I was really moved by it… and I still think it’s one of the best shows ever on TV.  Even this many days later, if I think of it too much, I get choked up.

I wasn’t even one of the people obsessed with it.  I just went along for the ride and was really hoping we were going to get more answers about the island than we did.  I didn’t look for the easter eggs, go to the forums, or try to figure things out, so I’d think the people who did that and were waiting for the SyFy answers were probably really disappointed in the finale (and rightly so).  Maybe all that SyFy stuff was not the point though… like red herrings to throw us off into thinking the show was something else, when it truly was about the characters’ (mainly Jack’s) connection, redemption and love. 

If the theory that seems to be the one laid out in the finale is true: per Jack’s Dad: everything that happened after the crash really happened (island is not purgatory - only the season 6 sideways flash is)… so much of the SyFy island stuff in the series seems like it was forgotten (or made irrelevant) by the writers. If they survived the crash and everything that happened was real… I still want to know what the deal was with that fricken island.  There is so much left unanswered there. That’s kind of unfulfilling… so there’s a little part of me that hopes the writers will come back either explain it… OR say that everything between Jack’s eye opening in the first episode and it closing in the last scene was his experience of dying. None of the island stuff was real, everybody died in the crash, and his mind created all the stuff in between to help him resolve his issues, find love, forgive his father, etc. (I went back and watched the last hour again, thinking maybe I missed Jack being in a suit instead of the blue t-shirt at the last scene… but the very last scene was a closeup of his face, so no way to know for sure that it couldn’t have been Jack immediately after the crash. Vincent was there after the crash too.)  But, if that were true… why would all of those people meet Jack in the afterlife - he wouldn’t have had a close connection with them just from being on the same plane… so I have to think this isn’t the right theory.  Plus, that would be even more sad than the other version, so I’m going to choose to believe everything but the sideways flash was all real and just know we’re not getting answers to the crazy unresolved island stuff. 

What I was so touched by though was the idea that the sideways flash was their purgatory (way station, however one describes it) and they were there to help each other remember and let go of the things they struggled with in life.  A more idealized world, a better version of themselves.  And because there is no “time” in that space, all the people Jack needed to be there for that most important process could be there regardless of when they died.  Sawyer, Kate, Claire, Aaron and everybody on the plane lived out their lives back home (if their plane made it back - we don’t know that for sure). Hurley and Ben lived out their lives protecting the island (or until they passed their roles onto others), etc.  Others died when they actually died during the series, etc. It seems like it wasn’t the point when/how they died, but that we all die and will all come back together to help those who impacted our lives move to their next stage (whatever that is being open to interpretation.) We all have constants to help us remember our lives and then our deaths  - i.e Jack’s constant was his father, Kate’s was Claire/Aaron, Charlie’s was Claire, Sawyer and Juliet were each other’s, etc.  And that because they all were so important to each other because of the crash, their time on the island, etc… they met in purgatory to move on to “heaven” (or wherever you believe in for an afterlife) together. (Or maybe those were just the people important to Jack, and every individual had their own groups of people meeting them.) 

Those are things I think about and struggle with (i.e. I’m more of a scientific thinker than a believer (i.e the Jack / Locke dilemma in Seasons 1-4) so it’s hard for me to just take those ideas on faith)… so it’s emotional for me to see them played out… even on a TV show, because there’s such a huge part of me that wants to believe that our souls live on and we get to reconnect with people we love.  I just have something inherently in me that can’t seem to let go of the “well, how to we really know that?” question.  I do tend to think in terms of good/bad - karma, etc… so maybe I just don’t fit into any one structure so it makes me feel like a “non-believer.”  I’m not sure.  But, it gives me comfort to entertain the idea that maybe even if I can’t “believe” in this life, I might be given the chance to “let go” of all of the questions in my afterlife.

I also liked how even though it definitely looked like Christianity in those last scenes (and of course with Jack’s Dad’s name being Christian Shephard)… if you looked in the stained glass, it has the symbols of other major religions in it… and the church had statues of other religions.  It felt inclusive of lots of philosophies, theories, religions, as has the whole series.  I figured that it looked more Christianity because we are seeing Jack’s “moving on” and maybe that was how he grew up and was taught of an afterlife.  Not sure.

I could go in circles for hours trying to think of everything that could have happened… but I’m just trying to take it on the face of what the writers wrote and then fill in the blanks with things that inspire me. I really didn’t expect it to end in such an emotional way and with so much left up to interpretation… I thought it would be more about answering the questions of what the island was, what all the freaky stuff was, etc… not about the spiritual, emotional journeys of the characters… so it threw me.  I honestly didn’t think I’d be so sad when the show ended… but seeing that scene of Jack dying and meeting up with all of the others who had died really shook me up.  I never think of myself as getting attached to TV characters… but in this case, I definitely did.  :)