LOST – My Thoughts about “The End”

SPOILERS AHEAD

That’s it. No more. “The End” of LOST.

Let me start with this: I liked the finale.

Here are some other thoughts about last night’s show:

Jack was never meant to hold the position of The New Jacob long term. He was the only one that had what it took to destroy The Man in Black, save Desmond and get that stone put back into place. I don’t think Kate, Sawyer, or Hurley could have done any of that, for various reasons.

It was good to see Bernard and Rose for one last time, and that they were the people that saved Desmond from the well.

I’m not really sure how I feel about Hurley taking over as The Island protector. My immediate reaction was, “But he didn’t want it!” In thinking about it more, I suppose that all the dead people talking to him all the time was a hint about how things were going to turn out.

Ben. Ben, Ben, Ben. I’m pretty surprised that Ben survived all that, and I probably shouldn’t be, because that’s what Ben does. Switches sides and goes with who he thinks will let him survive the longest. It does seem that Ben needed to become Hurley’s right hand man on The Island, because he had some to make up for some serious issues he had.

One surprise was that The Man in Black became vulnerable when the stone was removed from the Light Well. I didn’t really expect to see that. Why The Man in Black didn’t kill Jack right then and there, I have no idea. After the big fight scene at the cliff, I thought for sure Smokey would come back one last time after the rock was put back into place, but “dead is dead”, I suppose.

So in the end, it appears that the survivors of the “real world” ended up being: Desmond, Kate, Sawyer, Miles, Frank, Claire, Ben, Hurley, Bernard, Rose, Richard and of course Vincent. I can’t imagine what life on The Island was like with Hurley and Ben in charge. Seems like it would make a wacky sitcom.

OK, onto the sideways world:

I think many people will have problems with this whole thing. The way I look at it was this: It was a weigh station. A place where people worked out the “issues” they had, and once they were able to do that, they moved on. Whatever those issues were, was up to the individual person. Some people were ready, like most of the 815ers, and some were not, like Ben and Ana Lucia.

All this was very ambiguous, but then again, it’s LOST, so what do you expect. Everyone there was dead, not because they were dead all along. They lived out whatever life they had, and were back in the “sideways” world to reconnect with each other for what was the most important part of their lives. And having found each other again, they move on. Move on to what? Again, ambiguous, but it was probably heaven.

Did you notice the things inside of the room Jack walked into? There were items from every religion. Even the stained glass was multi-denominational.

I was really disappointed that Walt and Michael were left completely out of it all.
Things I wish were resolved: Why were Aaron and Walt important? Why they wanted to have babies on The Island? When was Christian Shepard really appearing to Jack – only in the real world? Was Widmore lying about a visit from Jacob? What did Widmore really plan on doing with Desmond?

Was it the perfect ending? No, and it’s one that will be debated for quite some time, I’m sure. I might post some more about this later, but for now that’s it. I’ll be waiting for Lost: The Complete Sixth And Final Season. It goes on sale August 24th.

I will really miss this show.

14 thoughts on “LOST – My Thoughts about “The End””

  1. Someone I thought might show up at the end was Mr. Eko. I thought he might appear as the officiant at the “funeral”.

  2. Last night I was a little more conflicted about the finale, but I think it may have been a reaction to the fact that I’d been part of a memorial luncheon earlier and rejected more reminders of death…

    I pretty much feel like Mo Ryan about it. The character stuff I think was great. The structural things left so many questions untouched, but then life is like that too, isn’t it? Things you thought might be important are just trasncient details that add color and texture but no actual substance.

    I think I get why it had to be Hurley, in the end, who stayed with the island. He needed to let go of the notion that he was responsible for the crash, and I think he’d come trhough to the other side of that, but he also needed to let go of the idea that he was a just a secondary character even in his own life. He was a hero in his own right, and every bit as capable, smart and compassionate as anyone else he’d encountered. And he needed to ask Ben for help, because in offering it freely, Ben himself shed that lizard skin he’d developed over the years on the island.

    I have a feeling that some fans are going to be immnesely p*ssed about the finale, but I think that I will continue to find touches that made it special. It was quite a journey and I am going to miss those characters.

    Hey, Andy: I *told* you not to underestimate the grooviness of the Lapidus!

  3. Oh, and I missed the fact that Jack’s appendix scar, (he asked his mom about it) was where Unlocke stabbed him.

  4. Kali: Yeah, and I screamed “nooooooooooooo” when I saw him return. Ugh.

    As well as when Kate started Jack’s island life flashes…*sigh* *annoyed*

    I liked the show, overall. I don’t think we were going to see Michael; he was already stuck on the island, wandering. I wish we did get to know more about Walt…he was supposedly going to be in the finale, but I never saw him. Loved Sawyer/Juliet’s reunion…I’m satisfied with what the writers did. No TV show is perfect, and they gave us enough to chew on for awhile. Bravo, everyone, bravo!

  5. Did anyone get the idea that the very final scenes surveying the plane wreckage ( with no motion, no people alive ) lends itself to the thought that Jack died at the very outset? Meaning that the whole show was a “in between” type reality… Not just the sideways timeline.

  6. Hunter P, the producers said that this wasn’t a show where it turns out “they’re really dead”. I just took those final scenes as just a remembrance of how it started, since the show itself ended with Jack’s eye closing.

    Having said that, I got the same sense as you, until I remembered what the producers said.

  7. Yes, I concur with Steve; it was a reflection of the beginning of the show. Somewhat odd placement for it, since you need to have heard the producers statements about it, otherwise you’d be left with the impression Hunter had.

  8. I assumed that that plane wreckage at the end was the 2nd plane as kate, saywer etc would also have to die on the island to be in the sideways timeline.

  9. I think that the wreckage was the last callback to what began our journey with these characters. I also think it was meant as a conversation piece inasmuch as everything else in this show was a conversation piece. By the looks of it, it’s a broken down plane on a beach. But it was so much more than just that, wasn’t it? It’s all about perspective and priorities. You can make your way through that wreckage and see the lives that intersected around it or just broken metal. What do you want to take away from it? Your own sense of security and wisdom will dictate whether it is enough to be given glimpses and make up your mind what is important or whether you need to be spoon-fed the trip and all its meaning.

    I think that the ending was meant to be reflective of the journey and a metaphor that can easily be dismissed by the more cynical among us. Apparently, I am no longer that cynical, angry gal I used to be. I do not have all the answers. (I can barely remember all the questions…)

  10. Jack should have had two scars on his abdomen — one from the UnLocke stabbing, and one from the time on the island when Juliette took out his appendix.

  11. I do have to say that I was quite a bit disappointed about the way lost ended. I expected a lot more clarity. There are like so many question still not clarified. Like what was the purpose of Jacob and the man in black. I get the whole thing about good and evil but why? I mean what was there role if everyone on the Island was already dead? The man in black all he wanted was to get off the island, why? If everyone was dead then what about the others and the Dharma innitiative? What about Widmore what about Penny? If everyone was dead what about the babies born on the island. It just doesn’t make sense. 3 years ago I was speculating about the ending with a friend and all I said was I hope that the ending will make clear why the things happened the way they did and I hope that they will not say at the end like everyone is dead and these are all ghosts trying to move on. That would be so cheap and allas this just happened the way I was affraid it would. I am so disappointed because after 6 years you expect to find out why things happened the way they did and you just get more question marks than before.
    I liked lost a lot but this was just not a worthy ending.

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