"The End" [Michael's 57th/58'th and last eps]

Oh, I think the 10-15 minutes in the church — the epilogue, which by its meaning, is a comment on or a conclusion (explanation, if you like) to what has happened — is indeed a comment on what the show was about. Thus all the events that happened in the show, the island and the flash-sideways world, were meant to serve that purpose.

So if that comment was the show as about redemption, or whatever issues the characters had, it seemed to me the show raked in far more content than needed to achieve that goal. If the show was trying to show that Jack needed to learn to let go, crashing on an island and waging a battle to protect it against mythical beings and multinational corporate schemes, using time travel and a hydrogen bomb, seems to involve a far larger scope of people and resources than necessary to teach Jack to deal with such issues as control and hostility. He wasn't a king of a nation or commander of a military, like the King of Troy or Odysseus. He was a spinal surgeon. He could go to the circus or an amusement park, or even a pre-school, to achieve the same goal. In fact, writers such as Stephen King and Ray Bradbury, have done just that.

And this is just probably me, but the whole business about the church being a place where time doesn't exist and everybody greets everyone who resolved their issues and made it to that place of light and joy was just a little too precious. There are drugs that do that as well, without your having to resolve any issues.

The rest of the finale and the six seasons of LOST was great up to that point. I realize such epilogues and show closers are popular in this time of situational ethics and a desire to cover multiple philosophical ideas. I also suspect tendencies to avoid the risk of offending belief systems or even the fear of failure plays a role in these things. "LOST" isn't the only show to fall victim to that. But for me, it ends up having that feel of getting to the finals in a championship, and then game is lost because a player blew a jump shot.

1. The island never sunk - and now I think the sunken island in LA X was just one giant red herring. But knowing what we know, there truly was no reason at all to show that, since it really doesn't make sense now.
2. We already know how many of them died, but how Kate, Sawyer, Claire, Rose, Bernard, Desmond and Penny died will forever be unknown. We're supposed to assume they had a long life off the island, yet since they weren't together with their lost friends and loved ones, they were still incomplete until they united at the church.
3. Now it seems the bomb did absolutly nothing but send the candidates, Miles and Juliet back to 2007. The sideways was never created by the bomb, and we were led to assume it was to distract us from the truth. My theory is that because Jacob touched the candidates, it gave them the power to go back to the present - and when he said "They're coming" MIB was stunned because he thought they would die in 1977.

I really liked how Matthew Fox explained his theory on the sort of purgatory that sideways world represented on Jimmy Kimmel last night. He said that some cultures believe that when you die you go to a kind of limbo place where you have to remember how you died. You remember your life and the major people in it leading up to you remembering your death. This was what happened to the characters on the show and it was especially clear with Jack. Everyone remembered their life on the island and finally once Jack remembered and accepted that he died, they were able to move on together.

It was wonderful how once everyone remembered they had this ultimate peace come over them.

Did anyone notice if Aaron was with Claire or not? I'll have to go back and check. But if he wasn't I hope that means he is still alive.

And on a fun note, who else loved that once Ben remembered his island life he went back to his old spiky hair style.

Yes, the island isn't afterlife. But it's not just an island, I see it as a special place between our world, and the afterlife, a Gate between ''life, death, and rebirth'', Mother said. Hence all the Anubis references, the ghosts, the reanimated infected, and the general weirdness going on. What happened there was real, but not of our ordinary world.

I have mixed feelings about this finale. I felt happy and relieved that Ben survived, and got to run the island with Hurley (they share an Apollo Candy bar in S4 )
And I cried my eyes off when he chose to stay out of the church. That scene is so moving, and fits perfectly his character arc. And yes, he's so hot, so hot...I don't care about the Light, staying out there with him for eternity is my idea of Heaven

But the whole series finale was so much in the realm of Fantasy that to me it made Ben, as well as all the other characters, looking less real. For 5 years Ben managed to be both larger than life, and realistic, believable. Think about Henry Gale in the Hatch, or Ben killing Locke.
But yesterday, with all that magical and metaphoric Golden Light glowing on, I felt him slipping away from me, to Brigadoon, or Avalon...and it felt like a loss, almost as painful as watching him die.

Oh Ben, please stay out of the Light, stay where I can still see you.

Am I making any sense? Is there someone who feels the same way?....

I loved the ending, it was old school style, lots of action, emotions, a few tears (in my case, a lot of tears)

I loved how Ben turned into a great guy, and just as I predicted, Jack had to die in a heroic way.

And I cried like a baby when Sawyer and Juliet remembered, when Charlie and Claire remembered and when Locke remembered. And when Ben apologized to Locke was the cherry on top of the cake, it was a magical moment. Seriously I'm going to miss those two a lot.

I didn't get one thing though, probably because this time I really did need the spanish subtitles xD So they were dead...? in the alternate life? How did they die? "everybody dies sometime kiddo" - Christian Shepard said - but really *how*? or is it not important? because the *when* is important to know how long they have been dead... Really I didn't get that part at all, and "not leaving, moving on" part didn't get it either, moving on where? to the next life? to heaven lol?

Also, why didn't Ben enter the church?? He said he had a couple of things to do first... I'm guessing it has something to do with Alex? But does that mean he didn't die?

I think Ben you're right about Ben wanting to atone for his tremendous guilt - not just over killing Locke, but also allowing Alex's death to happen. Perhaps he wanted Alex to remember, and forgive, and to then take her with him when he "moved on?" I'd like to think he did move on eventually, when he was ready. But he knew that Alex saw him as a father figure and he probably felt some responsibility to play that role to fruition.

Here is a YouTube clip of Darlton actually talking about the finale, in a pre-taped interview with Diane Sawyer[of course] They even talk about the last Bocke scene as well.

And for good measure, here is the final Bocke scene of all time for all.