Charlie’s Unanswered Question

It seems not that long ago that we saw Charlie Pace, with his awe-struck, red eyes looking up at his companions atop a hill on the Island say (as we watched in anticipation) “Guys, where are we?”

And we were hooked. LOST began. The show that captivated millions of viewers, created addicts, brought together families, spun infinite theories and storylines, and brought timeless mysteries began. And it worked. It pulled people in. We came to care about these people; what their pasts were, their wellbeing, and what they were going to do in the future. These people became our people. Somehow, some way, the show worked.

LOST had a curious fanbase near its end. Most that became frustrated with the mysteries, the presence of polar bears, the expanse of Richard Alpert’s years, the smoke monster, and many of the unresolved mythology elements stopped watching the show. So while those that watched through Seasons 5 and 6 might have hoped for a big answer reveal or a resolution to the deep mythologies, I think there was really something else that held us in and kept us fueled. That something is what the creators resolved in the series finale. The question “Where are we?” become ultimately abandoned as the producers answered the question “Who are we?” This question became the ultimate ends of the finale, of the season, and of the series.

I for one am slightly disappointed. Yes, I know the finale was beautiful. Yes, I know that the show ended up not being about the island and its mythologies. But what we were led to believe from the pilot clear up until we watched the series finale was that the island was the ultimate ends and its mysteries were the ultimate reveal, so to speak. My disappointment is not so much with the fact that the question the series answered was “Guys, who are we?” but that the show really, honestly led us to believe that it would, conversely, answer Charlie’s question instead. This was not the case. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for character stories. I’m all for the fact that the stories were the ultimate ends. But that was definitely not the nuance we got from most of the entirety of the show. That’s my problem. I still love LOST. But the finale did not resolve the LOST we saw in the pilot episode. It just didn’t. In the pilot we heard the smoke monster and saw its destruction, we heard Rousseau and heard Charlie’s great question, and we began to realize that there was something more at work on this island than just normal people on a pancake of land. But the show didn’t end up proving that. Instead, it proved that there was something more to these characters than there was to the island. And somehow, some way, I think that’s okay.

Who Needed Whom – the Island as a Vehicle

It was okay because in the end, while the island and its powers needed the Losties, it was ultimately the Losties that needed the Losties. The island and its mythology were vehicles used to develop dynamic qualities in characters that we came to love.

This is what was so confusing and initially dissatisfying for me about the series finale. In a period of just a couple of hours, the series finale ultimately negated the mythologies of the show. The polar bears, the hatch, the Dharma Initiative, Jacob, MIB/Smokey, their mom, the Light, electromagnetism…. all of it became not only unanswered but conclusively unimportant. Rather, not unimportant, but only important relative to the Losties. These mysteries were important because they happened to Jack. And happened to Kate. And Sawyer. And the others. That’s what made them important. Sadly to us science nerds, the island and its mysteries had no intrinsic necessary importance. It was all to tell a story about a group of people who desperately needed each other to gain redemption and peace. I strain to accept the fact that this negates much of what I fell in love with the show for (being a mystery-loving man myself), but I have to say that watching the finale and watching these people I came to realize how much they meant to me.

Why Was Walt Wet? – The Perpetuating Mystery and the Conclusive Emotion of LOST

Ultimately that’s what the show was about. It was about a journey and it was about the emotional strings that were woven between people on the screen, their stories, and our hearts. Call it cheesy, but that’s why they wanted us to watch.

People will theorize for a while over what all the technical implications of the mythologies were; what was behind the concrete in the Hatch, why the pallet drops continued, why Walt was walking around dripping wet and talking backwards in Season 1, ad nauseum. Ultimately, we won’t know. In this manner LOST will be successful in its own way. LOST told us a story, a story that captivated us in its mysteries and in the end satisfied us with its emotional finality.

I have but one interesting caveat: for the life of me I can’t seem to figure out why this model worked. Maybe it’s because it has never truly been done before, maybe it’s because we were duped, I really don’t know. But LOST really built its own genre. And for 5+ years, as far as my interpretation is concerned, it wore a mask genre that kept people like me watching. People who were in it for the mystery.

Emotive Mythology: The Island was King. (Why people like me first loved the show)

I remember my first time watching LOST. Kyle Clarkson, a friend of mine, had Season 1 and Season 2 on DVD and they seemed to be in the process of being passed around the church student community as people became enthralled in the enigma of the show. Skeptical, I brought home the DVDs and popped the first one into my computer. Needless to say, for the next week or so I blazed through both seasons faster than a hungry Hurley to a Mr. Clucks. I loved the pilot and felt captivated when Charlie asked the aforementioned question. “Where are we?” It was at that point I knew I had a long journey ahead of me, a journey where I knew that after many adventures, many journeys, many trials, many mysteries, our Losties would be able to answer that question. Instead, that question was hidden in the shadow of the larger character narrative that became the essence (and the end) of LOST.

“I’ve done everything you wanted me to do.. so WHY did you do this TO ME?”

The episode I saw Locke standing over the Hatch with that epic music playing completely rocked my world. In fact, that’s an understatement. If you don’t remember the scene, or even if you do, go watch it again right now here. If I remember correctly, somewhere not too far away Jack is trying to heal Boone, who’s recently been pwned by a tree and a plane and some other stuff. That seems to be the main ending storyline, then suddenly we’re transported to a lone Locke, englufed in an epic orchestral build and standing over the mysterious Hatch. Locke, always the Island man, beats on the metal door and seems to cry foul on the Island. It’s toying with him. It’s messing with his mind. He’s defeated. At this point either the Island really isn’t a force or it’s completely ignoring him. Then suddenly, the soft yellow glow shines on his face accompanied by a slow, pulsing hum. He looks at it, confused, not sure how to react. Then the screen goes black. LOST.

Ladies and gentlemen, say what you want about the show being about the characters. Say what you want about it not really in the end being about the Smoke Monster or Jacob or the real island mythology. But at this point, folks, when I saw this scene in the first season, at THIS moment was the first time I said to myself “I will follow this show to the end.” It was the quickness of my heartbeat, the silence in my mind, the thrill of the unknown that made me promise to myself, smiling, that I would stay with the show through thick and thin. And whatever your thoughts about the finale were, or Season 6, or the end of the show, or whatever, I think that emotion that they gave me in this episode and in Seasons 1 and 2 as a whole was purely mythological. Sure, I cared about Locke’s story and how it affected his reaction to the Hatch. Sure, I cared about his relationship with Susan and his failed walkabout and his cured paralysis. But somehow, these seemed just ways that the characters contributed to the mythology. To me, the Island was King. It was King in the pilot episode when Charlie asked the question that seemed like it was going to be the main question of the show. It was King when it brought Locke light from the Hatch in what is still my favorite scene of LOST. It was King when the Others would kill, kidnapp, and scare people for its greater purpose. It was King when Jacob seemed to be the God-figure of the Island, protecting its greater good. It was King when Charles Widmore and Ben Linus and many others battled over control of its Light. It was King.

In the series finale, despite what all the other people say, I think that the Island became an afterthought.

It was only important because it was part of the characters’ stories. It had no true, over-arching, controlling, intrinsic, necessary, ultimate and authoritative value or worth. It was a means. As mentioned earlier, a vehicle. The island was truly a plot element. Frankly, in that arena, I feel somewhat cheated. Not only

I know I care too much about the mythology. You don’t have to tell me that. I know I was setting myself up to be disappointed. But look at the show. Look at how much emphasis was put on the mystery of the mythology. The Island truly was King! It pulled us in with its many questions. It was out of time. It was out of the world. It was ethereally beautiful. It was the ultimate question.

Except, not.

The End – How LOST Went Out With a Pfft. *fizzle sound*

When Jack met his dad in the multi-religious church, somehow I knew it was over. My heart gradually began to sink. “This is going to end right now,” I said. To me, the whole island bathtub plug storyline seemed somewhat rushed and haphazard. The whole mythological storyline ultimately rested on an easy Smokey gun kill by Kate and an Island bathtub plug. An ineffective way to throw the mythology nerds like me a bone at the end of the series. Despite my fears that the show really was ending like this, I still had nope that somehow the alternate reality was some sort of shifted universe and the Island storyline would become some sort of cosmic time warp. When Jack laid down in the bamboo patch, my heart began to race. Like some sort of idiot kid looking inside the window of a toy store and seeing the newest toy, I shouted out (to the room of people I was watching the finale with), “It’s all a time loop!” I was almost convinced that somehow they were stuck in some sort of loop that would have Jack ending up back where he started and the show would start over again (and not just poetically like it did, but really, truly, be a loop). Obviously, this isn’t possible since he wasn’t wearing a suit. And for more reasons.

Then his eye closed. *soft piano note* LOST.

It was over.

I wasn’t sure how to react. The whole room of about 12 went silent. It remained silent for about 4-5 minutes, with only mild comments being made. It was really, truly over. There was no more LOST. No more mystery, no more Island, no more stories.

Initially, I accepted it with mild dissatisfaction. “It was beautiful,” I said to those in the room. And really, it was. When I saw Jack lying in the bamboo forest, smiling, almost laughing, despite blood running from his ears and side, I really did tear up. It was so poetically beautiful that Jack would sacrifice himself for the Island his friends. Readers of this blog, take note, I really did like the finale. And as a whole, the show was incredible and I did NOT waste my time. I didn’t waste my time because in that finale, I really did care what was going to happen. And that’s enough proof that the show was effective. 6 years of caring. For a TV show with that much mystery, to have us glued to the edge of our seats after 6 years is really astounding. The other action/mystery shows I’ve watched i.e. Heroes (who even watches that anymore), V (which is still in its 1st season but is terrible), even Fringe (which is fizzling out in its second season), they all couldn’t do it. They just couldn’t cut it. So I will say I think the show was perhaps the best TV I will watch in a LONG time.

That being said, the show really didn’t have much direction through those 6 years. Perhaps that’s what made the characters’ stories the obvious contender for the purpose of the show at the end (when the mythologies were revealed to not be the purpose). I honestly, really, truly believe the show was created by J.J. Abrams to be a mystery show rooted in how its characters interacted with an ultimate mythology and discovered the true essence of the Island. What it became though is how a group of people interacted with the Island and ultimately discovered themselves, although this is even a stretch because some of the purgatory matchups and follow-ups seemed highly sketch (Sayid and Nadia, anyone?).

Again, and I know I’ve repeated this over and over again, but Charlie’s question in the pilot I really believe was meant to be the over-arching reveal of the show. I believe that with all of my polar-bear-like will. I think that was what J.J. Abrams had in mind. He’s that kind of guy. I really think that that was Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (the executive producers, and Damon a co-creator. The guys who essentially made the show from start to finish) had that in mind as well. If you ever listened to the LOST podcast, played the lost Alternate Reality Games with the Hanso corporation, then you knew that the heart of everything was the island’s mystery. The answered questions weekly about mythological elements of the show. They created a game where we went on wild goose chases looking for answers. They captivated the mystery nerd in all of us.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, that theme of the show was, in the words of Sawyer, a Long Con.

Ultimately, if the Island wasn’t the main plot, then Jack could not have died for it in the end. Since Jacob, MIB, and the Island were plot elements to tell character stories, Jack could not have sacrificed himself for it. At least I don’t think so. But he did. He did die for the Island. He died because he thought he had to and thought he fit in somehow to the collage of puzzle pieces. It was the purgatory/middle reality that I had a problem with. “Everyone dies, Jack,” said Christian (or something like that). What was the purgatory reality? According to Christian, it was how people were able to ‘move on’ from their past experiences. So move on from the Island? Move on from the Light? If they were the main mysteries and worth sacrificing everything for (i.e. Jack), then why are people ‘moving on’ from them? Are they moving on to a new reality where there is no Light? No Island? No Protector? Who knows. But I think that the whole ‘move on’ concept really diminishes the importance of the Island and the whole show. Instead of being timelessly significant, the Island story is just a stepping stone in the larger storyline of the Losties. Frankly, that kind of ticks me off. It makes everything we cared so much about.. the storylines, the mythologies, the mysteries, everything on the Island so much less significant. I can imagine scenario where our Losties are in the next reality, sitting around a game of Scrabble, and suddenly Kate says “Hey remember that one time we were on that island and the whole universe was going to explode if we didn’t protect it?” Then Jack says “Yeah, Kate, that was pretty fun.”

AH. That really does tick me off. The Island was not the whole story. It was a timeline piece. So if MIB had escaped and the universe would have exploded, would the Losties have moved on to another reality still? Or would all existence have been erased? It really didn’t matter whether the Island was saved or not. If it would have been saved, then good. It gives our Losties about another 40 years to live before they move on to another awesome world where all their past worries are gone. If they hadn’t have saved the Island, it would have exploded with the Universe or something, then our Losties would have gone ahead to the better world. What the heck? It lessens the importance of everything.

Alright, so I’m just rambling now. But I hope you see what I’m saying. The Island didn’t matter at all if it’s part of an eternal storyline where our characters can get reincarnated as themselves in other like worlds that are better than the past ones. Maybe one will have a giant walrus that needs to constantly be listening to old Vanilla Ice tapes, and if the Losties don’t keep the tape player running for him, he will eat America. I don’t know. Then in the next one they all have to do the hokey pokey or the universe turns into Barbieland. I don’t know. Whatever the case, the Island doesn’t matter anymore. (Notice what they remembered from the past reality was not polar bears and hatches and smoke monsters but the relationships that were kindled).

Final Thoughts

In the end, it was an amazing show. And I’d do it again. I will probably get the Blu-Ray set and a Blu-Ray player and go through it again someday. I also plan on buying the LOST encyclopedia that Damon and Carlton are putting out. But really I just need to give up the fact that I’ll ever know anything about the Island. Or on a more universal scale, that I’ll ever know anything about the Walrus or the hokey pokey. All that matters is that I feel my heart tugged for those characters.

And the ultimate irony: I did feel it. It worked.

LOST, you may confuse me and frustrate me with the lack of direction and resolve in your mythologies and the loose ends in your character stories, but somehow, you worked.

And that’s why LOST was a success. It just worked, and worked with outstanding effectiveness.

LOST, I suppose this is goodbye. Goodbye to all the significance the show offered to all of us. Well, unless of course our next reality has a different show, and the next reality a different show….

-Riley