RUSH: Has American Idol finished? American Idol was last night, Dancing with the Stars is over, 24 is done, Lost is done, all the finales are gone, right? He wouldn’t have had any problem getting on primetime. He wouldn’t have any problem at all getting on primetime.
People want to know what I thought of the finale of 24. I got into arguments with all my friends who thought that they were going to kill Jack Bauer off. I said, ‘There’s no way. They still gotta do a movie,’ and they can’t go back and do a prequel movie. This show has been on eight years. The technological advances in those eight years, they can’t go back and use the technology of seven, ten years ago before Jack Bauer even got to CTU so they had to keep Jack Bauer — i.e., Kiefer Sutherland — alive. I thought it was classic that Chloe got the last lines of the series, ‘Shut it down,’ meaning shut down these cameras, let’s not follow Jack anymore, which also meant shut down the show, ‘Shut it down.’ In many ways I thought this was one of the finest seasons of ’24.’ In other ways I was a little bit disappointed with how they dehumanized Jack Bauer toward the end of the series. But all in all I thought it was great.
I’m still trying to figure out the Lost finale. I still don’t understand the sideways flashes. It’s been explained to me that the passengers, all the characters died in the original crash and that Lost meant their souls, not where they were on the island. And so the whole series was basically about lost souls finding themselves, getting back together and seeing their lives, had they lived, what they would be and all this and that, which was a surprise. I wasn’t expecting it, but it is what it is. I’m going to miss that show. I’m going to miss both of these shows. I don’t watch American Idol because I just don’t like amateurs. I don’t care who they are, golfers, college football, I don’t like amateurs. I like the professionals. Give me the best. Dancing With the Stars, eh. The Tudors? Well, I tried watching The Tudors out there the first couple seasons. But I know that Henry VIII was a big balloon, you know, a balloon belly of a guy, and they’ve got some stick playing Henry VIII, Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I’m sure it’s a fine, fine series. I’ve watched it a couple, three times, and I don’t know, couldn’t get into it.
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RUSH: Jonathan, you are up first on the EIB Network. Great to have you here, sir, and hello.
CALLER: Hello. How you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Very well, sir.
CALLER: Well, I’m a longtime listener, and I never thought I’d have to do this but I’m calling to tell you you were wrong about something.
RUSH: What’s that?
CALLER: You were wrong about the Lost finale.
RUSH: Oh. Well, I’m not surprised. I still can’t figure out it out. If you know what it was, tell me.
CALLER: This is my take. I’m not a writer but the stuff on the island, it happened. Everything that happened on the island happened, and so (spoiler alert for everybody that hadn’t watched it yet, obviously, but) everything happened. The alternate timeline happened afterwards, after everyone who had been involved with the events on the island had died. And it was so that they could find each other and move on to, you know, whatever the —
RUSH: Wait a second. Wait a second. You’re going too fast for me here.
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: So the original crash happens. The survivors did survive it? They were not dead then?
CALLER: Absolutely, they —
RUSH: Then when did they die?
CALLER: They… Well, some of them died on the island. We saw their deaths. Some of them died later. Some of them got off the island, lived out their lives and, you know, maybe died of old age later. But at some point all of them were dead — you know, whether it be from the island, they died on the island or they got off the island and died of old age.
RUSH: Well, that’s a cheap way out.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: I mean, if you’re right, that’s a cheap way out. They didn’t answer any questions then. They just ended with more questions than they started with.
CALLER: Well, that’s what a lot of people think, but that’s my take and I believe it’s accurate. I believe they did survive the crash but all the events on the island happened.
RUSH: Look, there was a nuclear explosion on that island at some point! That had to wipe everybody out. Then there was this time machine that got everybody whacked out, 30 years behind times. It was hard to keep up with. Then you had the ‘sideways’ flashes in addition to the forward flashes. By the time all the sideways flashes started happening this season, I couldn’t keep up with it. I didn’t know where they were going with it and the finale didn’t tell me. Now, maybe I’m too dumb to figure it all out but it seems to me that a lot of stuff in the first five seasons was pointless given the way they wrapped this up. But again I could be too dense to figure all this out. Now, I’m not one who watches television shows hooked up to an IQ meter.
I watch television shows to be entertained. I don’t look at them as big think pieces although this one did have me thinking. Everybody knows I’m one of the smartest guys around and I happily and proudly admit here, I lost track of this one. I bought the hype. I thought season six, the last season was going to tie all this together, and what it tied together was they all died and they had to gather someplace (in a church). They finally found each other in the afterlife, Purgatory or whatever, and then moved on to wherever the afterlife took ’em. They had to do so together. In the meantime, they got married, they had boyfriends and girlfriends; they had kids that didn’t live, kids that did live, kids that were born. It was like Alice in Wonderland, which I still don’t understand that, either. So maybe I’m off the beaten path.
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RUSH: Okay, I’m being inundated now by Lost aficionados who tell me, ‘If you want to understand the finale, you have to understand Purgatory.’ It was just Purgatory, but the producers didn’t want to admit they’re Christian or allude to it, it was just Purgatory. Fine and dandy. I’ll dig into this analysis when I have time. Right now I don’t have time, I’m hosting the program. The most listened to radio talk show in the country.