Trans 2010-05-30: “The End” Revisited

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After spending a week rewatching and rethinking “The End,” we revisit the series finale of “LOST” with a full podcast. Much of our initial reaction stands, but taking in the bigger picture reveals some new ideas and nagging questions. After our take, we turn it over to You All Everybody for a mix of reactions, from satisfaction to disappointment. And we close the show with “I’ll Never Be LOST Again,” a hip-hop tribute to the final season of “LOST” by Injustice League. Check out the great music video!

Correction: Did I mention we have a poor grasp of time? Our last two podcasts will be released as follows:

  • June 13: Season Six in Review
  • June 27: “LOST” in Review

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Follow Jen on Twitter or Connect with Jen on Facebook

Segments:

  • 0:00:17 Introduction
  • 0:01:25 Recap: “LOST” in Eight Minutes
  • 0:11:13 Sponsored by Audible.com: “Parallel Worlds
  • 0:13:44 Reaction & Analysis
  • 0:53:30 Feedback: You All Everybody
  • 1:31:42 “I’ll Never Be Lost Again” by Injustice League

To download this LostCast, click the “Pod” icon below, or cut-and-paste the following URL:

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/hawaii/lostcast20100530.mp3

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71 Responses to Trans 2010-05-30: “The End” Revisited

  1. Carol from Boston says:

    @Embie – very well said.

    @Ed from Pa – your letter was beautiful.

  2. Islandsidhe says:

    Ryan and Jen, thank you for another wonderful podcast (and for mentioning me and my crazy parallel world theory too!). You brought up many points in your discussion that I hadn’t yet considered and would like to delve into further after a second listen. I just have to agree with what you said, Ryan, that my gut instinct/reaction to the finale was that it felt just right, and even though – like you, Jen – my left brain has kicked into gear over the past week, the finale still feels just right.

    Doc Jensen at Entertainment Weekly had an interesting theory regarding the threat Smokey posed to the world and how it related to him becoming mortal. It’s on page six of the first part of his analysis of the finale, here: http://bit.ly/dx7vQq. It seems a probable, if somewhat complex, idea that ties everything relating to the Light and the cork and what Jack and Desmond did, together.

    Like Ben and Ana-Lucia, I’m just not ready to move on yet, so I’m anticipating a re-watch of the entire series to commence soon and carry me into August when the Season 6 collection comes out. I’m eager to see how I will experience certain moments and characters now that I know how the story ends. My opinion of Jack was radically changed by the finale, for example – I now have a much more sympathetic appreciation of him.

    Regarding one thing discussed on the podcast: Finding out that the “Sideways” timeline was the “afterlife” hasn’t lessened the impact of the deaths of beloved characters at all for me – in fact, their deaths actually effect me more deeply now. With all of the time traveling forwards, sideways, and back that has gone on in this series, I suppose I always held some glimmer of hope that the past would be altered, that Charlie – for instance – wouldn’t have to drown in the Looking Glass, that John Locke would – quite literally – rise again. Now I know that “dead is dead” indeed, and there was nothing that could have brought Charlie or Locke or Jin and Sun back. They died when we watched them die, and although their reunion in the church was beautiful and we saw that they had found peace, for me it still doesn’t make the fact of their untimely deaths any less painful or disappointing. Whatever lies beyond those doors Christian opened may be wonderful beyond words – but I think we’d all prefer to think of characters like Locke and Charlie and Sun and Jin as being alive and well in this world, messed up as it is.

    I think I would only have felt that the meaning of their deaths was lessened had the Sideways reality really been an “alternative” timeline where everyone ended up alive and well, as if all of their island struggles had never happened at all.

  3. MLE in Colorado says:

    I had saved the last 5 episodes of House to watch when everything else was all done. So tonight…my 2nd Tuesday without LOST I began to work my way through the episodes. My husband said “what are you doing?” And I responded that I was watching House because I can pretend I am watching Libby’s flash-dead-ways. He totally got it.

  4. Amaia says:

    @Islandsidhe- Like you, I’m also more sympathetic to Jack. I like the guy at first, he was the only actor I knew and that helped. He was nice and tried to fix everything but he made a lot of mistakes and after leaving a lot of people behind he became a sad character who bored me, But Jack found redemption not only killing the MIB and saving the Island but being the hero he was at the beginning.

    And I love the paradox: on the Island he became the man of faith , but in the sideways he was the man of science. I

  5. greenberry says:

    Kate saved a bullet for MIB!

  6. Russell in Raleigh says:

    @Vajra, great theory. I had forgotten about Locke choosing the knife. That certainly proved to be prophetic.

  7. greenberry says:

    @ Vajra ~ beautiful imagery in your post, and it does ring plausable

  8. aaron r says:

    @Islandsidhe i just heard Michio Kaku on NPR talking about the situation in the Gulf of Mexico.

    sorry for the off-topic mention, gang.

    did we all survive last night? how many watched Lost reruns? i watched the expanded versions of ‘The End’. it does seem to make a bit more sense.

  9. Amaia says:

    @greenberry- Yeah, Kate was really smart at the end saving a bullet just in case. I agree with everybody who tought in the last episodes Kate was more like at the beginning.

    @Ryan- Where could we post our thought about the season six before the next podcast? Will you open a new topic?

  10. Stephen from NH says:

    @Amaia/greenberry:
    No one has mentioned that Kate’s “I saved a bullet for you” was actually a reply to Smokey’s earlier statement “You might as well save your ammunition” when she opened fire on him in his impervious state. Just thought I would underscore it for anyone who missed it.

  11. Amaia says:

    @Stephen from NH- Yeah, I noticed that when I rewatched the episode last night. I love “Lost”‘s scripts, they have a lot of winks and it’s strange to fnd that on a TV show.

  12. greenberry says:

    @ Stephen ~ absolutely! Kate seemed to always live reactively and impulsively ~ she was beyond distraught at the deaths of Sun and Jin, so she went bezerk with the flying bullets. Thankfully, there was ONE bullet left!

    With this finale ending, there can be no FUTURE story (unless it is in the ‘afterlife’). Yet, conceivbably there could be filler ‘until they died’ stories.

  13. LReene says:

    @greenberry – Yeah! Now we are talking……. “a filler spinoff”.

    I guess that was what disturbed me the most about the finale. The lack of resolution to our beloved characters in THIS life. I mean like I said at the time, to have them “happily ever after” in the “after”, would be what I would invision. But what happened to them in THIS life after the Island.

    I think along with the “Hurley Years” on the Island that is supposed to be on the DVD, finding out what happened in the lives of our other Losties would be awesome. As always, just my 2 cents worth.

  14. greenberry says:

    @ LReene ~ Would love to see Sawyer interact with Clementine, and Aaron and Ji Yeon on a playdate…

  15. LReene says:

    Ok YAE. Last post on this topic. Looks like Ryan now has the Season 6 review ready to go so next post will be there. It’s been fun!!! With more to come.

  16. Islandsidhe says:

    I just finished listening to the whole of this podcast and there were a couple of things I wanted to mention before moving on to the Season Six retrospective:

    @Russell in Raleigh: I missed your post in the finale thread about the possibility of interpreting the “afterlife” from a scientific standpoint. I definitely agree, and I think you expressed this perspective much better than I did with my “parallel world” post.

    @Ed in Elwood City: I was very moved by your reaction to the finale and how it touched you personally. I think that many of us who loved the finale were moved on a very personal level, and I think that is a great testament to the writers. I wish you the best, and please know you are in my prayers.

    @docjkm: Sign me up for that re-watch!

  17. Jimbo says:

    Can’t wait for Season 7 when the more questions will be answered

  18. Angel says:

    Just a quick note:

    Has anyone checked out the Babylonian Legends of Creation? There’s some interesting passages that seem to line up with some of the island mythology. In Babylonian mythology, Tiamat is the primordial goddess of the salt water ocean. At some point, she spawned a brood of “devils” who consisted of personifications of mist, fog, cloud, storm and whirlwinds.

    Just thought this would be interesting.

  19. gamera says:

    Just listening to The End and I heard you make some misstatements regarding the constant ideas. Kate did *not* wake up Jack. Jack’s constant was his father, Christian. Also, Desmond did not wake up Locke, Jack did.

    Also, I wrote this on a friend’s FB page, but:

    Christian Shepard, not Kate, is Jack’s constant. While Jack may have seen his initial flashes with Kate and John, it took Christian for Jack to “let go.” Likewise, Penny is Desmond constant.

    The act of shared motherly love is what woke up both Kate and Claire. This is why Kate went back to the island. Not for Jack or Sawyer or whatever, but for Claire…the birth mother of the child she had raised. So…the act of birth was needed to wake those two up. Kate finally won me over—killing MIB and then having her constant be bonded via *motherly* love rather than romantic love is really fantastic.

  20. gamera says:

    Also, people need to stop using purgatory. Purgatory is for punishment. From wiki:

    temporary punishment[1] in which the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven

    That is not where our Losties were….

  21. Cyndy says:

    The spin off of Lost will feature Hurley and Ben. Each week Hurley will bring six people to the Island. The survivors will compete against each other in competions, that Hurley has set up. After the competions there will be a tribal meeting, and a vote taken. For every competion a survivor wins they will get a vote. The survivor with the most votes will choose who will get to beat-up Ben.

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