Before I get into the meat of the matter, I have to ask this of the folks out there who didn’t like the finale of Lost last night:

You didn’t like the Battlestar Galactica ending either, did you?

I ask that not to accuse you of just not liking finales to shows you’ve loved. I ask that because in both cases, I believe the ending was absolutely the culmination of everything that came before.

The endings MADE SENSE. Yes, you can nitpick and complain about little things here or there that didn’t make sense. When you’ve unraveled as much string as both of these shows did, it’s hard to get it all back into a neat little ball of yarn.

Not all questions were answered, and in some cases that was infuriating (from both shows).

But, in the end, the show was what it was always about: The people. Love. Fate. Free will. The afterlife.

The only way to tackle last night’s action-packed ending is by bullet points. I’m emotionally exhausted and I still have two hours of 24 to watch tonight, and that promises to be as equally emotionally wrenching.

The afterlife

Let’s get one thing straight: The island wasn’t purgatory. Not for our Losties, at least. Sure, there are some people who are stuck there forever, running around whispering stuff, like Michael. But our Losties’ Purgatory or waiting room or whatever you wanna call it was the alternate universe. The flash-sideways.

The island was real. The Losties were absolutely alive.

The flash-sideways was a place where these people who had become a family could come together and finally find peace. And once they finally all came together, it was time to go into the light.

OK, that moment was totally hokey. But did you notice the statues of Vishnu and the Buddha in the rectory? Did you notice the stained glass window that had symbols from Judaism, Islam, Jainism, every religion, practically?

This wasn’t about a Judeo-Christian afterlife. This was a recognition that every religious or spiritual practice in the world has some sort of belief system about what happens after life on this world is over. If you were Buddhist, you could believe that the island and their tests there were their final tests before enlightenment. Or maybe the flash sideways was, and now they don’t have to be reborn again.

Love

Omg, when Juliet and Sawyer met again and recognized one another and kissed, I was bawling like a baby. (KNEW that the baby doctor was gonna be Juliet and that she was going to be Jack’s ex-wife.) And Jin & Sun, too. Like. A. Baby.

This show has always been about love and loss. From Day One.

And you know what? Team Darlton made us love these characters. Even the ones who annoyed you, you had moments of loving. Don’t deny it. Denial is ugly.

Jack/Jacob/Hurley/Ben

It made so much sense to have Hurley be the new Jacob. He was always the one who took care of people, made them feel better.

Jack’s job was always to fix things. In the end, he fixed the island. He sent Desmond down there to break it – but that was only, really, so he could kill Flocke. Flocke couldn’t be killed until the island was broken. When Des pulled the cork out of the island, Jack and Flocke became mortal.

By the way, how freakin’ awesome was that flying punch-down that Jack did to Flocke on the cliff? Cut to commercial. WOW.

So, anyway, Flocke could be killed. He couldn’t leave the island and bring his evil with him. He couldn’t end life, the universe and everything by leaving.

That was Jack’s job. He was always the fixer. Only when he gave up the idea of having to fix everything was he actually able to fix the thing he’d been working toward his entire life.

Once that was done, he wasn’t the person to keep the island safe. It made so much sense for it to be Hurley. The second Hurley went back with Jack to save Des and the Island, it became exceedingly obvious that was what was going to happen.

And bravo to Ben, in the end, doing what was right. Even telling Hurley that he could send Des back to Penny and his son, Charlie. Indeed, if Hurley was the new Jacob, couldn’t he make his own rules? Why couldn’t people leave the island?

Fine job, Ben. I liked that they invited Ben inside the church to come with them, but that Ben chose more time in purgatory, to atone for what he’d done, to make things right with Alex and Danielle. He’d redeemed himself and was “eligible” to move on, but he chose not to. Which redeemed him even more.

Desmond/Penny

Thank you.

De plane! De plane!

Who else let out a yelp and applauded when Miles and Richard found Lapidus bobbing in the ocean! That. Was. So. Awesome. I don’t know, I had a feeling he was still alive.

And Richard was still alive, too – was it his brush with death with Smokey what made him mortal again, or was it the cork being pulled out of the island? Probably the latter.

So Lost to have him find a reason to live again, once he knew he could die.

Duct tape fixes everything.

When Kate, Sawyer and Claire come upon the Ajira plane just about to taxi and Frank gets ’em on, total sigh of relief, but also an intake of breath. Would they still escape the island? Nothing was ever certain on Lost, and they’d killed almost everyone else by this point, so it could have happened.

Questions:

Why wasn’t Miles in the church? And Richard, too? What about Frank?

Dharma initiative? Um, totally confused about that. How did they ever get to the island? Obviously, they were trying to find Elvar Hanso’s ship and did, but how did they even find it? Did Jacob allow them to come? Or did the MiB allow them to come, knowing the destruction they’d reign down on the Others.

WTF were the Others? Just people gathered by Jacob over the years to protect the island? Were they candidates? Were some candidates?

Why couldn’t babies be born on the island? Was it the nuclear bomb? I assume that, but it was never made clear.

Why did the Others have that superhuman strength? Did the exposure to the radiation make them all Hulk-like, except not green and huge?

What was Widmore’s backstory? We never really got that. We never learned how he got to the island, why he was there (Eloise, too). And who was Penny’s mother? How did that all transpire that he met some woman off-island whom he loved and had a child with? And how did Eloise and Faraday end up off-island? Did she leave when she found out she was pregnant so her child would live? (They hadn’t had Faraday yet when Widmore was forced to leave, right?)

Who in the hell was Matthew Abbadon? I know he worked for Widmore, but wtf? Ilana, too.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more questions and more thoughts.

_____

But I do want to say this:

Thank you to the entire cast and crew of Lost – you provided excellent entertainment and diversion for six years. The acting, the writing, the music, the editing, the cinematography – it was all better than we’ve seen on television in, maybe, ever. OK, a close tie with The Wire and Battlestar Galactica, but in a totally different way.

Thanks for being my Constant.