from its very first episode lost made no
attempts to hide its fondness for
perplexing mysteries true to form the
series finale left audiences absolutely
baffled so if you want to know what
really happened on that island get ready
for a deep dive into the ending of lost
for much of Lost's run fans worried that
the show would end with a they were dead
the whole time twist creator JJ Abrams
and showrunners Damon Lindelof and
Carlton Cuse repeatedly denied
speculation that the characters died in
the crash and that the island was a form
of purgatory nevertheless some viewers
thought the finales Church set ending
confirmed that they had been lying the
whole time and that the entire show had
taken place in the afterlife this
interpretation was also supported by the
footage of the original plane crash and
empty beaches that aired over the
closing credits which some fans thought
meant there had been no survivors but it
turns out that the crash footage at the
end was never meant to be considered
part of the finale proper instead as an
ABC spokesperson later explained it was
included so that fans could quote
decompress before heading into the news
the network never imagined that viewers
would consider this part of the show's
narrative furthermore the end takes
pains to explicitly clarify that all the
events that took place on the island
were in fact real the most important
part of your life was the time that you
spent with these people after five
seasons filled with flashbacks and then
flash forwards the first episode of
season 6 included something lost fans
were totally unprepared for a flash
sideways exploring an alternate reality
in which oceanic flight 815 crash
instead landing safely at LAX and that's
not the only thing different about the
two realities instead of being a con man
soyah is a cop instead of the strained
marriage they had in the pilots Jin and
Sun are secret lovers and the childless
Jack suddenly has a teenage son whose
mother is none other than Juliet's a
woman he met on the island was this all
a dream or was it perhaps a parallel
dimension created by the wonky powers of
the island
was this the true timeline and maybe the
island is just an elaborate what-if
scenario in the end the flash sideways
is revealed to be the afterlife where
all the oceanic survivors are brought
back together following their deaths in
a way it is sort of purgatory where they
each have to make peace with the
struggles of their lives before they can
recognize one another and move on
together this is where the Lost finale
tripped up many of its viewers who
reasonably assumed that in order for all
of the characters on the show to have
arrived in the afterlife at the same
time they must have died at the same
time but as logical as this reasoning
appears at first glance it doesn't hold
up under close scrutiny not only does it
fail to explain the presence of
characters like Juliet and Ben who
weren't on board oceanic 815 the crash
how would Kate remember delivering
Claire's baby or how could Sayid recall
falling in love with Shannon the
explanation given in the end is that
they all died at different times some
way back in season one and others many
years after the end of season six but
time works differently in the afterlife
so the characters it feels as though
they all arrived around the same time
even if their actual deaths were many
decades apart the only thing they all
had in common was that none of the
characters in the flash sideways died
during the plane crash we would be here
all day if we tried to list every death
that ever occurred on lost but here's
what we do know about the deaths of the
people in the church boom dies in season
1 succumbing to his injuries after a
fall
Shannon dies early in season 2 after
being accidentally shot by Ana Lucia and
Libby dies toward the end of the second
season after being shot by Michael
Charlie dies in season 3 drowning after
warning Desmond that the boat outside is
not Penny's boat Locke is strangled by
Ben in season 5 Juliet dies at the
beginning of season 6 after falling down
a shaft and detonating a bomb Sayid dies
midway through season 6 saving his
friends from a bomb and Sun and Jin die
later in the same episode drowning
together in a sinking submarine
and Jack dies at the end of the series
finale after being stabbed by the man in
black then there are all the deaths that
are left up to our imaginations Kate
Rose Bernard
soya Desmond Penny and Claire all
survived the finale and presumably died
at some point in the years afterward and
as the new protectors of the island
Hurley and been lightly outlived the
other survivors by quite a bit but at
some point they must eventually die as
well
a significant portion of the finale
focuses on the question of who will fill
Jacobs role as the protector of the
heart of the island which turns out to
be a magical glowing pool at the islands
center this is supposedly the source of
all life death and rebirth and according
to Jacob it's the Cork holding back a
malevolent force that could destroy the
world in the finale this is revealed to
be a literal cork which Desmond pulls to
drain the pool nearly getting everyone
killed the heart of the island also
emits a strong electromagnetic field and
can manipulate space and time as
evidenced by the relocation of the
island and the time travel in earlier
episodes it's also implied to have a
form of consciousness or at least
self-preservation granting immortality
to the humans who are willing to take on
the responsibility of keeping it safe
while some of the earlier mysteries of
lost were revealed to have at least
moderately plausible sci-fi explanations
the heart of the island requires viewers
to accept some elements of the
supernatural as well no details are ever
given about its origins but it's said
that a piece of its light is inside
every living thing and if it goes out so
do we
what's down there
life
rebirth it's the source throughout the
series it's revealed that many of the
characters have some sort of connection
before ever boarding the plane implying
that they were always predestined to
board the same doomed flight and end up
on the island together
in the final season we land that Jacob
has been pulling strings for years he
travelled around the world in order to
bring a group of potential candidates to
the island in the hopes of finding
someone capable of taking over for him
as the islands protector he knew that
his brother the man in black was
searching for a way to kill him and
would eventually succeed
so Jacob sought to find a successor
before that happened
Jacob chose people who reminded him of
himself they were individuals who were
alone and flawed and who'd come to
depend on the island as much as it would
rely on them to keep it safe all of the
oceanic eight one five survivors fit
this criteria and as the series
progressed and Jacob was able to observe
their interactions on the island he
slowly whittled down his list of
candidates none of the connections we
saw between the characters were
accidental they were all engineered by
Jacob one of Lost's most enduring
mysteries is the nature of the smoke
monster a seemingly sentient column of
black smoke that occasionally attacks
and even kills people on the island it
turns out that the smoke monster is
another form of the man in black who
transformed when Jacob threw him into
the heart of the island after the man in
black killed their mother for the next
2,000 years Jacob and the man in black
oppose one another as the man in black
searches for a way around the
supernatural law that keeps him from
killing Jacob
one of these days later we're going to
find a loophole and when you do I'll be
right here
as the smoke monster he can't be killed
but he also can't leave over the years
he assumes his smoke form in order to
kill the candidates Jacob brings to the
island hoping that if Jacob dies and
leaves no successor the man in black can
finally leave ultimately though the man
in blacks immortality is linked to the
heart of the island
so when Desmond temporarily shuts it
down in the finale he's made mortal and
killed by Kate and Jack ending the smoke
monster forever the Dharma Initiative
first came to the island in the 1970s
with the objective of studying the
islands unique properties and harnessing
them in the name of scientific
advancement while Dharma conducted
research across all fields attempting to
uncover the island secrets they never
fully understood what they were dealing
with when it came to the supernatural
heart of the island but that didn't stop
them from trying and they constructed
stations all over the island in an
attempt to make sense of the bizarre
phenomena they were witnessing Dharma
was eventually wiped out by a group of
people living on the island who were
devoted to Jacob known by the oceanic
eight one five survivors as the others
by the time oceanic 815
leading survivors to wonder whether
Dharma might have been responsible for
some of the strange happenings on the
island but Dharma didn't create any of
the islands powers those already existed
long before the scientists showed up and
were in fact the reason why they came in
the first place at the end of the finale
after the main characters have regained
their memories of their time together on
the island they make their way to a
church where they see the symbols of a
number of different faiths Christian
Shepard then explains to his son Jack
that the flesh side ways were
constructed by and for the oceanic 81:5
survivors this is a place that you that
you all made together so that you could
find one another according to Christian
once they were all ready to do so they
each showed up at the church one by one
when Jack first arrives at the church he
sees his father's coffin and seems to
think he's there for his funeral
but the coffin is empty and the funeral
he'd expected is replaced by a reunion
with his loved ones and hope for a new
future together the church seems to
symbolize that all the characters have
set their goodbyes to their past lives
and they're finally ready to be at peace
with one another when Christian opens
the door at the end of the episode and
light floods into the church it's safe
to assume that signifies moving on
whatever that means
even though Ben Linus's presence in the
flash sideways seems to indicate that
the oceanic survivors were the most
significant people in his life he elects
not to enter the church with them you
know you were real good number two you
were a great number one you go this
exchange between Ben and Hurley seems to
indicate that they worked together on
the island for a long time after the
events of the finale
that Ben was drawn to the church with
the rest of them may be an indication
that cosmic play at least his service to
the island was enough to redeem him for
the horrible things he'd done in life
and that he could move on with the
others however then opting not to enter
the church could mean that he isn't
ready to move on yet perhaps he still
has more people to find in the afterlife
before he can let go or maybe despite
having been forgiven by some of the
people he wronged
he still has to come to terms with what
he did it's never clarified what happens
to been after he decides to stay outside
but we can only hope that eventually he
finds peace and hopefully after nearly a
decade all of us can find peace with
this show that deeply affected so many
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