Lost Season 6 - The Final Season

[timmynausea]

Remember last night when I said the finale conversation between Christian and Jack worked on a 2nd level as a conversation between the creators and fans? This was Damon Lindelof's tweet shortly after the finale ended on the West Coast.

DamonLindelof - Remember. Let go. Move on. I will miss it more than I can ever say.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Incidentally I would totally watch a spin-off of Hurley and Ben ruling the island, but only if it were a documentary-style sitcom.

[Easy Mac]

I'd say likely no. It was more how people remembered each other and/or their state around the time of the crash.

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by brassmonkey32

Did Claire's and Sun's baby died as babies when we saw them in the church?

I don't think the age at which we saw everyone in the church has anything to do with the age that they died. If that were the case, then it would mean that everyone died within a few years of leaving the island, right? Ben, Kate, Sawyer, etc...all looked the exact same age-wise.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by timmynausea

Little bit more on the ratings. The last half an hour apparently went up by 2.5 million to 15.5:

20.5 Million Watch At Least Six Minutes of LOST Finale - TV Ratings, Nielsen Ratings, Television Show Ratings | TVbytheNumbers.com

Was that due to the Laker game? I'm not sure what time it ended and how that correlated with the numbers on the East coast but I was thinking it might have interfered a bit.

[Chubby]

residual self image like in the Matrix

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

I like to think that they are the grown Aaron and Ji Yeon but they are stuck in their baby bodies.

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

I like to think that they are the grown Aaron and Ji Yeon but they are stuck in their baby bodies.

Dear Lord Baby Jesus, lying there in your...your little ghost manger, lookin' at your Baby Einstein developmental...videos, learnin' 'bout shapes and colors...

[timmynausea]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Was that due to the Laker game? I'm not sure what time it ended and how that correlated with the numbers on the East coast but I was thinking it might have interfered a bit.

That is a good question. I had assumed it was due to a large number of people that had given up on the show over the years (it had lost about half of its peak audience by the 6th season) still being curious enough to check in for the final 30 minutes. You could be right, though.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

If you found the deus ex machina of Christian Shephard explaining how purgatory works, and sloppily tying up this seasons loose ends in the last 5 minutes of the show, a moving and compelling finale, then I don't get how you can turn around and say that it would be impossible to gracefully do the same with at least some of the show's pile of other, unresolved crap.

I guess that's one way to say it, tho I think I would have used "nicer" words

Originally Posted by Chubby

He wants the show to be dumbed down for the masses like all the other shows, Lost wasn't like that and was what made it so good and special.

Actually, a little of that hand waving would have made a difference to me. And, no, I'm not sure how questioning it a little makes things "dumbed down". I do need a little bit of explanation of how things work in the universe I'm watching. I realize that not everything takes place in our world or our universe. James Bond defies physics and luck because, well, because he's James Bond. Something isn't working in Star Trek, the science officer takes a minute to treknobabble his way through it.

My favorite stupid example is from "The Day After Tomorrow", by all accounts a pretty bad movie. I was ok with three super hurricanes- in fact, I thought it was neat. I was even mostly ok with how it pulls down air from the atmosphere to make everything super cold. Why? Because they spent a minute or two with a scientist on screen waving his hand and saying "yup, this is how it works". Now is that how it works in the real world? No. But in their universe, yeah. The part that lost me is that by their rules and their science is when there is cold so fierce that it starts basically chasing the main characters down a hallway but doesn't get them because they have a little fire burning and, really, it appears because they're the main characters.

Again, I don't need a super scientific explanation for everything. And i don't need it to work like "the real world". I just need it to work in the universe as said universe is constructed. So, I need the writers to acknowledge that they set up some little mysteries and remind us that they didn't forget about them.

Of the three examples listed above, in my mind, it's a mixed bag but it's on the right track. The numbers one is great and fits with the show to a point (tho it leaves open the plot hole of how did he know which candidates of all the names on the wall would be his final candidates as those numbers are at least 30 years old, going back to the hatch). The light one would need to be refined but just a little more detail to "island as crazy electromagnetic source", particularly back in the season 5 New Otherton days by Dharma might have done the trick. I don't need to know how the time travel works but I think it merits it little more than "it just does", which is what we got with the man in black installing the wheel in the Jacob/Man in Black episode. The giving birth issues- well, that needs an actual "why" answer and it has to be better than "I have mommy issues" as it doesn't fit with the character.

SI

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Subby

I thought the flash sideways ending was incredibly elegant. That whole part of the show was just brilliantly done this season.

Agreed. Like I said- that part was excellent and "elegant" is a great word for it. Still feel a little bummed about the rest of the resolution but not terribly so.

SI

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Subby

I thought the flash sideways ending was incredibly elegant. That whole part of the show was just brilliantly done this season.

Completely agree on all accounts. I thought they tied that up pretty good.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

The first and last time I watch Jimmy Kimmel.

Guess that means you missed this from earlier in the week.




(One of the few things he does that's worth watching...)

[timmynausea]

I guess I'm in the minority that I think Kimmel is funny, sometimes really funny, though I'd certainly concede that some of the skits/etc. on his show are pretty horrible, as they are on all late night shows.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by timmynausea

I guess I'm in the minority that I think Kimmel is funny, sometimes really funny, though I'd certainly concede that some of the skits/etc. on his show are pretty horrible, as they are on all late night shows.

Nah, he's not as bad as all that. But I hate to say that calling those sketches "extra endings" or "deleted scenes" last night was kindof bastardly to those expecting more.

SI

[tyketime]

Here is an interesting Video Q&A from E Online which provides some "answers" (it's the 2nd video): Link

[Sun Tzu]

I rode my lollerskates the whole way through that kimmel video.

[Swaggs]

Originally Posted by sabotai

Guess that means you missed this from earlier in the week.




(One of the few things he does that's worth watching...)

That was excellent. The drunken Jack at the hospital and the Locke/Michael one made me laugh outloud.

[Swaggs]

Originally Posted by tyketime

Here is an interesting Video Q&A from E Online which provides some "answers" (it's the 2nd video): Link

Cool. MiB does have a name:

Spoiler

Samuel

It was reportedly in all of the scripts, but the producers chose not to reveal it.

The Essau rumor apparently comes from twins in the Bible named Jacob and Essau.

[Draft Dodger]

show's over, dude. I think we can dispense with the spoiler tag

[rowech]

My wife watched this show...I gave up midway through season 2. I am 100% convinced the original intent of the show was that the island was to be Purgatory. The problem? Too many people figured it out way too soon. So what to do? We'll come back to that idea but we'll do it in such a roundabout way that people will be amazed at it. They strung everyone along for 4 more seasons and now all I hear/see are a bunch of people rationalizing the "brilliance" of this show, talking about how the show was always about the characeters, and other "stuff" so that they don't feel they wasted all the time the did watching the show.

[Joe]

The finale was a perfect ending and resolution to season 6 and the sideways timeline that was introduced, but not the series. To understand the show, one must only watch seasons 1 and 6, that's my only problem with it. Oh, and also the Sayid/Shannon thing.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by rowech

My wife watched this show...I gave up midway through season 2. I am 100% convinced the original intent of the show was that the island was to be Purgatory. The problem? Too many people figured it out way too soon. So what to do? We'll come back to that idea but we'll do it in such a roundabout way that people will be amazed at it. They strung everyone along for 4 more seasons and now all I hear/see are a bunch of people rationalizing the "brilliance" of this show, talking about how the show was always about the characeters, and other "stuff" so that they don't feel they wasted all the time the did watching the show.

Totally agree. Darlton painted themselves into a corner when stating it wasnt purgatory.

[Daimyo]

I'm usually very forgiving when it comes to series finales (I really liked BSG's and was okay with Sorpanos), but this was horrible. My problem isn't that they didn't give enough answers... I'm completely comfortable with what they provided as far as the island mysteries, my problem is that they made everything that happened on the island completely meaningless!

Nothing that happened on the island mattered at all because in the end everyone ended up in the same place and would have no matter what happened on the island.... All the stuff they did on the island was for nothing... all the drama meaningless. Why even bother to stop Locke?

I liked this show because it felt epic... the island was this big mysterious thing with all this weird shit that the characters were surviving and reacting to and struggling to understand, but in the end none of that mattered as it turns out it was just a way for this group of people to meet each other and have good experiences together?

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

I'm usually very forgiving when it comes to series finales (I really liked BSG's and was okay with Sorpanos), but this was horrible. My problem isn't that they didn't give enough answers... I'm completely comfortable with what they provided as far as the island mysteries, my problem is that they made everything that happened on the island completely meaningless!

Nothing that happened on the island mattered at all because in the end everyone ended up in the same place and would have no matter what happened on the island.... All the stuff they did on the island was for nothing... all the drama meaningless. Why even bother to stop Locke?

I liked this show because it felt epic... the island was this big mysterious thing with all this weird shit that the characters were surviving and reacting to and struggling to understand, but in the end none of that mattered as it turns out it was just a way for this group of people to meet each other and have good experiences together?

What??? Of course everyone dies eventually, your argument makes no sense.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

I'm usually very forgiving when it comes to series finales (I really liked BSG's and was okay with Sorpanos), but this was horrible. My problem isn't that they didn't give enough answers... I'm completely comfortable with what they provided as far as the island mysteries, my problem is that they made everything that happened on the island completely meaningless!

Nothing that happened on the island mattered at all because in the end everyone ended up in the same place and would have no matter what happened on the island.... All the stuff they did on the island was for nothing... all the drama meaningless. Why even bother to stop Locke?

I liked this show because it felt epic... the island was this big mysterious thing with all this weird shit that the characters were surviving and reacting to and struggling to understand, but in the end none of that mattered as it turns out it was just a way for this group of people to meet each other and have good experiences together?

Interesting. That's not at all what I got out of the finale.

[Daimyo]

Originally Posted by Chubby

What??? Of course everyone dies eventually, your argument makes no sense.

Which makes the "everybody eventually dies and meets up in heaven" ending even more absurd since I guess every show could use the exact same ending and justify it equally well? Afterall, in the end the island was just a place for ~15 people to meet up, fall in love, and have great experiences with each other? Why even set the show on a mysterious island then?

I guess I assumed it was a bit more important than that and thus deserving of something more significant.

[Daimyo]

FWIW, I was completely fine with everything that happened right up until Christian showed up. I would have been much happier if my cable had cut out right at that moment left to my own imagination.

[Daimyo]

DOLA, thinking about this more I would been thrilled with the final season if there simply were no flash-sideways at all. I really enjoyed everything that happened on the island.

[Chubby]

I dont get your argument at all, how does the fact that everyone dies eventually invalidate the 1st 5 seasons?

So since everyone dies eventually in real life, our lives have no meaning?

[TargetPractice6]

I kind of assumed without the light on the island there would be no happy meet-up in the afterlife. Maybe I'm reaching too far, but when the light was first introduced the mother character said it was "Life, death and rebirth". I just kind of took it that without the light there would be no other life to happily move onto as the Losties did at the end.

[DanGarion]

Anyone post this from one of the Bad Robot writers?

Someone from Bad Robot's take on the Finale | LOST Media Mentions

Really puts stuff in perspective and clears up some gaps to me.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Anyone post this from one of the Bad Robot writers?

Someone from Bad Robot's take on the Finale | LOST Media Mentions

Really puts stuff in perspective and clears up some gaps to me.

That was excellent - thanks for sharing it.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

You just have to learn to let go.

We have to go back.... we weren't meant to stop watching.

Originally Posted by Daimyo

DOLA, thinking about this more I would been thrilled with the final season if there simply were no flash-sideways at all. I really enjoyed everything that happened on the island.

Really? The last couple episodes tied in nicely, but the first half of the season was a complete mess. Why spend multiple episodes on the other other Others in the Temple, then once you kill them all at once and focus on the same characters from seasons 1-5 you're forced to rush the endings for several of them (Widmore, Sun/Jin, Desmond)?

I'm ok with not explaining certain things, and with the writers throwing some stuff out there early that was either affected by real-world problems (Eko leaving, Walt growing, Ana-Lucia/Libby getting DUI's, Ben turning out to have great chemistry) or never really resolved, but why start bringing in new red herrings in Season 6 when you should be coming down the homestretch?

Perhaps this was the best explanation we were going to get, but I felt there was more space for interactions between the interesting characters (Real/Fake Locke*, Ben*, Widmore, Jack, Sawyer) than in making sure every happy couple found each other - even characters from Seasons past like Shannon and Boone or Rose and Bernard. Why not bring back Nikki and Paolo too at that point?

* (I thought I saw somewhere they were developing a pilot where Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn are partners, and that could be awesome.)

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

We have to go back.... we weren't meant to stop watching.

Nicely done

SI

[thesloppy]

I should definitely let it go, 'cuz the more I think about it, the less I like it. Even the purgatory angle is clunky and shallow as hell. It seemed less like some sort of universal purgatory where all of our friends and family 'pass on' together, and more like Jack Shephard's Super Special After Life. Surely Aaron and Sun and Jin's daughter had entire lives lived away from all of these folk, and would choose a better after-life for themselves than being a baby/fetus and hanging out with your dead parents' friends you never met. And certainly Sayid would've preferred Nadia, but hey Jack never met her....Shannon will have to do for you, Sayid ol' buddy. Locke, sorry your wife can't come, would you be content to make out with Boone, here? Charlie, we know you love your brother, and he was even at the concert ten minutes ago, but he can't come either. I can guarantee that if given the choice Rose and Bernard would've just chosen straight up, sweaty bonin' for eternity, on their lonesome, and left the rest of those chumps to entertain at Jack's heavenly party. Basically, Jack looked like he got everybody he loved or cared for in his afterlife, the way he wanted 'em, and then everybody else got to kind of do their best with whatever fit into Jack's world. Even removing the limits of time and space, people in purgatory seemed to instead be defined entirely by how Jack remembered them.

You can kind of rectify that by choosing to believe that everybody were figments of Jacks imagination and/or slivers of his/their consciousness, but I think that goes against what was explicitly presented. Alternatively, your left with some version of "He who is most faithful gets to pick the teams"....an implication that 'leaders' and 'followers' or some sort of ranking exists in the afterlife, and it's good to be on top.

[Dodgerchick]

Okay finally saw it. I guess, I'm okay with it but would have liked to have seen Michael and Walt in this purgatory. They were such an important part of the show not seeing them leaves a big gap for me.

[cthomer5000]

Surprised this show retained such a high approval rating from so many people throughout it's run.

I really loved the first two seasons, but thought it really fell apart over the remainder of the series.

It wasn't a bad show, but I don't think it was a great one either. In the end, I couldn't recommend the whole series to someone, because I think the last few seasons were generally poor. The writing just got lazier and lazier, IMHO.

Ultimately I don't feel like I got the series the first season promised to be.

[Antmeister]

After watching that, I still gotta let this sink in. I can't decide if the island or the alt-reality was their purgatory.

If it's the alt-reality, then they found an easy out of explaining the polar bears, immortality (due to a chosen person who protects something similar to the Fountain of Youth), Dharma, and the smoke monster.

If the island itself is purgatory, then I am trying to wrap around my head the role of Desmond, Ben, Whitmore, Richard and the Others (who apparently got there by different means).

I saw someone reference a roleplaying game and that is spot on, but I would disagree with how well the GMs orchestrated the final result. The whole alt-timeline was cool, but it's like the GM just seemed to enjoy f'in with the characters more than actually prodding the characters through a quest from the 3rd to 5th session and figured they could come up with a final ending later. But since the adventure was going to end on the 6th session, they had no idea how they were going to tie it all together and bought a cool unrelated D&D module from the comic book store and tied the characters to it.

[Pyser]

i wish people could explain the thinking that the island was purgatory. i just dont see it at all. we were specifically told "everything that happened was real".

and dodgerchick, walt and michael were definitely explained away. well, michael more than walt.

[BreizhManu]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

Surprised this show retained such a high approval rating from so many people throughout it's run.

I really loved the first two seasons, but thought it really fell apart over the remainder of the series.

It wasn't a bad show, but I don't think it was a great one either. In the end, I couldn't recommend the whole series to someone, because I think the last few seasons were generally poor. The writing just got lazier and lazier, IMHO.

Ultimately I don't feel like I got the series the first season promised to be.

I didn't like season 4 (we have to go back) and 6, but have to agree with you.
It was a decent show for as long it lasted but I won't miss it much tbh.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I should definitely let it go, 'cuz the more I think about it, the less I like it. Even the purgatory angle is clunky and shallow as hell. It seemed less like some sort of universal purgatory where all of our friends and family 'pass on' together, and more like Jack Shephard's Super Special After Life. Surely Aaron and Sun and Jin's daughter had entire lives lived away from all of these folk, and would choose a better after-life for themselves than being a baby/fetus and hanging out with your dead parents' friends you never met. And certainly Sayid would've preferred Nadia, but hey Jack never met her....Shannon will have to do for you, Sayid ol' buddy. Locke, sorry your wife can't come, would you be content to make out with Boone, here? Charlie, we know you love your brother, and he was even at the concert ten minutes ago, but he can't come either. I can guarantee that if given the choice Rose and Bernard would've just chosen straight up, sweaty bonin' for eternity, on their lonesome, and left the rest of those chumps to entertain at Jack's heavenly party. Basically, Jack looked like he got everybody he loved or cared for in his afterlife, the way he wanted 'em, and then everybody else got to kind of do their best with whatever fit into Jack's world. Even removing the limits of time and space, people in purgatory seemed to instead be defined entirely by how Jack remembered them.

You can kind of rectify that by choosing to believe that everybody were figments of Jacks imagination and/or slivers of his/their consciousness, but I think that goes against what was explicitly presented. Alternatively, your left with some version of "He who is most faithful gets to pick the teams"....an implication that 'leaders' and 'followers' or some sort of ranking exists in the afterlife, and it's good to be on top.

Again, an interesting view that I totally disagree with and don't understand. It's kind of a narrow view, really.

Who is to say that if such a special purgatory exists for everyone, beyond people who were on the island or greatly affected by it (Penny), that it is different for other people? Perhaps Aaron and Jin and Sun's baby have their own special little purgatory place in which they embody the form they had whenever their most meaningful experiences occurred?

While the finale was certainly Jack centric, and it worked well because of it on many levels, I never saw the whole Sideways/purgatory place as 'Jack Shephard's Super Special After Life". Nope. Not at all. He was the last to come to that realization because Jack was always the last person to accept faith over reality/science. That was his entire character arc in the "real" world and it was, again, echoed in the purgatory world.

The Shannon/Sayid thing bugged me, but the rest of that place seemed entirely consistant with all of the other characters and totally independent of Jack.

[Honolulu_Blue]

On the whole I found the finale to be beautiful, but incomplete and flawed.

There were just a ton of great moments and that was what Lost was best at: providing wonderful, memorable moments. While the whole may not be perfect, there were so many great moments that were.

[Alan T]

I think many of you take your evening television entertainment far more serious than I do. It feels to me that many here were hoping for, or expecting the world and then were let down when they didn't receive it.

I really enjoyed the finale, I really enjoyed the show across all of the seasons. It was one of my favorite shows on tv and probably alot of that is due to me not watching it from the beginning. I picked it up last year, and watched all of the previous four seasons in one go. Only watched seasons 5 and 6 in real time, so the series never dragged for me at all.

I'll miss this show being on and now need to find something else to fill its void

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

FWIW, I was completely fine with everything that happened right up until Christian showed up. I would have been much happier if my cable had cut out right at that moment left to my own imagination.

Big +1.

Originally Posted by Daimyo

DOLA, thinking about this more I would been thrilled with the final season if there simply were no flash-sideways at all. I really enjoyed everything that happened on the island.

My takeaway from this is that the producers tried really hard to come up with a way to do flash forwards and flash sideways for a couple of seasons. And the first episode of the flash forwards was brilliant. But at some point it felt like the producers were robbing the main story to find ways to work in these storytelling angles.

[tyketime]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Anyone post this from one of the Bad Robot writers?

Someone from Bad Robot's take on the Finale | LOST Media Mentions

Really puts stuff in perspective and clears up some gaps to me.

Thanks Dan! This really is a great explanation from an "insider" regarding the island and the Sideways World.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by tyketime

Thanks Dan! This really is a great explanation from an "insider" regarding the island and the Sideways World.

FTR, that dude appears to be an insider who can't spell the characters names correctly and doesn't know which season each character debuted.

[Draft Dodger]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

FTR, that dude appears to be an insider who can't spell the characters names correctly and doesn't know which season each character debuted.

yep. interesting that they knew that Desmond and Penny would be in the final episode way back when they were writing the pilot.

[Draft Dodger]

(that was sarcasm, btw)

[chesapeake]

My wife and I watched last night. I loved the finale. I certainly understand the disappointment about not geting straight answers on all the mysteries, but I always felt it was more important to resolve the characters, and I think this finale did that job extremely well. With the Sayid exception, of course. Everyone knows that Nadia was his one true love; unfortunately it didn't fit with the chosen plot device.

In my own mind, I guess I am comfortable enough with the answers provided for the "science" behind the show. Jacob explained the underlying premise -- the island serves as a 'cork' between our mundane world and the afterlife. The "science" derives from how that might be manifested. Apparently, it involves a staggering amount of energy. The writers then used what they knew of physics to make up how that energy might affect the world -- electro-magnetism and warping time; throwing in a large dose of metaphysics -- the ability of that energy to heal, for example.

And I think herein lies the primary disconnect. I felt it too. I wanted the entire show to be about physics, not metaphysics. I was deeply disappointed when it became clear this season that the show was headed in that direction. But I was able to take this episode for what it was rather than what I wanted it to be and really ended up enjoying it.

Kate in that black dress has got to be worth a few extra points, too, even for folks that otherwise didn't like the ending. Right?