I felt satisfied after that ending, and I realise I'm probably in the minority as I say it (lol the internet). I keep trying to explain to my mother that the island wasn't purgatory and they weren't dead all this time.
I guess your enjoyment of the finale all stemmed on what your expectations of the series as a whole should have been. Should it have been a focus on the mysteries of the island or on the characters? I think it's no surprise that the whole series has focused on the characters. It would have been quite difficult to explain a realistic reasoning on how a smoke monster exists and to have everyone satisfied with it.
Although there's just so much I want to discuss, like what it all means, how are these events possible etc I don't feel like I should discuss the whole finale right now as there's more informed people out there who can draw reasonable conclusions better than I ever could.
Like this guy. I am curious as to hear what other people thought of it though.
At the end of it all, I left the show feeling very satisfied. Yes there's questions that weren't explained, Walt, Michael etc. but there's still time. Maybe things can be explained in DVD commentaries or conventions, or maybe not ever explained. In all the series was one big journey. The island was the one constant in the show. It showed the plane crash after the credits with footprints in the sand. It indicates that even though the people who arrived on the island have come and gone, the remains of the crash are still there. It's the end of an era. The characters played their part and added to the mythology of the island and now they are gone. There can be future inhabitants of the island who may wonder why a plane crash was there the same way there was a mystery surrounding the Dharma barracks. Make me wonder about my own life, and the others around me. The earth still goes on, but we do not, just another step in time.
The finale brought together all those conclusions that the people who cared about the characters had hoped for. Jin and Sun, Sawyer and Juliet, Charlie and Claire. I make no apologies for getting emotional at seeing these characters finally reaching their conclusions with each other. The writers dropped so many ambiguous hints and left things just opened ended enough to allow for people of different faiths (or none at all) to draw their own conclusions and have them line up enough with the story to matter on a personal level.
I'd say credit is due. Lost is still, haters be damned, 90% better than most other TV or movies right now.
And I can't believe I only now realised that Jack's father's name was Christian Shepherd.