Ian Somerhalder Reflects on ‘Lost’s Divisive Ending, 20 Years Later (VIDEO)

It’s been more than 20 years since Lost came to a divisive end, but the show’s finale still has people talking — for better and for worse.

The series finale of the ABC sci-fi drama, “The End,” offered a controversial conclusion to the show’s six seasons of mystery about how and why the survivors of the crash of Oceanic Airlines flight 815 ended up on the twisted island. In the end, the heroes of the story were revealed to be in a sort of purgatory where they could finally move on with their soulmates after dying at various times after the crash.

Ian Somerhalder, who’d later gain international fame for his turn as Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries, was one of the original stars of the show, appearing as the ill-fated Boone Carlyle. After dying in Season 1, Boone returned several times, including in the final season to reprise his role in “sideways world” and in the two-part finale. But how did the actor feel about the way the show concluded its run and all of the backlash that accompanied the airing?

Somerhalder appeared on the newest edition of First We Feast’s Hot Ones Versus alongside his vampire brother, Paul Wesley, and the two dug into chicken wings and some deep conversations about their shared and individual histories. At the urging of Wesley, Somerhalder reflected on Lost‘s final episode and offered his two cents on the subject.

“The thing about Lost was… It wasn’t my show. So people run up to me … on the like streets of New York, and they’re like, ‘What about Lost? Oh my gosh, that ending!’ And I’m like, ‘You can’t make everyone happy,'” he said in response to Wesley’s question about his true reaction.

When Wesley then pointed out that his answer was dodgy — “Wait you didn’t really answer the question,” Wesley insisted — Somerhalder offered some more thoughts: “When I first saw it, I said, ‘Oh wow, that’s where they went. I think there are people who are going to genuinely be very relieved, and there are people who are going to genuinely be very pissed,'” he said.

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Then, when Wesley once again asked him to take a stand on the matter and decide which of those two camps he belonged to, Somerhalder said, “I came into — they had finished it. They had crushed it. It was one of the biggest shows in the world. You can’t make everyone happy.”

Elsewhere in the lively new Hot Ones episode, the two Vampire Diaries stars reflected on their shared show and the longtime friendship between them that came out of it. Watch the full exchange above.