The Lost Finale Was Incredibly Dumb

Maybe “reset” was the wrong word. What I meant was that it took them back to Island present.

Ahh, didn’t even think about that possibility. I love a complicated story.

Yeah, they were all dead all along.

Yeah, they were all dead all along.

Not true. Christian Shepherd explained that to Jack in their conversation at the church.

"Everything that happened to you on the island is real."

The Sideways world was ~not~ real.

I’m sure when I watch it again I will remember. I have forgotten so much of the first several years.

No, they weren’t.

Maybe so. Geeze, this is so complicated! LOL that’s what I like about it, just when I think I *get* it I remember something else I can chew on awhile.

I thought at the time maybe Miles was lying. He had a tendency to do that because I think he didn’t really like talking to the dead or relaying their messages.

One thing I’m still working thru. Do you have any insight on what Juliette meant when she said “It worked” (I think she told Miles that, or he told Sawyer she told him that after she died). Does that ring a bell? I thought at the time she meant the bomb worked and it reset everything and the plane did not go down, but I’m a little unclear on what she meant now. Any idea?

When Miles overheard Juliet saying "it worked" at her island burial site, he was merely hearing what Juliet said to James at the vending machine in the sideways world.

In other words, Juliet's sideways-world awakening was one of the few moments that actually had some play in the real world. If you remember her incomprehensible dying words at the bottom of the well in Season 6 Episode 1, she asked James if they could get coffee sometime, and that they could go dutch.

Those were the same words she said to James at their mutual sideways-world awakening in the Finale.

The only other way in which the sideways world interacted with the real world (as far as I can recall) was through Desmond, when he was blasted by Widmore's electromagnetic expiriment. Real Time Desmond saw the sideways world at this moment.

In the Finale, Desmond tried to inform Jack about the sideways world before Jack and Locke Ness Monster lowered him towards the light in the cave.

Penny was in the church because she was important to Desmond. Penny's father either wasn't awakened yet or, like his wife, had chosen to stay. Desmond was a big part of the core group, and instrumental in killing Smoke. It's all quite logical actually.

It's only logical if Penny's isn't really a person worth thinking about on her own terms. Let me give you an example, because I don't think you are getting the point.

A man and woman get married. When they go on vacation, she goes on vacation with her husband and his friends. When they go out to eat, she goes out with her husband and his friends. When they have a child, she and her husband leave the child with a babysitter so they can go out and party with her husband's friends. You never see her with her friends and, in fact, when she eventually dies, her funeral is attended only by her husband and his friends. What does this tell you about the woman? What does it tell you about their relationship? What would you think of such a woman?

This goes back to my prop point. Penny is reduced to a prop to hang off of Desmond's arm. We're not supposed to identify with her or think about her as a real independent person because she isn't one. To think about her as a real person is to wonder why she's there and why other people aren't there.

The Dharma Initiative stayed long after the accident. And even after Ben killed them on the Island the off Island part of DI was kept bringing button pushers and supplies for the button pushers. Clearly they were leaving the door open for a return at some point.

The reason I pointed out that you were wrong about the number of ghosts is that you keep speaking with certainty about things that aren't certain or clear. There is ample evidence that Kelvin Inman was recruited just before Ben's gas attack (Google for details if you want them) and we can't even be sure that the supplies were being sent by Dharma because the person in the hatch was never supposed to see the plane that brought them. For all we know, it was the Others bringing those supplies. In any event, after the station was destroyed, nobody seemed to be wringing their hands over any problems caused by it.

We didn't see a full scenario because in the two times the button pushing was significantly late one of them it eventually got pushed (after bringing a plane 1000 miles off course and crashing it) and the second the bunker got sealed. We did see enough to see that clearly bad things do happen when the button doesn't get pushed.

And that was far worse than anything we saw at the very end, yet my point is that there was a solution other than pushing the button forever. That solution was to destroy the station. And that makes it logical to wonder if there is a solution other than protecting the island for eternity, specifically, pulling the cork and letting the Island sink into the ocean. Pulling the cork didn't seem to release any sort of evil even out onto the Island. Instead it seemed to neutralize evil by making it mortal. If pulling the cork was going to release a great evil out into the world, why would it neutralize an evil being related to it and make it mortal?

Just because the MacGuffin lacks intrinsic importance doesn't mean the audience can't care about it. Again, if the audience doesn't care then they won't believe the characters caring. You're adding a "to them" to the definition that isn't there, the definition stops at "lacking intrinsic importance", but clearly the characters THINK it's important and they make the audience THINK it's important. And it doesn't break that contract.

It depends on what you mean by "care about it". I can care about the the box with the glowing gold light in the restaurant in Pulp Fiction as a thing of value that belongs to someone and is important to some of the characters in the movie, in the sense that I'm curious about who winds up with it. But if I "care about it" in the sense that I want to understand what it is or what it can do, then I'm going to be disappointed because I care about something that the story is never going to address. As such, encouraging the audience to care, in the sense of trying to understand exactly what the MacGuffin and how it works, is going to produce disappointment in at least some of the audience. I'm disappointed by the way various secondary characters were treated because the way I cared about them is different than the way you cared about them.

But then what? None of those reactions serve any purpose in the story, and they would all grind the narrative to a halt for nothing.

They would show the characters were human and deserved by empathy. By the end of the episode, they'd all been reduced to the Stepford Survivors. Was this a character-driven drama or not?

All of them wind up with a pointless ellipses "Jack throws a tantrum and then..." "Jack demands time with his fake kid and then...". By the time Jack gets awakened the story is OVER, time to end it, not dilly dally for 5 more minutes for Jack to prove he's a deep character, he's been the center of 6 years of story, it's already been proved.

A big part of the reason why I was disappointed by the son just vanishing is that it was the first time the character of Jack had shown any depth or humanity in seasons. Until that point, I had stopped caring about Jack and then suddenly Jack stopped caring about the reason I cared about him. So for you, it worked. For me, it failed.

I didn't say you should ignore what Faraday said, just keep in mind that he already had a long history of being wrong. He's a bright lad, but not perfect, and he didn't wind up wrong just in his back story, remember he theorized they all wind up off the Island, the bomb went off and they were STILL on the Island, he was wrong again.

And the problem is that there was never really any way to tell what was right or wrong. I'm sure that was intentional.

There are two types of mystery novels. Both types involve clues and an investigator. The first type is designed to be solved by the reader by the time the investigator wraps up the mystery because the investigator explains the mystery using clues that the reader is already aware of. The second type isn't designed to be solved by the reader and they need to wait until the investigator explains the solution at the end either because the solution hinges on some some observation or detail that's unlikely to occur to a normal person or because the investigator suddenly brings up additional facts that the reader is not aware of. Lost was ultimately the second sort even though you and others keep trying to claim it was the first sort. Yes, they dropped a lot of clues to what they were really doing and yes there was some sort of method to their madness but they purposely tossed out plenty of red herrings and withheld plenty of details, probably because they didn't want people to figure it out before the end.

Yes, Juliet's "it worked" could simply mean fixing the timeline and Faraday's split universe theory was wrong but they were clearly making the split universe a plausible possibility and it's entirely reasonable that many people felt that that's what they were watching. And it's because people became emotionally invested in that possibility (and became emotionally invested in other things that turned out to not became emotionally invested in other plausible possibilities and it's entirely understandable that they are disappointed that it didn't pan out, going back to the author-reader contract. Calling them suckers or blaming them for not guessing the right clues isn't going to change that, nor is telling them to stop caring about the details. That leaves the audience with a very simple solution -- stop watching things written by those writers. And given the number of people saying that they felt burned by Lost the same way they felt burned by Alias, that's a distinct possibility. You can't keep burning part of your audience because they cared too much about your story and expect them to come around for another round of abuse.

I again find myself wondering if parents still teach their children the story of the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf. The moral of that story is that you can get people to jump and react by lying to them but eventually they'll stop listening to you, even when you are telling them the truth.

He's not taking Desmond's lead, he's following good advice. Even strong confident characters can take advice from others. The big difference between late Hurley and early Hurley is that Desmond didn't have to tell him over and over eventually leading him by the nose, Desmond said go for it and he did. A far cry from the Hurley that had to be told 3 times by Jack that he could indeed help people after the plane crash.

The main place where Hurley took charge at the end was deciding to go talk to "Locke" and even there, he looked for assurances he was doing the right thing from Jack. Heck, Hurley doesn't even step up to take charge of the Island. Jack tells him that it has to be him. I do get your point that Hurley shows more confidence as time goes on but it's not nearly the black and white total change you are making it sound like. To the very end (that we see), he's still looking for assurances he's doing the right thing, still being told what do do, and still playing a supporting role.

Because Helen wasn't that important to Locke. He'd moved on from her pretty well long before getting to the Island. Vastly different from the Penny-Desmond relationship. Desmond wanted off the Island to get back to Penny, Locke never wanted to leave the Island and get back to Helen or anybody else.

If Helen wasn't important to Locke, why was she there for him, along with his father, in the alternate universe? Locke lost Helen because of character flaws -- the same character flaws that led him to one disaster after another during the show. But let's assume that Helen wasn't terribly important to Locke. It seems pretty clear that Locke was important to Helen. But Helen isn't a real character. She's another prop we're not supposed to be thinking about or identifying with. The problem is that I did care about all of these props, especially since we got to see them again in the alternate reality, perhaps more than I cared about a lot of the main characters by that point. I care more about the thought of Ji Yeon than Sun and Jin dying with each other. I care more about Helen than Ben apologizing to Locke. I care more about Nadia's story than Shannon's. I cared about these characters and others (e.g., little Charlie) because the characters cared about them. Or at least they did until they suddenly didn't care about them anymore.

I also cared more about Frank Lapidus than Jack at the end and finding out he wasn't dead was one of the best parts of the finale for me. And while I know it's always risky to care about secondary characters because they can die at any time (e.g., Abby, Rousseu, Alex, Zoe) or can move out of the story (e.g., Walt), I expect a character-based drama to treat the characters better than that. You can't switch back and forth claiming that it's a character-based drama to excuse the plot holes and unsolved mysteries and then claim that the reason they skimped on characterization is that it was really a plot-based drama with a particular story to tell. Which one was it?

They're that way in the pocket heaven because it fits the narrative structure easily. We don't know anything about the other side, other than them wanting to get there together, making assumptions that they'll be the same way on the other side they were when they left pocket heaven is just that, your assumption, unsupported in the story, and unsupported by most religions and mythologies, in general if you get to go to a happy afterlife you get to go in an "ideal" form, healthy, young but full grown. And they're waiting because they all want on some level to go as a group, but they weren't all ready.

Is this a plot-based drama or a character-based drama? Pick one if you are going to use that as an excuse. If you want to claim it's both, then it's not a valid defense for them to disregard character for plot or plot for character arbitrarily.

Jack's a man of science not faith, and he's a fighter and a doctor. He has a long history through the entire show of not accepting death for other people, he's just not an accepting death kind of guy. The funeral for his father was bodiless, while he was willing to go through with it it was clear he wanted the body there as part of accepting his father was dead. It would be hard for him to accept his own death when he still hadn't accepted his father's. Locke was pretty close to last, but he needed to jettison the baggage of his own father first, he was probably OK with his death, it's his life that Locke always had issues accepting, part of why he never wanted to leave the Island. The kid was there for Jack to accept his daddy issues, letting down his kid in ways that his father probably let him down gave him a chance to move on.

But it looked to me that Jack had resolved all of those issues by the time he laid down to die at the end of the show. He knew what he was doing was going to kill him and he didn't look like he was fighting the inevitable to me. That that scene just happened to correspond to the ending of the other universe does not mean that it chronologically made any sense because many of the other characters died after Jack did. Jack also resolved his father issues before Locke resolved his walking issues so I'm not seeing what made Jack last other than artifice.

I'm glad you brought up B5, because B5 had an advantage over other arc shows in that it had a well developed outline before any camera was ever loaded.

Much of it was also written by one author after the first season, which I know is a big advantage, too.

And yet it dropped characters and plots all over the place. Whatever happened to the praying mantis guy that ran down below? Sinclaire's girlfriend? Interplanetary Expedition?

The mantis guy was dropped for technical reasons. They weren't happy how he turned out. I can't remember anyone complaining that they had any attachment or concern over the mantis guy as a character.

What happened to Sinclair's girlfriend and Interplanetary Expeditions is pretty simple. Michael O'Hare left the show and didn't leave the show because the creator asked him to leave. So this means that all of the elements intended for Sinclair had to be shifted over the Sheridan (they even have the same initials, those of the writer). The purpose of Catherine Sakai was to fill the role that Sheridan's wife filled later in the show, to stumble on the Shadows on an expedition and return. So she and her related plot elements disappeared with Sinclair and were replaced with a different character.

The same thing happens on the show with Talia and Lyta. JMS wanted Patricia Tallman but PTEN forced Andrea Thompson on him. When he could, he wrote out the Talia character and brought Lyta back in. The same thing happened when Claudia Christian jumped ship and they brought in Tracy Scoggins. It was pretty clear that things meant to happen to one character were transferred over to another. This web page talks about the shifts in some detail.

Now, all of those changes fall into the Walt category. Circumstances beyond the control of the authors and producers made it impossible to continue with the character they had, so the characters and some of those related to them were jettisoned.

Further, none of these were solid storytelling or purposeful plot twists, despite claims by JMS at the time that many of these changes were planned and intentional (sound familiar?). I wouldn't characterize any of these things as positive, admirable, or desirable parts of the story. They were disruptive and less than ideal and plenty of people have complained about them. I wouldn't fault anyone for complaining about any of them.

Thirdspace?

Beyond the fact that it was a standalone movie and revolved around an unique artifact linked to it, what else did you want to see them do with it? And, yet again, you give an example that fans did complain about. In other words, you are using examples that people complained about in Babylon 5 to further the idea that people shouldn't be complaining about similar ham-fisted storytelling in Lost.

There's a bunch of conflicts between races that just kind of disappeared. Sinclaire and Sheridan were both involved in conspiracies, seemingly different conspiracies, that didn't trust EarthGov that both evaporated.

Examples? Similarities between Sinclair and Sheridan are explained above. They are essentially the same character. I also don't remember any conspiracies that simply evaporated. There were changes in the Earth Government that were part of the backstory, with things happening off stage and beyond the influence of the focus characters.

And then there's half a dozen characters that JMS tossed aside with a quick "they got reassigned" (taking full advantage of the fact that most of his character were in some sort of semi-military).

Examples? Ivanova and Sinclair are explained by forced cast changes. None of that was create storytelling that I'd pat JMS on the back for and say, "Great job." Again, flaws in Babylon 5 worthy of note and derision do not further the idea that similar flaws in Lost should be exempt from note and derision.

I don't do Chuck but I'm sure in 5 minutes on a good Chuck wiki I can find plenty of stuff. It's a natural product of TV writing, ideas seemed good when they set it up, then didn't later.

Chuck has done a very good job of looping back and following up on even minor characters. They explain why even minor characters come and go and they get mentioned in episodes even two seasons later when characters are reviewing thing that have happened. It's one of the best shows on TV today. As an added bonus, one of the characters is played by conservative Alex Baldwin (who writes columns for Big Hollywood) and his character has pictures of Ronald Reagan in his home and locker.

Stargate is a mess, you only have to see the commercials to know they've re-arranged that universe a dozen times.

Oh, they rearrange and change things but they at least try to explain it. And they swing back around, again, with even minor characters when appropriate. They don't make characters important to other characters and then conveniently forget them. The only exception to that is Jack's son, a plot point established in the movie that I'm sure the series people wished they didn't have to deal with. I'll acknowledge that Jack's dead son was largely forgotten in SG-1 and that has bothered me.

Farscape was unwatchable and mostly just ripped off bad Star Trek episodes.

Not my experience. Not the experience of my wife or friends.

None of your examples are holding. Plots get dropped, and you know it.

I never said plots weren't dropped or characters weren't dropped. You promised one dropped plot or character per seasons. You gave a few good examples for Babylon 5, which I was well aware of, and they were all cases that were problems caused by trying to gloss over cast changes and directives from the network the show was being shown on. All of those things caused complaints for Babylon 5 just like they cause complaints for Lost. Why? Because they are just bad writing, characterization, and storytelling. That other shows do it is no more of an excuse than "lots of people shoplift" is an excuse to shoplift.

When plots get dropped that fans care about, they complain, regardless of the show. When plots get dropped that nobody cares about, nobody complains. I can't think of any fan of Babylon 5 who felt cheated at the end because they didn't find out what happened to the mantis guy or because they never mentioned Thirdspace again. And where Bablyon 5 did drop the ball with Sinclair, Ivanova, Talia, and so on fans complained quite a bit and should have. It's not good writing, a planned plot twit, or part of some set of unwritten rules but a clumsy scramble to sweep a problem under the rug. I felt patronized when JMS kept insisting that these obvious ad hoc changes were intended all along and I feel patronized by Lost's writers and fans telling me that obvious problems and holes are all intentional and meaningful.

Doesn't seem odd at all. Since we know most of the Islanders in pocket heaven were real, it's probable the rest were too. Heck everybody might have been real but tied to their own stories. For all we know pocket heaven was like the alley scene in Shaun of the Dead.

I've never seen Shaun of the Dead so I don't get the reference. That the alternate reality has fake people at all raises the question of who is real and who is fake. In another discussion I'm in on this, a person raised the possibility that the Aaron born in the alternate reality is as fake as Jack's son. Who knows? Could be.

A lot of people are ALWAYS going to be unhappy with the ending. The only way to avoid that is to have the show run so long after the audience cares that nobody actually watches. But with this one the happy seem to outnumber the unhappy, and it got plenty of viewers.

While there are always going to be people unhappy with any ending, some endings disappoint a much larger percentage of fans than others and some endings make more fans angry than others. I don't remember any largescale backlash against the ending of Babylon 5, for example. But there are series endings that disappoint or anger a large portion of the audience and they've all been mentioned alongside the Lost finale -- for example, Alias, Soppranos, and Seinfeld. I was actually happy with the Seinfeld ending, but that doesn't invalidate the reasons why others were disappointed by it nor it it difficult to understand why people are disappointed by it. If you want to guarantee disappointment and anger, break the author-reader contract I mentioned earlier in this thread. Make people care about things that you don't resolve. Make the ending ambiguous. Overturn the setting and characters. Tell them things that they care about are all a dream. Writing books advise against plenty of the things that Lost's writers did for a reason, because they are almost guaranteed to anger people invested in the story.

Were most people happy with it? That's not the sense I get, especially when I factor in all of the people who stopped watching Lost earlier in the run because they anticipated an ending like that, and those who gave up on Abrams after Alias. Like I said, I'd like to see a real poll.

Oh boy, you have an excellent memory! Wow. Awesome! :)

I can only say the more I think about the ending, the more I go back and put things together the more I love it. I’m satisfied. That you aren’t is ok with me. I don’t care if it follows literary devices or advice, or whatever. It works for me. I don’t know why you are spending any time on it if you didn’t like the ending. Write your own series. In fact, I am going to have a lot of free time and I would love something new to watch! :)

I am so stealing that.

Do you blog? I mean seriously, I don’t agree with all of your points (and am not going to argue with them). But you’ve put a great deal of work into your posts on this thread. Fascinating observations really. Even if you are wrong. :-)

I will point out that I do think Penny was significant in the sideways world because of the reaction of Eloise Hawkins when Desmond heard her name before the concert. Plus the obvious recognition (if not flashback) when they met in the stadium.

The absence of their son (and no mention) did bother me.

Penny was important to Desmond, who was a core character. That’s why she was there. Sorry you can’t see that.

We saw Dharma supplies get dropped with the Swan logo. And Ben’s gas attack happened 15 years after the incident. You asked what experiments: FIFTEEN YEARS. There were only a couple of months of time in between when the station was destroyed and when Ben moved the Island. And the magnetic surge from destroying the station is what allowed Mrs Widmore to figure out where the Island was. We are QUITE sure on most of this stuff.

The second time the button didn’t get pushed they turned the fail safe key. We don’t know what would have happened if they continued to let it go. And we also don’t know which of the two times the build up went longest, could be the second time was shorter. Either way very bad stuff happened when the button didn’t get pushed, we saw it.

Pulling the cork was going to kill the Island. Nobody said pulling the cork would release any evil, just that it would destroy the Island and Smoke wanted to kill the Island as well as escape. We’re pretty sure Smoke could leave with the right combination of people, knowledge, and lack of a Jacob, he didn’t have to destroy the Island to leave, he just wanted to.

We were all curious about the contents of the briefcase, but the contents weren’t intrinsically important. We were all curious as to how the Island does what it does, but the how isn’t intrinsically important. Yes some people who don’t get the concept of MacGuffins will be disappointed. Can’t satisfy everybody. On the other side if you do explain the MacGuffin you tend to get a lame midichlorians explanation, which disappoints pretty much everybody.

If you’ve gotten to the last 10 minutes of the last episode in the 6th season and still haven’t established that your characters are human and deserve empathy you probably didn’t manage to get high enough ratings to get 6 seasons.

Jack showed a lot of depth and humanity all season. Sorry you missed the scenes after Juliet died, after Sun and Jin died, and when he took the gig as Island protector.

We knew Faraday was wrong about his theory when the bomb went off and the people were still on the Island. We didn’t necessarily know the details, but we knew he botched it.

Hurley volunteered to go back with Jack, which meant saving the Island or die trying. And he mostly didn’t want the gig because that meant acknowledging that Jack was going to die. Hurley all but said that when he said he’d give the job back as soon as Jack came out of the cave safe and healthy. He was willing to take the job, but he liked Jack, Jack was the first person to ever show any confidence in him, Jack was a major father figure to Hurley. He wasn’t ready to accept Jack’s death, which had to happen to take the job.

Might as well have a girlfriend when you’re in alternate universe. Helen was a part of Locke’s crippled off Island life, which Locke was desperate to never be a part of again. Being able to walk was much more important to him than anybody we knew off Island. Notice he walked into the church, he had what was important. You picked the wrong characters to care about. Helen was always at best a throw away, which is unfortunate because I always liked the actress, but her character was never going anywhere, it was kind of a shock to see her back at all in 6.

Frank was a pretty awesome character. I never said they skimped on characterization because it plot based. I said doing what you wanted them to do with the end would break the narrative structure and needlessly waste screen time.

I don’t think Jack had resolved any of his daddy issues when he died. He never really got the chance. And he certainly didn’t accept his death. While he went in knowing he was going to die, he managed to get of there and get back to the bamboo before finally dieing. There’s a difference between willingness and acceptance. Jack kept fighting to the end.

All your “reasons” are fine. But you’re ignoring what I said. I said every show drops characters and plots without explanation. All those characters I mentioned evaporated without explanation within the show. They all had potential plots and they all just POOFED away. Just like the ones in Lost you’re complaining about. It happens. Characters go poof.

I don’t think any of those poofs are “flaws” in B5 or lost that deserve derision. I’m pointing out a basic reality that you’re adamantly ignoring. Characters and plots evaporate when they become inconvenient. It happens. Deal with it.

Watch Farscape Crackers Don’t Matter and Star Trek’s hate monster episode. There’s others too, all the ones that were recommended to me were ripoffs of bad eps of Trek. Farscape is a grossly overrated show.

There was backlash against the entire final season of B5. A lot of people still hate it. Most of what hurt the season was all the plot points that got pulled forward into 4 because of the uncertainty. But there’s a big bunch that considers the series over after 4 because of their hatred of 5. IMHO some of the best eps are in 5, the fall of Centauri eps are amazing.

The complainers are always going to make more noise than the people that are happy. But I think there’s more people that liked the end of Lost than hated it. It’s certainly getting more positive reviews.

lol! No, my memory is average, at best. I’m just an obsessed and mourning Lostie who rewatched the Finale yesterday on hulu.com.

Only during this 2nd viewing did I notice how Juliet said the exact same things during both her dying moments and her sideways-world ‘awakening’, which then reminded me about the words Miles heard at Juliet’s grave, namely, “It worked.” Juliet said the same thing to James when they unstuck that candy bar in the vending machine, just before they ‘remembered’.

I think rewatching will be fun. I just watched the last half hour again with my husband (who watched the first couple of seasons and gave up) and he actually liked the ending. I noticed a few things I didn’t when I watched it the other day, and have to say, I still liked it. For those who feel cheated, I think they must have never really gotten it to begin with. Let them go watch football or American Idol or something else.

To me, the most awesome thing is that I have always known that eternity (heaven) is outside of time, so it made perfect sense that they all meet together after death no matter when they died, and it seems that no time has passed. I was actually a little confused at first because it surprised me that the writers got that. But it made the ending infinitely better to me.
And thank you for your post. Excellent. Can’t wait for someone to write the Annotated Lost. :)

I liked the ending too... They died at different times - but there isn’t “time” in the place they waited for each other. TIVOed it - and I’ve watched the ending twice...