The Legacy of Lost (Spoiler-Free)

There is a fantastic series of short clips on ESPN.com called "I Scored a Goal in the FIFA World Cup Final." There are only 32 people alive who can make the boast in the title of the series, and in this clip former Brazilian soccer star Zito reminisces about a goal he scored 48 years ago:



Watching this video and others in the series, I was struck by how ordinary these men look. If I saw this guy on a bus I wouldn't even notice him. I would never even imagine that as a young man he had accomplished such a rare feat on the biggest stage in the world.

This got me thinking about Lost, which recently ended its six-season run. In the immediate aftermath of the series finale there was much debate about all of the loose ends that the show had failed to tie up and whether or not the show's mysteries were revealed in a satisfying manner. But now the dust has settled a little and watching that clip about Zito reminded me of why I got sucked into Lost in the first place.

When Lost first came on the air, I found all the stuff about polar bears and secret hatches in the ground to be interesting hooks, but what really drew me in was the show's flashback structure. Each episode featured scenes set on the mysterious island in the present day with a group of strangers who had been thrust together through a tragic plane crash and were now forced to live together ("or die alone") as a community. During the course of each episode, characters would make decisions that often puzzled or surprised both their fellow castaways on the island and us as viewers. However, each episode would also weave in a series of flashbacks of the character's life was like before he or she ended up on the island, showing how their previous life experiences informed, if not completely explained or justified, their actions on the island.

Now that may seem like an obvious truth - our past influences our present - but for me the execution of that idea on Lost was truly spellbinding. A classic example of this is the fourth episode of the series, "Walkabout." By this point the show had built a lot of mystique around the confident hunter John Locke, but in the flashbacks we see that immediately before the fateful plane crash he was a frustrated and pathetic drone working at a box company. Locke uses the plane crash as a chance to reinvent himself into the man he always wanted to be, and most of his actions are motivated by years of having people doubt his abilities ("Don't tell me what I can't do!" is one of the show's intriguing motifs).

The flashbacks retroactively added richness to all of the preceding episodes as well. For thirteen episodes we watch the odd dynamic between Michael and his son Walt before finally learning their story, and that knowledge suddenly colors all of their interactions we had previously seen, investing them with more meaning and nuance. The flashbacks, however, are solely for the benefit of the viewer, and for the most part the characters on the show remain in the dark about their fellow castaways' previous experiences. I often thought about how differently the characters would treat each other if they had the same knowledge that the audience had.

One day during the first season of the show I was riding the bus to school and I took the time to really look at every single person on the bus, trying to imagine what life-shaping experiences each one of them had been through. They looked like such normal, nondescript people, but at that moment I thought about how every single person I come into contact with has accumulated a lifetime's worth of experience prior to our meeting. When I first meet someone there is no possible way that I can know about all of their past experiences beforehand, nor can I comprehend the way said experiences influence the way they choose to act in the present. On that particular bus ride, for all I knew I could have been riding along with a renowned archaeologist, someone who had lost a loved one to cancer, a video game world recorder holder, and someone who had scored the winning goal in the World Cup final.

That moment on the bus, for me, is the legacy of Lost. Sure, we all loved the mysteries and got caught up in the dense mythology, but for me the main purpose of all that stuff was to drive the characters' choices, and the most fascinating mystery was human behavior. It made me want to understand more about all the people around me - not only the strangers on that bus but also all of the other friends and acquaintances in my life.

An interesting corollary is that Lost actually did bring me closer to a lot of people. Part of the Lost experience was getting together with friends to watch and discuss the show on an almost weekly basis. There are some people that I had only known casually but when we discovered a mutual love of Lost it ended up leading to more frequent fraternization, followed by solid friendship. I'll never forget the epidemic of Lost fever that hit most of the cast of the Ohio Light Opera in the summer of 2006. We'd spend hours every day working as professions together at rehearsals and whatnot, but then at night after our performances were over we'd all get together as friends to watch Lost on DVD. It was a really galvanizing experience and the cast was really close that year.

My favorite era of Lost-watching was during the second and third season when I used to go to my friends Anthony and Desiree's apartment and the three of us would gather on their bed to watch it on their crappy little TV. The reception was terrible (remember how TVs used to have rabbit ears?) and we certainly didn't have DVR to skip the commercials and replay crucial moments, but we wouldn't have wanted it. I loved the commercial breaks because it gave us several chances during the course of the hour to share our reactions in real time as the episode developed. After it was over we would usually continue the discussion of the episode for a solid hour afterward. Then during the week we'd discuss the latest Doc Jensen article and share our latest theories. I have heard some people say that they wanted to abstain from Lost until it ended so that they could watch it all at once, but they missed out on a great six-year-long communal experience.

So it may sound cheesy or over-dramatic, but Lost really did bring me closer to other people. You may say, "Yeah, but can you really base a friendship on a shared love for a TV show?" That's a valid question, but Lost, like a lot of great literature, touches on a wide variety of universal themes that can often lead to discussions about personal beliefs and relevant life experience that can deepen any relationship.

Is the show perfect? No. But I am so glad I went on this ride for six years with so many friends (even my sister Amy and her husband, two of the last people I would have suspected to get caught up in Lost, eventually jumped on board). Near the end of the series finale, there was a wordless scene during which I got to sit back and marvel at the vast array of incredibly rich characters the show gave the world over its run. At that moment I felt pure gratitude to the creators, writers, actors, and everyone involved in bringing such a beautiful show to the air. So thanks, Lost, for six great years, and I'll see you in another life, brother.