My final words on LOST

When it boils down to it, the final two and a half hours of LOST really put viewers to the test, in what was surely a very polarizing last hurrah. To me, I feel a sense of peace with it all. The ending for me was so smooth, so emotional and so utterly triumphant in it's realization about what this show was actually all about, I can't wait to go back and watch it all over again.

It blows my mind that the journey of the passengers of Oceanic flight 815 began a whole 6 years ago. I was a freshman in college, and had just moved out of the dorms. I picked up Lost on a tip from a friend, and downloaded the first 5 or so episodes to catch up with what was on TV (this being my first experience with a little thing called a torrent). From the first 10 minutes I was intrigued. The pilot is one of the most dramatic, action packed things I've seen on television, the production is spectacular, and right off the bat the show introduces you to its cast of characters who are almost instantly intriguing. 6 years later, here we are at the end, how did it all pan out? Well I'm sure some of you were rather disappointed, but this is what it all meant to me.

One of my favorite terms to throw around when talking about any sort of fiction is the notion of a MacGuffin. It was a favorite trope of one Alfred Hitchcock, a master of the genre, a man whom "Lost" has without a doubt nodded heavily too on various levels throughout the series. Lest me school the:

 A MacGuffin "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the  plot of a work of fiction". The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are (at least initially) willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is. In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot. (Examples might include money, victory/glory, survival, a source of power, a potential threat, etc....or something entirely unexplained.)

The briefcase in "Pulp Fiction" for one, is a MacGuffin. Does it matter what is in the briefcase? No. Does the plot drive forward and all sorts of amazing characters, action sequences, and witty dialogue emerge because of said briefcase. Yes. In the end does the briefcase even matter? No. I think it's a pretty general and maybe hard to digest fact, but to me, on LOST, the Island has all along been the damn MacGuffin. And I'm fine with that.

Long ago in the series, I really gave up on caring whether all these mysteries arising on the island were going to be solved. I chose the man of faith route, although don't get me wrong the man of science route is an enticing one. To me, this was just a weird island, that weird shit happened on. Simple as that. While things on the island change from episode to episode, and crazier and crazier things happened along the way, what was always constant with the show was its utmost dedication to it's characters. From Jack, our reluctant hero, to Sawyer our resident smart ass, and Hurley, the fat funny friend, everyone was severely flawed in one way or another, and this island was going to help them figure out how to fix that, whether they knew that or not. These characters struggles are always what kept me sticking with the show. Their relationships grew, and this truly became a group of people I as the viewer knew and cared what happened to quiet a bit. The journey of Jack in particular, is something that was truly always at the heart of the show, and his struggle (and ultimate redemption) was always something that kept me thoroughly intrigued.

The problem is, I don't think a lot of people where watching the show for this reason, people began to over analyze things left and right, want answers to every mystery, down to the stupidest little obsessive damn details. The writers were toying with them, and they knew exactly what they were doing.  By always showing "how" something happened but never "why," they threw us all for endless repeating loop. Don't get me wrong, I definitely fell victim to this along the way as well.

In the end though, the show was all about the characters and their relationships and that is pretty much it. People can bitch and complain about the final moments not revealing all the answers, even some of the answers, hell the last episode didn't answer ANYTHING of the on island mysteries if you ask me, but to me it DOES NOT MATTER. The characters struggled through their time on the island, they faced death, peril, they had bonds with people who changed their lives, and in the end ultimately helped them all overcome their flaws, and become better people because of it. Is this an absolutely batty way to tell this story? Without a doubt, but you can't deny it sure was interesting.

The fact that the writers chose to not really reveal much about the island, and peoples subsequent reaction, to me is a sort of meta-commentary in itself, an ode to all of our shallowness and reluctance to accept the things we should truly be grateful for in the end.. We all lust after what we can't get, we struggle for it and beat ourselves up, in our quest for knowledge and our quest for the sometimes unobtainable. All the while using this as a big diversion to avoid the problems we all have within ourselves, and realizing how much the people and situations around us can effect us, and help change us all for the better. The facts of the journey aren't what's important, it's what we gained from it all, the connections we made, the progress we made within ourselves. This is what LOST is all about, and therefore to me, seeing them all together in end was absolutely perfect. In the words of Mr. Leonard Cohen, "Even Damnation is Poisoned with Rainbows," (IE the ones tattooed on my arm), I can't think of a more truer phrase to sum up the journey of our Lost friends.

Going back, I think this show is going to be even more emotional to watch, and hopefully to some, it will open their eyes to the crafting of a story, unlike anything that will ever be shown again on network television. All this said, I'm a huge sucker for the emotional twist it all took in the end. The relevance of all that was presented in relation to the grand scheme of life, is something I also find important to strive to achieve.

When it's all said and done, yeah, there are some things that would of been cool to know about the island, and I've had my moments of frustration with it all. But with any fantasy or sci-fi tale, things just work in that universe the way they do, their ain't no explaining them, and part of the fun is deducing your own theories.  Lost, you'll be sorely missed by this faithful watcher.

Take it away Geronimo Jackson