After sleeping on it, I know how I feel about the LOST finale.

Foreword: If you do not want to have the finale spoiled for you, or if you could care less about LOST, you might wanna skip this one...

I'm mad. I'm steamin'. Why? Instead of a beautiful and mysterious ending to a beautiful and mysterious show, the LOST writers gave us a relativistic (EVERY religious symbol plastered all over the chapel walls? Really???) and pseudo-catholic ending dripping in cheap nostalgia and hokeyness. I've begun to think that Abrams has a problem writing a good ending (was anyone a fan of the three ridiculous time travel episodes that wrapped up Felicity?). I've been fairly displeased this whole last season because I hated the concept of the "sidways flash" all along, and I felt that it was pure, 100% filler. I still feel that way after an ending that was based completely on explaining and justifying the sideways world. Here's what I think should have happened:

When Jack puts the cork back into the light source at the heart of the island, he should've become the smoke monster and spewed back out of the cave, landing surprised on his feet. The last scene of the show should've been Hurley and Jack sitting side-by-side on the beach. As they watch the plane carrying Kate, Miles, Lapidas and Sawyer home, they should have gotten teary-eyed and had a brief, nostaligic, music-filled mental flashback over all the relationships and occurrences during their time on the island (as opposed to every. single. character. having their own flashbacks when they encountered each other in sideways reality. That got old for me and I felt it was another cheap trick to keep you engaged in a ridiculously long finale.) After they've taken that moment to bring the audience to tears of remembrance, Jack and Hurley should've looked at each other, and begun playing that game that Jacob and the Man in Black always played, signifiying that they had accepted their new roles on the island.

I was actually surprised by how MUCH they tied up the show. If they're all dead, where does that leave any room for the mystery that the show has done so well? It seems to me the only "open end" they left was where they are all going next, once they've seated in the chapel together...but that's not even a very interesting mystery to me. Had the writers done an ending similar to mine, you'd be left wondering what happened to those who got off the island, but you'd be satisfied because they finally got off, and the ones who didn't have a specific purpose to stay.

But the two biggest problems I had with the finale were:

1. Christian Shepherd's undeservedly prominent role, especially as some kind of afterlife "guide". He was a dispicable character, and he played that role well. But his place on the show was minor enough that I found it strange that he would be the one explaining the ending to Jack.
2. THE LAST SCENE SHOULD'VE TAKEN PLACE ON THE ISLAND. For Pete's sake, the show began there, it should've ended there, not in that ridiculous Universalist chapel with so much religious memorabllia on the walls that I could barely focus on the characters.

I should clarify that I really enjoyed the episode up until those last few minutes. There were a number of scenes that were nothing short of epic, and the scene where Jack and John clash on the cliff was one of the most incredible TV moments I've ever witnessed. But as far as how the show actually concluded, I'm miffed. I feel like it deserved better.

Okay, LOST nerds, chime in please.