I saw a snarky comment last night — I don’t even remember where, whether Twitter or a blog — that if you equate an emotional response with “greatness”, then you’d consider last night’s LOST finale to be great. While I do consider a finale that can bring me to tears five or six times (and two of those times leaving me sobbing) to be great, I’m also incredibly satisfied with the resolutions reached last night.
One thing I’ve loved about LOST, and I’d bet I’m not alone in this, is that it lets the characters fail. There are no elegant solutions, no fail-safe answers; our characters are human, flawed, and they don’t always make the right decisions. Yet in the end, regardless of what they’ve done right or wrong, they find redemption.
I don’t need my plots in tv shows, movies, and books to be neatly resolved and tied up with a bow. I don’t need every loose end to be tied. I don’t need everything to be explained. In fact, I don’t like it. Do I know everything about the world I live in? No. At the end of my life, my finale, will all of my experiences in life come together into a coherent whole that I can look at and say “everything I ever worried about is perfectly resolved”? No. That’s life. We not only don’t have all the answers, but we never will.
For six seasons, the writers of LOST haven’t provided concise answers. I don’t understand why anyone would think that the finale would offer such a thing. To me, the finale provided an emotionally and mentally satisfying resolution to the main story arc I’ve followed for six seasons.
Now, let me be honest: I’m not thrilled with the whole “well of light” thing. I think it’s a weak ass premise for all these people to have been on the Island experiencing all the things they did. I’m also kind of eye-rolling at what the Sideways world ended up being (although I think that, ultimately, it makes sense). That said, I’m looking forward to (someday — hopefully soon!) rewatching the entire series and trying to apply the things I’ve learned about the characters and the Island in season 6 to the overall story arc. I won’t lie, though, I think that while the creators/writers may have had an idea that they wanted the Island to represent something like a chess game between Good and Evil, a lot of the specifics were hammered out as they went along.
I’m okay with that creative process, and I understand it’s how some people work best. I’m a writer, and that’s how I work best. I’m working on a novel right now whose premise is “magic is fucked up and needs to be fixed”, and while I have an answer to that problem in mind, I’m making up the details as I go along. If this storyline becomes a series (which, uh, it’s planned to be), then yeah, there will be some dangling plots along the way, and some characters whose motivations might never be known. That’s simply the way things go in a sprawling, epic story (you know, just like in life).
Like I said on Twitter last night, I wonder if my satisfaction with Lost’s finale stems from my avid love of fantasy fiction, where suspension of disbelief is a must and accepting the possible (or sometimes downright ridiculous) is simply a part of enjoying the story. Lost has been, all along, character-driven. Watch season one again. Heck, just watch the pilot. It’s all about these characters, and the evolution they’ve gone through over the course of six seasons was deeply satisfying to me.
Also, the fact that, for once in her life, Kate didn’t follow someone into the jungle and get herself captured was brilliant. Actually, this was a great episode for Kate and I’m so thrilled that she finally was the strong, smart, vulnerable, loving woman that she should have been all along.
The moments that hit me hardest:
- When Kate looked at Jack as they stood up on top of that cliff with fear, love, acceptance, and that crazy hope against the inevitable that I was experiencing as a viewer.
- Kate’s epiphany being triggered by Claire.
- Claire hugging Aaron close and sobbing his name. Finally. FINALLY.
- Claire and Charlie. Oh my god. (I should note that I started watching Lost while pregnant, and identified in a lot of ways with Claire, so every scene with her is a favourite.)
- Jin and Sun sobbing together in the ultrasound room, knowing what had happened to them on the Island, yet so incredibly happy to be together now.
- Vincent at the end.
- Locke greeting Jack in the church. Locke being Locke again.
I don’t need everything answered. I like to be left wondering, wanting, and imagining. What I need is for the characters I’ve loved for six seasons to have emotional resolution, which they did. And that’s why LOST’s finale was, to me, phenomenal.