The six year marathon series Lost comes to an end tonight with a two and a half hour finale.
Blogs and forums have gone berserk in pursuit of answers to the puzzling series and it’s expanse of unanswered questions and intricate mythology.
For the first time in my life I understand the fanboy allegiance to a show.
I started watching Lost six years ago via noisy internet streams and thought it was a well produced, excellently written episodic drama with great characters and Stephen King like appreciation for cliffhangers, suspense and riddles.
Before I was even aware, I was hooked.
The show transformed before my eyes, dragging me along with it, desperate for answers.
First it was a survival drama about a group of seemingly unconnected crash survivors establishing a group dynamic and unravelling a cosmic connection portrayed through their delicately introduced back-stories.
Jack was the handsome leader, Sawyer the roguish loner. Hurley was the chubby comedic relief and Kate the sexy enigma with a criminal past.
Then came polar bears, supply air drops, the Dharma initiative, underground bunkers, monsters made of mechanical sounding black smoke, ghosts, whispers on the breeze, those damn numbers, electro-magnetic fields, TIME TRAVEL, flashbacks, flash forwards, flash sideways, millennia old island dwellers who never age, a mysterious power source connecting all living things, healing properties, gang wars, giant green talking birds, psychic kids, the inability to commit suicide…
If you have never seen Lost, then I can’t even begin to explain how we have got to here from where we begun.
Eventually, the show that enthralled me and impressed me, began to piss me off.
Every answer offered threw up seven more questions, and now on the precipice of the ending, the mythology has expanded and ballooned into monster more terrifying than the black smoke itself.
Going into the last episode *SPOILER* we know that at the heart of the island is a mysterious light that has been guarded by Jacob and his twin brother (who we now know is the smoke monster).
What we don’t know is….everything else.
I delighted in series one and two (even beyond their frustrating refusal to tie up mysteries). I persevered with the terrible third season (ten episodes in and the main characters were still in a cage) and I played along with the whimsical introduction of time travelling and parallel universes beyond it.
With the arrival of the 6th and final season, I was sure every episode would be required to stitch together all of the loose ends.
First and foremost I have to say the sixth series has been brilliant. The writers and producers have created something special in terms of action, plot development and character – but I must admit, I am worried.
I’ve enjoyed Lost, but when I tune in tomorrow night, it will be for closure on six years of belief and trust, that the makers were going to deliver a satisfying conclusion.
But the penultimate episode (which veered away from the main character and their on island shenanigans) made no hint that a narrative full stop was anywhere near.
Two and a half hours stand between the ever expanding mythology and the relieved sighs of the fanboys who need answers.
What IS the island?
That’s the crux of it.
“Every question you ask will just lead to another question” said Jacobs adoptive mother before she delivered the island keepers and bludgeoned their confused natural mother to death.
Enough with the questions.
We want answers.
A finale report will appear here shortly after the finale.
(For the best internet resource on the web of mysteries surrounding the Lost universe, visit:
www.lostpedia.com).
