Lost TV show (Season 6) -- includes spoilers on show nights

[TuffLuffJimmy]

We know that Jacob choose each person to bring to the island. It wasn't fate.

I would consider that fate, because Jacob was super human so that's like being chosen by the gods. But that's debatable.

 

[Unspeaked]

So one question I'm wondering that maybe someone can help me with:

We know the flash-sideways world is an afterlife, purgatory, whatever-you-want-to-call-it. That's established. And we know there's people in this world who didn't exist that were created to help fill the surroundings for whatever reason ("You don't have a son..."). So are characters that were in the sideways world but not present at the church real? In other words, Danielle and Alex (the two characters I'm actually thinking of most as I ask this) are obviously dead in island world and obviously present in sideways world. Are they there because it's their afterlife selves (which we know is the case with Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, Ben, etc) or because they were just conjured out of thin air to fill a purpose (Jack's son).

Some of the non-lucid characters like Ana Lucia are obviously real dead people (or else Desmond wouldn't have commented on her "not being ready") but are people like Ben's Dad, Lock's fiance, etc just filler, like scenery?

Maybe I'm thinking about this too much......

 

[davidwes]

I would consider that fate, because Jacob was super human so that's like being chosen by the gods. But that's debatable.

Very debatable. It think that the finale really answered this question!

1. Jacob is a regular person
2. Jacob hardly knew anything about the island
3. Jacob made up his own rules
4. Jacob was on one in a long line of people in that job

Jacob was ready to die and wanted to find someone good to replace him and therefore picked "flawed" people.

Also many of the unanswered questions could come down to, "it didn't matter, jacob made up that rule"

 

[mscriv]

Mr. Eko was not a candidate, therefore, the smoke monster was allowed to kill him.

I could be completely off base here, but I took from Jacob's "it's just chalk" comment that the job could be taken by anyone, not just the "candidates" he had left the island to touch/select.

I think Ben's comment to Hurly that he doesn't have to do things like Jacob did is pretty revealing. Basically it's like saying the rules of the game can be changed at any time by whoever is the island's protector. The crazy mother put rules in place when she had the job, "I've made it so that you can not hurt each other". So it stands to reason that we, as the audience, are assuming there are "set in stone" rules when really it seems like the rules are variable.

It's like the island has it's own story, but we really only watched the part of that story that involves Jacob and MIB.

 

[Zombie Acorn]

I really didn't like how it turned into a big love story, I was joking that all that needs to happen now is Ben/Roussou hookup and it will be complete. All the girls who were over enjoyed the ending, but I didn't. It felt cheap, I didn't really care about everyone hooking up, I wanted to find out more about the island and other things.

 

[davidwes]

So are characters that were in the sideways world but not present at the church real? In other words, Danielle and Alex (the two characters I'm actually thinking of most as I ask this) are obviously dead in island world and obviously present in sideways world. Are they there because it's their afterlife selves (which we know is the case with Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, Ben, etc) or because they were just conjured out of thin air to fill a purpose (Jack's son).

I think one reason Ben might have not joined everyone inside the church was because he is waiting to leave with Danielle and Alex, which would make me say they are not conjured. Then again, I can't see how a fake jack's son fits into this.

 

[glocke12]

I tried to find a reason to like the finale, but cant just keep coming back to the fact that it was a huge letdown. I think it was basically a copout. The storyline and mythology just became so convulted that they probably felt the only way to end it was to have purgatory storyline...

In my mind, the following items are pretty central to the story and were not really answered:

1) What was the smoke monster ? We know that by sending his brother into the cave, the smoke monster was released, but what smoky was is something that was never addressed. We know that it wasnt jacobs brother, he died when smoky came out..

2) in the purgatory story line how is it that Desmond came to know they were in purgatory?

3) What would have been so bad about letting flocke off the island ? At first I thought he would have left as smoky, but after the light went out it appeared that flocke turned mortal...At that point would it have mattered if he was off the island ?

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

We know the flash-sideways world is an afterlife, purgatory, whatever-you-want-to-call-it. That's established.

However, some characters in the afterlife never died. Unless I missed the episode where Hugo died...

 

[Unspeaked]

However, some characters in the afterlife never died. Unless I missed the episode where Hugo died...

To quote Christian: "Everyone dies."

Hurley and Ben didn't die on screen, but they died in the future, and that's why they were there (and also why Hurley was able to tell Ben he was a "good No. 2" since they had those shared experiences together which we never got to see as TV viewers, but which occurred before they died and ended up in sideways world.)

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

To quote Christian: "Everyone dies."

Hurley and Ben didn't die on screen, but they died in the future, and that's why they were there (and also why Hurley was able to tell Ben he was a "good No. 2" since they had those shared experiences together which we never got to see as TV viewers, but which occurred before they died and ended up in sideways world.)

Ah yes. I forgot about that bit. I feel like that's just the ultimate cop out. The parallel world (purgatory) was entirely unnecessary. Had it actually been some interesting alternate universe then that would have been interesting. Instead everyone ended up in some lame nondenominational church.

 

[mscriv]

Here's an interesting view from a blog I read occasionally:

Early Reflections on the Lost Finale

A friend from my high school days, Mikki Fleniken, asked me on FaceBook what I thought of the Lost finale. After some pondering last night and then sleeping on it, here are my initial thoughts. I wrote most of this on FaceBook, but decided it might go well here, too.

Mikki asked me, “What was ‘real’ and what was not??!!” Here is my initial answer.

All along the writers had said that the events on the island were not a dream, not hell and not purgatory.

But what threw me was the final scene and then the last shot. The final scene, of course, being that they were all dead and gathered in the church. And then, the final shot showed the airplane wreckage which made me think that perhaps they had all died in the airplane wreck at the very beginning of the show six years ago. That would have been a bit of a cheat to me, but that was my immediate thought right as the show ended.

But after reflecting on things for a couple of hours afterwards, and listening to the initial exchange between Jimmy Kimmel and Matthew Fox on Kimmel’s sendoff show last night (ironically, the rest of the actors seemed clueless about much of the show), and then sleeping on it, I believe my initial conclusions were wrong.

If everyone died in the initial plane crash, then the writers simply lied for six years in all of their interviews. Let’s assume this is not the case and that the passengers of Oceanic 815 did not die in the crash.

Therefore, everything that happened on the island was “real,” but the writers did play a bit of a trick on us in that the flash-sideways of season six, was in fact, a kind of purgatory (for lack of a better word).

Part of the key is to go back and listen to Christian Shepherd’s explanation to Jack at the end. “This is the place that all of you made together, so that you could find one another.” The people in the church had formed an inseparable bond with each other due to the events that had taken place on the island—a bond that lasted even into death. This was the outcome of Jack’s first season speech “We either live together, or we die alone.” Because they had chosen to live together, they were now united even in death.

Note that Michael wasn’t there. He had betrayed them. We had already learned he was still on the island, like a ghost unable to move on. Ben was invited to the church, but didn’t feel like he was quite ready—even though he had been made aware of what was happening. There’s really a lot of emphasis on SELF-redemption in the show as opposed to the redemption of Christ, although there was certainly a strong emphasis on elements of Christian tradition throughout the show.

There had been hints to the reality of the flash-sideways existence, though. Eloise Hawking/Widmore, who seemed to be more in the know than anyone, in both the “real world” and the afterlife, was very concerned that her son Daniel not be “awakened” just yet, no doubt because she felt guilt over killing him and wanted more time with him. Why she couldn’t get that time together with him in eternity is a question I can’t answer.

Plus, all of their lives were a bit idealized based on what they would have hoped for in life. Hurley was lucky, not unlucky. Locke had a good relationship with his father (there was a picture of them together in an earlier episode this season) and his fiance, Helen. Jack was a successful surgeon and had a son with Juliet, whom he got along with well, even though they were divorced. Sawyer was on the right side of the law instead of the wrong side. The only ones who didn’t seem to have it so well were Kate and Sayid, but I suppose the particulars could be played with and argued.

Thus, I presume that when the plane left the island with Lapidus, Kate, Sawyer, Miles, Richard, and Claire, it really did leave and they would have lived the rest of their lives off the island. More evidence of this—Hurley told Ben at the church that Ben had made a very good Number 2, which implies they went on to have a full life with other experiences and adventures on the island.

Were the bigger questions of the show answered? Not really. Exactly what was the energy source of the island and what was the island itself? Who originally made all the rules? We don’t know. The writers said that they were not intending to answer all the questions.

There had been speculation for years that Lost was based on some kind of ancient mythology, and while there are certainly elements and themes from various mythologies, in the end, the writers seemed to be writing a new mythology for the island all on its own.

So, the energy source becomes something symbolic and not specific.

That will be enough for some viewers, but not for others. Some of the folks who wanted very specific answers will be disappointed. Others, who can live without having every single question answered will be fine and perhaps enjoy some of the debate as to what these things mean.

But what do you really want? One of the most disappointing scenes I’ve ever seen in cinema was the whole “scientific” explanation of the Force as the result of something called “midichlorians” in The Phantom Menace. I really don’t want that level of detail. So, while perhaps I will always have questions over the nature of the island on Lost, I’ll have to settle for the fact that it was simply a magical place where the normal laws of physics and time do not apply.

The above is what I have so far. I’m still reflecting. I’m certain there will be discussion for years to come.

Good series, though. I’d have to put it in my top ten, if I had one for TV shows. No doubt, it would be fun to “study” in detail once the final series is released on Blu-ray.

LINK

I like the Star Wars comparison. Sometimes it is better just to accept certain parts of a story as mythical or mysterious as opposed to breaking them down into minutiae.

 

[decksnap]

The problem I have with the way it ended is that the whole reason I got hooked into the show to begin with is I believed these guys were weaving some masterful complex super-riddle story arc that all tied together and would eventually all be told. We hung on every detail and looked for clues throughout the seasons because we believed the writers were telling us an epic tale, and that these things were all of some importance.

Not, as it turns out, just making random **** up as they go along. I gave the writers too much credit. If this were a book, the editors would have sent it back saying things like 'what's up with the statue. You just kinda don't ever explain it'.

Don't mean to sound bitter - I loved lost, it's just that knowing now that the writing really wasn't thought out as well as we all wanted to believe it was kinda cheapens it for me.

 

[Lyle]

I like the Star Wars comparison. Sometimes it is better just to accept certain parts of a story as mythical or mysterious as opposed to breaking them down into minutiae.

FWIW the producers of the show are the ones who brought up this comparison in an interview some time back (the author's a little disingenuous to pass it off as his own idea).

 

[davidwes]

Here's an interesting view from a blog I read occasionally:



LINK

I like the Star Wars comparison. Sometimes it is better just to accept certain parts of a story as mythical or mysterious as opposed to breaking them down into minutiae.

Yes, I like the star wars comparison as well. I don't need to know what that glowing light is!!!!

EXCEPT ...

Its slightly strange that in the end everything was kind of "made up". Like Ben said, "that was how Jacob did it, you can do it differently". So those type of questions I feel slightly cheated from.

AND ...

No need to really break things down, but again I am very curious about which particular people ended up in the church.

 

[Unspeaked]

The problem I have with the way it ended is that the whole reason I got hooked into the show to begin with is I believed these guys were weaving some masterful complex super-riddle story arc that all tied together and would eventually all be told. We hung on every detail and looked for clues throughout the seasons because we believed the writers were telling us an epic tale, and that these things were all of some importance.

Not, as it turns out, just making random **** up as they go along. I gave the writers too much credit. If this were a book, the editors would have sent it back saying things like 'what's up with the statue. You just kinda don't ever explain it'. .

This is a great post.

This isn't Star Wars where you go into it as a totally fantasy/sci-fi escape story, where you just accept it's taking place in another world with aliens and "The Force" and things like that.

From the very beginning, Lost presented itself as a puzzle. Hidden and double meanings all over the place, connections between places and characters, all that good stuff. And all along (as I mentioned in an earlier post) the mantra was "All Will Be Revealed" for those that stuck around. Yet as the episodes piled up and we the viewers found ourselves deeper and deeper in the quicksand (too invested to stop watching, but not getting the answers we were looking for) all sorts of new people and places and questions were thrown at us with little regard for the stuff that came before.

In a way, Season 6 - with a whole new world made up as a lame attempt to tie things up - is the accumulation of all the teasing the writers did to the viewers.

 

[abijnk]

The problem I have with the way it ended is that the whole reason I got hooked into the show to begin with is I believed these guys were weaving some masterful complex super-riddle story arc that all tied together and would eventually all be told. We hung on every detail and looked for clues throughout the seasons because we believed the writers were telling us an epic tale, and that these things were all of some importance.

Not, as it turns out, just making random **** up as they go along. I gave the writers too much credit. If this were a book, the editors would have sent it back saying things like 'what's up with the statue. You just kinda don't ever explain it'.

Don't mean to sound bitter - I loved lost, it's just that knowing now that the writing really wasn't thought out as well as we all wanted to believe it was kinda cheapens it for me.

Can you expand on this some more? I really don't understand this line of reasoning that, as you say, "cheapens" Lost.

Perhaps I don't see it because I find too many parallels between the world of Lost and the world we live in. There are so many struggles we face that we never fully understand. There are always things in life that we simply can't explain. Why would anyone expect a fictional world to be any different?

Why do you, and others, think that the writing is poorly thought out just because it doesn't read like a science text?

In my opinion, it was gutsy for the writers to end the show the way they did. They knew they would be leaving these mysteries open, but they chose to keep it more true to life. I think it is admirable and brilliant writing, not a cheap cop out.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Can you expand on this some more? I really don't understand this line of reasoning that, as you say, "cheapens" Lost.

Perhaps I don't see it because I find too many parallels between the world of Lost and the world we live in. There are so many struggles we face that we never fully understand. There are always things in life that we simply can't explain. Why would anyone expect a fictional world to be any different?

Why do you, and others, think that the writing is poorly thought out just because it doesn't read like a science text?

In my opinion, it was gutsy for the writers to end the show the way they did. They knew they would be leaving these mysteries open, but they chose to keep it more true to life. I think it is admirable and brilliant writing, not a cheap cop out.

Because instead of everything tying together in a clever way there were a ton of red herrings and insignificant details made to seem significant. It was stupid and pointless.

 

[leekohler]

Can you expand on this some more? I really don't understand this line of reasoning that, as you say, "cheapens" Lost.

Perhaps I don't see it because I find too many parallels between the world of Lost and the world we live in. There are so many struggles we face that we never fully understand. There are always things in life that we simply can't explain. Why would anyone expect a fictional world to be any different?

Why do you, and others, think that the writing is poorly thought out just because it doesn't read like a science text?

In my opinion, it was gutsy for the writers to end the show the way they did. They knew they would be leaving these mysteries open, but they chose to keep it more true to life. I think it is admirable and brilliant writing, not a cheap cop out.

Exactly 100% correct. That is my thinking as well. We don't get to know everything in life. I don't know why people think it's a cop out to do the same thing with a TV show.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Exactly 100% correct. That is my thinking as well. We don't get to know everything in life. I don;t know why people think it's a cop out to do the same thing with a TV show.

Because the TV show made certain unexplained details seem significant enough that they would merit some rational. Instead of explaining how spiderman got his powers he simply woke up one day with web shooting out his wrists.

They never really gave a reason for that parallel universe to exist either. It was the ultimate red herring, a story arc that had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story, usually called "filler".

 

[Peace]

Exactly 100% correct. That is my thinking as well. We don't get to know everything in life. I don't know why people think it's a cop out to do the same thing with a TV show.

I agree.. Maybe WE are all in some sort of "Lost" internet purgatory thing.

 

[Don't panic]

So is the island a place that exists in reality?
Yes
Did the events that we saw on the island actually happen?
yes
What is the island?
A spatio-temporal portal with unusual physical and metaphysical charateristics
Can anybody visit it?
If you know the directions
If everyone on the island was dead, why was there interactions from people who visited the island? Were they also dead?
People on the island were not dead, although several died there.
Why was Linus suddenly nice and wanting to help Jacob after being so vicious in the previous episode?
he wanted a place with the island
Jacob said that he brought the people to the island because they were lonely in their lives. So he killed them to bring them to the island, or were they alive on the island?
they were alive on the island (can't say the same for the other people on the flight)
Did anyone think that Jack maybe became the new smoke monster? After all, he was submerged in the electromagnetic radiation just like when Jacob pushed his brother (MiB) into the light. With Hurley being the new Jacob. If there was no new smoke monster, why did the island need someone to protect it?
i thought so too. and maybe he was, but it wouldn't be 'jack', it would have been smokey in jack's body. Jack died, just like the jacob's brother died.

 

[leekohler]

I agree.. Maybe WE are all in some sort of "Lost" internet purgatory thing.

I think it maybe stems from the fact that many people think they need to have answers to everything. I prefer to leave things open-ended if I can't figure them out. Just like dying itself. I have no idea what will happen. I'll find out when I get there, but I would never in a million years say that I know what's going to happen.

 

[Unspeaked]

I think it maybe stems from the fact that many people think they need to have answers to everything. I prefer to leave things open-ended if I can't figure them out. Just like dying itself. I have no idea what will happen. I'll find out when I get there, but I would never in a million years say that I know what's going to happen.

I know! I mean, why would anyone expect answers when the creative team behind the show was saying things like “The show is so predicated on questions. So now we’re in answer mode, and have been for quite some time.” at the beginning of the season?

That was obviously code for "We plan on introducing a lot of things that have no relation to the previous seasons and then tie them all together into a finally where we reveal half the last season takes place in purgatory."

 

[Mac'nCheese]

3) What would have been so bad about letting flocke off the island ? At first I thought he would have left as smoky, but after the light went out it appeared that flocke turned mortal...At that point would it have mattered if he was off the island ?

Two reasons: even if he is "harmless" he was still a murderer and needed to be killed (especially after he killed Jin and Sun). Second, they had to turn the light back on. Maybe, he would have turned immortal again when that happened. Maybe not and its just the first reason.
I haven't rewatched the ep yet, does anyone know how Ben got the tree off of him? I missed that.

 

[skinnylegs]

This is the worst series finale I've ever seen, especially for a show as deserving as LOST. The ending was a TOTAL cop-out by the writers. It smacked of 'we've spun far too complicated a web, so let's reverse course here and make the show all about some character driven narrative'.

I've been an avid fan of the show since its inception, and remember Damon and Carlton specifically saying after someone questioned it being purgatory, that it was in no uncertain terms the premise of the show. So what do they do? They have the island story be real but the flash-sideways world be a purgatory of sorts. WEAK!

They also said at one time that the show's mysteries, or at least most of them, could be explained with science. I'm all for a little mythology woven in, but these last few episodes with a light in a cave in the middle of the jungle, without some sort of explanation was borderline cheesy and ridiculous.

It's as if they all realized during a writers session at the beginning of the season that they had convoluted the story so much it was no way to start explaining everything. I'm ok with that. Just explain a little... They chose to totally reverse course and start back-pedaling and every chance they got, they started trying to force-feed this notion of LOST being a character driven show, and that's what it's all about. BS! Fans became so addicted to the series and it's mythological elements that they actually created alternate reality games, and fact finding missions, etc. This ending to me was almost pandering in its quest to have an emotional impact, and have you more concerned with Sawyer and Juliet reuniting over a candy bar, than explaining what the hell they have created these last 6 years.

This, ladies and gentleman, is why you should never start asking questions you don't already know the answer to. They went down the rabbit hole, only to find out that all that's left is black smoke and some light...

Such an utter disappointment!

Like Jack, you need to let go...