Off Topic · Lost Final Season (page 8)
eViL wrote:djsunyc wrote:that sucks you didn't like it.but what if you look at it this way...alot of the show's appeal has been all the theories created by fans all over the web. maybe they didn't answer everything b/c they wanted the theories to continue and to not say whether one was right and the other was wrong. they grabbed alot of stuff from alot of religions (and alot of them were physically depicted in that final scene with jack's dad) so maybe they are saying everyone's interpretation or guesses are right?
i'm glad that some people enjoyed it. i enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. when desmond pulled that cork out of the hole, i was dying.
absolutely nothing that happened on this show had any significance at all in any way in the end. we really have no idea of the consequences of anything that happened. instead of giving us the results of all the action, they fast forwarded to some afterlife waiting room where everyone is happy. as if the only thing that matters is that everyone is happy in the end.
nothing mattered. this was just a new twist on the "it was all a dream" newhart style ending.
or the st, elsewhere snowglobe ending. i see your point. i think what the writers wanted to convey more than anything is what the show is about; the characters. they emphasize focus on the characters more than the "island" since they were the ones who evolved. that is why they have shows that feature each of them. the mysteries? yes, its frustrating not knowing all of them. however, like you said, it is a red herring on what this show was built on. you didnt fell anything when kate and jack were finally together? or when sayid finally found peace/ or when ben was reluctant in coming in the church because he realized all of the evil he has done to those people and no matter how many redeeming acts he has done he still bears that cross? to be honest with you, i never knew how much i actually cared for these characters. THAT is when you know the show did its job.
Good stuff on here! I can finally throw in my two cents! I've had to bite my tongue for far too long. Also, hopefully I can answer some of John Adam's questions about Dharma and the "pointless breadcrumbs" that really, weren't so pointless ... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)
First ...
The Island:
It was real. Everything that happened on the island that we saw throughout the 6 seasons was real. Forget the final image of the plane crash, it was put in purposely to f*&k with people's heads and show how far the show had come. They really crashed. They really survived. They really discovered Dharma and the Others. The Island keeps the balance of good and evil in the world. It always has and always will perform that role. And the Island will always need a "Protector". Jacob wasn't the first, Hurley won't be the last. However, Jacob had to deal with a malevolent force (MIB) that his mother, nor Hurley had to deal with. He created the devil and had to find a way to kill him -- even though the rules prevented him from actually doing so.
Thus began Jacob's plan to bring candidates to the Island to do the one thing he couldn't do. Kill the MIB. He had a huge list of candidates that spanned generations. Yet everytime he brought people there, the MIB corrupted them and caused them to kill one another. That was until Richard came along and helped Jacob understand that if he didn't take a more active role, then his plan would never work.
Enter Dharma -- which I'm not sure why John is having such a hard time grasping. Dharma, like the countless scores of people that were brought to the island before, were brought there by Jacob as part of his plan to kill the MIB. However, the MIB was aware of this plan and interferred by "corrupting" Ben. Making Ben believe he was doing the work of Jacob when in reality he was doing the work of the MIB. This carried over into all of Ben's "off-island" activities. He was the leader. He spoke for Jacob as far as they were concerned. So the "Others" killed Dharma and later were actively trying to kill Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley and all the candidates because that's what the MIB wanted. And what he couldn't do for himself.
Dharma was originally brought in to be good. But was turned bad by MIB's corruption and eventually destroyed by his pawn Ben. Now, was Dharma only brought there to help Jack and the other Canditates on their overall quest to kill Smokey? Or did Jacob have another list of Canidates from the Dharma group that we were never aware of? That's a question that is purposley not answered because whatever answer the writers came up with would be worse than the one you come up with for yourself. Still ... Dharma's purpose is not "pointless" or even vague. Hell, it's pretty blantent.
Still, despite his grand plan, Jacob wanted to give his "candidates" (our Lostaways) the one thing he, nor his brother, were ever afforded: free will. Hence him bringing a host of "candidates" through the decades and letting them "choose" which one would actually do the job in the end. Maybe he knew Jack would be the one to kill Flocke and that Hurley would be the protector in the end. Maybe he didn't. But that was always the key question of the show: Fate vs Free-will. Science vs Faith. Personally I think Jacob knew from the beginning what was going to happen and that everyone played a part over 6 seasons in helping Jack get to the point where he needed to be to kill Smokey and make Hurley the protector -- I know that's how a lot of the writers viewed it. But again, they won't answer that (nor should they) because that ruins the fun.
In the end, Jack got to do what he always wanted to do from the very first episode of the show: Save his fellow Lostaways. He got Kate and Sawyer off the island and he gave Hurley the purpose in life he'd always been missing. And, in Sideways world (which we'll get to next) he in fact saved everyone by helping them all move on ...
Now...
Sideways World:
Sideways world is where it gets really cool in terms of theology and metaphysical discussion (for me at least -- because I love history/religion theories and loved all the talks in the writer's room about it). Basically what the show is proposing is that we're all linked to certain people during our lives. Call them soulmates (though it's not exactly the best word). But these people we're linked to are with us duing "the most important moments of our lives" as Christian said. These are the people we move through the universe with from lifetime to lifetime. It's loosely based in Hinduisim with large doses of western religion thrown into the mix.
The conceit that the writers created, basing it off these religious philosophies, was that as a group, the Lostaways subconsciously created this "sideways" world where they exist in purgatory until they are "awakened" and find one another. Once they all find one another, they can then move on and move forward. In essence, this is the show's concept of the afterlife. According to the show, everyone creates their own "Sideways" purgatory with their "soulmates" throughout their lives and exist there until they all move on together. That's a beautiful notion. Even if you aren't religious or even spirtual, the idea that we live AND die together is deeply profound and moving.
It's a really cool and spirtual concept that fits the whole tone and subtext the show has had from the beginning. These people were SUPPOSED to be together on that plane. They were supposed to live through these events -- not JUST because of Jacob. But because that's what the universe or God (depending on how religious you wish to get) wanted to happen. The show was always about science vs faith -- and it ultimately came down on the side of faith. It answered THE core question of the series. The one question that has been at the root of every island mystery, every character backstory, every plot twist. That, by itself, is quite an accomplishment.
How much you want to extrapolate from that is up to you as the viewer. Think about season 1 when we first found the Hatch. Everyone thought that's THE answer! Whatever is down there is the answer! Then, as we discovered it was just one station of many. One link in a very long chain that kept revealing more, and more of a larger mosiac.
But the writer's took it even further this season by contrasting this Sideways "purgatory" with the Island itself. Remember when Michael appeared to Hurley, he said he was not allowed to leave the Island. Just like the MIB. He wasn't allowed into this sideways world and thus, was not afforded the opportunity to move on. Why? Because he had proven himself to be unworthy with his actions on the Island. He failed the test. The others, passed. They made it into Sideways world when they died -- some before Jack, some years later. In Hurley's case, maybe centuries later. They exist in this sideways world until they are "awakened" and they can only move on TOGETHER because they are linked. They are destined to be together for eternity. That was their destiny.
They were NOT linked to Anna Lucia, Daniel, Roussou, Alex, Miles, Lupidis, (and all the rest who weren't in the chuch -- basically everyone who wasn't in season 1). Yet those people exist in Sideways world. Why? Well again, here's where they leave it up to you to decide. The way I like to think about it, is that those people who were left behind in Sideways world have to find their own soulmates before they can wake up. It's possible that those links aren't people from the island but from their other life (Anna's parnter, the guy she shot --- Roussou's husband, etc etc).
A lot of people have been talking about Ben and why he didn't go into the Church. And if you think of Sideways world in this way, then it gives you the answer to that very question. Ben can't move on yet because he hasn't connected with the people he needs to. It's going to be his job to awaken Roussou, Alex, Anna Lucia (maybe), Ethan, Goodspeed, his father and the rest. He has to attone for his sins more than he did by being Hurley's number two. He has to do what Hurley and Desmond did for our Lostaways with his own people. He has to help them connect. And he can only move on when all the links in his chain are ready to. Same can be said for Faraday, Charlotte, Whidmore, Hawkins etc. It's really a neat, and cool concept. At least to me.
But, from a more "behind the scenes" note: the reason Ben's not in the church, and the reason no one is in the church but for Season 1 people is because they wrote the ending to the show after writing the pilot. And never changed it. The writers always said (and many didn't believe them) that they knew their ending from the very first episode. I applaud them for that. It's pretty fantastic. Originally Ben was supposed to have a 3 episode arc and be done. But he became a big part of the show. They could have easily changed their ending and put him in the church -- but instead they problem solved it. Gave him a BRILLIANT moment with Locke outside the church ... and then that was it. I loved that. For those that wonder -- the original ending started the moment Jack walked into the church and touches the casket to Jack closing his eyes as the other plane flies away. That was always JJ's ending. And they kept it.
For me the ending of this show means a lot. Not only because I worked on it, but because as a writer it inspired me in a way the medium had never done before. I've been inspired to write by great films. Maybe too many to count. And there have been amazing TV shows that I've loved (X-Files, 24, Sopranos, countless 1/2 hour shows). But none did what LOST did for me. None showed me that you could take huge risks (writing a show about faith for network TV) and stick to your creative guns and STILL please the audience. I learned a lot from the show as a writer. I learned even more from being around the incredible writers, producers, PAs, interns and everyone else who slaved on the show for 6 years.
In the end, for me, LOST was a touchstone show that dealt with faith, the afterlife, and all these big, spirtual questions that most shows don't touch. And to me, they never once waivered from their core story -- even with all the sci-fi elements they mixed in. To walk that long and daunting of a creative tightrope and survive is simply astounding.
And awesome stuff, as always, from everyone on here over the past few years! You guys rock!
So I finally watched the finale last night and now, with clenched teeth and seething rage I’d like to offer my thoughts.In the end we discover that the entire flash-sideways was something created by the Losties as a kind of post-mortem Matrix designed so that they could all meet up for a group hug before heading off to the afterlife Boss level. Okay, let’s address this before I rage against the larger offences.
First of all, HOW DID THEY CREATE THIS WORLD? Magic I guess, because they never really say. I suppose when we are dead we get to do stuff like this, even without realizing we are actually doing it. Secondly, WHY DID THEY CREATE THIS WORLD? It looks like in the end they are all going through the same church door anyhow. Did they really need to create an elaborate alternate reality simply to realize that they were all good friends and hug it out before moving on? It’s like my brain creating an elaborate paranoid schizophrenic hallucination about how I’m a government agent trapped in a Chinese prison and then forced to aid a Middle Eastern terrorist escape or they would detonate a nuclear bomb in New York and then after a series of elaborate chases and action scenes I finally make it back to America and just as I’m about to deactivate the bomb after finally killing the head terrorist my phone rings and I look at the caller ID... and then I realize that I’ve been in a coma the whole time and the entire thing was done so that I could remember my brother’s phone number.
Also, what life changing epiphany did Boone have on the island which merits his inclusion in this ghostly reunion? Wasn’t he basically the guy who fetched things for Locke until squished by a Cessna? Michael realized what it truly meant to be a father, shot two people in cold blood to save his son, escaped the island, attempted suicide, came back to the island out of guilt and sacrificed himself to try and save everyone.... yet he doesn’t get invited to HugFest 2010. Sorry Michael, but Boone dug a hole, Shannon had an awkward and implausible relationship with a guy who truly loved someone else and Rose and Bernard realized they loved each other – even though they always DID love each other. Clearly, their time on the island had a greater impact on them than you. Go wait in the lobby with Mister Eko.
Aside from the obvious plot holes here, the larger point is that this was the mystery people LEAST WANTED SOLVED. I assumed it was an alternate reality caused by Juliet’s nuke. I mean sure, we wanted to know how the two timelines would be tied together, but I wasn’t kept up at night wondering what the sideways was. So now we know it was something else all along! AHA! Well, so what? It’s like coming to the end of a Scooby-Doo episode and instead of unmasking The Graveyard Ghost, Daphne takes off a wig and reveals that she’s been a blonde all along.
No, the meat and potatoes of what we wanted was the mysteries of the island. They spent 5 seasons building layer upon layer of unanswered questions which all had the whiff of being related somehow if we would only watch a little closer and a little longer. The appeal of the show was the mystery. Sure, the characters were great and story was good, but what kept us obsessed were these unanswered questions and our need to see them come to some kind of conclusion. That never happened. The few questions which DID get answered were all wishy-washy and thrown together. What’s special about the island? It’s got a big magic light at the middle. Um... okay. Why does Richard not age? Because Jacob made it that way. Hrmmm. Why did Jacob not age? Because his mom made it that way. Uh-huh. What is the smoke monster? It’s MiB after getting tossed down a hole. *facepalm* I sat through a Nikki and Paulo episode for THIS?
I can’t help but feel ripped off. I could rattle off the top of my head about 20-30 questions which they didn’t even bother to give a half-baked answer to. MAJOR stuff. Things which turned out to be left dangling in the wind by the creators or – more egregiously – total red herrings. Why couldn’t island folk kill each other when off the island? Why couldn’t babies be born there? What happened when they set off the nuke? Why was everyone so obsessed with finding/controlling the island? What was up with Walt’s powers? What was up with the wheel that sent Ben to Tunisia? How/why did the island move? What was up with the numbers? THE NUMBERS for Pete’s sake! I mean, I could do this literally ALL DAY. I could forgive them for not answering everything, but to not answer ANY OF IT? Insulting.
And it’s not like they had no time. Even if you ignore the fact that they’ve known for ages when it would end and were loudly telling every reporter who asked that they were going to use that advantage to wrap everything up beautifully, Season 6 was enough time to answer these questions AND have the ending they wanted. They spent all of Season 6 running from location to location, formulating plans, creating alliances, breaking alliances, abandoning plans... they accomplished NOTHING all season. Really, to lead them to the ending all they needed to happen on the island was to kill off a few candidates, have Jacob meet the final four, give Jack the job and then have him kill Locke. That’s like 5 episodes TOPS. The rest could have been used to throw the fans a bone or two and try to make some sense of the rest of the island’s mysteries.
Actually, now that I think about it, they DIDN’T EVEN NEED THAT, because nothing that happened on the island had any bearing on the final reveal. Locke could have killed all the candidates, sunk the island to the bottom of the ocean and escaped to destroy the world and the ALT REALITY ENDING WOULD STILL WORK. Jack could have killed Locke and escaped with everyone else to America and the ALT REALITY ENDING WOULD STILL WORK. Aliens could have burst out of the islands glow hole and reduced them all to ashes with their ray guns and the ALT REALITY ENDING WOULD STILL WORK. Anyone who sees this as anything other than horrible storytelling needs to go and read.. well.. ANY FICTION BOOK PUBLISHED AT ANY TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY.
I’m having such a hard time understanding how people could come away from this series with a positive – let alone a wildly positive – view. I mean Twin Peaks ran for several mind-boggling, head-scratching seasons and they had about THREE EPISODES to wrap the whole thing up, and even THEY did a better job. For anyone who knows that series and remembers the ending, you know that’s not easy to say. David Lynch had to release an entire feature length film to try and explain that ending and it was STILL BETTER THAN THE LOST FINALE.
This was the fan equivalent of being kicked in the balls. I’m sorry, but it’s 100% true. Screw you, Lost.
(Long but worth the read.)
Well, I shouldn’t be here. I loved this episode!Just kidding suckers. Let’s beat this dead horse.
Mercifully, for the last time...
Let’s recap!
Let's start off with Lindelof and Cuse’s big gimmicky twist that would make M. Night Shyamalan blush. Everyone in the Flash Sideways is in some vague purgatory waiting to realize they’re dead, or waiting for Jack to realize he’s dead, or helping others to realize they’re dead, or some vague dead BS. After flashing back and flashing forward, Lindelof and Cuse decide to flash all the way to dead. It’s cheesy. It’s a cop out. It’s lame. This twist combined with their inability to address many of the questions and plot lines they raised makes Lost a unique failure in TV history.Sometimes the dead person remembers important people who were in their life, like their father, sometimes they make up people that never existed like a son, and sometimes they forget the people who were important to them… like everyone on the island. Did you seriously expect there to be some kind of coherent rules at this point?
Desmond is still flittering around purgatory helping everyone remember the island and realize that they’re dead… sometimes by setting up elaborate scenarios and sometimes by blunt force trauma. Part grim reaper, part Cupid, part Hulk Hogan = all stupid.
Charlie looks like he’s a skinhead going to a Goths only Halloween party.Hurley says to Charlie, “What if I told you playing this concert is the most important thing you’ll ever do”. So apparently Charlie has been gothing it up for awhile and couldn’t move on for some reason until now… which just so happens to also be Jack’s time to move on. So you only exist in purgatory and move on once? So Jin and Sun are once again moving on without their kid? I want to kick Jin and Sun’s Lindelofs and Cuses until they can’t speak English.
Charlie is shot with a dart that knocks him out cold in .3 seconds.
Jack took the job because he says the island is “the only thing in my life that I haven’t managed to ruin.” Really? You believe you made the wrong choice in detonating the nuke, you killed Juliet, you wish you could tell John Locke that he was right about everything, and you had a hissy fit and smashed the magic lighthouse mirrors. You suck Jack.
Sawyer has somehow figured out that Locke needs Desmond to destroy the island. He does some fancy recon by crouching behind a bush 20 feet from Locke. Sawyer is caught by Bad Ben. Sawyer escapes by smacking Bad Ben, because everyone smacks Ben, and Locke lets Sawyer walk away and doesn’t kill him because he doesn’t.Bernard and Rose have been living in Gilligan and Skipper’s hut. Bernard goes to the same hairdresser as Claire. His grooming habits have really gone down the drain but Rose is still sassy just as the law-of-portraying-an-African-American-woman on TV states she must be.
Desmond has a hunch that Locke wants to take him to a place with a bright light because the characters in the finale are really good at guessing the plot. All of their IQs have been dialed up to 80.
Locke tells Desmond that if he doesn’t do what he wants, he’s going to kill Mr. Howe and Lovey. Desmond makes the Smoke Monster pinky swear that he won’t hurt Scruffy and Sassy if he helps destroy the island… which would kill everyone. Bad deal Brotha. Bad deal.
So Locke is taking Desmond to the magic light cave that he previously couldn’t find but now can find.
Miles finds Richard who has been knocked unconscious for what must be 12 hours.
The world’s worst parents are still at the hospital and can’t speak English. Juliet cameo! What a surprise. Sonogram island flashback! Jin remembers the baby he never met, barely loved, and abandoned. We get another dramatic montage. Jin and Sun are all smiles, can speak English, and seem absolutely thrilled to be dead.
Sawyer meets up with Jack, Hurley, and Kate. Jack says that everyone is meeting up at the magic light cave. Sawyer asks, “Then what?” Jack replies, “Then it ends” and loud music from a John Wayne western is heard. Michael Giacchino must be paid per decibel.
Miles somehow notices Richard has a grey hair but doesn’t say a word about the eyeliner.Lapidus is alive and has been floating around minutes offshore for over a day.
The whole gang bumps into each other on the way to the magic light cave. Jack tells Locke that he’s going to kill him. So much for the element of surprise. Locke says, “How do you plan to do that? Jack says, “That’s a surprise.” Oh, my bad. It is going to be a surprise. Well, Smoke Monsters love surprises because Locke is perfectly fine with all this and doesn’t even ask Jack to whisper the surprise in his ear.
Jack was married to Juliet for some reason in the Neighborhood of Make Believe. I don’t care. I really, really don’t care. Sawyer asks Jack what his plan is. Jack doesn’t really have one but for some reason thinks Desmond is a weapon. Jack is a great leader. And by great I don’t mean great.
Jack, Locke, and Desmond go into the magic cave where the light isn’t as bright as it is outside.
Hurley and Boone have made some elaborate plan to get Sayid and Shannon together and we get another island flashback. It’s tough work in purgatory where you have to get a certain number of people together and help them realize they’re dead in order to help someone else realize they’re dead.
Claire is still crazy and wearing that dead badger on her head.Someone tell Daniel that hat doesn’t make him look cool. And make him stop talking in hushed halting tones like he’s Keanu Reeves or something. Mercifully we don’t have to hear much of the Driveshaft concert.
Claire goes into labor as Desmond looks on with the smarmy self-satisfied grin often seen from pompous TV show creators.
Desmond is lowered into the cave by Jack and Locke. Jack somehow believes Desmond is going to become a weapon against Locke. Locke somehow believes Desmond is going to sink the island. They each came up with these theories the same way Lindelof and Cuse came up with this plot. They pulled it out of their magic caves.
There are skeletons in the cave of people who didn’t turn into Smoke Monsters and weren’t spit out of the cave.Now Desmond is in the very bowels of the island and we see a butt plug shaped stone protruding out of the island’s orifice. Although removing the plug is really bad and will destroy everything and do really bad stuff and junk, no one ever thought to cover the plug with more rocks and seal off the cave. If they would have, there would be nothing to protect and live in fear of. Desmond grunts and groans and finally manages to pull the plug free from the island’s hole.
The island starts shaking and going all sorts of crazy. Everything seems to indicate that Locke was right and Jack was wrong, but that doesn’t stop Jack from impulsively tackling the Smoke Monster and punching him in his Smokey mouth. Locke bleeds which of course means that somehow his Smokey powers are gone. Luckily the Smoke Monster-magic light thing doesn’t have to make sense now because it didn’t make sense before. Keep things vague and unexplainable and you don’t have to explain anything. Locke smacks Jack with a rock but leaves without killing him so that Jack can wake up in a few minutes and come after him.
Claire is going into labor but there are no doctors at the fancy museum benefit to deliver her bay-bee. I guess Kate will have to do it. Great.Eloise somehow knows everything about everything in the real world and in purgatory. But sorry, no more screen time for your story grandma.
Claire craps out one of those cute non-bloody TV babies and we get more of the dramatic flashback crap that will make the audience feel sad and distract them from the countless mysteries the show introduced and dropped. Bah. What mysteries? This is a show about characters. Bah. What plot holes? Who is Walt? Bah. Best finale evah! Bah.
Back on the island the cameraman is shaking the camera around really hard which let’s us know that all hell is breaking loose.Ben who may be good or bad now is trapped under a tree. Miles, Lapidus, and Richard are still determined to fly the plane and are welding something to the windshield with a propane torch they bought at the hardware store.
Locke is at some cliffs where he has a boat. Instead of hurrying to the boat, he’s standing around at the ladder waiting for Jack to catch up with him like any good cartoon villain would. Jack yells his name and instead of climbing down the ladder before Jack gets to him, Locke runs at Jack and Jack obligingly runs at Locke. Jack does a slo-mo jump which somehow must temporarily stun Locke because he doesn’t use his knife to stab Jack. Jack smacks Locke and surprisingly his knife goes flying out of this hand.Now some stuff happens that I’ve never seen before. The knife is loose and they wrestle around trying to get it. The knife is just out of Locke’s reach! The tension builds! Now Locke has the knife. He politely stabs Jack once in the side and pushes him to the ground. Locke brings his arm way back as if to say “Here it comes, I’m going to stab you” but luckily Jack catches Locke’s wrist right before the blade goes into his neck. The blade is right at Jack’s neck! Despite being above him and having all of his weight to push with, Locke can’t quite push the blade down. Locke takes a moment to taunt Jack and say, “I want you to know Jack. You died for nothing.” Just then, Kate pops up, shoots Locke, and delvers the line, “I saved you a bullet”. Jack kicks Locke over the cliff. Goodbye unnamed evil guy with ambiguous super powers acquired in an unknown way. I feel like we hardly knew ye. Mainly because we didn’t.
Meanwhile back in the Dead Zone, Locke wiggles his toes, has his poignant island flashback and realizes that he’s dead.
Jin and Sun meet up with Sawyer at the hospital and are still smiling all goofy and speaking English. Shut up you two.
Miles worked for a contractor renovating apartments for a couple summers so he knows how to fix the hydraulics in the nose of an airplane… with duct tape.
Kate asks why the cameraman is still shaking the camera now that Locke is dead. Jack somehow has figured out that Desmond turned off something in the cave and somehow has figured out that he can turn it back on. Jack could go with everyone on the plane but he can’t because he says he can’t. Kate and Sawyer could help Jack re-butt plug the island but they decide to leave despite being told previously that everyone in the world would die if the butt was unplugged and the light went out. Ben, who is no longer trapped under a tree somehow, and is now Good Ben, has been welcomed back into the moron posse but says he’s going down with the island. Hurley can carry a man out of a sinking sub to save his life but he’s not going to jump off a cliff into the water to save his life. Dude?Jack and Kate exchange I love yous completely out of the blue… although Jack was married to Juliet in puratory for some reason. Who knows. Whatever. It’s almost over.
Sawyer runs into Juliet in the Land of Misfit Toys and makes me long for the days we watched her dying for an hour and a half.Sawyer doesn’t ask her what the hell she meant by “It worked” but they have their romantic flashes and Juliet spits out the line about getting coffee sometime. They embrace, Sawyer works in some “I got yas”, Juliet says, “Kiss me James”, and he complies after delivering the line “You got it Blondie”. I throw up, urinate, crap myself, and lose control of all of my bodily functions. Sorry, I’m allergic to cheesy dialogue callbacks. Don’t judge me.
Kate and Jack meet up in purgatory. Kate touches him, he has an island flashback, and although he’s grown tremendously as a character, is still too stubborn to realize what’s going on.
Back on the island, Jack is going into the cave and is bestowing his magical mojo to Hurley. Jack doesn’t know the magic spell mumbo jumbo and the river is dried up but Hurley drinks water from a magic mud puddle and shazam! Hurley is the new Jacob.
Jack goes into the cave and tells Desmond to leave despite the fact that Desmond is the only one who can survive the light. Logic and reason be damned! Jack is going to do this himself.
The un-flyable plane is now flyable thanks to some magic duct tape and just has enough runway to take off.
Jack somehow manages to survive the magic light, doesn’t turn into a Smoke Monster, and re-butt plugs the island. After all, Lost is about the characters not about silly things like rules, plot consistency, or story logic. Bah. Jack lays on the ground and laugh-cries. A new twist on the old sissy-face man cry.
If only someone special or magical knew that the way to cause the Smoke Monster to lose his power was to pull the plug on the magic drain and then quickly re-plug it, Desmond could have done that long ago.
Hurley and Good Ben have a good chat. Dude asks Ben, “What the hell am I supposed to do?” Ben tells Dude to do what he does best. Say dude a lot and eat stuff? No, “take care of people”. What people? Hurley asks if Ben will help him. Great idea Dude. What are the chances that Ben will turn bad and screw you over at some point? Hopefully the magic fairies keep dropping those Dharma supplies from their magic fairy spaceships.
Hurley has a heart to heart with Ben in purgatory. Hurley tells Ben he was a great number two. Lost is a great number two. A great big smelly number two.Jack arrives at the funeral home where everyone else has gathered. He touches his Dad’s coffin and has more island flashbacks. Jack opens the coffin and there is no body. And then it happens… you were force fed one cheesy scene after another for over two hours… here comes a 10 minute enema.
Dear old drunken Dad is actually in the room behind Jack… and he’s dead… and Jack’s dead… and everyone is dead. Lost is dead.
Back on the island, Jack has somehow survived the light cave and somehow has been magically transported out of the cave. As he stumbles through the jungle, everyone in purgatory hugs and sad music plays.Christian heavy handedly opens a door and a light shines through. On the island, Jack lies down. Vincent lies down beside him and we get a close up of Jack’s eye as it closes. Vincent perks up a bit. He’s hungry. Very, very, hungry.
Horrible.
Last week on the forum someone compared Lost to a bad relationship and I said…After Sunday I’m breaking things off. I’m going over to her apartment, getting back my CDs and sweatshirt and calling her a dirty slut.
Well… Lost, you are a dirty slut. You lied to me, faked it, and probably gave me an STD.
In an interview with G4's "Attack of the Show," "Lost" Emmy award winner Michael Emerson revealed that there is an "epilogue, a lost scene" on the upcoming "Lost" DVD collection that was not part of the series finale this past Sunday.
Emerson hinted that it will be around 14 minutes in length, and will explain more about what happened after Jack died on the island and Hurley and Ben took over as its protectors.
We were given an idea in one of the final scenes that these two were on the island for a long period of time, in an exchange between the two characters while in purgatory, but this is the first time we've been told that we might actually see some footage of their time "in charge."
It's unclear whether this footage will be part of the sixth season DVD set, or only in the full series set.
Would you shell out the money to see this extra footage? Let us know in the comments below.
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LOST Series Finale Theories and Conclusions
The series finale of LOST was definitely created to inspire interpretation, but there are some facts that help one come to some more specific conclusions. To begin, though I still believe the island was first created to be Purgatory (or maybe a level of Purgatory), it looks like the location was now very real to the story. And, yes, the island was also very important in terms of science, religion and other paranormal activity. But, then again, was any of it real?
Debatable. The series finale ends right where it began, with Jack laying down amongst a bamboo forest. Coincidence? Definitely not. Instead of his eye opening, we see his eye closing. Yes, he does die in the finale; in a sense. But, did he ever live on the island? That's just one theory.
Jack was unique from the start, being the only season one "survivor" who didn't hit beach or water; remember he had to come back to the beach through the bamboo forest. It was also leaked early on that Jack would be dead by the second episode. Fact! So, was it script changes, or was Jack dead from the moment the crash happened? This would suggest a slip of tongue by the show's creators that easily got covered up. If that's the case, that would point to a single possibility.
All the passengers on Flight 815 died, and they were consequently placed into a level of Purgatory seen as an island. While it could be debated that it would be impossible to suspect that all the passengers of a single flight could be set for Purgatory, remember that Jacob (and fate) had no problem mettling with people's lives long before boarding Oceanic 815. It could be said that all those on the plane were already selected for Purgatory.
So, Jack died upon landing on the island (during the crash) and he immediately entered Purgatory with the rest of the flight's (dead) manifest.
It sounds good, and there's a lot of facts to support it, but it looks like the creators of the show decided to mix religions in order to keep us on our toes. (take a look at the ingredients below)
So, if Purgatory alone is not the simple solution, how do you keep audiences guessing? Combine ideas and faith. Let's see what we can throw together to make LOST sound more er, structured.
Well, we definitely know Catholicism and religion are a big part of the serious. We've heard enough Amens, seen a collection of crosses (and holy men), and even witnessed mentions of dark and light and Heaven and Hell. We were also given the opportunity to assume that Jacob is God and the Man in Black the Devil. But then let's bring in the Dharma Initiative, which suggests Buddhism, and the final stained glass pattern seen in the church during "The End," which suggested all religions had something to play in the series' idea of spirituality. It all fit, but in a very loose way. So, let's look for inspiration.
Let's begin with Purgatory, something believed to exist in Catholicism. We've seen references directly to Catholicism throughout the series (such as the Sacrament), reaffirming that the show definitely has the religion on its mind during certain plot points. What should Purgatory look like? Well, if you've read Dante's "Divine Comedy," you'd know that Purgatorio is represented by an island with a mountain. We have an island, and we have "survivors" who could be dead, but that answer came to quickly and too easily. But, then again, Jacob is sure to point out that the island is a place between hell (evil) and the living world. Sounds a lot like Purgatory, but still way too easy; so mix in the Dharma Initiative.
Where can we take this? Well, Dharma and Buddhism can lead one to the notion of Karma, which suggests that people experience rebirth until they become "enlightened," something that frees one from rebirth and allows that person to literally move on. By mixing in Buddhism, we can then assume that the island could be real in a sense, Purgatory (from the Catholic angle) and another level of existence (Buddhist angle). These people are definitely not enlightened, as their flashbacks show that they all have dirty pasts. The island represents just one level of existence, giving any character a chance to improve upon or redeem their past transgression. When characters redeem themselves, they hence "die" and move onto their next level of existence. So, doing a Buddhist/Catholic mixture, we can say that when each survivor "died" during the series' six-season run, that character was really moving onto the next level of existence; with each level of existence being very similar to the last; almost like an alternate reality. This "side dimension" shown in the sixth season was really Jack's and the other characters' last level of enlightenment, a level that allows all of them to meet up once more; contributing to the fact that these characters were important to one another in achieving enlightenment. At this point they begin to become aware (through flashback) to their multiple levels of existence and therefore become "enlightened"; something that would allow these characters to "move on" through the final church scene. Further proof that the side reality shown in Season Six was the last level of existence was the fact that each character had cleaned up their act. Ben was a happy school teacher, though he did attempt some extortion which backfired, and Jack was now a person who was convinced of fate. Sawyer, who in a previous existence was a conman, was now a detective trying to put conmen in prison. Let's not forget that Kate is now, by her own recollection, "innocent" of the crimes she has been charged with. Did all the characters have perfectly clean slates by this last level of existence? Er, close enough!
I know it's a reach, but any other theory is just as open ended, and at least this mixture of religion does add some sort of closure. The levels of existence can be seen as dimensions by science -- something the show also played with -- and they seem to work perfectly here. Look at it as a timeline. We get to see at least three levels of existence for most of the characters during the series.
Level of Existence: Before the Crash
1. All the primary characters had skeletons in the closet, most more than one and some of them major.
Level of Existence: The Island
2. A chance to redeem past transgressions. Can this level also relate to a stop-off in Purgatory? Possibly. Typically when we witness a character dealing with and redeeming a previous fault, they die soon after. An assumption can be said that they are moving onto the next level of existence.
Final Level of Existence: Side Dimension
3. All the characters are way better off then we remember them from the earlier-season flashbacks. Though some encounter hard times, these were not brought on by themselves. Since each of these characters were important to one another's evolution through Dharma, they are forced to reunite in this last level of existence. True enlightenment occurs and the characters therefore flashback to all of their previous levels of existence; with focus obviously on the most important one -- the island. At this point they are allowed to move on as one whole, as seen in the show's final moments.
Now, some characters might have needed another twenty levels of existence (twenty new tries at life) before they achieved the last level of enlightenment shown in the series finale, while others might have only needed one or two. Hurley and Ben's added involvement on the island after everyone else left could have meant that they achieved enlightenment faster than others. Well, at least Hurley, since Ben had more than enough sins that needed cleaning up. But, do take notice that "love" is a big part of achieving enlightenment, and Ben had found something worth loving (other than the island, of course) in the last level of existence. You may remember his daughter from the island? His relationship with his "daughter" and her mother (you might have spotted the "French lady"), however, was unfinished and the likely reason why he decided not to "move on" just yet. Perhaps he knew he was not yet fully enlightened. Another character that also comes to mind is Ana Lucia. We see her and can quickly assume that she is not in her final level existence, as shown by one, her excepting a bribe to release prisoners, and two, Desmond stating that she was not yet "ready" to Hurley. We can assume that her and Desmond's actions would suggest that Ana has yet to fully redeem her previous sins and transgressions. As a matter of fact, she could be far from cleaning up her act and therefore becoming enlightened.
Again, open theories, but I believe if people look more into the Buddhist side of things they could find more answers. Why Walt and Michael weren't important enough to make the church meeting will however likely remain a mystery.
Anywho. Thanks for a great six (well, four and a half anyway) years LOST!
djsunyc wrote:here's another one:------------
LOST Series Finale Theories and Conclusions
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I know it's a reach...
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ya think? 
hysterical, and no i cant tell you were disappointed by the outcome of the series.
jimimou wrote:evil - youre awesome man - everytime dj puts up a nice violin-type theory or conclusion, you come in with the bass drum and just pound on it!hysterical, and no i cant tell you were disappointed by the outcome of the series.
hahaha. i'm not nearly as bad here as i am with this email thread that my friends have going. the finale has completely polarized all my lost fan friends. half of us despised it, the other half loved it (though the more you talk to them the more it sounds like they were ready to accept anything because they lowered their expectations).
it's just so annoying because i was ready to abandon ship after season 2 or 3 and the same friends that loved the finale were telling me then how it's all been planned since the beginning and the producers said they'd payoff on everything. i honestly wanna slap some of my friends because i was done.
all in all, some great episodes, but the ending ruined it. would rather they have not explained anything and left that afterlife garbage out.