you think that the Facebook lawyer potentially violated his ethical duties?).

The other lawsuit was intriguing to me on a much different level. The three other students believed that Zuckerberg stole their intellectual property when he created a social networking site (that initially only allowed people with harvard.edu email addresses to join) after agreeing to build a Harvard-exclusive social networking site for them. As far as I can remember, the film never explicitly told us what laws the students sued under, but the students kept stating that Zuckerberg violated copyright law in stealing their idea. This intrigued me as a law student focused on copyrights and trademarks because ideas are not protected by copyrights, only expressions of ideas are (yes, I know, that is a little confusing; for this instance, all you need to know is that, until the students had a working social networking site, Zuckerberg could not be liable for using the idea of a Harvard-only networking site because (1) there are many ways to execute that idea, and (2) one group of people should not be able to hold a monopoly on an idea). Zuckerberg did have access to the students' computer code, which, if he used in building Facebook, WOULD be copyright infringement, because code is an expression of an idea, but Zuckerberg vehemently denied using any of their code. The students clearly could state that Zuckerberg violated an oral contract with them and caused them to detrimentally rely on further promises he made in emails to them, but the copyright claim is much more interesting because it is more ambiguous.

Anyway, sorry for boring you with all the law talk. Eisenberg showed a new side to his standard character (like Michael Cera, Jesse Eisenberg tends to play one sort of character; unlike Cera, Eisenberg's hasn't gotten tiresome yet) of awkward intellectual. His Zuckerberg was brimming with cruelty and contempt for everyone around him. His facial expressions alone were enough to make me cringe with discomfort, but when he opened his mouth to speak to people who were supposedly his friends (most notably Saverin and his girlfriend), everything that came out was extremely cruel and angry.

Finally, the movie also did a good job showing how this website has come to affect, and in many ways, dominate our lives, even as the main story of the film was not about the website, but the story behind the website. This ranged from some of Zuckerberg's inspirations for elements of the site (notably the conversation that was responsible for Relationship Status) to the effects of using "Facebook" and "friend" as verbs to describe using the site. The "You didn't update your relationship status" scene was a little over-the-top, partly because that scenario is mocked so often. But, sadly, it is mocked because people DO put a lot of stock into whether a relationship is "Facebook official." As I said earlier, the most significant shift in how we socialize made in the last decade was the work of someone who, according to this film, barely had 5 friends, let alone 500 million. Talk about irony.

Up next: In Baltimore, everything is connected...

P.S.
Seeing as how Facebook shows friends in common and used to have options related to friend degrees (friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends), I find a certain aspect of my viewing of the movie amusing. I saw it with three other people, one of whom attended Harvard at the same time as Zuckerberg and told us about the night he invented Facemash, a sort of precursor to Facebook. And all three of the people I saw it with know one of the people portrayed in the movie (for privacy purposes, I will not say who or how). Very interesting...

The Wire: In the Garden Of...

Before I'd even seen one frame of The Wire, I had heard from nearly every source I respect that if it isn't the greatest TV show ever created, it is certainly one of the top five. The AV Club named it the best show of the decade, and I can't think of a single person who has spoken poorly of it. The show had a lot to live up to, almost too much. It would be nearly impossible for anything to live up to the hype that has been given to The Wire. And yet, somehow, it succeeded.

At first glance, The Wire appears to be yet another cop show. We watch as the police try to catch the gangsters and drug dealers so that the prosecutors can try them for their crimes. But it was so much more. Even if the show never expanded beyond the police station and the drug dealers, The Wire wouldn't have been just another cop show. For one thing, instead of being a procedural, in which a new case is introduced and solved each week, The Wire followed a single case in its first season. Other cases were referenced or briefly glimpsed, but the purpose of showing these other cases was to show that the police are often overworked and that crimes are often connected. The police were also not the black and white characters that they are on my shows, but fully realized people who have their own motives, desires, faults, strengths, and skills. A "good cop," like Jimmy McNulty, still does things that are "wrong," like breaking the chain of command, getting drunk far too regularly, and putting his kids in danger by having them tail a suspect. A "bad cop," like Bill Rawls, isn't a double agent for the criminals, doesn't engage in police brutality, and doesn't act irrationally for the sake of the plot. Furthermore, the show gave just as much screen time to the criminals, revealing that they (for the most part) are just as human and flawed as the cops (I almost wrote "law-abiding characters," but just because someone on the show isn't a drug dealer or gang member doesn't mean that he or she never violates the law).

But the show did expand beyond the police and the drug dealers, examining other institutions in the city of Baltimore (although most of these institutions were in some way related to either the police or the gangs) and showing us how each and every group is flawed or broken in its own way. From the docks, where the local stevedores union assists in importing heroin into the country in exchange for money to use in political lobbying, to the local government, where promises are never kept because partisan politics and a focus on staying in office/ascending the political ladder rather than helping the citizens, to the school system, which has become nothing more than a training ground for future drug dealers, to the news media, which is more focused on winning awards and increasing profits than accurately reporting and reporting on stories that actually matter, The Wire depicts a city that is broken beyond repair, run by people who would sooner continue doing what has been done to maintain an agreed-upon illusion than do anything meaningful or worthwhile. The few who do try and make a change for the better are usually rewarded for their efforts with death, demotion, or public shaming.

Perhaps the two examples that illustrate these points the best are "stat juking" and Hamsterdam. Characters like Cedric Daniels, Bunny Colvin, and Tommy Carcetti often used the phrase "juking the stats" to refer to the practice of manipulating police crime statistics to make it appear as if the police department were effective, when in reality, no positive change had actually occurred. Constantly arresting corner dealers makes it look like many dealers are being taken off the street, but for every dealer that is taken off the streets (usually to be released quickly), two more take his place. Because the crime statistics don't account for this factor, this kind of police work, which focuses on quick, short-term tactics, has come to dominate the city, and most police officers know this. The way to get promoted is to have the best stats, which causes the crime situation to actually become worse. No one tries to make a difference by building a case against the kingpins (except for Daniels and his team, who place a wiretap on one of Baltimore's most powerful drug lords, hence the series title). Daniels and Colvin (both high-ranking police officers), and Carcetti (a politician) dislike the practice, but are basically forced to stick with it for various reasons. Daniels and Colvin face retribution for not keeping good stats. Carcetti attempts to change the police department's way of thinking, but he is constrained by his own political aspirations, and when push comes to shove, he chooses his own future over actually making a difference and keeping his campaign promises.

Hamsterdam embodies the idea that those who try to make a difference for the better ultimately pay a high price for their good intentions and initiative. Colvin had the crazy idea that the police were supposed to protect the people rather than wage war against drug dealers. He theorized that one reason people no longer trust the police is that, in a culture in which crime is treated as a war, the innocent bystanders are inevitably casualties of the war; if the police's mission is to defeat the enemy (drug dealers), then the enemy will exact retribution upon those in their midst who give aid to the police. In addition, because crime is treated as a war, the police use harsh tactics to defeat the drug dealers, which can spill over and affect citizens (example: Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski, a police officer who would eventually redeem himself for this horrific act, blinded a young boy when the boy refused to answer his questions). The citizens are so afraid of the drug dealers that the incentive to give information to the police, having a safer community, is outweighed by fear of what will happen to them and anger against the police for the tactics they use. So Colvin tried to make his district safe for the citizens again and engender trust for the police, whose job it would be to serve and protect, rather than bust heads. Thus, Hamsterdam was born.

Through Hamsterdam, Colvin essentially legalized drugs in his district (the name came from one drug dealer's mispronunciation of "Amsterdam"). Colvin found blocks comprised of vacant houses, tied markers around their boundaries, and had his officers round up all the drug dealers they could find and deposit them in those areas, known as "free zones." Colvin then told the dealers that they would be free to openly sell drugs in the free zones as long as they refrained from using violence and forced buyers to use the drugs there as well (by telling them that anyone leaving with drugs would be arrested). Anyone caught selling/using drugs outside the free zone would get busted and ruin things for everyone else, as Colvin would immediately close down the free zones and arrest all remaining dealers/users. There were two effects: First, the free zones became even bigger hellholes than they already were, as they were populated by nothing but junkies and dealers. Second, the rest of Colvin's district saw a vast reduction in crime. Actual reductions, not false reductions due to manipulated statistics. People started to lose their fear of living there and began trusting the police. Colvin achieved his goal.

But everything came crashing down when the rest of the police department and city hall learned about what had happened. Despite the overall positive effect that Hamsterdam had upon Colvin's district, it was only seen as a horrible (and certainly illegal) action of a rogue police commander. To endorse Hamsterdam would be political suicide and would probably lead to a substantial loss in federal and state funding. So Colvin was forced to retire. But not only that, his superiors in the department blackmailed him into doing so at a lower rank, and thus causing him to receive a lower pension. And if that weren't enough, one superior went the extra step by informing Colvin's new employer of his role in Hamsterdam, thus causing Colvin to lose his new job before starting.

The Wire is a very cynical and pessimistic show, but it is also an extremely intelligent show. All actions have consequences, and there is no such thing as a happy ending, but not because of the cynicism. It's because things never end. When an investigation comes to a close, there is fallout; arresting one person, even a kingpin, simply opens the way for someone to take the arrested person's place. And the end of an investigation does not mean that the person who is arrested will be convicted.

Up next: Social studies...

The Return

Wow it's been a long time since I've been here. I'm really sorry that I haven't updated this thing since May, but life has been very, very busy. I still am busy, but I'm going to try to make an effort to get some new posts up. Sadly for the Rome fans out there, I think I'm going to put that project on hold for now. I may need to rewatch it before I post. Instead, I'm going to move on to two very different shows.

First up, I'll delve into another HBO show, The Wire, which is seen by many as the greatest television show ever made. I wouldn't call it my favorite, but it is definitely one of the smartest, highest quality shows I've ever seen. I will look at how it portrayed the city of Baltimore and how it examined the current state of our nation through the people and institutions of a "broke-ass city."

After that, I will do a run on Avatar: The Last Airbender. I recently watched this in the wake of the new live-action movie, which was universally panned by critics. However, one of the main points in all the reviews was that it was based upon a superb animated series. Eventually I gave it a chance and fell absolutely in love with characters and the world.

Although at first glance it seems like these two shows couldn't be more different, there are more similarities than you'd think. Both are very novelistic in nature; each season tells a story, but the totality of all the seasons make up a greater, overarching story. (I've often described Avatar: The Last Airbender as "the Harry Potter of television" to people in order to pique their interest; in addition to the structure, the character development and themes are very mature for a "kids' show.") They also both deal with very mature ideas, although The Wire does it in a much more real way.

Up next: When you walk through the garden...

LOST: I Don't Care What You Believe, Just Believe It

It all began with an eye opening. Anyway, let me say this right now so you aren't trying to figure it out for yourself based on what I write: I LOVED "The End." I certainly have questions that I wish had been answered (I'll get to them in a bit) but I think that LOST ended in a very emotionally satisfying way, and I feel like the six years I spent watching it (at 24, that's a quarter of my life) were enriched because of it.

The show has always been a science fiction show (you can't watch the pilot, learn about monsters and tropical polar bears and not think something is up), but it has also always been a science fiction show that is about human relationships. Over the past six years (three for the characters), we've watched the characters confront larger-than-life situations, but it has always been about how they collectively react to these situations. They are stronger as a group, but they couldn't help but fracture themselves. Sawyer was bound by feelings of ownership, which kept him an outcast in the group. Kate couldn't let herself get close to anyone due to fear of a past that didn't matter on an Island. And Jack and Locke, who could have been best friends in another life, were always at odds because they couldn't just listen to the other (or take the time to explain themselves). Even though the series pretty definitively came down on the side of faith, Locke still wasn't just "right" because he, like the Man in Black, tried to force his views and beliefs on others, especially those who didn't believe his ideas when he couldn't give a reason for them. Maybe Jack should have had faith, but Jack had to realize it himself.

So what was left for everyone to do in these final two and a half hours? Band together. Every single character worked together to defeat the Man in Black. Ben tricked the Man in Black into trusting him, and relayed information back to Miles, Richard, and an alive-and-well Lapidus, who went to Hydra Island to repair Ajira 316. Rose and Bernard saved Desmond, and Jack, Hurley, Kate, and Sawyer went to meet and destroy the Man in Black. When their group converged with the Man in Black, Ben, and Desmond, Jack and Desmond decided to "help" the Man in Black in his plans in order to turn them on him and destroy him. I think the only other time the entire cast was working for a common goal was the Season 1 finale (though here, Locke was against them and Claire wasn't doing much of anything, but still). Watching everyone work together was amazing, because they finally learned that they had to live together, otherwise they would be dying side by side very quickly. Oh, and it turns out that my "Ben and Hurley: The Series" wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all.

While the Island storyline was very action-packed, the alternaverse story was all about slowly getting everyone together, both physically and mentally. Desmond and Hurley slowly caused everyone to "wake up" and remember their on-Island lives... and their entire lives. Each time someone woke up, we got a quick flash of moments from the show featuring the character, reminding us of some of their greatest hits (to steal from the series). I think it would have been cool to see the lives of those who survived the series, but that would have revealed the truth of the alternaverse too quickly. It's funny, you see. I think that, after seeing 2 episodes all the way back in Season 1, my dad announced that all the characters were dead and that the Island was purgatory. I disagreed, stating that such a twist is now a cliche and the writers were smart enough to know not to do something like "they were dead all along" or "it was just a dream." For something like that to work, it has to mean something (for example, in Neil Gaiman's Sandman, even if something was a dream, it wasn't just a dream, it had real-world consequences). And I was right, the Island was real. They all survived the crash of Oceanic 815. It was the alternaverse that was death. And somehow, the writers made it work. The characters were all lost souls before they came to the Island, and they helped save each other. The alternaverse was a kind of waystation for the souls of the castaways to find each other again in the afterlife. Lovers were reunited, friends got to see each other again, and people were able to apologize to those whom they had wronged. The last 10 minutes or so, featuring about 75% of everyone who has ever been a regular on the show in the church, interspersed with Jack's final moments on the Island, was absolutely incredible.

As for the message of the show, as I said, faith clearly won out over reason. Had I known that would happen at the beginning of the season, I would have been slightly upset. I am a man of reason, and I have always favored Jack over Locke, even though both have made some very poor decisions over the course of the show. But I ended up enjoying the way the show dealt with faith. It didn't tell us what to believe, just to believe something (the church has a stained glass window with symbols relating to various major religions; by the way, does the wheel represent Hinduism because of the cycle of reincarnation, or was it supposed to be the frozen wheel that Ben turned?). Jacob had his way of running things that still caused people to follow him, but that doesn't mean that Hurley couldn't do things differently. And there will always be things beyond our comprehension, and although I think that we should always try to understand as much as possible, sometimes it's better to take a chance.

Speaking of things beyond our comprehension, I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't slightly disappointed to not learn the answers to a few questions. I really liked that the writers gave us just enough information about certain things to draw our own conclusions and make our own interpretations for various aspects of the show, but there were a couple things I feel needed to be definitively answered (although I have theories on them). I came into the finale with four questions that I wanted answered. The first was really the only one that truly mattered: Why couldn't women give birth on the Island if the baby was conceived there? The whole crux of the Others' storyline in the first three seasons was that they were taking children and people like Juliet because they couldn't repopulate. The second and third didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things: Who shot at Locke, Juliet, Sawyer, Miles, Daniel, and Charlotte while they were on the outriggers in Season 5 and why didn't Sun go back in time to the 1970s in Season 5? Finally, my last question wouldn't have been answered because it was the product of factors beyond the writers' control: What would have happened with Mr. Eko if he hadn't died (read: if Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje hadn't wanted to leave the show)? There is a great video on College Humor in which Jeff Rubin lists every single lingering question. Some of them I would actually have liked to learn, some are trivial, and some are the results of the television-making process, similar to my Mr. Eko question. Like I said, I have some theories about some of the questions based on the evidence we are given, though more of the answers I've come up with than I'd like to admit are "Jacob is magic and did it" (the big one is I think that because Jacob didn't like Ben, he punished the Others for putting him in charge by making it so that women couldn't give birth; we know that Jacob can "make" things happen, such as immortality, so why not inability to give birth?).

So this is "The End." Like I always say, it wasn't perfect, but then again nothing is (except Mad Men). But we got to look into the hearts and minds of these characters, and what we saw was beautiful.

Up next: Hopefully starting Rome before moving on to The Wire, and then a twin series on Band of Brothers and The Pacific...

LOST: The Final Countdown to 108

"The End" is nigh. Jack is the new Jacob. Not-Locke wants to blow up the Island. Ben is an asshole again. And in the alternaverse, there characters are going to converge at Jack's son's concert.

I have no idea how this is all going to end, but I'm excited as hell.

Up next: The end of an era...

LOST: How We Met Their Mother

If there was ever an episode of LOST to argue for being upfront rather than cryptic, this is it. The lies and not-quite-answers of one person led to immeasurable suffering not only by the two people she raised as her sons, but by nearly everyone to come to the Island since their birth. "Across the Sea" was the origin story of Jacob and, as we definitively learned (though many guessed this), his brother, the Man in Black (I guess I should just start calling him that instead of Titus). Their mother, who looked like she came from ancient Rome, washed ashore on the Island, and was "rescued" by a Woman, played by Allison Janney. After helping deliver Jacob and his brother, the Woman killed the twins' mother and raised them as her own.

As the boys grew up, she treated them differently, nurturing different aspects in each of them. She taught them that there was nothing outside the Island and that there are no people aside from the 3 of them. Of course, the boys learned the truth when they came across their real mother's people (I want to go back through the series and count how many times groups are referred to as someone's "people"). The Woman informs Jacob and the Man in Black that she wanted to protect them from the others (not to be confused with the Others, unless they are the precursors to the Others) because humans are corrupt and she is keeping them safe from such corruption (and yet one of the first things we saw her do was commit murder). She then showed the twins (and the audience) why the Island is so special: It contains the essence of life, death, and time, as represented by a glowing light. But she doesn't exactly tell this to the twins right away. She just gives them a cryptic answer. Soon after, the Man in Black (at this point the Boy in Black) learned that he has powers similar to Hurley and saw the ghost of his mother, who told him the truth about his origins. He decided to live with his people, but Jacob stayed with the Woman.

Decades passed. Jacob and the Man in Black remained in contact, and we learned that the Man in Black's goal was to leave the Island and see his home and other things that were across the sea. He confirms that the people are corrupt (greedy, violent, dishonest), but he stays with them because he needs them to get home. The create a plan that involves digging a well to get to the light and installing a wheel, which will eventually become the wheel used by Ben and Locke to get off the Island. When the Woman learned of this, she brought Jacob back to the light source, explained a little bit more of its importance, and asked him to become its new protector. She also told him never to enter the cavern that housed the light, because horrible things would happen. But she doesn't explain the horrible things that would happen.

The Woman also massacred the people to keep the Man in Black on the Island (yeah, she's totally not corrupt). In response, he killed her. But in response to THAT, Jacob knocked him out (she did something to prevent them from killing each other) and tossed him into the stream leading to the cavern so that the "horrible things" can happen to his brother. And that impulsive act of vengeance created the Smoke Monster. If the Woman had told Jacob what would happen, he would never have sent his brother in to be smokified. If she had been honest to her "sons," the Man in Black might never have rebelled. If only...

Up next: The penultimate peril...

LOST: Race to the Finish

Well damn. The final season of LOST has had its missteps and pacing problems, but I think it's safe to assume that we've entered the final countdown. "The Candidate" proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Titus is an evil, evil being, and must be stopped. There is very little room for moral ambiguity left, and the rest of the characters (I'll explain why I used "rest" soon) need to find a way to contain him.

At long last, Sawyer's plan to hijack Widmore's submarine was executed. After the group (minus Ben, Richard, and Miles, who are off trying to find a way to keep Titus on the Island) reached the Ajira 316 plane, Titus informed them that it was no longer an option because Widmore had placed explosives on it. So they go to the docks and take the sub by force. Jack, whose new zen outlook on life has convinced him to stay on the Island, awesomely knocked Titus into the ocean, allowing Sawyer, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Hurley, Lapidus, and Kate to get on the sub. However, Kate got shot, so Jack had to get on as well to treat her. And poor Claire got left behind, again, with Titus. Though she actually got lucky because of this.

When Jack reached into his backpack to get his med kit for Kate, he made the horrifying discovery that Titus planted a bomb to get rid of the Candidates once and for all. But Jack, although scared, thinks that they are safe. He believes that Titus cannot directly kill them, and that, if they do nothing, the bomb won't go off, similar to how Titus couldn't kill Jacob and how the dynamite in the Black Rock didn't ignite when Jack and Richard were inside. But Sawyer, who has very good reason not to listen to Jack's crazy theories anymore, didn't listen to Jack's crazy theory and tried to diffuse the bomb, only to make the countdown clock tick faster. Sayid, likely ashamed of having helped Titus for the last 8 episodes, sacrificed himself to try and save the rest of the group by taking the bomb and running as far away from his friends as possible. Still, an explosion on a sub is never a good thing, and the group needed to get off the sub as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Lapidus was knocked out by a hatch blown off its hinges by the water pressure outside, and his current fate remains unknown (I really hope he made it out, but it's unlikely). Jack ordered Hurley to help the injured Kate off the sub, while he, Sawyer, and Jin tried to save Sun, who was trapped behind some debris. Unfortunately, she was also entangled in some metal beams, and no amount of effort by the rest of the group could free her. After Sawyer got knocked out by some falling metal, Jack brought him to shore, leaving Jin struggling to save his wife. Knowing that her death was imminent, I'm surprised that she didn't try to persuade Jin to leave her by telling him that Ji Yeon, their daughter, needed him, especially because the writers reminded us of her earlier in the episode. But now, both Kwons drowned, leaving the world holding hands.

In the course of one episode, three lead characters died for sure, and one most likely did as well. All that remain of the Candidates are Jack, Hurley, and Sawyer. Kate is with them, while Ben, Richard, and Miles are elsewhere on the Island. And Claire is stuck with Titus, who is plotting the deaths of his final three nemeses. Hope for the 815 survivors and their friends is nearly gone. And so we come to the last 4 episodes of LOST. It's going to be an interesting couple of weeks.

EDIT
Wow, I totally forgot to talk about the sideways universe, which surprises me because I had something that I really wanted to point out. The alternaverse plot was good, but what really got to me was how "sideways" the relationship between Locke and his father is in that universe. In both the Island world and the sideways world, Anthony Cooper was present when Locke lost the use of his legs, but his role couldn't be more different. In the Island universe, their mutual disdain for each other led to Cooper pushing Locke out an 8th story window. But in the altneraverse, it was their love for each other that brought them to the same place where Locke lost his legs and Cooper lost everything but his physical life. In this world, Locke got his pilot's license, and he wanted his father, possibly the most important person in his life aside from Helen, to be his first passenger, despite Cooper's fear of flying. Unfortunately, soon after takeoff, the plane crashed (Locke can't seem to avoid those, I guess), taking Locke's legs away and leaving Cooper in a vegetative state.

Up next: Origins...

LOST: Whither Must We Wander

Now that's more like it. Things finally look like they are moving toward the final conclusion of the show, in both the Island universe and the alternaverse. With the exception of Desmond, Ben, Richard, and Miles, the entire cast was in 1 location tonight (and Desmond's location was a direct result of Titus). Meanwhile, in the alternaverse, all the characters started to get drawn to a select few locations. So let's start there.

In another showing of near-death experiences "waking up" the alterna-characters, when Sun and Locke are both brought to the same hospital (Sun was hit by a stray bullet), a conscious Sun
reacted in terror to seeing a man who she knew was dangerous, but didn't quite know why (note: 2004 Sun would have no reason to fear 2004 Locke, so altera-Sun's (who is living in alterna-2004) memory of Locke is likely influenced by her 2007 Island self, which is probably good evidence that the existence of the alternaverse is a direct result of the Jughead explosion (as if we didn't have enough of such evidence, which goes against, to the best of my recollection, some things the writers were saying before the season started). Meanwhile, Desmond was able to guide Claire to the office of Ilana Verdansky, attorney-at-law (and yes, I did consider writing alterney-at-law... I have a pun problem). Turns out that Ilana is the estates attorney for the Sheppard family, and she reveals to Jack and Claire that they are siblings. But before they can talk about this, Jack gets called into surgery for a hit-and-run victim: John Locke. A nurse tells Jack that Locke's spine was already pretty messed up (how did he become paralyzed in this reality?), and we see a shot of a surgical mirror showing Locke's face, and then Jack's (more on this later). Finally, Sawyer and Miles interrogate Kate at the police station, and later arrest Sayid.

On the Island, Titus and Widmore both decide to execute their plans. When Zoe (Liz Lemon's twin sister) displays that the Widmore camp has missile capabilities, Titus begins his move to overtake Widmore and commandeer the Ajira plane. But Sawyer also decides the time is right for Operation: Sub Escape. He gets Jack to separate Hurley, Sun, and Lapidus from the group and have them meet up with him and Kate at a boat to take them to Hydra Island. Claire and Sayid aren't invited because they have turned to the Dark Side. However, unbeknownst to the group, Sayid might be on his way back after speaking with Desmond. Titus sent Sayid to kill Desmond, and we are reminded why Sayid is so willing to follow Titus: he promised to revive Nadia. But Desmond pointed out that what Sayid wants comes with a high cost, and points out that Nadia may not be able to accept what Sayid paid for her life. Also, Claire begins to show that she can be redeemed through Aaron, when Kate promises to reunite the 2 of them. Unfortunately for them, upon arriving at Hydra Island, Zoe takes the group prisoner. Except for Jack.

Jack jumped ship midway to Hydra Island, because he started to doubt leaving the Island again, stating that he felt such a deep feeling of emptiness after leaving it the last time. Ever since learning about the purpose of the Candidates, my two prime suspects were Jin and Jack: Jack because he's the de facto protagonist and Jin because he would have to choose between his wife and his duty (by the way, I was so happy to finally see them reunited). This development has given a lot of evidence to Jack being New Jacob, because he is the one who is being pulled the strongest to stay (and return) by the Island. And so we come back to Jack and Locke; Titus was waiting for Jack on the beach, and was ready to continue the trek to confront Widmore when a missile was sent to the beach, killing many of Titus' followers. It also sent Jack flying through the air and landing hard against/near a tree. We saw this minutes after Jack was preparing to operate on Locke in the alternaverse, which led me to believe that the episode was going to end with Jack saying that he couldn't feel his legs, and the camera panning down to his foot, for a similar shot of Locke's foot from Season 1 when he learned his legs had been restored. Instead, Titus told him that Jack was "with him now," and picked him up and slung him over his back. So my theory could still be true. We'll just have to wait 2 weeks to find out. (Most people I've told this to also said they thought Jack got paralyzed in the explosion, but one person who didn't come to that conclusion had an interesting theory of her own: Desmond, the man to whom "the rules don't apply," is Jacob's son...)

Up next: 5 to go...

LOST: Moving the Pieces

I am usually fairly patient with LOST. People complain that the story moves very slowly and that things don't happen in certain episodes. I respond that the show builds over the course of a season, and little things that are not important in one episode come back later to be very relevant. However, this is the final season, and (as of the time I'm writing this), there are 5 episodes (taking the finale as 2, because it is 2 hours) left. I'm starting to get a tad impatient.

Did things "happen" in "Everybody Loves Hugo"? Most definitely. Ilana died when she overzealously dropped a bag containing Black Rock Dynamite. Titus tossed Desmond down a well after realizing that Desmond has no fear left. And Ben, Miles, and Richard split off from the rest of their group when Hurley convinced everyone else to go talk with Titus' camp. And in the alternaverse, Hurley and Libby were (re)united, while Desmond, in an attempt to give Locke a near-death experience, ran him down with a car. But it was another episode with very little actual plot momentum.

Like I said, I would be much more ok with this if we were not in the final season. There are so many story elements to wrap up that I am worried that things will get rushed in the final episodes. I love that this show knows that character development is important, because it is. But sometimes, you can have too much of a good thing, and I feel like LOST doesn't always know how to balance between character and plot.

Oh well. I'm sure that, once the season is over and I know this episode's place, I will be able to see it in a different light.

Up next: Jack vs. Locke...

LOST: What Dreams May Come

Has anyone here read Marvel Comics' House of M? It was a crossover event from a few years back, in which the Scarlet Witch created an alternate reality in which various characters' deepest wishes were granted. Peter Parker was married to a very-much-alive Gwen Stacey, Tony Stark's father was alive, Wolverine has all of his memories, and Magneto rules a world in which mutants are the majority, while humans are the oppressed minority. You can get a good enough (and hilarious) summary from Matt Gardner's 4-part series here. The reason I bring this up is because I was reminded of M while watching "Happily Ever After"; in M, just because the characters had their dreams come true didn't mean they were happy. And here, although Desmond had the thing he sought after most in his off-Island life, the approval of Charles Widmore (he had Penny for the relevant times he sought Charles' approval), he was only superficially happy. He soon realized that not knowing Penny was the worse alternative to being a rich playboy who had everything. And looking back on the alternaverse, the characters' lives have been strange inversions that aren't exactly better than the crash universe. Locke and his dad have a good relationship and he is married to Helen, but he's still in a wheelchair and has not learned to be his own man. Jack has a son, but has troubles with him and his ex-wife. Daniel got to pursue his musical talent, but never got to formally meet Charlotte. Sawyer is an honest cop, but is still haunted by the actions of the real Sawyer. Hurley is a lucky person, but I'm sure he isn't as happy as he passes himself off as (I guess we'll find out in a few days).

Also, in House of M, Wolverine having his memories was the alternate universe's undoing because he had the memories of his life as it should have been, not as it was in the new reality. In the LOST alternaverse, Eloise Hawking Widmore seems to remember the world in which 815 crashed... and in which she killed her son without knowing it. And Charlie learned how to access those memories, by nearly dying. And when his suicidal nature (he wants to see Claire again) help Desmond see Penny, Desmond embarks on a quest to find her in that world. He and Daniel, his half-brother-in-law in the 815 universe, talk about the possibility of alternate worlds and nuclear bombs creating split timelines (when Daniel saw Charlotte in a museum, he saw visions of her on the Island). When Desmond and Penny finally meet in the alternaverse, at the stadium where Jack and Desmond first met (and where Desmond and Penny were reunited after Desmond got out of prison), alterna-Desmond got a full-on view of the regular universe.

Meanwhile, the episode began and ended on Hydra Island, with Widmore subjecting Desmond to some weird experiment to see how well he can stand up to a large dose of electromagnetic energy. Desmond survived the Swan explosion, and he was able to survive something that fried an unfortunate Widmore crew member. And when he came out of it, he knew what he had to "do" (apparently, Widmore needs to do something with electromagnetism to kill Titus). But just as Desmond agreed to help Widmore, Sayid showed up to "rescue" Desmond. The suddenly zen Desmond agreed to go with Sayid back to Titus. Is this all part of Widmore/Desmond's plan?

Up next: Alterna-Hurley...