The Good: What started with an eye opening pilot (in every sense of the word) ended with an eye closing — and our favorite story-telling device “the bookend” — as Jack died a heroic death, successfully defeating Ol’Smokey, single-handidly saving humanity from an uncorked island of evil, and in doing so, allowing for Sawyer, Kate, Claire, Miles, Richard and Frank to escape in one piece. Add to that a fitting end (or beginning if you will) for Hurley (aka. the “New Jacob”) who was left as the island’s protector (with a redemptive Ben Linus as his number two), a much-anticipated homage to The Lion King confrontation between Jack and Locke who finally took the gloves off in a fight to the death on the edge of a cliff (Cue Hans Zimmer score in 3… 2… 1…), a stop-over with a happy Rose, Bernard and Vincent doing their best impersonation of The Swiss Family Robinson, and a flurry of flashbacks/character reunions (Sawyer and Juliet FTW!) that highlighted some of the show’s most memorable moments, and fans were left with a super-sized love letter to those of us who had invested six years of our life into this unforgettable odyssey.
The Bad: Assuming of course you’ve been paying attention to what showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have been saying these past few seasons — that the show is about character, not story — there is very little to nitpick with regards to the finale. But since nitpicking is kind of what we do here, we’ll just say the following: First and foremost, Jack’s initial slow motion attack at Locke on the cliff was more befitting a John Woo flick and oddly out of place in the world of LOST. And more importantly, we for one are were a little disappointed that the ending involved — as fans have theorized from day one — a form of purgatory (or pre-heaven). With the flash-sideways universe being revealed as little more than a holding place for our favorite characters to get their own bizarro version of a happily-ever-after.
The Ugly: The fact that being stuck on the West Coast this weekend, we had no choice but to watch the entire four and a half hour event (two-hour clip fest + finale) completely 100% DVR/PVR free! And try as they might, not even the brilliant LOST-inspired Target ads could remedy commercial after commercial, after commercial. 