I've Never Watched “Lost” Before. Let’s Talk About the Finale!

I have heard a lot about Lost, naturally. As a series, I am nearly certain I would love it. Before the series finale on Sunday night, I had only watched the first 10 minutes of the pilot. In between the beginning and the end there was a hatch, a lot of smoke, a hippie scientist commune, a series of numbers, flash-forwards, flash-backs, and “flash-sidewayses”. Let that blow your mind.

So I settled in to watch the finale, entitled “The End” (let that blow your mind) on Sunday night having never seen an entire episode of the series before. Luckily, there was a retrospective episode beforehand, so I was able to kinda-sorta be caught up as to the happenings this season, for I watched the last 45 minutes or so. I knew there were two plotlines going on, one on the island and one back in Los Angeles. There was a messiah dude named Jacob, and a less likeable dude named… The Man in Black. We know which is which because Jacob wears white and the Man in Black… please tell me you can figure it out from there.

Which group of people would YOU trust?

Between quests hunting aliens the Man in Black takes the form of Locke, the bald guy. Jacob is looking for a replacement to help “protect” the island.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the full importance of the island is never revealed. I think it’s some kind of plug to cover up the evil that lurks beneath. After Jacob chooses Jack (Matthew Fox, the babe) to take his place, Jack decides to go down in to the magical glowing cave in the middle of the island and find out the truth of it all. Better yet, he sends down the Scottish guy.

Desmond is his name, so he pulls the plug and the bright and shiny cave ain’t so bright and shiny anymore. In fact it gets all hot and stuffy, kind of like my dorm right now. Then the island starts shaking and bad-Locke gets all “I told you so!” They believe the island is now sinking, and it’s up to Matthew Fox to stop it, as all things should be.

Never send a Scotsman to do a Yank's work.

Up until this point I was following it rather well. A group of people try to get to the plane so they can take off again. (Did the plane not crash violently in the pilot? Someone needs to explain that to me.) Meanwhile Jack and Locke battle at the edge of a cliff in one of the best fight sequences you’ll see on television. Bad-Locke is disposed of thanks to a well-timed shotgun blast from Kate.

So then Jack, fat man, and the guy I thought was evil but turns out not to be go back to the now fiery cave to make it shiny again. Jack turns over his island-protecting powers to Hugo (fat man), and goes down and plugs the fire hole. All is well on the island, despite the fact that Jack dies in a final shot that exactly mirrors the first of the series.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, all of the people who were stranded on the island at one point throughout the series are meeting up and having epiphanies all over the place. They all seem to remember each other, and they have an obligation to “leave”. When they all finally meet at some super church for everybody, it is revealed that all of them are now dead, and it is time to pass on. Basically, Los Angeles is purgatory.

Come to think of it, that makes sense.

So what does someone who has never watched Lost before make of this finale? While I was able to follow the events of the show rather well, I was a bit lost (heh) towards the end. I feel it was best appreciated by people who have spent all six years with these characters. Some people will feel it did not answer all of their questions (most of which I don’t know), but from what I understand I feel that if everything was answered, it wouldn’t be Lost. Not to mention the entire episode would feel like a press conference.

If I were a Lost fan I would be incredibly satisfied with this ending. It allowed emotional closure not only to the fans, but to the characters. These were people who were split apart and died at separate times, many deaths we did not see. Did the people on the plane make it? Who knows? The ending reunites all of the characters in what is not only a death scene, but a celebration of the lives they lived while they were together.

I will probably start watching this show from the beginning now, and watch things develop. I was intrigued here, certainly. This is one of the most important television shows in recent memory, and watching the finale was a blast, and it was fitting that it ended with a finale that certainly merits further discussion. There will probably be no series that comes close ever again, despite efforts of sub-par copycats that end up reviled by critics and ignored by audiences. This finale was not just a television event, but a cultural one.