Lost, Season 6 – “The End”
Well, our favorite mind-warping drama has finally reached its end, and it’s sure to be controversial to Lost‘s legions of fans. Those who watched hoping that it would answer some of the more mystical questions brought up by the show were no doubt left disappointed and angry, while those who watched it mostly for the characters were left with a satisfying but very unexpected denoument. I for one did not expect for much to be explained in the vein of how things happened but knew that creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse would spend the final 150 minutes of Lost explaining what happens to our favorite group of castaways. Some may call that a copout, but for me, Lost has always been more about the characters than the mythology, and in that respect, the series finale did not disappoint.
“The End” shows us the final fates of the “Man in Black” and of newly christened protector Jack Shepard, and we find out who gets off the island for good and who winds up staying. We also find out that Richard Alpert and Frank Lapidus aren’t quite dead after all. Perhaps more importantly, we find out exactly what the “Flash-Sideways” reality was all about and how it links to the events on the island. To risk spoiling anything (and if you’re reading this, you no doubt have seen the finale anyway, so there’s nothing to spoil), the “Flash Sideways” is a limbo of sorts in which most of the original Losties (plus Ben, Desmond, Penny, and Juliet) are given an opportunity to move on into the afterlife together. This ending may be a little too Sixth Sense-ish for some, and I have to admit that it’s a tough thing to really wrap your head around. My reasoning behind this angle is that these characters’ time on the island forever linked them and that the island created this “Flash Sideways” reality so that they all can find one another, be reminded of who they were, and then enter eternity in peace. That’s probably the best explanation we can hope to gain from these final scenes.
I will concede to Mr. Knize that this was the weakest season of Lost, but I do applaud how it wrapped up the overall plot in its own unique way. Just about every character got an ending to his or her particular arc, for better or for worse, which is no small feat for such a large cast of characters. Subsequent viewings of this season on DVD will determine how well this final season fits with the previous five seasons, and frankly I can’t wait to start the show over again from Season One and relive this crazy trip. Overall, I’m amazed that such a deep, multilayered, genre-spanning show was so consistently popular with a general audience for six years, which is a testament to the amazing talents that have worked on this show, from the writers and directors to the amazing cast and the fantastic score by Michael Giacchino. For one of the most unique and surprising series finales in TV history, “The End” gets 4.5 out of 5 Climactic Showdowns, the season as a whole gets 4 out of 5 Inflated Expectations, and the series as a whole earns 5 out of 5 Eyeline Closeups.
Namaste, Lost.
ok ok … So It took me a couple days to get over the fact that They really were dead, and some of the characters didn’t make it in the church, and the fact we weren’t able to see what went on with hurley and ben after jack died.
BUT NOW….
I am completely satisfied with the ending and i think I kinda got LOST and dragged into the sci-fi part of the show so much, i started to forget about the bond all these characters shared with eachother. Great Life Reference. Its not about what you do in life, but who you do it with!!!
A COUPLE QUESTIONS FOR THE ALL KNOWERS ( Like Jason Kerouac ) :
#1) They always talked about these “RULES” between ben and charles. Can you tell me anything more about these?
#2) How could desmond travel between life and death?
#3) WHERE THE HELL WAS VINCENT IN THE CHURCH….CMON, ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN!!!! and he was well connected with everyone!!(dont tell me the kid gets him….cmon really?…lol)
#4) Why was farraday”s Mom Trying to stop them from finding eachother in the Flash Sideways? was she the devil or something?
#5)And finally, What did juliet mean when she said “IT WORKED” to james via miles?”
TY to the writers of lost for a fun ride and TY to JASON KEROUAC and everyone for helping me get over small imperfections in the final season…lol
Dylan, looks like Tomer got this for the most part, but since you called me out directly
1) I’d have to agree that it was likely something Jacob had said to them, or perhaps that they had constructed a set of rules between themselves. “If we’re going to do this, we need some ground rules”
2) Desmond wasn’t really traveling between the two. Remember, the sideways reality/church was basically a place outside of time and space. Anyone, who died at any time, could be there. Eventually, Desmond will die (even though he didn’t yet by the end of the show). The electromagnetic energy he was exposed to somehow allowed his living consciousness to connect to his future, dead self. Dead self already had all the memories of his life, but living self was actively communicating with dead self. This is probably how he kept having visions of Charlie’s death in season three, as well. Dead Desmond knew all the times that Charlie had nearly died. Living Desmond was now getting little glimpses of that, along with other bits and pieces of his future, because he was basically gaining access to memories of his entire life.
3) Vincent’s afterlife was likely tied to Walt’s, which was likely tied to Michael’s, etc.
4) Like Tomer said, Farraday’s mom was worried about losing her son again. In the end, she didn’t.
5) Again, Tomer got this.
1. Probably part of the rules of the “game” set by Jacob.
2. Affects of the island’s light, it seems, with all the weird stuff he was exposed to.
3. Same as Michael, Walt, Eko and others weren’t there — Vincent’s time hasn’t come yet.
4. To prevent losing her son once again. Eventually Desmond didn’t take him along with the others.
5. Finding each other in the other reality. Juliet said the same (along with the going out for coffee suggestion) when they met in the other reality, by the vending machine, and became aware to everything.
They’re not all dead, the other world is just a sort of alternate reality that serves as a gate to the world of dead where they all can meet and move on together once they’re dead, be it last week or 50 years from now. The meeting place is not affected by time.
To Tomer: Thanx for the help. very simple and straight forward answers. I understand the meeting place not being effected by time, but in order for them to truly “move on” after meeting up in this place, everyone must be dead right, so though its unaffected by time, it’s technically in the future from where the show left off….Thats how i have to explain it to the “not so smart” people in my group of friends anyways…lol.
To Jason: Tomer did pretty much nail it, but your answer to question three was pretty eye opening..Thank You. I asked most of these questions due to the simple fact of a lot of them being absent on this forum, but the one i was REALLY wondering about the most was the desmond one, and you hit it right on the head with that one jason. you put a lot of thought into this stuff!
ty guys, one more question then im all caught up…..why was aaron born in this alternate universe…was it really aaron or what? wheres the old aaron???
Dylan… the Aaron situation is REALLY an odd one. There is no “old” Aaron… the one that was born in the “waiting room” IS Aaron. It doesn’t bother me that he was born, but that THIS is his groupd of people. Honestly, it leads me to believe that he died as a child. If he had grown up and lived a full life, it stands to reason that he’d have met friends or started a family, and that THOSE are the people for whom HE’D be waiting. The fact that the survivors are the people in life who were closest to him just seems odd.
Remember, though… once you move on from the “waiting room,” you enter the afterlife proper and PRESUMABLY are reunited with everyone. Ironically, it’s rather like a flight. You and I can take two different airplanes to LA. We each have to wait for a different group of people before we can take off, but once we get there, it’s not like we can ONLY interact with the people from OUR flight. You and I could go get coffee together, for instance.
As for explaining the “waiting room” to your friends… this is the best way I can suggest it. Draw One line on a piece of paper, one large circle, and a few overlapping circles in between them. On the line, put a few dates… 2004, 2010, 2050… whatever. In between these dates, roughly when characters on the show died, make a point and from it draw a line to one of the circles. One for Jack near 2010 (or whenever it was supposed to be), one for Hugo way out past 2050, one for Locke, three years or so before Jack… they would all go to one of the circles. Then put in Ben (near Hugo) and Rousseau and Alex… they go to another circle. If you want, you can do one with Daniel, his mom, and Charlotte. Point being, each of these circles represents a group. then, from each of these circles, draw one line into the big circle, representing that group moving on to the afterlife together, where presumably, they’ll ALL be reunited. Make any sense? Maybe not… sometimes these things look better in my head than on paper.
I’m almost done with the last season! The suspense is killing me!
Finally finished and WOW, what a roller coaster this show has been. I wasn’t hooked right away, but it eventually happened. Seasons 4 & 5 got alittle weird, and now I can understand how people who watched this on a weekly basis could have gotten totally confused. I think being able to watch the entire series from start to finish in mere months rather than years really helped kept things clear, but at the end there was no confusion at all about any aspect of the show.
Though.. there are two things that for me were left unanswered..
1. They made a big deal about Aaron needing to survive and that Claire had to keep him. But what real impact did he ever have?
2. Why did Walt keep showing up on the island after he left with Michael? He wasn’t dead, so it couldn’t have been the MiB using his body, so what was that all about exactly?
That’s about it. Great show, enjoyable ending, though I can understand some disappointment if you waited 6 years for it.
Walt was “special.” I believe the implication was that he had some sort of telepathic ability, and was projecting.
The Aaron thing is a good question, though. Here’s the hitch: it’s not about that. We don’t know what went on in Aaron’s life, and how who raised him affected that. I think the best way to look at it, for a comic nerd, is that Aaron is Black Panther and Lost was Chaos War. It’s not a Black Panther story. So whatever relevance Black Panther and his lineage may have in the 616, and whatever relevance Chaos War may have to Black Panther, we’re not going to see Black Panther’s defining moment in Chaos War.
Make sense?
^ I guess we’ll never really know with Walt. Maybe that was something they planned on exploring but never had the chance to. But since there will never be a definite answer, that sounds as good as any. And I think some kind of telepathic skill does ring a bell.. I’m remembering that scene in the hut where Walt is trying to tell Michael that the Others were pretending. I think he had some special insight there.
I was thinking about Aaron after I posted this and I think I have another theory as to why he was important. Previous to Aaron, all the women in labor died along with the babies. The only real explanation Julia ever gave was that ‘it had something to do with the island’. Now, my theory is that somehow the MiB was affecting those births, angry about what happened in his own childhood and mother, and was taking that out on new mothers. Plus, it also eliminated any potential “Plan B” candidates if Jacob’s chosen few didn’t work out. So perhaps Jacob was protecting Aaron, that way 1. Claire would stay alive and fall in love with Charlie and fulfilling their destinies, and 2. it renewed hope in Julia who wound up staying on the island and falling in love with Sawyer, fulfilling those destinies.
So it wasn’t so much something Aaron did, but just that his presence brought those others together
Mebbe. It’s all out there in the ether now, man.