Lost: The End

Apologies to the readers of this blog who don't watch "Lost," and SPOILER ALERT to those who do but haven't yet watched the series finale. These are my thoughts on the final episode of the show I watched loyally from the very beginning.

I liked a lot about the finale. For one thing, I thought it was exceptionally well written. The echoes of conversations past were moving and well done. In particular, I found Kate's redelivery of Aaron to be lovely. I also quite liked that Jack passed the island torch to Hurley (which I anticipated BTW), though I would have really enjoyed even just one scene showing Hurley stepping into that role. Maybe we get that a little bit when he asks Ben to be his second in command. I also really liked that moment: all Ben has wanted is to be wanted, and he's been such a rich and complex character all along, I was happy to see him get what he wants. I also thought there was a sweetness to him happily accepting second-in-command. I thought all the scenes of remembering were good, and it's not easy to dramatize remembering. These scenes served the dual purpose of reminding the characters of their other life (nice echoes of "I'll see you in another life, Brother."), and allowing the viewers to savor key moments past.

I did not like the end. Let me say first how I interpret the end (and I will concede that I DO like that they left us with things to interpret). I do not think they all died in the plane crash. I base my assertion on (a) the fact that if they all died in the original crash, then the whole show is a cipher, and I can't accept that and don't think the creators would want to leave us with that, and (b) Christian Shepard's comment that some of these people died before Jack and some long after. I think it's pretty clear that Christian is meant to be the voice of authority at the end, and so I think we can believe what he says. Thus, I conclude that some characters died in ways we know about (like Boone, Shannon, Libby, Locke, etc.) and others died later in life. Kate and Sawyer, for instance, got off the island and lived lives of one kind or another until they died later on of causes unrelated to the island (presumably). Jack died on the island, killed by Smokey, having "fixed" everything one last time, his eye closing on his life and on the series. A really lovely (if expected) final image.

OK, so I don't think they all died in the crash. I believe Christian. The primary reason I found the end of the series so unsatisfying is because the show ultimately failed to reconcile science and faith. All along this reason/faith conundrum has been a major theme, running most notably through the character arcs of Jack and Locke. And the show has, in my opinion, consistently done reason (read: science) better than faith, which is by definition slippery. Case in point: one of the best episodes of the series was "The Constant," in which we get insight into Daniel's theoretical physics and learn that Desmond is a constant when it comes to a form of time travel. In the finale, Desmond's constancy became much more amorphous and angel-like, rather than plausibly interwoven into something like real physics. The fact that Daniel really had no role to play in the denouement (other than the piano!) and didn't get to go to church with the rest of the lostaways signifies how the creators had moved away from the scientific themes.

Did Oceanic 815 crash because Jacob brought broken people to the island to replace him, or did it crash because Desmond failed to push the button and thus released an enormous amount of energy? I would have really liked the final answer to be both, but the creators ultimately shoved Desmond's action under the carpet and left us with Jacob. Similarly, and worse, was the sideways world an alternate reality created by the strategic detonation of a hydrogen bomb, or a purgatory that doesn't really exist in any sort of reality? Again, why couldn't it have been both? I'm fine with them leaving Sideways behind (with the massive exception of Jack who has a son and a much better life in Sideways than he ever had in reality), but did the show need to so completely obliterate the reality of sideways?

Finally, I find it sad that so many characters didn't go on to have better or more meaningful lives than they had on the island. (Sayid is the saddest of all: OK, he never gets Nadia, but he never gets to do better than Shannon, either?). Again, if we believe Christian, all these folks who lived lives of varying lengths (Hurley, for instance, may have lived a couple thousand years a la Jacob) never experienced anything more important than the time they were on the island? I appreciate that the show's creators wanted to leave the viewers with a sort of happy ending, but we've been so invested in these people getting better lives for themselves that to learn they never, ever did is a horrible blow.

I would much rather have been left with a flash forward montage of Kate and Claire cheering on Aaron at a soccer game; of Rose and Bernard placing flowers on Jack's grave, while Hurley benignly commands a group of latter day Others who are much more functional than their predecessors; and of Sawyer shedding his assumed name and the many ghosts of his past.

"Lost" was a great show, game changing in many ways, and the last ten minutes of the finale don't undo six years of amazing television, but I wish they could have lived up to their own potential in THE END.