For whatever reason, the true meaning of the Lost series finale still eludes people. It has topped lists of best and worst finales of all time (I place myself firmly in the former category if that was not already clear). If you’re still scratching your head after the credits rolled, we’re here to explain what happened in the Lost finale and what it means.
But first, let me say this: Lost is a supernatural show. As much as the self-proclaimed Jack “man of science” Shepard wanted a logical explanation, that was never going to happen! So, my goal is to make you comfortable with the unknown and have you lean into it. I want you to spend your time theorizing and wondering instead of complaining that you didn’t get a theorem or formula that answers everything.
What happens in the Lost finale?
Let’s start with a “brief” plot recap of Lost, season 6, episode 17, “The End”:
The survivors prevent the Man in Black from destroying the island
Jack, Kate, and Hurley go on one last trek through the jungle to the “heart of the island,” a source of mysterious electromagnetic energy, while Sawyer encounters Ben and Locke, who is actually the Man in Black/Smoke Monster taking Locke’s corporeal form. Desmond says goodbye to Rose and Bernard, who have chosen to stay on the island with Vincent the dog. Miles and Richard head towards the Ajira plane on the nearby smaller island and rescue Frank Lapidus. They decide to get the plane running and get the heck off the island.
At the heart of the island, Desmond goes to a glowing pool. He’s been through a lot at this point in the series, which is to say that he is immune to the energy. At the bottom of a pool is a stone stopper, like the “cork in a bottle metaphor” described earlier in the series. Desmond pulls it out, passes out, the pool goes dark, and the island starts to self-destruct.
While they intended to stop Desmond from helping the Man in Black destroy the island and failed, the survivors realize that Desmond’s actions have made the Man in Black mortal. Jack and Kate gang up on him, action-hero style, and kill him. Jack, who was stabbed in the fight, volunteers to put the proverbial cork back and get the light in the pool going again.
Kate and Sawyer race to convene with Team Ajira and convince Claire to leave with them. They succeed! The plane takes off! Smell ya later, island!
Back at the pool, Hurley and Ben lower Jack down. He restores the light, convinces Hurley to take over as protector of the island, and passes out. Ben suggests he start by helping Desmond get home to Penny and offers to be his reformed second-in-command. When Jack wakes up, he stumbles through the jungle and then lays down to die with Vincent at his side.
Meanwhile, in the “flash sideways”…
In the series’ final “flash sideways,” Desmond gathers as many unawakened survivors as possible at a benefit concert, where Daniel Farady is playing with Drive Shaft. At the concert and at a hospital where many of the other survivors happen to be, each of the former survivors wakes up and remembers their real lives. Sometimes the trigger is a memory from their island days, like Claire giving birth. For Sawyer and Juliet, it’s a meet-cute.
Once awakened, they are drawn or invited to a church. There, Jack’s father, Dr. Christian Shepherd, explains that they have all died and come to this place that they created together because the most important part of their life was the time they shared on the island. Now that they have found each other, they can move on. Two big glowing doors open and they do just that.
Were they dead the whole time?
No, the survivors weren’t dead the entire time! This is, infuriatingly, the most common misconception about Lost. The finale did not reveal that the people on the island were dead during the whole series. This is not The Sixth Sense.
What does “flash sideways” mean?
The first few seasons of Lost included flashbacks and flash-forwards. The final season had “flash sideways”–that’s what showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse called them in interviews and on the Official Lost Podcast. Fans adopted the term and called the seemingly parallel universe the “Sideways World.”
In the Sideways World, the survivors live alternate versions of their lives in a world where flight Oceanic 815 landed safely. Sawyer and Miles become cops instead of criminals. Locke and Ben become teachers. Kate befriends Claire while on the run. Jack is a father, etc.
As Dr. Shepherd explains, this is a place in between life and death that their collective consciousness made for them to go when they died, whenever that was. It isn’t exactly purgatory, because it has nothing to do with the religious concept of sin. But since it is a place between life and death, if it’s easier for you to think of it as a version of purgatory, I’ll allow it.
Does that mean that everyone died in the Lost finale?
So, did everyone die in the Lost finale? Yes and no. I mean, everybody dies eventually. Even Richard, who lived for over 100 years, became mortal at the end of the series. But, just because everyone looked young and hot in the Sideways World doesn’t mean they were that age when they died. If you were creating a quasi-afterlife in your mind, wouldn’t you want to look like your best self?
Many characters died on the show, but plenty of them—including Kate, Sawyer, Claire, Hurley, Miles, Desmond, Penny, and Frank—lived fulfilling lives after the on-island events of the finale. We don’t know when or how they died. When they did, their spirit or soul came to the Sideways along with those who died during the events of the series like Ana Lucia, Shannon, Boone, Juliet, Charlie, Locke, Jack, etc.
Were they dead the whole time in the Sideways World?
Were the survivors dead in the Sideways World? Yes, but only there! Enough!
What was the church?
The church was a nice place to gather and a portal to the afterlife, I think; a way to represent the various religious debates and crises of faith that the characters went through. Scenes like this—where characters voluntarily go through a door from a place between life and death to the great unknown—also appear in shows like The Good Place and His Dark Materials. Fun fact: the former was inspired by Lost!
One last time: the island itself wasn’t purgatory, right?
If you’re still asking yourself if the island was purgatory, let me clear it up for you real quick: no, it wasn’t. Stop asking.
So what was the island?
The island was simply a weird little supernatural island with a weird little supernatural history. It’s not Hell, the Garden of Eden, or purgatory as I’ve now said too many times. It wasn’t an alternate universe or a time loop. There isn’t a cut-and-dry answer for why the island was the way it was: that’s why so many characters were drawn to the island over the years. For centuries, various people discovered the island and tried to study it, including the military and a group of hippie scientists called the Dharma Initiative.
Did you watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Think of the supernatural energy at the heart of the island like a Hellmouth. On Buffy, supernatural folks and phenomena were attracted to that energy and that’s why so many monsters showed up in Sunnydale. The island is basically the same, just without the demons and bloodsuckers. At least, that’s how I like to look at it!
Which couples were endgame on Lost?
Lost may have been a show about survival with big plot twists and sci-fi bullshit (affectionate) but that didn’t stop the characters from falling in love and the fans from shipping everybody together. While Kate and Sawyer left the island together, they did not end up together. Both of their canon romantic partners, Jack and Juliet respectively, died on the island.
Death came for a lot of ships on Lost. Claire lost Charlie on the island. Hurley lost Libby. Sun and Jin both died on the island. Not that I’m complaining, because they earned it, but the only couple that got their happily ever after is Desmond and Penny.
What was the deal with the polar bears?
While the polar bears on the island don’t show up in the Lost finale, people still bring it up all the time. The presence of polar bears on a tropical island was one of Lost’s first mysteries, and the persisting narrative is that it was never explained. It most certainly was explained!
The Dharma Initiative, which inhabited part of the island from the 70s to the 90s brought polar bears as test subjects for electromagnetic experiments. When a young Benjamin Linus betrayed the Dharma Initiative with the help of the Others, a mass murder that would become known as The Purge, some of the polar bears escaped their cages and went to live in the jungle.
Was anyone left on the island?
Yes, some people were left on the island! Hurley is in charge, as I said, and former villain Benjamin Linus is his second in command. Rose and Bernard retired there. We learned in a canon “epilogue” titled “The New Man In Charge,” a DVD extra, that Hurley recruited Walt and he returned to the island too. That’s more than enough potential for a spin-off or revival series, right?
“The New Man in Charge” also reveals a Dharma station in Guam whose sole job was to send food to the island—another one of Lost’s unanswered questions. Ben Linus visits the station to shut it down for good, and the employees there ask him some other questions about the Dharma Initiative that happen to be questions Lost fans had been asking for years. For example: we learn that “Room 23” in season 3 was built to torture the hostiles (a.k.a. The Others). We learn even more about the polar bear experiments, and we learn that they were doing experiments on birds, which explains why Hurley once thought he heard a bird say his name.
Wasn’t there an end-credits scene?
The finale did include a psuedo-end-credits scene. When the finale aired on ABC, the credits rolled over silent footage of the Oceanic 815 crash wreckage. It was meant as a tribute to the crew and the experience of making Lost for six seasons. Unfortunately, that gesture royally backfired. Some viewers interpreted that footage to mean that the passengers died in the crash and were, in fact, dead the whole time. But, it meant nothing and, unfortunately, the false claim that Lost ended with that revelation has been alive and kicking (and annoying me) ever since.
Were there *any* unanswered questions at the end of Lost?
The Lost finale explained plenty, but there were tons of unanswered questions, too! How did Jacob’s cabin move? Who messed with the circle of ash meant to keep the Man in Black out? In season 5, when some of the survivors were skipping through time, who chased them in outrigger canoes? Did Charles Widmore’s mercenaries kill the remaining survivors of Ajira Flight 316? Before they got a submarine, how did the Others leave the island? When and how did Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore leave the island? What was Jacob’s mom’s name?
Hopefully this answered some questions. But there are a lot of questions, big and small, left to theorize about and debate with friends on your umpteenth rewatch. That is the beauty of a show like Lost.
Published: Dec 23, 2024 7:00 PM UTC