Michael Giacchino -- Lost: The Final Season (Original Television Soundtrack)

8/10

And now we are so close to the end. Lost's final season features two separate soundtracks, consisting of nearly five hours of music, spread across four discs. The first soundtrack covers all but the last four episodes of Lost's sixth season, though there are two bonus tracks from the series finale given at the end of the second disc, to tease the final soundtrack: Lost: The Last Episodes.
Lost: The Final Season (Original Television Soundtrack) is a treat for long-time fans, as composer, Michael Giacchino, gets to re-state and re-interpret almost every theme he's created for the show over its six year run. The beginning of this season hints that our crash survivors may have simply been pawns in a far more epic battle, of which they have little knowledge or understanding. The has been hinting since the beginning, though, that some battle of light and dark will occur, and throughout Season Six, Giacchino is allowed to come up with several compelling themes for both. This music is archetypal, with themes for good sounding ancient, intelligent, and vaguely Egyptian or Grecian, and themes for evil sounding brutal, primal, and vaguely the bad guys from Sabu's The Jungle Book or The Thief of Bagdad. Meanwhile, as our survivors attempt to make sense out of just what crazy things are happening all around them, the show utilizes something dubbed a "flash-sideways." *Deep Breath* The viewer is not told where or when these flash-sideways are occuring in this first batch of episodes, only that they exist in some other place and time we have not yet been privy to, that all of the characters throughout the show's run exist there, and that each character's relationship with one another is different than the viewer has been accustomed to, if indeed the characters know each other at all. This creates a very disorienting feeling for the viewer, but Giacchino offers a mysterious, optimistic string theme for them that gives hope that all will soon be revealed...or at least that Desmond, Lost's sort of Ronin character, will work everything out.
Also, even in this final season, Lost is capable of taking a character the viewer has known little about and dedicating an entire episode to that character where all is revealed in an epic, remarkably satisfying fashion. In this instance, that character is the mysterious Island adviser, Richard Alpert, and that episode is "Ab Aeterno." In true Lost fashion, Richard turns out to be as broken and "Lost" as all the rest of our characters, except also he is 200 years old. I've been a fan of Alpert actor, Nestor Carbonell, since his self-written and produced indie-film, Attention Shoppers, where he brutally satirizes himself as a sitcom actor making a celebrity appearance at a grocery store's grand opening. I've never seen any actor poke that much fun at his own insignificance, and even though Attention Shoppers isn't a great film by any means, Carbonell certainly won over yours truly as a fan on a lazy summer of 2000 afternoon. "Ab Aeterno" gives Carbonell a chance to shine like never before (his biggest role before this was as the walking Latino stereotype on the sitcom, Suddenly Susan), and it also allows Giacchino a chance to do even more epic work, creating an incredible string theme for Richard, prominent on tracks 3-9 on this soundtrack's second disc.
The best reason to listen to this soundtrack, though, is for the callbacks to previous themes, and the ways that Giacchino re-interprets them. While the flash-sideways gives the talented composer ample opportunities to do this, disc one, track 21, "The Lighthouse," does so while backing a scene that takes place on the Island. The scene features survivor leader and broken man, Jack Shephard, finally being faced with the inarguable evidence that he has been brought to the Island for a reason, and that he has a destiny to fulfill. Giacchino begins the piece with his theme for Jacob, the Island's ancient figure of light, then moves to a sensitive statement of Jack's theme before a final, violent burst of another motif for Jack, symbolizing the good doctor's violent rage when faced with the truth. It's a brilliant piece.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this soundtrack's terrifying version of the classic lullaby, "Catch a Falling Star," played during one of Lost's most horrifying displays of pure evil (this soundtrack in particular features the most horror-inspired music of the series), but I won't link to it, just in case the smoke monster is listening.
So in conclusion, this is a very good soundtrack, full of depth and unique moments, but it is not quite on the level of the Season One and Season Four soundtracks, as they do in one hour what this one does in two. Still, for fans of the show, or just Giacchino in general, Lost: The Final Season (Original Television Soundtrack) is a must have.

2010 Varèse Sarabande

Disc One
from "LA X, Part 1"
1. A Sunken Feeling 1:34
2. Heavy Metal Crew 1:01
3. Doing Jacob's Work 1:58
4. Smokey And The Bandits 4:55
5. LAX 4:08

from "LA X, Part 2"
6. Temple And Spring 1:53
7. Locke At It This Way 1:37
8. Richard the Floored 1:55
9. Coffin Calamity 3:46
10. Lie Thou There 2:30
11. Trouble Is My First Name 1:51
12. Death Springs Eternal 6:23
13. The Rockets' Red Glare 3:34

from "What Kate Does"
14. Temple And Taxi 3:37
15. My Orca 0:40

from "The Substitute"
16. Helen Of Joy 2:00
17. Jacob's Ladders 3:26
18. The Substitute 4:45

from "Lighthouse"
19. Peculiar Parenting 2:54
20. Door Jammer 0:42
21. The Lighthouse 3:33

from "Sundown"
22. Sundown 7:37
23. Catch A Falling Star 1:46

from "Dr. Linus"
24. Linus and Alpertinent 2:27
25. Karma Has No Price 4:11

Disc Two
from "Recon"
1. Recon 3:23
2. Crazy Town 2:01

from "Ab Aeterno"
3. None The Richard 1:20
4. Love In A Time Of Pneumonia 1:35
5. The Fall of Man 2:58
6. Dead Man Talking 1:18
7. Jacob's Advocate 5:50
8. Standing Offer 1:20
9. And Death Shall Have No Dominion 3:54

from "The Package"
10. Sayid After Dentist 1:49
11. Shepharding Sun 2:16

from "Happily Ever After"
12. Tesla Tester 2:33
13. George of the Concrete Jungle 1:09
14. World's Worst Car Wash 2:00
15. None The Nurse 3:48
16. Happily Ever After 2:00

from "Everybody Loves Hugo"
17. Hugo Reyes of Light 1:41
18. Passing The Torch 3:40
19. A Memorable Kiss 1:23

from "The Last Recruit"
20. The Last Recruit 4:07
21. Kool-Aid Claire 1:19
22. The Sub Group 3:50
23. Sunny Outlook 0:40
24. Reunion And Reneging 2:58

from "The End"
25. The Hole Shabang (Bonus Track) 7:02
26. Moving On (Bonus Track) 7:54