Why I loved the LOST Finale.

I'm freaking out...I just saw the last episode of LOST ever...I am so moved and so happy and so sad that it's over; and then I see the news right after the episode and see that people are confused!!! I am not angry at people for being confused because it's not a persons fault if they don't understand something...I am just worried that they won't try to figure it out and therefore hate what they don't understand; and I find myself feeling the same nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach as I do when I think about the rainforest being at the brink of extinction...."What if Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof think NONE of us gets it?" It's that same feeling you get when your favorite tv show gets canceled, when you WISH TO GOD you had that writer, that actor, that directors phone number so you could call them up THAT SECOND and say "DON'T WORRY! I LOVED YOUR SHOW, I knew MILLIONS of people who loved it too! I know for the next couple of days all you will be hearing is the negative part but don't forget us...the ones who got it!" But I don't have their phone numbers and I am pretty sure that they will never see the twitter message I sent them. So I am sitting here thinking...what can I do? WRITE A BLOG ABOUT IT! And so here I am...wanting to share how I interpreted the finale of Lost, in hopes that if you are reading this...you might just 'get it" too! Now there is always the possibility that I got it wrong too...there is a possibility that if Damon and Carlton read this they would be like "Where the heck did she get that idea!?" but...I really don't think I'm wrong; but like Jack said: "There's always a first time!" ;-D

First I want to address the common fan misunderstanding that "They were all dead to begin with? Well then how did they know each other if they all died in a plane crash in the beginning?"
THEY DID NOT ALL DIE IN THE PLANE CRASH! I reiterate...they have been ALIVE from the beginning! I am really doubting they would have explained how the plane crash didn't kill all of them in a really logical way if they were actually just going to pull the rug out from under them at the end and say "Oops! NOPE! NO explanation for how you survived the plane crash cause you actually died!" Christian Shepherd says; "...everything that happened to you was real." But he also says that he himself is real and Jack is real, which confuses people because everyone knows that Christian is dead. Here's where it might get confusing...but it will be a whole lot easier if you've seen Star Trek Generations. Remember there's a part where Guinan is voicing over the scene with Captain Kirk chopping the wood and she says "And from his point of view...he just got here too." Kirk and Picard are not in heaven but in the Nexxus, and in Picard's timeline Kirk had dissapeared like 80 years before...yet Kirk thinks he's just arrived. Because there is NO SUCH THING AS TIME in the nexxus.
This principle translates to the sideways universe. Remember when Christan says "There is no 'NOW' here." But that's hard for us to fathom as humans! We feel like if we are seeing the entire cast of LOST in what we think is 'heaven' then they MUST have had to have all died at the same time! But in the case of there being no such thing as TIME then that's simply not true! Remember Jack asks when they all died...and Christian says "Some before you...some after you." I think this is really hard for the fans to grasp because we just simply cannot fathom a place where TIME does not exist...as much as we think sci fi movies have prepared us to think more broadly it just is too hard. But remember, Hurley turns to tell Ben before he goes into the church (just minutes after we've seen him ask Ben for help on the Island) "You made an awesome number 2" and Ben replies "You made a great number one"...which infers that they've lived a long time protecting the island together before they came here. I know that's confusing because then at the end of the show, we see Jack die and it's obviously long before Ben and Hurley die...but then once again you realize you are thinking like a human...you are thinking inside the limits of TIME! Where there is no time, it would seem like everyone got there at the same time no matter how far apart everyone died. I also think people got confused because everyone looked the same, like if they all died at different times why wasn't Sawyer an old man, or Kate a middle aged woman? But those images of who they were are how they recognize each other and how they remember each other best, that is what they looked like when the most important events of their lives took place, and we have no idea what they might look like once they finally move all the way on.
Now on to explain the sideways universe. My theory is that it's like Christian said "this is the place you created so you'd know how to find each other." Because everything they went through on the island is, as Christian said, the most important events of their lives...they are bonded so closely! I think what Carlton and Damon were trying to bring across is that they are so integral to each other's lives that they couldn't possibly move onto "Heaven' without each other, they couldn't be 'whole' without each other. So there is this kind of 'waiting room' before Heaven (although 'waiting' isn't quite the right word seeing as there is no such thing as time there) where they can be reunited to make the journey together. They need each other, their souls are bound to each other because of everything they have gone through. Which is also why they needed each other to help remind them of who they really are, hence the sudden memories of their life back on 'earth' was.
This is also why Ben stayed behind, he still had work to do before he could really move on. I think this is part of the reason why he was so grateful to Locke for forgiving him...that was a HUGE part of his journey to forgiving himself and letting go his guilt for all he has done in the past let alone the death of his daughter. (we all know how important and pervasive the message of 'letting go" has been in the past couple episodes) This is also, I believe, why Eloise kept trying to keep Desmond from 'reminding' everyone of their 'past', of helping everyone move on...because she couldn't. She liked living in her little fairy-tale world where she could pretend that the weight of her guilt wasn't crushing her...she could live the life she wished she always could with Daniel, a Daniel who didn't remember that his own mother sent him to an island where she would kill him herself as a young woman. It's an illustration on how the people who feel like no one can forgive them, not even God, decide to live in a sham of a world where they pretend they don't know any better. I think she was jealous of people being able to move on with things which is why she tried to stop Desmond time and time again.

My husband explained it really well here, and a lot shorter:

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jack died from his wounds ("I'm dead already...") but lived long enough to know he saved the Island and see the plane escape. Basically, as soon as his eye closes at the end of this episode, he finds himself immediately on the Oceanic 815 in the sideways universe from LA X.

Meanwhile, others, Like Ben, Hurley, and the plane crew, end up living a regular life, dying of old age in, like 2063 or somesuch, and then they also end up right there on the plane in LA X in 2004 in the sideways universe. Sarah came up with the comparison to Star Trek: Generations, which I think is appropriate- you can depart at any time, but you all arrive at the same time."

I really think that two 'camps' of people watched the LOST finale, the Emotional Camp and the Intellectual Camp (I am NOT saying that people who are emotional and not intellectual and vice versa...but you have to use broad terms to make a point), I think the Emotional camp was just so happy that they were all safe and together in the end it didn't matter to them whether EVERY single last thing got cleared up, but the intellectual camp felt kind of dissapointed that some of the mysteries they've been watching the show for haven't gotten answered...and I am sure that feels a bit like a betrayal and I am also not saying that the Emotional camp wasn't dissapointed with some little mysteries they were hoping to get cleared up. But you know what?? I kind of really LIKE that we didn't get all the answers...because there is still room for us to play in the world with our thoughts and our imaginations...we aren't crowded and limited by answers; we can dream and imagine why this could have been or that (I mean come on...how cool is it imagining what life with Ben would have been like on the Island? And wondering who Hurley chose for his replacement?! That's why this show is so cool! It gets our imaginations revving!)...and I know some people probably aren't happy with that because for some people that's just not how things work for them. But for the people like me, and for myself I think that I am really happy with it, LOST was all about the characters and the mystery, and as much as people might argue about not liking the mystery...that's TOTALLY what drew them to the show in the first place! Lost was ALL about the characters and the mystery, the adventure....and they left off with all aspects we love intact!:) Like Jorge Garcia said "It wouldn't be LOST if we didn't keep a few things close to the chest."My final thoughts on LOST? Darnit I'm gonna miss these guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for the amazing ride, I'll remember it for a lifetime!