It was a story about love, life, and death. It was about happiness, good and evil. It was moving, it was frustrating, and it often left us feeling disenchanted.
But it was also beautiful. And, its finale was perhaps a perfect ending to a show that enraptured us for six years.
Lost is done with, but its residue will gladly remain.
A bit of a warning: There will be plenty of spoilers in this discussion. I suggest not reading further until you’ve watched the final episode.
Here’s What Happened
The show’s final season depicted the resolution of the island, as well as the Happy Ending that fans wanted. While it may not have been exactly how fans envisioned it, it concluded the story extremely well. The island’s destiny was confirmed, with Jack preventing its collapse and Hurley continuing the legacy of Jacob, and a few of the castaways even escaped for good. That circle was finally complete.
But simply saving the island wouldn’t result in happiness for everyone. Jack was still dead. Jin never saw his child. Hurley and Ben were thrust into a position neither expected. Kate and Sawyer lost the loves of their lives. No one could come back to life. But, they could come back together in the afterlife. The “flash sideways” were revealed not as an alternate timeline, but as Purgatory. As Christian Sheppard explained, the characters’ lives were most affected by and fulfilled on the island, and with each other. Coming together in the afterlife completed their circle as a group. Their friendships, loves, and lives were complete, but only together were they purposeful. And the only way to do this was truly at the end, into “the light”.
Jack’s Story
The pilot episode began with the opening of an eye. Jack’s eye. The finale ended with the same scene played in reverse: Jack’s eye closing. This was his story, not the story of the island or of the castaways. Once a character who was meant to die after the pilot episode, he eventually realized that the island was more than just a floating rock, it was his destiny. We followed along, secretly knowing it was always going to be his island to save.
Super Heroes
Supernaturality was a common occurrence with the show: Desmond’s imperviousness to electromagnetism, Hurley’s ability to see the dead, the Black Smoke, the glowing light. None of these are possible in our true existence, yet we accepted them as such.
Perhaps nothing was more superhuman than the epic “final boss battle” that took place between Jack and MIB (Man in Black). Reminiscent of a video game finale, it featured two nemeses fighting in a back-and-forth brawl on a collapsing cliff, highlighted by a leaping, fist-pumping protagonist. It reminded me of any fight scene out of X-Men.
It Was Always Purgatory (Sort Of)
Without knowing it, all of the clues to the Afterlife were there from the beginning. While many incorrectly theorized that the island itself was the afterlife, it provided the base for what would ultimately become the most important memories in these characters’ lives. As revealed to Hurley by Michael mid-way through this final season, the island was populated by people “in between” who were waiting for the right time to leave. These spirits were resurrected in the whispers that the castaways often heard while traveling its jungles.
The penultimate scene of the castaways and friends collecting in a church depicted the completion of their journey. This season’s “flash sideways” were the realizations of the Losties that they were, in fact, stuck in waiting until they all came together one last time. In a sort of forehead slapping scene, Kate even notices how Christian Sheppard’s name is almost too obvious. How did we not catch that this entire time?
Desmond provided the link between the present and the afterlife, having had a glimpse of the “beyond” during Widmore’s experiment on him. “None of this matters,” he tells Jack as he is about to be lowered into glowing abyss. Although it all did, as Jack needed to complete his journey and save the island before he could move on. Without his mission complete, the gathering would have never taken place and the characters would remain stuck in their false visions of a perfect world.
[NOTE: As noted by Aaron in the comments below, this isn't Purgatory in the traditional sense. Rather, it was an "in-between" in which the Losties had choices and options.]
The Mysteries
There are no more theories left in Lost. The remaining mysteries, whatever they are, will never be answered. They don’t need to be. Once again, this was the tale of Jack on the island, and thus only the necessary details needed to advance the story were the ones resolved.
While the show’s writers kept feeding us tidbits about some of the minutia, we often demanded intricate and meaningful answers. Thankfully, producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse resisted. Was it necessary to explain the Force in Star Wars with midi-chlorians? No. In the case of Lost, neither did many of the island’s mysteries.
The End
The finale of Lost was designed, from the beginning, to complete the journey of the castaways From the opening and closing eyes to the “clip-show” feel of the Purgatory flashbacks, the aesthetic of the finale was one of complete symmetry. Some scenes even seemed to be parallels to those that took place in the early seasons (Aaron’s birth, for instance). Jack’s destiny was “born” on the island in the bamboo forest, and it was there that it died.
Found
The story of Lost is complete. The journeys of Oceanic flight 815, the Others, the Dharma Initiative, and Jacob & MIB were linked together like Olympic rings, each pivotal to the completion of the rest. The Island, perhaps the center ring, never quite completed its journey, and did not need to. The resolution of the castaways wasn’t just to leave the island, but to meet together in Heaven.
In the end it all made sense: isn’t this the vision of Heaven that we would want to have? The plot holes appearing throughout the years were sanded over, but did not feel like a cheap way out. This is the story of the passengers, and their definitive happiness together.
It only took us six years to realize it. “See you in another life, Brother.”
*Images courtesy ABC/Bad Robot
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