The LOST Finale: We’re Missing A Few People!

This is second in a series of posts about the LOST finale, “The End”. How many will be in the series? I don’t know! Stay tuned to find out!

The questions: Why weren’t Michael, Mr. Eko, Walt, Ana Lucia, Nikki or Paulo in the church to move on with the rest of the Losties? For that matter where were Daniel Faraday, Charlotte Lewis, Miles Straume or any of the Kahana crew?

John Locke and Jack Shepard greet each other before they move on to their "next step."

When all was said and done, the most important characters on LOST were all accounted for in that Los Angeles-area church at the end of the LOST finale Sunday evening. But there were some notable exceptions. Why? Where were they? Who mattered? Who didn’t? WAAAAAALT!!!

Lets start off with the easiest explanations first:

Is this scene the reason that Michael was not with everyone else at the church? Probably.

Michael, who was among the survivors of Oceanic 815, and a major player in the first two seasons of LOST, had been accounted for earlier this season. His “spirit” or whatever you’d like to call it was stuck on the LOST Island itself. If the “flash-sideways” time line was an intermediary between “life” and the “next step.”

Michael’s actions on the Island (killing Ana Lucia and Libby and selling out his friends for safe escape with Walt), prevented him from even getting to the go-between of the intermediary stage. His spirit is stuck on the island, joining the “whispers” which gave the LOSTies so much trouble in earlier seasons.

Christian Shepard, in attempting to explain the plane of existence to Jack, his son, in the final moments of the finale, says they all needed to come back together before moving on because their time spent on the island was the most important of their lives. For Nikki, Paulo and Ana Lucia, this is probably not the case. Nikki and Paulo were also criminals who had killed a man in order to escape with millions of dollars in diamonds. Remember that? Yeah, probably not.

However, we do see Ana Lucia in the flash-sideways time line, but not in the church, so maybe her time will come. In the episode preceding this one, Hurley says “she’s not ready yet” so maybe her time approaches.

The Kahana crew, including Charlotte, Miles, Frank and Daniel all are absent from the church corridors as well. They may all fall into the same category as the funky bunch mentioned before, or maybe on their way to moving on. As it seems, it looks like Daniel’s mother, Eloise Hawking, is keenly aware of the reality of the flash-sideways time line and asks Desmond not to take Daniel with him. Daniel does not attend, but does have an encounter with the one person he loved and lost, Charlotte at the same concert where all the connections are made, so there is still hope for them yet.

A fan-favorite, the character of Mr. Eko had his time line cut short when the actor portraying him wanted out of his contract.

Mr. Eko and Walt are enigmas. Apparently actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was offered a chance to return to the cast, but negotiations broke down. In fact, Eko was supposed to have a four-season story arc, but on-set tensions cut that way short. So did he actually deserve to be in the church? Was his time on the Island the most important of his life? We’ll also probably never know.

Actor Malcolm David Kelley, who played Walt, is now 18 and apparently looks nothing like he did when he played Walt all those years ago. And with everyone looking and feeling like they did on September 22, 2004, he likely wouldn’t fit in. So did the producers leave him out because it wouldn’t work? Or are we to believe that he falls into the “Island wasn’t important to me” category as well? Its not entirely clear, but we are left to make our own interpretations.

The crew that ends up walking through the gates behind Christian Shepard is the core group that we grew to love and cherish throughout the six seasons of LOST. What else could you want?

Thanks for the question!

-AAA

Mr. Eko Could Have Returned! [UGO]
Theories on the LOST Finale [Lostpedia]

The LOST Finale: Guys, What Just Happened?

The questions: What happened in the LOST finale? What did it all mean? Were they dead the entire time? Was the island purgatory?

Sawyer and Juliet begin to realize that they have finally found each other again, flashing back to the events on the LOST island.

You didn’t think I’d let this go without a post did you?

Near the beginning of Ask Asher Anything we answered a question about LOST theories. Now, as the series came to a close on Sunday night in an epic two and a half hour production, we have to address the question on the mind of seemingly the entire internet, what did it all mean?

The executive producers and those most directly responsible for the show, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, intentionally left the ending open for interpretation, but if you look closely, there is one definite explanation that close inspection of the finale will lead you to.

See it turns out that no, the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 from Sydney to Los Angeles were not dead the entire time. The internet is abuzz with people who did not understand the final moments of the episode and took Jack saying “I died too,” to his father, Christian Shepard, to mean that they’ve been dead the entire time. This is not the case.

Instead we see the real, living Jack Shepard die while he is talking to his father in what we believed to be a “flash-sideways” timeline. However, the plot device that was so cleverly disguised as what would have happened had 815 never crashed on September 22, 2004, is revealed to be a sort of after-life meeting place for those who were involved in the events of the past six seasons. For all of season six we were led to believe that two timelines had emerged. In fact, there was only the original Island time line, whatever happened, happened and this purgatory-like state where the Oceanic survivors and those important to them were able to meet.

At one point or another the survivors of Oceanic 815 all die. We’ve seen “Losties” like Boone and Locke die in the real-time events of the show’s six seasons, which ended with real-time Jack Shepard dying in the same spot he woke up after the crash. At later or earlier points in the original time line, everyone else eventually dies, including the man Jack entrusts the job of island safe-keeper with, Hurley.

Christian Shepard leads the LOSTies through a church door to their "next step"

When they have all finished their own lives, they enter the plane of existence that we had considered to be a “flash-sideways” all season long. This existence was created for the sole purpose of allowing the Losties to meet up again before they could move on. This is why those who have their realizations of the original time line see much more than a few days into the LOST series, they see their whole lives, even into what would be considered their sideways “future.” Because they are actually dead, they begin to realize their entire lives, but especially their time on the island, which Christian Shepard labels as the “most important time of [their lives.]”

When they finally are all cognizant of what their lives meant and how much the Island and their experiences there mattered, they can finally all move on, with a man named “Christian Shepard” leading the way.

So I’ll go out on a limb and ask, are there any more LOST questions you’d like to have answered? I’ll pose and answer a few more before LOST completely goes away, but I don’t want to see that day come.

Thanks for the question!

-AAA

Lostpedia’s Entry on “The End” [Lostpedia]
Watch LOST Episodes to Your Heart’s Content [ABC]