Liveblogging: Lost series finale

6:05 pm Central: No promises. I may get caught up and forget to blog. I may throw in some spoilers, intentionally or unintentionally. Watching the pre-show now.

6:20 pm Central: I've avoided most of the podcasts and featurettes and such, so this is the first time I'm "meeting" the actors and hearing what they think about the show. Cognitive dissonance listening to Daniel Dae Kim ("Jin Kwon") speak perfect unaccented English. It's been easy to achieve suspension of disbelief vis a vis the characters as "real people" with this show.

6:30 pm Central: My "Lost experience" has been much more compressed than most. I cheated -- I watched the first five seasons for the first time right before Season Six started. Now I'm re-watching them with Tamara.

6:50 pm Central: I've been re-watching on Netflix (streaming) -- all these commercials really crush the buzz. And just as a side note, I still predict that Hurley or Ben will end up as the "guardian." Jack as Da Man is just too predictable.

7:02 pm Central: NOT PENNY'S BOAT. Still the most heartbreaking moment of the show, even given the Jin/Sun exit in Season Six.

7:13 pm Central: And as another side note (they just showed the freigher explosion clip), I think that Yunjin Kim ("Sun Kwon") may be the best ACTOR on the show. Toss-up between her, Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") and Josh Holloway ("James Ford, a/k/a Sawyer").

7:53 pm Central: They just showed the Jin/Sun death scene. I cried. Again.

8:00 pm Central: OK, main event beginning -- "previously on Lost ..."

8:12 pm Central: So, is this concert going to be Charlie Pace at Eloise Hawking's event, Jack's son's piano recital, or Tom Petty live?

8:20 pm Central: Okay, so it's the Hawking soiree. Always good to see Rose and Bernard again. Why so serious, FLocke? Hopefully Sideways Locke's awakening will put some doubt in that bald grape of yours.

8:26 pm Central: Son of a bitch. Jin and Sun got me bawling AGAIN.

8:36 pm Central: Hmm ... FLocke also thinks that Jack as Guardian is too obvious. Will it be Hurley running down FLocke with the Dharma van, or Ben calling up the spirits of Alex and Allison Janney?

8:45 pm Central: Those Target commercials are SOOOOOOO wrong.

9:03 pm Central: Come on, Desmond, the rock isn't that heavy. Used to bullseye womp rats no bigger than that rock all the time back home.

9:14 pm Central: All teary-eyed. Charlie's fully back in the loop again.

9:18 pm Central: Sorry, but the fake-Matrix "Jack and FLocke race toward each other" thing was just ... cheesy. I'm starting to think that Sideways Hurley acting as sort of consigliere in the Desmond Conspiracy is confirmation of my prediction. He becomes the Guardian, Desmond becomes the Island itself.

9:25 pm Central: FLocke is FUBAR. Real Locke is coming out of surgery and feels his legs. Satori! Convergence!

9:37 pm Central: Kate and Jack last kiss time. Meh. Kate always belonged with Sawyer.

9:42 pm Central: Miles: "I don't believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape."

9:47 pm Central: Okay, I take that back about Kate and Sawyer. Never saw the Juliet connection as so permanent before. Sweet.

10:06 pm Central: Told you it would be Hurley! Ha! Next prediction: Jack becomes White Smokey.

10:30 pm Central: They give us that for finis? Weak, dudes. I want some more Hurley and Ben Island-Guarding Action! I want Jack as White Smokey, a la Gandalf!

OK, OK, not so bad, I guess. But I didn't expect them to turn it into What Dreams May Come redux, and it grates. Well, that wraps up the liveblog. Niters, and I'm back to the day job.

Update, after sleeping on it, watching part of the Kimmel take, etc.: There was no way the producers were going to make everyone happy with the ending, or even come close. There was also no damn way I could be fair to them a minute after the screen went black for the final time. Good job, guys. Sorry I didn't say that last night. I'm sure my rudeness left you crying. Hopefully, crying all the way to First National Dharma Initiative Bank.

They managed a nice symmetry. IIRC, the pilot began with Jack's eye opening as he came to consciousness in the jungle with Vincent (the dog) looking at him; got up, walked past a tennis shoe hanging from a tree. The series finale ended with him packing past the now-decayed tennis shoe, lying down, the dog coming up and nuzzling and lying down with him, his eye closing.

They did change it up some -- faked left with Jack accepting the guardianship, then ran right, gave him a different job and left Hurley in charge, with Ben as consigliere. The "redemption of Ben" bit was particularly nice.

The more I think about my comments vis a vis the actors, the more I think I gave a bunch of them short shrift because I didn't particularly like their characters (the fact that Kate and Jack tended to piss me off doesn't mean Evangeline Lilly and Matthew Fox didn't do a great job), or because their characters were no longer at the forefront screentime-wise (I'll gladly watch Dominic Monaghan in anything), or just maybe because their portrayals were so well done and I was so involved with the characters that it never occurred to me that they were, um, acting (maybe the highest compliment you can pay an actor, and I'm thinking in particular of Terry O'Quinn and Jorge Garcia).

Bottom line on the actors: There's not a single cast member of Lost whose name on a movie or show won't at least make me give it a look. Thinking that over, I'm thinking that this is especially true of Jorge Garcia and Michael Emerson.

Biggest disappointment which I can only reveal now that it's over (except, hopefully, for a Hurley/Linus big screen movie: Lost: Return of Smokey): I kind of hoped the show would end with God walking out of the Island Light Cave ... in the form of Bob Denver.