In Another Life

LOST SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE...CAN'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU

An era has ended, farewell LOST, and Rest In Peace. Never will there be anther show quite like this one. Never will I need to use my brain while watching tv the way I have had to with this show. Never again will characters and storylines draw me in as much as the Losties have.

The level of confusion in Lost has long been the butt of many jokes, by fans and critics alike. To point out just one example, I stumbled across a picture of Josh Holloway (Sawyer) bearing a caption that reads “Don’t ask me, I’m on the damn show and I don’t have a clue”. Said picture is now the desktop background on my laptop (remove your judging face, please). But tonight, questions were answered, character arcs closed, and reveals all came to a head in the last ever episode of this epic piece of storytelling.

So what can I say about The End? Well firstly, I retract my statements about how this was a “lame title”. Clearly “It Only Ends Once” would not have worked because, well, clearly it does not only end once! What we have been calling the “Alternate Reality”, and the powers that be have been calling the “Flash Sideways” was actually neither. It was a reality constructed by the Losties, once they had all died, in which they were able to find each other, as the people they met on the island were the most important people they ever met in their lives. The island was real, there was no case of “it was all in Hurley’s crazy head”, “it was all in Vincent’s head” or “it was all MIB playing an evil little game”. The island was real, the people were real, and the relationships they forged were real. The deaths were real, the heartache was real, the battles were real. And it all ended perfectly full circle with Jack dying in the exact same place where he woke up after Oceanic 815 crashed all those years ago. Okay, where is that shocked face, found it, okay, now put it back on…yes, I said JACK DIED! Beautifully. It was all extremely poetic. The episode as a whole was put together beautifully as well, really, I think the only word to describe the episode as a whole is “beautiful”. The montages of the characters as they each had their defining were extremely moving, I think that even the robot that I am may have teared up if I hadn’t been on such an adrenaline high. I screamed at the screen when Jack got stabbed, it was the first time I’d ever been on his side in a fight. I lost (excuse the pun) count of how many times I said “awww”. I also lost track of the amount of times I wondered how they would wrap up the show in so little time! I was so happy to see old familiar faces; Charlie, Boone, Daniel and all the others that popped up along the way. Hurley’s tears broke my heart, as did hearing the “Life and Death” theme song, which has now stuck itself comfortably in my head. Oh, and I was beyond extremely happy to see Richard alive, but screamed more than a bit when I though Crazy Claire was going to shoot him...

In The End, Lost wasn't about the mythology; why Waaaaaalt was special, what the light was, why Aaron shouldn't have been Raised By Another, who got shot in the outrigger shooting, how time travel worked, or why there was a statue of an Egyptian god on the island. It wasn't even about what the island was, or why Jacob was special. It was about the characters, the people whom we'd grown so attached to over the years while we'd watched them love, lose, live together, and in some cases, die alone. It was about the relationships they'd forged, and the times they'd spent together. Because isn't that the only thing that matters in the end anyway? The fact is that life isn't about what we do, but about the people who we do it with.

I think the reason I became so attached to Lost was that I associate it with happiness. I discovered it at a time when I was truly happy, after being extremely unhappy for a long time. The week I spent on holiday when I started watching Lost was the best week of 2008 for me. Everytime I think back on good times, that is always one of them, and so Lost just gets equated with being happy. Also, I must just point out that I was extremely excited to see certain celebrities such as Rob Thomas, Dave from Lady Antebellum, Neil Patrick Harris and Hayley Williams tweeting about the finale!

I loved the finale. I thought it was an amazing and fitting end to an amazing show, and I have no complaints whatsoever. Finally, I’d just like to offer my thanks to the brilliant brains behind this show that has made us laugh, cry, scream and lose sleep over the past years. As I said before, there will never be another show quite like LOST.