24 May 2010

Final thoughts on LOST

I’ve become convinced now that last night’s series finale of LOST will leave many people a wondering just what it all meant -especially the “sideways-verse.”

It was never real, and only a creation of a dying Jack.

For me, Jack created the sideways universe in the seconds it took him to die. With what ever mysterious powers he was given when Jacob gave Jack the keys to the Island, I think he used that to bring everyone who survived Oceanic 815 together so all of them could leave this mortal coil whole and not the flawed creatures they were when they crashed on the Island in 2004. But in creating this sideways universe, Jack forgot to take care of himself, which was why he could never quite put all of the coincidences together.

The clue to all of this lies with Christian Shepard. He states that “you made this place so you could find each other," independent of the time at which they died, and move on to "the next phase" together, as in that place time had no meaning -i.e. the sideways universe. So Jack died in 2007, passing on the exact spot he woke up on after the crash (and who could not shed a tear as Vincent came by to make sure he did not die alone?). But before he did, he made sure that everyone -no matter when and where they died (because thanks to Hurley, who was now protector of the Island, is told by Ben that he was a “great number one” while Hurley says Ben was a “great number two.” How long that was is never given, but based on Jacob’s tenure on the Island, it could be hundreds of years)- could be together.

To me, there are not plot holes involving the real and the sideways world. Simple fact is that everything that happened, well...happened. The only thing unreal, was the sideways universe. LOST may have baited and switched a little bit, but at the end of the day, the series was about the people, and not about the plot. All the unanswered questions about the Island, about what it is, what it was, really was unimportant, in a sense it was the classic Hitchcockian McGuffian.

But, as always, its what we leave behind that is the most important. Who we leave, how we lived our lives was more important than any of the Island’s secrets.

1 comment:

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I really enjoyed the end of lost but feel cheated by the writer's a bit.