The Shoes Match the Outfit by Kanilammit

I have seen the shoe being pointed out in several places as a way to justify the events on the Island as being real. And I quite frankly agree. In the last 10 minutes, I noticed the shoe too,but couldn't place it's significance. Seeing a shoe hanging from a tree was familiar somehow, then I saw a comment somewhere that it was in the first scene of the pilot. So I checked it out and sure enough, the pilot had a clean new white shoe, and the finale had a brown stained tattered shoe. I took that to mean the writers wanted to imply the island events were real, as did many others.

But I want to take the links between the first and last scenes further. Another thing to notice are the clothes Jack is wearing. The first and last scenes have Jack in different clothes. The first scene has him well dressed, while the last scene has him in a t-shirt and jeans. I think if they were supposed to die in the crash, the last scene would have had Jack wearing the same clothes from the opening scene in the pilot. That would have been a powerful image to indicate they were dead all along, but since Jack's clothes in the final scene were different, I think that was used, in addition to the shoe, to indicate these two scenes did not happen at the same time, and therefore events happened between the two scenes.

Vincent was also a common link between the first and last scenes. In the first, Jack gets up, sees Vincent, and Vincent runs off into the jungle. In the last scene, Vincent comes running out of the jungle to give Jack company in his final moments so he is not alone (yeah that made my eyes wet, so what). I think showing Rose and Bernard with Vincent was in the finale for the purpose of saying, "Hey, don't forget about the dog. He is still on the island," that way they could have the scene with Vincent laying there next to Jack. This in no way proves anything about whether they died in the crash or not, just pointing it out. Although I would imagine if the people died in the crash, a dog would have too.

As I am writing about Vincent, this just came to mind. Vincent running into the jungle in the opening and running out of the jungle in the closing was kind of symbolic of what the survivors went through. Maybe I'm just trying to find fertilizer where there is crap though. I don't know.