Lost Review: See You In Anotha Life Brotha

Six years ago Oceanic Flight 815 crashed onto an island as I watched the survivors of the plane crash band together from the wreckage. I instantly fell in love with these castaways. They were diverse, had different views, stood for various beliefs, but most importantly they were flawed. Over the last six years I’ve come to see these characters develop from who their pre-island flawed selves were to where they ended up at the end of the series. Last week the emotional journey I partook with the characters I came to love, the mysterious island that captivated me, and the mythology of the show that left me guessing came to the end with Lost’s series finale. Were the six years I put into this show worth it? Yes and I couldn’t be more satisfied.

I sat here planning on recapping the finale, but honestly do I need to? Those who are reading this probably have seen the finale and want to hear my thoughts on the finale, what I took from it, to argue if they loved or hated it, or just plain figure what the hell happened.  I, like many others, have spent the majority of the time after the show ended talking to people and scouring the internet to see what others thought about the finale. I seem to be running into a common trend. The last 15-20 minutes were make or break for many of you.  But before I delve into the controversial final minutes of the Lost series finale, let me talk about why I walked away more than satisfied.

The Losties have been through hell. There is no denying that. From the beginning of the series to the end each character suffered from their pre-island lives. Violently brought to the island via plane crash their lives started to change. Each castaway was broken, alone, seeking a way out, looking for answers. They were lost. On the island the characters of the series encountered various mysterious elements. You had your smoke monster, the Others, polar bears, whispers, buttons, the Dharma Initiative, a pirate ship in the jungle, secret hatches, giant Egyptian statues, time traveling, faster than normal healing, and a guardian of an Island who for god sakes as Hugo put it was worse than Yoda when it comes to giving advice. However through all these mysteries that drew us in over the past six years, the characters facing their inner demons is what stuck with me the most.

So in Sunday night’s series finale where the journey of the characters that have connected to each other through the events they shared came to an end, I felt like I lost my close friends.

At the beginning of the season we all expected the plane landing in LAX to be an alternate reality created from the events from the Season 5 finale. However, as revealed that was not the case. What I’ve been calling the alternate reality or the flashsideways in my recaps has been a place of limbo or purgatory in a sense. Created by the Losties, the flashsideways was a world for the castaways to meet up one final time before moving on with each other. As Christian Shephard said to Jack in the church, everything they experienced on the island was real. Some of the characters died before him like Boone, Shannon, and Charlie. Others survived the island and lived long full lives after Jack died like Sawyer, Kate, Miles, Frank, and Claire. Then there was Hurley and Ben who may have lived for hundreds or thousands of years on the island, but eventually like all humans their lives must come to an end.

In this state of limbo, the characters of Lost needed one another to awaken to the reality of who they were and where they were headed. The most important aspect required for the awakening was love. Throughout their time the people the castaways truly came to love were the ones they endured the island experience with. The awakening scenes in the finale proved it the best. When a character in the flashsideways started to remember his life on the island and the people around him, scenes would start playing from previous episodes displaying memories they shared. If none of these scenes touched you in any way then I think you really missed what the show was all about: the characters, the journey and their relationships. The awakening of Sun and Jin, Sawyer and Juliet, Hurley and Libby, Desmond and Penny, Claire, Kate and Charlie were some of the most moving scenes in the entire series. They were given a chance of getting back together when they lost each other a lifetime ago. Sun and Jin spent years apart only to die when they found each other. Hugo lost Libby early in season two when Michael shot her, Sawyer lost Juliet with the explosion of the bomb, and Claire lost Charlie with his sacrifice to send the message of ‘Not Penny’s Boat.’ Just to see them happy one last time, to get what they wanted, to know in the end that after everything they’ve been through there was a payoff that allows them to move on together. That alone makes the finale that much better for me.

But is that really enough for everyone? Probably not. Many watched for the mythology of the show. There were those who were waiting for some of their unanswered questions to be answered. To be honest many questions a lot of people have had were already addressed. Yes they were not spelled out for you, but the answers were there. Even when answers were given to certain questions, some fans failed to believe them. While the show does have its few unanswered questions, I didn’t care as I watched the finale. Throughout the finale there were many little throwbacks, lines being said, that were homages to earlier seasons of the show. This brought a smile to my face as I watched. My favorite occurred in the flashsideways with Hurley and Sayid. When Sayid asks Hurley why he trusts him so much, Hurley responds, “Because I think you are a good guy.” For those that don’t remember that was the first thing Hurley said to Sayid during the Pilot episode. Just to go full circle with it made it that much better.

In the end I just wanted to see these characters succeed and be happy for once. In the end that is what I got. Is it ideal for all? Probably not, but to each his/her own.

As Desmond said to Jack and Jack said to Desmond in the finale, “See you in another life, Brotha.”

For another opinion on this episode, read It Ends where It Began by Nicole C.

Season 6 Episodes 17 & 18: The End (originally aired May 23, 2010)

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Photographs courtesy of ABC and Mario Perez.