“Oooooh. On the last day of Lost Again my true love gave to me…”

Sixteen guards impalin’
Fifteen pokers a scorchin’
Fourteen ladders a snappin’
Thirteen mirrors a smashin’
Twelve Others a crushin’
Eleven graves a diggin’
Ten Ajira Passengers a rottin’
Nine slaves a slashin’
Eight Losties a tazin’
Seven mothers a bludgeonin’
Six cars a crashin’
Fiiiiive hit and ruuuuuns!
Four Others blown up.
Three Candidates dead.
Two throats a slashed.

AND A FLOCKE WHO FELL INTO THE SEEEEEEA!

THANK YOU!

“Everybody dies, Kiddo.”

So I just realized that this finale is overall going to rank lower than the Nikki and Paulo episode. What? Oh, yeah, you can go. Ordinarily I can’t stand the “Bwah hah hah, your opinion is wrong!” type of poster, but I totally don’t blame you in this case. This is a tough one to get past. No hard feelings.

So now I’m pretty sure I’m writing in a vacuum, but on the off chance that you’re still reading, let’s do this thing!

The Man in Black is dealt with once and for all as Part 2 begins. Kate finally gets a truly awesome moment, as she arrives just in time to prevent Flocke from killing Jack. But too late to stop him from mortally wounding him. In any case, Jack throws the ****er to his death, and it’s hard to ask for a more spectacular end.

From there, there’s little left to do in this storyline aside from getting characters to their final destinations. Jack and Kate have what is actually quite a moving goodbye, before she and Sawyer hightail it to Hydra Island. Hurley and Ben stay behind to help Jack to the cave, where Jack, anticipating his own demise, hands the protector job off to Hurley. Descending into the cave, he manages to get Desmond to safety, puts the cork back, and the island stops sinking. And the light comes back on in the real world, or whatever it was that was happening out there.

At Hydra Island, there’s one last beat in the Claire/Kate story. She’s reluctant to get to the Ajira Plane, saying the island made her crazy. But as a wise man once said, crazy people don’t think they’re crazy, which shows that there’s some hope for Claire. The three make it just in time, it’s all suspenseful, but then it takes off! There’s Richard getting a chance to resume a mortal life, and Miles looking downright amazed that the finale is over and he’s still alive. And up in the cabin, Frank brings the whole thing full circle by muttering “Amen.”

I’m amazed, and quite happy with this collection of survivors. I had never noticed this before, but the last traditional 815er flashback, Whatever Happened Happened, established that Kate, Sawyer, and Claire all had a good reason to come back from the island alive and well, so it feels good that they’re the three to make it home. I’m thrilled for Sawyer in particular, he arrived at the island one man, changed into another, and now gets to go live the rest of his life as a new man.

Hurley appoints Ben as his #2 guy, reasoning that he’ll need someone with experience. Is this way, way, more than Ben deserves? Probably. But if Locke forgives him, I suppose I should.

By the by, a huge hand to Michael Giacchino for everything in this episode. All the major themes gets one last big statement, and best of all are the reprises of Parting Words and the Survivor’s theme when the plane takes off and the light is restored, respectively.

Jack is spat out in the same spot as the Man in Black (thankfully not turning into a Smoke Monster), where he stumbles back to that bamboo grove. Here, the Live Together, Die Alone (almost) theme comes back and hits us hard. The final image of Jack’s eye closing was a little predictable after the producer comments about how Season 6 would mirror Season 1 in reverse, but no matter how we got here, the show had to end this way.

Ok, the alternate universe. So…

There’s some criticism to be had with this flash sideways business. Essentially a whole third of the season had very little to do with the story that had been developing for six years. I’m happy to look at this as the “Alternate Universe” season in the same way I look at S5 as “The Time Travel Season,” but I can’t argue with anyone who doesn’t like that this whole Flash Sideways concept only came in at the tail end. Take them out, and aside from leaving Locke, Sayid, Jin, and Sun with unbearable ends, it has no impact on the primary narrative of Season 6.

But that wasn’t a huge deal to me. You could say the same for many of the early flashbacks. I have more of a problem with this whole life after death concept. First, I often have nothing but praise for fiction that explores the idea of an afterlife (or lack thereof) and explores it well. We’ve all wondered what comes after death. Anyone who claims with 100% certainty that there is either something or nothing is full of it. Maybe we blink out of existence, maybe we’re reborn as someone else with no memory of our previous life, maybe there’s nothing but our bodiless consciousness floating in a black void, with our only escape from the eternal boredom and isolation an inevitable descent into insanity. Not that I’ve thought about it.

On Lost, death brings you to an idealistic place where love is the driving force, where you get to reunite with all of your friends. A places where coincidences are plentiful and you’re faced with challenges that are suspiciously thematic. And then you get to ascend to a bright and featureless place with your soulmate at your side. Not a bad place to wind up in, but did Lost completely earn this happy ending?

Personally, I think the need to disguise this as an alternate universe and then reveal it as OMG TWIST AFTERLIFE at the end may not have been the best idea. There was little foreshadowing of a life after death in the series, it never felt like a major theme. To suddenly put that on the table here at the very end and reveal it as a quite sentimental place, there’s a certain amount of audience manipulation here. It doesn’t really speak to the human experience: whatever’s after death, I think it’s safe to say that it isn’t what we see in the show.

So that means it’s a place with little connection to the story, in which meaningful development was only occasional, and it’s here solely to facilitate a happy ending for the Losties. But it’s the damnedest thing; I love the Losties. I sympathize at all the misery the island put them through, and I want to see things work out well for them. I was overjoyed to see Sun and Jin remembering their past, Claire, Charlie, and Aaron rebuilding their surrogate family, Jack getting another chance to see his father, the reunions in the church, all of it. Maybe the writers weren’t playing fair, but I will not lie to you, I found many scenes in this episode to be deeply moving.

The Sawyer/Juliet awakening scene is the best way to talk about what I’m getting at. His AU story was based on an interesting concept, is Sawyer the same man even when he’s a cop? The show then proceeded to give him no character development, and make him face the hunt for real Sawyer that had been previously resolved. Then he meets Juliet again, and everything relating to the character in this world is rendered meaningless in favour of a joyful reunion scene. Part of my mind was saying “The show is resorting to some cheap tricks to bring this moment about.” A far louder part of me was quite literally crying tears of joy. “SAWYER AND JULIET FOUND EACH OTHER AGAIN, I DON’T CARE HOW IT HAPPENED, I’M SO HAPPY.”

So that’s the bottom line. This revelation winds up rendering the flash-sideways a mixed bag. But there’s so much pleasure to be had in many of the reunions throughout the episode, I can’t not love The End on a certain level. Even if that level is a purely sentimental one.

In the end, although I was interested in the AU’s nature and the mythology, more than anything I wanted satisfactory resolution for the characters on the island. That’s what the series was really about, a disparate group growing and seeking redemption in a setting that just happened to be a kooky island. And the main character arcs ultimately resolved themselves within that universe quite well. Jack’s final transition to Man of the Island was immensely satisfying. Hurley’s rise as a leader was unexpected, but makes sense on close examination. Sun and Jin came to the end of their long, tumultuous marriage. Sayid turned away from utter nihilism in a critical moment. Sawyer managed to stay on his redemptive path despite a lot of potential to backslide. Ben accepted responsibility for all the terrible things he’s done. And Kate… stayed out of the way And after that’s through, we get to look ahead and get a glimpse of what happened to them next. The island stuff was the main course, the afterlife was a dessert.

So that’s Lost. A group of people wound up on a crazy island. And like that teacher in high school we all had, the island put these characters through all kinds of misery, but for the most part their experiences made them better people. Their reward for that is a blissful afterlife. It’s a nice thought, and a nice ending. Not an amazing ending that gathers all stray threads, one that’s far better in the moment than it is on further reflection, and nowhere near as profound as it might want to be. But things work out really well for the characters. It’s just… nice.

Unless you’re Anthony Cooper of course. But f*** that guy. Sorry, one more for the road.

I know that the finale is divisive. You either hate it or think it’s the greatest episode of the series. For my part, I now think that it’s flawed and actually renders the season as a whole flawed, but as an episode, it’s nevertheless hugely effective on an emotional level. And because of that, I’ve decided that I do quite like The End, but not enough for me to put it among the very very best of the series. That’s allowed, right?

Unofficial Rating for Part 2: 9.5/10
Official Rating for The End as a Whole: 9.5/10
Ranked 2nd out of 16 episodes.

Season 6 Ratings/Rankings
16. Across the Sea (6/10)
15. Recon (7/10)
14. What Kate Does (8/10)
13. The Package (8/10)
12. The Substitute (8/10)
11. Happily Ever After (8.5/10)
10. The Last Recruit (8.5/10)
9. Sundown (8.5/10)
8. Dr. Linus (8.5/10)
7. Lighthouse (8.5/10)
6. What They Died For (9/10)
5. Everybody Loves Hugo (9/10)
4. Ab Aeterno (9.5/10)
3 LA X (9.5/10)
2. The End (9.5/10)
1. The Candidate (10/10)

Average: 8.5/10

Complete Ratings/Rankings

114. Stranger in a Strange Land (5.5/10)
113. Adrift (5.5/10)

112. Across the Sea (6/10)
111. Everybody Hates Hugo (6/10)

110. Hearts and Minds (6.5/10)
109. Born to Run (6.5/10)
108. Every Man for Himself (6.5/10)
107. 316 (6.5/10)

106. Whatever the Case May Be (7/10)
105. Man of Science, Man of Faith (7/10)
104. Further Instructions (7/10)
103. Collision (7/10)
102. The Greater Good (7/10)
101. Recon (7/10)
100. The Glass Ballerina (7/10)
99. I Do (7/10)
98. LeFleur (7/10)

97. The Whole Truth (7.5/10)
96. Special (7.5/10)
95. The Moth (7.5/10)
94. Ji Yeon (7.5/10)
93. …In Translation (7.5/10)
92. Abandoned (7.5/10)
91. Eggtown (7.5/10)
90. He’s Our You (7.5/10)
89. Orientation (7.5/10)
88. Dave (7.5/10)
87. A Tale of Two Cities (7.5/10)

86. Par Avion (8/10)
85. The Long Con (8/10)
84. What Kate Does (8/10)
83. Something Nice Back Home (8/10)
82. Fire + Water (8/10)
81. The Package (8/10)
80. D.O.C. (8/10)
79. Solitary (8/10)
78. House of the Rising Sun (8/10)
77. …And Found (8/10)
76. Namaste (8/10)
75. What Kate Did (8/10)
74. The Hunting Party (8/10)
73. Whatever Happened, Happened (8/10)
72. The Substitute (8/10)
71. Some Like it Hoth (8/10)
70. Lockdown (8/10)
69. Homecoming (8/10)

68. Left Behind (8.5/10)
67. Confidence Man (8.5/10)
66. Enter ’77 (8.5/10)
65. The Economist (8.5/10)
64. Maternity Leave (8.5/10)
63. The Other Woman (8.5/10)
62. The Lie (8.5/10)
61. Happily Ever After (8.5/10)
60. Exodus: Part 1 (8.5/10)
59. Pilot: Part 2 (8.5/10)
58. Catch 22 (8.5/10)
57. The Little Prince (8.5/10)
56. Tabula Rasa (8.5/10)
55. S.O.S. (8.5/10)
54. The Last Recruit (8.5/10)
53. Three Minutes (8.5/10)
52. Sundown (8.5/10)
51. ? (8.5/10)
50. Dr. Linus (8.5/10)
49. Raised by Another (8.5/10)
48. Lighthouse (8.5/10)
47. One of Them (8.5/10)
46. Two for the Road (8.5/10)
45. The Variable (8.5/10)

44. Meet Kevin Johnson (9/10)
43. White Rabbit (9/10)
42. Confirmed Dead (9/10)
41. Do No Harm (9/10)
40. What They Died For (9/10)
39. Cabin Fever (9/10)
38. Exodus: Part 2/3 (9/10)
37. Jughead (9/10)
36. Everybody Loves Hugo (9/10)
35. All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues (9/10)
34. Tricia Tanaka is Dead (9/10)
33. Flashes Before Your Eyes (9/10)
32. Deus Ex Machina (9/10)
31. The Cost of Living (9/10)
30. Outlaws (9/10)
29. There’s No Place Like Home: Part 1 (9/10)
28. The 23rd Psalm (9/10)
27. Follow the Leader (9/10)
26. The Other 48 Days (9/10)

25. One of Us (9.5/10)
24. Because You Left (9.5/10)
23. Numbers (9.5/10)
22. This Place is Death (9.5/10)
21. The Brig (9.5/10)
20. The Man From Tallahassee (9.5/10)
19. Ab Aeterno (9.5/10)
18. The Beginning of the End (9.5/10)
17. Walkabout (9.5/10)
16. Not in Portland (9.5/10)
15. Greatest Hits (9.5/10)
14. The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham (9.5/10)
13. LA X (9.5/10)
12. The Man Behind the Curtain (9.5/10)
11. Live Together, Die Alone (9.5/10)
10. The End (9.5/10)
9. Dead is Dead (9.5/10)

8. Exposé (10/10)
7. The Candidate (10/10)
6. The Constant (10/10)
5. Pilot: Part 1 (10/10)
4. The Shape of Things to Come (10/10)
3. There’s No Place Like Home: Part 2/3 (10/10)
2. The Incident (10/10)
1. Through the Looking Glass (10/10)

Season Ratings/Rankings
1. Season 4. Average: 8.88/10. My Rating: 10/10
2. Season 3. Average: 8.45/10. My Rating: 10/10
3. Season 5. Average: 8.53/10. My Rating: 9/10
4. Season 1. Average: 8.28/10. My Rating: 8.5/10
5. Season 6. Average: 8.5/10. My Rating: 8/10
6. Season 2. Average: 7.92/10. My Rating: 8/10

“We’ve been waiting for you.”

*boom*

Thanks again for reading!