Dear Lost, I Will Miss You

This is sort of a continuation from my last post about the series finale of the television show Lost, which aired last night on ABC. After watching the finale, I personally felt that the show delivered an emotionally satisfying ending. In fact, with the abundance of characters, I'm not quite sure what ending could/would have been more appropriate.

The purgatory deal was a bit confusing, but if anyone tuned into Jimmy Kimmel afterward, or has done a little bit of reading from reviews in the LA Times, New York Times, USA TODAY, etc. its all explained.

Essentially, this is how it played out:

The island was the real world. Everything that occurred there was real life. Everyone was alive and they all eventually died (as we all will). Some died after Jack (Hurley, Desmond, Ben etc.); some died before Jack (Shannon, Boone, Sayid etc). I'm inclined to think that since they made it off the island, Sawyer, Kate and Claire lived long lives as well.

The alt timeline (in which the plane never crashed, Jack had a son, etc.) turned out to be a kind purgatory where they waited till they were ready to go on to heaven or what I assume to be some kind of paradise (this was them sitting in the church as the light entered).

As Jack's Dad told him, there was no real "now" in purgatory. Therefore, the fact that some died sooner than others was irrelevant because time after death is not linear. This is perhaps the most confusing part of the purgatory storyline, but the main point is this:

Everything that occurred on the island was reality. Everything we've seen this entire season in the alternate time line is purgatory until the finale, in which the group joins back together, regains their memories and lets go in order to "move on".

Some might call the ending a cop-out, others may say it was cheesy, but frankly I think these characters deserve a happy ending. I didn't need to have everything explained. Similarly to mythology, Lost touches on the unbelievable, events in which we feel we require a fact based step by step understanding, but like mythology many events went unexplained and are meant merely to be accepted. I suppose it requires us as an audience to let go as the group of Losties did, and become somewhat like the character of Jack who initially started out as a man of science before converting into a man of faith. Personally, I don't need all the answers. The acting, direction and overall storyline in last night's episode was fulfilling enough. That being said, goodbye Lost! Or, [insert cheesiness here] as Desmond would say "See you in another life brotha." Oh how I'm going to miss that Scottish accent.