The Imploded Brain tackles the Lost finale

I have been a rabid fan of the show "Lost" for the past six years, so like the rest of the world (minus the naysayers), I watched on Sunday as my greatest television love was extinguished in a puff of smoke monster.

The finale was the cause of so much confusion, argument, and Facebook de-friending that I couldn't help but try to put my own thoughts and theories into words in the hopes that I can make some sense of things, even if only for my own scattered noggin.

First and foremost, let me say that I was absolutely pleased with the ending of this epic. Were all of my questions answered? Of course not. But I'm at peace with that, because I was sort of expecting it - there was no way the writers could have tied up every loose end this season, so I was ready to let some stuff go. And isn't it better sometimes NOT to know?? It means we can still have vaulted discussions on the matter, it can still be a fun thing to dicker over at the water cooler, and sometimes when mysteries are over-explained, they lose what made them special in the first place.

Also, how could I dare argue with what ended up being one of the more emotionally satisfying conclusions in (my) television-watching history? So I didn't get all of the sci-fi mumbo-jumbo nerd answers I was seeking - I got the joy of seeing these characters who I've grown to love find peace amidst their own conclusions. And that's what was always at the heart of "Lost" - it wasn't smoke monsters and hatches, it was the emotional journey of these flawed, yearning, lovable survivors. The term "Lost" doesn't apply so much to their physical state of being as it did to their spiritual and emotional one. And yes, cheesy as it is to say, by the end of the finale, they did indeed seem to be..."found."

Ultimately, those are my thoughts on the subject. But I know there are those of you out there who are ready to throw your coffee in my sappy "love-is-the-answer" face, so I'll also try my hand at answering some of the "unanswered" questions the show left behind...because I believe enough clues were sprinkled throughout the show to at least make a passing guess at some of the answers.

1) WHAT WERE THE NUMBERS? Well, we know that they were numbers assigned to each of Jacob's candidates - Sayid, Jack, Locke, Sawyer, Hurley, and Sun/Jin. I think that Jacob assigned those numbers to the candidates via his lighthouse "readings" (or coordinates, if that's a better term). And because those numbers were specific to his chosen candidates, the sequence had enough significance to permeate the island, showing up on the hatch, etc - the numbers are representative of the candidates, and hence, Jacob. I would therefore argue that Jacob himself was represented by 108.

2) YEAH, BUT WHAT ABOUT HURLEY'S LOTTO NUMBERS? We already know that he got them from a friend in the nut-house, who in turn picked them up when he was stationed somewhere near Australia...presumably from the island's broadcast itself (if I'm remembering correctly, the numbers were what was being sent out by the radio towers before Danielle replaced them with her own distress signal). As far as the sequence actually winning the lottery...well, obviously there's a bit of magic and mysticism involved in this show, and we're led to believe Jacob has a lot of mysterious power in the world - surely he was able to rig those little numbered ping pong balls.

3) WHAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ISLAND? We were told time and again that the island was the source of life as well as the guardian against evil for the world at large...this is one of the more hippie-dippy pieces of the show's mythology, but if we take it at face value, then the island needed to stay intact for the world to survive. I rather like EW's Jeff Jensen's theory on the matter, in regards to how the smoke monster's escape would engender the destruction of humanity itself: read it here.

4) BUT IF THE ISLAND WAS SO GREAT, WHY DID IT BRING EVERYONE SO MUCH PAIN AND MISERY? How can I put this gently...that's life, kid. Life's pretty grand, but it's also one m.f.'ing bitch when it wants to be.

5) WHY COULDN'T WOMEN GIVE BIRTH ON THE ISLAND? We know that this problem wasn't always around - after all, we saw Ethan safely brought into the world back in the '70s. I don't have a firm answer for this one, but as the Incident happened not long after the last known successful island birth, I've gotta believe that had something to do with it. Maybe the excess electromagnetic energy erodes our baby-making equipment - not enough to prevent pregnancy, but just enough to prevent it from succeeding.

6) WAIT, DIDN'T ROUSSEAU GIVE BIRTH TO ALEX AFTER THE INCIDENT? Yes, many years after. As did Claire to Aaron. But both babies who were conceived OFF island - and that made all the difference, don't you agree? Both women reached the island near the end of their pregnancies.

7) WHY WEREN'T MICHAEL AND WALT IN THE CHURCH? We were given a definitive answer about Michael earlier this season - he's stuck on the island, repenting for what he did - betraying his friends and killing Ana Lucia and Libby. I personally think it's less of the island keeping him jailed and more that he still can't forgive himself - and therefore move on. Much like Ben, but to a lesser degree, since Ben at least made it as far as the limbo that was the Sideways World. As far as Walt goes, no, I don't think it's simply a matter of the kid got too tall. Christian said that the castaways were all together in this place that they had made because their time together on the island represented the most important years of their lives. Walt was only on the island for about 2 months, and spent part of that time with the Others, away from the castaways. He returned to the "real" world, still a kid, and spent the majority of his life and formulative years AWAY from the island and the castaways. How important to YOU are the adults who surrounded you for a month when you were 13?

8) WHY WERE CHILDREN SO IMPORTANT TO THE OTHERS? They couldn't have babies. So they took them from other people on the island instead. Also, the Others, like Mother and the Man in Black (and perhaps, in part, Jacob) believe that humanity in general is corrupt, especially those coming from off the island, and therefore the children still had a chance to be raised in the "right" way.

9) WHO BUILT THE GIANT STATUE? WHAT ABOUT THE DONKEY WHEEL, OR THE DRAIN TO HELL? You've got me there. Statue, I'm assuming an earlier race of people that were brought to and lived on the island - Egyptians, of course, as the god depicted is Egyptian. How they did it, I have no idea - but I don't know how they built the pyramids or the Sphinx, either - they're pretty impressive, wouldn't you say? The donkey wheel must have been built by someone who came after the Man in Black died (and before Dharma arrived). We'll assume that Smokey (in the guise of someone dead that they knew) taught that person how to build it, but found he was unable for whatever reason to use it himself. And the drain to hell? That one must go way, WAY back. No clue.

10) WHY DIDN'T THE SMOKE MONSTER KILL EVERYBODY, INSTEAD OF ONLY SOME? Knowing now who he is, and that he had an ultimate plan, clearly it was in his best interest to keep some important players alive. And he couldn't kill Jacob's candidates anyway.

11) WHAT WAS THE CABIN, AND WAS JACOB EVER THERE? I assume it was a holding cell of sorts for the Man in Black/Smokey - I don't think Jacob ever lived there. Didn't really look like his sort of digs anyway, did it? And because we saw Christian Shepard there, and know the monster took his guise in the past, we'll assume that he was familiar with the cabin and perhaps lived there for a time. I think the ring of ash was put there by Dogon in an attempt to cage the Man in Black, not to protect someone inside from him. And I don't think it worked. We saw that the ring had been broken at some point after he whispered, "help me." By whom, we don't know. I'll have to go back and watch the series to see if the smoke monster shows up in any of the episodes between when we first see the cabin to when we see the ash ring broken - maybe he was indeed imprisoned for a few episodes, but obviously it didn't last. And he certainly wasn't imprisoned when the plane first crashed.

12) WHO WERE THE OTHERS? As we've seen, people occasionally come or are brought to the island. Usually they go to war with the Others, the group of people who are already in place on the island. By the end of this war, most of the new group are gone, and those who are left seem to migrate into the Others camp, just in time to join them in fighting the next group of newbies who crash into their home. We saw Cindy, Zack & Emma, Ben, Ethan, and Alex all become members of the Others. For a time, even our castaways were Others, to those who came from the freighter. As far as the "original" Others go, who knows...the first people to crash onto the island a millennium ago became the Others to whoever came next.

13) WHAT WAS THE SICKNESS? Danielle's team had it. Claire had it. Sayid had it. It happened whenever someone died but was brought back to life by Smokey - part of his corrupt essence stayed inside of them and slowly rotted who they were, turning them into Smoke Zombies. Sayid was able to resist it in the end - but I think that was an enormous act of will and only doable because he hadn't been under his influence for very long. Claire was fighting it, but I'm guessing she only truly came back to her senses when the island cracked open and Smokey lost his supernatural powers.

14) WHY DID CLAIRE LEAVE AARON BEHIND AND WANDER OFF INTO THE JUNGLE? As Claire had the sickness, I'm guessing she caught it when Keamy & crew attacked Dharma/Otherville. Sawyer found her lying bloodied in her back yard, behind her annihilated house. I always believed Claire died that day in the explosion, and I now believe I was right - only she didn't stay dead. Smokey brought her back to life, and in doing so, imbued her with his darkness, which gradually took control over her until one night it told her to leave Aaron and walk away with her father - also, as we know, the Man in Black.

OK, I'm going to stop for now. I feel like I've written a novel, or at least a decent-sized short story. Feel free to comment, argue, or pose further questions - I know there are a zillion more. I'm willing to take my shot at pretty much any of them - except for who Penny's mom was. Because my answer is, I don't give a sh*t. Peace.