Of the Final LOST, Love and Maybe Oregon

Of the Final LOST, Love and Maybe Oregon

Published 05/24/2010

By Andre Hagestedt

And what of this last LOST thing? What, in the end, did this all mean?

I, for one, am still frustrated by the finale of the six-year-long epic tale of plane crash survivors, others, paranormal stuff galore, and tightly wound intricacies of storytelling that begged for all kinds of resolution. Nevermind that most people I talked to today still didn’t understand the polar bear from the very first episode (it was an escapee from the wacky Dharma zoo cages where Sawyer and Kate spent time), or that even many journalists still didn’t understand why Michael wasn’t part of the final church scene (his ghost is stuck on the island, sentenced to “eternal muttering” as Jimmy Kimmel put it). Many missed all that. Yes, we got answers about how to kill the Smoke Monster, what happens if you mess with the Light at the Heart of the Island and who really wound up the guardian of the island.

Yes, it was very moving and beautiful. All the afterlife reunions were touching beyond belief. I cried at each one, and cheered heartily when good triumphed over evil in each instance.

Yet the largest questions, for me, were not answered – and I’m a little pissed. I feel shortchanged, dear Cuse, Abrams and Lindelof. Okay, so the island was there to “cork” evil from spreading completely around the world. So the “light was part of everyone” in the world and should not go out. And that concentration of light down there turned the unconscious body of Jacob’s brother into this crazed billowing thing of smoke that somehow personified evil.

What? You forgot to tell us exactly HOW this island would cap evil. And then what evil? Where’d it come from? Hell itself?

What was the nature of this wacky light that somehow inhabited everyone? Or was that crazy bitch of a mom to the twins of Jacob and his brother just so off her rocker she didn’t quite get it right? Never mind we still have no clue how she became guardian, who was before her and how that whole job came to be. Why did she have to kill the real mother of the twins, anyway?

Really, the biggest unanswered questions were:

How did this island cap evil – and what was the nature of this evil anyway?

What exactly was that Smoke Monster?

What the heck was that light all about?

And then, in this episode, the big questions were: what was that big cork thingy at the “heart” of the island? (Was it magic? Advanced technology?) And who the hell built that place down there – and what was that all about?

Plus, remember that “magic box” Linus talked about on the island, that seemed to grab people from out of nowhere and bring them there? That idea got strangely dropped (and no it wasn’t explained by the ancient wheel).

From the beginning the creators said this whole island was not aliens or an ancient civilization. But the latter seems the likely scenario, in spite of what they told us.

In the final analysis, although I was way more moved by this ending, at least the end to Battlestar Galactica was all wrapped up tightly. That ending took a few days to grow on me, and perhaps this one will too. But at least I totally understood what happened in BSG. The LOST ending left me wanting to know more; enough that I am still kind of angry.

Ironically, the most memorable part of the LOST finale was Jimmy Kimmel’s “Aloha to LOST” special show. Undoubtedly, that too made television history with a takeoff that fused the LOST ending and the classic Newhart ending that actually featured Bob Newhart himself.

Portland ABC affiliate KATU-2 cut to live shots of the crowds at a local theater that showed the finale. I half expected them to show us small riots in the streets. I would’ve been pushing for that. But then what’s the use? Lindelof and Cuse weren’t cloistered anywhere near where I could huck a Molotov cocktail in a show of dismay.

There are some interesting Oregon connections to LOST, not the least of which is Matthew Fox (Jack Shepard) moving to central Oregon. Perhaps the most fascinating connections are the paranormal legends on the north coast, in the Nehalem Bay area, which have similarities to those strange aspects of that now-mythical island. There’s plenty of legends of ghosts being seen, as well as a weird form of serendipitous coincidence called the “Wheeler Moment” that’s a little like finding you’re curiously connected to someone you never knew, a surprise encounter with someone you haven’t seen in a long time or even making a wish and having it come true in an odd way.

What can we take away from all this LOST stuff? Well that, my fellow Losties, is a separate spiritual journey you’ll have to interpret for yourself.

As for me, I’m still angry at the unresolved stuff. But I’ve heard rumors about a LOST spinoff about time travel – which was probably the failed but fabulous Flash Forward. But if there is a different spinoff in the works, my advice to Abrams, Lindelof and Cuse is this: set it on the north Oregon coast, include the “Wheeler Moment” in the premise, and then film it here.