Why the Finale Can't Be Seen? by Malatesta

This is a meta-theory, on why so many who saw a disappointing finale did not see the finale, but could have. It's written out of a sadness, really, that so many can not be thrilled over what thrills our fellow fans of LOST. What a loss.

First,there's a case to be made that the finale was too disconnected from what went before. It didn't answer key mysteries. It deserted key threads in the show without tying them together. Thus serious viewers were not taken seriously enough. The finale may have indicated that the LOST writers who seem genius at mystery were more fumbling at revelation. Most of Season Six may indicate this.

Let's also say that the end of the finale was corny (all tears and tissues) and a cop-out, fading to white the way Season 5 did, but worse.

This all can be true. Yet the finale can still be magnificent. The many previous seasons of LOST amazed by being able to provide mysteries and answer them in the next episode in ways that only multiplied mysteries. For me, the finale was able to transform some of us totally obsessed with island mythology--wanting to know who came before the mother (before 23BC) and before the Egyptian and Etruscan structures on the island, and whether gnostics figured in--into fans who responded to the last scene with "Magnificent, completion, there's not another thing I care to see or know, it would just be sweating the small stuff.

The writers forecast a truly adult ending, and I think they delivered. But to see it was not to feel moved by loves recalled or heroes dying, or lovers seeing each other dying. It was to see that very thing, but also see far more--see deeper and more poignantly. And for that, one has to put on one's extra-maturity spectacles.

This is not mean as a put down--maturity and "adulthood" is overrated. But there is one almost unknown features of age that dramatically transforms LOST's ending before one's eyes. The finale seemed design to bring it out. And at 64, I feel finally qualified to mention it.

When grandparents and their peers see a young child, they dote. When they see a flower or garden, they're entranced. That's not because they're corroding, and fresh new life seems so precious by comparison. It's because their ability to appreciate has become enormously enhanced. When they experience love with a partner, it's this miraculous thing--as is seeing love in LOST couples--seeing them hold each other one last time before departure, seeing a son and his estranged father doing the same, having their whole longing for reconciliation coalesce in those few moments. It's the ability to see this with a kind of implicit life weariness and concomitant life savoring.

When older eyes and experienced perception see whole lifecycles lived, with their aspirations and setbacks, ups and downs, trials and conclusions, the beauty of how so many "unique" and "important" details fade into background while universal milestones come into focus is palpable. It's astounding. The facts involved are the same for younthful and older-adult viewers, but it's just ten times more intense, deep and wide, filled with ultimate meaning and significance for the older crew. It's truly spiritual;facts are. And it doesn't matter if the adult crew is seeing more there, or projecting more.

In fact, little matters but what matters. With age, one stops caring if something is corny or cool, approved of or disdained by someone or other, whether it fits or follows or doesn't. Who gives a damn? There's no more pleasing mommy or daddy in whatever form. And so there's no interference to mar experience--no cynicism, discriminating taste, norms or standards. Nothing need live up to anyone's expectations, including one's own.

Instead, one CHOOSES what to see, and SEARCHES for what to delight in. Thus, one can usually find delight. The finale's quality is a choice for the viewer. One can choose things to find marvelous and come away with it as a lasting blissful memory, loss ends and all, or one can choose frustration and annoyance. The latter shows taste and good judgment. But it's not a friend to happiness.

Jack could have watched the Arjuna flight go over and think, "They get to go home and live their lives, I have to die for it."
He could have thought, "Yes, I finally did a truly noble thing and did not ruin it." The latter sounds good, the first bad. Instead, he felt the sweet dog Vincent beside him, come to help him die, and smiled at the sky. He let go.

(`Does this mean the show can get away with peddling any crap for an ending?' Sorta, Yes, I'd reply. But of course, everyone's free to view it as they like. to judge it, to trash it, or to come away in heaven.)