Lost: “I See Dead People”

Of all the shoutouts the Lost creators have made to their favorite influences, who woulda thought their biggest influence would have been M. Night Shyamalan?

The series finale of Lost revealed that all the characters we’ve followed for the last six years were ghosts unwilling to acknowledge that fact and move on.

In other words, the Sixth Season was The Sixth Sense.

Not to complain. The Sixth Sense is the one flick Shyamalan has done that’s worked for me, and the Lost creators did a great job applying the plot device from that film to their series finale.

It was fitting for Jack to be the last of the cast to “let go” and accept the truth, as he did in the exchange with the ghost of his father:

Jack: You died.

Christian: Yes, I did.

Jack: Then how are you here right now.

Christian: How are you here?

Jack: (realization comes to him) I died too.

As Jack slowly came to peace with this truth, the story—and Jack’s eye—closed as it opened six seasons ago. (With Vincent by his side. *sniff*)

Turns out the Lost island was a kind of Purgatory, as many fans have insisted through the seasons. Ben Linus, for example, doesn’t go into the church with the other ghosts because, as he explains to Locke, he “still has some things to work out” so he’ll “be here a while.” But his sincere apology and Locke’s offer of forgiveness matter to him “far more than I can say.”

As the ghosts gained insight into their experience, we saw them working to help their friends come to terms with the truth as well. (A nice touch to bring back Season One’s original cast members, Boone and Shannon, for that work.)

Of course, some ghosts were “not ready yet,” as Daniel Faraday/Widmore’s mother said of her son. (Or was it his mother who was not ready to let him go? Hmm…) But, as Hurley said to Boone after Sayid finally got it: “It takes as long as it takes.”

Fans will probably spend the next few days deciding whether The Sixth Sense plot device makes sense of all they’ve shared with the characters:

• The polar bears—and those dang polar bear cages…
• The Dharma Initiative…
• Mr. Eko’s Virgin Mary smuggling scheme…
• The whole thing with Michael and Walt and the Others…
• The island traveling through time…
• And—most important to me—the whole Jacob/Man-in-Black mythology…

What was it all for? In the end, it “doesn’t matter,” as Desmond tried to tell Jack while he was still unwilling to let it all go. “This is a place you all made together,” Christian tells his son, “To remember. And to let go.” In other words, the Island was all about moving on.

Moving on where, as Jack asks in the closing minutes? “Let’s go find out,” said Christian Shepherd, standing with his son next to his coffin—their coffin…our coffin—in a room stuffed with religious imagery from Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism.

Some will take this to mean that the Lost creators are implying that all these religious traditions are basically saying the same thing about our mortality. If so, that would be an unsatisfactory conclusion.

But I took it to mean that all these religious traditions are basically addressing the same concerns—which is, of course, true. How they tell the living to prepare for death—now that’s where we differ. And I’m taking my guidance from One who’s entered into death and has conquered it for me.

So, the show was about moving on, then, but moving on together. “Live together or die alone” has been the show’s recurring theme. In the end, the show was also about dying together—or, to be more precise, processing that reality together.

Kudos.