Nobody at the Brattle applauded for the credits. The party host,
attired in the manner of a Dharma Initiative scientist, who'd been dispensing
raffle and trivia prizes during the commercial breaks, strongly advised
everyone not to stick around for the (terrible) Jimmy Kimmel post-show, and go
home. The mood felt rather glum, and I knew why. After all this time, I finally
knew the truth.
Mickey Mouse was the real Jacob all along.
The looming, unavoidable certainty of Lost concluding had rendered me an emotional wreck for days. The
constant bombardment of finale hype in all forms of media probably exasperated
my already borderline pathological obsession. I figured it'd best if I sat out
the final chatjam and reserved my thoughts on the finale until I had time to
collect myself, sparing my fellow chatjammers of my inevitable ugly online
meltdown.
I realize at least a million zillion reviews of "The End"
will have already manifested on the internets by the time this runs. But, hey,
fuck it, what's one more going to hurt?
Anyway, the finale contained a few redeemable bits. Alpert
and Lapidus survive after all. The always awesome Hurley thankfully takes over
as the new new Jacob, replacing the always sucky and lame Jack. But as much as
I enjoy kissing and hugging, it gets boring watching imaginary people kiss and
hug for, jeez, what was that, like, a sum total of an hour? I also enjoy
self-referencing, but not to this extent. "The End" reminded me of one of those
Full House clip shows where Uncle
Jesse and the gang reminisce about previous episodes of Full House. Might I add, the final episode of Full House neatly resolves what comparatively few unanswered
questions surrounded life at the Tanner homestead.
I don't usually mind leaving things open to interpretation,
either, but trying to squish the soggy puzzle pieces together gets real
convoluted real fast, and leaves me feeling ripped off....It's like....well....uh....the
electromagnetism had something to do with the light, which was....from Heaven? People
have been using heavenly electromagnetism to time travel? Jacob's brother
turned into the Smoke Monster when Jacob threw him down the pit? Sort of?
So....the Smoke Monster was a really mean angel? Like Lucifer, basically? And
when everybody leaves to move onto the next life, it's quite like that Rapture
Kirk Cameron's always warning us about?....So, Lost was actually some sort of Jesus thing?
I'm sorry, but that Purgatory shit was inexcusable. The
finale's final half-hour made me want to push rusty nails through my eye sockets,
into my brain, ending my life, so I could go to Purgatory and force Jack to
apologize for his hammy, shitty acting. The cynics have maintained throughout,
contrary to official Lost PR, that
the writers made it all up as they went along. It seems the assholes were right.
But when reviews started flittering onto the internets
Monday, it turned out some people actually kind of liked the finale? Kind of
really liked it, in some cases? Am I missing something? Am I a bitchy fanboy who would be complaining a
lot even if the Lost finale really was
one of the best ever?
A woman on a bike I interviewed after the Brattle party didn't
like "The End" either, but presented a perspective more focused on the
spiritual and philosophical aspect of Lost.
According to her, the new-agey shit
worked despite poor execution. I forget whether she said the light at the
center of the Island was truth and wisdom, or love and beauty, but I suppose
either would explain why the world ends if the light goes out and the Island crumbles. That would also explain why everybody realizes
they're totally dead upon encountering their respective hunnies.
Normally I assume hippies are always wrong, but maybe she's
onto something? Maybe the point was no one knows the point. No one has answers for
the big important questions on Lost,
just as no one knows the answers in life. Are we slaves to fate, or can we make
our own luck? Are people all inherently corruptible? Are we here for a purpose?
How often do we ask "What the fuck?" without getting a satisfactory answer? How
often have we listened to someone who said they knew the answer, but didn't
feel like telling us just then, only to later find out those people didn't
really know either?
Then again, Lost was not life. Lost was a TV show. A great TV show with, in my humble opinion, an
absurdly sentimental, lazily written, Hollywood sellout ending.
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