In the lead up to the finale...

...of Lost, of course!

I've noticed a common thread amongst critics who are reviewing the more recent episodes of Lost. A sentence or phrase that keeps popping up with alarming consistency is "I will be so disappointed if 'insert mystery here' isn't answered by the finale".

Now, I am a card carrying, "I'm A Candidate" t-shirt wearing, blog updating, friend aggravating, theory espousing fan of Lost. (I will pause a moment for you to say "well DUH"). But am I going into the finale with my list of theories that MUST BE ANSWERED OR ELSE I GET HULK-SMASHY? Hell no. The minute I do that, I set myself up to be let down.

I think too many people are heading into sunday's finale with this sense of "alright Lost, I've stuck with you for six years. I forgave you Nikki & Paolo. I acted like I cared about Jack's tattoos. I didn't leave you when you killed Libby/Juliet/Jin/Sun (ok, mostly Sun and notsomuch Jin). YOU OWE ME!". Lost doesn't owe us anything except for to finish telling the story it was always meant to. Oh sure, there are a great many things that I would like to get addressed and/or answered. But will I revolt if they aren't? No.

A review I was reading made a very good point about last week's episode, "Across The Sea", which by all accounts has caused many a Lostie to throw their arms up in disappointment and say a very loud "wtf?!". The author made the point that the episode had the effect of re-focusing our attentions on the themes and motives that REALLY matter to Lost. We've gotten so distracted by things like "What happened to Ben's childhood friend Annie?? Why were the Others building an airplane runway?? What about the Hurleybird??" that we forget the most important question raised by the show: "what is the Island and what do the Losties have to do with it? And what is going to happen to our beloved Losties?" "Across The Sea" very plainly set in motion what is necessary to have those questions answered, so yay for it.

We get so caught up in the little finicky details of the show that it gets difficult to seperate our own vested interest from the ultimate story that Lost is trying to tell. We need to catch our breaths, sit back and let it all unfold as the writers want it to. And frankly, from day one this has been a show that heavily uses ambiguity to pepper it's story. Why shouldn't it end on the same note?

I say, by the time the show is done on sunday night and I have composed myself into a somewhat manageable human-shaped ball of mess, whatever questions remain unanswered are just fodder to keep my brain occupied for who knows how long, gleefully theorizing away.

That being said, if Rose, Bernard or Vincent don't show up in the finale, I'm going to be SO disappointed.