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[US/IRL] 6x17/18 - "The End" (2.5 Hour Series Finale) [ SPOILERS WITHIN ]

Sad Professor

- WARNING: THIS THREAD WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT YET SEEN "THE END" -

Episode Title: "The End" (Series Finale)
Airdate: May 23rd 2010

SPOILER WARNING:

From now on, this thread shall reveal details of the episode mentioned above. If you have not yet seen this episode, please do not move any further down the thread.

A REMINDER ABOUT USE OF SPOILERS:

Out of respect for those following the show on RTE, this episode should NOT be discussed outside of this thread until it has aired on RTE.

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Orion

So Jack's father is Jesus or something. They all died or something. The Christian Shephard moved them along or something. The producers should be shot ... or something.

Töpher

Snake Plisken wrote: »

What would have been nice would have been Sun & Jin with their Daughter re-united in the Church, Double the tears if they had put that in!

Sun was pregnant in purgatory when they moved on, she was with them (to much the same extent that she was with them during her life).

tony1kenobi

Creasy_bear wrote: »

no , no you didnt

Ok...I'll watch it again tomorrow...just for you.

Earthhorse

Feels like I just watched a two hour ad for a dating agency.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I dont know how to vote
I loved the first 1 hour and 34 minutes
but the last ten minutes...jesus christ

I still can't put into words the depth of my disgust for how they ended it all.

I really didn't want lost to be another battlestar galactica, but by god if they didn't pull out all the stops and make it even worse than that.

Irish Guitarist

I'm seriously confused. Here's some questions in the order I think of them.

Did they imagine all of this in the brief moments before they died? Was it Purgatory? If so does that mean that the Others and Desmond were actually passengers on the plane too? Was Ben just a normal man who somehow didn't feel worthy of going to Heaven, so he imagined himself doing terrible things? Why did he apologise to John Locke? He couldn't have killed him in the way it was portrayed, so did he actually kill him at all or was he apologising for something else? Did the tail section survivors exist? I know Desmond said that Ana Lucia wasn't ready, so does that mean she's still in purgatory until she's ready? Libby was with Hurley, but what about Mr Eko? Assuming he ever existed is he in Hell for the things he did, or maybe in Purgatory until he repents? Where were Walt and Michael? Where was Frank, Miles and Richard Alpert at the end? Was Frank an angel or something? Did Richard actually die in the 1800s on board the ship to the island? How does Faraday fit into this? Did Jack actually have a son? If they went to a place where they could be with the people they loved, how come everyones true love was on the plane? Did Oceanic Flight 815 even exist in this world or is it a vessel for carrying souls to Purgatory? Did they all actually know each other? If not why would they all go to heaven together?

I have so many questions but here's the most important question of all - are we to believe that Vincent died but isn't going to Heaven? Screw you if you don't let Vincent into Heaven. I'm talking to the writers here, not God, as I don't want to be struck by lightning.

[Deleted User]

The one question I can't answer is Jack's son? How is he involved?

FatherTed

Kids, blodvyn is right. All that stuff on the Island did happen, the crash, the people surviving, Dharma, Jacob, MIB, smokey, Michael and Walt leaving, the frieghter, the Oceanic 6 being rescued, their return, Desmond coming back, Jack becoming the new "Protector", Desmond removing the magic stone, Jack putting it back and dying, Hurley becoming the new Protector.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNpaAgRMNuo

Christian explains it all when he says something to the effect "everything that has ever happened is real" and "everyone dies sometime, some before you and some after you". Jack's meeting with Christian in the church happens when Jack dies. And just because all of them are in the church doesn't mean they all died, it just means that yes at some point they will die but they were at the church for Jack and to put it all together for him e.g. Sun & Jin are dead, they died last week in the submarine, Charlie is dead since he drowned a few years ago but Claire isn't dead yet, she is on the plane with Lapidus, Sawyer, Kate, Richard and Miles.

Benny Lava

Anyone notice Evangeline Lilly saying "oot"? Normally her Canadian accent doesn't show on Lost, but it did in the final episode.

dudeitshurley

I've given it 2 rewatches since my initial viewing (sad much i know). Here goes:

I firmly believe the writers had 2 massive concepts from inception. People always ask 'are they making it up as they go along?' or what did they know from the outset. Here's what they knew:

1. A plane crashes on a mysterious island.

and

2. The end-payoff will be the 'purgatory' style reveal they have given in this Finale.

We have a point A and a point Z. Everything in between A-Z they had artistic license to fill the gaps in any way they chose, to be fair they had no firm idea of how long they would have to get from point A-Z. If you have an hour to be somewhere 60 miles away you'll probably drive at 60mph but if you have a few hours you might go slower, stop for food, and speed it up a little. Bottom line to make the 2 concepts work they needed to introduce a lot of mysteries and people to this mysterious island. They needed us as an audience to connect, relate and care about these people so that by the time of the end-reveal it would resonate with us.

In order to make point Z work they needed people to die along the way. The conflict with The Others, the Ben-Widmore power struggle, the Time Travel etc all just mechanisms of ensuring people we care about will die on the island. If you rationalise it, the actions of The Others will never make sense in the context of the overall storyline, the Ben-Widmore power struggle makes little sense and Time Travel a red herring.

The Others: If their focus was purely to protect the losties, the 'candidates', to carry out Jacobs will, then surely instead of all the kidnapping, mystery, killing they could have come into the losties camp from day 1 with open arms saying 'ok guys we know you're tired, scared and living on the beach; we have a little village, come live with us we'll look after you, trust us you'll be safer behind our pylons than out here!'. They could have carried out tests on Aaron, they could have filled the Losties in on things etc.

The Ben-Widmore power struggle and their rules: What exactly were they struggling over for so long? 'Control' of the island? Their 'rules' are equally a red herring or pointless. When that scene was introduced, the concept of rules was taken as a part of the overall situation i.e. there are rules on the island one must adhere to. Instead it looks like they just made up their own little rules. Reminds me of the fight sequence in Anchorman 'ok then but no touching of the hair or face!!!'. It all boils down to Widmore and Ben being squabbling leaders of a faction of people on the island who blindly believed in the island and the 'great' Jacob whilst basically knowing 'squadush' the whole time. Basically The Others were a cult.

Time-Travel: People will try to explain why this makes sense. Attempts to explain how it happened somehow, magic electromagnetism seems to be the 'get out of jail free' card on everything. People say well ya know 'if there was no time travel then there's no reason Locke would have become Leader of The Others, no reason for the convuluted scheme smokie employed to assume his image in order for him to get Jacob killed' etc Others just say 'it was a storytelling device to tell the story of the Dharma Initiative' (epic fail if you feel that story is told well)

Whichever way it's spun, all 3 concepts major conceit is this: to result in more deaths. So we all get dragged into these plot themes, get really into theorising about Dharma, The Others, the creepy Ben & Widmore, the time travel etc when the underlying plot conceit is to basically further a means to an end. A way of getting from point A to point Z in a manner that will maintain enough interest in order for them to execute their pay-off.

All of which renders most of the mysteries in Lost as a ruse, an illusion, a trick. When it boils down to them not fleshing out Dharma satisfactorily, to the actions of The Others making no sense, to Ben-Widmores struggle basically being a petty power squabble, to the time travel season, it's basically all part of the illusion. As an audience we're watching ,engrossed and waiting for certain answers to major core plot mysteries, whilst we're watching we continue to grow and care about the characters, so that in the end they can just pull this 'FST'/purgatory reveal and make it work. We're all watching the same magician and the same trick but likely won't understand the trick until it's been explained to us.

The End

For what it was, it was excellent. Terrifically acted in the main, beautiful musical score, well paced, well shot and ultimately very moving. As a stand-alone episode you'd have to rate it as 10/10. We had the emotional resonance of The Constant, action everywhere and a mind-bend ending.

Issues:

1. As i've said previously, when Des underwent Widmores experiment 2 things happened: he had an epiphany in the 'alternate timeline' and a realisation in the original timeline. This is implied and inferred in the scene after where he suddenly has a calm smile on his face and is willing to do anything Widmore or Sayd asked of him. In the Finale he clearly talks about going to that 'place' to Jack, the panic is palpable when he realises he isn't.

Des is 'special'. I wonder why that is. People surmise it's due to the Hatch Implosion but i didn't see too many signs of Locke and Eko becoming subsequently special. After all they survived it as well. In any case seeing into the future is 1 thing, seeing into an afterlife is a different kettle of fish. It's not the future - the future is being dead - so it's a massive storytelling stretch on the writers parts. Nothing new there BUT personally i can't keep accepting 'he was special' as an answer to plotholes. Just as i can't accept the 'magical island' or 'magic electromagnetism'.

2. The purgatory twist was well executed. However, in particular, the Shannon-Sayid scene felt shoehorned in there. More to the point the presence of Penny really leaves no good reason as to why Nadia was not there instead of Shannon. As a Des-Penny fan i was disappointed at the lack of a 'realisation' scene for them as well.

How do we explain the cuts on Jacks neck? Or his son? When Locke says 'you don't have a son' it gave me shivers but there was no real attempt to address that.

Another issue i have is this: Sawyer and Kate both made it off the island alive. Kate presumably helped claires mother raise aaron. I'd find it hard to believe with all they went through and the clear depth of feelings for each other, that they would not have ended up together. It wouldn't quite fit into the ending though would it , so they just neatly tie up Jack & Kate, Sawyer & Juliette.

3. Smokie. I've given this a lot of thought. Perhaps all he wanted in the end was to leave the Island. The spirit of MIB, who always wanted to go to where he was born 'across the sea', maybe in all this time all he wanted was to be 'human' again and leave the Island. The lack of an attempt to address what smokie really is - it's open to interpretation of course - is unsettling. MIB dies floats into the magical cave, emerges as a smoke monster. If it's his spirit then we can certainly theorise that all the bad acts he committed were a means-to-an-end to get off the island to go 'home'.

Again though if you trawl through the seasons the actions of Smokie dont add up. Why did he scan Eko and others? We assumed he could not kill 'candidates' and that he was scanning them to see if he could kill them? Is that it? Yet Jacob tells Kate it's just 'chalk on a wall' implying it's not a question of the person not being 'good' that rules them out, kate becoming a mother was enough for jacob to strike her off the list.

I better quit while i'm behind, but look i loved the Finale when viewed through a certain prism. But when you invest so much time and energy into a layered-show such as Lost, when you care so much about all that's happening in it, to reduce it by proxy to trick is disappointing. In so far as for all the mysteries introduced, unanswered or unexplained, the bottom line is they were just not important, what mattered is people dying so they could execute the end game.

Calibos

I'm sorry, I couldn't do it, I got to page 35 of this thread and can't read anymore I am so tired. Please forgive me if this is repeated.

I think the whole juliet "it worked" and the island at the bottom of the sea proff that not only did the writers not know from the beginning how the story would play out, They didn't know at the beginning of This season!!

I am as conflicted as fcuk about the finale.

On the one hand I thought it was supremely powerful Television, well the FST parts of the episode. I had lumpy throat for a lot of the scenes and full on tears streaming down me cheeks at the final scene. I am welling up again right now about 3 hours after watching visualising the scene with Jack and Vincent as I wrote the last sentence.

The writers did something right. Its the fact that they could have done so much else right but didn't that bothers me so much. Some of the fan theories were works of genius that could tie everything up neatly. For instance, the should have done a Rose and Bernard scene at the end of the time jumps saying basically what they said in this EP, ie. Leave us out of it. Then have Rose and Bernard be the skeletons in the cave having been left behind in the 1950 time jump dying in the 60's, tying into to Jacks decomp estimate of the bodies from S1. Thats just one example. If they explained more or some things better late last season or early this one I could have forgiven Season 6 and the finale only resolving a concept brought in this season.

ie. It was an amazing finale.....if Season 6 was the one and only Season of lost. As a finale for 6 seasons with so many unresolved questions it was a terrible finale.

Like I said, I am conflicted. Disgusted that just like the Xfiles and BSG, it turned out in the end that they didn't have a plan. The writers are bare faced liars . That said I don't regret watching all 6 seasons. I did enjoy them, but its just such a let down at the end in terms of the series as a whole.

But again, like I said, powerful stuff nonetheless. As an atheist like JohnnyUltimate, it reminded me why even intelligent people can believe in religion. The picture the writers paint of limbo and of these peoples passage through it was beautiful. Oh, how I wish it were true and that it be like the writers paint it. For a split second while welling up again I did say to myself, what do I know!! So kudos to the writers. (back to 100% atheist a second later but it shows how a charismatic preacher can convert people though)

As a finale to Season 6 - Superb
As a finale to Lost the Series - Meh

dudeitshurley

FatherTed wrote: »

Kids, blodvyn is right. All that stuff on the Island did happen, the crash, the people surviving, Dharma, Jacob, MIB, smokey, Michael and Walt leaving, the frieghter, the Oceanic 6 being rescued, their return, Desmond coming back, Jack becoming the new "Protector", Desmond removing the magic stone, Jack putting it back and dying, Hurley becoming the new Protector.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNpaAgRMNuo

Christian explains it all when he says something to the effect "everything that has ever happened is real" and "everyone dies sometime, some before you and some after you". Jack's meeting with Christian in the church happens when Jack dies. And just because all of them are in the church doesn't mean they all died, it just means that yes at some point they will die but they were at the church for Jack and to put it all together for him e.g. Sun & Jin are dead, they died last week in the submarine, Charlie is dead since he drowned a few years ago but Claire isn't dead yet, she is on the plane with Lapidus, Sawyer, Kate, Richard and Miles.

it really is such a powerful moving ending. for what it is it's absolutely pitch perfect brilliant. absolutely brilliant.

dudeitshurley

1 final thing tonight:

The ratings for this episode. People are clearly rating it in the context of the show overall as much as for the episode itself. Which is fair to an extent. Having said that there's simply too much good in this episode to be handing out 1/10's. Even if it felt like a cop-out it's still tremedously acted, directed and paced with a brilliant musical score. An episode such as this nearly deserves 2 polls: 1 dealing with the episode itself and 1 in the context of ending the show. I think we'd see very different results.

BTW Matthew Fox, imo, was sensational. Stole the show. Performance of his career.

Penn

Deleted User wrote: »

The one question I can't answer is Jack's son? How is he involved?

It was Jack's way of moving on. He had 'Daddy issues' with his father. Having a son in the FSW allowed him to resolve them as he could see things from a fathers point of view.

Chardee MacDennis

even if you dont buy the purgatory thing, take all the FST (surely they should be flash forwards now) out of season 6 and you have the island story in its full, but you still wont get stuff explained - we all really knew that would never happen...

Blazer

blodvyn wrote: »

I was watching a program about how the writers said they would never dumb down this show and wrote it as they wanted, god I wish they dumbed it down so some of you people could get it

Please..don't kid yourself

it doesn't require a genius to work out lost..
And I compare the ending of it to the the Emperor's clothes.
On one hand we have all the sheep telling each other how beautiful it was, how fitting etc while completely ignoring the obvious.
The ending was brutal...like many people have said Penny was in no way connected to people on the Island yet she has to hang around while the rest of the muppets finally wake up to their demise?
Desmond's connection was to Penny.....he tried leaving the island so many times so it's pretty obvious he didn't give a shít about the island or the others..
The ending is a cop out...fúck you JJ Abrams.:mad:

Soby

With regard to the thread recently about vincent i was half expecting him to lick the screen

slave1

Oh, I don't know, I haven't got the time at the minute to read back through the thread but it was bitter sweet for me.
First thing was watching it in HD on a 106" PJ screen in a mates house made it real special. I watched Lost The Final Journey first and thought it was quite good, one or two snippets outright explained - Jacob's touch meant the canditates cannot be killed - and just a nice way of extending the last Lost night:(
Episode itself, well, Flocke went very easily I thought, Jack's scars got explained, music was excellent, real good job there man, burst me hole when poor ole Ben got yet another slap to the face, religious overtones got too high for me and sweet goodness Kate looked seriously hot in that dress:eek:.
Always figured it would end with Jack's eye, thankfully his acting was great for the later part of the final season.

Sad it's all over and when I get more time I'll need the assistance of this forum to understand it all.

I have the first 5 season on BR so now time to watch them all over again now.

And so begins the void...........................:(:(:(:(

Ludo

Excellent ending. As someone who lost interest during the last couple of seasons but kept watching out of habit, it wrapped up the characters very well and explained what was going on very nicely. The island itself was not explained which was the correct thing to do.
It has left people talking about it and still coming up with theories. Lost will live on because of this and sales of dvds will continue as people try to explain it. And dvd sales and repeats is what it is all about after all :-)

comet

I watched it from Episode 1 all the way never missing an episode, enjoying it and defending it but last night left me feeling like a fool.
I'm sorry I ever watched the show, this was worse than Bobbys dream in Dallas.
It was just a vehicle to get people watching adds.
I watched on the assumption that some things at least might make sense at some level but nothing made sense, the whole show was a con.

20goto10

These guys should never work in television again. It's not a mystery if there is no meaning to it, anyone who is still in awe of the mystery needs a splash of cold water.

Thankfully it has finished with quite poor ratings. This show will be remembered for trying to con people and being exposed very early on.

Kiith

48 Pages? Christ, thats a lot of reading that needs to be done later.

Anyway, i loved it. Absolutly loved it. The island scenes were fantastic, with Jack once again being brilliant. Loved the fight between him and Flocke. Also, seeing Vincent sitting down beside Jack as he died was really well done. Brought a tear to the eye.

The FSW bits were also brilliant. Some of the scenes where the losties remembered were so well done, especially Claire/Charlie and Locke's ones. Was a joy to get our Locke back again, if only for a little while.

All in all, a fantastic end to a fantastic journey.

The Rook

20goto10 wrote: »

These guys should never work in television again. It's not a mystery if there is no meaning to it, anyone who is still in awe of the mystery needs a splash of cold water.

Thankfully it has finished with quite poor ratings. This show will be remembered for trying to con people and being exposed very early on.

:rolleyes:.... some people....

Maybe it'll be remembered as a show that split fans one way (those who actually understood the ending) and another way (Those who didn't and will denounce it for the rest of ever!)

Saint_Mel

I gave it 1/10 purely as there was no 0/10 option :mad:

BastardPrince wrote: »

even if you dont buy the purgatory thing, take all the FST (surely they should be flash forwards now) out of season 6 and you have the island story in its full, but you still wont get stuff explained - we all really knew that would never happen...

Eh ... without getting stuff explained you cant have the island story in its full, mainly because it was the anticipated explaining of the island that kept a lot of people watching!!!

Ludo wrote:

It has left people talking about it and still coming up with theories.

Nope, no more theories ... they all died and the writers took 6 seasons to make up an irrelavent filler story around it all.

comet wrote:

I'm sorry I ever watched the show, this was worse than Bobbys dream in Dallas.

A shower scene with Kate might have made amends on an otherwise pointless programme

And to the writers ... congratulations on a 6 year long con. I hope you never work again and you loose all your money in a pointless pyrimad scheme

comet

The Rook wrote: »

fans .... those who actually understood the ending

Those fans are the same people who believe the emperor is wearing new clothes.
The only thing to understand is that it's a cop out and nothing has to be explained. So any twists or turns or mysteries are irrelevant.

Kiith

20goto10 wrote: »

This show will be remembered for trying to con people and being exposed very early on.

Ya, thats why we'll remember it. :rolleyes:

The Rook

comet wrote: »

Those fans are the same people who believe the emperor is wearing new clothes.
The only thing to understand is that it's a cop out and nothing has to be explained. So any twists or turns or mysteries are irrelevant.

Ok Comet, you seem obsessed with the naked emperor ...what is it you feel is a cop out and what is it you feel so aggrieved about and that you want explained about the ending of Lost?

Keano

comet wrote: »

It was just a vehicle to get people watching adds.

:rolleyes: Are you for real?

Keano

The Rook wrote: »

Ok Comet, you seem obsessed with the naked emperor ...what is it you feel is a cop out and what is it you feel so aggrieved about and that you want explained about the ending of Lost?

Make sure you draw a diagram as well for him!

comet

The Rook wrote: »

Ok Comet, you seem obsessed with the naked emperor ...what is it you feel is a cop out and what is it you feel so aggrieved about and that you want explained about the ending of Lost?

well I don't understand it but initially my thought is the series finale explains the alternate timeline of season 6 and nothing else. This timeline was something tagged on to an already 5 sseason show that was about an Island, Dharma Initiative, The Others, the smoke monster, Whitmore and Bens battle, the strange electro magnetic forces, the polar bears, ghosts, ancient monuments etc. etc. etc. etc. I don't care about the alternate timeline in season 6 that was irrelevant to me, I wanted to know about the real story.