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Critics Slam Lost Finale – Do You Agree?

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Critics have mixed feelings about the ending of Lost.

Don't read further if you didn't watch.

The show ended its nearly 6-year run Sunday night with a 2 1/2-hour finale in which Jack — and half the characters — die. Read the entire recap here.

Related: PHOTOS: Hot bodies of Lost

Mike Hale of The New York Times said the show "felt forced and, well, a bit of a cop-out."

Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly joked, "Have you ever been in one of those pop culture conversations where you've seen a movie that someone else hasn't, and you trick-spoil them by joking, 'And in the end, they all died?' Well, be careful using that punchline if you find yourself at the water cooler… with someone who hasn't seen tonight's Lost finale, because yes, they really did all die in the end. … 'The End' was an emotionally draining epic that had me crying with almost every single 'awakening' and has left me mulling the true significance of the Sideways world…

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Todd VanDerWerff of The Los Angeles Times: "The End chose not to tie up loose ends or make the mythology entirely make sense. It decided not to make more specific just why the Monster couldn't leave the Island or why the Island had to exist for the rest of the world to go on as it is (at least, that's how I'm interpreting the idea that the Island's heart going out would mean the end of everything)."

VanDerWerff defends the writers' decision to leave so many loose ends.

"Big, giant answers about what the Island was or its place in the world's cosmology or why it had Egyptian stuff all over it or anything like that were probably bound to be disappointing, as most of the answers dispensed this season were, only even more so," he writes. "Saying what the Island is is like saying what the meaning of life is; it's a question you can ask but never receive a really satisfying answer to."

Noel Murray, The Onion A.V. Club writes, "I don't know that a person who'd never seen Lost would've been able to watch this episode and get much out of it (unlike the best Losts in the past, which work as individual units of story), but as far as delivering action, emotion, wit and 'whoa, what the hell?' I'd say The End was enormously entertaining."

Gawker's Max Read says the show ended in the "worst way possible.

"I have taken a creative writing class or two… and do you know this thing they teach you? 'Don't end your story with all your characters being dead.' It is like cheating. It is worse than cheating! It is the wussiest thing a writer can do," he writes.

UsMagazine.com
Lost blogger Mara Reinstein defends the ending.

"After a wildly uneven season, the show redeemed itself by going back to what made it so captivating in the first place: life or death drama, nail-biting tension and spiritual enlightenment. Above all, this was a show about a group of strangers trying to live together, and to see them come full circle and reunite was deeply satisfying. No, not all the questions were answered, but did you really want to see the show end with the explanation of the numbers?"

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