So let's get this straight: Jack Shepherd is dead but Jack Bauer is alive?
It was a double Jack Attack in a long weekend of long series finales, with 24 closing shop Monday (120 minutes on Fox and Global) and Lost wrapping up Sunday (150 minutes on ABC and CTV).
The two series couldn't have been more different in dramatic approach — 24 with its heart-stopping action, Lost with its thick mythology — but we can compare the two finales this way:
The Lost finale will be much-debated, but at least it felt as if something ended.
The 24 finale just felt like the end of another season, and might well have been followed by a promo for the upcoming movie.
We knew going into the 24 finale that details weren't really going to matter. The only question was, what state was Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) going to be in at the end? Alive? Dead? On the run again?
If you selected Nos. 1 and 3, you are correct.
Through the unwavering loyalty of Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and a bolt of conscience from President Taylor (Cherry Jones), Jack — who morphed into Mike Tyson with that ear-biting thing, didn't he? — was saved from an execution-style death at the last moment.
The final words of 24 — "Shut it down" — were uttered by a teary-eyed Chloe. With that command, video surveillance of Jack ceased and he literally went "off the grid."
Where is Jack Bauer now?
Not sure, but he's coming soon to a movie theatre near you!
As for Lost, referring to the column we wrote immediately as the finale ended on Sunday, some readers took issue with the bluntness of our observation that "they're all dead." But we stand by it, timeline nuances notwithstanding, and here's our thinking:
We cautiously accept that the stuff on the island was "real," but what's certain is that the stuff in the alternate universe was some sort of after-life. It took Jack Shepherd (Matthew Fox) longer than most to find his way through that stage of the after-life, because he had more to "work out."
Some readers stressed that the characters didn't all die at the same time, but we never claimed they did. Certain characters might have gone on to live for years, either on the island (Hurley, Ben) or off it (Kate, Sawyer and the others on the plane).
But after a final season in which half the story of Lost was spent in that alternate universe — which right up to the end might have been real, for all we knew — one of the big "a-ha" moments provided by the creators was that all those people in the church were, indeed, dead.
We guess it comes down to this: Did anyone survive the island? Presumably. But did anyone survive Lost? No, they didn't.
In the complete narrative as it was presented to us, they're all dead.
Anyway, that's how we see it, and it wouldn't be Lost if there weren't a debate.
Thank goodness we didn't have to think so hard about the ending — or non-ending — of 24.
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