Lost had an opportunity to cement its legacy as one of the all time great shows during its sixth and final season. All of its problems aside, I truly felt that those who had stuck with it through the era of The Hatch and The Others were richly rewarded by what came next: adventure, creepy sci fi bizarre-ness, and yes, truly great character development and performances by a large and strikingly standout cast.
I continued to think this throughout what was a phenomenally successful final season until… the end.
I haven't been able to get "The End," the series finale, out of my head this week, and not in a good way. The really weird thing about it is that there was much that was good in it: Jack's final confrontation with Not Locke/Smoeky was exciting, and indeed most of the action on the island was compelling and operating at Lost's highest level.
However, I'm struck over and over again by the fact that the final twist and direction – that really only made itself fully known in the final minutes – absolutely ruined and tarnished the legacy of the show. The implication that the alternate storyline was, in fact, some sort of purgatory created by the collective unconscious (souls?) of the Oceanic 815 survivors (and friends) automatically negates the importance of the alternate storyline universe that so much time was spent on during the final season.
The few minutes of the happy reunion with friends and lovers and loved ones in the banal non-denominational church then further and damningly erodes the importance of anything we saw during the entirety of the series.
What is the nature of the island and the forces that guard and protect it and seek to destroy it? Doesn't matter, everyone dies and gets to be with their loved ones in the afterlife. Why were characters such as Walt and Aaron and Jack and Desmond and Hurley selectively more "special" than others? Doesn't matter. What was the deal with Hurley's lucky numbers, seeing dead people, the strange problem of island pregnancies, Ben's absolution for mass murdering The Dharma Initiative personnel, time jumps, island "movements," and on and on. Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn’t matter. We all die and go to a better place.
Maybe if the creators could go back to the beginning, they would call this show Lost: A Non-Denominational Religious Journey Where Nothing Matters Because We All Die.
Sure, I get the counter-argument: it's all about the characters, lighten up about all that "plot stuff." And take note: the character stuff was great through the end. But plot and character go together like night and day, yin and yang, pick your cliché duality example of choice. Like the old song says, you can't have one without the other, kids. Sorry.
Here's my quick and dirty Monday morning quarterback solution: the main storyline should have resolved into the alternate storyline. That is, the decisions and climactic clashes taking place on the island should have allowed the characters to "end up" (somehow) in this alternate world where not everything was perfect, but the characters had a shot to escape the "lost" nature that brought them to the island in the first place. Further, characters could still be with those that they had a connection with on the island, and even have the classic sci fi "sense" (think Sliding Doors, a charming sci fi romantic comedy) that they knew each other in another life. This would still allow for the full range of characterization and emotion that we got from "The End," without all of the huge levels of fail.
The nifty thing here too is that many of the huge open plot questions could have still been easily avoided. But they importantly would still matter to the millions of people who invested dozens of hours of their lives on what, in the truest sense of the end, was revealed as largely being a waste of time.
