In 15 minutes, I'm going to be expecting another tearful goodbye scene, and it'll be very strange not to get it.
(No show has so ever masterfully weaved a clip show into a finale, they should get points for that.)
Just so someone can check my work: the flash-sideways is some after death purgatory where the characters all meet up once again after they've died (whenever they've died, NOT that they've all been dead), then it appears they're going onto place of white light afterwards. You can tell there's different time that's passed for different characters by Hurley and Ben's conversation at the church - right after talking about working together on the island, they're talking about it at the church as if it happened over many years.
In "reality"*, Claire, Miles, Lapidus, Kate, Sawyer and a now aging Richard Alpert all are probably going to make it back to civilization, and to live out whatever lives they have to go. Desmond, it's not clear.
* acknowledging the point that everything is as real as everything else
Is that what happened there? Or is there another explanation?
The four from the freighter all were not in the church; perhaps they're going to a different service. It's hard to ask for more in a 150 minutes of hilariously awesome cameos, and I get the impression there's outside issues, but it would've be nice to see Michael and Walt somehow. Maybe there's a point there that Michael doesn't get to move on.
The magic island restart as unplugging the vending machine and plugging it back in to get the candy drop bit was amusingly great.
Probably more to say, but if I don't hit submit, someone else will have started the thread, right?
So apparently the 'Jacob and MIB can't kill each other' rule only applied to those two specifically. I thought Jack's boasts of killing the Monster were going to end up in another stalemate. Along those same lines, the MIB sure went out like a bitch. We couldn't even get one more CGI plume of smoke?! Unless the light going out meant that he lost his powers, too.
I'm going to need some more time to digest, but overall, I liked it. People are no doubt going to complain about the religiousness of the ending, but then again, the guy's name was Christian Shepherd. Kind of a signpost. (Or a Lamppost, if you will.)
So, uh, web series about what happened to Kate, Sawyer, Miles, Claire, Richard and Lapidus after they got back to civilization? Richard, especially, though I suppose he's made enough trips to the mainland that he couldn't be too thrown by the culture shock. Desmond, presumably, got back to the mainland after his adventure down the lighthole by turning the Island wheel and going to Tunisia.
Originally posted by thecubsfanThe magic island restart as unplugging the vending machine and plugging it back in to get the candy drop bit was amusingly great.
Okay, I got that, but it didn't really click until I just read that now.
Ben isn't dead yet then, but he can still communicate with them at least until they leave, right?
Aaron must not have lived a very long life if he was in the old church too.
I'm not feeling fully satisfied, but I can't think of any glaring lose ends off the top of my head.
Edit: Wait, why was the island at the bottom of the ocean to start the season?
The length of time they were alive didn't matter. Theoretically, Aaron could have lived to be 70, but apparently the most important time when he was alive was when he was an infant. I'm willing to accept that he was there mostly as service to his mothers, who he got to meet and spend many long years with once Lapidus landed the plane.
I can't believe it never occured to me that the final shot would be Jack's eye closing. That seems so obvious in hindsight.
I'm amazed that the island literally had a cork at its heart.
I'm disappointed the finale killed any hopes for Sawyer-Miles buddy cop spin off, but I'd gladly take LOST 2.0 featuring Ben and Hurley running things.
I loved how the show was able to end with all the cast together almost at a party like atmosphere as they move on into the light.
Good to see Jack and Christian get a moment together before it all ended.
I'm going to miss this show.
By the way, I found this (espn.go.com)earlier today. It amazing how non-sensical and accurately they used the 2007 Patriots to sum up the series.
ETA: The LOST-themed Target ads were extremely enjoyable and helped make the night feel special.
(edited by EddieBurkett on 24.5.10 0016) You believe me, don't you? Please believe what I just said...
Off the top of my head, Juliet seemed to be the only non-plane person in the church and she's probably there because she was sawyer's true love and/or she sacrificed herself. And Libby appeared to be the only tailie in the church.
That finale was a love letter to those characters whom we've watched for six years. It was entirely about the characters and finding resolutions (and in Ben's case absolution) for them. It was also a love letter to everyone who stuck with Lost from the beginning.
The reward was not "answers", but callbacks. Symmetry, linking the finale to moments throughout the series and especially the pilot, right down to the last shot reversing the first shot of Lost.
Some of Lost's best episodes were the ones centered around Desmond and Penny's love story. For the finale, the love story was extended to everyone. I loved the way almost every character was awakened in the sideways universe by love and by finding their Island soulmate in the sideways.
I especially loved the juxtaposition of how on the Island, Jack is making the ultimate sacrifice by his newly accepted faith in his purpose, but sideways Jack was still the Man of Science, stubborn and resistant, the very last of the characters to accept Awakening.
I also loved the explanation of the cuts on sideways Jack's neck and the gash in his side, from the knife fight atop the cliff with Smoke Locke, and how the Island reality was bleeding into the sideways reality literally.
I loved Jin and Sun Awakening and instantly remembering how to speak English, and then the amused looks on their faces when Detective James Ford, LAPD, came in to their room.
God, how great was it to have Juliet back? How happy was she to be back on Lost, away from Anna, Tyler, the Fifth fucking Column, and the godforsaken letter V? The Awakening of Juliet and Sawyer together was magical. (The mystery of "Who Is Sideways Jack's Wife?" was no mystery. It's Juliet. Moving on.)
Great to see Shannon and Boone again. Once he was Awakened, Sayid couldn't keep his paws off of her. "Nadia? Who's Nadia? Look how hot Shannon is! I wanted to bang this girl for the two weeks I knew her until she died."
Even Smoke Locke's meta-dialogue echoed my contention that Jack was too obvious a choice. Hurley was the right choice. Having Hurley be the Island Protector, with dialogue from Ben to suggest that he did the job differently - and better than Jacob or his mother did - was the right call. And I don't need to know more than what we were provided for how that all panned out:
Hurley: "You were a great number two." Ben: "You were a great number one."
I loved that Ben couldn't go into the church, that he wasn't ready. He has the most to reconcile from his past, but he also has Rousseau and Alex in sideways, a do-over. And that one final Ben and Locke scene was joyous.
This doesn't even scratch the surface, but yeah, I'm satisfied. More than satisfied, I loved it. I'm going to miss these characters. I'm going to miss this show. We were lucky to have Lost for the last six years. Lucky that what happened, happened.
Not gonna lie, they lost me completely with the last 15 minutes. Just got way too religiously blatant for me. They tried to make it nonspecific with the room full of every religious item ever, but in the end it just reeked too much of 4th grade CCD class teacher telling you what's gonna happen when you die. I would have been perfectly happy with them all just reuniting and moving on with life in the parallel world. Rest of the episode they had me hook, line, and sinker though.
Cute how they still managed to have the ending be "they're all dead and in purgatory" after denying it since season one.
Originally posted by EddieBurkettI can't believe it never occured to me that the final shot would be Jack's eye closing. That seems so obvious in hindsight.
One of my friends that I watch the show with accurately predicted the final shot -- "an eye closing" -- several weeks ago, so that was very annoying. (He also predicted that the MIB's name was Aaron, so luckily he only got to gloat a little.)
As for every other question the show left unanswered: "A wizard did it."
--K
Last 5 movies seen: The Road ***1/2 - Mystery Team *** - The Messenger *** - The Rock-afire Explosion *** - Adventureland **1/2
I think, as strange as it as and probably as little as it doesn't hold up to actual reason, is that we were meant to take his mother's "I didn't think of a second name" mention completely seriously, and the Man In Black did not have a name. Having a name was probably not to important when you were the only three alive, and Man In Black spent his smokey life taking over other people's names. There was the pre-death part where he was hanging out with the other shipwrecked people where they may have called him something, but it wasn't really his name.
Anyway, my actual point is in between all the seriousness and mythology, the bit about Lost which made it the show it were the moments of humor and snarkiness. A lot of sci-fi/fantasy shows tend to take themselves much too serious for their own good, but lines like Juliet praising the Kwon's for the English or Kate making fun of the ridiculousness of "Christian Shepard" or Miles telling us he doesn't believe in much, but he believes in duct tape, kept the show fun and kept the characters human.
Originally posted by odessasteps Off the top of my head, Juliet seemed to be the only non-plane person in the church and she's probably there because she was sawyer's true love and/or she sacrificed herself. And Libby appeared to be the only tailie in the church.
Penny and Desmond were in the church, and Bernard was a Tailie.
My only lingering question is, if the sideways was purgatory, how did Desmond go back and forth between it? Oh, and how did a hydrogen bomb not kill them all? That one too.
Otherwise, I thought it was great TV. The reunions really choked me up.
Originally posted by SchippeWreckMy only lingering question is, if the sideways was purgatory, how did Desmond go back and forth between it? Oh, and how did a hydrogen bomb not kill them all? That one too.
Otherwise, I thought it was great TV. The reunions really choked me up.
Either the bomb never went off, or the Island's electromagnetism (or "magic white light") negated the blast. The bomb didn't sink the island and the hatch was still built. So Faraday and Jack were wrong.
Desmond must have flash-forwarded to his eventual death. Or something.
Originally posted by EddieBurkettThe length of time they were alive didn't matter. Theoretically, Aaron could have lived to be 70, but apparently the most important time when he was alive was when he was an infant. I'm willing to accept that he was there mostly as service to his mothers, who he got to meet and spend many long years with once Lapidus landed the plane.
I'm still assuming that Hurley didn't run things nearly as long as Jacob and I was thinking that Ben was still alive that's why he didn't go in, but yeah him not going in because he had a lot more shit to work out makes a lot of sense too.
I'm curious as to what these people did once they got off the island. Wouldn't Kate still be wanted? They'd all need some kind of job and have to blend back in. If they stuck around a little longer and waited for Jack they could have just stayed where they were with Hurley in charge. Maybe Hurley lets them vacation there.
Originally posted by SchippeWreckMy only lingering question is, if the sideways was purgatory, how did Desmond go back and forth between it? Oh, and how did a hydrogen bomb not kill them all? That one too.
Desmond didn't really go back-and-forth. When Widmore stuck him in the electro-magnetic deep-frier, it gave Des a near-death experience and a glimpse of the afterlife. After he had seen that, he felt totally calm and at ease with his Island duties since he felt that no matter what, he'd be with Penny in another life, if not this one.
The bomb never went off. The white flash at the end of S5 was a time-flash sending them all from 1977 to 2007.
At the center of it all, LOST was always really the study & story of the characters involved. The unanswered questions & fringe storylines that formed the middle of the show wound up to be more filler than anything and did not really matter at all. At the time though, they mattered a lot. I'm okay with the ending. Sawyer & Juliet made me happy.
I loved this ending. What I really hated was staying up to catch Kimmel since he had on a lot of the cast and it being a huge waste of time since he didn't ask anything I would have wanted him too.
In the end, Lost was about "who" not "what". If you loved the characters, then you likely loved the ending. If you were drawn in by the island and the mysteries, then you likely left dissatisified.
What was truly dissatisfying though, was the 2-hour special that preceded the finale. What a wasted opportunity. They could have done in-depth interviews with the cast, or perhaps had a few professors or philosophers discuss what they think the show meant. Instead, we got a 120-minute poorly edited clip show interspersed with ridiculous text messages from fans. Lost deserved better than that.
I was satisfied with the ending it made a lot of sense it took me a while to piece it all together. But it did make sense for Ben and Hurley to stay on the island as they were the only one who truely wanted to. jack did what he needed to do, and I liked his way of saying goodbye to Desmond. His promise of "seeing him in another life" he just never said if they would be alive. I have to say thoe i am sad that Miles, and the rest of the sub cast didn't remember. But how the hell did Bernard and Rose make it there when they never wanted to get involved? and also where the Hell was Walt?
Thread ahead: Law & Order 20x23: "Rubber Room" *Minor Spoilers* Next thread: The Simpsons 21x23: Judge Me Tender (and season review) Previous thread: Parks and Recreation 2x24 - "Freddy Spaghetti"