I say they should’ve all awakened–the entire cast–in Bob Newhart’s bed.
I probably would’ve worked it so Jack was standing on a hill overlooking the Beach in all his Jacob-ness, as a boat crashes ashore and people are dragging themselves out of the water. He looks at Hurley and says “I want you to infiltrate in some way and get me a list in 3 days.”
I liked the ending, but I’d have felt more satisfied if there were a few other questions answered, even if they were cheezy. Like MIB’s name. Maybe it was just “brother”, but it was a tease that led nowhere. (They have a name for this, but I can’t remember it.)
Jack and Locke sitting on the beach watching a boat come in, just like Jacob and MIB had done previously.
Rushgeekgirl:
This. Would it have been so hard for “Across the Sea” to have been a thorough Island mythology, even pre-Jacob, so we understand a little more about the statue and heirogyphics, what “rules” govern Jacob and the monster, perhaps extending into the present day so we understand between Ben amd Widmore who was in the right, why they couldn’t kill each other at one point (but suddenly could in the penultimate episode - I personally attribute that change to Jacob’s death)? Maybe we could have gotten a bit of explanation about how Eloise knows so much spooky island stuff? I would have liked to understand for certain just whom the Others were agents of and why they had to be hostile and sneak around and kidnap people instead of greeting the Lost gang with friendship.
We can, of course, come up with our own theories, and ultimately, the story works as a character-driven story without these details. But a bit more would have been nice.
They all gather together at the end, and are suddenly crushed by a giant animated foot, ala Monty Python.
After Jack replugs the hole, he is hauled out using the rope by Hurley and Ben. Hurley takes Jack back to the temple to place him in the pool in order to heal him, which it does. Whilst there Hurley realizes he can now read the hieroglyphics on the wall which tell the story of the island, what it is, why it moves around, what the light is and why it needs protecting, what powers are granted to the island’s protector to carry out his duty. (I’ll promote Long Time Lurker’s very cool idea posted in the thread for the season finale here that the island’s protector is supposed to get the Smoke Monster gig too.)
Hurley relays all of this to the awakened Jack, and Ben. Ben helps them understand how some of the pieces fit together from his experiences on the island.
Part of the animosity between Jacob and [insert actual name for MIB/Smokey here] is that Jacob accidentally gave the Smoke Monster part of his powers to his twin MIB by pushing his dying brother into the light cave. So Jacob became stuck being this impotent protector of the island, having to watch as the Dharma Initiative built station after station with no power to stop them, and MIB was tied to the island despite his powers and no desire to even stay there let alone protect it and bound by the rules that were meant to govern the protector.
Jacob’s foster Mom allowed her bias against having the powers of the smoke monster (perhaps a classic feminine nurturing viewpoint versus a masculine kill to protect it viewpoint), and deliberate withholding of information from both twins while she tried to figure out how to sort out the new protector she had foreseen being twins to cloud Jacob’s understanding of what he was supposed to do. Instead of teaching them all the lore of the island which is available in the hieroglyphics, she instead keeps them in the dark because she is convinced it will have to be one or the other of the twins she passes on the mantle to. Yet she is unable to decide which one it should be. This isolation and lying inflames MIB’s desire to leave, and renders Jacob an ignorant and emotionally unprepared replacement. Jacob becomes bitter over their foster mother’s deception when he realizes he accidentally gave some of his powers to MIB and now their fates are intertwined for “as long as you can.” The lesson to be learned in this fable is not to dismiss direct questions with ‘It’s complicated.’
Hurley, Ben and Jack head back to the light cave, where Hurley has learned that he can be granted the smoke monster power. He proceeds to do so, comes back out as the Smoke Monster with all the ominous clicking and bellowing sounds then we hear a softer disembodied, totally awestruck; “Dude!”
Hurley won’t need a “Richard” figure, since his powers are whole, not shared across two people. He invites whoever of the survivors that wants to stay on the island with him to do so and tells them he can now make it into a paradise of sorts. He also warns them that this will be their only chance, choose to stay or go now. The island needs to stay hidden (tying into the explanation of what the island actually is/does above) and only the struggle between Jacob and MIB allowed it to be found by the army and the Dharma Initiative in the first place.
Then some of our Losties go, and some stay. All live happily ever after. Closing shot is of the departing Losties leaving, Hurley and his group waving from the beach then the island being slowly engulfed in mist and disappearing. As the mist envelopes them, Hurley turns to Richard, who decided to stay, and asks.
“So, Dude, why does the statue only have four toes?”
“How old do you think I am, Hugo?”
- fade –
All the ATL stuff wouldn’t have happened this season at all.
With a now middle-aged Tommy Westphall playing with a new snow globe.
I actually was ok with most of the meat of the finale and I wouldn’t make wholesale changes, however I would have shifted the focus to the Island wrap up as opposed to the Flash Sideways wrap up in the finale. The way it read it basically implied that the activities on the island didn’t matter at all, they were all going to end up in heaven together regardless. I’d have put more emphasis on who did and didn’t make it back, somehow showing that their deeds on the island and saving the island somehow allowed them to move on and some people were left behind because of their failures as people.
Wrapping up the island and it’s mysteries is simply a more important part of the show than the flash sideways and it should have been the largest part of the finale. Even if they’d have left the actions that happened the same I’d be fine, but they should have included some scenes of what happened on the island after the plane left. Show me Jack turning into White Smoke and Hurley and Ben managing the island in peace and harmony. Show them bringing people to the island like Jacob did but for better reasons. Show me that everything Jacob and MiB were doing wasn’t just some meaningless pissing contest. Show me that the Island somehow needs to have these people brought there and that the tests they go through are compulsory and not just some flight of fancy of a couple whiny emo brothers. Also, show the Ajira plane landing someplace and the escaped Losties kissing the ground and confirm that they are going to be living out their lives.
Some smaller details that killed it for me.
Sayid should not have ended up with Shannon in heaven. He absolutely belonged with Nadia. Him being with Shannon makes no sense.
Take away that visual at the end of the show over the credits of the unmolested wreckage. Basically that tells me that the entire island was fake and that Jack died right there in the field during the crash along with everyone else. This contradicts everything in the finale.
Explain what the hell happened to Walt and Aaron. What about Richard and Frank? Do they get to move on?
Explain the rules. Too much was made of them for them to be disregarded entirely.
What did detonating Jughead accomplish? Anything besides throwing them through time?
Where did all the ancient buildings, the statue and the hieroglyphics come from? What was all the egyptian imagery all about?
All in all, I’m not a hater. I enjoyed the finale and it hit many of the right emotional notes, but the afterlife storyline was very unsatisfying when you remember that it was just introduced at the start of this season. 6 years of a show and the finale’s final scenes and end message only applies to what happened in the minority of the action in the final season??! That makes no sense. We were with the Island for 6 years and it’s been the most important thing to the story. Wrap that up in a tight bow please, tell us why it was important and how the Losties actions there impacted their journey to the afterlife and how MiB leaving and/or the light going out would have irreparably damaged everything and/or prohibited them from “moving on”.
With four toes.
I apologize if any of this was suggested in the long thread about the last episode. I still haven’t read that.
I actually thought that Jack would turn into the Smoke Monster after he re-corked the well of souls. (I figured that just being down there was what turned the MiB into the Smoke Monster. But it’s probably more than that.) And then we’d have this repeat, but with Locke in the Jacob role and Jack in the MiB role. But Jack was never as malicious as the MiB was.
What I am wondering now is what, if anything, is going to follow the series. Can Lost support anything like the Star Trek universe (additional series, movies, comic books, novels, etc.)? I could imagine a prequel series that goes into life on the island before Allison Janney was the caretaker. I do think it’s best not to ever explain the origin of the island, as it’s bound to be a disappointment.
Actually telling this story would have been satisfactory.
Emotionally everything worked for me, and the story in general worked for me.
I didn’t like that the sideways-flash ended up being the afterlife. Not that they screwed it up - given the choice to do that, they did it wonderfully. I think it was just the wrong choice. I would have had Desmond get them all together, pretty much as they already had, with them getting their flashes, but then it’s still really an alternate timeline, and either they just reunite, or better yet, they all go back to the sunken island to resurrect it.
I would have liked a whole episode, but throwing in an extra half hour to the finale to do some flashbacks to how the island became special and what was going on with the Egyptians and the first protector would have been nice.
The show absolutely needed a fly over of the island. They had plenty of opportunity to do this. Flying past each of the notable areas would have been nice too.
They needed to address the issue of Aaron ‘raised by others’. They needed to bring back Walt and give him a pivotal role in the finale. It doesn’t matter that he’s older now - they’ve been off the island for over three years, that’s enough to explain his aging.
They needed to have the scene with the time traveling outrigger.
And they should have wrapped up most of the minor lingering questions - it’s not that hard to do. Hell, they managed to get in an explanation of something unimportant like Shannon’s inhaler.
Right, the finale was excellent and is way too bashed at this point.
Having said that, they should have dropped backstory on the Island throughout the series of the show.
By the way, have you guys heard that a 14 minutes “epilogue” showing Hurley and Ben taking care of the Island after the finale has been filmed and will be on the DVD/Blu-ray?
Bob Newhart’s bed turns out to be in a snowglobe in tommy westphall’s hand. Journey is playing. A door opens and Tommy looks and it suddenly to black for a full minute…
Fade from black.
Conan and the cast of Lost play a rendition of “Free Bird.”
From what I hear, the only right ending would have been Jacob and Esau standing there in front of the Losties, explaining everything that ever happened in exhaustive detail, making sure every fan question is answered. It would takes about a day and be utterly unwatchable. But that one fan that NEEDS to know “what about Walt?” would be happy for the 2 minutes it took to answer his question. He’d complain bitterly about the *other *23 hours and 58 minutes of wasted time, however. 
If the writers actually knew how to write, this wouldn’t even have been an issue.
Now this would have been awesome. Remember when the show had some menace in it?
An added benefit of this ending would be forcing the writers to decide why the Others actually needed the list.
It was a sled.
Stranger