The Finale to End All Finales
Alright, so it's a day later, and I still hardly know where to begin. My mind is still rather consumed by it. I'm still planning to rewatch it and reabsorb it, as I find it nearly impossible to try and explain what happened. I'm pretty sure I get it, but not enough to articulate it very well. To start, I'll tell you about party I had and show you some pictures of my decor! I was lame enough to forget to any pictures of anyone who came or any of our reactions or anything, so anyways. Then I'll try and mash out the finale. And then probably have an art post coming shortly.
NOTE: If for some insane reason you have not yet seen the finale, do not proceed.
PARTY!
^ Season 1-2 banner. The shine from the flash (which I tried to NOT let wreck the picture...) is conveniently right across Rousseau's season 1 face up there on the left.
^ Season 2-3 banner. Managed to not have the flash on this one!
^ That is the season 3-4 banner (the flash kind messed up the middle there... but after the Sayid/Gault/Des pic, it's Sawyer and Kate in bed from "Eggtown". Then on the bottom row, after Frank, it's the freighter blowing up and then Ben turning the wheel.)
^ Season 5 banner. :D
^ Season 6 banner, minus images from the finale (I'm going to make a finale-included version soon). The flash on this one happens overtop of Ben's face from the "I'll have you" Ben/Ilana scene in "Dr. Linus" and under him is the ULTRA-ADORABLE Libby/Hurley finally getting their picnic (!!!) scene in the alt!verse.
Before you ask, I did not buy those online, or anywhere for that matter, I made them. Yes, made them.
I happen to work at a design/print facility currently (which unfortunately is shutting down as of the end of this month) and since our workload has been winding down, there's been time (and allowance) for personal projects, so I was granted permission to print off a pile of posters for my party. So I went wild with the creation and printed them all off, and they looked pretty frickin' stellar, if I do say so myself. So much so that one guest is commissioning me to make her a smaller, compiled version of all the posters that she is going to have custom framed!
Pretty well all the food was theme-related (most of which I managed to not take pictures of also *facepalm*). There was fruit (fresh from the Island! - pineapples, strawberries, kiwi, bananas, apples), veggies (Sun had a garden, if even all she actually grew were herbs - carrots, cukes, tomatoes), chicken "direct" from Mr. Cluck's, shredded boar meat (aka shredded pork roast), fish biscuits (those. were. evil. to. make.) and ice-box cake that was Dharma-shaped (pictured below). Wine, tropical/fruity punch and oceanic water for drinks!
The BEFORE of the Dharma cake (tin foil template):
The AFTER (in which I labored extensively to create a stencil, and it didn't work as well as I'd hoped, but well enough):
Other decorations...
^ My collection of Lost magazine from the years.
^ Dark Territory!! You had to walk through Smokey to get to the bathroom (which had the most-excellent QUARANTINE sign on it - pictured below).
^ Close up... from left to right: a creepy, subtle Flocke, dynamite, an angry/dying Hatch clock, and the Black Rock, with subtle Numbers...
^ We have this whiteboard we normally stick notes and funny quotes on. We filled it to the brim with Lost quotes. :D
^ Poster jacked from my Lost Magazines...
^ Yet another quote banner I created. The words/quotes on either side of the logo were supposed to be subtle, and they ended up being TOO subtle. Mostly iconic quotes. ("Guys, where are we?", "If we can't live together, we're going to die alone.", etc).
^ A print I bought from an Expo recently - the artist is Jason Palmer (google/Devianart him - he's ridiculously AMAZING) - and the Shannon and Eko figurines atop our DVDs. And the POLAR BEAR, hunkered down under a palm tree.
^ Blast door!
^ No Lost party could be complete without a welcoming banner!
^ Our door, depicting a small blast door map, the hatch plans, and DHARMA. :D
^ During the Jimmy Kimmel special. Atop the TV is a home-made hatch clock (non-functioning - just cardboard) and a hand-painted wee Oceanic 815.
^ All the color pics on the left are from my Lost Magazines. Audrey Hepburn has nothing to do with Lost, but is normally part of our decor and didn't come down, lol. Then a banner I made (IT ONLY ENDS ONCE!) plus various random Lost related things I have collected from various sources and not made myself (Oceanic letter, Rousseau's map, Sawyer's letter, Oceanic boarding pass, Sun's English-aid notes for Jin and an Australian Walkabout brochure).
Bottom left is splayed luggage... on the table are the Hurley, Kate and Locke figurines, Kate's toy plane, Kate's handcuffs, Dharma labelled food and Apollo bars. :D
Lastly, pictures in our hallway that I actually printed off for the premiere and we left up. A smattering of memorable/iconic moments.
------
Ok. So my initial gut reaction was that I loved it, and that hasn't really changed since I've digested it a little more. Did they, in the end, answer everything I wanted them to? No. Did give me Libby's backstory or why Walt is the way he is and what he can do, or why Eloise knows everything, or even the Man in Black's freaking name? No. And yet, I don't mind somehow. I thought I was going to be pissed. I thought if they didn't answer a whole pile of burning questions by the end of the season, I'd be upset and disappointed. I knew there was so much that was going to be left unanswered, but I was expecting a certain amount of resolution, mythology-wise.
Yet here's the thing: From the beginning, this show has been, at it's core, about the characters. It's also been so much about mystery and time travel and polar bears and Dharma and the Others and the Smoke Monster, and, and and - but it's core, it's the characters. Darlton said the finale was about the characters, that it was returning to it's season 1 roots where it was truly, deeply about the characters. That was exactly what the finale delivered. It gave us the resolution to the alt!verse - which was awesome - and it was SO emotionally beautiful, it was exciting, it was intriguing, it was closure and it was symmetrical.
Having the show end one Jack's eye closing was just so perfect in every way, I can barely even describe how awesome it feels. I've felt for the better half of this season that Jack was going to die in the finale, so I wasn't terribly surprised by that, but it certainly was no less emotional. In fact, the only thing that stopped me from basically bawling my eyes out nearly every few minutes (Aaron's alt!verse birth, Charlie/Claire/Aaron reunion, Jack dying, Kate and Jack saying goodbye/I Love You, Jack realizing he's dead, the entire scene in the church, Sawyer and Juliet's reunion, Shannon and Sayid's gorgeous and completely unexpected reunion, Hurley saying goodbye to Jack and accepting his new position on the island, asking Ben to be his number two, Ben apologizing to Locke, Locke walking, Locke forgiving Ben - ok, everything, alright!?) was the fact that I was in a room full of people, most of which I don't know well enough to cry at TV in front of! LOL.
When Christian first began to explain things to Jack, my face was scrunched up in concentration trying to decipher what in the world was happening. "Wait... they're dead? They can't be all dead, they said repeatedly that it wasn't purgatory and they weren't all dead... wait... okay, so both worlds are real... and they are dead but not... all at the same time... but they're all here... and... wait, so this is... okay it's... it's..." Along those lines. My face was starting to hurt and then finally something Christian said clicked, and I latched on, and had the light bulb and was all "ooooooohhhhhh!!!". Like I said way above somewhere, I get it, I think, but I struggle to articulate it. Basically, the alt!verse is limbo. When they die, they go there, and then they learn to find themselves and remember "the most important time of their life", which was with each other, and then once they all remember and learn to let go of that world - limbo - as well as "the real world", then they all "move on" together, to presumably heaven. I think.
And some people haven't moved on to the limbo - Micheal, for example, who was stuck on the island as ghost/a member of the whispers and stuck with his guilt/unfinished business - and some are choosing to stay in limbo a little longer - Faraday (presumably, since Charlotte appeared not to have remembered anything yet) and Ben.
And so in this alt!verse, there is no actual concept of time. So though Shannon and Boone died ages ago, Sun and Jin died recently, Jack died in the finale and we personally don't know when say Kate or Sawyer died (sometime eventually, because everybody dies at some point), whenever in time they died, they came to this point in the limbo/alt!verse to rediscover things and move on to the next level together. They're all connected and interlaced in a way they didn't know or realize until they moved through the alt!verse.
The other thing is that we've known more or less since the beginning that Jack is sort of the most-main-character on the show, and this came to a clear head last night, as it showed that it's in a sense, been kind of all about Jack. Maybe not like entirely about Jack, because obviously all the other characters had their own stories and journeys and such. But Jack in the beginning was sort of a broken man, searching for something. He was obsessed with fixing and saving and became the leader and he savior even though he didn't want it. He slowly grew into the role, he refused destiny, refused fate. He spiralled down, tormented by leaving the island behind when he knew, and Locke had been telling him all along, that they were on the island for a reason and it was important and they needed to be there. So he went back, he moved back, he let things happen more, he used his head, he changed and he finally, finally found what he was looking for. He saved everyone, he fulfilled his destiny, and then... ya. I don't even know if I'm summarizing this very well, but it was just right.
Amazing, amazing closure. I can't stop thinking about it and need to rewatch it very badly. I have never loved a show like this before, never obsessed and theorized, lost sleep over, spent hours anazlyzing, listened to podcasts for, subscribed to a certain magazine fore. I currently doubt anything like it will come along, ever. Maybe something I might love as much, or nearly as much, maybe something that will inspire the same level of obsession or frantic theorizing, whatever. I doubt it. I feel like Lost was special enough that it won't happen again, and I'm really proud to have found it when I did (mid-season 2) and converted a handful of Losties along the way.
Thank you, so much Damon and Carlton, J.J., Jack Bender, all the writers, all the crew, all the creators, Michael Giacchino, all the actors, all the extras, everyone. Thank you for this sincerely amazing show, that has basically consumed my life for the past several years. Thank you for creating something so epic and wonderful, nothing will ever match it. Thank you for the perfect finale, for answering what you did. Thank you for all of it, for the amazing, infuriating, special, annoying, magical, fantastic, mysterious, wonderful, fun ride that was Lost.
~Red
P.S. I will post art soon/eventually. I do have a bunch of V icons, Lost icons and more. They're coming!
P.P.S. Post-rewatch: I bawled. I still LOVE it.
NOTE: If for some insane reason you have not yet seen the finale, do not proceed.
PARTY!
^ Season 1-2 banner. The shine from the flash (which I tried to NOT let wreck the picture...) is conveniently right across Rousseau's season 1 face up there on the left.
^ Season 2-3 banner. Managed to not have the flash on this one!
^ That is the season 3-4 banner (the flash kind messed up the middle there... but after the Sayid/Gault/Des pic, it's Sawyer and Kate in bed from "Eggtown". Then on the bottom row, after Frank, it's the freighter blowing up and then Ben turning the wheel.)
^ Season 5 banner. :D
^ Season 6 banner, minus images from the finale (I'm going to make a finale-included version soon). The flash on this one happens overtop of Ben's face from the "I'll have you" Ben/Ilana scene in "Dr. Linus" and under him is the ULTRA-ADORABLE Libby/Hurley finally getting their picnic (!!!) scene in the alt!verse.
Before you ask, I did not buy those online, or anywhere for that matter, I made them. Yes, made them.
I happen to work at a design/print facility currently (which unfortunately is shutting down as of the end of this month) and since our workload has been winding down, there's been time (and allowance) for personal projects, so I was granted permission to print off a pile of posters for my party. So I went wild with the creation and printed them all off, and they looked pretty frickin' stellar, if I do say so myself. So much so that one guest is commissioning me to make her a smaller, compiled version of all the posters that she is going to have custom framed!
Pretty well all the food was theme-related (most of which I managed to not take pictures of also *facepalm*). There was fruit (fresh from the Island! - pineapples, strawberries, kiwi, bananas, apples), veggies (Sun had a garden, if even all she actually grew were herbs - carrots, cukes, tomatoes), chicken "direct" from Mr. Cluck's, shredded boar meat (aka shredded pork roast), fish biscuits (those. were. evil. to. make.) and ice-box cake that was Dharma-shaped (pictured below). Wine, tropical/fruity punch and oceanic water for drinks!
The BEFORE of the Dharma cake (tin foil template):
The AFTER (in which I labored extensively to create a stencil, and it didn't work as well as I'd hoped, but well enough):
Other decorations...
^ My collection of Lost magazine from the years.
^ Dark Territory!! You had to walk through Smokey to get to the bathroom (which had the most-excellent QUARANTINE sign on it - pictured below).
^ Close up... from left to right: a creepy, subtle Flocke, dynamite, an angry/dying Hatch clock, and the Black Rock, with subtle Numbers...
^ We have this whiteboard we normally stick notes and funny quotes on. We filled it to the brim with Lost quotes. :D
^ Poster jacked from my Lost Magazines...
^ Yet another quote banner I created. The words/quotes on either side of the logo were supposed to be subtle, and they ended up being TOO subtle. Mostly iconic quotes. ("Guys, where are we?", "If we can't live together, we're going to die alone.", etc).
^ A print I bought from an Expo recently - the artist is Jason Palmer (google/Devianart him - he's ridiculously AMAZING) - and the Shannon and Eko figurines atop our DVDs. And the POLAR BEAR, hunkered down under a palm tree.
^ Blast door!
^ No Lost party could be complete without a welcoming banner!
^ Our door, depicting a small blast door map, the hatch plans, and DHARMA. :D
^ During the Jimmy Kimmel special. Atop the TV is a home-made hatch clock (non-functioning - just cardboard) and a hand-painted wee Oceanic 815.
^ All the color pics on the left are from my Lost Magazines. Audrey Hepburn has nothing to do with Lost, but is normally part of our decor and didn't come down, lol. Then a banner I made (IT ONLY ENDS ONCE!) plus various random Lost related things I have collected from various sources and not made myself (Oceanic letter, Rousseau's map, Sawyer's letter, Oceanic boarding pass, Sun's English-aid notes for Jin and an Australian Walkabout brochure).
Bottom left is splayed luggage... on the table are the Hurley, Kate and Locke figurines, Kate's toy plane, Kate's handcuffs, Dharma labelled food and Apollo bars. :D
Lastly, pictures in our hallway that I actually printed off for the premiere and we left up. A smattering of memorable/iconic moments.
------
Ok. So my initial gut reaction was that I loved it, and that hasn't really changed since I've digested it a little more. Did they, in the end, answer everything I wanted them to? No. Did give me Libby's backstory or why Walt is the way he is and what he can do, or why Eloise knows everything, or even the Man in Black's freaking name? No. And yet, I don't mind somehow. I thought I was going to be pissed. I thought if they didn't answer a whole pile of burning questions by the end of the season, I'd be upset and disappointed. I knew there was so much that was going to be left unanswered, but I was expecting a certain amount of resolution, mythology-wise.
Yet here's the thing: From the beginning, this show has been, at it's core, about the characters. It's also been so much about mystery and time travel and polar bears and Dharma and the Others and the Smoke Monster, and, and and - but it's core, it's the characters. Darlton said the finale was about the characters, that it was returning to it's season 1 roots where it was truly, deeply about the characters. That was exactly what the finale delivered. It gave us the resolution to the alt!verse - which was awesome - and it was SO emotionally beautiful, it was exciting, it was intriguing, it was closure and it was symmetrical.
Having the show end one Jack's eye closing was just so perfect in every way, I can barely even describe how awesome it feels. I've felt for the better half of this season that Jack was going to die in the finale, so I wasn't terribly surprised by that, but it certainly was no less emotional. In fact, the only thing that stopped me from basically bawling my eyes out nearly every few minutes (Aaron's alt!verse birth, Charlie/Claire/Aaron reunion, Jack dying, Kate and Jack saying goodbye/I Love You, Jack realizing he's dead, the entire scene in the church, Sawyer and Juliet's reunion, Shannon and Sayid's gorgeous and completely unexpected reunion, Hurley saying goodbye to Jack and accepting his new position on the island, asking Ben to be his number two, Ben apologizing to Locke, Locke walking, Locke forgiving Ben - ok, everything, alright!?) was the fact that I was in a room full of people, most of which I don't know well enough to cry at TV in front of! LOL.
When Christian first began to explain things to Jack, my face was scrunched up in concentration trying to decipher what in the world was happening. "Wait... they're dead? They can't be all dead, they said repeatedly that it wasn't purgatory and they weren't all dead... wait... okay, so both worlds are real... and they are dead but not... all at the same time... but they're all here... and... wait, so this is... okay it's... it's..." Along those lines. My face was starting to hurt and then finally something Christian said clicked, and I latched on, and had the light bulb and was all "ooooooohhhhhh!!!". Like I said way above somewhere, I get it, I think, but I struggle to articulate it. Basically, the alt!verse is limbo. When they die, they go there, and then they learn to find themselves and remember "the most important time of their life", which was with each other, and then once they all remember and learn to let go of that world - limbo - as well as "the real world", then they all "move on" together, to presumably heaven. I think.
And some people haven't moved on to the limbo - Micheal, for example, who was stuck on the island as ghost/a member of the whispers and stuck with his guilt/unfinished business - and some are choosing to stay in limbo a little longer - Faraday (presumably, since Charlotte appeared not to have remembered anything yet) and Ben.
And so in this alt!verse, there is no actual concept of time. So though Shannon and Boone died ages ago, Sun and Jin died recently, Jack died in the finale and we personally don't know when say Kate or Sawyer died (sometime eventually, because everybody dies at some point), whenever in time they died, they came to this point in the limbo/alt!verse to rediscover things and move on to the next level together. They're all connected and interlaced in a way they didn't know or realize until they moved through the alt!verse.
The other thing is that we've known more or less since the beginning that Jack is sort of the most-main-character on the show, and this came to a clear head last night, as it showed that it's in a sense, been kind of all about Jack. Maybe not like entirely about Jack, because obviously all the other characters had their own stories and journeys and such. But Jack in the beginning was sort of a broken man, searching for something. He was obsessed with fixing and saving and became the leader and he savior even though he didn't want it. He slowly grew into the role, he refused destiny, refused fate. He spiralled down, tormented by leaving the island behind when he knew, and Locke had been telling him all along, that they were on the island for a reason and it was important and they needed to be there. So he went back, he moved back, he let things happen more, he used his head, he changed and he finally, finally found what he was looking for. He saved everyone, he fulfilled his destiny, and then... ya. I don't even know if I'm summarizing this very well, but it was just right.
Amazing, amazing closure. I can't stop thinking about it and need to rewatch it very badly. I have never loved a show like this before, never obsessed and theorized, lost sleep over, spent hours anazlyzing, listened to podcasts for, subscribed to a certain magazine fore. I currently doubt anything like it will come along, ever. Maybe something I might love as much, or nearly as much, maybe something that will inspire the same level of obsession or frantic theorizing, whatever. I doubt it. I feel like Lost was special enough that it won't happen again, and I'm really proud to have found it when I did (mid-season 2) and converted a handful of Losties along the way.
Thank you, so much Damon and Carlton, J.J., Jack Bender, all the writers, all the crew, all the creators, Michael Giacchino, all the actors, all the extras, everyone. Thank you for this sincerely amazing show, that has basically consumed my life for the past several years. Thank you for creating something so epic and wonderful, nothing will ever match it. Thank you for the perfect finale, for answering what you did. Thank you for all of it, for the amazing, infuriating, special, annoying, magical, fantastic, mysterious, wonderful, fun ride that was Lost.
~Red
P.S. I will post art soon/eventually. I do have a bunch of V icons, Lost icons and more. They're coming!
P.P.S. Post-rewatch: I bawled. I still LOVE it.