Lost

[spagmasterswift]

So then,

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the island is basically the site at which heaven and hell, good and evil, life and death converge with a cork in the centre which allows the balance to be maintained. Evil is kept in the bottle and if the island were to be destroyed then hell would be let loose ending everything? The smoke monster was a small element of this that was released by Jacobs act of evil against his brother? Jack saves the world by sticking the cork back in? Ben and Hurley will have a spin off sci fi show on the island with future visitors to protect the island from?

[Matt]

None of the above

At least in my opinion.

[NemesiS]

Finally watched the end last night. Not bad i suppose and quite touching but still a little confusing.

My take is:

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None of them survived the plane crash and the island served as some sort of purgatory for them to attone their sins or fulfil a pennance. A bit similar to Ashes to Ashes. Jacob and the other guy who became Locke were the good and evil they had to choose between in order to get to the afterlife. The only thing that bothered me with this is that when Jack goes back to where he dies/wakes in the bamboo at the end he's wearing his jeans and not his suit....lol, i'll stop now

That was my viewing of it though. In all a good six years of TV which has kept me watching even when it tailed away in the third and fourth series. The first two series were by far the best of the six and for me it went on perhaps a series too long but all in all, a very good watch from start to finish and only House has kept me watching for as long, which is no mean feat.

[randombs]

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I thought Jack might have just been washed out of the light cave with a surge of water or something. When we last saw him, the water was filling up in the pool. Also, regarding the idea that he wasn't injured enough to die like that, if that water was warm or hot then I think it would've made him bleed even more than usual(don't people who slit their wrists in the bath fill it with warm water first?). Not to mention we've no idea how long he was out for, and how long he'd been lying on the grass. Also, when he handed responsibility to Hurley, any immunity, healing powers or possible immortality he may have been given would've been lost at that point. Plus, it was Locke who stabbed him, and he killed Locke. I think they would have been the only ones who could hurt each other.

Also, about this afterlife building business, I'm of the understanding that the church itself is what they've built, rather than the afterlife place as a whole, as I think that afterlife place is just modelled on the real world as a place for dead people to do stuff before they feel ready to move on. I also thought Ben was waiting to go through life with Alex first, and Rousseau left an open invitation for a second dinner...

[Matt]

Last paragraph - That was my original thought as well Billy.

Who knows, going to stop thinking about it now

[Wil]

Yes you could be right

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Thats why the sunken island was the first thing we saw this season, as Juliet died she wanted the island to sink, it was her part of the purgatory world coming true, which is why she said it worked.

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Juliette said "it worked" when switching off the vending machine that got Sawyer his Apollo bar. I thought that was a neat twist when most people were thinking she was talking about the bomb making everything ok.

[spagmasterswift]

You've got to hand it to them really haven't you!

[Shez]

The more I think about it, the more it is becoming clear that whatever questions we might have, they can generally be answered even if a lot of the time it is based on opinion rather than actual fact.

That's was the beauty of lost I guess, it encouraged the viewer to become involved in this way.

[figflair]

I loved it. Had real emotional depth to it and yes I did cry like a girl! Made me feel the same as watching the end of Return of the King.

Christian Shepard! How did anyone miss that! A great article here on the BBC which basically sums-up exactly how I feel.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10146072.stm

[Uli]

i think the conclusion of the meta plot is a slap in the face of every narrative respecting fan of the series and i am deeply disappointed after watching the final episodes.

afterlife, heaven and hell, a dream? come on, that's just lazy. they could have at least tried to give some reasonable hints or explanations to questions concerning the nature and purpose of the island or why it needs protection.

[Link83]

So can any one explain to me any of the following:-

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- Why Michael couldn't kill himself off the island
- Why Walt had 'special powers'
- Why 'the others' character 'Tom' was still alive off the island
- Why 'the others' took the children, and what they wanted them for
- What the Dharma initiatives numbered white rabbits was all about
- What exactly were the 'islands unique properties' that the Dharma initiative came to investigate
- Why were the Dharma initiative still getting food drops
- Who built the statue and the temple
- Why Sayid didn't end up with Nadia

I am sure there is even more that I am forgetting right now.

Also, are we meant to believe that

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Kate and Sawyer never moved on with their love lives once they got off the island?

Dont get me wrong, I have really enjoyed watching Lost, and the journey is the most important part, but for me there was just too much left unexplained. The ending was good if your just wanted a

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"they all got together and 'lived'(died) happily ever after" sort of ending, but I wanted/expected a more coherant explanation

[Dirty Sanchez]

Spags, pretty much it for me too.

Some nice touches in the last couple of episodes, peeling back the layers without goign the full hog with a motherlode.

Ben still isn't happy being only a Nr 2, he Sooooo wants to be Nr 1

[rmoxon]

I don't know. A

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knife / piece of fusilage through the gut, on a desert island, would kill almost anyone (if it's all Jack's dream, the Island isn't magical). The wreckage on the beach looked how it did at the very start of the show - before parts blew up, got burned out with the corpses inside, got scavenged to use as shelters.

Here's another oner. How did Jack go from inside the Light cavern to above the Island in the pool? EM teleportation? In which case, maybe he time travelled back to the moment they crash landed on the Island and this time round he died Lots of ways to interpret things

It's not what I think they're trying to say though.

He was

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wounded where there are no actual organs to damage and it was his side not his gut, as I said the only way to die from a wound like that is blood loss. As for the cave thing, MIB's body floated out at the same place as Jacks body did so it was somehow due to the flow of water, I dont actualy know why Jack didn't die though.

[Matt]

Thinking about this far too much. The ending isn't sitting right at all.

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If the flash sideways is the "meeting place" after they died, that doesn't add up. Some of the characters in Sideways have better lives and connections they'd not want to leave behind - would sideways Jack and Juliet forget about their son to "move-on"? That's saying he wasn't there in the first place.

Why is baby Aaron in the church? That makes no sense in this context.

I don't see the church scene as the end. It's the beginning. They have a new chance, this is their new lives made possible by the nuke sinking the island.

Though as Juliet said "It works" as she died, that does tie in nicely with the idea that, at death, you see all your friends again and all the memories come flooding back.

I like ambiguity, but in this case, I think they've fluffed it. It's not sitting easy. We needed a clear ending, a nice send off for the characters we've followed 6 years. We didn't need the Island explained, we didn't need all the questions solved (though many answers can be worked out). I think they set out to confound and leave discussion at the end, but ultimately left too many holes for any one solid conclusion to come through.

I'll watch it again to see if it makes more sense.

[randombs]

One thing I like about the fact so much remains unanswered is that it's come along at the point in my life at which I've realised that, in spite of how freely available so much information is nowadays, there's just so much about the world that I haven't learned and never will, and I've had to accept that this is how it will be.

I feel it's like that with Lost - if we were told everything, where would that leave us? There are enough things in the real world that we can't really explain the origins of and so just accept their existence for the time being. That we've had to use our collective imaginations to figure out things in Lost is exactly what we should be doing as human beings, so much so that the times when Lost has felt compelled to explain things to us, I almost feel upset at not having used my brain a bit more! Things like imagination and deep thought (and also flukes and random, spontaneous thoughts) are what lead to discoveries. We've been given our imagination for so long that we've forgotten what it's like to imagine. I think Lost has given me that opportunity to start imagining again.

But then, I wonder if

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Christian's (imo) over-explanation for the sideways flash was a bone thrown our way. Considering the raw emotional impact of the finale itself, I doubt I would've had the brain energy to decipher yet more riddles while still trying to hold back the avalanche of sobbing that could've dropped any moment!

I hope the Lost formula doesn't become some kind of trend, as I doubt I could handle another show with such lofty, secretive heights!