Jack Shephard- "All of this matters."
The two and a half hour series finale of Lost was quite honestly the best one sitting watching something I've ever gone through. No other tv episode or movie has ever moved me in such a way. There were so many moments on and off the Island that were of great importance that I can in no way discuss how all of them made me bawl like a little girl.
One of, if not the biggest question of this entire last season, has been what is the sideways universe and how is going to relate to the Island lives we've been watching these characters live for the past six seasons? Well although it ended up being one of the first ideas that people talked about when the season started, I was still a good deal surprised when it became clear that the sideways world was some type of purgatory.
After Juliet died in Sawyer's arms during
LA X, Miles relayed her final thought, which was
"it worked." Now most people took this and ran with it, thinking it meant that once someone dies on the Island they transfer over to the sideways world where the bomb actually changed history and everyone can live happily ever after with no Island. After a while this theory fell out of vogue as it seemed more and more likely that these two worlds were coming to some kind of convergence.
And technically they were. All of these characters that we have grown to love over the past six years have been living in this in between state of life and the afterlife. In an ironic turn of events, the first major theory about was Lost really was ended up being a major factor in the end game. Not at all in the way people thought four or so years ago, but these people were in purgatory.
Now I am not a religious man by any means, but I was completely satisfied with this ending. I'm curious as to what people of religions that don't have anything resembling this type of life/afterlife situation, would feel about this type of ending to Lost.
Everybody dies at some point. And for our watching purposes, everyone on the Island died at some point. Some before Jack Shephard (Boone, Sun, Libby, etc.) and some long after the good doctor's eye closed in the bamboo forest (Hugo, Ben, Kate, etc.). They all died and somehow they all created this sideways universe in order to find each other, remember, and let go. How they created this world I'm not sure. Was it the a-bomb back in the incident? Or something completely different that we'll never understand?
With the help of one another, beginning with Charlie helping Desmond, which led to Desmond and Hugo helping everybody else, everyone began to remember their lives and let go. In this sideways purgatory they might have thought they were living, but it all seemed like a shallow existence once each one of them remembered the life they once lived. And once they all did this remembering and letting go, they were ready to move on to what some might call heaven.
And it was in these flashes of remembering that I completely lost it every single time. It was almost as if Cuselof figured how they could make the finale in a way that it would be impossible for the audience to not get multiple chills moment, and then came up with doing the sideways universe. This entire season of sideways moments led us to these moments where we got to see these Zombie-like versions of our favorite characters turn back into the ones that we love right before our very eyes.
Whether it was Jin and Sun snapping back to themselves and immediatly learning Enlish after seeing Ji Yeon on the baby monitor, or Sawyer and Juliet crying in each other's arms once all of their memories of each other come flowing through, I couldn't help but be extremely happy. And it was just that. Flash after flash coming at us time and time again until everyone that we've watched over the years had remembered their time on the Island and was ready to move on to the next life, brotha.
But how did this story of our friends finish up on the Island before they all eventually died and met up in purgatory? Well it was in fantastic fashion as well. Before this journey concluded, almost everyone got their 'moment' and that is what I was happy with. Whether all of the intracies of the Island actually make sense to me, I could care less. But the fact that we got to watch Jack sacrifice himself, Kate save the day by shooting MIB, or Hugo take the reins as the new protector of the Island, was a completely satisfying ending to this story.
As the story began to unfold, the Smoke Monster wanting to feel human became a great irony as returning to human form for a few minutes was what gave our heroes the time they needed to kill him for good. In the first of several heroic moments on the Island, Desmond was lowered down the Waterfall into the glowing Light. The MIB thought bringing him down there would help destroy the Island, while Jack believed it would help save the day and kill Smokey. Although they both claimed they were each wrong, they ended up both being right.
After Desmond released the plug to the Light, the Island did start to destroy itself. It also took away Smokey's smokiness. It returned him to a human form which made it possible for Jack to make him bleed when he did a jump punch on the cliffs that would have made Johnny Cage extremely proud. Fake Locke one the battle between the two, as he stabbed Jack in the gut, but the castaways won the war as Kate came up with her heroic moment, shooting MIB in the back.
Now the terrible beast that haunted this Island for a long time was dead, but the Island was still destroying itself and Jack wasn't going to let everyone die. So in the biggest stud moment in television history, Jack decides that he is going to sacrifice himself by plugging the cork back into the light whole in order to save the Island.
But he's the protector of the Island, how could he go on such a suicide mission? We all asked the question, including Hugo. The simple answer. This is what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to protect the Island for one day so that he could sacrifice himself to save it. He would obviously have to pass the torch on to someone else. And how is everyone in the world not happy that Hugo got to take on this new role. And that was the biggest moment of all for me. When Jack said
"it needs to be you Hugo" I completely lost it.
So after Jack saved the day by plugging the hole, Hugo took on the job of protector. In a truly epic good guy moment, Benjamin Linus was right there next to Jumbotron, ready to help him accept his new responsibilites. Hugo is scared and Ben helps him understand that he is someone who has always helped people. As the new ruler of the Island he can help as many people as he wants to. He doesn't have to run things the way Jacob did. And in that moment Ben had his redemption, and Hugo makes the whole thing that much better when he asks Dr. Linus to be his #2.
So Hurley and Ben rule the Island for who knows how long after that moment. Sawyer, Kate, Miles, Claire, Lapidus and now an aging Richard Alpert leave the Island on the Ajira plane. Rose and Bernard will continue to camp out like Robinson Crusoe. Desmond is still hanging out on the Island, but I'm assuming Hugo found a way to get him off the Island quickly so that he could spend the rest of his life with Penny and baby Charlie. And this part of the story ends in a complete full circle moment. Jack is spit out by the waterfall and travels around the jungle until he lays down in the bamboo forest and dies as his eye lid closes ever so slowly.
Thank you all for a great six years. Through it all, Lost was the best television series I've ever watched. And it ended in a way that I am completely happy with. I will re-watch this show from
The Pilot to
The End many times over to enjoy the journey time and time again.
Other Thoughts
-There were more Sawyer jokes in the first segment of this episode than the rest of this entire season.
-I loved that we got a couple of Star Wars lines from Hurley...
"He's worse than Yoda"..."I got a bad feeling about this."
-I honestly don't think I could have been more excited than when I heard Juliet's voice say
"am I interrupting?"
-The quick moment when Miles pulls a grey hair off of Richard's head was so poignant because of how good
Ab Aeterno was in showing us the man that Ricardo was.
-As Locke, Desmond and Ben meet Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hugo in the field we got a classic encounter as UnLocke claims,
"well this is gonna be interesting" and then tells Jack what we've all been thinking
"you're kind of the obvious choice don't you think?"
-Even though Desmond says none of it matters, in fact like Jack said
"all of this matters." They are living life, and although they get to end up with the ones they love in the afterlife, the current life still matters. And saving the Island is a major achievement. Why does Desmond think that they can just go to the sideways and live happily ever after. It seems like he knows exactly what's going on in the sideways, but doesn't really seem to have a grasp on what the sideways is while he's on the Island.
-Almost a comical moment by MIB as he tells Jack
"if there was a button down there to push we could fight about whether or not to push it. Just like old times" Doc then gives Locke his heroic moment in giving him almost all the credit for Jack saving the day,
"turns out he was right about most every thing. I just wish I could've told him that while he was still alive."
-Why are Linus and others not ready to move on? Does he have a different group of people he needs to move on with? Unlike Faraday and Charlotte who haven't quite flashed, Ben seems to remember everything and still isn't ready to leave? Interesting.
