First of all and most important thing, I’ve decided to tag a lot of people that I know for sure they have seen this ending with only two exceptions of people who haven’t. I’m planning to tag the exact same people for the full show review so, in case you’re not interested and you don’t want to be tagged in there PLEASE let me know and I won’t. I won’t feel offended at all but if no one says anything I will tag the exact same people for the full show review. With that being said, I can start yapping. REVIEW WITHOUT SPOILERS: I really don’t know what I witnessed. I’m currently writing this review a whole day after I watched this masterpiece and I still haven’t processed everything from it. When I finished watching this I had literal tears in my eyes. Could be the most beautiful episode I’ve seen and, personally, my favorite TV episode of all time. Best 105 minutes on TV and my favorite conclusion from any show I’ve seen. Life is good because episodes like this exist. —————————————————————————— ⚠️⚠️SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE SHOW AHEAD⚠️⚠️ The way I’m gonna structure this review will basically be the simplest way possible but I think it’s the most appropriate one for an episode as long and as layered as this. I will go through every major scene from this episode (which there’s quite a lot of them) from start to end and I will be saying my opinion, how it made me feel and, if it’s necessary, my interpretation and explanation of some elements that might’ve been misunderstood or that might need a new perspective in order to understand the quality of it in a deeper way. Before anything, I would like to credit my friend @littlefinger298 because I wouldn’t have been able to understand and appreciate everything from this episode if it wasn’t for him. Thank you so much for making me love this show more than I already did. I love you, goat. OPENING MONTAGE The episode starts with an opening montage that shows the “missing cargo” of Christian’s coffin being found by the airline company as well as that beautiful shot of Jack cleaning his face with the water of the island. The rest of the montage shows some other characters such as Ben, Kate and a second beautiful shot of Sawyer looking at himself in a punched mirror. During the flash sideways showing this, we see Desmond helping the company bringing the coffin to the church. I find it a great decision that they use Desmond as the one that brings everyone to the church, same way as he brought everyone to the island, like we learn in S2 finale. The characters crashing on that island is their destiny, same way it is their destiny that all of them come together again. In that same scene we get a closer perspective on Jack after drinking the water that Jacob gave to him, and we see how determined he is for the choice he made of him being the one to protect the island, which is, according to him, the reason he is there. This is the climax of Jack’s character development. When the show started, he was a man of science, trying to fix everyone and refusing to listen to John Locke, who told him that they were all there for a reason, but as the show goes on, Jack finds his own purpose and a real reason to stay in that island, turning him into a man of faith. HURLEY, SAYID AND CHARLIE There’s not much to say about this scene but Hurley and Sayid arrive to Charlie’s apartment and he shoots him with a tranquilizer gun which is, as Hurley says, a reference to the 5x1-5x2 scenes when both Sayid and Hurley were involved in a conflict that had to do with a tranquilizer gun. The fact that it’s Hurley the one that goes to Charlie to “bring him to the church” makes a lot of sense after a scene that happens way after this and that I will talk about later. JIN, SUN AND JULIET We move on to one of my favorite scenes in the entire episode. After Sun is shot and fears that she will lose her baby, Juliet makes a D.O.C. to her, same way she did in 3x18 and this is where the memory flashes things start to happen (if we exclude the scene from last episodes when Demond punches Ben and he remembers the moment). When Juliet tells them that everything is fine with their baby, Jin and Sun start remembering the events on the island, and because they remember it, they are able to speak English after that, because once they remember what happened, they remember the things they learned when they were there. But how can they remember things from their time on the island of the flash sideways are an alternate reality where the place didn’t crash? I will explain that the flash sideways REALLY are after I’m done with the whole episode. RICHARD’S FIRST GRAY HAIR “I think I just realized I wanna live”. This is an underrated scene that makes me love Richard even more than I already do. Miles lets Richard know about his gray hair and that’s when he realizes that he doesn’t have to live forever anymore. In this part I’m not sure about what I’m saying but I’m interpreting that this is happening because Jacob’s fire consumed and now Jack would be the “new Jacob”, which means that the gift that Jacob gave to Richard doesn’t work anymore, which is making him age again. The fact that he was living forever in a place that he even called “hell” made him wanna kill himself. But the fact that he can age normally now is what gave him a purpose to live. Beautiful scene. JACK, MIB AND DESMOND GO TO THE CAVE After Jacks threatens to kill MiB and MiB doesn’t look scared at all, they all decide that they’re all going to the same place, which is the cave with the light inside, the one that Jack now knows he has to protect from MiB getting to it. MiB chooses Desmond to be the one to pull the cork out from that pile of water so that MiB achieves his purpose to destroy the island, precisely because of his immunity to electromagnetic charges, that we know about because of the S2 finale, The Constant and 6x11. Another thing that I meant to explain thanks to this is that, after Ben dislodges the space and time continues of the island in S4 finale and in S5 the ones from the island start experiencing flashes that teleport them from one moment in time to another, Faraday is able to find Desmond in that hatch but he isn’t affected by the time jumps, and that’s precisely because of his immunity to electromagnetic radiation, which is basically what was below the Orchid station with the frozen wheel. That radiation only makes him go to other places, and that’s why he dreams of that conversation with Faraday in 5x3. “This doesn’t matter, you know? Him destroying the island, you destroying him. It doesn’t matter. You’re gonna pull me into the light and I’m gonna go somewhere else: a place that we can be with the ones that we love, and I won’t ever have to think about this damn island again. And you know the best part, Jack? You’re in this place.” The way Desmond and Jack talk about the church scene in the flash sideways is so amazing. Not only Desmond is bringing everyone to the church, including Jack, in those. But also in the island itself, Desmond is trying to convince Jack to go there and “leave”. But Jack keeps saying that, “what happened happened, all of this matters.” Because he still doesn’t know how to let go. SAYID AND SHANNON This whole sequence is great, not only the scene between Sayid and Shannon but especially the one before, the conversation between Hurley and Sayid. Sayid has been trying to fight his own monster all his life, being reminded that he is meant to be a killer and a torturer. And Hurley telling that he’s actually a good man is great, especially when you go from that scene to the one where he goes to defend Shannon from a man beating her and Boone. When Sayid and Shannon touch each other they remember everything as well. In 6x6 Sayid makes a deal with MiB because MiB told him that he could fulfill Sayid’s wish of getting with the woman he loves again, which is everything he’s wanted. In that scene he was talking about Nadia but Shannon also applies to this. Finding Shannon again after all those years reminded him who he really is deep inside. DESMOND TAKES THE CORK OUT: THE TWO CONSEQUENCES Desmond gets down there with the help of Jack and MiB and he takes out the cork, surviving the electromagnetic radiation, as expected, and, as MiB said it would happen, he makes it possible for the island to start falling apart and getting destroyed. But there was one thing that MiB didn’t count on, and that’s the fact that he loses all his powers. But why do these 2 things happen? There’s a big amount of information that needs to be understood in order to understand why both things happen simultaneously. In 6x15, Jacob and MiB’s mother tells them something that’s really important for this episode and it has to do with the light inside the cave: “A little bit of this very same light is inside of every man, but they always want more.” “Can they take it?” “No but they could try, and if they tried they could put it out, and if the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere. And so I protected this place, but I can’t protect it forever.” “Then who will?” “It will have to be one of you.” Their mother says that the protector of the island has to make sure that no one reaches the light because, if it goes out there, it goes out everywhere, and that’s why the first thing happens. Turning “off” the light means that the whole world would start falling apart, and it will start on that island, that’s why that place is the first place to start suffering the consequences. But turning the light “off” also makes other stuff happen. When MiB was thrown into that cave by Jacob in 6x15, he broke the balance of the light and what was keeping it from reaching the world. Jacob brought the people of the temple to the island so that they made a structure that would keep the light in place, which includes the cork. When Desmond takes it out, the balance is broken again, which is what made the evilness of that cave come out and destroy the world. That evilness is what got inside the MiB to turn him into what we know as the “smoke monster”, but once it got out, it didn’t need a human body to spread evilness, which makes MiB be a regular human being again. CLAIRE HAS THE BABY THANKS TO KATE AND CHARLIE Fucking hell, what a beautiful scene this is. In this scene, Claire is going to have the baby in that precise moment and the only one she has that can help her having it in that moment is Kate. When Kate is helping Claire she remembers what happened on the island when she had to do that same thing. The reason why Claire knew for sure that her baby was gonna be called Aaron is precisely because she remembers as well. The scene where Charlie brings her the blankets and they also remember is just too beautiful, one of the most crying-worthy scenes of the episode. And I also love how Charlie went from being someone who didn’t give a shit about anything, not even his own concert, until he finds a reason for him when he helps Claire. JACK VS MIB There’s not much to say about this scene except for one thing. In general it’s just a very intense and climatic scene when the protector of the island and the destroyer of the island are fighting to death until only one of them remains. The only detail I would like to mention is the fact that MiB is close to killing Jack and he’s able to cut his neck a little and specially to stab him in the same place where he had an appendicitis surgery. These two things are extremely important for the flash sideways and it’s connected with a moment in the church scene. After that, Kate shoots at the MiB and Jack pushes him down the cliff, finally killing the evilness of the island. I feel like I should mention the scene that comes after this because it’s also a scene focused on Jack and Locke, and that’s the scene where Jack fixes Locke and makes him able to walk. When Locke starts feeling his legs way sooner than expected, he remembers that beautiful scene from 1x4 when the island makes a miracle happen and makes Locke able to walk, in that moment, Locke remembers but Jack still doesn’t. “You don’t have a son, Jack” is what Locke says when he remembers the Jack he met on the island, the one that didn’t have a son, unlike the one from the flash sideways. Everyone is starting to remember everything… but Jack still doesn’t. “I hope that somebody does for you what you just did for me.” After that, the rain stops but the island doesn’t stop falling apart. Obviously, because it wasn’t the MiB who was making it happen, but the light from the cave being turned off. In this scene there are 2 groups of people that go separate ways: Jack is very hurt and close to dying, so there’s no point in him trying to get on that plane, so he decides to finish what he started, which is saving the island (I’m not saying his only reason to not get on the plane is his state but it’s another reason why he just can’t, but obviously the main reason is to save the island). Ben decides to protect the only place that he has ever been attached to and Hurley decides to stay as well, which will be a very important decision. The 2 people that go to the plane are Kate and Sawyer. In this scene, Kate says something very important to Jack before they passionately kiss, that will be relevant for a scene that’s close: “Tell me I’m gonna see you again.” SAWYER AND JULIET I won’t say much about this scene because it’s just another scene where 2 characters establish a connection and they both remember everything, but because I don’t say much it doesn’t mean that this scene isn’t beautiful. Juliet helping Sawyer get his candy bar made them remember those 3 years they were together with the Dharma Initiative in the 1970s. JACK AND KATE This is the scene that makes Kate’s quote so important. Jack arrives at the concert but it’s over and it has already finished. “I missed you so much” is what Kate says after touching Jack. Kate remembers what happened on the island and since the moment he said goodbye to her after killing the MiB she has been waiting for this moment, for a very long time, until Jack finally arrived. JACK, HURLEY AND BEN GET TO THE CAVE Massively important scene that will explain 2 things that I’ve already mentioned in this review. Jack decides that, in order to save the island, he has to get inside the cave and put the cork back on. Apparently he’s gonna commit suicide that way buy Jack tells Hurley that after doing it they will have to pull him out of that cave again. But the thing here is, while Jack is inside, Hurley has to be the protector of the island, apparently just temporarily, until Jack comes back again. Jack takes some water and puts it in a bottle so that Hurley drinks it, same way Jack had to drink the water Jacob gave him, and after that he says the same thing Jacob said to him, to Hurley: “Now you’re like me.” This fact makes Hurley the new protector of the island, or the new Jacob, which is the reason why I said that him deciding to stay was important, but it also explains something I mentioned in the scene with Sayid and Charlie. The fact that it’s Hurley the one that tells Charlie that he has to go to the concert, which is what will eventually make him go to the church is important because in that moment he is already acting as Jacob, same way Jacob waited for him in a taxi to tell him to get on the 316 flight and getting back to the island, probably with the intention that him becoming the successor of his role happens, which gives us a clue about if the role of protector was going to be temporally or not. Hurley and Ben help Jack get down the cave and put the cork back on. When Jack gets down there he finds Desmond and decides that what he should do in that moment is to go home with his wife and son and get off the island to be in a safe place. It was a truly amazing moment when Jack said: “See you in another life, brotha”, especially because apart from being Desmond’s famous quote, it’s also true, because they will be meeting inside the church, “in another life”. Jack puts the cork back on and he lays in there waiting for something to happen, but it looks like apparently it didn’t work, until water starts coming down and Jack touches it with his hand. Because Jack is the protector, the only way to stabilize the light and darkness from that cave is with the powers of the protector, which makes it clear that it had to be Jack indeed the one to fix the problem with the light and doing what he has always wanted to do: saving everyone. The scene where the water is coming down and filling it up with Jack not being able to control his laugh is basically beautiful, specially when you know that, unlike Desmond, Jack doesn’t have immunity to electromagnetic radiation, which means that in that scene he’s making a sacrifice for the good of the island, the good of his friends and the good of the entire world. Kate, Sawyer and Claire get to the plane and the goat Frank Lapidus is able to fly it off the island, making those 6 people the only ones to leave the island with that plane. At the same time, Hurley and Ben pull the rope to apparently get Jack from there, but they find out that it’s actually Desmond the one tied with that rope, because of what Jack did. CONVERSATION BETWEEN LOCKE AND BEN John Locke, in the flash sideways, arrives at the church and finds Ben sitting outside. Because of Locke’s scene with Jack and Ben’s scene with Desmond, both of them are already capable of remembering what happened on the island. Because now they have another chance of making things right and “moving on” Ben decides to apologize to Locke because of what he did and Locke forgives him, which is basically the best conclusion that Ben could have, in my opinion. One of the best scenes in the entire episode. “I’m very sorry for what I did to you, John. I was selfish, jealous, I wanted everything you had.” “What did I have?” “You were special, John, and I wasn’t.” “Well, if it helps, Ben… I forgive you.” “Thank you, John. That does help. It matters more than I can say.” Moving on to a different scene involving Ben, on the island, after Desmond is rescued and Jack is officially dead for Hurley and Ben, Hurley has to take the job of being the protector of the island, but the beautiful thing is that he chooses Ben to be the one to help him do it, making Hurley and Ben the new protectors of the island, until there’s a new one. After this, we only have 15 minutes of episode left, the best 15 minutes that a TV episode can possibly have… ANALYSIS OF THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD SCENE OF ALL TIME: THE CHURCH PART 1 - JACK AND HIS FATHER GET REUNITED On the island, Jack wakes up on top of a rock, in the exact same way the MiB landed after Jacob dragged him into the light in 6x15. Jack is able to get up, really hurt, and start walking. In the flash sideways, Jack arrives at the church with Kate. Kate gets there from the front door but Jack enters from the back door, where his father’s coffin is. Until this moment, Jack hasn’t been able to fully remember the events on the island, until he touches his father’s coffin, and then he does remember. When he touches it he turns around and sees his own father in the church with him. The conversation they have is one of the best conversations in TV so I’m basically gonna quote it entirely and then I’ll explain the most misunderstood element of this episode and this show. “Dad?” “Hello, Jack.” “I don’t understand. You died.” “Yeah. Yes I did.” “Then how are you here right now?” “*sighs* How are you here?” “*thinks for a moment* I died too.” “That's ok. It’s ok, son.” *they hug while Jack cries* “I love you, dad.” “I love you too, son.” “Are you real?” “*laughs* I hope so. Yeah, I’m real. You’re real, everything that’s ever happened to you is real, all those people in the church, they’re all real too.” “They’re all… they’re all dead?” “Everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some of them before you, some… long after you.” “But why are they all here now?” “Well, there is no “now”, “here”…” “Where are we, dad?” “Well, this is the place that you… that you all made together, so that you could find one another. The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people. That’s why all of you are here. Nobody dies alone, Jack. You needed all of them and they needed you.” “For what?” “To remember, and… let go.” “Kate… she said we were leaving.” “Not leaving, no. Moving on.” “Where are we going?” “Let’s go find out.” After this conversation, a lot of people started thinking that the plot twist of this episode was that everyone died in the plane crash, that nothing that happened on the island was real and they were dead the whole time (which is exactly the opposite of what Christian says but, whatever), but the scene doesn’t mean that at all, it means something else that makes a lot of sense and that is actually able to explain what the flash sideways mean. During Season 6 they introduced a weird concept that not many people understood. In S5 finale, after Daniel Faraday told them that they needed to explode the Jughead bomb, the main characters decide to do it because they think that, if they did it, the hatch wouldn’t have been built and therefore, they would’ve never crashed. After that season finale, S6 contains 2 types of scenes, the ones where the main characters are still on the island but now in the present instead of being in 1977 and the ones where, apparently, the plane never crashed and it lands in LA just like it was supposed to. That’s what I thought this was and what practically everyone thought this was, but the flash sideways are actually not that. Like Christian Shepherd said, everyone died eventually, some of them before and some of them way after. There were some theories about the island being the purgatory and shit like that, which is wrong. The flash sideways are the purgatory. Every person has a light inside them and, when they die, that light goes back to the main light, the one that if it’s turned off everything would fall apart. The flash sideways start happening in the show in 6x1 from Jack’s perspective, because that scene happens after the end of the show, when Jack dies. That purgatory is the same thing as everyone’s regular life except for the fact that, in that place, the characters are freed from their sins, their fears and their flaws, and that’s why they have different lives there. Jack had a terrible father, so in there, he is a father. Sawyer went from being a criminal to being a cop who catches criminals. Juliet was able to actually help pregnant women, unlike she did on the island. Hurley owned the chicken company etc. etc. and after they all get together again, they’re ready to move on, from the purgatory to the real afterlife. It’s important that you understand that Jack, Charlie, Boone, Shannon, Sayid, Jin, Sun etc. died on the island at some point but others like Kate, Sawyer, Claire, Hurley etc. died AFTER. They all died eventually, but since the flash sideways happen INSIDE the light, there is no “now” and no concept of time, so they all can wait until the time comes and they all get together in that church. There’s another thing that I feel like it can be explained and it’s the absence of some characters. Jacob, MiB and Richard have been in that island for quite a long time, like centuries, forgetting what their life actually is, which means that they can’t really die and be freed of their sins. There’s a particularly peculiar case as well, Mr.Eko. Everyone was shocked when they killed Eko in 3x5 in that way, but it makes sense with his character. In that episode, MiB turns himself into Eko’s brother, Yemi. Eko confesses to Yemi that everything he’s done he doesn’t regret it because it’s what he had to do to survive, he didn’t ask for the life that he was given, but it was given. MiB heard what Eko said and heard how Eko was never gonna let his sins go away and move on, because he already accepted them. Because of that, MiB kills Eko in that same episode as the smoke monster and in The End we don’t see Eko in the church, because he can’t move on, same as Jacob, or MiB, or Richard. PART 2 - THE END All of that being said, we get to the most beautiful scene on TV. “We’ve been waiting for you” says Locke to Jack when he finally gets to the church. All of them are already there waiting for everyone to come so that they can “leave” together. Christian Shepherd opens the door of the church, letting all that yellow-white bright light come in, which is a symbolism that represents the light itself, the one that was a part of everyone during their lifetime. And as the light comes into the room, everyone can go from the purgatory to the afterlife, so that everyone finds their peace. In the same way, on the island, Jack walks through the bamboo field until he has no more strength and lays down on the ground, close to dying. In this scene we have one of the most beautiful parallels ever. In the first scene of the Pilot, Jack opens his eye and wakes up laying in the middle of a bamboo field after the plane crash, and then Vincent, the dog, is what makes him get up. In The End, Jack lays on the ground watching the plane with people he loves leave the island, when suddenly Vincent appears and lays there with him so that he doesn’t have to die there alone. Jack dies in the same place we woke up after the plane crash, and then he closes his eye, with Vincent next to him. “But if we can’t live together, we’re gonna die alone.” FINAL THOUGHTS OF THE EPISODE This is definitely the most beautiful conclusion I’ve ever seen. The amount of high asf peaks this episode has is unmeasurable. Jack Shephard in The End might actually be the best episode for a character that I have ever seen. I don’t regret watching this show in any way. This episode made me cry and it might’ve changed my life. THE BEST EPISODE OF ALL TIME If you got to this point and you read it all you’re absolutely goated and I really really appreciate that you did it. If you were able to stay here and watch me yap for hours (the time I took to make this) then I basically fucking love you. Thank you so much for accompanying me with this magnificent journey. I love all of you.