Lost...and Found?

ATTN: THIS CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS!!! IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE SERIES FINALE OF LOST THEN STOP READING NOW!!!

So after 6 long gruelling seasons of intense anxiety and excitement, Lost has come to an end. And I have to say, I am a little sad; I am sad for two reason: that it is over, cause lets be honest...we never really wanted it to end, but we also didn't want it to drag on into ridiculousness like its spiritual successor, the X-Files; and secondly that the ending was not what I had hoped it would be. Now before I get any further let me say that an unexpected ending is not necessarily a bad ending. Most times a well executed unexpected ending is better than any well executed expected ending could ever be. However this was not one of those times. When I first finished the episode I was satisfied, not happy but not disappointed either, however the more I thought about it, the more disappointed I became.

First I'll start with the good. The characters. Lost had amazing characters...and they finished exactly the way they came in (sometimes quite literally), epic. Each of the main characters (Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Hurley and Ben - as well as the more supplementary but equally as important Kwon's, Sayiid, Richard, Claire and Desmond) finished with complete character arcs that left me very pleased. Sure each character did not receive the happy ending that they deserved, but that is the beauty of fiction, it allows us to view and be involved in intense heartache and sadness, to view unrequited love and sacrifice that is too little, too late. We can be changed and affected by this. Not every character needs to have a happy ending, no matter how much we want it. The beauty behind Shakespeare was that he knew when to make his audience laugh and when to make them cry, and Lost nailed this to a T. You might be saying, What about the flash side-ways? Didn't everyone receive their happy ending through that? That's a good question and I shall respond to that concern later.


Now with my concerns. Lost was a show that was based around mystery and intrigue. A group of people all somehow interconnected find themselves on an island with more mystery than an Angela Landsbury marathon, and yet NOT ONE SINGLE SHOW-SPANING MYSTERY WAS REVEALED!! Now I'm not asking for the whole package...but lets at least get the meat and potatoes of what the heck is going on. Sure some mysteries were solved in the last few episodes, such as the voices in the jungle. Mind you this was solved with a very weak explanation provided by Micheal that they are the murmurings of lost souls who did bad stuff....ohhhh so spooky...and cheesy. I would have rather this mystery remain unexplained, the audience could have come to this conclusion on their own...or ignored it - this would have made a great unexplained mystery, just one of the islands many mystical elements. The other mystery that was revealed was the nature of the smoke monster. This at first was a huge reveal. It was the first mystery we encounter back in episode 1 and has remained constant throughout the show. We learned early this season that it was Jacob's nemesis and, soon to be learned, brother. This was an acceptable explanation, after all Jacob has his own set of unique abilities, and so must his brother. However in the episode "Across the Sea" we learn that this is not the case. Smokey Joe is not in fact Jacobs brother, but its own entity simply wearing his skin - the same way it wore Christian's and Locke's. All we know was that when Jacob killed his brother and pushed him into the "light" that the smoke monster came out...we don't know why, how or anything...just that it is evil and cannot be allowed off the island and we never find out why, other than the odd reference to great evil and lots of people dying. So really the only explanation we have for anything is the whispers, and even that is pretty weak.

In my mind there were 3 big mysteries (other than the nature of the Island and its "light" and Smokey McSmokerson) that were left unsolved. These are Walt, Aaron and the numbers. Each of these mysteries, like Sir Smokesalot have been with us since the first season are considered some of the chief mysteries of the show. Throughout all of Season 1 and 2 Walt was paraded around being declared "special". He was kidnapped because of this and even was able to appear in two places at once, at one point soaking wet and speaking backwards before quickly disappearing. Now whether or not this was Walt or the Island, we never know. However we spent two years wondering about this before the writers decided to drop it. Normally that would be fine, however the main writers have been further parading Walt around in the off-season declaring that he would come back and play a prominent role in the final season...that was hardly the case.

Aaron is another mystery. Claire was told by a psychic that unless she raised her child a great evil would be unleashed. Later we found out that the psychic believed himself to be a fake, however he appeared visually disturbed and emotionally shaken after his "reading" of Claire. He even sent her to LA on a plane that then crashed on a deserted island, this appears to be an attempt to keep mother and son together. The fear of this great evil was then teased before us with the Others attempting to steal Aaron, also saying he was "special" like Walt. 3 seasons later Smokey (an alleged great evil, attempting to unleash himself upon the world) appears before Claire as her father, causing her to leave Aaron to be raised by Kate in her stead. I thought the writers were on to something, especially when Claire subsequently went insane. Perhaps Claire was going to play a crucial role in stopping the Smoke Monster from escaping but due to her lack of sanity would be unable to assist in anyway. Then with Kate returning and helping Claire become the mother we know she is one could assume that Claire could not play her role. Alas she really did nothing except serve as a character prop for Kate to complete her arc - cool but ultimately not satisfying. Again the writers would not have needed to spell this out for us, it could have been a mystery easily solved by the audience through interpretation. All that they would have needed to do to resolve this was to have Claire shoot Smokey a la Locke instead of Kate...and I mean common...Claire had a gun!!!

Lastly the numbers. The number have appeared everywhere, in dates, birthday, phone numbers, lottery tickets. Pretty much every place their was a digit the numbers were involved. Now they sort of explained this as they are the numbers on Jacob's compass that are associated with Jack, Locke, Kate, Sawyer, Sayiid, Hurley and the Kwons. However it doesn't really explain what Dharma was doing with these numbers, why broadcast them from a tower to lure Rousseau to the Island, etc. Basically why are they permeated everywhere. One could argue that it is fate simply executing a pattern, and I am satisfied with this conclusion. However it would have been nice for a little hint in this direction, other than the completely blind assumption that I am making.

Lastly, I am not really satisfied with the "Big Reveal". Namely that the flash sideways universe is not sideways at all, but rather is some sort of purgatory that resembles our own world in which we are supposed to find those who were important in our lives so that we can then move into whatever personal heaven we have for ourselves. To me this is the equivalent of the wake up its all a dream twist endings. It really has no bearing on the show itself, the only connection I can make is the Island and its light doesn't control anything in our world, but the light on the island is the source of the afterlife, mirrored in the light that came from the doors as Christian left the church. Other than that I felt that it was largely detached from the main story. It also felt a little contrived that the big reveal was in regards to something that did not happen until the final season, it made it feel cheap. It also makes me question the claim that the writers had this planned out from the beginning. Everything that they used to sum up the finale has occurred in the final season: the light; the flash sideways etc. Their ace in the hole was "Adam and Eve" the two dead bodies in the cave that the writers touted as proof that they had it planned. However since "Across the Sea" I highly doubt this. IGN did an excellent job at surmising this,

The revelation that the MiB (well at least his body) and his mother (names for these characters would be great) are actually the Adam and Eve skeletons from way back in Season 1 felt incredibly forced. Cutting to Jack and Kate's discovery of the skeletons didn't help at all either and seemed more like Lindelof and Cuse trying to reinforce the fact that they had this all planned out from the beginning.

Well, for those of you who have watched "House of the Rising Sun" recently, you would probably remember the rest of the scene and the fact that Jack mentions that the remains look no more than 40-50 years old. Now, maybe we'll get some sort of weird time travel explanation for this, but as it stands this looks really sloppy. They should know their audiences' meticulous attention to detail. Conveniently dismissing Jack's important bit of dialogue in that scene makes it seem as if they are now covering their tracks. This is one Lost ending I'd rather forget.

A few final issues. There was one large continuity issue which Shary and I were yelling at the TV for nearly 2 hours. "THERE IS C4 ON THE PLAN YOU MOTHER TRUCKERS!!!". Seems that they decided to ignore that fact that Whidmore rigged the whole plane with C4 before they took off. Oh well, not a big deal I guess...but kind of annoying. Especially since the boat was there and they could have just taken that instead. I guess the continuity error was worth it to have the plane fly over Jack as he died, sort of a symmetrical approach to end the show. But again, this could have been fixed with a little quick writing. I also failed to see the urgency in preventing Smokeroo from getting off the Island. Was he really going to go on some sort of smokey rampage and kill everything? Especially since he can be so easily contained with electromagnetic fields? I mean it would have been bad...maybe a few cities rampaged, but if science fiction has taught us anything its that murderous monsters rarely destroy more than downtown Manhattan before being contained.

My final (and I promise) grievance is that Lost fell victim to any successful TV show...it became a product. As mentioned before, on the Island not every character received the happy ending they deserved. This was quickly quashed in the flash side-ways. Sawyer and Juliette found each other. Jin and Sun didn't die and got to raise their baby, as did Claire and Charlie. Basically everything worked out fine. This is mainly because people would have been pissed if it hadn't. Personally I think they aren't giving today's audience enough credit. Were we sad that not everyone got a happy ending? Yes, but were we okay with it? Of course. Giving it the happy fuzzy ending was not exactly fitting for the show. It was a show about flaws, betrayal and manipulation. At times it was very dark and dreary, despite the tropical locale. To add this ending seemed very forced and inconsistent with the rest of the show.

However all that being said, Lost was a great show. It had amazing build, strong characters, brilliant writing, some great twists and a sense of grandiose mystic that has never been seen before in a Television series and rarely seen on film. Despite the slightly lacklustre ending it was a fine show and easily ranks as my favourite complete series of all time (West Wing takes #1 if you only count seasons 1-5).

Well done Lost...well done.