Lost ending

Back in October, I wrote a post about how the TV show "Lost" would end. I had no predictions, given that I was not a steadfast fan (I mostly quit watching after the second season), but I was excited about how the writers were going to finish the tangled mess it had become. I fiercely hoped the writers wouldn't pull a dumb, soap opera-ish deus ex machina ending, or use one of those moldy old "then they woke up" hat tricks overused by desperate writers in the past.

I watched the last hour of the final show the other night and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how it ended or what it meant. My spouse, who has watched every show, sometimes twice, wasn't exactly sure either, so I can't attribute my ignorance entirely to my lack of "Lost" knowledge.

Of course the writers wanted to leave viewers talking and wondering, I'll give them that. But I'm not even sure that they knew what it meant or that the multiple conclusions were consistent with each person's island story line and alternative reality. Were they in purgatory all along or only in their alternative realities, or was the last couple of seasons Jack's fantasy as he lay dying?

Yet I must say I admire the nested framework they succeeded in creating, how the final shot of Jack dying in the bamboo forest is a near-perfect reversal of Jack waking up in the bamboo forest after the plane crash from the first episode. Someone has posted a video comparing the two endings, the final running forward and the first running in reverse, which I'll embed below.

The writers have said that they meant to finish the show in this way all along. It's a neat trick, whether it really means anything or rightly concludes the show.