Here’s the one thing I know about LOST, specifically the finale:
How you felt about it had EVERYTHING to do with expectations.
+ If you went into it expecting to be entertained and moved, you loved it.
+ If you went into it expecting answers and aha! moments, you hated it.
+ If you went into it hoping for closure for our favorite characters, you loved it.
+ If you went into it hoping for closure to all the plot twists and mysteries, you hated it.
If you’ve read my weekly posts this season, you know that the closer we came to the end, the more and more I abandoned my expectations for the mythology to focus on the characters. The writers had been preparing us for this for years now. They told us some mysteries would be answered, but only the ones that were necessary to the narrative. They told us that their primary concern was telling the story of these characters. It really shouldn’t have been a surprise that so many loose ends felt untied, but I know for some it was.
So, in order to sort through my thoughts, and because some of you have asked me for it, here’s my Way Too Long Q&A on the finale of LOST:
Dude, What Just Happened?
Some of you still feel like you don’t know what happened. So here is my interpretation, as briefly as I can state it.
When the bomb went off at the end of Season 5, it sent the LOSTies from 1977 back to “present time”. Juliet was dead, they were still on the island, and Faraday’s plan didn’t work. It DID NOT create a new timeline where the plane never crashed and the island was sunk. THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE SURPRISED US. How many times did they tell us, “whatever happened, happened”?
From the beginning of Season 6, what we have been seeing in the sideways flashes is a version of purgatory (Which we’ll talk about in a minute). The writers were clever though (some may call it deceitful). They made purgatory seem a whole lot like what an alternate timeline would look like. Claire pregnant, Kate a fugitive, etc. They also put the island on the bottom of the ocean in purgatory, which led us to believe that the MIB or Desmond was eventually going to make that happen in the Original Timeline.
The brilliance of it all was that we never wondered if we were witnessing some version of the afterlife in the side flashes because the writers had framed Season 6 around the question, “Did the bomb create a new reality in which the plane doesn’t crash?”
So wait, was the island real or not?
Yes it was real. They really crashed there in 2004. The Oceanic 6 really left, came back on Ajira flight 316, traveled through time, and eventually came back to 2007. It was all real. No one ever “rewrote history”. Whatever happened, happened.
What about that scene as the credits rolled of the plane crash remains on the beach?
Some have postulated that it was a sign that everyone died when the plane crash and that this was all a dream. I say, no way.
I believe that was just to show us that we now have one more set of artifacts on the island that represent a group of people that were there. Just like the statue of Tawaret, the temple, the DHARMA hatches, the well, and the Black Rock. Now there’s the wreckage of Flight 815 sitting there, with a story to tell.
So did the Ajira flight leaving the island crash? Is that why they were all in purgatory together at the same time?
No. Like Christian said to Jack, the purgatory world existed outside of time. Jack died in 2007, we saw that when he closed his eyes in the last moments of the show. Who knows when Kate, Sawyer, and the rest of them died? Maybe in 2034? Maybe in 2014? As for Hurley, maybe he protected the island for 500 years before giving up the post. The point is, eventually when they all died, they went to this place, a temporary place in the Afterlife they created to meet up with each other, let go, and move on.
Are you sure Kate didn’t die in the Ajira plane?
Pretty sure. When she talks to Jack in purgatory world she says something to the effect of “I’ve really missed you.” The insinuation is that she really missed him while she lived out the rest of her life without him.
How could Jack have a son in purgatory that didn’t exist in real life? How could people die in purgatory?
All good questions I don’t have answers to. Much is left open to interpretation. Some people think the writers created a scenario where everyone gets their own purgatory, and this was Jack Shephard’s version. That would explain why in his purgatory Aaron was a baby and Kate was the same age as when he knew her. Others think that there is only 1 purgatory, and that everyone is in it until they are ready to move on. This would explain why Eloise didn’t want Desmond to take Daniel away, she had screwed up his life so badly, she wanted to enjoy time with him in purgatory before they moved on.
But if this purgatory the writers created was a place for people to deal with their issues, let go, and move on, then it might explain why Jack had a son there. It was all a part of him resolving his daddy issues from his life.
Wait, you don’t believe in all this purgatory stuff do you?
Honestly, this doesn’t really have anything to do with what I believe. We’re talking about a fictional show written by writers who probably don’t believe the same things you believe. I don’t believe in smoke monsters, time travel, or people staying pretty on a deserted island, but I still loved the show anyway.
If you’re bent out of shape because the vision of the afterlife created by the writers goes against what you believe, you need to take a deep breath and remind yourself that this is a fictional television show created to entertain you. It’s not a referendum on who has the correct theology on what happens after we die.
Well, aren’t you upset at some of the plot holes and unanswered questions?
I’m not upset, but there are definitely things about the show I was disappointed by. Here’s a few:
+ Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking were characters that seemed vital to the story they were telling, and in the end it seemed they didn’t matter much. Heck, Widmore died in a closet (although it was cool that it was Ben who shot him.)
+ It felt like there were too many dead ends in Season 6. Dogen and the Temple seems kind of pointless in retrospect. I mean, it kept the story going by providing more mystery…but other than that it didn’t add much to the overall narrative for me.
+ To have Sayid “moving on” with Shannon and not with Nadia felt kinda dumb. I don’t know if they did that because they had written that final scene back in Season 1 (which I’ll mention in a minute) and thought it would be cool to leave it unchanged or if Nadia was busy and couldn’t show up for filming. Either way, that didn’t seem right.
I’m sure there’s more I have, but there’s no point in listing them out.
What about the glowing light in the cave as the source or heart of the island? How can you consider that an answer?
Some of you wanted more of an explanation than that as to why the island was special, but I didn’t. Let me explain.
Many of you believe in angels, right? Do you just believe that they exist, or do you need to know what they are made out of, how they are able to be invisible, and what type of reasoning capabilities they have, and how tall they are? I’m guessing you don’t really care about the details, you believe they exist and you’re okay with the rest being a mystery.
Same goes for the glowing light for me (as well as some of the other mysteries of the show). I don’t need to know what it’s made of, and how the stopper in the bottom of the cave works, and how the drinking of the cup turns one into the protector. I don’t want to know that the Force is a direct result of midi-chlorians and I don’t want to know any more about Jacob’s rules, the glowing light, or the physics of the donkey wheel. Just like in real life, I’m okay with some things remaining shrouded in mystery.
Are you satisfied with the big question of “Why did this happen to these people”?
Yes, I am. Jacob created this evil force when he threw his brother into the island source. He needed someone to take his place to protect the island AND do the one thing he couldn’t do: kill his brother. He marked candidates and brought the people on Oceanic 815 to the island because they were flawed and alone in life. In the end he found his replacement(s), and it was the story of one of those replacements, Jack, that was the story that we’ve seen unfold over the last 6 years.
Did Jacob know that in the end it would be Jack and Hurley that took his place? I think that’s left up to us to decide. Maybe he brought the DHARMA initiative to the island because he thought one of them could be a candidate, only the MIB corrupted Ben and tricked him into killing them all in the purge. Or maybe the DHARMA initiative was only there to play a role in Jack’s story because he knew it would be Jack in the end? We’ll never know and I’m okay with that.
How did you feel about the closing scene?
I loved it, and you probably did too right? How could you not? Jack finally fixed it. He helped kill the MIB and restore the island’s light, and in doing so he was able to see Kate (and others) fly away on the Ajira plane. And to have Vincent show up so Jack didn’t die alone? I’m not really a dog person, but man that was awesome.
I feel like it was a story about a bunch of folks, but ultimately Jack was our protagonist. So in that sense I felt real closure with his story.
But don’t the writers owe us more answers!
Honestly, the writers don’t owe us anything. We chose to turn on the TV week after week to tune into the story they were telling. No one forced us to.
Most of us assumed that every time a mystery or question was introduced, it meant we’d get an answer to it. I assumed that too for a while, but like i said earlier, I eventually realized that wasn’t going to happen and had no problem coming to grips with it. For some people, it was the mysteries that kept the show moving and kept them engaged, but for others it was the character stories that did that.
And I like what my friend Travis said in his review, “People who wanted mysteries “solved” would have hated the answers. Why? Because these are mysteries unfathomable to the human mind. The imagination is the best hope of perceiving them…Who cares what the stupid numbers were? The mysteries of eternity find their way into the world in manifestations we just don’t get. Who cares what the numbers are? In the end, there is peace. There is love.”
Yeah but how dumb was the church in purgatory with symbols from every religion. What was that about?
Yeah, I thought that was kinda cheesy, but it shouldn’t have been too surprising. They drew from elements of all the faiths over the entire series, so I felt like they didn’t need to hit us over the head with that imagery at the end. But whatever…I mean, if you were expecting them to point to one religion over another, you were kind of missing the point.
And while we’re here, let me say something specifically to other Christians who might be reading this. Can I ask you to please not make this show’s finale a soapbox about how you don’t believe in purgatory, or about how there’s no way a church could be inclusive of all religions. Most people probably already know where you stand on this.
Instead, if you’re going to focus on the spirituality, what about focusing on the positives? Focus on the fact that how we treat each other DOES matter because we can’t do life alone. Focus on the fact that the story didn’t end when everyone died because our souls are eternal and there is more than just this life. Focus on the power of forgiveness and how powerful it is. If you’re going to use the show to talk about spirituality, can you please not be a whiner or a negative nancy?
Maybe I’m being a little too harsh with this, but no one cares that you hated a television show because it didn’t match up with your spiritual beliefs.
Have you read any other interesting thoughts online about the show worth sharing?
Yup…
+ Even though it may seem like some characters weren’t important in the end, they all played a role in some way. Take Richard Alpert. Part of what made his character special was that he wasn’t aging, so that added another layer of mystery to the show. In the end we found out that Jacob had given that to him as a gift, but maybe Richard helped Jacob too. Before Richard came, Jacob never interfered with people’s lives, believing that they would do the right thing. But then we saw Jacob appearing in the lives of our LOSTies, literally touching them. So maybe Richard helped Jacob realized that he needed to get involved because sometimes people need a little push.
+ Why didn’t Ben go into the church at the end of the show? I think he just wasn’t ready to move on yet. Maybe he had so more “letting go” to do, after all, he did some pretty awful things in life. Or maybe he was waiting for the people he needed to “move on” with, like Alex or Rousseau or Ethan.
+Was Michael not in the Sideways world because his soul was trapped on the island? Yeah, I think that’s what we were supposed to think.
+ I read online where someone claiming to have insider knowledge said that it’s true that the writers had the last scenes of the show planned out since the pilot, including the scene in the church with everyone getting ready to move on and the scene on the island with Jack closing his eye. I really don’t care whether that’s true or not, but worth mentioning.
What do you have to say to people who are upset because they feel cheated by all the unanswered questions?
I’m sorry that the finale didn’t live up to the rest of the show for a lot of people. That kinda sucks.
But you know what, if the writers had said at the beginning of the show,
“We are going to make Mystery a core element of this show, and we are going to introduce A LOT of questions to keep you intrigued and on the edge of your seat. In the end we’ll probably only answer 3 questions for every 10 we introduce, but you can trust us that we’ll answer the ones we feel are important to bringing closure to the story.”
Would you still have watched knowing that many of the questions would go unanswered? Would you have preferred that, so your expectations wouldn’t have been that everything would be answered in the end?
I think that would have sucked, because it would have taken the edge off all the mysteries. One of the reasons this show was so riveting, was because each question held so much weight when it was introduced. Why is there a polar bear? What’s in the hatch? Why are they building a runway?
Having all these questions made the show what it was, and looking back I’m glad they told the story that way. It kept it riveting. The downside was that they introduced more questions than they could answer. I’m totally okay with that, but I do understand why some people feel unsatisfied.
So you loved the finale?
I did.
The scenes were the sideways characters experienced their awakenings worked so well because they also served as a great way for us to look back on their journeys as characters in the show. Most people said they loved Juliet and Sawyer’s the best, but my favorite was probably when Charlie got his memories when Claire gave birth. I wouldn’t have expected that one to move me the most, but it did.
Also loved how Juliet said “It worked” to Sawyer when unplugging the vending machine got his candy bar unstuck. Remember, that was the same thing she said to him as she was dying, only at the time we thought she was talking about the bomb creating a new reality where the plane landed. More brilliant misdirection from the writers.
Not that the show should be graded, but if I was grading the show on a scale of 1 to 10, my grades would look like this:
The finale – 9 out of 10 (riveting up to the end, maybe a little too sappy…but I’d rather have too much emotion than not enough)
Season 6 – 7.5 out of 10 (the sideways world stories seemed slow at times not knowing what they were, and the Temple stuff seems a bit pointless now.)
The whole series – 9.5 out of 10 (and there will never be a 10)
Alright Bryan, put a bow on this.
Think for a second about the effort it took for this show to be made. From conception to writing to casting to acting to filming to editing to scoring to broadcasting. How amazing is it that this show got through that entire process and turned out as amazing as it did? Hard to believe there will ever be another show like this one.
I loved everything about LOST. I had an extra skip in my step on days it aired. I loved talking to my friends about it. I loved talking to strangers about it. I loved talking to my brother Jordan about it. I loved the stories and the storytelling. I loved the mythology, the literary references, and the easter eggs. I loved the season opening sequences and the season ending cliffhangers. I loved the characters and the journeys they took us on. I loved the producers and the writers and the gorgeous scenery in Hawaii. I loved how it made me think and I loved how it made me feel. And now that it’s over, I love that they ended the story on their terms, even if it wasn’t exactly what I expected.
And for those of you who didn’t like the ending and feel like it tainted the show for you, I hope some of my thoughts helped make sense of it a little more for you. And if not, I hope the disappointment of the destination doesn’t erase the fact that it was an enjoyable journey.
Thanks to all of you for reading our thoughts on LOST over the years, and thanks to everyone involved in making the show for 120 hours of amazing television. namaste.
Posted by Bryan AllainTags: LOST
I read that ABC added the scenes of the wreckage in the closing credits, and not the producers. They wanted a soothing visual to guide viewers from the roller coaster they were just on to the evening news.
Why didnt anybody see closely the last frames with the wreckage ? There are FOOTPRINTS on the sand and in the picture above you can actually see a line like as if someone dragged something on the sand….the island was REAL.
I believe that this is what happened in the end. Like Jack’s dad said…”some die now some die later, and that there is no ‘now’ here”.
Jack realized he was dying and he finally went to the church with everyone else. While James, Kate and the other hadnt reached that point yet, so they continued their flash story until one day they also reach that point. When they all do, thats when the church thing happens. Thats why Jack was smiling when he saw that plane above his head. He could see that the others were not ready yet.
What bugs me though is that since the island was real then how/why did Hugo get to the church ? Does that mean someone replaced him ? who ? Since he said to Linus “you were a great no.2″ and he said the same back to him….means that they were doing their thing on the island after Jack died…..so who replaced them after !?!?!
help me persuade my wife to purchase/borrow/steal all seasons of this show so that we can watch it. i think i’m ready
But the big question is… did you like LOST?
You give it a 9.5 and indicate there will never be a 10. I take that to mean LOST has been your favorite TV show ever?
I’m alright with that… but as a relative newcomer to your blog, I’m curious about what some of your other favorite TV shows of the past and present would be?
Great post Bryan. I really disliked the finale at the time, but have softened to it somewhat after reading some other perspectives. As you said, no point in hashing out what the show wasn’t. Great job wrapping up the whole series and giving us haters some perspective.
Loved the pictures you chose. Reminders that in addition to all its other triumphs, this show often had very high quality cinematography.
Alright, I’ll give it to you, Bryan — this is the first thing I’ve read that actually makes me content with Lost’s ending. Nice work. And thanks.
9.5 for the series from me too. its up there with my all time favourites!
And my fav scene in the finale without question was when charlie and claire recognised each other. As a man I have no outward emotions, but inside I was bawling like a little girl!
Great post!! You summed it up nicely.
As I commented yesterday, I have a smidge of disappointment that the show invested a lot of our time in questions that were never answered. (What happened to Annie? Why did Jack get appendicitis? etc.)
But after reading your review, I’m ready to let go. Namaste.
Jack got appendicitis maybe as a way for the island to keep him there, as the island actually cures other illnesses. OR, it could have been foreshadowing of how he would die- MIB stabbing him.
I, too, loved it, and I’m still thinking about it on occasion throughout the day. I just can’t get the euphoric look on Jack’s face out of my mind as he watches Ajira fly over.
Great write-up!
Great observations Bryan. You summed up so much of what I thought so well in this post.
There were some things that were disappointing about the overall series for me. I wasn’t as disappointed as much by the unanswered questions (I love that the writers intentionally left some mystery in there) as I was by the dead ends and characters in the story that seemed not to fit. Like the temple in this season or, as you mentioned, Widmore’s whole character story plot. It sort of felt like they built that storyline up so big and then it just was a letdown when he was shot in a closet. It wasn’t even a dramatic death…just “boom” and he’s gone. That was kinda lame.
But overall I agree that LOST kept to its original intentions. The reuniting scenes in the finale were deeply moving – Sawyer & Juliet, Charlie & Claire…amazing. Really felt like the ending this series deserved.
It’s been fun reading your thoughts on the series as it developed. You were always my “go-to guy” when I wanted to get another perspective on an episode.
I agree with others… your post has helped me to understand and appreciate the finale more. I never hated it but I felt a little confused still after the fact.
I agree with you about the whole Sayid/Shannon thing. Should have been Nadia.
I pretty much agree with everything you wrote. I can’t wait to watch LOST on DVD all over from the beginning with Keith.
Reading Bryan’s summary for me was the missing part to this series. My disappointment and frustration about the end has been dispelled. I feel like that for me, reading it was actually a part of the Lost experience. Thank you! And now I am satisfied and content and can finally say, that this was the gratest and most compelling piece of fictionn ever aired on TV. I will miss it.
Great post Bryan! You summed it up very nicely. I am looking forward to someday getting all the DVD’s and watching them again this time with a new perspective. I’m sure it will be, in some ways, like watching it all over again.
“Think for a second about the effort it took for this show to be made. From conception to writing to casting to acting to filming to editing to scoring to broadcasting. How amazing is it that this show got through that entire process and turned out as amazing as it did? Hard to believe there will ever be another show like this one”
Agree with that statement 100%! Incredible to really sit down and think about that.
Great thoughts here. I thought the finale was beautifully done and gave us some iconic images that will stay with me/us for years, particularly the stud shot of Jack leaping at Flocke on the rocks (pure awesomeness) and the shot you included above, looking down at Jack and Vincent. The series bookend in the bamboo was sheer brilliance.
Well done!
http://www.brianzahnd.com/index.php?app=blog&p=483
I was very done with the show until I read this post. I’ve had so many conversations about the ending, and how tainted the show, or didn’t answer enough questions, whatever. I was pretty pissed off for a while, and the whole Jimmy Kimmel alternate fake ending thing sucked bad, and got me even more upset.
But now, I want to go back and watch the whole thing with the ending in mind, and with these thoughts in mind. I’m in full agreement with you.
Thanks for the insight!
#Mark
Excellent summary! Thanks.
Yay, Bryan! I was concerned after the finale that you weren’t going to do a review over the ending and that made me sad in my heart. I loved this post and NOW I feel that the series is complete. Thanks for taking the time to explain things to people like me who might not pick up on all the little details like you do…
I feel the same way about the ending…very emotionally satisfying and a great way to come full-circle with the characters. I can’t wait until the 6-season boxed set comes out!
I loved the finale, and your final thoughts are great. I wish I could talk to you in person about this because it was such an incredible show and the finale has left me in such a weird daze. Psychological shows and movies like Lost are my favorite things to watch, and this one has definitely left me stunned. There was resolution and still loose ends and that had to happen. They played perfectly into the mystery of life at the end and I love the emphasis on relationships. Each character seemed to have something someone could relate to which made them redeemable in the eyes of the viewers. I keep replaying the part where Hurley and Ben interact outside of the church in my head, that was the point where I was fine with it ending the way it did. And I loved every moment where they all remembered in the purgatory timeline. It still blows me away that something this great pales in comparison to what things in Heaven will be like.
What a magnificent recap! You’ve expressed my views exactly and introduced me to some new thoughts as well. One comment I would make is on the Temple:
I think the episodes at the temple contributed significantly to completing the story of the Others. Since the end of season 3, we’ve heard Ben Linus and Richard Alpert refering to a mysterious temple. Taking us to the Temple finally showed us what they were talking about. More importantly, the Temple episodes show us what ultimately happened to the Others: MIB either recruited them there or killed them there.
The writers of LOST may have left a lot of unanswered questions, but they tended to resolve the stories of the people on the island at the end. The Others were too important as players in the story to be forgotten in the jungle. Without those episodes in the temple, I’m afraid they would have been.
Didn’t like the last season at all. Still don’t.
i loved the first 2 seasons when the focus WAS the characters. But then they moved it away from the characters. Plus the writers said they had the end in mind the whole time, but so many things in the show were inconsistent.
When they make claims of answering questions, then they need to. If they hadn’t, then fine.
The purgatory flashes were just kind of dumb.
i do think when Juliet said it worked- she wasn’t talking about the bomb, she was talking about the vending machine. she was going in & out of consciousness. That’s why we hear her say lets go dutch.
i really didn’t like season 6 b/c
1. They introduced new characters at the end of the show (Doegen, Llana, etc)
2. So much of it was kind of a joke- like they were going to answer a question- then not really
3. LOVE as an answer seemed like a cop-out. And some of the love stories never really came to fruition: Sayid & Shannon is a joke; Kate & Jack was forced
4. Pat answers and unanswred questions
i get that some things are just a mystery. And i’m ok with the island source just being a light. Still, they introduced too much stuff, unnecessary stuff that made it more complicated & more frustrating.
And i don’t like the pluralism in it. i’m not surprised by it at all. but i wish they would have just stuck with Buddhism.
That’s my rant.
Everyone’s free to their own opinion, after all, it is only a tv show
To continue the thought about the misdirection of Juliet saying “It worked”, I believe that she was not only not referring to the bomb, but that the bomb didn’t go off at all!
Do you think 30 years after a nuke went off, a region would be in that condition?
I realize this is one of those things that will never be explained, but to me, I thought it was awesome that they had led us along for 18 episodes thinking the bomb exploded, when in actuality, it probably never did.
Great writeup, loved the series, loved the show. Great lesson for all of us… In the end, it’s not the details, it’s the relationships you’ve built and affected that matter.
I think I agree with you Craig. I don’t think that the jughead bomb exploded. Lets break it down…
1.) Could banging an H bomb with a rock really make it detonate?
2.) Would an H bomb detonating leave all those people alive and the island intact?
3.) Would an H bomb be able to send people through time?
I think the answer is no to all of these. I think maybe Juliet was able to crack the shell of the bomb and that it started leaking. It would accumalate and so every 108 minutes they would enter the code into the swan computer to release the energy that was building. So what was the white flash at the end of the episode? Maybe it was just another jump through time which is why our losties ended up back in 2007. Just a theory, but I like it.
LOVE your thoughts and agree with your overall synopsis and explanations. I, too, don’t care too much about the unanswered questions. and i LOVE Lost…always will
. thanks for sharing.
Thanks for giving us your thoughts. I’ve really enjoyed your recaps each week. I was satisfied with the finale, even more so after thinking about it for a while and reading other people’s thoughts. But the sap in me will always wish that the sideways flashes were real and they were the result of Jack finishing off the MiB. Meaning, Jack kills the MiB and then things are “reset” and they get the lives they were meant to have if it hadn’t been for Jacob bringing them to the island.
Speaking of which, I think it’s interesting that so many people have fixated on Jack having a son in the sideways flash. I thought it just meant that each of the candidates was living out the life they would have had if the event that made them eligible to be a candidate had never happened (or in Kate’s case, the event that crossed her off the list). Jacob explained that they had been chosen b/c they were alone and wouldn’t be leaving anyone behind. But in the sideways flash the only one who would still have been eligible was Kate, and she was the only one made ineligible in the real world. I have no idea if any of this makes sense. I just thought it was interesting that in the sideways flash, none of the candidates would have been eligible any more except Kate.
I stopped trying to figure everything out a couple seasons ago because I knew that someone would write a blog explaining it all when the series ended. Thanks for being that guy.
P.S. Congrats on being suddenly internet-famous.
Wholehearted agreement with you. I like the unanswered questions because it leaves room for me to create the answers in my head.
You should really look up the hashtag #lostcomics on Twitter… there are comic artists drawing hilarious things to fill in the gaps that were left. There’s TONS of them by two artists.
Good stuff. Great post, and LOST was/is my favorite show. Sad to see it go.
The best thing I’ve read yet on LOST–and I didn’t find your blog until it was all over. But it’s not over–I’m still thinking about LOST–ruminating, doing my own staring out at the ocean. I’ll enjoy going back and reading the rest of your posts–it’ll give me something to look forward to on Tuesday nights!
Wow, everything makes sense now.
That was an excellent way of putting everything.
Thank you
Great response Brian. I really hope your readers are able to understand the significance now of Jacks sideways flash in regards to the temple being a subplot verses the MIB ever having any power over Jacob. (or whoever created him)
Also, I’m going to have to disagree about this being the last episode. There will obviously be more episodes next season. Especially since we don’t even know what the numbers were for.
Thanks for being a great guy who sticks with it all the time and everything.
Nice review, well thought out, and well written!
I have no problem politely debating the spirituality the same way I would debate the science of a show if it were inaccurate, but I do agree that being negative while doing so defeats the purpose.
I love emphasizing the positive alternatives to the false spirituality in LOST, as well as giving biblical reasons that loving your neighbor is important. I do believe it is harder to go it alone, because that’s what the bible says, but obedience to God is still more important than being nice so you have friends.
I like your view on the series, and it sheds good light on the ending. I’m a sci-fi fan myself, and was hoping for some more fantastic events or answers, but I understand why they didn’t. (enter: stargaze universe)
Thanks again for a great review.
An absolutely wonderful review! You wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve had to explain this finale to friends and coworkers. Even people that haven’t seen the show would come up to me and say, “so I heard they were dead the entire series.” Ridiculous! Brent, I agree with your temple comment – I agree finally seeing the others at the temple was quite significant to wrap up their story.
Thanks again!
I LOVED the finale and am a huge LOST fan and I had a very similar dialogue with several of my friends who didn’t get the finale. I told them basically what you’ve summarized here.
I do have one question, though. You mentioned Charlie getting his memory back when Claire gave birth, but didn’t Charlie start Desmond’s quest to enlighten the cast by explaining to him that he had had flashes of a memory of being deeply in love with a girl he had seen on (the non-crashing) 815? In episode 11, Charlie speaks of a “spectacular, consciousness-altering” love with a blonde girl he KNEW and he felt so strongly about it that he wanted Desmond to experience such a revelation too. He tells Des, “I’ve seen something real. I’ve seen the truth.” So, he causes Des to drive off the pier.
What’s your opinion of this? Did Charlie just have a semi-revelation then and the rest when Aaron was born? That seems a little sketchy since everyone, save Jack, had their respective revelations all at once.
This was seriously my only question during the finale.
That part was a tad confusing. Charlie had his first vision of the OT when he was on the plane and he swallowed the bag of heroine. He was choking on it and close to death and thats when he saw Claire. Then Jack saves his life and Charlie comes back but seems agitated with Jack for saving him. This was his first glimpse of the OT and he only knew that he loved this mysterious blonde girl. Later on when Claire gives birth he is able to remember the entire time he spent on the island.
This sounds like a show that I would have liked to watch, but I never could find it. Honestly though, reading your reviews has me interested. I wish I had the time to just sit down and watch the entire series straight through.
Some thoughts on expectations
http://bit.ly/c1Fgtn
and what really happens after we die
http://bit.ly/dcduuQ
Holy self-serving and unrelated, bit.ly-hiding-behind links, Batman! If you weren’t a real person, I’d have deleted your comment as spam. Since you’re a real person, I’ll just mock you in a comment.
You know what Geof? You are absolutely right. It was late and I wasn’t thinking. I apologize to Bryan, to you, and to anyone else who clicked the links to my blog.
If I could delete it myself I would, but maybe Bryan will do that for me when he gets a chance. Sorry again. Thanks for calling me on it and keeping me honest.
Hey, thanks for being cool about the criticism.
No problem man – I don’t want to be “that guy.”. I’ll definitely do a better job of keeping my comments on topic.
don’t be too hard on yourself mr payne
Thanks Jordan. It wasn’t intentional, but Geof was right. Hope it didn’t rub y’all the wrong way. Maybe the worst part was that the posts that I linked to weren’t even that good
So Bryan, now that LOST is over, you can dedicate your Tuesday blog to recap a show that really matters…Cougar Town.
Can’t wait for the in depth analysis on that one!!
I just finally watched it. I loved the show so much I couldn’t bring myself to watch the finale because that would mean that one of the greatest shows ever was really over…
That being said, I LOVED the finale! I was actually glad when Hurley ended up being the protector of the island, because Jack felt to cliché to really work, but Hurley was perfect because he really cared about people, and after seeing what Jacob did, that is what the island really needed in a protector, someone who really cared for the people there..
The scene at the end when Jack’s dad talks about why they were together, because they needed each other and all that, was phenomenal! I’m pretty sure that will make it into MANY sermons as an illustration…