[DanaC]

No they didn't.

Everything we saw happen on the island, across the 30 years covered, and in the flash forwards was real in the story and happened. The plane crashed, they survived - some of them got away from the island and later came back - The only part that didn't happen was the flash sideways - that was the afterlife / purgatory whatever you want to call it.

As each character died (from Boon dying in season 1, to Jack dying in the closing moments) they went to that shared reality regardless of how much time had passed between each of them dying - Hurley is there at the end with them all for example - but we never saw him die, because he was the one left in charge of the Island with Ben - the epilogue makes clear that they both continued on for years after the others had died.


This isn't just my interpretation by the way - this was also the response of the writers to people who say the ending showed they'd all died in the crash - they hadn't. That's not what the ending was.