Woot - I finally have the ability to post!
Firstly thanks to everyone who's posted here, since watching the last episode (and getting up at 5am to do so in the UK!) my head was spinning with lots of thoughts. A special thankyou to tgreg (IIRC) - I pretty much got it spot on...which makes a change for me! It was nice to use this place as a sort of therapy!
WRT the show, it's been a fantastic ride. I've enjoyed every minute of it - I was left thankful that it had ending, but also wanting it never to end. Watching the show the first time I watched with my 12yo son - fighting the tears throughout - however I've since re-watched and been able to 'let it flow'! What the writers did for me, was something incredibly rare. They took a story - made it last ~100hours and made me watch every last second...TWICE! (And no doubt a rewatch on bluray). Often a story is not about how it begins or ends, but the journey in between.
I don't quite get why people didn't like the finale, nor have complaints like "how lazy was the 'here drink this - now you're like me' writing" comments. This show had a man OUT OF A WHEELCHAIR from an early episode - that was the episode where I went from 'this is a pretty good show' to 'OMG I must see how this ends'. How anyone cannot imagine from that point there was 'magic' involved is beyond me...it even snowballed from there, cancer cured, polar bears, smoke monster, time travel (etc). From that moment I was watching a show that could tell me whatever it wanted (within believable reason)...I'm not a religious person, hell I don't believe in god (sorry) - but man, this was a beautiful show with a perfect ending...I was so happy they got to 'die happily ever after'...tho I sooo wanted the flash-sideways to be them alive...awakening to what had happened, but the island had given them a 2nd chance at life as a 'thank you'.
However the writers always said the island wasn't purgatory, they had crashed and those who died actually died for real on the island. So credit to them for sticking to that, but also being able to give us a happy ending, and oh how I loved each characters island 'flashes' - fantastic stuff. My only 'downer' is that it would have been 'nicer' if the island had made the flash-sideways for them rather than 'they all made it together' - other than that it was top stuff...and I can't wait for the epilogue!