ok dipping into rxns: twitter search 'lost' ~ have not yet read any rxns. watched innocently.

Anadart: Lost was the ultimate long con io9.com/lost-was-the-ultimate-long-con

-io9.com/lost-was-the-ultimate-long-con nah d n agree w this view
I had been aware that some last-minute spoilers about the finale were coming out over the weekend, but I hadn't looked at them because of that desire to keep an open mind. what were the spoilers th came out? did say wh sideways was? had anyone correctly guessed what the sideways world was? (read matthew fox, I think, saying that he didn't think anyone had guessed the end)
which was, that the sideways stories of this final season were NOT an alternate life, NOT a result of any h-bomb detonation, but where all the characters found themselves after their death, whenever that was, so that they could gather and realize together that they had died and together let go of life and go into death, the life.
the sideways world = an unwordly afterlife "no now here" (as christian shepherd tells jack) ~ purgatory ~ collective unconscious ~ "a place you made to find each other" (christian's answer to jack asking where they are) ~ where you realize that you died and then together you leave, you are together to go into ~death, the light
& we watched their lives up until Jack's death. at which time, Hurley & Ben are staying on to protect the island; and the people on the Ajira plane are headed away from the island back to the mainland: Lapidus, Richard (!), Miles; Sawyer, Kate, & Claire. Those six people will continue their lives, and only after their eventual deaths, whenever they die, find themselves in the 'sideways' where they will gather at the church.
well I think I loved it. totally unexpected. recentering: the island was *totally* real life. it was this season's non-island non-crash timeline that was an afterlife, a dream, a psychological experience... and that followed on their deaths, whenever each of them died, in past seasons, in the finale, or in the future, after the moment Jack dies and the Ajira 6 are in the air, beyond which moment we did not see.
the island time was a part of their actual lives. and Christian tells Jack that they are all (including Jack, but *not* Christian, right? who never actually lived on or had anything to do with the island, actually) coming together in the afterlife with these people because this was such an important time in their life (or sth like th?) ~ wh is weird, like what about everything else that the Ajira Six may have gone on to do? like doug says he tweeted that Miles could have been the first Asian-Amer president. and then he dies and it's all about the island? but that's fine, ok, rg says it's like throwing loosely ~ where Mad Men or Breaking Bad is tight (pottery metaphor, making a clay pot). and what Lost did so well was go out in multiple directions, twigs off twigs on branches. all those details, incidents out there, some take on signif, some coincide. loose, multidirectional.

the end was moving. 'the end.'
like twop mgiant recapping Six Feet Under finale When this show says the end, not kidding. could call epsd 'Everyone Dies.'
Twop: show overview: Six Feet Under - 5.12 Everyone's Waiting - The final episode wraps everything up neater than Nate's shroud. David faces his fears, and ends up co-owner and resident of the funeral home with Keith .. Claire heads east. And then they all die. Seriously.

Lost now like Six Feet Under ends with everyone *ev*er*y one dead. sooner or later, everyone dies. popular tv shows ending with death. confronting the viewer with mortality. I mean, it really does. what the island was or wasn't, everyone dies. the end.

I flittingly feel so sad for jack. sad to realize he died. he doesn't want to let go.
he crashed, was on a weird island for a few months, got off the island with the Oceanic6, became depressed & pill-addicted & convinced he had to go back, went back, was briefly in the 70s, then back to his proper time where the black smoke had taken form as Locke, then he drank what Jacob gave him & he had to protect the island by killing Locke & then going down into the lightcave to put a stone back in a hole, and then he died.
that's it. life over. sad.

(he died of stab wound fr when fighting with Locke? who was then shot by Kate and then Jack kicked him off the cliff? all of wh was after Desmond went down into the cave light & before Jack went down into the cave, which then threw him out & up. and then he died of his injuries? sad.
was there a reason that black smoke locke found himself vulnerable? he was suprised, right? that he was bleeding? after jack punching him. and maybe also remarkable that jack could be hurt, since jack was now like jacob ~ so they should not have been able to harm each other? but they could.) may have missed happenings in there.

Oh, and when Jack goes flying through the air to kick Flocke in the face, it was a nicely composed shot and a decent air-punching moment. crazy over the top, wasn't it?! I mean, delightfully. like a video game freeze frame.

-strideo: The thing that sucked was that when we finally have Jack confront the sad day monster this caught my eye bcs that's the name given to black smoke by NeverSeenLost guy right? so strideo (who clearly has seen Lost, as he talks about other seasons, below, & thus is not the NeverSeenLost guy) must have read gotten the name fr that blog right? and he confidently declares that bringing Desmond to the heart of the island will not destroy the island and he will kill Mr. cloud monster man. (Locke: And how are you going to do that? Jack: That'sa surprise. *badass*) Aaaaand while Jack was technically correct, he did kill sad day monster (with Kate's help) and the island did not perish it's pretty obvious that none of this happened according to any plan and Jack had no idea what he was doing aw is that right? so why did he say that & go along w lowering Desmond into the cavelight? what did Jack think was going to happen? and he was pretty much like "Oh shit!" the moment the light went out and all hell broke lose. The only reason why it works in the end is because Jack plugs the hole in the heart of the island and fixes things. So once again just when Jack thinks he's got it figured out things just blow up in his face. :P shucks is that right? (but we just don't know what he thought he had figured out?)
I think the show really hit its stride in season two and it never really achieved the same level afterwords. For all the waiting they made you go through in season one to see what was in that hatch I thought that surely all the anticipation would only lead to disappointment but I have to admit I actually found the Swan station to be as intriguing as anything I could have imagined. I loved the sort of decaying 1970's vibe of the Swan and the idea that this poor guy was stuck down there with this dated record collection and exercise bicycle and stuff repeatedly performing a task that he didn't really understand. yeah that was very cool. The whole thing with the introductory film strip hosted by "Marvin Candle" was absolutely brilliant. The whole idea left me extremely curious about the other Dharma facilities when it was revealed that there were more of them. Unfortunately none of the other stations were as satisfying as the Swan; none of them were as detailed or mysterious or as well conceived.
My favorite and most emotional moment of the final episode was when Jack was making his way back to the bamboo grove to die. When he laid on the ground I was thinking that it was sad that he was going to die all alone and then almost as if on cue Vincent (the dog) comes bounding out of the forest and lays down with Jack bringing him comfort and then he looks up and sees the plane with his friends in flight and he seems satisfied. I know it's pretty simple but I liked it more than many of the heartfelt reunions and resolutions of complex emotional issues that we were presented with. Some may say that the emotional impact is lessened by the fact that we already know Jack's character lives on in the afterlife but from a character empathy standpoint we should understand that he doesn't know what will happen to him when he dies.

-I just hope that when I die a faithful dog will come and lay down next to me.
[strideo promoted this comment]

-For me, I loved it. I'm not entirely happy with the purgatory-verse route they took, but so be it. More than enough questions where answered in this final season to make me happy without ruining the magic of the show.

-Also, so wait, I want to go back to this parallel-timeline thing. We were given to understand initially that the parallel timeline was the consequence of detonating a hydrogen bomb on top of some electromagnetism which okay, so, fine, that's how parallel timelines are created. :) But it turns out that's not true, right? Right. No parallel timeline. No connection between the so-called 'sideways world' & the bomb going off or not going off when the white light flashed and the Losties went back to their proper 2008ish time. So, when the castaways went back in time & blew up the electromagnetism before they built the hatch on it (and evacuated the Island and everything), what was the consequence of that? Are we meant to understand that Juliet blowing up the pocket of electromagnetism had always happened in this timeline? ALSO! Are we also meant to understand that when Desmond gets bombarded by electromagnetism, he has a vision of purgatory?
--Yes. As for you talking about Desmond seeing purgatory, the label of purgatory is not really appropriate, as there is no way of really defining where they are. You may have noticed that in the church on the stained glass that many religions were recognized. Lost does not simply confine itself to the Christian concept of purgatory; rather, the characters had to join together in this one place before they could pass on to what is next, which is entirely open, like many things on Lost, to the viewer's own beliefs and interpretations. If the viewer believes in Heaven, then they go there. Or they are reincarnated, if the viewer believes in that. But I think to simply call the place of their passing on "purgatory" is not fair. It seemed to be the final test that they had to face. Each of them had to remember that they died, and that all of them together did something important. so it is also about having done something important? saving the world? The island was the single most important experience in these people's lives, and while it was at many times tragic, it shaped them and made them better people. so from within the perspective of the show's universe, do other people experience collective dream psychic purgatory ish with people from the most important experience in *their* lives (whatever it was for them)? I suppose so. I mean, are the Losties unique~special wrt this afterlife experience? They needed the island to become the best of themselves. Not everyone did, obviously. Not everyone made it to the church, not everyone was allowed to see the whole picture. hmm.
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iPoof: Theres a lot of stupid people commenting on #lost. THINK before you tweet. The whole island thing DID happen!