A Home On HUH? Island: As It Was In The Beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

There can be only one! HIGHLANDER!!!

Episode recap in 200 words (give me a break, it was movie-length!): Flash-sideways: Jack fixed Locke causing him to remember. Claire had Aaron, causing her and Kate to remember. Charlie sees Claire again causing him to remember more. Sawyer and Juliet meeting help them both remember. They all go to a church. Jack joins, finds his dad’s casket, and remembers. They all reunite and then pass on together. Island: Smocke finds Desmond, forces him to follow to the Light cave, where they meet up with Jack and co. Jack and Smocke lower Desmond into the cave, he unplugs the golden bath, causing the island to shake. Smocke goes off to his boat, Jack follows, they fight. Kate shoots Smocke after he stabs Jack. Jack pushes him off cliff into rocks and returns to cave. Sawyer and Kate take boat to Hydra where they hop aboard ascending plane with Lapidus, Miles, and Richard. Hurley and Ben return with Jack to cave and lower him in. He helps Desmond and plugs the pool again, saving the island. Hurley and Ben pull Des up and Jack gets spit up on the other side. Hurley is the new Jacob and asks Ben to be his #2. Jack stumbles into jungle and closes his eye to die.

Here’s the thing about the last episode. It does not matter whether you liked it, hated it, understood it, watched it. It’s over. The creators are no longer listening to audience thinks (although I am not sure they ever really did). The end is the end. “What happened, happened.” So we just have to take it as it was and figure out what it all means to you.

This is what LOST means to me.

LOVE. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. LOVE cemented these people together in life and in death. LOVE made them better people. LOVE reminded them of their past lives (that’s right, my theory was spot on! Sorry, it’s just that rarely do my LOST theories come to fruition so I like to relish it when they do.). Let’s recap this episode’s remembrances alone.

• Ji-Yeon -> Sun and Jin
• Regaining ability to walk -> Locke
• Shannon -> Sayid
• Sayid -> Shannon
• Aaron -> Kate and Claire
• Claire -> Charlie
• Juliet -> Sawyer
• Sawyer -> Juliet
• Kate + Christian -> Jack

This is my Kissy Face.

The love-birds ones make sense. Sayid loves Shannon, Charlie loves Claire, Jack loves Kate, etcetera, so the (intimate) touches between them spurred their memories. Similarly, Jin and Sun love their daughter Ji-Yeon and Kate and Claire both love Aaron, causing them to remember. As explained before, Jack finally came to love his father, inciting his memories. And the weirdest one, but also a really important one, Locke loved his ability to walk, so being able to do so again allowed him to remember his island life. Everything every character loves was on the island. As Christian said, “The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people.” Also, it was their love for each other that allowed the creation of the flash-sideways world. “This is a place that you all made together so you could find one another,” Christian tells Jack, but more importantly, the audience as well. So it is about LOVE and telling a love story, but it’s also about the power of love (cue Huey Lewis and the News song).

But LOST is also about interconnectedness and collective consciousness. The group needed each other (the ones they LOVED) to remember, and then when they remembered, they realized where they were (this in-between world they had created), and so they gathered at the church to collectively let go (because nothing else matters when you are surrounded by the ones you LOVE). It is important to realize how their lives would overlap no matter what. Some website has a character web that shows all the link between the characters. It is astounding how all of their lives intersected. Remember how exciting that was, first season, to learn about how the characters were connected? Well in the final episode we got to learn what such connections can do. I think connections like those exist in real life as well. Not to such a degree, but, for example, do you ever think of how many people you pass on the highway that you know? I passed my best friend Alexis on I-95 in D.C. last year when neither of us knew the other was in the area. Random overlaps and connections occur like that everyday. Think of those random people you friend on facebook and realize you have a completely obscure mutual friend. We are all connected. And because we are all connected, we can do powerful things together – like form a post-death, pre-afterlife world to reunite.

"This is my punchy face!"

The show is also about letting go. Just like Rose told Jack in this season’s premiere. Maybe the flash-sideways world was just a test for the characters to go through to let go before moving on. Maybe the island was. Either way, letting go is an important part of death in the cannon of LOST, but the show also showed us how important it is in life as well. Holding on can keep us from many great things in life and trap us in unhappiness. Letting go frees us. A lesson I myself am trying to deal with in the wake of graduating from the most magical place on earth.

And, of course, it’s about fate. What we are meant to do. What we can control and what we can’t (and letting go of that which we can’t). Life is made up of what happens to us and what we make happen.

Finally, LOST is about faith. It has been since the beginning. Locke was all about faith when he was on the island. And in the end, Jack’s faith in the island, in fate, in his purpose, led him to sacrifice his life for his friends and the island. And the viewers’ faith in the show and its creators kept us watching for six crazy seasons.

What a bold wardrobe choice for a statue of Jack

Speaking of faith and sacrifice, though, could the Christian imagery be more present? How many times did they focus on that Jesus statue? And Kate’s comment about Christian’s name! For those not as well-versed in the Bible (I am not claiming to be an expert, but my dad is a pastor and I do always rock the Bible category on Super Nintendo Jeopardy), let’s consider the biblical imagery in the episode. For one, Jack was clearly playing a Jesus part in this episode in particular. He was stabbed in the side, just as Jesus was as he hung on the cross. He also went into a cave (tomb) and rose again later. And the reason he descended into the cave was to save his friends. Sounds a lot like a certain Savior I know!

The Richmond Times-Dispatch ran an article in which writer Melissa Ruggieri said the show is about good versus evil. I thoroughly disagree, mostly as a result to my conversation with William Mapother, the actor who played Ethan Rom. It is not a battle of good versus evil. Was MIB really evil? He just wanted to get off the island. He did not really kill many more people than, say, Sayid. Yet we don’t call Sayid evil, he’s the tortured torturer. Everyone on the show has a little bit of good and evil in them. So it becomes more about what actions are good and what actions are evil. Hurley was portrayed as good. He killed some Others, but it was to save his friends. Writers depicted Michael as evil because he killed his friends, but it was to save his son. Do the ends justify the means? To Rose, Hurley is a great hero for saving Bernard’s life, but to Ryan Pryce’s significant other, Hurley is evil for killing his/her loved one. Good and evil are subjective, and therefore, in the end, relative. It’s about good and evil and exploring both possibilities within our own souls.

That is what LOST is to me. Here’s what the finale episode in particular meant to me.

The flash-sideways are, to me, like a dream. They can last as short as five seconds yet feel like an eternity. Juliet experienced her flash-sideways in an instant when she was dying in the hole with Sawyer. Sawyer caught up to her later when he died. But it happened at the same moment because time after death is not as we understand it in life. As Christian said, “There is no now, here.” Time is relative. Time can pass differently after death. I think they are also a way for the audience to understand what the characters’ lives could have been like without the island or the interference from Jacob. A life with free will (as Hurley told Sayid, “That’s your choice.”). The castaways felt trapped by fate and Jacob on the island and before getting there, but in the flash-sideways, they are freed from not only time but also determinism, so they can make their own choices and write their own lives.

Pulled from the Temple of Doom set.

Let’s revisit for a moment Jacob’s wine bottle explanation of the island to Richard: “Think of this wine as what you keep calling hell. There’s many other names for it too: malevolence, evil, darkness. And here it is, swirling around in the bottle, unable to get out because if it did, it would spread. The cork is this island and it’s the only thing keeping the darkness where it belongs.” I found it interesting that the thing keeping the LIGHT in the cave was a cork-like plug. We never got to see what would happen if the light fully escaped, besides sink the island presumably. I am not sure what it all means but I find it very interesting. Could the light be the darkness/malevolence/evil Jacob refers to?

I think I figured out why Ben did not enter the church. Christian said they were in the flash-sideways world to let go and move on. Because of Ben’s past misdeeds, he was not ready to let go and move on. He himself said, “I have some things I still need to work out. I think I’ll stay here a while.” He still felt the guilt of his actions and the blood on his hands – he only got an absolution from one of his victims, not the rest). He actually never remembered being on the island, he just remembered being beat up by Des after frozen-donkey-wheeling off the island. I think he might join the others when he is ready to let go. He might even pass with Alex or someone of equal importance in his life. He probably also did not go with the group because he was always on the outside (actually not fully accepted by the people but also, cinematically, set apart from the group in many shots). Either way, now was not the time for Ben.

CANDY BARS!!!

How awesome was the Sawyer and Juliet scene? “It worked” was referring to a snack machine, not the bomb! (Sometimes it’s not all about the bomb, Julia – sorry, inside joke!). It just reinforces how everyone dissects the meanings behind every little thing on LOST – sometimes too far. I took her statement to mean that the bomb did reset time, but not immediately. I was wrong. It just meant that they got Sawyer’s candy bar out. How completely different.

Along those lines, I think an important part of the show is reflected in Jacob’s line from the penultimate episode: “It’s just a line of chalk in a cave.” I think a lot of the things we viewers scrutinize are important, but a lot of other things are just arbitrary. The characters themselves give some of the things in the show undue importance. For example, I personally think the island drinking ritual is bullshit. Jack and Hurley did not have to drink island water to become like Jacob and guard the island. But in drinking the water, they felt that some profound power had washed over them so they were now prepared to guard the Island Light. I came to this conclusion based on the fact that Jack failed to bless the water for Hurley like Jacob had for him and fake mom Allison Janney had done for Jacob. I think the blessing made them all think it was a legit ceremony but in actuality, it was just a heart-shaped watch (Wizard of Oz). It’s all about mind over matter (a theme explored in season 4 when Hurley was able to make Jacob’s shack disappear).

I'll have a Smocke on the Rocks, please.

I had a hard time deciding what would trigger Jack’s memory. Obviously Kate came to mind, especially after their cliff-side kiss. And she did, but not completely. My friend Pete and I were throwing around all sort of ideas via text about what Jack LOVES (leading people, fixing people, the island now, his dad’s approval, everyone he was always trying to save). We both kind of envisioned him remembering just as he saw everyone gathered together. But I think it is important that it was Christian who triggered his memory. It showed Jack’s growth. He hated his father, resented him for so long. But after everything on and off and then back on the island, Jack came to understand and love his father, as evidenced by his father’s ability to help him remember.

Let’s also consider for a moment Desmond. He’s special, that is undeniable. He was special from the beginning (hello flashes of the future) and remained uniquely special (electromagnetic warrior). His weird actions after being placed in Widmore’s box resulted from his capacity to see the flash-sideways world. He might have misinterpreted the place and his ability to get there, as evidenced in his discussion with Jack, but he still caught a glimpse of it (perhaps he returned from the brink of death in that box?). Widmore called Desmond a “failsafe,” which MIB took to understand that Des would be able to save the island should Jacob’s plans fall through. I see him more as the ultimate facilitator though. He facilitated the island’s survival by pushing the button, he facilitated the crew in reaching the freighter by assisting Charlie in his suicide mission, he facilitated the death of MIB by unplugging the light in the cave, and he facilitated everyone’s remembrances and collective moving on in the flash-sideways. He is special, indeed.

Eye wide closed.

I loved the eye closing ending. I also called it. My friend and fellow watcher Travis claimed that it was going to end with Jack’s eye opening in his next life, but I contended that they would end differently than they began. My brother Seth called the ending cheesy, but I think it was important to have the series come full circle. Vincent’s presence was superfluous, but I know people love dogs.

Did anyone catch the question Jack asked Christian? “Where are we, Dad?” It sounds pretty similar to Charlie’s question in the pilot, “Guys, where are we?” Some people choose to believe that everyone died when Oceanic 815 crashed – especially based on the plane wreckage shots that were paired with the credits. I disagree. Like Jack said, “All of this matters.” And if they had all died on the island, they would not have all interacted and cared about meeting up again in the flash-sideways world. But his question also raises questions about what happens when we die. I am a Christian so I believe that we will all go to heaven or hell after we die. But who is there to say there is not a pit stop on the way? I think it would be pretty cool to land in William and Mary with my family, my sorority sisters, my D2E boys, and everyone at the Leafe (because that has been the most important part of my life thus far) after death in my own flash-sideways before moving on. Maybe when I die I’ll be echoing Christian and Charlie’s questions as well.

In fact, the more I think about the ending, the more I like it. I originally was disappointed with Christian’s explicit explanation of everything but as I discuss the finale with friends and continue to contemplate it myself, I find that I wrapped things up very nicely in my head based on my viewing, but everyone else has interpreted the ending their own way(s). And that is what a show like LOST should do. I was convinced they would end the show with something big happening that would be considered good or bad depending on the viewers’ personal beliefs. But instead they ended the show with all of this stuff going on that can be interpreted in a multitude of different ways. And the meanings behind the show and purposes of the characters change depending on the interpretation. Christian may have spelled out an explanation of a PassingOverLand created by friends to reunite, but his description does not tell the audience anything about what was “real life” and what happened in death or when everyone REALLY died or what the purpose of the island was. That’s for each viewer to figure it out themselves.

TLC warned us about these waterfalls

I know a lot of people are unhappy with a “choose your own adventure” conclusion, but soooo many more would have had a fit if they had closed everything up neatly with an explanation behind every (or not even every, but a lot of) mysteries. I’m going to understand LOST how I want to and I will be able to continue the debate with friends about the ending and the meanings forever.

A lot of fans wanted more answers to the mysteries that kept us watching for six years. But in the end, what does it matter? The show can not answer ALL of those mysteries! And really, who cares why Libby was in the mental hospital or what the Hanso Foundation was up to? It’s not about polar bears or hieroglyphics. It’s about Jack, Kate, Desmond, Ben, Sayid, Sun, Juliet. It’s about love, fate, faith, connectedness. It’s not about answering the mysteries. Those were just to get you to keep watching so they could show you so much more. My brother and his friends have likened the debate over who liked the ending and who did not to the Man of Science and Man of Faith opposition LOST formerly focused on. The Men of Faith loved the ending while the Men of Science are unfulfilled. I consider myself both though. I researched time travel and calculated those numbers every which way to find meaning in them, but I also was attached to the characters. And when I see what the characters did, it didn’t matter to me what the island did. In the long run, LOST challenged my ideas about what the world is capable of, but I still do not think a cave can turn a man into Smoke. I do, however, believe a group of people can impact each other so profoundly that they can change the rules of nature. For the record, however, I will always wonder about whose eye was in Jacob’s shack.

Beyond what the actual plot of the show represents, LOST means so much more. It has been my passion, as nerdy and pathetic as that might sound. It has taught me about quantum physics and doomsday equations and has inspired me to research Egyptian mythology and philosophers. But most importantly, and part of why I think it is such a great show, it has challenged my views on the world and what is possible. Both in nature and of people. What will one do in extenuating circumstances? What might I personally do in such an event? What am I capable of? Along with that, what is the world capable of? What are a group of people capable of together? How much power does LOVE have? In the end (and that’s exactly where we are), it is just a show. But for me it has also been a passion, an inspiration, a devotion, and, perhaps most importantly, a topic on conversation. I have made the most random friends because of LOST and have formed closer bonds with friends and family during weekly viewing sessions or over long post-episode G-Chat recaps. So, to the creators, writers, producers, directors, actors, fellow enthusiasts, etcetera, thank you.

And Behind Door Number One... A NEW BRIGHT LIGHT!

Well, folks, it’s been confusing, it’s been sad, it’s been funny, it’s been heart-wrenching, it’s been crazy, it’s been real, it’s been unbelievable, it’s been hard, it’s been great, it’s been inspiring, it’s been kick-ass, it’s been exciting, it’s been boring, it’s been confusing (did I already say that?), and for me, it’s been totally worth it. And so has this blog. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Almost as much as I will miss the show, I will miss hearing all of your theories and having devoted readers run up to me at the Leafe telling me they read my latest post.  So, to my readers and my friends, thank YOU.

See ya in another life, brotha! (Like maybe in my W&M flash-sideways world).

Namaste!

Cliffside kiss.