You Losties out there have been a very loyal and patient bunch. For the past six years, you have stuck with the show through thick and thin, through numerous red herring plots and insufferable bonus characters. You have done this in the hope that, once you reach the end of the show, you will finally get the emotional and informational payoff the show has so cruelly teased you with lo these many years. What is the island and why are they there? That’s really all you want to know. And oh, do you desperately want to know! You’ve spent years theorizing in hopes that whatever the writers come up with will BLOW YOUR SKULL.
Well, that’s tough cookie for you. Because you are about to get hosed. Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof gave a video interview to The Hollywood Reporter yesterday, and he all but assured the "Lost" finale will act as a present you never get to open.
"Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof tells THR the crew built new sets for the final moments of the ABC hit drama and that fans should expect to ask themselves, "What did they mean by this?" after the show ends.
Oh, no no no. That’s not good. You see, Losties have been asking, “What did they mean by this?” for six years now. Their hope was that YOU, Mr. Lindelof, would finally provide some clarity.
As for the nagging question of whether fans be satisfied by the ending, Lindelof said the finale will not employ a "Sopranos"-style fake-out, but he emphasized that viewers will definitely be left with questions.
"'The Sopranos' ending only worked on 'The Sopranos,' " Lindelof said. "The series finale has to fit the show. We're trying to end lost in a way that feels 'Lost'-ian and fair and will generate a tremendous amount of theorizing. We're going to be as definitive as we can be and say this is our ending, but there's no way to end the show where the fans aren't going to say, 'What did they mean by this?' Which is why we're not going to explain it."
I suddenly see a barrage of very angry yuppies converging upon the Lindelof home, holding their iPads which are displaying a video app of a lit torch.
Here’s the thing. I was a big fan of “The Sopranos,” and I’m a big fan of “Mad Men,” but both of those shows, to an extent, have gleefully used vagueness as a creative crutch. It may seem extremely arty and meaningful to end your show with an inexplicable smash cut to black, or hold on a two-minute shot of someone driving away, but the truth is that tricks like that make it feel like the writer was too careless to think out a truly satisfying resolution. The whole, “Here, YOU figure it out” formula is cool when there’s a definitive conclusion the audience can come to. You draw three quarters of the circle and the audience fills the rest in. That’s great TV. But drawing only a quarter circle and then throwing away the box of pens? That’s annoying. That’s the kind of thing that makes people want to slam your head in a file cabinet.
Take a look at the comments in the THR link and see if you think Losties are pleased with this development. The “Lost” finale airs next month. Let’s hope the backlash doesn’t sting too badly.
