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?”

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My brother Jordan has been helping me breakdown LOST episodes for 6 years now, many of those happening here on the blog. I’ll be sharing all my thoughts on the LOST finale tomorrow, but today I asked Jordan (who spent last Sep to Feb in Hawaii) to share his final thoughts about the show. Please extend him a warm, bryanallain.com greeting.

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I don’t have a whole lot to add to Bryan’s wrap up of the show that you’ll read tomorrow, but I will definitely take this opportunity to say my peace. I loved the finale, I thought the ending of the OT storyline was nearly perfect. There were some things that got a little cloudy, namely Desmond and Widmore, but overall the writers did their best to give us all the information we needed for our character’s stories.

That is what Lost really was all about, a story about 40 or so people that survive a plane crash on a crazy island. They encountered a lot of mysterious things, but they didn’t always encounter the explanations, and why should they? They weren’t trying to dig up the mysteries of the world or space-time or what have you. They were trying to survive and make it back home. If you think about it, most characters in the show, including all of the passengers of 815, know less about the Island than we do as viewers. Jack didn’t even really know who MiB was, so we should be happy with the knowledge that we do have.

As for the Flash Sideways/Purgatory world, I was quite pleased with how it turned out. It was a twist that I never saw coming, and it was a way for all of our characters to have that cheesy, lovey moment together, without it seeming too unrealistic. Not that Lost is the most believable show, but an alternate timeline where you can download the life of your alter ego from another timeline, now that would have been a tough one to explain! That moment where Jack finally joins everyone in the church, I relished those tears, and that moment was what the entire sideways world was created for.

So yeah, Lost is over. That fact is still sinking in. It is very bittersweet. Oddly enough, now that its over I can honestly say that I am overjoyed with the fact that they left so many questions unanswered. I thought I wanted them all answered, but where is the fun in that? The open-endedness of the finale allows for all of us Lost fans to continue the discussion for as long as we want. I will definitely be starting over at some point soon with season one and with the information that we have now I am excited to try to fill in the blanks that the writers left for us, and there are a lot of those blanks. I know Bryan will be doing this too and I’m sure we will have many moments where we need to tell each other about something cool we figured out. I encourage you all to do the same.

Dissecting Lost episodes on here with my brother has been some of the most fun I’ve ever had in front of a keyboard. I’d like to thank Bryan for the opportunity to post on here and for getting me into Lost in the first place. I especially want to thank those of you that read these posts and contributed some of your own theories in the comments section, it has been fun bouncing ideas back and forth. I don’t know if I will get another chance to guest post on here, but like I said it has been a great time and either way I will see you all in the comments!

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Thanks again Jordan! Your input made these posts 5 times better than if it was just me speculating. And I’m sure you’ll be back on the blog before too long.

Stay Tuned tomorrow for my thoughts on the LOST finale. (I’ll announce the contest winner some point in the next week or so.)

Last night was the LOST finale and I’m not quite ready to talk about it yet.

(UPDATE: Here’s my LOST Finale thoughts, in case you missed them.)

I’m still feeling a little blown away this morning, so I’m gonna do the only thing I know how to do: blow your mind with some advertising brilliance.

(oh, and if you want to see my other Brilliant Advertising videos, click here.)

(If you don’t watch LOST, fear not. This is the last LOST preview post.)

My brother Jordan and I are back one last time to discuss LOST before a new episode airs. (Jordan’s thoughts will be the ones in blue)

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S6, Ep. 16, “What They Died For”

My 10 biggest Observations/Questions/Thoughts

1. Can’t believe this is the last time we’ll preview an episode of LOST. I guess all good things must come to an end cuz if it didn’t end it wouldn’t be good.

Profound.

Thank you. I loved the fact that Jack accepted the role as protector when he did. Figured that would be one of the final moments of the show, but with it being done, it will be interesting to see what that leads to. Did you like it?

I did. I felt the same way about expecting it to be one of the last moments. This way is better though, now we get to watch Jack’s first actions as protector.

2. Speaking of things it will lead to…does Jack’s acceptance as the Candidate mean that Kate, Hurley, and Sawyer can now be killed by the MIB?

Hmm, that is a definite possibility.

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(If you don’t watch LOST, these posts will be torturous to you. I apologize in advance. Just skip them and come back later, when I will try to make it up to you.)

My brother Jordan and I are back to discuss a few things related to episode 15 of LOST’s final season, “Across the Sea”. (Jordan’s thoughts will be the ones in blue)

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S6, Ep. 15, “Across the Sea”

My 10 biggest Observations/Questions/Thoughts

1. As the writers like to call it, this episode was indeed a huge mythological download. what was your first impression?

Loved it.

For me, I was a bit underwhelmed at first, but after watching parts again and thinking about it some more, I think it was a necessary episode and that they pretty much nailed it.

2. The island is the home of the source of light, it needs to be protected, there’s a little of the light in everyone…these are the answers about the island. I’m happy with them, are you?

Definitely, I was never even close to guessing something like that, and I think thats the reason that some people are upset with this episode, it wasn’t the answers that they were looking for.

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