richyboi's blog

My first blog

SPOILER ALERT 

Ok, so this is my first ever blog, which I guess means that some of you will like it and some of you won’t.  Which is a perfect segway into the topic that I have chosen to blog about, the show finale of LOST, which left many people divided on whether they liked it or not.

The following YouTube Clip is a perfect explanation of the show in a few minutes and I suggest that you check it out first, very entertaining, and kinda relevant to what I am about to talk about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HWECQa23Cs&playnext_from=TL&videos=z5TmkQDQtz8&feature=sub

Firstly, I would like to say that I did not get into LOST until the hiatus between season four and season five, LOST season five aired from January 2009.  So, over Christmas 2008, I decided that I had been missing out like so many people who still remain in the dark about what the show really is.  It was during this period that I watched every single episode, in sequential order, and this continued for the final two seasons.  This is something I am particularly pleased with, as it is very rewarding to follow something from beginning to end, and really feel connected to it in every way!

I am not going to start discussing the entire show (or the entire episode for that matter), and I am just going to focus on the finale and talk about the issue in the finale that matter to me, which I personally felt more OMG than I did WTF (like so many people and hence why the opinion on the final episode is so divided).  There was many moving moments in the final episode, many will be discussed later, and two of my personal favorite moments were the image of the shoe hanging on the tree and the eye closing in the very final image of the show.  These to me were very symbolic, as they are both from the pilot episode (first show episode) and they are a very nice homage and a nice way of the Producers to thank the fans for watching the show and noticing.  The eye closing in the final shot of the show, is a reversal of the show opening in the first ever episode, where the show opened with the same characters eye opening.  The shoe hanging in the tree was also in this first episode, and involves the same character running through trees to find other survivors after the plane crash, this time that you see the shoe it is after he has sacrificed himself to save everybody and is stumbling to his death.

The finale drew 13 million viewers on the American TV Channel of ABC, which was the largest audience on Sunday Night (9PM in The States and 5AM in The United Kingdom), and this is a testament to the importance of this show.  This is because in The United Kingdom, shows that receive this level of viewership are X-Factor, and that level would represent a 54% share of an audience within a similar time slot.

My theory is the reason that is drew such a mixed reaction, is because of the large audience that it drew, and this would undoubtably lead to a conflict in whether it was liked or not.  I am probably unselling this a little, as the reaction to the dissatisfaction has been huge, for example there has been a Face Book Group set up for the people who think “the ending of lost was a disappointment” (also the name of the group).

Okay, so now all that is out of the way - sorry about that, there was not many answers to questions or mysteries that have existed for up to six years.  There was not any real explanation of key elements such as what were the DHARMA doing there in the first place? What was the power of the magic numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 - just in case you want to use them on the lottery XD)?  Why Walt was special?  Who built the Egyptian stuff?  What about the debate of free will and destiny?  Science and faith?  How could they get airdrops of supplies?  Are we supposed to read all of the Dharma project, and their island life as a metaphor for the way we distract ourselves and don’t concentrate on just - hey - loving each other?  Perhaps you should check out this video, it made things a little clearer for me, and might explain a few things as to why there are still so many mysteries after the show has finished - http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.html

It was great to see some old favorites back, there was Rose and Bernard, Boone and Shannon, Juliet and most importantly - VINCENT!!!!  And it seems like the reason why Michael, Walt, and Mr. Eko plus many others were not in the church in the final scene was because they are still wandering on the island and have not come to terms and they are not ready to move on - perhaps this is why Ben did not come into the church when Hurley invited him in.

The finale revealed that in the LOST world, everyone dies, but this is at different times and you all get to spend eternity in the afterlife with all the people that are most important in your life.  I have to admit to being slightly confused after the show finished, I spent many hours reflecting on what had just happened, and my understanding of the ending changed quite dramatically.  My original view after the show had finished was that they were all dead when they crashed on the island, the island was limbo, and that they were in purgatory waiting to move onto the afterlife. However, this changed to my new understanding that the characters in LOST survived the plane crash, and that everything on the island happened in real life but the characters all dead at different stages (some of those were shown on the show and other were not shown).  The church in the ending was the gateway to heaven, and because you spend an eternity in the afterlife with those people that mattered most to you, this meant that these were all the most important people in each other’s character’s lives and they were moving on to the next stage together.  One of the examples, which demonstrate that some died before and some dead after each other, was not only what Jack’s Dad said to him in the Church but also the conversation between Hurley and Ben.  Hurley thanked Ben for being a good Number Two, and Ben tells Hurley that he was a good Number One, suggesting that they both got to live out their lives as joint island protectors.

As mentioned earlier, there are still so many questions, especially within this explanation of the meaning of the LOST idea.  It is made even more complicated by the fact that there is the island, flashbacks, flash forwards and flash sideways - all of which have no explanation and the creators have left this to the audience to theorize on.  For example, was the island real and the flash sideways life limbo or was it the other way round or both? 

It was great to see that Jack got to kill The Smoke Monster (for those of you who are interested - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flying-Shephard-Punch/121573317875885?ref=ts), Smokey seemed to lose his immortality when the magic plug was pulled out, which led to Richard getting his first grey hair.  Desmond’s immunity to electromagnetism, and Frank who popped up to fly everyone out, both came in handy.

Surprising, this limbo explanation has been used very often, and could be another reason for the division in opinion on the show’s finale.  Does this remind you of Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, Battle Star Galatica or Quantum Leap’s endings?

Personally, some of the “enlightenments” (or the “remembering” as the show called it) didn’t move me too much, for example when Shannon and Sayid came together there did not feel too much connection between them maybe because their romance ended many seasons ago.  However, I was surprised at how much Claire and Charlie’s was the most moving for me, even though that narrative ended a few years ago.  Sawyer and Juliet had me chuckling, Juliet “wanna go out for a coffee?”, Sawyer “sure but the machine just chewed up my last dollar”. 

Its funny that I never noticed the symbolism in Jack’s Dad’s name, “Christian”, “Shepherd”.  By the way - I loved that he was wearing white shoes when he walked towards the light.  The stained glass window was a nice touch too, as it had an Om / a Cross / a Yin Yang / a Star of David and a Wheel (was that supposed to be the wheel of life and somehow connected to the wheel under the island?).  Another nice touch was when Christian Shepherd said to his son “you needed all of them and they needed you”. Some of the other quotes that I enjoyed, were Hurley’s “he’s worse than yoda” (continuing the Star Wars references), Locke to Jack “you’re sort of the obvious choice aren’t you?” about Jack becoming the main candidate to protect the Island (this later became Hurley are Jack sacrificed himself), Kate to Locke “I saved you a bullet!” (after The Smoke Monster’s, inhabiting Locke’s body, powers went away and when he was on the verge of killing Jack), and Frank’s “that my friends is pure music” (when the engine on the aeroplane finally started to work).

All of this really reminds me of The Prophet - Bill Hicks - who is a stand up comedian who was sadly taken at a very young age but had this routine and that was the following: The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think that it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills, and it’s very brightly coloured, and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question - is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us. They say ‘Hey! Don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride.’

Anyhow, thank you very much for reading, I am not very good at this and I would be surprised if you bothered reading this to the very end.  It is my first blog, which I intend to continue writing, in a very poor grammatical style.  Future blogs will cover a diverse range of topics, which aim to cover what I think are the “matters that matter”, and within many different subjects.  These will include films reviews / music reviews / photography / food and nature / football / pressing social issues.