The LOST Series Finale thread (will include spoilers!)- Page 3

[Pippin]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:30pm

thanks, Reg. That didn't register the first time. I'm gonna have to go back and re-watch it.

[Wildcard]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:33pm

From my understanding, Michael's soul wasn't in the sideways world because he was stuck as one of those whispering souls on the island. While I would have preferred they CGI'd Walt in the church, he didn't really have much of a relationship with the other castaways so he wasn't in there.

My question is, if they were already in some sort of limbo or purgatory, what happens to the people who die in limbo like Keamy who was shot by Sayid in sideways world?

[Reginald Tresilian]

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

This is some random poster on the EW message board, but I think she says it well ("it" being my notion of Sidways world). She's responding to someone asking why Penny was there, since we hadn't seen her die:

"Penny, as a human being, dies at some point. Maybe when she’s 80. There is no NOW in this world as per Christian. Hurley, Ben, Sawyer, Kate, Des, Claire, Penny — they may have lived long lives thereafter, but the defining moment in their lives was that time they were together on the island. Thus, they all meet at the time-is-not-linear “place”. Christian told Jack he is here because this is the place he mattered most, with the people that mattered most to him. They may each individually have other “churches” based on other crucial life moments. But this was Jack’s “place”."

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:38pm

The other important clue that the scene in the church isn't "now," in the sense of it's being next in the chronology of events, is when Hurley turns to Ben and says "You were a good Number Two."

Which says to me that many, many years may have passed between the recorking of the light, Jack's death, and the reunion in the church.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:44pm

This from the NY Times is the best summing up for my money (again, I can't claim this guy is any righter than anyone else, but it's what I took away last night):

Now let’s get back to the ending of “The End,” in which the big reveal was that Jack Shephard, to all appearances a divorced father and successful surgeon in the sideways universe, was in fact dead. So were all the other Losties who had gathered in the church. The scenario was cleverly constructed to remove the possibility that they had been dead all along (a possibility I erroneously considered, and blogged about, before rewatching the scene), or that any of the events on the island or in the off-island lives of the Oceanic 6 had been other than real.

As explained by Jack’s (dead) father, and amplified by an exchange between Hurley and Ben, life had continued after Jack died on the island, stabbed by the monster inhabiting Locke’s body. The survivors on the Ajira plane, including Kate, Claire and Sawyer, had presumably made it to safety (Kate for the second time), while Hurley and Ben had remained as the island’s new protectors.

Now, beyond some future expiration date, they had all died and gathered here because, as Christian Shephard told Jack: “This is the place that you all made together so that you could find one another. The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people.”

So that was the answer: the island was college, or home, or Outward Bound. The sideways reality was the former passengers of Oceanic 815, plus selected guests like Desmond and Penny, gathering for a self-affirming reunion before heading off into whatever sort of afterlife the swelling white light symbolized.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:53pm

I can get on board with that.

I just wish they had resolved the children of Lost. That was a major theme of the show.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:55pm

You mean the not being able to have babies part?

Or the what happened to Walt and Ji Yeon part? Updated On: 5/24/10 at 01:55 PM

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:57pm

Well, that was something, too. But such a big deal was made about Walt. Such a big deal about Aaron. Those were my personal requests for resolution. Oh well.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:58pm

Yeah, I don't know. As much as I say was satisfied (and emotionally I was), there are lots of tickling questions that my brain would like answered.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 2:07pm

"Christian Shephard" indeed.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 2:08pm

I loved that the name got a laugh from one of the characters last night.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 2:35pm

Lets remember the best moments together, shall we?

[Biff AKA Levi]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 2:37pm

I really enjoyed the finale. I thought it was beautifully written, with some great moments.

I need to watch it a few more times to get it all.

I do love Vincent finding Jack in the bamboo, like he did in the pilot.

[jasonf]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 2:45pm

The producers actually addressed the Aaron question at the NYTimes talk. The only person on the show to say Aaron was special was the psychic -- the same psychic who in season 2 was proved a sham. Given that, they felt they addressed the question - Aaron wasn't special at all, it was just a fake psychic trying to earn a buck.

Why Walt wasn't in the church - my thought was that he hadn't spent the time with those people to make them the most important in his life (nor he in theirs). Same goes for Michael - remember, he was on the outs with most of them for most of the time. Think specifically about the people who were there vs. those who were not - why would Ana Lucia or Eko belong there? The one person who WASN'T there who DID belong arguably was Ben - and they did a beautiful job explaining why he wasn't there.

The fertility issue was one that bothered me a lot also. I'm starting to piece it together though. I think we can deduce that each "leader" of the island -- Mother, Jacob, Jack, and Hurley - gets to run the island and create rules for themselves. The fertility issues were during Jacob's reign. What if he didn't want there to be babies -- his goal was to prove mankind could live in peace and work together -- babies "interfere" with what he was trying to achieve. What if the fertility issues were an agreement between MIB and Jacob so that their "experiments" could go untouched?

I could be way off, but it's a possibility I guess...

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 2:48pm

Actually, do we know that the baby issues occurred only during Jacob's tenure? Obviously, the mother who raised them didn't have her own children.

I think possibly the island just isn't meant to be colonized in that way. People come to it and want to make it there own, but that's not its purpose.

[Pippin]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 3:06pm

my theory is that the enourmous electro-magnetic power in the cave somehow interferes with Mother's abilities to successfully give birth. I don't know exactly how, but I think somehow it affects thier biological abilities, specifically when it comes to childbirth.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 3:06pm

I think the big question for me is: Was Sideways world just Jack's vision of "what if" life, or was the narrative that he envisioned what the other Sidways Losties experienced too?

[jasonf]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 3:58pm

That's a good question -- I think you can take it however you want. Personally, I think it was all of them together, if for no other reason than we wouldn't have gotten the scenes with Ben outside if it was JUST from Jack's point of view.

All those people saw each other as the most important parts of their lives, and so waited until each could "awaken" to that. The sideways world was timeless (brilliant that they did it in one season so no one in that time would appear to age at all!) -- it took Desmond who was "special" and able to go between the two because of his exposure to the light to awaken them all. The timeless quality is like trying to think about infinity or nothingness- you can almost do it but not quite. The more I let it sit with me, the more I like the idea - it's certainly different from anything else network TV has ever done!

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 4:00pm

I agree (I think).

[Wildcard]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 5:28pm

I think that Jacob didn't want babies on the island because he didn't want these children to have to face the same fate he had, to not have a choice. He can control conception on the island but can't do so when the babies are conceived off-island. The Dharma people attributed these events to something else, whether the electro magnetics or another thing. Hence, it was very scientifically fascinating to them. Hence, the interest in baby Aaron and other expectant mothers.

[violet72]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 9:13pm

or why the others wanted the expectant mothers and children cause they couldn't have children.

I was thinking Jack was a man of science and Locke a man of faith/destiny. The show was thought to be science fiction. The past 2 seasons Jack started to slowly become a man of faith/destiny and in the end the show turned out to be about faith/destiny. When Jack finally acccepted his destiny to save the the island, his friends, and the world it ended and he got his reward in his death. The first season Locke called Jack the leader and Jack denied it...it was his fate and he ran from it for 4 or 5 seasons. Loved the last line uttered on the show was by Locke saying to Jack "I have been waiting for you"

[jasonf]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 9:14pm

OK, so theory on fertility:

Jacob and MIB are running this test to find humans who are not corruptible, evil etc. They ban babies because of the influence they would have on their experiment. Along comes Horace and his wife (whose name I can't remember - I want to say Ellen, but I could be wrong) who seem like suitable candidates (I'm getting this from the cabin that Horace built). Jacob allows them the baby as a final test. Ethan turns out to be a huge douche though, and they fail the test. So, the fertility problems are reinstated for the island.

Maybe I'm way wrong there, but it sort of holds together...

[Lavieboheme3090]

Posted: 5/24/10 at 11:19pm

Wasn't the plane loaded with C4, and was supposed to explode? Or did I miss where they disarmed that?

[Biff AKA Levi]

Posted: 5/25/10 at 12:22am

I was talking to one of my friends about LOST and his idea about Ben not being ready was that he was waiting for Alex and Danielle.

I wonder why they weren't there?

[Barney Stinson]

Posted: 5/25/10 at 12:24am

I think evil Locke took the explosives from the plane. That's what he used to blow up the submarine.