• 1 See also the Les Inrocks article concerning the end of How I Met Your Mother (Carter Beys, Craig Th (...)

1The ending of Lost was one of the greatest disappointments in the history of serialized television—so much so that it is used as a reference point when discussing series with disappointing endings.1 The question of why so many members of its audience were disappointed by the ending poses the conceptual problem of narrative closure—in other words, the difficulty of explaining that which provokes the impression of finality the audience expects to feel when watching visual media. In the following pages, I will use Lost as a basis to discuss this subject, which has been widely debated in contemporary philosophy of cinema since the American philosopher Noël Carroll suggested the "erotetic" model as a means of resolving the debate. Convinced of the insufficiency of this theory, I present a "teleologic" model opposing his theory by raising a problem I propose to call "the series-following paradox." As I conceive it, the resolution to this paradox requires the adoption of a new approach to television series, which additionally allows us to recognize that—from a certain perspective—the ending of Lost is successful.

• 2 Noël Carroll, "Toward a Theory of Film Suspense," Persistence of Vision; The Journal of the Film Fa (...)
• 3 Carroll, "Narrative closure," Philosophical Studies, p. 1.

2In a series of articles begun in 19842, the analytic philosopher Noël Carroll proposed an "erotetic" narrative model to understand cinematic narrative closure. This conception holds that the impression of finality3 or resolution that we feel at the end of the majority of films is evoked by the fact that the questions raised by the film for the audience are answered. This need for a response to our questions and the pleasure that we derive from them—and thus from narratives as well—is part of human nature.

• 4 Carroll, "Narrative closure," Routledge Companion,  p. 207; Art in three dimensions, p. 367.
• 5 Carroll, "On Narrative Connection," Beyond Aesthetics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, (...)
• 6 Vsevolod I. Poudovkine, Film Technique in Film Technique and Film Acting, New York, Grove Press, 19 (...)
• 7 Carroll, "Toward a Theory of Film Suspense," Theorizing the Moving Picture, p. 96.
• 8 Carroll, "Narrative Closure," Routledge Companion, p. 213 ; Art in three dimensions, p. 366.
• 9 See, for example, Richard Davies, "Lost in Lost’s Time," in The Ultimate Lost and Philosophy: Think (...)

3Using a causalist conception of narrative as a starting point, according to which a discourse is a narrative if—and only if—it describes at least two temporal events linked by causality4, Carroll introduces the erotetic model with the intention of responding to the following objection: If the narrative has a narrative connection5 that relates to its fundamental elements—in other words, a causal relationship between events—how do we account for the impression of closure we feel when all of the questions raised by the narrative have been answered, since the mere fact of observing a succession of causal relationships doesn't appear to be sufficient to move us? Where does this feeling come from? According the the erotetic model of the interrogative relationship used by Poudovkine6, the sensation of closure results from the fulfilment of a natural need to find answers to our questions. Narrators make use of this need by recounting events in such a way that the audience asks certain questions—with varying levels of awareness—to then receive answers7, even if it means manipulating temporality8. The use of flashbacks and flash forwards is, of course, one of the most important formal elements of Lost9. For example, in the episode that features Sawyer (S1E8), the audience is invited to ask why his character is so malicious, a question whose response is supplied by the flashbacks. It is because he himself was victim of someone malicious—a conman who he will ultimately imitate, going so far as to take on his identity. The erotetic model also allows us to understand how the episodes situated in different seasons function together to maintain the audience's attention. Does episode S2E10 ("The 23rd Psalm") thus aim to answer the question raised in episode S1E19 ("Deus ex machina") of what the Nigerian drug traffickers disguised as preachers were doing in the small plane that crashed on the island? This model rewards the attention to detail of discerning audience members: In episode S2E15, an answer to the question of why Sawyer is wearing new glasses is given—a question which, of course, was prepared two episodes earlier when Sawyer explains to Kate that he lost is old glasses on the lifeboat.

• 10 Carroll, "Narrative Closure," The Routledge Companion, p. 213 ; Art in three dimensions, p. 366. In (...)
• 11 "Okay, that thing in the woods, maybe it’s a monster, maybe it’s a pissed-off giraffe, I don’t know (...)

4To illustrate this definition of narrative closure, Carroll provides a counter example. In Noah Baumbach's 2005 film The Squid and the Whale, the director places special emphasis on the alcoholic tendencies of one of his characters, the younger brother Frank. The question of what will happen to him, and especially what consequences his "problem" will have on the story, will be left unanswered. Carroll points out that in certain cases, this absence of closure provokes annoyance in the audience, an annoyance that stems from the implicit promise made to the audience to give them all the answers to the questions raised—a promise that is ultimately broken10. This seems similar to the way in which the audience experienced the ending of Lost. Early on, this experience is described by Hugo Reyes, known as "Hurley"—the character who often represents the audience's position. In episode S1E18 ("Numbers"), he brings up various questions that have gone unanswered since the beginning of the show, before vehemently asking Danielle Rousseau to explain the meaning of the maddening string of numbers11.

• 12 J. David Velleman, "Narrative Explanation," The Philosophical Review, vol. 112, n^o 1, January 2003, (...)
• 13 In this vein, George M. Wilson writes that, "The dramatically significant questions that a narrativ (...)
• 14 Carroll's example is problematic. We can watch the film and understand it without being frustrated (...)

6It is possible to critique a presupposition characteristic of Carroll and other analytic film philosophers such as David Velleman12. Indeed, both Carroll and Velleman state that narrative closure is an emotion born from the satisfaction of a natural need, whether it be to find the answers to our questions or to release the emotional pressure established in the beginning of a story. For example, we find a direct reference to this naturalist theory in episode S1E8 of the show Dollhouse (Joss Whedon, 2009-2010), when Dr. Saunders/Whiskey explains that, "Each Active’s brain was programmed to release a sedative the moment they felt closure." Yet, is referencing a natural need sufficient to explain this impression of finality? Indeed, if we understand that the mind demands certain responses, we are less likely to think that it requires responses to all questions; for example, "What does 'Rosebud' in Citizen Kane (directed by Orson Welles, 1941) mean?" would be on the same plane as, "What do the numbers 4814152342 in Lost mean?" as would, "Why is the panther in The Pink Panther (directed by Blake Edwards, 1963) pink?13" or "Why aren't there more snakes on the island in Lost?" or even "Why were there so many blue tarps in the plane in Lost?" which leads us to no longer understand why Carroll is frustrated because a film does not explain what happens to a prepubescent secondary character with alcoholic tendencies,14 when Carroll is not frustrated by not knowing exactly how many children the hero had (who, as we are told at the end, lives happily ever after). It is as if we were to say that it is frustrating not to know what happened to that blond character present at Boone's funeral in S1E21, but that it is not frustrating not to know what all of the secondary characters are doing at any given moment.

• 15 See also David Auerbach's comments in "The Cosmology of Serialized Television," The American Reader(...)

7The idea is not that one is obliged to be frustrated, because this would be both absurd and foolish—as foolish as gesticulating when holding a stick of dynamite—but rather that there must be something that allows the audience to know how to ask the right questions. Carroll claims to account for the phenomenon of the frustration felt when a question raised by a narrative is not answered when he talks about an "implicit promise15" made by the director to reward our attention by supplying all of the information necessary to respond to the questions the film generates for us.

• 16 In a striking visual illustration of the pact of submission in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan.

8But as each image of a film could arouse an infinite number of questions in the mind of each viewer, this explanation does not seem to be sufficient. For example, in the scene in which the survivors of the plane crash agree to entrust Kate with the gun16 (S1E3), the close-up on the revolver could raise different questions in the minds of various audience members, who would not receive a response as time goes on ("What brand is this revolver?" "Where was it purchased?" "Who produced it?" "Why is it that color?" "Has it been well cleaned?" etc.) In other words, the concept of narrative closure may be explained only through a natural need for answers to our questions insofar as it is important to know what questions narratives cause us to ask and what sort of responses are satisfying. To avoid the absurd conclusion according to which the impression of closure always occurs randomly—in other words, when the audience spontaneously stumbles upon the right questions—the model must be completed by specifying identification criteria for the relevant questions.

• 17 Aristotle, ed. Hugh Lawson-Tancred. Metaphysics, VII, Penguin Books, 2004.

10We notice that this teleological explanation is none other than Jacob's practical reasoning, meaning that we can piece it together after having seen the show. As in Aristotle's analysis17, the initial premise introduces a goal—an end for the actor—while the following premises present different means to attain this end, potentially linked by a teleological relationship from the middle to the end, until arriving at a conclusion that is the concrete action to be carried out. From this perspective, narrative closure is not exterior to the story insofar as it will be a psychological impression felt by the audience, but rather an essential narrative moment to which others are subject.

• 18 Carroll, "Toward a Theory of Film Suspense," p. 98.

11The strength of Carroll's intuition on the erotetic model lies in having illustrated that the structure of stories can often be uncovered by investigating which questions and which answers were raised throughout the narrative18. The importance of this intuition is still relevant, even if it must be backed up by taking into account the role played by causal forces and teleology in our conception of the narrative. Indeed, the questions that the narrative raises are often the expression, in the form of a question, of the natural and intentional power of individuals—in other words, the propensities that we attribute to individuals. Thus, when a single man and and a single woman meet for the first time, such as with Jack and Kate, we wonder if they could fall in love. When, in episode S01E24, Claire's son Aaron is kidnapped, we wonder if he will be set free. In episodes S1E24-25, when we are aware of the explosive power of nitroglycerin and the combustible nature of the wick on the stick of dynamite, we can anticipate the course of events, which encourages us to ask the typically erotetic question: Will Hurley—trying as he is to extinguish the wick—prevent the dynamite's explosion, or will there be a blast that will offer a way into the hatch?

• 19 Carroll, Beyond Aesthetics. Philosophical Essays, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. (...)

12The teleologic analysis that we apply in a more or less spontaneous manner to the show's events allows us to ask this question and to apply the erotetic model to the analysis of its narrative. It is because we are aware of the power and the natural or intentional goals of the characters that we are not surprised by their behavior, or—as the case may be—we successfully overcome this surprise to incorporate it into a teleologic framework that is larger than that with which we began. Our expectations are based on, as Carroll notes, "…our sense of what is possible, given earlier events.19" Yet this sense is more generally linked to the capacity for practical or causal reasoning that the judge, doctor, and mechanic must demonstrate.

• 20 This is more or less Davies's conclusion in his article on the conceptual problems posed by the ide (...)

14The fact that the erotetic model is just one example of the teleologic theory seems to prove that we are able to grasp the impression of resolution more completely when we define it as the emotions that accompany a narrative that appears to be complete, rather than as the emotion evoked by the fact that all of our questions are answered. Indeed, it is possible that certain questions remain without answers but that we nevertheless have the impression of finality—on the condition that this lack of response does not prevent us from reconstructing the characters' practical reasoning. Indeed, in this instance we are able to understand the actions of the characters as so many means toward their various ends. It could therefore be the case that we lose the impression of finality if some of our questions are not answered. Yet we would have this impression only if it proved impossible to sort hierarchically at least some of their actions described to us in a teleologic manner. From this perspective, we can argue that the show is successful20, if we agree to believe in the finality of the narrative. Nevertheless, it could prove impossible to identify why we find watching the ending of a film or show pleasurable in such an abstract manner without using the concrete experience of a particular work as our basis. Yet when we take interest in what the series Lost has to say concerning the question of teleology, we notice that it presents a particularly pertinent discourse that shows a detailed understanding of the stakes and complexity of the problem.

• 21 See also Pacome Thiellement, Les mêmes yeux que Lost, Paris, Léo Scheer, 2011.
• 22 Pacome Thiellement on Lost at the Forum des images, April 20, 2012, in the context of the festival (...)

15Indeed, as Pacome Thiellement illustrates21, the primary opposition between Jack Shephard and John Locke is also one that exists between two types of Lost fans. As Locke says in the second half of episode S1E25, he and Jack "…don’t see eye-to-eye sometimes." According to Locke, Jack is a "man of science," convinced that what happens to them happens by chance, that fighting for survival is necessary without there being necessarily the hope of achieving some sort of closure. Locke, however, is a man of faith, convinced that they have a "purpose" that could explain why the plane crashed, why they survived, etc. It is tempting—as Pacome Thiellement noted in his talk at the Forum des images—to interpret this scene as being intended to put Lost's audience on their guard. They would be obligated to choose between two strict choices: "either to accept everything, or to reject everything… To accept to take a leap of faith or not… To believe in a mythical dimension of existence or in a pure, disenchanted realism.22" When it comes to narrative closure, it is also tempting to double down on this opposition between reason and faith, science and religion, absurdity and sense, and the opposition between erotetic (naturalist) and teleologic (finalist) conceptions of closure.

• 23 For more on the importance of Descartes's text, see also Denis Moreau, Dans le milieu d’une forêt. (...)
• 24 See also Hugo Clémot, "Une lecture des films d’horreur épidémique," Tracés, "Contagions," compiled (...)

17The figure of the traveler lost in the forest observed in S1E11 is, at least since Descartes, the figure of the individual confronted with practical skepticism—obligated (as Pascal writes, we are "embarked") to make urgent choices without knowing with certainty which ones are right23. For example, we find this figure in many of today's films and shows about zombies in which the hero—fleeing infected cities—finds refuge in areas deemed uninhabited. We can see in this an artistic "paraphrase" of our contemporary skepticism, which is to say, our difficulty in understanding a world full of disasters and danger and to know how to act to protect ourselves from danger24. These various literary, cinematographic, and televisual references also illustrate that which sociological studies on audience reaction confirm time and time again: Audiences of fictional narratives find ways of reflecting on their own existence and day-to-day struggles in these works. For example, in episode S5E13, Hurley analyzes Miles's relationship with his father, Pierre Chang, through the fictional example of Luke's relationship to Darth Vader in Star Wars (directed by George Lucas, 1977), confirming this work's epiphanic function in popular culture. Hurley's plan, begun in 1977, to rewrite the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and send it to George Lucas is thus not a futile effort. In Lost, a summation of our skepticism can be found in Kate's remark to Juliet in episode S3E15 when they are handcuffed to each other in the forest: "Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell’s going on."

• 25 The many hallucinatory experiences and dreams function as examples of the skeptic argument of the C (...)

18This remark is also a commentary on our position as audience members—one of many reflexive moments present in the show. It indicates that in Lost, skepticism is not merely present in the characters25 themselves, nor designed to allow us to reflect on our position in the world, but it is also there—in a more interesting way—to help tame and keep at bay the audience's skepticism, as they are no longer as apt to believe the stories that are told to them. Following arthouse cinema, mainstream cinema entered, in its turn, the "era of modernist suspicion," which began in the early 1990s. In other words, it is like the moment in art history when artists could no longer rely on conventions and inherited genres, since viewers themselves had ceased to believe in them. The show Lost is a modernist attempt to overcome this difficulty by confronting the audience's skepticism.

• 26 Hatchuel, p. 30.

20It is worth mentioning that these reflections are more or less those of Locke—which is to say, those of the character who is simultaneously the most dogmatic and who goes through a skeptic crisis with the most serious consequences when in the Pearl Dharma station in episode S2E21, he discovers that pushing the button in the hatch is merely an experiment filmed and observed by scientists. Eko attempts to rekindle Locke's faith in the island by telling him that if they press the button, it is not because they were told to do so in a film, but because they believe that they were destined to do so. The sequence is especially noteworthy for the audience because it attracts attention to their position in relation to the characters they must believe in so as to appreciate the show. Indeed, is it certain that the actions of the characters have meaning? Does the writers' work consist of variations on a theme devoid of meaning or on the same facts and the same movements of the characters—a process which would thus be the equivalent of the return to zero of the hatch's clock26?

• 27 Saül Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition, Harvard Universi (...)
• 28 Idem, p. 60.
• 29 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, et al. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G.E.M. Aniscombe, 4th ed., (...)

22Nevertheless, in the twentieth century, we discovered a new skeptic paradox that highlights the fact that there is no goal that can strictly determine the means by which it may be attained. In his book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition²⁷, Saül Kripke maintains that he discovered the existence of a "skeptic paradox" that is "the most radical and original skeptic problem that philosophy has seen to date.28" It seems that this paradox is explicitly stated in paragraph 201 of Philosophical Investigations, when Wittgenstein writes: "This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be brought into accord with the rule.29" This "rule-following paradox" is sufficiently well known that it was explained by one character to another in a recent popular film, The Oxford Murders (directed by Alex de la Iglesia, 2008). For our investigation, the explanation of this idea in the film is remarkable in two respects. For one, it is said that this paradox has the power of driving people mad. Furthermore, we notice that this sequence in The Oxford Murders ends with a shot that is reminiscent of another shot from Shock Corridor, a classic film on mental illness (directed by Samuel Fuller, 1963), in which a journalist passes himself off as a mental patient in order to investigate his story and ends up losing his mind during a fit, which also occurs in the hallways of a psychiatric hospital, while seated next to an individual whose body type is similar to that of Hugo Reyes.

• 30 See the episode "Numbers" (S01E18).

23Moreover, this paradox can be summarized with the example of the activity consisting of listing a progression or even a series of numbers in order to understand their meaning; of course, we are reminded of the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42. Thus, it logically still seems possible to approach a series of numbers from a different angle and thus retrospectively modify the meaning of the numbers30. Yet if we are to ask if this paradox can be applied not only to series of numbers but to television series as well—to the extent that they are composed of a sequence of events whose meaning must be determined by both past events and future events—we remark that the response is positive. It is always possible to approach a television series differently and thus retrospectively modify the meaning of the past events that constitute it, which Lost's use of flash sideways demonstrates quite well. I suggest that the name "the series paradox" be attributed to this idea whose consequences are, as I see it, important for the question of narrative closure.

• 31 It is worth reflecting on the curious reversal that the series paradox could produce in relation to (...)
• 32 Roz Kaveney, "She saved the world. A lot. An introduction to the themes and structures of Buffy and (...)

24Indeed, the teleologic model presupposes that we understand the meaning of a narrative if we are successful in identifying the events as the characters' means of attaining their goals. But it is always possible to approach a television series from a different angle, which means that we can never be sure of what its goals are and thus, according to the same teleologic model, that we can never be sure to understand that which is narrated to us. Yet if there is a skeptic truth in this, then it also threatens the understanding that the audience has of their own stories. Indeed, the flashbacks through which we learn about the lives of the survivors can be interpreted as formal commentary on the question of how to give meaning to one's existence. The consequence of the series paradox is that I cannot imbue meaning into my own story if I must wait to have achieved my principal goal or goals—the meaning of my existence. In other words, television series allow us to have the skeptic experience of "the series paradox," which is ultimately a televisual form of the skeptic experience of the contingency of existence31. Nevertheless, the series paradox opens up the possibility of recognizing (alongside Kate in episode S6E17) that "nothing is irreversible"—that series can allow us to become aware of that which it is still possible for us to change and to become a better version of ourselves. In this way, Roz Kaveney demonstrated the importance of the idea of personal development in shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Joss Whedon, 1997-2003), in which the figure of the shadow double proliferates, i.e., the various people you could have been under different circumstances. One thinks of the character Cordelia, the pom-pom girl, who Buffy herself was before having her powers, or the character Faith, a vampire killer with neither family nor friends, or even of the relationship between Angel and Spike32.

• 33 See also Sandra Laugier, "Vertus ordinaires des cultures populaires," Critique, n^o 776-777, January (...)

25This idea is extremely important in Lost. In episode S1E17, Locke notes that everyone begins a new life on the island; Michael tells his son that although they experienced setbacks, they will begin again from zero, and Sun asks Jin if they can fall back in love. Elsewhere, Jacob justifies his means of selecting candidates to become the guardian of the island with the fact that it is in their best interest to be given a new opportunity to become the person that they always should have been. The "series paradox" confirms the fact that television series represent a privileged medium of expression for what Stanley Cavell calls moral perfectionism33. Nevertheless, how can one hope to imbue a television series or one's own life with meaning if "nothing is irreversible" and if one can never define a fixed ending for oneself? Does the skeptic paradox not lead us rather to "pure disenchanted realism" or the "leap of faith"?

• 34 See also Michelle A. Lang, "Lost: Poststructural Metanarrative or Postmodern Bildungsroman?" (2007) (...)
• 35 Kant, Emmanuel, Critique of Judgement, Translated by Werner S. Pluhar, Hackett, 2010, p. 413.

26Perhaps series offer another solution that comes closer to the Kantian definition of the aesthetic experience. Indeed, that which the series allows us to experience—that which we perceive by watching it and understanding it without knowing how it will end—is that we can imbue meaning into a series or an existence by being receptive to the form that becomes apparent, without being able to get a clear picture of its ending. When watching Lost, there are at least two moments in which we note that this televisual experience of understanding is analogous with the aesthetic experience in the Kantian sense. Early on, in the scenes in which the characters are obliged to leave behind their busy, consumption-based relationships to the world to enter into the spiritual practice of contemplation34 and then later, at the end, when we are disappointed because by bringing the "harmony of imagination and understanding35" to an end, the series also brings the pleasure that we took from the show to an end. It reminds us of the losses in our own existence—the loss of time, the loss of companionship—which force us to find new ways of coming into contact with the world and those around us and to face the question of the condition of our own lives.

• 36 Cavell, John Gibson Wolfgang Huemer (ed.), The Literary Wittgenstein, Routledge, 2004, pp. 21-33.
• 37 Cavell, Stanley, “Music Discomposed,” Must We Mean What We Say ? A Book of Essays, Cambridge, Cambr (...)
• 38 Cavell, Stanley “Being Odd, Getting Even: Threats to Individuality », Salmagundi: A Quarterely of t (...)
• 39 See also Hatchuel, p. 90.

27This theory relates back to the Cavellian project of an "everyday aesthetic36" and to the idea that works of art "… mean something to us, not just the way statements do, but the way people do.37" Indeed, the series offers the audience a form of skepticism and recommends a means of overcoming the experience of loss in a scene that approaches the way in which American philosophers like Emerson and Thoreau aimed to conceive of the domestication of skepticism or the inhabitation of the world. According to Stanley Cavell, "For Emerson and Thoreau you must learn to sit at home, or sit still in some attractive spot in the woods, as if to marry the world, before, if ever, you take on the burden of others.38" In the aforementioned scene, Locke teaches Boone how to overcome his destructive, codependent desire for Shannon and to accept the undeniable reality of their separation—or perhaps more apt—their being-separated. The same logic can be applied to Locke, Widmore, or the Dharma Initiative, when they are taken with a desire for exclusive understanding of the island's secrets39, or to Othello when he is taken with the desire to possess Desdemona body and soul. The desire for intimate and exclusive understanding of the world is deadly; the more we seek assurance regarding the presence of the world and the other, the more our object of desire escapes us and skepticism grows.

• 40 Cavell, "L’évitement de l’amour," DVD, p. 483.
• 41 Cavell, loc. cit. See especially "Connaître et reconnaître," DVD, pp. 377-412.
• 42 Cavell, Stanley, “The Avoidance of Love”, Must We Mean What We Say ? A Book of Essays, Cambridge Un (...)

28Rather than assuming it is possible to take hold of and understand the goals of the narrative's characters—without which nothing would have any meaning—what we must do, following Boone's example in this scene, is recognize the separate nature of the characters and of the world we project by admitting that we must choose to define ourselves through our reactions and our understanding, without the certainty that we are not merely projecting onto the characters goals that are not truly there. In other words, if there is a skeptic truth, there is also the fallacy that holds that the presence in the world we seek is not one that can be found through understanding. In order to regain this presence in a lost world, we must rather learn to go without understanding—to give up on knowing that the world exists and simply "accept"40 it as separate from ourselves, to give up on knowing that others exist in order to better "recognize"41 their presence by revealing ourselves to them, convinced that, "It is the thing we do not know that can save us."42

• 43 See also Hatchuel, pp. 74-75 : "Through these flashes, the survivors reflect on their own emotions (...)

29The recurring phrase in the series that signifies both that one must accept the necessity of making uncertain decisions in emergencies and that it is "the thing we do not know that can save us" is that of "letting go." This corresponds to the cinematographic process that consists of a forward-tracking shot, followed by a reframing with a close-up on a character's face, which allows the flashback to be introduced. This is a classic technique that uses an intuitive understanding. The Hollywood norm holds that this type of shot, called a reaction shot, represents a moment in which the interiority of the character is revealed. Yet this technique also has a more general meaning, as it expresses one of the discoveries that the show offers to its audience: The series depicts characters who are forced by the circumstances at hand to interrupt the busy flow of their lives and reflect on their lived experiences43.

• 44 Serge Tisseron, Comment Hitchcock m’a guéri. Que cherchons-nous dans les images ? Paris, Pluriel, 2 (...)
• 45 Sándor Ferenczi, "Analyse d’enfants avec des adultes," Psychanalyse, t. 4, Paris, Payot, 1982 (1931 (...)

30In his work Comment Hitchcock m’a guéri⁴⁴ (How Hitchcock Healed Me), Serge Tisseron references a study by one of Freud's first pupils, Sándor Ferenczi, on the phenomenon of psychological "splitting." For Ferenczi, an especially violent experience of trauma can induce the personality to split in two: "…one, sensitive, which is brutally destroyed, and the other that is aware of everything, but feels nothing45." Indeed, this splitting allows the survivor to endure the experience of trauma, which can thus be "experienced" without being "felt." Nevertheless, being split in this way is to be henceforth condemned to adopt the perspective of an impartial observer on one's own existence rather than as a participant in emotionally moving events in which they are the primary person concerned—which means that one could say that they find themselves in a state of seeming life. We know that each candidate has had a traumatic experience and that this is one of the reasons Jacob chose them. Yet, the solutions put forward by Freud (remembering) or by Ferencz (finally feeling the effect of the original trauma) both describe important steps in the trajectories of the characters in the show.

• 46 Tisseron, p. 84.

31Nevertheless, Serge Tisseron offers another solution to overcome this splitting beyond that of Freud or Ferenczi. This solution is conveyed through metaphor—in other words, through the search for words, images, or gestures that would allow those who suffer from their traumatic experiences to create their own representations of the trauma that are "sufficiently similar that they may familiarize themselves with it, but at the same time, different enough to elicit only a portion of the emotions that were felt, making it possible to delineate their limits and easily contain them.46"

• 47 Jean-Pierre Esquenazi, La vérité de la fiction, Paris, Lavoisier, 2009, p. 155. (My translation.)

32The power of metaphor is consistent with the definition offered by Jean-Pierre Esquenazi of this representation as that which occurs "…when the person involved takes ownership of their story, leading them to understand that the fictional universe represents a portion of the real world.47" If this similarity is correct, then Lost represents to us the part of our existences that pertains to this phenomenon of splitting, meaning that, from time to time, we have the impression that we do not lead the lives that we are meant to live in this world, of being there without being present—in short, that we miss out on our own experiences. Indeed, even if all of us have not had the misfortune of undergoing an experience of extreme trauma during the course of our lives, it is the case that the simple fact of being alive and growing old is sufficiently traumatic to make the phenomena described by Ferenczi seem strangely familiar. If we are lucky enough to live to adulthood, a fundamental experience is that of loss. Indeed, the transition from youth to adulthood is a transition from the age in which everything is still possible, to that in which the experience of loss reminds us of the reality of that which we have not yet lost.

• 48 Cavell, The World Viewed. Reflections on the Ontology of Film, Enlarged Edition, Cambridge, Massach (...)
• 49 Idem p. 161.
• 50 Tisseron, Comment Hitchcock m’a guéri, p. 84. (My translation.)

33In chapter 15 of The World Viewed—which constitutes an "Excursus: Some Modernist Painting," namely, Jackson Pollock's dripping lines of colored paint, Morris Louis's bands of color, Kenneth Noland's chevrons, or Frank Stella's Z formations—Cavell directs our attention toward an aspect of "“the meaning of the new fact of series, or the fact that a new medium establishes and is established by a series.48" That is to say that if the sorrow and the balm of adolescence is indeed the idea of infinite possibilities: "The only return on becoming adult, the only justice in forgoing that world of possibility, is the reception of actuality—the pain and balm in the truth of the only world: that it exists, and I in it.49" If Lost shows us how to avoid growing old too quickly by using our age or socioprofessional situation as a pretext to stop growing and bettering ourselves, it also teaches us to accept our age and recognize that the experience of loss itself instills value on the existences that we can lead for a little while longer in this world. In other words, reconnecting with our experience and rediscovering our emotions suggest, paradoxically, the acceptance of "letting go," while recognizing that it is the desire to preserve everything, to control one's own life in its entirety, to lose none of one's memories or relationships that destroy us and cause us suffering. Without a doubt, this is one of the lessons that the ending of Lost offers, thus allowing the audience to create their own mental representations of life's drama, which are "sufficiently close that they familiarise themselves with it, and at the same time, sufficiently distant so as to call up only part of the emotions that were felt.50"—in other words, to overcome the trauma of loss through images.

• 51 Arthur Danto, L’assujettissement philosophique de l’art, Paris, Seuil, 1993 (1986).

36Nevertheless, this model seems to presuppose the existence of a hierarchy of goals that does not withstand modern skepticism. Lost reflects upon this as well, with an idea that implies a change in philosophical approach in order to be understood. In other words, one should not philosophize about television series by adopting a top-down approach (which corresponds to what Arthur Danto taught us to critique as philosophy's subjugation of art51), but rather philosophize with, or even better, after television series—to take seriously the ideas that are expressed within them. Indeed, Lost is a series that explicitly addresses the skeptic problem of imbuing meaning into existence in the absence of teleologic necessity, an absence that is emphasized by one of the characteristics of the teleserial medium, which is to say that it is always possible to follow a televisual series in a new way, thus retrospectively modifying the meaning of the past events that constitute it. We call this "the series paradox." Yet this paradox is merely the televisual form of an ordinary skeptic experience felt by the person who becomes aware of the absence of an ultimate ending. Prone to provoke anxiety, this uncertainty when it comes to the meaning attributed to existence is also an opportunity to attain a greater sense of selfhood, provided that we know how to emulate Lost's characters when they leave behind their relationship of consumption with the world, relating to it rather through a form of contemplation. This makes them more in tune with the world's ultimate form, without being able to imagine the end. The aesthetic relationship to the ordinary aspects of the world is no longer one of understanding but of recognition, no longer a matter of knowledge but of accepting one's separation from the world and from others—a separation that is felt in the experience of loss, which is a matter of knowing how to "let go."