Major spoilers ahead.
This week on Lost, the episode we’ve all been waiting for. Jack is Jesus, Hugo’s the protector, reunions made us gush, and Vincent made us cry. Read our discussion below and let us know your own thoughts and theories in the comments.
Let’s start with the island. Jack’s on a mission to kill Flocke and Flocke’s on a mission to kill the island. They all go to the light together and Desmond is able to do both: make Flocke killable and start destroying the island. What did you guys think?
CARA: I’d probably think a lot more if we had any idea what the light and the cave and the plug actually were. Since they never told us that and all of it was basically just a series of props that either looked cool or really pathetic, it’s kind of hard to think a lot. It was fun to watch, though.
LAUREN: I love that the solution to the Flocke problem was un-penising a giant vagina-object, and the solution to the island problem was shoving the penis-object back in the island-vagina. Really?
SALLY: I feel like maybe they think they explained these things or that they are just so mysterious that they have no answer. I also feel like maybe the shaking of the ground and whatnot was supposed to remind us of the flashes when the island was skipping through time. So the light is the same thing that causes both? Anyhoo, it certainly was fun to watch and I kind of like the idea that both Flocke and Jack were right, but it was just a matter of who would actually win in the end. To that end, I loved that the winner was actually Kate!
Kate saves the day by killing Flocke. Awesome scene, or what?!
CARA: I literally pumped both fists in the air and screamed YES!!! at the top of my lungs. No exaggeration. I was like one of those screaming drunk dudes at a football game with the face-paint on. It was compulsive. It doesn’t in any way make up for what they’ve done (or failed to do) with Kate for the past 5 years, but I did get a serious amount of satisfaction out of it.
JILL: I also fist-pumped and yelled! Kate was so fucking Rambo in that scene, it was amazing.
LAUREN: I totally cheered.
CARA: I also enjoyed that Kate didn’t stay with Jack. I think that showed some growth in her character, that completing her own mission (getting Claire back to Aaron, and also getting her own ass of the island) were more important to her than standing by Jack no matter what he did, even though she did still love him.
SALLY: I was really happy with Kate’s ending. I think it was one of the highlights of the episode. I was so happy she was the one to kill Flocke and I think it does at least make up for the whole name-crossed-off-the-list thing. For a moment, I thought she might end up staying with Jack, but I was happy they finally realized that she should have ambitions beyond getting with Jack. Their kiss bugged me a bit, but whatevs.
SADY: Yeah, they actually gave Kate something worthwhile to do and an identity of her own outside of the eternal Which Dude Will She Do question, and it only took the entire series to get around to it! Good job! Granted, it doesn’t necessarily make up for the crappy way they wrote her, or the fact that her purpose turned out to be about birthin’ babies (as it is for, like, most of the female characters on this show; Ana-Lucia had a baby thing, as did Juliet, Claire, Sun, Eloise Hawking; the only characters to escape from it were Shannon, whose life purpose was doing a dude outside of her family, and Rose, whose purpose was giving folksy advice at random) but I was just so happy to see her accomplishing something genuinely commendable, on the show’s own terms, that I didn’t even think about it in the moment.
Richard’s alive, Lapidus is alive. Together with Miles, they get the plane ready to get off the island. What’s up with them being alive? What the heck do you infer happened to everyone who made it on the plane?
CARA: I was both really happy about them being alive and really, really angry about it. Because them both being alive means that Sayid is the only one who got the really shitty insta-death. Why my favorite character? It is so incredibly not fair.
LAUREN: Cara, were you happy with Sayid’s Sideways send-off? Even though Sayid died, like, twelve times in the series, I thought it made up for the abrupt bomb scene in the submarine a dozen times over.
CARA: As I discuss below, I was surprisingly pleased about the Sayid/Shannon reunion. I always thought that Nadia was the love of Sayid’s life, and would have assumed that he’d have rather been with her … but as far as things go, they pulled it off pretty well. I really loved it when Hurley started giving Sayid the speech about how he was actually a good guy and how he needed to believe it. And I was like yes, yes, so close! But instead of reflecting on that or even just saying “thank you,” he instead said that Hurley clearly didn’t know him, and was wrong. And they were so close. If Sayid would have had his revelation in sideways land, it would have at least been the next best thing. He did seem happy with Shannon and I was happy that he was happy, but I wish that he had at least had his “yeah, I am a good guy” moment. He could have even just had a moment when he remembered everything, where he lingered on the knowledge that he sacrificed himself for everyone and realized what that meant about him! Sigh.
JILL: I watched LOST with 8 people, and every time they brought back a character we loved, we all cheered. There was a lot of cheering. I was obviously VERY happy that Lapidus is still alive, since I love him. And I appreciate that the writers basically pandered to their fans throughout the whole episode. Most of the great characters came back, Hurley got his due, Kate got her due, and they made a bunch of insidery jokes that I’ll admit I loved.
CARA: I definitely didn’t predict Miles and Lapidus being two characters who would make it all the way to the end of the show. I’m not complaining, because I think they’re both great (though given the choice, I’d of course trade their lives for those of several characters who did die!), but it was pretty surprising to me. As for what happened to everyone who made it on the plane, I think they got home, and just lived. Claire was probably reunited with Aaron, Sawyer and Miles probably went off together somewhere as best buddies and were awesome, Richard got to live a real life which I think is great, Lapidus hopefully retired from being a pilot, because dear god, and hopefully Kate somehow managed to avoid prison for breaking her parole, but was definitely Aaron’s favorite aunt. I imagine that they would have had a hell of a lot to explain to the airport where they eventually landed, though.
SALLY: I was really happy when I saw that Richard was still alive, but I yelled out “no way, he’s alive?!” when I saw Lapidus. Of course, I’m glad he was there to fix the plane and get them back home, but I was definitely bummed that Lapidus got to live while so many others had to die.
I also have to say that I was pleasantly surprised that any of them made it on the plane and, presumably, off the island. I was also happy about who made it off. Sawyer can finally live a life without worrying about getting the revenge he needs, Claire can raise Aaron, and Kate can figure out whatever the heck it is that makes her happy. Richard leaving was also great now that he is no longer ageless and has spent enough time on the island to appreciate that it’s not the worst thing in the world to be off the island leading a normal life. Lapidus only went there to find out what happened with the passengers and to help them get off, so he got to save them not once, but twice. Miles was just along for the ride and I am a bit indifferent about him getting off, but it’s nice anyway.
LAUREN: I was also a little excited to see that some people made it off the island — it’s funny, too, because all of the season finales featured a splintering of the group. A lot of the show, looking back, is waiting with bated breath to see if there will be a reunion of our beloved characters after the group separates. In this one the separation was final — some stay, some go, but it all relies on the martyrdom of the leader. Good stuff.
Jack makes Hurley the protector of the island, and Hurley asks Ben to help him. Were you surprised by this? Happy? Angry? Annoyed?
SALLY: Not gonna lie – my initial reaction was “Hurley can’t leave the island because he’s too fat to climb down the ladder?!” But I actually like that Hurley ended up with this important task. He really does like helping people and he hated being off the island. Ben’s look when Jack annoints Hurley is SO FUNNY, but I think this a good ending for both of them.
CARA: Well I didn’t gather than Hurley thought he couldn’t get down the ladder, but that he was like “um, screw you, I’m so not doing that.” But in any case, I liked things being in Hurley’s hands — and I liked what Ben said about how he could do things differently. I like to think that they found a way to get Desmond home. What exactly they did after that, and what exactly the magical glowy light needed protection from anyway with Smokey dead, I have no idea, but it was an odd and surprising pairing, and I enjoyed it.
LAUREN: I have a little soft spot for Ben, so it was good to see him get some redemption in both worlds.
SADY: Haha, I got (yet another) Sun and Jin reunion, Kate with something to do, Jack dead, AND Hurley as the protector of the Island. All of my dreams have come true! All I needed was for Arzt to be waiting on the other side of the door to the Promised Land, and I would have been perfectly satisfied. But, yes, in conclusion: Hugo was so the only good choice! I knew it! You knew it! The Island knew it! All has come about as it should!
The sideways world was full of reunions – which was your favorite?
SALLY: I think the clear winner of the night was Sawyer & Juliet. Holy crap – loved it! Although, I must say that Ben apologizing to Locke and Locke accepting his apology, cried like a baby at that.
CARA: Yes, I really, really loved Sawyer and Juliet. That was perfect. I enjoyed Sayid and Shannon a lot more than I thought I would have, though it’s quite possibly just because I love Sayid. I also really loved Sun and Jin not only recognizing what had happened, but then grinning ridiculously at Sawyer afterward, when he still had no clue. Same thing with Hurley and Charlie.
SADY: SUN AND JIN SUN AND JIN SUN AND JIN. I was so bitter over those kids getting, like, A DAY together before their watery grave claimed them. Now they can effectively have already been married and still hang out. AND get a fresh start, without all the assorted horrors they got into the last time. My whole thing about the Jin and Sun relationship, which I cannot stop talking about apparently and mention creepily in every freaking recap, has been about that. Without excusing either of them, I think everybody can connect to the idea of having one relationship that started out wonderfully and then just went wrong, despite the fact that you were both pretty decent people and you really did love each other; the idea of these two people essentially getting to start over is really moving to me, in that Eternal Sunshine way and I thank the Mystical Powers of Sideways World for that.
Except, wait, they’re dead still. But they can hang out in Heaven! I guess! I was basically calling the Sawyer and Juliet thing throughout the season — I knew she would show up in the last episode and ask him out for coffee — but it was really sweet, so that’s good. And I was really surprised by how much I liked Charlie and Claire finding each other. And… oh, God. For about five seconds, I was moved by the fact that Jack got to talk to his Dad. I WAS MOVED! I ADMIT IT! DAMN MY EYES.
SALLY: I know, I didn’t think I’d care much about Charlie and Claire, but I was bawling like a baby.
We got what we wanted! Jack dies! Thoughts?
CARA: Dude, they pulled the dog card. I was so incredibly thrilled to see Vincent earlier in the episode — I was going to be so crushed if we ended the show without seeing him one last time. Then, when Jack was stumbling through the jungle and it was clear that he was going to die in the same spot he landed in and the final frame was going to be him closing his eye, I thought to myself “lol, where’s Vincent coming out of the jungle?” AND THEN HE DID. And then he laid down next to Jack so that Jack wouldn’t die alone! And I was like omg, fuck you LOST, you cannot make me cry over Jack’s death.
But seriously, I was crying over the dog, people. Even though they did manage to kind of make me like Jack again just a little bit. (I really loved when he told Smokey that he was dishonoring John Locke’s memory by wearing his face.) Loyal dog stories just kill me.
SADY: Haha, every time I thought Jack was dead — like when Locke beaned him with that rock — I got so happy. And then I learned they were going to drag it out for the entire episode. Jack gets to die AND process the fact that he’s dead AND he gets a special So You’re Dead Now party with all his friends AND he makes a cryface about it. EVEN DEATH will not stop Jack from whining! But we totally did call it, didn’t we, with the Ultimate Sacrifice For The Sake Of The Island thing? Jack is literally the Jesus Christ Almighty of the Lost universe, and they are not above lingering on statues of Jesus Christ Almighty to make that point.
JILL: LOST did the impossible with this episode: They made me care about Jack. I was actually rooting for him, and I was sad when he died. But I only went on Team Jack because (a) he stopped acting like such a douche, and (b) Smokey threatened Rose and Bernard, making him clearly The Evilest Person Ever. You do NOT fuck with Rose and Bernard!
Also, VINCENT! I cried.
LAUREN: Sigh, Vincent. I cheered.
I actually gave a shit about Jack here — not in Sideways World, where Jack is the cryingest person on television — but in his final scenes in Island Time, dying a slow, lonely death, comforted by dear Vincent, with the plane he schemed would get him off the island flying overhead. He had to die alone so his loved ones could live together. For a character who was so often frustrating and douchey, it was a just and poetic end.
SALLY: I didn’t care much about Vincent (sorry…), but I did get some satisfaction to seeing Jack die, even if he got the most Lost of Lost death scenes. I didn’t actually cry when he died, though I was crying through some of the sideways footage in the last scene. And, I totally did feel some nice warm fuzzy feelings about Jack – he lost some of his annoyingness.
We also get confirmation that the entire show is about faith. As if that was not obvious enough, the final scene ends at a place of worship. Did anybody see that coming – learning that the sideways world and church was the purgatory and then afterlife for the Losties?
CARA: I definitely didn’t see it coming. My husband also had to explain it to me. đ But I’m cool with it. I can’t really explain why I’m cool with it, because it’s something that I’d usually hate and that I feel like I should hate, but I just don’t.
The sideways world also makes a lot of sense, now. It was kind of like a dream, I guess — most things were in place and made sense, but others were just off and not how they were supposed to be. It also seems that in their sideways worlds, each person was trying to make up for something that they felt they screwed up while they were alive — Jack with his father/son issues as well as “doing right” by John Locke (though I don’t like how that was handled), Claire being with Aaron, Sun and Jin not being separated, Ben having a relationship with Alex, Hurley doing good with his lottery winnings instead of bad. I’m having trouble figuring out Sayid, Kate, and Charlie, though. I’m thinking that maybe Kate was telling the truth — in her sideways world, she really was innocent. Charlie’s mission might have simply been to help Desmond in the way that Desmond had helped him. And Sayid? Either he felt that it was bad for Nadia to ever be with him, or he just felt so badly about himself and his life that he thought the failure of his life was at any point having any sort of happiness ever. Which is depressing.
JILL: I definitely did not see the opposite-purgatory thing coming — because that’s what it was, right? It was like pre-heaven purgatory, not kinda-Hell purgatory? Anyway, interesting.
CARA: Right. Basically, they were all still hung up on what could have been and saying “if only the plane had never crashed.” They had to let go of the idea that it ever could have been or was supposed to have been any other way before they could move on together and actually be happy. The bomb never did anything — the “secret” that Juliet wanted to tell Sawyer as she died and her saying “it worked” was actually all about the vending machine in the sideways. And presumably Desmond saw the sideways world because the electromagnetism was so strong that it temporarily stopped his heart or something.
SALLY: Even though I knew that the show was centering on faith/spirituality, I was really surprised by this turn. I was slightly annoyed at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense and I really like it now. I think the most interesting thing about the heaven-purgatory thing is seeing how some of the core differences are resolved. Locke not having any faith at first, Sayid thinking that the best thing might be for Nadia to be with somebody else, etc. I did think it was a bit odd how some of the lesser characters really play a role in that, especially the ones who didn’t have any real breakthrough, like Charlotte, but… whatever.
I was wondering how Desmond saw the sideways world, but I guess him dying for a moment is a good enough explanation.
SADY: Actually, I have a sort of science-fictiony theory regarding this! I am not so sure it is all about faith! Because, yeah, the Jesusy religious allegory toward the end was fairly heavy, and heavy-handed, and I actually groaned aloud and typed “are they going to make this ALL ABOUT GOD” into my notes. (I don’t think any work of fiction should definitively assert that God exists and thereby effectively make God a character; it’s deus ex machina, it’s a solution that’s too big and too easy to make for a compelling story, and I seriously doubt that your serialized TV show is the greatest theological work of all time so I doubt you know God/The Powers That Be well enough to define them in a way that I’ll buy; I don’t have a problem with you substantively hinting at a larger metaphysical power, and really enjoy it in fact, but I think you should always have an alternate explanation for that power’s “actions” within the story so as to leave some mystery in the picture. Otherwise, it’s just a hubristic and cheesy move.) BUT: When Jack saw the plane passing overhead, as he died, I formed myself a brand-new theory. I think that, in the Sideways World, which actually was a parallel and alternate timeline, the Island was in fact destroyed by Flocke. But since Jack sacrificed himself to save the Island, the Island remained afloat, thus causing a paradox. There are now two versions of at least some of these castaways — one from each timeline. And since the mutual existence of those two realities would be impossible, a paradox, the Sideways World actually did merge with and collapse into the original timeline, leading all the alterna-castaways to “remember” their other lives and ascend into mystic glowy worlds of wonder. Not saying it’s not Jesusy! But since Lost has always played with both the science thing and the faith thing, I like to believe there are at least two explanations. That saves the whole damn finale — for me, anyway — from feeling like some drippy New Age text and making me terminally impatient.
LAUREN: I wouldn’t call it “purgatory,” per se, or even “heaven” so much as “afterlife.” Despite carrying on religious themes for the duration of the show they were smart enough to keep things vague and non-denominational enough that us obsessive fan-geeks couldn’t research the subject’s accuracy into the ground. I can’t say I was down with the religious themes, or at least the heavy-handedness of said religious themes. Sady, I also thought we were looking at some kind of paradoxical bend in time, something the show seemed to be hinting at all the way up until the last fifteen minutes when Christian Shepard showed up to mansplain Sideways World to the audience. The rest of the finale really worked for me — it REALLY worked for me thematically and as a finale — until then. I don’t know if I can forgive the show for boiling down half of the last season to “LOL IT WAS ALL A DREAM.”
I know I’ve complained a lot about “heavy-handedness” in this final season, but I think the show’s strengths have not been dialogue or explanation. The show’s strengths are in building mystery and sustaining inertia — and I hearted the brilliant inertia in Jack’s death scene! — so for the final moments of the show to be given such a pat explanation and be completely devoid of narrative movement was jarring and weird. Schmaltzy. Which sucks because the rest of the finale worked so well. This is part of the reason that I resented the religious themes so much: instead of providing a plausible story and confirming that they really did have an idea of where the second half of the story was going to go, EVEN IF they didn’t detail every answer for every question the audience may have had, they settled for cliche.
Notably, Ben chooses to stay outside of the kumbaya reunion. What did everyone think about that?
SADY: Okay, here are MY THOUGHTS: I like Ben okay. But Ben killed an entire town, INCLUDING HIS OWN FAMILY, became a dictator, fucked over and lied to everyone that we cared about for years, killed God, and still gets to (a) co-rule the Island and (b) get his family back and (c) get a personalized invite to Heaven which he doesn’t even have to accept because his new life with his resurrected daughter is just way more awesome. What did Michael do? Kill two people and tell one lie? And he’s damned to eternal torment? Ana-Lucia… accidentally shot Shannon and made Sayid sad. And she’s not good enough to ascend into the mystical glowy world? Eko? WHAT THE FUCK DID EKO DO WRONG? Without killing the finale buzz, I have to tell you, this was just a little more confirmation for me that Lost gave up on being anything other than a story about white dudes a long time ago.
CARA: I am really disappointed about Eko not ever showing up. That was bullshit. As for Michael … I mean, Michael’s character has gotten repeatedly screwed on the basis of his story being tied to that of his son, played by an actor that grew up way too quickly, something that nobody could have ever predicted in advance. Well, at least, that’s the official reason his character has gotten screwed. But I really do think that it would have been difficult to resolve Michael’s story without Walt. He couldn’t have been ready to “let go” without Walt.
At the same time, I don’t think that them failing to move onto heaven (or whatever) was really about them being good or bad, but as everyone kept saying, about them being “ready” to move on. I really, really would have liked to have seen Michael, Eko, Ana Lucia, and even Miles in the church, too, and I’m disappointed that they weren’t. I do think that it’s incredibly disrespectful to the characters (who are all of color!) to say that while everyone in that room mattered deeply to each other, those characters didn’t count. But I don’t necessarily think it’s the same thing as saying that those characters were worse people than Ben?
As for why Ben actually stayed behind, I’m not really sure I get it. Did he think that his purgatory was so awesome that even heaven couldn’t beat it? Did he feel like he still hadn’t properly atoned for Alex’s death, or some of his other evil deeds, and therefore still wasn’t ready to let go and move on? It was an interesting choice that I didn’t quite get.
SALLY: I got the sense that he really liked his own purgatory, but also that maybe the shock of all the things he did made him feel he wasn’t ready to move on yet. I thought it was an interesting last spin when the characters were all getting their closure.
JILL: I didn’t think that it was that people weren’t good enough, it was that they weren’t ready or couldn’t leave. Michael said as much in his episodes; when Hurley saw Ana Lucia, he said that “she isn’t ready” also. And Ben didn’t feel ready to go either, so he’s going to stay stuck in kinda-Heaven.
And my guess is that the actor who played Eko didn’t want to be in the finale, not that they didn’t invite him. Although I was seriously disappointed that he wasn’t there (also Walt!).
SALLY: I totally wanted to see Eko, even though I didn’t think we would. But if anybody out there was at TimesTalks Lost or one of the screenings – total let-down or what with Walt not being in the episode?? Who, wha, huh?
SADY: Yeah, the actor who played Eko apparently asked to be written off the show, and doesn’t have a good relationship with the Lost crew, from what I understand. I’m not surprised that he didn’t come back, though I am disappointed. But I still think it was ominous and gross that the church scene effectively contained the characters we “liked” or that the writers thought we would want to see — and that all but one of the show’s black characters, and several characters of color and/or women, were not deemed important enough by the writers to get their absolution and redemption along with everyone else. Ana-Lucia wasn’t “not ready” for some compelling plot reason; Michael wasn’t “trapped” due to some overwhelming sin (because Ben’s committed worse, and he’s allowed his transcendence); some writers decided that they were “unready” or “trapped” because they didn’t think we’d want to see them in the show’s final scene. Which fucking blows.
Most importantly, did you all find the episode satisfying? Does it make up for the season?
CARA: For what it was, I really, really enjoyed it. I went in without expectations, seeing how disappointing the whole season had been up to this point, and that seemed to work. I got big things I wanted — Vincent (VINCENT!!!), Juliet, and Kate doing something non-useless. I thought it was a great 2 hours of television.
That said, the more I think about it, the more annoyed I get, on the basis that the characters were resolved but absolutely nothing else was. They resolved the characters well enough that I managed to forget about this both throughout the episode and for about 20 minutes afterward, but once I remembered that, hey, we never even learned why it was that Smokey wanted to leave the island so bad in the first place, why on earth they couldn’t just let him, what the island was, why pregnant women die there, and so on … well, I’m actually pretty fucking pissed about that. Not surprised, but pissed, yeah. I mean, it’s pretty clear that they didn’t have a plan all along, as they’d been so adamantly claiming. Maybe for the characters, but knowing that the show would end on Jack dying isn’t the same as them knowing what they were doing when they created this mystery island with all of its strange properties and happenings.
SALLY: Oh! So I went to TimesTalks Lost last week and personally asked Damon Lindelof as he was leaving the building if we’d ever find out about the pregnant women. He said “you will get a significant amount of information about the fertility issues on the island – but not on the finale.” So, I’m guessing DVD extras or something of the sort? I don’t know, but he didn’t seem surprise about my concern and was really confident about his answer. I guess maybe one season really wasn’t enough for them to give us all the answers.
As far as the episode… I was pissed about the lack of answers when it ended. I wanted to know how Lapidus would fly out without knowing the exact coordinates, or how Hurley became the protector without the incantation that’s supposed to happen. But, I’ve come to terms with the lack of answers and am satisfied with the finale. I think they answered the questions as fully as they ever thought of them, so, whatever. As Cara says, it was a great 2.5 hours of television and there really were some bright moments in there. I loved Sawyer in this episode, Juliet was awesome, the Ben/Hurley pairing was great, and even Jack wasn’t as annoying as usual (or maybe I was just happy he was dying?).
LAUREN: I loved how they rounded out the character stories, but hate how they rounded off Sideways World. Once it exists as a complete story, all that Sideways World works for is providing a platform to look back on much-loved characters without resorting to a cheesy montage. Does it redeem the season? Eh. I don’t want to be the hipster in the corner who is all, “Their early work was their best; their third album sucked,” but I am. It’s not about whether the finale redeemed the season, it’s where this season fit with the rest of the series, and how the mythical elements that were introduced in the twelfth hour were handled respective to the story up to then. I know I sound curmudgeonly, but I guess I’m annoyed that they bothered to make this mystical, mysterious island a central part of a science-fiction story, but neglected to include any of this in the send-off. One reviewer suggested that the story would have worked just as well without the addition of the Sideways storyline, and I completely agree — and now that we know that Sideways world was an afterlife, I posit that the story would have been better without it. Look, I’m a hard atheist with a hard-on for a science fiction show that ended with a salute to feel-good religious uplift. Yes, I’m disappointed.
SADY: When Cuse & Lindelof were being all, “but it’s about the CHARACTERS,” I was really skeptical. First of all, the show frequently didn’t know how to WRITE for these characters; second, we heard that around the time of the Battlestar Galactica finale — to which everyone and her brother is comparing this episode, today, probably because they both ultimately shrugged their shoulders and got all “God did it” toward the very end — which was catastrophic. But it… worked. To a surprising degree. It was really far from perfect, because the SHOW was far from perfect, but in the reunion scenes, or when Jack got to close out his arc by reconciling with his dad and returning to the bamboo forest, when we got a chance to reflect on how much time we’d spent with these people and how much they’d changed, I actually was moved in a way that I did not expect to be. Lost actually got me to care about the characters here, and what happened to them. More than I actually cared about the resolution to any of the mysteries. And, for that, I think it deserves some substantial applause.