Photos
It worked! Remember, in the first episode of the season, when Juliette was dying from her bomb-wounds, and she looked up into Sawyer’s suspicious eyes and said, “It worked,” right before dying? Remember that? Well, I think this series finale worked. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse smashed a rock against my heartstrings and they blew up and it worked. I am sure some people don’t agree! But I found it to be both emotionally and mysteriously satisfying. Granted, we still don’t know WHAT WAS IN THE HATCH, but I guess some mysteries are left unsolved. Anyhow, the episode opens with people going about their business on the island and also going about their business in Bizarro LA. Well, actually, the episode opens with Jack’s father’s casket arriving on an Oceanic airplane. More on that later. But then it cuts to people going about their business. Here is Jack, looking at X-Rays in his office. Here is Other Jack washing his face in a stream. Here is Ben making some coffee in the teacher’s lounge. Here is Other Ben loading bullets into a clip. And cetra, and cetra. They don’t show what both Hurleys are doing, but one can assume that they are both probably SNACKING.
Jack tells Kate and Sawyer and Hurley what Jacob told him, which is almost nothing. Like, it mostly seems to be where to find the magic light cave. Aaaaand that’s it. He doesn’t know how to protect it, he doesn’t know what happens if it goes out, he doesn’t know how Desmond figures in. But I don’t blame Jacob entirely. Some of this blame has to fall squarely on Jack’s dumb shoulders.
Aw, it feels weird making fun of Jack, KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW NOW. But we have a job to do. Jack has to protect the island, and we have to paint speech bubbles on his face saying durrrr. Here, drink this glass of HateJackErade. Now you are like me.
Sawyer splits off to go find Desmond in the well. Hurley has a bad feeling about this. Cue strings.
Aww. Bye!
Sawyer gets caught right away spying on Locke and Ben at the well. To be fair, he’s a con artist, not a hiding artist. Locke asks if he knows what he’s up to, and Sawyer is like, “I’m guessing you’re trying to find Desmond to destroy the island.” Hahahaha. OK, so Sawyer knows EXACTLY what Locke is up to. Because that was an incredibly good guess. Locke tells Sawyer that all of Jacob’s candidates are going to sink into the ocean with the island. Sawyer is like, “we aren’t candidates anymore.” And then POP.
Bye guys! Hey Sawyer, don’t forget your backpack! (You know a scene is dramatic and intense if one of the characters has a backpack.) When he’s gone, Ben begins to cry, because Ben thought Locke was only going to destroy the island figuratively. Oh boo hoo. Sorry, Ben. It’s weird how that immortal, paranormal, shape-shifting incarnation of pure evil kind of lied to you. Suddenly, Locke is distracted by something on the ground. What is that? Are those…are those PAW PRINTS?
VINCENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNT!
Rose and Bernard are the ones who pulled Desmond from the well and are bringing him back to health in their hippie commune. Seriously, what a couple of hippies. Cut your hair and get a job, you hippies!
They explain that they don’t like drama. Well then maybe you should be on a different show! SPEAKING OF DRAMA, Locke and Ben show up. Oh hey guys! Locke tracked Vincent’s paw prints to Rose and Bernard’s hippie camp. Because apparently the Smoke Monster took on the face of John Locke and the tracking ability of Kate. Guys, remember how Kate is a tracker? Never Forget. Locke wants Desmond to come with him and do the thing that’s going to destroy the island, and if he doesn’t, he’s going to kill Rose and Bernard right in front of him, and he’s going to make it hurt. What a jerk! Rose and Bernard never hurt anyone. They were too busy having old person tantric sex and making hemp tea. Desmond agrees as long as Locke promises not to touch them ever. Locke promises. His promises are super trustworthy, so no problem, let’s go.
“Do you have any idea where I’m taking you, Desmond?” Locke asks.
“No, brotha, but I’m assuming it’s a place with a very bright light,” Desmond says.
“What makes you say that?”
“Just a hunch.”
That is a great hunch! They are interrupted by the crackling static of a walkie-talkie, and Locke asks what it is when it is so obviously the crackling static of a walkie-talkie. Come on, Locke! Pull your smoke out of your smoke. You’re acting like Jack.
Ben has a secret walkie-talkie, though. Ben, what are you up to? On the other end of the walkie-talkie, it’s Miles, who found Ricardo Alperto, like, 10 feet away from where he was when he got hit by the smoke monster. I’m sure it took all day to find him. It’s a good thing Miles had enough food and water for the journey.
Now that Ricardo Alperto is up and about, he wants to get to the other island and BLOW UP THAT PLANE. Oh Jesus!!!!!! The plane again?! This is something I would expect from a Jack or a Kate, but you, Ricardo? You’ve been alive for 600 years and have some insight into both the secrets of the island and the desires of the Smoke Monster and you are focused on some airplane? Even Miles is just like:
MEANWHILE, in Bizarro LA, things are POPPIN. Desmond pretends to be a funeral director and signs for Jack’s father’s casket while Kate waits in the car. What are you up to, Desmond?! Hurley goes to Charlie’s crappy motel room to convince him to play the concert at the Widmore’s mansion (while Sayid waits in the car), telling him that it’s the most important thing that he will ever do. Hurley is so happy to see Charlie, even though Charlie doesn’t recognize him at all. Maybe he just can’t see through all the mascara.
Anyway, Hurley shoots him with a tranquilizer dart.
Sun is a little sore.
Juliette comes in (JULIETTE! Just kidding, that’s not exciting. I mean, it’s fine, but we knew she was going to show up no duh) to perform an ultrasound, and that is when Sun and Jin FEEL IT.
And now they speak English.
In the same hospital (like I said, STUFF IS POPPING OFF) Jack and Locke prepare for invasive, elective, experimental spinal surgery. Locke asks if Jack is sure the surgery will work, and Jack says that there is always the chance that he could kill him. They both have a good laugh at that.
Laugh it up, laughers. AND NOW BACK TO THE ISLAND.
Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Hurley run into Locke and Ben and Desmond on a hill. More like DRAMA MOUNTAIN. Kate tries to shoot Locke. Relax, Kate. If anyone’s getting shot, it’s you. (I wish.) Locke tells her to save her bullets. And he tells Jack that he expected to be more surprised. “You’re kind of the obvious choice, don’t you think?” SERIOUSLY. Good one smoke monster. Fist bump.
They say some stuff. I don’t know. It’s a pretty good part. You should watch it. You should start with Season 1, though, and work your way up to it, otherwise it won’t make any sense. Jack is going to go with Locke to the magic light cave. He tells Locke that Locke thinks he’s going to destroy the island, but that that’s not what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen is that Jack is going to kill Locke. KABOOM. Locke asks how he’s going to do that, and Jack says it’s going to be a surprise. OOOOOH, A SURPRISE! Neat. Surprises are fun.
Meanwhile, Ricardo Alperto is getting gray hair. So I guess he’s not immortal anymore? Him and Miles take a boat to go blow up the plane (ugh) and who do they find floating in the water? That’s right. They find LAPIDUS floating in the water.
Lapidus! You the man, Lapidus! He is like, you guys, seriously, enough with blowing up the plane. WE ARE GOING TO FUCKING FLY THAT PLANE. Oh man, Lapidus is BACK! They get to the other island and find Claire, but she doesn’t want to leave with them. Because if she leaves the island, someone will make her wash her hair.
Jack and his pals go to the magic light cave and Jack and Locke tell everyone to wait outside because they are going to lower Desmond down there with a rope. Sure. Desmond pulls Jack aside and tells him that none of it matters. He says that it doesn’t matter if Locke destroys the island or Jack protects the island. That he’s going down into that magic light cave and he’s going to go somewhere else. SOUNDS LIKE SOMEONE HAS BEEN SMOKING TOO MUCH OF ROSE AND BERNARD’S SUPPLY. Desmond says there’s another place and Jack is there and they can all be in love and the plane never crashed. Jack is like “there are no do-overs.” What? Shut up, Jack. You’re not even listening, man. OPEN YOUR MIIIIIIND. I like that Jack believes that he has sipped some immortality water and become the sacred protector of Mystery Island and yet he knows that there are no do-overs? Right.
So they lower Desmond into the cave, and can we just sort of gloss over this part? Because when Jacob said that the island was LIKE a cork keeping evil from destroying the world, I DIDN’T THINK THERE WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO BE A CORK IN THE ISLAND.
The light disappears and it looks like Jack was wrong. And the island is going to fall into the ocean. No real surprise there. I mean, honestly, Jack’s one job on the island was to keep the light from going out. And he failed at that job IMMEDIATELY. But when they get out of the cave, Jack jumps on top of Locke and punches him, and Locke bleeds! “Looks like you were wrong, too,” Jack says. WHOA. But then Jack just sits there while Locke spends some time finding a rock, picking that rock up, and smashing Jack in the face with the rock. Seriously, who is Jack’s boss? Because he should be FIRED.
MEANWHILE, BACK IN BIZARRO LA: Detective Miles is at the Widmore party for some reason and sees Sayid waiting in the car while Hurley drops off Charlie, and so he calls Detective Sawyer and asks him to go speak to Sun in the hospital, not because that’s a convenient way to get everyone grouped together. It’s just really important that Sawyer go talk to Sun because of detective stuff. Even they are just like, “Sure, Sawyer.”
While he’s there, he meets Juliette. (Who is also Jack’s son’s mystery mom NO DUHHHHH). Oh hold on a second. I know that this is the season finale of Lost, an incredibly complicated show filled with loose ends and we only have a few minutes left to explain things and wrap up the saga, but Sawyer just really needs to straighten out his dollar bill before putting it into the vending machine.
Hold on, guys. I know that we really need to get to what this show is all about and what’s going to happen to these characters, but just give Sawyer a second, he really needs to get this candy.
Anyway, at this point people are FEELING IT left and right. Sawyer and Juliette FEEL IT now. And Sayid FEELS IT because Sayid MADE OUT WITH SHANNON IN AN ALLEYWAY.
Hi, Shannon!
Hi, Boone!
So Boone was punching Shannon to get Sayid to make out with his sister because they are in heaven? Sorry, hold on. I’m getting ahead of myself. Although, when you do go back through this stuff once you’ve seen the end, you have to start asking some questions. Like WHY did Sawyer need to straighten out his dollar bill? Shouldn’t the vending machines in the after-life accept crumpled dollar bills? And this is the “getting back to that” thing I was talking about in the introductory paragraph, but, like, the very opening shots are of Christian Shepard’s casket being unloaded off an airplane. But no one is there to see it? If the after-life is all the subjective experience of the soul as it works its way towards acceptance, then are there really unattended inanimate objects being loaded and unloaded from airplanes? BUT LIKE I SAID, WE ARE NOT READY YET.
The island is fucking falling apart. Way to go, Jack. He finds Locke on a cliff looking out over the water and they run at each other. LET’S GET READY TO FIGHTBALLLLL!
So, when Jack said that it was a surprise how he was going to kill Locke, the surprise is that he’s going to kill him by punching him? Or is the surprise that he’s not going to kill him at all, because Jack doesn’t kill him. In fact, Jack gets stabbed. Jesus. Jack is almost as bad at not getting stabbed as he is at protecting the island. Which is very bad. Kate shows up and shoots Locke and they push him off the cliff and he’s dead now. That’s it? That’s it. Huh. That was actually kind of easy. Good work, Kate. Now just turn the gun around, shoot yourself, push yourself off the cliff, and we can all go home.
Ben gets trapped under a log? All kinds of stuff is happening! Miles fixes an airplane with duct tape.
Jack stumbles back to the magic light cave and makes Hurley drink water and now Hurley is the guardian of the island? Give me a break.
I don’t mean give me a break about Hurley. Congrats, Hurley. You earned it. But give me a break about Jack knowing how to do that. I mean, seriously, Jack has been guardian of the island for two minutes, he let the light go out, the island is falling apart, and he’s been stabbed. How is he Professor Island all of a sudden? I have a feeling that the only thing that just happened is that Hurley drank some river water and is going to break an axle and die of cholera, because Jack clearly has no idea what the hell he is talking about. But, so, Hurley is the boss of Ben. And Jack goes into the cave and puts the cork (ARGH) back in the island, and the light comes back. HELLO, LIGHT!
Lapidus, Sawyer, Kate, Miles, Claire, and Ricardo Alperto take off in the fucking airplane? Fine. I take it back. I take it all back. The plane was super important the whole time, I’m sure.
In Bizzaro LA, everyone who is anyone is at the concert. And everyone is FEELING IT. Claire gives birth backstage at the show and Kate delivers baby Aaron and they both are just totally FEELING IT. At which point Charlie walks in and Charlie FEELS IT, except wasn’t Charlie the first one to feel it? Why does Charlie look so surprised? Charlie, you’ve been feeling it for weeks! Locke’s surgery is a success, so now he is definitely FEELING IT. And the whole time Desmond is all smiles. Mrs. Widmore asks if he is going to take her son, Daniel Faraday, with him. But Desmond says no. Wait, why not? Isn’t he your constant? Poor Daniel Faraday. Stuck living at his parents’ house for eternity.
The only one who’s not really feeling it is Jack. He shows up at the concert, and Kate is like “Knowing looks,” and Jack is like, “Don’t know anything ever looks.” She takes him to the church, you know, like how spinal surgeons who need to find their children at a concert will stop looking for their children and drive to a church with a total stranger. She says that she’s going inside with everybody and they will all be there when he’s ready. WAIT, READY FOR WHAT?! Oh man, you guys, this is it! Everyone is talking to each other outside of the church, and they are all being so SERIOUS and INTENSE. What kind of party is this? Lighten up you guys!!! Just kidding, you don’t have to lighten up. It makes sense that this is SERIOUS and INTENSE. Appropriate!
Locke forgives Ben. Sadface.
Jack goes inside the church. Relax, Church.
Jack touches his father’s casket, and he finally FEELS IT. But when he opens the casket, CLAIRE’S HAIR AND BONES BABY IS INSIDE! Just kidding. Nothing is inside. But how funny would it be if Claire’s hair and bones squirrel baby was in there? Very funny. But also weird. I guess I’m glad they didn’t do that. It would have been a really different episode. So Jack’s dad, Christian Shepard, is there. (“Christian Shepard, seriously?” — the only decent thing Kate has ever said or done).
And he explains to Jack that everyone is dead.
WHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT?!
He says that everyone dies eventually (true!) and that some of them died before him and some of them died after him. But now they are definitely all dead. And it is time to move on. Jack cries. Then it is time to PARTAY!
Jack’s dad opens the door and they all go to heaven.
I think.
So, that’s that.
Meanwhile, back on the island, Jack wakes up where Jacob found the Man in Black’s body after he went down into the light and became a smoke monster. He hobbles over to the bamboo and lies down. He’s probably just going to take a nap I bet. Don’t worry guys, he just wants to close his eyes for five minutes. Lapidus’s plane flies overhead. Jack dies. Vincent lives.
Vincent is the best. And this is the end.
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Can I just comment a little bit about Walt? Early on, he was best friends with John Locke and his flashback lead us to believe he had superpowers, this was a really cool story line, you guys. The first couple of seasons really make you think Walt is going to be pivotal to the whole storyline.
Then, by some huge oversight, Walt’s real-life counterpart aged like a regular human being, but his character did not. How could the producers not have foreseen this problem when hiring a barely pre-pubescent young man? If your show is going to give us 90 days spread out over 3 years, your youngest actors are going to age over that time.
Then the finale comes. I get that you might not want to have your giant manchild actor pretending to be the little boy we all remember, but at least hire another little boy to stand in, we’d have all understood what was up… We were able to follow the LOST storyline for 6 years, we are all adults and understand how television works… But to exclude Walt & Michael from the finale entirely, when I had to spend 24 hours of the 2nd season watching this:
Is just disrespectful, stupid, and lazy writing.
That being said, the finale was pretty good.
Michael was and has always been – The Worst.
But he blew up on a freighter (thank you!) and then Kate became The Worst?
Either way, I was VERY glad I didn’t have to see Michael’s stupid face in the finale.
Overall: Lapidus, you are the man. I could’ve gone with 5 more shots of you yelling awesome into the walkie-talkie and throwing it down in the cockpit (we got two shots, but two more would’ve been sooo good).
We need to find a gif of him doing that.
Lapidus HATES walkie-talkies you guys.
Walkie-Talkies are THE WORST
i agree with this so hard.
I agree that it is likely due to lazy writing, but the way to rationalize this may be: Christian said that they all chose to be together in this place. Daniel, Charlotte, and Miles weren’t there because they weren’t part of the club. Michael wasn’t part of the club because he, for whatever his reasons, betrayed some of the group’s members. Walt got off the island and never looked back. They wouldn’t have chosen to be a part of that group’s afterlife.
I’m fine with that explanation for characters like Mr. Eko, it probably wasn’t a super important place for him in his life, but then, why was Penny there? Other than Desmond, she hardly knows any of the people in the room.
That doesn’t really matter though, and is just nitpicking. My main problem is that the entire sub-plot of season 2 involves Michael and Walt, and leads up to the group being captured by the others, allowing Michael and Walt to get off of the island. This means they are important to the canon of the series, and to pretend that they are not important because the writers decided to start writing a different show in season 5 is sort of spitting in all our faces for having watched any scenes with those characters.
Michael is the worst, no doubt, but at least give me a throwaway line like ‘they are going to hell because they left the island’, and tie up a character’s arc who got huge amounts of screen time in half of the series.
But what do i know? I’m just a baby on a computer.
I think they explained that Michael is stuck on the island (forever, maybe) as one of the voices whispering. Because of the bad things he did.
I am happy that Michael and Walt weren’t in the final episode, they were my least favorite characters. (Sorry WAAAAAAALT.)
Two things- didn’t Ben do far worse things than Michael? It seems a bit unfair that Ben would get the bright light option and Michael wouldn’t. Also, I can’t shake the feeling that the 5th and 6th seasons had very little to do with the first 4. Wasn’t season 4 when everyone realized the writers were making it all up as they went and stopped watching? It seems like the middle of season 4 is when they started to try to make it all make sense, and in the process just sort of tossed out a lot of seemingly-important things from the first 3 seasons.
@ DuckDuck (can’t reply directly to you) We don’t know that Michael and/or Walt didn’t get a bright light, just that they won’t be with the rest of the people from the island. The way I uderstood the end, everybody gets to choose the people they spend eternity with. They didn’t make the cut.
@rb If I remember correctly Michael showed up a few episodes ago and talked to Hurley. He indicated that he was dead but stuck on the island forever and was one of the whisperers. I interpreted that to mean he was being punished for his bad deeds.
@DuckDuck What am I, an expert? I am but a simple internet commenter…You make a good point, I didn’t remember his saying he was stuck there forever.
@rb If I weren’t so lazy I’d go back and read Gabe’s old recaps. Maybe he talked about this? Who knows. All I know is I wish I could have seen Vincent reunite with the polar bear and the horse in animal heaven.
@DuckDuck– sure. animal heaven. at least there would be likable characters there.
I have no explanation for Walk except maybe that he is now a giant.. but during the Aloha Lost thing, Harold Perrineau stated that Michael is stuck on the island whispering for eternity.
Why certain people are stuck on the island and others aren’t, I don’t know. Also, Eko’s absence could be attributed to the same reason that Analucia and Ben weren’t in the church, they just weren’t ready to move on for one reason or another.
The explaination for Ben being there is that in the aftermath of all the destroy-the-island business he ended up being a loyal #2 to Hurley, which Hurley thanks him for.
Ben, still dealing with how he acted decides he is not ready to join the Losties in this new place they’re headed.
As for Penny, someone said up there, the group’s collective conscious decides who joins them. Other characters didn’t live their most important moments on the island [as Christian noted] and didn’t need eachother like the Losties did…Penny needed Desmond and vice versa.
although I agree its a shame they wrote themselves into a corner by hiring a pre-pubescent kid and couldn’t get around it [and wasted a good premise in the process, as mentioned above] Walt and Michael weren’t there maybe b/c they didn’t need the island or the other Losties’ help…they only needed eachother…Bernard and Rose didn’t need the other Losties, but they needed the island, so they get to join in the afterlife fun.
the real question is why didn’t Sayiid get to be with Nadya? Shannon was his rebound chick.
Its simple, DESMOND IS RUNNING SHIT UP IN PURGATORY, he decides who gets in and who gets OUT of the church. You think there isn’t a reason why Ben didn’t go in there? That reason’s name is Desmond, he said “you can come in here brotha, but I’m gonna bash your face in again if you do”. Penny did know a bunch of those people by the way, she rescued the Oceanic 6.
I think it’s actually HURLEY running shit, since he inherited all the jacobian superpowers to develop new “rules” for the island, and the people connected with it.
plus, he could see dead people the whole time.
And Boone was on the show for about 5 minutes and he gets to go to the big party?
It really makes me upset.
Also, without Lapidus at the Church I’m going under the assumption that he never died, and is in fact the Highlander.
I saw that JJ Abrams bought the film rights to Stephen Kings Dark Tower books for $19. In one forum I saw someone suggest Lapidus to play Roland. I think this would be worth everyone’s time and money.
“bought the film rights to Stephen Kings Dark Tower books for $19.”
that’s quite a bargain.
Lapidus Ex Machina
When we heard him yelling in the water, everyone at our finale party high-fived and cheered. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy for a fictional character!
Also him constantly throwing the walkie-talkie? THE BEST.
Our party did the same thing. Someone shouted, “IT’S LAPIDUS!!!!” And then we cheered like we’d just won the Super Bowl or some equally inspiring athletic event.
All in all: “NOTHING CAN DEFEAT LAPIDUS.” The end.
I cheered loudly at my house. The people I was watching it with didn’t understand why. They also talked the whole time (we had someone new at my house for this who does not understand MY RULES!)
Sooooo, you murdered them, yes? That’s my customary reaction.
I told a friend of mine he wasn’t allowed over because he had only watched a few episodes and I didn’t want him asking questions. I’m a good friend.
Haha I feel you on that. We used to have an ABSOLUTE SILENCE rule at my house. Then my roommates left, and I started going to a different L O S T party where they permitted some chit-chat, but then that satellite was going to hit that other satellite and screw up Comcast this week, so it went BACK to my place, where I promptly laid the smack down on this chatter policy. My vengeance was swift and uncompromising.
We had some non-Losties at our shindig, but it was stated QUITE PLAINLY in the invite that there would be NO TALKING during the show and everyone was super respectful. We all smiled broadly and beamed as loud as we could – cause, you know, cheering would have been too noisy and broken the rules.
Even though I’m not a fan of the show, even I loved Lapidus. I was so psyched when he was alive in the water. And yes his constantly throwing the walkie talkie down was absolutely The Best I would love to see a spin off show with Lapidus traveling the country solving crimes out of an RV.
happy graduation day, Steve.
Sigh. I have no idea how to post pics.
I’ve had issue with that too. Just post the url straight out. No codes, no nothin.
Thanks! Let’s see if this chill motherfucker shows up now.
I am SO glad I helped you figure out posting pictures… because that is Dope. As. FUCK.
Straight outta Margaritaville
This LOST series finale = Battlestar Galactica finale. Patronizing quasi-religious hokum. No thanks.
You Can Make It Up: Steve Winwood Leaves Lost Purgatory
It was not until the very thing that defined him came to an end, that Steve was able to find peace. For six long seasons he had snarled at any one in the swamp who would listen about Lost. About how Lost was a terrible television program and the very large and very dedicated fan-base were all wasting their time on such a pointless show. Steve spent years slowly alienating himself from his swamp monster brethren and even his nightmare jug band-mates. Not many of them were even fans of the show, they were just tired and they wanted the old Steve back.
Before Lost, Steve had been a brilliant assistant editor for the Swamp Picayune. His voracious will to eliminate all spelling errors and identify all forms of plagiarism were sure to take him to Editor in Chief and perhaps one day, out of the swamp. But around 2004, the Swamp Picayune was really hemorrhaging money and was forced to make cuts. The spread of internet access and meth addiction to the swamp had really destroyed the paper’s circulation so they had to let Steve go. He was devastated. Steve didn’t leave his tree for days on end, escaping into movies and television. Around this time, Lost premiered. Initially, Steve was excited about the show’s concept but he quickly began to detest it. Yeah, Kate was very pretty but the show was unbearable; its popularity only served as fuel to the anti-Lost inferno inside of Steve. Soon, he realized that Lost was his cause…
All of the pain of his past ran through Steve’s head as the show’s epic finale washed over him. Then it hit him, Steve’s life mirrored Lost. As his life crashed, so did Oceanic Flight 815. As Steve then wandered around in a state of confusion and desperation for years, so did the show. As he watched the show become batshit insane to the point of absurdity, Steve too spiraled into madness. Now, at the end, he realized it was over and he needed to move on. He wiped away a tear with his claw and said to aloud to himself, “Its time to let Steve Winwood be great!”
(Ed. Note: Good for you, Steve! Lost is over. Can we re-welcome you to the Videogum community now that you are going to be a thoughtful and constructive commenter?)
That was some funny work, wwwest. And I dont give a care if you welcome me as a thoughtful construction commentator or not, bro. See you on …. THA FLIP SIIIIIIDE!!!!!!!
I’ll bite the bullet.
The ending of Battlestar Galatica threw everything out the window and created a God character. At the end of Lost, there was no God. Anyone who had attempted to play God was proven to be both fallible and flawed. If anything, Lost’s religious tones were spun on their head by the loose framework of rules that created the mythology. It turns out that, much like other events in the show, even the mythology comes down to petty differences and the consequences of choices.
I think this is was keeps it from being some kind of BSG mess. Ultimately, no one was willed to do anything. They made choices. Jack made the choice to call MIB on his bluff–that is that he knew enough about how the island worked. Granted, I’m not totally happy with the last ten minutes, but I’ve come to really appreciate that they created a finale that address where the characters were at that point.
Besides, the sideways LA stuff was only half the finale. The other half continued what we knew had become the endgame in a–I thought–very satisfying way. I don’t know how it will read on repeat viewings, but–Walt aside–to simply label the finale as inconclusive is erroneous. The show never promised to answer everything–there’s lostpedia for most of that–but it did promise to bring these characters to an end. It promised to close their arcs in a way that, I personally found, pretty satisfying. The nerd in me would have, of course, loved lots of answers, but that was never what this show was about. It was about the actions of a group a people in face of the unknown, and how those choices created bonds and consequences that would affect them, and the unknown, in a myriad of ways.
PS Not your best work, Winwood.
I think you’re wrong, Max the King of wild thing. The goofy church with the light coming in at the end: It was all Jesus stuff all along! Yaaayyyyy…?? No thanks. I’ve been to church before and know that there is no “there” there. Thanks but no thanks, your bridge to nowhere doesn’t even go all the way to Lost island, champ.
It wasn’t Jesus stuff. If you think some kind of mystical, spiritual ending automatically equals Jesus then. Well. I don’t know what that says about you.
It’s very Jesus-y. They are in a church for christ’s sakes (pun?) and a glowing white light and blah blah. Hate it. I will miss Gabe’s hilarious recaps but all in all I say good riddance to this nonsense
Donkey Wheel is an organized religion according to some stained glass window I saw last night.
I believe the donkey wheel is the Dharma Wheel of Buddhism, just so that we are all clear. Although I guess I should stop trying to pretend I know what the creators of Lost are thinking.
I didn’t watch Lost… but my coworker always described each episode thoroughly enough that I felt like I did. So I watched some of the finale last night and have to admit… my first thought was that they were trying to make Jack Jesus-y. He got stabbed under his ribcage, then died for everyone else’ sake, he passes on his rule by making a devoted desciple drink a liquid… he has a dad… uh… I don’t know, that’s really all I have since I watched only 20 minutes of the whole series. I’m just saying; I could see how someone who doesn’t follow Lost and only sorta follows religion would see that!
i have to disagree–maybe i’m seeing everything through jesus-colored glasses, but the show has had strong allusions to christianity the whole time, and i felt that it became kind of heavy-handed during the finale. i’m not saying the writers and creators of the show were trying to convert us all, but the inclusion of the multi-culti window felt like more like tokenism than anything else.
i mean, you’ve got (working backwards): at least two shots of the jesus statue outside the church, hurley telling ben “i forgive you”, jack getting stabbed in the ribs, jack dying to save everyone else, jack meeting his dead/ghostly father in the church (….christian shepard), the drinking water/wine ceremony, jacob & esau, the light inside all of us (maybe the show was about quakerism?), adam and eve in the cave…i’m sure there’s more
Ok, was it very “Patrick Swayze walking into the light a la Ghost”? Sure. Absolutely.
Jesus-y?
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=74e85dfd41&view=att&th=128cbc8a6a16dbfc&attid=0.1&disp=inline&realattid=f_g9lovgvv0&zw
No. Nope.
Christianity is not about this window, I PROMISE.
“Jesusy” is just a catch all term for re: religious and/or quasi-religious nonsense. Don’t be such a literal prick
I think the word you’re looking for then is “spiritual” … I’m sure all those who practice Islam or Judaism just LOVE hearing Jesus associated with their belief systems.
Don’t be such a catch all term prick.
One thing about the wheel in the window: The Wheel of Fortune is more than just a game show. You can find it in a lot of Renaissance Era work (plays, paintings, etc.) Just a representation of random fate (aka atheism). I’m just surprised I knew something without having to read Doc Jensen’s article.
Google that mess.
The LOST finale actually managed to be better than BSG, I think, even though BSG was the better show overall.
I would agree with this. I know a lot of people didn’t like the final season of BSG as a whole, but I kind of appreciated how dark they let it get and how far they pushed the characters to the brink of hopelessness before the finale. The final season of Lost wasn’t nearly as effective for me, but I think it ended on an episode that matched the spirit of the show better than BSG’s “let’s all abandon technology, fast-forward 500,000 yrs, mitochondrial eve, robots!, angels!, all along the watchtower” ridiculousness.
Yes, exactly. I liked the final season of BSG just fine, but the STARBUCK IS AN ANGEL twist had nothing to do with the show. Lost always had that emotional, spiritual side to it. It was a much better fit, and most characters had pretty decent conclusions, which is more than I can say about BSG. Basically, ITA.
Dude – why does everyone have such a problem with Starbuck being an angel? She DIED. Her Viper blew up and she died. In a real world, you know, not Lost, when someone dies, some sort of supernatural explanation has to be provided for them to return. She was either a ghost or an angel.. it was kind of obvious. And since when did religion have NOTHING to do with BSG? Wasn’t at least half the show about religion? BSG was 10X more rooted in religion than LOST ever was.
And Stu – if you had just been fighting your way across the galaxy for 7 years, seen just about everyone you know die and been pushed to the utter brink of exhaustion – wouldn’t finding a nice Savannah to settle down on seem like a good option? There were all of 30,000 modern humans left, what, were they going to rebuild Colonial society with supplies they didn’t have?
The LOST finale was nothing more than the creators hitting you over the head with sappy sentimentality and heroism to cover up years of sloppy writing and storytelling.
I agree. For me , the main theme of BSG was the idea that if the two sides of conflict make the effort to learn about each other and embrace their differences (instead of one side assimilating into the other) then all will benefit both from the no war casualties but also what they can learn from the other side and use to make everyone better (this sounds like hippy dippy because I’m not very good at explaining this well). In essence, we benefit from being a greater community and appreciating what everyone is bringing to the table because one person/culture’s strengths balance out another’s weaknesses and vice versa. And I thought they had done that really well until the finale, when all off a sudden all the tech had to go which was essentially getting rid of the Cylon culture.
That “live together, die alone” theme was also central to Lost (and doc Jensen explains it beautifully) and the finale pulled it together really well. I’m not in love with the last 10 minutes/everybody goes to “heaven” bit (though I didn’t hate it, either) but I don’t feel like it is a betrayal of the ethos of the entire series.
Hated it. Sorry. I just don’t understand the writers. If you don’t want to make a show about an awesome magic island, don’t make a show about an awesome magic island and then say it’s been about the (mainly lame) characters the whole time when you realize you aren’t smart enough to tie up the plotholes. If you put a polar bear in season one, then you better explain the hieroglyphics and Eloise Hawking in the season finale, is what Chekhov always said.
And to think I was a lost apologist up until last night.
Chekhov was famous for his stories about magic tropical islands.
Although his “Uncle Vanya’s Island” opened to dismal reviews.
I read the same Chekhov thing on the AV Club, and I still have to disagree. The gun was fire. The gun, however, was not taken apart, examined, and detailed.
The gun was fired* ugh.
The gun was a Thomas Kinkade painting
Although, I love that having an intact spinal cord was what made Locke FEEL IT. LOL
The polar bears were explained about three seasons ago
The hieroglyphs (along with the statue of Tawaret) are a mechanism to show that this has been happening for eternity, hence the ancient skeletons in the cave when Desmond went down to find the light.
I’m pretty sure the idea is that Jacob (or his followers) made them, at this point? Since he made the tapestry, that was covered in hieroglyphic-like drawings telling the story or features of the Island.
As instructions to the Others, or even potential candidates.
If you were a Lost apologist then I feel like you definitely should have known how the show operates with ambiguities right now. Eloise Hawking was intriguing,but I never felt like “if they don’t tell her full story, it compromises my understanding of the show itself.”
It’s just depends on how much of a MAN OF FAITH you are. I mean, lol but srsly sort of. Clearly, if you’ve been with the show this long, you trust the writers as exceptionally talented, full of craft, and foresight when pacing the story. Not everything was wrapped up (and they literally said at every turn “every person is going to find a different ‘question’ to be pissed about. but that’s not what we’re doing, and that’s not what we’ve ever done’) but ya know.
I’ve heard the “trust the writers/producers” arguments for the past couple years, and I’m not buying any of them. You get the feeling, as I’ve read here and elsewhere, that the “writers” were flying by the seats of their pants . . . no plan, no scheme. The fact that they’ve let slip Ben was supposed to be a three-episode character gives you some insight into just how LITTLE planning there was or has been. Every season, they’ve tweaked what the Island is by adding mysteries and characters and amped-up drama. And I feel like the last 10 minutes of the entire run is . . . kind-of a cop-out.
I didn’t need all of my questions answered. I just wanted an ending that honored the HUGENESS of all that the Island represented (or was hinted to represent). But, no. We get, “Yes, the Island stuff was real. Now, HUG ONE ANOTHER AND WALK INTO THE LIGHT.”
It was totally a cop-out! Since they couldn’t answer any of the bigger questions without being completely ridiculous they ended it in a way that was basically saying to the viewer, “What do YOU think it all means?” They answered a question with a question. If they had planned this all out from the start like they’d claimed I don’t think they would have left so many plot holes and unanswered questions.
On a side note, did anyone else find that whole self-congratulatory wankathon they pulled leading up to this episode nauseating?
Lindelhof and Cuse cured cancer.
I’m sorry, but somebody explain how they could’ve produced a finale with ANSWERS that didn’t sound ridiculous. Remember when they explained the Force in the Star Wars prequels by saying “midichlorians”? Remember how stupid that was? What question about this “awesome magical island” do you still need answered? Take any one of them and try to manufacture a satisfying, INTERESTING answer to the question. Like, “Why can the Island move?” It’s made up! Its a fictional thing. It can move because it can. That’s it. Nobody asks “Why are things the way they are in Lord Of The Rings? Why would a ring be so fucking important?”
These answer whores will NEVER be satisfied, even the MANY questions they answered in this final season left you upset with the answers. (What is the smoke monster? Why were these people brought to the island? Why doesn’t Richard age? What’s up with the temple? What is Jacob’s story? What is the island? What are the whispers? Who were Adam & Eve? ETC.) That’s because ANSWERS SUCK! The thing that makes a show like this interesting and engaging is the intrigue. Answering these mysteries only serves to devalue them. Maintaining the mysteries through the end gives the story some dignity and allows the conversation to continue.
Again, its kind of ridiculous that people say there weren’t answers, because I came away knowing that the Island was LITERALLY a cork that prevented Hell on Earth (that was definitely Hell bubbling up after Desmond removed the cork, for sure). The castaways’ lives were manipulated in such a way that they would wind up on this Island so that one day one of them would become the protector of this cork. The smoke monster used to be the brother of the latest protector of the island, but was thrown into the light (which is electromagnetic energy, btw) and was transformed into a smoke monster. This made him pissed off and caused him to set in motion a plot to kill his brother which would ultimately involve our main characters because one of them would wind up being the new boss. He finally gets rid of his brother, but the position of island protector was filled by one of our main characters and there is a showdown in which the monster is ultimately defeated. A few of them ultimately do end up getting off the island and live out their lives, and ultimately, they all meet up in the afterlife and move on into eternity together.
I understand there are still questions at the end, but many of these questions can be confidently explained after having seen everything. Knowing that the light in the cave is the same light at the wheel, I think its safe to say that this “light” is actually the large reserves of electromagnetic energy underneath the island. Perhaps this energy is the key to keeping Hell at bay. Maybe that “cork” is actually a conductor of some sort? The Dharma Initiative were obviously there to study this energy, but knowing what we know, these people had to have been invited to the Island by Jacob. Perhaps Jacob thought he would find his replacement out of these people. After all, they were ultimately hippies who combined spiritual philosophy with scientific pursuits and were constantly pushing a message of peace. Jacob probably LOVED these guys! At least he did until they went overboard with their research. Its a fair guess that “The Incident” and its aftermath caused them to lose favor with Jacob, and I’m guessing that ultimately it was him who ordered the purge.
So there’s a Light Cave and a Dharma Initiative explanation, how about the cabin? I think its pretty obvious that Smokey was trapped in the cabin for a long time (given the ring of ash around it) and was set free somehow (I’m guessing Vincent broke the ash circle after they crashed). Ben was being summoned there by MIB and was told it was Jacob’s place, but this was part of Smokey’s con job on Ben in which he leads Ben to believe that Jacob speaks through the spirits of dead people. This was all a setup so that MIB could appear as Alex and tell Ben to do whatever Locke says (i.e. KILL JACOB).
Walt, you ask? WALT IS THE HURLEYBIRD. The one thing we know about Walt and his powers for sure is that he can summon birds. I think that’s because he is a bird himself. He could fly wherever which is why he appeared on island again in season 3 to tell Locke he had work to do.
I’m not sure that there are ANY other super important questions that “need” to be answered. I mean, Richard Alpert said that he “saw them all die” in reference to the Oceanic 6 who were transported to 1977. But what that probably meant was that the bomb did go off, or that The Incident occured and Richard, far away from the blast, assumed that they all died when in fact they just time flashed again to 2007. Don’t tell me you need to know “what about the outrigger shootout?” Because who cares about the outrigger shootout. LITERALLY anyone could’ve been in that outrigger. It was Michael Bolton who got shot that day. The end.
oohh yesss… there was no barf bag big enough– and it was a 5+ hour-long barf-a-thon!
@applescruff I [heart] you so hard.
!!!!
@applscruff — it’s not about wanting “answers.” People say they want answers, but that’s just shorthand for needing JUSTIFICATION of everything they’ve watched and been though. What happened when Desmond turned the key but somehow avoided being crushed under the imploded hatch without his clothes? Why did Eloise Hawking know everything about every reality? What was the point of Walt being so important to the Others?
These aren’t “magical fiction” elements that we’re supposed to accept and enjoy like a magic ring. THEY THREW THE RING INTO MOUNT DOOM — thus justifying it’s existence and wrapping up its storyline. Where is Eloise Hawking’s Mount Doom?
I think the island light-hole represented the area and boundary between life and death. So the ending, with everyone reuniting after their deaths, seems cohesive to me.
Someone on another forum mentioned to me that the light was analogous to “Jacob’s ladder,” discussed in the bible as a bridge between Earth and the afterlife. It seems the producers were hinting pretty strongly at that symbolism by naming Jacob Jacob.
So I agree with you that the ending, while obnoxious in its religiosity, is fairly cohesive — not only did they finally make to the place they were apparently protecting, but the fact that they can get there presumably indicates that Hurley did his job well and found a replacement to keep the light after him, allowing safe passage for all of them.
I liked the finale, but I think comparisons to LotR or Star Wars aren’t apt. Those stories were fantasy-adventures. The premise is laid out at the beginning: rings, Sauron, Mount Doom, the Force. Then the emphasis is on the young man learning and growing into a hero during the plot.
Lost is more analogous to a mystery, where the focus is on solving the puzzles. What is that big noisy thing killing people and knocking down trees? Polar bears? What’s with the hieroglyphs? Candidates for WHAT? It seems to me the Lost writers mixed their genres, and saying the story is essentially character-driven at the end really doesn’t satisfy people.
@Mark Casey
I’d say pretty confidently that Desmond surviving a cataclysmic electromagnetic event only to have his clothes blown off could be described as “magical fiction”. As far as Eloise Hawking, I think the answer to why she knew stuff was pretty obvious. She’s had Daniel Faraday’s notebook with ALL that information since 1977. The notebook’s info ended around the time Desmond was shot and in the hospital. This is confirmed by her comment that “This is the first time in a long time that I have no idea what’s going to happen”. In the Sideways world, its easy to assume she had her “awakening” and realizes what’s going on but is simply unable to move on, probably because SHE SHOT AND KILLED HER OWN SON. If it were up to her, she’d probably stay in that purgatory forever working out her issues about that. See my above comment for my final take on Walt (aka The Hurleybird). I mean, the whole thing with the Others and kidnapping kids was almost certainly because they couldn’t have kids themselves, and needed new blood to keep their community alive. The thing about not being able to have kids on the island is either a byproduct of The Incident (aka the hydrogen bomb detonation) or a phenomenon that’s been going on since the beginning of time (which explains why the earliest inhabitants of the island built a statue of the goddess of fertility). Once the Others had Walt, I think it was clear to them that he was more of a liability than anything else, because of his powers of The Bird, which is why Ben allowed him and Michael to leave the island. Walt was TOO HARDCORE, and nobody could deal with it.
I find “justification” in everything I watched by the thrill, the emotion and the stimulation of the mind that it provided me. I’m sorry that you, along with so many others, find it hard to “justify” 6 years of commitment to a show that gave us so much, simply because the ending wasn’t the end all/be all of everything. I love that the few questions that I can’t confidently answer myself with minimal guesswork are staying ambiguous. Like I said above, it validates and dignifies the mystery instead of blowing it up with something that isn’t in my own imagination. And in the end, I think this whole experience was about the power of our collective imagination. This whole community of people who came together for years to think and talk about all the things we’ve seen and wait in anticipation for what comes next. All the possibilities leading to even greater ones. The sheer glut of interesting ideas from so many great minds all over the world. Man, it gets me misty eyed thinking about it. Let’s all go meet in a church!
How much planning do you really want?
Look at FlashForward. They literally had 6 seasons planned out…no joke…and look where that got them. Canceled.
I have a feeling if Lost had the entire series planned out from the beginning, we’d have the same FF type problems; dragging the overarching plot-line along, with no regard to character development. The mentality of “we have a destination we need to get this show to, and we don’t care how it gets there” would have seen Lost canceled after season 3. I agree there were mistakes made with characters, but at least you cared about the main ones (minus Kate). Even if the show was never all about the characters (people have been saying that on AV Club all day, and they are just straight up wrong) it was never all about the mystery, and if the only reason you watched Lost was for that…well…sorry.
I feel like this response started out well, rambled, became disjointed, and then pulled it together at the end. Oh wait (!!)…
The show is about entertainment first. All those shocking twist and turns and mysteries kept us entertained, kept us watching, and made the experience more enjoyable. There is no way they could have answered everything, but I wouldn’t have had the show any other way.
“I think Kate is pretty.” – Nick Madson
Wired had an interview with the Lost guys last month, and they were basically like “Hey, we’re not gonna explain everything! Just like real life, you can’t expect to learn everything about the universe. We just don’t know.”
And I was all like “Yes, but you CREATED THIS UNIVERSE and if I were to have a conversation with God, I would expect Him to know everything about the goddamn universe.” [JK there is no God]
I mean, when they started the show, they didn’t know if they were gonna get picked up for another season, so they just kind of threw shit together and made it interesting. And then when they discovered it wasn’t going to just be one season long, they were basically like “Oh, man. We have to make it make SENSE now?”
I agree, Miss Rabbit. I found the ending super-inconclusive and super-unsatisfying. Super. Duper.
Yeah, and they always told us to trust them that they knew what they were doing. And in the end, it’s like, “Surprise, they end up in purgatory working out their shit. That whole magic island? Red Herring.”
What kind of explanation are you looking for exactly? It’s not scientific. You said it yourself, it’s a MAGIC island. Some just things cannot be explained, it’s too fantastical.
You’re saying they can end a show with a “let’s go to Heaven” reunion in a world that has nothing to do with the island (that was the main premise of the show), but they can’t tie up a few of the loose ends to satisfy the men (and women) of science out here? Please.
I don’t care if the entire production staff was higher than the tippy-top of the SURPRISE Season 6 lighthouse, just totally MAKING SHIT UP on the fly as a DARE to see if they could magically tie it all together at the end. Working from that set of drug-fueled parameters, couldn’t they–presumably some of the best T.V. writers the Networks have to offier–have come up with something better than this? I don’t HATE it, but I’m not going to buy the DVDs for later viewing because it’ll just frustrate me.
Not just replying to you but others who have expressed dismay. That whole magic island was a storyline, I wonder what you guys wanted. As far as the writers making things up, that’s the definition of writing a story..and it’s especially true for a magic story. It was magic from the very beginning, there can be no logical explanation and I’m with the writers when they insist that the ‘real’ parts are about the characters coming to terms with themselves and the people/things around them. That, in my opinion, is a beautiful and brave (because it’s a happy ending in a tale filled with tragedy and violence) thing to stick to. This is coming from someone who did not like ‘Lost’ much throughout the last 5 seasons.
Listen, I have no problem with the characters finding peace and resolution in their storylines. I do, however, have a problem with the fact that the show is set on a mysterious island with an incredibly intriguing mythology and history and all of that is ignored in the finale (and basically the entire final season). It is poor storytelling.
Think back to previous seasons of Lost and the mysteries that made it iconic – the Hatch, the Dharma stations, the weird videos, the time traveling, the crazy Others and their fake beards, the Temple, etc. Remember constantly having your mind blown? And then, it turns out that the main arc of the final season is some purgatory set in a world that has nothing to do with the island. That makes me angry. You can’t tell me the entire setting of the show was irrelevant because only the characters matter. The island WAS a character in itself.and it had the best fucking back story. They didn’t have to sit down and explain things to us, but they could at least nod to some of the mysteries that made the show great television.
And if this was their plan all along, then they shouldn’t have assured us from the beginning that everything happened for a reason.
The producers have stated repeatedly that the first season was literally just making stuff up because they didn’t know how far they’d be able to take it. So yes, the smoke monster, initially, was probably just a “regular” monster. We all know JJ Abrams loves regular monsters. But that being said, I think they did an impressive job tying it all together, not just in the finale, but of the last couple of seasons.
The storylines they neglected piss me off to no end — the entire Dharma initiative, Walt and Michael, Eloise and even to some extent Desmond (who just seems to be a Deus Ex Desmond device designed to allow them a solution to whatever problem they have), is annoying, sloppy writing, and always will be. But they did do some things well, and right. A lot more things than I thought they would.
Ignoring the Kumbaya moment at the non-denominational L.A. church, and going back to the Island for a moment, not-quite-where we left off . . . with Ben and Hurley. First off, after ALL we’ve seen for six years, we’re left with this “Top Gun” moment? (“You can be my wing man any time!” “No, dude, you can be MINE!”) And second, I had the DISTINCT feeling that five minutes into the future, Ben would push Hurley off a cliff or into a gorge or hit him with a large rock so HE could be the leader (again). Because how many times did Ben seemingly flip-flop allegiances in the course of the last two episodes?
I know, I know . . . Ben was reformed, right? So, he’s going to play second fiddle to Hurley?
I agree. If Harry Potter can be wrapped up in a cohesive 7th book, I just don’t see how the writers of Lost couldn’t have done it. JK Rowling writes children’s books….CHILDREN’S BOOKS!
EXCLUSIVE: Richard Alpert’s post-Island pre-Purgatory career revealed:
PREVIOUSLY ON
Well look who gets to delete posts and try again!
I fix all commenters’ image embed fuckups, actually! (When I see them.)
“Stereogum/Videogum: There are do-overs.”
He does this by hitting a rock onto a tiny Jughead in each comment that needs help.
This LOST series finale = fantastic characters, great storytelling and a very satisfying end.
http://paulscheer.com/post/628563825/dharma-station-ucb-the-lost-comedy-one-night
I felt it.
I enjoyed it. There was only so much they could explain, and I’m fine with them not explaining most of it. The questions were part of what was so interesting about the show. RIP Lost.
I agreeee. I don’t know, I didn’t really like the limbo/purgatory/religious element to it, but I’m okay with the no real answers part. They did give us an answer: Jacob was a fucking asshole. Everything happened because Jacob was a fucking asshole, pretty much. Satisfying? Maybe not. And I really wanted more sci-fi, we got none. But it was an emotionally satisfying conclusion, and that’s already a lot to me. And Desmond got Penny, and Ben got the island, and Lapidus and Miles survived.
Hurley was SO upset he was the new Jacob because he’s too nice to be a complete douchebag. But then Ben told him he didn’t have to be a douchebag like Jacob. That was pretty cool.
jack: “i was supposed to see my son’s concert, i’m the worst dad ever (again)!”
kate: “i wouldn’t worry about it, that kid was just chalk on the wall. wanna hit up some heaven?”
For real– let me say that I really, truly loved this finale, and thought they did just about everything right– but seriously, what was the deal with Jack’s son? He was just a figment of this afterlife, something that tied some of the Losties together… but actually meant nothing? I honestly don’t mind not “knowing” the answers or reasons for most things, but that did seem a little weird to me.
Oh, that and WHY WEREN’T NIKKI AND PAULO IN THE CHURCH? WHHHHYYYYYY?!?!
Yeah, the kid thing in Purgatory is probably my biggest problem with it. (Which, I’ll be fair… it’s pretty fucking minor, on the whole.) But, it felt like cheating by the writers just to really psyche us out.
Yeah I’m having trouble with that too. Eloise asked if Desmond was going to take Farraday with him, so presumably when everyone tripped the light fantastic into whatever the after happens to be, the others and the ones who weren’t feeling in / not ready remained in purgatory LA. So when Jack and Juliet get to move on they essentially orphaned their teenage son . . . or he blinked out of existence.
It’s okay. When Jack was a bad father, he was only a MAKE-BELIEVE bad father.
Claire gave birth to a baby in purgatory and then that kid gets to move on to the afterlife? hope you enjoyed life, baby Aaron!
Also, Sayid killed Keamy and his crew in that kitchen a few episodes back. Hope you enjoyed dying twice, losers!
I guess dying twice is hell? Do you just go to a SECOND purgatory and die again and again and again for all of eternity?
Shit. Good hell, I guess.
And Anthony Cooper’s purgatory fate? So fantastic in retrospect.
@ DisagreeBert : But Aaron DID get birthed. He was born on the island in Season 2 (was it?) and then started growing up in LA with Kate and then was given to Claire’s mama for safe keeping. The fact that Jack wanted to see Aaron as a baby with them is only how (I think) he saw the church room – I’m certain that every other character saw different people in the church from their point of view – those were just the ones who were important to JACK.
@Janelle Lannan So his own purgatory son was less important than his step-nephew? Babies are cute, but at least a purgatory kid can offer up half a conversation.
Aaron actually got rebirthed, and Kate’s P90x muscles prove it
@DisagreeBert: yeah, Aaron was more important than a figment of his imagination set up to make him feel all warm and fuzzy about his daddy issues. Especially when he realized he made his teenage son up.
The kids were props, Jack made his up to get over daddy issues like he made up his relationship with Juliette to get over killing her (nothing in purgatory was actually real but devised so that eventually they’ll all be able to wake up and move on). Aaron was the only way Claire and Charlie could ‘feel it’..the fact that his baby body (or avatar, ugh) was in purg church with them is because that throughout the series it was the 3 of them and in the afterlife it only makes sense for them to be together too as the people they were when they were most important to each other. Time doesn’t really exist there and it was implied that afterlife people and things don’t follow regular rules; that can be a cop-out or it can just be a good way to end a story happily.
I was pretty happy with the last episode. Although, man, the set is so hilarious. It looks like Legends Of The Hidden Temple. Towards the end there is a big rumble and this boulder comes rolling towards Ben and it looked like probably weighed 2lbs and was made of foam.
Also, if I ever have kids, I totally want to have TV labor. Claire pooped out that baby in less than two minutes. Again.
And when they’re born, they’re already two months old. Head start on success.
I always wonder who these parents are that volunteer their week-old infants to be covered in Vaseline and held under hot lights all day. I’m all for realism, but I’d love if these youngsters would stop getting the choice gigs, I gotta keep myself in Huggies!
Most of these realistic-looking infants are actually dolls. Robot babies. No joke (!) most TV shows/movies use them. So, fear not losing work to droids, nothing can really replace the genuine article! If this was a doll-baby, maybe it wasn’t really in Purgatory after all? I mean, somehow it lessens the trouble I had with a baby being born in Purgatory. If it’s a robot-baby it’s OK.
Lapidus Forever!
Oh those rocks! I kept waiting for Ludo to step out of the forest and ask Hurley to be his fwend.
The tumbling “rocks” reminded me of the styrofoam rocks they used to throw at the kids climbing the AggroCrag on GUTS – I was seriously expecting GLITTER EXPLOSIONS at any moment.
EXACTLY! That is exactly what those rocks were hahaha.
whenever that would happen everyone I was watching with would scream “NOOOO ROCKSSSSSS” and fun was had.
Desmond you have the monkey’s head on backwards?! No don’t take the middle off – leave the middle on! Jesus you have the head on the bottom somehow now? What the hell do you think you’re supposed to be assembling?!
Seriously guys, those Legends kids acted like the solving the Shrine of the Silver Monkey was like solving a Rubix cube.
I was telling these fictional characters on my screen to stop worrying so much about the earthquakes, it’s just the camera shaking. And those rocks won’t even bruise you! Just chillax and walk normally, fictional characters on my screen.
Final thoughts on Lost: Initially I was disappointed in the finale, but the most I thought about it, I realized it was a good send off for the characters we have grown to love/hate. My disappointment has been redirected to the season as a whole. This was the final season of a show surrounded by mysteries (character-drive, yes, but the mysteries were a huge part of it) but so much time was spent wasted on more stories that ended up bring pointless (the Temple, even Jacob and MIB, to an extent). I wish more time was spent fleshing out the stories of characters/mysteries that seemed to be a part of the bigger narrative.
But overall, it is what it is. And I’ve enjoyed watching it for the past 6 years and the final scene was perfect.
I agree. Last week, my dream finale would have been Kate and Jack dying for two and a half hours. But aside from kinda liking creepy-zen Jack after he drank the Island Kool Aid, I always know him as being a whiner and kind of a pussy, and I was actually a little sad when he finally died at the end.
My sentiments exactly. Although I still don’t understand what, exactly, the island actually was, i enjoyed the time I spent with this show and think the finale brought the proper emotional resolution to the lives of these fictional characters. Now bring on the Lapidus spin-off!
This Fall, on ABC: Lapi-DOES-it. The beloved icon from LOST gets his own show where he waltzes into impossible situations and saves the day with legendary savoir-faire and a witty remark.
I agree, the final scene was perfect. I just thought, “yes, obviously. There was no other possible final shot for this show. A+, everyone.”
Yeah the symmetry of that final Jack scene was absolutely perfect.
Dear LOST,
You rarely made sense, but I will miss you.
-s
PS. Thanks for all the Easter Eggs.
ENHANCE
I had this else where, but this is my favorite place to discuss Lost, so I’ve added more thoughts the more I’ve thought about it it and I wanted to see what you guys thought.
I’m really satisfied and at peace with the finale and the series as a whole. there are still burning questions (hi, Walt) but not enough to mar the entire beautiful experience.
I was thinking earlier today before the finale that Miles was able to commune with the dead because he was born on the Island- quite possibly the very barrier between (or even source of) all life and death. So he was predisposed to its energy [which is why birth was so hard on the Island- because the core essences of life and death are so mangled there.]
So the same could have happened to all the Island inhabitants when the hydrogen bomb went off, except obviously the exposure would have been much more dramatic and instantaneous. Like a spider bite to Peter Parker.
Therefore, for any number of reasons (either at the end of season 5 the swelling electromagnetic anomaly was supposed to kill them and the energy of the bomb counteracted it or vice versa) the people on the Island and their very souls were profoundly affected and they were dislodged from the normal Life/Death dichotomy.
Much in the way the Island was dislodged from Time when Ben moved it at the end of season 4 and was skipping back and forth.
Were it not for Desmond already having a heightened receptiveness, due to him being there when the hatch exploded and already being exposed extensively to that raw essence- all of the people from the Island may have been stuck in purgatory forever.
It is possible that, again due to them being so close to the very essence of life, that they inhabited their own specific form of the afterlife that catered to them as individuals.
The reasons why that “reality” was corrupted (Sayid is still possibly a murderer, Charlie is on drugs) I think was affected by a lot of factors. At the beginning of Season 6 it wasn’t pure yet- there wasn’t a true successor to Jacob, [hence the water in the temple being brown, and why Sayid was corrupted himself when immersed in those waters] and perhaps the unresolved conflict between MIB and the Island.
also I have no idea how to explain Jack having a son rofl.
edits:
at the end of “Across the Sea” (the origin story of Jacob/MIB) I was like “if they just go ‘it’s Magic!’ and leave it as that I’munna be pissed” but without realizing it they completely had me by the end of the finale. I sincerely don’t know how the fuck they did it, but they did. And I love it.
The showrunners always said it wasn’t about the mythology or explanations. The show as a whole is about the essence of character(s) and the bonds formed through life and death (which, not so coincidentally is exactly what The Light at the bottom of the cave represents).
ah’m sold.
Can, you are, as usual, so right it hurts me. As to Jack’s son, I think that in the afterlife, the son was a way for Jack to work out his father issues.
Yeah. I think that Sideways-LA was, in part a way for each character to live in a world where they could resolve their flaws. The only ones that leave me confused on that one are Sayid and Kate.
I agree with the flaw-workout-theory; I think some of our characters remained in ’sideways’ land because they had more to atone for. Ben remained as did Eloise, who seemed to be still working through killing her son, given her convo with Desmond. Many of them were referenced to “not being ready” and also encounters such as Daniel and Charlotte lead the viewer to believe that they were making their way to moving on soon as well.
Overall, I approve of the finale. The framing with Jack’s eye opening and closing, that was so tidy and just…fantastic. Really well done.
However, think I’m sitting outside the church on the bench with Ben. I’m not ready to move on just yet! Can’t really believe it’s over. NO!
Sayid will always have a tremendous amount of guilt over his past and will never allow himself to “deserve” Nadia – hence his more genteel brother having married her and he not allowed. Kate will always consider herself a fugitive, regardless of whether she’s atoned or proven herself in the real life – she cannot escape her “running” and is in purgatory doing the same bit – until she’s “woken up.” I LOVE that @Mans said Jack was working out father issues – BINGO. Good work.
I adored the ending. Adored. I loved that the island really happened. I loved that Jacob was actually just a human being who had been put in charge of a monumentally important task and screwed it up and wanted to prove something all along – resulting in hurting a lot of people (or helping them find love and friendship, your call). I loved that Hurley was so lauded for being a caring and loving individual (nothing was better than his “God, I love you so much it tickles my insides to see you, Charlie” expression at Charlie’s hotel). I loved that Jack became a man of faith and just went with it – no matter what you think of Jack or Kate or anyone you want to make fun of: it was HIS journey to f up or win. And YEAH! What an awesome forgiveness to Ben?! Yes, he needs to work some stuff out yet in their own purgatory construct, but how cool was Hurley and him, man? So cool.
The finale made me no longer care about the mysteries of the island, but simply accept them as possible and enjoy the ride. It’s obvious the island has been around for a long long LONG while and there has always been a fallible human being put in charge of “protecting” it – that is answer enough. (Yeah, I’d really like to know how the island came into being, but oh well.)
Loved loved loved everyone’s awakening. Such amazing peace. ::sigh::
Indeed, does nobody remember Locke saying to Jack: “you don’t have a son”?
Thank you for all your posts in these recaps, Can. The Videogum Lost experience will be what I miss the most.
There were, of course, things that I would have done differently. Notsewfast is right about Walt. I found the in church stuff a bit heavy handed. The series of everyone FEELING IT got a bit pat. Etc.
That said: I thought it really was pretty great. The final moments when Jack is there in the bamboo forest, dying and Vincent runs up and lays down. Too great. And then the silent scenes of the beach wreckage.
The acting was really great, especially Jack, Hurley, Ben and Kate. When Sawyer and Juliet touched–bingo!
And I am going to go out here by myself and say this: I like Kate. Yes, her character has been the worst, but I respect the show for having a female character who is complicated enough to have both good and bad in her. They did not try and resolve her immediately into “the troubled beautiful woman who is good at her core.” They left her bad and untrustworthy and I think that is pretty great. It took her, like the other characters, a long time to fine it within herself to transcend her selfish and guarded nature and try and do something for someone else. So let me say, “Good job not dying Kate.” “Good job being a complicated character whith complicated motivations that are like real human motivations.”
I love this show. It has been really fun to watch and get too-wrapped up in.
Honestly, Kate would be a lot more tolerable if I knew nothing of her past.
Not gonna lie, I choked up at the end of the episode when the word Lost popped up on the screen, and they replaced the familiar “thud” noise with like a touching musical note. That slight adjustment in sound made me realize how much I’m gonna miss this show.
No joke, when Claire said “It’s Aaron” and held her baby in her arms again I turned into a sobbing mess.
Also, why can’t you have the 8-spoked wheel of Buddhism in the stained glass window?
I think, like me, he may have thought it was a shout out to the fucking wheel in the bottom of the island that takes it through space-time?
Because, my reaction was similar until someone was like, “Hey asshole, that’s Buddhism.”
And then I felt like an asshole.
I thought it was a Trivia Pursuit piece!
Whoops, back to college
whilst we’re all being honest, I cried pretty much every time anyone FELT IT.
So true. And I NEVER cry watching tv! The Sun and Jin bit left me a mess.
me too
I was thinking it was because Buddhism doesn’t really have a heaven/ hell, or purgatory, by extension. So them ‘moving on’ doesn’t fit with it. Though I don’t know that those other non-Christian versions of heaven match up to what the show was presenting. For instance, my rabbis in hebrew school used to tell me that heaven was a place where you learnt gemara all day. Are the Losties “moving on” to become Charedi?!
Gabe was panoptiCONNED.
the ultimate comment. none higher.
So the numbers are what? WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS?!!?
I am fine with the not explaining of the true nature of the island and how it does all it’s crazy shenanigans, but the numbers were so DAMN important apparently…
Seriously, my number one mystery I wanted a hint on was how the heck Jacob got the numbers on Hugo’s odometer. And an asteroid! Jacob can cause asteroids? Or something? Take it away, Nick!
The Numbers are both variables within the Valenzetti Equation and representations of the various candidates that would ultimately be instrumental in saving the world.
“At least the World will end, an event anticipated with great joy by many. It will end very soon, but not in the year 2000, which has come and gone. From that I conclude that God Almighty is not heavily into Numerology.” -Kurt Vonnegut
Ugh, they kind of mentioned it when Locke took Sawyer to the cave. Remember “Jacob had a thing for numbers?” That’s your explanation of a giant arching plot devise
I thought the numbers were explained by the lighthouse. At least it explained why Jacob used them. As to why they popped up everywhere, not sure… maybe it’s the idea that the island was calling those six people the entire time?
I would just like to say that I have not watched an episode of Lost since season 1 episode 3, at which point it had bored me with its wilful mysteriousness. I knew there was a complexity to it, and I never felt much of an urge to understand it.
However, since the start of this season, I have read in full every single one of Gabe’s reviews and, even though every character, event and situation makes little sense to me, I have carried on reading and laughing.
I will not be a mourner of Lost. But I will be a mourner of Gabe’s Lost Recaps.
Agreed.
the thing i will miss most about Lost are the pictures of Jack thinking “Nickelback Lyrics” in these recaps. always a big lol moment for me.
Aw, Gabe, can I just say that this write up totally brought me out of my post-finale jearing fest (and let me tell you, I was out-jearing Jack at the End there)? So good!
Kind of like the episode! Because yeah a lot of shit was left unanswered (WAAAAAALT), but all in all it was kind of perfect. And Vincent! I was crying so much I was mistaking him for my own dog because I was FEELING IT all over the place, and maybe I’m super lame, but that final scene in the jungle was so perfect I was falling over crying, kind of literally (relax, technoJack!).
Basically this whole comment has made about as much sense as the rest of the show. I was FEELING FEELINGS. Lost!
I’m glad to know i wasn’t the only weepy mess. I went through about 40 tissues in that last hour. the last scene with Jack; absolute poetry.
I could watch this over and over and over again…
Hey asshole, that’s Buddhism.
Yeah that was my favorite part. Mostly because it was just like that time Simba fought Scar for control of Pride Rock/his rightful kingdom.
OMG EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKING OF.
Finally a legit battle scene.
In England, we call it “lorries.”
Diggin on the Tool/10,000 days poster. And your Samsung is pretty.
My friend and his Tool poster thank you. The Samsung just shrugged.
amirite?
doug benson called that brad pitt”s “triple-death-lutz.”
“I’m just going to jump and punch the air and if you get hit i’ts your own fault”
-Jack Shepard 1966-2007
It was HILARIOUS.
ok i seriously count have been the only one to have episode three flashbacks here?
“it’s over anakin, i have the high ground!”
Why did it take me so long to find this? Internet is straight up FAILING me today.
WAIT! My friend made a better one:
How can you watch that and NOT love it?
Give your friend ten thousand upvotes from me.
I loved this show and am going to miss it, but so…many….plot holes. Wow.
For one, I may have totally missed this, but wasn’t there a point where Ben was trapped under a tree and Sawyer was all “YEP. NO WAY WE CAN LIFT THIS. TOO HEAVY.” and then in the next scene Ben is all like “LOL HEY GUYS.” What the? How did that happen?
The finale got the job done, given the direction the show had gone the past few seasons, but I still yearn for the show I fell in love with during seasons 1-2. More island, more Dharma, more sci fi easter eggi-ness!
That’s a big issue for me too. I realized they didn’t resolve the tree thing. That was weird. Maybe it got edited out?
I read that there were 30 minutes edited out that they are going to put back in for the DVD–bringing the commercial free run time to 40 minutes (becuase there were alot of commericals).
ha. I do believe it was just edited out – apparently the scene that showed him getting loose wasn’t as telling as all the other scenes. And I would LOVE to see all the cuts. I’m an addict.
They showed Sawyer wedging something under the tree then they cut away.
I just thought the island shook him loose.
I enjoyed the series finale of your LOST recaps, Gabe.
will there be a spinoff about black people’s heaven?
I totally thought that was creepy, too. But Rose was there, so no dice. Unless it’s just black MEN who can’t get into heaven in which case Harold Perrineau has been right this entire time (ughhh).
or non-heterosexual monogamous heaven?
[IMG]http://i859.photobucket.com/albums/ab160/musicgeekers/fist_bump.jpg[/IMG]
this makes my Monday morning. thanks Gabe
it didn’t work
awww man!
I was welling up at the end. Felt closure. That’s pretty much all I needed. R.I.P.
I definitely felt the same. Knowing that the writers weren’t going to answer every question, I was skeptical that they would tie up the worst of the loose ends, but hopeful that they would side-step the empty, pointless philosophizing that BSG burped out at the end. The fact that they said, “Screw your answers, have some happy smiling and hugging instead!” really shows me that Lost, unlike BSG, knows why human beings like to watch the made up trials and tribulations of other, fictional human beings. And puppies! Yay for Birdie, Vincent, and emotional manipulation!
Thought it was the most satisfying ending you could have had. I love it. Best concluding tv show I’ve seen, next to ALF. Everyone got what they wanted:
Fans – a great summation to the 6-year ride we’ve been on
Jeff Fahey – no longer known as the Lawnmower Man, but Lapidus!
Writers – Satisfaction in creating the last-of-its-kind type of tv show
ABC – ability to someday spin this off to movie or alternate show (with Hurley as the #1 and Ben as the #2)
Last of its kind? As far as I know, there were not many mystical island-procedural dramas before Lost.
Last of its kind being, not the actual story itself, but how it’s told and filmed. No studio is going to go to this much expense to film something like this in the future. And, not many studios will have the balls to agree on an end-date while the show is still very popular.
Only other show that did that was Seinfeld (and we can argue the merits of that show jumping the shark…which it had). The one common theme was the creators/writers of the show said, “eff it, we’ve run our course. let’s end this.” If Lost were on NBC, it’d still be on without an end in sight…at least not until 2016.
I disagree that Seinfeld ever jumped the shark. Even the series finale on Seinfeld was clever.
Question – was Jack’s son, then, some figment of his creation to make up for the fact he wanted to be a better father than his own dad?
Yes, probably.
(Thanks to DavidCxr for one that actually works. And RIP to Des and Lapidus, two chill dudes)
I don’t understand so much. It’s not even “explain this mystery,” it’s like “WHY DID THIS EXIST?” For instance, why was Kate randomly married to Ethan before the crash? Why did this never come up again and seemingly not play in AT ALL to any of the rest of the plot? And the Walt thing. And TIME TRAVEL WTF? And why are the numbers imbued with such mystical life-altering powers if they’re just “chalk on a wall”? And where were there all sorts of Egyptian imagery and symbolism? And the temple? And AHHHHHHHHH.
That said, I did cry a little at the end. Not an embarrassing amount, but enough to confirm I still have some poetry in my soul. Live Together Die Next To Vincent.
Well sense its a time traveling island which occasionally people on it, I don’t think we need to be told how all the Egyptian stuff was built.
For me, I think the Walt thing is by far the biggest flaw.
Uh, what about Aaron? Remember what a big deal they made out of him? Not to be raised by another, but ultimately, kind of was? HUH?
I’m assuming Claire will raise him now that she’s off the island. He’s what, 3, when Kate leaves him with Claire’s mother? There’s still plenty of years left for Claire to be a parental figure in his life.
I don’t think that Kate was ever married to Ethan before the crash. She was married to Castle, star of television’s Castle.
Now I’m confused because Captain Tightpants doesn’t look anything like Ethan. Firefly! Come on!
Kate was married to Nathan Fillion, who was called Kevin but obviously was a time traveling Captain Hammer (the hammer Is his penis.).
Am I insane or what? Tooootally thought he was Ethan. It’s been a while. He looked like him or something, right? A little bit?
Ethan was Claire’s doctor when she had her fake delivery in the hospital. ‘member?
Yeah they look a little alike. I recall being confused about that once.
Ethan is Tom Cruise’s cousin. Knowing that fact kind of ruined Ethan for me a long time ago. Every time I see the actor act a LITTLE crazy it’s always amped up by my knowledge of his bloodline. I’m like:
“Oho, yup. Look at that. God, they’re all crazy, huh? That’s a shame. Crazy blood.”
wait, are we not going to address the real final scene in which we see unknown plane wreckage and are left to wonder about whether it was just a throwback to the pilot, the Ajira plane, or a hint that they all originally died in the Oceanic 815 crash?
Otherwise, the re-cap was tops. I appreciate the Goonies reference: I started reciting the “This Is Our Time Speech” last night during that scene.
I don’t think they originally died in the plane crash. Otherwise Christian’s speech at the end doesn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t have known anyone on the plane. I took it just as a visual call back to the beginning of the series. Really, I see Jack’s eye closing as making the most logical sense as the end. I don’t know why they threw in that shot, but I think it was just cause.
Exactly, Max. I think people are making WAY too much of it. The show was over. It’s been stated by Matthew Fox that Jack’s eye was the final image of the series. The word “LOST” appeared on screen. That’s driving me crazy that that’s driving people crazy.
I felt like Jack’s death was the end in actuality, and I was satisfied with that. And just confused by the subsequent shot. I don’t think the “Island-as-Purgatory” theory makes sense anyhow, because then you’d have two Purgatories: the Island and the sideways timeline. I felt like it was a throwback to the beginning, or, at most, perhaps the Ajira plane, but I wanted it to be addressed none-the-less. It seemed to trip up a lot of people.
Also, did anybody else get a karassvibe, or is it just me?
Jacob is Bokanan?
Smokey got to loop hole /
Jacob got to die /
Jack got to sit and wonder, ‘Why, why, why?’
Locke got to walk /
Flight 815 got to land /
Lost viewers got to sit around and discuss this finale until they understand
or something!
It’s not a reference that they all died because there are explicit signs of their life around the wreckage. You see tents, a table, laundry, and footprints around the wreckage. It’s just empty because it was a shot of the original set for nostalgia’s sake, a bookend to the production, not to the story. I also heard that the producers did not put that shot in, that the series ends with the LOST logo, and ABC added those shots of production for their own dumb reasons, thus confusing everyone during an emotionally fragile time and making them wonder for a second if they were dead all along, which is just mean! Inadvertent, but mean.
Listen I loved the show and I learned one thing: Lost is that friend of yours who believes is conspiracy theories. Your friend comes over, some of the thing he/she says are very insightful, some are pure dribble. You share a few beers, and you try to really listen to your friend because you don’t know if what he/she is saying is true or not. You go out on the town meet some new people. Then you wake up the next morning not knowing exactly what happened, you regret some things, you reminisce about others. And when it’s over you realize how much fun you’ve had with your friend and it doesn’t matter that he/she is a little bonkers.
I think this is a perfect summation.
Does anyone remember the movie Jacob’s Ladder? No? Just me, Lindelof and Cuse? OK!
“Wait, so it was a six-year remake of Jacob’s Ladder?” – me when the series ended.
I thought the exact same thing. It was Jacobs Ladder + a taste of Vanilla Sky.
..with just a pinch of Part of Five
* Party
It’s life. Jump into life.
You’re in for… well, you’re in for something. No one is sure what that something is, but we all agree, it was something.
To me it sounds like you guys just got to the end of a 122.5 hour-long The Sixth Sense.
Nah, there were no “what you just saw is not real” moments. People are scared to death that there might’ve been a hint that what we just saw is not real, but in reality they are EXPLICIT that everything that happens in the series is “real.”
So enjoy the ride. The first three seasons (well, the second half of the third and the first half of the fourth) are magnificent. The 5th and 6th seasons, I think it’s not too outrageous to say, are kind of a different show entirely.
I am really happy Ben is staying in purgatory because now he can marry Rousseau and Alex gets a dad AND a mom and they’re both sane and Ben teaches history and is slightly cranky FOREVER!!!!!
Purgatory Ben better hope Rousseau and Alex never “feel it.” Because that just might make things a little awkward.
Pretend I just infinity upvoted you.
This article took 4 hours to load on my dial-up Prodigy connection.
I still so confused. I kind of liked this episode, but I also still feel ripped off. Were they dead all along? Were they alive on the island and then met up later after they’d all died? Neither really makes sense. On one hand if they didn’t die in the crash and all met up later why was Aaron stuck being an infant all over again? On the other hand if they died in the crash Sawyer would have never met Juliet. And why was Michael stuck haunting the island but Ben had the option of joining everyone else in heaven/wherever? And what about poor Boone having to spend eternity alone while everyone else is all coupled up? And what about Faraday and Charlotte?
All in all, I feel like the writers couldn’t possibly tie up all the loose ends because they’d just been making it up as they went, but they could have at least tried to answer the big ones- what are the numbers? What’s with the statue? Etc.
I felt ripped off and I feel robbed (ROBBED!!!!) betrayed angry hurt etc
Idk
They weren’t dead all along. Some of them died on the island (Jack, Jin, Sun etc. etc.), others died long after (those who left on the plane, I’m guessing.) The flashsideways were the limbo before they all go to heaven. The last scene in the church was like the last scene in Titanic, when Rose arrives at the ship and everyone is there and she and Jack (Jack!) are finally together at last and their hearts will go on and on. Basically, yes, they’re all dead in the flashsideways, but they didn’t die at the plane crash, no.
I totally made the connection to Titanic too and everyone at the finale party I was at got mad at me.
Although it should be said that I think it’s much more effective in LOST than in Titanic. I mean, why would your heaven be going back to a sinking ship where you knew everyone for like 5 minutes, even if you did make sweet passionate love to Leonardo DiCaprio in a hot sweaty car?
Also, this is the second time they’ve done a Titanic shout-out. I totally FELT IT when Charlie put his hand against the glass in the sinking car in Bizarro-LA/purgatory. I was like…LEO!?
was I not watching the same show? the end of this finale was terrible. leaving out all the unanswered questions (of which there were way too many), i still have this big problem:
they’re all dead and in non-denominational (but still kind of Christian because this is AMERICA) heaven now? this is a satisfying end to Lost? Everyone dies (sad!) but they all get to be together still (happy!).
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I seriously cannot believe people are trying to talk themselves into “liking” this ending. It was sloppy deus ex machina writing at its worst. the last segment in the church didn’t even make sense within the context of the 2.5 hour finale I sat through last night, much less within the context of the entire show I watched for six seasons. I’m supposed to believe that the 90 or so hours of TV that comprised Lost were ALWAYS leading up to that scene?
no way.
wtf, videogum community? are we all going soft in our old age?
I gave you +1 but someone else had apparently downvoted at the some time, so I want you to know that I tried.
I think the majority of those who didn’t enjoy it are witholding their criticisms waiting for some big shot Lost blogger to explain how it all fits in (no offense Gabe, but this is not that blog). I know that I stopped over-analyzing the show like 3 seasons ago, partially to avoid this kind of disappointment I’m sure. To all the folks who believe the show was always supposed to end mysteriously, don’t you think the show could’ve ended on the Season 4 finale (“we have to go back!”) and that would’ve been an ending that was mysterious, mind blowing and never introduced a ton of mythology that added to the confusion of the show but explained nothing? But like I said, I’m still holding out for some sick explanation.
It’s not only that though. I loved Sawyer/Juliet. I loved the reunions, it killed me. But that is not what I was expecting nor should it have been. We wasted a whole incredibly underwhelming season and guess what? They’re all dead. It’s not like some super twist; it’s fucked up. I’m really disappointed and angry and I am so glad I haven’t been watching for six years but it hurts (? it’s a tv show that’s kind of bad language lol)
Thank you, Douche Juice. Speak.
It speaks to your gravitas as a troll on our boards that i am judging the merit of my lost hating upon your approval.
you were right, steve winwood. tell your sister… you were right.
STAR WARS REFERENCE!!!!!! RAD!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree and it makes me upset. It was not ok.
totally right. what a 6-year cock tease.
I for one was completely satisfied with the ending. So what if we didn’t get all the answers? I know that sounds like a hopeless response to a show you’ve watched for 6 years but seriously, why can’t we be satisfied with still remaining in mystery? Its like incredimarc said a few posts ago, “Its life”… life is a mystery, so why can’t a tv show remain as such? There are plenty of great stories, films etc. that leave you with an ending that’s open to interpretation. The finale showed pretty convincingly that the show wasn’t even about the questions, it was about the characters and how you enjoyed them as a viewer.
i didn’t need all my answers. i was way more invested in the characters than i was in figuring out how eloise knew how to get back to the island/why widmore was banished/the origins of the original others (that killed the dharma folk)/how and why can the island move through space and time/what was up with walt…. there were a lot of unanswered questions that make me go whaaaaaa? is what i’m saying.
but back to the characters, we can agree to disagree, but i just found the end to be very underwhelming. it left me extremely unfulfilled, from a dramatic standpoint. I don’t want all these people to have to be dead for them to be together… that’s awful.
if anything, i thought they were leading up to the idea that the detonation of the H bomb sunk the island, which created a wrinkle in time where in one reality, the island never had control over these people, and they went on living their lives. However, in the “light cave” reality, the island still existed, because the smoke monster still needed to be destroyed. Upon the destruction of the smoke monster, the island was no longer needed. So, while everyone in the “light cave” reality (our original reality) could have been killed, i was totally okay with the idea that our characters in the new “wrinkle in time reality” could FEEL IT and remember what they’d been through, and live out the rest of their lives with each other, knowing how lucky they were to be free.
Instead i got some stupid fairy tale heaven church bullshit that made no sense and didn’t fit with anything i’d seen for the past six seasons. that’s my beef.
“some stupid fairy tale heaven church bullshit that made no sense and didn’t fit with anything i’d seen for the past six seasons”
EXACTLY!!!!!!! Nailed it
I hated the church scene, like, really hated it, but I was genuinely satisfied with the island ending. Guess I’m just a sucker.
island ending > church ending for sure.
Your two-realities idea makes more sense, and would have been a much more satisfying ending for me.
I hear what you’re saying Douche Juice. (that’s an interesting sentence). I personally feel that the purgatory LA/chuch/heaven arc is obnoxious and irrelevant to the actual show, which is about the island. I feel like the producers left the island behind when they started introducing a bunch of light holes and magic spells as “solutions” to our questions about it.
To me, the writers were being too cute by half. They knew there was a strong undercurrent in the fan base theorizing that the island was purgatory and all of the characters died (or at least there once was), so they made the final season about “actual” purgatory and the characters “actually” dying. This was a deliberate reference to the fact that the island *seemed* like purgatory, and a deliberate attempt to put that concept to rest while simultaneously honoring it. But you know what else it was? A serious distraction from the actual events of the series, which was about living characters on a real life crazy island, not about the journey toward death.
I gave you an uppy too.
I totally get why some people didn’t like this finale, I did like it, but I definitely have some issues with it. However, I’m getting super annoyed with people suggesting that those who did like it “talked themselves into it.”
You didn’t like the finale, cool, it’s a TV show, we all get to have an opinion, but let’s all play nice and not treat the people who DID enjoy it like we’re idiots.
Peace love & monsters.
I was hoping that the final title screen was going to say “LOST: a show by Banksy.”
Because if the whole thing was a performance art piece meant to show me that I should not care so much about a TV show, then it was VERY SUCCESSFUL.
I was looking at a Lost ‘yahoo answers’ type thing a few hours after the finale, and this is probably far and away the greatest question I have yet stumbled upon:
HAHAHA! Sawyer gets the record for longest long-con ever (eternity, because Heaven, right?).
So, after a lifetime of pining for Nadia, marrying her, mourning her death…Sayid goes off into the eternal light with his desert island fling Shannon? Maybe the crazy temple people were right about him being infected.
I will say, I was a sucker for all the rest of the mushy reunions. Just that one had me scratching my head.
Maybe the Lost writers could have gone all edgy and had Shannon and Boone end up together? “Les Step-Siblings Dangereux.”
That would have made much more sense. What made Boone FEEEEL IIIIIT, anyway?
Boone- what a loser. He spends about 10 days with a group of strangers and his step-sister and decides to spend eternity with them (as the 17th wheel) because apparently he’d never had any meaningful relationships before crashing on the island.
Or maybe it was two wrongs making a right? Amiright?
I, uh, said the same thing, way, way, way down below this comment. Great minds, etc.
Nadia is going to be piiiiiiiiiiiissed in the afterlife.
I mean what were they supposed to do? Have Eloise Hawking walk onscreen and say “Hello. I’m a Time Wizard who’s been watching these events unfold in reverse since the 1950’s,” the doctors from Hurley’s mental institution tell Jack “This facility is owned by Charles Widmore,” somebody stumbles on US military records of the Valenzetti e
Wow, that sucked.
I love how everyone is the better version of themselves in bizarro L.A., except Ana Lucia, who is just a corrupt cop.
Also. It’s sweet that Charlie and Claire are reunited, but in that dimension, isn’t he still an alcoholic junkie? In addition to now being a surrogate dad to Aaron I guess? Dude wears a lot of hats! In the metaphorical sense. Unlike Daniel, who now literally wears a lot of hats.
I love Daniel, but I guess I had higher expectations for his Drive Shaft collaboration thing. I mean, it just sounded like he added a piano part to a Drive Shaft song? I expected more from the guy who, like, invented time travel.
This guy was not impressed:
Did anyone else think this was going to happen?
I really enjoy it when people reach over and yank hear out of my scalp, too.
There are no rules about personal space on the Island.
http://jackssupermanpunch.com/
can someone please post the Kate vagina face? y’all know what I mean. (I apologize if it was posted already and I didn’t see it!)
Looks like Mr. Eko went to hell.
(Say hey to Michael for me)
Nah, Mr. Eko already had his own kind of faith, etc– everyone in the church, on the other hand, were connected in these ways that made the island (and the relationships formed on it) the most important thing in their lives, and I just think Eko didn’t need the island itself for that. It just happened to be this effed up place where he ended his real life…
Uh, I got no happy explanation for Michael, though. That sucks.
Damon and Carlton straight-up said that the actor playing Mr. Eko simply could not make it even for a cameo, as he was hard at work on a film and also hates Hawaii.
Something has to be really, seriously fucked-up about a person who hates Hawaii.
Also, do you think Sawyer had an incentive bonus in his contract for the number of times he said “Son of a bitch?” Because, omg, every episode.
Jack’s jump punch made up for Kate’s existence, Zoe’s existence, that episode with Bai Ling, WAAAALT never coming back, Nikki & Paulo, most of season 3, Bai Ling, Eko’s death, Sayid’s death, the fact that Kate never died and Bai Ling.
I love this show but I did not like this season. I loved this episode up until the very end. I am severely disappointed in their explanation and I feel like this season was a mess.
But the acting was nice and I was crying so.
OK, but how did Desmond get off the island? Or did he never see Penny until the flash sideways/alternate ghost reality? Sads.
Didn’t Ben tell Hurley to help him go home– that Hurley doesn’t have to run things according to Jacob’s (pretty depressing) rules, and should allow/assist people in leaving? It makes sense to me that Desmond in “real” life eventually somehow got home via Hurley’s new Jacob-powers, and lived happily ever after (I hope!).
That’s what I choose to get from it, too. Hurley sent Desmond back to Penny and baby Charlie, they lived happily ever after.
You’re right. I guess the answer is, as it always is on Lost: MAGIC.
The boat was still there. Desmond + Boats = TRUE LOVE
Because true love is getting reunited with Penny and taken from her, back and forth forever. ))((
I understand the people who are pissed that they didn’t answer everything and left huge questions. Especially with so many seasons devoted to physics, ancient mathematicians and electro-magnetism – but that was part of the charm of Lost. It was more the journey then the destination. I really liked the ending and seeing (most) of the characters have closure. It was very cathartic. And since I’m veiled in a quasi-anonymity here I’ll freely admit the church party/Vincent lying with Jack scene had me tearing up pretty hardcore. I was really glad I didn’t have a Lost party at that moment.
I guess all dogs don’t go to heaven.
Also, for me it was not all about answers. That’s not the point. But I’m sorry, that ending was a huge cop out for me. It doesn’t mean I don’t love lost because I do and I will always (IT IS NOT MY CHILD THIS IS SO SAD) but that was not satisfying and it’s pretty clear they hadn’t planned this from the beginning.
Somewhere in Oahu, there’s a cocktail napkin with “white light” and “see you on the other side” written on it. See? TOTALLY prepared.
It is my birthday today and I am spending more time thinking/talking about Lost than I am thinking/talking about my actual plans with friends.
then again, I’m on my nineteenth birthday. there is only oneteenth Lost finale. PRIORITIES
Happy birthday! May your next one not find you desperately seeking closure for a show you dedicated 6 years of your life to!
Happy birthday, Can!
much appreciated! : )
by the way, my friend’s mom is best friends with mira furlan(/danielle rosseau)
and got me an autographed copy of this for my birthday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaDYfl8QE-4
I love our world
Momma Lapidus never taught her baby what walkie-talkies are for.
My mom texted me last night, “it’s all coming together corny but I am in tears.” And I guess that’s a pretty good summation for how I felt, because I was crying like a baby when Lapidus washed up back on the scene. Lapidus lives!
After a season, or two or three, of being completely frustrated, somehow during the finale I was ok with the ridiculously untied loose ends. All in all there was laughter…and that’s what I loved most about this show and what I’ll miss.
Not sure if anyone else thought of this, but when Jack opens the coffin to reveal it was empty and then his Dad appears, I thought for SURE Christian was going to say to Jack that he had to climb inside there. That would have been great. Ok, weird, but great. I could just imagine Jack being like “Wuuuuttttt? Get inside of there?”
Know what else would have been great? Instead of the shots of the burned-up fuselage at the end, a shot of Lapidus, Miles and Ricardo Alperto sitting shore side of the Island some years in the future next to a completely duct-taped Air Ajira plane (with the Ajira crossed-out and “Lapidus” written in crayon), and a clearly-labeled “Business plan for a Jimmy Buffett’s Margarittaville Franchise” in Miles’ backpack. Super-awesome spin-off series!
I don’t know about you, but the day after I get shot in the chest, I love to leap into a stormy ocean, fighting currents with my magnificent and pain-free butterfly stroke.
How long (in Island-time) was Lapidus floating around out at sea? Two or three days at least right? Couldn’t he have doggie paddled to either of the two islands? Or maybe he was just chilling, as is his way.
And how did his chest hair and shoes stay so pristinely dry?
Thank you for the Goonies call-out. When Desmond was walking past the skeletons I shouted out “Chester Copperpot!” and nobody (i.e. my husband) got it. Videogum, YOU GET IT, and I love you for it.
175 comments and two hours later, does anyone want to read a super-long rant from me? Too bad, you’re getting it anyway!
I hated the finale. Well, this whole final season, really, as it became clear that the creators had lost (hah!) a grip on what made the show great.
There is a rule of thumb among struggling filmmakers that if you want to make a profitable film but you have limited resources, the best two ways are to either make a horror film or a porno. Both connect with sensations (the thrill of horror and the thrill of titillation, obvs) rather than the mind. Both are after making audiences experience something visceral.
This is something I think many would-be artists forget: to connect with a sensation, to make the audiences feel. What made Lost really brilliant was that it was able to connect with a third kind of sensation in a way I don’t think anyone has ever done quite as well: the sensation of intrigue. Lost was a six-season striptease act, dangling little lacy bits of information in front of us to keep us panting, watching from our corners, aching to see just a little bit more each week.
But the problem comes with the end of the act. Eventually the music stops. The performance comes to an end and we’re left with a smiling, dowdy housewife on a stage who’s somehow still wearing all her underwear. She’s very nice! Attractive enough in her own frumpy way. But this isn’t what we were hoping for. This isn’t really what we were promised. We were promised more!
There is this defense that the show was about “characters” so it was okay the finale should be about the characters getting what they want. Heh. No. The show was about intrigue. The show was about plot. The characters were necessary, even often great (See: Locke, Ben, Eko), but the reason we watched the show was to get answers to these intriguing mysteries.
Granted, an utterly comprehensive list of answers would not be possible, or even desireable. A little mystery is great! But the show owed us more. Much, much more. For instance, take a look at this incomplete list of unanswered questions: http://bit.ly/a2353E . Why was SO MUCH left unfulfilled?
The creators, right now, remind me of George Lucas and his inexplicably awful prequels. It became clear at some point that Lucas simply didn’t get what made Star Wars great! And he made it! Likewise, these creators didn’t get what made Lost great: the intrigue and the consequent promise of satisfying answers. Not the characters and their final fates, but rather than whys and the whats and the hows that were left utterly open.
So. That’s that. On to Mad Men, which will never disappoint, right?? Please say I’m right.
You are right, Wertrew. There’s this great line from David Lynch, how he loves mysteries until the end, when it’s solved and then he gets bored and depressed. LOST had the potential to have the same “mystery as art” type deal that you get with things like Mulholland Drive, or MC Escher drawings or whatever, but LOST never did that for me, mostly because it was all so obviously contrived. I was never convinced of the mystery they were trying to foster, much less any of the desperate shocking plot reveals.
Hopefully Mad Men and Breaking Bad won’t disappoint, hope you are right on that front, friend.
Tangent: is anyone out there watching Treme?
I watch Treme. We need more Treme coverage.
NAILED IT. Thanks, Werttrew.