So it’s two in the morning and I have to get up in five hours to take my daughter to school, but I can’t sleep because Lost has crawled inside my head and refuses to leave.
Regardless of what I thought about the show, the finale was everything I wanted it to be, because it had the two things I always look for: 1) no reset button, 2) and it answered the question of what happens next.
“What happens next” is the more important of the two, and the question that, as a storyteller, always fascinates me and refuses to let go. At the end of every major movie, I find myself asking: “But what could they possibly do now?”
For some, it’s an easily answered question. Sam Witwicky will inevitably find himself embroiled in another giant robot fight, and Jack Bauer will go without sleep, not that interesting. But what if, if we can ask so daring a question, what if Sam Witwicky doesn’t get embroiled in another intergalactic robot war? What the hell does he do now? What could life possibly offer him that could equal or exceed the thrill of Transformers 1 or 2? Not much I would think.
Certainly not the first, but one of the more consuming times this question has denied me rest, was the finale of the latest iteration of Battlestar Galactica. Apollo, son of the admiral, and to some extent, a hero of the fleet, has just saved his people from extinction, finally gotten them off the space coffins they would have inevitably died upon, and brought them down to live the rest of their lives on a verdant planet. Once there, Apollo’s Dad ups and leaves to hang out with his rapidly expiring girlfriend, Apollo’s own on-again-off-again girlfriend ups and dissappears (angels tend to do that I guess,) and the survivors disperse to the far corners of the world, leaving Apollo atop a gentle grassy knoll, a cool breeze rustling his full head of ridiculous looking politician’s hair, and tears in his eyes as he realizes he is alone.
What the hey-o does he do next? What happens to him? What shape does his life take?
I didn’t get to sleep until three that night.
Now Lost on the other hand, much like the final chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, addressed this most consuming of questions.
Stuff happened, and they moved on. To me, the scene that sold the entirety of the Harry Potter story, is in the very last chapter. There stands Harry, on platform whatever-and-a-fraction, dropping his kid off for school, and not 50 away Draco Malfoy is doing the exact same thing. Years ago, both had been enemies, mortal enemies some might say. They took very different stances on a very big issue, and most likely would not have been sad to see the other one go the way of the dodo bird. But now, they’ve grown up, moved on, and bygones are bygones, because what else can you do?
What Lost offered me was a story where stuff happened, both good and bad. No one got the fairy tale ending, but they all managed fine without it. And that’s what makes it perfect.
The reveal as to the nature of the side-verse was pitch-perfect to me as a storyteller and a viewer. It was the third act complement to the flash-backs, and flash forwards. It offered a sandbox for the characters to attain the closure that was completely denied them in the Lost-verse.
But the most important thing about it was how the characters reached closure. They were true to themselves, right down to the end. Some characters needed more help than others, some resisted the realization, and some couldn’t accept it, but it made sense for the show, and for the story, and by god, did it end up being a story worth the telling.
A good ending is always bittersweet, Lost rankles with the best of them.