The LOST Series Finale: It Only Ends Once

 And here we are, at the end. This is likely the last thing I'll write about Lost for a long, long time. 

 If anything interesting -- theories, videos, interviews, etc. -- pops up, I'll post it here, and on Twitter. But this will likely be my last significant post on Lost, the show that's the reason I started blogging about TV almost four years ago, and the reason I started this blog last May. 

 So here we go, one last time, through the jungle. Spoilers, as always, lurk ahead...

 First off: No, they didn't answer everything. They didn't answer a lot of things, and if you look back over the history of Lost, you find a show that introduced and abandoned mysteries and plot threads with maddeningly regularity.
 
 There were big questions (Why were Walt and Aaron considered special? Why did the Others react to the crash survivors the way the did?) that the show never really explained. And there were little mysteries that will likely nag at some viewers (The bird in the jungle that -- twice -- appeared to screech Hurley's name. The Dharma Initiative pallet drop.)
 
 And yes, it bothers me that a lot of this stuff was forgotten as the show went on. The cold, puzzle-solving part of my brain will always look at Lost and ruefully shake its head. "Hey Tom, remember all the ways you tried to figure out what The Numbers meant?" it'll say.
 
 The part of my brain that regulates things like joy, sadness, excitement and fear will look back at the show -- and last night's finale -- with nothing but love.
 
 On a purely emotional level, this was the most satisfying finale we could hope for: two-and-a-half hours of action, tension, and humor, of tragic goodbyes and wonderful reunions. 
 
 Still, I'm a little troubled by the ending. 
 
 It has nothing to do with what I've talked about before, how I'd be angry if Lost concluded in a way that negated everything that came before. That's not the case here. We didn't get the "They were dead all along" ending that the show's creators had promised all along we wouldn't get.
 
 Because they weren't dead all along. They hadn't all died in the plane crash. Everything that had happened to these characters -- crashing, getting off the island, going back in time, coming back to the island -- had happened to living, breathing human beings. And because they were human beings, they died. Some of them-- as Christian tells his son -- before Jack died on the island, some "long after."

 
 That meant a lot of things happened to the characters that we can only guess at: Desmond presumably sailed the Elizabeth back home to Penny and little Charlie; Frank Lapidus (who, like a grizzled Tiny Tim, did not die) flew Kate, Claire, Sawyer, Miles and Richard off the island; and Hurley became the island's new guardian, with Ben as his loyal second-in-command. (And I like the theory that Hurley created the Sideways world as a way for his friends to all be together again.)
 
 Lost knows its viewers are smart enough not to have to see all of these things play out, as nice as that would have been. And I like the idea of the sideways world being some sort of afterlife waiting room. The various moments when all the characters remembered their other lives last night -- Claire and Kate, Sayid and Shannon, especially Sawyer and Juliet -- were all lovely.
 
 But I feel like I'm missing something. Charles Widmore more or less sent Desmond into the sideways world in an effort to save the island/stop the Monster, and I'm still not clear on how that was supposed to work. Was Des MEANT to pull out that giant stone stopper at the heart of the island, thus rendering MIB mortal again? I'd welcome any theories.

 For now, I just want to focus on the many, many things I liked about Lost's conclusion:

•  The brief return of Rose and Bernard, their continued commitment to staying out of the usual island drama, and the terrifying moment when I thought one or both of them -- or maybe Vincent -- might die at the hands of MIB. I'd like to think that under Hurley's guidance, they became a bit less reclusive.
• The epic battle between Jack and the Monster. In a storm. On the edge of a cliff. I love the way it starts off with the wide shot of them both facing off, then pulls in as Jack does his flying leap, leading to rather vicious fight. It's not just about survival, there's really animosity here. (Jack's grown to respect Locke, and tells the Monster "You disrepct his memory by wearing his face.") It was close to the end of the episode, and it seemed likely at that point that Jack could very well die. Top that scene, big summer action movies.
• The various reunions/memory flashes. Sawyer/Juliet was probably the most emotional, and I loved how the line about "going dutch" triggered both their memories. But I was surprised at how happy I was when Sayid and Shannon reunited, even if it took kind of an obvious speech by Hurley to get us to that point. And I loved the way Jin and Sun -- who'd already had their moment -- responded to "Detective" James Ford.
•  Kate not choosing Jack or Sawyer. Sure, she kisses Jack and tells him she loves him, but she also leaves without him. Between diving off the cliff into the ocean and firing the shot that kills the Monster -- complete with a James Bondian line ("I saved you a bullet") -- we saw the tougher version of Kate from season one re-emerge here.
• Jorge Garcia's best dramatic work ever when he said goodbye to Jack, then when he and Ben talked about his new role as island protector.
• Ben. Maybe it's a little disappointing that he didn't have a concrete plan when he took up with the MIB last week, but it's nice to see that his redemption from earlier this season was real: he helps everyone escape, saves Hurley from a falling tree, and agrees to become his assistant. It's the same job he had with Jacob, only we get the sense Hurley will be a much better boss. And the final scene between Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn was so lovely that it pretty much erased any reservations I had about the show ending in the sideways world.

 Those are the big things. Here are some small ones, plus some other thoughts and final questions:

• It would've been cool to see Eko one final time. I thought maybe we'd see him as a priest when Jack visited the church, but it quickly became clear that everyone else in the church had gone through the sort of "awakening" Jack would go through when he opened the coffin.
• Despite my conviction that the "They all died in the crash" theory is wrong, I'm not sure what to make of that final shot they showed over the credits.
• Is there a parallel between Juliet telling Sawyer to unplug the vending machine and Desmond uncorking the island's power? Or am I reading too much into all this?
• Thing I wished I noticed: Ken Tucker at Entertainment Weekly notes the Christ imagery involving Jack in this episode, including the fact that Locke pierces his side, like Jesus on the cross.
• Thing that made me chuckle: Kate's " 'Christian Shepard?' Seriously?"
• Thing that made me a little choked up: Desmond's final "See you in another life, brutha" to Jack.
• Thing that really bugged me: All those ads. Clearly, they could've told this story in two hours. Although the Lost-themed Target commercials were pretty cool.
• While I was OK with the show ending in sideways land, I kind of wish we'd gotten a better explanation for how it all came together. Was it the result of last year's Jughead bomb? Why was the sideways island under water?
• It's neat how the opening credits listed pretty much everyone who'd be appearing in that episode as "Starring" rather than guest stars.
• TIME's James Poniewozik has a round-up of several critical reactions to the show. His own thoughts can be found here.
• There were some neat visual references to earlier episodes in the finale, including Jack and MIB looking down over the cliff (a call back to the final shot of the first season).
• I'm glad Richard Alpert made it. Of all the characters, his post-island story would be the most interesting.
• The show couldn't end without some Star Wars references: Hurley compares Jacob to Yoda, and has a bad feeling about this. Plus -- and this is kind of a stretch -- Lapidus' attempts to start the Ajira plane reminded me of the repeated "We can't fix the Falcon" scenes in Empire Strikes Back.
• The final scene might have seemed kind of mawkish, but I think Lost has earned the sentiment. As Christian tells Jack: these were the people he spent the most important time of his life with, and unless, say, Sawyer went on to cure diabetes, I imagine the same is true for all these characters. And I'm happy they got some sort of happy ending, if only for a little while. The show ends as it began, with Jack's eye -- closing this time, rather than opening -- but back in the church, he and his friends are about to begin another journey. We'll never know where it takes them, but we can at least be grateful we got to join them on this one. Thank you, Damon, Carlton, J.J., and cast. And thanks to everyone who's read and commented over the years. There will still be plenty of shows for me to write about, but nothing like this.

Tom Coombe

Comments

[Peter Haley]

So many of my friends and family are feeling cheated. This is my response to them:

All the unanswered questions, those are stories within a story. A lot of people seem to forget that this is just a story. I moved on from caring about every little detail being explained a long while ago. Why were there 7 Harry Potter books? Why wasn't it just one chapter where she writes that there was a boy living in London who was really a wizard and this evil guy wanted to kill him and they fought and then some people lived and some died . . . The End?

Dharma, polar bears, the DeGroots, Hanso, pregnant women, statues, temples, are all just ways to tell stories. I enjoyed the stories and enjoyed the chase of trying to figure out what was going on. The X-Files had an overriding "alien plot" arc that, in the end, got in the way of a good, creepy show. Chris Carter felt obliged to provide the big answers but there never were any real answers because it was just a story.

I know, I know, Darlton made us believe that there was an end game. But, it was their story and they can tell it the way they want, and they did. I enjoyed the trip and I liked the sentiment of the ending and I am leaving the island better than when I landed on it.

That is enough for me.

[Tom]

Like I said, part of me will always be annoyed that the show dropped certain storylines/mysteries.

Remember when Jack asked Ana Lucia about training an army? Actually, I'm kind of glad that didn't go anywhere. The fact is, a lot of those little mysteries were never all that interesting.

As for things like the Dharma Initiative, I tell people to ask themselves what's more important: Learning about their weird experiments, or seeing how the characters reacted to them being on the island. Because of Dharma, Ben turned into the evil genius who basically stole the show through most of its second half. It turned Sawyer into a leader. Stuff like that was more important to the show than any of its mysteries.