LOST – End of an Era

First off, there will be spoilers in this post. If you haven’t seen the finale yet, please click away. 

Okay, here goes…

I haven’t been there since the start of this series. I only discovered it on DVD last summer. I whipped through all of the seasons quite quickly so I was able to watch this final season unfold with all of you loyal fans.

I must say that I really didn’t like this season. I felt that they didn’t do a good enough job of providing us answers to the many mysteries that have unfolded over the years.

I was a bit critical of the first five episodes of this season. They almost “lost” me as a viewer. Since I hadn’t put years into watching the show I felt like I could just walk away from it. But I’m glad I didn’t.

Tonight’s finale would have been near perfect if not for a few things. I could break down all the problems with this season, the unanswered questions, or the missing characters and story lines but I’m not going to do that. Instead, I am going to look at this finale as just that, an ending.

A good season finale should tie into the pilot episode. Everwood did it perfectly and to this day remains the best finale of all time. I was hoping that Lost could do the same thing but I knew that it had problems early on this season and wouldn’t be able to deliver that perfection to us. That being said let’s look at this episode.

Jack became protector of the island and he did his best to keep it safe. However, he made a mistake, just like its previous protector, Jacob, had done. Jack knew he had to die in order to make things right and to fulfill his true role. Before Jack marched bravely to his death, he passed the torch on to Hurley.

Jack crawls out from the river and lies down on the grass of the island. This was the exact image we got of him in the pilot. He is just lying there, hurt, but unlike the pilot he is not confused or disoriented. He has completed his mission.

The best part of this scene was that a dog comes out of the woods, just like in the pilot. It’s Vincent. The dog lies beside Jack and we can see that Jack is now happy and fulfilled. He looks up at the sky and sees a plane go by. It’s Oceanic Flight 815. Everyone on it is going to be okay.

Juliet saved them all when she was able to get the bomb to go off and Jack brought it all home with his actions in this last episode.

At the end of the episode when Jack realizes that he has died, his father tells him that not everyone in the church is dead. “There is no now,” he tells him. “Some died before and some died after.”

I really don’t like that this scene took place in a church in the flash-sideways continuum. It would have been more significant for it to be at Charlie and Eko’s church on the island. That would have been perfect.

Nevertheless, I’m happy with how the story ended. I know some people are gonna read the whole story wrong since it ended in a church. I don’t think the story was about purgatory. They weren’t all dead. They needed to learn some things about themselves because they were all lost at one point in their lives.

They are no longer lost.

And Hurley is going to continue to help people by bringing them to the island. We can see this from a few different moments this episode.

First off, Hurley didn’t know what to do when he became the protector of the island. Ben Linus suggested that he let Desmond leave the island. Hurley told him that it didn’t work that way. To which. Linus said something along the lines, “You’re the boss now. You’re good at protecting and helping people. You can make new rules.”

Hurley likes Ben’s suggestion and asks him to help him in that duty, to which Ben says he would be honoured to do.

So we see that the island has a purpose. It helps redeem people who have lost their way. Everyone on that island that we’ve come to know from these six seasons needed that experience. 

We get this from his dailogue with Ben Linus at the end. “You were a great Number 2,” says Hurley to which Linus replies, “And you were a great Number 1.” Perhaps someone else has the job now and they have both found themselves too.

That’s my take on it. I’d appreciate hearing from you. Please leave a comment. Thanks!


2 responses to “LOST – End of an Era”

  1. you are wrong ….you didn't understand somethings…firstly the people in church are all dead……..

  2. Hi Anonymous,

    Everyone in the church wasn't dead at that moment though. I think that is the key point. Hurley and Ben lived to take care of the island.

    We don't know when everyone died. Jack's dad told him that some died before and some died after. This way we know that the experience of the island was real and it was something that they shared.

    You can disagree with me but that's my take on it.