The television show ‘Lost’ is like heroin to me. I hate what it’s doing to my mind and my life, yet I can’t stop watching. I watched the first two seasons on dvd and it took me all of 2 and a half days. It was a ‘Lost’ bender of epic proportion and I lived in my bed, eyes glued to the television, until I had figured out what was in that fucking hatch.

I’ve never been the girl who enjoyed surprises. There is no way that you could ‘spoil’ something for me. I prefer to know how something is going to end before it starts. I looked up the ‘twist’ on every M. Night Shyamalan movie before I went to the theater. I read the last page in a lot of books before I started chapter one. Upon realizing that Kill Bill ended in a cliff hanger, I went home that night and obsessively surfed the Internet until I found the script for Kill Bill 2 because there was no way in hell I was going to sleep that night until I knew how it ended. In the seventh grade I was in the middle of reading a book and I lost it. I never found out how the book ended and because I have long forgotten the title, I’ll probably never know. Things like that haunt me, so you can imagine what ‘Lost’ is doing for my mental wellbeing.

On top of that, it is one of the most ridiculous television shows that I have ever watched in my entire life. If they didn’t cliff hang the fucking commercial breaks, then maybe I could severe its sinister grasp on my soul. But they don’t, so I am helpless to watch because I need to know how it ends.

The worst part is that the writers of this show have dug themselves into such a creative black hole, that there is no ending I can imagine that wouldn’t just piss me off more. It is obvious that they don’t know how it’s going to end and are just winging it. Right now, there is black cloud monster that eats people, a polar bear who hordes tonka trucks in his cave and the island has magical healing powers. Sound like nonsense to you? That’s because it is nonsense, my friends, and if the writers start up one more ridiculous plot line just to abandon it completely two episodes later, I might just firebomb the fucking set.

The flashbacks have become inane, boring, and worst of all, pointless. When the show started, the flashbacks were cleverly used to illustrate the odd circumstances that put them all on the plane in the first place. Now, it seems like the flashbacks are being used to ‘develop’ the characters. Problem is, the character development is in no way consistent. In one episode you’ll have Rose convinced that her husband is still alive suggesting a long and rich marriage that has bonded them so closely that they almost seem to have a psychic connection to each other. In a flashback, you’ll learn that they just met. The day that Rose finds out her husband is indeed alive, she’ll shrewishly emasculate him in front of a large group of people. Does that sound like realistic character development to you? Well, how about this: the writers give you Kate who is portrayed in every flashback as some heartless, selfish badass who has killed her father, orchestrated a bank robbery and has betrayed everyone she has come in contact with including her Mother, her childhood friend and her husband. Then you have Kate on the island who sits in a cage that she can easily break out of because she doesn’t want to leave her ‘friends’ whom she has known for all of 3 months. The character development is a far cry from weak. Fuck, it doesn’t even make logical sense.

In the meantime plot development is going swiftly, but surely, into the shitter. Every time I watch an episode, I get the sneaking impression that there are new writers now and they have never seen the last two seasons. How else can you explain it? One season you have ‘The others’ kidnapping people in the middle of the night, snapping someone’s neck to throw suspicion off of themselves, and stringing some skinny druggie up by his neck and leaving him to die. The next season, they’ll all be self righteously claiming that they’re not murders! In fact, they’re the good guys. Even worse, they spout this shit to the people they’ve tortured fully confident that they’ll just forget all that’s been done to them.

My question is simple: Why didn’t the others just come out of the woods and pretend to befriend the lostaways in the first fucking place? Then Ben could have gotten his life saving surgery, they could have gotten all the children, and they wouldn’t have had to stalk around the woods in fake beards and mustaches to do it. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.

Not that the actions of the lostaways represent humans with any sort of brains, critical thinking skills, or even survival instinct. They’re too busy keeping secrets from each other because they’re feeling left out for an episode. (Kate!) I’m sorry, but people that are in danger share information with each other in order to increase their chances of survival. Not once in this television show have I seen a group of them sit down and ask each other, “So, what did you find out?” It’s all cryptic dialogue and vague musings that are completely uninformative. When Jack is urging Kate to run, why doesn’t she tell him that they’re on a different island and there is nowhere else to go? Why? Doesn’t she think that is pertinent information that she should communicate to him instead of just sobbing into the walkie talkie?

Nothing in this show makes sense, and yet, I watch. Last night I watched Alex raid a camp of people with guns with a fucking slingshot, and still, I watch. I watch because I hate surprises. I watch because I am a lunatic that has to know how things turn out. I watch because ‘Lost’ has preyed upon these weaknesses of mine and stolen my soul.

May they rot in hell.