Unless you’ve been living on a mystical island you probably know that this past Sunday, the final episode of Lost aired. Such an event was too big for one Round Table, so instead we’re each sharing our own reactions separately (my co-bloggers Theresa DeLucci and Bridget McGovern will be weighing in later in the week). You know what they say, blog together, mourn alone.
With the final episode (ever—sigh) Lost, which has always had a spiritual bent, went whole hog (or should that be whole boar) over to that side. This was no surprise seeing as most of this season has been concerned with light against dark, and the protection of the mystical glowy light at the center of the island.
For the most part, I liked the two plus hours of the finale. It finally felt like things were moving along, and it never dragged. Those who predicted that Jack would die and be replaced as the island’s protector by Hurley were proved right and I had no problem with this. Jack’s role in the endgame suited him, and I would always pick Hurley over Jack to be the new Jacob. It’s interesting to note that even in his role as the replacement Jacob, Jack was still mostly wrong. In fact, so was Desmond. That things turned out right in the end was due in large part to dumb luck as much as anything. In fact, looking back at the Losties’ track record, most of what they tried to do failed.
Desmond’s mucking about with the golden light almost destroyed the island, but also nixed Smocke’s invulnerability which allowed him to be defeated. I suppose no one realized this before as that would have saved a lot of lives.
Speaking of the glowy light, that whole sequence in the cave seemed a direct depiction of Jacob’s cork analogy. There literally was a cork in the island and pulling it not only let all the good golden watery light swirl down the drain, but also revealed an awfully fiery, brimstoney hellish emanation. At least that’s how I saw that. Was that just me?
I got a Garden of Eden vibe about the island after thinking about this episode. A paradise with the power to corrupt. A corrupter. A place that you can get expelled from if you don’t follow the rules. It’s not an exact match, but I think it’s an idea that maps pretty well.
My main problem with the island plot was that despite it working as an idea for me, some sense of the personal connection was lost (no pun intended). When the island was breaking apart, when it looked like it could sink to the bottom of the ocean, I didn’t feel any real concern. I wouldn’t have minded if it did fall apart and sink to the bottom of the sea. I think this was because while we were told how important the light was, how it was a source of “good”, we never really saw anything of that. If anything, a lot of “bad” came of it. In a way, it was like the button. Although we saw what happened if that wasn’t pushed. We’re told that the light is special and that people will always want to take it, but we never see any consequences of what would happen if people did. As far as I see it, the island is all that would be affected. For years the island apparently existed on its own with little effect on the rest of the world. In the end, like much on Lost, it revolved around Faith. I just wished it had touched me a bit more.
But that’s not my main issue. As many people will guess, my main problem was with the last ten or fifteen minutes of the finale. I don’t have a problem with the ending being spiritual because as I mentioned before, that’s been part of the show. My problem was mostly that it was clichéd and safe. By making everyone dead in some kind of afterlife world, Earth-2 lost all weight for me. It took a little while, but I became invested in that reality and I was hoping that somehow it would interact with the world of the island. But what we got instead was some fan service. A way for the writers to say, we know we killed off some cool people and prevented some happiness, but look—they still get it in the end and you can be happy about that.
It just didn’t work for me. I was hoping that at some point someone would say that this was also part of the island’s mystery. That just as the island can “not be done with you”, that if you’ve served the island, you get a second chance in some other life, or afterlife. But not some hokey “we will all see each other again in the afterlife.” And after all the theories of them being in Purgatory on the island, they end up in a Purgatory-like place anyway. It also opens up all kinds of questions—why did Jack have a son in this afterlife? Why was Aaron a baby in the afterlife and not an adult, assuming he died sometime long after Penny and Desmond? Where were Michael and Walt?
The most unforgivable part for me, was the white light. I was sitting there, watching the part in the church, and saying, silently, to myself, “please don’t have a white light, please don’t have a white light.” Then Christian opens the doors of the church to white light. It was just a hokey, clichéd capper to a show that was often better than that.
However, unlike other finales (BSG, I’m looking at you), it doesn’t ruin the show for me. And it even works in a kind of metafictional way. This was the characters coming together for one last time to provide closure and say goodbye. A way for them to relive some of the moments that we loved them for. A way to collect (in short glimpses at least) their greatest hits. If I look closely, I can see plenty of flaws in it, but I find, after all this time, that I don’t really want to.
It’s interesting that in the end, Jack was yet again wrong. It wasn’t “live together, die alone” but live together, die together (unless you are Michael, Walt, Ana Lucia, Faraday or Mr. Eko).
Rest in peace, Lost. You weren’t always perfect, but you always gave me something to think and talk about. And I will miss you.
Rajan Khanna is a graduate of the 2008 Clarion West Writers Workshop and his fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Way of the Wizard, Dreams of Decadence, and Shimmer. He is also a member of NY-based writing group, Altered Fluid. He loves westerns, zeppelins and the creatures of the deep, dark ocean. He lives in Brooklyn.
Darleton said the Island was not Purgatory. What we saw was after all the characters eventually died. They made abundantly clear in the finale that “what happened, happened”, and “dead is dead”. If the Sideways world had been an alternate timeline that was then merged with the Island timeline, then essentially they would be rewriting history in some way, and thus making the sacrifice and deaths of the characters meaningless. And that would have been far worse than what they did do, I think.
Now as far as the White Light was concerned, it was a little cheesy, and perhaps could have depicted it in some other fashion.
I’m glad you put the picture of the Sawyer/Juliet scene. I thought that was the best scene in the episode, and the only one of the memory-reunion thingies that felt real to me (which is weird because I never bought them as a couple until then).
Otherwise, I really really disliked it. Not BSG-style hate, but still pretty bad.
You wrote “And it even works in a kind of metafictional way.” I think that’s the only way it worked at all. It sure didn’t work as scifi or magical realism. I think this provided closure for the writers more than the audience. At least, not for me. Going to the United Church of Everybody for a group hug to the afterlife doesn’t satisfy me.
The white light bugged me a little bit too, but if the scene in the church was really from Jack’s perspective, I suppose he saw what he expected to see. (But I still have no explanation for baby Aaron.) The finale worked for me right to the bittersweet end; though the afterlife may have been cliched and “safe,” I found it an emotionally satisfying end to the characters I’ve cared about for six years.
Interesting that you say you didn’t care about the island sinking–despite it being a major plot point, the raison d’etre for everything, I don’t really care about it. It was an unfathomably mystery that kept me guessing, but I didn’t need all the answers. Even with the fate of the entire world, possibly life itself, in the balance, I wanted to know what would happen to the Oceanic survivors and their friends.
Thanks to you and everyone who participated in the round table discussions guiding us through the series! It was a hell of a ride.
Also, I liked the observations about the brimstoney light when the cork was pulled. Didn’t they use a “drain” earlier in the series…?
I agree with this review so much. While I felt emotionally satisfied by the ending & the reunions, I was mildly disappointed that they went the relatively safe route of explaining that the sideways timeline was purgatory. It did feel like they threw it in there either because of or in spite of fan speculation — a deliberate choice that bordered on in-jokey. But LOST could be that at times, and I never really minded.
Also, kudos on picking the two images from the finale that got the most tears from me.
Here’s my stoned sounding metaphysical, symbolic take on the light and the drain plug.
Jacob said the light was a bit of leftover creation.
The water wasn’t magical or glowing and the light shown around the stone, not from the stone or the water or what was under it.
When the stone was removed, yes the water flowed down, but the magic light went away, not down the hole. Jack and Smocke became mortal, and the magic island started to crumble and sink.
So, I think that what’s under the island is raw chaos and entropy. The last piece of raw creation is what is holding it back and the holding back of it is what creates the magic. Pulling the plug didn’t disconnect the light, it let out the destruction and cold reality.
Here is what I like about this analogy: creating things out of nothing is the opposite of chaos and entropy, so the plug was literally creation holding back entropy and chaos, which is a nice way of looking at it. The raw creation is what makes the island special and causes so many random things to happen. It doesn’t even matter if they all make sense, because they are creative and they kept us all coming back for six years and creating even more stories in our heads as we tried to rationalize it all out.
Smocke was right in that removing the plug would destroy them all. They were all people in a shifting reality (or characters in a show) and removing the creative magic would make them collapse to normalcy (or end the show). Not having magic or mystery means knowing all of the answers – another reason why the show didn’t explain everything: that would mean the smoke had won. And even pre-smoke Locke always wanted the hard answers and meaning to it all.
Combine that with the theme of all of their lives being intertwined (as nicely illustrated by the flash sideways) and the refrain to “Let it all go” and you have a nice ending: We loved all of the characters and how they intertwined; trying to figure out the mysteries for ourselves was at least as entertaining as watching the show (in essence, there were millions of episodes because of the different interpretations – more raw creativity); and finally, it’s all over. We don’t have to keep looking for meaning. All the characters we loved are together in glowing heaven and we can move on.
Told you it was stoned sounding…
Oh, and when Jacob threw MIB down the hole, the “raw creation” combined his essence with the destructive chaos underneath the island, so the “smoke” was destructive chaos that wanted the magic to go away in order for it to move off the island and infect the world. Interestingly, it was always made sounds of machines and technology and resembled pollution. Even in Richard’s Black Rock time it sounded like machinery of the time. And MIB was seen underground building things like Hephaestus. A little anti-technology Ludditeism thrown in?
The problem that I had with the finale, and considering the last 10 minutes of it the entire 6th season, is that the show, which was driven (despite the creators’ statements) more by the relationships of the characters in the context of the mystery of the island rather than vice versa, failed to pay respect to that mystery. By devoting literally half of the final season to the mystery of the sideways universe, only to have it explained as a purgatory-like state that exists after the fact of all the characters’ deaths, the creators detracted from the intensity of what should have really been a penultimate chapter in the history of the island.
If you consider the show essentially as the story of people who were brought to an island of unknown origin and weakly-explained importance (it either keeps the evil out of or maintains the good in the world outside the island) out of necessity by a man who not only created the biggest threat (MIB) to the “source” of moral balance but was unable (apparently because of some “rules” that Mother established which survived her death) to eliminate this threat himself, then the focus of the final season in my opinion should have been this struggle to contain or eliminate the threat. Instead we got about seven hours of television that did not address this at all yet very much implied that it would have an impact on the action on the island. I, like many people, thought that the flash-sideways would be pertinent to the advancement of the island storyline and yet it was more a red herring for the sake of a saccharine ending for the characters.
Yes, the characters were important to the audience, and their happiness was something desired. But we grew to know the characters in relation to their struggles within the context of the island. The time spent on the flash-sideways purgatory could have been much better spent extrapolating on the key mysteries of the show: “what is the island?”, “why are the characters on the island?”, “what are the stakes of the island’s existence?”, etc. Instead of the flash-sideways, I would much rather have seen flashbacks of the island sans the main characters; “Ab Aeterno” and “Across the Sea” were unsuccessful attempts at lip service to those who desired this.
The Island was not ‘real’ at all — according to our notions of reality. Both the Island and Earth2 were ‘realities created by all of you’ among the forward section of Oceanic 815, according to Christian. You can look at this as mass delusion of a bunch of ghosts unwilling to move on until they had worked out their issues and disappointments and failures with their lives before the crash, or you can look at it in a Hindu or Buddhist way, that all of creation is just a game the Universal Mind plays with itself, like a board game with black and white stones.
In this Hindu sense, the Island reality was just as real as Earth2 and both were as real as everything we do now, and the Losties’ lives before the crash.
The Hindu interpretation gets support by the inclusion of Juliet inside the church, and Linus outside. According to the ‘ghosts’ delusion’ interpretation, both Juliet and Linus were mere constructs, figments of the collective mind of the crashed ghosts; neither should have an existence around that church which is a ‘farewell to all that’ in the words of Robert Graves. Juliet was a way for Sawyer to find love for the first time since his father died, and having done so, the now-satisfied Sawyer should have been able to move on — alone. That hardly makes for a good moving scene at the end, though.
But under the Hindu, Buddhist, Universal mind theory, Linus and Juliet, Faraday, Desmond, the Others, Widmore, the Dharma people, all could exist, because they did exist — all that we saw on the Island was not just a dream of ghosts, of people in their final instant of life before the crash, but an actual reality they created.
Either way, however, we are left with the ‘explanation’ that it was all a collective-unconsciousness creation, whether ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’ and therefore, just like the show’s creators, the Ocean 815 guys just made it all up.
Why the numbers? Because they were important to Hugo; his mind insisted on them. Why the polar bear? Well, just like in a dream, images like that get jumbled.
Anyone else read Hurley and Ben’s talk about doing things differently as a lead-in to a Lost sequel/Fantasy Island remake? lol
I had a feeling early in S1 that this was going to be another Neon Genesis: Evangelion, where lots of cool ideas were brought up and, instead of being resolved, were left alone without any attempt to make sense. Since that was what struck me as interesting in the first place, I was disappointed and felt the writers betrayed me personally by dropping the complicated plots that were begun, probably with no intention of finishing them in the first place.
Never again. Lost had that same feel, and it looks like I did the right thing for myself by bailing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers had been influenced the Tibetan Book of the Dead. My observations were that the elements of Zen & Tibetan Buddhism were strong throughout the show, all the Dharma nods, so on. Some in the media & social media were trying to “own” the ending as a Christian story and ascension, but it could have just as easily been the Bardo. I think the writers played fair to most faiths, and never beat us over the head with any one. The chapel at the end saw in both the stained glass, and icons scattered around the room representation of all faiths, supporting the shows non- denominational theme really wonderfully, imo. I wanted a little more Island resolution, it was just as an important character to me every much as the people were, but I think they wrapped up the spirituality side of things most beautifully. I think most every character had a satisfactory resolution and redemption. There was still some work to do for the souls, both awakened (and not) in the Sideways universe. Ben wasn’t ready to move on, so we don’t see the Frenchwoman, and daughter Alex going either. And I think Eloise was a little miffed at Desmond for proactively waking everyone up. She seemed to know that it would happen eventually, that the souls would find each other with enough time and gather momentum, but she was still trying to clutch little Daniel to her breast to make up for what she’d done…but even that made a perfect sense to me, I thought it was all well done, emotional and ultimately, uplifting.
I was trying to map the ending of Lost onto another familiar story, and ended up with C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, which in my vague memory included creatures in disguise, an evil god-like figure, and everyone at the end is dead and going ‘further in and further up’. I know that book is problematical with a lot of people as well.
I’m overall happy with the tone of the ending, although I wish we knew better why the light was so important too. The show was good enough that I’m thinking of rewatching the series to see if everything hangs together.
SPS49 @@@@@ 10
I am totally in agreement with your statement:
“I was disappointed and felt the writers betrayed me personally by dropping the complicated plots that were begun, probably with no intention of finishing them in the first place.”
I really likes the quantum Physics and time travel that was totally unexplained. I wanted more of the Daniel/Eliose Faraday Science behind the island. Making it a spiritual/Metaphysical ending negated/ignored that whole storyline. How did MIB plan to use the light and the Wheel to cross the space/time continuoum? How did it send Locke to the Sahara Dessert? How did Ben and Jacob (despite never speaking) travel back to both Earth 1 and Earth 2? What was Eliose’s pendulum all about. WHERE DID Daniel’s Journal come from. I loved these parts of the story, and they are now . . . Lost.
@6–Wow wonderfully put
@8–Yes, I was thinking Bardo too. Definitely not purgatory (especially not Dante’s or Aquinas’) because there is no labor.
Actually, this is the one instance I can think of (vs., say, the season finale of the next to last season of Magnum P.I.) in which the white light *wasn’t* a copout. Bright white lights have been seen and discussed on this show from the very beginning (e.g., Locke looking into Smokey). Of course, that’s where they’re all tending.
Michael’s a whisper back on the island, Ben doesn’t feel he’s ready to move on. Walt’s my main question, and kudos to Kimmel (never thought I’d say that, weird) for actually addressing it in the postshow. Yes, it was probably scheduling.
The farther I get away from the finale, the more I like it. I do think, though, that it is more of a failure for geeks like us than it is for average viewers. They’ve been saying all along that it’s about the characters and the universe is secondary. As geeks, we want a conclusion about the universe, something more along the lines of the last halfseason of DS9. Although I like Lost, I’m not sure I like it as science fiction. It’s more Damage Control or the Bab5 episode that did the same thing–you’re getting the story of the people who did some of the island’s work rather than the meatier story of the island.
Cheers to you, RK, and everyone else here: this is the one postshow analysis I’ve seen in which absolutely no one has said something to the effect of “Sayid and Shannon–FTW?” Although that is, of course, a very logical reaction.
@8 asotir
The island was real–not manifested by ghosts, it actually existed and everything there happened. The only time they were in the afterlife was this season in the “sideways” flashes, which were really just really far flash forwards.
@12 Kvon
I thought of The Final Battle too!
@@@@@ Rajan
You asked why does Aaron appear as a baby? Because that’s how he looked on the island. Everyone looks like how they did then, Kate wasn’t an old lady or something, so Aaron was a baby. Plus it worked well for Claire and Kate having their remembrance moments. I’ve seen people ask elsewhere why does Jack have a son in the sideways universe and it makes me wonder if you guys ever knew who these characters were? Jack had TONS of daddy issues. In this sideways universe where everything could be as you would have liked it to be we find Jack with a son that he can raise and be a GOOD father to. Michael is stuck on the island as a ghost, Walt got too big, Mr. Eko wanted too much money.
@@@@@ blando
You said you hoped they’d have used some of the sideways time for explaining mysteries of the island. They didn’t need to. They could’ve given all the sideways timeline the same amount of time and easily explained everything, but they didn’t because they didn’t want to. It had nothing to do with running out of time. Why? Tell me five things that happened on the island before the “kill half the cast” episode. Nothing happens. Most of the season was people waiting around and walking across the island. They had all the time they wanted, but the writers chose not to, don’t blame the sideways universe.
@@@@@ alfoss1540
I think you’re looking for something different if you expect a primetime network show to have to sit down and explain most of the stuff you were looking for. A simple “this that” wasn’t going to fly and they’re not dumb enough to lose half their aduience with some long drawn out explanation on it. I’ve never personally had any issues when they did give explanations for things like Faraday’s brief bits on time travel and I’d happily sit through a long talk about it, but I’ve talked to a lot folks who were clueless through all of that and I had to go line by line for them and explain what Faraday said. The average viewer isn’t that smart they’re in it for the popcorn bits.
I LOVED the finale. I can’t get over how much I enjoyed it. While some seem to dislike the sideways universe more and find rewatching past episodes of it to be a waste I’m looking forward to rewatching it even more. I love the characters of LOST and while I enjoyed the mysteries of it as well, the characters are what made me watch every week. My priorities going into the episode were: 1 – Desmond is okay (this is #1 every episode). 2 – Whether Jack lives or dies doesn’t matter so long as he does something awesome. 3 – The sideways universe comes to a satisfying conclusion. For me, I got all of those and am totally happy with the show and don’t feel like I wasted a minute on it and intend to rewatch all of it many times in my life.
P.S.
@@@@@ sps49
I do get where you’re coming from with NGE. I loved NGE, but the last two episodes do cross a line for sure.
My take on the Island is that it’s the gate to hell, blocked by a security system (the light and electromanetism) when Jacob threw his brother in his brother died, but the security system malfunctioned and created a copy of his brother: the smoke monster/MIB . This mixture of security system and angry emotions and a desire to leave would mean the gate would break open if it left.
In classic IT support fashion, to fix the security system, it needed to be switched off and back on again.
Apparently the box set will have 20mins of Hurley and Ben in their new island protector roles.
Woo Hoo!!
Anyone else still get choked up at the scene of Jack’s death?
Not that I was particularly crazy about his character, but he gets to see his friends fly overhead safely leaving the island, and he isn’t alone, as Vincent the Dog lays down next to him. Something about that just gets me.
Despite the producers saying that they had the ending in mind since the beginning, I think they hastily put it together for the last few episodes. Although Jacob was eluded way back, he really had little to do with anything until almost the end . And the “dark man”? Why didn’t he have a name? And why did their foster mother kill their real mother? Many other questions and plot lines were never answered or ignored. Pretty cheesy ending if you ask me. If it was all Jack’s mind, what about the scenes in which he did not play a part? In fact I disliked the entire last season. It would’ve been better if the whole thing turned out to have something to do with quantum mechanics, time travel paradoxes or parallel time.
I didn’t care for the white light either, but given the metaphor of light used throughout the show, I don’t know what could have replaced it.
Since they gave us the warning that ‘everyone dies’, maybe the video should have vaporized before our eyes like an old movie.
However, they needed the establishment shot on the beach showing the crashed airliner–for those people who would claim the entire thing was a dream.
On another note:
Two laugh out loud moments for me was seeing the stopper/cork in the cave. Who knew that Jacob was literal? And the MiB’s remark that Jack was so obvious a choice as Jacob’s replacement.
As somebody else said elsewhere, I’m having difficulty picturing what Hurley does during his guardianship of the Island. “Dude, get away from the glowing cave! Here, have some fried chicken instead.”
After all, Hurley’s regime is supposed to be kinder and gentler than Jacob’s.
Somebody else said that they needed Desmond because Desmond was Scottish, and only a Scot could be trusted to toss the caber that was struck in the Island…