This is just a very quick reaction post; I'll need to watch it again before I can really give my full opinion, and I'll edit this post as a I go.
I would have liked some more mythology in there, but it was all about character at the end, as promised. 2004X was purgatory of a sort; everyone needed to work through their issues and find each other to move on to the next life, together: Jack and Kate, Juliet and Sawyer, Claire and Charlie, Penny and Desmond, even Sayid and Shannon. Ben is not quite ready to go yet; he's aware, but he still has some issues to work out.
Jack sacrificed himself to save the light, allowing Frank, the now-mortal Richard, Miles, Kate, Sawyer, and Claire to leave the Island. Jack saved Desmond, installed Hurley as the new Island Protector, and Ben became his adviser. Ben urged him to run things differently, and allow people to leave the Island. Presumably Desmond was the big beneficiary of this policy.
Jack made his way back to the bamboo field and closed his eye and died a hero, just as he opened it in "Pilot". He had finally achieved his goal as a shepherd, getting flock off the Island. The tennis shoe was rotted, showing us how long it's been. We don't know how the lives of those that left played out, nor how Hurley and Ben's time as Island guardians went.
But everything was real, and Jack really died. But everyone gets a happy ending, as they all have come together to move on to the next stage--heaven, presumably, together.
Again, it's not my story, so talking about my expectations and hopes is self-centered. I'd hoped for a little more ambiguity. But confirmation that everything that happened, really happened. Awesome. The knowledge that the Island continues on? Comforting. Bittersweet? Check, although I am bummed that Jack didn't get to serve a longer run as Island Protector.
People are sure to say that they were lying about it not being purgatory. I disagree. The Island was real. The work they did there, the character growth they achieved--that was real. And in the end, as Rose told Juliet, Sawyer, and Kate in "The Incident", being together is all that really matters. Now they're together.
Of course there are still questions. Is 2004X a type of purgatory that everyone goes to? Or did someone like Hurley create it so that everyone could be reunited?
If I'm rambling here, it's because my thoughts are all over the map. Perhaps the Island story was underwhelming, but the emotion of the 2004X reunions and the final scene is undeniable. I'll see you in another life, brother.
Or, to sum it up in Twitter length: Short on mythology, but long on emotion. Bittersweet and open to interpretation, clarified by repeat viewing. Yeah, sounds about right.
People will complain about the mythological threads left dangling, but as I pointed out in the pre-post, most of the key mythological questions were already addressed (note I said addressed rather than answered, because no matter what there will always be another question to ask). What was left was a wrapup for these characters. They got it, in the next life--which is a theme that Nadia and Desmond have been hammering into our heads for as long as the show has aired. It also told us this with the clip from "Little House on the Prairie" in "Recon": "Hey, you heard that? Now that's what life's all about. Laughin' and lovin' each other. And knowin' that people aren't really gone when they die. We have all the good memories to sustain us until we see 'em again."
My regret is that I didn't figure out what was up until Christian and Jack talked; I should have seen it when Kate said "I have missed you so much". WEWS in Cleveland is going to be on my crap list for a long time to come.
As I sit here pondering it some more, what Kate said to Jack is haunting me. It's just so damn sad, yet poignant at the same time.
Comments added intermittently the day after, drawing upon the commentary of others (obviously there is plenty of ambiguity to be found; the declarative statements that follow are obviously my take, not a claim of absolute truth):
* Hurley has always been the voice of the audience, and so him becoming Protector was the show's way of passing the torch to the fans. The story of the Island is one that stretches across time, with no clear beginning or end. Handing the reins to Hurley was a way of saying "This is your story, this is your Island now."
* Why was the Island underwater in 2004X? Because the Island only matters in our real world, it doesn't affect the afterlife.
* Neither MiB, Desmond, or Jack was correct about what would happen if the light was turned off. The light turning off started the process of sinking the Island, but it also took away the Monster's great powers. Could MiB have even achieved his off-Island objectives anymore?
* A lot of people think that having a sort of purgatory is a cop-out, a way of circumventing the fact that people figured out that the Island was purgatory during the first season. Possible, but I disagree--there's a big difference between "the Island is purgatory" and "everything that happened on the Island was real, and then they moved on to purgatory". The former makes the whole series more spiritual, but removes any real-world stakes. The latter is a way to provide closure to characters we loved for six years, and for the producers to make a statement about the most important aspects of life.
* It is predictable but still annoying to see people who didn't like the show and didn't watch it weighing in. Many of them seem to have gotten "they died in the plane crash" as the takeaway. Others who didn't watch the show don't understand how emotionally moving it was. In order to get that, you couldn't just watch a few episodes--you had to be invested in the Lostaways and their fates.
Of course there are many loyal fans who have complaints, and that's to be expected. I'm interested in hearing their perspective. I'm not interested in hearing what people who never like the show to begin with have to say.
