WRITERS: Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof[SPOILERS] The curtain finally closes on this epic six-volume mystery, eliciting a mixture of feelings in me as a loyal fan. Was I entirely satisfied? No. Was it frustrating that so many questions were left unanswered? Of course. Did it end the series well? The debate won't die about that. For me, while I wasn't intellectually stimulated (and hopes for a mindspinning final twist were cruelly dashed), I was moved to tears on a handful of occasions during "The End", and that has to count for something in a series finale -- right?
DIRECTOR: Jack Bender
GUEST CAST: Elizabeth Mitchell, Dylan Minnette, Maggie Grace, Ian Somerhalder, Rebecca Mader, Jeremy Davies, John Terry & Neil Hopkins
Like all of Lost's finales, there was a huge amount of logistical back-and-forth and the narrative jumped around like a flea, so it would quickly bore everyone to attempt an extensive, linear recap. I'll just do my best to cover the broad sweep of the story, together with what worked for me and what failed:
Having become Jacob's successor as protector of the Island, Jack (Matthew Fox) decided on an improvised strategy to stop Locke/Smokey (Terry O'Quinn) from destroying the Island; surprisingly this involved an alliance between Jack's clique (Hurley, Sawyer, Kate) with Locke and Ben (Michael Emerson), once it became clear they'd already found Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), and both parties agreed to extinguish the Source of the Island's power by lowering Desmond (the "failsafe") into the cave to perform said task. Jack believes that Jacob wanted Widmore to bring Desmond to the Island to accomplish this very task (for some unknown, positive outcome), while Locke believes Desmond's actions will sink the Island forever, allowing him to escape in a yacht.
Meanwhile, Miles (Ken Leung) and Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) retrieved Lapidus (Jeff Fahey) floating with submarine debris in the ocean and travelled to Hydra Island, hooking up with Claire (Emilie de Ravin) and intending to get the Ajira plane operational so they could leave the Island. It's a bit irritating how Lapidus has been kept around for three seasons purely because he's the only character that can fly an airplane, don't you agree? Anyway, I appreciated the moment when Miles noticed a grey hair on Alpert, proving his immortality has been removed following Jacob's death. Let's just hope that folicle isn't a sign his years will catch-up with him rapidly, and he'll soon be a wizened skeleton.
In the flashsideways, the measured pace of character "awakenings" quickened because Desmond had managed to bring key people to Daniel Widmore's (Jeremy Davies) outdoor birthday party, as most people connected to Flight 815 were either guests or serendipitously wound up there. Across town, Jack had performed surgery on Locke, surprised to find he was already able to move his feet shortly after his anaesthetic wore off; Sawyer (Josh Holloway) met true-love Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) at a vending machine (why are Apollo bars so damn popular?); Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) had their memories restored during an ultrasound scan; Daniel met DriveShaft groupie Charlotte (Rebecca Mader) backstage; Hurley (Jorge Garcia) reunited Sayid (Naveen Andrews) with lover Shannon (Maggie Grace), before getting Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) on-stage for the Widmore bash; and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) helped Claire give birth to Aaron, again.
The Island-based story was awkward in many ways, as there wasn't really much story being told, and the writers were obviously unable to throw up fresh material and new questions because this was the final chapter. Still, I was pleased that the widely-derided "Glowing Cave" from "Across The Sea" somehow felt more plausible after we'd ventured down inside it, over an interior waterfall, to find a luminescent pool of electromagnetic energy that's been stored by a stone-plug only Desmond can wade through safely. There was a more appealing mystical feeling to the Cave and the Source in this episode somehow, where before it felt like naive fairy tale nonsense.
Also great to still see Jack and "Locke" as opposing forces throughout the first part, especially once Jack had helped cause the destruction of the Island by getting Desmond to remove the stone-plug, and the weather took a turn for the worse as the ground started to tremble from violent earthquakes. This led to a Matrix Revolutions-esque fight sequence in the pouring rain between Jack and Locke (who had become mortal as a result of the pool's energy being drained -- just go with it), which ended with a surprisingly early death for the Smokey after being shot by Kate and kicked over a cliff's edge.
In many ways, the problem with "The End" was that it was two extended episodes full of emotional moments that came in regular bursts, but not so much a genuinely enthralling story. Some moments worked better than others, and I'm glad enough clicked to keep me engaged, but there just wasn't the narrative drive forward you usually got with Lost's finales, perhaps understandably. "The End", for me, became less about the plot and question-answering (of which there was very little) and more about enjoying seeing these characters, one final time...
I loved how Jack (mortally-wounded by Locke during their fight) relinquished his Island protector role to Hurley, partly because Hurley's the perfect sasquatch-like deity a jungle should have, but also because it felt right that the most trusting and honest character should ascend to the top. It was also rather wonderful that Hurley appointed Ben as his "Number Two" (a.k.a the new Richard Alpert), considering how much Ben has wanted that position since he was a little boy. Ben's role in the finale wasn't as integral as I expected, or wanted, but this was a deserved and redeeming grace note for his character.
The final moments of the finale were of mixed success, although the symmetry of having a dying Jack lie down in the same bamboo field he first woke up in, this time closing his eye (and with it the series) was a perfect and retrospectively obvious way to bring Lost full circle. The fact Vincent the dog snuggled up to Jack as he watched the Ajira airplane successfully fly overhead, headed for home, tugged at the heartstrings perfectly. I really couldn't have asked for a better final scene.
I don't wholeheartedly like the purgatory explanation. I didn't totally hate it, but it did feel like a copout on some levels. Fortunately, the flashsideways only formed part of this final year, and were still a fun way to stir some emotion and spend time with dead characters we've grown attached to. I loved seeing Locke forgive Ben for murdering him, and it was poignant for Jack to have everything explained by his "dead" father Christian (John Terry), whose missing body's been one of Lost's longest-running mysteries. In fact, a mystery that wasn't answered in the reality of the series -- another irritation?
Overall, there were several moments of catharsis in "The End" that I responded to truthfully and honestly; partly due to the effects of watching the conclusion of a TV series that's eaten up six years of my leisure time. The good did outweigh the bad for me, making me forget whatever problems I had with how the story panned out. It didn't wrap everything up with a neat bow (I didn't really expect it to), but there's probably enough information for fans to stitch together a clever unifying theory without the problem of future episodes muddying the water now. Somehow that seems fitting for a series that always seemed to owe 50% of it success down to what audiences experienced inbetween the episodes, amongst themselves. There's still lots to discuss and ponder about the show, which I'm quite happy about.
So goodbye DHARMA and cryptic numbers. Farewell polar bears and subterranean hatches. Au revoir crazy French woman and the Black Rock. Bon voyage Smoke Monster and the Others. Bye-bye Locke's moobs, Jack's stubble, Kate's freckles, Claire's bulge, Sawyer's chest, Desmond's hair, Sayid snapping necks, Hurley's sweat patches, Ben's bug-eyes, and all the others. My TV's going to be very boring without you guys wandering through the jungle, stumbling upon underground stations, sonic fences, one-armed scientists, four-toed statues, one-eyed Russians, and frozen donkey wheels.
Thanks for the memories, brother.
Namaste.
Answers, Answers, Answers?
No, not everything was explained. Did you really think it could be? At least they got the main stuff covered in season 6 (what the Island is, what the Smoke Monster is, what the whispers are, why people were brought to the Island, what the numbers meant.) But, here's what we'll just have to debate forever more:
- Why was Walt special? I guess we'll only have found out if the actor somehow cheated the ageing process, although considering how Lost jumped forward in time 3 years, it was feasible they could have brought Malcolm David Kelley back fulltime.
- Why couldn't mothers give birth on the Island? I guess it was because Jacob won't allow it, because he gets to select who can come?
- How did DHARMA get air-dropped supplies? A clear mistake of season 2, when the idea that the Island was "hidden" hadn't taken shape yet.
- How did Claire manage to give birth to Aaron? Jacob allowed it? Not sure why.
- What was the significance of Aaron? I guess there wasn't one, no matter what that soothsayer told Claire in season 1.
- Why was there so much Egyptian statues/hieroglyphics everywhere? I assume Egyptians arrived on the Island after Jacob became the Island's protector, and explained the strange they saw or encountered using their spiritual beliefs? They clearly saw Jacob as "Tawaret" (God of fertility) and built a statue in his honour, then the Temple around a spring connected to the Source, and knew of the Smoke Monster.
- Who was trapped in Jacob's Cabin surrounded by ash? For me, this is the most maddening question left unanswered. It makes sense that it was Smokey (imprisoned there because of the ash perimeter, and posing as Jacob to Ben), not least because that's where Smokey-as-Christian took Claire, but how come Smokey was often seen terrorizing the Island? Who was breaking the ash perimeter to let him go free sometimes?
- Why did ash keep Smokey at bay? I'm going to assume that Smokey (as the remnant of a dead man's soul), can't cross paths with other human remains, such as the ash from cremated bodies. Sounds feasible to me.
- Why did Jacob tell Hurley to save Sayid's life by getting him to The Temple, if doing so turned him "evil" (temporarily)? And what turned the spring's water dirty? Why was Sayid "zombified"? I have no idea. That whole Temple section of season 6 was pretty dumb in retrospect.
