NEED TO KNOW
- ABC’s Misplaced ended 15 years in the past immediately, and followers and detractors alike are nonetheless discussing the ultimate episode
- I was a Misplaced finale defender, however with time, I lastly suppose the haters have some extent
- Although it’s anchored by robust performances, there’s one thing saccharine about the way in which all of it wraps up
When Misplaced ended on Could 23, 2010, it set off one of many best debates in all of TV fandom: Was the ending good? It’s a query that’s plagued so many reveals each earlier than (The Sopranos) and since (Recreation of Thrones), however a novel set of circumstances has made this query such a sizzling subject over the 15 years since we left Matthew Fox’s Jack Shephard dying on the Island with Vincent the canine by his facet.
Misplaced was on community TV, for one, which gave it an unlimited viewers. By the tip of the primary season, greater than 20 million individuals had been watching every episode, and although that dwindled by the point the present ended, these individuals nonetheless did wish to know most of the questions posed by season 1.
And whereas a few of these had been answered rapidly (What was on the backside of the hatch? Solely my favourite Misplaced character, Henry Ian Cusick’s Desmond Hume), many others lingered to the very finish, turning into extra convoluted. Misplaced was additionally the distinctive community present that was telling one lengthy thriller throughout its seasons, and for a lot of of these seasons, the endpoint was obscure. It’s not incomprehensible why the present — which aired 121 episodes throughout its six seasons — acquired just a little unwieldy.
Which brings us to the finale. Within the closing episode, viewers be taught which of the surviving Island residents make it off the Island (together with Evangeline Lilly’s Kate, Josh Holloway’s Sawyer and Emilie de Ravin’s Claire) and who dies, most notably Jack. The present spends nearly equal time with a storyline known as the “flash sideways” — one other timeline through which their flight from Australia to america landed safely. Besides, there are some main variations on this timeline: Jack is a dad, Sawyer is a cop and Desmond has by no means met Penny (Sonya Walger), amongst others. In the end, all of the castaways bear in mind their Island lives and have emotional reunions. Viewers be taught that that is some type of ready place earlier than they go to the afterlife, the place they’re collectively once more as a result of these relationships had been probably the most vital of their lives. Irrespective of how lengthy they lived after the present’s major timeline ended, they transfer on collectively.
Misplaced finale detractors dislike this ending for a wide range of causes. Maybe Vulture put it finest once they wrote that individuals hated it as a result of “it copped out on the whole sci-fi thriller setup of the present and changed it with a giant goopy non secular group-therapy sequence.” It flattened their “wealthy” characters and resolved “advanced emotional points.”
I beloved the Misplaced finale the primary time I watched it. I beloved seeing the castaways join once more and discover some peace. The appearing is gorgeous and extremely transferring. There’s a second the place Kate delivers Claire’s child, similar to she did on the Island, and Kate’s second of recognition is one among Lilly’s best moments. Misplaced, to me, was not about large mysterious solutions, however about the way in which these mysteries affected these individuals. It was about how the worst factor that ever occurred to you — getting caught on a spooky Island after a aircraft crash — might additionally deliver you among the most stunning, significant, joyful connections of your life. It was about love within the face of tragedy.
And but, after I revisited the ultimate season and finale this week, I discovered I favored it a lot lower than I remembered. It did really feel goopy. We spent a lot time reifying Jack and Kate’s love, which I’ve at all times discovered to be the least partaking dynamic on the present. Although there have been moments the place the flash sideways plot delivered — Dominic Monaghan’s return as Charlie, who died in season 3, nearly justifies the whole factor — in different moments, it dragged.
Ending the present within the afterlife feels just a little like dishonest. Folks die with unresolved points on a regular basis. Nonetheless, the entire level of the afterlife plot appears to be to underline that this was a present about relationships between characters earlier than the rest, and possibly that’s a superb message to go away us with — even when it’s convoluted to get there.
However then that redirects to one thing else unsettling concerning the Misplaced finale. All the principle survivors of Oceanic 815 are there on the finish — apart from Harold Perrineau’s Michael Dawson and Malcolm David Kelley’s Walt, two of the collection’ solely Black characters. In 2023, Perrineau instructed journalist Maureen Ryan in her guide Burn It Down (excerpted in Vainness Truthful on the time) that he was written out of the present after he criticized how Michael was written, and he was additionally vocal about it on the time. He instructed TV Information in 2008 after Michael was killed off, “I am disenchanted, principally as a result of I needed Michael and Walt to have a contented ending … Hear, if I am being actually candid, there are all these questions on how they reply to Black individuals on the present.”
I didn’t notice any of this might need been happening in 2010, however now, it leaves a bitter style and I can’t watch the ultimate season the identical means.
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If there’s something that makes me wish to plant my flag right here, it’s that possibly we simply want nuance in the way in which we discuss TV. The season 4 Misplaced episode “The Fixed,” which focuses totally on Desmond and Penny, might be one among my favourite tv reveals of all time. And on the similar time, Misplaced was deeply imperfect and didn’t do proper by all its characters, actors or viewers. Fifteen years later, the TV panorama is so totally different that Misplaced might by no means occur once more. There’s good and dangerous components of that.
