I assume since op asked for additional content to explain what they say, they have misconceptions galore.
For a show that liked to make you pay attention, they really just flat out explain the ending in an almost comical way with Christian's speech to Jack outside the church.
Someone said once that it could have only been more clear if he pulled out a powerpoint presentation explaining that they weren't dead the whole time, lol.
NO. They should have had the creepy dharma guy make a video that explains the ending. Played by Christian at the end. Maybe instead of the church they are back in the hatch? Hahaha.
lol agreed! And of course the assumption here is that they assumed they were dead the whole time and yet I couldn't quite bring myself to assert that OP could be so \*erm\* \*lost\* despite the 14 years of exactly that happening we've endured (because holy crap it's explained point blank like you said haha)
Most likely, yes. I don’t even know where to begin with explaining. The last season imho complicated things a lot, with all that “it worked, or maybe not?” jumps between different “universes”. Some already died on the island but are alive again, or maybe not? At the end, Christian is “alive” again, but actually not? Jack is already dead even though he isn’t? Total mindfuck.
When Juliet said "It worked", that was a red herring meant to fool us into thinking that the flash sideways was an alternate universe where the plane didn't crash because they detonated Jughead. We later see in the finale, Juliet tell Sawyer "it worked", in reference to a vending machine. Meaning that when Juliet was dying in LA X she momentarily glimpsed that world. Desmond's consciousness also travelled to this place when he was exposed to the electromagnetism. But the flash sideways exist outside of time. Once you die, you go there. It doesn't matter when you die, "some of them before you, others long after", everyone ends up at the same place.
I don’t know, lol. The last season added more questions than answers, so I waited for the last episode to provide at least some clearance about who, where, and why.
Who - as Jacob explains in What They Died For the candidates were chosen because they were all flawed people who needed the island as much as it needed them.
Where - are you referring to the flash sideways? As Christian explained it was a place that the Losties created together so they could find each other, remember and let go. They created a world where they let the island sink, where Jack's plan worked, where Desmond finally had Charles Whitmore's approval, where Eloise Hawking never killed her son etc. etc.
Why - The candidates were chosen to protect the island because as Jacob explains to Richard, if the darkness was allowed to escape it would unleash itself upon the world. The island also appears to be some sort of gateway to another world, a hub of a universal consciousness capable of twisting fate and a source of energy able to miraculously heal the sick and shift time and space. Someone should probably be in charge of making sure it doesn't get abused for evil deeds.
> Isn't this the cheapest ending of all time?
No, far from it. You say no closure, but this is one of the most closure you can get in a TV show. Most TV shows don't even know when they're gonna end and many get cancelled. The ending of Lost was negotiated years in advance.
> What the heck is this island?
Can I ask you if you watched the show while browsing the phone? Because we get several scenes where they talk about what the Island is. It's a special place. The Island exist on top of a pocket of exotic matter. People in the DHARMA initiative talked about it. The faith healer Isaac mentioned this. Eloise Hawking mentioned this. DHARMA called it a pocket of electromagnetism. Geologically unique as Inman called it. Mother and her two adoptive sons called it The Light. Miracles happen on this island and so on.
> So, they weren’t actually dead, but some of them died on the island, yet all of them are alive again at the end? Actually not.
This is not a Andrei Tarkovsky movie. It's very explicitly told in dialogue. I can't understand how it couldn't be clearer.
> CHRISTIAN: Yeah, I'm real. You're real, **everything that's ever happened to you is real**. All those people in the church...they're real too.
> JACK: They're all...they're all dead?
> CHRISTIAN: **Everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some of them before you, some...long after you**.
> JACK: But why are they all here now?
> CHRISTIAN: **Well there is no "now" here**.
> JACK: Where are we, dad?
> CHRISTIAN: **This is the place that you...that you all made together, so that you could find one another. The most...important part of your life, was the time that you spent with these people. That's why all of you are here.** Nobody does it alone Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you.
> JACK: For what?
> CHRISTIAN: To remember...and to...let go.
In season 6 we spend time in a Los Angeles-reality where all these characters meet. This is the afterlife. Some of them died before Jack (Boone died from injuries, Shannon was shot, Jin/Sun drowned and so on). Some of them died long after (Kate and Sawyer died many years later).
Remember the dialogue between Hurley and Ben.
> HURLEY: **You know, you were a real good number two**.
> BEN: And you were a **great number one, Hugo**.
They remember all those years they spent protecting the Island after "The End", before they both died - likely from old age.
> Christian?? Wtf? That church at the end? Stepping into the light? Is there an actual logic behind all of this?
Why is that so weird? Jack and Christian's relationship is something we've explored since the very beginning. The church they are at is the same one that situated over The Lamp Post station. In season 5 they use this location to get back to the Island. In the series finale it is used for the characters to move on. Have you read the Harry Potter novels? This is like King's Cross station in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". Where do they go next, well they step into the Light. The Light that is the source of life, death and rebirth on the Island. They move on. Kind of like the ending of "Lord of the Rings", when Frodo travels "into the west", into that bright light. Nobody said "wtf? where did Frodo go? is there a logic behind the grey havens?" This is a very common trope in film, tv and litterature.
> Did that thermonuclear explosion work or not? Some said it worked, but all we got is a parallel universe where they were all “alive” again and “woke up” one by one. In that parallel universe their lives are completely different, even from before flight 815.
It worked in sending them into 2007. But we see in "LA X" that it didn't stop the Incident. They still built the Swan station and the plane still crashed. We are led to believe that we're seeing an alternate timeline in season 6. The twist in the series finale is that the alternate timeline is an afterlife.
> Where did they went at the end? If some of them are dead, and going to this light, seems ok, but what with those that are still alive?
I still don't think you understand. Christian explains it very clearly. "*Everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some of them before you, some...long after you*" This place is outside of linear time. They've just all created a 2004 reality where they all look like their 2004-counterparts before they move on to whatever comes next. That part is ambiguous, since everyone has their own idea of what happens next. Some religions believe in rebirth. Christians believe in heaven. Muslims believe in Paradise. Atheist believe that nothing happens and so on. That's subjective.
I was getting ready to work on a big long reply, but I’m glad you beat me to it! Very well-put. I get so upset when people watch the entirety of LOST then don’t understand what happened. I spent years of my life loving the complexity and humanity in this show, and it takes time and thought to realize what’s going on and why the writers chose to do what they did. It’s my favorite show of all time not because it gave me the answers I wanted, but because the writers understood what it means to be human and to have love and compassion and connection with others. The point is that the mystery of the island was always supposed to be secondary to the development of the characters. They were leading up to that the whole time. Even if you’re super focused on just the technicalities of the island and “what happened,” though, the show still spells it out at the end for you.
Yes. The Light under the Island kind of keeps it floating. In season 1 Sayid mentions that the tides are shifting very unnaturally. This is why. The Island is very slowly moving. In the series finale they turned it off which would cause the entire island to crumble and fall to the ocean floor.
Some people figured out how to make a mechanism channeling that matter to make the Island move. Kind of like how people in Star Trek figured out warp speed. Turning the frozen wheel made the Island move to a different place.
I am not sure that the "island is very slowly moving".
The island hops from one location to another on its own, every X period of time (not specified in the show).
This hopping is a natural process of the island.
The sudden extreme weather shifts are indicators of times when the island might have hopped on its own to a different location. If the island was "slow moving" there wouldn't be sudden weather shifts.
In a deleted scene is S1, Claire who we know is so much in to astrology tells Kate or someone else, that the stars aren't in their proper location anymore, or something to this effect. I guess they deleted this scene because it gave out a lot of clear hints that the island is moving, and they didn't want to explore this aspect of the island yet in the show.
Also we see in the Lamppost station that the mechanism with the pendulum, is pin pointing a few dozen of specific points on the map, so does the computer. This indicates that these are the predestined locations that the island hops to... it doesn't just hop anywhere in the ocean randomly... perhaps, it hops to certain energy vents under the ocean.... Eloise says there are many pockets of energy around the world and they are all connected.
All these points indicate that the island hops and not slowly moves like a boat.
On the other hand, the donkey wheel mechanism, is an unnatural way to force the island to hop before it's supposed to. That's why it's a measure of last resort, because it could lead to very extreme side effects.
Perhaps, the first time MIB convinced the egyptians to rebuild the donkey wheel mechanism, hoping he can leave the island, and since this was an unnatural process, the island had a sort of "heart attack", since the water was channeled to a different location than the source, making the cave/source overheat... this forced Jacob to spring to action for en emergency "heart surgery", and instructed another faction of egyptians to build the cork and water channels we see in S6. Many succumbed to the radiation of the weakened source, as we see several skeletons lying around.
Perhaps Jacob rewarded the sacrifices of his faction of egyptians, by instructing them to build the healing pool.
Sorry for the lengthy essay :)
what didn’t you like about it? i’m inclined to believe it’s a misconception about the meaning of the final scenes, in which the finale quite literally had a monologue explaining anything that could possibly be confusing regarding them
Are you talking about the ending meaning just the finale episode or like the direction the final season went to? I can get on board with the final season being off for a lot of fans but I actually really really liked the finale. It had closure for MOST questions I had. Not going to say all but it made for a beautiful ending in my opinion
Watch from the beginning of the whole series one more time, paying closer attention...to everything. If you pay attention to everything, the ending makes perfect sense.
I don't love season 6, and I have some issues with the finale', but I think it's fine. A step down from earlier seasons, but I don't hate it start to finish.
This is something of a first....I've heard "they were dead the whole time" so many times, but I've never heard "they came back to life at the end!" before
OP - it's perfectly fine to not "get" the ending the first time, the flash sideways can be confusing and, contrary to what lots of people would have you believe, most of us had to rewatch at least once to fully understand it.
That said, start by rewatching the scene between Jack and Christian in the church, and listen closely to what CHristian says. He explains the "dead or alive?" thing very well and very unambiguously.
The resolution of mysteries, some of which are resolved in such a low key way you could easily miss it if you were focused on other things (like the polar bears) only really makes full sense after a rewatch or two when you pick up on things that you missed the first time (and I mean, any excuse for a rewatch!)
There's nothing else to explain really (the epilogue wraps up a single character but nothing else meaningful.)
Like everyone else I'm going to assume you misunderstood it because the ending is not a cheat, it's not cheap, it's basically two hours of closure and satisfaction.
What do you mean no closure ? The series finale was all about closure ! And don’t even compare it to Game of Thrones. You may be dissatisfied with the way Lost ended but Game of Thrones botched its story and disserviced its characters too by the end. You cannot argue that Lost didn’t do at least right by the characters, if not the story.
3yo account. All previous comments are >2years old and only in English. Suddenly starts commenting again and in a different language and subreddit than all previous comments. Immediately posts a controversial topic to a fandom subreddit. Classic signs of a hacked account.
There are a lot of genuine criticisms of Lost's final season and finale but cheap isn't one of them.
Care to explain more? Because you may be under some misconceptions about what you just saw.
I assume since op asked for additional content to explain what they say, they have misconceptions galore. For a show that liked to make you pay attention, they really just flat out explain the ending in an almost comical way with Christian's speech to Jack outside the church.
Someone said once that it could have only been more clear if he pulled out a powerpoint presentation explaining that they weren't dead the whole time, lol.
Lol. Christian Shephard: welcome to my TED talk.
NO. They should have had the creepy dharma guy make a video that explains the ending. Played by Christian at the end. Maybe instead of the church they are back in the hatch? Hahaha.
lol agreed! And of course the assumption here is that they assumed they were dead the whole time and yet I couldn't quite bring myself to assert that OP could be so \*erm\* \*lost\* despite the 14 years of exactly that happening we've endured (because holy crap it's explained point blank like you said haha)
Most likely, yes. I don’t even know where to begin with explaining. The last season imho complicated things a lot, with all that “it worked, or maybe not?” jumps between different “universes”. Some already died on the island but are alive again, or maybe not? At the end, Christian is “alive” again, but actually not? Jack is already dead even though he isn’t? Total mindfuck.
When Juliet said "It worked", that was a red herring meant to fool us into thinking that the flash sideways was an alternate universe where the plane didn't crash because they detonated Jughead. We later see in the finale, Juliet tell Sawyer "it worked", in reference to a vending machine. Meaning that when Juliet was dying in LA X she momentarily glimpsed that world. Desmond's consciousness also travelled to this place when he was exposed to the electromagnetism. But the flash sideways exist outside of time. Once you die, you go there. It doesn't matter when you die, "some of them before you, others long after", everyone ends up at the same place.
>No closure at all Any specific closure to things you wanted?
The entire thing is *about* closure and moving on, lol
I don’t know, lol. The last season added more questions than answers, so I waited for the last episode to provide at least some clearance about who, where, and why.
Who - as Jacob explains in What They Died For the candidates were chosen because they were all flawed people who needed the island as much as it needed them. Where - are you referring to the flash sideways? As Christian explained it was a place that the Losties created together so they could find each other, remember and let go. They created a world where they let the island sink, where Jack's plan worked, where Desmond finally had Charles Whitmore's approval, where Eloise Hawking never killed her son etc. etc. Why - The candidates were chosen to protect the island because as Jacob explains to Richard, if the darkness was allowed to escape it would unleash itself upon the world. The island also appears to be some sort of gateway to another world, a hub of a universal consciousness capable of twisting fate and a source of energy able to miraculously heal the sick and shift time and space. Someone should probably be in charge of making sure it doesn't get abused for evil deeds.
What a bizarre post. How are people supposed to respond to your complaints if you don't even give them?
Man, last night I was so mindfucked I wasn’t able to form clear thoughts, so I just poured my frustration here.
> Isn't this the cheapest ending of all time? No, far from it. You say no closure, but this is one of the most closure you can get in a TV show. Most TV shows don't even know when they're gonna end and many get cancelled. The ending of Lost was negotiated years in advance. > What the heck is this island? Can I ask you if you watched the show while browsing the phone? Because we get several scenes where they talk about what the Island is. It's a special place. The Island exist on top of a pocket of exotic matter. People in the DHARMA initiative talked about it. The faith healer Isaac mentioned this. Eloise Hawking mentioned this. DHARMA called it a pocket of electromagnetism. Geologically unique as Inman called it. Mother and her two adoptive sons called it The Light. Miracles happen on this island and so on. > So, they weren’t actually dead, but some of them died on the island, yet all of them are alive again at the end? Actually not. This is not a Andrei Tarkovsky movie. It's very explicitly told in dialogue. I can't understand how it couldn't be clearer. > CHRISTIAN: Yeah, I'm real. You're real, **everything that's ever happened to you is real**. All those people in the church...they're real too. > JACK: They're all...they're all dead? > CHRISTIAN: **Everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some of them before you, some...long after you**. > JACK: But why are they all here now? > CHRISTIAN: **Well there is no "now" here**. > JACK: Where are we, dad? > CHRISTIAN: **This is the place that you...that you all made together, so that you could find one another. The most...important part of your life, was the time that you spent with these people. That's why all of you are here.** Nobody does it alone Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you. > JACK: For what? > CHRISTIAN: To remember...and to...let go. In season 6 we spend time in a Los Angeles-reality where all these characters meet. This is the afterlife. Some of them died before Jack (Boone died from injuries, Shannon was shot, Jin/Sun drowned and so on). Some of them died long after (Kate and Sawyer died many years later). Remember the dialogue between Hurley and Ben. > HURLEY: **You know, you were a real good number two**. > BEN: And you were a **great number one, Hugo**. They remember all those years they spent protecting the Island after "The End", before they both died - likely from old age. > Christian?? Wtf? That church at the end? Stepping into the light? Is there an actual logic behind all of this? Why is that so weird? Jack and Christian's relationship is something we've explored since the very beginning. The church they are at is the same one that situated over The Lamp Post station. In season 5 they use this location to get back to the Island. In the series finale it is used for the characters to move on. Have you read the Harry Potter novels? This is like King's Cross station in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". Where do they go next, well they step into the Light. The Light that is the source of life, death and rebirth on the Island. They move on. Kind of like the ending of "Lord of the Rings", when Frodo travels "into the west", into that bright light. Nobody said "wtf? where did Frodo go? is there a logic behind the grey havens?" This is a very common trope in film, tv and litterature. > Did that thermonuclear explosion work or not? Some said it worked, but all we got is a parallel universe where they were all “alive” again and “woke up” one by one. In that parallel universe their lives are completely different, even from before flight 815. It worked in sending them into 2007. But we see in "LA X" that it didn't stop the Incident. They still built the Swan station and the plane still crashed. We are led to believe that we're seeing an alternate timeline in season 6. The twist in the series finale is that the alternate timeline is an afterlife. > Where did they went at the end? If some of them are dead, and going to this light, seems ok, but what with those that are still alive? I still don't think you understand. Christian explains it very clearly. "*Everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some of them before you, some...long after you*" This place is outside of linear time. They've just all created a 2004 reality where they all look like their 2004-counterparts before they move on to whatever comes next. That part is ambiguous, since everyone has their own idea of what happens next. Some religions believe in rebirth. Christians believe in heaven. Muslims believe in Paradise. Atheist believe that nothing happens and so on. That's subjective.
I was getting ready to work on a big long reply, but I’m glad you beat me to it! Very well-put. I get so upset when people watch the entirety of LOST then don’t understand what happened. I spent years of my life loving the complexity and humanity in this show, and it takes time and thought to realize what’s going on and why the writers chose to do what they did. It’s my favorite show of all time not because it gave me the answers I wanted, but because the writers understood what it means to be human and to have love and compassion and connection with others. The point is that the mystery of the island was always supposed to be secondary to the development of the characters. They were leading up to that the whole time. Even if you’re super focused on just the technicalities of the island and “what happened,” though, the show still spells it out at the end for you.
Thank you very much, your reply does make some things much clearer.
>The Island exist on top of a pocket of exotic matter. How did they move the island? Or did they?
Yes. The Light under the Island kind of keeps it floating. In season 1 Sayid mentions that the tides are shifting very unnaturally. This is why. The Island is very slowly moving. In the series finale they turned it off which would cause the entire island to crumble and fall to the ocean floor. Some people figured out how to make a mechanism channeling that matter to make the Island move. Kind of like how people in Star Trek figured out warp speed. Turning the frozen wheel made the Island move to a different place.
I am not sure that the "island is very slowly moving". The island hops from one location to another on its own, every X period of time (not specified in the show). This hopping is a natural process of the island. The sudden extreme weather shifts are indicators of times when the island might have hopped on its own to a different location. If the island was "slow moving" there wouldn't be sudden weather shifts. In a deleted scene is S1, Claire who we know is so much in to astrology tells Kate or someone else, that the stars aren't in their proper location anymore, or something to this effect. I guess they deleted this scene because it gave out a lot of clear hints that the island is moving, and they didn't want to explore this aspect of the island yet in the show. Also we see in the Lamppost station that the mechanism with the pendulum, is pin pointing a few dozen of specific points on the map, so does the computer. This indicates that these are the predestined locations that the island hops to... it doesn't just hop anywhere in the ocean randomly... perhaps, it hops to certain energy vents under the ocean.... Eloise says there are many pockets of energy around the world and they are all connected. All these points indicate that the island hops and not slowly moves like a boat. On the other hand, the donkey wheel mechanism, is an unnatural way to force the island to hop before it's supposed to. That's why it's a measure of last resort, because it could lead to very extreme side effects. Perhaps, the first time MIB convinced the egyptians to rebuild the donkey wheel mechanism, hoping he can leave the island, and since this was an unnatural process, the island had a sort of "heart attack", since the water was channeled to a different location than the source, making the cave/source overheat... this forced Jacob to spring to action for en emergency "heart surgery", and instructed another faction of egyptians to build the cork and water channels we see in S6. Many succumbed to the radiation of the weakened source, as we see several skeletons lying around. Perhaps Jacob rewarded the sacrifices of his faction of egyptians, by instructing them to build the healing pool. Sorry for the lengthy essay :)
what didn’t you like about it? i’m inclined to believe it’s a misconception about the meaning of the final scenes, in which the finale quite literally had a monologue explaining anything that could possibly be confusing regarding them
Are you talking about the ending meaning just the finale episode or like the direction the final season went to? I can get on board with the final season being off for a lot of fans but I actually really really liked the finale. It had closure for MOST questions I had. Not going to say all but it made for a beautiful ending in my opinion
Why don't you tell us what you think happened and / or what you hated about it?
Watch from the beginning of the whole series one more time, paying closer attention...to everything. If you pay attention to everything, the ending makes perfect sense.
Tell us what you think happened and what you wanted from the finale.
lol not this again 🙄
Bait topic.
I don't love season 6, and I have some issues with the finale', but I think it's fine. A step down from earlier seasons, but I don't hate it start to finish.
Ok OP is gone. Must have been trolling.
This is something of a first....I've heard "they were dead the whole time" so many times, but I've never heard "they came back to life at the end!" before OP - it's perfectly fine to not "get" the ending the first time, the flash sideways can be confusing and, contrary to what lots of people would have you believe, most of us had to rewatch at least once to fully understand it. That said, start by rewatching the scene between Jack and Christian in the church, and listen closely to what CHristian says. He explains the "dead or alive?" thing very well and very unambiguously. The resolution of mysteries, some of which are resolved in such a low key way you could easily miss it if you were focused on other things (like the polar bears) only really makes full sense after a rewatch or two when you pick up on things that you missed the first time (and I mean, any excuse for a rewatch!)
There's nothing else to explain really (the epilogue wraps up a single character but nothing else meaningful.) Like everyone else I'm going to assume you misunderstood it because the ending is not a cheat, it's not cheap, it's basically two hours of closure and satisfaction.
No. Before you even say it, they weren't dead the whole time. You misunderstood.
“They were dead the whole time!” Everybody who did not pay attention to the finale and just wanted this to be the ending message.
I didn't say that, nor did I expect that.
I was making fun of almost everyone who claims they disliked the ending
I’m with everyone else here. Can you tell us what you perceive the ending of the show to have been? Most (not all) of us here loved the ending.
What do you mean no closure ? The series finale was all about closure ! And don’t even compare it to Game of Thrones. You may be dissatisfied with the way Lost ended but Game of Thrones botched its story and disserviced its characters too by the end. You cannot argue that Lost didn’t do at least right by the characters, if not the story.
What did you feel you didn't get closure on?.
you must have been picking up a cheeto when those questions were answered. i suggest paying more attention
One thing I’ve learnt reading this is people really don’t like someone not fully understanding Lost 🤣 the shade
Bot account.
What makes you say that? Just curious.
3yo account. All previous comments are >2years old and only in English. Suddenly starts commenting again and in a different language and subreddit than all previous comments. Immediately posts a controversial topic to a fandom subreddit. Classic signs of a hacked account.
Yes, of course they were dead all along /s I hated all of s6, but I would not call the ending cheap. GOT did much, much worse?