“Lost” in that Old Time Religion

Who among us was really prepared for the full horror of the conclusion to six seasons of “Lost”? Not that the show hadn’t prepared us well. The terror of a plane breaking apart in mid-air; the imprisonment of Sayid, Ben, Jack, Kate, Sawyer; the deaths, the murders, the betrayals; and finally the torture, the repeated, terrible scenes of torture of Ben, of Sayid, of Sawyer – a torture whose normalization through this show and others (“24” comes to mind) should give all of us pause. But all of that was beside the point. In the end, it was all about heaven. It was all about the old Christian Church. It was all about “letting go” so after death we could “move on.” As the smiling, happy, saved faces of the victims of Oceanic 815 gathered on the pews – perfect teeth flashing behind beatific, mostly white faces – as Jack’s Dad Christian Shephard (and now we understand that his last name really should have been spelt “Shepherd”) showed them the way to the light – the full weight of the horror could finally be felt. This was the feel-good happy ending we had been told was coming. This was the conclusion to six years of mystery and plot twists. Here, back on the hard pews of a dreaded twenty-century old institution, we were to find our salvation. And suddenly, some of us felt just a little sick.