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Lost - "The End" 5/23 series finale (spoilers)

212K views 2K replies 272 participants last post by  Steveknj 
#1 ·
What an awesome episode!!!!!!!

Ok, it actually doesn't start for 1 hour. :)

Here it comes!
 
#1,736 ·
Those of us on the side that we didn't like it, its not that we didn't understand it. I understood it quite well. And it wasn't just the last episode that I didn't like, but the whole last season, when the show we were watching for all those years became a moot point. But we've been over it a thousand times.
This sums up my feelings perfectly (thanks for typing for me!) I wish I had never watched the final season. If I ever do a rewatch, I'll skip the final season.
 
#1,737 ·
So are people saying they didn't like the flash-sideways in the final season? Because if it were up to me, I'd get rid of most of the on-island stuff from the final season and keep the flash-sideways.
 
#1,738 ·
This sums up my feelings perfectly (thanks for typing for me!) I wish I had never watched the final season. If I ever do a rewatch, I'll skip the final season.
I'd rewatch (and have tried a couple of times and never gotten past the first few episodes of S1, I end up watching stuff that I've never seen before first), and look for clues that try and make sense of the last season.
 
#1,739 ·
So are people saying they didn't like the flash-sideways in the final season? Because if it were up to me, I'd get rid of most of the on-island stuff from the final season and keep the flash-sideways.
I hated the final season but liked the sideways aspect. Great to see the band back together again. It did not harm or diminish the prior seasons, rather it enhanced them and let us savor the relationships one last time.

Why I hated the final is that after years they suddenly introduced 2 clowns who made the 1st several years pretty close to irrelevant.
 
#1,740 ·
I hated the final season but liked the sideways aspect. Great to see the band back together again. It did not harm or diminish the prior seasons, rather it enhanced them and let us savor the relationships one last time.

Why I hated the final is that after years they suddenly introduced 2 clowns who made the 1st several years pretty close to irrelevant.
Yep, this. I've said, if the last season was a separate SERIES, I might have liked it, but in context it marginalized everything that happened before.
 
#1,741 ·
I hated the final season but liked the sideways aspect. Great to see the band back together again. It did not harm or diminish the prior seasons, rather it enhanced them and let us savor the relationships one last time.

Why I hated the final is that after years they suddenly introduced 2 clowns who made the 1st several years pretty close to irrelevant.
how? The whole series was moving toward "who is Jacob and what is the Island?" And that's where it ended.
 
#1,751 · (Edited)
A show like LOST only truely works when the writers\producers know how they are going to end the show from the very start. LOST started with a great idea, but there was no ending concept (a larger reality) that was the foundation for everything that followed the plane crash. There were lots of cool twists\turns\surprises\etc, but they were just great sci-fi ideas that added to the mystery of the island, those ideas were not linked to together when the showed ended. IMHO, they should have simply ended the show without attempting to explain anything because how the series ended appeared to be a final season effort to wrap things up the best they could after introducing so many different interwoven mysteries, yet in the end, didn't make sense or were just dead ends.

I'll concede, maybe is just didn't "get it" during the final moments of series finally. I was anticipating some kind of camera pull back exposing something simple and obvious that made everything in the series make perfect sense.
 
#1,752 ·
If the writers really wanted this to turn out to be the "game" between the two brothers, they should have ended it at the scene where Jacob and TMIB were talking at the end of the next to last season. Then at least, we would have gotten the idea of what they were trying to say. I'm not the writers, but I hated that whole thing and the last season made it worse, but at least with that little bit of a surprise ending, I'd have "gotten" it.

But I've said many times over the years, the best part of the series wasn't the ending, but the journey. Still one of the most well written series ever. Do you discount the whole Sopranos series because the ending was so vague? No, the series was great, but didn't have a great last episode. Same with Seinfeld and lots of others.
 
#1,754 ·
Making a multi-year series suddenly about two moronic brothers pretty much out of the blue trivialized much of what we cared about plot wise over the years. Agreed, except for the characters's stories, although it also somewhat minimized their significance.
I did not have a problem with the postlude where some undefinable time later in some undefined variation of 21st century LA, everyone had a re-union of sorts.
 
#1,755 ·
Christ, this has now turned from some fun "oh yeah! I remember that awesome day we all shared the ending of Lost together!" anniversary into a "someone new comes along and bashes the ending, and stirs up lots of complaints" event. Haven't enough years gone by yet that the haters can just let their complaints go? Lost was awesome and the ending was awesome. If you didn't believe so, fine, but there's less justifiability for you to repeat that over the years then there is for those of us who enjoyed it to repeat our claims, at least from a "let's be positive about the world and only bother remembering the good stuff" point of view.
 
#1,758 ·
So you're saying I should just let go of all the things I loved about Lost over the years, just because the ending sucked?

Or that I should just shut up and go away because you don't feel the same way?

Sorry, either way doesn't really work for me...
 
#1,759 ·
Sigh. Maybe make a thread for people who love to hate the ending together, then link it here, and if you really want, you guys can reminisce about how much you all hated it together and get yourselves worked up about it? I mean, that's a negative emotion - I don't know why you'd want some alarm clock of negative emotion to go off every year, but if that's what you want, that's a great way to achieve it.

Most of us, I imagine, would not want to self-punish ourselves by experiencing something negative every year.

(I mean, myself, I was disappointed by the execution of Babylon 5... I spend zero time thinking about it unless someone else brings it up. I would absolutely never subscribe to a thread where we fight about it every year, when I don't like it).

Why not just talk about what you LIKED about the show, every year, here in this thread, and ***** about the crappy stuff somewhere else?

Seriously, there's a significant asymmetry here. Nostalgia for something pleasant and good is desirable. Nostalgia for something unpleasant and bad is not as desirable - it's only really good if it's to remind us about that for some reason, so we can all learn a lesson (like let's remember what happened to start this or that war, so history doesn't repeat itself).

Unless you think one of the people on this thread is a writer for a TV series and you think this particular thread about the last episode of Lost will cause them to learn some lesson about how you like endings, and change the ending of their new show, then it's not worth creating a recurring fight.

I suppose you could have an argument to make about "Then we should have two threads - one for people who liked the ending and one for people who didn't", but again why would people every year post in the "people who didn't like it" thread, saying "Hey! 5th year anniversary of that ending we didn't like! You might have been having a pleasant day today in our finite existence here on Earth, but have a slightly less pleasant day because of the bad memory of prior disappointment. Remember how we disliked that ending?".

As for enjoying the rest of the show that wasn't the ending, great! I suggest when the "it's been x years since the finale!" posts come up, talk about what you liked and stop rehashing an old fight. It's unpleasant. Or post your own "hey, here was an episode I LIKED. It's the xth anniversary of that one! Yay!" thread.

Or, post here negatively every year if you must, and cause fights and disappointments every year. That's your right. But that's a strange action to take, especially from someone who cares enough about appearances to bother calling someone else on here arrogant.

I'd rather remember our great moments together. There are enough fights on the web. Do we seriously need to contaminate this conversation too?
 
#1,766 ·
I point to Leftovers as an example of Lindelof learning his lesson...it was a show that, while there was a big mystery in the plot, did not treat that mystery as central to the show itself. And then he went ahead and underpromised the ending (i.e., lowered expectations for closure rather than raised them, and then gave more closure than expected).

I strongly suspect that if Lindelof had it to do over again, he would do things differently on Lost both in terms of how he structured the show and in terms of how he dealt with the public. I guess my question would be how much of Lost's crack-like appeal was built on people being hooked on the mysteries...I think to some extent that's what drew us (or many of us) in as much as it did. Would it have been as big a hit if it had been a more honest show? I honestly don't know. Maybe, maybe not...
 
#1,773 ·
I point to Leftovers as an example of Lindelof learning his lesson...it was a show that, while there was a big mystery in the plot, did not treat that mystery as central to the show itself. And then he went ahead and underpromised the ending (i.e., lowered expectations for closure rather than raised them, and then gave more closure than expected).
.
Network TV still wants 20+ episodes a season with a show running a few years longer then it should. Premium cable, and streaming services, do a better job working with the producers. Fewer episodes a year. It's OK to stop when you think you've finished telling the story. Even today. Shows like Quantico would be better served, JMO, as one and done.

I've managed to remember what I liked about Lost more then what I didn't like. The ending was better then I expected, given the twists and turns we were given. They could have tied everything up perfectly. An alien running everything. The entire show taking place over a couple of days. We find out the entire show was the memory of one or more passengers eating hallucinogenic plants. Everyone died on the plane crash, the entire show was purgatory. I'll take the ending we got over any of the obvious "tie everything up in a bow" alternatives.

What we got tied up a lot, in a matter consistent with the mythology of the show. The show would have been better if the number of seasons was known to the producers from the beginning.
 
#1,777 ·
The main disappointment I had with Lost is... in earlier seasons I was looking forward to rewatching it for the second time with all sorts of knowledge about the meaning behind things like smoke monsters, numbers, white horses. After the last season and finale, I never once thought of watching another episode of Lost ever again.
Precisely my reaction. I bought Blu-Ray of all but the last season on sale on Amazon figuring I could savor the series time and again. But after the writers went with the two mentally challenged brothers, I've never watched an episode.

I DO have a warm feeling of regard for LOST and am glad I watched the series experiencing the journey, the mystery and the characters. Just knowing how the end pretty much made everything irrelevant keeps me from repeating the journey.
 
#1,780 ·
I've done a rewatch of LOST every year or so since it ended and enjoy it every time. I still find things I didn't notice or have just forgotten. Aside from some minor quibbles I was very happy with the show, including the ending. It was and continues to be very emotional. I've seen many great shows, but LOST is still my favorite show, quibbles and all.
 
#1,781 ·
I could probably do a full rewatch every 12-18 months. I think I finished up my first rewatch early last summer. I could easily start it up again right now, but there's such a backlog of great TV that I haven't seen at all yet. The Wire is likely leaving Amazon Prime in 2018, so I started that a few days ago rather than go thru LOST again.

If I could only watch like 5 TV shows for the rest of my life, LOST is the only show that instantly comes to mind as a must keep.
 
#1,802 · (Edited)
I rewatched with my kids and loved every episode of thE rewatch. I recommend letting go of the hate and enjoying the show again.
Last year, I re-watched with my kids...crazy binge watching....6 seasons in a few months! :eek:

I have to say that I really enjoyed seeing it again. Loved seeing my boy's excitement as to what was happening in a show, and the "can we watch another episode tonight" that always followed. I wasn't disappointed in the ending as many were....it really ended up in the only logical place it could considering where the writers took the show, and I was satisfied with the finale.

It was a heck of a lot of fun to go back and rewatch the whole series after actually knowing the story. A lot of things that confused me before made a lot more sense. I even found the ending much more satisfying after a complete rewatch than the first time.
Totally agree....seeing it a second time all the way through, especially in binge mode, made a lot of things come together. I was good with the ending the first time, but agree that it is a bit more satisfying after a rewatch where all of the early seasons are still fresh in mind.

That being said, I could see during our binge watching that the story took a bunch of crazy jumps after the 3rd, 4th and 5th seasons which in retrospect had no bearing on the beginning or the end. I really think that the original concept was thought up with a 2-3 year season ending but when it got so popular, like so many other franchises (i.e. Marvel), Hollywood milked it for all it was worth. I know Lindelof and Cuse have said that they had already developed the story ideas for first season and knew what the ending scene was going to be....neither which involved two dueling brothers, time travel, etc. The rest was developed before each season, many of the twists and rabbit holes only to get lots of "wow" talking points for the Lost viral chatter and not to further the storyline or ever have an explainable conclusion. I picture writers sitting in a room trying to figure out what else they could add to the story to maximize the Thursday morning "Lost talk" and stretch it out as long as possible....."why don't we now make them travel through time....that will surprise everyone, confuse people and lets us write off so many unexplainable things" ....."oh, and we can add two brothers who represent good and evil....white shirt and black shirt, no one will expect that". I know there was a Hollywood writer's strike in between somewhere, which also affected some of the writing of many shows, making them shift gears.

Funny thing is that for me, the first few seasons were the best, and the final scene fit those seasons....they should have just wrapped up with that, without the donkey wheel and island jumping through time, or white shirt/black shirt brothers, etc.....it was still a fantastic story without the extra stuff that was made to stretch out the inevitable ending.

I think it was an amazing show regardless, well written overall, well produced, and the journey to get to the end was well worth all the time invested in watching (and re-watching). Even though I loved the show, I do agree with others that have said that had it had been more planned at the onset, with a beginning, middle and end, that all flowed together evenly, more people may have been able to accept the finale ending scene as a logical and good ending.
 
#1,803 ·
Actually I liked the time travel parts a lot. They handled it well and if I'm remembering correctly--I haven't watched for years--it all added up and made sense (not always the case with time travel ;))

Now that we're getting close to the end of GoT and we're guessing at the ending-- it so hard to come up with a really awesome ending to shows like this. I hope GoT will do better--I think it will because we know that it was all figured out in advance in this case.....
 
#1,808 ·
It will probably eventually land on the OTT service Disney is developing, but I don't think that service will be available until 2019. It's possible Hulu will pick it up in the interim - they seem to be taking the lead in library content that Netflix has held for so long.

It's also possible Netflix is in the process of re-negotiating the streaming rights and that it won't actually leave the service.
 
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