Found?

This AV Club article on the LOST finale is excellent, so much so that I don't feel the need to add a LOT of my own ramblings.  It aligns closely with my reactions, what worked and what didn't, and assessments of the series as a whole (flawed but still really enjoyable and good).

While, like Murray, I loved the episode up until a distinct hollow ring in the church scene, I was more aghast at the plot device than he was.  All along we were assured that the island wasn't purgatory...but we still got purgatory in the end.  It felt lazy.  I can see it, kinda; it illuminates why everybody's sideways lives seemed like wish fulfillment on the surface, except for where they still had all of the same problems.  But I don't think it did justice to the show's rich mythology and mystery.  Like BSG, it was a deux ex "whoops look at the time gotta go."  I did like what Murray said about the mysteries being more plot-drivers and mood-setters, and that's a helpful way to think about it.  Still, it felt like none of the crazy crap that happened on the island mattered, REALLY--they may as well have been guarding a hat from a rabbit, because Jesus told them to, and occasionally getting struck by lightning.  In both cases, I was frustrated that shows which derive tremendous energy from 1) good writing and rich characters (though BSG's writing was better); and 2) mystery and mythology, choose to content themselves with wrapping up only one of those things satisfactorily.  Though despite those frustrations, BSG remains about my all-time favorite show, and LOST one that I remember fondly.

It doesn't excuse lazy plotting, but maybe the nagging sense of LOST's questionable purpose works, insofar as the show has been a metaphor for the struggles and vagaries of life.  Good and evil are powerful but often inscrutable concepts, and none of us get a satisfactory explanation for why we are put here or why we die.  (Even if an episode called "What They Died For" doesn't satisfactorily explain just that.  Ji-Yeon's still an orphan, goddammit...oh hell.)

One last thought.  I wonder how long Hurley stayed at that job?  And I wonder what there was to protect the light from after Smokey was snuffed?  Cause the job seems...spectacularly boring.  Even with Ben around.  Maybe that's why Jacob crashed ships into the island--he needed some entertainment other than Magic Mommy Chess!