Nothing Will Keep Them Apart

Quite possibly the best video montage I have seen yet. A great job.

Parallels

Sawyer and Juliette's story parallels with Desmond and Penny:

The End Part 2

The first time watching Sawyer talk to Jin and Sun at the hospital wasn’t as touching as it was every other time I have watched it (some of these scenes get better every time I watch the episode). So in this scene Sawyer doesn’t “know” yet but Sun and Jin do. Watch Sun look at Sawyer as he walks into the room. She is genuinely happy to see him. Jin has a great look on his face as he says “Hello………. Detective.”. He knows that this is the story that Sawyer created for himself.

“Sounds like they are making progress.” is one last classic Ben line and one of the funniest lines of the night. Good to see he still had his sense of humor.


Jack says his goodbyes to Sawyer and Kate as he sends them on to the Ajira plane. Ben and Hurley stay with Jack. Kate professes her love for Jack and then has to leave him behind. We always knew it was going to be Jack though, didn’t we?


“I don’t believe in a lot of things but I believe in duct tape.” was Miles last great funny line. I am glad he made it to the end. Was this the first time I heard Sawyer call Frank “Chesty”? I forget, but it still made me laugh, and if it was a new one it was the last new nickname we heard from Sawyer.


We always knew that Sawyer wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Not even Kate, Charlotte, Miles, Sayid, Jin, or Sun could jolt his memory. Seeing Jack and saying “Thanks Doc.”, rattled something loose. Sawyer tries to get an Apollo bar (notice it was item 23 and it is right next to an Avalon bar which was a legendary island in Arthurian legend) but it gets stuck in the machine like it did for Jack. There is no Jacob here this time. Then here comes Juliette to the rescue. So she wasn’t talking about the bomb going off when she said “It worked” back in LAX but rather pulling the plug and getting the stuck candy bar loose. They finally have their moment and yes, it made me cry the hardest I had cried this episode yet. In fact if I was to watch it right now I would probably be blubbering through this scene again.



Not to be outdone by Sawyer is Jack who is also just as thick. He also seems to fight having his memories return. Seeing Kate is still not enough for Jack to fully remember. He gets it in a slow trickle compared to how everyone else gets washed over by the wave of memories. He asks Kate what is happening to him maybe he should have asked what happened to him.


Hurley tearing up when he realizes Jack is going to have to sacrifice himself to save the island makes me tear up and nobody wants to see a fat man cry! Jack passes the torch to Hurley and it seems the purity of the water gets a little more questionable every time someone gets initiated into being the islands protector. Whoever gets the job next, Hurley will just have to spit on them. Jack tells Hurley that he believes in him like Hurley told Jack. Jack tells Hurley that it was always supposed to be Hurley to protect the island not him. Jack was only a temporary fix.


Jack tied Desmond to the rope because the script told him he was supposed to. Could Desmond have put the plug back in? Probably, but that could have killed Desmond. Jack tells Desmond that he will see him in another life as Desmond said to Jack when they first met. Jack puts the “cork back in the bottle” and the water starts flowing and the bright light returns. As the water washes over Jack I still wondered if he would make it; that maybe the water would heal him. Jack cries in victory as well as pain as the light takes it’s toll on him.


The Ajira plane begins to take off from the island as the ground crumbles away. This is a definite nod to “The Langoliers”. If you haven’t seen it or read it I highly recommend both but the movie is where you would see a similar scene. Was Richard ever on a plane before? I know he left the island but I would imagine it was mostly on the Dharma sub. If not I am sure the nearly two centuries old Spaniard was crapping his pants.


Matthew Abbadon should have been driving the taxi that brought Locke to the church. Outside the church we get one last Ben and Locke moment. The two actors worked so well together I hope to see them work together again in the future. Locke goes into the church but Ben says that he has some things to take care first. Even though he knows the truth he decides to stay behind and maybe he will get to be a father to Alex.


Outside of the cave Ben gives Hurley a pep talk and tells him that he can run things differently than Jacob did. He says he thinks Hurley can run things in a better way. Hurley asks Ben to help him. Ben says he would be honored. That’s a part of the story I want to see and I know we will as it was announced there is nearly 20 minutes of footage added to the DVD serving as an epilogue to Ben and Hurley on the island. I wonder if that is where Walt will turn up as he also shot scenes for the finale but he never showed up.


So did Hurley give Ben the eternal life gift like Jacob gave Richard? In the ATL Hurley tells Ben he was a good #2. Ben says Hurley was a great #1. It felt like these two might have been together for a while. I would have to guess that Hurley will eventually tire of being the protector and he will find a replacement. Upon his death the gift will be gone and that would allow Ben to age and then die.


Outside of Eloise’s church Kate is very gentle with Jack. She tells him to go around to the back and that she will be waiting for him to join them when he is ready to go.


Are the rocks that Jack ended up on the same as the rocks that the MIB was on when Jacob found his body?


So there’s Jack in the interdenominational church. The moment when Jack touched his father’s coffin is the moment he needed to fully triggered his memory. The final minutes of the series will be hard to forget. Very powerful. Beautifully filmed and beautifully acted. Kudos to Foxy and John Terry. Yes, this was the highly secretive scene that only the two actors in the scene got script pages for. For a few minutes these two were perfect and the scene was magical.


In the end it was Christian Shephard that helped Jack as well as all of us to cross over. Jack crossed over to whatever is next and we crossed over to a life without LOST. I also call where they are Limbo because the word purgatory doesn’t seem right. Not that limbo is much better just less wrong I guess. It all made sense to me. Of course we only see how they all crossed over through Jack’s point of view. For each one it could have been a little different. But nobody has to do it alone. “Where are we going?” asked Jack. “Let’s go find out.” his father suggests. So what was the final line of dialogue for the show and who said it? John Locke: “We’ve been waiting for you.”. I didn’t even hear that line until I watched the episode for the third time.


Why did Kate change from a black evening dress that we saw her in to the top and pants she had on in the final scene? I didn’t get that.


Yes, the ending made me sad and of course I cried. Jack dying made me cry; there I said it. I cried for Jack Shephard. You all happy? Vincent showed up to make sure that Jack didn’t “die alone” and at that point I lost it completely. It ripped my heart out but it was so damn touching as well. Made me hug my doggies a little tighter that night. Why was Aaron in the church with Claire but Je-Yeon wasn’t with Jin and Sun? I guess it shows that Je-Yeon wouldn’t classify Jin and Sun as important people in her life. Yes they were her parents but what was she three when Sun left and she never even met her father. Aaron, on the other hand, I would imagine would become to know his mother very well as well as Kate.


As I watched Jack fall to the jungle floor and laugh as he watched the Ajira plane fly overhead I paused for a moment to appreciate Jack for everything he had done. Like many others before him, Jack died beautifully and he was finally able to let go. The last image was a reverse, or mirror image of how the show began. Jack lying in the bamboo forest dies as he closes his eye.


And you would think that is all I wanted to talk about, right? Well, there is one thing that has me a little puzzled. If the ATL is something they created as a group consciousness type of thing why in LAX was the island at the bottom of the ocean? They all pretty much knew that Jack saved the island and it didn’t sink so that doesn’t explain it. Could the MIB not have really been dead? Could Jack have become the next MIB? Could the evil have somehow gotten off of the island later on causing it to sink into the ocean?


OK, instead of going back and answering and/or commenting on your comments from the earlier posts about the finale I thought I would include them here. So with that, here is my "why pregnant women die on the island" theory. As we know, time on the island passes differently. We know this because Daniel pointed it out by doing his little experiment. Remember back to when Richard Alpert was talking to Juliette and he showed her the MRI films from a woman in her thirties. She said the results looked like it was a woman in her 70’s. So the island moves through time and space at a different rate than we know so their bodies don’t age the correct way or at least they don’t on the inside. It’s possible that Sun would have been able to give birth on the island because she wasn’t on it long enough but to let her try would have been risky at beast. This is similar to how the nosebleeds affected people who had been on the island for longer periods of time. It would have eventually killed all of them but seeing as how it was Charlotte who was on the island the longest among the group, she was the first to go. I’m guessing the next would have either been Juliette or Miles. Of course the bomb going off could have had something to do with it as well but we didn’t get enough of the story after the detonation of the bomb to know what the results were.


And to Fink, I too want to know who the hell Juliette shot when they were time jumping in the outrigger canoes. There will probably be a lot of deleted scenes for us to enjoy when the season and series DVD’s come out. That will be some good stuff indeed. You are right Fink that at the end of season 1 Darlton said they had no idea what was in the hatch and they had to figure it out after the Alphabet network ordered many more episodes of the show. The show would have been very different if it had only been the 12 episode miniseries they originally thought it was going to be.



Again, I apologize for taking so long in getting this up. There will be more to follow, I’m sure, as I will be keeping this blog going for a little while longer. At least until I too move on to whatever is next.

The End Part 1

First let me say that I absolutely loved the ending. All the people complaining they didn't like it or not able to understand what happened I don’t think ever understood the show in the first place. Like I said before there’s really nothing to recap but there is plenty to sort out. As it turns out the flash sideways was the ultimate flash forward. Ha ha, jokes on us, they were dead the whole time. Well, not on the island but in the ATL. Sort of a tongue in cheek way for Darlton to get over with the “they are not dead” assurance they gave us after the first season. Also, I don’t exactly think the ATL was “purgatory” at all either, it was, for a lack of a better term, limbo. Or yes, as Cerpts claimed it was like the Elysian Fields in Greek Mythology, and why not. The ATL was the very ending of the show, however, there is so much that could happen between the time when the Ajira plane flies off of the island, Hurley vows to protect the island with Ben’s help, and Jack gives up the ghost. That is exactly what has me both angry for the many things we don’t know about and probably won’t ever know. It also gives me hope that someday, I could see some of these characters again on TV, there is still more story to be told. For now, let’s just talk about what we do know; here is what I wanted to talk about:



The first time through watching the episode certainly was not enough to notice everything or to allow it all to settle in. Watching the scenes through the eyes of Desmond, someone who knows they are all dead and trying to pass over during the end of the season, gives you a different perspective. The guy who delivers Christian's coffin to the church asks Desmond if he is a priest or something. Listen to the way he says “Or… something.”, it is so much a better line and you can really appreciate the way Henry Ian Cusick delivers the line when hearing it a second time. Desmond then tells Kate that he wants to leave. She asks him why she is here. He says that he can’t tell her why she is “here”.


I liked the way they juxtaposed the people on the island with their ATL counterparts. I know I am still calling it the ATL but what should I call it? Ghost-ville? Watching Ben load the bullets into the gun (that would actually later be used to kill Flocke) I knew he was not with Flocke, and seeing Ben in the ATL making himself a cup of tea perfectly transitions the two situations. In both places, he has some big decisions to make.



I felt a lump in my throat when Hurley saw Charlie again (for the first time) in the ATL. Then Sayid had a great reaction when Hurley placed Charlie into the back of the Hummer. “What was that?” “Charlie.”


I’m guessing Juliette’s maiden name was Carlson and her married name was Burke? But how come if she was Jack’s ex wife she didn’t use Shepherd? Whatever.


Jin and Sun having their moment was touching; especially after it had just been a couple episodes since we said goodbye to them on the island.


I guess Richard getting gray hairs means that his eternal life ended after Jacob died. Either way it was good to see him still around. Same goes for Frank. I didn’t think either one of them were dead anyway. OK, maybe for a second. It was good to see the three of them together working on the Ajira plane. Some good stuff!


The “I’m gonna kill you.” scene between Jack and Flocke after their two groups met on the hill (that was the same hill where Alex met Danielle for the first time back in The Beginning of the End) gave me chills and for once I found myself fully in Jack’s corner. I can actually say that for most of the final season I was a full fledged Jack fan.

I almost released in my pants the first time Sawyer and Juliette saw each other outside of the elevator but alas their moment was to come later.


As Jack, Flocke, and Desmond split away and continued on I was a little worried for Desmond who was wearing a red shit. For being a spoiler hound, I have to admit that the only thing I knew about this episode was that Juliette was David’s mother. Other than that I knew nothing that was going to happen. It felt weird but good at the same time.


So let’s think about Desmond telling Jack about the ATL. I don’t think Desmond (on island Desmond) fully understood what he was seeing in the sideways world after-all. The only way Desmond could have taken Jack there would have been to kill him. Either way ATL Desmond knew what the deal was.


I would still like to know more about “the rules” that we always hear about. This time it is Hurley that tells Sayid there are rules in play. I got a little misty eyed watching Sayid and Shannon having their moment. Does this mean that Shannon was Sayid’s true love and not Nadia? Boone’s line about how hard it was to get Shannon there was a little hint from the producers about how difficult it was to get Maggie Grace to Hawaii to film her scenes. She was originally supposed to be in the season premier but they were not able to get their schedules together. Speaking of Boone, when did he have his moment? Was it when he was on the plane talking to Locke?


Jack telling Flocke that he disrespects the memory of John Locke by wearing his face made me cheer Jack on; yelling at my TV screen “You f*ckin’ tell him!”. Yeah, I’m a dork! I loved the view of them looking down the waterfall after they lowered Desmond down. It did indeed feel the same as when they were looking down into the Swan hatch after they blew it open back at the end of season 1. Both times Desmond was down where they were looking.


Why didn’t we get a Daniel/Charlotte moment? Why didn’t they end up being in the church at the end of the episode? There’s more to their story. They just were not ready to “move on” yet. Desmond tells Eloise that he isn’t taking her son with him when he leaves so I guess they will end up crossing over with other people. Maybe that is when Miles, Frank, Naomi, and some others that were missing will cross over.


Let’s put some other people in their proper places as well. Seeing Pierre Chang there is a good reason we don’t see Miles in the church. It is obvious that people can become “aware” of the state they are in but not have to cross over. I would imagine the Miles, like Ben, will be spending some time with his family before moving on to whatever is next. It was agonizing to wait for Claire and Charlie to have their moment. Did we all notice that Desmond, Kate, Claire and the rest of their group were seated at table 23. Did you notice the gray haired man with the beard sitting at the table behind them? I remember him from one of the Dharma orientation videos. They did get a lot of use out of their extras on this show.


The bright light went out, the water stopped running, and the red light started to glow in the chamber after Desmond pulled out the islands cork. “Oh, f*ck, that’s not good!”. Wasn’t sure what I expected to happen, that wasn’t it though. Let’s make sure we got this right - Desmond had to pull the cork so Jack could kill Flocke. The bright light going out made Flocke vulnerable like any other man, right? But it also made Jack vulnerable. Does that sound right?

So I then had to sit through friggin’ Kate have her minute of clarity. Actually, another great scene and moment, thank you! It was touching and made me realize (six seasons later) just where Kate was coming from. Her big moment was the birth of Aaron. That was the moment that made her remember. That should show everyone that the love triangle was always secondary to her. Really, the love triangle was something some of the viewers made up. What Kate, Jack, and Sawyer actually did was simply human nature so I don’t want to hear anymore shit about Skate or Jate or any other crap about the love triangle and the "shippers". It’s done, it didn’t matter, get over it! Kate's one main purpose was always Aaron. It also made me want to see more of the story that tells us what happens to Kate, Claire, and Aaron after they are reunited off island.


Charlie comes back with a blanket and Kate, who now fully remembers everything, thanks him. Kate wasn’t thanking him for the blanket he was holding, she was thanking him for his sacrifice down in the looking glass station. She tells him to take the blanket to Claire and they have their moment. I did shed some tears watching their reunion and I shed some more when I watched the episode for the fifth time to write this. That’s when you know it’s good folks! The only problem I had with the scene is I think Charlie should have called Aaron “Turnip Head” as he kissed him.


Desmond asks Kate is she understands and she says she does. “Now what?”, she asks. What I thought at this point was that they had to help Jack remember so they could go back to the island. I was only half right.


Ben almost sacrifices himself saving Hurley from the falling tree. This proved to me that Ben was indeed one of the "good guys". To see Kate, Hurley, and Sawyer act so quickly and try so hard to get Ben free made me understand that they had accepted Ben as well.


The scene of Jack and Flocke running towards each other in the rain for their final confrontation was immense. Seeing Jack literally fly through the air to deliver a super-hero like punch made me curse the commercial interruption! We watched these two men clash while bits of the island fell into the ocean all around them. Seeing Flocke nick Jack’s throat with the knife explained where the blood was coming from in the ATL.


And in the end it was beauty that killed the beast as Kate shoots Flocke and tells him that she saved a bullet for him. OK, it wasn’t the bullet that killed him I guess but the fall from the cliff that Jack served up. Almost looked the same as when Flocke kicked Jacob into the fire at the end of last season.


So in order to remember, Locke needed to have the surgery and be able to walk again. He needed Jack to fix him. Jack fights the visions that bring back his memories. The one thing he has to fill in as a buffer is David, his son who he uses as an excuse to leave Locke’s room. A son that doesn’t exist, as Locke is so eager to point out. As Jack leaves, John tells him that he hopes someone does for Jack what Jack just did for him. So which does he mean? Help him remember so he can let go and cross over? In other words: fix him?

Part 2 to follow very soon.

....Afterward

I know it's been nearly three weeks since the finale aired and at some point I will be doing some sort of a recap. There's really nothing to recap as much as there is to discuss and give my opinions and suppositions about. In a way, I feel like I am dealing with the stages of grief right now. I mean not really like I would have to with the death of a loved one but it's the closest I can come to describing it. Almost like losing a friend. I guess I can say I am somewhere in the depression or anger stage of dealing with it. This is my first step towards the final stage that being acceptance. Until then, here is a little video montage of The End.