My LOST ending, and a glimpse of how real stories can become
I’ve been pondering the end of Lost for weeks now and I do have an audacious ending idea to share with you. But first on a related note, I had a conversation with my daughter yesterday that highlights just how real stories can seem to us.
Mojo Girl: Mom, I heard a myth that if you say Freddy Krueger’s name three times before going to bed, he’ll come and kill you while you are asleep.
[Brief interlude where I explain that as her Mom I can't even go there with such a gruesome discussion overall, but then I try to dig out as best I can with logic....]
Mojo Mom: It’s just a made-up story. You know that Freddy Krueger is not real. It’s like, if someone told you that if you said Darth Vader’s name three times, he’d come get you. You know that could not happen.
Mojo Girl: But Darth Vader couldn’t get me because he’s already DEAD! PSYCH! I win!
These stories and characters do seem real to us…even if these iconic fables are pure fantasy they play a genuine role in our lives. How about Dorothy and The Wizard of Oz, and then the witches in Wicked? How about Harry Potter? These iconic stories and characters are a real cultural force.
This month people are talking about the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, and where they were when they first saw it. I can tell you that I can mark my true transition to adolescence embarrassingly precisely to the summer of 1980, age eleven turning twelve, the summer when Empire came out. At first I was really mad that Princess Leia gave up on cute and adorable Luke (not yet her brother!) for that jerk Han Solo. Somehow over the course of the summer and seeing the movie again and again (the first and last movie we had on bootleg video) I came to appreciate the bad boy charms of Han Solo and never looked back at my crush on whiny old farm boy Luke.
So that brings me to Lost, an obsession that has sustained me with six years of storytelling. I was not that interested in Lost when I first heard about it. It was a busy time in my life and I didn’t have a lot of time to take on a new television show, but for some reason I decided to watch the first ten minutes of the pilot. Jack’s eye opened, he walked through a quiet yet disorienting scene in the jungle (a Labrador retriever, a sneaker in the tree?)–then Jack emerged from the bamboo and into the plane crash disaster in the beach, and the show had me, and I have never looked back. The way that the story engaged us in the fiery midst of the action rather than introducing us to the characters one by one and then having the crash at the end, like any conventional story would have done, is the key element that drew me in with such curiosity. We were drawn in by the life and death situation and then came to care and wonder who these people were and how they would survive. That structural choice was carried through the whole series with the flashbacks, forwards, and sideways.
I’ve had many Lost theories over the years, and they’ve pretty much all been wrong, but it’s been an interesting mental exercise to puzzle over every step of the way. I’ve savored it like a long-lasting caramel and probed it like the socket left by a lost tooth.
My Lost obsession may have even helped me grow as a writer, seeing what worked for the show and what didn’t (dead-end distractions with Nikki and Paulo, stalling the forward momentum of the story by locking main characters up in bear cages). I would like to think that it doesn’t matter to me exactly what answers we get tonight as long as they pull it into a satisfying conclusion. My main worry at this point is that they really have not left enough time to resolve the ambitious Sideways world storyline.
Losthas pulled in the audience like no other cultural story I have been part of–if you are a disagreeing professional Trekkie please don’t flame me! From message boards to professional commentators like Jeff Jensen on EW.com, to Comic-Con panels, the conversation about Lost has taken on a life of its own. I am just waiting to see which university gives Jeff Jensen and honorary Ph.D. to make an honest “Doc Jensen” out of him.
So I am going to suggest an ending to the series that really honors the way the show has crossed over into the real world.
Spoiler alert! I am making this all up! If I turn out to be right in any way, shape, or form, it will be as much of a surprise to me as it is to you!
This would be controversial and surely upset a lot of people, but in my mind I see a conclusion where the Island timeline and Sideways timeline have to be reset yet again with a cataclysmic Jughead-like reboot. But this time when it goes off, the castaways are all brought back into a totally new timeline, one in which….they are actors trying out for the show Lost.
Gimmicky, perhaps. But what really blows my mind about this idea is that all along we’ve assumed that we’ve been living in the same timeline/universe as they castaways. We think we have lived through their September 22, 2004 when their plane takes off from Sydney. But what if all along we’ve been living in a post-reboot timeline, and didn’t even know it? What if it could happen again? How stable is our own reality? And no matter what, how different will our own personal worlds feel when Lost ends.
In twenty years I hope that I can tell you all about where I was for the Lost finale. As you can see from the invitation, I have friends who are as fanatical about Lost as I am. (Seat 4F, First Class window seat. Nice, except that part about the plane crashing!)
In the meantime I look forward to ordering the most ginormous box set of DVDs the show’s creators are willing to put out, and I would be perfectly happy to go back to the pilot and start watching season one all again. Imagine how different it will all look now that we’ve seen the whole story.
What are your thoughts about the end of Lost? What has to happen tonight for you to be satisfied? And if it’s not a perfect ending, how can we get over any sense of disappointment as soon as possible, to remember what a great ride we’ve had for six seasons? Abrams, Cuse and Lindelof have given us such amazing season finales, especially the Season Three “getting rescued by the Freighter Folks” storyline intertwined with “it’s been flash-forwards….and WE HAVE TO GO BACK.” I am hoping to be blown away tonight, and prepared to forgive all if the finale itself falls short of our completely impossible to meet expectations!
Hi Amy,
I just read your post about “Lost” and though I do not watch tv and have not watched the show, you have me intrigued. I hope that I can “rent” the series sometime.
It is so worthwhile! Next fall try to borrow season one on DVD from a friend and see what you think. Watch the pilot and you’ll know right away whether the show is for you! You can also get the shows from iTunes, and for awhile anyway they were giving away the Season One Pilot Episode download for free.
I just read this after watching the entire wonderful final show last night. I am a HUGE fan of LOST and was pleased with the ending. I think they were able to bring everyone in the sideways story to a sense of closure and brought the island back to their memories before making their final journey on to heaven though some won’t be going yet – even though they came to see Jack and others off. (You remember what Jack’s father said, “We all die sometime.”, and then he said in essence, some of them out there haven’t yet.) But there was no time at the place where they were in the church at the end. So perhaps they all were going on to heaven; we just didn’t get to see the finality of life; like for Hugo and the others who flew off the island on the plane as Jack lay dying. But we know they also die sometime. So as time stood still in the sideways flash at the church -perhaps they all had seen their ending and were moving on along with Jack.
This is truly such a remarkable and intelligent drama; and I am so grateful the writers didn’t dumb it down for us watchers, but intrigued us every step of the way. I will miss it and the whole clan. But I have already purchased seasons 1-5 and have them waiting at home for me to start back at season 1 and start the journey over with them once again… even though I now know how it will end.
Hi Katherine, Thank you for writing–I will admit I was really hoping for confirmation that someone actually read my crazy final LOST blog post. The only thing I was close to being “right” about (which didn’t write here, but did discuss with my husband) was that I did think that after last week when Hurley said, (paraphrasing), “Glad I didn’t get stuck with this job,” part of me thought uh-oh dude, watch what you say there (like Jin stupidly saying to Sun “We’ll never be apart again. I promise you.” Ultimately true, but they sure didn’t survive long!)
Phew! The finale exhausted me but actually left me satisfied. I do think everyone in the church was dead, just that they all died at different times and this was the place they all gathered together before moving on. Many of them outlived Jack but they eventually all ended up there to reconnect with the people who mattered most to them. Kind of like “The Whispers” on the Island, but able to eventually get unstuck.
I wonder if viewers over a certain age (say 35) will appreciate it more than younger fans who have not really had to grapple with mortality yet. The ending worked for me–whatever people think of the final scene, I did think it put the Sideways world into an interesting context that will stand the test of time and repeated viewings. I can’t wait to get the series box set DVDs and watch the whole series again from start to finish. (Release date is August 24th.)