LOST: Remembering TV's Best Show Seven Years Later

Going For It All

LOST was never scared.

Launching only a few years after the horrific attack of September 11, the series was built on a plane crash and dove head on into making a good guy out of a character who served in the Republican Guard. It was one of many redemption arcs for characters who appeared condemned.

The series created a monster in its very first episode which would rip a clinging-to-life pilot from his cockpit, spattering his blood across the windshield before chasing the show's core characters through a jungle. In fact, the move was so risky, the ABC executives wanted to remove the monster from the unforgettable Pilot episode but J.J. Abrams insisted on keeping the key part of the episode and show from the beginning. The show kept it as originally planned.

Every season, the show managed to drop jaws with mindblowing cliffhangers. Before the world wondered "Who did Negan kill?" or "Is Jon Snow really dead?" the questions of "What's in the hatch?" and "Where did Michael and Walt go on that boat?" were the hottest topics and fans loved it.

The Questions

Then, there were all of the questions... How can Locke walk again? What is the smoke monster? Who are the Others? What's in the hatch? Did Juliet really just undo everything we watched and experienced for five years? What is the island? Why is Christian Shephard so important? How does Walt do these things by simply imagining them? Why is the island under water?

Many of the questions were left plainly unanswered.

Some of the questions were merely provided blurry explanations which fans refused to accept after committing so many years to a world filled with strangers whispering in a jungle and an island that can move through time. All of this was part of what made LOST the juggernaut series it was from its earliest episodes. The questions intrigued the audience and the characters kept them watching.

In the end, the most important question the show ever presented was answered in its finale: what happens to the characters?

The End

While the ending of Lost is often debated by fans, there is one definitive ruling on what was really happening in the final season and moments of the series.

Benjamin Linus actor Michael Emerson recently offered his take on the finale, which kept his character apart from the rest as they moved on together.

"The one thing I'm sure of on the show is that everything you saw happen on the island really happened," Emerson said. "Let's call that the first five seasons. All of that is real."

It was Season 6, in the flash sideways scenes, where the characters finally began to move on.

"The ending is way in the future. Years, centuries, millenia have past," Emerson said. "We're in an anti-chamber to the hereafter, to eternity, if you will. All the characters on the show have come here to celebrate the end of life. They're all gonna pass through to a happy afterlife. Just as in a Shakespeare, everybody goes two by two. It's couples. That's because, I think, by the rules of LOST, you can only pass into heaven (if you want to call it that) with a mirror redeemer. With someone who has loved you without reservation. for yourself."

It all happened. They were never dead the whole time. They created connections with each other and, more importantly, with fans. The actors who portrayed each character have been seared into the minds of fans. Matthew Fox will forever be Jack Shephard, a man of science converted into a man of faith by the compelling, hopeful, and all-too-heartbreakingly unlucky John Locke.

While the finale was inarguably controversial, it was brave and concluded the story of LOST in beautiful fashion.

If there was one mantra LOST proudly lived by, it was the iconic phrase John Locke uttered in the fourth episode...

"Don't ever tell me what I can't do."