Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A | 5820 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT I Once Was Lost, But Now Am Found
By Cindy McLennan | Season 6 | Episode 17 | Aired on 2010.05.23
Now, if I think of the Island serving as an earthly Purgatory for the living, how do I see the Sideways? Well, Jezebel.com already drew comparisons to Bardos, so I don't want to go there. Since religious analogies don't work for everyone, how about some flesh and blood? Forget all that Purgatory stuff for a moment. Instead, think of the Island as surgery. It's the operating room. It's what our characters have to endure, in life, to get their soul cancer surgically removed. And the Sideways? The Sideways is the recovery room. Like life, once the Island is done with someone, that person moves on. Eventually, people wake up in eternity -- where there are no time constraints on them as they recover from the spiritual operations they've undergone in earthly life. The cancer's gone, but they may still need some additional chemo, radiation (sorry, Des), medication or therapy. Actually, this works better for me than thinking of the Sideways as Purgatory, Limbo, or Bardos. After you have an operation, you're not all better. The problem has been corrected, but you still have to heal. The epiphanies? They were the last bit of healing. Once everyone is restored to health, the doctor opens the doors and discharges the patients, who move on to a better, fuller, happier life.
I feel remiss in not mentioning giving special attention to John Locke, Ben Linus and Hugo Reyes, but I'm still wallowing in their stories, so it's difficult. I like to think that during his tenure as Island protector, Hurley found a way to make new rules that canceled out CJ and Jacob's rules. And I'd like to think Hurley's term didn't end with his murder, but that one of his new rules was that he was free to die gently, or return home, even, once he found his replacement. I'm agnostic on whether Ben succeeded him as leader. I think Ben needed to be loved and needed, a lot more than he needed to be in control. Locke's happy ending leaves me a little empty. I mean, I'm glad he's with everyone, and it would have made no sense for Helen to be there (yes, even less than newborn Aaron), but it made me sad to see him sitting in the front pew, all alone. I wish someone, even Boone, had been sitting beside him.