Something Is Missing

September 2004 – Josh sits back in his chair and waits for ABC’s website to load up his video. Network TV never really suited his tastes, and ABC in particular is a pretty boring channel, but they’re introducing a few new series this season. One is about a bunch of old ladies banging their gardeners or something. The other is about doctors banging doctors. The third looks like Cast Away meets Survivor. It’s called Lost. The hype surrounding it is pretty unreal.

May as well give it a shot, he thinks.

The first minutes of the show are epic. The opening scenes showcase film-quality action and what looks to be a huge cast of characters. Survivors of a plane crash on a deserted island struggle to keep safe as the burning wreckage of their plane falls apart and explodes around them. Some guy in a suit rushes around like a videogame hero and manages to help several of the survivors to safety.

After the frantic opening, Lost gives a more focused look at its main characters. A bit later into the episode, we see a flashback of the main character, Jack, on the plane prior to the crash. During his conversation with another passenger, the plane starts to shake violently and begins to plummet. The flashback ends.

Back in the present, two other characters, Charlie and Kate, offer to help Jack as he attempts to find the plane’s transceiver and radio for help. They find the front end of the plane deep in the jungle and venture inside. As Jack and Kate search for the device, Charlie disappears into the plane’s bathroom.

“What were you doing in the bathroom?” Kate asks him later. He says he threw up.

“Every trek needs a coward,” he says, looking off. Something is clearly on his mind. No flashback, though. Later on in the episode, Charlie is shown doing heroin away from the other survivors.

Weird. Did he go on the trip with Jack and Kate to…do heroin in the bathroom of a wrecked plane? Shouldn’t there have been a flashback by now?

Later on in the episode, another character is revealed to have a gun. He says he got it off the body of a U.S. Marshal, meaning there was a prisoner on the plane before it crashed. In a flashback, Kate is revealed to have been the one under the Marshal’s custody.

The episode ends.

“It was pretty damn good,” Josh says over the phone to a friend the next day. “Can’t wait for the show to explain what Charlie was doing before the crash and why he really went into the bathroom.”

“What are you talking about? They…definitely showed that.”

“When? There were flashbacks of Jack and Kate but no one else.”

“Ohhhhhhhhh,” she realizes something Josh doesn’t. “You didn’t buy ABC’s season pass, did you?”

“No? I didn’t know if the show would be good or not.”

“That’s why. If you get the season pass before the premier you get access to all flashbacks. Otherwise you have to wait for the DVD release.”

Sounds like some bullshit.

July 2011 – Sarah’s little brother shifts in his seat again, leaning forward as if that will get him more into the film. She sighs quietly.

“Shhh,” he whispers over to her. “I didn’t bring you here to be annoying.”

Bring me? I drove you here. Ass.

He got into the Harry Potter series when he was seven, tore through all the books as they were released, and has seen every movie. This movie, the final one, is the conclusion to all of it – he already knows how it’s going to end, but he just has to see it opening night anyway.

The last film is an almost nonstop rush of action. Harry and co. attempt to destroy the last of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, which help keep him immortal. Characters are dying left and right, and all hell has broken loose in the wizarding world as Hogwarts school is engulfed in all-out war.

All-out war in this movie looks a lot like an overblown fireworks display, she thinks to herself as she idly scrapes the last bits of nail polish off her nails, only half-attentive of the action.

As the movie reaches its conclusion, the last of the Horcruxes is destroyed and a weakened Voldemort is defeated. Harry and his friends stand at the front of a battle-ravaged Hogwarts with the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand in existence. Instead of keeping it, he breaks it in half and throws it away. The movie ends there.

Well that’s abrupt.

Not entirely sure what she was expecting, Sarah gets up to leave, but her brother hasn’t moved.

“Wait ‘til the credits are over,” he looks up at her. “There was more in the book. Maybe after the credits?”

She sits back down and waits with him as most of the audience leaves. After the credits roll, the lights come back up and the few people remaining in the theater start to leave. The staff begins cleaning.

“What the hell?” He looks around at the people still around him. “There’s a whole epilogue that is supposed to come after that!”

“What does it matter? You already know what happens.”

“It’s part of the story, that’s why it matters.”

One of the nearby staff members looks over at him.

“They’re only showing the epilogue to people who see the movie at Regal theaters,” the staff member says.

Sarah and her brother were at AMC.

“This is bullshit,” he says.

December 2012 – I sit back in my couch after sliding in the The Bourne Legacy Blu-Ray. No matter how anal the rest of the entertainment industry was getting, at least I’ve got this on disc now. I own it.

After watching the movie in all its action-packed glory, I head over to the Special Features menu, and choose the Behind-the-Scenes option. Some text pops up on the screen:

$.99 to access the Behind-the-Scenes featurette

Bullshit.