After 6 seasons of gripping television, LOST finally came to a dramatic two and a half hour conclusion last night on ABC. I can make a strong case for LOST as one of my all time favorites. In fact there are few shows that hooked me the way LOST has and even fewer whose finale proved to be satisfying. That's not to say LOST's finale didn't have its fair share of problems but - by in large - I was pleased with the questions it chose to answer and willing to accept the ambiguity of the questions it chose to side-step. As far as the ending itself is concerned, I told my wife that I just wanted there to be a happy ending. With so many of the main cast becoming casualties I hoped that somehow the creators of the show would bring some kind of meaningful closure to the sacrifices that everyone was forced to make. But we'll get to that. First I want to share my own interpretation of some of the series major questions.
1) Who are Jacob and The Man in Black?
We now know that both Jacob and The Man in Black have been with us from the opening of the series. At first these god-like characters weren't given full form. Jacob hid behind his faithful followers known as The Others, and The Man in Black only appeared as a menacing pillar of black smoke. To make matters more confusing our heroes assumed Jacob was a villain character due to the flawed nature of his followers The Others and how those Others treated the castaways. Eventually we learn that Ben's assertion of, "We're the good guys," at the end of season 2 wasn't entirely false. Jacob, while cryptic and mercurial, proved to be a force of good protecting the island and its mystical heartbeat - a glowing pool of light beneath an underwater cave. Meanwhile The Man in Black still remains somewhat of an enigma. I've read that the show's creators did have a name for The Man in Black, but for the sake of simplicity I'll call him Esau from this point forward. We learn that Jacob and Esau are fraternal twin brothers. But when Esau decides to turn his back on the island and kills his adoptive mother, Jacob turns on Esau and throws him down into the cavern and into the white light. While we are to understand the light is a source of great happiness and joy, we are also lead to believe that going into the light can lead to great torment. This myth holds true when Esau emerges from the light as the evil smoke monster. It is this viewers belief that what diabolical terror was to be had within the golden pool of light was released by Esau. The real Esau is now dead and the Smoke Monster takes the form of Esau as well as countless others as he tries to find a way of leaving the island. What remains are two opposing forces the good (albeit pragmatic) Jacob tirelessly working to keep the evil (and arguably cunning) Smoke Monster from unleashing it's power upon the world.
2) What are the laws of the universe that define the Island and it's power?
This question is really a catch all for questions like why Richard Alpert is immortal, why Jacob and Esau cannot hurt each other directly, How and why are people able to find or leave the island and much much more. I believe most of these questions can be answered with one of the final lines in the series. When Ben Linus suggests to Hurley that he could help Desmond find his way home, Hurley assumes that the laws of the Island preclude people from leaving. Ben asserts that such a law was "Jacob's way" and that perhaps now that Hurley is the protector, he can do things his way - that being to help others. So perhaps the reason why Richard Alpert is immortal is because Jacob the Protector can simply make it so. Perhaps the powers of the Island give it's protector certain abilities to define some rules of the Universe. The mother protector decried that Jacob and Esau would be unable to hurt each other and yet they were clearly able to do so. However, at no time in the series was a The Protector and the Smoke Monster able to hurt each other. Perhaps this is something the Mother Protector knew intuitively. In this way, Jacob was safe from the Smoke Monster until he convinced one of Jacob's own followers to summon him and then kill him.
3) What did the Smoke Monster really want?
In my opinion the gold light both held the secrets of life but also held trapped a terrible evil. But when Jacob killed his own brother, the evil was released from the underground cave. But this wouldn't be enough. The evil wanted to consume the world. Jacob, having realized his mistake now had two tasks set before him. He hand to continue to protect the golden light at the heart of the island but he also had to protect the world from The Smoke Monster. He did this by harnessing the supernatural power of the Island to keep the Monster there. This is evident in Jacob's conversation with Richard Alpert about the bottle of wine being the evil and cork being the island. For centuries the Smoke Monster believed his way off the Island was to kill Jacob. The Smoke Monster considered Jacob not only the Protector of the Island but also his Jailer. This proved to be a miscalculation. After killing Jacob the Smoke Monster set about trying to get all of Jacob's candidates to leave the island with him. He knew that if any candidate was left behind, they might become The Protector and once again trap the monster on the island. But when his plans unraveled the Smoke Monster changed his tactics. He decided to destroy the Island and planned to use one very special man, named Desmond, to do it.
4) Why did the rules of the Island change near the end?
Why did Richard Alpert start to age? Why could evil-Locke and Jack the Protector harm each other? Simple: The Island's power was snuffed out by Desmond. This meant all the mystical protections and rules were broken. Richard got gray hair and the forces of good and evil could now do battle. The one thing that would have allowed the Smoke Monster to leave the island was the one thing that made him vulnerable. Surely such vulnerability would have been one of the Smoke Monsters considerations before destroying the island. Perhaps when one goes back through the series and looks at the actions of the Smoke Monster they all begin to make some kind of sense. Perhaps every act taken was in an attempt to weaken Jacob. For the first time I am given some sense of closure to the death of Echo, a powerfully spiritual man who - in retrospect (as a Protector candidate) - would have been a terrible threat to the Smoke Monster.
5) What is the significance of the Sideways Reality/Purgatory?
In the end the Sideways Reality provided this viewer with the happy ending closure I desired. The big twist is that the Sideways Reality wasn't really a reality at all but a kind of post-death-limbo where the souls of the castaways reside before moving on to a better place. When Juliet dies and speaks to Miles, telling him that Jack's plan to change the time-stream and avert the plane crash, she tells the truth. After death Juliet would have a unique perspective on the limbo universe where all the ones we love are there for the finding. Juliet told Miles it worked because she was able to be with all those she loved again. For us long time Lost viewers some will cry foul with the use of any gimmick that even remotely resembles Purgatory. But that's because many were of the opinion that the Island itself was Purgatory. But such a device gives the series creators an opportunity to make good on all the relationships with our fallen heroes. Jack's father, Christian Shepard, said it best when he told his son that what happened on the Island was real and that those times together with those people were the most important in his life. This place, where the characters now find themselves, is a place of their own making where the people most dear can come together and move on with the one they love at their side.
Did this series answer all its questions? No. But what it did do was provide fascinating character study about love and loss, about virtues and vice, and about learning to overcome our own personal failings in an effort to live a life of redemption and purpose.
