Until We Meet In Another Life, Farewell My Friend Pt. 5

By John Cabrera on May 25 2010

Comments (63)

63 Responses to “Until We Meet In Another Life, Farewell My Friend Pt. 5”

1. Rae on 25 May 2010 at 8:35 am #

   

   Heh. I’m definitely the Lover. Except I too had issues with the Shannon thing. Totally just about bringing back characters but then they’ve done so much story manipulation with Sayid this year I’m not sure why I’m surprised.

   And I’m not quite good with the spiritual stuff so much as I wasn’t tied to any theories so I’m fine with the answers we got. I think there’s a conclusion there if you want there to be (if you’re willing to just accept at face value that the Island is a plug keeping the light secure and the protector has to keep it burning and stop the smoke from escaping and everything else that happened all stems from that) but there’s also plenty of room to continue speculating, as you pointed out. Note that the plug has the symbols we’ve seen all over the island carved into it which definitely connects it to the Temple and Statue in some way.

   I do think the Flash Sideways stuff did serve a purpose. It shows us the evolution of these characters… the things they’ve grappled with and overcome. If we assume each character’s Flash Sideways was controlled by them, it’s an interesting look at how they saw themselves (maybe a key to how some of them lived out the rest of their lives if we assume they incorporated some of part of their future into the visions?). Granted, not a key to any of our other mysteries and much less interesting if you’re not into the character stuff but not only there to fool us.

2. Courtney K. on 25 May 2010 at 8:55 am #

   

   I *can* see both sides, but I’m siding more with Hater (even though I did enjoy the finale because I cried…a lot).

   Hater is right, the finale was one sided. It gave us FaithBased perspective people just that, an answer based on Faith. Not Faith as in church, but Faith as in “there is a net, there is a net, there is a net” when you jump. And that is fine, but the show was so heavy on sciencey-geeky stuff that even someone like me, a FaithBased Perspective person got totally wrapped up in the details and am sorely disappointed that I don’t have solid answers to questions that THEY put out there!

   I also work off of the thinking that once you die, you GET all the answers. You know how all the good books & movies end! You get to have tea with great minds! After-life is one long trip to Disneyland/DisneyWorld/SeaWorld/TokyoDisneySea/SixFlags etc! I know they didn’t want to show us what was “in the light at the end of the church” (by the way, I appreciated all the Religious Relics, I was glad there was representation of bunches of belief systems) because it’s “supposed” to be different for everybody; but they stuff the COULD’VE answered, they should’ve. That’s how I feel about it.

   Yes, some things you never get an answer to and eventually you have to let go. I think the writer’s were trying to tell us that throughout the last two episodes. That we weren’t going to like the ending. It was just going to be an ending and to “Let it go”.
   However when was the last time any of you have said to somebody, “Please let it go…” and it did a damned bit of difference?

   I’m looking at you, John. Haha!

3. Courtney K. on 25 May 2010 at 8:58 am #

   

   damn…*the stuff they could’ve answered, they should’ve.

4. DJSmackMackey on 25 May 2010 at 9:14 am #

   

   Jack’s dead.
   It would have been better if they never had anyone come out and say they were all dead. If they’re gonna leave the island story open to interpretation, they should have done the same for purgatory.
   They should have done what they always have done. Answered the questions in a way that would create new questions. Show us something in the light hole that we can’t quite make out, show some of the island break away to reveal a portion of polished steel structure, something for people to freeze frame and analyze. The way they left it doesn’t give us anything to theorize. Instead they tell us nothing, basically say it’s magic, and we have to really stretch if we want to find something to grab onto. They gave us closure for the characters (in a cheap way, I feel), but they didn’t give us answers, or even anything worth coming up with theories for. They dropped the ball and tried to pull sleight of hand to make us think we had an ending worthy of the show.

5. Pauline on 25 May 2010 at 9:17 am #

   

   Thanks for this post J… I’ve been trying to say this to some of my angry friends but in clumsy and completely bull in a china shop kinda way.

   Thanks for bringing up the mystery box. Before I saw this blog I’d just tweeted a link of that lecture to Courtney (who probably wants to toss me down the into the ‘my little pony cave’ right about now).

   I’m glad they didn’t clear up all the mysteries… I just had a great time on my theory that MIB built the lighthouse… I found a sentence about Tezcatlipoca (my obsession since we first met the twins) and found this nugget: “Tezcatlipoca, literally translated, means Smoking Mirror. This refers to a mirror made of polished black obsidian, his omniscient window to the entire world.” If they had told me all I wanted to know… I wouldn’t still have the joy of research. And Y’all know I LOVE the research!

   I happened to love the ending even though I was a pissed off by season 6 and Darlton all year. but in the middle of the 2.5 hours I set down my notes and just… Let Go. For me, I feel like the what the creators did with the end of the series was to illustrate that in life we spend our time asking why and trying to figure every thing out… why we’re here, what is this universe, where did all these rules come from? But at the end of your life, it’s about the relationships you make and the lessons you learn and the healing you experience.

   I feel like the creators made that choice to make a point.
   And to quote the Beatles’ song, The End:

   “And in the end
   The love you take
   Is equal to the love you make.”

6. Crystal on 25 May 2010 at 9:18 am #

   

   This makes my heart laugh.

7. Jen on 25 May 2010 at 9:18 am #

   

   Great post. I liked the finale. I feel like the people on the hater side probably never would have been 100% happy with it anyway. They put so much thought into every aspect of the show and I don’t see how all of their questions would have been answered in a way that pleased them.

8. DJSmackMackey on 25 May 2010 at 9:23 am #

   

   P.S.
   the reason I think it was a cheap ending, is because it nullified all the danger and death that occurred. It made it all not matter, because in the end, everyone is fine and happy and in heaven. There is no real consequence for their actions, no reason to wish anyone made a different decision, because in the end, all is going to work out just fine for everyone.
   Also, if they just left out the dialog after Christian said “How are YOU here?”, holy shit, that would have been so much more powerful and would have spawned a ton of interesting theories and discussions. Instead, Jack and Christian tell the audience that they’ve all died, but the island was real, and everyone gets to be happy and move on to heaven, big win. Why not go with less is more?
   Ok, I’m done.

9. Julia on 25 May 2010 at 9:54 am #

   

   Isn’t (wasn’t) one of the thrills of Lost the chance of theorize what was happening? I was never a believer of the spaceship theory, and I was confused beyond all get-out by the time travel and space continuum thing, but I loved hearing the varied theories. How could that have happened if the writers had done it “one way?”

   I happened to love the ending — I think because of my wish to believe in man’s humanity to man. I loved that Jack had to “fix” something, and that Kate needed to recognize her own worth, and that Ben chose to stay in purgatory, etc., etc.

   I have many unanswered questions (if Sun and Jin died a la The Titanic, what happened to the baby? And what baby was in the church going into the light? And how did young Jacob end up on Jimmy Kimmel? (I kid.)) that may or not be answered by a thorough review of the last six years, but I have to admit I loved the cross between The Sixth Sense and Ghost Whisperer. It just did my heart good. And, ultimately, isn’t that a really good result of fantastic storytelling?

   (And, John, this post is so great! )

10. DavidCake on 25 May 2010 at 9:54 am #

    

    I loved it. The science stuff was cool to me (I would love a whole show based on the Dharma Initiative) but for me it was totally about the characters. I thought it was the perfect way to wrap it up, and for me mystery is better than knowing. It leaves me with that sense of wonder rather than a cut and dry answer.

11. Just_Linda on 25 May 2010 at 10:06 am #

    

    Me=LOVER.

    I know exactly who the HATER was based on (our mutual friend). The whole dialog was awesome so thanks for the laugh since my eyes are still red and puffy from all the crying I’ve done in the last 48 hours.

    In the spirit of a truce, I’ll gladly give you Atlantis if the spaceship is now and forever off the table. Deal?

12. Kristen on 25 May 2010 at 10:31 am #

    

    I loved the finale. I don’t understand how it was a cop out. If they had said that the island was purgatory and everyone died in the crash, then it would be a cop out. I think the problem is that people are looking at the end as an answer to the whole series, whereas I see the alt-verse as an epilogue to the story of LOST. If you were to take out the whole alt-verse storyline and just use the island stuff, you’d still have a solid, coherent story. Maybe it won’t answer any more questions, but all you Haters might be just a little less upset. Or not. My 2 cents.

13. Itzel on 25 May 2010 at 10:38 am #

    

    Hahaha, I’m on the side of the LOVER, but I acknowledge that they could’ve/should’ve answered more mysteries. That being said, I loved the way the characters ended their journey, they suffered through 6 seasons and at least got a hopeful, happy ending. And while I love all the geekery and science stuff on the show, I somehow don’t feel like I miss it, you know? I’m ok just like this.

    And definitely don’t think it’s a cop out. What I’d criticize is the fact that they presented us with stories we didn’t need in the final season. The temple guys, fake Liz Lemon, specially those. Oh god was she super annoying.

    But yeah, I’m satisfied, and look forward to watching it again today now that it finally airs here.

    PS. Loooooved the HATER vs. LOVER thing!

14. Lizz on 25 May 2010 at 11:01 am #

    

    Pretty sure you were secretly reading my friend Julie and my rants yesterday on instant messenger. Which is cool. Creepy, but cool. But you missed out on the hater’s need for a Widmore and Eloise Hawking backstory. Or that the candidate selection was arbitrary.

    I’d give up this whole season for a few
    more answers and some time with Faraday.

    Of course to say I am a Hater is to say it is sunny in Los Angeles and they miscast the new Vincent. Oh and the Target commercials were more clever than that fucking finale.

15. Lizz on 25 May 2010 at 11:14 am #

    

    Loving the kid born with no arms is fucking brilliant, by the way. I’m totally going to use that when describing this season. But I don’t love it. I might stop the collection at 5 and pretend the series ended with Juliette bashing Jughead.

    Also, why did those title cards turn white when the finale was black? And why did Juliette say “it worked,” unless she literally was applauding herself for hitting something with a rock? What worked?

    Aaah! Stupid fucking Lost!

16. James Gunn on 25 May 2010 at 11:18 am #

    

    I’m undoubtedly a hater. I feel ripped off by this show. If one more fucking person says that “the haters wouldn’t be satisfied by anything” I’m going to fucking punch someone (probably my dog). The show was extremely poorly written. The killing of the man in black was like stock footage from an old Dolph Lundgren movie. The scene at the end was like something like Tuesdays with Morrie. The dialogue and set design in that last scene was vomitous (i.e. yin yang stained-glass window). I would have not been happy with the same exact ending told better – There was no answer for what the island was, and no connection to ANYTHING in the series except for the past two or three episodes, making it obvious the writers lied to us about having a plan all along. But, that said, I would have been much happier if it was well-executed, which it wasn’t. AND, as a hater, I was not on the anti-faith, pro-reason side of things – I DID NOT really like the beginning of season 5, and liked the majority of season 6 better. And I certainly don’t wish it was a spaceship. But I do wish they had presented some balance between the two things.
    I cried numerous times during the show (not a big deal for me, I can cry at a Crest commercial) – I love love love those characters. But why did they have to put such stupid shit in their mouths? And, truth is, I cried harder afterwards, because I just felt so disappointed and duped. Finally, even the populist part of me was bummed. If I was in the minority, then at least the TV show WORKED pragmatically for the majority of the audience. But this just isn’t the case. It’s pretty evenly divided between “lovers” and “haters” out there according to the polls, and this objectively is a horrible travesty for a show that had so many people so invested. The makers of LOST failed without a doubt in that last episode.

17. Rae on 25 May 2010 at 11:30 am #

    

    Here’s a question I do need answered… how the hell did Ben get out from under that tree?

18. Lizz on 25 May 2010 at 11:52 am #

    

    Amen, James. Please don’t punch your dog. He didn’t write the show.

19. Jen on 25 May 2010 at 12:07 pm #

    

    OMG! Rae, that bugged me! They made such a big deal about that tree limb/trunk (whatever) being so heavy and the next time you see him he is running around like nothing. Why did they even have it fall on him?

    Itzel – “fake Liz Lemon” I love it! I hated her and everytime I saw her I thought, “get off my screen fake Tina Fey”.

20. Courtney K. on 25 May 2010 at 12:10 pm #

    

    Dear James,

    Please don’t punch your dog.

    Ok, that’s all. Thanks!

21. Courtney K. on 25 May 2010 at 12:13 pm #

    

    Oh, and James, I agree. That’s horribly annoying “the haters wouldn’t be satisfied by anything”; that’s a bunch of bullsh%t. I would’ve been happy to know MIB’s real name, from the show. Having an “insider” say his name was Samuel just isn’t the same. I wanted to hear it from the show.

22. Rae on 25 May 2010 at 12:33 pm #

    

    I definitely agree with James’ comment about the writers and their so-called plan. There is a difference between knowing how you want it to end (as in knowing you want the last scene to be the reverse of the very first scene) and actually planning out an end to the story.

    You have to think if they knew all along how they were going to explain away the Island/Jacob/Smokey stuff, they’d have done a much better job setting it up at the very least. It feels very much like they had a vague idea of how they were going to deal with Island stuff and, because they’ve admitted time and time again they see the show more of a character study than anything else, they never bothered to do really iron out the other parts.

    I accept what they gave us but I can’t deny it was poorly executed. And I can’t blame those who can’t let that go. (Note: I’m still gonna roll my eyes at everyone who claims the finale retroactively ruins the entire show for them. If you feel that way, you feel that way and I can’t argue with your feelings. But, damn, don’t ever watch another show for 6 seasons just because you need to know how it ends. Nothing will ever live up to those kind of expectations.)

23. Johnny Hugel on 25 May 2010 at 12:40 pm #

    

    At least the Haters here have more more valid points than any that I’ve encountered in real life. I wasn’t exactly a lover, but I felt satisfied with the ending think I fall closer on that side of the line. Sorry about your spaceship theory…

    And to address one minor nitpick, my take on the church was that this was Jacks ascension into the next phase/heaven/whathaveyou. This is why in my mind (besides scheduling issues and other behind the scenes difficulties) not everyone was present, and Sayid was with Shannon rather than Nadia. But maybe I’m off on that too, and it was supposed to serve as one giant sendoff for everyone we “knew and loved” from the show.

24. Laura Ann on 25 May 2010 at 12:52 pm #

    

    I’m totally a Hater on this one. While I loved the sixth season (finale aside) and it’s Paradise, Lost (heheh) feel I thought that they conned the audience out of the two preceding seasons. The time travel, new characters, new subplots, sideways worlds, what’s real and not real…too much. Too. Freaking. Much. I don’t know what the writers/producers were thinking but they needed to keep a show this complex as tight and organized as possible so that people would still have an emotional investment in the end. I was so busy trying to figure out what the hell the sideways world was all about at the end that I couldn’t even cry…til it was over and I realized that actually was the finale.

25. lizz on 25 May 2010 at 1:00 pm #

    

    Rae,

    It’s not like this is the end of 30 Rock. This is a show built on mysteries that lived on each other and were supposed to culminate at the end… But, instead, we got a cheesy ending from a bad Lifetime movie. Yeah, I was happy when Sawyer and Juliette had their flash, but it didn’t make up for the crap season / finale.

    The haters were sold a bill of goods that this would lead to something awesome. A Ghost / Sixth Sense / Battlestar ending is NOT awesome.

    A lot of the hate is self-induced — Why did I spend so much time trying to read into the mythology created? Why did I care about these people when only about 10 made a difference? Why did I think Widmore or Eloise Hawking (the two characters that seemed to know what was going on in any dimension) mattered? Why bother killing Charlie or Sun or Jin or Boone if the ending is “you all die at some point.” If this was a character-driven show, like the producers/writers started saying it was when it was obvious that nothing they made would add up, MAKE THE CHARACTERS BETTER. HAVE DECENT DIALOGUE. STICK TO BASIC WRITING RULES. This season was abysmal and not because of a shit plot. I would have been happy if it were a simple show about attractive people on a beach. They could have stuck it on the CW and I’d still watch. Maybe there was some mystery, maybe not. BUT THEY NEVER WROTE THAT SHOW. They abandoned all the interesting philosophies that made this not “Hot Beach Survivor Mystery Show.”

    I wanted to think of LOST like math/physics. It starts out simple, builds on itself and eventually gets super trippy — but still needs the basic fundamentals to survive. They KILLED these ideas. They couldn’t even manage to adhere to arbitrary rules they created THIS SEASON, let alone from before.

    To use John’s beautiful and apt metaphor, the whole armless baby ruined the family for me. It makes me think the mom had been drinking and taking Thalidomide the whole time.

26. lizz on 25 May 2010 at 1:03 pm #

    

    Additionally, I might not retroactively hate the show. I loved moments. I loved that it moved me. I loved that it made me cry and laugh and feel okay about pop culture. I’m just personally offended and need time to heal. Like I said in an earlier post, I need time to heal from this breakup.

27. lizz on 25 May 2010 at 1:14 pm #

    

    Um, sorry if my grammar and syntax is sub-par, guys. I’m still too angry for spellcheck.

    TOO ANGRY FOR SPELLCHECK!

28. lizz on 25 May 2010 at 1:22 pm #

    

    And it’s occurred to me that maybe this is just Jack’s death reality and it was lame and cliche because it was created by Jack and he sucks. But if a dog curls up next to you to help you through your death rattle, you FUCKING BRING HIM UP TO NONDENOMINATIONAL HEAVEN.

    STILL. SO. ANGRY.

29. John Cabrera on 25 May 2010 at 1:34 pm #

    

    I don’t understand why everyone is so convinced that Island Jack died there at the end. He closed his eye. That’s a reasonable convention for a story that started on an opening eye.

    But eyes can easily close simply because they’re resting.

    What’s more, as LOVER points out, Jack should have been killed by the magnetic energy. Not the knife wound. And yet we watched him wake and walk to a patch in the jungle. Where did he come from? The last person we saw wash up there was a dead MIB… who died due to the magnetic energy… what’s more, when he died down there, a Smoke Monster was released. So shouldn’t the same rules apply to Jack.

    Just because the Alti-verse was an Afterlife doesn’t mean it’s tied to any of the character’s personal stories. We know it’s definitely not linearly tied to Hurley’s story as he seems to indicate he had many more adventures with Ben on the Island. Why couldn’t the same chronology apply to Jack? A similarly future afterlife? What’s to say that he didn’t also have a continuing story. What’s to say that he didn’t also become a Smoke Monster and an important plot point for a future story on the Island?

30. DJSmackMackey on 25 May 2010 at 2:58 pm #

    

    I’ll tell you what’s to say. What’s to say that all didn’t happen, is that they didn’t even hint at it. You’re reaching for something John. You’re trying to hold on to a reason to accept the finale. Let go…………let go.

31. John Cabrera on 25 May 2010 at 4:58 pm #

    

    What do you mean they didn’t hint at it? Okay, so how is it possible that he didn’t die down in the light? Being that Desmond is the only one who can withstand that kind of energy? And how does seeing him washed up in the exact same place where MIB’s body was found not inform that bit of storytelling? That seemed very deliberate. More than a hint in my opinion. On top of that, we were told two episodes ago that what happens to a man when they go into the light is NOT death. Worse perhaps… but not death. So… what? Am I reaching for that? That was put in my lap. If I didn’t do something with that, I’d be denying it.

    In my opinion, Jack’s Island ending was left as deliberately vague and open as everyone else’s. From my side of the board, viewing that moment as him dead is just reaching for closure on the Island when technically it wasn’t really given to us. Which was probably by design. And that’s not to say he isn’t dead… just that you have no idea just as much as I have no idea. All we have are our theories.

    In regards to the Spaceship and Atlantis and the Snowglobe… that Island could still be anything. And I think that’s fine. But they didn’t answer that question at all… even though they certainly gave hints it was something. And to say, “ha, told you it wasn’t a spaceship” or “you’re just reaching for that spaceship” would be no different than me watching the episode and saying, “ha! did you see that?! that little tiny clue confirms it!! The Island is a Spaceship!!” It’s just as much reaching, because there’s absolutely nothing there to give confirmation on anything regarding that Island.

32. Courtney K. on 25 May 2010 at 6:38 pm #

    

    If Jack put the stone stopper back in the well o’light; how come he didn’t heal up straight away? Wouldn’t him putting that cork back in make it so that whole magical-healing mojo would come back? It makes sense that he didn’t die UNTIL he had LET GO; and that was when he saw the plane fly overhead. Overhead = dead.

    And YEAH!! Where was Vincent in the Multi-Church?? Don’t All Dogs Go to Heaven?? Poor dog…they didn’t even have Snausages on that fahkahkta Island.

33. lizz on 25 May 2010 at 7:25 pm #

    

    so this whole “i’m going against everything i’ve said for 6 years” post is to be vague to get out of owing james gunn about five dollars?

    you are better than this.

34. Lindyk on 25 May 2010 at 7:37 pm #

    

    John,

    that post is brilliant, and i respect that you see both sides. I understand the haters annoyance after all the hours they put into it. I was a passive lover by and large. But there is NO WAY they are closing this story because they always keep the movie option open. I believe you are definitely onto something.

    And the rocks breaking away- it certainly could be a spaceship dislodging. I’m not a big fan of the spaceship idea but that candy bar Sawyer was grabbing clearly said Apollo. There was no escaping that.

    See ya at the movies.

35. John Cabrera on 25 May 2010 at 8:17 pm #

    

    Which post are you talking about Lizz? This one? I’m not following.

36. Lindy K on 25 May 2010 at 8:24 pm #

    

    OMG!!!!! After reading this post and thinking about the Apollo reference (candy bar) and the idea that the spaceship might be breaking the rocks trying to rise, I googled the Apollo Program.

    Before I even clicked on the top link, the words staring me in the face on Google said: Apollo program 1961-1975, and then “…HUMANS TRANSPORTED…”

    It gave me a chill… John is right, but it’s sideways. The Dharma Initiative, possibly part of our space program (?) was involved with transporting people off earth – and the island is somewhere else. It’s us – out there.

37. jennhoney on 25 May 2010 at 8:29 pm #

    

    well, I didn’t really question that Jack died when he closed his eye,(until now…maybe) but I also was waiting for a white smoke monster to zoom by Ben and Hurley while they were chatting outside the cave. (I was waiting for a lot of things that didn’t happen)

    afterall MIB was turned all black smokey in an act of extreme violence/rage/revenge and Jack’s journey into the cave was entirely redemptive/heroic/sacrificial. Just because Jacob’s mom said that it was a fate worse than death doesn’t mean that it is that for everyone. Let’s face it, she didn’t know much and Jacob only knew slightly more. (I personally think Jacob’s mom was speaking of her own trip down the rabbit hole)

    and when Jack’s body was just somewhere else on the island, without explanation. I wondered if my eyes had been so full of tears that I missed his smokey entrance but, I never doubted that he indeed had been desoul-smokified. You know, in a nice way.

    and, seriously, was no one else yelling at the tv, ‘hey guys if you just run down and grab Jack before the light in the island turns back on EVERYONE can be ok and ALIVE’?

    I don’t think you are reaching John, the island, may very well be a spaceship. I ,personally, didn’t want to SEE a spaceship in the finale partly, because whatever most of us have in our imaginations is going to be better, and mostly because a *BAM!* image of a spaceship would ALIENate and jolt viewers out of the story.

    so, you know, totally better to end with a glow-y church. Nothing overwhelming about that imagery, at all.

38. John Cabrera on 25 May 2010 at 8:49 pm #

    

    Oh yeah, TOOOOTALLY… and nothing at all alienating about it either. :S

39. Pauline on 25 May 2010 at 10:39 pm #

    

    Reading the comments through my fingers since I’m only on S3 of BSG… But lets see here…

    My interpretation of the “It worked” was that when Juliet died she probably popped into non-linear, non-denominational church area, saw everyone, whispered ghost-style to Miles that “it worked” and then joined in the kumbaya-yas.

    James… Why does a 50/50 split mean a fail? Obama only won 53% of the popular vote and he won. (Just sayin’) I agree that the writing has been clunky and lame this season. Occasionally I could even hear the cheesy sound of drums going, “Buh-duh duh…” after every one-liner…

    Oh my goodness… that fricking tree landing on ben. And did anyone catch that cheesy 1970′s movie of the week music as the playing as the Jack and his Herculoids hiked up that hill to find the glowy light cave? Cheese and silliness.

    So far as getting a cut and dry, ‘they all eventually die and go to heaven’ answer. Are you kidding? I’ve heard more interpretations what that ending meant than there are psalms in the bible. (is that a blasphemous statement coming from a pagan? apologies if so.)

    J… I’m totally onboard with your Jack as a smokey theory. Would make good plot for this:
    http://www.theonion.com/articles/lost-possibly-still-airing-in-parallel-dimension-d,17485/

    Seriously though… I’m so glad I still have stuff to chew on theory-wise. It’s making my whole pre-finale fear of, “What the hell am I gonna research now?” subside a little.

40. Lizz on 25 May 2010 at 11:27 pm #

    

    I am just saying stop playing devil’s advocate as it is almost systematically impossible for you, man of science, to not be a hater. The show has proven many, many times this season that we are not allowed to draw our own conclusions, and we have to take their crap plot points at face value. Jack died. As much as it would finally make him interesting, he is not the new smoke monster. MIB’s body went into the cave after he died, not willingly like Jack. Plus there is more baptism renewal punch you in the face symbolism when the stream washes over him. And I honestly do not believe Vincent would snuggle with him if he were the next evil.

    Just admit the ep was awful, there was no spaceship (though it would have made a better ending) and pay the man. I refuse to believe the crap writers left anything ambiguous unless it was out of sheer laziness posing as myth.

41. John Cabrera on 26 May 2010 at 12:01 am #

    

    Yeah, but P, it’s a very different thing than an election. This wasn’t a contest. Millions of people invested themselves into this show. And there were two very distinctly different factions within that massive fanbase… and they seemed to be split pretty evenly. He’s saying the fail came in the fact that the writers blatantly chose one child over the other. Wrote a finale that flat out left a massive group of fans feeling swindled.

    This was a show that seemed to be pitting Science against Faith the whole way through. It never seemed to judge either side. It just presented both sides as a different way of looking at the story. That is until this finale, where everyone who had been primarily invested in the logial facets of the show were totally left out.

    The irony of that is in how this show has actually grown to such popularity. As much as some fans want to believe it’s the characters that have elevated the show to such a status… that’s simply not the case. There have been dozens of shows throughout television history with rich character development… arguably many with much deeper character studies. Few if any have reached the level of pop recognition as Lost. This show is very special. How has it done that? Well surf the web, read other blogs like this one. You’ll notice a trend… people don’t obsess over the characters nearly as much as they obsess over the cryptic mysteries. This blog’s google traffic is never from anything like “Jack and Kate” or “Jin and Sun” or “Locke and his Dad”… the search terms that find this blog are “Tawret” and “Dharma” and “Richard’s age”. That’s what has driven the imaginations of millions… discovering the logical answers to those questions. The decoding of those riddles.

    So to just leave that out of the finale… to neither answer questions nor pose any really provocative new ones (certainly not on the level of the Hatch or the Others or the Statue)… it just feels strange. Like all of those mysteries were just bait to get us to watch just another show about characters living and loving and struggling. I’ve heard people say, “oh the creators have always said this was not a show about an Island… that this was a show about characters.” Well that’s just a flat out lie. Imagine this show without the cryptic mysteries or the Island. Just a bunch of characters living and loving and struggling together. That could be any show. I mean sure, it could be a good show… but that’s not why this show is so popular. That’s not why it’s so distinctive.

42. John Cabrera on 26 May 2010 at 12:36 am #

    

    Lizz, they certainly did. And they certainly were conscious of it. And they certainly needed to.

    There is no way I’m going to accept that Jack is dead when we didn’t see it happen. But I’m also not going to accept he’s alive either. Because the truth is… he’s both… and neither… and whatever we want him to be… and what ever they want him to be… and whatever they NEED him to be if- no WHEN they pick up the story again.

    There’s no question the ending was purposefully left ambiguous. And the fact that we’re even arguing that only strengthens my point. And while the writers might want us to believe that’s why they chose to end it that way… and why they’ve sworn to a radio silence after the finale… the truth is that’s how you have to end any part of a franchise that’s as valuable to its owners as this one is.

    And we call it the Smoke Monster because it was a monstrous being. Who’s to say that a Jack Smoke Monster would be monstrous. But that isn’t even the most important detail about what we saw with Jack. What we need to ask ourselves is how in the world he got out of that cave. Because now that we know what the cave actually looks like… where he was laying in the pool… the answer to that question is a pretty difficult one… even for MIB. And you can chock it up to laziness… or you can say there’s a clue there about what happened to Jack between then and last time we saw him. Or… you can say the writers left enough doors open for it to be whatever they need it to be in the future.

    That might feel sort of cheap, but that’s the reality of writing for a machine. And as audiences we rely on the content that machine produces so we sort of have to accept it’s rules, right?

    A group of survivors left on a plane. Hugo and Ben continue to protect the Island. Jack lies down on the ground and closes his eyes after WAKING UP in a stream several minutes earlier. That Island ending was left plenty open.

    And if you peruse some of my past posts, you’ll find plenty in there where I put the spaceship and atlantis and string theory on the backburner for a little lovin in the oven. I’ve always been fascinated by this show’s juxtaposing sides. And I’m a huge softie for the relationships and easily emotionally manipulated by this show.

43. Lizz on 26 May 2010 at 1:17 am #

    

    So instead of a monster, Hurley and Ben have to contend with a whiney, mealy-mouthed smoke plume with a God complex? If you get Ray Romano to voice this plume, we have a great pitch for a CBS sitcom…

44. valerie on 26 May 2010 at 6:44 am #

    

    Now this is this is the blog that I remember. Thanks John for bringing a true finale to the blog with a conversation that can last forever. Ok we are all now left to our own interpretation… like reading a good book and when the movie finally comes out hearing and seeing not quite what we all imagined. I was on the fence about the finale at first I was a bit lost and thought that they were trying to say that the island was purgatory and that it wasn’t real…I think I was just a bit too tired to actually comprehend everything that was being thrown at us. I too wish they had explained a little bit more of the island… but unless they were going to introduce another set of island inhabitants that would have had access to that information I think I would have been more disappointed with the results. Imagine at any point in the series having one of our others just explain WTF was going on. I liked the fact the foster mother character how crazy she was and good yet evil all in the name of good… but in reality she didn’t really know what the hell was going on either. She only knew her bit of the puzzle… This type of information always gets lost in the interpretation. I’m kind of glad they didn’t explain everything. they definitely brought closure to the characters we all now and love or at least Jack’s timeline cause lets just face it… he’s dead how ever he got out of that pit the point of the closing of his eyes was to say he’s dead…. I think I would be disappointed if the Lost movie was about our characters. I think that the movie is going to have to draw from the past and future of what the is but dwell on those items that they just sort of threw in there the light cave… & the cork.. the temple the statue. I’d love to see the society that built all that shit and who they were and where they came from… and what’s going on in the island now or rather the moments after Hurley signs off…Now that would be a movie I’d like to see…

45. PRYDE on 26 May 2010 at 8:52 am #

    

    “LOST seemed intent on answering its characters’ questions, not its audience’s. Another even less laudatory way to put that is, LOST chose not to answer many of its own questions. More specifically, it chose to give itself a pass on the fantasy-science and take a shot at putting forth a theory about faith. To explore how and whether faith is itself a fantasy. Not just character development, then, but theories about The Big Questions: why are we here, what does it matter, where do we go. ”

    http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=3195807&view=findpost&p=12950907

    probs the most enlightened post on the subject i’ve had the pleasure to read.

46. Pauline on 26 May 2010 at 9:29 am #

    

    Perhaps I worded that wrong. 50% to me says that Lost continued it’s tradition of being divisive. Am I okay with that because I loved both the character stuff as well as the science stuff? Perhaps.

    I feel like the creators told the story they could tell. I’m going back to the mystery box. I know that Courtney would be happy to find out that MIB’s name was Rick… and that many would be happy finding out how all how all that egyptian stuff got onto the island but that would hardly tickle my imagination.

    What lost did was tickle our curiosities… More so than any other show before it. It drove many of us to the internet to research the mysteries of the island. I don’t know about you but I’m happy that I now have a conversational knowledge of world creation myth, many of the pseudosciences, the history of Alexandria, etc…

    Question for me is… how were the writers supposed to explain all the questions of what the island was, what smokey was, why the rules worked… if the characters didn’t know to begin with. IMO the island was symbolic of religion itself and how people follow the rules set up therein blindly. The pseudoscience stuff? same thing. How would they ever explain the physics of the show without borrowing Glen Beck’s blackboard? But wait, we all have access to Faraday’s charts, why not look it up?

    This show was the ultimate interactive experience for those of us who chose to take part. I feel like we’ve been given all the clues we need to figure it out. And I think that is more of a gift than a curse. It’s a body of work that will be studied at universities for decades. Sounds like a win to me.

47. Pauline on 26 May 2010 at 9:51 am #

    

    And as you know… I also have a Lost blog. Just for fun… wanna see my top search hits? From #1:

    tezcatlipoca
    jadzia dax
    three’s company
    sloth goonies
    hoggle
    ben lost
    lost the others
    jeff kober
    buffy and spike
    lost statue
    one eyed willy
    lost island
    lost others
    labyrinth hoggle
    lost across the sea theories
    kate and jack
    quetzalcoatl
    goonies
    lost black rock
    the others lost
    virgin suicides
    rousseau lost
    jack and kate
    buttermaker
    themyscira

    Now I feel like I did something wrong with only 10 of my top 25 relating directly to Lost. I mean, come on! My number 3 was Three’s Company?! & My top hit getter is still my Lost/Goonies Mashup. Sigh.

    Oh… and about what you said about Faith vs. Science… I would have to argue that Lost didn’t much go into things provable like biology, etc… it was more about the pseudosciences which IMHO for someone who isn’t a brilliant physicist are also faith-based. (and one might argue that true for even the brilliant physicist.) And when I say faith I’m not talking about religion… I’m talking about the faith that a bunch of numbers on a page proves that someone can travel through time.

    I know… that last comment got me into hot water, right? But what do I know anyway? I wrote Lost theories based on Warner Brother’s cartoons.

48. Lindy K on 26 May 2010 at 10:14 am #

    

    Hmmm, my post about The Apollo Space Program 1961-1975 (same time as Dharma Initiative), the Apollo candy bar bought by Sawyer – didn’t elicit a single comment. I get it. I’m in the sideways universe. Bye.

49. John Cabrera on 26 May 2010 at 10:43 am #

    

    Yeah, Val, but that’s not the movie most peope will want to see. Mark my word. The closure you’re talking about is a temporary thing. But the missing of those characters will last a long time. And that missing has power in box office sales.

    A decade from now when we’re all sitting in a dark theater and a trailer comes on with the theme music to Lost, we will very likely hear the voice of a character we know. It’ll probably be the word, “Dude.” It would feel strange without it, and the movie wouldn’t perform as well. Of course there will be new blood. Sun and Jin’s little girl now a grown woman… Aaron… Desmond’s Charlie and perhaps some others that are brand new… but we will reunite with several of the friends we’ve already made. It wouldn’t be Lost without at least some of the important characters we know.

    And you guys can insist all you want that the closing of the eye there at the end meant he died… but that is stictly conjecture, because we do not know for sure. And neither do the writers, because if Matthew Fox agrees to do a movie, the most pivitol character in the story, they’ll figure out a way for that guy to still be alive or present of whatever. And they’ve left themselves plenty of avenues to do so.

    Lindy, I haven’t looked at the link cause I’m replying from my WordPress app on my phone, but that sounds cool. The Apollo bars have been in the Lost mythology since season 2. Apollo was supposedly born on an Island that floated and was pulled around the world by Swans…. The Swan Station. One of my favorite Lost goodies.

50. Thomas Cunningham on 26 May 2010 at 11:02 am #

    

    JP,

    Here was my conversation:

    ME: OH! FUCK NO! You’re not seriously going to pull a “Oh they all died in the plane crash and everything there after was in some afterlife”?!?

    LOST: No! Calm down! The island *was* real, all that *happened*. It’s just the flash sideways that was in the afterlife. They all died at different times and now in the future in the afterlife they find each other again.

    ME: Ohhh… okay. Damn, you scared me…. It’s a bit schmaltzy though.

    LOST: Then why were you tearing up?

    ME: I do love the characters, still kinda schmaltzy…

    LOST: But we’re cool, right?

    ME: I guess… I gotta let it all sink in…

    (an hour later)

    ME: WAIT A MINUTE, that ending doesn’t resolve ANYTHING!!! You cocksuckers pulled an emotional Jedi Mind trick on me.

    LOST: ————

    ME: HELLO!?!

    LOST: It was never about the island, it was about the characters….

    ME: The fuckin’ hell it was! Just because you had well developed characters doesn’t mean it wasn’t about the plot!

    LOST: Well, we wanted to leave things open to interpretation…

    ME: That would be fine but what you did was just leave a million things just hanging.

    LOST: Did we? Maybe if you go watch it all again, you’ll see that everything is answered and tied together…

    ME: Oh no you don’t! Don’t you fucking DARE!

    LOST: Season Six on DVD & BluRay August 24!

    ME: Why? Why do you toy with me? What about the numbers and…

    LOST (Charlie): “You all everybody. You All Everybody”.

    ME: *SIGH*

51. Rae on 26 May 2010 at 11:03 am #

    

    Lizz, I do see your point of view and I get what you’re saying. Though I think they answered some (if not a great deal) of that, just not really satisfactorily given the time and care they took setting it all up. And I do understand the annoyance coming from feeling like you were conned into spending so much time trying to puzzle it all out when they weren’t going to bother to spend the same amount of time to craft out their answers.

    And they’d probably claim they never intended for you to spend so much time trying to figure it out all (and, didn’t they really by having Jacob say, “It’s a line of chalk on a wall, Kate.”) but I’d lean more towards the haters side on this one. They spent a lot of time building up mysteries on this show and they fumbled on the follow through. I am personally OK with the answers they gave us but I also didn’t devote nearly the same amount of time to trying to figure it all out.

    As for killing people off… well, actions drive a story so we do indeed all die at some point. I believe they were making is it’s what you do before that point (and who meet) that matters and, based on their ending, continues to matter in our next lives.

    BUT… I’d also say you’re not the person I’d roll my eyes at by your own admission that you might not say you hated all of the show. It’s the people who instantly dimissed it all. And even then it’s clearly just a difference in how I approach stories and how they do. It’s near impossible for me to dismiss something I’ve loved at points because it failed me at others. But then I’m way too invested in my stories and we don’t have to get into THAT.

52. Rae on 26 May 2010 at 11:23 am #

    

    I have no problem agreeing with John that Jack may not have died at that moment just because we saw his eye close. We’re not shown anything beyond the events we saw happen to these characters even though we definitely have hints that they lived so there’s no definitive proof Jack didn’t live on too. We don’t even see him interact with Ben or Hurley, the two people who theoretically might have made mention that he survived. I’m cool with saying that’s up to your own interpretation. Especially since the characters who told us he wouldn’t be able to survive were not exactly the most reliable narrators.

53. Emily on 26 May 2010 at 2:37 pm #

    

    I am definitely a lover of this finale. And as a lover, I didn’t see that ending as only Faith-based. For me it was the joining of our 2 friends, Faith and Science; Black and White.

    As for the flash sideways, Christian simply put it: that it was created by Jack and the others to remember and let go, right? There was no mention that its creation was by some divine power, like purgatory. Instead, it was made by these collective futuristic floating consciousness’. Also, isn’t this the same church Eloise Hawking brought all our Losties to in order to find our Island again? So it’s not just a religious setting, but scientific too, there was a hidden Dharma station!

    I guess what I’m getting at is why can’t this flash sideways be a joining of our clashing Faith and Science, the Island = Grey? For 5 seasons we’ve seen our story through the lens of Science or/versus Faith, so why not tie things up proper Lost-style with a marriage of the two? I saw the flash sideways not in a wholly religious tone, but as a kind of higher level of consciousness we’ve yet to explore or theorize. Come on, we’re sci-fi geeks right? Why not tap into sub-space, warp drives and the Ancients of Atlantis! Who says the Island isn’t a spaceship? And I seriously thought [for a moment] as bits and bobs were falling off, the core of the Island would then lift off into the air.

    This Island is older than old. The heart of the Island isn’t some mythical, spiritual core, but mechanical. It breaks like any machine would if you tried to use that machine without its vital component. As for Ancients, their technology is unexplainable to our premature minds. As Kristen commented on John’s May 13 post, ‘Any sufficient piece of advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ -Arthur C. Clarke’s 3rd law.’

    I don’t think this show is about being one without the other, but learning to use them together; Science and Faith. They’ve been challenging us to work within the Grey from the very beginning.

54. Pauline on 26 May 2010 at 2:56 pm #

    

    “For me it was the joining of our 2 friends, Faith and Science; Black and White.” ~ Emily

    Word.

55. Loic on 26 May 2010 at 5:45 pm #

    

    I would love to be entirely feeling like you Emily!!!
    I think your points are awesome. Island=Grey – the Church as a Dharma station (to find the Island again…) – that whole “collective futuristic floating consciousness’” as a result of the bomb etc…

    But still, you have to admit that if this ep was up to Lost, nobody would even consider Jack’s death : we would all say “C’mon…it’s Lost!!”

    ..well apparently it wasn’t anymore…

56. Joseph on 26 May 2010 at 9:07 pm #

    

    Funny thing that you point out that the show was a battle between those approaching things with logic and those approaching things with faith because I felt that the whole ending was about approaching the thought of an afterlife from a very logical point of view.

    If one were to exist in the afterlife how would they be themselves–as in, how would their point of view (the sum of their experiences, their thoughts, etc.) survive in a plateau where some believe all of life’s mysteries are answered, and one knows everything. Without having to question, without having to wonder, without time ticking down and egging you on to adjust, achieve and change… who would you be? Not yourself, and no different than anything else in such an existence. “Lost” created an afterlife where all of life’s questions aren’t answered, and the search for connection is still in order. In other words, one’s self is still in tact. If Heaven was a place where YOU meet those you’re close with, who are waiting for your and you are waiting for, “Lost” presents a rather logical manner of validating such a notion.

57. Kristen on 26 May 2010 at 9:31 pm #

    

    I know this is a little off topic, but there was a second in the finale, when Jack opened the casket and it was empty, that I thought John’s theory of Jack and Christian being different versions of each other, was true!

58. lizz on 27 May 2010 at 6:50 pm #

    

    Rae,

    I hate it when we fight.

    However, this whole season has led me to the hating LOST point. The finale was just the icing on the cake that was made with salt instead of sugar. (The icing can stay the same, unless it’s cream cheese icing. mmmm.) Even the Desmond ep that made me cry like a 4-year-old with a skinned knee was HORRIBLE upon return (and not just because I watched it without the beautiful haze of non-Dharma wine).

    John,

    It’s unfair to us as fans and to the writers that we assume everything is up for interpretation:
    “Jack lies down on the ground and closes his eyes after WAKING UP in a stream several minutes earlier.” — We have no idea the time frame of these incidents, especially considering the history of this show and how it relates to time and perspective. This could be weeks, months, years, decades from the “uncorking” of the magic light. (BTW, so depressed I can’t put magic light in quotes…) I think it’s unfair to give credit where it isn’t due. This season has turned the interesting, fun show into the proveribal weenie you project ideas upon because it doesn’t talk much but appears intelligent. And then you realize its only ability is to look smart when keeping its mouth shut. You live where I live, you know this route…

    Anyway, that being said, I asked the Locke Smoke Monster on Twitter if Jack was the new Smoke Monster and he said no. I’m going to guess he knows as much as we do.

59. Loic on 28 May 2010 at 8:06 am #

    

    Hey John…I was waiting for a part 6 of this last Lost post!!…like 6 seasons

60. viv on 28 May 2010 at 6:52 pm #

    

    ok.. i waiting til this morning to come look at your blog. We saw the finale last night and started the night with the 1 hour recap.

    I have to say, i was not angry or loving the ending.. in my mind.. it was kinda what i expected. But yes a tad of a letdown.. but there were a few things that i was like… WHAT!?? here are my questions:

    1) they made Walt and Michael to be such huge deals early on.. but we didnt even SEE them in the church.. does that mean that they are still stuck in the island dead? or does it mean they forgot they had those characters??

    2) How come Faraday was not with them? Desmond tells Eloise that he will not be going with them.. and when he saw charlotte they didnt even have a moment of “i remember”. Does this mean that they both are not aware they are dead? or that they have already moved on?

    3) what about miles? was he in the church and i missed him?

    4) why did christian shepherd leave the church? and Ben was not in it with them?

    i’m sure i will have other questions the more i think about it.. but yea… the biggest wtf was michael and walt not even being mentioned!

61. Kristen on 29 May 2010 at 9:21 pm #

    

    Viv, Michael is stuck on the island as one of the whispers. As for Walt, it’s probably just simply because the actor who plays him has grown significantly older. I’m not sure on the whole Daniel crossing over thing. I was confused on that as well. My only thought is that he just wasn’t ready yet, kinda like Ana-Lucia. I didn’t see Miles in the church. I think it was because he wasn’t really important to Jack’s story, in particular. I think Christian was opening the door to wherever they were moving on to. And I think Ben wasn’t done making peace with himself and his actions, so he couldn’t let go and move on yet. Or he was going to Hell. Lol.

62. Pauline on 30 May 2010 at 9:05 am #

    

    The way I understood it was that the people who ended up in the church were the ones who were the most important to each other during the most important time in their lives…
    So, as far as Walt goes, he was a kid and had a whole other life with his grandmother and probably friends, etc. The Katana crew, Miles, Charlotte, Daniel, Lapidus… While Miles and Lapidus did bond with the Losties, they just weren’t as important in the grand scheme of things as the other church sitters.

    As far as Christian goes… I think he leaves the church to go do his own thing. To me it seems like he’s going on his own since the Losties look like they’re pretty planted on their pews and not going anywhere immediately. Christian just probably drew the short straw in the “explain to jack we’re dead” lottery.

63. John Cabrera on 31 May 2010 at 12:18 am #

    

    I agree with you, P, on your interpretation of that last scene. That’s exactly what I thought as well. It didn’t bother me that some of those people weren’t there. Nor that Daniel didn’t have his aha moment with Charlotte. I actually thought that was kind of cool. These characters came late in the game and so I think it makes sense that they wouldn’t be ready for that.

    I mean, whatever “makes sense” even really means on this show.

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