Damon Lindelof Finally Understands, Forgives Those Who Hated The LOST Finale
Some people loved the Lost finale. Then there are people like myself, who hung on through the end of the last season just hoping that the ship would right itself, that the creators were actually interested in telling a story and not in just throwing out some Intro to Religion 101 claptrap and then delivering a huge amount of fan service at the end (OH MY GAWD ALL MAH FAVRIT CARUCTURS ARE TOGETHER IN HEVUNN!).
After years of being a huge Lost fan and major, vocal supporter (I once found myself the target of a major flame campaign when I said Lost was for smart people and Heroes was for the retarded. Where did history come down on that one, huh?) I was incredibly disappointed. And I was just as vocal about that disappointment as I was about my support. Lost fans came after me, and so did Damon Lindelof. Well, Lindelof didn’t come after me, but he came after the many who felt the way I did. On Twitter he denied us our status as Lost fans, said that we didn’t deserve his show, that we just didn’t get it and that we were haters and that our mothers were currently birthing the slimy spawn of R’lyeh.
Lindelof was wrong, of course. You can’t tell a fan of your longform narrative how to react to it, and what they can and can’t like. The people who stuck it through to end, even though they were being endlessly disappointed, may actually have been bigger fans than those who thought a heavenly reunion was an appropriate ending for one of the most ambitious mystery shows ever. We held the hope, but we also thought for ourselves.
Now Lindelof is starting to see it our way. The impetus for his change of pace: he hated Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. I get where he’s coming from; I’m monumentally mixed on the film as well, and I think the only thing saving it from me is the fact that I know it’s literally the first half of a longer film.
Visit the Daily Beast to read all of Lindelof’s thoughts on Deathly Hallows, Part 1, and his struggle with hating it, but here’s the important part, the big mea culpa:
And so I sincerely and genuinely apologize to all those whom I have stripped of their Lost fandom just for complaining about the stuff you didn’t like. It doesn’t make you any less a fan. In fact…It just makes you honest.I respect that. And I’m genuinely sorry for ever feeling otherwise.
We forgive you, Damon.
