THIS WEEK ON LOST: The End

After the show concluded last night, after the screen faded to black for the last time, after the credits rolled, Pepsibones sat on my couch next to me. He was happy, and had enjoyed the final episode. A lot. And so had I. And he rubbed his temples and he said “I don’t want to have to talk to anyone about this episode.” That’s almost perfectly how I feel about writing this final recap of the final episode of one of my favorite shows ever.

As the days counted down to the conclusion of LOST, I began obsessing over the enormity of what Lindelof, Cuse and the rest of the team had undertaken. The show had become nothing short of a leviathan. It was a cultural phenomenon that had snared millions of people along the way, and dragged them along in its wake. The nature of the storyline had sprawled out continuously, from plane crashes to smoke monsters to immortals to alternate dimensions. It grew continuously, exponentially, with every new twist bringing a thousand new questions.

I asked myself over and over again, “How do you end a show like this gracefully?” I flashed back to other epics I had loved. From Star Wars to Lord of the Rings to Battlestar Galactica, and while they’re all close to my heart, all of them are with their flaws. A task of this size cannot be executed perfectly, it’s built into the nature of the undertaking.

The ending to LOST was no different.

And I loved it.

In the end, it was just Jack Shephard, laying on the ground, dying. In the end, it wasn’t about donkey wheels and time traveling and the other awesome, insane, quirky, mythological shit that we’ve come to love about the LOST. In the end, it was about the characters. A long time ago Pepsibones dropped on me that the show was “always about the characters” and that the insane narrative techniques were just “a means to tell their story”, and wouldn’t you know it. The kid who graduated with the 4.0 in literature has the skill to dissect a narrative.

If you were expecting bombast and epic shit, you may or may not be let down. The first hour and a half was full of confrontation and stabbings and craziness. As Desmond descended into the heart of the Island, we were given some straight up Indiana Jones shit. Dude steps into the middle of some puddle of light, and uncorks that son of a bitch. I’m pretty sure that Jacob and Smokey always envisioned the same thing: Jacob wanted to uncork the Island to render Smokey mortal, so Jacky could lay down a fatal funk on the dude, while Smokey thought it would destroy the Island, and he could escape.

Different perspectives. It seems fitting, doesn’t it? The two characters view the same action in different ways, which just about encapsulates the dichotomy.

In the end, even Jacob and MiB’s storyline was about the characters. Much to the chagrin of many, Jacob was just a dude, trying to fix a mistake. Sure, the fate of the world was at stake, but even then, it was rooted in a fundamental human emotion, and Jacob’s mistake that stemmed from it. There was a time when I was pissed off that Jacob wasn’t some Uber God Guy who could shoot lightning bolts from his finger tips and walk on water. But it seems fitting that if the entire show was a meditation on human nature and faith, why wouldn’t he be caught up in it too.

Jacob spent thousands of years protecting the Island, while always under the threat of having to answer for his mistake. Searching for a solution.

Because?

Because nothing is irreversible.

DICKY ALPERT IS ALIVE!

Man, I shouldn’t have doubted his existence. Ain’t no way he’s getting punked out by a ball of Smoke(y).

There were countless moments that threatened to leave me a quivering ball of tears and snot throughout the episode. But my favorite moment had to be when Hurley opens the hotel room door and runs into Charlie again for the first time since he passed away. Or uh, since Hurley passed away? Something like that. Just standing in the doorway, smiling at his friend. It was understated, but god damn if I didn’t dig it. The moments like this were countless though. And spread across two and a half hours, it’s impossible to recount them all. Maybe I’m a sap, but every single one of them got to me. Goosebumps. Familiar characters running into loved ones, and coming together after loss. I don’t know man, it worked for me. Was it cheesy? Fucking absolutely. But to me it just made sense. I don’t know how else they could have ended it. I’ll leave that up to other nerds to speculate on, you know?

About halfway through the finale I realized we were dealing with some Heaven Type Shit. And as it was confirmed in the final ten minutes or so, I began to feel the rumblings of hate within the nerd community. Much like Obi-Wan as he senses Alderaan’s destruction, I could feel it. Man, I thought, people are going to hate this. But I had to tip my cap to Lindelof and Cuse for going in the direction they did. The fact that they had the gall to literally carry LOST from the world of monsters into the world of time traveling into the world of the afterlife was tremendous to me.

Specifically because of how divisive a move it was. They had to know as they wrote the ending, that they were going to piss off an enormous amount of people. And yet they threw that shit to the wind and carried it out anyways. Who gives a fuck. Tell the story you want to tell.

Which once again ties into the whole concept of finishing up an enormous storyline. How do you do it? With ewoks? With disappearing Starbuck? With hobbits crying at a pier? Is there ever a way to end something that wouldn’t divide fans of the show? I’m not really certain. Am I being an apologist? Probably. I loved the show. And as someone who can’t write himself out of a paper bag, I had to appreciate it on a creative level.

OH SHIT FRANK LAPIDUS!

I knew that porn star motherfucker was still alive!

It seems fitting that LOST would deal with the afterlife during a time in my life where I’ve begun to feel my mortality more than ever. Even as an agnostic motherfucker, I found what they wrote to be some straight up beautiful shit. As I feel myself getting older, staring at a grandmother who is trekking ever closer to the end of the line, the resolution that everyone enters into some sort of next existence was comforting to me. Do I believe in it? Probably not. But this is narrative and this is the realm of ideals and hopes and dreams and beliefs. I’m not going to fault Lindelof for siding firmly on the side of faith. It’s his story.

I’ve long held the belief that life can be broken down into simple terms. Eating, procreating, and sitting down by the watering hole with your friends. I’ve long held the belief that really nothing is more satisfying than being around the ones you love, be it friends or family. So yeah, I dug on the ending. It seemed to suggest that despite the passage of time, love is the constant. The unifying force. Transdimensional Smoke Monster Love, but love nonetheless. The idea that in some point, in somewhere all of our loves can be consummated feels good. God dammit. Even if it is an illusion, it’s uplifting.

So it worked for me. But for all the reasons that it worked for me, I can understand it didn’t work for some people, and downright aggravated them.

As Jack sat at the center of the Island, after plugging up the Devil’s Anus, I loved seeing his Faith finally rewarded. The hum of God Knows What clicking back on, and the light returning to Ye Old Island rocked my ass. As he laughed, knowing he was dying but having completed his task, I was feelin’ that shit. It was straight up mystical, seeing this Island as the fulcrum of goodness in the world being sustained. I really thought the son of a bitch was going to sink. Everything seemed to suggest it was going to.

Well played, Shephard, you done well.

There were countless questions not answered. And as I said before while I was griping about Across the Sea before it even aired, that was okay for me. What specifically was the Island? Who knows. How did they create LAX? Was it Desmond down in the Honey Pot Chamber? Was it the nuclear blast? Was it simply the place we all go after dying? Who knows. On and on and on again, the answers didn’t come. And I didn’t mind them not coming. Before the season even ended, I had found out what the Island was, who/what Smokey was, and the purpose of their journey. That was enough for me. By the end of the finale Smokey had been thwarted. The Island had been saved. A resolution between Jacob and MiB had been accomplished. The storyline satisfied all of my curiosities. It had gone above and beyond them.

I think there’s a difference between not enjoying the outcome – which is your right, and thinking that there wasn’t any sense of denouement. There was a literal denouement: Jack fucking saves the Island, and a metaphysical denouement, a climax regarding the entire debate between Science and Faith. As I’ve continued to say, I’m cool with you not liking the direction of the show. You can call it dumb, or lame, or cheesy, or drippy or emo. That’s cool. I disagree. But that’s cool. But how can there be no climax?

And what a fucking showdown it was between Jack and Flocke on the mountain. The shot of the two of them staring at one another before charging at one another was fantastic. Wide view, the entire mountain top shown. And my god, the biggest cocktease commercial cut ever. As Jack is leaping through the air to deliver a flying Fierce Punch? You sons a bitches. There aren’t many fights on the show, but they’ve always been satisfying, and this one was no different.

Jack got ganked Gladiator style, with a shiv to the guts. I groaned with the dude. His dying doesn’t surprise me. Where was he going to go after he saved the Island? Throughout the finale and prior to it, it reiterates the fact that he has nowhere to go, nothing to do. This was it for him. He died consummating a faith, and saving, well, apparently, existence.

Oh Benjamin Linus. The suggestion that he served as Hugo’s Dicky Alps was interesting. Nothing is irreversible! His scene with Locke at the end was touching. Nothing says Forgiveness like being cool with the guy who choked you to death. Locke did him a solid and set him free.

The entire experience was enormous. My interaction with it was enormous. And now that’s done, I feel like Hugo, “What the hell am I supposed to do?” I’ve spent the last five months of my life chronicling the final season. I’ve spent six years of my life watching the television show. You want to talk about time traveling? I’m living it, yo. Just jumping from moment to moment thinking about watching my show, the various moments of my life that are tethered to it, my fucking donkey wheel is unhinged. I’m trippin’ through the ole string of life.

I wouldn’t trade watching this show on DVD all at once for the sort of groundswell phenomenon that I rode along with a shitload of friends, and really a cultural zeitgeist. The show superseded being a just a television show, and really was a work of art, and more particularly, encapsulated a huge part of pop culture. For better or worse, it was a road marker.

And if I’ve spoken in vagaries throughout this recap, it’s because we all know the particulars of the episode, we know what happened. And so I’d much rather speak on my feelings regarding it.

I can’t express how utterly devastating and perfect I found to be the final shot of this series. The bittersweet movement of Jack into death. And as he smiles because he’s known his lived a life with a completed purpose, as he stares up at the sky, it just seems so fitting. A perfect bookmark to the beginning of the series. Alpha, and Omega.I loved it entirely. I loved it despite the bumpy dialogue between Jack and his father in the last moments, I loved the show despite the filler episodes, despite the lack of direction throughout even the final season.

The death of the series featured the death of the characters, and yo, it wasn’t entirely sad, but rather uplifting.

I had a teacher once say that the purpose of any work of fiction is to change your life. She meant it literally. Maybe not in some groundswell sort of way, but it should affect you. Move you. As I stared up at the sky with Jack, I could tell LOST had pulled that off in me. I felt a small shift, a twinge of appreciation for life, and the remembrance that I wanted to do something with the last (Jacob willing) fifty years of my life or so.

I loved LOST, and I’m sad to see it go.