Thank you LOST, now I am really lost... (WARNING: spolers if you haven't seen LOST finale)

Any of you guys fans of LOST? Well, if you aren't then you might not want to read this post because I am just going to vent about it for a minute. For those that are...well, read on...

OK, so Mike and I just finished watching the series finale. I, like the other thousands upon thousands of Lostees, was expecting a grand ending filled with explanations that beautifully tied every little piece of the puzzle together. Now, ok...I didn't expect every little piece to be explained, there was clearly way too much to tackle, but I did think that some major mystery questions would be answered. After all, this was the series finale...no more, nada, LOST all-gonna, after this. So, anyway I really thought I would get sort of major satisfaction with the end. You know, akin to the satisfaction I got when I watched the Sixth Sense. That AH-HA moment which smacks you in the head and then it's like "Ohhhhhh, now I get it." Well, that sure did not happen with me tonight, at least not in the way I expected.

Did I like the ending? Well, actually yes, I did. Was I completely satisfied, no...no I wasn't.

I thought the character stories were remarkably resolved. I felt nostalgic and yes, even a wee bit emotional when everyone "woke up" to their life and relationships with one another. (Shut up, okay, I am 6 months pregnant so I also get misty eyed when I see beautiful green hills or a delicious banoffee waffle.)

There were definitley some things I really didn't expect and that I really liked and thought were poetic in a way. For example, I really liked how the sideways reality actually turned out to be some sort of spirit limbo where people continue to work through issues or "live" until they are finally ready to "move on." (What, is that not what you took it as? Well, that's what I interpreted it to be.)I really liked some of the symbolism, sometimes subtle, sometimes not, that was mainly left to our own interpretation. (i.e. "Christian Shepherd", going to the light, Ben not ready to go until he "worked through" some more of his issues, the mixture of science and religion.) There was a lot of that stuff, not definitively explained, but done so enough to have given me a sense of peace on the matter. I'm not going to delve into what I took a lot of that stuff to mean, because that would just bore you but suffice it to say that I do feel the character issues were well done, really well resolved and, in that regard, I was left with some sense of satisfaction. HOWEVER, sigh, the detail minded person in me with the obsessive need to understand EVERYTHING was left wanting more...much, much more.

Okay, so if you have watched LOST then you understand how the story is so riddled and interwoven with strange mythology and that the central, probably most intriguing character was the ISLAND itself. Yes, we learned a lot about what transpired on it, who lived on it, why they were there but I still don't feel satisfied with it's purpose. Yes, okay...got it, it houses some glorious, luminescent glow which is somehow so imperatively crucial to the souls of all mankind that it requires a protector who is capable of eternal life and has magical powers. I can buy that on some level but what really bothers me is the whole mythology behind it that wasn't explained. For example, the voices...right, so they are dead spirits trapped there. Why are they trapped? Why can't they have their own little limbo existence like the main characters and resolve their issues? Was that just Jacobs rule? Did that go away when Jack took over? I tend not to think so because MIB was able to see his dead birth mother, how come she could appear? And since I am on the topic of MIB and Jacob...here are my frustrations with that whole thing.

What is the stupid smoke monster? I mean really, I understand that it's supposed to be some sort of evil incarnate and that when Jacob allowed MIB to go into the light,it was dimmed because there was now this great evil on the loose but it's not explained enough! (At least not for me) I wanted to understand what would happen if MIB did get off the island, what would happen to our souls? I wanted to know why, if when MIB went down there he turned into that smoke thing, but when Jack was down there he just died. Shouldn't the same thing have happened? (I understand why it couldn't happen to Desmond, he is somehow magically immune, but don't get me started on that)I also don't get that since the light did go out when Desmond removed the plug (which "mother" had said should NEVER happen, otherwise we are all doomed)then well, why weren't we all doomed? What happened to the whole of mankind while it was gone? All that seemed to happen was that the island got cranky, but I saw no real threat to mankind. So, really, is it that important? If Jack hadn't put the plug back in, wouldn't the island have just sank to the bottom and the whole of humanity would be none the wiser? I guess what I'm trying to say is that they really built up that whole idea and then it was just sort of brushed aside with no real explanation. To me that was a huge bummer, because basically it seemed to me that the whole struggle on the island in the first place was to resolve this centuries old quarrel with these two opposing siblings...and that somehow this "disagreement" between the two was going to have a huge impact on humanity. Well, in the end it seemed like it was all just fluff to keep us intrigued enough to keep watching, but was really just an empty idea presented in a pretty box. Does that all make sense?

Anyway, some other things I wish would have been explained better (not necessarily all within the finale, but throughout the whole series--I mean, why introduce a concept you aren't going to finish, right?):
-Why do pregnant women die on the island?
-What was the deal with the Tawaret statue?
-The whole time travel thing...it was just confusing and ambiguous and created a lot more questions. Was it really that important to the story? Couldn't they have just left it out and still gotten to the same conclusion? (SIDE NOTE: They really made efforts to merge science and religion in this show, some ideasI really liked, others I didn't. Was this just a way of trying to merge the two?)
-The whole donkey wheel issue. (i.e. if you go to the light then you'll get off the island, but wait...I thought if you into the light then you turn into a smoke monster, etc, etc)
-What about Walt?
-What was the spring inside the temple? And what was that "darkness" that overcame Sayid and Claire? And for that matter, what was that "illness" that Reussoeu claimed everyone from her people had (i.e. why she killed all of them)? Same thing as Sayid and Claire I imagine, but WHAT IS IT?
-What is the deal with Eloise Hawking?
-How did the DHARMA initiative get to the island, I mean really?!?! If this was Jacobs game and he was in control, how did they do it unless he wanted them to find it? And if he wanted them to find it then why did all his people end up killing them?

Anyway, so you can see that my list of questions could go on and on. But I will say this, even as I sit here writing this I feel like it doesn't matter. It was an intriguing TV show, I should be glad it was entertaining and gave me something to look forward to during all those mundane hours of breastfeeding or cleaning or changing daipers or whatever. And so, I am. I really liked LOST and, again, I really like parts of the end. But I do wish there was a little more meat with all those potatoes.

What do you think?