THE END - A Photographic Review - Part 19: Jack faces his father's death and the demons of his childhood and how they drove him down the path of his life and his choice to reach out and touch those demons and memories awaken his memories of the Island.

Flash-sideways timeline - Jack makes his way into the back door of the church. He finds himself inside a small chapel with various religious artifacts, and a stained glass window with six symbols of different faiths - Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism and Taoism. His father's coffin is also there. Jack approaches the coffin and circles it before putting his hand on it.

As soon as he touches it, he sees a flash of himself waking up on the Island for the first time after the crash.

He places his other hand on the coffin, this time seeing more flashes of his time on the Island, just after the crash. More flashes; Locke pulling him up the cliff, saying goodbye to Sawyer, leaving on the helicopter, with Kate in the Hydra, seeing Kate for the first time, their final kiss. As the flashes stop, he backs away from the coffin dazed and confused. Then he opens the coffin to discover it is empty.

Christian: Hey, kiddo.

Jack: Dad!

CHRISTIAN: Hello, Jack.

JACK: I don't understand...you died.
CHRISTIAN: Yeah. Yes I did...
JACK: Then how are you here right now?

CHRISTIAN: How are you here?

JACK: I died too...

CHRISTIAN: It's okay...it's okay. It's okay son.

JACK: I love you, dad.

CHRISTIAN: I love you too, son.

JACK: You...are you real?

CHRISTIAN: I should hope so.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah, I'm real. You're real, everything that's ever happened to you is real. All those people in the church...they're real too.

JACK: They're all...they're all dead?

CHRISTIAN: Everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some of them before you, some...long after you.

JACK: But why are they all here now?

CHRISTIAN: Well there is no "now" here.

JACK: Where are we, dad?

CHRISTIAN: 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 does it alone Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you.

JACK: For what?

CHRISTIAN: To remember...and to...let go.

JACK: Kate...she said we were leaving.

CHRISTIAN: Not leaving, no. Moving on.

JACK: Where we going?

CHRISTIAN [smiling]: Let's go find out.

I really felt a WOW! factor when I first saw this scene between Jack and his father Christian. This one final dialog between Lost' overarching hero and the father who imbued him with so many demons that drove him to be that hero who could not and would not fail. Jack performed near miracles in the operating room and on the Island, healing a woman's shattered spine and beating the life back into Charlie. But on the Island he was faced with the ultimate 'immovable object'.... destiny, which would not bend to his indomnible will. Jack faced his own failures and in accepting them he was able to transform himself even before the ceremony with Jacob and had both the faith and the courage to lay down his own life (as well as risking all of the lives of his friends and love) in order to save the Island which so confounded him before his transformation. Now he became the Island's savior but like Moses, he was not destined to enjoy the promised land. And he gave up that mystical place as well as his love, his friends and his own life in order to protect them all.


This one scene turned the entire 6th season flash sideways on it's head with the ultimate reveal that redefined the entire season. I was so happy to savor the surprise as well as the sentimentality of this final entwining of our hero's journies to the ultimate end and that mystery beyond which no one returns and for which there are no reveals.


Exactly what the flash sideways was is less important than what it meant to and for our heros. Whether the flash sideways was limbo or a prelude to the afterlife or, in my own interpretation just one in a series of karmic rebirths our heros experienced until they were ready to take to their next journey together, I don't think it really matters. It was a simple but oh so effective and dramatic surprise ending which helped redefine the entire 6th season and gave this wonderful series a finale that was indeed final and explored that ultimate finale which we all must face eventually.


Well as Jack goes through one more door, there lies another thru which lies a transformation into the unknown and undiscovered country. And for me there is one final scene to document and comment on before I let go of Lost.


mr badd