Let the Debates Begin

I challenge those of you who liked the Lost finale to make me understand why you liked it.  I thought it was absolutely horrendous, so I will fire the first shot with my commentary below.  Okay, people, show me what you got...

The purpose of my book How Lost Got Lost is clear.  The ending and the final season were both horrendous, in my humble opinion – and in the opinion of many others, I assure you.  It was written to publically call the Lost writers and creators on their mostly irrelevant and extremely lackluster writing in the show’s twilight.

I do not profess to be more intelligent than the people who liked it, quite the contrary, there are some really bright people out there who liked it, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.  But they seem adamant about it, and most don’t even want to discuss it, it seems.

I do say, however, that whatever they gave us, no matter how lame, there are people out there who would have accepted virtually anything as part of the canon, and would have loved it.  The canon, of course, meaning that whatever the Lost writers said was indisputably so.

Let’s just suppose for a minute that they portrayed it all as a dream by Walt, which occurred while he was waiting for his estranged father to pick him up after the death of his mother.  It would all have fit nicely and have been very easy to do – and some would have liked it.  Most of us would not have liked it, but hindsight is 20-20, which leads me to believe that I would have liked that much better than what they actually gave us.  That’s just how bad I think the ending they gave us was.  It was irrelevant, grandiose, and ridiculous.

As proof of this I cite that whatever happened after Desmond pulled the cork and the final battle began did not matter in the least.  So what if Smokeylocke would have defeated Jack and the others?  Once that cork was pulled, Smokeylocke was done forever.  He was now mortal – something that he should have at least considered before entering into this scenario – and had no way to return the cork to its hole and stop what was happening.  Done!

Also, since they were all so wrong about what would happen when that cork was pulled, there is no evidence that if the Island had completed its self-destruction that it would have affected the rest of the world.  First of all, we saw the Island sunk to the bottom of the sea after Jughead exploded, and where they actually were for the final season of Lost is speculative at best.  When they flew the plane off the Island at the end, there is no evidence to assert that they were not in some sideways alternate reality for some spiritual and unexplained reason, and may not have even been able to return to the real world in that plane. For all we know, they could still be circling the heavens looking for a place to land as in the Twilight Zone episode, The Odyssey of Flight 33.

The final season was all about “Get me to the church on time.”  Apparently, this was what they were so obsessed with that everything else was just awful.  And for what?  I know groups of people who have been friends for upwards of 50 years, who do absolutely everything together.  These people on the Island were together less than four years, tops, and were not all of them the best of friends anyway.  So it was mightily presumptuous of the writers to say this was the most important time of their lives – a time incidentally that was fraught with danger, deceit, murder and betrayal.  It was most probably the hairiest time of their lives, much like those who fought wars together - but everyone knows that when wars are over, most return to their lives and the experience fades.  I was in the Viet Nam war for four years and I really don’t talk about it much.  I made some good friends there, but have none of them now that I still even talk to, which is a shame.  I know others who dwell on their time in the war – whatever war that might be – who only hang out with service buddies and that’s all they talk about, but this is not common, and it’s also a bit obsessive and not necessarily healthy – the kind of thing that sometimes results in people in clock-towers with high-powered rifles trying to make it all mean something.   

I therefore contend that to turn Lost into some sort of religious statement was absurd.  Those of you who are religious, I respect that, but am not the least bit religious myself.  I believe that religion causes more problems than it cures. Organized religion seems to be where most of the world’s problems stem from throughout history.  You may argue that the stained-glass window in the church in the finale was nondenominational and therefore represented us all, but I assure you, it did not represent me, and I’m sure many others feel the same.

Lost was a great paranormal adventure story that was spiritual in nature, but not at all religious – and there is a big difference between the two. To make it about religion in the end was an insult to our intelligence and beliefs, even to those of you who enjoyed that ending for whatever reason.

The sideways flashes throughout season six were also irrelevant and grandiose.  I have been corrected by some I’ve discussed this with in forums on the net, that it was not purgatory, but the waiting room.  To this I say whatever.  Mr. Spock said it best when he said, “A difference that makes no difference is no difference…”