"Lost" Series Finale "The End" Sunday 9-11:30pm NO SPOILERS UNTIL AIRED

[Crono]

Sometimes i wonder what people on here would do 10 years ago.. when TV shows never got 'endings' .. they were just cancelled.

i'm still waiting for the TWIN PEAKS ending.

I actually liked that non-ending ending.

Same for later shows like Angel.

 

[guyver01]

I actually liked that non-ending ending.

It wasn't an "ending" .. He walks into the Black Lodge...gets taken over by Bob... and... then the series is cancelled. You never truly find out what the Black Lodge is... what happend to Agent Cooper... does he get free of Bob?

 

[hoyaguru]

hoya, you are way off base. the writers have always stated that the show was about the characters. it doesn't MATTER why women couldn't give birth on the island, or what exactly the smoke monster was...

you are probably in the minority. give it some time to sink it. the show had to end, it was going to be sad/dissapointing no matter what

Slayer, if they told you after season 2 that the show was going to run for 4 more years, and at the end they weren't going to explain why most of the interesting stuff that was happening was happening, would you have bothered watching the show for 4 more years? I keep hearing that the show was "about the characters", if that's all I wanted, I could watch "As the World Turns". The characters were very well written, and were a great part of the show, but the whole point to the show was, as Charlie said in I believe the first episode, "Where are we", the viewer was invited to guess as to what was going on. I just did a search on Google for Lost Forum, and came up with 205 million pages listed. I really doubt all of these forums were created to talk about the characters.

 

[hoyaguru]

My question to hoyaguru and postmortemIA is that if you guys have been following Lost whatsoever, Cuse and Lindelof, have repeatedly said in the last 2 months that they were not going to answer all the questions because that wanted to leave it up to the fan's curiosity/imagination for certain answers and that it was more about the story then the quirks of the island.

Unfortunately, I didn't spend time reading up on what the writers were saying, I just watched the show every week. For 6 years. And no, I didn't think they were going to answer every single question, but if they had answered the absolute main question: What Was The Island, I'm sure that explanation would be enough of a clue for an intelligent person to figure out answers to a ton of other questions. Turns out they were just throwing whatever came to mind into the show. "Hey, let's have a bird fly overhead that says Hurly, that will confuse people. And, we never have to explain what it was. Let's make a guy out of smoke, who can assume the shape of dead people, that will get people guessing. No idea how to explain it, so let's not explain it". Yeah, great writing. ANYONE could write crap like that and not explain it.

 

[arrfep]

Interesting aside. I've been reading the "entertainment columnist" responses to the finale, via Google News, and a whole lot of them seem to have completely missed the explanation of the flash-sideways and are writing about how big a letdown it is that "they were dead since the beginning."

 

[rockyct]

Does anyone else think Desmond took the sailboat and got off the island that way?

Anyway, I too once demanded answers on everything and wanted the details about the island, the "rules", etc. explained. However, I got over wanting it to be a sci-fi series and was content that it's really a character drama. The characters were placed on the island and we only know as much as they do. I doubt even Jacob really knows what the origins of the island were and the specifics behind its powers. If the characters don't know the answers, why should we? Miles probably doesn't know why he can hear the dead's last thoughts. Hurley doesn't know why he can talk to dead people. They just can and that ability is just a dimension of their character. People are "special" in this world and there are "special" places. In a way it's a cop out, but do we really want to hear another discussion over "midichlorians" or the Matrix sequels? Some things really are better to be not explained instead of bringing in nanobots and aliens.

The finale was the ending of the characters and their story. Each one was missing something in their life before they came to the island and each one found it on the island before death would temporarily separate them. They found their soul mate and Jack worked out his daddy issues. This shared experience on the island was the most meaningful time of their lives and the finale showed the reuniting of what death and evil split. Everyone who came to the island was a very broken person and the finale showed the characters becoming whole and redeemed, and then moving on to eternal happiness. I'm quite satisfied with the ending.

 

[ballmode]

I thought Star Trek: TNG was a great ending.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I've been reading forums since the show ended. The consensus seems to be that the writers really dropped the ball, and this was the worst ending to any series ever. Yet there are still a LOT of people posting that they "loved the ending". it was "a perfect way to end the show", the "show was about the characters, not the plot", and so on. I don't know what show a lot of you were watching, but when the end credits started, I just looked at my wife and said, "Seriously?".

Now, the writers were in a bad position going into the finale. Name one good series that ended in a way that people liked. Seinfeld? The Sopranos? BSG? Cheers? The list goes on, ever since Dallas and Bobby Ewing's dream (and that wasn't even a finale), every popular show that ended had a lot of people pissed off at the finale. It's a no win situation. But to explain nothing, and leave the audience hanging forever, takes a lot of balls. When they got into this last season and showed things like the explanation for the skeletons in the cave, it seemed like there was a plan from the beginning, and that at the end they would explain at LEAST what the Island was.

Why was Walt so important for a couple of seasons? Why couldn't women give birth on the Island? What was the smoke monster? Why were Jacob and the MIB immortal? I could list 10 pages of questions like this, that have no answers. The show was a mystery, and viewers spent a lot of time trying to SOLVE the mystery, and for what? All of the forums over the years with hundreds of ideas as to what was actually happening, what a waste of time. There were so many ways that everything could have been explained. Like, there was an alien spaceship burried under the Island that had crashed there thousands of years ago. The smoke monster was alien nanobots, the water that went through the ship had some kind of alien microbes in it that could heal and make people immortal, and so on, that could explain so many things that happened. Or, it was all a dream. Or, it was a magical Island from the time a freaking wizards or something stupid like that, it doesn't matter, the writers should have given some sort of explanation.

But, the writers figured they could just make everybody cry at the end with a happy sappy family reunion, and the less intelligent viewers would forget about all of the questions they had, wipe their tears, and be happy with the shit sandwich they were just served. What a waste of 6 years. I'll be damned if I'll ever watch another show these hack writers put out, I have a feeling we're going to be hearing a lot of bad press about this show for a long time.

I have a great idea for a show, it will be a murder mystery, with lots of characters and reasons for each character to be the murderer. The great detective will be in peril several times throughout the movie as he is looking for clues, the will be great adventure as each new twist is revealed. At the end, when the detective has all of the suspects in the room and is going to figure out whodunit, it will cut to a scene where the detective is waking up in a different reality, and his dead father tells him he's dead and on his way to heaven. And I'll never tell who the murderer was. Hell, this is easy, I could be a writer in Hollywood and make millions!

I'm disgusted...

 

[Homerboy]

Great ending.
Couldn't have, and wouldn't have, asked for more.

 

[nageov3t]

I'm all raging inside. They didn't answer anything. I was hoping at least for an explanation of what the island is, but nope, not even that.

The island is midichlorians... There, happy?

 

[trmiv]

So the entire island and everything to do with it was one giant macguffin so the writers could tell a sappy character drama? Yea. That sucked.

 

[JEDI]

oh it SUCKED!

1) where did the source of the light come from?
2) why didnt desmond or Jack turn into the smoke monster like MiB did?
3) WTF was that final scene in the church about?!

4) they didnt explain why Locke and Rose healed, but Alex (Bens daughter) stayed dead?!

I liked the early years of Lost with Polar bears on a tropical island, and the mystery of the Hatches. i even liked when they shifted to survivors vs Others.

But Jacob vs MiB was a complete mess.

And how many min of commercials was it in the 2 1/2 hr finale?
I bet 1hr worth?

 

[nageov3t]

oh it SUCKED!

1) where did the source of the light come from?

midi-chlorians.

2) why didnt desmond or Jack turn into the smoke monster like MiB did?

they weren't dead when they floated down the river?

3) WTF was that final scene in the church about?!

Christian provided pretty much the most direct explanation we've ever seen on the show.

4) they didnt explain why Locke and Rose healed, but Alex (Bens daughter) stayed dead?!

dead is dead.

And how many min of commercials was it in the 2 1/2 hr finale?
I bet 1hr worth?

I bet it'll end up being about the same as every other show (44 minutes of show per hour)

 

[nageov3t]

the best part of the entire show was discussing it and theorizing... the mystery was the heart of the show and ultimately, I think the writers had to leave the mystery in tact.

I mean, which do you prefer?

"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."

vs

"Midichlorians are microscopic symbionts... The Jedi have learned how to listen to and coordinate the midi-chlorians. While every living being thus has a connection to the Force, one must have a high enough concentration of midi-chlorians in one's cells in order to be a Jedi"

 

[edro]

The final view of the plane crash made it look like they all died during the crash and the whole series was just a dream.

I liked all of the emotional resolutions at the end.

 

[destrekor]

Some of y'all are dense and completely oblivious.

Let me sum up what I've said in a few episode threads already:

The Light is the "Life force". Think of it in terms of Mt. Olympus. It is the raw energy associated with life. It is pure good, it is pure evil, it is simply power. Unimaginable, raw power.

Having a question like "Where did the light come from?" is like having a question of "Where did the universe come from?". In this fictional world, they basically went with the life force being there, there is a heaven or at least an afterlife as well. You don't make an answer as to "where did heaven come from?". That's just ridiculous. Let the audience, the people consuming said story, figure out the roots on their own if they must care to know.

Coming near the light, since it is everything related to Life, can create the illusion of healing. Since, well, it is healing those with physical ailments. The island has those properties because it is the Mt. Olympus of this story, it is the place where the power of life is balanced and held in stasis.

Next post: Smoke Monster

 

[nageov3t]

The final view of the plane crash made it look like they all died during the crash and the whole series was just a dream.

I liked all of the emotional resolutions at the end.

that's what I thought at first too and I hated the ending.

but between Christian's explanation backed up by Hurley/Ben's conversation ("you made a great number 2") it seemed clear that everyone who was alive at the end of the island-world went on and lived out the rest of their life... the plane made it back to LA and Kate/Claire did their lesbian thing, Hurley/Ben did their thing on the island as the new Jacob and Richard, etc.

maybe they had adventures, maybe they lived out life uneventfully and died of old age. it doesn't really matter. in the end, they were reunited in the flash-sideways (which is basically purgatory/limbo/whatever) and went on to the next life together.

 

[MikeyLSU]

I enjoyed it. I have been a huge LOST fan since the beginning. Would I have like more answers? yes, but I knew midway through this season it just wasn't going to happen, there wasn't enough time.

And the creators have said they will give more answers after people have time to digest it all. Plus on the dvd release, they are adding stuff and giving more answers.

But here is my interpretation of what happened. The island is the source of light/good. There must always be someone to protect it.

The sideways world was very straightforward the afterlife. I still don't get how that could be confusing at all, the island was real. Well, once they meet in the afterlife, Christian Sheppard was first to "move on" and walked through the doors into a light.

To me, that signifies heaven(but it can be whatever you believe since it is never told), and it is the same light that they fought so hard to protect on the island.

Also, it is very interesting, the review guy on EW said they did a survey of what people thought were the most important questions to answer and which ones they didn't care about as much. Basically, nobody could agree, everyone had their own "important" questions.

For instance, I don't need to know what the island is, but hoya obviously cares very much so. I also don't care about Walt, I believe he grew up and there was no way to have a 15 year old still play an 8 year old boy on island so they just wrote him off.

 

[endlessmike]

In some ways I'm satisfied, and some I'm not. I don't care that not everything was revealed, I like the ambiguity of certain question and answers. But...

It's just felt like a load of crap this year to have the writers continuously say, "Oh, that mysterious stuff's not important, never has been, it's just about the characters, it's always been about the characters, and people are stupid for caring about anything else."

If that's the case, then what's the point of setting it in a sci-fi/mysterious island with all sorts of crazy phenomena happening? They could have just set the show in a small town bowling alley if that's all they wanted to do. Why did they spend 5 seasons cultivating this amazing mythology and setting and myster just to say it doesn't matter in the end? Did they really expect that people wouldn't/shouldn't have a strong investment in that aspect of the show?

Anyways, I cried at the end. I'm still not sure if it's because I was sad it was over, I was sad with the way it ended, or because my lab was sitting with his head on my lap when Vincent ran up and laid next to Jack, but goddammit I am drained today.

 

[destrekor]

Smoke Monster?

When the MiB fell into the Light, the raw energy killed his physical body. But he was still there, he became a force of pure life energy.

When both Desmond and Jack were in the pool with the light, you could hear all the same noises associated with the smoke monster. For awhile, I was beginning to wonder if one of them were going to turn into a "smoke monster", but just not be a monster. Like a white smoke to counteract the black smoke.

The Smoke Monster wasn't evil incarnate. It was raw power with a soul. The raw power of life bounded in the physical world would have power to manipulate the world in ways ordinary beings cannot - in MiB's case, he could shape shift and well, not die, because he wasn't alive.

Desmond didn't turn into a monster because he was sort of immune to the effects, presumably for the same reason he could survive blasts of electromagnetism and jump around in time, see the future causes of death of an individual, and everything else crazy about Desmond.

Jack could survive the light because he was granted Jacob-level hacks.

When Desmond "turned off the Light", that in effect caused the smoke monster to cease to exist. The raw power was gone, because that power was stripped from the island. With it, the power of the MiB was gone, but it left the physical container behind. In essence, he became mortal again in his last physical incarnation.


Also of note:
when John (on his hospital bed) told Jack "you don't have a son", I think that was foreshadowing the notion that the world they were living in was not real, it was a construct either for them, or by them, and gave them resolution in that life. For Jack, the son was he way to move past the father/son issues he had with his dad.
In fact, it seems each of them saw resolution with their biggest problems from their real life in their constructed life.

 

[Fingolfin269]

(And how did Penny die if she wasn't on the flight?)

This question right here is a perfect example as to why the writer's were screwed. Seriously man? She died of natural causes more than likely. Or maybe she was mugged, car jacked, choked on a french fry... what in the world does it matter????

 

[nageov3t]

I've heard from a multitude of sources that scenes between Ben and Walt were shot, so hopefully we'll see that on the dvd or something.

 

[nageov3t]

stolen from another forum...

Here are the actors who have work and those who are now unemployed . . .



Matthew Fox (Jack)

In Development: Billy Smoke



Daniel Dae Kim (Jin)

"Hawaii Five-O" (pre-production) .... Det. Chin Ho Kelly (1 episode, 2010)
- Pilot (2010) TV episode .... Det. Chin Ho Kelly

Deathgames (2011) (filming)

The Adjustment Bureau (2010) (post-production)



Yunjin Kim (Sun)

In Development: The Unconditional



Evangeline Lilly (Kate)

Real Steel (2011) (pre-production)



Emilie de Ravin (Claire)

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010) (post-production) (voice) .... Eglantine





Dominic Monaghan (Charlie)

Pet (details only on IMDbPro)

"FlashForward" .... Simon Campos (16 episodes, 2009-2010)
- Let No Man Put Asunder (2010) TV episode (credit only) ....





Harold Perrineau (Michael)

The Hungry Rabbit Jumps (2010) (post-production) .... Jimmy

30 Days of Night: Dark Days (2010) (post-production)

Case 219 (2010) .... Franklyn Bonner

"CSI: NY" .... Reggie Tifford (1 episode, 2010)





Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet)

Answers to Nothing (2010) (post-production) .... Kate

"V" .... Erica Evans (12 episodes, 2009-2010)






Unemployed

Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond)

Jorge Garcia (Hurley)

Josh Holloway (Sawyer)

Terry O'Quinn (Locke)

Michael Emerson (Ben Linus)

 

[Linflas]

Overall I am satisfied with the ending since it left me curious, thinking, and still engaged with the show. That to me was always the compelling thing about Lost. It drew you in and made you think, almost like a video game that you have no control over the Avatar of. Those of you that are gamers think of how many puzzles and side quests there are in a typical game that have nothing to do with the ultimate "win" or resolution at the end of the game.

 

[destrekor]

that's what I thought at first too and I hated the ending.

but between Christian's explanation backed up by Hurley/Ben's conversation ("you made a great number 2") it seemed clear that everyone who was alive at the end of the island-world went on and lived out the rest of their life... the plane made it back to LA and Kate/Claire did their lesbian thing, Hurley/Ben did their thing on the island as the new Jacob and Richard, etc.

maybe they had adventures, maybe they lived out life uneventfully and died of old age. it doesn't really matter. in the end, they were reunited in the flash-sideways (which is basically purgatory/limbo/whatever) and went on to the next life together.

That's exactly how I interpreted it too.

Half of them never even saw each other right before or right after the plane crash. Quite a few were never on the plane and weren't seen for a long while.
So the island and everything associated with it did truly happen to them.

I think showing the plane wreckage at the end served two purposes: to either give the people who wanted the whole "it was one big dream" their little happy ending, or at least to provide some weight to that, as well as pointing to that long running joke to anybody who recognized it; it also pointed to the fact that the island continued to exist, at the surface (and not underwater), and that "the show would go on" for the island.

Also, I think Hugo was never the proper "Number 1". He played the role, but I think the fact that he died, possibly naturally, kind of alludes to the fact that he wasn't given the true Jacob-level powers.

Jack was given a drink with "blessed" water, but that water wasn't blessed for Hugo. I don't think it was supposed to have happened off-camera, I think it was intentionally not done. Maybe Jack forgot, or maybe Jack didn't want to actually give all of that to Hugo (didn't want to curse him to immortality). Jack might not have understood that whole concept either.

So... Jack dying? Well, remember it could have simply been the two brothers who couldn't hurt each other. Jack, it is implied, would have lived forever until he found a replacement, or was killed. But it could have been anyone to kill him. Plus, he was killed by MiB when he was trapped in a mortal state, so it wasn't the pure power of the island against itself.

 

[UpgradeFailure]

For Jack, the son was he way to move past the father/son issues he had with his dad.

My thoughts exactly