TV heavyweight LOST premiered just over 10 years ago. To this day, it’s still recognized as one of the most powerful shows to grace TV networks, perhaps ever. Sadly, LOST is more recently known not for its intense storytelling and compelling mythology, but rather for its divisive final episodes. People who stuck with it from the beginning fall firmly into one of two camps: the finale-lovers or the finale-haters.

Warning: major LOST spoilers ahead

I was a finale-hater. I was a vocal critic, never missing a chance to tell people that LOST was “118 of the best hours of TV, and 2 of the worst.” I was the guy marching around telling everyone about how I felt ripped off. I was obnoxious about it: LOST was a series of questions without answers, and I felt burned by the writers. “We had a deal,” I’d say, “you got my undivided attention for 6 years, and eventually, you’d reveal the solution to the 6-season-long-mystery.” But the solution never came. Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindeloff moved to my permanent shit-list. They broke the implicit contract we’d made, that eventually, my diligent patience would be rewarded with answers.

Evidently, my hatred grew stronger over time.

Eventually, a Facebook friend of mine posted some glowing praise about LOST and I got into a back-and-forth about the rip-off finale, and it led to some Googling. There I found Chronologically LOST, a meticulously crafted edit of the entire LOST series, presented in chronological order, from Mother, Jacob, and the “Man in Black” through the last moments of the storyline, both primary and the alternative “flash-sideways” storyline. I downloaded the massive 67-gigabyte series and began with episode 1 of 101, captured immediately by the rich mythology.

Aside: I was a big mythology guy. I read blogs tracking unanswered questions and pending mysteries. I read theories, including the ones about the island being the gateway to spacetime, and the island being a spaceship, and the island being purgatory. I wanted to know more about the Dharma Initiative, the DeGroots, Alvar and Magnus Hanso, Richard Alpert, and the island itself. I wrote my own LOST theories, sharing my thoughts on my blog, speculating as the story unfolded, capturing my reactions in real-time. So it was no surprise that I was sucked back in right away.

In the early hours of December 1, 2014, I finished the entire series for a second time. And I’m in love again. It’s like Jacob touched me. It’s like I woke up in this timeline. Too much? Sorry.

See, the first time through, I was learning the story. And this time, I walked in with a rich tapestry of knowledge. I picked up on so, so much that I missed the first time through. Repeated lines (“don’t mistake coincidence for fate”), recurring jokes (“Scott/Steve”), minor details, knowing glances, character consistencies formed early on… so many juicy bits that I’d missed the first time through because it was like drinking from a firehouse.

More importantly, watching in chronological order meant no longer dealing with flashbacks and slow moving plots. Action was rapid, and different perspectives meant different understanding. For example: did you realize that Nicki and Paolo, a season 3 sidetrack/experiment, were actually around for quite a bit of the series? It makes Sawyer’s “Who!?” joke, hilarious in season 3, less funny, because they span quite a bit of time on that island!

There are a few new takeaways, things easier to see when the action is condensed. Let’s discuss a few: