Did anyone really get what happened in LOST?

I thought the episode wasn't bad up until the last half hour. Like you said, it's left a lot more questions and really doesn't tie the whole series together. The writers, unfortunately, had no intention of ever answering all the questions posed on the show but I also felt that they placed such importance on so many things yet seem to throw them all out the window. This was a finale for what happened this season, but I don't feel like for the whole show. To me, it seemed more like the alternate world was purgatory based on the ending (I think this simply because Ben stayed out of the church and opted not to move on yet) but if that's the case, then what the heck was the island? In addition, there were too many discrepencies--Kate, Sawyer and Claire were on that plane to leave the island but they're also in that church dead. What happened to Miles, Lapedis and Richard--aren't we to assume that they're dead too because everyone on that island is dead? What was Penny doing in the church dead? I don't ever remember her stepping foot on that island.

The alternate timeline was purgatory. And apparently time does not exist in purgatory. That is why people who were still alive at the end of the show (hurley, ben etc) were also in the church with Jack. Jack's dad explained this somewhat. Jack's dad said something about how people who died before and after Jack would end up in the church. The church/purgatory was simply a "waiting room" so everyone could ascend to heaven together.

They also tried to explain why all these people were in purgatory together. Something about how their time on the island was the most important time of their lives. Not sure how Penny fits into this as she was not on the island. I guess since she was important to Desmond she got to share in their purgatory/heaven.

Personally I felt this ending was cheap and the easy way out because they never had a plan.

I am also not sure if Kate, Sawyer , the pilot, etc got off the island on that plane. It looked like they were showing wreckage of that plane at the very end of the episode. So it's kind of sad that nobody got home.

I was a LOST fan for the full 6 seasons, and I came away with more questions after last night's season/series finale as I usually did after each episode. Frankly, I found it a bit frustrating.

But here is my conclusion...I think the series proved to be a huge hit before the writers could catch up. There were those couple of years when there were seemingly endless reruns and those re-caps (they almost lost me as a viewer then).

They were great at creating more mystery, but the answers to those mysteries is where they were constantly being challenged. It became a quagmire of mysteries.

To end it all where they did was very "safe" and with a PC (politically correct) kind of spirituality.

Too many hard questions go unanswered.

Here are a few of mine (only a few, mind you):

1. What exactly was the island? Was it real? A type of purgatory? What was the bright light?

2. Did everyone in the Oceanic plane crash die? If so, then only the friendships Jack made with certain victims of the crash while on the island are the ones he went into eternity with?

3. Since Ben, Richard, Penny, her dad, and others weren't part of the initial crash, how do they fit in to Jack's "dream"?

4. Who was Jacob's and the smoke monster brother's "mother"? The one who was protecting the island? Where did she gain her knowledge of the island from?

5. What was with all the Egyptian-ish hieroglyphs and that giant statue???

6. Exactly what was that smoke monster all about? Where did he come from???

7. What was that game that Jacob and the brother played? The one with the white and black rocks?

8. Who were the "others"?

8. What happened to Michael and his son Walt?

On and on and on...

Highly doubtful I will participate in being an avid viewer of another show like this ever again.

What it most represents to me is an investment of my time only to realize that most people really don't want the real and actual answers to life and death (which is God and Jesus Christ), they want to create and draw their own conclusions which only actually makes for more questions than answers. Seriously people, get a clue! I know I did!

Mankind is flawed and seems to prefer it that way. We live in an age of political correctness and "let's not offend anyone with the truth" mentality.

After all, if you noticed in the scene toward the end where Jack is about to look into his dad's coffin at the church, the background stainglass window depicts the symbols of all the major religions. That wasn't placed there by accident.

Sorry folks, but God is real. Jesus Christ is real. There is no bright light for all to enter based on their own criteria. God set the rules and we don't get to ammend them or change them in any way to suit our fancies.

Get offended if you like, but truth is truth.

Lost was a great action show with plenty of mystery and intrigue, but the one thing it remains true to is it's title: LOST.

There have been some good explanations in other questions. Basically people are saying they think the island life was real and they all supposedly didn't die in the plane crash, but the flashsideways basically represented a purgatory/spiritual world where they all met up and then went to the church to crossover into the light together. A bad cop-out was that time is irrelevant there (not like we experience in regular life) so that why people were there who died much later than Jack. (like Hurley for example).

Personally, I was pretty disappointed with the ending (and I had lowered expectations coming in). It was a little bit of a twist, but way too similar to what everybody had been saying for years (what you are seeing is some sort of purgatory/they are all dead). Also, after seeing that, I truly don't believe the writers had that in mind all along. It definitely felt like it got made up half way through.....

I think it's crazy to even compare that to the best series ever. Especially with that ending, it can't even hold a candle to The Wire or Sopranos

I can understand your confusion. Basically, seasons 1-5 as well as life on the island in season 6 is what actually happened in real life while all the flashes of them all making it back to the Los Angeles airport was their souls in a type of purgatory after they had all died. They were imagining their lives as if the plane crash never happened. Desmondo basically ends up being the one that tries to make all the survivors understand the fact that they're now dead and it's time to move on to whatever lies beyond. Granted, the creators of the show didn't answer TONS of questions about all the mysteries of the island but that's LOST for you.

My wife tried to explain it to me this morning and to be honest, I am just left with more questions.

For all of Season 6 I thought the Jacob/Man In Black was a curse and Hurley would discover the un-binding from one of the dead on the island. When that didn't happen, I really didn't have a prediction for how the show would end.

Closest I came to understanding it - all primary characters died during the plane crash, everything they remember from the island were true experiences, once they "realized" they were dead they both let go of the island existence and experiences in L.A. That's all i got.

Everyone died, but not during the initial Oceanic plane crash. Their time on the island was real. Some people got old, some people had died well before the finale. The characters in the flash sideways were trying to remember their actual life - the one that involved the plane crash - so they could move on. At the end, it was Jack's story - it was his journey.

They all waited for Jack because it took him longer to "let go". Jack was a man of science and struggled with faith. All of them were dead, but some died before and some died after Jack. He just took the longest to come to an acceptance of that. The sideways world was a sort of purgatory in which they all needed to find their own way. Everything that happened on the island really happened and everything that happened in the flashsideways was a journey to finding themselves and eachother in the afterlife.

I know that many are disappointed by the ending, but I am happy with it. It was Epic television. I will miss it:(

I didnt get it either. As someone else said, it was a good episode until about the last 30-45 mins and then went downhill.

i think we all got it 6 seasons ago, it was all a dream of jack as he died !!