posted
I'm just going to throw out my predictions for the finale:
1) Christian is gonna reappear and it will be revealed that Smokey was lying about being Jack's Dad; Christian will somehow play a key role in the endgame (at least I really hope so; I think it will be really lame if they still go with Smokey's explanation; plus it's inconsistent, with Christian appearing to Michael on the boat OFF the island).
2) Ben will turn against Smokey to help save the others, dying but redeeming himself in the process.
3) Whoever does die, it is NOT going to be Hurley (he's just the one character I could never see the writers killing off).
4) That mirror-box that was given to Claire in alt-time is also going be something really important.
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posted
The finale is being shown at 6 AM (or 5 in GMT+1 regions) on Monday morning all across Europe, so that we get to see it the same time you guys do.
But I don't honestly think I can cope with the end of all things (and probably a whole heap of emotion) right before I have to go to work.
I think I'll just give myself a total media blackout for the day and watch it when I get home. I'm sure there will be wine and tears involved.
My random predictions: Ben will do something either shockingly horrible or shockingly redemptive. Richard will die so he can be with Isabel. Desmond in the alt is trying to undo what he will be forced to do when Locke made him destroy the island (oh, the tenses involved in this show give me a headache). Aaron will be born again.
Someone (Hugo) better end up happy, or I am going to be very cross.
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posted
Okay, they've already said they aren't going to answer all the questions. All the Rambaldi-ish spooky stuff is just the backdrop for the story, which is about people, and they've made it clear that they aren't going to explain how it works.
And there are things that have been forgotten along the way that I don't expect them to explain. How Cooper wound up in Ben's "magic box", for example. How Faraday's mom knew so much.
But there are things that happened just this season that I do expect an answer to:
What is Alt-Time?
What's Desmond up to?
Is Ben really in bed with Esau, or is he setting him up?
What's going to happen to Sawyer and Kate?
Who is Alt-Jack's wife? (obviously Juliette, but what's the big secret for?)
Why did Juliette say that about getting coffee?
How did the Alt-Island sink? And when?
Will Alt-Locke walk again? Or does it matter, since the main thing is his willingness to try?
How does the unkillable Esau get stopped? Or does he?
I'm not really looking for much more than that. I don't expect as satisfying an ending as I got last night from Ashes to Ashes.
It's interesting, though. I think this may be the first show dedicated to a multi-season story arc, which has reached the end without being damaged by a network.
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I wouldn't be so sure about Juliette, this show has never gone with the "obvious" answer yet.
The only question I'd add to your list, is what happened to Rose and Bernard in the original time line. They've showed up a couple of times in alt-time but they've been left hanging in the original time line. Did they make the time jump and are still happily retired on the island but now in 2007 or did they stay in the 70s. Did they go down with the island, get killed, escape like Ben and his father or yet some other option.
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posted
So I'm confused. When does the actual episode start? I am in Pacific Time, and ABC is currently showing The Final Journey, which is just a recap of the series. How long does that last and when does the real episode start, and how long is the final episode?
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Juliet's lines from the first episode being repeated to Saywer: check altTime as epilogue: check altTime as facade/elaborately constructed universe: check altTime as afterlife (Maybe altTime is the place you go after you die and are free of the Island.): check!
I was certainly off about many of the details, but most of it played out how I imagined. Very satisfying ending. I found the first hour or so way more exciting than the second half, but the payoff was still worth it.
I loved Hurley and Ben's interchange, "you were a great number 2" "you were a great number one".
I also absolutely loved the ending of Jack in the same spot, with Vincent, watching the plane leave as his eye closed.
Sure, they left many questions unanswered, and there were some inconsistencies, but I don't think I'm gonna let those bother me.
posted
I certainly enjoyed it while I watched it, but I was uncertain if it would stand up to much thought after the spell wore off. I've been mulling over it much of the night, though, and I still like it, so I'll count that as a win.
Man, there were a lot of great moments sprinkled in it, too.
posted
When Jack's father said "how are you here?" I yelled at the TV "don't say that!"
I was starting to really like the flash-sideways. But even with that dissappointment there were so many wonderful moments.
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quote:Originally posted by LargeTuna: When Jack's father said "how are you here?" I yelled at the TV "don't say that!"
When Jack said, "How are you here?" I looked at the TV and said, "Same way you are, Jack." I'm not sure if I finally got it when Kate dropped Jack off at the church or when Ben and Hugo said goodbye, but all of a sudden, "we're going to leave" made perfect sense.
Wild coincidence that two of my favorite shows ended inside of a week with more or less the same ending.
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quote:Originally posted by Jay: So no explanation of what the island is or why it needs protected.
Other than the basic idea that it's where the light that's the source of life is, and that that light needs to be protected, no.
But they said they weren't going to explain stuff like that. The show wasn't about the magical stuff; it was about the people. The magical stuff was just a backdrop for the people.
In six years, we saw people who, as Jacob said, were pretty much broken, come together and grow as people. Hurley got over his fear and depression about being cursed. Jack learned that he didn't have to be in control all the time. Kate learned that she could open up and trust people again. Sawyer probably changed the most. He learned that he could be a hero. That he could take charge, make necessary sacrifices, and love honestly. Sun and Jin learned that they could be open and honest with one another. Sayid learned that he could be good.
They all found love. In some cases, they got to live with their loves, and in some cases, they didn't, because of one tragedy or another. Sounds like real life, no? And with the alt-world, every wonderful love, whether it lasted like Rose and Bernard, whether it ended tragically together like Sun and Jin, whether it was broken apart like Sawyer and Juliet or Charlie and Claire or Hurley and Libby... they all got back with their loves at the end. That's beautiful.
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posted
Goodbye Losties, I'll miss you! Hated the ending last night, am coming back around this morning after sleeping on it and starting to see that it was a good ending after all.
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I think the ending was appropriate. The message seems to be "You can't always get the answers to your questions in life, but that's not what matters. What matters is what you do and who you do it with."
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: But they said they weren't going to explain stuff like that.
When did they say that?
I know they said that some questions weren't going to be answered. I assumed it would be things like the nature of Walt, as the actor has now outgrown the role. Or the magic room that brought Locke's father to the island.
Those things, fine, I can live without answers. But the nature of the island itself!? C'mon!
I enjoyed the ending, and I loved seeing the couples get back together, but I'm much more interested in the questions than the happy afterlife end.
After 6 years, I'm still a man of science. The ending seemed only geared towards men or women of faith.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: But they said they weren't going to explain stuff like that.
When did they say that?
I saw an interview with them at the beginning of the season. Sorry, I don't remember where.
Btw, there are some answers here to some questions. For example, the Man in Black was not named Esau. His name in the scripts was Samuel. Jin and not Sun was the remaining Kwon candidate (Sun was taken off the list for the same reason as Kate).
For my part, I think they were fairly clear about what the island was. But what it was isn't explainable in scientific terms. Only mythological ones. Where did the light come from? Who knows. God, maybe. How did pressing the button keep the energy from getting loose? Presumably it had something to do with proto-matter getting into the Genesis matrix.
I'd actually be more interested in finding out how Desmond survived for 3 years without a single night's sleep. And how Eloise knew stuff. But those are about people, and not about the stage. The stage is what it is. Why can Superman catch Lois Lane falling from the top of a building without snapping her in two like a twig? How can Samantha Stevens just wiggle her nose and make things happen? How can Mary Poppins fly with a friggin' umbrella?
posted
I loved the ending. I am still a little confused about the nature of the made up purgatory world they somehow created with their collective minds, but whatever.
This grown man teared up when Sawyer and Juliet , Charlie and Claire, and Sayid and Shannon were reunited.
Juliet saying "Lets do coffee sometime" in the hospital was the same line she said as she was dying in Sawyer's arms. In retrospect that was a clue as to the nature of the alt universe.
I loved the interaction between Hurley and Ben near the end.
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posted
It was enjoyable, but it was a complete cop out. They just threw us every emotional bone they could find so we'd be so happy that everything turned out for the best, we'd be OK that they didn't explain anything.
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I'm with Lisa, I think they did answer what the nature of the island was. It was the source of light in all life. Its a pseudo mythological/religious answer but what other kind of explanation did people expect? There isn't any science that could explain the island. This was fiction. It was fantasy. Some technobabble pseudo scientific explanation for the island would have been just a different kind of mythology with no more substance to it than the answer they gave.
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quote:I'd actually be more interested in finding out how Desmond survived for 3 years without a single night's sleep.
He didn't. Kelvin died 44 days before the Losties open the hatch.
That and if you've been doing it long enough you can probably learn to sleep in hour chunks. All you need is enough time each sleep period to get into REM right?
quote:Juliet saying "Lets do coffee sometime" in the hospital was the same line she said as she was dying in Sawyer's arms. In retrospect that was a clue as to the nature of the alt universe.
I'm actually a bit disappointed I didn't figure this one out earlier. I had speculated right from the beginning that we'd hear her say those lines in altTime, and that it'd most likely be to Sawyer. But I was thinking it had to do with the time flash and consciousness jumping similar to Desmond. When in reality it had more to do with a near death experience type access to what was going on in purgatoryTime or whatever we want to call it.
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You aren't considering commercials. A typical 1 hour show, averages 45 minutes long. Two hours, would be around 90 minutes of actual show time. The 2 hour season premier was only 86 minutes. I'd missed that the finale would be 2 1/2 hours, that might give them as much as 115 minutes, depending on how many commercials they show. I'm betting on a massive commercial overload myself.
I called it. The final episode was 105 minutes actual episode, 45 minutes commercials.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: It worked. At least it worked for me.
I'm with Lisa, I think they did answer what the nature of the island was. It was the source of light in all life. Its a pseudo mythological/religious answer but what other kind of explanation did people expect? There isn't any science that could explain the island. This was fiction. It was fantasy. Some technobabble pseudo scientific explanation for the island would have been just a different kind of mythology with no more substance to it than the answer they gave.
If this were the case, what would the BSM be? Is this a lesson on "You can't have light without darkness?" Was the light of the island the light in each person, and did the BSM represent the darkness that also resides in all of us?
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: It worked. At least it worked for me.
I'm with Lisa, I think they did answer what the nature of the island was. It was the source of light in all life. Its a pseudo mythological/religious answer but what other kind of explanation did people expect? There isn't any science that could explain the island. This was fiction. It was fantasy. Some technobabble pseudo scientific explanation for the island would have been just a different kind of mythology with no more substance to it than the answer they gave.
If this were the case,
First, I'm not sure what you mean by "if this were the case". Are you disputing that they said the light in the cave was the the light in all life (because they did, straight out on more than one occasion), are you suggesting the light in the cave wasn't the source of the islands mysterious properties (because they said that too) or are you suggesting they had another answer and just didn't t tell us? Or maybe I'm over reacting and it was just a poor choice of words.
quote:what would the BSM be? Is this a lesson on "You can't have light without darkness?" Was the light of the island the light in each person, and did the BSM represent the darkness that also resides in all of us?
Make up any answer you like. I'll go with the one they gave. The BSM was Jacob's brother. I think if he was a counterpart to something, it wasn't the light it was Jacob. Jacob was the protector of the light, the BSM was the thing it needed to be protected from.
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posted
I don't think the island specifically needed protection from Esau (I'm still calling him Esau) until he became the smoke monster. Which happened when Jacob knocked him out or killed him and pushed him over the waterfall into the pool of the light. Apparently, Desmond is more resistant to electromagnetism than Esau was.
Up until then, and even later, the island's protector was to protect the island from those who would try and get/control the light. That's what Claudia said, and just because she was nutty as a fruitcake doesn't mean she was wrong about it. Hurley still served as the island's protector even after Esau was dead, after all.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: I don't think the island specifically needed protection from Esau (I'm still calling him Esau) until he became the smoke monster. Which happened when Jacob knocked him out or killed him and pushed him over the waterfall into the pool of the light. Apparently, Desmond is more resistant to electromagnetism than Esau was.
Up until then, and even later, the island's protector was to protect the island from those who would try and get/control the light. That's what Claudia said, and just because she was nutty as a fruitcake doesn't mean she was wrong about it. Hurley still served as the island's protector even after Esau was dead, after all.
No disagreement here. I was just asked to speculate on what (if anything) the BSM symbolized. I think its significant that Jacob made the BSM. He was Jacob's mistake.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: I don't think the island specifically needed protection from Esau (I'm still calling him Esau) until he became the smoke monster. Which happened when Jacob knocked him out or killed him and pushed him over the waterfall into the pool of the light. Apparently, Desmond is more resistant to electromagnetism than Esau was.
Up until then, and even later, the island's protector was to protect the island from those who would try and get/control the light. That's what Claudia said, and just because she was nutty as a fruitcake doesn't mean she was wrong about it. Hurley still served as the island's protector even after Esau was dead, after all.
No disagreement here. I was just asked to speculate on what (if anything) the BSM symbolized. I think its significant that Jacob made the BSM. He was Jacob's mistake.
posted
It's all about the 'rules'. some people, like Walt, are more in sync with the island, and they're able to manifest their reality. Claudia was under the assumption that no one could go down into the light or it would be 'worse than hell' or whatever. And Jacob, who was newly sync'd with the island believed that as well. So when he threw his brother in there his beliefs manifested into a reality- creating the smoke monster which could never do the one thing it wanted to do, which was to leave. - But when Jack let go of the science and became 'in tune' with hope, and fate, and all the other possibilities outside of the science, the world around him started to manifest based on his beliefs, like the dynamite fuse stopping. And once Jacob was gone, the old rules that were in affect started to fade away, and Jack, who was more openminded, perhaps, than Jacob, was sure everything was going to be okay, even if he did let Smokey get to the light. (sorta mirroring when he was sure that everything would be fine if they stopped pressing the button)
So I guess when the stone was moved and the island was falling apart, it was like the button wasnt being pressed anymore. -- but then he went down there and replaced the stone again, giving in I guess? -- and I think he realized it, and that's why he was smiling and laughing a bit when the light came back on, and then he finally realized he was able to let go of his fear and need to control. or something. haha.
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: I loved the ending. I am still a little confused about the nature of the made up purgatory world they somehow created with their collective minds, but whatever.
Yup, that is a big question left totally unanswered. Here's my theory.
Desmond knows something about the purgatory and he provides a vision for it. Hurley can talk to the dead so he may be able to communicate with all the losties who were dead at the end of the show. Plus, he's a demigod now and may have all kinds of extra powers like Jacob did. His job is to take care of people. He and Desmond aren't just partners in bringing the characters together in alt-reality -- they are partners in putting it together.
Of course, the show is over now and so barring comments from the authors, we'll never know if this is what they had in mind or if they had anything in mind. Nonetheless, I like the idea that the alt-Time was Hugo's doing. He was the only character in the show I thought qualified as genuinely good. He was a kind of innocent.
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posted
I enjoyed all the people-related aspects. Hated all the rest. Thought the show was one giant mess.
In general, the show was good. But compared to what it could have been? Giant mess. I'll still look back fondly and remember all the characters, and I absolutely loved what alt-time turned out to be - it's what I think a lot of people hope after-life is, and it reminds us about what is important in life.
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: I loved the ending. I am still a little confused about the nature of the made up purgatory world they somehow created with their collective minds, but whatever.
Yup, that is a big question left totally unanswered. Here's my theory.
Desmond knows something about the purgatory and he provides a vision for it. Hurley can talk to the dead so he may be able to communicate with all the losties who were dead at the end of the show. Plus, he's a demigod now and may have all kinds of extra powers like Jacob did. His job is to take care of people. He and Desmond aren't just partners in bringing the characters together in alt-reality -- they are partners in putting it together.
Of course, the show is over now and so barring comments from the authors, we'll never know if this is what they had in mind or if they had anything in mind. Nonetheless, I like the idea that the alt-Time was Hugo's doing. He was the only character in the show I thought qualified as genuinely good. He was a kind of innocent.
Well, Christian definitely said that they all made the alt-world. So without some rationale for dismissing what he said, I'm not sure how we can say it was just Hugo's doing.
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posted
Hugo may have been able to talk to them all however after they had passed. Since he can see dead people, he may have been able to communicate with all of them to help them organize the imagiworld.
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quote:Well, Christian definitely said that they all made the alt-world. So without some rationale for dismissing what he said, I'm not sure how we can say it was just Hugo's doing.
You added a "just". It was never my intent to suggest it was "just" Hugo's doing.
Christian said that the all made the alt-world SO that they could find each other. Stating a purpose indicates it was something done purposefully but since they were all separated before the idea was conceived, I had to ask how they devised and implemented such a plan.
Since Hugo could talk to dead people, he offers the most obvious solution to the problem. I don't think Hugo being the instigator and facilitator of the alt-world precludes all of them working together to make it.
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posted
Like most of you, I appreciated the emotional closure we got on the majority of the Big Romantic Relationships. I cried boatloads over Charlie/Claire and Juliet/Sawyer. But, ultimately, this show just did not do it for me. And I do mean the whole show.
I have so many issues with this ending. It was too pat and, I think, patronizingly sweet and perfect. The flashbacks/forwards in the early seasons had purpose, and meaning within a narrative we'd come to understand and buy into. The Flashways/Ahead-Into-PerfectHappyWorld had none of that.
A couple of you have said that it was so nice to see that everyone ended up with their true loves in the end, in this constructed universe not unlike Heaven. But if we're to assume that Lapidus, Miles, Sawyer, Kate, Richard, and Claire actually flew that plane right off the Island and into the sunset, then we're to assume they lived the rest of their lives. Maybe not to a ripe old age, but they continued on past the Island story-arc. Now, I'll accept that the Island was the most important thing for the majority of the people in The Church at the end (especially those, obviously, who died/were killed there) but did Claire, Kate and Sawyer really never love again in their entire lives? Was nothing so important in their entire existences that it overshadowed the Island for them, or the loves lost there? Kate even says "I've been waiting for you for so long" (even though there's no concept of the passage of time in the HeavenWorld) which presumes she lived pretty long, and was waiting the whole time to see Jack again. Guess none of the lessons from her time on the Island sunk in all that much, since she spent the rest of her life tied to the past, the exact OPPOSITE of the moral the show tried to impart.
And if they created this reality in order for them all to meet again when it was "time to leave" (which kind of shoots down any assumptions of the reunited couples living together forever, since the moment of realization (or at least Jack's) coincided with it being time to vamoose on to the next stage...) why the repetitive narratives? Why, in this world that they've created, are they still acting out the same old patterns until they Die/Wake Up? Wasn't that the purpose of the Island in the first place? They learn their lessons, and then through a metaphysical crack in time/space they all reconnect again at the collective yet separate moments of their deaths?
What is alt-time?! The incidents "before" they wake up (aka the preparations for the concert, Desmond's machinations, Sawyer arresting Kate/Sayid, the shootings, etc.) shouldn't even exist, as they indicate a passage of time after death, but before "waking up" which shouldn't exist in the pseudo-explanation that was given at the end by Christian. There is no Now, there is no Before or Since, just everything at once. If that's accurate, then why would they all create a scenario where they replay all their old issues, even temporarily? It was just confusing, and misleading, almost as if this entire season was just a drawn out re-enactment of the Sun Giving Birth to Ji Yeon episode, with alt-time being Jin searching frantically for a stuffed animal. What ultimately mattered was Sun's emotional connection to someone she'd loved and lost, and what didn't matter at all and, in fact, what was insulting to the audience and completely erroneous, was that one time Jin tried to impress his boss with a toy.
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posted
Count me in the group that feels angry and let-down.
Perhaps the problem is that, to the writers and a certain segment of fans, it was all about the characters and their redemption arcs (although even that was done poorly, imo, with a trite "they-finally-get-it-right-in-Heaven" plot twist).
But I know for me, my family, and friends who watched the show, the characters became secondary to the mysteries of the Island somewhere in Season 3. For one, the show began to unceremoniously dump certain characters like Walt and Libby, which taught the audience that characters were expendable in this universe. Don't fall in love with them. They die regularly to advance the storyline.
Second, the mythology became so vast and complex (Dharma, time travel, Ben/Widmore feud, Smoke Monster, Jacob's cabin, etc.) that it overwhelmed the characters. Who cares if Jack ends up with Kate or Juliet? Or if Sawyer finds peace? Or if Hurley ever gets his mojo back? Not when you have time travel paradoxes, mythological immortals battling for 2000 years, unlucky numbers, ties to ancient lost civilizations, and children with psychic powers.
Let's face it. Without the island, Lost was just another soap opera. It was the mysteries and the mythology that made the show stand apart. Maybe that's not what the writers wanted the show to be about, but it's what it became. Perhaps the writers just oversold the mileau when they didn't mean to.
The Sideways Universe was a bad idea-- and not just because it turned out to be Heaven. The characters in the SIdeways world were so different than the characters on the island--Sawyer a cop? Hurley a confident businessman?-- it was almost like watching the actors play different people on another tv show. Like seeing "Juliet" on V or "Penny" on Flashforward. I heard all my friends say over and over this year "I love the island story, but who cares about the boring sideways universe."
Season 6 should have shown "flashbacks" that detiled important events throughout the history of the island from MIB or Jacob's perspective. Something that could have given us a unified theory that at least tried to make sense and perhaps lent subtext and irony to everything that was happening/had happened to our main characters.
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posted
Count me in the group that feels angry and let-down.
Perhaps the problem is that, to the writers and a certain segment of fans, it was all about the characters and their redemption arcs (although even that was done poorly, imo, with a trite "they-finally-get-it-right-in-Heaven" plot twist).
But I know for me, my family, and friends who watched the show, the characters became secondary to the mysteries of the Island somewhere in Season 3. For one, the show began to unceremoniously dump certain characters like Walt and Libby, which taught the audience that characters were expendable in this universe. Don't fall in love with them. They die regularly to advance the storyline.
Second, the mythology became so vast and complex (Dharma, time travel, Ben/Widmore feud, Smoke Monster, Jacob's cabin, etc.) that it overwhelmed the characters. Who cares if Jack ends up with Kate or Juliet? Or if Sawyer finds peace? Or if Hurley ever gets his mojo back? Not when you have time travel paradoxes, mythological immortals battling for 2000 years, unlucky numbers, ties to ancient lost civilizations, and children with psychic powers.
Let's face it. Without the island, Lost was just another soap opera. It was the mysteries and the mythology that made the show stand apart. Maybe that's not what the writers wanted the show to be about, but it's what it became. Perhaps the writers just oversold the mileau when they didn't mean to.
The Sideways Universe was a bad idea-- and not just because it turned out to be Heaven. The characters in the SIdeways world were so different than the characters on the island--Sawyer a cop? Hurley a confident businessman?-- it was almost like watching the actors play different people on another tv show. Like seeing "Juliet" on V or "Penny" on Flashforward. I heard all my friends say over and over this year "I love the island story, but who cares about the boring sideways universe."
Season 6 should have shown "flashbacks" that detiled important events throughout the history of the island from MIB or Jacob's perspective. Something that could have given us a unified theory that at least tried to make sense and perhaps lent subtext and irony to everything that was happening/had happened to our main characters.
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quote:Originally posted by Craig Childs: Second, the mythology became so vast and complex (Dharma, time travel, Ben/Widmore feud, Smoke Monster, Jacob's cabin, etc.) that it overwhelmed the characters. Who cares if Jack ends up with Kate or Juliet? Or if Sawyer finds peace? Or if Hurley ever gets his mojo back? Not when you have time travel paradoxes, mythological immortals battling for 2000 years, unlucky numbers, ties to ancient lost civilizations, and children with psychic powers.
Great job articulating exactly what I felt. I feel unfulfilled about all those great epic parts of the storyline. What are all the glyphs? Temples? Statues and gods?
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quote:Originally posted by Craig Childs: Season 6 should have shown "flashbacks" that detiled important events throughout the history of the island from MIB or Jacob's perspective. Something that could have given us a unified theory that at least tried to make sense and perhaps lent subtext and irony to everything that was happening/had happened to our main characters.
Good argument. Certainly Heroes was a success by having plot become more important than character development.
Cuse and Lindelof understand the most important thing about good drama, something that masters like J.J. Abrams, Bryan Fuller, Bryan Singer, Joss Whedon, and Rob Thomas all understand -- character comes first.
When a creator lets the "milieu" become more important than the people living in the world, people (the audience) won't care. Heroes is the penultimate example. And Lost is a great example of a well rounded show -- characters as the foundation, intriguing and (relatively) consistent mythology, and vision unrestricted by bureaucrats in the network.
To give away the "magic" of the island would have cheapened it. Like BSG, giving away the mystique would seem silly (Eden, Atlantis, egyptian magic, aliens, whatever). Keeping the mystery allowed the dignity to remain.
posted
Loved it--and I LOVE the internet age, which allows me to watch my shows on hulu, so I don't have to be tied to a TV schedule. I'm glad I never thought too deeply about this show, otherwise I'd probably be in the "angry/disappointed" camp.
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posted
Leonide and Craig Childs, I agree with what you guys said above almost 100%. I've had the same exact thoughts.
But on the other hand, I just re-watched the final 20 minutes of the show, and you know what I realized. I don't care. In the moment, watching that ending, it's all totally and completely satisfying. As much as I care about all the mysteries, after spending six years with these characters, and watching them connect and struggle and love and die, I don't know how I would've felt about an ending only focused on a few characters that went action action exposition action END. As sappy and saccharin as it was, it was worth it.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I just saw it tonight. And I think I'm feeling what a lot of my friends did. Emotionally, it was great... But you really don't want to think about it too much. Even from a "character" standpoint, there are a lot of loose ends, and more than a few things that probably wouldn't make one very happy to draw one's own conclusions about.
Only one I'm going to bring up without prodding, and maybe it's petty of me, but if "alt-time" is what they say it is, the "sunken island" shot at the beginning of the "flashes-sideways" is more than a red herring. It's more like a red whale.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Well, most of my predictions were wrong (though a lot of predictions I've read by other people turned out correct).
My final verdict: I really liked it. It was a highly entertaining 105 minutes. Looking back at the show, it's still highly flawed in many ways (sure writers, you can say the mysteries don't matter and make up whatever crap you want along the way, but if you're expecting us to care about characters, shouldn't we also care about WHAT the characters care about, which is all the mystery-stuff; building up things as seeming major plot points and then dropping them just ain't good storytelling), but in the end it's clear to me this show had me emotionally hooked and attached to characters in a way very few stories ever have. I was moved again and again and again. I was actually surprised at how happy-happy-joy-joy the whole ending was, but I was glad; it was very emotionally satisfying to see almost every major character rewarded with what they most wanted after so much suffering and disappointment. And, religious soul that I am, I did appreciate the afterlife/heaven aspect of the whole thing. So, yeah, the resolution of most of the characters outweighed the flaws and bumps and "REALLY!?"s along the way for me. I'm glad I watched it all.
Other little thoughts:
- Yeah, the slow-mo-Jack-in-the-air-punch is probably one of the coolest shots I've ever seen on TV.
- I am really glad they put Hurley in as man-in-charge in the end with Ben as #2; it seemed to me like a great call-back to one of the earlier seasons (I can't remember which one) where Hurley and Ben are sitting next to each other and Hurley gives him part of the candy bar.
- In light of Ben's arc, Michael seems kind of shafted in the eternities; I know Ben said he wasn't going into the church just then, but it looked like the possibility was open; so a mass-murdering psychopath gets forgiveness while a just-killed-two-people-in-order-to-save son (as much as it pissed me off at the time) is sentenced to eternal whispering in people's ears on the island? Yeah, I ended up liking Ben more than I ever really liked Michael, but morally it makes no sense.
-Also really liked how they suggest Jacob's own flaws: "Hey, Hurley, you don't have to run things like Jacob did." I think in the future when people end up on the island things are actually totally crazysexyawesome. Hurley will greet them, give them a bucked of fried chicken, and explain right off the bat what the heck is going on instead of throwing cryptic nonsense at them and letting them go tribal and kill each other.
- Loved the early Star Wars shout outs on the part of Hurley: "He's worse than Yoda" and "I've got a bad feeling about this."
- Hurray! Lapidus and Richard actually lived. Thank you writers for not letting their stories end lame!
- I was very happy with Jack's ending (moreso him just smiling and laughing as light filled the cave); he finally got to do something right and have his proper hero moment.
-Nice twist with Kate shooting Smokey; glad they found something useful for her character to do. And oh it was satisfying to have Jack kick him off the cliff.
Someday I think I might embark on rewatching the whole thing; it'll be an interesting experience, mixed with looking at cool foreshadowings (or just what I read into stuff as foreshadowings) as well as plot lines where I'll be like "Oh, yeah, this goes absolutely nowhere and was just filler crap." But for now, I'm a happy, satisfied fan.
Oh, one last thing: Michael Giaccino is a GENIUS! I think his scores added so much to show throughout its whole run.
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