After six years, over a hundred episodes, and countless snide remarks about the plot made by people who never even watched the show, Lost has come to an end. To cap the whole series off is an epic, two and a half hour finale that’s sure to be divisive, even among the series’ staunchest fans. How does it all measure up?

Let’s address one of the big points that I’m sure a lot of people have thought at some point: did the creators of Lost have all of this planned from the beginning?  Given how TV series are produced, I’m guessing the answer is ‘probably not,’ but if nothing else, I’d believe that they had the general arc for the last three seasons in mind when they started Season Four.  Heck, I’m even willing to believe that they had some ideas for potential conclusions even earlier.

That all being the case, I personally like the way the series wrapped up.  There are still some questions left, yes, but that was always going to be the case.  The important things are resolved, though, more so than a lot of fans will probably give credit for.

Really, despite how complicated the story for Lost got at some points, the finale wraps the big points up fairly succinctly, when it comes down to it.

• The Man in Black is defeated, preventing his escape into the outside world.
• A replacement for Jacob is found to continue to protect the Island.
• As many castaways as possible finally make their escape.

And really, that’s the main thrust of what had been going on for so long.  At this point, wondering things like, “What exactly do the different numbers mean?” and “What exactly is the Smoke Monster?” and  “Why is Miles’ last name Straume instead of Chang?” isn’t really anything to be concerned with.

One major thing they admittedly don’t answer is: What does the Island do?  And honestly, I’m kind of glad they left that as-is.   We know what we need to know: the Island is a source of some incredible power, one that we have seen people are willing to fight over (from Mother versus the Man in Black, to Jacob and his brother, the DHARMA Initiative, and Charles Widmore).  We also get enough of a sense that, yes, it’s a special place that needs protecting in the name of Good versus Evil.  Trying to exploit it ends badly.  Trying to control it ends badly.  Even Jacob, with his game and his rules, is revealed to be petty and petulant in what he was doing with it, using his power for selfish reasons.

It’s a very simple line from Ben to Hurley, about how maybe Hurley could do things a little differently, that really sets it off.  It leaves a real impression that the Island could finally be the wonderful place it should if someone benevolent and unselfish were in charge, which is something the Island has probably never seen.

So yes, from a narrative standpoint, I feel that the saga of the Island is resolved nicely.  The good guys make sacrifices, the bad guy loses, and the world is probably going to be a slightly better place.

The other core matter at the heart of Lost was (and always was) the characters, their lives, and their respective issues and crises, and the way that the flash-sideways storyline handled all that was beautiful.

Let’s look at Jack as the prime example: he was the Man of Science to Locke’s Man of Faith.  In the end, it was faith that enabled Jack to save the day and rescue his friends.  It was something he died for, and it was something Locke himself had already died for.  But we know that Jack never got a chance to tell Locke that he was sorry, that Locke was right, and that things could have been better between them.

And so there’s this purgatory where they get to reconcile.  Jack literally gets to patch things up between Locke and himself.  This is something that would have probably haunted Jack for the rest of his life, had he survived, and it was something so strong that, even in death, he had to put it aside before moving on.

We get a lot of that in the flash-sideways.  People finally getting to forgive each other.  People who were robbed of the chance to be together getting to be together.  Old wounds and grievances, finally patched up.

And you know what?  These characters deserved that.  Their experiences on the Island made it a sort of figurative “living purgatory” unto itself.   Jacob brought them there because they were flawed people with issues, and they either worked those out in a trial by fire, or they died trying.  In the case of Ben, arguably the biggest sinner of them all, he’s forced to stay in that purgatory, willing to strive for redemption but knowing that it will take time and effort to repent.

That’s why it’s so important that we had to have characters escape the Island, as well.  You have characters like Sawyer and Kate who finally did get over the issues they had in life, and could now move on to live the rest.  You have Richard, who for centuries punished himself, finally deciding that he wanted a life, and who now gets one.  And you have people like Frank, who never wanted anything to do with the Island and who will probably never look back, good riddance.

(Speaking of which, I so totally called Lapidus surviving the submarine bombing so that he could fly everyone to safety on the Ajira plane.  You’re welcome.)

There are a lot of things about the finale, and the series as a whole, that are pretty overt and blatant and even anvilicious (as Kate herself points out, “‘Christian Shephard?’  Really?”).  But the real thematic gems are the more subtle ones, things like the aforementioned simple comment from Ben to Hurley about being able to do things a better way, things like Richard’s self-absolution, things like Jack becoming the literal embodiment of the show’s maxim, “live together, die alone.”

I can see a lot of people being very unsatisfied with the finale.  I can see folks watching it and thinking that the whole show just boils down to some inane spiritual allegory, but I think those people are missing the point on several different levels.  First off, the spiritual closure that the characters get is addressed only by part of the story of the show’s final season; nothing in it negates the very real things that the characters go through in life, or the story of anything that happens on the Island.  Also, saying that the show “didn’t answer anything” indicates more of a fixation on the minor mysteries than the major ones.  A lot goes unsaid and unstated, sure, but it’s all there, and it’s not necessarily hidden, as it relates to the show’s core mythology: the Source is something beyond human understanding, something very precious that needs protection, and now it’s going to get that.

All in all, then, how does it all feel now that it’s done?  How do I rate the series and the finale?

Honestly, I’m very pleased.  I enjoyed the show thoroughly, with my only real complaints being the slow love-triangle bits back in Season Three.  I’ve otherwise really enjoyed all of it, and I never felt like I was just being jerked around.  I was engaged with the story, I was engaged with the characters, and I like how they told the tale they had.

A lot of people are already saying that, now that Lost is over, it’s just going to be another irrelevant TV show that aired at some point.  I could not disagree more.  Whether you watched it or didn’t, whether you loved it or hated it, you can’t deny that Lost was a landmark series that did things no other TV series did before, that had a major impact on television even before its run was finished, that was a cultural phenomenon.  People will be talking about this show for years: fans, critics, writers and more.

I said at one point that I thought the show would end with Lapidus and Miles making a daring and awesome helicopter escape.  I just had the mode of transportation wrong.