LOST

When the screen faded to white and the credits began rolling, I really wasn't sure how I felt about Lost's capstone last night. It was epic, it was emotional, but the final few steps had me holding back a bit.



There was a leap there that I just wasn't ready to take last night.

**FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVEN'T SEEN THE SERIES FINALE YET, SPOILERS LIKELY LURK BELOW**

But like any good leap of faith, it shouldn't be taken lightly. After sleeping on it, I'm ready to embrace the ending, as really the only way the show could really have gone out.

A tug of war, between science and faith, the show has always asked a lot of its viewers. From day one with the polar bear and monsters shaking in the trees, this show has never been about reality. Remember, on top of any island shenanigans, this is the series where ghosts wandered around and a guy could talk to the dead. And as we learned more recently, the smoke monster was created by throwing a guy down a cave of bright light that shines inside all of us.

You want science, it got thrown out in that wormhole once and for all.

So what we were really left with early on in this final season was faith. With the exception of John Locke, who was destroyed and usurped, every major player this season was on the island because they believed in something and found strength in their convictions.

In the end, the show went back to it's very roots to bring it all to a conclusion. To transpose the ongoing show mantra, they died alone, but lived together.

Whether we saw purgatory or heaven or whatever tradition you want to steep yourself in (and despite the stained glass window, the show pretty clearly referenced one tradition), there was a hopefulness, that there always is something beyond. Somewhere where it all will matter in the end.

Sure, were there holes throughout. Swiss cheese. Foremost of all in my head, why the heck didn't Jack turn into a smoke monster when he was hit by the light. Last time we saw someone non-electromagnetic dive down into the light, he turned all smokey.

And where were other key castaways in the big cosmic spaceship to the light. Where were, say Michael or Mr. Eko, two players who played important roles along the way.

I don't think though, they could have really ended the show in any other way. A decisive simple win on the island alone could never have paid off the emotional relationships that Lost milked so brilliantly last night.

For a show that was voracious in its appetite to kill its characters left and right, there was no way to tie up the emotional loose ends without figuring out a way to bring them back. So the flash sideways, in my mind, were a necessary evil to getting to a point where you can tie everything up and say goodbye to characters to which loyal fans like me had devoted six obsessive seasons.

If anything my love for the finale, which has grown overnight, highlights the major flaw this season. I think the producers had a dramatic game plan for the finale, but were treading water much of the season.

In hindsight, I think it would have served the show to tighten the focus in the earlier episodes on who was left and the battle between good and evil. There was plenty of room for mythology and whatnot that got muddied by temple masters, zombie inducing dipping pools, and red-shirt characters you knew were just there to die dramatic deaths. The same is true in the sideways world. Less would have been more.

Take Kate for example. If you think back this season, what did they really have her do? In the jungle she trekked around a lot, either alone or with different people. In the sideways world she ran a lot, and kept bumping into people randomly. When she wasn't doing either she was making dewey eyes. It's unfortunate, because she really did pack a hell of punch in the finale, they just didn't figure out much for her to do in the meantime.

If they'd focused less on forcing sideshow storylines we might have gotten a tighter island focus on the real stakes at hand, which in the end turned out to be life and death. Claire, became a crazy mama caricature, when just a little more face time for her, instead of, say, a John Lennon lookalike, could have fleshed her return out a bit. And it could have served to show us more about what really made her companion, the Man in Black tick.

As much as I loved every scene with Jacob and his brother, they almost needed more time to let their rivalry seethe. Sun and Jin could have found a bit more breathing room, to make their ultimate sacrifice more poignant, but instead we had hesitant geologist Zoe running around for no reason whatsoever. Heck, even Ben's ever-switching alliances could have provided tons more drama.

That said, I think the finale respected me as a fan, and hit all the right notes. It was hard not to get emotional as all the sideways characters finally reconnected. The endless placing of the chess pieces both on and off the island did finally pay off, and it was devastating and emotional. Each and every illumination was quite simply the light on the island embodied in each and every one of them. it connected with me.

So in the last five minutes, when the show asked me to take that leap of faith, I was hesitant. But honestly what better way to wrap a show where the stakes have always been so high.

In the end, the island was real. The stakes were real.

My fear was always that they would in the end, say ha ha, we're joking, none of this really happened. But they didn't, and I thank the show for that. The world of Lost existed, Oceanic 815 did crash and people did die.

In the end the show made a pitch to a broader concept:

We are all mortal. We all die. What we are defined by, is how we live the life we're given. But even in the end, there is always hope.

If it leaves a bunch of mythological details hanging unanswered, so be it. Since when do details get tied up neatly in real life anyways?

Thank you Lost. It's been a great six years of television. I'll greatly miss the fade to black and the title card, always giving me something to ponder and something to look forward to.

You better bet I'll be watching it all again sometime, with the faith that smart television is at its best when it challenges us to believe in something.