Recapping the LOST Series Finale: "The End"

It’s taken me most of the day, but I’m finally here to recap the series finale of LOST and to tell you about the party I went to last night.  This is a long post, so grab a snack and jump on in!

All day Hubby had been teasing me about the hours I was planning to spend in front of the TV. He just doesn’t get it! Just before I left he threw out his favorite comment: “Let me guess … they’re all going to be FOUND.” To which Kiddo – a recent fan – replied in all seriousness: “No, they’re all going to die!” (Did he know something I didn’t?!)

Around 5:30pm I headed to the party. When I arrived, the family (mom, dad, and two teenage daughters) was gathered in front of the 100-inch projector-screen TV with two friends, where they’d been watching their favorite LOST episodes since 1pm. Not long after I got there we put on one of MY favorites, The Constant.
Oh, did I mention that they had decorated the house with island-themed stuff? Here’s a look at some items on the snack table:

Just before 7pm they hooked up another large screen TV on the other side of the room and arranged the couches and chairs in a long line so everyone had a good seat. That’s when I posted my first Tweet of the night:

And so it begins! #lostfinale

I’m not going to recap the two hours of recapping and interviews – it seems a bit redundant. But I would like to point out this post from Nancy at Read Street, as it has some bearing on the Lost Books Challenge. Did that info change your opinion about the Challenge in anyway?

Not long before the final episode began a few more fans arrived, including Kiddo (Hubby dropped him off and ran away as quickly as possible. And yes, I let Kiddo stay up to watch the whole thing even though he had school the next day.). I’ve never watched LOST with other fans, besides Kiddo, so it was definitely a treat to be discussing theories and trying to figure things out during the commercial breaks.

[Speaking of commercials, how hilarious were the Target commercials?! There was one for barbeque sauce, one for keyboards, and – my favorite – one for smoke detectors. Did you see these? Which did you like the best? Did I miss any other good ones? I couldn't find links to any except the keyboard one but if you have links please share them in the comments!]

Back to the show …

All day I’d been worried that the show was going to completely disappoint me but so far, so good! In the Sideverse, Desmond is working to bring everyone together at the concert while on the island Jack is trying to figure out how to stop Locke-ness. Also on the island, Hurley is channeling some major Star Wars vibes which had all of us laughing out loud, especially Kiddo. Fifteen minutes into the show and I don’t know whether to hate Ben Linus or feel bad for him, AND we’ve got Rose and Bernard back (albeit briefly).

After about 20 minutes I Tweeted again:

 #lostfinale is FANTASTIC so far!!!

Enter Juliette, here to check on Sun’s baby. Was I the only one who got a bit teary when Sun and Jin remembered their happy life together? And then …

#lostfinale just blew my mind - Jin/Sun remember dying?!?!

(You’d think this would have clued me in, but no.) Over the next half hour or so we find out that both Richard and Lapidus are still alive, and Richard is now aging; Jack and Locke both want Desmond to go into the Cave of Light; and Desmond and Jack disagree on what really matters.

Then we get to the part with Sayid and Shannon. Was I the only one not happy here? I wanted him to have Nadia back, not stupid Shannon. And what was it that made Boone remember his island life? The only ones he had a strong connection with were Locke and Shannon, and yet he remembers before they do? I’m not buying that one …

UPDATE: And how could I forget to include Hurley shooting Charlie with the tranquilizer gun?! That was classic!

Around this time I needed a quick break, and that's when I discovered that the bathroom had been decorated as well! They are in the process of remodeling the bathroom so the girls had free reign with the walls:

Party guests were invited to add their name to the wall of candidates, so you'll see mine at the top right (above).

AND back to the show ...

Meanwhile, at the concert, Daniel and Charlotte meet but they don’t quite remember everything. Why is that? Kate and Claire get their memories back, and so does Charlie. Here, I admit, I was definitely teary-eyed. I LOVE Claire and Charlie together, especially with baby Aaron.  At the hospital, Locke is healed by Jack and gets his memory back, but Jack is still pulling away from his own memories.  Sawyer meets Sun and Jin (and Jin has some of the best lines of the entire show here) but his own memory is finally restored when he meets Juliette. I was SO GLAD to see the two of them together!!!  (During the next commercial break someone suggested that each of these people who are regaining their memories are doing so through the help of their "constant"; then we theorized that maybe that is the key to the entire show.)

On the island, Desmond has turned off the light but released some sort of red energy that is trying to destroy the island. It seems that Locke-ness was right all along, but then Jack realizes that Locke-ness is now mortal, so maybe JACK was right. The two of them battle for a while, then we see Ben trapped under a tree. He somehow gets out of that – even though Hurley, Kate, and Sawyer couldn’t lift it off of him – in time to arrive with Kate so she can shoot Locke. It seems he really is dead at this point, seeing as Jack pushed him off the cliff and he was still there whenever anyone looked down. (Was I the only one expecting his body to disappear?)

Jack decides he needs to fix the island, Ben wants to go down with the ship island, and  Hurley says "No way!" to the flimsy bamboo ladder.  The three head back to the Cave of Light Red Energy while Sawyer and Kate head for the other island.  Ends up that Kate and Sawyer don't need the ladder - they simply jump off the cliff.  Hurley could SO have done that; he's the cannonball king, remember?

On the other island, Lapidus, Miles, and Richard are trying to fix the plane so they can escape, which led to my final Tweet of the night:

even on #lost duck tape fixes everything 

Jack passes the job of protector to Hurley, succeeds in rescuing Desmond, and plugs up the hole in the Cave, allowing the Light to fill it again - and presumably, killing him as it does so. Of course Sawyer, Kate, and Claire make it to the plane just before it takes off, and join Lapidus, Miles, and Richard in flying off the island.  Hurley is overwhelmed by his new responsibilities, but Ben encourages him (?!?!) and suggests that he start by taking care of the injured Desmond.  Hurley asks Ben to be his assistant ("He's the new Richard!" someone shouted out from the other side of the room).

Here we take a quick break so you can see Kiddo and I watching the show:

And now we get to the final minutes of the end of LOST ...

In the Sideverse, everyone comes together at the church (as in, the same church where the Lamppost Station is located) supposedly for Christian's funeral.  But Christian isn't in his coffin, he's talking to Jack instead.  Jack realizes that he himself is dead, and so is everyone who is at the church.  The Sideverse experiences they all had are, in fact, after-death experiences that have brought them to their "happy place", a place that brings back the joys they experienced together on the island (because, as we know, Jacob chose them all as candidates since they were alone and unhappy and on the wrong path before the island).

On the island, Jack is miraculously out of the Cave of Restored Light but he's not looking so good.  He stumbles through the bamboo forest until he ends up right where he began in the pilot episode, lying on his back, injured, staring up at the sky.  He's joined by Vincent the dog (at which point we joked that Vincent is the new protector of the island, and then worried that if everyone was dead he'd starve to death), which makes him smile.  He sees the plane flying away, which makes him even happier.  The view tightens to his one, open eye ... and the eye closes.

PHEW! That took a while! I hope you're all still with me, because now it's time for some questions.


*** My Thoughts and Questions ***

• I enjoyed every second of this episode ... until the very end.  I'm glad that they explained the Sideverse in a believable way, but the Sideverse wasn't even introduced until this final season and they did very little to explain ANYTHING that happened in previous seasons.  It feels like a bit of a cop-out to me.  What do you think?
• The phrase "What Happened, Happened" has been a theme of the show for a long time.  I'm glad to see that it really did hold true - the Losties couldn't change the past despite traveling through time.  But it does make much of their island troubles (especially the last season, and a bit of the previous one) rather meaningless.  Thoughts?
• Daniel and Charlotte aren't at the church - I assume that means they'll still be together, but that they didn't have the same bond that the Oceanics + Desmond/Penny had.  I AM sad that we didn't see a Desmond & Penny reunion though.
• Speaking of reunions, I'm glad to see Claire and Charlie together, but wasn't baby Aaron there too?  And does that mean that he's dead?  If so, he died before Jack, right?
• Ben chose to stay outside the church and not to move on with the others.  Is this because he's conflicted about his actions (as I originally thought) or because he wants to be with Danielle and Alex (as someone suggested, and as I now slightly suspect)?  Is the Sideverse a sort of Purgatory?

What did you love or hate about the finale?  Are you happy with the way things turned out, or disappointed?  As always, please share your thoughts and links in the comments.

I'm planning to link up to a bunch of other recap posts later this week so stay tuned for that.  In the meantime both Amy and I will be in New York for BEA and BBC so we may not be responding to comments as much as usual but we WILL be reading whatever you post!