WHATNESDAY

[cleolinda]

Okay, what?

Someone explain to me what just happened. I mean, yes, I get it, Jack died. Was it just Jack? Was it everyone? What about his kid? Was Sideways World real? Was it all in his head? Was everyone happy and reunited in his head or was everyone happy and reunited in Sideways World or was everyone happy and reunited in heaven? What about Desmond back on the island after they fished him out of the glowcave? What about Ben and Hurley? WHAT ABOUT BEN AND HURLEY HELPING DESMOND GET HOME? Did the Ajira plane get back to wherever? Does none of this matter because it was or was not real? That last shot after the title card--did everyone die in the original crash? I don't? What? WHAT?

ETA: Yes, I know it was purgatory, MATTHEW FOX, WHO SPENT SIX YEARS SHOUTING AT PEOPLE THAT IT WAS NOT PURGATORY, I just don't understand how much of it was purgatory--was it all purgatory in Sideways World? Was Jack's Kid just totally imaginary? Was it not purgatory at all? Are we going to split hairs, MATTHEW FOX, and claim that it is not literally purgatory, it's just something where They Were Really Dead All Along WHICH IS WHAT WE ALL MEANT BY "PURGATORY"? I JUST WHAT I DON'T KNOW.

I actually really liked it. I'm just not sure what happened.

Oddly, it reminded me a little of the ending of Places in the Heart. Or that last shot of V for Vendetta.

However! There will apparently be three alternate endings on Kimmel in about twenty minutes? MAYBE ONE OF THEM WILL BE A NON-PURGATORY ENDING.

ETA: Okay, the clearest consensus I am getting--in case passersby are getting confused--is that everything on the island was real, and Sideways World was everyone getting ready to move on after they had died, in this weird kind of all-times-collapsed-together thing where people who had died and were dying and would eventually die all came together at the same time to move on. And lo, Christian Shephard (NO REALLY) led them all into the light. Or something.

ETA: Oh! Sideways World was Titanic Heaven! Now you're speaking a language I can understand.

Comments

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

The sideways is purgatory. Everyone eventually dies and ends up there.

Sweet Jesus, people, BSG is not a template for how to end a series.

[nb2000.livejournal.com]

THIS, around the halfway point I had this horrible sinking feeling that they were gonna go and blow it in the last few minutes like BSG did. God damn it.

[roseredhoofbeat.livejournal.com]

I DON'T EVEN KNOW I AM TOO ANGRY TO PUNCTUATE

ALL I WANTED WAS TO KNOW ABOUT KATE'S MOTHERFUCKING HORSE

[xelegantusagix.livejournal.com]

THIS! WTF HAPPENED TO THE HORSE

[greenwitch.livejournal.com]

MY POSITION: everything that took place on the Island WAS real. It was just the alternate timeline that was the afterlife construct. Everyone died anyway -- really, the only ones to survive in theory would be those that left on the Ajira flight, but that may as just as well crash, and the people left on the Island (only Benry and Hurley at this point) may as just as well die.

My verdict?

The final scene = Vincent on the beach. All further arguments = irrelevant.

[trazan.livejournal.com]

Rose and Bernard might have been alive too. We can safely assume that they were alive when Locke, Ben and Desmond left for the Light Cave, since Desmond wouldn't have gone with Locke and Ben if they weren't, and, at least from what I remember, they weren't shown to die during the tremors, so there's a possibility they survived.
Wombat

[vega-ofthe-lyre.livejournal.com]

Sideways World was purgatory! Or a sort of mental-holding pen they mutually created so they could all move on to heaven together? If that makes sense. That totally all happened, the Ajira plane made it, Desmond got home - the Sideways World is kind of outside of time and happened later for some people and earlier for others? AUGH THIS IS INCOHERENT BUT IT MAKES SENSE IN MY HEAD.

Or you're right, and the post-title card stuff means they're all dead. I DON'T KNOWWW

[sizequeen.livejournal.com]

Yeah. This. Now I don't have to write it.

[xelegantusagix.livejournal.com]

I'm just...I'm so mad

[zahavah.livejournal.com]

the sideways isn't purgatory. everyone there is dead, but they all died at different times -- the ones we saw died, died that way. the ones we didn't see die, died later. and they all ended up in a place they all created where they could live the lives they needed to live before they could move on. together.

[xelegantusagix.livejournal.com]

I think it was also a place to work through their issues together? at least that's what I understood from Ben saying he's not ready to go yet.

[zia-narratora.livejournal.com]

I just got sent here via quizzicasphinx because she said we posted the exact same thing :-P

Everyone died. The idea, though, is that the alternate universe is like a magical fantasy world they created in their dead collective subconscious so they could all meet up after they died. Jack died where we saw him die, but some people might have lived long and happy lives. I have decided that Sawyer goes back to Australia and re-opens the shrimp stand, and Kate dies from a well-deserved punch in the face.

[notemily.livejournal.com]

LOL at Kate's death.

[nb2000.livejournal.com]

Okay, the biggest problem I have with this, if I'm interpreting it right that they're all dead in sideways verse...

didn't Ashes to Ashes pull the SAME THING last Friday? I haven't watched that (I've been meaning to) so I'm just going with what I've read online.


Other than that I liked a lot of it, I was squeeing at a lot of the character moments.

[nb2000.livejournal.com]

My apologies if I just blew Ashes to Ashes for anyone

[poinsley.livejournal.com]

I think that Jack died on the island and once he was able to grasp that in sideways world, he was able to let everyone move on to heaven or something. Not that everyone died at the same time, but they all eventually died and Jack was able to move on after that happened. I think.

[wearejustducky.livejournal.com]

1)I cried a lot.

2)It's not that the Sideways Universe is purgatory. It's that these people were so strongly bound together by what happened that they created some sort of metaphysical space for them all to gather and reconnect before moving on to whatever's next. People like Ben and Ana Lucia, I guess, aren't ready to move on yet. Ben knows what there is and doesn't feel worthy of it, and Ana Lucia hasn't keyed in to what is going on.

3)That damn dog. I was managing to calm down til they brought in the dog.

[xelegantusagix.livejournal.com]

3) same. the damn dog. I was a freaking mess

[sharelle.livejournal.com]

I got that the "church" was the meeting place of everyone who had been involved in the crash after death. But like Christian said, some died before Jack; some died after - this was just the place they were all destined to meet at some point afterward. The people on the plane got home, Hurley got Desmond back to Penny, we just didn't see all that because it all happened eventually. (The scene with Hurley and Ben was telling because they both complimented each other on how well they had apparently worked together on the Island. We just didn't get to see that chapter of their story.)

I thought it was awesome.

[orryn-emrys.livejournal.com]

BEST exposition I've seen thus far...

[brass-cojones.livejournal.com]

Hi, I found my way here via a pal.

Everyone was already dead. It was purgatory basically - or a constructed place for them to all find each other.

The implication being they all died in the ORIGINAL plane crash 6 years ago and the entire 6 years was a Dallas story arc, a St. Elsewhere snowglobe or a BSG ending. LOL

[maudelynn.livejournal.com]

I only watched till charlie died soooo...
but after the first few eps I figured this is where it was all gonna go.

[illyria47.livejournal.com]

I am not entirely sure, but VINCENT. ;_;

[xelegantusagix.livejournal.com]

omfg I know QQQQQQQQQQQ

[aurora.livejournal.com]

The sideways world is purgatory. The island and everything that happened there was real, and the sideways world was where everyone met once they died (which is why Christian said "some were before and some after you").

Fuck, now I have a crying induced headache and need to find some way to stay up to watch Kimmell.

I swear to the island gods if the alternate endings are just some gag skits I will cut a bitcb.

[gracefallson-me.livejournal.com]

i hope no one got hurt bb. i was pretty upset at first but they were pretty funny.

[brachiosaurid.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm in a minority here, but I'm pleased with the ending. Christian said it best: "Everything did happen. Everyone dies sooner or later." So it's not that everyone was dead the whole time or whatever, it was just, "Hey, when we all finally are dead, let's meet up in purgatory and then go to the afterlife together!" Which I liked. And I like that some thing went unanswered. Maybe I'm weird like that, but they DID explain to us all (they meaning the creators) that not everything was going to be explained. Some strings were left undone. I'm good with that. :)

[aurora.livejournal.com]

I was satisfied with it too. I think. My brain is a bit of a mush right now.

There is just too much mythology to be covered, but we were all very invested in the characters and they took the time to complete their stories. That made the ending ok with me

[jettcat.livejournal.com]

AND Philip Jose Farmer did this much better with Riverworld ( no not that crap SyFy channel movie).

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Does none of this matter because it was or was not real?

This is what gets me: the time invested in the sideways-endings is cheapened, because (and I guess the idyllic nature of them should've been a clue) they weren't real, they were just afterlives, not even an alternate universe. So all the violent, random deaths still happen. I was taking solace in them finding some escape from the carnage.

But I'm lead to believe Ajira returns, the Hurley & Ben Show runs for decades, Desmond manages to commandeer the boat by Hydra Island and make his way back to Penny...I dunno, I'm tempted to interpret the end pretty selectively at this point.

[notemily.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I liked the Sideways world best! I was disappointed it turned out to not be real.

[xelegantusagix.livejournal.com]

okay just a final thing. I'm still confused about the island. like. nothing was answered for me

This is all you need to know about the island:

[mysticjuicer.livejournal.com]

This is a link to a talk JJ Abrams gave at a TED conference. It will probably not satisfy you, but it will explain what the island is supposed to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpjVgF5JDq8

[manekikoneko.livejournal.com]

I think: Because their time on the Island was so important, they all needed to reconnect and resolve their issues before they could move on to Heaven-or-whatever. So sideways was the mutually constructed world where everyone went when they died, whenever they died, on the Island or later, even years later. Whenever anyone from that group died, their consciousness immediately went back to flight 815 until and lived through that until they got their collective shit together.

I'm still not sure about that part, but I like how the actual on-Island stuff resolved. Except Jack didn't say the words for Hurley, that confused me. Maybe he thought them.

[rhoda-rants.livejournal.com]

That tripped me out too, Jack not saying the magic words.

[ohkaye.livejournal.com]

Did they seriously St. Elsewhere that shit?

Oh my God that's hilarious.

[brass-cojones.livejournal.com]

Yep.

They St Elsewhere'd-I Shot Jr'd-and BSG'd it all at once.

[rhoda-rants.livejournal.com]

Jacob's Ladder did it better. All I'm sayin'.

[paradise-loved.livejournal.com]

I'm so confused: Why did the Ajira plane not crash? Wasn't that the wreckage at the end?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I CAN'T TELL WHOSE WRECKAGE THAT WAS! I DON'T EVEN KNOOOOOOOOW!


argh

[michawhiplash.livejournal.com]

ROCKS FELL (a lot in this episode... did they have a special on foam rocks that week?)

EVERYBODY DIED (before or after Jack... doesn't really matter)

[onceinspired.livejournal.com]

I was going to be silly and put "Rocks fell, everyone died. #fakelostspoiler" on Twitter... but seeing this makes me realize it's true.

[incogra.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming Sideways World was purgatory. What Jack's Dad was saying about "now" makes me think that Kate, Sawyer, Claire etc. got of the island, lived their lives, and died in other ways (Same with Ben, Hurley, and Desmond) and, time working differently in the afterlife and all, they could meet up whenevs. Why did Aaron had to be born again? Who knows.

The title card shot, though? Ugh, if that means EVERYTHING was purgatory, color me pissed.

[redcurrantbasil.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I think the island and everything that happened to the Crash survivors was real.

[scornedsaint.livejournal.com]

Fuck it, I loved it. It was a cop-out, but it was one that was true to the show's themes and characters.

(I also sobbed through the last five minutes, especially once Vincent showed up and laid down next to Jack)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh my GOD, that killed me. I didn't cry, but it killed me.