So much good stuff over six seasons gets fumbled by the final moments of “The End.”
Ah, finally, the Lost series finale. After so many years and so many questions and so many theories and arguments, we’re finally here.
Do we get the answers and closure we were looking for? Is it even possible to do in one episode, albeit a mondo-sized two-and-a-half-hour spectacular edition?
Right now, I have no idea. And because trying to write a proper review of a two-and-a-half-hour finale to any series would take a long time, let alone the sometimes Byzantine and dense and multiple reality-filled world of Lost, I’m going to make an attempt at a straight ahead, no holds barred “live blogging” review here. So that is, with each bullet point you see, I have no foreknowledge of what comes next. Oh great fun, yes? Well, let’s hope so.
- We open with soaring music and a montage that crisscrosses the main and alternate storylines. I had a hunch that the kids from the alternate storyline were heading on an Oceanic flight at Desmond’s (Henry Ian Cusick) request/manipulation, and looks like I was right. Well, they’re picking up the body of “a man called Christian Shepard,” at any rate (seriously).
- “No one can tell you why you’re here, Kate,” Desmond tells Kate (Evangeline Lilly). Yeah we know Desmond, now on with the explaining if you would, good sir!
- Desmond says he wants to leave… that opens up a lot of questions. To the island, to the main storyline/reality, or something else perhaps.
- “So you’re the new Jacob, huh?” – Sawyer (Josh Holloway) to Jack (Matthew Fox). I think I may miss Sawyer more than any other Lost character. The number of classic one liners from this guy could easily fill a book (good idea for a novelty item on a bookstore rack, no?). Then Sawyer follows with an even more classic: “Well, Doc, how ’bout you come down off the mountain top and tell us what the hell the Burning Bush had to say for itself.”
Jack’s got instructions for the kids from Jacob, to protect “the heart of the island.” Looks like the final stand against the forces of Not Locke/Smoke Monster (Terry O’Quinn) is coming.
“That’s kind of true dude, he’s worse that Yoda,” – Hurley (Hugo Reyes) on Jacob (Mark Pellegrino). Ah, Hurley, I think you’re ranking #2 right about now.
Back in the alternate timeline, Hurley seems to be a “guide” of sorts, like Desmond. “If you stick with me, you’ll be happy you did,” he tells Sayid (Naveen Andrews). Like Pulp Fiction, Lost allows characters who have already “died” (we think) come back and hang around in different ways. Such is the case too with Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), who is looking more punk rock and strung out than we’ve seen him in a while.
- Looks like Charlie is meant to perform at this mysterious “concert.” “What if I told you that playing this show is the most important thing you’ll ever do?” Hurley says. “Sod off.” Then a tranquilizer shot to the bottom.
- Back on Desmond and Hurley as “guides” in the alternate reality. I’m not totally buying the transition of these guys as totally unaware of any “oddness” about their reality, to all of the sudden being Dungeon Masters, or Yodas perhaps, who seem to know precisely what’s going on and what to do, and have Cheshire Cat grins whilst going about it. Perhaps all will be revealed on this score, but the clock is ticking.
- Sawyer shows up at the well and lets Smokey and Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) know that he knows that Not Locke is keen to destroy the island. He pops Ben a good one in the nose and takes off with his rifle for good measure. Smokey/Not Locke then reveals to Ben that the island he had promised to bequeath to him is actually going to exist “at the bottom of the ocean” should Smokey have his way. Whoops. Poor Ben, always attaching himself to the wrong god.
- Is that Vincent the Dog? Can you believe that old Vincent has appeared in 37 episodes (and his/her real-life name is Madison)?
- Desmond shows up at Rose (L. Scott Caldwell) and Bernard Nadler’s (Sam Anderson) hideaway hut! I really thought we had seen the last of these two as they had “bowed out” of the whole Lost game. I love that they have Dharma Initiative coffee mugs and muse about the “sky lighting up” and not knowing exactly what year they’re living in at this point.
- Not Locke and Ben show up, and Smokey threatens to kill the Nadlers and “make it hurt” if Desmond doesn’t do what he wants. The Smoke Monster is in no mood to mess about these days.
- Miles (Ken Leung) tries to tell Ben via CB radio that he’s found Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell). Ben’s obviously got something cooking here to hedge his bets, at the least, with throwing in with Smokey. As I said last week, Ben has proven many times that though he takes quite a beating (perhaps the most of any character in television history?) he is not one to mess around with. Also, I have to point out quickly that the show was careful to display Alpert getting thrown by the Smoke Monster last week, without quite showing whether or not he lived. A plot hole or device here? It took me a minute to realize that Alpert “couldn’t die” no matter how hard he had tried earlier this season, so that perhaps has a tie in. Alpert’s still on mission to blow up the plane on Hydra Island.
- More old friends who are “dead” show up in alternate reality-land: Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) are at the hospital, Jin tending to the injured Sun. And speak o’ the Lost devil, Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) shows up to check in on Jin’s unborn child, which causes her (Sun) to have one of those remembrance flashbacks. And that seems to cause Jin to experience the same. The couple is just kind of simpatico like that, I guess. Remembering your own death in an alternate dimension or reality has to be deeply weird at the least, yes? And more bonus: they now remember how to speak English.
- “We’re all going to the same place, anyway,” Jack tells Sawyer. “And then it ends.” Jack now seems to be the mysterious man of wisdom of the moment. And back in the alternate reality, Jack is about to operate on The Real John Locke. “There’s always the chance that I could kill you,” Dr. Jack jokes. Not jokey foreshadow of what the island’s newest protector needs to do to set things right, perhaps?
- Alpert gets his first gray hair, Miles points out. Man is aging well for being 400 years old or so, no? Miles and Alpert, out on a canoe, rescue Lapidus (Jeff Fahey) from the wreckage of the submarine. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a pilot,” Lapidus helpfully points out in laying out a plan to take the plane and themselves away from Smokey and the island.
- Jack and Smokey’s group bump into each other – surprised it happened this early. “So it’s you,” Not Locke says. “You’re sort of the obvious choice, don’t you think?” Jack lays out Not Locke’s plan for him, that they’re going to go to the place that Jack has sworn to protect. But instead of destroying the island as Smokey intends, Jack drops on him that that’s when he will kill him. How, Smokey asks? That’s the surprise. This final Jack v. Locke/Not Locke confrontation is where the show ascends to a great level. We don’t have to think about the bevy of plot lines and questions and mysteries here: it’s good versus evil time, with two characters we’ve been watching get to know one another over six years and six seasons.
- “That’s a hell of a long con, doc,” Sawyer says after Jack reveals that he believes that Desmond is “a weapon” of some sort that will help prevent Not Locke from destroying the island.
- And indeed, Jack and Smokey arrive at the cave of light that the protector of the island is supposed to never let anyone find. A “so crazy it just might work” scenario? And meanwhile Desmond calmly and serenely tells Jack that none of what they’re doing matters one way or the other. Okay then, should I hit Stop on the old universal remote and get back to my Charles Dickens collection then?
- And, finally, Desmond lays out what could be what everyone has been speculating about all season. “It never crashed,” Desmond says of Oceanic 815. Going into the cave then will “send” them to a place where they can be with their loved ones “and never have to think about the island again.” If this plays out this is going for the “it was all just a dream” path in a sense, which I imagine will send many critics and fans into something of an uproar. The fact that the alternative storyline has had so much screen time this season will mitigate that reaction to an extent, perhaps.
- By the way, when Jacob angrily threw his brother into the cave, he became the Smoke Monster. Desmond’s case is different… why? Argh, that hurts my head, I’m going to try to enjoy the show for a little bit.
- Target has a Smoke Monster-themed commercial for a smoke alarm. Nice.
- Back in alterno-reality: newly minted “guide” Hurley tells Sayid that he’s a good guy and that he can’t let other people decide who he is for him. Then cut to a “gnarly” bar fight going on across the street that Hurley clearly knew was about to take place, and which Sayid would rush out of the Hummer to help out with. Sayid does, and it turns out that the damsel in distress is Shannon (Maggie Grace), his lost love from the island. And step-brother Boone (Ian Somerhalder), long ago “sacrificed” to the island (by the “real” Locke, remember?), is “in” on Hurley’s scheme. Deeper down the rabbit hole we go.
- Back on Hydra Island, Claire (Emilie de Ravin) is back, in full Krazy Claire mode it seems. She’s a shooting and hollering for Miles, Lapidus, and Richard not to come any closer. Richard tries to talk her off the ledge, but she doesn’t want to “go home,” apparently, and stalks off.
- Jack and Not Locke lower Desmond into the cave. “Does this remind you of anything?” Not Locke says. He read my mind in that I was totally reminded of the famous hatch. Jack says that the real Locke was right about almost everything, and wishes that he could have told him while he was alive.
- At the big concert, Charlotte (Rebecca Mader) shows up to wake up self-signed “bass player” Charlie, post-tranq-ing, and Daniel Faraday/Widmore (Jeremy Davies) makes an appearance as well. It seems that all of the major romantic couples are finding a way to one another in the alternate storyline. All you need is love then, perhaps?
- Dr. Pierre Chang (Francois Chau) announces the beginning of the benefit concert. Kind of strange to see him outside of the bizarre universe of The Dharma Initiative, right? Also odd, but fun: seeing Drive Shaft take the stage with Daniel Faraday/Widmore on classical piano accompanying. Charlie can’t take his eyes off Claire from the stage – there’s another one!
- In the cave, Desmond removes some kind of ancient stone from a pool of water. He’s able to withstand whatever kind of force was present, which leads us to believe that his unusual resistance to electromagnetic forces (this was Charles Widmore’s take at any event) allowed him to complete this task. The light then fades and the energy level seems to “shut down” and the water fades out of the pool.
- “Goodbye, Jack,” Smokey says as all hell begins to break loose. Jack tackles him and gives him a good punch. This produces blood on Not Locke’s lips, which startles him. Can we take it that Desmond shut down the island’s powers, for lack of a better term? In any event, I can’t help be reminded of Superman II or so, when all of the sudden the Man of Steel can get his ass kicked by mere mortals. And if nothing else, it’s fun to see Jack and Not Locke get their epic fight on. It’s over quickly though when Smokey clocks Jack with a rock and takes off (just as his stepmom killed his real mother, we recall). This is perhaps the final incident, by the way, which puts Concussion Island as a great alternate name for the show.
- As Claire is about to give birth, it would seem, backstage, Desmond has a little chat with Daniel’s mother that again sort of tilts where things could be headed. She’s the original Dungeon Master of sorts, we remember, even appearing in Charlie’s dreams in past seasons. Desmond’s drops that once everyone “knows,” they plan on “leaving,” except for Daniel. Leaving… back to the main storyline before Oceanic 815 takes place, or to a third reality, or something? Probably or something.
- Kate helping Claire through an impromptu birthing session causes her to get the flash of memory. Charlie shows up with a blanket and seems in on the game now as well. They seem remarkably chill about remembering an entire alternate reality and life. “So now what?” Kate asks.
- Now what includes Ben, Mr. Helper all of the sudden, inexplicably pushes Hurley out of the way of a falling tree on the island and gets struck himself.
- Lapidus working on the plane with a blowtorch in the middle of a rainstorm reminds me a bit of Han Solo on top of the Millennium Falcon, toiling away.
- And speaking of iconic images, Jack lunging at a knife-wielding Smokey in the midst of a rainstorm is fairly epic! Jack takes a knife to the ribs after an intense struggle. “I want you to know, Jack, you died for nothing!” Not Locke taunts as he’s about to drop the knife through Jack’s throat… Kate appears and shoots Smokey in the back. “You’re too late,” Not Locke whispers, as Jack kicks him off a cliff. (Not quite dead yet though, as any character from The Princess Bride would surely note.)
- “It worked,” the real Locke says, coming out of surgery in the alternate storyline. He means that he can miraculously feel his legs again. And then he has the memory flash. And this causes Jack to have it as well – looks like at this point the memory flash is easily contagious. Locke tells Jack that he doesn’t have a son and adds that he hopes someone does for him what Jack had just done for Locke. Does he mean fix his legs, or kill him, or something? I won’t answer the rhetorical question this time.
- Sawyer stops by Jin and Sun’s room at the hospital. They relate that Sayid isn’t going to be a problem and he doesn’t need to worry about it. No memory flash this time.
- “Don’t bother me!” Lapidus to Ben. Ben: “Sounds like they’re making progress” on the plane. Good stuff.
- “Good luck to you, James.” – Jack. “Thanks… for everything, Doc.” – Sawyer. It feels like a final goodbye.
- Ben wants to go down with the island, and Hurley offers to hang in for the ride as well (“I’m with you, dude”). So it’s only Kate and Sawyer travelling across to Hydra to meet up with Richard, Lapidus, and Miles (and Claire, maybe). Interesting that Richard is involved in getting off the island after so many hundreds of years. I think we saw him wandering around the mainland back in the Dharma Initiative days (though can’t recall for sure at the moment), so perhaps he can cope with modern technologies and such?
- Kate and Jack share what could be a final kiss, and they tell each other “I love you.” Then they split up. Hurley’s sticking around then, and not Kate?
- “I don’t believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape.” – Miles
- Lapidus gets really good at hurling the CB radio angrily into the co-pilots chair, doesn’t he?
- Sawyer “reunites” with Juliet at the alt-reality hospital. She asks him if he’s going to read the vending machine its rights. She hands him his liberated candy and they experience the memory flash. It’s nice to see these two crazy kids get back together.
- Jack and Kate meet up after the concert. “No, that’s not how you know me,” she says. The good doc seems to be about the last to go through the memory flash. “But if you come with me, you will…” understand, Kate says.
- “You’re not supposed to die, the island needs you!” Hurley says to Jack. Okay, there’s a lot going on right here. Let’s break it down: Jack announces that he has to go into the cave (presumably to put the stone back in the pool), which will cause him to die, and Hurley is meant to be the next protector of the island. This is what was meant to have happened, and a stunned Ben looks on. Got it?
- “Now you’re like me,” Jack tells Hurley, ending his brief tenure as protector.
- “That, my friends, is pure music!” – Lapidus, as the plane finally starts up.
- Jack finds Desmond down by the pool. The light isn’t quite out, it seems. Desmond believes that he has failed, he thought that “he would leave this place.” Jack takes over, saying “I’ll see you in another life, brother,” echoing the past again.
- And meanwhile, the island is beginning to collapse into the ocean. “Oh that ain’t good,” Sawyer says, pitch perfect as always.
- Sawyer, Kate, and Claire (convinced by Kate that she’s not Krazy) make it to the plane just in time. And Lapidus gets the plane off the ground in the nick of time!
- Jack gets the stone back into its place, and the pool begins to refill with water.
- Let me take just a second here to relate that I think we’re never going to find out, amongst many other things, what the exact nature of the island is. I wasn’t expecting to quite find this out, but must admit I’m a little disappointed nonetheless.
- The real John Locke and Ben meet up outside a church. “I’m very sorry for what I did to you, John,” Ben says. “I was selfish, jealous. I wanted everything you had…. You were special, and I wasn’t.” Very strange to see them speaking like this, in alt-reality and kind of post-mortem mode. John ditches the wheelchair and says goodbye. The “others” are inside.
- On the island, Hurley mourns the seeming loss of Jack, and Hurley and Ben talk shop. Ben advises that Hurley can protect the island by helping people, as he always has. Hurley enlists Ben’s help. “I’d be honored,” he replies. Levels of strangeness! And even stranger, Hurley and Ben in alt reality land share mutual congratulations about being great “number ones” and “number twos.”
- Jack, back on the island, is very much alive, though not feeling so hot.
- And in alt reality world, Jack touching his father’s funeral casket finally gives him the memory flash. And the casket is empty as it turns out…. And pops is alive? “Yes I did,” Christian Shephard (John Terry) says, referring to dying. Then retorts with something truly mind bending: “How are you here?” “I died too,” Jack answers after a pause. Is this the “everyone died on Oceanic 815 ending?” Really, are they going there?
- “They’re all dead?” – Jack
- “There is no ‘now here.'” – Christian
- “Where are we, dad?” – Jack. “This is a place that you all made so that you can find each other.” – Christian
- So… it looks like the alternate reality is a happy purgatory of sorts. Christian relates that the time that Jack spent with everyone is the most important part of their lives. So when the hell did everyone die? On the original Oceanic 815, when the nuke went off, or what?
- The get together at the church is a happy reunion for everyone. I’m not so happy right now. I’ve been a huge Lost apologist for years and I’m not really digging how this is playing out at all.
- Jack dies back on the island from his wounds… but when / where / how does everyone else die? At least Jack has Vincent the dog to hang out with in the end.
- For the record, if anyone is bothering to read 3,500 words deep, I bought into and loved to varying extents the series finales of shows such as The Sopranos and The Shield and The Wire. Lost: not measuring up so much.
Quick recounting of huge unexplained things in the Lost-verse: the nature of the island, Walt’s importance, Hurley’s numbers, the great importance of Aaron, and… well, does it really matter. The series finale really makes me question if anything on the show is worth seriously discussing ever again. That’s how bad the tragic tarnish of the final 150 minutes are looking right now.
In closing: Lost was a great show and had a pretty spectacular final season, but right now, at 3am, I’m throwing it out there that this was one of the most disappointing “event” series finales in a long, long time.
Update: It took me a solid 20 minutes of thinking – and keep in mind it’s hours after the midnight hour so my brain is a little slow – to realize that the alternate reality isn’t necessarily in “time sync” with the main storyline, and probably isn’t. It makes more sense that this is a purgatory that people get sent to after they finished their natural life of the “main storyline” and the island, etc. So the mysteries of the island and what happened there still “matter” but I’m still left with an awful sense of disappointment that things on the island were left where they were.
No doubt most will need to reflect over a period of time where Lost belongs among the great shows of TV history. Right now I’d say it falls in the “very good” range but has been knocked out of the upper tier based on how the series finale — one built on answering mysteries conjured over a period of years – resolved / deflated.
Some stats and info about Lost, “The End”
TV SHOW – Lost
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 6, Episode 18
AIRED ON – May 23rd, 2010
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – ABC/Hulu
GENRE – Drama, Adventure Shows, Science Fiction
CREATED BY – J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Lieber, Damon Lindelof
CAST – Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Junjin Kim, Evangeline Lilly, Terry O’Quinn, Naveen Andrews, Matthew Fox, Daniel Dae Kim, Emilie de Ravin, Michael Emerson, Henry Ian Cusick, Dominic Monaghan, Harold Perineau, Ken Leung, Elizabth Mitchell, Nestor Carbonell, Jeff Fahey
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.