Lower Decks

Before anyone knew it for certain, ‘Heroes’ completed its run pretty much as it had started out, and at pretty much the same point everyone last cared about it: Claire, the cheerleader, trying to kill herself, but because she obviously couldn’t, it was all about the meaning of the act. The first time, it was about exploring her, well, brave new world. The second time, it was about letting the rest of the world do it with her. ‘Lost,’ it turns out, pretty much went the same way, except, ‘Lost’ being ‘Lost,’ if the people who last watched the show the last time everyone really liked it, right around the start of the second season, probably came away with the final episode a lot different than those who watched it from start to finish. Think about it: who wouldn’t have expected Jack and Locke, as they did in one of many climactic moments during “The End,” to come to epic blows? Jack and Sawyer had finally done it in the fifth season finale. If Locke were still alive, it might not really have been out of the question. But yes, ‘Lost’ was ‘Lost,’ straight to the end.

I tried for years to understand what kind of writer I am. I knew from early childhood that I was destined in some sense to be a storyteller, but it wasn’t until years later, when I took my first stabs at writing long fiction, that I wrote best and most easily when I focus most of it on reflective thinking. This was a problem, I realized, because very few people write that way. Except on television (and in my favorites, film, which might explain why my favorites look so different from a lot of other people’s). I had been a fan of Star Trek for most of my life, but my favorite series grew to be ‘Deep Space Nine’ and ‘Enterprise,’ both of which drew heavily on their backstories. ‘Andromeda,’ a show that never quite reached the levels Kevin Sorbo had previously experienced in fan communities as his ‘Hercules,’ was at its best when its characters looked back as they fought onward. I’m not talking about impersonal events, the kind that littered ‘Babylon Five’ or ‘Battlestar Galactica’ (arguably, though as I’ve talked about in HYGOTS both shows had their merits I would come to admire), but what weighed heavily on the minds of ‘Dark Angel,’ ‘Boomtown,’ ‘Defying Gravity.’ ‘Fringe’ is one of the most heavily-laden reflection shows I’ve ever watched. ‘Heroes,’ when I finally gave it another chance, turned out to be one, too. ‘How I Met Your Mother’ is all about it, too. ‘Prison Break’ had the specter of the past hanging over its present perils.

But ‘Lost’ spent its entire run exploring a massive cast of characters, right to the end, and that’s what ultimately defines that conclusion, beyond all wildest expectations.

You might almost have seen it coming, when earlier in the season the flash-sideways, the glimpses into the lives of the castaways if “the Incident” never happened and Oceanic Flight 815 actually landed at LAX, with the island sunk on the bottom of the ocean. After all, Smokey/Man in Black/Locke Monster/Adam made it clear during the final episode that he meant to escape by destroying the island, a plan Desmond helped to facilitate after he was lowered by Jack & Locke into the cave of light at the center of the island (not far from where Jack first woke up at the start of the pilot) and essentially unplugged it. Before Christian showed up at his own funeral and revealed to Jack and the audience that the flash-sideways represented the afterlife, it was confusing enough that these side stories were being told at all, that everyone had been reset back to the first episode but still looked like they did in the present (notably Jack, anyway), how it meant anything at all. But “The End,” in the end, was more about this apparent tangent than the final moments of island life.

Here’s a very rough version of the finale: Jack, having become the new Jacob, becomes the primary target of the Man in Black, but everything converges in two events, the trip to the cave and the launch of the Ajira plane. Jack and Man in Black have it out, but not before Jack replaces himself with Hurley, because he realizes his purpose was to save the island, not be its guardian. Hurley was always the far better companion everyone could count on, and Ben turned out to find his redemption in finally trusting someone else, becoming the new Richard Alpert. Alpert, meanwhile, leaves the island, along with Lapidus, Kate, Sawyer, Claire, and Miles. Desmond is sent back home, too, having completed his own journey. In the sideways, all the characters complete converging on each other, first for a concert, and then for a funeral, and finally to move on.

What ‘Lost’ ultimately accomplishes is completing the story of its characters as they find themselves; the island really is basically a metaphor, because it is through the experience of coming to this island and everything that happens to them because of it that allows them to finally accept themselves, and find acceptance in others, which is the note “The End” ends on.

“The End” resonates beyond just being the final episode of a series I have grown to admire greatly, one that ranks among the great conclusions. I thought at one point about another Star Trek, ‘Generations,’ a movie that struggles to define the meaning of the Nexus, an energy ribbon that floats through space and occasionally transports people into their own private dreams, their own afterlives that allow them to exist in their perfect realities. On its own, “The End” is like a revision of that film, of just how much work really would have been necessary for audiences to accept everything it attempted to do.

“The End” helps complete the ‘Lost’ saga, in the same way revealing Darth Vader to have once been Anakin Skywalker redefined just what exactly the Star Wars films were all about. ‘Lost’ famously made a lot of references to books and movies, and Star Wars was one of favorites to draw on (Hurley, in this episode, even gets to say “I have a bad feeling about this”). For anyone still wondering whether flashbacks, flashforwards, and flash-sideways were really necessary, there’s your answer. It was always about the characters, not the mysteries. “Across the Sea,” two episodes ago, spelled everything still essentially necessary out, as far as what everyone watching for that reason. “The End” was another version of the second season finale, just as the fifth season finale was, for that viewer.

“The End” was like Neo realizing at the end of ‘The Matrix Revolutions’ that his story wasn’t about waking everyone up, but getting everyone to be comfortable with their own versions of reality. All those gathered in the church had grown comfortable, hadn’t been stuck on the island, as Michael was, or presumably, even Mr. Eko, other familiar faces we didn’t reunite with. If there was any disappointment during the two and half hours, it was that we didn’t get to see everyone again. Because anyone who had been watching from the start, and who kept watching, couldn’t help but appreciate how it ended with Jack, lying back down, closing that solitary eye.

Alpert realizing that he’s aging again, Vincent lying down with Jack, Rose & Bernard sticking to their guns, Jack standing up like Locke at the end of “Walkabout,” the calm inevitability of the episode, Shannon showing up and demonstrating that Sayid’s happy ending wasn’t with Nadia after all, “I’ll see you in another life, brother,” corking the island, all of these were nice touches.

It was the first season finale that didn’t feel frantic; everyone and everything was busy converging throughout the episode. Everything felt right. If you thought some characters had some uneventful final arcs on the island, they were better served in the sideways. I won’t go into what specific characters did; I suspect that’ll be talked about elsewhere.

The night itself was pretty awesome. ABC spent the first two hours recapping the entire series. Target had some pretty clever commercials, including a smoke detector for the Smoke Monster. An hour after it ended, many of the cast members reunited with Jimmy Kimmel. Because I’m a fan of ‘Survivor,’ it felt to me exactly like the reunion shows that round out each of those seasons (one of three gag “alternate endings” even included Jeff Probst, which of course I thought was genius). It was great just to spend some time with these actors, and Kimmel was a genial host, probably the only person who could have done it with just the right tone.

“The End,” as I’ve said, is one of my favorite series finales. It reminded me of “What You Leave Behind,” the last episode of ‘DS9,’ which also asked its audience to embrace some bigger thoughts and broader ways of saying goodbye than is typical (but among the best things ‘BSG’ did was its own conclusion, “Daybreak,” which took exactly the large view I was always hoping for). It was the best way to end what was arguably a perfect television experience, at least in my view, something that, as many have already said, will be nearly impossible to duplicate. It was the most reflection possible in a series that had already staked most of its existence on reflection, pulling a fast one that inverted all expectations but was the most obvious and appropriate, at least in hindsight, move possible.

Now really, what more could you possibly ask for?