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

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.

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.

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.