Lost Finale Heads Into The Light

Jack, who always had more trouble catching on to the big picture on this television series, finally let go last night. I’ve seen pretty much a mixed reaction from folks who wanted the easy answers. The thing Lost did is not give us that and even though I thought I was going to be highly pissed that I didn’t get an outgoing manual on every answer I’ve wanted for the past six years.

I wasn’t.

If you haven’t seen it, there is more after the jump.

The clues were always there that this was how Lost was going to end. During an episode with Charlie where all the religious symmetry was presented on the beach with Hugo and Claire in the season where he died, or the the fact that in the first season that Sawyer was humming The Redemption Song by Bob Marley or even the more obvious “Man of Science, Man of Faith” theme that was always sitting on the shelf like a book that is always there but we have blocked out of our minds, it was always there. I think that they were in an airplane crash and that some lived and some died. When Jack’s neck kept bleeding in the series premiere of this year and the plane shook just like the island shook last night, we should have known that this last series was indeed purgatory/limbo because Rose told him to let go. (Good theory and I believe accurate that was also mentioned on Jimmy Kimmel last night.)We, of course, thought she meant the airplane seat. Now we know what she really meant. Season six was a bookmark for Jack, whose actions over past seasons had always left me frustrated and banging my head into the television, finally evolved this year into a more likable character and finally the hero we were constantly told he was. He finally got it right and was redeemed.

The clues, as I said were, there. Locke got hit by a car and having a conversation with Jack within what seemed five minutes? Suspension of disbelief, my friends. I always knew within me that Christian Shepherd was just that, but I had forgotten. I was too much into the theories and mysteries that I had forgotten. Hell, the promo picture of the cast as the Last Supper set-up told us what this is about but we may have just let it slide because we saw that just a couple of seasons ago with the end photo of Battlestar Galactica. Easter eggs and red herrings were the business of Lost and we have come to find out that this practice was more about loving tributes from the show’s writers to philosophy, pop culture and literature more than anything else, but we bought it hook, line and sinker.

We searched for meaning when what we were really seeing was a love letter.

I think this past season was all about Jack letting go and moving on from the very opening moments. I think the island time was real, so the fact that that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse fed into the theories of time-travel (and fanned them) was pretty brilliant. Many of us wondered in the first season if they were in purgatory. Those theories were snuffed and we stuck with the show because it compelled us to think broader and deeper. But in the end, we were right. The sideways world was Jack’s holding cell for his spirit.  And this show was fueled by fans trying to figure things out and as the credits rolled, Lost gave us that option to do that once again. I have a theory that the castaways created this purgatory only after their time on the island.  In the flashforwards, Jack was drowning himself in pills and booze. He chose to “fix” another person instead of jumping off a bridge. He knew his purpose had been unfulfilled but he didn’t know why. He knew he was missing something. And, in retrospect, we knew it too but were to enamored with the bright and shiny things in the season to pay it much mind.

How many times have we as average Waahoos known that we were missing something and it started slowly eating our insides? I would venture most of us.

I’ve written here before that snark and contempt (sex and things that go bump in the night) are easier to talk about than our inner core of spirituality. Some of the finest people I know (and myself on occasion) find it easier to live in a cynical embrace of self-righteous anger instead of letting go those things we cannot change. It’s easier to condemn (even ourselves) than to address a higher power, no matter what your higher power might be. This was the journey of Lost, and specifically Jack this season, because free will is a funky thing. Free will can also include accepting something you can’t touch and can’t see. In free will, you can choose faith. The two are not exclusive from each other.

There were people in the church and there others were suspiciously absent.  I am assuming that Michael was a soul that couldn’t move on. When Eloise asks Desmond if she’s taking Daniel and he says that he is not, it may have been representative that although Faraday was a part of Jack’s narrative, his role was peripheral to Jack’s awakening. Note others weren’t there as well such as Artz or Widmore (who we still don’t have a handle on and who I would venture to classify as a lesser villain seeking lost and unattainable power) because that wasn’t part of Jack’s story. Nadia was Sayid’s story, so she wasn’t there as Jack had never met her. Libby was a part of Sayid, so she waited with Hurley, who I thought would always be the candidate because his spirit was one of doubt not of misdeeds. Jack took the job as a moment of free will, but Hurley had the job thrust upon him, just as Jacob did. And the silly romantic in me is just fine that Jack got the girl and the love/approval of his father, and that is was downplayed to the point it wasn’t a pile of sap. It was supposed to happen and it did.

And Ben. Oh Ben, you don’t get to go because your selfishness superseded everything. But he was a fine, albeit murderous, #2, and when Hurley praised his role in the closing moments, I knew that was so very true. Did Ben go too far? I guess in Jack’s redemption song, he did.

These final moments, to me at least, were not about finding God but of an examined life and the journey we must take. The characters went into the light, and for some reason I’m satisfied more than I can say about that.

I may have more observations later on. That Smokey (who also made choices, bad vengeful choices I might add,  even though he was a victim which ultimately led to his demise) and Richard Alpert hit apparently some sort of invisible wall that made them mortal, that my crush on Frank Lapides will never go away (loved the way he kept tossing the walkie-talkie) and that Miles had a passionate faith (although it was in duct tape), I can’t help believe that we have figuratively closed the chapter on an amazing book. One story is over, and this is one that’s going to stay with me for a long time.

Thank Lost. The journey was one I enjoyed very much.