Did you feel good about the "Lost" finale? (Spoilers, of course!)

I don't think I can get into another drama like this. I just can't handle when it ends. I get wrapped up in it, put all this thought into it, and then I'm let down, because there is no possible way to meet the expectations I have built up over the course of the last six years.

We end with zillions of questions, despite being told that we'd get answers. But alas! It doesn't matter, because the closing scene of the wreckage implied that everyone died in the crash, and that none of the show ever really happened, it was all just a story, contrived for entertainment. It could have ended in two episodes and you'd get the same result.

I can't even think about it without either confusing myself or getting frustrated and upset. I don't know what to think. I feel like I wasted way too much thought and emotion in this show, and at the end, it was just a bunch of dead people, and a show about what could have happened had they landed on a magical island. (My take. If you have a differing theory, please do share. )

Cue the overwhelming feeling of disappointment and ickiness. Yeah, I know it's only a TV show, but you get attached to characters and stories, and I don't know, I just feel crummy and sad and disillusioned about the whole thing.

:sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh:

How do you feel?

Check out Jimmy Kemmel and the cast....he is going to show 3 alternate endings...

The alternate endings were spoofs...... On Jimmy Kimmel. Wow, didn't see that coming.

I feel like it was a cop out ending. The writers were saying they were working toward that end all along. I don't buy it. I think there just was no way to tie it all together other than to just drop it and say well, it was all just a dream, never happened. Don't worry about trying to understand it all because you won't.

Arrgh. I can't stand it.

It's weird, and I never watched 'Lost' regularly, but I had some intuition that the last episode was going to be just like it played out.

Rather obvious, but I get how some fans of the show felt slighted.

Honestly, that was the only way they could end it, and have everything make sense.

As an amateur Writer, the more I think about it; the more it makes sense to have everything not have happened. Although I personally would have made the entire series into a nightmare that takes place in a little girl's head. Then you see the main cast members stop by to comfort her. (Yeah, similar to the ending in The Wizard of Oz.) Plane never crashed. Everyone lives. Bit of turbulance in the closing seconds. Plane levels out. Captain comes on the speakers, tells everyone they've cleared a storm. Everything is O.K.

It just honestly seems to me that after awhile, they made it up as they went along.

reading your spoilers, i am so glad i decided not to follow it any longer than i did.. i think second episode of season 2.

by then it was clear to me that they were just pulling stuff out of their butts. and really didnt care what they write and what happens next.. no "arc" in the story. just making up stories as people wanted more.

bet they didnt imagine they would have to make more than 1st year of the show..therefore they couldnt make smart ending.. they just had to elongate the plot to ridiculous proportions.

i know many of my friends will be dissappointed to the ending. those that have followed the "story".

i kinda wished they would of just stopped on second season or maybe on end of three. (the "others" just made me feel cheated)

and the end would of been nice if it were explained then as feverish delusion of one of the main characters or as nightmare. (some parts would of been true and the freaky his/her fever talking)

btw. what was the black smoky thing in the forest? was it explained thoroughly or just shrugged off as writers decided to write of something else they cooked up in their think tank instead?

i did like the polarbear idea tho.

I'm gonna have to watch it again and think about it more before I say I didn't like it.

For the most part, they did a great job, but it felt a little rushed at times (the Jack-"Locke" fight scene, Ben mysteriously being freed from the fallen tree and unhurt at that), but was very emotional and did a good job of getting the viewers involved and looking back on the last 6 years of our lives spent getting to know, love and/or hate these characters.

For what it's worth, I'll miss Lost.

:thumbsup: john

nbp said:

But alas! It doesn't matter, because the closing scene of the wreckage implied that everyone died in the crash, and that none of the show ever really happened, it was all just a story, contrived for entertainment.

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I didn't feel that at all...

The wreckage would have still been there six years later, right? Those big chunks of airplane would have been too big for the survivors to move. Or, the writers could have simply been showing us viewers a final view of "the set".

bltkmt said:

I didn't feel that at all...

The wreckage would have still been there six years later, right? Those big chunks of airplane would have been too big for the survivors to move. Or, the writers could have simply been showing us viewers a final view of "the set".

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After hearing some different ideas and talking about it, I don't think I assessed that correctly at first either.

The most plausible idea I've heard is that it all really did happen, ie the island experience and everthing. And that the reason they were called to the island was for all those people to work something out. Some did bad things, or were not good people or had some hangup or whatever. The island was like a testing ground, giving them an opportunity to do something selfless to redeem themselves, or work out their issues. If they were successful, they would have the chance to go to "whatever's next". We saw this at the end, those who made it. Granted they all had to die to get there, and did die in many different ways and at different times. The sideways world is some kind of pre-heaven situation, I guess. Hmmm.

But while I guess that could be, the thing I don't like is it kind of makes all the other questions and mysteries irrelevant. If were accepting the island as some kind of cosmic proving ground where people choose between good and evil, then maybe we shouldn't ever have expected to get all our answers. Why did the island have magic properties? Why did women die in childbirth?What's really the deal with the light? How does the island move? Why did they time travel? What's the deal with the temple?

Are we supposed to just forget about all the other goofy stuff that happened just because of a warm fuzzy reunion at the end? Just accept that it was all much bigger than we knew and we can't understand?

Am I way overthinking all this? Should I just say hey, it was entertaining, and leave it alone? I just can't wrap my head around it all and I hate that feeling.

nbp said:

Am I way overthinking all this? Should I just say hey, it was entertaining, and leave it alone? I just can't wrap my head around it all and I hate that feeling.

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No, you're not over-thinking it. To me, a TV show is not all that entertaining if it doesn't make sense. And lost stopped making sense shortly after they found the polar bear. The bear could be easily explained as a runaway from a secret animal testing lab located on the island. The rest, a bit harder to work out.

Here's an alternate ending I just came up with:

All the main characters are coma victims. They're all strapped into virtual reality machines monitored by the creator of the treatment. That doctor turns out to be the black guy who was sucked into one of the still-working engines when the plane crashed during the first episode.

The central theme is the island, and they are put into difficult situations which can then be viewed on a large TV screen ... er, I mean; monitor ... And the object is to stimulate their minds with stressful situations, in the hopes that they will snap out of it and return to reality. In the end, the procedure fails as the plane crashes again.

The doctor wants to try again, but another doctor points out that the procedure is too dangerous to try again. Adding that, "Mr. Locke has already died during the procedure, and it was a small miracle that we were able to get him back from the brink."

The experiment is shut down. Fade to black.

Well, what do you think?

Maybe. But in that scenario, you're just explaining it all by saying that it was a virtual reality machine and was invented by the doctor as he went along. I think that's kind of unsatisfying. Like saying well, of course it didn't make sense, it wasn't real, the doc just made it up to stress out the patients.

If I was goin to explain it that way, I could leave it all the same and just say that the whole show was a dream/hallucination Jack had as he was laying there dying, thus the reason he died where he had first come to. He never moved, he just imagined this story, then died. And we got to see it somehow. How about that?

I never got past the first few minutes of the first show. Right about the time I saw the jet engine still running after a fairly long time.
I kept telling my friend that it would end like the second Bob Newhart series. He wakes up in bed and tells his wife he just had an odd dream about running an inn in New England. He is still the psychologist from his first series.

Mike Painter said:

I kept telling my friend that it would end like the second Bob Newhart series. He wakes up in bed and tells his wife he just had an odd dream about running an inn in New England. He is still the psychologist from his first series.

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I saw that ending. thought it was funny.

nbp said:

Maybe. But in that scenario, you're just explaining it all by saying that it was a virtual reality machine and was invented by the doctor as he went along. I think that's kind of unsatisfying.

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Well, to be honest, clearly the writers were making stuff up as they went along. (I think it's obvious.) In a case such as that, you're horribly limited as to what to do in order to wrap things up in a short amount of time; and have everything make sense. No matter what you come up with for an ending, it's just not going to satisfy the hard-core fans.

In that regard, I still believe my version is better than what we actually ended up getting.

I thought it was pretty clear that the Island DID happen, and the sideways reality was something of a purgatory, where the dead Losties went when they died (in their own time, some sooner than Jack, some long after, as Jacks father said).

I think the finale was an abortion. It answered no questions and basically amounted to "everyone eventually died and made peace with it." In addition to not answering any of the viewers countless questions and essentially killing everybody off, they also took away the whole idea that there was a story in there somewhere. Stuff happened, then everyone died. What was the point?
I can't fathom how they decided to end it this way.

It worked for me. To me the show was more about the characters and their interaction. With that in mind, this ending was perfect.

Rothrandir said:

In addition to not answering any of the viewers countless questions and essentially killing everybody off, they also took away the whole idea that there was a story in there somewhere. Stuff happened, then everyone died. What was the point?
I can't fathom how they decided to end it this way.

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That's just how I feel. Like all the previous events didn't really matter. All just some contrived game with people as the pieces. Idk, just not super satisfied.

Those who were more just into the characters seem to be happy. Those who were following the plot and wanted to understand it all are not.

I sure will miss watching freckles!

Hmmm, I just watched it a couple of hours ago, and my take on it is this. I agree with the interpretation that the alternate reality was some kind of purgatory. More accurately it was like a meeting point, for all of them to come together and remember their lives before they moved on to whatever is beyond. I like that. I do however feel we were led a bit down the garden path with the idea that it was an alternate reality caused by the nuke going off, and I suspect that was where it was going originally but the writers changed it. There were several suggestions this was so, i.e. Juliettes dying line of 'it worked' after setting it off. If true, it is a shame they changed it, but that sort of ending would have been very run of the mill sci-fi that we have all seen before anyway.

Also, with regards to a lot of peoples dissatisfaction about things being explained, I think exactly the right amount of the story was explained. There were really only a few things left without answers. Ok, some of them were real big questions, the exact nature of 'the light' for example, or the origins of Jacobs adopted mother and the guardians of the island. However, I do not think they were left unanswered just because the writers couldnt think of anything. If you and I can think of ways to tie the story up, then I am sure they would have been able to. I really like the fact they did not explain certain things. I like the fact I have my own interpretation and thoughts on what the light was. I cannot think of a way they could have explained it that would have pleased everyone. For example, if they had started talking about God, which they could easily have done, I would probably have stopped watching, and would have felt I had wasted a pretty large portion of my time watching the previous episodes (no offence intended to my religious peeps, holla).

To me, the important point is that 'Lost' was not the story of the island, it was a story about the passengers of Oceanic 815. It was about their relationships and their lives, and in that sense, we got as many answers and endings as you could want in my opinion. Would I like it to continue and see Hurley live on as the new Jacob? Hell yeah! But realistically, the show had run its course. The scenes of the characters remembering their time on the island were very emotive for me, which made me realise how much I had come to believe in those characters and their relationships over the last few years. Sad, but I reckon that was the result of some great writing. So yeah, I suppose this is my rambling way of saying I did feel good about the finale. Perhaps it helped that I had very low expectations of it. I expected some 'and it was all a dream', or 'God did it' explanation, which may have led to my head exploding with annoyance . Rothrandir seems annoyed at the 'stuff happened then everyone died' vibe to it, but I think thats part of the message intended by the writers, I think they are saying there isnt a point to anything, and if there is then its not important anyway, the most important thing is the relationships you build and lives you influence along your journey. I can dig that :thumbsup:

Just my thoughts and interpretation, feel free to rip it apart

rodfran said:

I sure will miss watching freckles!

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I agree with you on that one! I also forgot how awesome Shannon was until we saw her again in the last episode!!:kiss:

W.Y.N.I said:

To me, the important point is that 'Lost' was not the story of the island, it was a story about the passengers of Oceanic 815. It was about their relationships and their lives, and in that sense, we got as many answers and endings as you could want in my opinion. Would I like it to continue and see Hurley live on as the new Jacob? Hell yeah! But realistically, the show had run its course. The scenes of the characters remembering their time on the island were very emotive for me, which made me realise how much I had come to believe in those characters and their relationships over the last few years. Sad, but I reckon that was the result of some great writing. So yeah, I suppose this is my rambling way of saying I did feel good about the finale. Perhaps it helped that I had very low expectations of it. I expected some 'and it was all a dream', or 'God did it' explanation, which may have led to my head exploding with annoyance . Rothrandir seems annoyed at the 'stuff happened then everyone died' vibe to it, but I think thats part of the message intended by the writers, I think they are saying there isnt a point to anything, and if there is then its not important anyway, the most important thing is the relationships you build and lives you influence along your journey. I can dig that :thumbsup:

Just my thoughts and interpretation, feel free to rip it apart

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I had a really good thing all typed out with lots of detail, and while I walked away, the computer logged me out and I lost it all, which makes me really really really mad.

But I guess to summarize all I had written in just a few words (cuz I'm not typing it all again right now):

I can go with the character driven idea of the show's purpose as you have, but my issue then is not so much that we didn't get answers to our questions, but that the answers didn't matter.

The fact that so much could be left unexplained, unanswered, unaddressed, at the end the show and still have it "make sense" is a huge flaw to me. The ending and moral that you suggest is nice, but it makes much of the show irrelevant, and the mystery and action and questions surrounding it seem like it was all just to gain ratings or keep audience attention. Because it didn't end up mattering in the end. You could have missed most of the show, and not missed much.