Things People Still Get Wrong About The Ending Of Lost

Over the course of its six seasons, Lost presents a sci-fi mystery bathed in hidden spiritualism. In the long run, however, it is rooted most firmly in its characters. The series begins with a group of strangers onboard Oceanic Flight 815, who crash-land onto a mysterious island. Shortly after their arrival, strange things begin to happen. While Lost tells the larger story of the survivors trapped on the island, each episode also peers into the backstory of one specific character. In this way, from the very beginning, the show makes it clear that its characters are the true focus of the show.

Seems simple, right? Wrong. Lost's finale left a lot of people confused. See, the show's six seasons bring the audience back in time, forward in time, and even into a parallel dimension. Then there are the mysterious entitles thrown into the mix, including the Dharma Initiative, the lottery numbers, outside instigators, and a set of rules we never actually learn. Unbelievable science, mysterious immortal beings, and even a bit of magic are all present here. Unsurprisingly, this leads to questions — not all of which are answered. But a whole lot of them are, even if fans don't realize it. Here are a few of the biggest things people still get wrong about Lost's finale.

So if the island isn't purgatory and the survivors aren't dead, what is going on? Well, that's like asking what happens on the whole show — which is to say, a lot. Two groups of survivors land on the island: Our main characters, plus a group of "Tailies." They both encounter another group known as the Others, who came to the island as part of the Dharma Initiative, or are the descendants of those who did. Conflict between these groups emerges, and the characters experience acts of actual magic: Time travel is possible, injuries are healed, and the dead are able to speak.

How is this happening? Essentially, the island is a location on Earth with extreme electromagnetic properties. Scientists had been traveling to it for years. In the 1970s, the Dharma Initiative settled there and built stations, all with a different purpose. But the island's power goes back even further, to ancient eras and beyond. Sixth season episode "Across the Sea" explains that the island is the heart of the world, and that it acts as a cork keeping destructive forces at bay. It contains the powers of life, but also death — and that kind of power attracts a whole lot of interest from humanity.

The end of season five suggests that the nuclear blast somehow creates an alternate dimension in which Oceanic Flight 815 lands safely, and that the survivors are blasted into it. Some characters return to being their pre-crash selves in these sideways-flashes, while some have completely different lives. Each character, however, goes through a kind of "awakening" with the help of the other characters. One by one, they become aware of their surroundings, their true selves, and their purpose. But the flash-sideways moments of season six aren't actually happening in their "real lives."  

Season six's sideways-flashes are, in fact, the afterlife. Here's where the "they were dead the whole time" thing gets confusing. No, the characters on Lost aren't actually dead the whole time, but they are dead in the flash-sideways scenes of season six. This confounds people, especially those fans in 2010 who went into the finale believing the characters to be alive, only to learn that sometimes, in certain scenes, they're actually dead.

As The Dallas News wrote, "This is, apparently, where a lot of people just stopped paying attention. Their brains settled into the thought of, 'Oh, they were all dead the whole time' and just stopped processing any information. Maybe they turned off their TVs in disgust. But that's not where the show, or even the scene, ends." So what gives?

By the time the finale of Lost aired, a big piece of criticism surrounding the show was that creator J.J. Abrams and showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse started a show full of mysteries and science fiction they had no idea how to develop. This accusation is a bit harsh, if a bit true — but only because, like any successful network show, Lost became subject to ABC's desire to keep it on the air for as long as possible. But dragging out mystery after mystery and creating twists and turns for the sake of keeping an audience engaged eventually tires out that very audience. Lindelof and Cuse knew that, which is why they essentially had to fight for the right to end the show. 

As Cuse told The Independent, "There was this weird paradox — people were criticizing us for making it up as we went along, but at the same time they also wanted to influence the course of the show. I think with any creative endeavor, anyone is lying to you if they say they had it all figured out up front."

Lost hit a lot of snags during its six year run: There was a writers' strike in Hollywood, Lindelof and Cuse almost quit, and the show really was only supposed to last three seasons.  How did this pile-up happen, and how, fans still wonder, did it affect the show exactly?

As Lindelof told Collider, "Conversations about wanting the show to end began as early as the pilot." But ABC had a hit on their hands, and who would want to end a show that was doing so well?

"It was a battle for two years to get ABC to allow them to end Lost," Lindelof told Vox. "We went all the way down the road of letting our contracts expire. We had a succession plan in place." Midway through the third season, ABC finally came to their senses and started thinking about the lead-up to the end. But they still wanted more from Lost. "Their opening salvo," Lindelof recalled, "midway through season three, was, 'We're going to let you end the show' — huge relief — 'after 10 years.' We're like, 'No. We want to end it after the fourth season.' They were like, 'Nine years.' We were like, 'Five years?' They were like, 'Eight years!' So six years was a huge victory for us."

As Cuse told The Independent, "The driving forces behind us really pushing to get an end date for the show were two problems we had: One — we didn't know how long the mythology had to last, and secondly, we were running out of flashbacks for the characters ... we felt it was time to end the show."

There was no way that the Lost finale was ever going to be able to wrap up all of the questions and mysteries the show presents over the course of its run. Lindelof and Cuse had, in fact, resigned themselves to this fact. "Early on, we arrived at the fact that trying to answer all the unanswered questions was a recipe for disaster. It was didactic and uninteresting and actually, not true to life," Cuse said.

Lindelof was even more blunt about it. "I am unapologetic about the fact I'm fascinated by ambiguity and questions that will never be answered, because that's what life is. I'm just really interested in those stories and I understand that there is an experience of frustration and dissatisfaction. But I also think that there is nobility in the exploration and the journey of these ideas."

This is a solid position to occupy. But these remarks don't mean that the finale didn't answer any of the show's biggest mysteries.

Probably the biggest mystery Lost leaves unanswered is what exactly Walt has to do with everything. He's presented as gifted, mystical, and super important — but then he just kind of leaves the show, only popping up every once in a while. That problem has been kind of answered outside of the show, and the answer is pretty simple: The actor himself, Malcolm David Kelley, was just growing too fast for the series to keep up. Still, Michael and Walt might have been one of Lost's most unfortunate story drops.

What about the Jughead bomb? A giant bomb is set off on the island, and not only is nothing really damaged, its never really talked about again. Most likely, this can be chalked up to the show's desire to maintain the mystery of season six's sideways realm. Is that annoying? Sure. But there are plenty of other unsolved mysteries out there. What's the sickness that takes out Rousseau's crew? Where do Jacob and the Man in Black's adoptive mother come from? What are the rules Ben goes on and on about? Who fires from the outrigger?  Why does a bird say Hurley's name? You have to pick and choose your battles when it comes to Lost's mysteries — getting hung up on any one or two of them is a fool's errand.