Ditto for me, except I saw the second season of Lost.
so, which finale was better?
- Thread starter captcalhoun
- Start date
Ditto for me, except I saw the second season of Lost.
Have you been drinking?
I hope so, because if not something terrible must have happened.
Funny isn't it. The first time I watched it, admittedly, in the early hours, I wasn't that affected by the Lost finale. Watched it again earlier, with the wife this time, and completely lost it in the last 5 minutes.
I've seen both finales twice now, and to be perfectly honest, I'm finding it very difficult to choose between them.
I think as an episode, and as a finale, A2A just edges it because it was a tighter wrap up. Lost, had some truly outstanding moments, and possibly some of the best of either two episodes, but the end of the Locke story I found rather disappointing.
Have to say though, it was great to see so many familiar faces again. A shame that there was no Mr Eko as they practically had everyone else, including Vincent!
We're just very, very lucky to have had two great shows, and two great finales.
^Apparently they wanted Mr. Eko back, but the actor wanted 5 times the pay they offered and it feel through.
I don't see how that explains the girl turning off the TV at the end of LoM S2 then.
At the time they said in interviews that they wanted it to be ambiguous and that there was no deeper meaning. Either they lied (which is likely I guess) or they really didn't know.
Either way, I appreciated that ending more than the one we ultimately got.
The interview I remember reading with either Pharoah or Graham on Wylie's blog the day after the final episode aired, they put the testcard girl scene at the end to remind people that's it's a TV show, and it's over now, hence she switched it off.
I don't really see how the A2A ending impacts too severely on the LoM finale at all. Sam commits suicide to get back to Annie and co. and gets back there because he still has issues to sort out before he moves on.
I'd imagine that Graham and Pharoah were caught between a rock and a hard place with the final episode of LoM. They already knew that A2A was a go, but obviously had to have some sort of satifactory end to LoM.
I don't really see how the A2A ending impacts too severely on the LoM finale at all. Sam commits suicide to get back to Annie and co. and gets back there because he still has issues to sort out before he moves on.
I'd imagine that Graham and Pharoah were caught between a rock and a hard place with the final episode of LoM. They already knew that A2A was a go, but obviously had to have some sort of satifactory end to LoM.
Funny isn't it. The first time I watched it, admittedly, in the early hours, I wasn't that affected by the Lost finale. Watched it again earlier, with the wife this time, and completely lost it in the last 5 minutes.
They nearly got me with Sun and Jin, did get me with Sawyer and Juliette and the final conversation just had me bawling.
That's the thing though, Sam works out his issues and wakes up. He's just a sad man who wants to believe in a fantasy rather than in reality and he kills himself. I imagined that's why they played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" when he returned to the real world, as an allusion to the fact that while Dorothy learns to accept the real world for what it is (There's no place like home), Sam chooses to regress into his fantasy world.
The A2A finale implies that it was because Gene was a selfish bastard who couldn't stand living alone, so he basically convinced Sam to kill himself in order to have a drinking buddy... and even then, he kept Sam around even longer in purgatory.
I understand that Gene is the fan favourite, so they decided to shift to show's focus toward him instead of Sam or Alex... but I feel like it just ruins the open interpretation of LoM.
I feel like it also takes way from the original premise of having a psychologist who analyzed Sam enter Sam's world. The show went from psychological (which it was up until she worked out her daddy issues/Elektra complex - hence why she was attracted to the man her mother was sleeping with) to spiritual.
I don't mind the shift and certainly they started developing it in S2, but I just find it rather disappointing.
It was all sentimental, but gloriously so. After six years I think we're all afforded a little sentimentality.
I was fine until the final scene with Jack (and Vincent). Funny because Jack's never been one of my favourite characters at all. I just found it very moving.
I think that might rather suggest that he still did have issues.
I didn't take that from the final episode at all.
For that to be true Gene would have to have been self aware of his role in the grand scheme of things, which he wasn't until very late on in the day. There were certain instances where his subconscious motivated him to do the right thing, ie. taking Sam to the RA, but I doubt that he really realised at the time why he was taking him there.
The psychological slant had a limited shelf-life before that started getting old. The shift into a spiritual perspective worked well IMO.
As an agnostic, the story didn't do anything to challenge my stance on spirituality, however, I still found the ending more satisfying than simply having them all being in comas.
Does it really ruin the ending of LoM? Not for me.
Ashes to ashes easily, i dint really enjoy the lost series finale were as the ashes to ashes finale the girlfriend and I watched it twice in two days.
ashes to ashes had everything and solved all the questions that I had of what is going on where are they etc, Lost however failed mainly to answer the questions I had
ashes to ashes had everything and solved all the questions that I had of what is going on where are they etc, Lost however failed mainly to answer the questions I had
I think that might rather suggest that he still did have issues.
But it was the fantasy that created those issues, not issues he had himself... which is why he was led out of his fantasy by the other part of his subconscious (whoever that old man is supposed to represent - his doctor, God 2.0, whatever).
It's why I find the Alex/Gene shipping kind of awkward - they tried to create some kind of reason for her to want to stay in fantasy land because she didn't have a reason otherwise after she solved her problems. I originally felt that Molly provided a good reason for Alex to escape - a daughter is the motivation that Sam never had. I feel like the first season is more in line with LoM than the second and third season anyway.
Isn't it implied that while he lost his way, he also subconsciously treated Chris like crap because he didn't want to lose him?
There's also the weird awkwardness that comes from the other cops happily enjoying their lives in purgatory without question. The show suddenly stops being about personal discovery and is just a bunch of cops who couldn't deal with how they died.
I mean, why doesn't Chris get to find out that his mother murdered his father or something equally melodramatic?
Which is why I probably would have ended it after season 2 and changed the ending accordingly.
I don't really mind that stuff either way. I just find it an easy out - whether it's the ending of BSG or Lost or whatever. I also appreciated that LoM was widely devoid of any of that stuff and while didn't give a conclusive answer to the mystery, gave a satisfactory one.
I don't necessarily think that this is true. His reasons for going back at the end are two-fold. One, he feels more alive in the fantasy world than he does in the real world, however, two, he feels guilt at leaving Gene, Ray, Chris and Annie in mortal peril back in the fantasy world. This guilt is no doubt a hangover from the fact that he wasn't there for Maya when she was equally in peril right at the beginning of the series.
Yeah, I can see that, the first is very much LoM 2.0 in certain respects.
However, it's not as straight forward as that. Looking back at LoM, if it were simply a matter of going back to the year that means the most to you in terms of sorting out an issue, ie. for Sam it was 1973 because that's the year his dad left. He solves that issue at the end of the first season, yet he hangs around until the end of the second because of complications around his physical wellbeing back in the real world. Similarly, with Alex, she arrives in 1981 because that's the year her parents died. She resolves that issue at the end of the first season. Again, like Sam, she doesn't wake up at that point, because there were still physical reasons that prevented her from doing so. Alex's body hadn't even been found at that point. They don't operate on her until very late in the season, and even then in the finale, her physical body is being ravaged by infection.
The third season, she dies at the start of, hence she can't wake up after that.
Isn't it implied that while he lost his way, he also subconsciously treated Chris like crap because he didn't want to lose him?
There's also the weird awkwardness that comes from the other cops happily enjoying their lives in purgatory without question. The show suddenly stops being about personal discovery and is just a bunch of cops who couldn't deal with how they died.
I mean, why doesn't Chris get to find out that his mother murdered his father or something equally melodramatic?
I think that you can probably interpret that either way. Eventually he would have let Chris, Ray and Shaz go, just as he had Sam. If anything he was closer to Sam than any of the others but that still didn't prevent his subconscious eventually pointing him in the right direction of action, ie. to get him to the RA.
The 'treating Chris like crap' thing was to provide Chris with the opportunity of standing up to authority, which he never did, until the end. Not standing up to authority was what got him killed. Gene's role was to provide him with the means of facing up to that, which he constantly did. Chris couldn't move on until he'd resolved that issue. Granted, Ray's and Shaz's issues were resolved earlier in the season, hence they were able to go the RA earlier than the end of the series, but from a plot point of view, that wouldn't have worked.
At a bare minimum I think a 3rd season of LoM was needed. The ending to LoM was great, but IMO, A2A does a better job of wrapping up not only Alex's story (would have been Sam's story), but it provides greater resolution around the wider story of the fantasy world itself, and the other characters inhabiting it. Obviously there's a lot to be said for open-ended conclusions, but LoM was probably too much so IMO.
Yes, 'God did it' is a frequent deus ex machina plot device, however I really didn't get that sense from A2A at all. It was blatently obvious in BSG's wrapup, but if it was there with A2A then it was incredibly subtle.
The only thing to really push this was Keats' stint at the end as an almost cartoon charicature, and the rather obvious hints that his department was 'hell'.
Similar threads
