Got this from a site and I personally agree with it...Hope it can answer some of our questions about the show...
Well, Lost has ended. Unfortunately it has left some people confused. I felt like I had a good handle on the ending they gave and I found it to be beautiful. Perhaps my interpretation can help?
Oceanic Flight 815 really did crash. Everything that happened for the last five seasons really DID happen. It was the “Flash Sideways” in Season 6 that began to play tricks on us. Suddenly Ben Linus was a teacher, Hurley was the world’s luckiest man, and Sawyer was a cop. What happened? I believe the events occurring on the island during season 6 really happened. However, the “Flash Sideways” was a portrait of each character’s life after death.
Christian Sheppard told Jack, “Everyone dies, kiddo. Some take longer than others.” Therefore, each flash sideways took place after that character’s death (whenever that death occurred) and they were unable to move on until they understood that they were living in this false reality. As the characters began to touch and remember one another from “Real life” they began to understand that life had ended at some point. This realization was necessary for them to move on.
Those people who got on the airplane probably did get away and go on to live some form of life back in the real world (This suggested as Jack saw the plane leave the island before he died). Sun, Jin, and Sayid really did die on the submarine. Hurley and Ben probably did go on to take care of the island after Jack for some time (for as long as they could). Then, they probably would have had to find a replacement just as Jacob & Jack did.
But, no matter when they died (or where they died), all of these characters (on a long enough timeline) did in fact die. When they did, they became a character in their own alternate universe until they found each other for the sake of this unified acceptance that they were in fact dead.
Because Jack was the main character of the show the ending was seen through his eyes. His “Heaven” or “Eternity” was comprised of the people who meant the most to him as he knew them best. This is why Faraday, Charlotte, and Miles were not seen in his afterlife. The people seen in the church at the end were those closest to him over the years. This left out several minor characters (Dharma members, Dogen and Lennon, Jacob and the Man in Black) as well as leaving certain characters as they were when he knew them. For example, Jack never saw Bernard with his big Moses beard and therefore, in his Heaven, Bernard was clean shaven while sitting in the church with Rose.
Also, because characters like Sawyer, Sayid, and Hurley were so important to him, he was able to portray Juliet, Shannon, and Libby alongside his friends to ensure that they were as happy as they could be. Had this Heaven been shown through Sayid’s eyes perhaps Nadia would have been there instead with him. But, Jack did not know Nadia and only knew of Sayid’s once love for Shannon. Ben had accepted that he was dead, but was not yet ready to let go because in his alternate reality, he had everything he ever wanted (to some extent). This was evident by a relationship with his daughter, and a possible love interest in Danielle.
Besides him, Jack took the longest to accept his death and had to be shown pieces of this death several times before being willing to move on. Like Jacob said, “Some people you can just tell them what they have to do and they’ll do it. Others you have to let stare out at the ocean for a while.” Jack needed time to accept that it was time to move on, but eventually did.
Over the years Jack had really grown to care for all of these people. They were his family (perhaps more than his family ever was). He finally found his purpose and had closure with his father. Only then were the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 able to move on.
There were a lot of people in the church. Perhaps everyone in the church (from the plane) had family members there and/or people they loved with which to move on. But, because we were looking from Jack’s perspective, we were only allowed to see what he knew to be real while we moved forward.
P.S. Ben told Hurley that he didn’t have to operate the way Jacob did as leader of the island. When Jacob and his brother (as kids) were playing, Jacob’s brother told him, “I made the game. Sometimes you can make your own game and everyone will have to play by your rules.” Everyone did play by Jacob’s rules until he passed on the responsibility and died. That is why Locke was able to be killed and why people were allowed to leave the island. Hurley made his own rules.
I wasn’t expecting to post somebody else’s thoughts, but when I read Joe’s I thought “wow he nailed it.” So why should I write it myself when I agree with what he has to say? I think he’s right about what the Flash Sideways were. I think the final meeting at the church was done that way to show these people in the after life at the point in their lives when they were happiest. And that’s when they were on the island. Because if you’ll recall, the people on the island were there because their lives were miserable in the real world. That’s why those smiles on their faces at the end, when they say their friends, were genuine. Of course, I could be wrong.
See, that’s the point of this show. There’s no “right” or “wrong” way to interpret what we saw. It’s up to you. Frankly, I like that. I’ve watched the show since the beginning and I’ve liked it since the beginning, but I’ve never obsessed about it like some I know. I rarely checked out blogs or Lost forums simply because I felt like if you overthought things then it would ruin your feelings for it. I have a good co-worker, his name is Gary, that was nuts about it. Read everything, told me everything he read and then got mad at me when I would say things like, “those are just theories. Who knows what to believe?” I also saw him hate some episodes while liking others a lot. All because of what he THOUGHT it should be. To me, that ruins the show and I always looked at it at face value. It’s a TV show that I truly loved from start to finish. Were there bumps in the road? Sure. Did I get frustrated at times? Yes, especially in season three. However, I genuinely enjoyed 95% of it and I look forward to re-watching the whole series again from the beginning especially now that I know how it ends.
I’ll miss a lot of things about the show: Ben’s character changes, the facial expressions of John Locke, Sawyer’s humor, Sayid messing dudes up, Desmond saying “brother” all the time, the Jin/Sun romance that really told an incredible story and of course the general hotness of my girl Kate. It took them the final episode to fit that woman into a short black miniskirt? Come on guys, it could have happened a lot more often. idiots.
By the way, the very last scene with Vincent the dog laying beside Jack as he’s about to close his eyes for the last time? That was pretty damn sad. I’m sure some people teared up. It was cheesy to some I’m sure, but I liked it.
Oh and did anybody find out what the real name is of The Man In Black? I guess it doesn’t matter. Or does it? Cue eerie music.
