Lost Finale

I watched tonight and had high expectations of loose ends being tied neatly in a bow and complex questions being answered.... instead I got a very general conclusion that still magaed to satisfy my desire for the series I have devoted so many hours of viewing time to.

They didn't solve all the islands mysteries, but they brought everyone together and ended it together.

Theories have run wild for years and with each passing season of Lost the speculation mounted. I am anxious to hear other's point of view on the finale - I was still clueless when it ended, but later at a BQQ while explaining it to a friend, found I understood it more when reflecting on it in an explanation to someone else.

The island was real, their experiences were real... so real and so important that even after life they were all stuck in a purgatory until they could meet again and move on together.

Incredible.

Here are some explanations from various other sites I found:


Island Crisis explained it like this:

As it says “Viewers, where are we? The answer: Almost anywhere we want to be”! The simple answer after the final show is that the whole story was not purgatory but only part of the last season was!

Everything that you saw in the show happened. Starting from the plane crash, moving through the smoke monster to the protection of the island and others. In simple words, all the flash forwards and flash backs of the show was in fact the reality and things that happened.

Confusing series right? That is what the producers wanted. Each character which died in the show in fact died in the real universe to be then transported to a single point in purgatory. The final aim was the after life, so everyone had to die to reach that point including those who managed to escape the island.

Now coming back to our real life, the question is if fans are happy with the series ending. Some are more confused than ever while some are quite happy to have predicted the right meaning of the show.

Lost and gone forever examines the "Flash Sideways":

Flash Sideways. Finally, it all makes sense. Although this is definitely up to some interpretation, here's my Cliff's Notes understanding of the Flash Sideways.

1.The Flash Sideways were, effectively, purgatory.

2.The world in the Flash Sideways was somehow mutually created by all of the Lost characters, as a place to "meet up" before moving on. Per Christian Shephard, "this is a place that you all made together so that you could fine one another. The most important part of your life was the time you spent with these people. That's why all of you are here. No one does it alone. You needed all of them, and they needed you." For what? "To remember and to let go."

3.The Flash Sideways were a place to work out and accept the things that each person did in life, to come to terms with their lives before moving on to the afterlife - whatever that may be. It's a beautiful symbolism that ties into the overall Lost theme - finding redemption in life, accepting those decisions in death - and then MOVING ON.

4.Everyone dies - but they didn't all die together. We're trying to fit the Flash Sideways in a very linear timeline, and that's the problem. "There is no now, here." They're a different world - separate from the physical one that we live in. Some characters died long ago (Charlie), some died in "The End" (Jack), and some are going to die, even though we don't know when or how (Hurley, Ben, Kate, Sawyer, Frank, Miles, Claire... and even Richard Alpert - although I didn't see him in the final scene).

Beautiful, hopeful, powerful stuff.

ACN wrote:

To those that still don’t get it, here’s my best explanation of the show’s ending. The first key to understanding the finale is that the “flash sideways” reality of the sixth-season actually takes place in the distant future, rather than parallel to the events of the regular timeline. The “flash sideways” is type of purgatory that is created by the souls and spirits of the castaways after their death, not a parallel universe that was created by the explosion of the atomic bomb and the end of the 5th season back in the 1970’s. In the “flash sideways”, the characters, who are all dead, have to remember their lives before they can move on to the final afterlife.

We might not have gotten every last question that we wanted to answered (What was up with the time differential on and off the island? Where did the big statue come from that was destroyed by Richard’s ship? What was the energy under the island?), but that was a very respectable and solid ending to a show.

Here’s to the last six years.

Overall, there were a lot of things that were never answered - but I feel like the idea of purgatory, reuniting, remembering and moving on trumped any other minor (or major) detail that the series included. I am satisfied and not left in complete frustration.

How did you feel?