The premiere of "Lost" ended memorably with Charlie's plaintive question to his fellow island castaways: "Guys, where ARE we?"
Six seasons and some 120 episodes later, many viewers might be wondering the same thing as the much-awaited "Lost" finale brought the series to a rapturous close Sunday night.
Viewers, where are we? The answer: Almost anywhere we want to be.
(Spoiler alert for what follows.)
If ever a TV series could be likened to a journey, "Lost" is it, and as it came to the end of the road it left its audience with comfort and inspiration more than hard answers. There was also, not surprisingly, a sense of being lost in the maw of a show that henceforth will give up nothing more, a show whose sweep and ambiguity will fuel debate and theorizing from its viewers for years to come.
That, dear viewers, is where you are.
Led by a two-hour retrospective, ABC's Super Bowl Sunday-scale drama event was capped by the two-and-one-half-hour-long finale.
As they have all season, story lines overlapped between the characters on the island and in their parallel lives in the "normal" world back home in California.
On the island, Jack (Matthew Fox) has volunteered from among the designated candidates to take over from Jacob (Mark Pellegrino) as the island's protector.
The Smoke Monster, occupying the body of Locke (Terry O'Quinn), wants to stop the candidates, kill them, destroy the island and sail away.
Back in Los Angeles, Jack, by profession a surgeon, is about to operate on Locke, who (in this incarnation) is crippled.
"If I can fix you, Mr. Locke, that's all the peace I'll need," Jack says.
But then back on the island, Jack and the Monster-Who-Looks-Like-Locke have a tense confrontation.
"So it's you," says Monster-Locke, meaning the island's new protector. "I assume you're here to stop me."
"Can't stop you," Jack says, but promises instead, "I'm gonna kill you."
Well, he doesn't. But a bit later, Kate (Evangeline Lilly) somehow kills the monster-who-is-mortal-again with a single gunshot after a fierce cliffside fight between him and Jack.
Back in L.A., Locke's surgery is a success. From his bed, he gratefully tells Jack he has feeling back in his legs.
"Jack, I hope that somebody does for you what you just did for me," Locke says to a disturbed-looking Jack, who seems to be having flashes of memory of his alternate existence. It's the sort of memory bursts all the characters are having: island recollections invading their consciousness.
A few minutes later, Jack runs into Kate, his island love, as they, too, play the haven't-I-seen-you-somewhere-before game.
"What is happening to me?" says Jack, bewildered as she looks at him adoringly. "Who are you?"
"I know you don't understand, Jack," she says. "But if you come with me, you will."
Come with her where?
To a church where the former castaways are gathered for what seems a beatific funeral reception for themselves. At this reunion, everyone is smiling and embracing. The room floods with light.
And Jack reconciles with his dead father, whose body he had been bringing back from Sydney when Oceanic flight 815 crashed on the lost island at the start of the series.
Jack has a tender conversation with the man he had clashed with so often before.
"I don't understand," says Jack. "You died."
"Yes, I did."
"Then how are you here right now?"
"How are YOU here?" his father (John Terry) replies.
"I died, too," says Jack, beginning to weep.
"That's OK, son."
And yet it's all real, his father assures him.
"Everything that's ever happened to you is real. All those people in the church, they're all real, too."
"They're all dead?" Jack asks.
"Everyone dies sometime, kiddo," his father replies gently.
Through the run of the series, there was much talk among its characters of being on the island for a purpose. As it draws to a close, "Lost" has sustained the eerie feeling (eerie for TV, anyway) that it was on the air for a purpose -- a special purpose beyond selling products and filling time, or even entertainment.
Its cast, producers, writers and the rest seemed drawn to create "Lost," and keep creating it year after year, thanks to fate as much as show-biz urgencies.
Deeper and wider than any TV series should dare to be, it has been thrilling, captivating, confounding (and, at times, pretty tedious), while it challenged its viewers to think, talk and feel.
The series ended where it began six seasons ago after the plane crash: with a close-up of Jack's eye opening as he lay on the ground. But this time, his eye was open and it shut.
That's where "Lost" leaves us viewers as it shuts down. Maybe not so clear about all we've seen, but challenged. Still a little lost, but reassured.
It isn't purgatory because it doesn't involve Jack in a singular way. That is the only thing you need to understand that it couldn't possibly be purgatory. In the concept of purgatory it would be more fit for it to have been solely about Jack's ENTIRE life in the "sideways" reality, which is really the collective subconscious. The fact that Kate, and Hurley and the others were included in this story line proves that it isn't as simple as the place you go before you go to heaven or hell or what not. Although it is very strange it is better to accept that Jacob and the monster truly did exist. The island represents consciousness in a dual form of thinking, when truly we should have a singular form of thinking which happened when Hurley became the sole protector of the island, and it was placed back to the way it was since it used to be there was only one woman who was the protector of the island. Benjamin noted that they had lived out the rest of their life. We just saw the point of view that Jack's soul had. The reason it ended right when Jack died is because like they said time doesn't exist where they were, so he moved on right when he died. If we had seen it from Kate's point of view we would have seen her live out her life back in the reality where she left in the plane.
ReplyDeleteLinus wasn't on the plane. So that means he lived out a completely different reality from birth, where as, it is possible to think that the people on the plane just kind of fell into that reality. Right?
Plus he said he chose to remain. He was in another cycle of growth. Although he did not move on with the others, neither did his father or Alex. That sideways reality (collective subconscious) exists just as the other reality (collective subconscious) exists. Were they ever really "alive" or "dead"? Or on a journey to become one with Jacob and destroy the "monster" duality?
To understand the concept you have to put into account the perspective you are seeing of events happening, the fact that time is an illusion and that multiple realities exist simultaneously but are all connected, and also that truly there were many other people involved in the events. The coolest thing, is to imagine what happened next for the ones like Linus who would stay. What is going to happen to Jack's kid? Well in a way he doesn't exist. The light? Right... the light at the end of the show means, everything had to change for everyone. Some people wouldn't be affected but people like Linus and Alex who stayed would most likely go back to before the moment Jack came into consciousness on the plane, and would live the rest of their life never knowing about what happened Different people would fill new roles and in their perspective nothing changed but to the other people their whole life has changed because of Jack or others not having been in that reality. The same is true for Walt. He was not in the new reality because he was still in the old..(stages of growth) Same as his father. Ana Lucia wasn't in the church and Desmond said she wasn't ready.
Although the concept can be manipulated because of the scale of the people involved, it is almost better to turn each character into an archetype for other cultures, religions, races, situations, statuses, personalities, so on... And the island is a like a game in the mind of a person who believes in God vs. Satan. Satan wasn't named in the show because truly the concept should not be named. It is the god of evil.
Basically imagine what this is, is actually a reoccurring event. And each time this whole Island situation plays out different people (souls) fill the roles in the battle between Jacob and the Monster. Because isn't it still the Island that is "all powerful"?
Well, the Island is a symbol for the human consciousness.
Get it kinda??
Souls move on in stages.