What you're missing is that the numbers are just a stupid easter egg. Part of the overall MacGuffin that was pretty much just made up as they went along, so there are going to be little logical inconsistencies like this if you look too close. So if you accept that and throw out the numbers, I think the big picture is clear. What happened, happened, the incident always was the bomb, etc. They caused their own crash, it's a standard time-travel paradox that's in every time travel story ever.

Also what happened, happened and dead is dead are two different things. I don't think what happened, happened was ever refuted throughout the show.

They've been major themes, you are right. To me there's a big difference between it being a major theme and the entire story. With the finale they made it the latter, at least for the flash sideways. It's not shocking given the way the series has gone and I can see some people loving it, but it's not my cup of tea.

It's not really the entire story though, it's just how they chose to end the story. All the island stuff dealing with their purpose for being there, defeating evil, conquering ones own demons, seeing the good in humanity rise to the top etc is all still there throughout the show...it just got a very spiritual ending.

Charlie.Surf was right. If they told the same story without the flash-sideways device, the ending would have been a big letdown. The spiritual angle just gives the journey a more complete feeling.

One of the candy bars in the vending machine was called "Avalon"



Easter Egg
http://i.imgur.com/AH6j7.png

Avalon was, according to Columbia Encyclopedia, "in Celtic mythology, the blissful otherworld of the dead. In medieval romance it was the island to which the mortally wounded King Arthur was taken, and from which it was expected he would someday return."

Anyone else find any other Easter Egg goodies??

they clearly ended it vague for different religions to get their own interpretation

Yeah again it's how the chose to end the main character's story lines in Season 6 so the audience wouldn't hate them for all time given 90% of the characters they grew to love died on the island.

Redemption was the main theme imo

Honestly, I'm not sure. I've gone back and forth a few times in the 30 seconds since I read your post. On one hand, Jack's redemption is complete as he's given himself and that's it. It would be complete whether you think he died and that's the end of it or you think his soul went to heaven or whatever. On the other hand, the ending ties together the characters' journeys as well.

Actually, one thought that is getting a bit too English litty for my liking is that it actually is needed to complete the circle because the island is about bringing people that are too independent and alone so they can have faith in others. It's fitting that the whole thing ends with that being true for the afterlife as well I suppose.

didn't Walt have some special power early on? like animals doing weird things around him? I remember a bird dieing next to him or something

where can I watch the alternate endings online?

yea people are going to have to get over zomg walt is special

"Christian Shephard? Really?"



hmmmm

Summary I saw elsewhere:

The bomb did work. It realigned the flow of time, and put people back into their proper flow in the time line.

The alt-timeline was not a timeline at all. It existed outside the flow of space and time. It was a spiritual abstract where those who have died can meet together for one last time, let go of their remaining emotional baggage and be free to transcend.

Yeah I have to keep reminding myself of this. It's actually pretty hard to make a show like this on a mainstream network.

That being said, I really wish they had planned out this last season better. Unlike a lot of people on here, I really enjoyed seasons 4 and 5. But it seems like when they wrote 6 they needed to have a check list of mysteries and at least address many of them (and the big ones.)

All the new characters introduced in S5 and S6 had basically no development and no point, and pretty much all died randomly.

Meh. It was an amazing journey. The destination was a letdown. I don't regret watching though by any means.

The debate was based on who the writers would choose, not necessarily what would make the most sense from our own perspectives. You weren't writing it, and you turned out to be wrong. Just give props where they are due man. All I did was predict Shannon, not necessarily defend it (You are trying to explain it like this could ever be real and that you are "right")

About Desmond:

I might be missing something obvious, but how do we know that his island existence is aware of his sideways existence? They used some of the same visual techniques as in season 5 where his brain jumped in time, but I don't remember him saying something that revealed info that way. He did figure out the island thing in the other world, but at some point everybody did. I had the same question so I'm not exempt, but I wonder if a lot of it is people going off what they thought would happen.

As an example, asking for the flight manifest, he says he's "got something to show them" or something similar. I thought that would have had something to do with bringing it to the island or using info off of it on the island somehow, but he was apparently using it to find souls from the flight so he could show them their human lives. I don't know if everything fits, but it might be possible that he didn't jump between the two it was just a clever bit of editing.

About Eloise, her talking about taking Daniel is interesting. Locke forgiving Ben is implied to be a huge event and so it should be the same with her son forgiving her. Again, I think a lot of stuff said before where they make it seem like she knew what was going on with the island could possibly be her knowing that it's purgatory and trying to set things up for herself or her son. As before, I could be forgetting a line where that interpretation fails. Going deeper involves digging deeper into the religious stuff, which I don't care to do because I think that whole thing is ridiculous.

I think s6 was pretty well crafted looking back on it. They clearly had a very specific idea for what the flash-sideways would be and how they would tie in at the end. They also probably had a very good idea of how they wanted to end the island part of the story.

The rest was just them figuring out how to get there. People like Ilana and Dogen are just prop characters to get from point A to point B over roughly 14 hours of television.

In tonight's episode, Desmond tells Jack all about what he saw in the flash-sideways before he's lowered into the cave. Desmond doesn't really know what he's seeing during his real life...he just knows that they're all together and that it's a good thing. But it probably explains why he's so quick to "awaken" or whatever in the purgatory world.


Eloise is kind of an interesting character. It seems she knew she was in the purgatory world but perhaps because she felt so guilty about what she did to Daniel in the real life, she just wanted to hang onto the purgatory life for as long as possible.

Ben and Eloise were still atoning/working things out in their transition phase.

so bad and lowers my overall opinion of lost by a good bit. but with how bad this and the last season had been a terrible conclusion was pretty inevitable

but hey, shrek 3 made 71 million dollars this weekend, so no surprise in people loving on this

I guess I just don't get what that piece of dialog means then. I don't understand what it had to do with why Jacob later said was the reason he brought the candidates to the island.

ok my sky plus dident record this can someone please tell me what happend in the end in cliffs, like what was the island and what happend everybody? please?? i realy want to know and dont have time to read trough it all!

I'm the furthest thing from religious, but I don't get the hate for the heavily religious theme/message.

A. What did you expect?

B. Why are you willing to suspend disbelief with smoke monsters and time travel, but not faith or an afterlife?

Jack dies after killing Flocke and saving the island.

Hurley and Ben stay to protect it while Kate, Sawyer, Richard, Miles, and Lapidus escape on the plane.

The flash sideways world ends up being some sort of purgatory that results in all of the Losties meeting up in a church and moving on, presumably into heaven (there was bright white light).

We have no clue what the island is or why it's there or how it got that way.

Don't know if it has been posted but its a great review.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/show...at-i-mean.html

Thing is Walt was actually suppose to appear in the Finale as an interview that was done on Friday Dalton says we will see him. This means it was cut so even the writers felt it was something that needed more explanation but it didn't end up in the final cut.

Its said in this huge interview at some stage which is pretty long I think just short of two hours. I haven't watched it yet and someone mentioned it on another forum.

http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/05/23/...alk-live-lost/

It wasn't the enitre story, it was chosen as the last segment in a non-offensive way.