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So here's the thing. My first thought at the end was that the writers did an amazing job with characterization and the journey of the characters, but that they failed utterly when it came to plot. My love of characters made me willing to forgive this failing. Better a shitty plot than shitty characters or character assassination. And really, hadn't the show at its most brilliant just been about people and their foibles and their journey and learning to live with each other? But I felt a bit short changed as far as the mythology of the island, and, in particular, Jacob and Smokey. Something in me loved the idea of Jacob and Smokey representing good and evil, the island perhaps being a microcosm of the world itself, the people Jacob brought destined to play out the battle of man's inherent nature as good or evil. And Jacob, in traditional western God-like form, valued freewill above all else, leaving these people to their own devices with minimal direction or interference, even if this more often than not led to complete murder and chaos. Even the idea of the ultimate aim of the island as a prison for an evil being, the dark side of human nature, had a nice ring to it. This concept, of course, was completely shattered in the episode showing the background of Jacob and Smokey. At first I was pretty pissed, because suddenly Jacob was an ignorant, petulant boy, and Smokey a wizened, cynical boy pushed to bad deeds by a simple desire to have knowledge beyond what was given to him. Jacob was no more inherently good than Smokey was inherently bad. They both did terrible things, Jacob dragging people to the island and letting them get slaughtered in a game seemed to prove something to his brother, or maybe create meaning for a life that had none. Smokey just wanted to leave, but Jacob's actions turned him into a seething monster capable of insane violence and indiscriminate slaughter, but was he truly any more inherently evil than Jacob? They are just two boys trapped on the crazy island, acting out the oldest tale of Cain and Abel. They are just a small part of the larger history of the island, no more important than anyone else who has ever lived there. So, ultimately, I was left thinking, what the hell was the point then? What is the island?!?!
But then I realized something. The island doesn't matter. It doesn't matter any more than Jacob and Smokey or the Others or the Other-Others or the Dharma Initiative. The island isn't a fifth character or some magic space in a bottle. It's an island. It has some freaky properties that have made people do crazy things over the centuries, but in the end it's just a setting. And it's only important because it was important to the characters whose story this really was: the survivors of Oceanic 815 (or just Jack, you could argue, since everything begins and ends with him). In the end, what we got was a story of a band of strangers with secrets and issues and baggage galore, trying to figure out how to survive on an island that seemed mysterious to them and therefore is mysterious to us. We knew only enough of things to understand how they impacted our characters. Which is all we needed.
The characters argued, they made mistakes, they grew, they fell in love, they died needlessly sometimes, they broke apart, but the idea that they meant so much to each other that they could create a reality for themselves to meet again after death is something that tells us that for these people, that time spent on that island with each other was the most significant in their lives. Whether they died on the island, back in the real world, lived long lives after, they all focused back on each other. (I know some people seem to take this sideways verse as evidence that the entire series was just events taking place in an afterlife, I completely disagree. I think everything that happened on the island, everything that happened to the Oceanic 6, their return, the atom bomb, and everything up to the moment Jack died all happened. The opening scene in season six with Jack on the plane in the sideways 'verse? That was the moment after he died, the first moment of the afterlife. Rose saying to him: "It's okay. You--you can let go." is a nice touch, writers. ;) But because time doesn't matter in the afterlife, they are all there even though some died long before Jack and some long after. (Hurley telling Ben he 'was' a good #2.) They all 'began' in that moment, most of them living slightly twisted versions of their former, pre-island lives, all of them falling back into the same traps that made their life on the island so transformative in the first place. It's only with each other, even as strangers, that things begin to change and issues begin to be worked out (Jack's daddy issues and the chance to not make the same mistakes with his own child, Sawyer's obsession with the past to the detriment of his relationships with people in the present, Kate's desperate need to care for other people, Locke's continual search for faith, Sayid's inability to see value in himself outside the violence of his past...etc).
In this view, the idea that Jacob and Smokey and all the silly rules were simply temporary blips is fine with me. We get a small hint that under Hurley's care everything will change. "Those were Jacob's rules." Personally, I'd love to see what the island under Hurley's care could become. (I also, incidentally, want to read about Richard's first impressions of our world. And what getting old feels like for him.)
And as a Kate/Jack fan, I have to say I was actually appeased with what we were given in the end. Two people who loved each other, but simply had things in their lives that would always come first. Jack had the island, Kate had Claire. And that's okay.
It was, in the end, all about the journey of the character. Nothing more, nothing less. And I think it was rather masterfully done. Perfect? No. But what a ride.
But then I realized something. The island doesn't matter. It doesn't matter any more than Jacob and Smokey or the Others or the Other-Others or the Dharma Initiative. The island isn't a fifth character or some magic space in a bottle. It's an island. It has some freaky properties that have made people do crazy things over the centuries, but in the end it's just a setting. And it's only important because it was important to the characters whose story this really was: the survivors of Oceanic 815 (or just Jack, you could argue, since everything begins and ends with him). In the end, what we got was a story of a band of strangers with secrets and issues and baggage galore, trying to figure out how to survive on an island that seemed mysterious to them and therefore is mysterious to us. We knew only enough of things to understand how they impacted our characters. Which is all we needed.
The characters argued, they made mistakes, they grew, they fell in love, they died needlessly sometimes, they broke apart, but the idea that they meant so much to each other that they could create a reality for themselves to meet again after death is something that tells us that for these people, that time spent on that island with each other was the most significant in their lives. Whether they died on the island, back in the real world, lived long lives after, they all focused back on each other. (I know some people seem to take this sideways verse as evidence that the entire series was just events taking place in an afterlife, I completely disagree. I think everything that happened on the island, everything that happened to the Oceanic 6, their return, the atom bomb, and everything up to the moment Jack died all happened. The opening scene in season six with Jack on the plane in the sideways 'verse? That was the moment after he died, the first moment of the afterlife. Rose saying to him: "It's okay. You--you can let go." is a nice touch, writers. ;) But because time doesn't matter in the afterlife, they are all there even though some died long before Jack and some long after. (Hurley telling Ben he 'was' a good #2.) They all 'began' in that moment, most of them living slightly twisted versions of their former, pre-island lives, all of them falling back into the same traps that made their life on the island so transformative in the first place. It's only with each other, even as strangers, that things begin to change and issues begin to be worked out (Jack's daddy issues and the chance to not make the same mistakes with his own child, Sawyer's obsession with the past to the detriment of his relationships with people in the present, Kate's desperate need to care for other people, Locke's continual search for faith, Sayid's inability to see value in himself outside the violence of his past...etc).
In this view, the idea that Jacob and Smokey and all the silly rules were simply temporary blips is fine with me. We get a small hint that under Hurley's care everything will change. "Those were Jacob's rules." Personally, I'd love to see what the island under Hurley's care could become. (I also, incidentally, want to read about Richard's first impressions of our world. And what getting old feels like for him.)
And as a Kate/Jack fan, I have to say I was actually appeased with what we were given in the end. Two people who loved each other, but simply had things in their lives that would always come first. Jack had the island, Kate had Claire. And that's okay.
It was, in the end, all about the journey of the character. Nothing more, nothing less. And I think it was rather masterfully done. Perfect? No. But what a ride.
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