Hello.

Hi, I'm Kate. I live in Maine and I've known Rusty for a wicked long time. In high school, he once came to my house and mocked my mother for watching Lifetime. "Lifetime: where the man is always wrong," he said. I was psyched when he asked me to write for this blog.

I have no idea what to write for an introduction, but Rusty says I am a "crackerjack writer" and to suck it up.

Usually, I write about clothes on my blog Sweet Disorder, where you can read about how I broke my foot wearing cute shoes. I love trashy television, so this is a great excuse for me to watch some. "It's for my writing," I can smugly tell my boyfriend as he rolls his eyes at me. Awesome. I don't have cable, so right now I'll just watch whatever movies I can find online. All the time. I love TV.

When I'm not writing about clothes or watching cheesy movies, I'm probably doing even girlier shit like making jewelry, buying makeup, or hanging out with my cats. I like going to rock shows. I have green hair.

Last night, for research, I drank red wine out of a weird red wine juice box and yelled at the computer as everyone in these movies did exactly the opposite of what a reasonable person would do. I also found that I'm really bad at taking pictures of my computer screen.
How did I manage to turn the flash back on? What the fuck? I will try to do better.

The Client List

Oh my God. The Client List. Oh my God.

I actually buckled down for this one. No drinking with friends while cracking jokes. Oh no. Not this time. I even took notes! The notes were only necessary for some the wacky one-liners and zingers. Stray observation type stuff. I will not be needing notes for the grand finale when Lifetime finally killed feminism once and for all.

So Jennifer Love Hewitt of vajazzling fame plays Sam, a former beauty queen turned struggling mother of three. Her husband’s football career never took off because of a bum knee and both find themselves out of work. They live in Texas where the hair is big and the accents are atrocious. The house is in foreclosure and they can’t even afford the entry fee for their son to play flag football. Thankfully, the bank gives them a one month extension on the mortgage. Why? Because of Sam’s ridiculously tight dress and her photographic memory recalling that the lender suggested one of those evil subprime mortgages. Oh, and pumpkin pie perfume because Sam read that the smell of pumpkins gives dudes massive boners.

Seriously.

I wonder if Sam’s sex appeal and memory will have some sort of significance later.

Sam applies for a job at a massage parlor because somewhere between winning a pageant and shitting out three kids, she got licensed in two different kinds of massage. A real good investment. Also good investments that the happy couple makes include getting blindingly drunk at the local watering hole and playing the lottery. Now Harmony and I work with distressed populations (remember, we are heroes), so the last thing I want to do is sound like I’m judging. But, come on, guys. Get it together.

Sam gets the job and watches a massage. I assumed that the parlor would ease her into the whole entire prostitution thing, but, no. Sam watches a girl give a fat dude a blowie. She storms out but after declaring that “a girl this pretty shouldn’t be poor,” she goes back to start her career as a sex worker. After all, it beats waitressin’!

The hookers are fantastic, by the way. They are all good Texas folk. One claims whorin’ is like killing a man. It gets easier after the first time. Another prides herself on her Viagra giveaways because “that little blue pill keeps us in the black.” Such sassiness! And they give Sam shots of tequila at 9am to loosen her up. Best job ever!

After the first day on the job, Sam has a conversation with herself on the way home. She is talking to her dashboard guardian angel. (The dashboard is a nice touch since it is literally impossible to drive faster than it can fly thus saving you the cost of a horrible bumper sticker.) Then she tells the angel that she needs to pull over so she can throw up. I always talk to myself about needing to throw up before throwing up. Normal human behavior.

Then we get a montage of Sam in all sorts of different lingerie and costumes servicing clients. It’s awesome. Does anyone want to have a debate over the feminist ramifications of ogling Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts? I am a feminist and I’m still staring. Having my cake and eating it too. She is a pretty lady.

FTW

(FYI, “Party of Five” has always been my favorite masturbation euphemism. And there are three reasons that it’s a good euphemism. Two of them are Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts.)

Ugh, gross! I am sexualizing body parts! That is not feminist sounding at all. Jennifer Love Hewitt is regressing me back to middle school. I am gross and will stop. Sorry.

I should remind myself that I don’t need to worry about being a feminist, because, as mentioned earlier, this movie has killed off feminism once and for all. Jennifer Love Hewitt is standing over Rosie the Riveter’s grave in a teddy.

Apparently whoring makes you crazy wealthy. The mortgage isn’t an issue. Nor is buying your husband a fucking motorcycle. I know it isn’t just a river in Egypt, but the amount of denial on display from her husband here is staggering. It’s more like depacificocean.

But things are going well! You can tell Sam is a prostitute now because she wears lipstick everywhere. The husband is happy because he has a chopper. And the kids are happy because they get two desserts in their lunch (seriously). Everything is peaches and sex work.

Except one of the hookers isn’t having such a good time. She’s younger and very Christian. After seeing her pastor in the brothel, she has a crisis of faith. Her family doesn’t want her and “Idol auditions aren’t for another six months.” (There are so many “seriouslies” going on here, guys!) She quits the business and tells a bunch of Christians what’s going on. Those Bible Thumpers are going to ruin everything! Why can't they just let a sex ring exist in peace?

Sam is getting kudos for being the best prostitute in town. What’s her secret? Listening and cooking. She bakes cookies for her johns. The cookies are a nice bonus. Sam apparently has twice as many clients as any of the other prostitutes. Presumably her vagina looks like a buzzard’s neck. A bedazzled buzzard.

googling "pimp buzzard" didn't work

Oh, Sam does have one other secret. Cocaine.

The cocaine, parenting, and whoring are taking a lot out of her. She almost falls asleep at the wheel! She is curt with her daughter! She isn’t as nice to her clients!

It actually made me sad that Sam wasn’t as good of a sex worker as she used to be. But it’s a moot concern since the police bust the massage parlor. Sam gets perp walked in a bra and panties. I don’t think the police would do that, but, whatever.

"no time to tie your robe, ma'am. the fingerprinting lady gets off in 15 minutes"

Back at the local bar, Sam’s husband is watching a football game on TV. They cut away from the game to show the prostitution bust. The chances of a station cutting away from football for a local news story in Texas are negative 1000%. Sam gets recognized and, uh oh, Spaghettios!

Sam gets bailed out and begs for forgiveness and, surprise!, she doesn’t get it. Sam’s husband takes the kids and gets the Hell out of Dodge. Meanwhile, Sam is looking at two years for prostitution and cocaine possession. If only she had some skill to bargain her sentence down.

Remember her memory? If Sam were watching/reading this, she would remember her memory.

Sam bargains everyone down to 30 days by revealing 69 (SERIOUSLY) of her clients. This includes judges, doctors, lawyers, and other prominent members of the community. Because journalism is as dead as feminism post-Client List, the local papers and stations publish the list as fact. Why not.

And here is where feminism died. A mob of angry women barge in on Sam. Sam may be a whore, but she is a polite whore, so she makes them iced tea. Then she apologizes. She was raised to only care about her looks and not her brains so when she was in trouble, that’s what she leaned on. Basically it was her mom’s fault.

But the mob tells Sam that they aren’t looking for an apology. They’re looking for advice. “What did you do to make our men happy? What are we missing?” Oh. My. God. Sam then grabs a banana and commences with the lesson.

Since Sam was such a good prostitute because of listening and cookies, I imagine that’s part of the advice too. I am going to make that leap. It’s the women’s fault since they didn’t cook enough. See. I told you. Feminism is over. Back to the kitchens, ladies!

It's been brought to my attention that this is basically the ending to The Ladies Man, but with the genders reversed. And that gender reversal makes this totally unacceptable.

Sam becomes a waitress after her jail term and it is implied that her ex-husband is willing to give it another shot. No harm, no foul, amiright?

AWESOMENESS: 19

I was enjoying this movie. I really was. It was so….competent. Sure, having Sam talk to a guardian angel is the laziest narrative device I’ve ever seen. And the movie somehow got less interesting when cocaine was added to the equation. But any criticisms went out the window once this movie got to Crazy Town.

this movie was butterfly, sugar baby

HEY! IT’S THAT GUY!: 8

I’ve focused enough on Jennifer Love Hewitt. But there’s so much more! She dated an alumni of Sacred Heart High School. I am an alumni of Sacred Heart High School! It’s within the realm of possibility, guys!

not pictured: a shit ton of Abercrombie. pictured: The SAC

I just remembered that vajazzling thing and I am suddenly freaked out by J-Love. Rich Cronin can have her.

Oh, Cybil Shepherd was in this too.

LIFETIMENESS: 10

This movie is so regressive that it actually might be too Lifetimey to be Lifetimey if that makes any sense. But a woman loses her way, does some sordid stuff, and comes out with less jail time than a Lohan. Redemption! Lifetime!

GRAND TOTAL: 37

This is the third highest rated Lifetime movie. It will be on next weekend. DVR it. OR WATCH IT ONLINE AT MYLIFETIME.COM

I watched this on Monday. I saw Inception on Tuesday. I preferred the former. My infallibility combined with transitive properties says that if you liked Inception, you will love The Client List.

It's Full-On Double Wedding All the Way Across the Sky

Suffice to say, if I saw this amazing video before Double Wedding, the review would have been drastically different.

Seriously though. What does this mean?

Double Wedding

I’ve only been to two weddings in my life and one of them was when I was in middle school, so that hardly counts. They seem like fun though. So fun that a Double Wedding would be irresistible.

Which brings us to Lifetime’s Double Wedding. Double Wedding follows twin sisters “D” and “D.” That’s right, folks. They have the same freaking nickname. Parent FAIL. One can only imagine the hijinks that could ensue should someone get these ultra-identical twins with the same name confused.

D and D look so similar that even the viewer could have trouble telling them apart. Thankfully, the movie deals with this problem in an efficient 30 seconds of exposition.

“You’re such a Type-A+ personality, but thank you for doing my taxes and being a successful workaholic lawyer, D.”

“Oh, you’re welcome, D. I’m always proud to help my more spontaneous, fashion oriented, pastry chef sister. You’re the best!”

The sisters are at their grandmother’s house when they notice a bridal magazine. Who is getting married? Their grandparents! They are going to renew their vows in a fancy cathedral to celebrate their golden anniversary. Awwwwww. Because this is grandmama’s show, she says no plus-ones for the girls. If they’re going to bring a boyfriend, he needs to be special. The Double-Ds pledge to have boyfriends by the “wedding” six months from now.

You see where this is going, right?

Lawyer D, at her unfathomably wealthy paralegal’s suggestion, goes the online route. The name of the dating site is “Strike While You’re Hot.” Where desperate singles meet before they get all ugly and shit! After a few misses, Lawyer D ends up with Tate, an obviously gay guy working in non-profit housing. Their first date goes pretty well, but Lawyer D has to leave early due to a work emergency. I would think that was a pretty dick move if it weren’t for that helpful 30 seconds of exposition. I was prepared for this.

Lawyer D’s big work emergency? Just the impossibly rich paralegal calling her in to break up the date. This is where the viewer figures out that he loves her, but Lawyer D is about 90 minutes from getting there.

(Incidentally, I know a few paralegals. They aren't collecting antique cars and dressing in the finest Italian suits. They are errand monkeys for lawyers.)

Of course – OF COURSE - Tate runs into Pastry D at a coffee shop. And he can’t tell the difference. So he has twin girlfriends and no one knows.

But, really, someone should have figured it out. It’s kind of weird to have your boyfriend refer to your bakery as “The Firm” when you know that your identical twin sister is a lawyer. And when your boyfriend keeps referring to conversations that never happened, maybe just rolling with it is the wrong strategy.

So, the relationships are moving along nicely. Both want to take it slow so, as Harmony’s boyfriend Michael put it, Lifetime doesn’t have to deal with the icky details of having sex with twins. They take it so slow that Lawyer D and Tate forgo phone sex in order to have “phone sleep.” Yes, they just go to bed as the minutes on their cell phone plans tick away. Such conspicuous consumption isn’t really sympathetic to the nation’s current economic climate, now is it, Lifetime?

But so much talking! And when you imagine that this sap is talking for hours to two different woman…ugh. One nice reveal is that Pastry D is only a very successful pastry chef (top 3 in New York apparently?) because she failed smart person tests after her dad walked out on her? Wait, what? Also, Tate’s parents died in a car accident. Too much sexxxy talk! My TV is melting!

This ridiculousness culminates in Tate having conversations with both Ds at the same time so that they can both invite him to Grandmama’s wedding. First he’s talking to Pastry D. Then the phone beeps and it’s Lawyer D. Jesus, Tate. You have a fucking Blackberry. You should be able to see that the phone calls are coming from two different numbers. Then he drops the phone and that somehow magically patches everyone together? I mean, I could have someone on hold and drop my phone 1,000 times and not once will that connect all three parties, but WHATEVER.

So here comes the big reveal, right? NO! WRONG! Lawyer D and Pastry D manage to say the exact same thing at the exact same time so everyone just thinks there is an echo. What. The. Fuck.

The Double Ds decide to go to Central Park for a nice jog because that’s what successful people do in New York. One of them gets a phone call from Tate and they finally realize what’s happening. I am so glad that they found someone so special for Grandmama’s wedding that they never realized he was spending half of his time with another woman.

After Grandmama makes an inappropriate incestuous threesome joke, everyone agrees that they should just drop the relationship. Well, everyone agrees except for Tate. They just don’t bother to tell him that he’s been duped or that he’s been dumped.

Tensions between the sisters continue to mount. Grandmama goes as far as to cancel all of Thanksgiving when the fighting sisters knock over a pie.

likes: pie. dislikes: eyelids.

Pastry D cheers herself up by hooking up with Tate again. Lawyer D finds out, stalks them, follows them into a nightclub, and uses a hair clip to lock Pastry D in a bathroom stall. Shockingly, her hair clip skills weren’t up to snuff and Tate finally sees both Ds at the same time.

There’s some pointless consternation before Pastry D and Tate realize that they’re right for each other and Lawyer D and Antique Car Collecting Paralegal realize that they’re right for each other. (Harmony and I think this may be our first Lifetime interracial relationship, so, yay?) Somewhere in there, the sisters win second place in a cake contest. The cakes look terrible. It annoys me because I have a friend who actually watches Lifetime that could make better cakes. A real missed opportunity for her. (PLUG)

The movie ends with the Grandmama’s 50^th anniversary “wedding.” There’s all sorts of happiness and then, whoa!, Pastry D and Tate walk out. They got married too! Oh! I get it. DOUBLE Wedding. Very clever. Kind of weird these guys got married after only six months. The couples drive off in their limos when, BAM, an antique car pulls up. Lawyer D and Paralegal Dude come out of the church too! TRIPLE WEDDING, BITCHES. They promised a double wedding and gave us a triple. Lifetime means value!

AWESOMENESS: 8

You got to love a movie where we’re supposed to be rooting for three incredibly stupid people. Even if they all find love they’re probably just going to die in a can opener accident.

Back in the day I used to split awesomeness into “actual” and “ironic” categories. Just know that if I still did that, all eight points would be firmly in the ironic category.

HEY! IT’S THAT GUY!: 5

This is tricky. Objectively, the twins, the famed Mowery sisters are not really famous. They had their own terrible show on ABC’s TGIF lineup and guest starred on an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark. That’s as famous as Melissa Joan Hart and Melissa Joan Hart is barely famous. But as soon as I found out about this movie, I needed to see it. Immediately. So I’m splitting the difference.

LIFETIMENESS: 7

Whether it’s the wisened black Grandma or every character’s happiness being wrapped up in a nice little bow, this was all pretty Lifetimey. Obvious demerits for no women’s intuition.

GRAND TOTAL: 20

The most mediocre score possible for a mediocre movie.

Sister, sister. I didn’t realize how much I didn’t miss them.

Mind Over Murder

A week ago I was staying at a hotel in sort-of rural Ohio for work and, hey!, the Quality Inn has the Lifetime Movie Network. Score! I can mix business with pleasure!

There was no pleasure.

Mind Over Murder is predictably terrible. Tori Spelling plays an assistant district attorney (ha!) who hit by a car and develops the power to read minds. She then uses this power to go after a Republican Senator who murdered his mistress.

1. This is going to blow the Lifetimeness scale out of the water. Reread that last paragraph. That is shitbird crazy.

2. After reading that paragraph, don't you know every detail of the movie already? Do I need to spend 1000 words telling you about Tori Spelling using her powers to catch people lying on the stand? Or the forced awkwardness of when the judge realizes that one of the attorneys is psychic? No. You got it down.

And I had it down. I actually left in the middle of the movie to go grocery shopping. Seriously. I don't think I missed much. Somewhere in there Spelling falls in love with a cop played by her real-life husband. The lack of chemistry between those two was astonishing.

And since the movie came out in 2006, way after Spellings's plastic surgeries, you have to stare at this for two hours:

Hypnotically unsexy

But, finally, a Lifetime movie so stupid that I gave up on it. Sadly, this one the "pick-a-flick" contest they run for Friday nights. In other words, this movie was shown because of popular demand. That's a Human Centipede amount of scariness.

AWESOMENESS: 0

They say a D- is sometimes harsher than an F, but, no. This deserves the zero.

HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 2

Tori Spelling only exists to fuel the Lifetime Nightmare Machine. She isn't a celebrity anymore.

LIFETIMENESS: 10

And well earned.

GRAND TOTAL: 12

So my shortest review ever leads to a 12. Avoid at all costs.

Family Sins [Trigger Warning for, uh, Everything]

[Harmony note: Since trauma is the bread and butter of the Lifetime film, I'm going to start putting trigger warnings in the titles when appropriate. On one hand a person can reasonably expect SOMETHING horrible will happen in a Lifetime movie. On the other hand, some movies go a little farther then others, so why not make it easier to skip something you don't want to read?]

It's always a happy occasion when Rusty and I have the time to watch a LMN movie together. Since we don't get to do it very often, it's best to try for a special occasion kind of a film. Family Sins hit our criteria through three very important key phrases: "true crime", "evil basement", and "Kirstie Alley". We sat down on Friday with a bottle of Kid Rock's favorite bourbon (Red Stag!) and gave it a go.

First off, can I just say "ew". It's no secret that my favorite true crime Lifetime movies are the campy ones. This one was like if the team behind Saw remade Serial Mom. I know that it's cliched to proclaim something Saw-like, but this movie is striving for it. Every third scene features someone being tortured in a grimy tableau. Your enjoyment of the movie will be predicated by your ability to enjoy watching a mentally handicapped woman get enslaved, beaten, and raped by people she trusted to take care of herself and her baby. Whoops, spoiler alert. Also, they rape her daughter. Again with the spoilers!

The movie starts with a family photo session that is probably trying to remind us of Capturing the Friedmans. (Remember when we talked about how it's not a good idea to remind us of a better movie in the middle of a bad movie? Read the blog, you hacks!) Is this picture perfect family not what they seem, or will this be the most boring hour since Project Runway moved to Lifetime? Cut to Kirstie Alley playing Brenda Geck, celebrating Mothers Day with her extended brood of biological and foster kids. Her kids are creepy, too. One is a Spencer Pratt-y meathead. There's also a girl who hides in the corner and looks and acts like pre-pubescent Carrie: sad, stuttery, and powerless. She spends a lot of her time shielding a tiny boy in her lap who looks a little too much like the Spencer dude. Brenda receives a bunch of lovely expensive appliances with price tags attached. Carrie, who is actually named Marie, is the only person who did not bring Brenda a Mother's Day present. This is underlined, highlighted, and poked into our eyes by writers who are firm believers in foreshadowing. And rape basements. Mostly rape basements.

The film leaps forward and we learn that Marie has fled the household, little blonde mini-Spence in tow. She's trying to find an official to listen to her story, but everyone is all "That family is cool, you crazy". As always in Lifetime films, social services only exist to rip families apart, ignore children in crisis, and maybe set orphans on fire. Her flight to freedom is interspersed with flashbacks to her icky childhood. Apparently, Mrs. Geck spends most of her time teaching her kids to shoplift and setting fires in her family's rental properties when the tenants displease her. Don't worry for them though, it's not all iron-fist tactics for a Geck property tenant. For example, one of the unfortunate arson victims was lucky enough to be taken in to their home, child in tow, for some loving rehabilitation. It's unfortunate that the Geck family learned their rehab techniques from Abu Ghraib, but oh well. If sexual assault, torture, and forced labor is good enough for our enemies, it's good enough for a mentally handicapped woman and her child. The mentally handicapped woman, who is named Nadine, is locked by Brenda in the basement for "her own good". She doesn't eat unless she does the housework to Brenda's specifications, and the one time she flees the property she's delivered back there by a well-meaning policeman and is rewarded with a beating from a stripped extension cord. She doesn't have the werewithal to escape on her own, and her daughter doesn't fare much better- raised as a Geck, as she grows older she learns of her mother's imprisonment. She also learns that she's expected to shoplift to support the family, and oh yeah, any male member of the family is entitled to sexually assault her at any time. One morning Brenda teases her for getting too fat, only to learn that she's been impregnated by her son. Instead of being horrified, she beats up Marie for being dumb enough to get knocked up by one of her kids. One commenter on the Lifetime site singled this moment out as a "lighthearted teasing" scene that allowed Kirstie Alley to show her fun side. I didn't know they had internet access in the violent offender wings of federal prisons, but you learn something new every day.

Carrie finally manages to find someone who will listen to her, a young DA that hasn't drunk the Geck Kool-Aid. The pieces of Marie's stories don't mesh with what the town believes about the Gecks, but they make enough sense that he's willing to hear her out. A raid on the Geck's house reveals Nadine's imprisonment, which is enough to put them all in custody while the DA builds a case. They slowly learn about the arson, the shoplifting, and the other illegal stuff the Gecks get up to. Brenda is unrepentant, and calls a dude that fences shoplifted goods for her to make things hard on Marie. He haunts her trailer, setting stuff on fire and breaking shit, but is generally just a nuisance as opposed to a real threat. And yes, the only other criminal in the film is black. Of course he is.

The climax of the film is the trial, which pretty much goes how you'd expect. Testimony is given, Marie cries a lot, Brenda looks suitably chagrined, and the men of the family get 10-20 years a piece for their involvement. The judge is super-excited to send Brenda to jail. Marie gets her public vindication, and she moves into a trailer with her mom. The film ends on a touching family hug. Yaaaay!

Awesomeness: 5
Urgh. Yes, this movie is campy and weird, and has a lot going for it in the arena of production values and a very strong cast. BUT! I cannot give awesomeness points to a movie where a mentally handicapped woman reminisces about how gentle her rapist was. Does that sentence make you feel awesome? Hey, me neither. 5 points for baseline awesome and I am cutting you off, movie.

Star Power: 6

Kirstie Alley has to be worth 5 points. She was in Cheers, and also is fat, which apparently means that as a nation we must observe and scrutinize her at all times. Everyone else in this had bit parts in every TV show ever, which makes them all annoyingly familiar but not immediately recognizable.

Lifetimeliness: 10
Now THIS is a Lifetime movie. Motherhood, child abuse, true crime, women in peril: this is the greatest hits reel of Lifetime Movies. This is Now Thats What I Call A Lifetime Movie!. It also had my favorite instance of a social services diss in one of these films: a harried social worker checking her watch and yawning as a child covered in bruises and close to tears says her family life is fine. Fuckin' social workers. Am I right?

I feel 21 is fair. This movie is a riveting watch, and it's certainly everything you'd expect from an LMN joint. But it is just SO GROSS. I'm going to go ahead and say you should watch it once, but I kind of doubt you'll want to watch it again.

LOST Finale: Sad Trombone

Alternate Title: No, no, no, no, NO.

A few months ago I used my podium here to hate on some non-Lifetime programming. I'd like to do that again. Don't know if you heard, but one of the most influential television shows of the past decade or so closed up shop yesterday. And since Lost is one of the few shows I've watched from the very beginning to its stupid conclusion, I need to get a few things off of my chest.

The obligatory disclaimer: Lost was one of my favorite shows ever. My weekday social calendar revolved around Lost for years. I am a hater by nature* and I love to complain, so please don't allow my incredibly negative reaction to yesterday's finale scare you off from watching the show if you haven't seen it yet.

(*As mentioned in my last review, I am currently watching Angel and Buffy for the first time. It's awesome. Highly recommended to all. But when I talk about it with people who are already huge fans (one of whom named their son after a Buffy character), I have nothing but weird complaints about very minor plot points. I am not pleasant to deal with. So I guess this entire post should be taken with a pillar of salt.)

Obligatory disclaimer #2: If you haven't seen the finale yet or are watching the show and haven't gotten to Season 6 yet, just please stop reading. And since I am only speaking to the people who watched last night's show, I won't get into too much expository detail. You all know what happened.

And Season 6, what a disaster. What a stupid, pointless disaster. The show spun its wheels for months with a bunch of crap like the Temple and the Lighthouse that didn't do anything for me and then tried rushing a resolution in the final four episodes. Let's take a step back and look at how the show has evolved itself into failure.

The first two seasons you have a bunch of survivors on a mysterious island with a monster and some hostile natives. Neat! But then! The end of Season 2, the show kind of evolves into a Dickensian romance between Desmond and Penny. By Season 3 we discover the Hostiles may be looking out for the Island's best interest, but they are willing to resort to great evil to protect it. (I wonder if Richard and Ben saw them genociding The Dharma Initiative when they realized they were in purgatory.) Also, pregnant ladies always die. Which leads for the mad scramble off of the island. Then they need to go back! Also, Penny and Desmond are quickly resolved and the show becomes a battle between two sets of Hostiles: Ben and Widmore. Which is kind of tangentially connected to Desmond and Penny, so, fine. But by the time we get to Jacob vs. The Man in Black/Smoke Monster, no. Too much. The master plot had changed too often and the show's creators saying that only the characters mattered was code for "we cared more about cliffhangers than story so here we are with a bunch of loose ends that can never be answered."

And by the last episode of the last season, we got some of the worst television writing in the medium's history. Basic 101 stuff. What was Smokey's motivation? He wanted off the island, then he wanted to destroy the island. Ok. Why? Why did he need Desmond? Why did Jacob want Desmond on the island? Desmond turned out to be pretty useless, no? What did Ben want? Why did his motivation change every episode? Same goes for Widmore. That whole war he had against Smokey was for what? He wanted to take over the island in order to protect it? Or did he just want to get back at Ben?

These aren't ambiguities meant to add shades of gray to each character. It's just piss poor writing. The entire finale, I was still wondering what it was that each character wanted. And other than Jack and his other candidates needing to save the island, I never got it. I swear to God I am a smart person and I couldn't figure out what was happening. I watch the show religiously, read a bunch of Lost crap on the Internet, and I had no idea why things were happening. That can only be interpreted as a total failure.

And the sideways universe being purgatory....JESUS CHRIST. I admit, that on an episodic scale, neat. It was awesome to see characters reconnect and to have a big ol' reunion at the end of the show. I got all weepy when Sun and Jin saw their pasts (although they as a couple clearly did not give a shit about their daughter). I got all weepy when Sawyer reconnected with Juliette. It made the episode very watchable.

But spending an entire season with it? UGH. Not worth it! Weeks and weeks of stupid can not be made up with some weepies.

And the open plot holes....Those open plot holes. The fertility stuff? The very situation that drove the plot when the show was at the height of its powers? Nope. The show cared so little about the fertility stuff that - as previously mentioned - the miracle baby became an afterthought never to be seen again. And what about Jacob's cabin? What the hell was that all about.

And has there ever been a more frustrating moment on television than when Ben and Hurley were talking about the Island's rules and Ben casually mentioned that those weren't real rules, they were just Jacob's whims? First, how do you know that, Ben? Jacob's been there for centuries. Second, Jacob is the one who made it impossible to find the island, impossible to boat off the island, and allowed the island to shift in time? AND WHAT THE FUCK IS THE DEAL WITH THE ISLAND SHIFTING IN TIME!?!?

The laziness here is really troubling. And it's apparent throughout the entire episode. Why does Desmond think pulling The Cork of the Island will be good? He just does. And why does pulling The Cork make Alpert and the Man in Black mortal, who knows, but it sure is convenient for Jack and Kate. And if plugging the Island back up is all you need to save it, I wouldn't exactly call Jack a hero. I would just call Desmond useless.

This show had so much wasted potential. This awesome science-fiction, mystery, romance thingy became a show about spirituality and religion which freed the writers from having to make a lick of goddamned sense. And even worse, the show ended in an Unitarian Church. Unitarians are stupid. That stained-glass window at the end that had every religious symbol? Stupid as balls. Why not just have Jack ascend to heaven in a Prius with a "coexist" bumper sticker?

And what happened to Cindy the stewardess and the kids!? GOD DAMN THERE ARE SO MANY HANGING THREADS HERE!

I swear I am fine with some hanging threads. I really, truly am. But a lot of these things were driving entire seasons. Seasons I loved and cared about and couldn't wait to find out what was going on. I honestly feel like I was tricked into watching the last season. There was never any attempt to deal with what had come before it. Boo to that.

I truly hope that I'm not one of those people who was going to be unsatisfied no matter what. Despite my hater status, I'd like to think that I was open to loving this episode. I truly believe that I was. I didn't care that Sayid ended up being literally soulmates with a character based on Paris Hilton instead of the woman he literally shot himself for and then later married. Shit like that is fine. It's a finale, weird things like that need to happen for closure. But the show just did not care about what I cared about. And what they cared about was boring and insignificant.

And yes I will be buying Season 6 on Blu-Ray. Why do you ask?