After watching last night's finale, I can't say I've been moved to write an interpretation of film (because that's really what Lost was...a series of really well done short films) since college. When I was forced to.
I think the finale rightly put us, as viewers, in an interesting place. When LOST began, we got hooked on the characters. I remember I came late to the LOST party, and caught an episode on repeat while I was falling asleep in an airport hotel. It was one of the early episodes about Sun and Jin and I was totally fascinated by the facade of their relationship, their secrets, their obvious love for each other and confusion on how to reconcile it with their inability to trust each other or themselves. It was, in a word, AMAZING. So then I had to watch the rest.
What kept me watching years into it was the crazy X-files stuff they threw in there. There was a new mystery every week, and each new turn always brought out new secrets, fun facts, and statements of personality about the characters which made me love them even more.
Finally, in the end, even though it was confusing, it all started to make sense to me (admittedly, these are my personal interpretations, but they seemed to click for me).
So maybe we never knew the origin of The Others, but do we really ever allow ourselves to see into the hearts of our perceived enemies? How else could they remain "other" - an entity that we could fight and harm without remorse?
They were framed as the people who didn't "get it." But really, they were lost, shipwrecked people, just like every other person on the island. They were the parents of Jacob and the Man in Black - the island's Adam. But they wanted to stake their claim, they thought they were "the good guys" and they were never able to be at peace - with themselves, with Jacob, with the Dharma initiative, or with any of the islands visitors. They just kicked the crap out of everyone they happened along. Because they were attempting to protect something (the Temple) at whatever cost. And they automatically believed that anyone who wasn't one of them must be bad. Sound familiar yet?
And it seemed pretty right that a confused and unhappy man (The Man in Black) who was obsessed with the one thing he couldn't have would come face to face with the most perfect representation of life and peace and hope (you know...that weird tunnel with the light) and "turn into a monster" for lack of understanding. And he wasn't just a self-contained monster...oh no. He was the kind of monster that wasn't happy until he made everyone around him just as miserable as he was.
And any time someone came face to face with it, it seemed as if they were literally facing their demons. Remember when Mr. Eko saw all the scenes from his life in the monster? Or how the monster, when he was in human form, new everyone's business? He was totally your worst nightmare.
Jacob's mother? Well, everyone and everything has a mother...that's what they said. The island had to have one. The Virgin Mary was just a girl in a small town when she was chosen. She became a mother in a way that was fairly inexplicable to most of the people around her. Granted, she didn't kill anyone, but this Island brings out the worst in people. So I think she was kind of the Anti-Virgin.
And that light? I mean, sure it was totally cheesy and silly looking, but I can't imagine that a man-made visual representation of "the energy force that sustains everything" would be very believable. When Desmond pulled out the plug and proclaimed it "some kind of drain" and the island started falling apart, I couldn't help but think of The Never Ending Story, and the Nothing, and the boy's task to remake the world of imagination from one grain of sand. "OF COURSE it isn't real!" I thought.
All that Egyptian stuff just seemed to be the symbol that yes, this is an eternal story. This is the struggle we have all had, as humans, since we first learned to stand upright, talk, make tools, innovate, and of course, hurt each other. We have always been creating things to help us obtain power over others, manipulate our circumstances, and take advantage of opportunities. Sometimes (often times) to our own detriment. In trying to win, people sometimes forget how to work together, and then end up, like Jacob said, "all alone."
Back at the church, the good Christian Shepherd told Jack, "everything was real and everything mattered and the most important part of your lives was when you were all together." Sounds like a sermon to me.
So, like the Losties, I sat there realizing the truth of it all. That sometimes the most complicated situations we can imagine are really there to teach us some of the simplest lessons. Because most of us won't listen to the simple stuff. We need all the bells, whistles, explosions, polar bears, crashed planes, complicated story lines and hot guys without shirts on to catch our attention.
To take one of TV's highest budget, craziest, most watched and most innovative shows and end it with a quiet sermon, in a non denominational church, panning a group of friendly, diverse faces, kissing and hugging, and speechless because of the depth of their love for one another may have seemed ridiculous, but it might have been one of the most revolutionary moves I've ever seen.
In the end it wasn't about special effects, or solved mysteries, or secrets or lies, or whatever. It was just about love. Which, in the end, it always is, isn't it?
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