Early this season, when the episode titles were announced, my eyes fixed on The End. A title so simple, so bold and so perfect. It told us absolutely nothing except the one unwavering fact – All Good Things Must Come to an End!

After all, we are the rare breed. The fans of a show who knew the exact end date two years ago. There would be no more aimless wandering and wondering once Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse secured the ‘all clear’ to plant their flag on a finale and then begin a 2 & 1/2 year journey toward that final destination. Fans knew that the show would never run on until the ad revenue petered out and ABC halfheartedly pulled the plug, and we wouldn’t feel the sting of an abrupt cancellation that would leave us with five billion story threads tattered and dangling.

Lindelof and Cuse secured Carte Blanche to tell their story the way they wanted to. While it is up for debate whether or not they had a master plan from the beginning, or simply used the iconography introduced in Season 1 as a course map for the Back Nine, there’s no denying that their mission was clear. Each episode would have a purpose even if it didn’t exactly appear that way at first blush.

So while I knew the end was nigh, the deeper ramifications didn’t sink in until midway through last week. For the end of Lost meant the end of this series of blogs. Oh yeah, that’s right, I have a personal stake in this. Where’s my flashback/forwards/sideways?

So, this is The End, and there’s only more thing to do. For the last time ever… Let’s get Lost!

I’m going to get this out of the way right up front. If your interpretation of finale’s events is that they were all dead all along, you are dead wrong. Just so we don’t have to dance around it, I’m going to come right out and lay it down. Everything that happened on the island (from the initial plane crash to the hatch discovery to the freighter incursion/rescue to the time-travel shenanigans to the 3-Year Jump ahead where we found a suicidal Jack striving to get back home to the uncorked glory hole to the death of MiB and Jack and the crowning of Hurley) REALLY HAPPENED!!! Christian Shepherd said so at the very end. Everything happened. And although Jack comes face-to-face with his “loved ones” in that eternal waiting room at the end, time is nebulous. Some of those people died before Jack (i.e. Charlie under the sea, Boone in Season 1, Shannon via gut-shot while others died after Jack), and for all we know, Hurley lived a long, healthy life as steward of the island. It was only some time, way down the line, in a land where time doesn’t matter much, hat they all “awakened” to their former life and reconnected via a very special guy, who made a promise to Jack once upon a time. “See you in another life, brother.”

The reason I say this, is that I have seen too much griping on Facebook (with people misinterpreting those final moments), as if everything was all a fever dream in Jack’s mind. What happened, happened , and couldn’t have happened any other way. Need proof? If they all died in the initial plane crash, and the last six years was all a “dream”, there is NO WAY Jack would know any of them (certainly not baby Aaron). And for those confused, baby Aaron is still a baby there because that’s how Jack remembers him.