Jack goes down into the Source. He plugs the whole back up and then collapses in exhaustion. Then he awakes on rocks near a lake on the island. This is the same place Jacob found MIB's dead body after throwing him down into the source. Jack stumbles around and eventually ends up in the bamboo fields exactly where he woke up in the pilot episode. Christian Sheppards shoe is still their in the branches just like it was, only severely ages and weathered. Vincent the dog runs up and lies next to him, just as he appeared when Jack first woke up. And then dies, and closes his eye, where as in the pilot he opened it. Then basically he passes on to a new plane of existence where he is living completely oblivious of his past life, the island, or anything. Through the efforts of Desmond, Jack, along with most of the other major characters, discover who they are and come to acceptance with their deaths. Then together, with all of the most important people from their lives by their side, they prepare to pass on to the next plane of existence, presumably a heave of some sort. While the people in the flash sideways all appear to be of the same age, this does not mean they died at the same time or anything. Christian even says that some died before Jack, some died after. Sun and Jin being an example of before, Kate and the others who escaped on the Ajira being an example of after. And Hurley and Ben probably being the latest of the deaths. Some people don't go into the Church with them. Ben stays out side. Mrs Hawkings and her family, as well as many other characters like Michael, Walt, etc do not appear. It can be assumed that many of these people have yet to fulfill their destiny or fully discover what they are meant for. For example, Ben probably needs to help Alex and Russo(sp?) discover their past. Mrs Hawkings probably wants her family to live in ignorance of the past, because the fact that she shot her son, and sent him to the island knowing she would shoot him haunts her. I'd guess that Michael, as the actor that plays him guessed on JKL, is still trapped on the island as a ghost thing. Etc. The ending was pretty confusing, but I think it is one of the few ways they could have successfully sent off the characters in a good way.
Sorry for the double post, but the 12-Minute Epilogue, The New Man In Charge, that is supposed to be released with the Season 6 dvd has leaked online. It focuses on Hurley and Ben's stay on the island and also reveals some unanswered questions. Most websites have taken down the online streams, but if you look in torrent sites you can find it easily.
I really wish I could find the stream. Torrents aren't working too well for me this moment. I NEED TO SEE THIS.
Waiting for the DVD. I am not desperate to see this yet because I saw S6 is scatters. Need to watch it in full.
Yeah. I have it. I'm kind of disappointed though because it didn't answer anything new at all. And the answers they tried to give were even more vague, plus the production was shit. Here are the things they have said to had "answered" in hidden text The reason for there being Polar Bears on a tropical island What happened with Walt The reason that Room 23 existed Why no one could live through their pregnancy Why no one could locate the island Who did the Dharma food drops Why Chang needs an alias but basically it felt like a "screw you" Q&A session to me.. Very lame.
I thought it cleared some air but also raised some questions at the same time like: Did those 2 workers have life outside of Dharma? How were they recruited? How much did they know? Based on the epilogue it seems like they didn't know much. Who was Walt playing connect 4 with? etc. But on the other hand these questions and a lot of the others that the fans demand seem very trivial to me. I guess real questions like, the history of Jacob/Smokey's foster mother, how she found so much about the island and it's protection, who was she protecting it from, where did the Egyptian God statue come from, why was Walt taken away..etc etc, will never be answered. If season 6 didn't have that flash sideways/afterlife arc, a lot of these questions could've been answered easily. That story arc restricted the season in a lot of ways imo and the writers couldn't really flesh things out.