"This is The End, my only friend, The End" - Jim Morrison
We have just seen one of the greatest shows in TV history end this past weekend. Sure there are better shows (I hear The Wire is phenomenal). But few can claim the depth and breadth of Lost. How many shows do you know can reference the Bible, Star Wars, Lockean philosophy and Quantum mechanics...in one episode...and it works? I personally can't think of any, but if you can please tell me, because that is right in my wheelhouse (and probably most anyone who watched Lost). And yes this will contain spoilers, so you are warned.
From my preliminary analysis of fan response, there seems to be two camps on the finale: it was great and not surprisingly, it was terrible. Those fans are pretty simply people who watched it for two reasons. The people who loved it, like me, were there for the characters. The people who hated it, were there for the mysteries. Those were the two things the show was about, and each viewer got to decide which meant more. I saw the mysteries as more of a device to allow the audience to explore who these characters really are. When the unfathomable is testing their very survival physically and mentally, the Lostaways couldn't help but show their true selves. And that is just what Jacob wanted; that is the true purpose of the Island. We got that from the beginning of last year's finale. We saw Jack as a man who tries to fix everything because his father never believed in him. We see that once you get through Sawyer's hard defensive shell, he is a kind-hearted and loving man. We see that without the rigid social constructs of South Korea that Jin and Sun are truly perfect for each other and couldn't be more in love.
So this episode, like all the ones this year, were split between on on Island events in 2007, and a sideways universe based on what happened if the plane didn't crash in 2004 (more on this later). I really like what the Cuse and Lindelof did here. There were a few stings that played nicely with each other. First was defeating Smokey. This was Desmond and Jack's primary objective. Desmond was needed because he was the only person who could "kill" the Island without dying (and Jacob did not want unnecessary deaths). "Killing" the Island had to be done to kill Smokey. As soon as Des removed the cork, Smokey and Jack (serving as Jacob's replacement), became mortal. Unfortunately, that meant the Island itself would sink to the bottom of the sea. Jack then engaged Locke in a fight to the death, great full circle moment. Locke (really Smokey), mortally wounds Jack, but the actual combat left him vulnerable so Kate could shoot him. While this is all going on Lapidus, Richard and Miles were getting the Arija flight ready for an escape for the survivors. This lead to some great, tense moments, a sense of "c'mon, hurry up!" Finally the on-Island plot concluded with Jack trying to save it (showing how dynamic the character has been). In doing so he finally showed he believed in Hurley by asking him to be his successor as guardian; this was a perfect choice because of all the characters, Hurley has been good to a fault. As Jack said: Hugo is just good at taking care of people. And I loved how the series ended right where it began: Jack in the bamboo thicket, with Vincent.
The revelation of the sideways universe was what I really loved. By telling us that this was some kind of purgatory that the Islanders made to reconnect before all going to heaven really got me. These characters have meant so much to each other. I mean they went through hell and back together. As Christian Shephard said, whether they realized it or not, they really found out who they were on that Island, and as a result those people were the most important people to them. Some people saw this as a cop-out. I didn't think so at all. This gave these long-suffering people the happy ending they deserved. I think Ben knew this, and that is why he stayed in the churchyard. He had not earned his happy ending yet, despite helping Hurley run, what we can assume, a much less mysterious, deadly island. And the best part about this segment of the story is we got to see not only the revelation to many characters, but the revelation through love. Jack and Kate, Sawyer and Juliet, Hugo and Libby, Sun, Jin, and their daughter, Sayid and Shannon (great pump fake by the writers having Shannon be his true love, not Nadya), Claire, Charlie, and Aaron, Ben and Alex. Even Locke, who seemed to have it all: father, fiance, needed his legs back because he loved his freedom, being his own man, not these fantasy beings from his real life.
Now some people claim that there were not enough answers. I don't think that's the case. This year they explained a lot of things, but a lot of them seemed too simple for our previous understanding of Lost. The Island really was a cork in the wine bottle of evil, but we were waiting for there to be some twist, like Jacob was the evil one or something. But there wasn't really time this year for twists; the writers needed to give answers fast so that the real focus could come to the front. I am willing to guess that on second viewing of this season we will take a lot more explanations on face value, because we know that the mythology and mystery were not the ends, but the means. We will focus more on the interpersonal relationships, not why was there a polar bear (which I always assumed was part of the Dharma experiments and just got out, but I guess some people just wouldn't accept that simple explanation). In the end, to me, Lost was about how the characters relate to each other and to the audience.
