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Why Lost Doesn't Belong on Your "Worst Finales Ever" Lists

There are a lot of reasons to love Lost - strong characters with interesting arcs, great writing and acting - I could write entire essays (and I have) about how fantastic it is. Unfortunately, there is (STILL) a large group of people who seem to think that the 2010 finale of the series was less than superb.

Those people are wrong.

Now, I have been let down by many a show in my day (Desperate Housewives and How I Met Your Mother, I’m looking at you). This has made me highly critical of the things I love because I expect greatness from them. Many shows fall short, but Lost delivered greatness in its finale.

The main hangup I’ve seen is that the finale didn’t answer all the little, lingering questions the audience had. No, it didn’t. Here’s the thing, though: THAT’S THE POINT.

Lost is a show about life, and in life, you don’t always get all the answers. The finale (and the show as a whole) is about the big picture. Jack Shephard spent most of the series trying to fix everything, but the lesson he had to learn was that at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is the people you love who love you.

All of the characters were lost in some way before they found one another. Together, they grew as human beings; they found love and lost it, experienced tragedy, strengthened existing relationships, sought redemption, found themselves, and formed bonds that even death couldn’t destroy. Together, they got to let go of everything that had held them down in life, hold on to what’s most important, and move on.

The Lost finale was a beautifully crafted piece of art, and failure to understand it does not mean that it wasn’t great.

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