Okay LOST, I GET IT, Your Books Are Coy References

A friend of mine asked in the comments for yesterday’s LOST recap if I had seen the book Sawyer had in his room or some shit. And while I had seen the book, I didn’t know what the title was. There was a point in the show when I would have hunted that title down, desirous to know what the inference was they were throwing our way.

Now? Now I just don’t care.

This season there’s been something like nineteen book references per episode. Yes, an exaggeration. But it feels like every episode there’s some totally amazing reference they’re throwing at you through a book on someone’s bookshelf, or whatever. It used to be cool because of the sparsity of these references, but they’re just overdone.

When I was thinking about my apathy towards the reference today, I began to think maybe all the references are tongue-in-cheek. The writers from LOST have always been self-aware of how their episodes are analyzed by the fans. The meticulous nature with which we comb every frame of every single installment.

Maybe they’re fucking with us.

I mean yeah sure, the books could be references to themes and devices, no doubt. But maybe the density of the references this season is a wink. Some sort of meta-joke that they’re playing on us and hoping we will all play along. I hope this is the case with not just the books, but also the overt and sledgehammer subtlety references to destiny and fate, and all that sort of bullshit. Either that, or they’re laying it on thick. Thick and hard. Whatever the case, they’re so abundant and so overwhelming, I can’t help but not care and roll my eyes at them now.

(Until I crack because I have to know, and I’m just another complaining fanboy.)