they explained with the subtitles that the polar bear was left over from darhma experiments

Bomb goes off in 1977. Causes the incident.

Dharma figures out a way to quell the electromagnetism and builds the hatch.

Hatch remains there until Locke smashes the computer and Desmond turns the failsafe, blowing up the hatch.

When the bomb goes off in 1977, Losties time-flash into present day at their positions where they were, which is now the ruins of the blown-up hatch.

At least there is one constant, The Hip being wrong.

through the power of the internet we can get a visual on all the people saying "worst episode ever"



Here's my .02:
The thing about "answers" is that the writers made this stuff up as they went. They never had a huge plan about what everything was and how it all worked. IF they had, then an ending with specifics about everything would have been fine, but since they didn't, i think it's better that they didn't sit in a room before this season and go "so, what should X be?" When they added that statue, they didn't have a backstory for it, they just thought it added to the mystique of the island.

I think they had to go "feel good" ending, no other way really. Granted I was hoping for a beach scene with Jack and Locke and someone saying something surprising and then the trombone sound cutting to the LOST title screen, but after so many years I think they did right by the viewers and the cast.

Can't wait for Snakes on a Plane 2:Electric Boogaloo!

I would like to get an idea of how many people plan on watching the series over again. It can't be many, and is certainly a whole lot lower than anyone would have guessed 2 years ago

in hindsight, I would say the series peaked at the end of S4. I was never a huge fan of the S5 timetraveling, and the purgatory in S6 - blech

ok

Lady A: "The food here is horrible."
Lady B: "I know, and the portions are so small."

I guess there are some serious divides between the camps on this series. The attempt to reconcile all the DHARMA-Military stuff to the Others mythical story, using logical reasoning will not end well.

Both storylines were prevalent in Jack, his journey from science to spiritual needed to create those conflicts so that he could form order from the chaos. But while these may come together at times, they can't both exist at the same time.

The supernatural meets reality is a staple of sci-fi. This show will go down in history as the most debated ever, for the first question is what was the story? Fantasy, Love, Spiritual, Drama, Comedy, Supernatural, Scientific, Relationship...............

My take, it was what it was, to each and every viewer who chose to devote time and reflection to the story that unfolded. I think the writers were successful in what many have tried before, to create a story that appeals to everyone at the same time. The parts one doesn't like can be skipped over without much loss to the story one wants to accept. Its also possible to view the show a 2nd or 3rd time and justifiable reach a different conclusion.

Now how many are capable of releasing their claim that they, and only they, are right, will separate the men from the boys. Ambiguity to the end.

I loved all 6 seasons of this thing. I just have two comments for now...

1. Pankwindu's post is awesome and does a great job of explaining the overall theme of the show, and is a fantastic rebuttal to the haters.

2. I was very pissed at the writers for categorically declaring that "this is not purgatory" on several different occasions, because I at first thought the big reveal in the "finally" was that it was all purgatory. Then I re-watched the conversation between Jack & Christian (starts at around 1:35), and it seems like just the alt-timeline thing was purgatory. So now I'm only just sort of pissed, because while the *main* story wasn't purgatory, it was still a big part of the whole thing and I wish they weren't quite as emphatic in their original denial.

They had to be. Like somebody said in an earlier thread, what if somebody during season 1 had asked the writers "Hey, is that hatch somewhere where a guy lives to stop electromagnetism from destroying the earth, and to do so he pushes a button every 108 minutes because he was told to do so by the Dharma Initiative?", the writers are just supposed to say, uhh yeah, that's right, you got it.

Just making my way through the thread now, so this is prob answered; but my read was that there is no "time" in purgatory, you experience it right as you die, no matter when you die.

So when Juliette is dying in the premiere, she experiences purgatory in that moment. That's why she tells Sawyer the line about coffee and going dutch, she is living the moment by the candy machine.

When Jack dies later in time he experiences purgatory as well, in that dying moment.

That's why they are all in the church at the end, even though (imo) they all die at different times in the series, and indeed many survive. Charlie dies before Locke who dies before Jack. After the end of the series, Hurley and Ben and Sawyer and Kate and Desmond continue to live on, but eventually everyone dies and when they do, they experience purgatory and they wait for each other there, and there is no time there.

Why do they look aged as if they died when Jack died, I dunno.

that is not a rebuttal at all. he is just saying "if you care about the mythology, you're gonna be disappointed"

there is near universal agreement on that

How can they say the island wasn't purgatory, wasn't the plane found at the bottom of the ocean with all the passangers?

I think the shell game between the sci-fi storyline and the character's storyline could have been pulled off if the characters were more intersting/likeable. But they ended up with Kate being a main cog of the "character" line while she was simulataneously one of the most hated characteers. Pretty much the same wth Charlie and Claire - two characters that just kept getting in the way of the more interesting parts of the show. Even when Sawyer jumped from Kate to Juliet, it wasn't really well developed - but you could be like "whatever" - get on with the real story. Probably the only one that really worked was Jack and his father.

So they really didn't have the pillars in place to hold up an entire focus on the "characters" in the first place. If they did, maybe I could let a little more slide from not focusing on the sci-fi/mythical part of the plot. But given what they had, ending on the personal stories was a big miss.

LOST has been at it's strongest as a mystery show and I thought the execution of the character stuff was often off due to typical sci-fi/action movie tropes, bad writing, meandering plots, bad acting, etc. However I felt this was flipped in the finale if someone explained the ending to me before hand I would have hated it, but as I was watching it I was engrossed, it was a really well acted/written/directed episode. There are tons of little great moments like Jin smiling at a Sawyer who has yet to be enlightened in the flash sideways world and overall it was a really engrossing finale.

I posted this earlier itt, but people get way too wrapped up in the mysteries while ignoring the aura of mystery is often much more captivating than the answers. Remember in S2-S5 how we all thought the temple was really important and there was some big secret, behind it. Now we see the temple and everyone considered it a waste of the earlier episodes in the season. If we hadn't seen the temple, people itt would be posting "WHY DIDN'T THEY EXPLAIN THE TEMPLE"

Taken from Noel Murray's blog on the AV Club

Pankwindu's post is pretty silly.

Calling the island a "Macguffin" is big stretch in terms of how that term is typically used. I get the point he's trying to make, that the show was more character focused and the Island was a backdrop for that. However, that's essentially true of any show that bothers with characterization at all.

Thinking like this simply seems like a post-facto excuse for abandoned plot lines and a cacophony of what ended up being meaningless red herrings. That the focus was always on the characters is no excuse for sloppy plotting.

Nobody is objecting because the focus of the story was on the characters. What people feel they missed from the ending would never have had to happen at the expense of characterization. All it would have taken is better planning and better writing.

I liked it. Any ending that summed up the island would have been a repeat of Across the Sea.

They could have done so much worse. It makes the Jacob/MiB episode and plot line completely inconsequential, imo obviously since it's all up for interpretation.

The way I'm looking at the series is that the island mythos and everything that happened there was real, but disconnected from the afterlife created by the characters. So it's up to the viewer as to what they think the island is, and what the lives of the characters who weren't dead were like after the show, because from the sound of the exchange between Ben and Hurley they had a pretty satisfying reign.

You could also see the island as being something in between life and death...but I don't think that works at all given Christians explanation of Jacks experience with these people being the most important in his 'life'.

Across the Sea was a big, I guess necessary, curveball. But I'm glad they let us use our imagination at the end because now the closed minded, analytical viewers with their calculator wrist watches and periodic tables of elements like magnesium are going to be unhappy with it. While creative types should be satisfied.

Also Naveen Andrews is pretty smart, because the actors are going to be hounded for answers for the rest of their lives so it's good to have a quick go to excuse like I've never watched the show. Either that or he's just extremely arrogant.

I would have cheered so loud and overlooked the lame ending if her jumping off the cliff would have had her go a few feet too short and smash into the rocks. That would have just been such an awesome twist I could forgive them for everything. Just Kate brains splattered everywhere.

Wasn't it Charles Widmore that planted a fake plane there so that people would stop searching for them

By the way, I think it's kind of funny that from the beginning Jack's credo was "Live Together, Die Alone", and the last season was all about "Live Together, Die Together".

you have got to be ****ting me...

Did they ever address the whole thing about pregnant women dying on the island?

lol, I would love to see an edited version with that ending

No.

Some (admittedly bad) theories -
- Storing the Nuke caused complications
- It was a rule of jacob's - he didn't want any other kids being raised with no free will like he was (of course - why not make pregnancy impossible then to spare some deaths and heartbreak)

I will say that the episode was done very well, it's just the plot and "twist" that stunk up the place. So much of the old feeling of lost, great score, great directing and visuals.

The favorite finale I can remember is Six Feet Under. Definitely will not watch another network serial drama again. Too much catering to morons. I watch very few network shows to begin with.

I at least know what CC and DL meant when they said they had the ending figured out - Jack's eye closing as he dies.