Ok, I’ll start.

I never thought I'd utter the following phrase but I've just finished rewatching Lost.

It has 6 seasons, comprising of 121 forty-minute episodes of action, mystery, romance & suspense.

A perfect quarantine show to binge watch, and should last you a while.

1/n https://twitter.com/JayMutzafi/status/1239381146544115714

I will address to the polar bear in the room (the ending) in a bit but if you haven't seen this show, I highly recommend it, and obviously, SPOILERS AHEAD:

First, I'd say the show really holds up 15 years later, and I now also have a new appreciation for the writers.

At times, it feels like a meandering mess & at times a meticulous masterpiece.

For a show with 15-24 episodes per season, it rarely has the agonizing slow burn of shows like Westworld, & for a 2nd viewing that lacks the novelty of a new show, it was remarkably captivating still.

For such a giant ensemble, the casting is absolutely stellar. The acting is excellent, the cinematography is some of TV's best, and everything on the screen is almost always very compelling.

My two favorite characters by far are Daniel Faraday & Desmond Hume.

There's also a ton of nodes to scientists and philosophers throughout the show, many I’ve missed the first time around. Faraday, Hawking, Hume, Lock, Bentham, etc'.

The ending (again, MAJOR SPOILERS):

I don't recall anyone I knew at the time who wasn't disappointed by the ending, which “ruined” the show by rendering everything that happened meaningless.

It seemed to suggest they were dead the whole time, & in some sort of purgatory/limbo.

I can’t imagine how many people misunderstood the ending back when it aired, but watching it now I realize I was wrong.

All the "alternate timeline" sequences in the last season were the only parts where they are dead, which makes it so so much better.

Everything that happened on the island up to & including half of the 6th season definitely happened, as Damon Lindelof confirmed (see even @joshuatopolsky misunderstood it):

What I think made it confusing is that the timing of this seemingly alternate timeline corresponds with Faraday's attempt to change the timeline.

The only explicit confirmation that it all did happen is one easily missed sentence in the last few minutes of the finale.

I have a giant new appreciation for @CarltonCuse & @DamonLindeIof (who's twitter bio is great).

Not just given the correct understanding of the ending of Lost but for the insane & masterful mosaic that is the entire intricate interwoven story from beginning to end.

Now for the presumptuous part of this thread:

I can't resist suggesting they could have had their cake and ate it too.

They had the perfect setup, if you only consider the limbo/"heaven's waiting room" sequences as an actual alternate timeline created by Faraday.

And then Desmond's "waking" everyone to the memory/knowledge of their experiences in the other timeline you get to save everyone's life, get them off the island (all they ever wanted), but still let them keep all of their experiences, growth, and connections.

It's inconsistent with the writer's desire to keep the world deterministic & unchanging, which they explicitly said an interview.

Yet Faraday thought the same, but also hope it might not be. This would have made him right & his actions more fruitful to everyone's benefit.

It also would have made Juliet's claim that "it worked" make more sense and more accurate.

And it would have made Desmond's vision of the alternate timeline more consistent with his previous conscious time traveling, rather than glimpsing this afterlife somehow.

But that's my take.

I understand and even appreciate the writers’ choices a lot more now and I'm glad I rewatched it.

It's an incredible experiment in storytelling, it tickles my sci-fi & time travel loving brain in just the right ways, and it is a rare gem.

Fin.