Damon Lindelof Still Stands by Lost Finale But He’s Not Talking About It Any Longer

Damon Lindelof still stands by the Lost finale but promises to let it go after his latest run in with angry fans…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

In the history of television finales there are a few that stick out that get universally panned by fans and critics alike as a let down for what was a once great show.

The one that possibly sits at the top of that list is Lost — a show so hugely rich with mythology that went out just like it came in — crashing to the ground with a stupendous thud.

Lost was one of the most popular shows of all time and it was the kind of television that forced you to watch each and every episode or you’d possibly miss out on some kind of secret story or hidden Easter egg that might finally clue you in as to what the island was all about.

As season after season passed, more and more questions piled up with minimal answers being given away but as the show reached towards its final two or three episodes, everyone knew that creator Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse had a grand plan that they had been touting for years.

In every interview they did, the pair said time and again that they had the ending planned for this show since the first days they started production, so there had to be an ultimate meaning to it all right?

Well, not so much.

The show ended, and while there were absolutely elements of conclusion, the bad outweighed the good if for no other reason than we were all left with about a million unanswered questions, theories and plot lines that never found resolution.

Sure, Jack died to save the island and years later he ended up in a church with all of his friends celebrating the afterlife, but there were so many other unsolved riddles that we as Lost fans felt a little cheated, and just about everyone in the world has let Lindelof know that via Twitter ever since he landed on the social network a few years ago.

As a matter of fact following the series finale of Breaking Bad — which was universally beloved by fans because it brought an end to all of the major storylines (except poor Huell who is presumably still stuck in a safehouse somewhere hiding from Walt) — fans began attacking Lindelof at will telling him THAT was how you end a series and not the way Lost went out a few years ago.

The end result as it turns out was Lindelof retweeting dozens of the responses, and when it came time for him to write his own love letter to the finale of Breaking Bad he just couldn’t say goodbye without letting another part of his life go first.

Instead of defending or deflecting questions about the Lost finale for the umpteenth time, Lindelof decided to put it all in the past and stop reacting at all to the people who hated what he did to end their favorite series.

“I’d like to make a pact, you and me,” Lindelof wrote in a special column for The Hollywood Reporter. “And here’s your part: You acknowledge that I know how you feel about the ending of Lost. I got it. I heard you. I will think about your dissatisfaction always and forever. It will stay with me until I lie there on my back dying, camera pulling slowly upward whether it be a solitary dog or an entire SWAT team that comes to my side as I breathe my last breath.

“And here’s my part: I will finally stop talking about it. I’m not doing this because I feel entitled or above it — I’m doing it because I accept that I will not change hearts nor minds. I will not convince you they weren’t dead the whole time, nor resent you for believing they were despite my infinite declarations otherwise.”

Unfortunately, Lindelof couldn’t leave well enough alone because he had to throw one more jab in there about his overall satisfaction about the Lost finale. He even tossed in a reference to the Breaking Bad finale for good measure.

“I stand by the Lost finale,” Lindelof said. “It’s the story that we wanted to tell, and we told it. No excuses. No apologies. I look back on it as fondly as I look back on the process of writing the whole show. And while I’ll always care what you think, I can’t be a slave to it anymore. Here’s why: I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really … I was alive.”

So from here on out, Lindelof promises to let all of the hatred about the Lost finale wash over him instead of reacting and getting defensive whenever the subject comes up.

For my part, I forgive Lindelof for what I believe was a somewhat poorly planned finale simply because the other 119 episodes were virtually flawless and some of the most well crafted, well written and brilliant television I’ve ever witnessed.

Stay tuned for more on this finale madness in my next column coming soon….