Final Shot Speculation

The final season approaches. Our thoughts, naturally, turn to the exciting prospect of how the whole show will end. The very hopeful fact of the matter is: we don’t know enough about what the whole show has been about to make a full prediction about how it will end. However, that doesn’t stop me having some knockabout fun proposing ideas about what the final image will be.

The final image is supposedly going to be very striking, and it’s an image that Damon and Carlton have had in their heads since as far back as Season 3. They even told Matthew Fox about it. Recently he divulged this:

“I don’t think the word ‘Lost’ will come up at the end. . . That’s how much finality it will have. Unlike any other episode ever done on Lost I think it will just go to black and that will be it. I think the show will end in a way that there really cannot be any future of Lost.”

Heady stuff. In light of the above, and stacking up all the various things we’ve learned along the way, let me throw some ideas about what the very final image of the show might be.

First, let’s get the idea of what it surely-to-fucking-God won’t be out of the way:


Above: This happened once. This is the only time it will ever happen.

There’s a lot of Lost loop-theorists out there that have been banging on and on about how this will be the end of Lost for a long time. That it will end where it began. They talk about how the show was originally conceived with the title of ‘Circle’ as further evidence of loop-based concept. Well I’m not buying it and will be bitterly disappointed if this is how it all goes. Positively, Fox’s talk of Lost’s ending having “finality” doesn’t at all match up with a loop-based ending, so I don’t think such fears will prove to be founded.

In a similar vein, though, considering the idea of finality, the very first image of the show was of Jack’s eye opening.


Above: Jack’s Eye (not to be confused with a Jap’s Eye, which is something else entirely)

Maybe the very final image of the show will be of an eye closing? Maybe even Jack’s eye closing, for fans of symmetry? Obviously it’s the circumstances and causes of the eye closing that are of utmost importance, but if you were putting a bet on what the very final image of the show was going to be then I’d say a closing eye would be a good one to back.

Given the creators have talked about how the final season is going to focus on the core main characters remaining it’s probably a fair call to suggest that the ending to the show is going to involve them greatly. Anyone keeping half an eye on the recent Comic-Con promotional artwork may have noticed one or two faces from the past re-appearing amongst the current crop of Losties. As such these next two suggestions are based around the main characters.

First up, how about the final image of the show being Oceanic 815 taking off from the runway in Sydney and soaring off into the sky?

We’ve seen the main characters at the airport, and we’ve seen them boarding Oceanic 815, and we’ve seen some of them on the flight itself, and we’ve seen them gather themselves up after it crashed. The two things we’ve never actually seen is Oceanic 815 take-off and the crash landing (of the fuselage – we did see the tail-end drop into the sea).


Above: 23 people got out of this alive, apparently.

A simple coda at the end of the show would be a brief flashback of Oceanic 815 taking off to its fateful destiny that, of course, we would all know about and know how it all winds up. It would just be a nice tone to the end the show on, if you like. Or if you like something more elaborate. . .

If the final Season shows our Oceanic people somehow getting involved in events that prove Jacob’s faith in these new arrivals was correct, maybe events get ‘reset’ and the whole Island reason for existence gets erased. What I mean is, the Island exists as a testing ground for humanity – watched over by Jacob and Nameless – and once the test is over the whole thing is validated and the Island vanishes, like it never existed, and perhaps we get various glimpses of what people’s lives would have been had they never encountered the Island at all.

A montage showing Ben’s life, had he never been on the Island, and Desmond and Penny and Widmore and all the numerous others, capped off with the Oceanic people boarding their flight and it taking off, this time never destined to crash on the strange Island. . .


Above: Proposed final image – suggested music ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’

There would be a kind of poetic elegance to that kind of ending, and it would certainly offer plenty of finality. (For the record, I think this is my favourite of my ideas.) It would give a fine reason to allow cameo appearances from the likes of Boone and Shannon and Mr.Eko, and justify the promotional images.

In a similar fashion, perhaps the final shot of the show will be all the Oceanic people – the living and the dead – re-united on the beach after everything has all been sorted out. (Don’t ask me how.) The likes of Mr. Eko and Ana Lucia and Boone and Shannon and Libby and Charlie all coming back together, happy. . .


Above: Season 6 Promo poster. I can see Boone!

I’ll be honest, that idea seems a bit hokey, and also doesn’t quite explain where The Others and all the various other people that have been on the Island fit into the picture. It’s good to keep focus on the main characters, but there’s a whole bunch of other people that are part and parcel of the Island world to take into account. So whilst I won't discount the idea that faces from the past are going to be part of the Island world in this last season I don't think we're headed for a grand finale beach love-in.

Alternatively, there’s the opposite view that suggests no one makes it. The last image of Lost? How about it being just Vincent, alone, on the beach – the last surviving creature after this upcoming war and everyone else has managed to wipe themselves out?


Above: He will outlive us all.

This notion is one Stephen King, I believe, touted a long time ago. Given the creators are big Stephen King fans then it’s not to be entirely discounted, but it would be a fairly grim resolution after all these years of loyal following and, personally, no matter what happens I am absolutely certain the ending will be a hopeful, if not happy, one.!

I’ve got one last idea for what the last image of the show might be, and it’s one I’ve mentioned previously and one we’ve already seen. The Island disappearing.


Above: Only for the final time it won’t come back! Ever!

Obviously you’d hope the circumstances for the Island disappearing would be something more profound and dramatic then someone just turning a bloody donkey wheel, and this time I envisage the Island disappearing permanently, it’s purpose fulfilled, utterly lost forever.

You don’t get much more “finality” than that, right? But if you think you’ve got better ideas, feel free to detail them in the comments. So long as none of you suggest the Island is really a giant spaceship then they’re all equally viable and all just as likely as anything I’ve suggested.


Above: Fingers crossed, Lost-fans!