S6E17 LOCKE, TV STOCK & BARREL

Maybe the hype was too great; maybe the expectations were set too high; maybe the filler became more important than the actual angel food cake. There are many merely "satisfied" viewers, but underwhelmed to confused by the actual story construction. How one looked at the story as it unfolded created a bias on the reaction at the end. The angry fan thinks it was a long con by the producers to deny the fact in Season 1 that the show was about purgatory. Some in the middle just don't like that the time and resources to try to figure out the island's mythical quantum physics properties was nothing more than an illusion. In the end, it was a typical, stock television ending: happy trails to the cast, an emotional roller coaster for a few, and a big rug to sweep points under cover. As one reviewer said, "It could have been worse."

A quick review of the major points are in order.

Big premise of the show was clearly answered: it was all about DEATH.

Did Flight 815 actually crash in S1E1? Most now believe it did, resulting in all island events occuring in DEATH. (I believe the cast was dead before 815 crash; that the flight crash was a symbolic device to get lost souls to purgatory).

Where were the "survivors?" DEAD. Purgatory is a purification process. Each person on the island had to interact with other lost souls in order to move on to the next level. But there were two different levels or worlds: the island and the sideways. And there lies the confusion: how can you have two purgatories. The concept of the split soul was part of ancient Egyptian religion (the "ba" and the "ka"). The writers failed to adequately explain their viewpoint on the mechanism of their after life sojourn.

The ending was underwhelming even though my basic theories were nearly spot on. It was underwhelming because the writer's craft was missing in tying the various key elements together into one coherent thought process. TPTB kept the details vague (because they did not know how to explain everything without ticking off more viewers).

If one thought the island world was real, then finding out it was not was hard. Especially, when you see the conclusion of the sideways world as souls in the after life waiting to be "awakened" by the island "experiences" in order to move on to eternity.

Last week, I thought there were 7 possible story constructions to the show. See, Time Lines, May 19, 2010. There was one scenario that was a wild card:

Flashbacks were real
Island events were fake
Sideways events were fake.

Better terms would describe the ending:

Flashbacks were the REAL lives of the characters, the memories of the souls who had died with unresolved issues, that needed to have a means of resolution and redemption in order to be enlightened or saved.

Island events/time line were AFTER LIFE events constructed upon the memories, fantasy, nightmares and fears of the characters (which I theorize would have been Hurley and Ben).

Sideways events/time line (which chronologically were 3 years behind the island; but time does not matter according to Christian) were AFTER LIFE events constructed while the characters were waiting for their souls to re-merge after resolving their life issues.