Inside the controversial ‘Lost’ ending — and what the cast has said about it

No, they weren’t dead the whole time.

The ending to “Lost” has been a controversial topic for television fanatics for the last decade and a half — and the conversation is reemerging now that the hit ABC series is streaming on Netflix.

The mind-bending show, created by J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, premiered in 2004. It follows a group of plane passengers who crash on a mysterious island.

The cast includes Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Terry O’Quinn, Jorge Garcia, Naveen Andrews, Ian Somerhalder, Maggie Grace, Emilie de Ravin, Josh Holloway, Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim, Dominic Monaghan, Michelle Rodriguez, Henry Ian Cusick, Michael Emerson, Elizabeth Mitchell, Nestor Carbonell, and more.

During the series finale that aired in 2010, the islanders all reunite after their deaths in a “sideways timeline” that is revealed to be a form of purgatory. They meet up in a church and “move on” together in the final scene of the show.

However, many viewers misinterpreted the ending to mean that the characters were dead the entire time. It didn’t help that the final credits showed the wreckage from the plane crash from the first episode.

But the claims that “they were dead the whole time” have been consistently debunked by the cast and creators.

Over the years, those involved with the show have spoken out and defended the controversial ending.

Here’s everything they’ve said.

Evangeline Lilly

Lilly, who played Kate Austen, discussed the “Lost” finale at Dragon Con in 2018.

“Art is supposed to, every time without fail, turn the question back on you, and asks you to look at what you’re seeing, listen to what you’re hearing, experience it, and then look at it in the mirror of your soul, and figure out what it means to you,” the now-retired actress said.

Elizabeth Mitchell

Mitchell, who played Juliet Burke, told Entertainment Tonight in 2021 that she’s satisfied with the show’s conclusion.

“I think Damon and Carlton [Cuse] were so happy, rightly, with the way that they were able to tell their story. The way they were able to have a beginning, and a middle, and an end. There’s something about that that’s really pretty magical,” she explained.

“It didn’t go on longer than it should have. And it ended way quicker than I think most of us wished that it had, me included,” Mitchell added. “It would have been lovely to continue to explore Juliet, but I think it had its own little bit of perfection with the way that it did.”

Jorge Garcia

Garcia, who played Hugo “Hurley” Reyes, talked about the ending with The Independent in 2020.

“It’s definitely true that a lot of people misread the ending and thought they were dead the whole time,” he said. “I think there were a lot of things that contributed to that. One of the things they thought might have been the reason was that, after it ended, during the closing credits – in the US, at least – they had some B-roll of the original crash site, which was just kind of meant as a thing for people to sit and decompress with as they watched the closing credits. But some people read that as, ‘Oh, we’ve been at that crash site this whole time.’ “

Josh Holloway

Holloway, who played James “Sawyer” Ford, did a “Lost” oral history for Vulture in 2021 with other cast members and the producers and creators.

He admitted that he’s “still confused” by the ending.

“We could have all been dead. Or we could have been in like this purgatory thing. I always thought that, and still do kind of really think it was more that,” the “Yellowstone” actor said. “To me, that’s what makes more sense. Then they kind of sidestepped it with the parallel life at the end.”

Terry O’Quinn

O’Quinn, who played John Locke, told Vulture he constantly received “negative” feedback about the ending — but he “didn’t take it personally.”

“I often thought in the course of the making of the show, if you don’t get it, you’re just not paying attention or it’s just not your cup of tea,” said O’Quinn. “It was written well enough that the whole thing, if you’d simply watched and paid attention, you would understand what they were trying to say. Or at least come to some conclusions yourself.”

O’Quinn also brought up the ending of “Game of Thrones,” which was similarly panned by critics and fans in 2019.

“I thought that seemed like they kind of hurried out the door, they threw their clothes on and they were gone,” he said about the HBO series. “But I wanted to write them a letter and say, ‘Welcome to the club.’ “

Michael Emerson

Emerson, who played Ben Linus, admitted that it took him time to understand the show’s conclusion.

“I don’t think I could have explained the ending to someone at the moment,” he said to Vulture. “But I must have watched it again later. And then it began to fall into place for me, and I began to be able to describe what I thought it was or what it meant in a more effective way. And then I grew happier and happier with the ending over time.”

In April 2024, the “Fallout” actor showed some love to “Lost” in an interview with Jake’s Takes.

“The ending is a great ending. And it’s the biggest complaint I get on the streets,” he said.

Damon Lindelof

Lindelof criticized the fan theories about the “Lost” ending in the Vulture article.

“That idea — they were dead the whole time — it negates the whole show, it negates the whole point of the show,” he said. “I’ve come to believe over time — whether I’m right or I’m wrong, this is where I find solace — that the people who really think they were dead the whole time did not watch the final season of the show, they just watched the finale.”

Carlton Cuse

Executive producer Carlton Cuse told Vulture they made a mistake showing the plane wreckage in the final moments of the series finale.

“The problem was that the audience was so accustomed on ‘Lost’ to the idea that everything had meaning and purpose and intentionality,” he said. “So they read into that footage at the end that, you know, they were dead. That was not the intention. The intention was just to create a narrative pause. But it was too portentous. It took on another meaning. And that meaning I think, distorted our intentions and helped create that misperception.”

Cuse added, “I think we could have done some things to make it clear that that wasn’t what you were supposed to take away. But one of the big intentions of the show was intentional ambiguity and giving people the opportunity to digest and interpret ‘Lost’ as they want to if they wanted to. And at some level, you know, you can’t have it both ways.”

In 2016, Cuse said at a“Lost” reunion concert, “Damon and I accept that the show is what it is, warts and all. Everything is a part of it. So ultimately, is there anything I would change? The answer is no.”