I have so many thoughts about LOST’s finale that I didn’t even know where to begin. So, I watched it a second time, and now I’m just going to jump right in, but if my ramblings are strung together a bit incoherently or the order of my ideas is inconsistent, please forgive me. To me, a person who loves nothing more in life than a well-constructed and executed story – LOST has been a real experience. I’ve loved it all, and I loved its conclusion. The more I think about it, the more satisfied I am.

        The first few minutes of LOST’s finale seemed somehow, for me, to be telling ones. The episode begins with flashes that alternate between island and sideways characters: Jack is in his office, looking at an X-ray and also in the stream, mulling over his new role as island guardian; Ben is making tea and also looking at Locke with something like dread in his eyes; Locke is heading off to surgery while (F)Locke coils rope; Kate sits in a car with Desmond but is also watching Jack from behind a tree. The Losties are divided; they are who they are, but they can’t let go of who they thought they should/would be – what they expected of their lives.

        This show has very much been about the characters wanting to be free of the island – wanting to escape their destinies. Do they have the free will to just be able to walk away from it all? I say yes. Jacob didn’t have any choice when it came to his fate, so he made sure to give all his candidates a measure of free will. He can bring them to the island and point them at certain questions and truths, but in the end, it’s their choice. Jack decides to become the island’s protector; Kate decides to save Claire – they make these tough decisions and are rewarded by becoming better people. I feel that destiny and free will can indeed coexist. Many cultures have believed in both (the Greeks, for example). In LOST terms, Jack had a destiny: to save the island. Within that destiny, he made choices as to whether to do what he was supposed to or not. When he chose to try to escape his destiny, Jack was (self?) punished. He could have continued to run away, but in the end, he has to give in to it if he ultimately wants peace.

        In my English class, I’m currently teaching my students about Joseph Campbell’s idea of the monomyth – the idea that humanity keeps telling the same story over and over again. There is a hero who is sent on an adventure in a strange land. The hero has an apotheosis – he realizes something about life and becomes a new person based on their new ideals. The hero must reconcile who he was with who he has become, and once he does this, he can reap a reward for his heroics. This is the journey of each of the characters, especially Jack.

        I’ve been struggling with the sideways world and what it all “means,” but as I spend more time thinking about how it fits together, I’m starting to believe that our characters were just not ready to reconcile their two sides. They were clinging to who they once were and the possibilities of what their lives could have been without the island’s interference. They’ve created a world – the world as they think it should/would have happened. Sayid thinks that he is a killer deep down, so in this world, he still is a killer (albeit still with a heart filled with hope and good intentions). Jack thinks he could have fixed his problems and been a better father than Christian was to him, so that’s what he gets. They are putting off the inevitable – unable, perhaps, to say this is not who I ended up being. Even in this self-created world, however, the characters are drawn together, like they know the truth of it all somewhere way down deep. The sideways world shows them how things could be, but its real purpose is to prove to the Losties once and for all that they belong together.

        A key line from this show has always been “live together, die alone.” While it’s true that the Losties lived together and Jack died alone (if you don’t count Vincent – holy god was that too much for me to handle), in the end, they are all together again. It’s almost like they are “living together” again.  Whatever is going to happen to them next (Heaven, some other reality, reincarnation), they will face it together. This is their reward. Once they remember and realize that the island was what made them who they always wanted to be and that the island was what their life was all about, they can choose to move on. Jack, obstinate until the last, takes a little bit longer than everyone else, but in the end, even he can let go. Imagine that moment for Jack when he touches Christian’s coffin, when he sees his heroic story and recognizes all he had done – how much he grew and changed. He cries in his father’s arms, I think, out of relief and happiness once he realizes he’s dead. He knows that his life had a purpose and that he did something that really mattered.

        No other moment simply encompassed the elation I felt watching this episode than the moment Hurley first sees Charlie in the hotel. Hurley’s eye sparkle with tears and you can see the happiness on his face. It doesn’t matter how good Hurley’s “sideways life” is, his island memories and friends are the best of what could ever happen to him. At every flash of memory in this episode, I cried like a little baby. Charlie/Claire and Sawyer/Juliet were the moments I was at my worst. And of course the whole ending was seen through a sheen of tears. I always thought Jack would die at the end, and I found his death to be perfect in every way. I also liked that Hurley got to be the protector – the Jedi master. He was the purest of all the characters, and it seemed that he was the obvious choice all along. I think that Hurley's rules for the game will be much more fair and understanding than Jacob's - a man who had just as many flaws as any other person.

        There are so many other things that I enjoyed about this episode. There was some classic humor (Sawyer calling Lapidus “Chesty” or Lapidus asking Miles to fix the plane with duct tape). The acting was superb (Matthew Fox = Emmy). The Flocke/Jack fight scene on the cliff was just epic. I also thoroughly enjoyed all the “mirror images” from past scenes (Jack telling Desmond “I’ll see you in another life, brother” stands out in my mind). Yes, I have lingering questions (Did Jughead serve to do nothing other than move our characters in time and act as a red herring for viewers? Why wasn’t Christian in his coffin in season one when Jack found his coffin?), but I’m really glad that not every question was answered. What made LOST a special show was that you had to think about it; you couldn’t be a passive viewer and still reap all the rewards of watching. I was engaged until the very end and then some, and now I can continue to ponder these mysteries as I rewatch episodes later on.

         What this show has always been about – more so than the mythology, science, or faith – is the characters. And I’m just happy that they all became the heroes that we always wanted them to be and, in the end, got what they deserved. I’ve read a lot of crap from people complaining that they didn’t get the answers they wanted to every last mystery or that they didn’t see certain characters again (Walt? C’mon! He’s like 6’ tall and 18 now – there’s nothing they could do! Eko? He didn’t want to come back!). I suggest that these people relax. If they go through their lives expecting neat answers to everything…well, I’ll just say that they need to let it go… 

        I’m prepared, ready, willing, and able to discuss everything/anything about LOST. Let’s get a dialogue going here, because what is LOST if not a conversation starter. What questions do you have? What did you love/hate? Post your comments below.

In what is likely the last LOST easter egg,did you notice the "donkey wheel" in the glass window?: