LOOOOOOOOOOOOST!!!!! (spoilers, duh)

Count my wife and I among those with you.  This ranks "up" there with the Dallas "dream" and St. Elsewhere's "Snow Globe."  A weak, cheap, easy cop out which tarnished the previous 6 years.  After season one everyone was speculating the island was some sort of limbo/purgatory and the writers insisted this was not the case.  Almost everything would be explained as being based in science they said.  Now we find out it WAS a type of purgatory and none of it was real?!  And despite their putting "multi denominational" symbols on their "church's" stain glassed window, I felt like I just had a Christian religious lesson rammed down my throat.  A totally unsatisfying ending to what I thought was one of the best shows on TV.  Thumbs DOWN!

I loved it.  Up until last night, I was pretty unhappy with the final season.  But the finale was great.

This is what I took away from last night:

• They really were all on the island and Jack really did save the world (if he hadn't put that cork thingy back in, the world would have ended)
• The alternate time line was a purgatory of sorts...and each time someone remembered, they were remembering their death...like Jack remembering his death at the very end (which is partly why each one of them was so emotional and crying when they remembered...not just that they missed/loved the person they "remembered" with)
• Vincent is freakin great...what a dog!  If I'm alone in the woods about to die, I can't imagine how comforting it would be to have him laying there close to me while I pass over. 
• I'm torn on the very, very end.  Jack, before he dies, sees the plane that Kate, Sawyer, Lapidus, Miles and Clare are on flying over.  But during the credits, you see pieces of a plane on the island, and no human movement.  I took that as their plane crashing and everyone on board dying. 

If I can't come here with the stupid questions, where can I come?

Dumb it down for me...

1 - were they dead when Oceanic 816 went down and the whole thing was an afterlife of some kind,  or...

2 - were they dead after the h-bomb and the sideways world was some sort of post-death exercise to work on things?

Also...

any significance to the plane flying overhead as jack is passing?  Outside of a neat touch.  I mean, they're dead too, right?  The folks on the plane were in the church at the end?

Okay, I'm ashamed to admit I'm a little (a lot) confused.  I like the episode a lot - but unsure about what it really meant.

I initially took from it that the plane crash was real, the island was real, what happened was real - but the alternate (sideways world) was the purgatory......that they went there when they actually died, not necessarily at the same time.  My husband and I were scratching our heads trying to figure out why Michael and Walt weren't there - and why was Aaron there?

Maybe I got this all wrong and they actually died in the plane crash?  I feel stupid - I guess I should have this figured out, but maybe I'm trying to put too much thought into it.  I knew that they wouldn't give all the answers - it'd take forever and be impossible to boot, but I wish I knew what the heck it meant.  I think I have to watch it again.

I took it as everything that happened on the island ACTUALLY happened.  They survived the original plane crash.  They went through all of that crazy stuff on the island, etc.  The alternate timeline, when they met in the church, their "purgatory", could have been waaaay in the future after everyone finally died.  They were all waiting there, in that alternate time line, until they all died, got back together, and then were ready to move on...

There were a few Target commercials....one with the keyboard and one showing a wild hog running through the woods.  Hilarious! 

Before the start of the finale, they were showing Final Transmissions....texts/emails from fans.  Did anyone see that?  That was great!