This is random and I’m sorry. Look, I know LOST has been off the air forever and a day. I know that most people have moved on from it. Hell, even I have moved on. But every now and then, no actually all the time, people say something about the ending of LOST that sends my brain through a crushed ice machine. So, for the love of freaking Jacob, please listen to what I’m saying and know that I’m right because it’s in the actual freaking dialogue. (Spoiler alert) THEY WERE NOT DEAD THE WHOLE TIME!
Endings That People Pay For Don’t Discredit The Entire Story
It was a popular theory while the show was still on. But listen, no professional writer these days would write a story with that ending. The problem with endings like “it was all a dream” or “they were dead the whole time and none of it mattered” is that everything you’ve written before that loses all its credibility and it didn’t matter. There’s no way that would’ve survived an undergrad creative writing workshop, let alone a fafillion-dollar industry where people get thousands of thousands against hundreds of thousands of dollars for completed film scripts, and writers rooms that have to answer to show runners and executives.
So, I get that it was the ending everyone wanted, but it would’ve been a stupid ending. Also, everyone that wanted that ending complained about it when it seemingly actually happened anyway. But it didn’t actually happen because THEY WERE NOT DEAD THE WHOLE TIME!
I do not know how people seem to get the idea that they were dead the whole time. I think people didn’t pay attention. Maybe they were too busy live-tweeting the ending, or just clinging to the idea that they had for so long. It’s strange to me that people still to this day think that they were all dead the whole time. And not just people who heard about it, but people who actually watched the show.
Jack’s father explains everything!
Let me say this to you: if you actually watched the show through to the end and you still believe today that they were all dead the whole time, we can’t be friends. This is not a matter of individual interpretation. This is a matter of you literally just not wanting to care enough to pay freaking attention.
Here is the entire series on Blu-Ray on Amazon. Just so you know, I’m a member of the Amazon Associates Program and earn from qualifying purchases with the ad below.
You can also stream the series on Amazon Prime and some other streaming services, at least for now.
Anyway, the thing is, it’s actually in the dialogue that they were not dead the whole time. Jack’s father literally explains this shit to him in one of the lasts scenes in the show. Jack’s father tells Jack that some of them died on the island, some of them died long after. If you watch the last episode and actually pay attention, you’ll see.
Damon Lindelof Explains The Ending of Lost in an Interview
Here’s an interview on The Verge where Damon Lindelof actually explains this to yet another interviewer who didn’t actually pay attention to the ending of LOST. Check around the 11:00 minute mark.
No, Damon Lindelof. It was clear. Yes, there were problems with some of the other mysteries, but not this one. You did good. Everyone else that didn’t pay attention = bad.
A little later, Damon Lindelof also wrote this interesting piece on The Hollywood Reporter about why he’s super done with trying to explain the ending. However, I’m not there yet. Until people stop casually mentioning it to me as a conversation starter, I’m not done.
And to the people who watched this interview and still think they were all dead the whole time: don’t do that. I’m not kidding.
It’s 2020 and I know I need to move on. There are more important things, like the state of our democracy and the potential for our current president to not honor the system if he loses the presidential election, but when people mention the incorrect ending of LOST, I can’t help it. I try my hardest to shut down and go home, but I’m unable ignore the cataclysmic ridiculousness that has manifested itself. It’s extremely hard for me to let this go. I’ll work on it, I guess. Now I’ll have this blog post to point people to which might help keep my head from exploding as often.
And sorry about the “we can’t be friends” thing. We can be friends. I guess. But seriously, start paying attention, at least to the easy stuff. Please, for the love of Jacob, pay attention.
Did you pay attention to the ending of LOST? Do you still believe they were dead the whole time? You’re wrong, but you can leave me a comment at the bottom of this post anyway!
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