It’s a year later. On May 23, 2010, my favourite show came to an end. I remember that day… I was working on the final Finding Lost book in the series, trying to finish taking notes on the penultimate episode, “What They Died For,” before the finale began, because I wanted to be careful not to add any spoilers into any of the previous episode guides. I had this feeling of excitement, but also overwhelming dread. This rock was sitting in my stomach. Yes, there was a fear that the finale wouldn’t deliver, that it would have been built up so much in all our hearts and minds that it couldn’t possibly be as good as we needed it to be. But more than that, there was a sense that it would be over. All the questions would be answered. No more speculation, no more discussions, no more disputes, no more insane theories. All the things I loved about Lost were about to come to an end.
But I didn’t need to worry. The finale was polarizing, yes, but luckily (and I really do mean luckily because I’ve always felt so bad for the Lost fans who were unhappy with the ending), I loved it. I loved almost every single thing about it. And the answers weren’t offered on a plate. The speculation, discussions, disputes, and insane theories could continue!!
Unfortunately, I was only able to keep the intense discussions (and they were intense) going for a couple of days after it aired. After that, I had to switch gears and write a book based on all the notes I’d been making for months. Where other Lost fans were packing away their DVDs and needing time to themselves, time to digest what they’d just seen, I was forced right back to the first episode of the season and immediately began rewatching it all over again. I had to do my first live chat five minutes after the finale ended, and while “WTF?!” just scrolled by over and over again by thousands of confused Lost fans, I launched into my explanation of what had happened. By the following day, I was still there and hadn’t changed my opinion much at all.
I’m not going to analyze the finale. If you want that, check out my final book, Finding Lost: Season 6, where I devoted 22,000 words and 50 pages to a full analysis of “The End.” Instead, I want to talk about where we are a year later.
I want to know if there’s anyone out there who loathed that finale when they watched it, but now, with time, they’ve realized they no longer hate it. I want to know if there is anyone who had a discussion with someone else where the finale was put into a new perspective that made them appreciate the subtlety of it. And I also want to know who is still disappointed.
For me, I miss the show so much. But even more than the show itself, I miss the discussions. I miss the camaraderie that we Lost fans had week after week on this blog and countless others. I miss the weekly discussions that began moments after an episode happened and continued through to moments before the next one began. In the case of Nik at Nite, I miss that panicky mad scramble to get the post up the night of the episode.
I miss our haiku.
I miss the inside jokes and language that we used here that I haven’t seen anywhere else. The wacky definitions of verification words. “Palatable.”
I miss making fun of Jack.
I miss Jack. Terribly.
I miss the way we would gather together to take down the shippers in a massive organized, evil smackdown! (OK, that didn’t actually happen, but I miss that each of us were probably wishing it would, while putting on our polite faces and pretending that some of those people weren’t entirely batshit crazy.)
I miss coming up with superlatives to describe my affection for Desmond. And how others would come up with ways to describe their crushes on Sayid or Sawyer or Kate or Juliet.
I miss the torcha scrunchie.
I miss the photoshopped photos that were sent to me of people holding my books, or playing with their avatars, or playing with screen captures from the episodes to make other things happen.
I miss that we could have intense debates that would run so deep that someone could go and create a pdf map of Dharmaville to prove exactly where one person’s cabin was in conjunction to the next.
I miss the way we could actually have those debates without ever talking down to one another or being rude. I mean, when does that ever happen? Most of my family members can’t have a casual discussion without someone getting hurt, so the fact we could do this week after week was amazing.
I miss the personal emails I got from people off-list, and I’m happy that I still get some of those.
I miss the anticipation of next week’s episode and the excitement we found ourselves in week after week just imagining what would happen.
I remember.
I remember meeting the characters for the first time in season 1, and the twists and turns discovered through their backstories. I remember wishing Terry O’Quinn could be in every show I watch.
I remember the tension of season 2, whether it was with the new tailies being introduced, or the fact that ABC had wonked up the schedule so much it was difficult to keep track of everything, and I remember how the writers took what we knew in season 1 and turned it on its head.
I remember the utter grief of watching Charlie die at the end of season 3, followed by the thrill of realizing that the flashback we’d just seen was actually a flashforward.
I remember the excitement of season 4, the beauty of “The Constant” and the rivalry between Widmore and Ben. I remember wishing Michael Emerson could be in every show I watch.
I remember the complexity of season 5, and how much fun we all had trying to piece it together. And how it was the season where I realized I could no longer really explain to non-viewers what Lost was about.
I remember the crazy anticipation we all had leading up to season 6, the fan videos that were appearing, the way we were piecing together bits of the story we’d seen so far to figure out where the story would go next, linking John Locke and the Man in Black and learning of Jacob being in there. I remember this fan video in particular, and how it blew me away. I remember the creator emailing me asking if I’d post it, and I said sure, and within weeks it was everywhere, and even Damon tweeted about it. It’s still one of my favourite fan videos ever:
Breathtaking, isn’t it? I remember how season 6 built up quickly with every episode, and the panic that began to slowly creep in when half the season was gone and we hadn’t gotten many answers, and thinking the writers would run out of time.
I remember crying like I’ve never cried before when the show ended. I really don’t think I’ll ever cry like that again for another television show. I find it hard to imagine how that would be possible.
Lost was a show that ended with a simple message: that it’s not about where you end up, but the journey you took to get there. It’s about the connections you make in your life, which is why every character on the island seemed to have been interconnected even before they got on the plane. It’s about who you touch emotionally, and how those experiences and memories are the only things you can take with you to the next life. It’s about constancy. It’s about love and hope.
The sideways world turned out to be a place where everyone went after they died, with no memory of having been on the island at all, but instead working through their issues – the very issues that made each person so emotionally lost when they crashed on that island in the first place – without the island helping or hindering them along the way. When they came to a revelation about who they were or what their purpose was – a revelation that could only come through a connection – they could suddenly see everything, past present and future, clearly. And once they could see clearly, they knew that it was important to help other people come to that clarity, and only then could they move on to the afterlife. Jack was the last one to come on board, because he simply couldn’t step back from the minutiae of his life and see the big picture. But when he did, he saw that, like Dorothy and her ruby slippers, that the answers were there all along. And of all the people to impart the wisdom to him, it was his father:
Some fans have complained that the ending is too spiritual. Yes, the church setting could certainly make one say that, but the church itself is simply a visual cue in this case. It’s not meant to evoke a religion, but to suggest that the scene we are seeing in front of us is spiritual. That we don’t need to look to higher powers to find spirituality – it’s within us, and in the connections that we make. The friendships that everyone had on the island with each other, the connections and relationships they forged with one another, they were spiritual. They might not have seemed it, but in the end, they are what mattered. The church setting simply said, “What you are watching right now? It’s spiritual. Not in a God sense, but in an uplifting of the soul sense.”
Lost was an intensely personal show. In a way, it was like a religion. You can read the bible, or go to church and listen to a church official interpret the bible for you, but in the end, you will still make your own decisions and have your own take on things. You will feel your own personal relationship to God. Religion doesn’t hand you the answers; it gives you the tools with which to find those answers. Life doesn’t give you answers, but if you follow the right path and connect with the right people, you will determine what answers work for you.
Lost didn’t offer up answers, but it gave us the story of people who were similarly seeking answers, and showed us how they went about finding them. We, too, need to look within and outside ourselves to find those answers. Our very discussions on this blog were a way of us looking for those answers within the context of the show. We connected to each other, and were able to find some of the answers we sought just by talking it out with each other.
“The End” was extraordinary. But for me, the real beauty of Lost was the fun in getting there, both in watching the show and discussing it. A year later, Lost is firmly entrenched in my heart as not just a TV show, but an experience I will never forget.
