Broken Frontier

After six seasons of being Lost, viewers world-wide are finally found. “The End”, like most of this year's episodes, is divided into two distinct storylines: the cryptic flashes, and the ongoing Island action. While the Island timeline gives us a full-circle ending that works marvelously, the same cannot be said of the flash-parallel's resolution which skirts the edge of fantasy wish-fulfillment. It has been a hit-or-miss season for Lost, indeed the entire series had its equal share of compelling highs and meandering lows. It's fitting that the final episode can be seen as a microcosm of the whole final season and also the entire series.

In “The End”, the true nature of this year's flash sequences is finally revealed, and the twist is really quite surprising, but only because it's surprisingly lame. After waiting all season to tie the two timelines together, when they finally do, it's revealed that the flashes were really just glimpses into a purgatory-waypoint where all the characters must meet before they can “move on”. As the characters meet up in phantom-zone Los Angeles, they remember their past lives and their deaths (e.g. Jack's bleeding neck). This leads them to gather at some kind of Unitarian church and leave flash-purgatory land en masse.

Ever since the first season, I always felt that the worst ending to Lost would be if all the characters died on the plane crash and the Island was part of the afterlife. That didn't exactly happen, but the revelation that the flash-parallels were really flash-purgatories is really just the same idea slightly repackaged. Watching all the character's souls gather together for their final passing, was interesting and entertaining, but came off as slightly forced. We saw quite a few emotional reunions and final goodbyes, but the wish-fulfillment ending makes the character's six years worth of struggles on the Island seem relatively meaningless. To me the whole “leaving together” ending seemed like a cheap excuse to have a nearly-complete cast reunion to end the series.

In the Island-reality we have reached the final moves of the endgame. Jack returns from being anointed Jacob's successor, and leads Kate and Hurley off to the heart of the Island. Sawyer goes looking for Desmond, but instead he finds Un-Locke and Ben. Sawyer smacks Ben around a bit, steals his gun, and runs back to Jack and the others. Un-Locke and Ben find Desmond with Rose, Bernard, and Vincent the dog, Un-Locke blackmails Des into leaving with them . Un-Locke and Jack's groups converge, and Jack surprisingly agrees to take Locke to the heart of the Island and drop Desmond into it. Desmond unplugs a large runic rock from the center of the light, . The Island shakes and begins to fall into the sea, Un-Locke is now vulnerable and Jack takes advantage of this and begins an epic fight scene that leaves Un-Locke vanquished but Jack grievously wounded.

Miles and Richard pull Lapidus out of the Sub's wreckage and they decide to leave the Island in the plane. Kate and Sawyer decide to try and reach the plane, while Ben, Hurley, and Jack stay on the Island. Kate and Jack have an emotional farewell, and they both confess their love. Jack heads back into the light cave, but not before leaving Hurley in charge of the Island (with Ben as his number two man). Jack sacrifices himself to re-ignite the energy flow, and save the passed out Desmond. In the final scene, a dying Jack stumbles around in the bamboo grove, exactly the same place where he first landed on it. Jack catches a final glimpse of the plane filled with his friends flying away, before he dies with Vincent at his side.

A stark contrast to the end of the flash-parallels, the culmination of the the Island-reality storyline is a masterwork. The entire story arc of the survivors of flight 815 is brought full circle, especially for Jack Shephard. The final episode ends with Jack closing his eye in the bamboo grove, just as the Pilot began with Jack opening his eye in the same place, giving the series a beautiful feeling of circularity.

Innumerable questions were left unanswered, and plenty of plotlines and character arcs were left unfinished, but overall Lost delivered on what its viewers deserved: a flawed, but satisfying, finale. The flash-parallel timeline may have been overtly constructed to provide the viewers with a wish-fulfillment happy ending, but in the end “The End's” strengths overcome its flaws. The wish-fulfillment afterlife ending is a farewell to the characters (like a funeral at a church, right?), while the Jack-circularity ending completes the overarching storyline with perfection. I guess you really can make everyone happy in the end. At least all the characters.