Critics Are Divided On Lost Finale - **Spoilers**
It seems like the critics of the world either loved or hated the final episode of Lost. There was not much middle ground. The overnight ratings for the finale were good, but not like the numbers you might have expected. Of course the fact there were 45 minutes of commercials kind of ruined a lot of the momentum and at one point I said that I was just going to wait until the end and watch it because it seemed like the whole show was commercial after commercial.
The New York Times said, "to me the “Lost” finale, in the immediate aftermath, felt forced and, well, a bit of a cop-out."
Entertainment Weekly loved it for the most part. "I was satisfied. More than satisfied. Do I have quibbles? Yes." Their quibbles were fairly minor though.
The LA Times felt thrilled that nothing really happened because during the run of the show, nothing really happened. Yeah, I didn't understand that bit either. "Very little of the actual plot is, really, all that thrilling. But it works and it becomes thrilling because it provides character payoffs we've been waiting for."
Discuss.
I thought it was brilliant.
ReplyDeleteIt was a great finale, but my head still hurts from trying to figure it out. Will someone explain it to me? Did the plane at the end mean anything?
ReplyDeleteIt's growing on me. The last 5 minutes were a total WTF to me last night..
ReplyDeleteIt seems if you were more interested in the characters than the mystery, you were satisfied. If you were interested in the mystery and not the characters, you were SOL.
I was probably 75% characters, 25% mystery so I'm mostly okay with it. I totally understand why others aren't, though.
Bawled like a baby when Vincent curled up next to a dying Jack at the end.
Sarah, I think the plane at the end was just the set from Season 1...kind of like a reminder of how far we'd come.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused about when exactly everyone died. I thought originally that the "reset" (Juliet triggering the bomb) was the point at which they all died. But then they showed the wreckage on the beach at the end and it threw me.
ReplyDeleteI want to watch all the "awakening" clips again, to see if any of them went past the point of the bomb going off.
If they have all been dead the *entire* time, that very closely mirrors the plot of "The Third Policeman", which Des shoved in his backpack before leaving the hatch and heading off into the jungle.
Pass the aspirin.
Immediately after the show I was disappointed by the ending. However, as time has gone by I find that I like it more. I didn't really need answers to the questions that were left unanswered. Plus I am a sucker for happily-ever-after and I got a boatload of that.
ReplyDeleteI didn't watch Lost, but this critic is very well respected, and his review of the Lost finale already has upward of 360 comments. Enjoy:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/lost-the-end-see-you-in-the-other-life-brother
I thought that they all died at different times - Christian said that to Jack- but that they all came together in each person's afterlife at the time that the individual was ready to let go. So when Jack died, the timeline then went to the "sideways world" and it culminated into his letting go and crossing over. The other people may have died at other points in a timeline but since this was Jack's story, they were in the same space/time as him.
ReplyDeleteSun and Jin saw themselves drown in their awakening, so everyone must have died the way we last saw them die. I assumed the wreckage on the beach was from the plane Lupidus flew off in the end but this I need to watch again to really figure out.
ReplyDeleteEmotionally I was really satisfied, but I really don't like the fact that they were dead.
I loved it. And I cried like a freaking baby. Yeah, there were a ton of unanswered questions, but I loved the characters more than anything so it worked for me.
ReplyDeleteI fell asleep before the ending.
ReplyDeleteI can't understand why people are confused about the ending and why some are saying they were dead the whole time. Did they not listen to Christian at the end? In the end, at the church, they are all dead because, you know, EVERYBODY dies sometime. They each died at different times but decided to wait and gather at the church to move on to the afterlife together. Everything that happened on the island happened. Jack died on the island, after replacing the cork (the cork's removal is what allowed Jack to kill MIB/Smokey/Un-Locke). Jack saw Lapidus' plane (carrying Kate, Sawyer, Miles, Claire, & Richard) flying overhead as he lay in the bamboo forest and he smiled, knowing his friends made it off the island alive. The wreckage at the end was the original Oceanic Flight 815 & their camp at the beach, finally abandoned. Hurley & Ben became the island's protectors, working together rather than alone.
ReplyDeletechopchop beat me to it. That's it in a nutshell.
ReplyDelete@chopchop
ReplyDeleteExactly! I didn't watch Lost but I read enough TV blogs to understand what was going on with the show. I watched the finale and thought it was pretty self explanatory.
This is how I feel today but it may change the more I think about it:
ReplyDeleteThe clue is in what Christian Shepherd said. The island adventures really happened as we saw them (so those that died on the show died as we saw them die, they didn't all die in the crash) and some of those people died before him and some died after him (ie Jack died on the island as we saw it but Kate escaped to live her life back in 'real time' and so essentially died long after him). The sideways stories were created by each soul to make sense of their connections to the others as they worked out their 'baggage' before they moved on. It's said that a soul who gets stuck in limbo can stay around for decades, centuries even, hence why buildings are haunted by those who are attached to them. They need help moving to the light. So Jack took a lot longer than the others to accept his death because he was still waiting to resolve his issues but when he was ready, those he loved and who meant the most to him were waiting to take him to the light (Kate "I've missed you for a long time").
Claire, Sawyer, Kate, Lepidus and Miles were the only ones who left the island (and we assume lived long lives) but by the time Jack caught up to himself, they had passed and were with him as he moved into the next dimension (Christian opening the door to the light).
The time travel played into this whole 'souls in limbo theme' and in some ways, each of them was an aspect of the other... the brother, the sister, the mother, the father, the lover, the friend, the victim, the villain, the hero... in the end we are all the same and it's the people who matter.
That's what my brain is telling me this morning.. I need something for the Lost hangover I'm feeling!
i got it. and it was meh. i did cry thru most of it, but that doesn't mean anything, i can be an easy cry. tivo'd it, wow 45 mins of commercials? would have made it unwatchable w/out the box.
ReplyDeleteI think John got it.
ReplyDeleteAs your resident Lost fangirl/ fanatic, I'd like to say this:
I have loved this show since the very first episode. I loved that it was so character driven but that it had all these mystical tie-ins that could not be explained. I knew a couple of episodes into the final season that the finale was going to leave many viewers disappointed, and I also believe that is the point of the show. The fact that nobody knows, and nobody is supposed to know - whether there is a god, whether there is a heaven and hell, what is good and what is evil. My theory was and is that the Island represented the mystery of life, and all the people that came to it and thought they knew what was best for the Island represent different religions (the window in the church at the end kind of proved this for me). The Dharma Initiative represent science and the fact that they were all killed meant that some answers were never meant to be found out. At the end of the day, it's about the people you deal with in life, how you treat and what effect you have on them, and the effect they have on you. Your religious beliefs are secondary to personal interaction.
I really liked the ending and I cried. I liked that it left me with questions - the mystery is why I loved the show.
I loved the finale. I know some people were a little frustrated, but hey, this is a TV show and I rather go with enigmatic than to go with a show eager to answer all the questions.
ReplyDeleteIMO Lost was never about science fiction, it was about human nature and emotions. That's why I didn't get disappointed and loved the finale.
And some above are right. They died in different periods, but all this happened when Jack was ready to "let it go". It also makes sense when Kate says "I missed you so much". She lived more than Jack, but as Christian pointed out, everybody dies.
I cried, not only because the story was moving, but because it was my good bye to a series I love so much. The moment when they recognized each other was beautiful.
Okay, I am with chopchop as far as my understanding. I think in retrospect I really did like the finale, but it sure made for a sleepless night. What I don't understand is where was Jin and Sun's baby? Aaron was there, where was she? I can't remember - did they have her in the limbo-world or the real world?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I was totally fine with my understanding and then my friend told me something that kind of screwed me up. He said no one could have a baby on the island because they were all already dead. Had anyone else considered this? I know, I know, they were alive on the island - this was revealed in the conclusion... I am just confused. Help?
So glad Jeff Fahey made it back
ReplyDeletebut I always thought Freckles would end up with Sawyer not Jack.
Lotta mouth on mouth contact there.
Yep Harriet, agreed. There were many little easter eggs along the way (like a couple of books that people were casually reading on screen or song lyrics to name a few) that if noticed and explored would open your mind up to even further interpretation. That's what the writers wanted - they wanted their fans to connect with an idea and what it meant to them. It was ambitious and lofty but I loved how it made me think for 6 years. It wasn't TV I tuned out to, it always sparked my mind and my imagination. There was a lot of symbolism and mysticism and to me it was less about religion than it was about wider spirituality and once the writers realized they had opened Pandora's box and couldn't wrap a lot of it up intellectually, they decided to give the characters an emotional ending, which satisfied me fully. Knowing that in the end, they were together and loved and happy was comforting and I slept well last night :-)
ReplyDeletePS I recently lost a grandmother and an uncle and in some way, this finale gave me comfort. I guess for me, they created more than a TV show but a new way of thinking about life and death.
ReplyDeleteStill have questions...What do the repeating numbers mean? what was the symbolism of Vincent? Was Desmond the go-between between both realities/worlds? What was the name of Walt's kid and what meaning did he have? Any why was Aaron and Gia born/survived? Tons of questions. This was to much like Days of our Lives (which I stopped watching several years ago b/c the story lines dragged out too much)
ReplyDeleteLoved. Every. Minute.
ReplyDeleteit was brilliant!! I am such a baby I even cried at the retrospective. I agree with Harriet totally~excellent synopsis~In the sideways world they all were dead. They used this world to find each other so they could go on together. MIB and Jacob's mother said the island was life, hence in the sideways world it is underwater because no life exists in the sideways world. I have been thinking about the finale all morning~totally captivated by it. I will miss Lost terribly, but I am happy at how the true loves were reunited and could finally be together. still crying over that one!!
ReplyDeleteI kept thinking that Jack was going to have his "flashback to the island" moment when he was operating on Locke (cause it would remind him of operating on Ben), and would then kill Locke, thus avoiding the good/evil fight on the cliff. But, as usual with Lost, I was wrong. I did appreciate the last episode, though, and have been thinking about it off and on a lot since last night.
ReplyDeleteBut what about the black guy and his son? Why weren't they at the end?
ReplyDeleteB626 - I thought he was going to eat her.
Michael and Walt chose NOT to join them. Walt was not so tied to the LOSTIES, and Michael was trapped on the island for other reasons, so he was not there.
ReplyDeleteThe reason that they were in the form of the way we had always saw them is that is the time that they were most affected during their lives. Remember, Ben Linus did not go, because he was waiting for Rousseau and Alex, and they weren't there.
It's the time that you most identify with, not necessarily right when you die, or the few weeks before you die.
Michael and Walt chose NOT to join them. Walt was not so tied to the LOSTIES, and Michael was trapped on the island for other reasons, so he was not there.
ReplyDeleteThe reason that they were in the form of the way we had always saw them is that is the time that they were most affected during their lives. Remember, Ben Linus did not go, because he was waiting for Rousseau and Alex, and they weren't there.
It's the time that you most identify with, not necessarily right when you die, or the few weeks before you die.
I enjoyed it. The shot of Vincent curling up to Jack as he was dying had me crying like a baby.
ReplyDeleteSo I never followed Lost after midway season 2. What is Hurley protecting the island FROM? Will he care for the dog? Is he alone except for that other guy and the dog?
ReplyDeleteOk, I just finished the finale and the Jimmy Kimmel special. I bawled like a baby. I had wondered if we'd see Vincent again. Sigh. I am happy with the ending but of course I definitely have questions. Y'all definitely answered a BUNCH of them for me though.
ReplyDelete@ChopChop, @John & @Jameie's Girl, especially
The plane wreckage at the end threw me off because I thought that meant they'd all died in Season 1 when the plane crashed...
I think that article @Little Miss Smoke & Mirrors was dead on about the reactions. I was all about the characters.
I am off to Lostepedia to try and get my other questions answered.
I think John and ChopChop got it right. Let me also throw in the whole "other" dimension of time. In alternate realities like death/afterlife...what is time? These people experienced so much on that island and they needed to regather once more in a very different time. So it doesn't matter who took over for Hurley or when Ben feels he can go...its all in time, relative time to those it matters.
ReplyDeleteAs it was the various reunions made me blubber like a baby. I do admit I cheered when Hurley found Charlie and then cried along with Charlie and Claire when they conected.
This was one of the best character driven tv series I have ever seen. I think the ending was brilliant and I am so grateful to the writers and that fabulous cast.
May the emmy season not overlook them.
I have always loved this show and really did love the ending. It was the characters I cared about. I loved the mysteries but it was the people who hooked me and made me keep coming back.
ReplyDeleteThe writers have been the best writers on TV. Even when I had qualms about where the show was going I trusted the writers not to
screw the fans over. I am glad I trusted them they did a great job.
I said last night what I always said when LOST ended an EP.
" I LOVE this show."
I still say Tony Soprano was bumped off in the finale episode. Brilliant ending!
ReplyDeleteOn a more cynical note, let's not forget that some of the characters were fired off the show for DUI's and rumored sexual harassment on set.. makes reunions a little tricky.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think ChopChop and John have it right as well! I was glad the people connections found each other again, (Sun and Jin and especially Sawyer and Juliet etc) and yes I think Jack was smiling when the plane flew over with the only few survivors left and I was really glad they all crossed over together! I will miss the show.
ReplyDeletei didn't like the ending at first. of course, i knew i wouldn't like any ending which meant my favorite show would not be on the air anymore!! the more i think and re-think about it the more i love. lost will always be in my heart and never too far from my mind... i still remember watching the first episode and looking over at my roommate and exclaiming... "this is the best show on tv!"...
ReplyDeletethat sentiment will never change.