an awfully big adventure
I feel like somebody i love just died. And then they came back to life, punched me in the gut, and then died again.
AND YEAH I AM GONNA BE MELODRAMATIC ABOUT THIS SHIT SO SUCK IT UP. I GET EMOTIONAL WHEN STORIES I LOVE END, OKAY. I surprisingly didn't cry during the episode as much as i expected to (well, with A COUPLE MAJOR EXCEPTIONS that i will get to later), and it ended, and i was processing it, and then like ten minutes later i sat down to start typing up thoughts and suddenly i hit a brick wall of FEELINGS and started sobbing like a motherfucker. That only partially had anything to do with what even happened in the episode! That was mostly just because it was OVER! Okay and also what happened in the episode. And also everything in the universe, i don't even know, DEEP INNER SADNESS.
ugh, i'm not lying, i felt rather physically ill all night (plus the 24 hours afterward?!?!?). This shit was stressful. GETTIN' ALL PSYCHOSOMATIC UP IN THIS BITCH.
I am so fragile right now, just remembering anything starts up the waterworks all over again.
PULL IT TOGETHER, MAN
So... Lost. What do i even say here? The final new episode ever and i am too gibbery and emotional to string words together in any meaningful way. Ultimately it didn't turn out the way i was expecting at all, but then again i had no idea what to expect. I'm really happy with it, though. I had to sit with it for a while, because i wasn't immediately blown away, i didn't know what to think. But now that i've considered it i do honestly love it. Annnnnnd then i start crying again. FUCK
When Christian was there and then was like OH HEY YOU'RE DEAD i did have a moment of severe panic thinking "..........oh shit, fuck, NOW EVERYBODY'S GONNA LAUGH AT YOU, LOST." And i mean, okay. The alternate universe being death or limbo or purgatory or whatever was hard to swallow at first, because it's an enormous shift in your perception of the entire season. But, in the end, how much was anyone truly invested in the alternate universe? Not very much, right? It's not like it ever seemed "real" to begin with; we always knew it would blow itself up somehow. Of all the ways for that to have been resolved, with everyone remembering THEIR ENTIRE LIVES in a place where they already had different lives, death was really the only way to go in order to give the sideways world meaning and resonance, instead of just being some pointless dalliance into showing "what if" scenarios. It didn't negate anything else on the show; everything on the island was still totally real, and the alternate universe wasn't even really an epilogue or anything, it was just... that instant when Jack died, not existing in any specific moment in time because everyone else had lived out their lives, too. Oh god, it's actually really sad and pretty. :*( Sometime last year i had been wondering why An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was referenced on the show (Locke flipped through it in the hatch) if they didn't all die in the plane crash, but now its relevance is completely clear.
GOD, JACK IS DEAD. THAT'S SO FREAKING SAD. It's weird, i used to vaguely wonder a lot about how Lost would end, and i had always kind of believed Jack would die-- that is, until very recently, when i could picture almost every single character dying but i didn't really expect Jack to. Which doesn't make any sense! But hey. I'm dumb. REALLY what i'm surprised about is that nobody else died. Well, they did, eventually, but i mean in the events of getting off the island. I EXPECTED A BLOODBATH. I was really worried when that tree fell on Ben, because that would have been a punk way to go out, BY ACCIDENT, but luckily he got out of it. I had, however, really truly believed Sawyer and Ben would die; they're just two characters you'd kind of expect to meet a violent and/or badass end. I was so glad that Richard was still alive after last week's unresolved SMOKE ATTACK. And now he ages, AAAHHHHHHHHH, AWESOME. Miles finding that grey hair on him, that was so fantastic. He finally gets to live a real life instead of eternally atoning for his sins and existing purely by the whims of Jacob and MIB. And WTF LAPIDUS! I really believed he was dead after the sub explosion, i mean the dude got knocked unconscious in a sinking submarine and nobody went back to get him, and this late in the game i wasn't expecting a minor character to get a surprise reprieve like that. Shocking! As much as i loved Frank, though, he got so useless this season that i wasn't as excited finding out he was alive as i might have felt last season or something. But i'm sure everyone else was ecstatic about it, and i did totally yell "WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!" Oh, Lapidus.
HURLEY BECAME THE ISLAND PROTECTOR (AND BEN HIS RICHARD!!!) WTF SO AWESOME. SO, SO AWESOME. Oh jeeeeesus, the moment when Hurley realized Jack was saying he wasn't going to live, and Jack tapping him as the new island protector... when Hurley cries, i cry. IT'S TOO SAD. IT'S LIKE KICKING A PUPPY. I was a little distracted because Jack didn't perform any magical Latin incantation on the water so i wasn't sure if it actually worked, but, uh, i guess so! I guess it can probably work however you want it to! I loved that it was from a crappy beat-up water bottle instead of a metal cup the way every other one of those ceremonies has been performed. And okay, you wanna hear something really nerdy?! I keep thinking of Harry Potter what with the death and afterlife business, but the thing that i am thinking of most is that Jack and Hurley = Harry and Neville. HUGO REYES IS NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM. THINK ABOUT IT. Ahhhhh i just really love it. I loved Hurley's transformation into a leader and spiritual guide this season while Jack let go, and for that to pay off in such a big way is the fucking raddest. Holy shit dudes, Jack is the fixer and Hugo is the protector. JACK IS THE FIXER. NOT THE PROTECTOR. NOT THE LEADER. THE FIXER. ;______;
Oh my gosh Hugo and Ben. I pretty much love that the most. Ben obviously wouldn't have anything to leave the island for, and Hurley is the most ideally suited to the job. And they can just chill with Bernard and Rose and Vincent, play some golf, do some light reading, weave. Gone are the days when Hurley threw a Hot Pocket at Ben's head! BFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, the Jack vs. Locke deathmatch: GREATEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. EVER. EVEREVEREVEREVER. I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THIS SHOW COULD DO EPIC SHIT LIKE THAT. Fucking goddamn hell. The wide shot of them facing off on the cliff in the pouring rain with the waves crashing below: SO GODDAMN UNBELIEVABLY HARDCORE. And then really truly trying to kill each other, and holy shit this show has had a lot of fistfights and action scenes but that was the first time it ever felt like a movie. There was such an absolute sense of "THIS IS IT.", i was sitting there in awe. Delighted awe. And then Jack got stabbed and it was horrible, and he got the cut on his neck which didn't even register with me immediately but my brother caught it right away and said "the cut on his neck!" which led to me realizing that OH HEY, ALTERNA-JACK'S APPENDIX SCAR: NOT REALLY AN APPENDIX SCAR. WTF SO AWESOME. And then! THEN! KATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! KATE SHOT LOCKE LIKE A FUCKING BADASS!!!!! "I SAVED YOU A BULLET." AJDFSJASHGFHJG KAAAAAAAAAATE!!!!!!!!! FUCK YES. And then Jack pushed him off the cliff (the same exact way Fake Locke kicked Jacob into the fire), and holy goddamn fucking shitballs, that was the most mind-blowingly badass scene i could ever hope to see. I was kind of sad that the rain had stopped when the show came back from commercial, because the rain added like 1000000% badassery.
Jack and Kate. ;________________; Their goodbye is the scene i cried the most at, because... you guys. YOU GUYS. If i have to explain why then you probably have not read anything i have ever written about this show. KISSING. "I LOVE YOU"S. KATE. SAID. "I LOVE YOU." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had only dared to dream that she would say it in the end; i mean logically it had to happen because Kate saying "i love you" is the one glaring omission of the endless relationship tomfoolery, but i was still utterly overjoyed that she really did say it to Jack, and he said it back, and they were both so earnest, just their voices and their faces and i even love that Jack didn't say "I love you, too," it was just "I love you," full stop. It was all really beautifully done. And OH GOD IT WAS THE LAST TIME THEY EVER SAW EACH OTHER IN THEIR LIVES, CRYING FOREVER. I... i wanted them to be together for all time. But Jack died and Kate left, and that's all they ever got. I'm trying to think of a way to say "i am crying so fucking hard right now" which doesn't make me sound like the lamest person in existence, but, well, there you go. I'm the lamest person in existence. I loved their meeting in the sideways world, and Kate making Jack remember, and gravitating toward each other in the church after they'd reunited with everyone else, and separating themselves from the group so it was just the two of them sitting together and holding hands, and they were both so happy (finally, finally happy) and... i can't take this, it's so bittersweet and it makes me so sad I CANNOT DEAL.
AHDGKJHSGFKJLHSGFLHJK
Desmoooooooond. DESMOND LIVED! With everyone touting Desmond as a weapon and battling for custody of him, and also the sheer amount of time on Lost i have spent worrying about him dying, and also GOING DOWN INTO THE LIGHT CAVE OF DEATH WHICH HE DID NOT EXPECT TO LIVE THROUGH, i was obviously pretty concerned that he would die. But Jack saved him so he could be with Penny and Charlie! And once again Jack told him "see you in another life, brother," AT THE MOST APPROPRIATE TIME OF ALL THE TIMES. ;____; The Jack/Desmond hug at the end was so pretty. AW, HEROES.
So when Widmore blasted Desmond with electromagnetism, Desmond saw the sideways world, which means he ACTUALLY got a glimpse of the afterlife. Was he simultaneously both dead and alive when he was enclosed in that box, then? Was he Schrödinger's cat?
The glowing pool in the light cave was some slightly dorky CG, but on the whole i didn't think the light cave looked nearly as lame as it could have. All the red light was neat and pretty crazy-looking. So, boy, Jacob's cork analogy was a bit more on-the-nose than i had assumed. Like... there really was a cork, pretty much. LOL. I liked that what Juliet said about the vending machine is exactly what they did with the island: "Unplug it, and then plug it back in again." They just did a hard reboot! So i guess if they had left it uncorked, the island would have gone down, and then the rest of the world? Or would the rest of the world only have been fucked if Smokey had gotten off the island? I'm inclined to think it would have been fucked either way. I looooooved when the island started going to hell and Fake Locke was making fun of Jack, until Jack beat him up and discovered that he could finally be hurt. UH OH, RAD THINGS TO COME.
The moment when the Jack/Sawyer/Kate/Hurley and Locke/Ben/Desmond teams met up was way cool because it felt like shit was about to start getting real. And then Kate immediately grabbed Sawyer's gun and started blasting round after round at Locke and OH MAN, KATE AWESOMELY SHOOTING GUNS: IT WAS THE BEST. Kaaaaaaaaaaaate. And then Jack telling Locke he was going to kill him, and "How do you plan to do that?" "It's a surprise." SO BADASS. HOW DID JACK GET SO BADASS?
OH HEY REMEMBER WHEN JULIET SHOWED UP AND WAS JACK'S EX-WIFE AND THE MOTHER OF HIS KID? YEAH. Oh my gosh Jack and Juliet. Calling each other "Doctor"!! TOTALLY ADORABLE AND GREAT. Here is the thing about Jack/Juliet: i always liked them together, but i could never really ship them because i felt like even within the show, their relationship wasn't presented or intended as the be-all end-all. I never felt like they loved each other, they just had a good partnership (much like Sawyer/Kate). PLUS it came at absolutely the worst possible time on Lost when my interest was at its lowest point and i, uh, didn't really like anything. Looking back, though, i appreciate them a lot more. They're so evenly matched and it makes me sad that they coulda been old marrieds, but they got left so unresolved, and that's why they existed the way they did in the sideways world. ♥ Anyway the more i've thought about it over time, the more i really like the Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Juliet love square, not because of stupid jealousy bullshit and all that, but because Jack/Juliet and Sawyer/Kate are the ships that logically should have worked because, hey, matching doctors and matching criminals! It all makes sense! Yet the ships that are actually ~meant to be~ are Jack/Kate and Sawyer/Juliet, because of shared history and mutual understanding and looking out for each other and also the heart wants what it wants. It's just a lot of nice symmetry going on.
And speaking of Sawyer/Juliet: THEIR MEETING SCENE WAS THE PRETTIEST AND HAPPIEST OF THEM ALL. They were so amazingly happy! Going dutch for coffee!! (ahhhhh crying again.) PRETTY PRETTY KISSING, SO PRETTY. Considering that when Sawyer/Juliet was first introduced i was kind of put off because a) boring domestic life is boring! and b) how were we supposed to be invested in them with only a single episode of relationship backstory?!, i am still a little shocked by how much i totally ended up rooting for them.
The concert did not go down at all the way i was expecting! I thought for sure that would be where absolutely everyone met up and remembered each other, and certainly a lot happened there, but not everything. Despite my generally negative feelings about Charlie/Claire in the long run, they were really cute. And Kate remembering by delivering Aaron! AW, KATE. I really like that that was her most important thing, and obviously we don't know what happened when they all got back to the real world but presumably Kate and Claire and Aaron all stayed together in some capacity, as evidenced by Kate saying she would help Claire re-learn how to be a mother. KATE/CLAIRE MY TWO MOMS! (they would have been sisters-in-law if Jack and Kate had gotten married.) (oh hey i'll just be over here crying some more.)
SIDEWAYS WORLD QUESTION: where in the heck did David come from, anyway? I guess he just existed for Jack to work through his daddy issues; it's interesting that Jack went back to the concert to pick up David but he wasn't there, like, now that Jack was so close to the end, David's purpose had been fulfilled and he just ceased to exist. BUT I REALLY LOVED JACK AND DAVID. :*( (how about this: David is Vincent. TA DAAAAAAA! all dogs go to heaven.)
Locke telling Jack that he hoped he would find someone to help him remember was so sad, because Jack was still so confused. It's so fitting that Jack was the person who took the longest to come around. And oh man Locke and Ben's final scene together, SO SAD. It was hard to even remember that that was finally the real Locke, the one who got murdered by Ben. I noticed that he had his scar, and then i was like "wait a minute, he hasn't always had his scar in the sideways world, has he???" and i went back and checked just to make sure, but no, he hadn't. He had his scar back just for that final scene. REAL LOCKE. ;____;
SUN AND JIN. Both of them remembering when they saw the ultrasound and being SO HAPPY. SO HAPPY! EVERYONE WAS SO HAPPY. Juliet getting to give good baby news! Hurley's smile when he met up with Charlie at the motel! (and LOL FOREVER at Hurley shooting him with the tranquilizer dart.) SAYID AND SHANNON?!? WHAT THE HEY! That one felt a little weird to me, uh, maybe because i never bought Sayid/Shannon, but also after Shannon died and Sayid was pissed for a little while, there was really no reference to it ever again. I always thought Sayid loved Nadia most. :( But it was still super surprising and exciting to see Shannon again. HEY BOONE HEY!
Daniel! (lol concert pianist!) So even though Daniel already knew Charlotte, he still didn't remember anything else about the real world and he and Charlotte didn't experience any flashes, so i guess they weren't ready yet. And Desmond kind of assured Eloise that Daniel wouldn't be leaving. Which, HEY, that's why Eloise seemed all-knowing! She of course knows where she is, but she's staying to experience the relationship with her son (and Charles!) that she never had in the real world. It also explains why Bernard seemed conscious of what was going on, although it's curious that Bernard and Rose would wait for everyone else in the sideways world when they were so fulfilled in life and had totally removed themselves from getting involved with the rest of the castaways; they seem like they would be the first people to move on. But i guess it also makes sense that they would have stayed to help the others find their way if they needed it. I loved when Jimmy Kimmel showed the clip of the first scene of the season, with Rose telling Jack "you can let go now." HOLY FUCKING CRAP. Insane.
The opening scenes were so good, while following the coffin throughout. IT ALL MAKES SENSE. (i mean that in a thematic way! probably not in a "lol answers" way.) I loved Jack standing in the creek, studying his surroundings; i know he told Sawyer that he didn't feel any different (and Hurley seemed to indicate the same when he became the protector), but i wonder if he did? He certainly seemed to have some kind of understanding, of himself or the island or what was going to happen, i don't know. But he's also been approaching that understanding and acceptance all season, or really for the whole series, if you want to get technical about it. And i like that Kate almost went to talk to him but left him alone instead, i think partly because she had no way of connecting to him in that moment, because what he was going through was so separate from her. BUT ULTIMATELY IT WASN'T, and in the end almost everything was about Jack and Kate together. They killed the smoke monster together, they moved on in the afterlife together. WHAT THE FUCK, OTP.
CRYING.
The more i sit with it the more i am totally satisfied with everything that happened. It all still feels really surreal, both the way things went down and just the fact that it's over, and i am obviously emotionally traumatized, but... Lost!!!!!! I couldn't even tell you what didn't get answered, that's how much i don't freaking care. All that mattered was the characters. And FEELINGS.
JAAAAACK. I talked about it earlier in the season, but i genuinely love Jack so much now, i don't even know. I guess it really came full circle, because he started out my favorite, and it turns out that he pretty much ended up my favorite too. Suddenly i can't believe i ever doubted him, that's how great he got. The final scene was just bonkers amazing. I should have been able to see a mirror of the pilot's opening scene coming a mile away (he was even injured on the opposite side of his body!), and yet i didn't really think to predict that. But once it started happening it was absolutely perfect; the plane flying overhead, VINCENT, how at peace he was, his eye closing, and OH GOD, JACK. HE DIED. IT MAKES ME SO SAD. I didn't think a series finale death would be able to affect me much, because it's not like that absence is going to be felt. The show is over! I'm missing the whole thing, not just a single character! But there's such a weight to death, and even though the character has ceased to exist, the feeling persists outside of the context it was created in. Which is all to say: i'm fucking crying right now.
In retrospect i also really should have been able to see the "you're dead" ending to the alternate universe coming, ESPECIALLY in light of the Ben scenes as he sat outside (which: awww, Ben! SADFACE. he's staying to have happy family time with Rousseau and Alex, right?!), and the fact that Sun and Jin actually flashed to their deaths, and everybody being so happy and okay once they remembered their lives (instead of, i dunno, irreparably traumatized), and all the talk of being "ready"-- everything that happened really telegraphed that conclusion, and yet up until the scene with Christian i was still like "WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN???!!!!!!!" lol, me. I catch on pretty quick! Not even to mention that with all the season one mirroring going on, it should have always been blatantly obvious that the show would end with the exact reverse of the opening scene. It was so unmistakably perfect, and yet they still managed to pull it off when i was too caught up in everything else to expect it.
I knew Jack would never leave the island again, but the people who ended up staying vs. those who ended up leaving were not the ones i would have guessed. And i... I REALLY WANTED JACK AND KATE TO STAY TOGETHER. I REALLY DID. OH GOD. THEIR MOST LOVING SCENE WAS A FUCKING FOREVER GOODBYE. I HATE YOOOOOOOOU. Except then i remember them in the church and it makes me so so happy because THEY'RE SO HAPPY and calm and whole, and every one of their scenes was perfect, so i don't know what to feel. One moment i'm indescribably delighted and accepting of it all, and then the next moment i'm SHAKING AND CRYING.
JACK AND KATE BEING HAPPY, WHEN DOES THAT EVER HAPPEN??!? WHEN THEY'RE DEAD, IS THE ANSWER. OH JESUS CHRIST, IT'S LIKE I'M BEING STABBED IN THE HEART REPEATEDLY
I HAVE USED UP ALL THE TEARS
It's so cool that the flashbacks/flash forwards, in addition to becoming a structural basis for time travel within the show (WHICH I STILL FREAKING LOVE), were also ultimately a long-hand version of everyone's flashes in the afterlife... except the ending flashes were all of things that happened on the island, rather than off of it. So the whole show is basically some wonky chopped-up account of every character's most significant memories of their lives, all jumbled out of order because in the end it all exists simultaneously, or with no real basis in linear time at all. The narrative structure is a mirror of the subject matter itself. *___*
Oh my gosh though, even Juliet's "it worked." When Miles heard that i had just assumed (as i suppose we were meant to assume) it was referring to the nuke resetting to a different timeline. But it was actually just about the vending machine?!?! I do like that that was what she flashed to at the moment of her death, because it brings into focus how relative time really is. The moment in the sideways world that she got a glimpse of as she died was the moment she remembered her life, or the moment she remembered her life was the moment she died. It all happened at once, both backward and forward.
Since now we know for sure that detonating the nuke didn't actually reset history like Daniel thought it would (and alterna-Daniel's scene with Desmond was totally misleading about that!), it's kind of depressing to think "WELL WHY DID THEY EVEN DO IT? WHY DID JULIET HAVE TO DIE?!" But it still transported them all back to the present, where they had to be in order to defeat Smokey and name a new island protector and, you know, save the world, so it wasn't all for nothing. Whew. ...Although i wonder if maybe the nuke actually did work like that, it just wasn't an alternate universe we should ever get to see because those aren't the characters we know? (in the way we THOUGHT the sideways world was following totally different people.) OKAY that's probably taking it too far, but i'm just saying! Maybe there really was an alternate universe in addition to the afterlife that we were actually seeing! Not that that's even something that should exist, since the entire point of the show was for these specific characters to resolve the issues in their lives that were basically present from birth, and there aren't and shouldn't be any takebacks or resets for that. "Whatever happened, happened." THEN AGAIN, everything always hinged so completely on the choices they made, and alternate universes are always about the endless possible paths that could exist if just one tiny choice was different. So basically... Lost AUs should both exist and not exist. Good to know my feelings on that.
When Jack pointed Sawyer toward the vending machine, i kind of expected a warning that it's flaky and might not give you your Apollo bar. Even in the afterlife that is such a bad vending machine!
I was so glad to hear the climbing song again! That was like my first favorite piece of Lost music, but it only ever appeared really early on and then maybe once or twice in later seasons. So cool that it got used again, bringing back the old days. GIACCHINOOOOOOOOO. I'd never really listened to any of the Lost score by itself before, but a lot of people have been posting songs on tumblr lately, and suddenly just listening to all those recognizable music cues on their own is like an EXPLOSION OF FEELINGS. I don't even know how it becomes so powerful like that, it's crazy.
Whatever happens when they go into the light, i'd like to imagine that they get reincarnated for LOST 2! I can't wait! But if we're talking about imaginary Lost spinoffs, i've also had fun picturing Lost: The Next Generation starring Aaron, Ji Yeon, Charlie, Clementine, and David (as somebody's imaginary friend, IDK. ...oh hey, Dave the imaginary friend!) And then there is the Sawyer and Miles cop show, and now i think a Ben and Hurley Odd Couple wouldn't be too far off the mark either. :D
Jack and Fake Locke looking down the waterfall as Desmond was below them in the cave! So much like the hatch, and yet so different. And Fake Locke being like "hey buddy just like old times!" and Jack being like "fuck you asshole, you're not Locke." SO GREAT. "You disrespect his memory by wearing his face, but you're nothing like him." ♥___♥
The "added half hour" was really just for commercials, wasn't it? GOOD LORD, so many commercials. IT WAS AWFUL. I mean i didn't mind looking at the clock and being like "aaah, still got an hour and a half left! sweet!", but it's a little harder to be happy about that when all that extra time was just shitty commercials, sitting there wishing for the show to be back uninterrupted for more than single scene intervals. :(
I found out like a week or two ago that there would never be a time-displaced outrigger gun battle, which i had really immensely been looking forward to and still believed we'd get. I was sad. :( Obviously it's not vitally important, and they definitely had to choose a resolution and go with it without getting caught up in those kinds of details, but MAN, all the times they were out in boats, i just really wanted that loop to be closed once and for all. To see one last straggling remnant of the time travel catch up with them would have been such an awesomely twisty little detail.
"Christian Shephard? Seriously?" lllllllooooooolllllllllllllll
Jack and Sawyer handshake goodbye. ;____; COME ON, YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST DONE A BRO HUG. I still feel unfulfilled in wanting them to have been better friends than they were, but i do like when people actually call Sawyer "James"-- they only do that when they really care!
Here's a doofy thing i love: vehicular continuity. Hurley always has his ugly yellow Hummer, and Jack always has his dumpy brown truck. (i love that he's a fancy doctor and should be driving a BMW or some shit, but nope, just that old truck.) I DON'T KNOW WHY I EVEN NOTICE THAT ENOUGH TO FIND IT ENDEARING, BUT I DO.
Other continuity that i like: the fact that they're all wearing exactly the same clothes they've been wearing since last season. I mean, granted, this season only took place over the course of, what, a week? But even last season, underneath their Dharma jumpsuits Jack was wearing that blue t-shirt and Kate that grey t-shirt and it's like, aw, you guys. You need a shower.
Several human skeletons down in the light cave?!?! :O ALRIGHT, WHO UNPLUGGED THE ISLAND THIS TIME
That gif of Jack with a lightsaber is fucking awesome, and especially funny considering that at that part a guy i was watching with said "I have the high ground!" HAHAHAAAAAAA, OH STAR WARS + LOST. :D :D :D ("i've got a bad feeling about this.")
I didn't think anything of the final images of the wreckage on the beach, i got that it was just a goodbye over the end credits. But the [incorrect] interpretation that they had all actually died in the crash, revealed via a deserted landscape, silent except for waves crashing on the shore... is totally mind-blowingly creepy. :O
I liked when Kate didn't hesitate to jump off the cliff to get to the boat (SHE HAD NOTHING LEFT TO BE AFRAID OF), but i was thinking, man, cutting it a little close to the rocks there! Also, Kate and Sawyer are apparently Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. "The fall will probably kill ya!"
Hey remember that time in season 3 when Kate and Sawyer were forced to break rocks on Hydra island in order to build a runway? Which they ended up using to escape the island for the last time?
Hey remember that time Jack put Hurley in charge of rationing the food from the hatch, and Hurley took the job even though he didn't know how to do it? JACK AND HUGOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Even in the pilot Hurley was the guy who helped Jack out with the marshal! I can't get over it, Hurley as island protector was one of my favorite surprises. I know Jack taking the job in the previous episode felt too obvious, but it still seemed to me like it was going to be him in the end. I love that they messed with my expectations like that. And the Jack/Hurley hug in the church, OH GOD, too much adorableness, my heart can't take it. HUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THERE WERE SO MANY EXCELLENT HUGS. We're not strangers, we're family. :*)
"I've missed you so much." ;_______; It makes me SO SAD to imagine Kate going back and living the whole rest of her life without Jack. I'm so glad she found purpose with Claire and Aaron, but true loves separated by death is friggin tragic, okay. And that is essentially every single relationship on Lost, save for Desmond/Penny and Rose/Bernard. :( Everything about that Jack/Kate meeting scene, though. akjgdhldshfgjkdh I went back and rewatched it, and Kate is so happy to see him, and the way Jack says "and that's how i know you.", he's so emotional even when he has no real conscious idea of what's going on. Aaaauuugggghhhhh it's so amazing.
KATE KILLED SMOKEY. Jack finished him off, but he wouldn't have been able to do that without Kate. YOU GUYS. WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE HOW HAPPY I AM THAT KATE GOT TO DO SOMETHING TOTALLY BADASS. And the fact that it was Jack and Kate together, totally being a fucking superhero team or some shit i don't even know, TOGETHER THEY DEFEAT EVIL, AKJFGSKGHLKHGKJG. IT WAS THE GREATEST EVER.
JACK: There's something that you need to know. If we survive this, if we survive tonight-- we're going to have a Locke problem. And I have to know that you've got my back.
KATE: I've got your back.
1x24 - Exodus, Part 2
♥_____♥
THANKS FOR COMPLETELY VALIDATING MY SIX YEARS OF LOVE FOR THEM, SHOW.
I actually feel bad that i wasn't immediately quite on board with the way it ended (I WAS IN SHOCK, OKAY, IT WAS HARD TO COPE WITH ANYTHING AT THAT POINT) but now i just love it all, and i'm really hesitant to read other people's reactions because i don't want anyone to be disappointed with it. (of course, i also don't want to accept that it's over, sooo. yeah.) Admittedly, a bright light through the doors of a church is kind of hokey, but then you think, well, faith is one of the biggest Lost things, and then again you think of all those other times when an important event was accompanied by a blinding light. It's so hard to consider any ending that would have been appropriate for this show, when all of it has been about the journey rather than the destination, but i think that was a pretty fitting way to go out. You can seriously look at season one and hold up the themes carried all the way through to the end. And even the episode itself, for a series finale, it still felt like an episode of the show. It was constructed with a tone that was in keeping with everything that came before, without any really clunky "HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED" moments. The scene with Christian got rather explainy, but even that seems like it was more for Jack's benefit, since he was always the most stubborn and skeptical of them all, constantly the one who had to struggle the most.
Even though most everything i said about the alternate universe earlier this season has been negated by discovering what it really was, i do like that my wish for the mostly well-adjusted nature of the alterna-characters to merge with the history of the real characters still pretty much came true. They all sort of worked through what they needed to, and then got their real memories and relationships back and became truly complete. It's such a shockingly happy ending! Even this season when i could see it going in the direction of "IT'S ABOUT LOVE AND TOGETHERNESS," somehow it still surprises me that it was so sentimental, since i used to think it would all end in abject misery. What it really comes down to is, even in the face of all the bizarre, unexplained shit these characters experienced, the pursuit of love, purpose, and fulfillment was the most enduring and elusive mystery to them-- and i think that's really important to keep in mind if you went into this assuming that the literal mysteries of the island are what this show is about. Those mysteries are there to emphasize that everything is a puzzle on both a personal and a universal level, and while there may not be knowable answers to giant mythological quandaries, the human heart and mind and soul are still capable of finding their own contentment. One of those pesky repeated lines-- my favorite instance of which is in the episode Lighthouse, as said by Kate to Jack-- is "I hope you find what you're looking for." I'm glad they finally did, and i'm glad we got to see it.
Ultimately i'm still too emotional to truly consider the episode in a critical light, but that's how i've always reacted to Lost anyway, and the fact that it made me as emotional as it did is really the best ending i could have asked for. The entire show pretty much always boiled down to FEELINGS OVERLOAD for me, whether it was freaking out about insane shit or being sad about the characters or just being full of love for total weirdness and insane prettiness. I can't even quite explain why it's a show i've cared so much about, and i certainly can't explain why Jack/Kate is my favorite relationship of all (...okay that's not entirely true. plane crash apocalypse partners is why). All i know is that i want to care too much and be completely engrossed by a work of fiction; it's a feeling that i'm always chasing, and whenever i get it, well, then i'd say a story has done its job.
Once the episode ended, after a half hour of being overwhelmed with terrible sadness, i felt grateful for the Jimmy Kimmel special. It made me so much more calm about things, seeing everybody talk about shit like a damn Survivor reunion show. As soon as Matthew Fox came out i was like "HE'S ALIVE!! THANK GOODNESS" and then Jimmy said "i'm so happy to see you alive!" ......................sob.
"Who's the least professional?" "Josh Holloway. ... Is he here?" "No, he's not here tonight." "Josh Holloway."
The alternate endings were awesome (the Sopranos one!), as was the montage of kissing and punching. Yessssssss. Oh my gosh, though, Emilie being the only girl there: lol Lost is such a sausage fest. :P
I wasn't at all interested in the recap show because, ugh, recap show, i never watch those, and i'm pretty sure by now i am fairly well-acquainted with everything that has happened on Lost. Plus the fact that they included interviews was pretty dorky (i haaaaaate talking head interviews, they are almost always unbearably lame), but i watched it anyway and in the end it was alright and did kind of help me settle in for the finale. I really liked the Hurley segment about him being the ambassador of fun times. Hurleeeeeeeey. Also, hearing Naveen Andrews' actual speaking voice never stops being entirely bizarre.
I hadn't intended to be radio silent for days after the finale, but i've been so overwhelmed with emotion it took me a while to feel like i'd said everything i wanted to say. I still probably didn't. Honestly, i didn't think i would even be able to come up with any substantial commentary for it other than just pointing at the episode and saying "YEAH." but, uh, a billion words later i guess i pulled through. This post actually represents my processing of the episode from about an hour after it ended all the way through today. (maybe i should have time-stamped the paragraphs!) Now if only i could stop crying all the damn time! It is becoming quite inconvenient. I had been looking forward to being relieved of anxiety once it was all over, but now that it's over i have so many emotions and i'm so preoccupied with how epically it all wrapped up that it's still making me feel completely stressed out. IT'S REALLY WEIRD. I can barely look at screencaps from the episode, and tumblr is absolutely killing me-- sometimes i check that shit at work and today I WAS LITERALLY CHOKING BACK TEARS WHILE AT MY DESK, WHAT THE FUCK. What a loser! I'm finally starting to adjust now, but it stinks that as the episode becomes less new and more familiar it feels more and more... over. I DON'T WANT IT TO BE OVER. I DON'T WANT TO LET GO. :(
I'm, uh, not exactly sure how to end this post. I wish i could sum up all my thoughts in some nice poignant statement, but i don't think i can. I love this show, and i loved this finale. It was pretty, it was sad, it was weird, it was emotionally magnificent, it was fucking awesome. It was Lost.
Now i have to try to cope with the fact that there's no "next season" to look forward to. D:
GROUP HUG
AND YEAH I AM GONNA BE MELODRAMATIC ABOUT THIS SHIT SO SUCK IT UP. I GET EMOTIONAL WHEN STORIES I LOVE END, OKAY. I surprisingly didn't cry during the episode as much as i expected to (well, with A COUPLE MAJOR EXCEPTIONS that i will get to later), and it ended, and i was processing it, and then like ten minutes later i sat down to start typing up thoughts and suddenly i hit a brick wall of FEELINGS and started sobbing like a motherfucker. That only partially had anything to do with what even happened in the episode! That was mostly just because it was OVER! Okay and also what happened in the episode. And also everything in the universe, i don't even know, DEEP INNER SADNESS.
ugh, i'm not lying, i felt rather physically ill all night (plus the 24 hours afterward?!?!?). This shit was stressful. GETTIN' ALL PSYCHOSOMATIC UP IN THIS BITCH.
I am so fragile right now, just remembering anything starts up the waterworks all over again.
PULL IT TOGETHER, MAN
So... Lost. What do i even say here? The final new episode ever and i am too gibbery and emotional to string words together in any meaningful way. Ultimately it didn't turn out the way i was expecting at all, but then again i had no idea what to expect. I'm really happy with it, though. I had to sit with it for a while, because i wasn't immediately blown away, i didn't know what to think. But now that i've considered it i do honestly love it. Annnnnnd then i start crying again. FUCK
When Christian was there and then was like OH HEY YOU'RE DEAD i did have a moment of severe panic thinking "..........oh shit, fuck, NOW EVERYBODY'S GONNA LAUGH AT YOU, LOST." And i mean, okay. The alternate universe being death or limbo or purgatory or whatever was hard to swallow at first, because it's an enormous shift in your perception of the entire season. But, in the end, how much was anyone truly invested in the alternate universe? Not very much, right? It's not like it ever seemed "real" to begin with; we always knew it would blow itself up somehow. Of all the ways for that to have been resolved, with everyone remembering THEIR ENTIRE LIVES in a place where they already had different lives, death was really the only way to go in order to give the sideways world meaning and resonance, instead of just being some pointless dalliance into showing "what if" scenarios. It didn't negate anything else on the show; everything on the island was still totally real, and the alternate universe wasn't even really an epilogue or anything, it was just... that instant when Jack died, not existing in any specific moment in time because everyone else had lived out their lives, too. Oh god, it's actually really sad and pretty. :*( Sometime last year i had been wondering why An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was referenced on the show (Locke flipped through it in the hatch) if they didn't all die in the plane crash, but now its relevance is completely clear.
GOD, JACK IS DEAD. THAT'S SO FREAKING SAD. It's weird, i used to vaguely wonder a lot about how Lost would end, and i had always kind of believed Jack would die-- that is, until very recently, when i could picture almost every single character dying but i didn't really expect Jack to. Which doesn't make any sense! But hey. I'm dumb. REALLY what i'm surprised about is that nobody else died. Well, they did, eventually, but i mean in the events of getting off the island. I EXPECTED A BLOODBATH. I was really worried when that tree fell on Ben, because that would have been a punk way to go out, BY ACCIDENT, but luckily he got out of it. I had, however, really truly believed Sawyer and Ben would die; they're just two characters you'd kind of expect to meet a violent and/or badass end. I was so glad that Richard was still alive after last week's unresolved SMOKE ATTACK. And now he ages, AAAHHHHHHHHH, AWESOME. Miles finding that grey hair on him, that was so fantastic. He finally gets to live a real life instead of eternally atoning for his sins and existing purely by the whims of Jacob and MIB. And WTF LAPIDUS! I really believed he was dead after the sub explosion, i mean the dude got knocked unconscious in a sinking submarine and nobody went back to get him, and this late in the game i wasn't expecting a minor character to get a surprise reprieve like that. Shocking! As much as i loved Frank, though, he got so useless this season that i wasn't as excited finding out he was alive as i might have felt last season or something. But i'm sure everyone else was ecstatic about it, and i did totally yell "WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!" Oh, Lapidus.
HURLEY BECAME THE ISLAND PROTECTOR (AND BEN HIS RICHARD!!!) WTF SO AWESOME. SO, SO AWESOME. Oh jeeeeesus, the moment when Hurley realized Jack was saying he wasn't going to live, and Jack tapping him as the new island protector... when Hurley cries, i cry. IT'S TOO SAD. IT'S LIKE KICKING A PUPPY. I was a little distracted because Jack didn't perform any magical Latin incantation on the water so i wasn't sure if it actually worked, but, uh, i guess so! I guess it can probably work however you want it to! I loved that it was from a crappy beat-up water bottle instead of a metal cup the way every other one of those ceremonies has been performed. And okay, you wanna hear something really nerdy?! I keep thinking of Harry Potter what with the death and afterlife business, but the thing that i am thinking of most is that Jack and Hurley = Harry and Neville. HUGO REYES IS NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM. THINK ABOUT IT. Ahhhhh i just really love it. I loved Hurley's transformation into a leader and spiritual guide this season while Jack let go, and for that to pay off in such a big way is the fucking raddest. Holy shit dudes, Jack is the fixer and Hugo is the protector. JACK IS THE FIXER. NOT THE PROTECTOR. NOT THE LEADER. THE FIXER. ;______;
Oh my gosh Hugo and Ben. I pretty much love that the most. Ben obviously wouldn't have anything to leave the island for, and Hurley is the most ideally suited to the job. And they can just chill with Bernard and Rose and Vincent, play some golf, do some light reading, weave. Gone are the days when Hurley threw a Hot Pocket at Ben's head! BFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, the Jack vs. Locke deathmatch: GREATEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. EVER. EVEREVEREVEREVER. I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THIS SHOW COULD DO EPIC SHIT LIKE THAT. Fucking goddamn hell. The wide shot of them facing off on the cliff in the pouring rain with the waves crashing below: SO GODDAMN UNBELIEVABLY HARDCORE. And then really truly trying to kill each other, and holy shit this show has had a lot of fistfights and action scenes but that was the first time it ever felt like a movie. There was such an absolute sense of "THIS IS IT.", i was sitting there in awe. Delighted awe. And then Jack got stabbed and it was horrible, and he got the cut on his neck which didn't even register with me immediately but my brother caught it right away and said "the cut on his neck!" which led to me realizing that OH HEY, ALTERNA-JACK'S APPENDIX SCAR: NOT REALLY AN APPENDIX SCAR. WTF SO AWESOME. And then! THEN! KATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! KATE SHOT LOCKE LIKE A FUCKING BADASS!!!!! "I SAVED YOU A BULLET." AJDFSJASHGFHJG KAAAAAAAAAATE!!!!!!!!! FUCK YES. And then Jack pushed him off the cliff (the same exact way Fake Locke kicked Jacob into the fire), and holy goddamn fucking shitballs, that was the most mind-blowingly badass scene i could ever hope to see. I was kind of sad that the rain had stopped when the show came back from commercial, because the rain added like 1000000% badassery.
Jack and Kate. ;________________; Their goodbye is the scene i cried the most at, because... you guys. YOU GUYS. If i have to explain why then you probably have not read anything i have ever written about this show. KISSING. "I LOVE YOU"S. KATE. SAID. "I LOVE YOU." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had only dared to dream that she would say it in the end; i mean logically it had to happen because Kate saying "i love you" is the one glaring omission of the endless relationship tomfoolery, but i was still utterly overjoyed that she really did say it to Jack, and he said it back, and they were both so earnest, just their voices and their faces and i even love that Jack didn't say "I love you, too," it was just "I love you," full stop. It was all really beautifully done. And OH GOD IT WAS THE LAST TIME THEY EVER SAW EACH OTHER IN THEIR LIVES, CRYING FOREVER. I... i wanted them to be together for all time. But Jack died and Kate left, and that's all they ever got. I'm trying to think of a way to say "i am crying so fucking hard right now" which doesn't make me sound like the lamest person in existence, but, well, there you go. I'm the lamest person in existence. I loved their meeting in the sideways world, and Kate making Jack remember, and gravitating toward each other in the church after they'd reunited with everyone else, and separating themselves from the group so it was just the two of them sitting together and holding hands, and they were both so happy (finally, finally happy) and... i can't take this, it's so bittersweet and it makes me so sad I CANNOT DEAL.
AHDGKJHSGFKJLHSGFLHJK
Desmoooooooond. DESMOND LIVED! With everyone touting Desmond as a weapon and battling for custody of him, and also the sheer amount of time on Lost i have spent worrying about him dying, and also GOING DOWN INTO THE LIGHT CAVE OF DEATH WHICH HE DID NOT EXPECT TO LIVE THROUGH, i was obviously pretty concerned that he would die. But Jack saved him so he could be with Penny and Charlie! And once again Jack told him "see you in another life, brother," AT THE MOST APPROPRIATE TIME OF ALL THE TIMES. ;____; The Jack/Desmond hug at the end was so pretty. AW, HEROES.
So when Widmore blasted Desmond with electromagnetism, Desmond saw the sideways world, which means he ACTUALLY got a glimpse of the afterlife. Was he simultaneously both dead and alive when he was enclosed in that box, then? Was he Schrödinger's cat?
The glowing pool in the light cave was some slightly dorky CG, but on the whole i didn't think the light cave looked nearly as lame as it could have. All the red light was neat and pretty crazy-looking. So, boy, Jacob's cork analogy was a bit more on-the-nose than i had assumed. Like... there really was a cork, pretty much. LOL. I liked that what Juliet said about the vending machine is exactly what they did with the island: "Unplug it, and then plug it back in again." They just did a hard reboot! So i guess if they had left it uncorked, the island would have gone down, and then the rest of the world? Or would the rest of the world only have been fucked if Smokey had gotten off the island? I'm inclined to think it would have been fucked either way. I looooooved when the island started going to hell and Fake Locke was making fun of Jack, until Jack beat him up and discovered that he could finally be hurt. UH OH, RAD THINGS TO COME.
The moment when the Jack/Sawyer/Kate/Hurley and Locke/Ben/Desmond teams met up was way cool because it felt like shit was about to start getting real. And then Kate immediately grabbed Sawyer's gun and started blasting round after round at Locke and OH MAN, KATE AWESOMELY SHOOTING GUNS: IT WAS THE BEST. Kaaaaaaaaaaaate. And then Jack telling Locke he was going to kill him, and "How do you plan to do that?" "It's a surprise." SO BADASS. HOW DID JACK GET SO BADASS?
OH HEY REMEMBER WHEN JULIET SHOWED UP AND WAS JACK'S EX-WIFE AND THE MOTHER OF HIS KID? YEAH. Oh my gosh Jack and Juliet. Calling each other "Doctor"!! TOTALLY ADORABLE AND GREAT. Here is the thing about Jack/Juliet: i always liked them together, but i could never really ship them because i felt like even within the show, their relationship wasn't presented or intended as the be-all end-all. I never felt like they loved each other, they just had a good partnership (much like Sawyer/Kate). PLUS it came at absolutely the worst possible time on Lost when my interest was at its lowest point and i, uh, didn't really like anything. Looking back, though, i appreciate them a lot more. They're so evenly matched and it makes me sad that they coulda been old marrieds, but they got left so unresolved, and that's why they existed the way they did in the sideways world. ♥ Anyway the more i've thought about it over time, the more i really like the Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Juliet love square, not because of stupid jealousy bullshit and all that, but because Jack/Juliet and Sawyer/Kate are the ships that logically should have worked because, hey, matching doctors and matching criminals! It all makes sense! Yet the ships that are actually ~meant to be~ are Jack/Kate and Sawyer/Juliet, because of shared history and mutual understanding and looking out for each other and also the heart wants what it wants. It's just a lot of nice symmetry going on.
And speaking of Sawyer/Juliet: THEIR MEETING SCENE WAS THE PRETTIEST AND HAPPIEST OF THEM ALL. They were so amazingly happy! Going dutch for coffee!! (ahhhhh crying again.) PRETTY PRETTY KISSING, SO PRETTY. Considering that when Sawyer/Juliet was first introduced i was kind of put off because a) boring domestic life is boring! and b) how were we supposed to be invested in them with only a single episode of relationship backstory?!, i am still a little shocked by how much i totally ended up rooting for them.
The concert did not go down at all the way i was expecting! I thought for sure that would be where absolutely everyone met up and remembered each other, and certainly a lot happened there, but not everything. Despite my generally negative feelings about Charlie/Claire in the long run, they were really cute. And Kate remembering by delivering Aaron! AW, KATE. I really like that that was her most important thing, and obviously we don't know what happened when they all got back to the real world but presumably Kate and Claire and Aaron all stayed together in some capacity, as evidenced by Kate saying she would help Claire re-learn how to be a mother. KATE/CLAIRE MY TWO MOMS! (they would have been sisters-in-law if Jack and Kate had gotten married.) (oh hey i'll just be over here crying some more.)
SIDEWAYS WORLD QUESTION: where in the heck did David come from, anyway? I guess he just existed for Jack to work through his daddy issues; it's interesting that Jack went back to the concert to pick up David but he wasn't there, like, now that Jack was so close to the end, David's purpose had been fulfilled and he just ceased to exist. BUT I REALLY LOVED JACK AND DAVID. :*( (how about this: David is Vincent. TA DAAAAAAA! all dogs go to heaven.)
Locke telling Jack that he hoped he would find someone to help him remember was so sad, because Jack was still so confused. It's so fitting that Jack was the person who took the longest to come around. And oh man Locke and Ben's final scene together, SO SAD. It was hard to even remember that that was finally the real Locke, the one who got murdered by Ben. I noticed that he had his scar, and then i was like "wait a minute, he hasn't always had his scar in the sideways world, has he???" and i went back and checked just to make sure, but no, he hadn't. He had his scar back just for that final scene. REAL LOCKE. ;____;
SUN AND JIN. Both of them remembering when they saw the ultrasound and being SO HAPPY. SO HAPPY! EVERYONE WAS SO HAPPY. Juliet getting to give good baby news! Hurley's smile when he met up with Charlie at the motel! (and LOL FOREVER at Hurley shooting him with the tranquilizer dart.) SAYID AND SHANNON?!? WHAT THE HEY! That one felt a little weird to me, uh, maybe because i never bought Sayid/Shannon, but also after Shannon died and Sayid was pissed for a little while, there was really no reference to it ever again. I always thought Sayid loved Nadia most. :( But it was still super surprising and exciting to see Shannon again. HEY BOONE HEY!
Daniel! (lol concert pianist!) So even though Daniel already knew Charlotte, he still didn't remember anything else about the real world and he and Charlotte didn't experience any flashes, so i guess they weren't ready yet. And Desmond kind of assured Eloise that Daniel wouldn't be leaving. Which, HEY, that's why Eloise seemed all-knowing! She of course knows where she is, but she's staying to experience the relationship with her son (and Charles!) that she never had in the real world. It also explains why Bernard seemed conscious of what was going on, although it's curious that Bernard and Rose would wait for everyone else in the sideways world when they were so fulfilled in life and had totally removed themselves from getting involved with the rest of the castaways; they seem like they would be the first people to move on. But i guess it also makes sense that they would have stayed to help the others find their way if they needed it. I loved when Jimmy Kimmel showed the clip of the first scene of the season, with Rose telling Jack "you can let go now." HOLY FUCKING CRAP. Insane.
The opening scenes were so good, while following the coffin throughout. IT ALL MAKES SENSE. (i mean that in a thematic way! probably not in a "lol answers" way.) I loved Jack standing in the creek, studying his surroundings; i know he told Sawyer that he didn't feel any different (and Hurley seemed to indicate the same when he became the protector), but i wonder if he did? He certainly seemed to have some kind of understanding, of himself or the island or what was going to happen, i don't know. But he's also been approaching that understanding and acceptance all season, or really for the whole series, if you want to get technical about it. And i like that Kate almost went to talk to him but left him alone instead, i think partly because she had no way of connecting to him in that moment, because what he was going through was so separate from her. BUT ULTIMATELY IT WASN'T, and in the end almost everything was about Jack and Kate together. They killed the smoke monster together, they moved on in the afterlife together. WHAT THE FUCK, OTP.
CRYING.
The more i sit with it the more i am totally satisfied with everything that happened. It all still feels really surreal, both the way things went down and just the fact that it's over, and i am obviously emotionally traumatized, but... Lost!!!!!! I couldn't even tell you what didn't get answered, that's how much i don't freaking care. All that mattered was the characters. And FEELINGS.
JAAAAACK. I talked about it earlier in the season, but i genuinely love Jack so much now, i don't even know. I guess it really came full circle, because he started out my favorite, and it turns out that he pretty much ended up my favorite too. Suddenly i can't believe i ever doubted him, that's how great he got. The final scene was just bonkers amazing. I should have been able to see a mirror of the pilot's opening scene coming a mile away (he was even injured on the opposite side of his body!), and yet i didn't really think to predict that. But once it started happening it was absolutely perfect; the plane flying overhead, VINCENT, how at peace he was, his eye closing, and OH GOD, JACK. HE DIED. IT MAKES ME SO SAD. I didn't think a series finale death would be able to affect me much, because it's not like that absence is going to be felt. The show is over! I'm missing the whole thing, not just a single character! But there's such a weight to death, and even though the character has ceased to exist, the feeling persists outside of the context it was created in. Which is all to say: i'm fucking crying right now.
In retrospect i also really should have been able to see the "you're dead" ending to the alternate universe coming, ESPECIALLY in light of the Ben scenes as he sat outside (which: awww, Ben! SADFACE. he's staying to have happy family time with Rousseau and Alex, right?!), and the fact that Sun and Jin actually flashed to their deaths, and everybody being so happy and okay once they remembered their lives (instead of, i dunno, irreparably traumatized), and all the talk of being "ready"-- everything that happened really telegraphed that conclusion, and yet up until the scene with Christian i was still like "WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN???!!!!!!!" lol, me. I catch on pretty quick! Not even to mention that with all the season one mirroring going on, it should have always been blatantly obvious that the show would end with the exact reverse of the opening scene. It was so unmistakably perfect, and yet they still managed to pull it off when i was too caught up in everything else to expect it.
I knew Jack would never leave the island again, but the people who ended up staying vs. those who ended up leaving were not the ones i would have guessed. And i... I REALLY WANTED JACK AND KATE TO STAY TOGETHER. I REALLY DID. OH GOD. THEIR MOST LOVING SCENE WAS A FUCKING FOREVER GOODBYE. I HATE YOOOOOOOOU. Except then i remember them in the church and it makes me so so happy because THEY'RE SO HAPPY and calm and whole, and every one of their scenes was perfect, so i don't know what to feel. One moment i'm indescribably delighted and accepting of it all, and then the next moment i'm SHAKING AND CRYING.
JACK AND KATE BEING HAPPY, WHEN DOES THAT EVER HAPPEN??!? WHEN THEY'RE DEAD, IS THE ANSWER. OH JESUS CHRIST, IT'S LIKE I'M BEING STABBED IN THE HEART REPEATEDLY
I HAVE USED UP ALL THE TEARS
It's so cool that the flashbacks/flash forwards, in addition to becoming a structural basis for time travel within the show (WHICH I STILL FREAKING LOVE), were also ultimately a long-hand version of everyone's flashes in the afterlife... except the ending flashes were all of things that happened on the island, rather than off of it. So the whole show is basically some wonky chopped-up account of every character's most significant memories of their lives, all jumbled out of order because in the end it all exists simultaneously, or with no real basis in linear time at all. The narrative structure is a mirror of the subject matter itself. *___*
Oh my gosh though, even Juliet's "it worked." When Miles heard that i had just assumed (as i suppose we were meant to assume) it was referring to the nuke resetting to a different timeline. But it was actually just about the vending machine?!?! I do like that that was what she flashed to at the moment of her death, because it brings into focus how relative time really is. The moment in the sideways world that she got a glimpse of as she died was the moment she remembered her life, or the moment she remembered her life was the moment she died. It all happened at once, both backward and forward.
Since now we know for sure that detonating the nuke didn't actually reset history like Daniel thought it would (and alterna-Daniel's scene with Desmond was totally misleading about that!), it's kind of depressing to think "WELL WHY DID THEY EVEN DO IT? WHY DID JULIET HAVE TO DIE?!" But it still transported them all back to the present, where they had to be in order to defeat Smokey and name a new island protector and, you know, save the world, so it wasn't all for nothing. Whew. ...Although i wonder if maybe the nuke actually did work like that, it just wasn't an alternate universe we should ever get to see because those aren't the characters we know? (in the way we THOUGHT the sideways world was following totally different people.) OKAY that's probably taking it too far, but i'm just saying! Maybe there really was an alternate universe in addition to the afterlife that we were actually seeing! Not that that's even something that should exist, since the entire point of the show was for these specific characters to resolve the issues in their lives that were basically present from birth, and there aren't and shouldn't be any takebacks or resets for that. "Whatever happened, happened." THEN AGAIN, everything always hinged so completely on the choices they made, and alternate universes are always about the endless possible paths that could exist if just one tiny choice was different. So basically... Lost AUs should both exist and not exist. Good to know my feelings on that.
When Jack pointed Sawyer toward the vending machine, i kind of expected a warning that it's flaky and might not give you your Apollo bar. Even in the afterlife that is such a bad vending machine!
I was so glad to hear the climbing song again! That was like my first favorite piece of Lost music, but it only ever appeared really early on and then maybe once or twice in later seasons. So cool that it got used again, bringing back the old days. GIACCHINOOOOOOOOO. I'd never really listened to any of the Lost score by itself before, but a lot of people have been posting songs on tumblr lately, and suddenly just listening to all those recognizable music cues on their own is like an EXPLOSION OF FEELINGS. I don't even know how it becomes so powerful like that, it's crazy.
Whatever happens when they go into the light, i'd like to imagine that they get reincarnated for LOST 2! I can't wait! But if we're talking about imaginary Lost spinoffs, i've also had fun picturing Lost: The Next Generation starring Aaron, Ji Yeon, Charlie, Clementine, and David (as somebody's imaginary friend, IDK. ...oh hey, Dave the imaginary friend!) And then there is the Sawyer and Miles cop show, and now i think a Ben and Hurley Odd Couple wouldn't be too far off the mark either. :D
Jack and Fake Locke looking down the waterfall as Desmond was below them in the cave! So much like the hatch, and yet so different. And Fake Locke being like "hey buddy just like old times!" and Jack being like "fuck you asshole, you're not Locke." SO GREAT. "You disrespect his memory by wearing his face, but you're nothing like him." ♥___♥
The "added half hour" was really just for commercials, wasn't it? GOOD LORD, so many commercials. IT WAS AWFUL. I mean i didn't mind looking at the clock and being like "aaah, still got an hour and a half left! sweet!", but it's a little harder to be happy about that when all that extra time was just shitty commercials, sitting there wishing for the show to be back uninterrupted for more than single scene intervals. :(
I found out like a week or two ago that there would never be a time-displaced outrigger gun battle, which i had really immensely been looking forward to and still believed we'd get. I was sad. :( Obviously it's not vitally important, and they definitely had to choose a resolution and go with it without getting caught up in those kinds of details, but MAN, all the times they were out in boats, i just really wanted that loop to be closed once and for all. To see one last straggling remnant of the time travel catch up with them would have been such an awesomely twisty little detail.
"Christian Shephard? Seriously?" lllllllooooooolllllllllllllll
Jack and Sawyer handshake goodbye. ;____; COME ON, YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST DONE A BRO HUG. I still feel unfulfilled in wanting them to have been better friends than they were, but i do like when people actually call Sawyer "James"-- they only do that when they really care!
Here's a doofy thing i love: vehicular continuity. Hurley always has his ugly yellow Hummer, and Jack always has his dumpy brown truck. (i love that he's a fancy doctor and should be driving a BMW or some shit, but nope, just that old truck.) I DON'T KNOW WHY I EVEN NOTICE THAT ENOUGH TO FIND IT ENDEARING, BUT I DO.
Other continuity that i like: the fact that they're all wearing exactly the same clothes they've been wearing since last season. I mean, granted, this season only took place over the course of, what, a week? But even last season, underneath their Dharma jumpsuits Jack was wearing that blue t-shirt and Kate that grey t-shirt and it's like, aw, you guys. You need a shower.
Several human skeletons down in the light cave?!?! :O ALRIGHT, WHO UNPLUGGED THE ISLAND THIS TIME
That gif of Jack with a lightsaber is fucking awesome, and especially funny considering that at that part a guy i was watching with said "I have the high ground!" HAHAHAAAAAAA, OH STAR WARS + LOST. :D :D :D ("i've got a bad feeling about this.")
I didn't think anything of the final images of the wreckage on the beach, i got that it was just a goodbye over the end credits. But the [incorrect] interpretation that they had all actually died in the crash, revealed via a deserted landscape, silent except for waves crashing on the shore... is totally mind-blowingly creepy. :O
I liked when Kate didn't hesitate to jump off the cliff to get to the boat (SHE HAD NOTHING LEFT TO BE AFRAID OF), but i was thinking, man, cutting it a little close to the rocks there! Also, Kate and Sawyer are apparently Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. "The fall will probably kill ya!"
Hey remember that time in season 3 when Kate and Sawyer were forced to break rocks on Hydra island in order to build a runway? Which they ended up using to escape the island for the last time?
Hey remember that time Jack put Hurley in charge of rationing the food from the hatch, and Hurley took the job even though he didn't know how to do it? JACK AND HUGOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Even in the pilot Hurley was the guy who helped Jack out with the marshal! I can't get over it, Hurley as island protector was one of my favorite surprises. I know Jack taking the job in the previous episode felt too obvious, but it still seemed to me like it was going to be him in the end. I love that they messed with my expectations like that. And the Jack/Hurley hug in the church, OH GOD, too much adorableness, my heart can't take it. HUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THERE WERE SO MANY EXCELLENT HUGS. We're not strangers, we're family. :*)
"I've missed you so much." ;_______; It makes me SO SAD to imagine Kate going back and living the whole rest of her life without Jack. I'm so glad she found purpose with Claire and Aaron, but true loves separated by death is friggin tragic, okay. And that is essentially every single relationship on Lost, save for Desmond/Penny and Rose/Bernard. :( Everything about that Jack/Kate meeting scene, though. akjgdhldshfgjkdh I went back and rewatched it, and Kate is so happy to see him, and the way Jack says "and that's how i know you.", he's so emotional even when he has no real conscious idea of what's going on. Aaaauuugggghhhhh it's so amazing.
KATE KILLED SMOKEY. Jack finished him off, but he wouldn't have been able to do that without Kate. YOU GUYS. WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE HOW HAPPY I AM THAT KATE GOT TO DO SOMETHING TOTALLY BADASS. And the fact that it was Jack and Kate together, totally being a fucking superhero team or some shit i don't even know, TOGETHER THEY DEFEAT EVIL, AKJFGSKGHLKHGKJG. IT WAS THE GREATEST EVER.
JACK: There's something that you need to know. If we survive this, if we survive tonight-- we're going to have a Locke problem. And I have to know that you've got my back.
KATE: I've got your back.
1x24 - Exodus, Part 2
♥_____♥
THANKS FOR COMPLETELY VALIDATING MY SIX YEARS OF LOVE FOR THEM, SHOW.
I actually feel bad that i wasn't immediately quite on board with the way it ended (I WAS IN SHOCK, OKAY, IT WAS HARD TO COPE WITH ANYTHING AT THAT POINT) but now i just love it all, and i'm really hesitant to read other people's reactions because i don't want anyone to be disappointed with it. (of course, i also don't want to accept that it's over, sooo. yeah.) Admittedly, a bright light through the doors of a church is kind of hokey, but then you think, well, faith is one of the biggest Lost things, and then again you think of all those other times when an important event was accompanied by a blinding light. It's so hard to consider any ending that would have been appropriate for this show, when all of it has been about the journey rather than the destination, but i think that was a pretty fitting way to go out. You can seriously look at season one and hold up the themes carried all the way through to the end. And even the episode itself, for a series finale, it still felt like an episode of the show. It was constructed with a tone that was in keeping with everything that came before, without any really clunky "HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED" moments. The scene with Christian got rather explainy, but even that seems like it was more for Jack's benefit, since he was always the most stubborn and skeptical of them all, constantly the one who had to struggle the most.
Even though most everything i said about the alternate universe earlier this season has been negated by discovering what it really was, i do like that my wish for the mostly well-adjusted nature of the alterna-characters to merge with the history of the real characters still pretty much came true. They all sort of worked through what they needed to, and then got their real memories and relationships back and became truly complete. It's such a shockingly happy ending! Even this season when i could see it going in the direction of "IT'S ABOUT LOVE AND TOGETHERNESS," somehow it still surprises me that it was so sentimental, since i used to think it would all end in abject misery. What it really comes down to is, even in the face of all the bizarre, unexplained shit these characters experienced, the pursuit of love, purpose, and fulfillment was the most enduring and elusive mystery to them-- and i think that's really important to keep in mind if you went into this assuming that the literal mysteries of the island are what this show is about. Those mysteries are there to emphasize that everything is a puzzle on both a personal and a universal level, and while there may not be knowable answers to giant mythological quandaries, the human heart and mind and soul are still capable of finding their own contentment. One of those pesky repeated lines-- my favorite instance of which is in the episode Lighthouse, as said by Kate to Jack-- is "I hope you find what you're looking for." I'm glad they finally did, and i'm glad we got to see it.
Ultimately i'm still too emotional to truly consider the episode in a critical light, but that's how i've always reacted to Lost anyway, and the fact that it made me as emotional as it did is really the best ending i could have asked for. The entire show pretty much always boiled down to FEELINGS OVERLOAD for me, whether it was freaking out about insane shit or being sad about the characters or just being full of love for total weirdness and insane prettiness. I can't even quite explain why it's a show i've cared so much about, and i certainly can't explain why Jack/Kate is my favorite relationship of all (...okay that's not entirely true. plane crash apocalypse partners is why). All i know is that i want to care too much and be completely engrossed by a work of fiction; it's a feeling that i'm always chasing, and whenever i get it, well, then i'd say a story has done its job.
Once the episode ended, after a half hour of being overwhelmed with terrible sadness, i felt grateful for the Jimmy Kimmel special. It made me so much more calm about things, seeing everybody talk about shit like a damn Survivor reunion show. As soon as Matthew Fox came out i was like "HE'S ALIVE!! THANK GOODNESS" and then Jimmy said "i'm so happy to see you alive!" ......................sob.
"Who's the least professional?" "Josh Holloway. ... Is he here?" "No, he's not here tonight." "Josh Holloway."
The alternate endings were awesome (the Sopranos one!), as was the montage of kissing and punching. Yessssssss. Oh my gosh, though, Emilie being the only girl there: lol Lost is such a sausage fest. :P
I wasn't at all interested in the recap show because, ugh, recap show, i never watch those, and i'm pretty sure by now i am fairly well-acquainted with everything that has happened on Lost. Plus the fact that they included interviews was pretty dorky (i haaaaaate talking head interviews, they are almost always unbearably lame), but i watched it anyway and in the end it was alright and did kind of help me settle in for the finale. I really liked the Hurley segment about him being the ambassador of fun times. Hurleeeeeeeey. Also, hearing Naveen Andrews' actual speaking voice never stops being entirely bizarre.
I hadn't intended to be radio silent for days after the finale, but i've been so overwhelmed with emotion it took me a while to feel like i'd said everything i wanted to say. I still probably didn't. Honestly, i didn't think i would even be able to come up with any substantial commentary for it other than just pointing at the episode and saying "YEAH." but, uh, a billion words later i guess i pulled through. This post actually represents my processing of the episode from about an hour after it ended all the way through today. (maybe i should have time-stamped the paragraphs!) Now if only i could stop crying all the damn time! It is becoming quite inconvenient. I had been looking forward to being relieved of anxiety once it was all over, but now that it's over i have so many emotions and i'm so preoccupied with how epically it all wrapped up that it's still making me feel completely stressed out. IT'S REALLY WEIRD. I can barely look at screencaps from the episode, and tumblr is absolutely killing me-- sometimes i check that shit at work and today I WAS LITERALLY CHOKING BACK TEARS WHILE AT MY DESK, WHAT THE FUCK. What a loser! I'm finally starting to adjust now, but it stinks that as the episode becomes less new and more familiar it feels more and more... over. I DON'T WANT IT TO BE OVER. I DON'T WANT TO LET GO. :(
I'm, uh, not exactly sure how to end this post. I wish i could sum up all my thoughts in some nice poignant statement, but i don't think i can. I love this show, and i loved this finale. It was pretty, it was sad, it was weird, it was emotionally magnificent, it was fucking awesome. It was Lost.
Now i have to try to cope with the fact that there's no "next season" to look forward to. D:
GROUP HUG