Open your eyes. Here we are.

Like you, I imagine, I’ve been ruminating on this episode for days now. I’ve been wondering how to cover what we’ve been given here. With so many people writing about the episode, what is there left to say? That I have come to bury Lost, not to praise it?

The truth is, I’m not interested in arguing with the Internet about whether the finale did what it was supposed to. I’m not sure the writers entered into a contract with us viewers whenever they raised a question on the show. I am sure that many of the show’s questions can be answered by applying information that we have available to us, mixing in a bit of our own imagination, and tempering the resulting theories against the themes and tropes of the show.

Want to know where that air-dropped cargo came from, full of Dharma Initiative foodstuffs, back when? Maybe it’s the result of passing over the Island without the proper heading—it was flown in and dropped in the 1970s or 1980s and landed in the early 2000s because of the Island’s time-bending properties. Maybe that time-bend was specifically the work of Jacob, trying to help out the castaways, and maybe it was just chance. We may never know for sure, and that’s fair play.

I don’t personally subscribe to the notion that an ending must tie off everything in order to classify as a proper ending. The show didn’t need a singular message to be effective. It didn’t have to come here to tell us exactly one thing. It’s hundreds of hours of storytelling; it’s allowed to meander and sprawl. It’s told over many years, with a huge cast and crew; it’s allowed to reach out and explore. It’s subject to the interruptions of a sometimes uncooperative reality, where actors grow up and fans rebel against new characters; it’s allowed a few missteps and unfulfilled promises. Given the many factors, both practical and philosophical, which Lost chose to put into play, I choose to admire its ambition.

I think it’s good to ask questions, even if you don’t have the answers. I think it’s good to get an audience wondering. I think it’s good to provoke imaginations.

You’ve all seen the College Humor list of questions by now, yes?

That said, the finale is what it is. What happened, happened. If your take on it is more negative than mine, that’s valid. As you’ll see below, I have some practical issues with the finale, myself. So it goes.

If you want a recap, this isn’t it. You’ll find a great recap at Lostpedia, of course. Also, if you want to see what is apparently a take on the episode from someone behind the scenes at Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams’ production company, I’ve reblogged that piece that’s going around, over on my tumblelog.

This, instead, is my stream-of-conscious reflection on what happened, and how, and what it means. On with it, then.

Spoilers believe in you, dude.

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We’re coming up on it, now. This is the last one-hour episode of the series, as you well know, and I can’t guess what two and a half hours of finale will look like come Sunday. We’ll find out together, I hope.

In the meantime, read the episode recap over at Lostpedia — which confirms what I suspected, that Michael Emerson really did have a black eye — and read on here for what may be the last book-club-style entry for the series. Because who knows what the last episode will inspire us to say or write.

Update: Meanwhile, Chuck Wendig asked me how I would end Lost, and I’ve sort of answered him.

Spoilers didn’t pluck any of you out of a happy existence.

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Truth be told, I’ve never really thought of these things as recaps or reviews. While I tend to address the episodes according to their internal order, that’s just because I give myself 44 minutes to write these things every week, while the episode is playing back over lunch. But you saw the episode, you don’t need me to recite it for you. And this week, I’m more interested in asking questions and hearing your answers, than in hovering my finger over things that I thought were telling details.

For a proper recap, you’d do well to visit the episode’s entry at Lostpedia. For a sort of backhanded review of the episode, you could check out io9’s review. For my wannabe-book-club take on things, read on.

Spoilers were born on the Island.

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The following is a post from back when “The Economist” was a current episode of Lost. So, yeah, it’s old now. I post it here, now, to show how wrong I’ve been in Lost predictions, and to remind us all how much our knowledge and speculations have changed over the years we’ve been watching.

Spoilers hereafter.

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This episode is a gut punch, to be sure, but I can’t say more than that above the spoiler tag. Check out the Lostpedia entry for this episode, but beware spoilers there, too. What else can I say without edging toward something that’ll ruin the episode for you?

Spoilers had this planned all along.

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Apparently, back when Vampire developer Russell Bailey’s writing career felt new to him, I told him to “Be Fucking Mamet.” That meant something different to me back then than it would mean now, but I don’t doubt that I said it. I said a lot of things. Rusty’s quoting that line in his post, today, about how crime novelists don’t get women, and it’s a good one — very Russell Bailey. (The post is notable, too, because of what it says, and doesn’t say, about the canceled EVE RPG.)

Rusty’s absolutely right that Vampire must be, on some level, crime fiction. And, of course, that can mean a lot of things. Earlier today, Chuck Wendig was saying that The Wire is a model Vampire: The Requiem chronicle (or set of chronicles), and he’s right, too. I used to tell people that The Shield was an archetypal Vampire game, what with its layers of loyalties, its constant lies, and its underlying involvement in the illicit trade of something illegal — in The Shield it was often drugs or prostitution, in Vampire it was the Blood.

So, yeah, as much as Requiem is gothic — and that’s a theme easily circumvented by the individual Storyteller — it’s definitely crime-fiction-style storytelling. It’s a game about monsters that commit crimes to survive. Their very existence defies one of the only strict laws of living: Thou Shalt Die.

Anyway.

Rusty’s post also reminds me: The naming of the clan books may be the best work I did at White Wolf. It’s something I remember being proud of, at any rate, for whatever pride is worth.

This episode felt like a lot of positioning, moving the pieces around so they’d be in place for the final stretch. It felt like a lot of middle to me. In both timelines, things inch forward, but the episode didn’t quite feel like it had a beginning, middle, and end in either timeline. Maybe that’s just me.

As always, I recommend checking out the Lostpedia entry for the episode, too. Tap the power of the wiki. And you’ve seen the articles in the new Wired, right?

And, as always, rethink reading ahead if you haven’t seen the episode.

Spoilers are with you now.

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Don’t call it a recap. (I’ve been here for years.) If a recap is what you want, you won’t find better than the one at Lostpedia. I prefer to think of these as… I don’t know. A review? A book club? Whatever.

Fast-paced episode, this week. Took forever to finish this review because scenes went by faster than I could write about them, so pardon my lateness. I had to rewind and restart the ep a few times. Anyway, on with it.

Spoilers trained their whole lives to protect you.

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I thought this might be an easy episode to write up. It wasn’t. I try to type up whatever I can while the episode is running, but there was too much too fast for me to keep up with. As a result, this write up is choppy and sort of incomplete. But that’s what the comments section is for — let’s cut into this thing and eat it up. And, as always, be sure to check out the episode’s analysis at Lostpedia, too.

Spoilers just want to show you something.

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This week was swallowed by real work, so I don’t have much to say about this week’s Lost, except that I found it a strong episode with a nice twisty story, tied well into the ongoing goings on without being a knot. As always, check Lostpedia for numerology (Room 23, Room 842, etc.) and other such details.

Well, I’ve got a little bit more to say than that…

Spoilers should’ve declared their cash at customs.

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