LOST season 6

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One more question (before the next one :p):

It would be interesting to look at Locke’s memory flash. It was only of things PRE-strangulation I assume. No MiB stuff.

VC
 
For me, the ending only makes sense in the context of all that went before.
“… It only ends once” - our lives only end once.

That is precisely why it is so very important that I walk my path (no matter how afraid I am),
that I tell the people I love that I do love them,
that I accept that we all are flawed and at times take the wrong step but we can find our way back to redemption especially if we help each other

That I live the life I am supposed to live.

It is a wonderfully complex show that invites us to think about what we are doing with our lives.
 
ive been getting sick to my stomach with the criticism of the finale and misinterpretations by angry fans, so here is what i think…

The island story ends with 3 things happening:

-Jack dies
  • Hurley and Ben take over as the new regime of island protectors and presumably send Desmond back to penny
  • the losties on the plane safely go home and live their lives.
This is how the story ends with our characters alive.

The island was real, all of the events on the island were real, but what happens in between jacks eye closing and the final scene in the Church is up to interpretation.

at some point all of our characters died, and they ended up in this flash sideways (hurley and ben could have died decades later, but there is no time in eternity) which is basically purgatory with a twist. the characters aren’t ready to move on to Heaven yet, they need to learn to let go of all the baggage they had in their lives and move on together like the family they were on the island. they needed to be brought together so they could move on together.

i loved this finale and it was a fitting end to the greatest tv show ever.
so many scenes almost had me in tears, especially the scene when locke forgives ben. I also loved how Hurley, the character with the purest heart, was the one that took over the job as the islands protector, with ben taking the role richard used to have. Jack fulfilled his destiny and died a heroes death and it was fitting that he died in the same place he woke up on the island.
 
Verbum_Caro said:
Hmmmm. The scuttlebutt around the internet is that the island was a kind of purgatory. Really? I don’t understand how they came up with that. That seems like an obvious misreading.

Here’s my take, and I think it answers some of the questions posed above.

Everything in Alt-Universe was some sort of after-life. Or rather, after-life and before-nextlife.

None of that was “real”. It was entirely constructed by the personalities that were present there. It was orchestrated (by them) to get them together, to remember the most important part of their lives and the most important people in their lives.

Everyone in Alt-U was dead. But they all died at different times. Charlie drowned. Ana Lucia got shot. Jack died in the Bamboo forest after saving the island. We don’t know how or when Hurley or Kate or Sawyer etc. died. But, after they all died they were in Alt-U.

All the stuff on the island was real life. A crazy one. The atomic bomb that went off didn’t have anything to do with Alt-U. What it did do was stop the time jumps in the real life island. It didn’t kill Juliet, she just jumped back to the present along with everyone else, but she was still broken from the fall, and she died.

I think it is pretty easy to understand when you look at Hurley and Ben. On island, Hurley became the Protector, and Ben his helper. They lived a long, and I’m sure surreal life on that crazy island. In Alt-U at the Church Hurley told Ben he was a good number 2. They remembered a life we aren’t privy to.

That sound about right?
VC

(ps. maybe some in alt-U had already gone on ahead, and just came back to “Help” the others – like Jack’s dad may have. Maybe Rousseau? Maybe Ben’s daughter? Or. . . maybe those two aren’t ready to go on, just like Ben wasn’t or Faraday wasn’t, or Miles, etc.)
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Hey VC,

That about sums it up; pretty good analysis.

Thought the final was really good. After seeing the final, I am not certain what the point was of the Jacob/MIB storyline. Was it just a sidestory?

My beef with the final was the lame stain glassed window in the church; the one that had the taoism symbol, islamic symbol, christian symbol, the cross and the dharma wheel. Seems to imply everyone is destined for heaven regardless of their faith–yet they all meet in a Catholic Church to enter heaven. I know, I know…it is just a tv show but still.

And what was the point of the Church being on top of Eloise Hawking’s lab?
 
DarkNight said:
For me, the ending only makes sense in the context of all that went before.
“… It only ends once” - our lives only end once.

That is precisely why it is so very important that I walk my path (no matter how afraid I am),
that I tell the people I love that I do love them,
that I accept that we all are flawed and at times take the wrong step but we can find our way back to redemption especially if we help each other

That I live the life I am supposed to live.

It is a wonderfully complex show that invites us to think about what we are doing with our lives.
Click to expand...
i think the “it only ends once” thing referred to jacob and mib’s battle with each other, each trying to prove each other wrong about humanity/ jacob trying to protect the island while mib trying to kill jacob so he could leave. and it only ended once with jack kicking mib off of the cliff and putting the plug back on top of the light “restoring balance to the force” in star wars geekdom xD
 
Wow. Great finale, even if it didn’t explain all of the secrets. Overall, and in spite of the ecuministic stained glass windows of the church where they all met at the end, I think that there were some very Catholic themes in the series and in the finale. The idea that they all spend time in purgatory seems to be an underlying theme of the finale. There was some Christian/Catholic symbolism in the 6th season and the finale, particularly Locke’s forgiveness of Ben at the end (which I found to be the most moving scene in the whole series when you consider what Ben did to Locke) and the whole idea that they were in purgatory… I am sad to see the end of this great show.

Ishii
 
ishii said:
Wow. Great finale, even if it didn’t explain all of the secrets. Overall, and in spite of the ecuministic stained glass windows of the church where they all met at the end, I think that there were some very Catholic themes in the series and in the finale. The idea that they all spend time in purgatory seems to be an underlying theme of the finale. There was some Christian/Catholic symbolism in the 6th season and the finale, particularly Locke’s forgiveness of Ben at the end (which I found to be the most moving scene in the whole series when you consider what Ben did to Locke) and the whole idea that they were in purgatory… I am sad to see the end of this great show.

Ishii
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I agree, the stained glass windows and other religious artifacts irked me as a Catholic but i understand what the writers feel they need to do which is to treat all faiths equally 🤷 but I am really happy they went with a purgatory-esque theme that is blatantly Catholic.
 
Other than the fact thaty I felt more answers could/should have been delivered, I was disappointed we didn’t see more old characters. How cool would it have been, in the church at the end, when everyone is seated to have “Farther” Eko come out lead them through the door or something?
 
turtle18 said:
My beef with the final was the lame stain glassed window in the church; the one that had the taoism symbol, islamic symbol, christian symbol, the cross and the dharma wheel. Seems to imply everyone is destined for heaven regardless of their faith–yet they all meet in a Catholic Church to enter heaven. I know, I know…it is just a tv show but still.
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That irked me a bit, too, but, if you think about it, it’s not far off the mark. The Church teaches that those of other faiths may be saved, but if they are, it’s still through the Catholic Church, which is where they all were gathering. 🙂
Bataar said:
Other than the fact thaty I felt more answers could/should have been delivered, I was disappointed we didn’t see more old characters. How cool would it have been, in the church at the end, when everyone is seated to have “Farther” Eko come out lead them through the door or something?
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I had that exact same though about Eko. 😛

All in all, I really enjoyed the finale. It’s interesting that, in the end, the flash-sideways timeline really didn’t have anything at all to do with the mythology of the island. I suppose that’s why, in recent interviews, Lindelof and Cuse were emphasizing that LOST is a character-driven show, not a mythology-driven show. We pretty much got all the answers that we’re going to get as to the mythology of the island prior to the finale.

I knew Jack was going to get his neck cut at some time in the episode. 🙂 Very cool how the last shot echoed the first. I should have seen that coming! :o

VC, I guess we were both right. Both Jack and Hurley were the new Jacob. 😉

The most emotional moments of the episode for me were the reunions when the characters were “awakened” and reunited with LOST loves, particularly with Charlie & Claire and Sawyer & Juliette.

I think it will take me a while to process it all. Time to start with Season 1 and watch it all over again. :o
 
Good call Joe.

1 observation and 2 questions for the thread here:
  1. I don’t think we should call the Alt-U/ Dead-U “purgatory” really. I can understand popular jargon labeling it purgatory . . . but not us! Maybe we ought to call “Rememberatory” because you just have to remember you life and embrace it or something.
  2. What was up with Desmond? Why did Widmore’s electromagnetic bath enable him to be aware of Rememberatory and the Island? Curiously, the Island Desmond didn’t think Rememberatory was Rememberatory but was another real universe.
  3. Who were the skeletons in the Light Cave? Did something like this happen before? Were they guardians? The builders of the plug?
VC

(On second thought my campaign for “Rememberatory” was not prudent. I already hate typing that word. Murkatory? Someone come up with something!
 
Verbum_Caro said:
Good call Joe.

1 observation and 2 questions for the thread here:
  1. I don’t think we should call the Alt-U/ Dead-U “purgatory” really. I can understand popular jargon labeling it purgatory . . . but not us! Maybe we ought to call “Rememberatory” because you just have to remember you life and embrace it or something.
  2. What was up with Desmond? Why did Widmore’s electromagnetic bath enable him to be aware of Rememberatory and the Island? Curiously, the Island Desmond didn’t think Rememberatory was Rememberatory but was another real universe.
  3. Who were the skeletons in the Light Cave? Did something like this happen before? Were they guardians? The builders of the plug?
VC

(On second thought my campaign for “Rememberatory” was not prudent. I already hate typing that word. Murkatory? Someone come up with something!
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Well, its all open to interpretation but this is how I see it:
  1. Purgatory isn’t a theologically fitting term for what we saw in Lost’s sideways reality. Characters continue to sin in “purgatory” until becoming aware that they are dead and then moving on. Sun and Jin have premarital sex. Kate thinks shes innocent of killing her father. Sayid continues to kill people as solutions to his problems. This isn’t how Catholics view purgatory. Purgatory is meant to purify the soul, and this doesn’t really happen in the alt.
  2. Desmond did seem to change dramatically in his behavior after Widmore’s experiments. Perhaps the experiments pushed him close to the brink of death allowing his soul to come to awareness of the afterlife just enough to realize that death was not something to be feared.
  3. The plug did seem like it had been fabricated and was not just some random rock that got wedged in the light stream. I would guess that it was built by the Egyptians who made the ruins on the Island. Perhaps the Island has always capped a stream of exotic matter, but over the millennia it began to spring leaks which manifested themselves as pockets under the Island (where the wells and Dharma stations were built later on). I would surmise that the largest pocket is the heart of the Island. I’m guessing the leaks of exotic matter got worse and worse and began to cause problems for the Egyptian civilization on the Island. Maybe they created the plug to solve the problem. Capping the leak at the heart of the Island caused many deaths and probably killed off most of the civilization. The skeletons are those who died to cap the leak. Despite plugging the leak, enough exotic matter leaks onto the Island to give it the magical properties it has today. It can heal, bring people back from the dead, cause time travel if manipulated, prevent pregnancies from coming to term, and give god-like powers to people who take advantage of it.
 
VC, Not sure if someone answered you about Ben’s awareness but it happened at the school, the second time Desmond showed up while Desmond was beating him up.
 
I am hearing people say over-and-over that the alternate realities were really purgatory for those who had died. Even some Catholic Radio was saying that this morning.

I could not disagree more strongly. Those alternate realities were far from being a place of purifiying. Most of the people in the alternate realities had a happy and improved life. For example: Jack had a son that he was very close to and he seemed to really love being a doctor again. Ben was a teacher, so was Locke, they both appeared quite happy. Purgatory is NOT a happy place, it is a place of purgation, where we are purified before we enter Heaven. I saw NO purifying in those alternate realities.
 
I was somewhat disappointed with the ending, it left too much unanswered about the Island after the whole show was about the mysteriousness of the Island.
 
Maybe I’m off the mark, but the last scene (as the credits were rolling), which showed the wreckage on the island led me to believe that everything we watched was part of their purgation…so-to-speak. The island really had no special energy, etc.
 
I think they are just meaning it’s a place where they are before they move on to… Heaven? Or whatever your beliefs may be?
 
irishpatrick said:
I could not disagree more strongly. Those alternate realities were far from being a place of purifiying. Most of the people in the alternate realities had a happy and improved life. For example: Jack had a son that he was very close to and he seemed to really love being a doctor again. Ben was a teacher, so was Locke, they both appeared quite happy.
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Actually, They all had things to “settle”. Locke was fighting with his wheel chair bound-ness, but wouldn’t let Jack fix it… Jack and his son had to learn to communitcate… Ben wanted to oust the principal…
 
cj,

That last scene was somewhat like a meditative painting. If you are familiar with video games – it was the scenery with the credits. A homage to the island and the plane that brought them there.

It might not have been the most prudent choice of the editors to use that image though – because of the confusion it has created with people thinking that they all died in the plane crash. But, think of it as one image out of hundred they could have picked, or even have shown a montage of (the Statue foot, the temple, the wheel, the hatch, a Mary statute, black rock, etc, etc.)

VC
 
jimmytoes said:
Actually, They all had things to “settle”. Locke was fighting with his wheel chair bound-ness, but wouldn’t let Jack fix it… Jack and his son had to learn to communitcate… Ben wanted to oust the principal…
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So, they all had to “let go” of something? And, maybe also remember something?

The first scene of this season after the Bomb was Rose telling Jack that “it is ok to let go now”. Jack told that to Locke, Locke to Jack, Desmond to Locke – can anyone think of anyone else?

VC
 
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