In less than a half hour, the pre-show starts for the series
finale of LOST.
Yes, I am one of the millions who got sucked in to
Lost. In fact, it's the first show I've watched religiously since Twin
Peaks was on the air. Yes, I was a huge fan of Buffy, of course, but I
didn't DVR and backup VHS record it, ya know? But I was like that with
Lost. (And for the record, my college best friend Aysha's mom used to
record Twin Peaks for us if we were going out to a concert and couldn't
watch it live, and overnight it to us.)
Why was I so committed to
Lost? Probably in part because it was a mystery. And I wanted to ensure I
had my opportunity to see it first-hand and form my own opinions before
the Interwebs had their way with me and spoiled an episode for me. But
the other reason is I really cared about the characters. And that
happens so rarely for me in TVland.
As an aside, I wasn't an
immediate Lostie. I saw my first episode in a most unlikely place. The
SO and I were flying back from London, on Virgin Airlines, and picked
out the pilot from the line-up of movies and television shows available
to us. Even the big black screen warning that what we were about to
watch contained footage of a plane crash that could, you know, be
potentially upsetting to someone currently traveling over the ocean in a
huge jet, didn't sway us from watching.
And thus started our
multi-year obsession with LOST.
After tonight. we'll go back to
our non-tv-watching selves. And I'll have a twinge of missing Sawyer at 9
p.m. each Tuesday night for just a little while.
P.S. I promise
to come back here and leave spoilerific comments about the finale
post-watching and digesting, after the cut.
My overall response to the finale is "Thank You." Thank you to Damon and Carlton for giving the fans what each of us wanted to see. We got to see our favorite characters redeemed, and reunited with those they love. You couldn't really ask for more than that.
Jack also got to reconcile with his dad– he was finally able to let go.
My three favorite moments from the show:
1) Charlie and Claire reuniting. When he sees her from the stage, struck by the woman from his vision being there, and Claire gets embarrassed, and nervous. It was adorable. Then their remembering each other, after she gave birth. A beautiful reunion and a lovely payoff for those two characters.
2) The heartstrings were tugged when Juliette, not realizing who he was yet, tells him at the vending machine, after he resets it "It worked," her next to final words from when she died. She follows up with her other final words "Let's get coffee sometime; we can go dutch." I was so mad when they killed Juliette with the magical chains of doom. Because the love story between her and Sawyer was just such a great payoff for those characters. Seeing them reunited was especially moving.
3) Well, we knew the show was probably going to end as it started, Jack, lying on his back. Having fan favorite Vincent (whom people asked about constantly in the podcasts and elsewhere) come to comfort him in those final moments was a nice touch (and true to doggy behavior — they want to comfort their people.) And it was also a nice touch that he got to see success before he died– he saw the plane fly overhead in his final moments. Well done, Lost.
And yes, I stayed up late watching the farewell on Jimmy Kimmel, which means this is going to need to be an extra caffeinated morning.