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Live together, die alone…and then some. The rest, all of it in between, has turned out to be one giant game of narrative hot potato.

Six years of one of the most avidly discussed series on television, and now it’s all over. I’ve been with Lost since the very beginning and have been writing about it since the last episode of last season. The ride has been a good one, but getting off I have the vague feeling of wanting to vomit.

Where to start with the finale? I wish I could report that there was nothing but answers regarding the island, or that the ending was intellectually satisfying or that this 2.5 hour wrap-up not only vindicated the last season, but the show as a whole.

I’d be lying if I said any of that, because on one level we got very few answers at all, with only one significantly being answered–the identity of the ‘sideways world’. Many of my predictions were absolutely right on, with Desmond being a weapon, the final scene involving Jack laying prostrate in a field of bamboo, and the fact that the sideways universe is not a separate reality but, chronologically, after the events on the island. There were smaller bits too, including the idea of the cork being a literal concept that I joked about but never would have suspected were accurate.

In the end, Jack and Locke fought one another like mountain goats while the island threatened to sink, and Bernard and Rose came back with Vincent the dog. Jack did his duty, but it was Hurley who went on to guard the island with Ben as his grateful second in command. Lapidus still got a chance to fly everyone off the island, and Lindelof and Cuse got to have a moment where it turned out that everyone was dead after all.

But, seriously, after six years, this was the conclusion that they settled upon? 

Did it work?

In its way, yes it does.  I can buy the sideways world as ultimately being revealed as a construct of the afterlife, used to bring all of the 815ers together before moving on to whatever lies ahead. The emotional integrity of those scenes between the various characters was sublime, and seeing moments like Ben apologizing to Locke, and John shedding his wheel chair to join the others in anticipation of the great beyond could have been cheesy but felt genuine. If it weren’t so familiar, it would have been conceptually powerful too. The issue is that it doesn’t hold water logistically, and undermines and negates the force and importance of the building island mysteries.

In the end, ‘sideways world’ was the biggest smokescreen of all, adding polish and poignancy to a series that had done nothing this past season to earn it. Like I had always suspected, those island mysteries were a series of carefully placed macguffins that the writers used to move us in and out of the character’s orbit. If they were going to jettison the need for creative resolution though, I wish they had started all of it a bit sooner and left us with a little more.

It shows a frightful lack of organizational cohesion. There was no explanation of the light in the grotto, what the smoke monster really was, why it could do what it did, or what anything anywhere had to do with Egyptian culture. Walt never came back, we failed to learn at a even a basic level why there were ghosts on the island, and to be honest there was no reasonable logic to why it be Desmond that could pull the cork out (I’m guessing the whole electro-magnetic thing) but Jack could put it back in.

In the end, given where they had come, perhaps this was better. Certainly the show didn’t become what it so easily could have, a thoughtful, satisfying sci-fi story, but on the other hand, as a tale of displaced people coming together to find one another, to be redeemed and gain faith and hope, it managed to stick the landing.

Using sideways world as an ethereal airport of sorts, with more Judeo Christian imagery than one could shake a stick at, was actually a really fine way to thematically wrap up the journey of the characters. There was a great deal of really rich and satisfying material in last night’s episode, but all of it came in the form of character interaction, not in answers or well oiled plot machinations.

No, in the end it felt like the old days of Lost because of the thematic payoffs we witnessed. Jack telling the smoke monster that ‘Locke was right about pretty much everything, and you disrespect his memory by wearing his face’. Hugo taking up the mantle of Jacob and asking sincerely if Ben would join him and a humbled Ben replying with sincerity ‘I would be honored.’ Sayid and Shannon sharing a kiss. Charlie looking down from  a drive shaft concert to see Claire. Sawyer and Juliet bonding over a vending machine. All of that was right on the money and then some.

Perhaps, for me personally it was that moment where Jack fixes Locke and he has immediate feeling back in his legs. By the denouement, we can argue that none of it was real, but as Christian tells Jack, it was all still real in its own way. This was what these characters needed, and some vagueness in this segment was acceptable and probably even wise.

For those out there with doubts, I believe that the events on the island did happen– every last one of them– but that from Jack’s death in the bamboo forest onwards, we were seeing the afterlife of those who had been brought to the island. They had fought a cosmic battle of sorts, together they had won, and together they were moving on to something bigger and grander by the end. A few weren’t there at all, and a few were simply not ready to make the next part of the journey. Ben, for instance, was still putting things right with the many people he had wronged but he was on his way. The apology scene between he and Locke was terrific and makes those teased hints of some other venue with O’Quinn and Emerson hotly anticipated by this writer.

In the end, I’m more disappointed in this final season as a whole than I am with the last episode, or the way in which it wrapped up. The writers needed to work harder to establish a better, more defined sense of closure on the island prior to revealing the afterlife sequences. Just as the 815ers needed that experience to move on, the writers should have known that the audience needed more answers and resolution so they too could leave the show with a sense of fulfillment.

Even now, that ending, with all of those people in the church, preparing to pull the veil back courtesy of Christian Shepherd (glad Kate actually asks “are you serious? that’s his name?) seems both cheesy and perfectly appropriate. It’s growing on me as we speak.

And although I feel a bit swindled right now, I suspect that overtime this choice; to resolve the characters instead of the mystery will give Lost a better sense of longevity and closure than other busted franchises had; X-Files, Matrix, I’m looking at you.

What a long, strange trip it’s been. Locke, Jack, and all the rest, I’m glad you guys made it truly home.

 Now, stop the island, it’s time to get off.