LOST: The End - Part One
Part One: JACK.
What more can I possibly say about my Love for this man? I can’t even form a coherent sentence when my sister asks me what we should cook for dinner tonight, but I’m supposed to sit here and relay all of the emotions that he has bridged inside of me, and every time I do, I CRACK. I SHATTER. I don’t know what to do, because he was the Reason I even continued to watch this show once I saw the Pilot, and he’s the Reason why the ending was so beautiful.
He’s a part of me. He just is. He’s this living, breathing corner of my soul and as he lied there on the jungle floor, the stinging twinge of death so near, that part of my soul reeked with sadness, but then there was a rousing verve of PEACE, unadulterated PEACE. He found peace, for the FIRST time his life and I cried like a newborn baby at the sight of it. I love him SO much, and he did it. What he wanted to do, he did it and he died for it. I can’t be angry or sad about that at all.
The Island - ‘You don’t get to DIE ALONE’
His moments on the Island in this very last episode were as they always were, a man who has the weight of the world hanging from each shoulder and is relentless in carrying it to the finish-line. He just kicked ass. The entire episode. Anyone who thinks otherwise, what Finale were you watching?
A good friend of mine brought something to my attention that I never thought about: What did Jack staying on the Island REALLY serve in the end? Why couldn’t he let the Island sink and leave? For me, the last image of LOST was always set, and I don’t think the reason that Jack stayed on the Island is all that elusive. For me, Jack played the role as the One to die because he had to rebalance the scales of the Island, to bring about order, because obviously killing Flocke wasn’t the conclusive end, Jack actually salvaging the Island himself…that was the End, the Purpose.
Desmond’s failsafe didn’t cause the minimal case of damages to the Island (that’s what a failsafe is supposed to be, a back-up that doesn’t harm anything its not supposed to), it nearly crumbled the Island in half. Jack going back into the Light, alone, without a crutch, without a hand to hold, that’s truly HEROIC. Could any one of the Candidates have done what Jack just did? Did any one of them truly even want to? Nope. It was Jack. He stepped up to protect the Island when Jacob asked someone to, and when he saw that killing the Smoke Monster wasn’t going to cut it, he finally saw that only he could FIX it. It HAD to be him. That was his Greatness.
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Now that I have all the pieces, I see that Jack’s purpose wasn’t to be Jacob’s replacement, because can you imagine Jack living in the foot of the statue of Anubis, sitting around on an Island for centuries on end, waiting for some action? He would create some trouble of his very own, just out of boredom itself. Jack didn’t need to be anyone’s successor to be successful and important and purposeful, all he needed was the guts, the courage and the drive that he’s had from birth. That’s the end I saw.
He gave the new Jacob, Hurley, something to protect in the first place, as Flocke almost succeeded in destroying it. I think the act of sacrificing yourself to rescue something so that another can protect it is just as noble and selfless as the protective acts that follow the initial sacrifice. That’s what Jack did and that’s what Hurley never wanted him to do. He knew that he was going to die, and his happiness, his peace, resided in the fact that the Island got to see another day, even if he didn’t.
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Okay, this will be too hard to write about, because no more than eight months prior to the actual event, I dreamt about it. I was in the heart of the jungle, sitting in a puddle of mud on the ground as the rain blanketed everything in its path, and he lay cradled in my arms. I don’t know why I was there, but I knew that he needed me, so it didn’t matter. He was trembling and I simply brought him closer, the only warmth I felt in response was the blood gushing from the fatal wound on the lower left side of his torso, as his eyes struggled to stay open, determined to focus on my face, drenched from the rain and the unyielding flow of tears. I closed my eyes, laid my cheek upon his head and I rocked back and forth, grasping for every part of him I could get my hands on. After awhile, I felt his chest collapse for the last time, and I knew in that moment that he was gone. That’s when I woke up.
I relayed the description in vivid detail to my mother, who replied, “That has to be worst nightmare, ever”, but that’s the thing. It was a dream to me, because no matter how upset and devastated I was as I held him in my arms, as he struggled to breathe, he kept whispering, "It's okay, I'm fine." THAT made it a dream. A dream that is so much better than him living another tragic existence.
After the images of Jack stumbling into that bamboo field, to die…alone but happily, as he watched his friends fly away, safely, it was all worth it. I have this running theory that Jack was experiencing the love and comfort of all of his friends, of his father, as he died, and the one person that gave him the most peace, the most serenity was Kate. He felt her halo everywhere around him. So powerful.
When she took his hand and led him to the church pew, Jack stumbled to his resting place in the bamboo field, when he and Kate sat down, Jack fell to the ground, when Kate intertwined their fingers, Jack took his own hand that covered his wound, and when Kate smiled at him, Jack saw the plane take off in that same moment, and while it killed me to know that he died there alone, he wasn’t going to be alone for long. The moments are synchronized to perfection that it’s impossible to disconnect the two. It’s ONE moment, and it will FOREVER haunt me! Forever!
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I am a Jack fan for the ages, and his death not only shook me to the core of my very being, it made me happier than I’ve ever been. I feel like my subconscious, through my dream, prepared me for Jack’s death a heck of a lot more than anything ever could have, because the dream was so cathartic for me, a way to relay all the hurt and pain I would feel at seeing Jack die right in front of me, because when he actually did, I knew how to deal. I was fine. He was fine.
The Afterlife - ‘Where we going?’...‘Lets go find out’
I’m just going to dive into the pivotal aspects of Jack in the Afterlife that he never even knew existed.
I have to address the David Issue. David was not real. I wanted to call FOUL on this one so badly, but I can’t. My Jack love refuses to allow me to, because while David wasn’t real in corporeal meaning, he was real to Jack and helped him through the healing process of all the emotional scars that Christian left behind in his complicated wake, and I can’t be any more grateful to David than I already am.
When Jack touched the coffin, he didn’t just see his true love, Kate, he saw EVERYONE: Locke, Sawyer, Sayid, Hurley, Charlie, Claire, Sun, Jin, Boone, Shannon, Claire, Rose. It was just so incredible that Jack would have multiple flash events, one with Locke, with Kate and with his father’s coffin. His conversion was the most drastic and the most compelling, because it was all-inclusive and sets the stage for what Jack would feel when reunited with each and every one of them.
In desperate need of someone to comfort him as he trembles from the powerful, emotional flood that was his final Flash, it was to my ultimate satisfaction and completion to see Christian show up to explain to his child that he’s dead. The way that Jack breaks down at the news, I died. Men of the World: Matthew Fox gives you permission to cry, to be emotional, to look amazing while doing it, and to care less about what people may or may not think. Wow.
The way that Jack is already reaching for his father as Christian walks over to him. I just can’t even…The “I love you Dad” BROKE ME INTO LITTLE EMO PIECES. This was what the six-season buildup amounted to, and it was so satisfying. The tension between these two melted into putty when it all came down to it. They’re together again, that’s all that matters, and bringing his son home is all that Christian wants. This scene was the epithet of all of the emotions I felt during the last moments of this show.
When you really think about it, at the bare bones of the show, the most important facets to the story were: Jack, Locke, Kate and Christian. Locke presented Jack with the necessary tools to achieve his prophesied destiny on the Island; Kate gave Jack support, loyalty and unconditional love, that was hard, but incredibly satisfying as she waited her entire life to see him again. Christian just gave Jack all the approval, warmth and love that a once distant, emotionally-stunted, ineffectually-loving father possibly could, all in one embrace and a single conversation. These three people, Kate, Locke and Christian, have shaped Jack’s life in very different ways, but also provided him with everything he needed that brought him to the end-road.
I WILL MISS HIM SO DAMN MUCH!!! (*WEEPS*)
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Next up: PART TWO - JACK and KATE