And In The End...

It's been a while since my last post. A lot has happened. So much that I wish I would have written about, but I just couldn't find the time. But I couldn't pass on this one.

Lost ended last night. And though my recaps have become a bit sloppy or absent all together, I still love this show. It's just that,as the end approached, it just all got so...thick. It was/is almost impossible to try to piece it all together or break it all down. So, I'm not going to try. Last night was two and a half hours of incredible television and all I can do is just give my opinion on it like the rest of the internet is doing right now.

First off, this is an ending you will either love or hate and it will depend on why you watched the show. There really weren't any answers given, at least not to the long standing "must answer" questions. Because, really, do they really matter? As this show wound down, I found myself consistently disappointed with the answers that were given and they way they were given. Everything was so blunt, and this show has never been blunt. Did you really want some person/being to sit down the cast and tell them: Walt is special because of the following traits....The Island needed him because....Now let's move on to Chapter 2 where we discuss why The Island could disappear....

No. No one really wants that. And not truly resolving those things does not mean that none of it mattered. Walt mattered, at a time. And then he didn't. The Island was done with him. And he got to go home.

And can't we all just rest on the idea that The Island is just a crazy place? One of those weird spots on Earth where crazy things happen? Do we really need a scientific explanation for all of it?

As I watched last night, and the realization kicked in that this was not going to be about answers, I realized I didn't care. Because what it was all about, was the characters. It's always been about that. All those episodes of complaining about how I don't give a shit about who Kate is going to pick, well it turns out I did. Because, very surprising to me, when she and Jack said goodbye on that cliff, I cried. I didn't cry for Jin and Sun. But I did cry for Jack and Kate. What the hell.

Now, I'm not saying the ending was perfect. It was a little too "Christian Shepherd" for me. It still got me at the moment, but looking back now, I am a little skived by the whole thing.

I do find it somewhat funny that the writers who have denied that The Island is purgatory for 6 seasons, still found a way to get around that denial. Sure, The Island wasn't purgatory, but the Sideways World kind of was. The Losties still had to find some sort of redemption before they could all go to heaven. It's odd that it was a world they all created for themselves to meet up in once they all died. Was that really their ideal world? Or am I missing something? Ideally, did Jack really want to be with Juliette, but only for long enough to have a kid with her and then get divorced? Did Kate really still want to be on the run? Charlie still wanted to be a junkie? Sayid wanted Nadiya to be with his brother? Actually, that one kind of made sense. As it turned out, Sayid's true love was not Nadiya, but Shannon. Who would have thought?

It's interesting to see what triggered everyone's memories. Most people had to couple up. Except for John, who got his legs back, and Jack, who found his father. Oh, and Ben, who had to get the crap beaten out of him. Poor Ben.

It was certainly an ending filled with tears. I cried often. I cried when Claire and Charlie were reunited. I cried when Sawyer and Juliette found each other. I cried when Locke got up and walked. I cried when Jack hugged his dad. I cried when Kate and Jack said their goodbyes. I cried when Hurley saw Charlie again. I cried when Hurley realized Jack was going to die going down into The Light. And, I cried, oh boy did I cry, when Vincent curled up next to a dying Jack in the end. A cheap ploy for tears? Sure. But it works. It works every time.

So what does it all mean?

Who knows? I've been reading about people complaining that Dharma really never meant anything, that The Temple was pointless, that Smokey and Jacob were a waste of time, that it was all really pointless. But you can't just have a show about a plane crash on a crazy Island and then one episode in have Jacob come out of the woods and tell everyone what's going on. There has to be a story. And there was. And Dharma and The Temple and Widmore and Richard and Jacob and NotFBIChick and all of them all helped to tell that story.

You could venture to guess that when Richard finally died, he went off to his own ideal world. He wasn't at the church with the rest of them. Maybe Ben is not meant to go off with our Losties. He was with Dharma and Richard and Rosseau and Alex. That is who he is connected to and why he didn't join the Losties in their departure. Just because we focused on our initial survivors doesn't mean that everyone else we've met through the years didn't serve their own purpose or have their own story to tell.

And, speaking of Richard, what do you think he did when they finally reached normal land? Here is a guy from a long long time ago met with a new world he's only had little tastes of. It must have been pretty insane.

I've also been thinking about how long they all had to wait to meet again. Note Kate's mention to Jack that she has missed him for so long. Note Hurley and Ben's mention of the teamwork they had during their run protecting The Island. What crazy adventures did Hurley and Ben have? Did they have their own Oceanic 6? I like to think Hurley would have been very up front with new visitors to The Island.

So how long was it? Assuming most of them lived a normal life, maybe 50 years. But then, what if Hurley and Ben protected The Island for thousands of years? Kind of crazy to think about.

All of their deaths happened. Everything we saw on The Island was real. When Jughead went off, it didn't make an alternate timeline. It simply propelled everyone to present day, but they were always still stuck on The Island. Everything went on as we saw. Kate, Sawyer, Claire, Miles, Richard, and The Pilot all flew off The Island and lived their lives. We don't know what they did or how they spent it, but they all got away.

Hurley and Ben spent an unknown amount of time protecting The Island.

Jack died as we saw him die. Lying where he originally landed with a very precious Vincent curled up next to him (that still chokes me up).

We can assume Rose, Bernard, and Vincent lived out their days on The Island.

It seems that Daniel and Charlotte were not meant to head for the afterlife at this time. Desmond even told Eloise that Daniel was not coming with him. I believe that that "purgatory" world kept on with these outlying characters until they were ready to go. Daniel continued his music career. Ben and Rosseau and Alex built a life together.

Everyone and Everything had a purpose. None of it was in vain. The Island is still a very important and powerful place and is still being protected and most likely new visitors are coming and going and the cycle continues.

There are a lot of things that we will focus on as we rewatch the series as a whole. There will be a lot of things that maybe won't make sense at all. A lot of pieces that won't fit. But one that that has stayed consistent, is the characters. And, in the end, that's what this show was about.