‘Lost’ addresses years of questions in finale… Read More @ AP

Of love ‘Lost’

A riveting series’ finale fails to top the six seasons that preceded it. But then, it was always about the journey.

Jorge Garcia, left rear, Josh Holloway and Michael Emerson in the last episode of the ABC drama “Lost,” which aired Sunday night. (Mario Perez / ABC / May 24, 2010)

Source: Los Angeles Times
Well, it could have been worse. It could have all been a dream.

Actually, that might have been better, if the finale of “Lost” had ended with some alien life form or surprising human — Ray Bradbury, say, or Terry O’Quinn in a pre-audition nap — opening his eyes from the craziest dream ever.

Instead, it turns out the passengers of Oceanic 815 are all dead, victims, if the end-credit imagery is to believed, of the same tragic plane accident that started the whole thing. Six seasons of polar bears, bachelor pad hatches, landlocked ships, personal submarines and a fleet of fallen airplanes, and it was all apparently some sort of shared afterlife experience. Excuse me, but what are we supposed to do with those religious statues full of heroin, with Fionnula Flanagan’s pendulums, with the crazy Frenchwoman and the time shifts and the whole glorious Richard Alpert back story? And what on Earth are we supposed to do with the Dharma Initiative?… Read Full Article

‘Lost’ – ‘The End’ Recap (Series Finale)

(S06E17/18)
As finales go, ‘The End’ will definitely go down as one of the more satisfying ones; even though it didn’t come close to answering all of our questions about the Island and its special properties. But creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse promised that we would be satisfied with the conclusions of the character arcs, and in that regard I think they’re right.

At two-and-a-half hours, I’m still digesting everything they threw at me. I struggle at times to sort out a typical one hour episode, much less a feature film length one. But I’m glad the finale will linger with me in the weeks to come, because it is bittersweet saying goodbye to ‘Lost.’ There has been nothing like it on television, and there may never be again. That it succeeded at all is a miracle.

The question of when the beta-verse occurred has finally been answered, and while it was 2004, it wasn’t at the same time. The beta-verse was an equivalent to the Purgatory many religions believe in. As I indicated, it was a place where everyone seemed to be doing better; they’d achieved their root desires and passions, but it was by no means perfection. As such, it could not be Heaven. If this is to be equated to that belief system, then it was appropriately Christian Shephard who opened the doors to Heaven, awaiting all of them who’d come together.

The characters we’d come to know and love needed one another, and that’s what the Island gave them. They needed to find one another in the beta-verse as well, to emotionally resolve their experiences on the Island. For most of them, that trigger was love. For Benjamin Linus it was brutality and violence, which is why he did not go into the church (notably of many faiths). He did not feel he was yet ready to transcend, or move on, to the next plane.

It’s still unclear exactly what the Island was, though I’m sure many have theories already. I’m sure I’ll come up with one in the next day or so, but right now it’s a little too fresh and muddled in my mind. That thing i was right about? That Hurley would ultimately take on the mantle of protector of the Island. Perhaps the Island is the spiritual center of our world. The “other Mother” from a couple of weeks ago was the sole guardian for a long time.

It was only happenstance that a set of twins came along to be the next generation, unless you believe it was by design. Only one could be the guardian, so what role could the other play. Perhaps there is only ever supposed to be one guardian, and when there is things are peaceful. Because the Man in Black existed, and became what he was by killing the “other Mother” and enraging Jacob, the Island became more tumultuous.

Hurley selecting Ben as his “#2” fulfilled Ben’s lifelong passion of being special, but it was done in the real world. In Purgatory, he was a far kinder man than he’d been on the Island, but he didn’t have Alex as his daughter; instead he had her as a student. As it turns out, he may well be on his way to a relationship with Danielle Rousseau, depending on how the properties of that world work.

If the gang in the church go through the light, does that version of Purgatory still exist, and if it does, are they still a part of it for Ben, or will they have all mysteriously vanished? Time has no real sense there, so I’m sure everything can happen however it needs to.

I’m pretty satisfied with the beta-verse being a level of the afterlife, awaiting the opportunity to move on to something even more perfect. The only thing needed to do so, is the ability to forgive. Not only those around them, but most importantly themselves their shortcomings.

At the same time, there’s a part of me that things making it all about explaining the beta-verse was a pretty clever way to get out of explaining most of the mysteries and secrets of the Island. I’d liken it to when a magician uses misdirection to keep the audiences eyes away from the sleight of hand.

I’m not saying I needed to know all of the secrets of the Island, but they certainly left a lot more open to interpretation than I expected. By the way, if Desmond pulling the plug on the light made Jack and MiB-Locke lose their immortality and powers, how was Jack able to transfer the role of guardian of the Island to Hurley? How could the water have still had any of those properties?

We are left to wonder if and how Ben and Hurley got Desmond off the Island, and what happened next to them, but those are questions I don’t mind lingering. I’m not sure why the Island had to be sunk in the beta-verse, or how it would have come to be that way. It’s also still a mystery how they traveled through time, what the light was (as well as its dryer, redder alternate), how you can move an Island, why it is so hard to find from the outside world and vice-versa, who the “other Mother” was, and why the light needs to be guarded. We also never learned why Walt was special.

But again, if it was about satisfying closure for the characters, we got that in spades. Even the characters we didn’t see seemed appropriate. Ana Lucia wasn’t ready yet, as Desmond said, because she’s not ready to ascend. Michael, likewise, is probably not ready to atone for his sins. Perhaps we are to believe that Walt was not dead, even though time didn’t really matter in the beta-verse. I’d like to think rather that he wasn’t in need of this stage of the afterlife an went straight on to what was next.

I enjoyed every single connection moment that trigger memories of their real lives back on the Island, Kate again helped to deliver Aaron, while Charlie and Claire rediscovered their love. Sawyer found it over a candy bar with Juliet, while Sayid saved Shannon from a beating. Locke’s coming when he wiggled his toe is perfect, as that was the defining moment of his personality on the Island. Jack, of course, resisted as long as he could, but eventually succumbed to the flashes of truth when touching the casket that did not contain the body of his father.

Visually, It was appropriate that Jack made his way back to the exact place he awoke on the Island, passing one of the tennis shoes his father was wearing in the casket, and even had Vincent by his side when we had our closing shot of his eye closing, rather than opening. While there are a lot of unanswered questions, we are supposedly promised additional scenes (about 20 minutes of them) on the DVD set that will answer yet more of them, as well as other answers given by the creators.

That ought to give them some extra time to come up with them.

STRAY THOUGHTS & QUESTIONS

–Juliet said “it worked” about the bomb, but it doesn’t appear that it did. They all died at different times to go to the beta-verse, so what worked?

–So they introduced a brand new concept at the beginning of the sixth season, and that’s what they explained in the finale. What about the first five seasons of questions?

–My theory on the people in the church was they were the people who were ready to move on. Some people weren’t there, which means they either weren’t ready or didn’t need this step in their afterlife progression at all, like perhaps Walt and Faraday.

–Perhaps the other people around them in the beta-verse weren’t even those people. It’s more like Aaron was a construct of the beta-verse to serve a purpose, but the real Aaron’s “soul” wasn’t in that body as he, like Walt, maybe didn’t need this time in Purgatory. The same would apply to most of the other peripheral characters.

–What? No Nikki and Paulo? Oh yeah, straight to Hell for those two.

–Why did they have to go back to the Island in the first place? Because Hurley and Jack were off the Island? Nobody else left was good enough? Sawyer was there, and he was a candidate.

–It was a new “Oceanic Six” that left the Island, including Frank Lapidus, who flew them out the first time. This time around it was him, Miles, Richard, Sawyer, Kate and Claire. Only Kate and Frank got to escape the Island twice.

Lost Episode Recap: “The End”

[Needless to say, SPOILER ALERT! Don’t read any further if you haven’t finished watching all 4,815 minutes of the Lost series finale. Because we’re going there.]

In the Lost series finale, we learned what happened when Oceanic 815 crashed, what the sideways timeline really was, and what’s the next step for our beloved Lostaways.

Namaste, y’all! We’ve finally arrived. Can you believe it? Bear with me, I’m not real great at writing economically about a one-hour episode of the show; this is going to be a long one.

SIDEWAYS

Desmond and Kate

Desmond and Kate are hanging out outside… the concert hall? David’s school? Eloise Hawking’s church? The Widmores’ house? Where are they? Anyhow, he intercepts an Oceanic cargo truck and signs for Christian Shephard’s remains for some reason. “His name is Christian Shephard? Seriously?” Kate asks, for the audience. Desmond also tells Kate that he wants to “leave.” “Leave and go where?” she asks. And he says something I don’t understand about how she’ll figure it out.

Hurley and Sayid

Hurley is being similarly cryptic. “If you stick with me, you’ll be happy you did,” he tells Sayid. They go to pick up Charlie to take him to the concert, but he’s drunk, which is denoted by him saying “soddin'” and “sod” within seconds of each other.

“What if I told you that playing this concert was the most important thing you’ll ever do?” Hurley says. Charlie’s all: Soddin’ sod soddy fishcakes, so Hurley shoots him with a tranquilizer gun. Does this mean that we’re going to hear “You All Everybody” tonight?

Hurley says Sayid is a good guy, and they’re hanging outside a bar to prove it. Two men and a woman stumble into the alley in the midst of a nasty scuffle. When Sayid sees the woman get hit with a fist, he charges out of the car to save her. Surprise! It’s Shannon and Boone, who says all the trouble he went through to get Shannon to L.A. from Australia was worth it. Aw! They recognize each other, and have flashes of their relationship on the island. And then they kiss. It’s one of many teary kisses in this episode, so get out the Kleenex.

Miles, Sawyer and Juliet

Miles shows up at the concert site and sees Sayid in Hurley’s heinous Hummer (say that 10 times fast) and deduces that they’ve escaped. Sawyer springs into action, heading to the hospital to make sure that Sun is protected, since she witnessed the gunfight that got Sayid arrested in the first place. Also: Sawyer calls Miles “Enos,” which was his Dharma nickname for his little lieutenant.

At the hospital, Juliet and Sawyer pass each other at the elevator, but there’s no recognition.

Dr. Juliet Carlson (her maiden name) is there to make sure the baby’s OK, so she’s doing an ultrasound. This triggers the memory for Sun of Juliet having done an ultrasound on her before. Then Jin sees the baby and it all comes flooding back for him too. (Wow, Sun had, like, 100 hairstyles over the course of the series.) With their newfound understanding comes English comprehension — bonus!

[Aside: Boy, Inception, the new Christopher Nolan-Leonardo Di Caprio movie looks pretty nifty, no?]

As we suspected, Juliet is David’s mom and thus Jack’s ex-wife.

Sawyer wants to get dinner, but the cafeteria is closed, so he heads for the vending machines to grab an Apollo bar, but it gets stuck. Juliet shows up and they meet cute and it’s here we hear their conversation about getting coffee that we heard before when Sawyer rescued her from the pit. She helps him dislodge the candy bar. “It worked,” she says. (Sound familiar?) When she retrieves the bar, their hands touch and they have flashes of their time together, which are particularly sun-dappled and beautiful. (That flower gets me every time.)

Jack and Locke

Jack speaks with Locke before the surgery. “I’ll see you on the other side,” he says to Locke, by which he means of the anesthesia, but which we know also means something else.

As Locke is coming out of surgery, Jack notices that his neck is still bleeding.

Jack wants to leave and get to the concert. But Locke says it worked (again!), by which he means the surgery. He can feel his legs, which he demonstrates by wiggling his toes, just like he did in the pilot. This prompts a flash to his island life. “You don’t remember?” Locke asks Jack. Jack has a flash too, but he’s resisting. “We need to go,” Locke says, apropos of nothing. “I need to go see my son,” Jack says, but Locke claims he doesn’t have a son. Jack is confused, particularly when Locke says, “I hope that somebody does for you what you just did for me.” That may just happen, John!

ON THE ISLAND

Sawyer finds Jack doing incantations, but Jack says he doesn’t feel any different. “Howzabout you come down off the mountain and tell us what the Burning Bush had to say for itself?” Sawyer asks. They’re trying to decode Jacob’s instructions. “He’s worse than Yoda,” Hurley says. But Jack has it figured out. They have to head to the well to find Desmond, where Locke is also headed. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” says Hurley.

Sawyer sneaks up on Locke at the well and tells Locke and Ben, who are total BFFs all of the sudden, that they’re no longer candidates. “Oh well,” he snarks.

Sawyer gets the jump on Ben, slugs him one last time for the road, and steals his gun. Left alone, Locke lets it slip that he’s literally going to destroy the island. This displeases Ben, since he thought he was going to be the boss. “I’m sorry if I left out the part about it being on the bottom of the ocean,” Locke says with a smirk.

Locke hears the crackle of a walkie, but doesn’t catch on that… Ben is communicating with Miles and Richard. So he is good after all!

Rose, Bernard and… Vincent!

Desmond is with Rose and Bernard, who are still living their blissfully ignorant isolated existence with their canine pal Vincent. They broke their rule not to get involved by rescuing him. Locke and Ben show up, and Locke threatens to kill Rose and Bernard unless Desmond comes with him.

Jack and Locke

When Kate sees Locke across a meadow, something snaps and she fires off several rounds at Locke, which does nothing. He advises her to save her bullets.

“You’re sort of the obvious choice,” Locke snarks when he learns that Jack is Jacob’s replacement. But Jack has knowledge, yo. He knows they’re going to the far side of the bamboo forest to the place he has sworn to protect. “I’m going to kill you,” Jack announces to Locke. How? “It’s a surprise.” A little cutesy, but fine.

Locke announces that it should just be Jack, Locke and Desmond from here on out. As they depart, Hurley says he believes in Jack. He also says “dude.”

They arrive at the golden tunnel.

IN THE GOLDEN TUNNEL

“This doesn’t matter,” says Desmond. “They’re going to lower me into the tunnel and I’m going to go somewhere else,” he says, an apparent reference to his ability to span the timelines. Des tells him about the sideways, but Jack doesn’t believe him, saying “what happened, happened.”

They all go into the tunnel together, connected by a rope. I’m not sure why they’re all cooperating on this. Shouldn’t they be fighting or something?

[Kudos to Target for clever ads: Malfunctioning “Execute” button on the Hatch keyboardcan be remedied with a new $23 one from Target. Smoke Monsters can be kept at bay with a $19.99 First Alert smoke alarm. Geronimo Jackson outro. Nice.]

Jack and Locke lower Des him into the tunnel, where the light is brightest. (P.S. At this point, it’s looking like that leaked call sheet was legitimate.)

Up above, Locke points out the symmetry of the moment. :If there was a button down there to push, we could argue about whether or not to push it,” he says of their differing opinions.

Desmond reaches bottom and there’s a golden pool with a giant stone peg in the middle. He steps into the pool and we hear Smokey-like noises and Des starts howling. And his nose is bleeding. Uh-oh. He makes it to the center and removes this stopper of sorts, and we start hearing stretchy noises like the flashes, but then they slow down and stop. Then the pit glows a foreboding red and he’s howling again.

“It looks like you were wrong. Goodbye, Jack,” Locke says. Jack punches him and he bleeds. “Looks like you were wrong too,” Jack counters. Obviously, with the golden light snuffed, they can hurt each other. Locke smashes him in the head with a rock and runs away.

ON THE CLIFF

Locke is beating feet over the cliffs through pouring rain to his escape boat, but Jack is there ready to stop him. Locke takes out his knife and Jack jumps, Matrix-style, with his fist outstretched. They fight — this is more like it. (This cliff is making my fear of heights go into overdrive, and the Diet Coke buzz isn’t helping things.) The cliffs are shearing off in giant chunks at the island begins to deteriorate. Locks stabs Jack in the side, right where an appendix scar might be, ay? Locke holds the knife at Jack’s neck — a-ha! Just when it looks dire, Kate shoots Locke: “I saved you a bullet,” she barks. Jack pushes Locke off the cliff and he lies dead on the cliffs below.

The weather clears up, and Sawyer, Ben and Hurley arrive. The island is still crumbling, so Jack sends his friends away. says he has to go back down into the pit and reverse whatever it is that Desmond did. “Let the island sink, Jack,” Kate says. But he says he can’t.

Jack and Sawyer shake hands. Ben says he’s going down with it. (So then why doesn’t he fix Desmond’s mistake?) Hurley says he’s coming with Jack because he’s afraid of heights and doesn’t want to climb down the cliffs. I’m with you, Hugo. Kate and Jack kiss, and it’s one for the ages. They say they love each other.

But Kate and Sawyer have their moment too, as they jump off the cliffs together to make their way to Locke’s boat.

Hurley

Jack tells Hurley that he’s going to die. He says that Hurley needs to be his replacement. “I believe in you, Hurley,” Jack says, returning the favor. (Island still disintegrating, folks!) He takes a plastic water bottle and conducts the exchange-of-power ceremony, and then Hurley’s the man.

BACK IN THE PIT

They lower Jack into the pit, well, actually, they kind of drop him. Desmond is alive, so Jack ties him to the rope to help him escape. “I’ll see you in another life, brutha,” Jack says to Desmond.

Jack lifts the stone into place and the water and golden light return, but Jack is kind of toast.

Hurley and Ben raise Desmond, who’s going to be OK. Jack’s gone. Hurley frets that taking care of the island is his job now, and asks Ben to be his right-hand man. He accepts and is honored.

Jack wakes up on the rocks, just like the Man in Black did.

AT THE CONCERT

Meanwhile at the museum, Charlotte is backstage, waking up Charlie. “I was shot by a fat man.” He says. “Do you know where the band is?” Charlotte asks a man in a porkpie hat. It’s Daniel Faraday/Widmore, who will be performing on the piano with the band.

Des, Kate, Claire, and David are all at the same table, No. 23 incidentally. Dr. Pierre Chang introduces Daniel Widmore accompanied by Drive Shaft.

Charlie sees Claire in the audience. They exchange a look and Claire appears to go into labor. Kate follows her  — hmm, to deliver her baby perhaps?

Backstage they stumble around in improbably short miniskirts, and yes, Kate is going to deliver the baby in the dressing room. It’s an echo of what happened on the island, and they both have flashes of Aaron’s birth and their eyes well up with tears. (Full disclosure: So do mine.) Charlie shows up with a blanket. He hands it to Claire, their hands touch, they flash and then they understand.

So now what?

Eloise asks Desmond if he’s going to take her son and he says no.

“It’s over,” Kate says to Jack, of the concert. They sort of recognize each other from the plane, but also from somewhere else. “No, that’s not how you know me,” Kate says. They touch. “I’ve missed you so much,” Kate says. He’s confused. “You don’t understand, but if you come with me, you will,” she says cryptically.

Miles and Richard

Miles and Richard paddle over to Hydra Island to blow up the plane. Richard gets his first gray hair, another consequence of the light going out, and says for the first time he realizes he wants to live.

There are dead bodies floating in the water from the sub explosion, but one is alive: Lapidus! He nixes Operation Ajira Kaboom, because he says, if we leave, that thing won’t have a plane anymore. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a pilot,” he says, a line obviously borrowed from an old Nash Bridges script.

Claire is guarding the island with a gun. Richard invites her to go with them, but she refuses, so they leave her.

Richard and Lapidus are fixing the plane. Conveniently, they have a waterproof blowtorch. Miles said he worked for a contractor one summer, which clearly qualifies him to repair the hydraulic system on the plane… with duct tape!

But no matter, it works. They get the plane started. At the last possible moment, Kate and Sawyer convince Claire to join them on the plane, even though she thinks she’s too crazy to be Aaron’s mom, and they’re off. Just in time too: The ground is cracking beneath them.

AT THE CHURCH

After the concert, Locke arrives at a church, the church. He sees Ben, and they exchange words of mutual admiration and, in Locke’s case, of forgiveness. Locke gets out of his wheelchair and walks inside.

Ben and Hurley exchange similar pleasantries, and Ben says he won’t be joining them as he still has things to take care of.

Kate and Jack arrive, and Kate tells him that they’re going to have Christian’s funeral. Jack goes around back and Kate says she’ll be inside… once he’s ready… to leave. Hmm…

Jack goes inside and sees the coffin. He touches the coffin and everything flashes — all the people he met on the island. But it’s an empty coffin. But that’s OK because Christian is there and he looks pretty alive to me.

“How are you here right now?” Jack asks. “How are you here?” Christian replies, and it dawns on Jack that not only did he die, but so did all his friends. They hug.

Jack asks why they’re all here now and Christian replies, “There is no now here.”

He explains that they’re not really leaving but moving on. Where to? “Let’s go find out,” Christian says.

THE END

Once inside the sanctuary, everybody is there, and it’s a dearly departed guest list that provokes a lot of questions:  Libby, Juliet, Penny, Desmond, Boone, Shannon and Charlie are all there, to name several. Hugs are exchanged, and it’s all very touching, as you can imagine that the series wrap party was perhaps not all that different from this moment.

They take their seats, Christian opens the doors and a bright light floods in.

This scene is intercut with Jack, on the island, stumbling through the jungle, collapsing in pretty much the same spot where he woke up after the crash of Oceanic 815. Overhead, the plane comes into and then out of his field of view, and his eye, in signature close-up, finally closes. Vincent arrives and snuggles up next to his old pal, and every bad veterinarian’s visit comes flooding back, and I am 11 again. (All dogs go to heaven, Lost! What is he doing there?)

Over the credits we see the wreckage of Oceanic 815, lapping ocean waves its only score, the site of the deaths of all these odd, quirky, inspiring characters who we will miss dearly.

Now obviously, this 150-minute masterpiece is not without its huh moments. For one, when did Penny die? And why were Daniel and Ana Lucia deemed “not ready”? And if everyone was already dead, is the island just like one big redemption boot camp?