[POSSIBLE SPOILERS] LOST fans: What did you think of the finale?

It was amazing. I love the way they tied a lot of things together, and still allowed the viewer to put a few things together for themselves. I’m still running a lot of things through my head, trying to fully grasp it (and I’m sure I’ll be thinking about it for quite awhile longer).

I thought the final moments were perfect. I might have shed a tear or two.

I’m really gonna miss the show. It’s captivated me like no other show has, and probably won’t for quite a while.

I cried.
I really cried.
@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities Summarized my feelings on it nicely.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do without it.
6 years of anticipation, frustration, happiness, confusion, excitement and watching Michael Emerson getting the shit beat out of him every 10 minutes is over.

@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities
I’m still angry at all the things that were left unanswered. :/

@rangerr
Seriously, poor Ben.

BUT WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO RICHARD?
AND WHAT DID HURLEY DO AFTER JACK DIED?
I NEED TO KNOW THESE THINGS.

@squidcake “I’m still angry at all the things that were left unanswered. :/”

That goes back to the very essence of the show. Lost was never the type of show that spelled everything out, and gave a clear, defined view of what exactly was going on. A lot of the show was left up to interpretation. Viewers had to spend time deciphering the symbolism, relationships, connectivity, etc. It’s what set it apart from other shows on TV. Sure, it can be aggravating when trying to fully grasp certain things (and made the show unwatchable for some people), but honestly, it’s what drew me in, and I think it’s the show’s strongest point.

@squidcake I got frustrated by the same questions, until I realized that the writers planned for it to end with some answered questions. @jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities once again nailed it on the head. It’s what made this show. It makes you think, it makes you question everything, it kept you waiting for the next week to get here faster.

Though, both Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have said that there will be some more answers in the DVD commentary/bonus features, but they already had the episode extended by 30 minutes. Answering everything was just not possible. So turn caps-lock off and just wait :)

I agree with @jeff
I was very happy with the ending. This was a series that encouraged personal interpretation and provided plenty of symbolism and thought-provoking clues throughout the life of the show. Many of the character’s names were historical or Biblical characters. The characterizations were deep and lifelike, in that they weren’t black and white. We were able to witness growth and were allowed chances to learn what events molded their characters. When the audience can find so many questions to resolve, and the story line provokes introspection and analysis, I feel that the writers have been very successful.

A couple of questions I’m working on….

Why did Ben refuse to join the group in the Church? Was it because he didn’t grow past his negative traits, i.e. selfishness, as some of the others had done? Were there any characters who were in the Church who had serious personality flaws that hadn’t been resolved?

Why was Aaron there, but not Sun’s baby?

@rangerr, I’m glad to hear that there will be more answers in the DVD’s.

I’m sorry, it was sh*t, I am very unsatisfied!!!

JJ ABRAMS, you owe me buddy! (even if you had nothing to do w/it)...you..owe…me!

@eden2eve
Yeah, I was wondering why Ben wasn’t in the church.
At first I was thinking it was because his life was so different than all of the others. I mean, he wasn’t even a part of the plane crash. He had been on the island the whole time.
So no fun little church club for Benny-kins.

@eden2eve From what I understood, Ben still didn’t feel like he was part of that group. He had been outcasted, not trusted and beat by just about everyone for the entire time he knew them.

I thought the ending was okay, but it was by no means the greatest ending that could’ve been. It was so-so at best and I was not wholly satisfied.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the type of person who needs everything answered. I wasn’t expecting that to happen and I wouldn’t have wanted that to happen. I have written stories where I purposefully don’t answer certain questions and leave them to the reader’s imagination. That was not my problem.

I also didn’t have a problem with the flash-sideways timeline being a purgatory. I thought that was very interesting and I always thought there would be some element of heaven/hell/purgatory in there; I am just glad that the island itself wasn’t fake. If that had happened, I would not have been satisfied.

My problem, then, was that people are beginning to act like this show was “all about” the characters and not about the mysteries. If that was the case, why were the mysteries so central to the show? That was what kept everyone interested and I didn’t think that they were as unimportant as many people seem to act like they are. However, I do think they explained some of the most important parts.

Another problem I have is just the way the finale happened. I thought MIB was defeated too easily. Why was he suddenly no longer invincible? We didn’t even find out what that was all about. I would have liked to have known that. I felt like the finale didn’t answer much of anything.

Here are some questions that I felt they should definitely have answered, at least in part, or at least some of these:

1) How did MIB become the smoke monster? Did he really die when Jacob pushed him into the light?
2) Why did MIB lose his invincibility and how?
3) What was so important about Walt and what were the Others planning on doing with him? How did Walt appear to Locke when he was in the mass grave?
4) What was the nature of Jacob’s cabin and who was the bearded man we saw in there? Why did Jacob say “help me”? How did the cabin move?
5) What was the nature of the Egyptian artifacts on the island? Who built the giant statue?
6) Who dropped the Dharma food onto the island in “Lockdown” to the survivors?
7) What was in that container that Ben removed from a hotel-room heater vent in “The Lie”?
8) Why did the Others kidnap Emma, Zach, and Cindy?
9) What was the nature of the “lists” that the Others had, specifically Bea Klugh’s list?
10) Why did Bea Klugh kill herself?
11) What did entering “77” really do?
12) Why did Ben seem to indicate that he couldn’t kill Charles Widmore and yet he does? I fount Charles Widmore’s quick and simple demise to be a bit disappointing.

@DominicX
7) I thought it was a gun he used to kill someone?
10) ...who is Bea Klugh again?
3) yeah! And didn’t they begin to imply that he had some kind of supernatural powers or something? They totally never brought that up again.

I totally have all of those questions and more, like:
If Jack’s purpose was to protect the island, why the hell did he help MiB lower Desmond down into that cavern so that he could pull that plug and make the light disappear and have everything go to shit all of the sudden (which I still don’t understand the significance of)?

@squidcake

As far as I know, we still really don’t know what he took out of that vent. Or maybe I’ve just forgotten too much of the show by now. :)

Bea Klugh was the black woman who was on the island and was interested in studying Walt. She had a list of people to capture that she gave to Michael so he would get his son back. She asked the strange question to Michael: “Did Walt ever appear in a place he wasn’t supposed to be?”

It seemed to me like the writers thought the show was too complicated at the end, so they decided it was now “about the characters” and they essentially abandoned much of the “mystery” aspect. However, as much as no one will admit it, they did make much of it up as they went along and that provided for many of the inconsistencies and unanswered questions. No story is perfect, but I felt that it could’ve been a lot better.

The ending acted like the flash-sideways timeline was one of the most important parts of the show. Really, I thought it was a little pointless when I first saw it. It only appeared in one season. I was hoping the finale would tie together much of what happened in previous seasons and it didn’t really.

I really loved it, but the last 8 minutes kinda made me go “wha?”. When did Penny die? That’s the first time I’d ever cried for a tv show or movie. Touche, Lost writers! The alternate endings on Jimmy Kimmel were so funny. Sayid gets kicked off the island Survivor-style, :), so funny.

@Dom

You just hit on the primary reason for why I won’t invest the time into watching the DVDs of the seasons I missed.

If a show has no internal consistency (regardless of how much unreality there is with the world at-large) then it means that anything is up for grabs and nothing has meaning anymore.

All of the shows which people agree upon as doing the best job on delving into alternate realities had this important quality of being true to their own internal reality. This is true of both movies and TV shows.

If this is lacking, people feel gypped and lied to regardless if the denouement is happy or unhappy. If it isn’t even true to itself and it’s characters in the unreality that’s been created people end up feeling manipulated.

I’m glad I watched the long re-cap preceding the finale as well as the finale itself so that I know not to bother getting caught up on all the details.

In the other thread about this someone used the phrase “pulling it out of his ass”

To me that’s an accurate summation.

I don’t know if there are any B-5 fans around, but I could watch that entire series all over again (and probably will at some point in time)

Same thing for Firefly, which was canceled way too soon

Even tho there were many little incomprehensible moments in many episodes (or mumbled dialogue often) it just didn’t matter as much.

Both of these stayed true to themselves so you can forgive a lot.

I can totally understand the frustrations of many with Lost, and so glad I bailed when I did. What a mishmash.

I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the back. What a humongous cop-out. They were on the Island, which was real, but then was also purgatory, so that they could all die and go to the Alt. Reality which is really purgatory, find each other, and then go to Heaven? Aside from the HUGE religious overtones that the producers kept saying wasn’t really there, and that was JUST the fans, what a stinking load of crap!

See what I mean ?

@papaya

You are so right and I’m sure you have plenty of company.

The best of everything for me was the Jimmy Kimmel special following all this. HILARIOUS.

They even got Bob Newhart on board…..speaking of the master of internal consistency…

…even across different series. Genius !

I thought the finale was great, but not great enough. I got a little teary-eyed a couple of times, and really thought the “flash sideways” would somehow merge with what was happening on the island and somehow help save the day. Finding out that was some kind of purgatory was a let down for me, even with the great emotional scenes. When Jin and Sun “remembered,” and when Claire and Charlie “remembered,” I couldn’t help but cry a little.

Still, I wish more questions had been answered as well. Lost lived up to its tradition of leaving my husband and me a little mad and frustrated after every episode. Once we turned off the TV, I said to my husband, “That was like dating someone for six years, then having them break up with you just when you thought you were about to get married.”

I couldn’t stay up late enough to catch Jimmy Kimmel, but I’m going to try to watch in online this afternoon or tonight.

It seems like the general opinion is that the finale was good, but left a lot of questions unanswered. I agree, and I don’t understand why people are angered by that. LOST has always been good, and has always left questions unanswered. Would it be as entertaining if it showed the viewer everything? I don’t think so. The mystery is attractive to thinkers because it provides them with freedom to interpret.

@jfos My thoughts exactly. GA

I would like to know, however, how Jack went from being down at the heart of the island, in the water, to up by the bamboo forest.

@jfos They made it appear like a stream (different than the stream leading to the heart of the island) drifted his body out. It’s the same thing that happened to the Man in Black’s body after Jacob through him in there.

@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities If I remember correctly, the man in black flew out of the entrance in the form of smoke, and his body landed in a tree somewhere nearby.

I loved it. Initially, I didn’t know what I thought. Then, I was upset that some of the big stuff was left hanging. Then, I felt sad. Now it feels complete to me. I’m satisfied, but sad that it’s over. I’m also sad because of my interpretation of the shots shown during the end credits… I’m choosing to ignore them, at least for now.

@py_sue Penny died “eventually.” Everyone who went to heaven/the source with Jack died eventually. His father told him that some died before him, and some after. They just all met up to go together when they all died.

Hi @DominicX! I’m sort of with you, in that, the finale could’ve been better. I’m just completely satisfied, though. I probably would’ve been with most ending possibilities.

So many unanswered questions… ugh! Here’s some of what I’ve gathered from others and myself and concluded.

1. This isn’t entirely explained, but I think it was because the MIB wasn’t special or worthy when he was pushed unwillingly into the Light.
2. The MIB became humanly vulnerable when Desmond pulled the cork.
3. Walt was special as some of the other characters are. Hurley could see and talk with the dead, Desmond could resist the electromagnetism, Miles can sense how people died, etc. I’m still lost on how he could appear in the grave, and in Sayid and Shannon’s tent, in the jungle, etc. I think the Others were taking children to build their community. They stole Alex, too.
4.The bearded Jacob in the cabin was really the MIB in some dead person’s image. Ben says, “All along I thought I was summoning him, and really he was summoning me.” Ben was really taking orders from him the whole time. This is how MIB kept him away from the real Jacob. The “Help me” I think was just to keep Ben and Locke squabbling and occupied so as to not pursue the real Jacob. The cabin moving… island mystery, I guess.
5. The ancient artifacts were built there by the first inhabitants and I don’t think they had real significance other than the fertility statue that the Black Rock crashes into, making it impossible for mothers to survive pregnancy. (How Ethan was conceived and born, I don’t know… perhaps the time travel allowed for this to happen somehow).
6. It’s not clear why the supply drops continued, but I figure if Desmond was left pushing that button indefinitely, then some other poor soul was maybe left doing his job indefinitely, too. Or, Desmond was kept there intentionally (maybe Widmore?) and they wanted him alive.
7. I have to watch the whole series again, because I barely remember this… I’ll let you know if I hear anything.
8. I assumed the same reason they kidnapped Walt.
9. They were taking orders from Ben who was taking orders from Jacob… or the MIB, really.
10. I thought Mikhail shot her… no? I’ll have to watch again.
11. Another thing I’ll have to watch, but I think it was supposed to contact them in case of emergency… but I read on lostpedia that the wires were actually cut by the Others and didn’t do anything. This is what it says:

————In “One of Us”, the Flame had new, shiny color TV monitors and a modern-looking console. In “Enter 77”, the Flame did not have such a console, but had numerous wires hanging from the ceiling that appear to have been cut off and ripped out. After the discharge, the Others ripped out the monitor console and transported it elsewhere.—————

12. Phew… this is what I think. The line, “We both know I can’t do that” means to me that it would be too simple. Ben would rather kill Penny and let Widmore suffer the same as he did when his daughter was killed. On the island, he kills Widmore because if he didn’t, he’d try to save Penny from Smokey if he left the island.

That’s it. I don’t think there are definite answers to most of the questions. I think that’s what I like about the show, ultimately.

I really meant to say threw and not through in my last response. Uhhh, it’s early.

@jfos The column of smoke came out of the entrance, but Jacob later found the MIB’s body in a stream, not a tree. There was a bunch of water down in the heart of the island (from the stream above). It stands to reason that the water had to go somewhere out of the heart, and took Jack’s/MIB’s body with it.

Did I miss them? I don’t remember seeing Walt and Michael there.

@mrentropy They weren’t there. Harold Perrineau said on Jimmy Kimmel that Michael was doomed to be a whispering spirit on the island for eternity. I don’t know if he was joking or not, but it makes sense…lol. Either that or it could just be that he didn’t want to go, or Jack didn’t want him there.

@ubersiren @mrentropy Michael is stuck on the island whispering, as explained in the season 6 episode where he talks to Hurley.

Thanks, you two. One of the many things that I must have forgotten. So, what about Walt?

With a series that lasted six years and had so much detail, it’s hard to remember pieces of the plot, so there may be many things I failed to catch the first time, or just forgot. I think that factor is what causes many of the questions we have. Some pieces have been kept purposefully obscure, but probably many of my questions were answered.
Some of the questions that may have been answered are:
Who were the bodies of “Adam and Eve”?
What about the Polar bear?
Was Jack’s son in the sidewise reality only to show that people lived on while there, being unaware of the fact that they were dead? I think it’s significant that the son wasn’t in the chapel, even though both his parents were there. There was some comment about him not being real, wasn’t there?
Why was it so important to protect the and the island? Was the island the gateway to Hell? If the the tunnel of light was eliminated and the island was destroyed, would the tunnel and the Earth be destroyed?

I noticed that each one of the major characters or “candidates” had some angst or conflict about a parent. Jacob did say that he selected those who were not comfortable in their environment.
Desmond seemed to be different from the other characters. His only back-story was about his wife and child, nothing about his childhood that I can remember. He seemed to be “in on it” much earlier, and was once described as a “constant”. For example, when he first met Jack and said something like “see you in another life”, he seemed to already know things that the others had not even begun to question.
He was much more fluid in time and space. And it never showed him “remembering the island” like the other characters.

There’s still so much to chew on, which I think is VERY cool!

Aside from my dislike of the religious mumbo jumbo I was emotionally satisfied, but not intellectually.

@ubersiren

Interesting theories. I think, however, that the supply drop was one of my biggest problems and still continues to be and there are several reasons for that. One is that I entertained the idea that the Others dropped it to keep the survivors alive for whatever reason. But then I didn’t understand why no one heard a plane or helicopter pass over and drop it. I think there would’ve been some sound heard especially since it wasn’t dropped far from the beach. My other problem is that in an official Lost podcast, Cuse and Lindelof stated that they were going to reveal the source of the drop, but they never did. I’m hoping it might be revealed on the DVD set. (I also thought that it might have been dropped from “the future” or something Harry Potter-like. Even that would’ve been okay).

And yes, Mikhail shot Klugh, but she asked him to and I didn’t understand why she wanted that to happen.

@tinyfaery

That’s what I think was done on purpose. It seemed like the ending was all emotional and for the people that weren’t sucked into that so much, it wasn’t that satisfying of an ending. I mean, it had me emotionally, of course it did. I was teary-eyed and I love the way it ended with Jack’s eye closing. But I felt almost like the writers threw in all that emotional stuff in hopes that it would distract viewers from the “mystery” aspect of the island.

It just seemed to me like the writers tried to “change gears” as in “no more mysteries; it’s all about characters now” even though it was always about both.

@DominicX Agreed.

Jack laying down on the ground on his back, in the place he will die, smiling in ecstasy while looking skyward, in full knowledge that he has discovered and accomplished his Earthly mission, abandoning all ego and all cynicism, and letting go of all pain; laying in bliss, satisfied with all he’s been through and all he knows, while dying and ascending, with the dog Vincent keeping him in loving company in the warm and final moments of his life’s story on Earth. I hope everyone who is searching, finds it, like Jack.

I just read an interesting theory, if anyone is interested. Clicketty

I really enjoyed the finale but I feel like there were still a lot of questions left unanswered. I think the way they brought everybody together in the end was very moving and very beautifully done. I was just left with a lot of questions, especially about the island, and it doesn’t seem like they’re planning on a sequel so I guess I’ll never really get my answers.

I just want to clarify something in my head. Is Micheal still whispering on the island because he killed two canidates of Jacob’s? I can’t think of any other reason.

I think he’s just there whispering because he murdered two people. I’m not sure they were candidates.

I LOVED IT!!!

Everyone has its own interpretation…So here it is my interpretation:

Whether the island was heaven or hell, it was most certainly a passage…

It means they’re all dead in first place?!? Yes…I believe some of them had unfinished business to take care, so that they can properly pass along!!!

I think it shows that our soul is timeless and that it can go everywhere, and that the good and the evil exist in every shape, everywhere, anytime, and you just have to deal with it, in its many forms…

It is beautiful…and yes…I cryed a lot, lol

It’s the best show ever =)))