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."
