"I reached into your book and... there's so many things I need to ask you…. I can only hope that the answers will come to me in my sleep. I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief because there will be so much to look forward to." - Donnie Darko
TV finales have always tended to disappoint me. Something about the medium makes it seemingly impossible for a final episode to satisfactorily conclude all the hours that have come before, and instead the last episode usually ends up weakening what preceded it. Battlestar Galactica was a brilliant show with a disappointing finale that tainted the series. So when I sat down to watch the LOST finale, the final episode of a show I had been invested in for six years, I prepared myself to be disappointed. How in the world could any ending satisfy?
I was so pleased that LOST managed to surprise me with a finale that moved and satisfied and was, in fact, one of the series' best episodes. While I was watching the episode and shortly after it was over, I didn't quite know what to make of it. The twist at the end was too large for me to process at first. But as I had time to think about it over the next several days, I came to realize how much I loved the finale and how it was, simply, beautiful. I was reminded of the endings of other great fantasy stories, like the Lord of the Rings, or the Chronicles of Narnia. It was surprising to me at first how unashamedly optimistic LOST was at its end, but on second thought, LOST has always been hopeful at its core. It wasn't a departure in tone, as the Battlestar finale was.
Many of LOST's greatest joys have been in its images and the way it uses these images to speak about larger and grander things. This finale recalled the show's most important images and elevated them to new levels of meaning, so much so that I found them profound. The image of Jack opening his father's casket to find it empty (from the fifth episode of the series) has stuck with me throughout the course of narrative. In the last ten minutes of the finale, Jack once again confronts his father's coffin. The obvious expectation was that Jack would finally see his father dead in the coffin and would be able to deal with his passing. However, he opens the coffin and finds it empty once again. His father stands behind him and soon they embrace, the final redemption of the father-son relationship that has defined the show. This was a perfect resolution to the characters and to the image and was deeply moving on an emotional and even spiritual level. The image of Jack's eye opening and a plane crashing began the series and the image of a plane taking off and Jack's eye closing ended it—perfect visual bookends. It is said that the beginning of every story should have the seed of its end. What a perfect adherence to this rule LOST had.
If I had one complaint about the end, it is that there were one or two lines of unneeded explanatory dialogue. A less spelled-out ending in the afterlife at the risk of audience confusion could have been worth it. But I was glad that the "sideways universe" turned out not to be an alternate reality. I never bought into the alternate universe idea and the reveal at the end helps redeem that part of the last season for me. Of course, what I think most people will complain about the finale is the apparent lack of explanation about the island. But more explanation about the island and its properties would not have been fitting. The essential mystery of LOST remains intact as it should be. Again, an image sums up everything perfectly. As Jack lies in the pool of light at the heart of the island and watches as the water begins to flow again, he starts laughing. Certainly he is rejoicing that he has finally fulfilled his purpose and finally, truly "fixed" something, but I took this image to also be a celebration of the mysteries of the island. For six years, our imaginations have feasted on the wonders of the island and at the end, the best response is simple joy.
I am not surprised by the initial critical reaction to the end of the show. Complaints over lack of explanation are, I believe, representative of the modern approach to storytelling. A story must, to some extent (according to the modern), be an exercise in logic. We mistakenly believe the foundation of the world is reason, and our stories must reflect that. Would the premodern have had a problem with the sustained mysteries of the LOST story, or would he have accepted and embraced them? Or even better, would we as children, had we read the LOST story, have objected to the unknowns?
Certainly I am not saying that LOST can care nothing for internal consistency and remain successful. The story must have internal coherence, and this is perhaps one of the series' weak points. In its last years, LOST began to bend a bit under the weight of its enormously complex mythology, and apparent "plot holes" and inconsistencies grew more numerous. Yet while some of these lapses in coherence are problematic, I think most of them are probably misreadings of the story, resulting from a wrong approach or a simple lack of imagination. I think the series as a whole holds up remarkably well and while it isn't perfect (need I cite the premature death of Mr. Eko or the Nikki and Paolo arc?), its very imperfections are a part of what the show is. The show certainly has its share of dangling plot threads, but doesn't that provide more for us to think about and puzzle over upon revisiting the story? It seems clear that LOST was partially planned out and partially improvised and I believe this combination is a large part of what made the series so vibrant.
Overall, as far as its broad strokes, I cannot think of a more perfect ending to LOST and, until I watch The Sopranos or The Wire, it is the best television finale I have seen. There are very few films or television shows that have so entranced, excited and moved me as LOST has. It is a story that has shaped the way I think about storytelling and I am happy to make it one of those few "stories for a lifetime" that I will always hold with me.
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