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Lost Recap: Wow.

Posted May 24, 2010 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated May 24, 2010 at 01:33 PM

You know it’s going to be a good meeting when it kicks off (hahaha) with a giant Rice Krispie treat molded to look like a four-toed foot.

We met to dissect the “Lost” finale over lunch today. Many of us have picked apart the episodes via e-mail for years now, so it was nice to hash it out in person. The verdict? Mostly favorable with a fair amount of confusion, which is fitting for this show.

I liked it, and the more I think it over, the more I like it. Would I have enjoyed getting more answers? Of course – like, why couldn’t women carry babies to term on the island (electromagnetism?), what really was Widmore’s point, did the Smoke Monster originate with the MIB or pre-date him, and were there other reasons to bring Locke’s body back to the island or was that an elaborate MIB plan? And that’s just the beginning of the loose ends.

But I think an episode that methodically went through and answered each of these questions wouldn’t have been satisfying in the end. Damon and Carlton have said all along that the show is about the characters, and they rewarded viewers with a chance to see their favorite characters reunited and redeemed. We didn’t really need a Q&A with Pierre Chang or a long monologue from Smokey about how this all came to be. They were also faithful to their “rule:” what happened, happened. It wasn’t all a dream. They weren’t all dead. OK, they’re all dead now, but they lived their lives on the island and some lived a long time (liked the exchange between Hurley and Ben about them being a good No. 1 and No. 2, respectively).

My fear from the start of Season 6 was that somehow the Sideways timeline would override Island Time and invalidate everything that happened there. So I’m happy with purgatory. Faraday told Desmond during the flash-sideways that the sideways life wasn’t meant to be. The Losties knew something was up – they exchanged a lot of weird looks in the mirror, got mysterious wounds and finally, had glimpses of their island lives. They had to understand and embrace where they came from before they could move on into the light (which I’m guessing is the same light that Jack protected). It took Jack a little longer to come around than the others – typical Jack—but when he did, we were rewarded with a really nice reunion in Eloise’s Church of Multiple Religions.

Some comments from our meeting – the Juliet-Sawyer vending machine chemistry was really sweet. Shannon was a nice surprise, but how could Sayid wind up with her when everything seemed to point to Nadia as his One True Love (possible explanation: Shannon was the one on-island who orchestrated Sayid’s redemption). Is Michael’s soul trapped on the island in the whispers? Where the heck is Walt, besides the actor being too old to play the young boy any more (maybe he is not dead yet or maybe he did not play as much of a role in Jack’s transformation). Ben’s decision to sit outside of the church and stay in purgatory a bit longer is also interesting – he did have a lot to atone for, after all.

Some thought the island plot was a little unsatisfactory (except for Jack’s superpunch). I wondered about the weather – it cleared up immediately once MIB was dead, which I’m sure is deliberate but I don’t know if I understand why. The whole put-a-cork-in-it resolution is a little hokey but hey, it gave us the chance for a beautiful visual tie-in to the Season 1 finale where Locke and Jack peer into the hatch. This is a show that rewards its faithful (or should I say rabid) viewers with recurring themes and lines.

And the end? Seeing Jack lie down in the jungle with Vincent cuddled up next to him? It was a great reminder that he wasn’t left alone as we watched his eye close.