I don’t have anything profound to say, but I’ve been kicking some thoughts around in my head since Lost ended last night. If you’ll excuse me, the show really Lost me last night.
Lost was most successful combining character-driven stories with supernatural, mythological stories—character drama coupled with science fiction. People who grew an attachment to the series largely because of the mystery of the island and the happenings on it, though, were summarily dismissed last night.
The series finale was overflowing with character drama and great drama at that. The reunions all throughout the show and the flashbacks to the characters’ good times and bad were poignant reminders of how great the show was.
But Lost built itself on the magic of the island, and that magic was all but forgotten in favor of the lousy and confusing final 15 minutes.
I’m a details person, and I feel like Lost often was, too. How many times did the numbers, either together or separate, come up? From the car odometer to the 108-minutes (the sum of the numbers) between Desmond entering them to the table number the Losties sat at for the concert benefit in last night’s episode (table 23, Jack’s number), the numbers were woven into the details of many episodes. What will bug me for as long as I think about this show is how many little things will never be explained. The Hurley bird? The outrigger shootout? The Egyptian hieroglyphics? Why did the light cave release the smoke monster when He Who Shall Never Get A Name went in but when Jack, Desmond, and Locke went in nothing happened?
But more importantly, what about all the things we were led to believe were important? How about the numbers? How did the guy at Hurley’s institution know about the numbers? How did they end up on the hatch? Why were they in Rousseau’s radio transmission? What about the statue? Why was it important? Why was Walt special? And what really happened to him? Were these and other never-to-be-explained things not really important at all?
And what about the battle between good and evil? The entire sixth season was setting up for an epic showdown. Where was it? So this wasn’t about good and evil? Light and dark? White and black? What made Jacob “good” and Man in Black “bad”? What would really happen if Man in Black got off the island?
But then there were those last 15 minutes. What we learned last night was that the flash-sidewayses didn’t matter for anything. Nothing that happened in them mattered at all—what happened, didn’t happen—which begs the question, what was the point of them? Were they just to fill air-time?
The Lost series as a whole made me think and made me ask questions. But last night, the Lost finale tossed out thinking and relied solely on feeling. “The End” definitely made me feel feel like I was cheated out of closure. If Lost is to be viewed as a story, I’m still waiting for a real ending.
Here, though, is what I did like about “The End”:
- The opening sequence cutting back and forth between on-island and off-island characters accompanied solely by Michael Giacchino score.
- All the rest of Giacchino’s score in this episode was hands-down the best of the season, if not the last two or three seasons. The music of this episode deserves an album release by itself.
- The nostalgia factor with the various character returns and the reunions.
- Sawyer calling Man in Black “Smokey.”
- The Target smoke detector commercial.
- The camera pull-back with Locke and Jack looking down the waterfall just like they looked down the hatch early on in the series.
- The look on Ben’s face when Jack told Hurley he would be his replacement.
- The look on Ben’s face when Hurley asked him to be his number two.
- Frank finally having a purpose.
And finally, here are some of my favorite lines from the episode:
- Frank: “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a pilot.”
- Smokey to Jack: “You’re sort of the obvious choice, don’t you think?”
- Jack to Smokey: “You’re not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by wearing his face.”
- Jack: “What happened, happened.”
- Kate: “I saved you a bullet.”
- Juliette: “We should get coffee sometime.”
- Jack to Desmond: “I’ll see you in another life, brother.”
So here’s to a Lost movie?
