The LOST Series Finale thread (will include spoilers!)- Page 2

[StockardFan]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:36am

so they were all dead? What? I didn't watch the show from Season 2. WHAT THE FU*K? I need to watch the seasons from the beginning.

[pli1018]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:37am

Absolutely stunning finale. It's going to be polarizing. People who watched for the mystery are going to be PISSED while those who watched for the characters will be beyond satisfied. As the latter, I naturally was sobbing from 11:20 to the final scene of Jack closing his eye- beautiful!

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:41am

EVERY LOST Fan should watch this video. I laughed so hard some pee came out.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/151508/jimmy-kimmel-live-this-week-in-unnecessary-censorship

[pli1018]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:46am

No Stockard, the Sideways World was purgatory, they were dead there. Everything that happened on the island was real.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 2:38am

I still don't get it.

[Taryn]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 3:10am

I like to think that I watched Lost for the characters, but I was still profoundly unhappy with the purgatory-esque reveal. It felt cheap.

Other than that, and ignoring the fact that they answered absolutely anything (and you can see me fighting quite vehemently against the idea that they should have been expected to answer everything in the other Lost thread), it was an episode with a lot of loveliness to it.

[romantico]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 7:41am

If people liked the finale and got something out of it,great. I on the other hand feel like I got screwed. I have watch the show since day one.The finale was lazy and sloppy. They created these mysteries and asked these questions to keep our interest and make sure we would tune in next week. The fans made the show.So, to ignore the questions was just a slap in the face.Jerby asked some great questions but I have about a dozen more.I've been reading the forums and so many people are pissed. I still love LOST but I won't invest my time in another JJ Abrams show again. I felt I got screwed with ALIAS and now LOST.

[violet72]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 8:35am

I feel this finale was about the characters...meaning it doesn't matter about what the island was. These characters were lost and alone till they found eachother.

As mother said each answer would only lead to another questions. So the island was the boundary between good and evil. The castways where sent there to clean up Jacobs mistake (Smokey) and Hurley was going to be a different and kinder Jacob.

The end was so profound...I believe when Jack closed his eye his was back on the plane and the turbulance stopped and they landed (aka the beginning of season 6) If you look back people were telling the characters to let go...also Ben wasn't ready to forgive himself so he coudn't go with into the church with them.

I am still processing all of this but say what you want this series changed TV. It was never about spoon feeding you answers you have to come up with your own, aka think. I was satisfied with it

[adamgreer]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 8:58am

I found it to be beautiful and extremely poetic. In the end, the show was never about being stranded on an island, it was about the relationships of these characters. As a character driven drama, the show succeeded in spades. I found the moment between Ben and Hurley, where Ben reveals he's not ready to go inside just yet (though I'm still processing what exactly it means) extremely poignant and touching. A beautiful, yet simple moment, made better by Michael Emerson's incredible acting.

Another beautiful moment was Jack's island death, where Vincent appeared so Jack would not have to die alone (harking back to his speech in an earlier season about living together or dying alone).

I'm sort of amused by the people who seemed to want the finale to be a laundry list Q&A, where they just checked off every single question that was ever asked.

The only quibble I had with the ending tableau was that Walt was not included, but I understand why this was so.
Updated On: 5/24/10 at 08:58 AM

[jasonf]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 9:51am

Walt wasn't there because he went on to live his life and the island experience didn't define him in the end, as it did those in the church.


Here are my thoughts from my blog (rather than cut and paste the whole thing): http://jasonflumwriter.blogspot.com/

You might disagree with me, but I am satisfied with my interpretation of the show.

[wonkit]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 9:59am

While I thought the final episode was beautiful, and beautifully done, I was disappointed that such an unconventional series, with so many questions posed, did not have a more unconventional ending, suited to the previous six years.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 11:28am

It was a beautiful finale that wasn't about answering a bunch of questions and feeding them to the audience. They answered the questions that mattered and left some unresolved that were up to the audience's interpretation. At the end, the show wasn't about the Island, it was about these people and I thought it was just beautiful that it was the time they spent on the island that mattered, it brought it full circle. At the beginning of the show they thought it was the time off the island that mattered and they kept trying to go back, but the series finale just shows you that it was their time together as people who formed a community and got redemption on the Island that became relevant to their lives.
I thought it was greatly done and congrats to the writers, it has to be one of the most satisfying finales ever. I can't believe people are saying they were always dead, whoever is saying that clearly didn't listen to Jack's father saying that everything that happened, did actually happen, it was only the Sideways story that became a sort of place for them to find each other, find their loved ones, it was beautifully done.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 11:34am

I never wanted any answers fed to me. I wanted resolution to the plot, which included revelations they never got to. If they had included those along with what they did do, I would have been fine with it.

But let's please stop pretending this was a Robert Altman film. This was a mystery. That it had such brilliant character development and all of the themes mentioned is what made it an excellent mystery.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 11:59am

As somebody who never saw a single episode of Lost but watched the finale and the preceding retrospective/recap of what happened in the previous seasons/episodes, I liked the finale. It makes me want to watch the whole series. I thought it was beautiful and I was emotionally drawn to a lot of the characters in their reconnections (but also Ben believing he did not belong just yet).

I read Jack as a character was never supposed to survive the pilot. The shows creators wanted Michael Keaton for the role but something happened to not have that happen, so they hire Matthew Fox (who had tried out for Sawyer) to play Jack. Not sure what changed, maybe he tested so well with focus groups, but the Jack character went from being Marion in Psycho in original creation to being the beginning and end of the series.

I do think the purgatory was the sideways world and everything that happened on the island happened. It reminded me a lot of The Last Temptation of Christ and Jacob's Ladder.

[BroadwayGuy12]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 12:19pm

Add me to those who found the finale to be beautiful. I didn't go into the finale tonight looking for any answers at all, I just wanted to see the characters that I've grown to love end up in a place that I found satisfying.

I loved the final few minutes of the episode; seeing all of the survivors in the church celebrating and embracing these relationships that have defined their lives was, for me, a wonderful moment of television. It doesn't matter that they may have all been dead that point, because they were all together again. They are now and forever a group of friends ready to move on from the past and into whatever lies ahead.

Maybe I'm happy with the finale because, like others here have said, I watched the show for the characters. But I don't feel like this ending cheapened the past six years in any way. The island storyline was wrapped up quite beautifully and what happened afterwards -- with all of the Oceanic survivors reuniting post-death -- was very poignant and rewarding.

[Luscious]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 12:21pm

Here's my (less than in-depth) interpretation...

1. They all died in the initial plane crash. (Thus, the final image of the crashed plane over the closing credits.) Some passed over immediately. Some needed more time to work through their s#!t before moving on.

2. The Island was a clearing house for LOST souls. An in-between world - a Purgatory of sorts - a place you go to work through unresolved issues and relationships before moving onto the next world (Afterlife). Something, by the way, that we do every night when we dream. What happened on the Island didn't have to make any more literal sense then our dreams. (And it usually didn't.)

3. The Sideways World was an Alternate Universe/Reality; an opportunity on yet another level to work through your s#!t and come to terms with unresolved issues/relationships before passing over. Something they all needed to help each other with and do together, as stated in the below quote.

"This is the place you all made together so you could find one another. The most important part of your life was the time you spent with these people. That's why you're all here. Nobody does it alone, Jack: you needed all of them, and they needed you ... to let go." — Christian Shephard

Updated On: 5/24/10 at 12:21 PM

[Taryn]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 12:30pm

I think it's pretty clear from Christian's quote that the Island timeline was real and that the parallel timeline was the quasi-Purgatory.

(Not to mention all the writers insisting that the Island wasn't Hell or Purgatory or anything like that way back in season one.)

[buffyactsing]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 12:32pm

I would have considered this season satisfying if they had just learned halfway into the season they had been canceled. But all that unanswered stuff about the island when they have known they had three years to tie up loose ends gets my goat.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 12:33pm

I think you're right, Taryn. When Jack asks if they're all dead, Christian says everybody dies sometime--some people before you [Jack], some long after. He also says "there is no 'now' here."

In other words, I don't think Sideways World is any kind of purgatory or holding pen; it's a "place" created by the bonds of all those people.

I found the ending satisfactory and moving. I'm glad the island wasn't explained to death (pun intended).

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 12:42pm

Just to be clear--I never wanted the island explained to death either. I wanted resolution for the loose ends. They didn't even include Michael in the ending let alone a stand in Walt.

I also think it's interesting that people are saying that this show was always really about the characters and their relationships. I say--duh. ALL good genre pieces (sci-fi, horror, etc.) are metaphors for our real lives. Lost didn't do something new with that--they just did it extremely well.

[Pippin]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 12:48pm

As far as characters and relationships go, I thought the ending was beautiful, if a little Hallmarky and simplified.

the only thing I can't get over is smokey's all to easy death. REALLY? writers? REALLY? to have smokey stay as Locke and never turn into the Smoke monster to kill everyone was a cop out, and then to have him be killed by just one bullet, which makes no sense because bullets never affected him before, even fifteen minutes prior in the same damn episode. Why did they work all of the sudden? It just seemed a like a real let down, a HUGE cop-out and a very anticlimactic and lame ending for such an intimidating monster who has been alive for presumeably thousands of years to die from one bullet.

Also, I would have preferred Jack to just die in the cave. How did he make it out, and alive? I understand why he made it out only to die a few minutes later for thematic purposes, but it didn't ring true at all.

REALLY?????

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 12:49pm

Jerby, I think folks are saying that in response to those who were frustrated about the lack of answers.

You said earlier that it wasn't an Altman film, it was a mystery. Yes, but it wasn't Agatha Christie either. I honestly came away satisfied. I wasn't going through a mental checklist of "Wait, what about the polar bears . . ."

I can see why some people were dissatisfied, I guess. But I wasn't one of them.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 12:51pm

Pippin, when the "cork" was pulled out, Smoke Lock became human. There was a moment when he was socked in the mouth, and he registered surprise at the fact that he was bleeding. That's why he was able to be killed.

[Luscious]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:10pm

"I think it's pretty clear from Christian's quote that the Island timeline was real and that the parallel timeline was the quasi-Purgatory."

Not buying it. What happened on the Island rarely made any (literal) sense. Here's an explanation I came across that makes the most sense to me. I don't agree entirely with the writer's interpretation, but it comes the closest to my own. Of course, the finale was purposely written to be open to multiple interpretations, so no one can be entirely right or wrong.

"Oceanic 815 crashed. Some of its souls awoke in a realm that is neither heaven nor hell. It’s limbo (or purgatory)."

"So let's broaden the definition of limbo or purgatory, to allow that the people on “Lost’s” island were technically corporeal -- alive. They hungered, fell ill, needed shelter, had sex. You can die there, which only makes it worse for your soul."

"It’s a real place. Some people in our world know it exists and have sought to get there, to discover some gateway to heaven. Others just wash up there, or crash there. Everyone who is there belongs there -- maybe for a while, maybe forever."

"In my take, Jack Shephard and his fellow travelers were brought there to resolve a number of problems between heaven and hell. They were fresh souls, there to address a few too many anomalies or machinery issues in some sort of working universal order.

"During their time in purgatory, the Oceanic people (helped by other lost souls, such as Juliet and Desmond and Faraday) brought parallels together and eventually prevented the devil's meddling attempt to get to heaven and, perhaps, destroy the world. They blew up Dharma in the '70s, because it also threatened the balance of things. They killed Smoke. They altered time/space without killing the rest of us. Big jobs."

"But they did it in a limbo – a limbo that they were all in because of death, and they went back and forth between worlds (worlds that occupied different realities – backward, forward, sideways, what have you) that had been created because of that meddling. Sunday night they unwittingly braided all those realities together – fixed the machine -- and their reward was the Hereafter."

"Jack Shephard and his fellow travelers were brought there to resolve a number of problems between heaven and hell. They were fresh souls, there to address a few too many anomalies or machinery issues in some sort of working universal order."

"People in “Lost” died multiple times in a lot of ways. Jack's exit in the final minutes of "Lost" was the death that got him to heaven, but the 815 crash was the death that got him busy on what he was meant to do. That's why the finale takes Jack back to that same bamboo field – where he snapped awake in 2004 (dead, but not technically) and where, in last night’s episode, fully cognizant now of all that has happened (and now un-happened), he lays down and experiences his final peace. His work is done."

"I know some hardcore fans don’t want to believe it was purgatory all along, perhaps because they worked so hard trying to comprehend and decipher “Lost’s” layers and layers of mythology and whatnot. Nevertheless, purgatory is really the best way to explain every problem the series raised. It also explains why everything had to be so frustrating, complicated -- like a dream where you can't solve a problem."

"But not a dream. An actual place -- a purgatory. Or for people who hate that word, an in-between. You don’t go there simply because your soul is stuck. You go there because you’re needed."



Another 'Lost' theory: No, really, it was purgatory

Updated On: 5/24/10 at 01:10 PM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:26pm

As someone said recently: not buying it.

But agree that it's open to interpretation. I think that's ultimately what's wonderful about it. I love that we all feel so strongly about it, and I love hearing everyone's ideas.