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(Warning: this post contains spoilers. –PB)

I loved it.

There, I said it.

Did it provide clear answers to the many mysteries that have arisen over the course of Lost‘s six-season run? No, not really.

Did it prove that the show’s writers had some great master plan all along, one that only they could have devised and that shocked us with its vision? Certainly not.

But was it a satisfying conclusion to one of the most inventive and emotionally gripping television series ever created?

Absolutely.

There were plenty of superficial things to enjoy about “The End.” I certainly liked the sense of closure and continuity brought about by the decision to end the series exactly as it began: with a close-up on the eye of Jack Shephard, only this time closing instead of opening. And I enjoyed, despite myself, the bits of self-deprecating humor the writers included, such as when Desmond (in the flash-sideways) tells Kate that the coffin contains the remains of Christian Shephard, to which Kate responds, bringing voice to the many critics of Lost‘s unapologetically transparent naming conventions: “Christian Shephard? Seriously?” Or when Rose remarks that she really has no idea “when the hell” they are, a problem often shared by casual viewers over the last six years who lacked the alacrity to disentangle the show’s notoriously complicated narrative structure.

As far as the actual events of the episode go, there were no truly big surprises. Most of the main characters got off the island, except the ones we thought might not; the “Man in Black” was killed; and we found out that the parallel universe in which Oceanic 815 never crashed was actually a kind of afterlife (in a slight twist of the long-discussed theory that the island itself was purgatory, and the castaways were all dead). Indeed, the biggest surprise for me was the depth of the disappointment expressed by the group I watched the finale with, who derided it as “lame” and dismissed Lost‘s writing team as “hacks.” I’ve never seen eye-to-eye with many people about Lost — I disagreed with both those who watched it for the mysteries and those who didn’t watch it at all — but it’s still interesting to see how strongly I differ from others on this point.

Archibald MacLeish wrote that “a poem should not mean / But be.” That’s exactly how I feel about Lost. If you care about what it means, if you are desperate to understand the facts of what happened and why, then “The End” was not for you. The episode did resolve the most salient and immediate plot threads, but the way it answered some of the central questions of the show’s recent episodes — most notably, the nature of the flash-sideways timeline — was incomplete and perhaps even pedestrian. The show’s storied reliance on undisciplined plotting and nonsensical decisions by its characters to drive the narrative was just as prominent in the series finale as it has been for years.

But if what you care about is the experience — the raw emotion of it all — then “The End” was sublime. Acknowledging that emotion is what the show is all about, the series finale took its time to let us experience the depth and range of feeling that we’ve enjoyed so thoroughly for the past six years, one last time. Every time two characters reunited in what we eventually learned was the afterlife, there was a flash of memories, not only for the characters themselves but also for us, as we relived all the reasons we have come to cherish these people, with all their flaws and their triumphs and their love. And when they all convened in the episode’s final scene, ready to journey on to who-knows-where-but-who-cares, I couldn’t help but feel deeply happy that, after all their hardships, these people that I cared about would finally be together and at peace. The expression that Sun and Jin wore as they left the hospital — that serenity and satisfaction — was the same as the expression on my face as the final moments of the series unfolded. That Lost made me feel this way about a ragtag gang of fictional nobodies is a tremendous creative achievement, and its willingness to help me grieve for them was an act of great generosity and insight.

Thus, what I loved most about the series finale of Lost was its unfailing loyalty to the show’s soul and to its legacy. Yes, Lost was a good show because it made you think. But Lost was a great show because it made you feel. I have said from the beginning that I really don’t care about the plot at all, and “The End” reaffirmed my earnest belief that this show is not and has never been about what happens. The episode could have devoted precious screen time to explicating this or that confusing plot point, or to filling in the tremendous narrative gap that exists after the departure of Ajira Airways Flight 316 from the island in the episode’s last scene. Those things might have satisfied many people more than what ultimately made it to air. But instead, the episode proved that, no matter what answers fans might have craved, the team behind Lost understood why they watched the show, why they loved it, and why any answers ever mattered in the first place.

Indeed, as hokey as some might find it, I liked the decision to end Lost in that multifaith church, with its stained-glass depictions of the cross and the Star of David and om, a place where questions and answers don’t just matter but Matter. It was a place of faith and spirituality, values this show has always prized above all others, and it gave the events of the finale a certain gravitas. After all, while the show has always been strongest when it focused on being rather than meaning, Lost has nevertheless been unambiguous in its conviction that life itself should not simply be, but mean. The quest for meaning was the core of Lost‘s dramatic tension, and the idea that we all have a purpose became its central dogma over the course of its six seasons. What was most compelling, then, about the final scene of “The End” was its conclusion that the fateful events on the island mattered so much, were so full of meaning, that the castaways could fulfill their cosmic purpose simply by coming together and existing in the aura of those events forever.

What does the ending of Lost mean? More than anything, it means that we may be close to the conclusion of an important chapter in television history, during which network television stood up to say that it could still deliver some of the best scripted entertainment there is, no matter what happened on cable or the Internet. Lost marshalled unparalleled passion and ambition every week for six years, and many critics would say that it’s hard to believe networks will ever reach such heights again.

Of course, I can’t help but ask these critics:

Why do you find it so hard to believe?