Looks like Penny and Des are not so pleased at the finale. I LOVE YEH, PENNEH!Unless you were living in a secret hatch in the middle of a mystical island for the past six years, you most likely heard that the series finale of Lost was last night. A two-and-a-half hour Odyssey of jungles, of planes, and of Dharma beer. Yes, I am coming out of (pseudo) retirement to voice my opinions and humble theories on this ultimate of ultimate television endings.
Where to start? First, that while I thought the end was moving to the point that it was embarrassing and incredibly uncomfortable to sit in a room with my friends for fear of giving out a tell-tale sniffle. It reminded me a lot of this (it starts around 3:10). In fact, there have been more than several allusions to the James Cameron behemoth (the one where the cast isn't blue...at least at first). This season, from the Jack and Rose scene on the sideways/Purgatory plane, to Sun and Jin's watery death, and the two hands floating in the water, cutting to the sinking submarine. Far be it that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse could resist including any bit of pop-culture, mythology, and literature already deep within the shady ferns of the Island.
The biggest complaint I've heard so far is that so many questions were left unanswered. What of the Island mythology? What was Widmore really after, and why could Ben kill him on the island, and not off? What are the origins of the Others? And what of Walt, the only cast member of Flight 815 to not reappear in the final season? Not to mention hundreds of other questions of the Dharma Initiative, visions of horses, time-travel, and why Claire wasn't eating peanut butter in the Church of the Afterlife/dead survivor pot-luck while canoodling with Charlie. Initially, I was irked that the writers chose a sentimental, somewhat expected ilk. Let's all get the audience in a syrupy fog over reuniting with dead loved ones, misty over Jack's ultimate sacrifice for his friends and for the Island, a red herring to deter viewers from asking the bigger questions.
Once the initial anger passed over me like a post-apocalyptic rainstorm, I realized that I didn't want all the answers. If art imitates life, than being handed answers or trying to be told what to make of the finale means very little, since, last time I checked, no one was telling me the significance of my listening to The Mamas and the Papas this morning.
It's important to remember that this is, after all, television. A medium that was once meant to sell dish soap and play host to tacky game shows and sitcoms with blaring laugh tracks. Most television shows don't make it past the infantile first season, let alone six. And to be given near free reign to introduce the space-time continuum, alternate worlds, and a mostly bare torso'd Sawyer, well, that never happens. To that end, Lost came along and turned that notion on its head. Week after week, we saw movie-caliber production levels and absurdly intricate plot lines. But the vision continually changed. The problem, then, is the constantly shifting view of the writers and the inability to go back and re-edit. J.R.R. Tolkein revised The Lord of the Rings countless times over the span of 30 years, in response to letters from fans pointing out discrepancies. It's different with TV, especially since the writers haven't figured out how to time travel themselves (we think).
Anyways.
So Jack, temporary guardian of the Island, chronic fixer of things, is the Christ figure. EW's Ken Tucker argues the point:
"...if there was one thing we can probably all agree upon, in the end, Jack Shephard was a Christ figure whose sacrifice saved many other people. The imagery could not have been more specific: Jack’s questioning and obeying of his father; his leadership of a small group of disciples; his final ascension (in TV terms, in a glowing white light). Even the piercing of his side by Locke/Man In Black was in the part of his body where Christ was speared while in agony on the crucifying cross."
While I agree in large part, the issue at hand is Jack's incessant need to fix things. It was hard to tell if he acted out of a selfless agape love for Kate and for his friends, or if his driving force was that he needed to fix the Island from what ailed it - where saving the others was just a fringe benefit. I think more of the former, but it's an interesting question all the same.
But maybe it was Lapidus, and not Desmond or Jack, who was the real hero. The most underrated of the freighter set, he was the one who survived a helicopter crash and a submarine bomb and fixed the Ajira plane, delivering Kate, Sawyer, Richard/Ricardus, Claire, and Miles to safety. Without those romance novel good looks and unnatural skill with duct tape, all of the Losties might still be stuck on the Island playing God with Hurley and Ben. And, after all, the very first episode was named after Lapidus!
What of the scene with Christian and Jack? In the most roundabout of ways, Christian Shepard (really?) gave solid answers. "Am I dead?" Jack asks. "We all have to die sometime," Christian answers vaguely in a way that still infurates, smiling kindly on his son. Redemption! Acceptance! And a giant paternal band-aid on all the daddy issues spanning these six seasons.
Hurley, at the church in Los Angeles, invites Ben inside. "I'm not ready yet," Linus says. He had a lot more forgiveness to seek. "You were a great number two," Hurley says. "You were a great number one," Linus returns. I can only imagine what sorts of island adventures the two of them had, and if Hurley opened his own chain of Cluck's Chicken in Dharmaville. The writers left it to the imagination what the future was - the story they were telling had come to a close.
One of my favorite moments was the final scene between Linus and Locke. Fresh from spinal surgery, Locke exits a cab and gets in his wheelchair. He sees Linus sitting at the table outside the church. He apologizes for murdering Locke and - in a moment of true grace - Locke forgives him.
In the end, there was much more good than bad. Forgiveness over intolerance, light over darkness. Juxtaposing the Pilot and 'The End,' all I could think was, "I would really like to see the end of life with a happy yellow dog by my side." I'm still mulling, still processing, but I think I'm ready to close my eyes in peace.
And now, a treat courtesy of Michael Giacchino and The Injustice League:
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