Hey, Kiddo

The End for Lost ended as well as I could have expected it to. For months now (since I started watching the show in the Summer of ’09), I have been basically obsessed with the show and even more with the answers to the mysteries of the Island. I came to love the characters, some more than others, and I was brought to tears many times in the finale. As I stated in several posts and replies over recent weeks, I did not expect the writers to answer EVERY question, tie-up EVERY loose end, and address EVERY concern the audience has had. As they have said, it’s more about the characters than the mythology.

Having said all of that, I found The End to be a very, very nice close to the show. To realize they were all already dead was a bit of a surprise to me, though not completely “shocking”, mostly because I’ve seen this kind of plot device used in other films and shows. The real enjoyment for me about this technique was Jack’s reunion with Christian. It felt really good to see them embrace and share and “I love you”, something they had been missing for years when they were alive. The general sense of satisfaction about the way the finale concluded came from realizing, as the characters had, that all of the stuff on the Island didn’t even really matter. What happened, happened; and it is done and they are here. John Locke’s “we’ve been waiting for you” welcome to Jack as he entered the church was a fantastic moment; two adversaries finally meeting again as friends.

There were two other fantastic moments for me centered on John Locke as well. The first being Locke’s awakening as he lay on the hospital bed after his surgery. The “looking down at his foot” moment immediately hit me as it hit Locke, a second before the flashback started, and that chill hit my spine as he remembered his Island life; a wonderful little look back at the John Locke I’ve missed so much. Terry O’Quinn played it perfectly, as well.

My other favorite moment came in the cave when Smokey and Jack were lowering Desmond into the Source. Smokey asks Jack if the moment felt familiar. Jack’s response is one of my favorite lines from the entire series. “You’re not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by wearing his face, but you’re nothing like him. Turns out he was right about most everything. I just wish I would have told him while he was still alive.”

Great end to a great show. Goodbye, Lost, and thank you.