The End Is Not Near, It's Bloody Well Here - Lost Series Finale

I might not have dared to stay up at 5am on Monday morning to watch the series finale of Lost but I certainly watched it last night.

Warning: Spoilers and a review that might not be too critical.

Let's get the elephant out of the room here. What Lost did with this finale was a) totally predictable given the religious overtones of the series and b) covered virtually the same ground that Ashes To Ashes did a few days prior. Ending the show with everyone dead should come across as either completely lazy and bleak and while it is to a degree, it made sense for the show. Jack died on the island and was literally the last person to be rounded up into the church to meet everyone else before passing over and letting go. After six seasons, it was about damn time he did.

In terms of emotional beats, this finale hit far too many, which I think cemented my love for the series. I've always liked Shannon and Sayid's brief relationship and having them reunite was a strong move. The whole two and a half hours of The End having everyone hook up and remember their island lives hit the right moments - Jin/Sun, Claire/Charlie/Kate, Sawyer/Juliet, Locke/Jack, etc and it was certainly better than the island stuff itself. And I bet no-one was surprised when Juliet was revealed as David's mother as well. I was more surprised with how cordial her and Jack were as the seperated parents.

Now the island stuff was something of a sour point for me with this finale. Something as big as protecting light was not something that should've been introduced this late into the series game. Having Jack and Smoke Monster Locke fighting over it for the guts of 90 minutes was a source of tedium. I was enjoying the sideways so much that I really couldn't stick with the island stuff. The island nearly went kaboom but didn't, though Jack and Smokey were effectively dead and Hurley and Ben became protectors of the island. The other big surprise of this finale was how I actually cared about Ben. I don't remember when I stopped actively disliking him.

As for everyone in the church - Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Shannon, Boone, Claire, Hurley, Libby, Locke, Desmond, Rose, Bernard, Penny and Christian. I wonder why we didn't get Michael, Ana-Lucia and Walt. Come to think of it, we didn't see Daniel, Charlotte, Frank, Miles or Richard in the church either and they both on the island and the sideways segments. Plus the actress playing Illana was credited but I don't remember seeing her at all in this one. Still, we got the majority of our main players from the series and while the ending was far from perfect (a lot of stuff wasn't really answered in regards to the science bits), after six years and 121 episodes, Lost certainly ended a lot better than even I thought it would do.