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Lost:
The Series Finale
...and The Complete Sixth Season, too!
Click photo to order this DVD.
Also in Blu-Ray: Click
here to order now!
A Techtite
Review
There's no time to beat around the bush in this
review, so let me just say this, right off the bat: yes, I "got it."
That said: what did I think of what happened, that I "got"...? In all
honesty (and you will hear this many, many times elsewhere) the finale
was dead solid perfect until those final 5 minutes.
However, remember; that is not because I didn't "get it." Oh, I got it.
Yet was what I "got" worth the six year ride? The answer is a
complicated answer, though answering such questions are what reviews are
for, right?
What follows is basically a review of the series
finale, though I might as well review The Complete Sixth Season
while I am at it. Sad to say; unlike prior seasons, Lost's sixth season
was a build up to one, singular episode: the series finale. This is
unlike other seasons where numerous stories were happening at once, with
any number of episodes perfect all by themselves. No; in this season
(and interpret this mini "review" as you will), the whole season built
up to the finale, and that's all.
Let me start by shooting down one complaint right off
the bat: no, it wasn't a bad final season because it left some questions unanswered.
With a series this
involved, this complex, and this "three dimensional,"
this was to be expected.
Should we be upset that the island
was, for the most part, left as a "mystery?" One word: midicholorians. In
other words: no! Think of it this
way. When James Bond gets his latest cool gizmo
from Q, do you wish Bond would stop the movie dead, demanding
Q open the device and explain the mechanism to the
tiniest detail? Of course not. As far as I care, the island is
The Twilight Zone. It is immaterial what makes the island
"tick." Just resolve the characters' stories, please.
That said: the initial resolution of
each characters' story was awesome (except Jack's, darn it). The
villainous Man in Black is defeated once and for all. Rose and Bernard
cannot leave the island or else Rose's cancer will return, and yet we
see that they are alove and well in their little "retirement hut" on the
island, with Vincent as their pet dog. Many of your favorite
characters get to leave the island. Two of my personal favorite
characters remain on the isl;and as the new leader, and his new second
in command. Desmond is
still on the island, though since the new leader of the island can bend
the island's rules to his wishes, it is implied that he can send Desmond back home, as soon as he can.
Now, around here is where you might expect me to say
"forget all that," based on the five minute epilogue. Nope. Watch these
final minuites, and listen for clues. The
just-appointed leaders of the island praise one another for the good job
they did. Well, obviously this is way into the distant future, or else
how would they know? Kate says "I missed you so much" to Jack, implying that they
hadn't seen each other for years, not minutes. This seems to imply
Kate lived a long
life off the island.
Which brings us to Jack. Poor, poor Jack! The series
needed a sacrificial lamb for that one last "Emmy push," and Jack was
that lamb. Was this necessary? Not exactly. I was half expecting Jack's
friends to
put a mortally wounded Jack in the same
fountain of youth that healed Ben Linus as a young boy. Think about it:
with the Man in Black dead, the powers of the island were restored, and the healing
fountain was up and running, yes? Nope.
They wanted the finale to be poignant, and it was.
Here's where I must agree (for once!) with all the
people who keep telling me that a good ending need not be 100 percent
happy per se. Allow me to summarize Jack's final scene, unabridged,
and praise it as the masterpiece of heart-tugging cinematography that it
was.
Jack stumbles into the woods, slowly dying, having sacrificed his life
so his friends would live. He falls down to the same spot where the
whole series began. The lovable dog Vincent comes by, though this time
he does not disappear into the woods as he did in the series premiere: he
instead sits beside Jack to make sure he will not die alone. Good boy,
Vincent! Jack sees the plane with his friends
on it roar overhead, and he smiles for them, and then ---in the opposite
way that every season has begun for six years--- we see a close up of
Jack's eye, as it closes. Fade to Black. Cue Lost logo...with the
perfect final musical note. Wow. Just...wow.
Which brings us to the "final five minutes," aka the
plot twist (man I am beginning to hate plot twists!) and what fans have
called all season the "alt-verse." Throughout
this season, we've seen glimpses of this "alt-verse", wondering
about its significance. Is this the result of the heroes' time-altering,
time-travelling, time-warp mix-ups in season 5? Is this a flash-forward, or, as it was
often called all season by fans: a "flash sideways," to what might have
happened had their plane reached LAX? This is a mystery kept
under wraps until the final minutes of the finale...and the internet
forums have not been the same ever since!
As I said already, I "got" the ending. Here is the
actual, honest to goodness explanation of what this alt-verse is: it's a
flash forward...way, way forward! In a show that kept juimping back and
forth in time to flashbacks and flash forwards, here was a season where
half of each episode was a flash forward to the end of all things. The
poignant idea, I must presume, is that we are to be happy that in this
apparent afterlife, all the losties are reunited forevermore. Um...okay.
Nice. Kinda.
Now, I know a lot of people will debate me on this
translation of the finale, saying they still don't "get it," though if
they did get it, they are "sure" that ain't it! Again: listen for clues. Christian
Shepherd tells his son, Jack, that this afterlife is where people come
when they die, whether they died "before," or "long after." This is an
important plot point, especially after so many agnostic viewers
wondered if this ending meant that "everyone died together." Well, obviously,
that isn't true, based on the prior seasons alone. Christian Shepherd died before the series began,
Boone died in season one, Shannon in season two, and Charlie in season
three. Yet
they are all together in a replica of Earth, 2004, when their deaths spanned
several
years! It is made (relatively) clear that
everyone who escaped the island died much later (see sidebar for the
many clues that "prove" this). It's confusing, I know, though
my point is: everyone on the plane that escaped (as well as
Hurley, Ben, and Desmond) lived happily ever after...in theory, anyway.
Jin and Sun reunite in the mysterious "alt-verse,"
in one of many awesome moments of
this episode.
Yet some fans are still confused. This is to be
expected due to one little snafu with the storytelling: the memories.
Upon reuniting, each "Lostie's" life literally flashes before their
eyes: the tears, the laughter, though for the most part, "the
island"...! Here's the tiny problem with that: as I already mentioned,
it's quite clear that their lives lasted beyond the island. So why not
offer fans a glimpse of what they want to see? Kate escaped with Sawyer; did they stay
together? Show us a small hint of this in her afterlife flashback. Then show us a small glimpse of Claire's life off-island; in
particularly, her reunion with Aaron. Sawyer could have flashbacks
to his first visit with his daughter, Clementine. And so on.
Here's the biggest problem with this ending: supposedly, all our favorite heroes must
now..."go."
Why? It seems the only reason they "must" go is to make
the finale multi-faith, and engulf the heroes in a bright white light, as they
"go" to heaven, or Valhalla, or
Annwn,
or Mag
Mell, or the paradise of your choosing. Yet Ben and Daniel make
quite clear that you do
not
"have" to go
if you don't want to. I'm reminded of a far more effectively poignant moment, in the final episode of
David Tennant's run as Doctor Who. In it, Tennant's "Doctor" laments, very emotionally,
"I don't
want to go!" In this
alt-verse: everyone must go. Though "why" is never made clear.
They are already in the afterlife...and now they must go...to the "real"
afterlife? Yes, I know I said I "get" the ending. I do. I just do not
agree with it, IMO.
This is just a mere 8 minutes, however, in a season of
very intriguing highs and lows. We finally saw Richard Alpert's story,
and personally, I loved it. In fact it was among my favorite episodes of
the season. While not enjoyable per se, I thought the episode where
Sayid turns to "the dark side" was an emotional roller coaster that set
the tone of the rest of the season brilliantly. I loved how Hurley could
now see Jacob now that he is dead, and was now, in a sense, Jacob's new
"Richard," aka his second in command...only to get a fairly given
promotion in the finale. I did not like the resolution of Sun and Jin's
story, though again: what an emotional roller coaster that episode was.
Conversely: I did not like the end of Widmore's story at all. In
essence; Widmore was the second biggest baddie of the series. His final
fate was too quick to be shocking, and frankly, I found it a bit of a
waste.
Yet the real Achilles' heel of this season is how
nearly half of it was wasted (sorry, it just was) on a singular plot
twist: the alt-verse, aka, the flash-way-forward, to
the end of all living things (or whatever you wish to call it). Simply
put: they could have handled this way better. Personally I would have
preferred flash forwards of each character while they were
alive. Remember how in season 4 we gradually saw who made it
off the island one by one? Well they could have shown us gradual flash
forwards of each person who made it off the island to start the season
off. Okay: she survives...and him...and him...and so on. Then show us a
flashback of Richard becoming Jacob's lackey, a flashback of Jacob
becoming the protector of the island, and so on. They should have left
the plot twist for the final episode, or at worst, the final three
episodes.
In short: they made a mistake...though I still do not
think it was as big of a mistake as the naysayers insist. Was it a flawed
final season? Yes, though with such high expectations, this was inevitable.
Nobody expected the season to be flawless. Still; it would've been nice
if they had forgone the purgatory epilogue, so we could see more of what
fans wanted to
see. We see
some heroes escape the island, yet we never see what happens
to them. Hurley and Ben
are the new leaders of the island,
yet we have no idea what happens to them, either. Bummer.
In the end, regardless of the final plot twist, I
liked the finale, and admired the season as a whole. We might not like the fact that the final
flash-forward is far, far into the future, when all our heroes are dead.
Yet as Christian Shepherd laments: we all die sometime, kiddo. The most important
thing to our heroes, in the end, was to never forget all the
laughter and tears they experienced for 6 wonderful years of television. Amen to that.
---Techtite
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