Reetae reviews the ending of LOST by comprehensively reviewing the series.

BossAttack said:

Once Lost started introducing all these insane mystery elements in S2 it was hard for the show to maintain the simplistic core of the first season. Suddenly, the mysteries become the driving factor of the show and the mysteries become so massive that they literally have to invent a GOD to help stabilize some of this craziness.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Keep in mind that the numbers were introduced during the first season though. That clearly was a mystery that could only be solved (and even then, in a very unsatisfactory manner) by introducing some god-like character who really, really likes those numbers for some reason (and is a bit of a dick? because he gives you bad luck if you play them at the lottery?).

Erigu said:

Keep in mind that the numbers were introduced during the first season though. That clearly was a mystery that could only be solved (and even then, in a very unsatisfactory manner) by introducing some god-like character who really, really likes those numbers for some reason (and is a bit of a dick? because he gives you bad luck if you play them at the lottery?).

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

That could have just been explained away by some bullshit, like the island manifesting your greatest fears or hidden desires. But yeah, even by the end of the first season you could tell they were focusing more on introducing more enticing mysteries to the long term detriment of the show. Like, looking back its obvious the Smoke Monster wasn't thought of until late S1. Because, you never see it until the last episodes of S1 and even then it behaves far differently than its early, knock down all the trees with a bunch of noise, variant.

Of course, rewatching I love that Rosseau has been on the island for 16 years and yet has never encountered an Other. Hilarious.

Kylo Rey said:

I agree that there is some mysteries that don't have answers.
I agree that Darlton lies to us many time
I agree that some answers are badly done (really badly)
But i think the whole story is well scripted, mostly in characters way.

I saw this story about "how do you forigve yourself". It's the main story of the show. And by that standard it's quite a great achievment.
I repeat i didn't like Lost season 2 and the beginning of season 6.
Consider me as a fandom if you want, but i really think that if Resetera want to give the whole hate on Lost, there is many other shows that made huge mistakes too.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

So the whole point of this video and he states this was to emphasize how bad the ending was to Lost. He says he loves the show, otherwise he wouldn't have spent all this time re-watching the show and writing and editing the the review, but couldn't get over the ending and how badly the writers fucked the show up and killed the potential it had to at least end with a satisfying conclusion. Throughout the review, he makes an incredibly amount of points baked with evidence about how the writers had no idea where they were going with the show since they appeared to be writing it on an episode by episode basis. This wasn't a new concept--even when I was watching season 2 live on TV, I bought the season 1 DVD and in the commentary, either JJ or Damon says they had no idea what was in the hatch that Locke found at the end of season 1. Right there, that tells you they had no fucking idea what they were doing with the show. Lost is still one of my favorite shows of all time, but they truly did fuck the ending up. The writers tried their best to come up with a nearly impossible task since they just kept digging deeper and deeper mystery holes they couldn't get themselves out of. They created a God character because they could not explain it any other way.

Also season 1 and 2 were the best seasons of Lost, since you didn't like 2, I think you just got something different out of the show than the majority of other viewers.

Masterz1337 said:

I had heard somewhere that the flash sideways being a semi afterlife was something decided haflway through the season. It's weird in the flash sideways that they decided to show the sunk island. Either way, it's bullshit that they tried to trick the viewer into thinking it was a result of the bomb, and then to just be like nope it's just coincidence!

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Can you (or anyone else that knows) please expound on this? I'm just curious as to what the ending could've been if they didn't go the route they ultimately did. Or if anyone has any theories.

Masterz1337 said:

So on video 3 right now, the guy is really sort of pouring on the haterade.

His obsession with the pregnancy issue I thought, was pretty heavily hinted at being linked at Annie, which as the video states was dropped. I still can't believe they ditched whatever happened to her motivating ben into becoming the man we saw him become present day in favor of some evil water soul sucking thing. But the guy seems to be overly critical of things which while sketchy,

Also the criticism of Juliet knowing about the guy that Sawyer killed the night before isn't really outside the realm of possibility, considering they would have followed any news reports from The Flame.

Everything else is spot on though. The way they handled the show ruins the entire thing for me, I rewatched parts of it a few years ago. It's really not just the ending though, its everything with their half assed answers throughout the series which contradict the established information. You could make another 10 hour long video about that.



Please don't take this the wrong way, but people like you can't understand the frustration us live viewers encountered. Every week, people would stay up till 2 AM discussing and connecting clues. When the blast door came down and the map was revealed, I stayed up till like 4AM partaking in the decoding of it, and it's importance to the series as a whole, was in the end totally negligable. I understand people who watch the show and get hit by the good acting, beautiful moments, and mystery and twist after twist, but to do that is to really turn your brain off while watching it.

I don't mean it in that anyone who enjoys it is dumb, but the show was meant to be sipped, not gulped. It's like experiencing Trump's presidency. When it's strung out over a year or 4, it's unbearable. If you binge it "it's like wow that's some crazy drama, but everything ended up okay in the end (we can hope)."

You also didn't have producers telling you things like the 3 toed statue was important, the whispers, and literally almost anything. Right down to the importance of the smoke monsters sounds.

On a side note, did anyone ever see that leaked ABC document for season one which sort of went into some of the mysteries? The smoke monster's behavior and security system like behavior is mentioned into it (as well that is is artifical) along with some tidbits on the others, such as them biting Vincent's ear and some other things.



I had heard somewhere that the flash sideways being a semi afterlife was something decided haflway through the season. It's weird in the flash sideways that they decided to show the sunk island. Either way, it's bullshit that they tried to trick the viewer into thinking it was a result of the bomb, and then to just be like nope it's just coincidence!

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

To the bolded: i mean, I feel you, but you weren't forced to obsess over the show like that. That was on you. It's part of the experience of watching a show weekly, and it is a double edged sword, especially when a show is formatted around cliffhangers. I feel truly fortunate that I was able to absorb four seasons of the show within the few weeks/months it took me to catch up, and able to just, no pun intended, get lost in this huge story that played out over many episodes and seasons. I'm in the camp that became more invested in the characters than the mysteries as the show progressed. I know that others were in the other side, more interested in the answers. I think both perspectives is fine.

Even when I was watching seasons 5 and 6 as they aired, I steered clear of the forums, and I feel like I was able to enjoy the show more that way. To each his own, but it's not necessary for me to understand how obsessed people were about the show, building up it's mysteries to be so much larger than they ultimately turned out being when the answers for the main ones came. I understand the disappointment. And make no mistake, there were many answers to the major questions, and some of those answers were lackluster, but there were also many dangling threads and dropped storylines.

I'm always interested in hearing what creators have to say about their work, but it's not necessary for me to evaluate and enjoy or not enjoy the work itself. Marketing and marketing hype does what it does. I tend to avoid most of it if I can, and just focus on the actual work. I disagree that a show like LOST has to be viewed in small, weekly doses, but that's okay. I don't have to agree. You had your experience, I had mine, and we came to different conclusions based off of that. There's no right or wrong way to watch shows I think.

BossAttack said:

That could have just been explained away by some bullshit, like the island manifesting your greatest fears or hidden desires. But yeah, even by the end of the first season you could tell they were focusing more on introducing more enticing mysteries to the long term detriment of the show. Like, looking back its obvious the Smoke Monster wasn't thought of until late S1. Because, you never see it until the last episodes of S1 and even then it behaves far differently than its early, knock down all the trees with a bunch of noise, variant.

Of course, rewatching I love that Rosseau has been on the island for 16 years and yet has never encountered an Other. Hilarious.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Knocking down trees and making noises was obviously a crucial part of the Man in Blacks plan to leave the island.

Figboy said:

To the bolded: i mean, I feel you, but you weren't forced to obsess over the show like that. That was on you. It's part of the experience of watching a show weekly, and it is a double edged sword, especially when a show is formatted around cliffhangers. I feel truly fortunate that I was able to absorb four seasons of the show within the few weeks/months it took me to catch up, and able to just, no pun intended, get lost in this huge story that played out over many episodes and seasons. I'm in the camp that became more invested in the characters than the mysteries as the show progressed. I know that others were in the other side, more interested in the answers. I think both perspectives is fine.

Even when I was watching seasons 5 and 6 as they aired, I steered clear of the forums, and I feel like I was able to enjoy the show more that way. To each his own, but it's not necessary for me to understand how obsessed people were about the show, building up it's mysteries to be so much larger than they ultimately turned out being when the answers for the main ones came. I understand the disappointment. And make no mistake, there were many answers to the major questions, and some of those answers were lackluster, but there were also many dangling threads and dropped storylines.

I'm always interested in hearing what creators have to say about their work, but it's not necessary for me to evaluate and enjoy or not enjoy the work itself. Marketing and marketing hype does what it does. I tend to avoid most of it if I can, and just focus on the actual work. I disagree that a show like LOST has to be viewed in small, weekly doses, but that's okay. I don't have to agree. You had your experience, I had mine, and we came to different conclusions based off of that. There's no right or wrong way to watch shows I think.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I mean, it seems to me like the creators should shoulder some of that blame if they were purposefully fanning the flames of speculation and obsession. It's not like they tried to help people manage expectations about what they were making, they were actively participating in getting people to think about this stuff via Lost University, Podcasts, interviews, commercials, articles, posters, webisodes, etc. Maybe they weren't "forced", but there was heavy incentivizing on the creator's part that got people hooked in the first place.

Like, what's the takeaway here? "Sorry you weren't cynical enough not to take the creators at their word that it would all be worth it"? "Next time, don't be a sucker"?

And it's worth repeating that this review goes into detail how LOST straight up commits character assassination against Jack, Kate, Ben, Sayid, Sun and Jin, Claire, pretty much every major character, so saying that the meat of the show was its characters and not the mysteries doesn't mean the show didn't mess that up too.

JCHandsom said:

I mean, it seems to me like the creators should shoulder some of that blame if they were purposefully fanning the flames of speculation and obsession. It's not like they tried to help people manage expectations about what they were making, they were actively participating in getting people to think about this stuff via Lost University, Podcasts, interviews, commercials, articles, posters, webisodes, etc. Maybe they weren't "forced", but there was heavy incentivizing on the creator's part that got people hooked in the first place.

Like, what's the takeaway here? "Sorry you weren't cynical enough not to take the creators at their word that it would all be worth it"? "Next time, don't be a sucker"?

And it's worth repeating that this review goes into detail how LOST straight up commits character assassination against Jack, Kate, Ben, Sayid, Sun and Jin, Claire, pretty much every major character, so saying that the meat of the show was its characters and not the mysteries doesn't mean the show didn't mess that up too.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Exactly, the thing I don't get about people claiming that LOST was really about the characters is that those characters were basically done at the end of S4. We had learned every single detail we could about them, watched them grow, fail, and mostly become better people. It's why post-S4 none of the characters seem to know what they are doing or why they are there, their arcs were pretty much complete.

What we got for the last remaining seasons were mystery fueled plot shenanigans and character assassinations. The only character that got to grow more post-S4 was Sawyer which they crush by the end.

As someone rewatching now, the flashbacks already start to become boring and redundant by S2. Hey, here's another flashback showcasing how Jack can't deal with failure. I get it, enough.

JCHandsom said:

I mean, it seems to me like the creators should shoulder some of that blame if they were purposefully fanning the flames of speculation and obsession. It's not like they tried to help people manage expectations about what they were making, they were actively participating in getting people to think about this stuff via Lost University, Podcasts, interviews, commercials, articles, posters, webisodes, etc. Maybe they weren't "forced", but there was heavy incentivizing on the creator's part that got people hooked in the first place.

Like, what's the takeaway here? "Sorry you weren't cynical enough not to take the creators at their word that it would all be worth it"? "Next time, don't be a sucker"?

And it's worth repeating that this review goes into detail how LOST straight up commits character assassination on Jack, Kate, Ben, Sayid, Sun and Jin, Claire, pretty much every major character, so saying that the meat of the show was its characters and not the mysteries doesn't mean the show didn't mess that up too.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I mean, there's no takeaway. I was responding to the dude's comment about how somehow me not watching the show when it first aired is a lesser experience than me watching four seasons uninterrupted. I don't feel like I need to repeat myself, but watching the show that way resulted in a better experience for me. It's not about being cynical enough to distrust the creators. I thought I spelled it out clearly: Marketing is going to market. Its job is to entice people. To dangle a carrot and get people to chase it. I don't like that, so I try to avoid marketing as much as possible, and just let the movie/show/game/book/whatever do its thing when I experience it. When it's a video game, I'll watch the trailer, maybe read an interview/hands on about the content/features of the game, then buy/not buy based on that. With a movie, watch a trailer, see if it intrigues me, then decide if I want to see it in a theater or wait for rental. TV is trickier, especially for an ongoing series, which is why I generally tend to wait until a series has a few seasons under its belt before I dive in (I didn't watch Mad Men, Breaking Bad, LOST, etc, etc, until they were well into their runs). I admit I've been burned so many times by promising shows I enjoy having the plug pulled on them after season 1 that I've become incredibly cautious about jumping into new shows. That in itself is a double edged sword/catch 22, because if more people had that mentality, they wouldn't be watching new shows, and the numbers would be so low that the show wouldn't get renewed, and it's a vicious cycle. But I digress.

The creators are only in control of so much messaging themselves. Of course they aren't going to say, "These mysteries aren't actually building up to anything, and we're making everything up as we go along, so no promises; stop watching the show." They're going to try to be diplomatic and cagey. As a writer myself, I understand all too well about how important it is to have payoff after building something up. Unfortunately, television is weird, and long form television even more so. Things could be meticulously planned before hand, and other factors will throw that all in disarray. Those factors could be time, budget, the realities of shooting on location as opposed to a sound stage, actor issues (personal and professional), etc, etc. Also, "making it up as you go along," is kind of standard fare for a lot of writers. There's usually a bare bones skeleton of a plot, with a few key pillars/milestones that the writer would like to hit as the story progresses. The minutiae is often up in the air. How characters get to those milestones is kept vague, because, as a writer, it's fun to have some spontaneity when writing chapters/episodes. With that said, I don't think it absolves the writers of getting carried away with so many "micro-mysteries" that the core of the show buckles under the weight.

Sometimes writers drop the ball (and in a six season show of 100+ episodes, with a team of writers all handling different episodes, often concurrently, I can see how it'd be easy to drop a few balls), but then again, I never said that the viewers were solely at fault for getting sucked into the mysteries of the show. I said that for that particular poster I was quoting, he wasn't forced to obsess until 2am about the show. That is, quite literally, on him, not the writers of the show, or the other viewers of the show. It's a personal choice he made to get sucked into obsessing over the mysteries and how they affected him. As I stated before, I didn't follow the shows ancillary content. I didn't follow the interviews and PR or any other content revolving around the show, so I honestly don't know what the creators said or didn't say. I only know what I watched either through streaming/dvd, or as it aired (in the case of Seasons 5 and 6, which I was able to watch as they aired every week). But even watching those last two seasons, I didn't feel terribly compelled to go on forums, or dig up interviews, or speculate. I was just enjoying the ride. After the fact (after Season 6), I did go to one of the old LOST forums and read what people were saying about the series and finale, but I wasn't a part of the crowd that came together every week to discuss the show. I empathize with the poster I was quoting in that the show is somehow retroactively ruined because of that final season, but I don't feel the same way. shrug. I think it's unfortunate that the creators were cagey about the mysteries, and how they built up and then resolved/not resolved those mysteries, and I think that sucks, but it doesn't ruin the show for me. I see how it may upset people like the poster I quoted, however.

Really enjoying watching this so far. Just got to the part where he points out how it doesn't make sense that we're supposed to side with Jacob and I couldn't agree more. I mean I was even ok with the Dharma Initiative and time travel stuff but the moment where the show expected me to believe that Jacob was the good guy (which the main cast seemingly accepts on face value alone) was too much. Are we just supposed to forget that he directly caused the deaths of hundreds of innocent people for absolutely no reason?

It was clear they just invented him to explain away most of the show's problems, which they didn't even do in a satisfactory way.

Figboy said:

The creators are only in control of so much messaging themselves. Of course they aren't going to say, "These mysteries aren't actually building up to anything, and we're making everything up as we go along, so no promises; stop watching the show." They're going to try to be diplomatic and cagey. As a writer myself, I understand all too well about how important it is to have payoff after building something up. Unfortunately, television is weird, and long form television even more so. Things could be meticulously planned before hand, and other factors will throw that all in disarray. Those factors could be time, budget, the realities of shooting on location as opposed to a sound stage, actor issues (personal and professional), etc, etc. Also, "making it up as you go along," is kind of standard fare for a lot of writers. There's usually a bare bones skeleton of a plot, with a few key pillars/milestones that the writer would like to hit as the story progresses. The minutiae is often up in the air. How characters get to those milestones is kept vague, because, as a writer, it's fun to have some spontaneity when writing chapters/episodes. With that said, I don't think it absolves the writers of getting carried away with so many "micro-mysteries" that the core of the show buckles under the weight.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

No one has a problem with making it as you go along as long as what you make up later jives with what you made up before. Thugs will inevitably change because it's a TV show. What annoyed and frustrated people is that the creators lied a lot regarding their plan, the answers they had were unsatisfying, and it all ended with a stupid ending. Lindelcuse were not being diplomatic or cagey. They were goading the audience along with the promise of answers and then in the end say that it wasn't about the answers but still pretend it was the plan all along. When mistakes are pointed out they don't say "my bad" they blame others

There's a reason we keep bringing up the Man in Blacks goal of leaving the island and how it doesn't explain his actions at the beginning of the series. The creators just created new things and then ties them to previous concepts to create an illusion of disclosure but ends up making less sense.

Figboy said:

I mean, there's no takeaway. I was responding to the dude's comment about how somehow me not watching the show when it first aired is a lesser experience than me watching four seasons uninterrupted. I don't feel like I need to repeat myself, but watching the show that way resulted in a better experience for me. It's not about being cynical enough to distrust the creators. I thought I spelled it out clearly: Marketing is going to market. Its job is to entice people. To dangle a carrot and get people to chase it. I don't like that, so I try to avoid marketing as much as possible, and just let the movie/show/game/book/whatever do its thing when I experience it. When it's a video game, I'll watch the trailer, maybe read an interview/hands on about the content/features of the game, then buy/not buy based on that. With a movie, watch a trailer, see if it intrigues me, then decide if I want to see it in a theater or wait for rental. TV is trickier, especially for an ongoing series, which is why I generally tend to wait until a series has a few seasons under its belt before I dive in (I didn't watch Mad Men, Breaking Bad, LOST, etc, etc, until they were well into their runs). I admit I've been burned so many times by promising shows I enjoy having the plug pulled on them after season 1 that I've become incredibly cautious about jumping into new shows. That in itself is a double edged sword/catch 22, because if more people had that mentality, they wouldn't be watching new shows, and the numbers would be so low that the show wouldn't get renewed, and it's a vicious cycle. But I digress.

The creators are only in control of so much messaging themselves. Of course they aren't going to say, "These mysteries aren't actually building up to anything, and we're making everything up as we go along, so no promises; stop watching the show." They're going to try to be diplomatic and cagey. As a writer myself, I understand all too well about how important it is to have payoff after building something up. Unfortunately, television is weird, and long form television even more so. Things could be meticulously planned before hand, and other factors will throw that all in disarray. Those factors could be time, budget, the realities of shooting on location as opposed to a sound stage, actor issues (personal and professional), etc, etc. Also, "making it up as you go along," is kind of standard fare for a lot of writers. There's usually a bare bones skeleton of a plot, with a few key pillars/milestones that the writer would like to hit as the story progresses. The minutiae is often up in the air. How characters get to those milestones is kept vague, because, as a writer, it's fun to have some spontaneity when writing chapters/episodes. With that said, I don't think it absolves the writers of getting carried away with so many "micro-mysteries" that the core of the show buckles under the weight.

Sometimes writers drop the ball (and in a six season show of 100+ episodes, with a team of writers all handling different episodes, often concurrently, I can see how it'd be easy to drop a few balls), but then again, I never said that the viewers were solely at fault for getting sucked into the mysteries of the show. I said that for that particular poster I was quoting, he wasn't forced to obsess until 2am about the show. That is, quite literally, on him, not the writers of the show, or the other viewers of the show. It's a personal choice he made to get sucked into obsessing over the mysteries and how they affected him. As I stated before, I didn't follow the shows ancillary content. I didn't follow the interviews and PR or any other content revolving around the show, so I honestly don't know what the creators said or didn't say. I only know what I watched either through streaming/dvd, or as it aired (in the case of Seasons 5 and 6, which I was able to watch as they aired every week). But even watching those last two seasons, I didn't feel terribly compelled to go on forums, or dig up interviews, or speculate. I was just enjoying the ride. After the fact (after Season 6), I did go to one of the old LOST forums and read what people were saying about the series and finale, but I wasn't a part of the crowd that came together every week to discuss the show. I empathize with the poster I was quoting in that the show is somehow retroactively ruined because of that final season, but I don't feel the same way. shrug. I think it's unfortunate that the creators were cagey about the mysteries, and how they built up and then resolved/not resolved those mysteries, and I think that sucks, but it doesn't ruin the show for me. I see how it may upset people like the poster I quoted, however.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

You do realize that it's a false dichotomy to say that a show either "dangles the carrot" (which, in the case of LOST, is putting it lightly) or give up entirely and says that the mysteries don't mean anything, right? Like, there is room for promoting interest in a show while at the same time responsibly managing audience expectations and owning up to mistakes. Vince Gilligan did it with Breaking Bad, where he admitted he made a mistake making a killing Bin Laden reference when that hadn't happened yet in the shows timeline. He didn't try and spin it, he just owned up to it. All I'm saying is that they deserve some of the blowback from LOST-mania because they could have handled it so much better, instead of making it worse.

I want to make one thing clear about what this review is saying, that LOST's finale isn't just bad because people got caught up in the magic and mystery of the show and were disappointed when their expectations weren't met, it's a bad ending because, pound-for-pound, on a nuts and bolts level, it's badly written. Nowhere is this more clear than with the way the main cast of characters post-S4 was almost completely transformed into unlikable, idiotic, contradictory versions of themselves.

I sympathize with the way you watch shows, because I'm the same way, I don't like to watch something until it is completed. I can understand thinking the marketing isn't a big deal, because you can just avoid it and watch the show in isolation, and I often do that myself. But the marketing is not the main reason the finale sucks, the finale sucks because it, and most of the past 1 1/2-to-2 seasons preceding it, is badly written.

Can anyone who likes season 5 and 6 explain Jack's characterization and motivations

WrenchNinja said:

Can anyone who likes season 5 and 6 explain Jack's characterization and motivations

LIke without saying he became a man of faith after Locke died, cause we know that's bullshit, he never liked Locke

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

The moment in the review where Reetae contrasts season 2 skeptical Jack Shepard and the season 5/6 Jack Shepard who just goes along with whatever he's told was super on point.

JCHandsom said:

The moment in the review where Reetae contrasts season 2 skeptical Jack Shepard and the season 5/6 Jack Shepard who just goes along with whatever he's told was super on point.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

That was something I didn't even realize when I watched it as it aired. Without a skeptic the show suffers. There's no legit reason why Jack switches from skeptic to zealot who wanted to rewrite existence to satisfy his whims.

Again lol at him telling Kate that Claire would be able to choose while he's working to impose his will on time and reality.

Figboy said:

I mean, there's no takeaway. I was responding to the dude's comment about how somehow me not watching the show when it first aired is a lesser experience than me watching four seasons uninterrupted. I don't feel like I need to repeat myself, but watching the show that way resulted in a better experience for me. It's not about being cynical enough to distrust the creators. I thought I spelled it out clearly: Marketing is going to market. Its job is to entice people. To dangle a carrot and get people to chase it. I don't like that, so I try to avoid marketing as much as possible, and just let the movie/show/game/book/whatever do its thing when I experience it. When it's a video game, I'll watch the trailer, maybe read an interview/hands on about the content/features of the game, then buy/not buy based on that. With a movie, watch a trailer, see if it intrigues me, then decide if I want to see it in a theater or wait for rental. TV is trickier, especially for an ongoing series, which is why I generally tend to wait until a series has a few seasons under its belt before I dive in (I didn't watch Mad Men, Breaking Bad, LOST, etc, etc, until they were well into their runs). I admit I've been burned so many times by promising shows I enjoy having the plug pulled on them after season 1 that I've become incredibly cautious about jumping into new shows. That in itself is a double edged sword/catch 22, because if more people had that mentality, they wouldn't be watching new shows, and the numbers would be so low that the show wouldn't get renewed, and it's a vicious cycle. But I digress.

The creators are only in control of so much messaging themselves. Of course they aren't going to say, "These mysteries aren't actually building up to anything, and we're making everything up as we go along, so no promises; stop watching the show." They're going to try to be diplomatic and cagey. As a writer myself, I understand all too well about how important it is to have payoff after building something up. Unfortunately, television is weird, and long form television even more so. Things could be meticulously planned before hand, and other factors will throw that all in disarray. Those factors could be time, budget, the realities of shooting on location as opposed to a sound stage, actor issues (personal and professional), etc, etc. Also, "making it up as you go along," is kind of standard fare for a lot of writers. There's usually a bare bones skeleton of a plot, with a few key pillars/milestones that the writer would like to hit as the story progresses. The minutiae is often up in the air. How characters get to those milestones is kept vague, because, as a writer, it's fun to have some spontaneity when writing chapters/episodes. With that said, I don't think it absolves the writers of getting carried away with so many "micro-mysteries" that the core of the show buckles under the weight.

Sometimes writers drop the ball (and in a six season show of 100+ episodes, with a team of writers all handling different episodes, often concurrently, I can see how it'd be easy to drop a few balls), but then again, I never said that the viewers were solely at fault for getting sucked into the mysteries of the show. I said that for that particular poster I was quoting, he wasn't forced to obsess until 2am about the show. That is, quite literally, on him, not the writers of the show, or the other viewers of the show. It's a personal choice he made to get sucked into obsessing over the mysteries and how they affected him. As I stated before, I didn't follow the shows ancillary content. I didn't follow the interviews and PR or any other content revolving around the show, so I honestly don't know what the creators said or didn't say. I only know what I watched either through streaming/dvd, or as it aired (in the case of Seasons 5 and 6, which I was able to watch as they aired every week). But even watching those last two seasons, I didn't feel terribly compelled to go on forums, or dig up interviews, or speculate. I was just enjoying the ride. After the fact (after Season 6), I did go to one of the old LOST forums and read what people were saying about the series and finale, but I wasn't a part of the crowd that came together every week to discuss the show. I empathize with the poster I was quoting in that the show is somehow retroactively ruined because of that final season, but I don't feel the same way. shrug. I think it's unfortunate that the creators were cagey about the mysteries, and how they built up and then resolved/not resolved those mysteries, and I think that sucks, but it doesn't ruin the show for me. I see how it may upset people like the poster I quoted, however.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I wasn't trying to say that your experience is lesser for how you viewed it, more that unless you were there you can't fully comprehend it. I'll use the blast door map as an example. However you viewed it (I imagine binging it, it was just some creepy map that showed there was a new place to go) is different than how I did, and it's not because I and others obsessed over it. Or that it was marketed. the map was hyped up by the show runners, they released super high res screens of it in the days (if not hours) after. It plotted locations we would see in years after. It gave us huge clues about the smoke monsters and the Cerebus vents, underground tunnels linking stations, quartine, we were told the map would have an impact in the years to come. Hell look at it on LOSTPEDIA (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Blast_door_map). This thing was HUGE and it was all a lie. In the end maybe 30% of what is on it isn't retconned.

I'm glad you can enjoy the show, but I don't think you can deny you had a different experience than us, and you definitely did not consume the show the way it was planned out to be by the producers, which was to be consumed in bites, analyzed and dissected and discussed around the water cooler for the next week, until the next week when some other clue was dropped.

To put it in presidential terms again, it's like trying to explain to you what Donald Trump's presidency was like if you were in a coma from 2016-2020. You wouldn't be able to possibly have the same experience as the rest of us. Lost was built around being a week to week event. Not a catch up on all this stuff show. I still wouldn't describe your experience as lesser, or imply that you aren't welcome in this discussion. At the end of the day it's a show, we are all entitled to our opinions but I'd take a minute to think about just how vast the gulf between yours and others watching experience was.

JCHandsom said:

The moment in the review where Reetae contrasts season 2 skeptical Jack Shepard and the season 5/6 Jack Shepard who just goes along with whatever he's told was super on point.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I never had a problem with post rescue Jack, and liked him way more than pre rescue Jack. That said, he is kind of ridiculous at points, but damn was it great to see him and Locke switch roles. Unlike Reetae, I saw post rescue Jack as always in pain and guilted by the fact he couldn't save everyone, and the guilt of HIS failures shattering who he was into a broken desperate man. His need to reset time, and his confession that he wanted to do it because he lost Kate are one in the same. His failure to live up to his savior complex, resulted in him desperate to undo his poor decisions. At the mytholigical level, he fought against what the island wanted and split up the people who were always meant to be together.

I don't think Jack and Locke switched roles since Locke is dead.

Masterz1337 said:

Unlike Reetae, I saw post rescue Jack as always in pain and guilted by the fact he couldn't save everyone, and the guilt of HIS failures shattering who he was into a broken desperate man. His need to reset time, and his confession that he wanted to do it because he lost Kate are one in the same. His failure to live up to his savior complex, resulted in him desperate to undo his poor decisions.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

But that's not what actually happens on the show, is it?
Jack was told he needed to go back to help those who stayed on the island. He didn't give a shit (same thing for Kate, Sayid, etc, just because the writers wanted Locke to become suicidal... yet, somehow, some are still trying to argue that if you squint really hard, ignore the mysteries and focus on the characters, the writing on the show wasn't complete shit).
Hell, even when Jack does come back (because of... reasons?... the island/writers needed him to, I guess), the matter of all those other crash survivors who got slaughtered by the Others is never once brought up. Remember when Jack's arc was all about becoming the leader of the survivors? Yeah, well, he sure doesn't seem to, anyway.

At the mytholigical level, he fought against what the island wanted and split up the people who were always meant to be together.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Who do you have in mind?

I hated a lot of things about the last couple of seasons of LOST, but nothing more than the decision to leave Michael on the island.

Alright, only got two episodes left in Season 2, I doubt I'll continue to S3, but HOLY HELL did S2 really just screw the show. I want to reiterate, S2 is still good LOST. But, S2 is where all the long term problems of the show are born. S1 only had a few mysteries, some of which could be explained in a satisfactory way. But, S2 is when the show starts to really go all in with mysteries. Even worse, S2 is when "everything is connected" started. Let me explain, in S1 it all just seemed like luck that all these people crash landed on the island and there wasn't really much tying any of them together. They were all complete strangers to each other. However, there were a few minor connections between characters if you paid attention that added some oomph. Of course, the most profound and emotional one is that Sawyer met Jack's dad the night he died and heard his confession about his son, Jack. Thus, Sawyer was able to relay this message to Jack once he pieced the connection together. It felt like a story completing a circle while two characters bonded over a mutual understanding.

Then comes S2, it's during this season that the show begins to push the idea that EVERYTHING and everyone is connected. We start with Desmond meeting Jack, who we of course learn met years before when Desmond was training. Mr. Echo's brother, Yemi, who was shot and killed trying to stop Echo from boarding a drug smuggling plane just so happens to be the priest they found whose plane crashed on the island. Libby was in the same mental hospital as Hurley. Mr. Echo met the psychic that Claire visited whose daughter was miraculously resurrected to tell him she spoke with Yemi. Sayid met Kate's step-father who served during the Gulf War. Sayid's American CIA contact also happened to be Kelvin who was Desmond's original partner in the hatch* (I'm putting an asterisk on this one because I can't remember 100% if his name is said in the flashbacks with Sayid.). And, you get the idea. Everyone and everything is connected and they all seem to converge on the island. It's preposterous, these are no longer chance connections, rather it's clear something else is at work. It blew an already crazy island into something of epic, mega proportions. This is on top of all the insane mysteries that S2 sets up that ultimately either led nowhere or make no sense, like the hatch. S2 just can't help itself with introducing new mysteries every single second.

Of course, I laughed out loud in this recent episode I watched when Locke and Mr. Echo discover the Flame monitoring station. As we learn that they discovered the station together through a dream. Obviously, this makes no sense and/or is never explained. We can't say that the MiB impersonated Yemi and led them to the station, because it was never shown that the MiB can enter people's dreams. Of course, prophetic dreams become a hallmark of the series starting in S2 even though they are never explained by the end.

Like I said, S2 is still good LOST, but it's the beginning of the long term problems of the show; a shift away from the characters to a focus on mystery. As I said before, the flashbacks start to become a lot more boring and redundant starting in this season as they often retread old ground, revealing very little new about our characters. S2 basically screwed the show since it created situations where no answer could be provided beyond MAGIC.

Erigu said:

But that's not what actually happens on the show, is it?
Jack was told he needed to go back to help those who stayed on the island. He didn't give a shit (same thing for Kate, Sayid, etc, just because the writers wanted Locke to become suicidal... yet, somehow, some are still trying to argue that if you squint really hard, ignore the mysteries and focus on the characters, the writing on the show wasn't complete shit).
Hell, even when Jack does come back (because of... reasons?... the island/writers needed him to, I guess), the matter of all those other crash survivors who got slaughtered by the Others is never once brought up. Remember when Jack's arc was all about becoming the leader of the survivors? Yeah, well, he sure doesn't seem to, anyway.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

This is only my interpretation of him, partially in lieu because the writing is complete shit the further the show goes on. "We have to go back!" predates any story of Locke being dead, or talking to him. This is how I viewed Jack after the season 3 finale, and what we saw in the flash forwards in season 4. Sure his behavior is nonsense when he returns, but I chalk that up to the bad writing and presentation, rather than a poor character arc.

I am sure you can argue the semantics of that, but the idea that "we were never supposed to leave" stemming from his failure to save everyone and the shattering of his god complex pushes him into depression and despair is solid character motivation for me at least. The man is so broken he is willing to put his faith in the wildest things if it means somehow being able to make up for his failings and the people he doomed by leaving them behind. Just because he acts a certain way with no regard for them, doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't care, the guy is psychologically broken and suppressing his guilt and failure. Again, this is just my interpretation, and while it could be me making excuses and finding something where there is nothing, this is the way I interpreted it from the second the episode ended on "We have to go back!"

Erigu said:

Who do you have in mind?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

All the main cast members who ultimately went into the church together. Let it be in the actual story, or the flash sideways these people's lives were always meant to cross and intersect, and they were all given a clean slate when arriving on the island. In the end, weren't their lives ultimately better together on the island? At least until the Oceanic 6 left and then it all went to shit?

Sure they dealt with some threats, but Kate got to be free, Sawyer found people who accepted him, Locke gained his legs and found purpose, Sun and Jin fell in love again, Hurley was free from bad luck, Charlie kicked the heroin addiction, Claire got to become mother to her baby, Eko got to live a spirtual life. I am sure you can make an argument for the people who have less on the nose better lives, but I still think the show was always trying to re-enforce that these people were meant to be together.

Helio said:

I don't think Jack and Locke switched roles since Locke is dead.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Yes, but he basically is mean Locke than anything else, the vids go into it in the first Season 6 video. But the face of science becomes the face of faith, the face of faith becomes the face of science.

Masterz1337 said:

This is only my interpretation of him, partially in lieu because the writing is complete shit the further the show goes on. "We have to go back!" predates any story of Locke being dead, or talking to him. This is how I viewed Jack after the season 3 finale, and what we saw in the flash forwards in season 4. Sure his behavior is nonsense when he returns, but I chalk that up to the bad writing and presentation, rather than a poor character arc.

I am sure you can argue the semantics of that, but the idea that "we were never supposed to leave" stemming from his failure to save everyone and the shattering of his god complex pushes him into depression and despair is solid character motivation for me at least. The man is so broken he is willing to put his faith in the wildest things if it means somehow being able to make up for his failings and the people he doomed by leaving them behind. Just because he acts a certain way with no regard for them, doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't care, the guy is psychologically broken and suppressing his guilt and failure. Again, this is just my interpretation, and while it could be me making excuses and finding something where there is nothing, this is the way I interpreted it from the second the episode ended on "We have to go back!"

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

You can only have that interpretation after that line and what we saw in season 4, though, as you said. Once we see why he's like that in season 5, it just becomes nonsense. It is semantics because bad characters are bad writing. The creators fucked Jack up.

Masterz1337 said:

Yes, but he basically is mean Locke than anything else, the vids go into it in the first Season 6 video. But the face of science becomes the face of faith, the face of faith becomes the face of science.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

That's superficial. There's no actual counterweight within our group of "heroes"; no one to call Jacob out on his bullshit. The show was always best when skepticism butted heads with blind faith. In the end though, blind faith was labeled "good" and skepticism labeled "bad" and the show suffers for it.

Helio said:

In the end though, blind faith was labeled "good" and skepticism labeled "bad"

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Which is especially gross considering how self-serving that moral is. Obviously, the showrunners depended on the audience's blind faith and didn't want their plot to be examined too closely.

Erigu said:

Which is especially gross considering how self-serving that moral is. Obviously, the showrunners depended on the audience's blind faith and didn't want their plot to be examined too closely.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

The creators are Jacob except without the wanton murder.

I'm still waiting on a good answer as to why the Man in Black leaving the island is bad. The main goal of the supposed villain shouldn't be vague. Clear consequences are necessary.

Helio said:

You can only have that interpretation after that line and what we saw in season 4, though, as you said. Once we see why he's like that in season 5, it just becomes nonsense. It is semantics because bad characters are bad writing. The creators fucked Jack up.



That's superficial. There's no actual counterweight within our group of "heroes"; no one to call Jacob out on his bullshit. The show was always best when skepticism butted heads with blind faith. In the end though, blind faith was labeled "good" and skepticism labeled "bad" and the show suffers for it.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Well, I credit his nonsense behavior as a result of his desperation and mental state. The man is so broken he will cling to any hope or belief he has, regardless of how logical it is. Of course, his behavior is dictated by the writers, but on screen, I could buy that his desperation could lead to the desperate measures he took. Maybe it's the only way I can come to terms with what the show did, call it an interpretation, headcanon, or poorly executed authors intention, but I think my perception of it is the only way it can make sense. I am curious as to how others have perceived it over the years.

Agreed that the show suffers for coming down on the side of "faith" rather than some reconciliation between the two. In some ways, that's what Dharma was all about, science merging with the impossible and the unexplained. Could have it ended with the men of science and men of faith finding that there was a place for both their beliefs? That blind faith in the island and also constant deniability of things we can't explain had some middle road? I think it would be a much more interesting thematic ending than the piss poor one we got. It's things like this that piss me off, because we were really robbed of so much when the writers just said "fuck it" in seasons 5 and 6.

Helio said:

The creators are Jacob except without the wanton murder.

I'm still waiting on a good answer as to why the Man in Black leaving the island is bad. The main goal of the supposed villain shouldn't be vague. Clear consequences are necessary.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

TBH I remember back in the day people weren't even sure if we were supposed to view him as a victim or a villain. The fact we can't tell exactly how we were meant to view him to this day... is yikes.

Masterz1337 said:

TBH I remember back in the day people weren't even sure if we were supposed to view him as a victim or a villain. The fact we can't tell exactly how we were meant to view him to this day... is yikes.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I was one of those. There were others as well. After we find out that all the Man in Black wants is to leave the island, we were left thinking why does he have to stay on the island? We are told his departure will destroy the world but we don't know the exact mechanism or why. Lindelof and Cuse kept the exact nature of the island and the light a mystery and so the crisis of the series finale is also shrouded in mystery.

And so, without a good reason as to why the Man in Black should stay, the conflict just becomes this empty drama forcing characters to do things.

I think we are meant to view him as evil with a sympathetic goal like Mr. Freeze. It's just that the Man in Blacks obstacle is Jacob because Jacob doesn't want him to leave for whatever reason. If the protagonists still had a skeptic they could ask how or why, but they don't so we don't know.

I honestly love the ending of Lost. The whole series is a masterpiece and my all time favorite TV show. Though I agree that Season 6 was the weakest, I still enjoyed it a lot.

Helio said:

I was one of those. There were others as well. After we find out that all the Man in Black wants is to leave the island, we were left thinking why does he have to stay on the island? We are told his departure will destroy the world but we don't know the exact mechanism or why. Lindelof and Cuse kept the exact nature of the island and the light a mystery and so the crisis of the series finale is also shrouded in mystery.

And so, without a good reason as to why the Man in Black should stay, the conflict just becomes this empty drama forcing characters to do things.

I think we are meant to view him as evil with a sympathetic goal like Mr. Freeze. It's just that the Man in Blacks obstacle is Jacob because Jacob doesn't want him to leave for whatever reason. If the protagonists still had a skeptic they could ask how or why, but they don't so we don't know.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

The two answers people usually give that I've seen (which make no sense of course):

Man In Black leaves the island to "destroy the world" - he lost his powers, so he can't really do anything when he leaves, doesn't seem like the world will be destroyed. I could've bought this, if he didn't lose his powers, and he causes destruction by becoming smokie and destroying stuff after leaving.

Global Destruction - Some say after the uncorking of the island (when the island has its earthquake and looks like its about to explode), this will cause global destruction and destroy the world, which makes even less sense since then everyone dies LOL. So MiB's plan was to just commit global genocide and its not like he himself would be spared either, if the world self-destructs. Reetae really broke that down good in his last video. You are waiting for a good answer, so am I sir.

But why? It is known that the writers just made everything up as they went along. There is no deeper meaning. There is no point in analyzing it, it's a waste of time/effort, just like there is no point to spend hours watching some analysis.

Occam said:

But why? It is known that the writers just made everything up as they went along. There is no deeper meaning. There is no point in analyzing it, it's a waste of time/effort.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

It's more about proving that they were making it up since a lot of people still don't buy it and actually think there was some sort of plan.

Pop-O-Matic said:

It's more about proving that they were making it up since a lot of people still don't buy it and actually think there was some sort of plan.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

But the writers themselves admitted as much. That's the point where a sane person stops.

Pop-O-Matic said:

It's more about proving that they were making it up since a lot of people still don't buy it and actually think there was some sort of plan.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Or they parrot the showrunners' transparent attempt at damage control and claim that the show was "really all about the characters", which is nonsense, especially considering those were terribly written as well anyway.

Occam said:

But the writers themselves admitted as much. That's the point where a sane person stops.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

The showrunners haven't they still maintain it was planned. Further, the analysis is more about explaining why the ending failed and how the show got to that point. It's easy to say something is shit, but it's often hard to articulate exactly why. These videos carefully do that.

Overall, I loved the show. I was amazed by it all the way through. Was initially alarmed a bit with the ending (as they sure as shit didn't explain a lot of the mysteries, and kept many things vague and mystical), but they chose to end on an effective emotional note concerning the characters themselves (instead of getting all gung-ho in-depth with the mythology), which at the end of the day worked for me. The final shot mirroring the first shot was brilliant.

The biggest mistake they did was being so adamant that everything needed an answer. They could have gotten away with so much by just saying that the smoke monster was the people who had died on the island and that there were no polar bears before Walt manifested them. When he did the Island created a scenario for them to be on the island making them plausible for the islanders. And just having Walt age in an accelerated pace and saying it's the island affecting him. So much you could change so it at least doesn't hurt your brain with cop outs.

Molto said:

I honestly love the ending of Lost. The whole series is a masterpiece and my all time favorite TV show. Though I agree that Season 6 was the weakest, I still enjoyed it a lot.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Anyone that loves the ending of Lost is like a totally foreign beast to me. I mean, the show' alst season is like some sort of magic button reset thing. Any hope I had that it was going to make sense slowly faded as the season went on. Are you super religious or something and so the afterlife thing works for you?

Maybe it is my ex-Mormon atheism or whatever but the show went from my top 10 to disgust by the last couple of seasons as it totally derailed and, in my eyes, failed to satisfactorily resolve pretty much anything, and try to close it up with a big nonsensical "but it's about the characters" cop-out to even trying.

I wouldn't have minded some religious elements but the story just didn't make any sense any more.

If you're going to build up a serialized mystery for 6 seasons with thousands of loose ends, where the show's sole purpose for existing is the mystery, having an ending that says "don't worry about all that unexplained stuff, it's not important" is insulting, not to mention poor writing.

Gazoogleheimmer said:

The two answers people usually give that I've seen (which make no sense of course):

Man In Black leaves the island to "destroy the world" - he lost his powers, so he can't really do anything when he leaves, doesn't seem like the world will be destroyed. I could've bought this, if he didn't lose his powers, and he causes destruction by becoming smokie and destroying stuff after leaving.

Global Destruction - Some say after the uncorking of the island (when the island has its earthquake and looks like its about to explode), this will cause global destruction and destroy the world, which makes even less sense since then everyone dies LOL. So MiB's plan was to just commit global genocide and its not like he himself would be spared either, if the world self-destructs. Reetae really broke that down good in his last video. You are waiting for a good answer, so am I sir.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Either way, the main conflict of the final season is just nothing. It's a huge contrivance that robs the season of the drama necessary for it to be compelling. Add that to the actual ending making the flash sideways completely unimportant, younjave a slfinal season that is devoid of any real tension or drama.

I love LOST, one of my favorite shows of all time, but there is no denying that the writing had huge issues. I enjoyed the show greatly but it was very far from perfect. The positives for me just outweighed the negatives I suppose.

GreenMonkey said:

Anyone that loves the ending of Lost is like a totally foreign beast to me. I mean, the show' alst season is like some sort of magic button reset thing. Any hope I had that it was going to make sense slowly faded as the season went on. Are you super religious or something and so the afterlife thing works for you?

Maybe it is my ex-Mormon atheism or whatever but the show went from my top 10 to disgust by the last couple of seasons as it totally derailed and, in my eyes, failed to satisfactorily resolve pretty much anything, and try to close it up with a big nonsensical "but it's about the characters" cop-out to even trying.

I wouldn't have minded some religious elements but the story just didn't make any sense any more.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I'm not "religious" per say, but I find interest in religion and spirituality, and I especially gravitate towards Buddhism. A lot of the things they were going for really resonated with me in a strong way, possibly as a result of that. Spirituality and religion always seemed to be a big element of the mythology they were creating in the series, even if only sometimes on a surface level (Dharma initiative for example, with dharma = the teaching or religion of the Buddha).

I always felt that it would be difficult for an athiest or non-spiritual person to enjoy the finale, so how you felt about it makes a lot of sense. But me, I still get emotional thinking about the finale, I loved it that much. And for me it made perfect sense.

Helio said:

Either way, the main conflict of the final season is just nothing. It's a huge contrivance that robs the season of the drama necessary for it to be compelling. Add that to the actual ending making the flash sideways completely unimportant, younjave a slfinal season that is devoid of any real tension or drama.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Correct, no stakes whatsoever and artificial drama

Show peaked in season 2. Season 1 was a master class in television and changed network TV. Season 2 was a crazy fun ride and had the amazing first 2 episodes and introduced the other half of 815, Desmond and Ben.

Season 3 was when it went downhill.

Basically Seasons 3-6 just kept introducing new mysteries to keep people around because the characters stories have already been told (there isn't much more you can do with the flashbacks after 2 seasons). On top of that things just got to convoluted. Too many Dharma stations, all those people living in the old Dharma houses, Ben and Widmore and then Jacob and the MiTB along with throwing in time travel, flash forwards and flash sideways.

I don't know if anything will ever beat the ending of Locke's episode in season 1 where you find out he was in a wheelchair and him screaming don't tell me what I can't do.

Molto said:

I'm not "religious" per say, but I find interest in religion and spirituality, and I especially gravitate towards Buddhism. A lot of the things they were going for really resonated with me in a strong way, possibly as a result of that. Spirituality and religion always seemed to be a big element of the mythology they were creating in the series, even if only sometimes on a surface level (Dharma initiative for example, with dharma = the teaching or religion of the Buddha).

I always felt that it would be difficult for an athiest or non-spiritual person to enjoy the finale, so how you felt about it makes a lot of sense. But me, I still get emotional thinking about the finale, I loved it that much. And for me it made perfect sense.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I decided to rewatch some of my favorite episodes, start with the 23rd Psalm and what a fantastic 43 minutes of entertainment. Eko's entire character and plot seemed so good at the time, but the fact what was presented as such a layered pretense of religion and spirituality with him and the smoke monster is undercut in the end its all so insignificant and totally in the moment.

Why does the monster judge him and let him pass, why does it return later and kill him. His confession, or lack of thereof was such a powerful moment in the show, that could be interpreted in so many ways. But why he died, was he a good man, were we meant to absolve him of his sins, or was any sin committed at all is a total unknown to me, would be interested in your thoughts on him and his character.

Gazoogleheimmer said:

Correct, no stakes whatsoever and artificial drama

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

People keep saying that it is about the characters, but without stakes, the characters are nothing. No need to invest in them at that point and any investment was a total waste. It was a shitty sendoff.

It's amazing that it even aired like that, but I guess the momentum was carrying it.

Masterz1337 said:

Why does the monster judge him and let him pass, why does it return later and kill him.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Because it was part of the Man in Black's plan to escape the island despite it having zero effect on the plan entirely.

Gazoogleheimmer said:

Can you (or anyone else that knows) please expound on this? I'm just curious as to what the ending could've been if they didn't go the route they ultimately did. Or if anyone has any theories.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Basically, LOST says that time can't be changed. Whatever happened... happened (otherwise it would be a paradox). But having been teleported back to the 1970's, the science genius wanted to test that theory, so Jack and the good guys set off to nuke the island in the 1970's, killing themselves and a bunch of Others and Dharma guys (who were all pretty much doomed anyways) in order to prevent/undo a bunch of shit that was caused by Island nonsense. They made it to their finish line, and with her dying breath Juliet managed to whack the nuke with a rock until it mercifully exploded. Boom. Fade into a flash of all-encompassing white nothing, which was dramatically different from every ending in the series so far. It seemed absolutely clear. They managed to nuke the island in the 1970's. But the massive cliffhanger you had to chew on for months was... what does that mean for the show?

The flash sideways opens up the next season in the 2000's, with the island having been sunk to the bottom of the sea way back in the 1970's. The flash sideways is a new timeline, as people are living their lives as they could have lived them without the Island.

Cut away from the flash sideways and cut back to the Island, and the Island is still there. Because whatever happened... happened. Nuking the Island in the 1970's didn't change the timeline, it split the timeline, and now there are two timelines, one where the Island was mysteriously destroyed by some self-sacrificing time travelers, and another one which we're more familiar with, where a couple of people jumped off to go kill themselves doing a thing that did not immediately appear to be of any benefit to anyone. Thanks guys, we could've used your help with something more productive. The flash sideways is literally sideways, from timeline A to timeline B.

But as people in timeline A die, their memories start popping up safe and sound in the new timeline B (memories cross over because Island). The wide roster of damaged people in the show are able to fix their damaged lives due to retaining their Island experience and keeping their character growth.

This frees up the people remaining in timeline A to have their great big epic battle of good vs evil on the Island (a battle which should logically involve a giant blue space laser), with casualties galore, up to and including a hero who saves the world with his dying breath (maybe have the dog lie down next to him as he dies), while making sure that the tragic story of LOST somehow still ends up with a happy ending. They could literally end the world in timeline A, and it would be acceptable because Jack and Sawyer and Kate and Juliet created a safe escape route with their sacrifice (and were rewarded for their efforts with a safe place in timeline B, rather than outright dying as they had been ready for).

From the perspective of the people in timeline A, people keep dying, and they have to deal with the losses as they continue the fight. From the perspective of the survivors in timeline B, there are many happy reunions, but updated news of the fight (which is of interest to all of them, helpless to do anything but observe) only comes as someone else dies and is able to carry another part of the story over.


But no. Blowing off a nuke just gives a little white fart whiff (LOL, you thought fade-to-white meant anything), which pushes any nearby time travelers back into their home time. Because that's what nukes do, and because we haven't finished ruining LOST yet, and we need to get to that Purgatory year, preferably using a Shyamalan twist. LOL Juliet and your fucking rock. You accomplished nothing. I hope you enjoy being dead.


I remember there being a rumor that fans had guessed where the show was heading, so the showrunners changed course because they didn't want to be seen as "predictable". They're visionary geniuses, goddamn it. It's like when a magician does one of those "Is this your card?" kind of tricks. Are you going to let that dirty carnie pretend he knows a trick which you don't? Heck no. Why is why you lie, and say that it's not your card.

Masterz1337 said:

I decided to rewatch some of my favorite episodes, start with the 23rd Psalm and what a fantastic 43 minutes of entertainment. Eko's entire character and plot seemed so good at the time, but the fact what was presented as such a layered pretense of religion and spirituality with him and the smoke monster is undercut in the end its all so insignificant and totally in the moment.

Why does the monster judge him and let him pass, why does it return later and kill him. His confession, or lack of thereof was such a powerful moment in the show, that could be interpreted in so many ways. But why he died, was he a good man, were we meant to absolve him of his sins, or was any sin committed at all is a total unknown to me, would be interested in your thoughts on him and his character.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I absolutely agree that they ended his story in a very unsatisfying way.

Honestly the way they handled Eko's story was probably my one major disappointment with the entire series. He felt like such a vital part of the story when they introduced him, and the acting was superb. The sad part is the writers wanted to bring him back in the final season but there were apparently scheduling and money issues with getting the actor to return. I was OK with the decision to kill him off when they did, but the fact that they never follow up on it (from what I remember) is pretty unacceptable.

Eko not returning is addressed in the videos. ABC insiders said that the actor wanted five times his pay from when he was first on the show and the show runners chose not use him. The actor came out and said he only asked for twice as much.