No more season-ending cliffhangers, no more time travelling and no more Hurley episodes: Lost is over.
The ABC show ended its 6-year run on Sunday night with a two-and-a-half hour finale that culminated in most of the cast walking through a door to the afterlife. It may have been heaven or it may have been somewhere else, but it was fitting.
Looking back at the series, those 2004 reviews describing the show as a cross between Gilligan's Island and Survivor could not be any less accurate; the show always brought a sense of intrigue to the table and dealt with physics concepts that would make The Professor's head spin.
There was the hatch that Locke dug up, those time-travelling bunnies and those pesky lottery numbers that seemed to turn up everywhere. There were theories that the island was a gate between parallel universes, that it was purgatory and even that it was all a dream. The show never failed to leave people with something to talk about, but in the end it was more about the journey than the destination.
Each of the main characters were lost in their own lives. Jack felt he was not good enough in his father's eyes, Locke constantly struggled with faith, Kate and Sayid were both running from their pasts, Sawyer built his life around vengeance, Jin and Sun were stuck in a loveless marriage, Charlie had to tackle addiction, Claire dealt with being a single mother and Hurley learned he should not let luck control his life.
Over more than 120 hours of television these characters grew and were able to conquer their problems. The island was just a set piece to keep people guessing, watching the characters transform. Letting go to find themselves was the real story. Seeing them all stroll through that door and into the light may seem like a cop out, but it provided relief that could not have been brought any other way.
Maybe there is a way to explain the polar bear and time travel, and maybe the man in black has a name. There are still plenty of questions left unanswered, and the finale brought up a couple of its own, but the real meaning of the show was not lost in the details.
