What I didn't expect was for the episode to really revolve around the Sideways scenes, with epiphanies and tear-jerking character moments every 10 minutes or so. The Sideways reunions--Jin and Sun, Sawyer and Juliet, Sayid and Shannon, Charlie and Claire, Daniel and Charlotte--I don't know that I've ever cried this much watching any show. Some people are complaining that the show didn't pedantically answer every mystery, like the origin of the numbers, but seriously, I didn't care. Sometimes numbers are just numbers, and besides, any explanation they gave would fall short of our expectations, reduce that delicious sense of mystery to a simple, "That's it?"
In the end, though Lost was a show on an island with lots of mystery, it wasn't about the mystery. It was about the characters, about the pains and triumphs of life, and the possibility of redemption. You could perhaps say it was about Mystery in the spiritual sense, that sense of pursuing answers to questions that can never be truly answered: fate vs. choice, destiny vs. coincidence, knowledge vs. faith, that which can be seen vs. that which can't.
The finale touched on all these things, but did't dwell on them tiresomely the way some previous episodes had. The time for debating was over. The final two-and-a-half hours were about the characters, having made their decisions, taking action and embracing their fates. It felt just right.
And even though no other show has ever been so ruthless in killing off characters, by the end, even death couldn't stop the show from celebrating life in all its variety. I truly loved the series, start to finish, and though I'll miss it, I'm glad it ended when it did and the way it did.
3 comments:
The numbers related to the numbers on the wall in Jacob's cave and the points in the lighthouse. They were the numbers for the final 6 candidates.
My only thing is, I'd like to know what Hurley and Ben were up to after they became the new Jacob and Richard.
I need to watch the whole season again, obviously. But not anytime soon.
As for Hurley and Ben, I'd like to know, but not enough for any kind of sequel or spin-off. I like the fact that Lost is closed and I'd like to leave it that way.
Firefly, on the other hand, I wouldn't mind seeing more of someday.
There's supposed to be some Hurley and Ben epilogue on the upcoming DVD/Blu-Ray release. For me, it's enough knowing that Ben had redeemed himself at some point. I'm still not sure how I feel about the pantheistic Limbo thing, though. There's a pretty good article here at io9 about what anime can teach about ending a story. The only problem I have with the endings to LOST and BSG are feeling (to me, at least) like they went, "Oh, shit! Time to wrap this up," without any kind of cool down period (if that makes sense). It's like ending a western without the hero riding off into the sunset. The story just kind-of stops.
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