Defending Lost, from Beginning to "The End"

I'm only 23 years old, but in my lifetime the television industry has changed dramatically. The way it's created, distributed, consumed, and evaluated are completely different from what they were in 1991. And when you consider that kind of metamorphosis (not this kind), it's important to see how our expectations of TV have transformed too.

Shows used to be the art form where you could start a premise without worrying about the finish. Your goal was to create something that worked and keep going with it until the well ran dry. It hasn't been until streaming and binge-watching came along that ending a show became as important as beginning it. With all that in mind, allow me to say that Lost is one of the best shows of my lifetime--final episode included--and I blame all of you for ruining its reputation.

For a while, it seemed that many of you sided with me. Through its first three seasons, Lost managed to toe the line between commercial success and critical praise, and did it on a network channel to boot. In that sense, it was the last of a dying breed. I've yet to check out Empire; I've heard good things and it's on my to-do list. But if it begins to falter, Lost could be the last network drama to EVER reach the heights it did.

The show was earning an Emmy nomination once about every 108 minutes. And it catapulted several actors along the way. Michael Emerson went from a fringe part in one of the most questionable sequels of all-time to a guy leading a primetime network drama. But as the seasons went by, the showrunners got extremely ambitious and added more threads and layers until it was just too much to piece all of it back together.

When "The End" finally arrived, a small minority of fans were satisfied, but most were outraged. For casual fans, those closing plots were far too complex. For fans who treat Lostpedia like Sayid treats his photograph of Nadia, they didn't answer nearly enough.

Actual Arabic? I call bullshit...

And then came the worst culprit of them all: the purgatory theories. Essentially, they suggest that all the characters we grew to know and love died during the very first episode, and that the Island was some kind of world between worlds. These admittedly started well before the show's final chapter, but only came in full force only after the controversial "side flash" plot came to a close.

If this hypothesis was true, Lost showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were basically taking a page right out of George R.R. Martin's playbook. And any closure these characters could hope for was Jugheaded into a nihilistic wasteland.

But if that's the way you look at Lost, you're suffering from a fatal misinterpretation.

Lost purgatory was very real. But anyone--including Richard--who thought it was the Island was dead wrong. The side flash was the stage of limbo. It was a world where the characters got to see how their lives would differ if they had never been brought to the Island. Only with some glaring changes that made it even more obvious.

James Ford (never bothered going by "Sawyer") is an LAPD detective who tries to track down the con man responsible for his parents' death, instead of assuming his identity as he did in the real world. John Locke is happily engaged with Helen, and he has a loving relationship with his father, a guy who stole his kidney in the real world. And in terms of reprehensible things he did to his son, that came in 2nd place.

And there are plenty of others. Kate was a fugitive for crimes she never committed. Hurley made a fortune off Mr. Cluck's. Jin and Sun never married, but also never fell out of love. Jack's ex-wife is Juliet, and they have a kid!

Throw in all the other random encounters and appearances by supporting characters, and it's clear what the side flash really is: a portal, where all these characters who are strung together by their destinies must converge one last time to ascend to their next stage of existence (one look at Lindelof's imdb shows you how much he loves that heavy-handed religious shit). But it all together, and this much is obvious: all the "real" events from the series transpired on the Island.

At this point you're probably thinking, "why did there have to be a purgatory in the first place? It's just a dumb cop out for the plot." And none of you should worry, because all of you are wrong too! It all comes down to whether or not you view Lost as a plot-driven show, or a character-driven show. When you watch it through the individual character arcs, you don't really nitpick about things like time travel and origin myths.

You spend too much time amazed by the relationship between Jin and Sun, who didn't realize how amazing they were together until they were torn apart, and are able to die together in the 4th to last episode. You're too blown away by Hurley's transformation from a major league sidekick to the new protector of the Island. You're too overjoyed that the wrecking ball that seems to accompany Kate (she had that wayyyy before Miley Cyrus) finally becomes a force for good. And come on, "I saved you a bullet," are fucking kidding me? Just watch the scene, remind yourself how epic it really was.

And let's not forget Jack. Think about the internal journey he went through, from eyes opening to eyes closing. Think about all the burdens from his dead father, and all the people who died under his watch when he decided to take control, and all the conflict he had with both iterations of John Locke that nearly broke him, and his violent turns from skeptic to zealot about the Island's power. And to finally reach the climax of that personal struggle and to relinquish himself to that power. How can you not be compelled by the journey that character went through? Because you were too busy worrying about why the Dharma Initiative brought polar bears? If that's the shit you're worrying about, that's your own fault.

Look, ending a television show is fucking difficult. Not everything can be Breaking Bad. And when you've spread your wings as far and as wide as Lost did, some of those wings are going to get clipped as you try to stick the landing. But don't make it as though the entire show fell apart like Oceanic 815. There are obviously some hairs to split if you really want to, but I won't allow them to ruin my overall perception of a truly fantastic show.

And if you're still not convinced, Father's Day just came and went, so take the one good piece of advice Jack ever got from his dad: "Let go!"