The Lost Finale; Why it was perfect

So it's finally finished. After 6 seasons of pure bafflement, occasional anger, but undeniable enjoyment, the best television series I've ever had the pleasure to watch has come to an unbelievable, and evidently controversial end.

Since roughly around season 2, Lost has divided people among the people that persevered with it's winding, mystery-filled storyline, and the people who became fed up with it. And finale has divided again the group who stayed loyal to it over the years, into people who thought it was perfect, and people who feel completely cheated by it.

And I can see why, in a way. This season, and indeed the finale, has served very little purpose in actually explaining what the hell has been going on on the island for the past few years. It introduced an alternate time-line that seemed to coincide with last season's detonation of the hydrogen bomb, yet it was turned around in the end to be something completely different; and that something was a purgatory-like life.

This is where, personally, my sympathy ends with the naysayers. Purgatory may seem like a complete cop-out, but for me, nothing fits the entire series better than that. I've seen it thrown around that the last six seasons have been rendered completely inconsequential by this ending, but I think that the exact opposite is true.

Fair enough, towards the end, the show took a hugely spiritual and, dare I say it, religious turn in the last few episodes but once you get past that, the resolution is fantastic. All the original islanders from season 1 were, as we saw through their flashbacks, essentially losers in life, all very flawed, with little to nothing left in life for them. And yet they all end up happily in that church at the end, reunited, ready to move on from life after their respective deaths, whenever they may have been. Why?

This is where the island, and everything that happened on it, fills the gap. Through all their individual actions and sacrifices on the island, they all contributed to keeping evil incarnate (the Smoke Monster/Locke/whoever) on the island and away from the rest of civilisation, and therefore their lives were granted meaning, far more than they could have ever hoped to have achieved had they not ever been to the Island. From the dead bleedin' obvious to the smallest way, all the characters that we saw in the Church scene in the end had found the redemption they were looking for on the island, through the actions and decisions they had all made during their time there.

Which made the last scene all the more tear-inducing. Seeing everyone finally at peace with their lives, happy and ready to move into (what I presume was intended to be) an afterlife, while simultaneously watching Jack die with a smile on his face in the actual time-line, was genuinely the most moving scene I've ever had the pleasure to watch.

People are complaining that no questions were answered whatsoever but that really isn't what the whole thing was about. Sure, just as much as the next Lost viewer, I'd like to know what the hell the deal was with Walt, and why being on the Island causes infertility and birth difficulties, but I think, just like the ending, it's all open to interpretation. This may seem like a cop-out for some, but I think the interpretive ending is the most fitting to a show that has never really given a load away. The mysteries were never really the focus; it was all about these characters making something of themselves.

And this is something that we can all relate to. I realise right about now that I'm sounding hugely fruity about this, but it's true. Seeing all these characters suffering and toiling away on the island, trying to escape, when really it's the only thing that, at the time, is giving their lives any meaning, is a simple yet powerful idea. And the fact that they all realise this at the end has an even bigger impact.

Lost was, is and always will be a spectacular, if flawed, piece of work. I recognise all of its flaws, and I think anyone who has watched it from day one cannot deny them. But for me, and I hope a lot of other Lost fans out there, the finale has tied everything up spectacularly. To people who were searching for answers, I'll say this; when you stayed with the show even after the island disappeared, and when time travel was brought in, did you not think, somewhere along the line, that not every single thing would be answered at all? I'm surprised at the backlash this finale is receiving, considering the people criticising it have been some of the people who have stayed with it through thick and thin. I nearly lost faith in the show when the entire island vanished at the end of the 4th season, but I persevered, and was given something I never expected, but thoroughly enjoyed. I'm shocked people expected logical resolutions to everything after we all accepted that the show went into the supernatural.

That said, people are entitled to their opinions, and the writers have said that the ending wouldn't please everyone, a very shrewd prediction indeed. I can see where the haters are coming from (apart from the tools spouting crap like "Oh my god, so the island was just all of them in purgatory", when it was very clearly explained what was real and what was not), but personally, Lost hit heights it has never scaled before with it's final bow.