LOST Finale: A

I can't figure out a possible prominent plot hole. Didn't the Ajira plane crash land in the jungle, and didn't we see multiple long shots of that plane being surrounded by dense forest this episode? How the hell did they suddenly get a long stretch of flat runway to lift off?

What I took to be the ending: The message of LOST is that it's not what you do or how you do it that matters, it's who you do it with, the people, who matter. It's not the events or the mythology of the Island that they were on that mattered, it was the experience and memory of all the other characters, the journey with all these other souls, that matter. Jack was unhappy as a man of reason who did not have close, honest relationships with other people, but after "converting" he found his true calling that satisfied him.

It's a very profound and deep message. I can understand why a lot of posters on a poker forum may not get its meaning, but it resonated with me and I cried during Jack/Christian convo at the end (and only during that scene).

Vagos,
Not to single you out particularly, but I think I've seen you say "I think a lot of mystery stuff in general was answered to a pretty satisfying degree" or something to that effect a few times here. Yet in Assani's post, and throughout recent threads, there are almost a dozen major mysteries that weren't answered. Which of the show's mysteries do you actually consider 'satisfying solved? '

No, there was a runway that Lapedus lands it on when they're crashing landing on the island. The runway was worked on by Sawyer and Kate during the polar bear cages episodes. Presumably, Jacob saw them come back in time during 1977 and knew the Ajira plane was coming so he instructed the Others to build a runway.

To me it seemed self-explanatory, after the fact... but that could be because of my particular world-view...

If the flash-sideways were outside of our time and space... and in the physical world, all things die or end eventually (even the world as we know it) then after everyone dies (maybe thousands or millions of years later, possibly because the island light finally went out, the island sinks, and everyone who ever lived, now in this "afterlife" (a much more apt term than purgatory, IMO.) created the flash-after, to help them all revisit their lives, come to grips with everything, and move on...

Not that that is my worldview, but it shares enough parallels that it just clicked perfectly for me as a fictional series, and I felt perfectly content...


And to those that say, well if it was heaven (or... the afterlife) and everything's forgiven, so why bother living...

You could say that about most concepts of the afterlife... and that's one of the best things about the ending, IMO, is that it makes life, even the magical LOST version of real life, just a journey, with the only overall big meaning, being what we decide... just like this life.

It'd be like saying why bother playing a video game, since even if you die in the game, you're still alive when you walk away from the computer... the game is pointless... or why read an adventure novel...

The play's the thing...

I wasn't going to quote Assani's entire post, but just bullet point these "dozen major mysteries" and I will tell you whether I think it was "solved" to a satisfying enough conclusion. I think I pointed out the 2 or 3 that I would have liked to have received more info on, but a dozen?? I can't imagine.

Also, LOL at Shannon being Sayid's true love after all the abuse someone got on here for suggesting that. I reckon the writers read that thread and did it just to piss thehip off (iirc, it was him who was giving out the abuse).

It might just be that I didn't require as much information for given mysteries. Like I have no clue really what was going on with the bearing to leave the island, and Desmond's "Constant" experience (remember Desmond wasn't the only person experiencing this). So I consider those mysteries I would have liked to get more answers on.

But for stuff like "Why were the Others kidnapping people?", I can pretty much make sense of this and don't consider it a looming mystery that has no answer.

"I don't believe in a alot of things, but I do believe in duct tape"

clearly the best line in this episode.

questions that we have no clue about, some more important than others

- people with powers. Hurley, Miles, Walt. We have no idea about this
- Hurley being cursed
- any real explanation of the Numbers
- any real explanation of the various sets of Rules
- what the Island is
- why no one can ever find the island, why people have to be sedated getting there, how it moves, etc
- Hawking knowing the future and what people were supposed to do. is she some sort of god?
- Libby/Hurley storyline
- all the tests that Walt had to take
- pregnancy problems
- the sickness
- who were "the good guys" vs "bad guys"
- Jacobs cabin, who was in there, why is dissapeared, etc
- the ash
- why Desmond was so special, the rules not applying to him, etc
- dharma food drops
- sonic fences vs the MIB

and scores of smaller ones

The side timeline was, to me, a very misleading construct. We are led to believe the whole season that it bears importance on the island reality and heading into the finale (based on desmond's apparent plans and his ability to run into all the other losties at will) we're to believe that the two timelines will somehow converge or interact in a meaningful way. I wasn't expecting answers to any of the island's mysteries but I was expecting a meaningful resolution to the two timelines.

"JK, alt-reality details were superfluous dreamlike nonsense and you were just in purgland now we're all going to a bright afterlife together" was not a meaningful resolution to me. It's the plot-element equivalent of everyone waking up from a nap on the original flight 815 and realizing they all just had dreams about a plane crashing and being on an island, but then strangely they all feel a slight connection to one another. And then Lapidus gets on the intercom and Miles pushes a drink cart down the aisle.

That's cool for people who really enjoyed it and felt closure. I don't think that means you "get it" and entitles you to bash people who felt it was unsatisfactory.

Vagos,
I didn't mean there were a dozen in Assani's post, I meant that throughout these threads. There so many that I can't even think of them all.

Walt- powers, etc
Aaron
Why babies can't be born on the island (and why was Aaron born there)
Whatever that statue was
The wheel- who put it there, how
The lighthouse- wtf was going on there
The dharma food drops- I include this for the lulz don't worry
The numbers/the numbers in the cave- I do not consider what they gave to be 'statisfying'
How/why could Desmond withstand this electro magnetism
The magic light- I guess I'm ok with them not expalining, but it just seemed kinda weak to me

Just off the top of my head. Some of those are getting nitty I realize. And no, I do not expect them to answer everything. But imo there were more things that went unanswered than went answered. (I'm not challenging you to answer the above btw)

I thought the Hurley / Ben "number 1" / "number 2" conversation was a great little homage to The Prisoner. This show about a weird little island probably never would have happened without that other show about a weird little island.

I agree some of these were not answered but really what the island is? how was that not answered? the sickness was answered, the why behind these magical powers or whatever are never going to be told in a way that satisfies people who feel the way do you.

agree with much of assani's post

lost:tv :: nickelback:music

Great usage.

Seriously, the people who dislike this finale baffle my mind. I really think they are failing to see what the show was about [and no, it's not just ZOMG THE CHARACTERS]. I mean - can anyone of you "OMG NO ANSWERS" people give me me a long list a questions that didn't get answered that absolutely needed to be? Looking back on it, I'm not seeing many Great finale. Great show. Great series. I don't regret any of it besides "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Expose".

unanswered questions

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1936291

brilliant infact

I usually agree with Assani, but this is awful. Nickelback is the worst.

I'd be legitimately curious to hear the reaction of someone who knew very little about Lost, and started watching the show from season 1 today, if you told them beforehand "this is a character driven drama about these people finding themselves, etc."

BUT IT'S NOT JUST THAT. It still deals with so many other topics and this is just unfair. The island/mythology stuff is still there. Science/faith[believing] is still there. All the religious illusion is still there. Everything that happened on the island, still happened -- and the island stuff was amazing. All these people saying "ZOMG IT'S JUST ABOUT THE CHARACTERS SUCH A COP-OUT" are so off-base, cuz it's about a lot more than that.

umm well what is The Island?

1. Aaron's significance and "not being raised by another."

2. Walt's powers

3. The Others and their motivations for being so confrontational with the Lostie that it'd eventually end up in several of their member dying(season 3 finale)

4. Ben's strange way of getting Jack to do surgery when Jack was always willing to help people out

5. Mr Eko and his connection with the island

6. Locke and his connection with the island

7. Childbirth issues apparently dating back quite a long time due to the presence of the statue of Tawaret

8. The numbers

9. Why did the hostiles and the Others not get along? What was the initial cause of their hatred of one another?

10. Why were "the candidates" chosen out of everyone in the world? What exactly was special about them?

11. How did the mother get to the island....is there any reason other than "God made it that way" that the island is so magical?

12. When they came back to the island, how come some jumped to different time periods?

13. "The island won't let Michael die"....wtf? And how did smokie appear off island to Michael(on the boat) and to Jack in the hospital?

14. What would've happened if Smokey left the island

15. What did Dharma study and find out about the island

16. Why did Richard not age(but not have any other apparent powers)?

17. Room 23....wtf exactly were the Others doing here? They made the Others seem so incredibly strange, and to find out that they were simply a normal unimportant group of people just doesn't fit in with many of the earlier season storylines.

18. Why does Desmond jump through time? What exactly was "special" about him?

19. What was Eloise's motivation? Why was she ok with sending Daniel back if she knew he'd die?

20. What was Dogen's/the temple's power that kept smokey out until Dogen died?

21. Why did Jack think Adam and Eve were only 50 years old?

22. What exactly was "the loophole" that MiB used to have Jacob killed?

23. If Jacob was simply looking for someone willing to give everything they had for the island, then wtf was so wrong with Ben that Jacob wouldn't even talk to him for years? Ben, while quite selfish at times, definitely did have a love for the island all along.

24. Remember the snow globe and moon theories? Why exactly is the island so hard to find? Why do you have to leave on an exact bearing? How did the Others travel to and from it so easily whereas it was so tough for other people?

25. What happens when someone is "infected"? How were Sayid and Claire changed back to being good? Why did Claire leave her baby and wonder off in the first place?

26. What exactly did the bomb at the end of season 5 do?

27. What were the rules, how did Jacob(or whomever else) get the power to make them, how were they enforced, how come they could sometimes be broken?

28. What was Illana's story? She knew a ton and had met Jacob off island, yet she just died unexpectedly.

29. How or why did Miles have his powers? Apart from him, nobody off island had any strange powers so its kinda weird to have a show full of normal people but then have one person with superpowers, no?

30. Why did Widamore want Rousseau's baby dead? Why did Ben raise her?


I'm sure I could go on and on.....

Most of these are really tiny and not worth knowing, such as the food drops. Many are either explained to a satisfactory degree or you just know nothing about the show and refuse to actually research stuff relying on your memory.

Most of this stuff is all on lostpedia.

There ARE mysteries such as the numbers which i want more info, but not so much it is stopping me from enjoying the show and the highly enjoyable finale.

I know I sound like a total lost defender in my posts, but I do think if they scrapped the whole purgatory part of this season and just focused on island stuff I would have liked it more and a suspect a lot of posters would too.

But it would have made for a much less emotional ending, is that good/or bad TV? dunno personal preference I guess.

100% This.
It's like the writers gave up at the end of season 5 and decided to tell a completely different story in season 6. Season 6 was a great wrap up to Season 6. Can we have the wrap up for the rest of the series please?

LOL at those saying the mysteries don't matter. WTF? The mysteries and the hope that it would all be explained was the primary reason the show was as addictive as it was.

I want to know what the island was dammit!

And please for those of use that don't have a psychic link to the writers minds , can someone please explain the numbers to me? How do Hurleys winning lotto numbers end up written on the hatch and being broadcast by that tower thing?

Andy

No that wasn't my point. My point is exactly what I was saying, if someone was told that, what would they think. I for example didn't start watching till I think mid season 2 and that's when i started catching up with the season 1 dvds. By that point I knew nothing about the show but from people I knew that watched it (who in retrospect were very casual fans), it was crazy action!, mystery! etc etc, and I had just seen previews with craziness. So that altered how I approached it this whole time. I couldn't care less about the characters the whole time, I just wanted to see **** as I caught up.

Others, it seems you might be one of these people, seemed to have approached it more neutrally.

I'm curious what the effect would be on someone who knew nothing, but was told it was a human drama. Merely an experiment on my part, didn't mean to stir the pot or make a leading comment with my post.