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The end of “LOST.” Six seasons, over 120 hours, culminating in the two-and-a-half hour series finale, “The End.” We can’t believe we’re here. And we’re still struggling to process this final episode. This is our initial reaction “shortwave transmission.” But the full exploration of “The End” will come in our May 30 podcast. Please share your reaction and join the conversation by commenting below. Stay with us. Talk to us. Hold us!
Thanks to Jarred Matthes for allowing us to share his ‘ukulele rendition of Michael Giacchino’s “Life & Death,” originally recorded for the Geronimo Jack’s Beard podcast.
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To those miffed that they were “told” long ago the show wouldn’t be about purgatory… I’m reminded of the immortal words of Benjamin Linus,
“I lied.”
Thanks Jen and Ryan for an excellent podcast!
Hi Ryan and Jen and YAE ~ This week has been a major “catch-up” for me… refocussing after 3 weeks of May travels, getting through 1000+ blogposts (my husband walks in periodically in wonderment) ~ Just got around to listening to the WHOLE podcast ~ it helped me so much to begin with in absorbing what we were all seeing and feeling, and was so great to hear again in its entirety
Three quickie thoughts:
1) I, too, would love to make it to Oahu to tour the Lost filming sites sometime
2) I was touched by the emotion expressed by many men
3) This may be silly, but I called it that Kate would be important and purposeful in the end. I am happy by this alone!
All the unanswered questions is why I love the show. I wouldn’t want that to change even in the end. Leaving things up for the viewer to decide helps fuel this wonderful community. I just eat it up. So many great thoughts here, too many to even start to address. I am curious though if anyone else was at the finale event in Brooklyn?
http://www.itsasickness.com/lounge/adam-and-jeff-are-obsessed-lost
Saw this tribute band ‘Previously On Lost’ play for before the airing. So fun, I know some people here will flip for them. Counting the days until the bonus DVD!
I guess if anyone doubts the impact of the finale,watch the first 10 seconds of Jimmy Kimmel Live with the Lost cast. The whole audience is crying even men as they watch Jack die. How many shows can do that? We all had an emotional investment in Jack and to see him die was just heartbreaking. I am glad he had Vincent.
@Angel (4:53 pm) – I, for one, would LOVE a series of “Lost” related novels! And I think there would be a tremendous appetite for them among “Lost” fans, simply to keep themselves immersed in the “Lost” world and mythology. I read “Bad Twin”, and while it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me at the time (it does in retrospect, after the whole Locke/UnLocke, Jacob/Man in Black thing), I just enjoyed seeing mentions of Paik Industries and the Hanso Foundation and stuff like that. It was just another way for me to stay connected to the “Lost” world. I think there might be a good parallel between Lost fans and Star Wars fans, as far as our passion about the story and characters, and the Star Wars novels have done very, very well. I would check out any “Lost” book, even “The Life and Island Times of Horace Goodspeed” if I could!
@aaron r and Faith Kaplan: I hope you guys enjoy “Parallel Worlds” and I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Faith – I’m going to pick up “Physics of the Impossible” as soon as I can.
@HeyKir in NYC: Thanks and, yes, somebody call Walter!
@greenberry (6:51 am): Count me in as another who would love to tour Oahu someday. Wouldn’t it be awesome if there could be “Lost” fan conventions there?
@YAE – A thought regarding the whisper discussion.
I’m not exactly sure right now whether it was in the “Times Talk Live – LOST” interview, or if it was in the Jimmy Kimmel interview (or maybe both) but Damon & Carlton did make a point of saying that if you “SAW” it on LOST, it was real and something to take to the bank that actually happened. But if you were only “TOLD” it, then you should question as to if it is fact or not. I believe the reference at the time was regarding Widmore, and his true intent of coming back to the island, but they indicated it was true throughout the series.
So, with this in mind, could it be that Walt’s explanations for the Whispers was all BS, and that is the reason for the unresolvable difference?
Just a thought.
LReene- when did Walt explain the whispers? I am confused.
A LOST Fan Club convention on Oahu. YES!! Bring it on. I’ll book my ticket immediately.
A couple more thoughts after reading the new posts while I was typing my last one.
LOST Novels. Yep, I would be game for any of them. Although I do have to agree with a poster from a few days ago that they would have to be cannon, and thus D & C or at least part of the writing crew would need a hand in them. I would be more than glad to read any novel about LOST that I knew was accurate.
@Carol from Boston – Yes, I did notice how many were crying in the beginning of Jimmy Kimmel Live that night. I also was wiping away tears from my eyes and caught myself crying even more when I rewatched the episode yesterday. Yeah, I did end up rewatching it. And will no doubt watch it again (probably several times) before I put it to bed. :-
I guess my next browser tag from here will be Amazon to see if I can find a copy of “Parallel Worldsâ€. It sounds like it would be a book worth reading.
Lastly – @HeyKir in NYC & @Islandsidhe – I already have a call into Walter. Peter says he will have him give one of us a call just as soon as he gets out of ………………
@Carol from Boston – OOOoooops (Big Oooops). That should have been Michael, not Walt. Sorry
Not to confuse reality with my favorite tv show but the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico sure looks like the Smoke Monster emerging from the bowels of the Earth.
wasn’t Desmond’s order # 23 at Hurley’s chicken place?
The book I was referring to in an earlier post is Physics of the Impossible, by Michio Kaku. It is a scientific exploration into the world of phasers, force fields, teleportation and time travel. Kind of fits in with some of the posts on this blog. This is the same author who wrote Parallel Worlds.
I just got off the Amazon web site from ordering “Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos”, “Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension”, and “Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel”, all by the author Michio Kaku. It sounds like they should all make for some pretty good reading.
Jack’s eye closing…
Now I see the parallels in which all the characters on the show who died. Every time someone died and their eyes were still opened, someone found the time to close them. I always wondered why they made such an obvious effort to show this.
Naomi, by Sayid
Boone, by Jack
These are the only I can think of, but I’m sure there were much more. A parallel to finding closure. Moving on. Letting go.
And… I am so GRATEFUL that Ryan and Jen are being sensitive and compassionate in enabling future connections not only to us LOST fans, but also to us TRANSMISSION fans
Long live the LOST conversation!!
I do think it is cool how the writers turned certain characters motives and actions on their heads, particularly Ben’s and Juliet’s: two characters I despised for a very long time. I like the message in that: that we can not always assume the way people are at first blush; that there may be more to people than what initially meets the eye; that people can potentially be redeemed if they have the strength and courage to make that choice.
Kind of sad that Man in Black couldn’t…
I wonder if they’d ever consider doing a CGI movie some time explaining some of the loose ends that people are complaining about. Hiring a few folks to show up and do some voice acting would be a hell of a lot cheaper than re-contracting everyone and re-building the sets etc.
Just an idea, I’m personally in fine with what we were given. I like the idea that (at least through the summer) there will still be plenty to pick apart through discussion in various podcasts and message boards.
RE: eyes closing, remember Nikki and Paolo – Nikki’s eyes were open when the sand was shoveled in!
Question: thinking over who was there at Jack’s moving on celebration, in the church, it SEEMS that those present should be the ones who mattered to Jack – on the island and in his life. So, his mom wasn’t there? Does that bother anyone else? Also, Penny WAS there, but I can’t remember him ever meeting Penny. So how does that work?
@Embie
Jack met Penny on her boat, no? When they decided to all lie? But yeah!!! Where WAS his Mom?!?!?!
“CGI movie some time explaining some of the loose ends”
that could be interesting. there are good loose ends that are great to leave open as well as the pretty weird loose ends that the story hinged on and were dropped.
I imagined the last episode would have a sometime in the future shot of older Walt, Ji yeon, Charlie, and other kids meeting on the island.. with Walt as the only one to recognize Jack (or Hurley)… and realize where he was… THUD
“LOST was (and will be) the best on tv EVER.”
THANKS to the Lost finale
the Twilight Zone remains the best of TV.
Jay and Jack’s lost podcast has a very good interview with Jorge with a lot of details about filming the final episode. I recommend listening to it, especially to hear about Terry accidentally stabbing Matthew Fox for real (good thing it was a dull knive and Matthew had on a pad) he was okay but it scared both of them. Terry fogot to switch to pull the switch on the trick knife to make it work. Lots of fun details about the filming of the last sceneat the church.
@Lreene and @Faith Kaplan i’ve just started Parallel Worlds etc, and in the prologue Mr Kaku mentions ‘higher dimensions’ that could be moved-on to after ours became unhappy. or parallel worlds. lol this is going to be good.
Ok, I actually liked The Sopranos! I also liked the ending for Six Feet Under! I wish I could say the same for the ending of Lost! I still believe that Lost is, and will be for a long time, the best show broadcast TV had to offer. The story, the production, the smart dialogue and the attention to detail, the Easter eggs, the interactivity between the producers and the us, their – subtle or on your face – humor on and off the show, the island Hawaii, the international cast, the boldness and last but not least The Transmission has made this journey a unique experience unlike any other TV show.
Sure, I never expected everything to be answered, there was no time. It would not be possible to satisfy all of us, there are just too many and we have theorized for far too long. Nevertheless, I believe that many important story lines were left unanswered. Many have been listed above, a few that I like to highlight is what the heck is the island, what made Walt so special, why did Jacob prevent his brother from living the island, what was Dharma looking for on the island, was it the smoke monster a.k.a. C. Shephard that we saw in LA and on the freighter, or did both J and MIB use his body, the smoke monster was at the temple but then the temple became the sanctuary from the monster. Jacob was not a deity but he could still make others immortal and he was immortal himself, how or why is that? Some of these should have been answered, through these answers we might have understood a bit more. Saying that we did need any more answers than what we got is something that I do not understand. Sure, real life is similar, we do not have all the answers but then there are no smoke monsters in real life and if I wanted real life I would gaze out of my window or something and not spend six years following the show.
I love the characters and I loved how their stories were interwoven and how they came together, the dynamic of the “society ” they build on the island, the adventure of starting something new away from it all on a mysterious island with a peculiar history and even more peculiar abilities. So in that sense the show should go on for a long long time, I would have kept watching. The ending though was not something I expected, mostly because I was in denial, but for what they gave us, the story was at least two seasons too long. Season 2 and various other episodes, Locke and his Eko, Walt, the pregnancy thing, the stealing of children, all these did not really add towards the ending they gave us. I may just be missing something or I may just be too dumb (the writers are certainly super clever and very well read) to understand the significance of all these story lines. So in short I can accept and like the ending if the story was more compact. While watching the finale I thought that the ending of Season 5 was more appropriate as an ending, the white light.
As for the finale itself, did anybody notice that the concert was very weird and awful, Faraday was playing the piano and the whole thing was a cacophony of incompatible sounds. I loved the fight scene between Jack and Flocke, the way it was shot it was part Matrix and part LOTR. What was so important in Flocke’s back bag that he always had to grab it? What was that thing with Shannon, I thought that Nadia was the love of Sayid’s life. Why weren’t some main characters in the church, people like Lapidus or Walt when people like Penny were present. Ben dived to save Hurley that was very unselfish, so unlike Ben! The acting has always been strong but this episode topped it all. I am not sure if others felt the same way but I felt lots of times that this could have been a Stephen King story.
I cannot believe the show is finally over. I love listening to you guys, I will certainly miss Darlton’s podcasts. What gives me solace though is that throughout the six years Darlton never took themselves too seriously, they had loads of fun, they were very creative and they told a story the way they wanted and could. We got our money’s worth and then some. It is only a story after all…..
You guys ….as always…. ROCK!!! Thank you!
Ilias
@ heykir – right, Penny and Jack did meet on the boat. Did I miss something about Jack’s relationship with his mom? Was Margot his mother or stepmother?
So I just rewatched the end for the first time since Sunday. I went into it knowing there were going to be any answers and just wanting to enjoy the character stuff.
I’ll admit it was better the second time around. Still don’t like that many things were left unanswered.
But I’m now ready to close the “lost chapter” of my life and move on. I’ll listen to this weeks podcast, then I’m done with the show, probably for good.
I don’t plan to buy the complete series just to get a few more answers they should have given us during the show. I’m sure that info will be posted on lostpedia and other sites sometime after. If I’m still curious when that time comes, I’ll check it out then.
Ryan and Jen, I’ve really enjoyed your podcasts this season and have been excited to see a couple of my comments make it into the show, that’s always cool. I only wish I had found your podcast earlier, it would have made my lost experience a lot better.
You all everybody. I enjoy reading everyones comments and try to read every single one most weeks.
See you all (everybody) in another life, brother/sister.
(Usually Eric in Sedona, but I’m on vacation. I’ll be back on the Main Island, Britain, form this Hydra Island soon. Of course, the British Airlines Strike almost made be stuck on the island. And if the volcano acts up again., I’ll be stuck on the island threatened by the Black Smoke.)
I’m a week behind everyone. I’ve just been able to find a way to see the episode. And so I’m left with echos all the other people.
I also want to understand what the deal is with David. Was he a figment of their mutual imagination? Even if so, is he real and self aware or just a holodeck character? Maybe he was created by their imagination (or Hurley), but their imagination (or Hueley() created a new world that exists now on its own. It at least continued since others like Daniel Widmnore and Anna Luccia get their chances later.
And what about Helen? That’s not fair at all? If she’s not real, the relationship seems hollow. And if she is Helen after her death, why can’t she be invited in and allowed to come along? Are those already together not allowed to go to the next level?
I end up being emotionally satisfied by intellectually unsatisfied. Thankfully, the emotion is wining out.
i agree Ilias, alot of the mythology wasnt needed for the final episode. we didnt really need to know any thing to watch the final, i think they did that for the people that stopped watching at season 2 could watch the final episode without feeling like they where jumping on board about a season they knew nothing about. And it was a bit sad that we didnt have that moment at the end of the season finale that made you go OH MY GOD!!!!
Transmission friends,
Let me start by saying thanks to our hosts Ryan and Jen! Their unwavering devolution to this show and this community of LOST fans is exceptional beyond words! I cannot thank them and you enough for the positive impact you have had on my life and that of so many others. I found the Transmission by accident and just like our characters on the island who find one another and bond through their collective experience. We too have entered each others lives in someway or another through this electronic world. So metaphorically speaking the Transmission has become our island. I love LOST as my name suggests, but LOST is simply my constant that keeps bringing me back together with all of you. I have not posted nearly as much as many of you over time, but I like Jacob prefer to observe from a far as I read and listen to “You all everybody”. I will never forget this wonderful experience and I hope to see each of you in another life!
WELSHIE
As I was reading Physics of the Impossible, I came to many passages that reminded me of the earlier seasons, such as the island’s position being not easy to find, the way the object was thrown and how the time it landed on the island was off, as Faraday suspected; the involvement of Eloise HAWKING, and how it related to Steve Hawking in the book as far as the criteria for entrance into a parallel universe through a worm hole. So I do not think the writers meant for this to be the ending. I think originally they may have been thinking about the sideways world being an alternate universe, but they dropped that theory due to time or plot constraints. Otherwise it just does not make sense to me, why have the characters have all the names relating to quantum physics, and then push that all away and turn to the spiritual afterlife. Just for the record, faith and secularism are not on opposite ends of the spectrum, and in fact support each other, so how does it all add up? If these names were used just as a random joke, it wasn’t funny. Many if not all of the characters were named after philosophers, scientists. apostles or biblical characters.
The more I think about it, the more I think there is still something missing from the finale. Yes, they still could have had that last scene with Jack closing his eye, but the rest of it is what I fail to understand fully. I will keep trying, maybe buy the DVD and watch the finale a dozen more times…
@Aaron from Perth- I said many many many posts back that I, too, felt the lack of a true HFC moment in the finale- was waiting for a true THUD and the “ping” at the end when the fade to white happened…didnt do it for many people.
@Faith…I agree- its why I think MIB had a name but they didnt tell us because they realized that we put a lot of stock into the meanings of people’s names and for whatever reason they couldn’t find a name that would satisfy us…or confuse us..etc…turns out the names were just a fun way to build a crazy fan base who spent hours after each show looking up “Hume” and “Hawking” and finding connections.
I also really thought we would somehow see Desmond read or be handed the book he said he would read before he died- they set up so many really cool things like that (and the obvious one about the outrigger and the shooting when they were sailing through time) that they never had a chance to play out.
@Faith Kaplan & @MLE in Colorado – Just so that you both know that you are being heard and that your pain is being shared, I just wanted to let you know (once again) that what you are feeling is shared by many of us. From the lack of plot line closures, to all the cool things they set up and then just left hanging, to the lack of that “HFC moment” at the end, many of us feel empty where the finale of LOST is concerned. And it really isn’t that the episode wasn’t good, I think it was EXCELLENT. It just wasn’t an episode to end 6 years of buildup to.
@LReene & @MLE in Colorado – Come to think of it, they use the quantum physics in the previous seasons, and even used the constant, which physicists also call the cosmology constant. So I guess the names were appropriate. Also wondering if that was the afterlife, where perhaps Faraday realized his dream of being a musician, why isn’t eveyone’s sideways world their best dreams realized? Why isn’t Sayid married to Nadia? Why does Sun’s father arrange to have Jin killed? What kind of afterlife is this? Even Jack, though he has a good relationship with his son (but not initially), seems to still have issues with his father. And if this is the after life, why is there a casket? What is the symbolism of Christian? Is he playing dead just so the others realize they are too? Otherwise why isn’t he at the hospital doing surgery with his son? And the least satisfying ending was with Desmond. We all thought he was so special. He did survive the light and removed the cork without dying. But then he has no more plot. We have to assume he finally met Penny for that cup of coffee…
Still working my way through the posts. I’m always late to this party! But…
@Jeremy in Rochester, May 23, 6:01 PM: Please, please, I beg you, do not put Damon and Carlton in the same league with Tolkien and Lewis, for so many reasons. The one that comes to mind with your post is the obvious one: they DID explain many mysteries they introduced (the One Ring (Tolkien), the Wood Between the World, the origin of the Lamp Post, what the afterlife is…). The only mystery I can think of that wasn’t resolved completely is who Tom Bombadil was.
@Abby: “My husband’s final comment was “well, God spelled backwards is Dog.—
Well, we had to have some bit of mirroring on the island side of things. 🙂
@Clint, May 23, 6:17 PM: MAHALO for allowing that there are different kinds of viewers of this show…and not judging either side as “haters”, “fan boys/girls”, etc. Tired memes that need to be abandoned. Damon and Carlton set up the show to appeal to different kinds of viewers, and it ought to be recognized that in the end only one set of viewers seemed to be appealed to.
@Michael, May 23 6:35 PM: You said it, brotha, and better than I ever could.
@Stan, May 23, 7:32 PM: My first comment on this blog was that YAE were better writers than the writers of the show. Thank you for proving it.
@Jeff from Utah said: About halfway through the finale I realized they were probably not going to answer any major mysteries, but I found my self saying “Who cares?†I was having a blast just watching everyone be reunited.
Yes, I think that was quite intentional, along with the clip show that heavily featured the pilot, and the re-airing of the pilot the night before. It felt very much to me like, look, we’re going to touch you on every “aw, isn’t that sweet that they finally got together?” level we can, one after the other, so when all is said and done (and nothing much will be said or done), you’ll forget about all the other things we teased you with. NOT. I can’t be bought off with a few tears.
@Ana, May 23, 11:52: “But those magic days are long gone.” You said it, sister.
Well, I think a day’s worth of reactions is enough for now.
And just for the record, I liked the Galactica finale. And much like “Lost”, I never was very interested in the theorizing. My first comment about “Lost” on any blog was that I enjoyed a good story, well told, and I thought “Lost” was awesome. Of course…that was season one.
Ryan and Jen, I came to podcasts late, and yours was the first I listened to. I remembered your name, Ryan, from the Hawaii Threads site that I started visiting a few months before we moved to Hawaii. Read your filming reports avidly and Jen, your near-miss star-spotting moments regretfully (like Nestor Carbonell in Kailua). I’ve read a lot about “Lost” being “art” in these threads, but I’m of the viewpoint that the real art here has been the crafting of an interesting and diverse community…and that’s all you. Mahalo.
Is there supposed to an enhanced version of the finale tonight?
so this is my third or fourth post on this single episode. granted, its the finale, and the end of the line, but still, its garnered the most thought and investment to date on any episode.
ive run the gambit, of outrage, anger, acceptance, and a return to disbelief in relation to the ending.
i still think it was a bit of a cheat, making us think that as JULIA said, IT WORKED.
but reading this post a friend sent on did give me some solace in regards to how to view the whole ending.
http://designwoop.com/2010/05/lost-finale-explained-well/
if its indeed true that THE CREATORS knew it would end not only on JACKS eye closing, but with that whole bit in the church, then i have some more peace about it all.
from previous interviews it seems DARTLON didnt expect for the series to last more then 12 episodes to one full season. they expressed admiration of short run series like TWIN PEAKS & the PRISONER, which, in retrospect, seems very much like where we were in the first season. in a strange and fantastical place. part of what made it so fascinating is because nothing made complete sense. but like those series, the endings didnt quite manage to JUSTIFY the whole series.
it would seem their original intent WAS to have THE WHOLE STORY be purgatory, and not go much beyond the length of a mini/limited series. but with creating something that found such love, they went and tried to give us more.
so now, here we all are, debating, questioning, and working hard to figure out what the ending MEANT. imagine if they had answered what WALT had to do with it all. or if we knew what the numbers meant. sure, we’d have answers, but we wouldn’t all be adding 1000+ comments trying to get some understanding.
as much as im disappointed by not having answers, i think our theories are that much better then what we could ever be given. like the MIB origin. it was better in our minds.
i’ll probably change my mind and post again, but for now, i am at least a bit resigned to where we ended up-in this bloody mess together.
thanks DARLTON.
ALSO…
while i am coming to some peace on the ending, i do think the sideways world was a let down. but as i sit with it, i think perhaps this is not entirely that they are all dead.
i think in terms of the story we were following, yes, they are dead. that timeline/lifetime has ended.
but as far as DHARMA goes as a religious concept, this COULD be the next life JACK spoke to DESMOND of. a life in which things passed differently. due to all the struggles of their previous lives, they came together in the next iteration of existence, and were rewarded.
so its not that they all are dead. as christian said, they are REAL. but also they have come to see beyond good and evil, and life and death. thus, they have a greater understanding, and are a bit like desmond has been. able to see beyond his single lifetime.
their moving on is not even that they die again, but are able to transcend.
did they fudge the ending a bit? i think so. does the concept match the theme of the series?
im not sure.
but it is an ambitious end to a mainstream network show.
@FAITH KAPLAN has issues with it too. but as the on island went, it worked for me.
so again, i have my issues with it. but JACKS eye closing was very good. its the sideways i have issues with.
Thanks for the podcast I’ve loved it. I’m from New Zealand so I was only shown the final last night. My take on it is that who was or wasn’t in the church, and in fact the whole flash sideways, is irrelevant. It’s just the afterlife, and so far I can’t see a connection between that and what has been happening on the island all this time. As a standalone season it would be fine, but I can’t see any connection to all the island mythology.
I found the episode emotionally satisfying because you got to see all the characters together and happy, and I guess it’s the characters that were the main reason I kept coming back to the show. I’m particularly un-cynical when it comes to cheesy tv/movie stuff like that. However, the entire flash sideways world was created simply for that emotional pay off.
I have a small feeling of being cheated out of a few big questions and also having all the time invested in the sideways world wasted – and also because I shook off character deaths easily in the 6th season because I knew they were sweet in the other timeline. However, now I find that they were actually dead. They shifted the entire climax of the show from who becomes the replacement in looking after the island to the fact that all the characters meet up after they’re dead.
What I am going to do is ignore that feeling of disappointment, and shove it away and bury it. I’m going to decide to look at all the on island stuff that happens as answering enough questions – most of it was all about finding someone to protect the island and that person ended up being Hurley. All the ‘numbers’ stuff and things like a bird that says ‘Hurley’, I’m going to put to down to coincidence and weird stuff that happens.
Now that I just finished watching it with the captions, it is clearer to me as far as the sideways world, and I think I finally see the light. Since there is no “Now”, they all may have lived their lives beyond what we are seeing, and then reunited for the moving on ceremony. I realize the story within the story, and beyond the story, reading between the lines… I even feel better about Desmond. The finale needs to be watched at least twice to get this all. My brain is hurting now so I cannot think about it anymore. It was a magnificent show and I will keep rewatching all of the episodes until I finally figure it all out!
Yes this is an episode that needs further viewing and I must say, I love it more and more each time I watch it.
@ Faith ~ ditto
The rewatch also made me understand the Sayid/Shannon connection better ~~ I believe that even though Nadia was the love of Sayid’s life, that relationship was marred with agony of his past torture ~ it was the time on the island together that the LOSTies received their redemption and best selves, which makes those moments (days, weeks, months, years) the most poignant and important and therefore meaningful. Thus, Sayid received his redemption through turning over a new leaf on the island, and being able to love Shannon in a healthier, less burdened way
The Finale was an huge emotional success (I cried)… and I’m sorry to admit, also an intellectual failure.
When our emotions die over time.. will we still be debating significant story-line questions that no one ever intended to answer? Plot puzzles that made no sense? Confusing and inconsistent facts. Stuff made-up on the run?
I’ll remember the excellent acting, beautiful scenery, and the promise of a huge WOW payoff at the end that would help make 70% of Lost’s mysteries some kind of sense to me.
It was a wild and fun journey. But it’s pretty obvious there never was supposed to be a destination.. just a stopping point. And that makes it very easy for me to “move on” past the Island, just like Jack.
I loved the emotional impact of the finale, and will always love the series, but my brain’s hope for a dump of logical explanations for all the questions left me just a little bit letdown. I do want to mention some things that I found to be hard to believe; one, how did Jack end up above surface, when we last saw him badly injured down in the Source Cave (heart of the island)? Also, the jet takes off before Jack plugs up the hole, right? It must have taken some time for Jack to plug the hole, get to the surface, walk to the bamboo forest, and lie down…and THEN he sees the jet fly over? What was Lapidus doing, trying to fly around the island for a half-hour to get the safe direction so he doesn’t hit any time anomolies?
I know Darlton said no spin offs but I see 3 very clear ones.
The Ajira 6. A Miles and Ford cop show. and my favorite…
Lost, The Hurley Years.
Loved the show and the podcast. Thanks Ryan and Jen,
I am one of those with mixed feelings about the finale but positive feelings about the show as a whole.
While many are complaining about the unanswered questions, I’m a bit more forgiving given the practical and not everything is under your control aspects of TV and don’t mind filling in my own blanks.
How many shows do we know before LOST where the writers had so much face time? I don’t recall ever having listened and read so much spoken or said by the writers of Seinfeld, The West Wing, or one of the first modern serials, 24 or any huge hit TV shows.
If you count the number of podcasts this show has on iTunes, the number of blogs that pick apart the show, it’s unprecedented. There are more than 30 podcasts (and while I scanned most of them, I only found 3 or 4 palatable, The Transmission, Creative Loafing, LostChatter, Delta Park and TV critics from the Chi Trib, Time, Sepinwall. To me, solo podcasts do not work, some had awful audio quality, some were their own best fans, some didn’t really know the show that well, and some started attacking each other – who cares, etc…)
But the fact that there was so much scrutiny on LOST forced the writers to do things to throw people off that I found a little disingenuous, see the head fakes to throw us off from figuring out the flash sideways, making us think the FS had something to do with the island timeline.
So the next big hit serial, I’ll watch, but I’ll keep all the negatives from this show in the back of my mind.
Also, because the writers injected themselves into the experience of watching the show, I think some people projected their opinions of the writers into in their opinion of the show. If you don’t like the writers, for whatever reason, say you think it’s an important point whether they knew the end from the start or they had a plan all the long, there’s a good chance you won’t like the show.
Another thing I noticed about people who are extremely negative on LOST is from the complaints, they really didn’t watch the show or if they watched it, they weren’t paying attention or seemed to have an opinion before ever watching and stuck to it.
Hi guys, I just want to say a little something here since I am so far away fro you guys that I can’t call in person.
I am a British guy, living and working in Seoul, Korea. I have been a great fan of your show, listening to all your insights, as well as all your other listeners, and part of of my whole experience of Lost is being a part of your show.
Since Lost began it has changed my life. Before Lost I was unfamiliar with computers (I come from a different generation ^^). But Lost gave everyone much more than a TV show. I am now able to cut and paste pictures, words, whole pieces of writing. I can post and edit my own writings for forums. I can chat online to other fans directly or indirectly. I can join in live streaming feeds. I can discuss philosophers and philosophy at the water cooler. I can comfortably chat about time travel and time paradoxes. I can hold my head up when discussing different religions and mythology. All of these things I owe to Lost.
But I also owe them to podcasters such as yourselves. Without you, I wouldn’t be the new me. And I love the new me. So I want to say to you both thank you, thank you, thank you, for reinventing me.
@Chris in Seattle – the link did have good points, but it is a fake, it is not written by a Lost writer.
@Faith and Greenberry – Exactly! I felt that as much as Sayid loved Nadia (and he did experience his happiness with her in real life, he had emotional baggage with her that must have been difficult to overcome) but with Shannon, he was himself and she viewed him as a hero, she didn’t have to see him when he was a soldier like Nadia did.
re:sideways world, the time concept was a bit mindbending at first, but I let go of everything I thought about time and just concentrated on the concept of “now” being immediate in sideways no matter when you died you all come together at the same time. Just throw logic aside.
I didn’t realize last night’s episode was enhanced and came across it around the time Sayid and Shannon reconnected. I recorded it to watch later.
@hanakoa – I agree, both great spinoffs. I would like to see how Kate explains skipping bail to go to Guam.
If Lapidus had gotten stuck in the 70’s he could have been the pilot on “the plane” on Fantasy island, haha.
Sawyer and Miles as cops, would’ve been great!
We’ll see more of Hurley and Ben on the island in the DVD extras, they did a segment for it.
I hope all the actors find more work, they are all wonderful. (except for Zoe, can’t stand her as an actress)
re: the now – does anyone think the flash sideways started for the characters on the plane this season, and their sideways pasts were just memories newly implanted in their brains. So the sideways started on that Oceanic flight, they really didn’t live their whole lives over, they just started up again with their connection on that flight?
I think when Jack looked at his scar in the mirror part of him was thinking it was a bit off, and now we know it was because MIB stabbed him there as well.
It would be interesting if the DVD had the sideways in a whole different segment by themselves to watch it play out like one long story.
re:Desmond on the island, I don’t think island Desmond realized that the sideways was the afterlife, he thought it was a whole new reality. He popped back into his island body before realizing what it really was.
A tidbit I got from the Jorge interview on Jay and Jack. Henry Ian Cusick put a rock in his shoe for filming all the island scenes so he would really limp for real. That is dedication. Plus I was incorrect before Matthew Fox wasn’t stabbed with the trick knife, he was stabbed with the real knife that Terry was using. Good thing he had a pad on and the knife was dull.
Happy sunday morn’ Losties :
If you need a Lost fix until the podcast, I recommend the follow post by a regular contributor to the DocArtz blog. Really well thought out and written:
http://www.docarzt.com/lost/lost-theories/the-end-thoughts-by-gatesy/
@ Tawl : emotional vs intectual success. I understand the point you are making, however, for me and maybe for others as well, it is the emtional impact of the story, the book, the movie (insert whatever you see fit) that stays with me.
I will remember how this show made me feel, more than I will remember the details of paticular unconcluded story elements.
Also, how can we truly say that the show was an intellectual failure, when more than anything else “out there” short of school (and I would argue that even school/universtiy etc. did less than this show) it made many of us research and read, exchange and debate issues far beyond what you would have possibly dreamed of at the start of this Lost journey.
Like a few mentioned on this blog – if only they had spent so much time doing school as they spent on Lost, exploring various philosophies, theologies, sciences – you nade it this Lost fandom has come out of this experience a little more knowing about certain subjects than when we entered it.
@ Faith, Greenberry, Carol : re: Sayid and Shannon. Exactly – the more we look the better we see 🙂