Love It

Go ahead. Say “Lost” was stupid. I dare you to cite those trite and overused examples I’ve had thrust my way these last six years. “Why are there polar bears on an island with a tropical climate?” or “How can that one guy still be obese after half a decade of a sea urchin and mango diet?”

What the “Lost” opposition didn’t realize is that we Lost fans asked these very questions too. We are not idiots, but instead, we are people of faith. We couldn’t be scared off by the ridiculousness of time traveling or voices whispering in the wilderness. It only bonded us more.

We fans know television isn’t always meant to be an easy escape – that there isn’t always meant to be an indirect relationship between the remote control and our brains (aka “TV turns on, mind turns off”).

If J.J. Abrams and company presented a character named Daniel Faraday; we knew we had to research his namesake, 18th century physicist Michael Faraday, and his work on electromagnetism. If everyone’s favorite island cowboy Sawyer was reading Steinbeck, we knew we couldn’t fully understand the episode without a fairly respectable grasp of the themes in “Of Mice and Men.” Six seasons have required me to research (through Wikipedia, mostly – I do have a life) Christian theory, enlightenment philosophers and ’60s pop song lyrics.

But, above all else, what made this show so rewarding to its faithful audience was all of those naysayers – those who cast us “foolish fans” away as dopes who could believe in smoke monsters and magic numbers. It was they who tested our faith and only made us stronger. And now that the show has been completed and we saw our fidelity rewarded with answers, closure and perhaps a little too much sentiment, we know it is they who officially lost.

-Maggie Owens

Hate It

I walked into my living room Sunday night and started to ask my sister what she was watching. Before I could get two words out, she screamed, “SHUT UP! FOR JUST FIVE MINUTES!” as she and her friend gripped a box of tissues, intently focused at the edge of their seats.

In a few minutes, the “Lost” finale they had waited six years to see, a resolution to all the maddening plot puzzles was over. And at the end of it all they both just said “huh?”

Then the debates started. Were they dead the whole time? Was the new place heaven? Was the island purgatory? What the fuck does everything mean? And now, after six years of waiting for “Lost” fans to shut up about the show, they get a vague ending that just leaves more questions to talk about.

Seriously? Are you surprised the end was confusing? Did you actually think they were going to resolve anything?

Fans like my sister, who are addicted to the show like crack, have been duped. They got emotionally hooked to a show that left them theorizing and arguing over what each little code or mythological reference meant and how they were going to get off the island since “Lost” began. These are all mysteries that never had an answer to begin with.

The writers have been stretching and milking the plot with no destination for as long as people were interested. Creators Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have said they’ve been making stuff up as they’ve gone along. The only reason they ended the series was because it seemed people finally started to get tired of them spinning their wheels.

Now nobody’s happy. “Lost” fans will continue to debate an unsolvable mystery until they get sick of talking in circles, and the rest of us are still stuck listening.

-Camden Andrews