Now, as you can probably surmise, “The New Man in Charge” dives into the fun times Hurley and Ben seem to be having running the island. Though I would totally watch this scenario as a full fledged spin-off (airing right after the Sawyer/Miles buddy cop show) I guess we’ll have to deal with just these 12 minutes.

Set in the present, we open in the Dharma Logistics Warehouse in Guam with two Dharma employees (Lostpedia tell me their names are Hector and Glenn) loading up the food crates for another drop on freakball island. Enter ol’ bug eyes himself, Benjamin Linus posing as a Dharma head honcho from the home office. The workers look perplexed, claiming that no one has ever come out from the home office and that they’ve been loading the crates for 20 years. Ben assured them that the system is automated; that the orders come from the Lamp Post station back in LA, and that there hasn’t been anyone there for 20 years (aside of course Mrs. Hawking who likes to do her pendulum swinging down there). He tells the two lackeys that there is a new man in charge, and they’re closing up Dharma shop. When Ben offers little explanation why, one of them cries foul exclaiming, “We deserve answers!!!” a nice jab at the Lost fans who just need to know everything. Well played, that. Ben offers them one question each, telling Dharma lackey #1 that their drops are for an island…that moves. When lackey #1 pushes it, asking how that is possible, Ben stops him with, “Ah ah. One Question.” So…we still don’t know why the island can move. I can live with it though. My only other question is this: if they stop the food drops, what on earth will he and Hurley eat on the island?!?

When lackey #2 asks about the Polar Bear Fish Biscuits, Ben decides to show them a little informational video. Putting on the instructional film for the Hydra Station, Ben apologizes for the poor quality, explaining that, “it was converted from an old beta max.” Ha! So we all watch together, and here’s what we found out:

-Dr. Pierre Chang requests that the viewer keep his name a secret, so as to avoid his need for an alias. Heh.

-The Hydra Station was specifically designed for biological and behavioral research on animals.

-The Hurley bird was in fact a genetically altered hybrid of some sort. Most likely given vocal chords, it was then released into the wild to be observed.

-The polar bears were specifically brought in for research focused on electromagnetism. The film cuts a bit, but there’s enough dialogue to suggest that they were going to transfer the bears to a climate or environment where they would be less comfortable. Like Tunisia perhaps.

-Note the polar bear tech with the amputated arm. A nice little warning for the trainees, with a nod to Mr. Chang himself.

-Pierre Chang also emphasizes the importance that the polar bears not be impregnated before they are sent to the Orchid Station, as the amount of electromagnetic activity would lead to complications. I’m guessing after the incident, this electromagnetic activity began to affect the whole island.

-Pierre then discusses the indigenous population of the island. The Hostiles, what we know as the Others. He shows us Room 23 and says that Hostiles are brought there to have their memories wiped of any interactions or inquisitions had with Dharma during their research of the Hostile way of life. He mentions “their worship of a demigod named Jacob.” Now that I think back on the writing in the brainwashing video (lines such as “remember your life” and others mentioning Jacob) it makes sense now that they would use those lines to wipe the memories of their Dharma interactions. The reason behind this brainwashing? To avoid violating their truce with the Hostiles.

When the film ends, one of the lackeys humorously ads one of John Locke’s famous lines: “I think we’re going to need to see that again.” No such luck lackey, with a wave and a stare, Benjamin Linus is out the door and Dharma closes up shop for good. The film itself was a little bit of an information vomit, I’d have to say. Doc Jensen agrees with me, saying that, “Lost’s mythology is best left to our imagination. Take the Hydra Station film. Previous Dharma films were cryptic texts that demanded interpretation, and perhaps couldn’t even be trusted. These qualities fired my imagination. The Hydra film has its moments, but lacked the intrigue and mystery I expect. I never doubted that Dr. Chang was telling me the truth. Bummer.” Well people were clamoring for answers, gotta get ‘em out quick.

Ben then heads into the familiar Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute and asks to see Keith Johnson. I totally caught it right away, someone using the initials K. Johnson could only be Walt. Notice how Walt is fussing around with a set of Connect Four. That’s a nice nod to his color war game of backgammon with Lock in the pilot episode. Are there still two sides, one light one dark? Ben apologizes to Walt for his kidnapping and emphasizes that he is in fact special and that he can still help his father and complete the work that needs to be done if he agrees to go with him. How can he help his father when he is dead? And what did Ben mean when he said that it must be hard, “pretending to be someone you’re not”? A bit vague, but I’m guessing Walt must help his father, or the whisper of his father, do the very thing that the rest of the losties did in the finale: move one.

Ben manages to convince Walt to go with him. Out in the Dharma van, chillin’ in the back seat is fabulous island protector Hurley (I sure hope they gave Jack a proper burial, and I’m not talking in a cave either). I loved Hurley telling Walt that he’s not crazy, as if he also came to that conclusion about himself at one point. The epilogue ends with Hurley’s telling Walt that he, “wants to talk to [him] about a job.” So I guess Walt was special after all. The person Jacob was looking for was Walt in the end. There were just a ton of obstacles in the way.

Now, for some reason, a lot of folks are treating this as the real finale of Lost, and exclaiming how disappointed they are in it and how crappy an “episode” it was. To those people I say, dudes calm down. This was not an episode by any means, nor was it meant to be taken as a finale. While it is considered Lost canon, it isn’t really necessary as a closing piece. To me it was just a fun additional piece that gives us a little fun, nostalgic insight into Hurley and Ben after the rest of the Losties flew away. Like Doc Jensen, I accept “TNMIC” as an epilogue, not a new finale. Doc pretty much sums up my feelings when he says, “Unlike other fans, I was mostly content with the amount of mystery resolution that the final season of Lost and the finale in particular gave me. My exceptions? I wish the show had given me more info about the baby-making problem, about Eloise Hawking, and about Daniel Faraday’s days with The Dharma Initiative in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Claire’s days with Smokey on The Island, and Ilana’s days as a soldier in Jacob’s employ. I do think the sixth season of Lost could have found a way to give us one or two episodes a la “Ab Aeterno” and “Across The Sea” to tackle some of my pet causes. But you know what? I’m not angry at the show for not hooking me up with the intel I wanted. And I’m grateful that I have an imagination that finds fun in brainstorming possible solutions for myself. So I didn’t really come to “The New Man In Charge” looking for “answers,” nor did I come to it looking for catharsis and closure. “The End” was the end of Lost for me. I wept; I’m good.” Though I disagree with him that the epilogue was meant to induce warm fuzzies or teary sentiment. I think it was definitely a tongue in cheek information bomb, one that, again, I enjoyed but didn’t take too seriously. What did you think folks?

To close, I am still royally PISSED about the Emmys, and what makes me feel super better is this excellent photo from the 2005 Emmys and the Lost cast with a slew of awards.

Namaste!

Now that we know how Lost ended, we can discuss it from a more general and all encompassing view. We know now that the sideways flashes were in fact a holding point, a purgatory like state for all of our beloved Losties after they had died. Their deaths were both on island and off; both sudden and late in life. But they all gathered together for each other in the end. I thought it was quite a beautiful ending. I rewatched it twice since Sunday and each time I watched the island mysteries grew less and less important, and I cried even more. For those who thought it too sentimental and cheesy I say, “Get over it.” That’s how life is. In the end, all you’ll want will to be with the ones you love too.

The episode started out with what I thought was a nice montage of island life juxtaposed with sideways life. In the sideways, Christian Shepherd’s coffin arrives at LAX. Lostpedia tells me that, “the box that the coffin, was transported in has stickers displaying the following airport codes: BWN (Brunei International Airport), GUM (A.B. Won Pat International Airport, Guam), HKG (Hong Kong International Airport, China), and LAX (Los Angeles International Airport).  Elsewhere Jack studies X-rays, Ben makes tea, Locke prepares for hopeful surgery, Sawyer is at work. The sideways world seems calmer. Everyone seems a bit content. Heck, the whole place seems kind of heavenly. Outside of a church (Note it’s the same church where Eloise hawking held her meetings with the Oceanic 6) Kate waits in the car while Desmond helps an Oceanic truck driver unload Christian Shepherd’s coffin. I thought that guy Bocklin would end up being someone we’ve seen before but, no dice. When Des returns to the car, Kate ironically asks, “Who died?” Uh, well turns out all of you. The episode is full of little foreshadowing snippets like this and I’m surprised we didn’t all see it coming. Back on the island, Sawyer approaches jack about his new position, saying, “Why don’t you come down from the mountain and tell us what the burnin’ bush said.” Just in case, I’ll provide the explanation: “In the Biblical book of Exodus, the burning bush is the location at which Moses was appointed by God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into Canaan. “Come down from the mountain” refers to the later story of Moses descending from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, which had been written onto stone tablets by God Himself.” Kate seems genuinely upset that Jack chose to become the new Jacob. I wonder if she’s upset because of her later declaration of love? A lingering hope that they’d always end up together? She tries to convince him by saying that nothing is irreversible. Cue another foreshadow from Hurley: “This would all be so sweet if we weren’t all about to die.”

One of the best scenes of the episode, in my opinion, was enlightened sideways Hurley recognizing sideways Charlie. The cuteness of the grin spreading across his face and the “You’re like, my best friend, Dude,” suggestive chuckles that he’s got going on are seriously great stuff. I could tell Jorge Garcia and Dominic Monoghan must have been having a blast filming that scene, with Charlie being a drunken ass and Hurley a happy goofball.

At the well, Sawyer spies on Ben and MIB/Flocke, trying to figure out where Desmond had gotten to. I think the sound Ben made when Sawyer elbowed him in the face was one of the best sounds that’s come out of Michael Emerson. It was just utterly hilarious. Sawyer explains to Locke, that they’re, “Not candidates anymore,” yet sneaky about revealing who exactly took over Jacob’s duties. From a dog paw print in the dirt, Flocke figures out where Desmond has gone. I’m so glad they included Rose and Lumberjack Bernard (and Vincent!) in the series finale; it just wouldn’t have been the same without them. Though Doc Jensen has some opinions about their reclusiveness. He says, “They had a rule: ”We don’t get involved.” The Rose-Bernard relationship is inspiring for its commitment, but I think Rose was dead wrong. If you draw breath in this world, you have a responsibility to engage it and redeem it. You don’t get to hide away from the problems of the world or the concerns of your fellow man. And even if you try, the world will find you, whether you like it or not. To her defense, when Fake Locke threatened to kill Rose and Bernard if Desmond didn’t bend to his will, Rose piped up and told Desmond not to buckle. In that moment, she was a hero; she was willing to die for him and their right to self-determination. But the final judgment on her wrong-headed isolationism was revealed by the simple fact that she was there at the end in that church, a vested and invested member of a larger spiritual clan. Like it or not, you’re a member of the family of man. Deal with it.” As for sideways Rose and Bernard, someone on DARKUFO points out, “First we hear Rose say “You can let go now” twice to Jack after the turbulence in the plane (almost as if she had those near-death flashes then and realized where she was). THEN we see Bernard coming from the toilet and he says “I almost died in there”. Rose replies by saying “I missed you”. Just the way she says that, in such a peaceful tone and if she had been missing him since a long time. Bernard replies with “I missed you too, beautiful”. He just had gone to the bathroom! It’s almost as if they were saying this because one of them died before the other and hence they missed each other.” I hope that after the island story was said and done, Island Guardian Hurley managed to convince the two of them to stop being so reclusive, and to go chill out with him and Ben once in a while.

Meanwhile, Richard Alpert begins to age!!!! My theory is that since Jacob had died, his touch and his influence died with him. Thus Richard’s immortality was taken away. It’s a nice ending for the character; his immortality seemed at times almost a curse rather then a blessing.

Sailing out they manage to find LAPIDUS!!! I mean, I had a feeling this guy was dead (read my open Hawaiian shirt tribute in an earlier post) so I was actually surprised that they had him live. I mean, I guess they NEEDED him to fly the damned plane. And his point about “Hey why don’t we just TAKE the plane and LEAVE and then Smokey won’t have it” idea was kind of a duh moment. I mean, did anyone else actually think of that before the whole sub incident? Seems quite logical, much more so than blowing it up and being trapped there forever.

It’s very appropriate that Sun and Jin are the first of the episode to have their “revelation”. I guess I was right all along, Juliet WAS Sun’s baby doctor!! Score one for me! Their moment is quite sweet and a TOTAL tear jerker. Having the sonogram and seeing Ji Yeon on the screen enlightened them both. Even though Jin never met his daughter, the fact that her existence was the trigger for his afterlife revelation was such a heartbreaking moment. Even Sun said to him, “I remember.” As if remembering your own, underwater death was an easy thing to do. Yet could you imagine having such a revelation? That you and your husband died a horrible death together but that you were now in the afterlife with the love of your life??? DAMN Lost.

Elsewhere in the hospital, Jack was prepping Locke for his spinal surgery. I just noted some more bits of foreshadowing dialogue on my second watch. When Locke asks him if it’ll work, Jack amusingly remarks, “Well there’s always the chance that I could kill you.” Though what we are watching is in fact Jack and Locke, we’re meant to connect it to Jack and MIB on the island. Jacks remark there reflects his witty statement on the island that MIB’s death will be “a surprise.” It’s quite nice to see Jack almost come alive again. Over the past could of seasons, he’s been quite defeated, messed up and even depressing. His returned confidence is refreshing. It’s good to have Hero Jack back. Locke jokes that Jack seems, “like the obvious choice” for Jacob’s replacement. Well yeah we all knew that, but at least the job has gotten the mope out of him. Also, Matthew Fox is quite sexy when he’s playing hero and not doing pouty Jack faces.

As the whole lot arrive at the Light Source, Jack, Des and Flocke head closer to the Heart of the Island, while Kate, Hurley, Sawyer and Ben wait a little behind. Like he was when Flocke found him with Rose and Bernard, Desmond is still quite agreeable and cooperative with both Jack and Flocke. His words reflect the whole end game of the episode: “It doesn’t matter, him destroying the island, you destroying him. You’re gonna lower me into the light and I’m going to go somewhere else. A place where we can be with the ones that we love. And we don’t have to ever think about this damned island again.” Such a poignant note from the cheerful Scottsman. I mean, he pretty much laid it all out right there, and told the audience what was happening. Yet we’re so caught up in this science fiction, alternate dimension idea that we fail to see what’s really going on and what’s really important. Much like our Lost characters. Ah humanity! Jack retorts that he’s tried that already, that there are no shortcuts or do overs. And he is exactly right, whatever happened happened. But he’s not seeing the big picture that Desmond (somehow) can ultimately see. Why can Desmond see these things? Why can his consciousness go back and forth in time? Why is he resistant to such high levels of electromagnetism? It’s never really explained word for word. But, like many before and after him, Desmond is special. Perhaps Dharma was right after all, and his years of injections and solitary confinement perfected his resistance. The result now is that Desmond has the ability to enter the Heart of the Island without being affected. Desmond is the one that can put out the light and survive.

As Flocke and Jack lower Des into the Heart of the Island, Jack says to him, “Don’t get yourself killed.” Again with the unseen foreshadowing! It does happen to everyone. I really liked the moment between Jack and Flocke discussing real John Locke. I’ve always thought it a shame that such an awesome character died without accomplishing anything awesome, but Jack’s comment to Flocke was the affirmation that Locke’s character needed. Telling Flocke that he, “disrespect[s] John Locke by wearing his face. You’re nothing like him,” and insisting the Locke was right about almost everything was, I thought a respectable and noble statement. I also liked their duel stare down into the Source, mirroring their Season 1 discovery of the Hatch’s ladder.

Down in the well, the Heart of the Island is quite interesting. Desmond passes skeletons and various other tunnels and Cerberus vent looking holes. Who made those? Any questions will simply lead to more questions…

A large oblong stone stands in the center of a glowing pool of water that seems to be filling and emptying via these other tunnels and waterfalls. Lostpedia tells me that, “The plug in the Source has markings on it. The clearest markings are cuneiform script. This form of writing was used for a very long time by different civilizations in the area that is now Iraq, notably Akkadian/Sumerian language groups C5000-1000BC.” Looks like we’re dealing with the very first inklings of civilization here, though I don’t believe they’d created this cork, more like they marked it.

As Desmond enters the pool, his body is flushed with electromagnetism, but he manages to take hold of the stone and uncork it from the pool. (Note that this uncorking makes the same sound as when the island would flash back and forth through time.)  Suddenly, the water stopped running, the pool dried up, fiery light emanated from the hole in the pool, and the earth began to crack and shake.

What the heck IS this thing?? For those of science, this could literally be what holds together the center of the earth. Our planet is, after all, full of molten hot magma and held together by various forms of electromagnetism. For those of faith, the Light is the source of life, goodness, energy, and perhaps that is what keeps Hell at bay. Unplugging the stone seems to have released both. Damon and Carlton said in their Lost podcast after the episode Across the Sea that the audience should think of this “Heart of the Island” as a literal heart. They went on the detail that the water can be considered the heart’s blood, and that all water throughout the island, in fact, could be considered the island’s life force, its circulatory system even. Water is a major essential of life on Earth just as blood is to a human body. That might explain the well of life giving water in the Temple. Could then the removal of the cork be equivalent to giving the island a massive hart attack? As the tremors continue, Flocke triumphantly marches away from Jack, claiming, “Looks like you were wrong” I’m not really sure what Jack expected to happen, but it didn’t seem to. Heck, even Des let’s out a howling, “Nooo!” having expected that he’d simply die and be reunited with Penny in the afterlife. Though Jack apparently had other thoughts on his mind, and his abrupt tackle of Flocke lead to something we didn’t expect: blood from Flocke’s mouth. The removal of the cork meant that MIB is no longer immortal.

Doc thinks not only did Locke become human again, but something much deeper may have happened to our Losties. He says, “The Man In Black, bonded to The Island since childhood and robbed of his body by his brother’s coil-stripping blunder some 2,000 years earlier, was finally unchained from his tropical ball and got his humanity back. But in the process, MIB also turned into something that Jack could murder; the angry old man became exclusively and perilously human, wholly flesh and blood. In that protracted moment in which evil was allowed to hold sway, I think everyone — the castaways; possibly all life in the world — lost their souls. In ”The End,” the struggle wasn’t just between life and death — it was a struggle to preserve the promise of eternity from a new modality of total annihilation. We’ve been told for many episodes that if the Monster left The Island, the castaways and their loved ones would cease to exist. I took this to mean that if Fake Locke got away, reality would go POOF! Instead, this is how I add it up:

1. In the Lost world, people are an inextricable blend of matter and spirit.
2. Fake Locke was all spirit — an unnatural state of being. But it made him invulnerable, because spirit is indestructible.
3. To kill Fake Locke, you had to either restore him to his natural state of matter and spirit… or convert him from all spirit to all matter, which is to say, a completely mechanical animal, and thus killable.
4. The rub is that to the procedure renders everyone into mechanical animals, which is to say, devoid of a soul.
5.Without the soul, we cannot pass into the next life or into the afterlife without our community of redemption partners — the people we love.
6. Fake Locke wanted to leave The Island.
7. Fake Locke was bonded to The Island by Island magic.
8. The same procedure required to break that spell (i.e., destroying The Island) is the same procedure that would convert Fake Locke and everyone into soulless zombies incapable of having a happily ever after with our loved ones (i.e., your community of redemption partners) because we need our souls to move into the afterlife.
9. Hence: Fake Locke leaving The Island = Annihilation (when you die) for you and everyone you love.”

Back in our sideways realm, Hurley and Boone had conspired to set up Sayid into coming to Shannon’s rescue. Their reunion was sweet and cute, but definitely not as touching as those we see later on. Maybe it’s because their relationship was so short lived and ended abruptly. Maybe because we all assumed Nadia would be Sayid’s enlightener. Or maybe it’s because Shannon was such a bitch. Vozzek69 notes, “Perhaps out of all of our characters, Sayid has endured the worst identity crisis. Even in the afterlife, he’s still struggling with past misdeeds. His time as a torturer in Iraq was capped with violence and killing, even after returning home. Cross-reference this with his on-island existence and you can add neck-snapping expert and notorious assassin to Sayid’s resume. Because of these things, he now has very little faith in the man that he’s become. “You clearly don’t know anything about me” Sayid tells Hugo, displaying a complete lack of moral confidence. Hurley’s all-knowing response has a golden shine to it, especially considering the role he ultimately ends up with.”

As for Boone, Vozzek goes on to say, “Our course we have to ask ourselves the next natural question: how long has Boone been set free? Was he just playing stupid on the plane during LA X, or did he somehow achieve enlightenment via Hurley, Desmond, or even all by himself sometime during this last season? Judging from his “pulling my leg” comments to John Locke on Oceanic 815, and the line: “This thing goes down, I’m sticking with you”, I think it’s more fun to believe that Boone has known all along. Maybe he was toying with Locke on the flight – trying offhandedly to jog his memory as Rose and Bernard did to Jack. It’s cool to look back on that scene and imagine that Boone already knows where he is, finally giving him one up on John after a whole season of playing the clueless sidekick.” I totally dig that theory.

Charlotte and Daniel had an equally sweet reunion, if not one that lead to complete enlightenment. They did have a glimmer, or a slight inkling of remembrance, but their love was never fully realized and their effect on each other not 100%, so I imagine that, like Ana Lucia, they’ll come around when they’re good and ready.

After his near death experience (kind of ironic now, that description) on the sideways flight of Oceanic 815, Charlie described a vision he had of a woman who sounded an awful lot like Claire. So imagine the cuteness of Charlie’s face when from the stage of Daniel’s concert, Charlie sees Claire right in front of him. I love how their eye contact is what finally triggers Clair’s into labor. Recognizing her form their previous encounter, Kate rushes to her aid, and in what must have been the fastest labor in the history of the world (did Kate even check how far dilated she was??) Claire was suddenly giving birth to baby Aaron.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Hawking confronts Des about his plans to enlighten everyone. We didn’t know what she meant as we were watching it, but knowing the end, I think it’s safe to assume that neither she nor her son were ready to move forward. I guess she was trying to keep this image of him, the one where he was able to become a musician (and where she didn’t KILL him) in his and her mind for as long as possible. She wants Daniel to have the life she never allowed him, perhaps that is what they both need to deal with.

Backstage, Claire continues to push and “I’m with the band” Charlie runs off to find some blankets. I have to say, I’m not a huge Evangeline Lilly fan, but this scene was probably her finest acting moment in all of Lost. It was another moving revelation and I especially happy that Kate’s enlightening involved Aaron’s birth, and not some sappy moment between her and one of the guys she had to choose between. Jacob was right, Kate changed when she became a mother and the only constant man ever in her life was Aaron. Once Claire sees and holds Aaron, it’s clear to her too. Their bombardment of Charlie and his realization was another tear jerker. Theirs was another incomplete relationship, but what they had on the island was enough to solidify their connection. Dominic Monoghans performance was amazing as well, and the peanut butter flashback inclusion made it all the better.

Back on the island, Jack and MIB’s final confrontation begins. Oh man, this whole scene was cool. The pouring rain, the chopper shots over the cliffs, the music and the cinematography were all awesome. The flying Hero Jack commercial cut was as suspenseful as any worthy action film. I freaking loved it!

Vozzek notes, “Some amazing imagery was captured here: Jack now looking black, Locke now looking white – good vs. evil personified. The whole thing was one final nod to the game Jacob and his brother started nearly two thousand years ago, and that game came to a violent end right here atop this cliff. We need to realize that the realm of the island has been under Jacob’s direction for a very long time. As the man in charge, he’s the one who has made the rules, just as his brother one day said he could. To Jacob and the man in black, the island’s jungles have been a tremendous gameboard. The black and white motif is a visual representation of their childhood senet game – a game started centuries ago when they set the very first two pieces down on the board. Over hundreds of years, their game has evolved into using people instead of playing pieces. The stakes have gotten higher. Jacob’s sworn protection of the island has been balanced precariously against the dark man’s overwhelming desire to leave. They’ve fought against each other, disagreed with one another, and placed life-or-death bets over whether mankind is inherently good or bad. To them, the island is exactly as our main characters have seen it: a black and white battlefield pitting destiny against free will.” As they continue to fight, MIB gets the advantage and stabs Jack in the side…right where his appendix would be. Then, moments later, MIB’s knife nicks Jack’s neck, right where his cut has been all season. It seems as if we’ve been witnessing the sideways universe trying to enlighten Jack all along. His appendix was taken out by Juliet on the island, yet in the sideways world that never happened (explaining why he asked his mother in the season premiere when he had gotten it taken out). The cut on his neck repeatedly reopened throughout the season, almost egging Jack on to realize and remember the wounds that would eventually lead to his death.

Then, a quick shot in the back knocks MIB down, and the gun wielder, Kate, remarks, “I saved you a bullet!” Lost of folks are disappointed in what they think is a cheesy one liner. I don’t really have an issue with it. I’m also happy that Kate finally lived up to something. I always thought that she was kind of all talk, and considering there are a ton of films these days where scripts are apparently being changed so that male characters aren’t being saved by and thus “emasculated” by female characters (specifically the changed ending to Angelina Jolie’s SALT comes to mind, look into it), it’s good to have a female character affect the outcome of a fight. Jack didn’t seem too emasculated anyway, as he kicked MIB off the cliff to a rocky death.

As soon as that John Locke body fails, another one revives. In the sideways world, Locke begins to stir and awakens from his spinal surgery. After a few moments of regained feeling, Locke repeats Juliet’s premiere phrase, “It worked.” He of course, meant the surgery, but we all know now what he really meant. “Walkabout” still is my favorite episode of the entire series, so the flashes of that episode during Locke’s enlightenment were thoroughly moving and really effective in reminding us that this character was once noble and admirable in his personal quests. I just wish he had gotten to realize them in life.

Locke’s successful surgery seems to hit Jack too, who has a momentary flash, but shakes it off. He’s still fighting his remembrance. Locke questions him further asking, “You don’t remember?” but Jack runs off, claiming that he’s got to get to his son. Yet Locke confirms what we’ve been wondering all along, replying, “You’d don’t have a son.” And thus it’s revealed: David never actually existed. His existence in the sideways world, in Jack’s afterlife more specifically, was so that jack could deal with his own father issues. Doc adds, “We forget that Christian was trying to change his life before his death. He had enrolled in AA and was trying to get sober. He had come to realize he had psychically wounded his son with his crap parenting and was trying to atone for it. But Jack rejected his father’s contrition and atonement. He couldn’t let go of his anger and resentment; his whole damn fixer identity was glued together with his daddy bitterness. Jack busted up his father’s bid to go sober after suspecting that he was having a romantic relationship with his ex-wife Sarah. Even when Jack realized he was dead wrong, he still clung to his anger. Christian, destroyed, spiraled into relapse, and then to his death in Australia. And so began Jack’s journey to The Island. Now reconsider David. When we first met him, he and Jack didn’t have the greatest relationship, either. Then Jack made a bid to atone for his crap parenting, and what did David do? He forgave his father and reconciled. David became the son Jack wished he had been to his father — the son who could forgive, and move on.” Jack was so concerned in life that his horrible relationship with his father would lead to his own inability at being a good dad. So in his limbo, in his almost heaven where things are better than on the island, Jack has a son, and is a good communicator and a good father, and that’s what he wanted all along.

Elsewhere in the hospital, Jin and Sun are preparing to leave when Sawyer finds them and tells them he’s worried for their safety (with Sayid on the loose). They give Sawyer the same, loving and goofy smiles. I especially loved Jin’s. He almost couldn’t control himself upon seeing his old Dharma buddy. Sun comforts Sawyer’s worries by telling him, “It’s ok, I am safe “as there’s nothing to worry about now that they are together. Jin tells him, “see you there” and the hilarity of Sawyers “See me where?!?” is a nice final moment of Sawyer humor. He makes his way down the hall, a little confused, and bumps into Jack. After Jack gives him directions to the vending machines, Sawyer unknowingly says, “Thanks doc.” Yet…Jack wasn’t wearing his lab coat, or an ID badge. It’s as if Sawyer instinctively knew that Jack was a Doctor. Down by the vending machines, Sawyer and Juliet meet once again. Their witty banter still present, they finally click over the passing of an Apollo bar. I admit I was expecting something a little more grand and significant for their reunion, but the subtle, dark hallway turned out to be perfect. Their enlightenment specifically was tragic to watch and almost painful, considering that they both remembered flashes from Juliet’s plummeting death. But in the end, they both remembered their three years (yes, the longest Lost relationship I think) and even regained their flirtatious humor. It was really touching and beautiful, kind of reminded me of my own relationship: two smartasses who can’t help but get sappy for each other. I knew these two would end up together. Sawyer and Kate were great friends and had all the sexual chemistry, but when it comes to actual, long lasting love, it’s Juliet with Sawyer and Jack with Kate all the way. A cool note from a DARKUFO theorist: “Thinking back on the Sawyer and Juliet scene with the vending machine. They basically describe EXACTLY what is going on at the island, and how to kill Flocke. So the candybar is stuck, and Sawyer is banging on the machine. Juliet tells him a little trick. She tells him to unplug the machine to fix it, and maybe her most important clue, that its technically not even against the law. Why is this important? Well, what is going on back on the island?? Desmond UNPLUGS the island/cork. Then what happens?? The light goes out! What happens when Sawyer unplugs the vending machine? All the lights go out! And now back to Juliets comment “it’s technically not even breaking the law”, what does that mean? It’s basically this, when the island was ‘plugged in’, it was considered breaking the rules (or the LAW!) to kill Flocke. But once unplugged, it’s technically no longer considered ‘breaking the law’ to kill Flocke. So, once the machine is plugged back in, and once the island cork was plugged back in, all the lights come back on and everything is fixed.”

Back on the cliffs, it’s decided that Jack needs to go back and fix the Heart of the Island to stop it from sinking. Ben and Hurley decide they’d rather take their chances with Jack than climb down the cliffs, while Kate and Sawyer decide to head for the plane on Hydra Island. Kate and Jack’s final moment was a bit predictable, but still poignant I think. After all the trouble they had off the island, Jack always knew he had to come back to try and fix things, and Kate probably always knew that she’d lose Jack to the island. She says to him, “Tell me that I’m going to see you again” confirming that that is all we want in life in the end anyway, to see the ones we love again. It’s almost like Sun and Jin, that they’re separated the moment they rekindle their love. It’s almost ridiculous that she has to go off with Sawyer, and bittersweet that those two live on without their loves for the rest of their lives. They also manage to find Crazy Claire. Doc notes, “I thought her Island storyline was probably the weakest thread in the finale. A hasty, too-compact resolution for her character. I loved the way she was reintroduced into the series. Her Rousseau makeover was great, and the Emilie de Ravin played it well. But she got lost along the way, and if the season could have given us one more hour, I think it should have focused largely on Claire. Or maybe this hour could have been the hour that Lost gave to ”Across The Sea.” The episode could have been a shared Claire/Man In Black flashback story — an hour about mad mothers, about how Mother’s actions thousands of years earlier had forged a dark mythic legacy for The Island, about the time Claire and MIB spent together during those missing three years. I think said story could have found a way to address the baby-making problem, too.” Cool idea actually, too bad.

After this moment, we’re back at the concert where Jack arrived late to pick up David (who seems to have disappeared, cause well…he doesn’t exist). Even while they’re chatting, Jack suspects he knows Kate from somewhere, but can’t pinpoint it. They discuss her stealing his pen on the flight, but Kate confirms, “No, that’s not where you know me from.” She touches his face and he has a flash, but still he is resisting. I like how, just like jack wasn’t the one to enlighten Kate, it also doesn’t work the other way around. They’re connection was strong, but not as strong as Kate’s to Aaron, or Jack’s to someone else. We don’t yet know what will enlighten Jack, but Kate promises to lead him there.

Back on the island, Jack, Hurley and Ben have arrived back and at cave entrance to the Heart of the Island. Jack knows that he probably won’t survive the task of recorking the island, and so he passes the torch of Island Guardian to Hurley (ah, so that’s why he went with them. But doesn’t Ben look a little peeved?) Jack has Hurley drink from the blood water of the island, but no Latin this time. Perhaps Jack didn’t really have time to learn the words. I guess it makes sense that Hurley would be next in line for the throne. He’s been special the entire series, and people have been suspecting that it’d be him for weeks now. I love Hurley’s reluctance combined with his sense of duty. He agrees to take over but only until Jack, “get’s right back up here, dude.”  Once down in the well, Jack finds a muttering Desmond. Des apparently underestimated his own electromagnetic powers considering that he keeps muttering about how he was supposed to die and be transported to his afterlife. As Doc1 says, “The lesson: No one can ever be completely correct about anything — especially when that something is ‘’The Meaning Of All Existence’ “. What he didn’t understand, I’m guessing, is that “the island wasn’t finished with him yet.” Or rather, his family wasn’t finished with him yet. Jack tells him to go home and be with your wife and son (and maybe get 22 different types of cancer from his lifelong radiation exposure?). Then, I almost died, DIED I tell you when Jack finally says to Des, “I’ll see you in another life, brother.”

Jack manages to place the cryptic stone back into its slot, ultimately ending the island’s massive heart attack. The water begins to flow again, the light returns and life breathes back into the island. Matthew Fox’s superior acting moment is here, as Jack sobs happily when the blood water is restored and the island comes back to life. The only thing (I swear! The ONLY thing) that I don’t get is why Jack didn’t become a Smoke Monster type thing (or something worse as Allison Janney would have said) when the electromagnetism hit him. He seems to have been blown out of the well (albeit at some other mouth) just like MIB’s body was. Explanation please? Really Darlton, that’s all I need, and it’s a heck of a lot less than other crazies.

When they realize that Jack is gone and Desmond doing ok, Hurley and Ben fully realize their predicament. Hurley is now the protector of the island, yet in a really tender moment, he asks Ben to stick around and help him out. Ben agrees and suggests that they help Demsond get home. When Hurley counters with the fact that no one can leave the island, Ben responds, “That’s how Jacob ran things.” Most likely to keep his candidates close at hand, but at least it was clear now that it is the guardian who makes the rules, and Hurley can change whatever he wants, including getting Desmond back to Penny, heck maybe even getting Cindy and the kids back home. We know Bernard and Rose will hang around because of her cancer being kept at bay, so does anyone else feel like they’d really, really want to see how Hurley runs things with Ben as his sidekick?? I mean, that spinoff seriously needs to air right after the Miles and Sawyer buddy cop comedy. Their amazing rapport is reflected back in the sideways world outside Eloise’s church. Hurley comments that he was a great number 2, while Ben confirms that Hurley was also a great #1. Again, I’d LOVE to see the blast they had. Also, was Hurley’s last word of the series in fact “Dude”? Can someone confirm that for me? Hurley asks if Ben will be joining them, but Ben declines, I suspect because like a few before him, he’s just not ready. Looking back, I’d say he still had some issues to work out with his parenting of Alex, and also his many acts of murder.

Speaking of his acts of murder, who should roll up at that moment but the post-surgical John Locke. As John wheels to go in, Ben says he is sorry for what he did to him. He says he was selfish, jealous and wanted everything John had. He says that John was special and that he wasn’t. John says he forgives him. Ben tells him how much it matters to hear that. Looking back, this is kind of a poignant scene to think about. It implies that all of us are on the same page in the afterlife, heck even murderers. Something to mull over. Doc writes, “I’ve heard that some fans didn’t like the implications of Ben’s decision. If souls are allowed to kick around Purgatory for eternity and figure themselves out, then doesn’t the Sideways world effectively cheapen the Island story? If our redemption issues can be processed easily and painlessly in the cushy limbo of our own blue heaven, then what does it matter what manner of evil that we commit or suffering we endure in the world of matter? It’s a fair point — but it misses some points, too, and besides, the criticism can’t be fairly applied to Ben because it doesn’t take into account facts that are in evidence. Apparently, both he and Hurley enjoyed a fruitful partnership on The Island in the post-castaway era. I like to imagine Ben did much to change during that time, and that perhaps the principled teacher that he was in the Sideways world was a fair representation of the man he became in The Island world. I think the example of Ben tells us something about how Lost‘s version Purgatory works for all souls. Yes, you can stay and ”figure things out,” but this introspection doesn’t change who you are. Or rather, were. You don’t get to craft a flattering interpretation of yourself. You don’t get to accumulate more experience to improve your chances at heavenly election. You only get one life to live, and the opportunity that the Sideways world provides is the chance to puzzle together and come to grips with the person you became while you lived it. “ Ben suggests to Locke that he doesn’t need the chair anymore, and Locke, triumphantly, and awesomely, stands on his own. Vozzek says, “For Locke, the ALT world has been all about him clinging to his paralysis. This was a form of self-flagellation – although he had Helen, happiness, and everything else, John still didn’t feel he deserved to walk again after what he’d done to his father. Ben helps him to realize that he can walk, and he can let go. Learning what we do about the alternate timeline however, Anthony Cooper’s inability to move or speak now seems to have sinister karmatic undertones” THIS was where I started to get a little skeptical about the sideways world. I mean, miraculous alternate dimension or not, I don’t think that’s possible after major surgery. But John Locke finally getting up out of that wheelchair was a great moment.

Nearby in the parking lot, Jack and Kate arrived. Jack asks why Kate brought him to the place where he was going to have his father’s funeral and Kate responds, “Because this is where you’re going to have your father’s funeral.” Again, his father issues, his father’s death and the underlying affects are the main thing that Jack has to face here in this sideways world, before he can, as Kate says, “leave.” He enters the back of the church. High on shelf sits a Jewish menorah and a statue of Buddha. On the wall hangs a painting of Vishnu. Through the stained glass window shines a Christian cross, the Islamic star and crescent, the Star of David, an Aum, a Yin Yang, and a Buddhist Dharmacakra (what I originally thought was a donkey wheel, ha!). It seems that something all encompassing is at work here, something no one religion can comprehend or explain.

Jack approaches his father’s coffin, circles it once, and holds out his hand to touch it. What followed is probably one of the best edited and most beautiful sequences I’ve ever seen on Lost. The moment Jack’s hand touches his father’s coffin; it cuts to the very first Lost image: Jack’s eye opening on the island; the bamboo trees flowing in the wind. He’s still a bit reluctant, but he develops the courage to continue. Placing his hands back on the coffin, everything floods through him, and he begins to remember. First it’s our hero shot from the pilot episode: Jack running towards the plane. Then, helping Claire, the pregnant woman, a doctor’s first instinct. Then flashing to giving Rose CPR, then saving Charlie after his hanging by Ethan, trying to save Boone; all those of his fellow castaways he treated as patients; that he tried to fix. Then his friendships: Sun, Hurley, Sayid, Shannon, the Kwons. Then Sawyer, brilliantly his flash goes to the moment when Sawyer told Jack about his encounter with Christian at a bar. Then Kate, finally Kate, in multiple scenario’s multiple flashes, all reflecting the love from his previous life.

He opens the coffin, only to find nothing inside and suddenly, Christina Shepherd is behind him. Are we seeing a ghost? Knowing the end, I guess so. Jack tells Christian he doesn’t understand, that he’d died and asks him how he is here. Christian simply, yet eerily asks, “How are you here?”

It hit Jack earlier than it hit me. He had died too. But when? How? I almost launched into a tirade, shouting “but Darlton said they weren’t dead!!” When I realized that back on the island, we were about to see exactly how. Christian goes on to explain that they are all real, Jack’s life was real, and the people in the church are real. Jack cries into his shoulder, and who wouldn’t at the realization of one’s death and afterlife, especially with a reunion with a parent. Christian reassures him, explaining that “everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some before you, some long after you.” Christian further explains they are all here now because “There is no now, here“, and that Eloise’s church is a place they all made together to find each other, because the most important part of Jack’s life was the time spent with these people. They made it so they could find each other, remember, and “move on.”

Damn…

So, the entire Season 6 sideways story arch was some kind of afterlife waiting room. A Limbo/Purgatory type place where they could all come together, remember each other and move on. Matthew Fox mentioned on Jimmy Kimmel’s special after the finale that there are some specific religions that believe that you must remember your death before you are allowed to move on. Now, not every characters specifically remembered their deaths, some in fact were enlightened by birth, but in the end, everyone had to remember their most important people and the most important parts of their lives. Vozzek says, “”I’m real, you’re real, everything that’s ever happened to you was real…” – This isn’t just Christian Shephard talking here. These are the writers and producers, explaining to us exactly what happened. Everyone in the church is dead too. Some died before Jack, some afterward. The place they’re at now is timeless… there’s no past, present or future. The only stipulation before moving on is that everyone must come to terms with their past life’s issues, and that they need to do it on their own – without being told.”Where are we, dad?” Jack asks, echoing Charlie’s infamous question from season one. “This is a place that you all made together, so that you could find each other”, Christian explains (note his use of the word ‘you’ and not ‘we’). In so many ways, it’s a lot like the island. The island also became a place made by Jack and his friends, filled with whatever real-world baggage they brought in with them. Just as they did in this place, our characters had to work out their past issues before being allowed to leave. Looking at it this way, the island becomes just another level of enlightenment – a more interactive layer of reality in which our characters could grow emotionally and spiritually before moving on.”

Jack enters the nave of the church and meets Kate, Hurley, Libby, Sawyer, Juliet, Desmond, Penny, Sun, Jin, Charlie, Claire, Aaron, Sayid, Boone, Shannon, Locke, Rose and Bernard. People were confused as to why some folks were there and other weren’t, especially Des and Penny. Doc thinks, “Desmond wasn’t an Oceanic 815 castaway. Why was he tasked with the work of their Sideways world enlightenment? Because Desmond was the person technically responsible for the defining experience of their lives: crashing on The Island. If Desmond didn’t leave the Hatch to chase after Kelvin, if he hadn’t given into his rage and killed that man on the rocks, he wouldn’t have missed his button-pushing shift, and the plane wouldn’t have crashed. The rejoinder that it was Jacob who pulled the castaways to The Island doesn’t cosmically absolve Desmond of his actions. You always have a choice. And Desmond chose not to push the button. The consequence: crash. Last season, Lost cited the book The Little Prince that includes the great line ”You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” The word ”tame” in this context means ”to create ties.” Desmond created the tie that bound the castaway spiritual clan. So he became responsible for them. Forever.” Jack is welcomed openly and lovingly as the group shares embraces and enjoys their reunion. They all take seats in the church pews as Christian walks to the back of the church through the middle aisle, pausing by Jack briefly to put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. Note that, “Christian is there as a shepherd, herding his son into the next life. He doesn’t actually sit down, he just makes sure everyone is seated” Christian opens the doors of the church and glowing white light, perhaps the light of the island, the light of life, from beyond the doors fills the room. Jack exchanges a smile with Kate, and then looks ahead as they are engulfed by the light

This is all coinciding with Jack, back on the island, stumbling back through the bamboo forest near the heart of the Island. He passes Christian’s old, beat up white sneaker left hanging from the tree ever since the Pilot episode. Eventually, his wounds get the better of him and he collapses. As he’s taking his last breathes, Vincent, freaking lovable Vincent, who greeted Jack in the Pilot when he first woke up, comes out of the brush. I’m a sucker for dogs, so I totally lost it here. Vincent, like any dog, knows more than people sometimes, and he lies by Jack, to comfort him, to simply be with him as Jack passes. After making it so that everyone can live together, Jack doesn’t have to die alone.

After a brief glimpse of the Ajira plane taking off, rescuing Miles, Lapidus, Sawyer, Richard, Claire and his dearest Kate, Jack smiles, and in opposition to Lost’s opening moment, Jacks eye closes for good.

Damn.

Like I said in my previous post, I loved it and thought it was a beautiful ending to a beautiful show. Of course, like anyone, I’m slightly confused and still wondering about certain aspects of the island mythology that were weren’t given details on and questions that were never answered. Lost in the end, was science fiction, but that’s why it’s called science fiction. To people pissed off about not getting answers about how or why or who bits and pieces of the island I say this, THOSE ANSWERS DON’T EXIST. These things can’t happen in science as we know it so how could they possibly be explained?? Again I site the midichlorian thing from Star Wars: Episode One. Just accept that the Force is The Force. Anything the writers or producers come up with would have a) been completely made up b) probably been stupid and c) would have made for a shitty ending. And for those who could have rolled with a more spiritual answer ala Battlestar Galactica, please picture if some character came out and said, “I am God and I made the island to do XYZ it would completely take us out of the moment, not to mention alienate anyone whose God/Religion/Beliefs didn’t match whatever actor they hired to do so. The answers didn’t matter, the science didn’t matter, the ISLAND didn’t matter in the end. The show had always been about the growth and depth of its characters. Damon Lindelof summed up Lost this way: “The show is, at its heart and soul, a character study. We were fascinated as storytellers by what makes people the way they are.”

Also, I’m sure there is the argument for ‘They all died in the plane crash, but I just don’t think that happened. Vozzek thinks, “Going back to season one and the beginning of season two, and you’ll find TONS of references to everyone being dead. “We shouldn’t have survived… Three days ago we all died… There are no survivors of flight 815…” Early on, these things smacked us right in the face. Maybe these clues were a little too obvious, and the intelligence of the audience was sorely underestimated. At this point, admitting that everyone guessed the plot of the show simply wouldn’t be an option. The answer? A very long con: one that involved time travel, a critical event, and a newly modified version of the Purgatory/afterlife ending… the season six ALT timeline. The very fortunate victims of that con? Us. ” And as for those wreckage shots over the closing credits, don’t read so much into that people. No it’s not confirmation that they had all died in the crash or that the Ajira plane never made it. It’s nostalgic. It’s a reminder that there was a whole other set of hundreds of people working on that island (Oahu) to make Lost work. Also, read this.

This amazing theory/summary was post by a theorist on Lostpedia and I simply must post it here:

“We are still on the island (4th Wall) The island is not a physical entity is a kind of concept. This island provides “questions” for those who are not ready to “to let go” or “to go.” The most interesting of this, is that the island concept does not only apply to the characters in the series, but for all people who are “thinking” about the series. Since we continue reading and discussing about it, WE ARE STILL ON THE ISLAND. We are still looking for “answers.”

Nothing that happened on the island was “real”. The life before the crash represents the life of a viewer before the “actual show”. The afterlife represents the point of view of the viewer after the show. The funeral represents the moment a viewer of show realize the “true”, which is not known at the moment. At the end of the show it’s not Jack’s homecoming in the church. Jack is in the pews facing the departed. It’s you. It’s you. You’re dead. You are part of the narrative. You are part of the cast, You are part of the production. You are the one being encouraged to move on. You are the one they have been waiting for

If you consider this as a possible explanation, and you start to think a little more about to it, you can discover that some of the stereotypes viewers can be represented by some of the characters:

Michael: it is the viewer who “abandoned” the island. He simply said, “this is crap” and did not try to find something good on it. This character does not appear in the “end” of the series, sharing with everyone else. So it represents the people who didn’t see the full show until the very end.

Ben: it is the viewer who understands, or thinks he understands what the island is. But, who is still “not ready” to “let it go”, in other words, “still have things to do”. The viewesr who want to say and research a little bit more about the show.

Jack: represents those who want a clear answer. Those who want to “come back” with a rational explanation of the events on the island. In the end, they probably understand and enjoy what happened on the island.

Sawyer: the viewers whose, at some point in the series, heart was “broken”, either because the favorite character died, “Juliet,” “Charlie”, or something happened and they fought with the island, and finally could never got over it. But nevertheless, they reached the end of the series with the “broken heart.”

Hurley: The people who enjoy to the fullest. The “crazy” or “geeks” who “saw things”, those how “followed” the leader and, at the end, those who are going to stay at the island forever.

Sun: The viewers who started out pretending they didn’t understand the show but really do since they started to watch the show to escape from a troubling aspect of their lives.

Jin: The viewers who never fully understood the show but tried and took them 3 years to do so.

Kate: The viewers that were undecided about liking or disliking the show but stuck until the end, and only as they part forever, they were capable of uttering “I love you.” Then they move on with their lives but treasure the memories forever.”

How awesome are those analogies? I’m totally a Hurley, natch

It was a GORGEOUS ending to a show that so reflected life. So the only way to adequately end it was to emphasize what we DO know about death. We want to be with the people we loved, and who made the most impact on our lives, and that’s about all we can hope for in The End.

So to begin, I really loved it. I know a lot of people did not. Heck, some of the people that I was watching it with were even pissed about it (though why waste energy being pissed off at a TV show, I do not know). The essential message of life and death and what really matters stuck with me for hours after it ended and even when I woke up this morning. It was a very transcendental state, which is incredibly silly, as it’s just a TV show. Yet when you think about it, the finale really hit the nail on the head. All that matters, really, is those we love in this world. All we want in the end is to see them again. I was really moved by each of our characters revelations in the sideways world (now I guess we could call that place purgatory). I loved the reunions; I loved the goofy “I know you” smiles and all of the sentiment. Even though we didn’t get many answers about the island itself, the lack of island specifics just proved that that was never what the show was about. Lost has always been a character and relationship driven show. The flashbacks and flash forwards were never about plot but personal growth and character development. That said; did the writers/producers manage to get out of answering island specifics by flooding us with character sentimentality? I’m sure of it. Do I really mind? No not that much. Like Desmond said, none of that stuff really matters.

So essentially, the sideways world ended up being a kind of purgatory after all. Matthew Fox said on Jimmy Kimmel later in the evening that there are specific branches of religions that believe that one must remember and relive their death in a limbo type place before they are allowed to move on. I’ll look into that later. Now, a lot of folks are saying, “Well then they just all died in the crash” to which I say, uh no people, pay attention. Christian Shepherd specifically said that not all of the Losties died at the same time.

What we know:

-All characters who died throughout seasons 1-6 on the island, did. Whatever happened happened. Thus Shannon, Boone, Charlie, Libby, Sayid, Sun, Jin etc. they all died when we saw them die.

-Those we didn’t see die I suppose we can assume went on to live until old age or whathaveyou: Kate, Sawyer, Claire, Miles, Richard, Lapidus. This includes those on the island like Rose and Bernard.

-Since Hurley and Ben are there as well, we can assume they played island protectors together for a few millennia, and then Hurley found himself a replacement. With no MIB to deal with, perhaps it wasn’t as big a challenge as Jacob had.

-Since Ben specified that Hurley could change the rules, can we assume that Desmond was allowed off of the island to finish his life with Penny and little Charlie?

Questions:

-Where were Michael and Walt? Harold Perrineau said on Jimmy Kimmel that he believed Michael’s ghost/soul was still on the island, as it was when we last saw him. His acts of murder caused him to be trapped on the island to work things out. Walt? Well maybe he’s just not dead yet? I’ll try and get some answers from the more detailed observers.

-Why didn’t Ben go inside or get to move on? I think he still had some things to work through with Alex. Perhaps he was waiting for her.

-Why weren’t some people (like Miles, Daniel, and Charlotte) present in the church at the end? Well I mentioned to a friend that I think that the reunion at the end was more of a “this is who I wanted/needed to be with” rather than an “everyone involved ever” kind of meeting. Those smaller characters (i.e. Libby and Penny) were present because they were important to a person who was important to the group as a whole. And even though Charlotte and Daniel found each other, they didn’t have the kind of enlightened reunion that some other characters had. Perhaps because, again as Desmond said, they just weren’t ready.

That said, I’m glad everyone is discussing the sideways/purgatory world with much more fervor than the lack of island answers. In the end, I don’t think any scientific or biblical answers to those island questions would have been satisfactory. Knowing the business, I know how insanely difficult it is to create an ending that would please everyone, let alone a majority. So I understand why they chose to leave some things in the dark, unanswered. I don’t think there’s anything more to say about the Light, the Source, or the Island, without going into details that A) would seem ridiculous to us to the point where it just got silly or B) pander to a specific set of beliefs that would alienate others. Like Desmond said, none of that really mattered. If the Island is the test and the sideways is the result, then in the end, all that matters is those we end up with, those we’re able to see again one day, and those we love that we can remember.

Let’s let that idea sit for a few days.

Let’s begin with Michael Emerson demonstrates how to say everyday phrases ominously (This, and some other videos I cannot imbed, just click the linky )

Next, The Entire series of Lost reenacted by Cats in 1 minute.

Muppets Audition for Lost’s Smoke Monster!

Does the Swedish Chef now have all of the answers?

Article time!

Here’s CNN Entertainment reporter Frisky’s 8 Things I Will NOT Miss About Lost

After six seasons, “Lost” finally comes to an end this Sunday night in a two-and-a-half hour series finale episode.

Tuesday is the last hour-long episode — titled “What They Died For” — before the finale (“The End”), and it’s got me thinking about all the things I’ll miss when the show goes off the air: Sawyer’s nicknames and the books he inspired me to add to my reading list; the love stories of Desmond and Penny; cool couples Nadia and Sayid, and Jin and Sun; Ben’s diabolical delivery and wit; and most of all, I’ll miss the mystery.

But, there are also some things that I will not miss about “Lost.” Things that I will be happy to see vacate my life when the show is over. Here are eight things I’ll be happy to wave goodbye to when “Lost” is off the TV map.

1. “Lost”-Induced Anxiety

Whether it’s the paranoid panic of realizing you may have forgotten to set the DVR to record a new episode or the anxiety that comes from a particularly mind-boggling episode, “Lost” is not a relaxing TV show to watch. I’m looking forward to spending my evenings with a blissfully stress-free mind via “The Bachelorette” and “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”

2. Drive Shaft

Charlie Pace’s band had one hit song before the heroin addict crashed on the island with the rest of Oceanic 815. Never hearing “You All Everybody” again can’t come soon enough.

3. The Costumes

And by that we mean, the same dirty, sweaty clothes the Losties have been wearing since day one, save the occasional flashback or flash-forward episode. Needless to say, those rank pit stains have killed my desire for Smell-O-Vision.

4. Kate’s Wishy-Washiness

Which is it, Kate Austin? Jack or Sawyer? Following directions or running off on your own to “save the day”? Season after season, episode after episode, Kate’s antics have grated on my last nerve. I won’t miss a single thing about her.

5. Being Confused

I am one of those “Lost” fans who are withholding final judgment on this season and the show in general until the screen goes dark at the end of the final episode. I want to believe that the writers are leading us to a place where all of our questions will be answered, that everything — the Smoke Monster, the polar bears, the women who can’t get pregnant, the numbers, the everything — will come together in one harmonious “A-HA!” moment. As time ticks down, even I must concede that that is looking less and less likely and once it’s all over, many questions will probably remain. I will not miss the feeling of being even more confused week after week.

6. Heated Fights With Friends

I have a pal who is just as nuts about “Lost” as I am, completely engaged in the storyline and the characters. Like me, he cried when Jin, Sun, and Sayid died on the submarine explosion. However, about 50 percent of the time, we disagree on whether or not a particular episode was amazing or totally awful. Our disagreements are not uncommon among “Lost” fans — frankly, the show often walks a fine line between brilliant and totally over-the-top terrible. When this friend of mine doesn’t see the genius in a particular episode or is irate about the direction the show is taking, while I am busy championing it, I wonder if he’s a complete moron and whether our friendship can survive it.

7. Doc Jensen’s Re-Caps

The day after a new episode of “Lost” airs, Entertainment Weekly official Lost-o-phile, Jeff Jensen, posts his recap of the episode. You could read and decipher Dante’s Inferno — written in the original Latin — faster than one of Jensen’s meaty yet stream-of-consciousness-style assessments. At the end of the day, I have learned more about “Lost” from Jensen than anyone else, but I, for one, am excited to have my Wednesday nights back, so I can go out on the prowl like a normal 30-something woman instead of poised in front of my laptop with Jensen as my date.

***Iamtheisland Interruption!  While I agree that Doc’s articles have gotten a little nutso this past season, they’ve been absolutely KEY in the creation and writing of OMGWTFLOST.com. So suck it Frisky.

8. Claire

Like Kate Austin, I despise almost everything about Claire. I want to be clear that my distaste for the two most prominent female characters on “Lost” is not because I don’t enjoy female protagonists. “Lost” has had, and has killed off, many fantastic heroines and I continue to miss them — Ana Lucia, Libby, Juliet, to name a few — immensely. But Claire’s hay-hair, nasal whining about “Charlie” and “the baaaaby,” not to mention that scary voodoo doll she’s carried around this season, will not be missed at all.

So, let’s hear it, fellow “Lost” fans — what will you miss about the show? And what won’t you miss at all?

Next is The End Is Near, a Newsweek piece on what should and should not be answered during the finale. (Click the link)

Back to videos! Lost-Unecessary Censorship!

More Jimmy Kimmel (eh) but with Josh Halloway (YAY!)

Less funsies, here’s EW’s 20 Scenes That Made Us Cry

I think this would make a good spinoff too!

Matthew Fox on Dave Letterman (yay to both!)

Here’s some hilarious recaps over at The Ack Attack!

More Dave! Lost Spoilers Top 10 (#7 and #5 rule)

Check out this fab Criags List Post

And just in case you make the $300K or so the actors get paid per episode, check out the Lost Auction Preview. Bidding begins this summer!

So, on that note, I want to go through, though not in minute detail, the important aspects of the last 3 episodes before the finale. Let’s start with:

The Candidate

A Jack and Locke sideways flash, The Candidate basically set up Jack’s inheritance of the island. It focused on Jack’s attempt to persuade Locke to have dangerous surgery to potentially walk again. Locke is very Zen here, repeating the phrases “what happened, happened” and “let it go”. Theorists were quick to point out that not only did Jack save Locke’s life in this episode, MIB saved Jack’s. How very mirror like. In the flash sideways we had a few Easter eggs.

-We had an appearance by Bernard, whom Jack approached for info on Locke. As Locke’s dentist, Bernard was just as go-with-the-flow as we last saw him, living in the jungle with Rose and Vincent. It’s notable that those two are so awesomely alone and not into the BS.

-We discovered that the cause of Locke’s injury was in fact his own fault. After obtaining his pilot’s (!) silence, Locke took his father, Anthony Cooper for a flight and crashed, resulting in his paralysis and AC’s …vegetation? Vozzek69 had another cool thought on Anthony: “Anyway, as Helen wheeled a catatonic Anthony Cooper into view I was reminded sharply of two things. One was Captain Pike of the original Star Trek. The second? The guy sitting in the old chair back at Jacob’s cabin, the one who eerily called out “Help me…” There are a lot of ways to explain Cooper’s vegetative state, but none of them are definitive. It’s entirely possible his condition is purely physiological; the result of Locke’s bad pilotage. Still, I can’t help but think of George Minkowski, or Daniel’s girlfriend Theresa. The Anthony Cooper we see here has a strangely haunted look to him, as if a large part of him were missing. With so little time left we might never really know, but in the back of my own mind I keep hearing that guy in the cabin calling for help. And if anyone on LOST deserves to be time-stuck in some kind of jaunt-like limbo hell, we can all agree that it’s Coop.”

-Christian Shephard left Claire a music box that plays “Catch a Falling Star”, a song frequently used when referring to Aaron.

Over in the original timeline, things were getting a little more dangerous.

-After being abducted by Widmore, the gang is put back in the Polar Bear cages from Season 3. Fish Biscuit anyone?

-Since MIB’s followers ran off into the jungle it’s now just MIB, Jack and Sayid on that side. I find it interesting that there are so many uninvolved people on the island. Cindy and the kids, the other others, Rose and Bernard etc.

-Sawyer tells Kate that her name was crossed off of Jacob’s wall.

-I TOTALLY saw the backpack switcheroo, thankyouverymuch.

-What was up with pushing MIB into the water? Doc Jensen says, “Many fans have wondered if Smokey’s secret weakness — his kryptonite — is water. Which is why an island would make such an effective prison for him. At one point in ”The Candidate,” Jack shoved Fake Locke into the ocean, and when FLocke climbed out of the drink seconds later, the monster looked a little shaken, like a cat that had been forced to take a bath. Still, I’m not sure I buy the idea that water is Smokey’s Achilles’ heel.” Hrm, ok but, nothing happened to him…

-Jack’s theory that Lock only wanted to get the Losties together to have them kill themselves was spot on. I do believe if Sawyer had left the bomb alone, they would have been ok. I don’t know why, but I do not think that MIB can outwardly kill them, nor do I know how all of the candidates being dead would allow him to escape the island. I don’t think it was made clear whether or not Claire was ever a candidate either, so I guess Locke would have had to figure out how to kill her too. Was her name ever on that compass wheel thing?

-Sayid’s exclamation that, “It’s going to be you, Jack.” Pretty much solidified for me the fact that Jack is going to take over as the new Jacob. Nice redemption for Sayid there, blowing up like that. There is no spoon. Vozzek69 closes nicely: “Every time you get the urge to dust off your LOST disc set, it’ll be nice to remember that no matter what happens you’ve got nearly six full seasons of Sayid. And in each one of them, he’s snapping a bunch of necks.”

-I cannot believe they killed 3 main characters in one episode. I mean, I’m getting to the point now where I think the only survivor is going to be Jack anyway (I’ll tell you why in a bit) but wowzers man. There was some speculation that maybe, in panic, Jin swam out of there and was still alive (after all, we only saw their hands separating), but alas no. People are kind of pissed that Jin and Sun have had such a crappy plot arc for the past two seasons, but I tend to agree with Doc’s perspective. For characters whose ultimate end game was just to realize that they were in fact meant to be together, their story was mostly about “their respective quests across space and time to be reunited. I do think Jin and Sun’s individual redemption arcs were all but resolved in the season 4 episode ”Ji Yeon. Oh, and by the way? What the hell is so wrong with only focusing on Jin and Sun as a marital unit? Let me tell you what’s wrong with that: Nothing. I think it’s awesome that Lost chose to tell us a story about two people who took their marriage seriously, who worked through their problems when their union was in crisis, who forgave each other for their sins and redeemed their transgressions by using them as opportunities to build a stronger relationship (Jin’s admission in ”Ji Yeon” that he was basically responsible for Sun’s infidelity was a powerful expression of grace and reflection), who saw themselves a better and greater when they were together than apart.”

And what of Frank? Oh Frank Lapidus, “RIP Frank. If you are on the other side, I hope you’re drinking from a hollowed-out pineapple and wearing a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned down to your navel.”

Across the Sea

Well here was a doozy. The back story of Jacob and our dear Man in Black. Lots of people hated this episode, lots of people loved it. I like Doc Jensen initial reaction that, “you could try and convince me ”Across The Sea” stands as a multifaceted myth for all sorts of things in the Lostverse, including but not limited to: the fall of man; the first murder; the transition from Matriarchy to Patriarchy; the transition from agrarian culture to metalworking culture; the birth of Western Civilization.”  An important thing we learned, however, was that Jacob and the MIB aren’t some biblical figures, and neither was their mother. They were just regular humans in a long line of regular humans who have taken on Island Protector as their job for freaking years. I WISH they had used someone a little less known than Allison Janney as their adoptive island mother. Lost has always had this great way of using unknown actors so that we don’t have a pre-established idea of what kind of character they’re introducing. Matthew Fox and Dominic Monoghan were the only real faces we recognized from the start, and even those two had been pulled from obscurity. I love Allison Janney, I really do, but casting FAIL. Let’s go through point by point what exactly we discovered during this Richard-like Flash back:

-Lostpedia describes the time period as two millennia before present. This would account for the presence of Egyptian hieroglyphics and statues prevalent on the island, as well as their use of Latin. I *think* that by then Egypt had been infiltrated enough by Rome that Egyptians would know Latin. Can anyone help me on that one? People are arguing that the folks Claudia came with were not Egyptian at all, only Roman. Who knows. Vozzek69 says that, “consider the wall glyphs we saw during Dead is Dead, involving the worship of the smoke monster. Egyptian hieroglyphics would predate Jacob or the MIB’s arrival on the island, indicative of the monster being around for much, much longer,” which also feeds into the argument that Mother was also a smoke monster, which I don’t know if a buy.

-People keep screaming, “but then they spoke English!!” Guys, it was purposeful. They used Latin to establish that they were in fact speaking Latin, and the script switched to English so that we didn’t have to sit there and read subtitles the entire episode.

-Claudia is the feminine version of Claudius, which from the ancient Roman meant “Lame” or “Crippled”. That seems fitting for someone who basically hobbled onto the island and was disposed of pretty quickly. Also, theorists on Lostpedia go into more detail, arguing about root names and timing: “Point) Claudia gives her firstborn child the name Jacob, which suggests it to be after 300 AD. Christian names weren’t given by pagan parents, so this has to be after Christianity became widespread over the Latin speaking culture area. Point 2) Jacob is the Latin form of the Hebrew name Yakov. Therefore the time period can predate the conversion on Constantine. Point 3) Jacob derives from Latin “Iacobus” and Greek “Iakobos”. Jacob is the English version, as they do speak English to make it easy for us. It’s not a distinctly Christian name at all. Just because it’s well known in English to refer to the Biblical Jacob, does not mean the name root isn’t from Greek and Latin, the languages spoken during that time. ALSO, another theorist points out the discrepancies in the Latin: “Mother greets Claudia with “Olle quidae gravers?” but olle became obsolete during the transition from Old Latin to Classical Latin, being replaced by ille. Claudia responds to her offer for help with “Gratias ago tibi” where ago should go at the end of the sentence.” Suggesting that Mother is speaking a much older version of Latin than Claudia.

-Oh Lost. You love the light verses dark symbology don’t you? Nice job putting a happy, smiling Jacob in a white wrap and cranky, troubled MIB in a dark one.

-With regards to the game, I think, just as boy MIB said, the rules are kind of arbitrary at this point. The actual game that he found was Senet, what is probably the oldest game in the world and uses light and dark pieces similarly to the Backgammon that was played in the pilot. I find it funny that historians don’t really know the rules or object of Senet, just as we don’t really know the “rules” of the island. Vozzek69 suggests that perhaps the rules are made by the current guardian, and cannot be changed though that guardian may change.

-I suppose that Mothers touch made the boys immortal the same way the Jacob made Richard. The touch of the island guardian can do such a thing. But…how is it that they can’t kill each other? Jacob DOES die after all. Perhaps one can only be killed by a candidate? That’s why MIB was able to kill Mother? I think this one might be chalked up to “just roll with it.”

-So… what the hell is the light in the well? Doc Jensen describes it as, “a whirlpool of ethereal life-giving energy — a wellspring of eternal life; a wormhole into the afterlife; weird-ass well of holy moley whatchamacallit. We learned that if you get tossed into this warm and fuzzy mystic maelstrom, your immortal soul gets severed from your mortal body,” to which I say. Hrm, ok I’ll roll with it, but can we have a leeeetle bit more? I mean, the whole thing screamed Tree of Knowledge/Garden of Eden, but I’d like someone to actually say it. Or would I? Is that the kind of “why did they try to explain The Force with those stupid Midichlorians?” kind of thing we’d want to avoid? And how does this light being the source conflict with Jacob’s description of the island as a cork that keeps evil from escaping?  Doc goes on to say, “It’s the meaning of life in the raw. It is physical proof that life actually has meaning. To behold it is to take a metaphysical Rorschach text. I might see God and a call to worship. Someone else might see science and a call to investigate. Someone else might see a practical joke and start looking around for Ashton Kutcher. I suspect Lost would say that no single interpretation is correct; that those who insist on a single interpretation couldn’t be more incorrect; that the history of human catastrophe on The Island is comprised of eras of dogmatic, abusive interpretation run amok.”

-Why is it that BIB (Boy in Black) cannot leave the island? I get that he can’t leave once he becomes Smokey, but as a human? Jacob leaves the island willy nilly, so, what’s up with that?

-Isn’t it interesting that MIB, the one who chose to go away and live with people has the opinion of, “”They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt, and it always ends the same,” whereas Jacob, the one with little human interaction was always the one who had hope for humanity? Once you live among them, they disappoint you I guess. Vozzek69 pointed out that, “For three decades he’s lived in a society that’s “greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy, and selfish.” This would be the only mankind he really knows – the only people he’d ever get the chance to have any real-life experience with. Once he becomes the smoke monster, the man in black would base all future dealings with the island’s inhabitants upon this one small, corrupted subset of society. “ It’s also notable that as the islands guardian, Mother avoided human contact, whereas Jacob has himself a great gang of “Others” as his companions, even if they saw him very little.

-I very much liked that Lost didn’t completely abandon its science. MIB and his Egyptian clan were discovering things about the island and the light source that had some pretty scientific underpinnings going on. The reaction to metals, the implementation of the donkey wheel; all very scientific and confirmed that Dharma wasn’t just a plot device. I’m glad because, like our Deist American forefathers, I’m cool with the idea that science and God can be one in the same.

-I dug the Adam and Eve corpse reveal. It was nice the way they tied them back into the scenes from Season 1 episodes. If Jacob had just laid them there and left the viewers to decide for themselves, you know Losties on the message boards would be screaming about how, “that’s not a definitive confirmation!!” and blah blah. So, nice touch.

-There’s also the whole theory that Mother was also a smokey type monster. I’m not sure I buy that. What do you guys think?

What They Died For

Back in our present day and again with our main characters, this episode was the last before the upcoming and extremely anticipated finale. I have to say, the flash sideways story line got way more interesting for me once Desmond got all double consciousness and Zen kickass.  By the end of this episode, Jack had accepted the role of island guardian, and everyone was getting ready for a big ass concert. What little intricacies went on, you ask?

-On Jack’s cut, Vozzek69 writes, “During LA X, I theorized that Jack’s mark existed solely in the other timeline. We saw it reflected back in the mirror of Flight 815′s bathroom, but we never saw it directly. “Whatever happened to cause the wound on Jack’s neck, perhaps it only happened in the one ‘true’ universe. It’s possible the mirror is reflecting back something that happens to Jack later on, or maybe even at the end of the show. It now looks a lot like this might happen. As Jack chows down on the gigantic spread David put out for breakfast, we see there’s a definite horizontal cut on his throat. After seeing what happened to Zoe this episode, this might be really bad news for Jack. It could easily be an omen of bad (island) things to come.” Yikes! No throat slitting for Jack!

-I really loved the scene where Jack is stitching up Kate’s wound. It was a nice nod to the pilot and their first encounter, and I think reflects that Jack and Kate will end up together in the end (more on my predictions later).

-Kudos to Jacob for calling out Sawyer. None of you were happy, Oscar the Grouch. (HA! See what I did there!? I used a nickname on Sawyer!) And we finally learned why Kate’s name was crossed off the list. One has to wonder though why the Kwons were not. Though regarding the candidates, Vozzek remarks on Jacob’s words to her: “”It’s just a line of chalk in a cave, Kate. The job’s yours if you want it.”This line seemed tremendously important to me. Beyond all of these apparent rules and regulations, it turns out the only thing that really matters is choice, or free will. Jacob never had it. Ben never had it either. And although it looks like all of our characters were brought here without really choosing this path, Jacob won’t select any single one of them to take his place. The person who takes the job has to want to do it of their own accord. And if no one does? Well, it’s still kinda obscure, but apparently everyone is screwed.”

-Jacob recited the same Latin incantation that Mother used in the previous episode: “For we do not accept this just as a common drink, but as if that (he?) should be one with me.” (Nam non accipimus hoc quasi vulgarem potionem, sed ut ille sit quasi unus mecum.)  and also closed with, “Now you are like me.”

-Zoe and Widmore’s death’s were pretty badass I have to say. Everyone found Zoe quite annoying so I’m sure everyone cheered when she was sliced. Widmore’s death brought back Bad Ass Ben, and his line, “He doesn’t get to save his daughter,” was awesome. I’m not sure why Smokey wants to kill Penny, but, probably just a threat. I’m also unclear on Ben’s motivation. Just a few episodes ago he sided with Ilana instead of Flocke, and now he’s back again. Perhaps it’s just pure revenge. Perhaps being bad is Ben’s destiny, which is ok by me. He’s the best villain this show’s had in my opinion. Though he is a little gullible, no? “Hey Ben, kill these people for me and you can have the island. “OK.” Later… “I’m going to destroy the island.” Hm.

Everyone in the sideways timeline is gearing up to get to Daniel’s/David’s concert and boy, that’s where everything is going to go down. I’m not sure what everything is, but it will be big. Most people, myself included, predict a sort of consciousness streaming from the island castaways into their sideways world bodies. The whole season seems to be supporting this with the fact that A) everyone’s lives seem much more complete in sideways world and B) Des is going around enlightening people. Locke is even gearing up to walk, but, when the minds merge, will it be Smokey? Or original Locke? Doc says, “In the Sideways world, Jack will fix Locke’s spine and facilitate Locke’s awakening. On The Island, Guardian Jack will defeat Fake Locke and protect the spiritual circuit between the ”real Lockes” of both worlds.” OR will Smokey manage to morph into Locke the minute he dies on the operating table?

Some notes:

-D’awwwwwwww Rousseau in a dress.

-Double HA! To the appearance of Ana Lucia and Hurley’s comment. Man I have always preferred Ana Lucia as the island’s token tough girl over wishy washy fugitive Kate. Though I worry for her sideways soul, she appears to be doing naughty cop things. Hope the island forgives her. Desmond did mention that, “She’s not ready yet.” Kind of lame. Why doesn’t Ana Lucia get to go? Now, as for Hurley’s comment, he appears to know Ana Lucia as island Hurley knew her. Or did he just know OF her? I’m not sure. Either way, I’d like to think that once a sideways mind becomes enlightened, their island counterpart is aware of it too, ala Des. Hurley on the island did not express any such realization. Hrmmm.

My Predictions:

-Walt is way too old too old now and they’re either a) not going to include him in the sideways world (Ala Michael not having a son) b) he’ll be like a baby or something or c) we’ll see him (some younger actor) and Michael from behind or something.

-Juliet is totally Jack’s Ex/David’s mother. And when they all become conscious at the concert, I cannot WAIT for Juliet and Sawyer to see each other. They are meant to be together, which is why…

-Kate and Jack will end up together, though only sort of. I see an enlightened Kate, but a sideways Jack. Enlightening Jack not only would negate his role as island protector, but also rob David of a father. I suspect Jack might stay unenlightened, and yet Kate will know him, and they move on from there. Speaking of the unenlightened…

-I don’t know that EVERYONE will find themselves in Sideways world. I mean, think about Ben and Rousseau. They’re obviously much happier there, but as Doc says, “Don’t these souls deserve to live out the new existence they’ve been given by the cosmic Wheel of Life? Should Sideways Ben be robbed of happiness in this life by being saddled with the memories and consciousness of his damaged and damned Island-word self? Should Rousseau and Alex be victimized anew by being made to meld with the fate-screwed people they once were? Can they decline getting hit with the Enlightenment whammy stick? Do the Sideways world peeps have any control over the process that Desmond seems determined to unleash?”

-Desmond, the only man who is able to stand such high levels of electromagnetism, will be able to survive going into the light source.

Questions:

-Any ideas about Claire? Yeah me neither…

Until then kiddies…

So here’s the major points and surprises of this episode:

-as Sun and Locke pass each other on gurneys in the hospital, Sun crise, “It’s him! It’s him!” This kind of ties into the whole, ‘traumatic event will meld the minds of the sideways Losties and Original Losties. She seems to remember Locke. But does she remember Locke as Locke, or MIB?

-Everyone is smashing together and their intertwined lives are coming full circle. The universe is showing them that they were destined to be involved even without Oceanic 815 crashing.

-MIB says that, “he chose Locke’s body because John Locke was stupid enough to think he was on the Island for a reason and he pursued that idea until it got him killed.” I’m still not sold on this. I think Locke, the sideways Locke the Locke that we (some of us) freaking loved still has a destiny in all this. And I’m predicting it’s going to involve a bad ass sideways Locke and MIB Locke showdoawn. How? I have no fraking clue.

-I also don’t believe for a second that Sayid killed Desmond.

-Jack says that he, “believes that they were brought to the Island to do something, and if that thing wants them to leave he may be afraid of what happens if they stay.” Hm, Jack has never been one for good ideas. I’m not really sure what he’s thinking. He could be right, judging from the end of the episode. It appears that Jack is the last recruit in MIB’s little 23 person strong gang. and with Widmore betraying Sawyer, I’m not really sure which side is the bad guy anymore. Is there even a good side and a bad side? Or just two sides?

-Sun and Jin: Cutest reunion evar.

-Was anyone else half expecting Juliet to be Sun’s baby doctor? I was. Though I’m holding out expecting Juliet to be Jack’s ex-wife/David’s mom.

-Who’s gonna bet that Jack’s sugery on Locke is gong to involve said doctor counting to five? Notice that jack recognized Locke through the use of a mirror?

If you want to read Doc Jensen’s kind of tired, always tangenty recap you can do so here.

For a more to the point analysis, check out Vozzek69 at DarkUFO.

-

My friend urged me on, reminding me that I’m almost to the homestretch, that I can’t give up NOW. So, until the finale, where I will surely give the blog it so deserves, I’m going to cut back on the recapping portion of the blog and do some simple observations and analysis. The recapping was getting tedious anyway.

So let’s look at the important things that happened on our most recent episode (ahem…from last week) Everybody Loves Hugo.

-Obviously this is a play on the former episode, Everybody Hates Hugo. From this season’s premiere, we were told that Hurley considers himself the luckiest guy alive. That his lottery win was a blessing, not a curse, and that his life is genuinely better in the sideways world. All except for the girlfriend thing that is. Obviously, crazy Libby recognizes him, it seems that the crazies are tuned in to the other world on the island? What does a sideways person feel when their on island persona is no longer alive? Sideways Libby has tapped into her island persona, so is she remembering him from their island flirtations, or from their encounters in Santa Rosa? Obviously, Sideways Hurley never went to Santa Rosa, so how can we be sure?

-Shout out to Pierre Chang/Marvin Candle! Having two complete hands, no less.

-Shout out to Nunu! Jorge Garcia’s doggy!

-I’m further convinced that the Desmond in Sideways world is actually Desmond from Island world (either that, or they are both one in the same). Proof: he tells sideways Ben that he has a son named Charlie. Sideways Des does not have a son named Charlie.

-We know what the whispers are! They’re ghosts! In his appearance to Hurley, Michael tells him that they are the one’s who can’t move on. Since Libby didn’t have anything keeping her back, I guess that’s why Hurley doesn’t see her. But WAIT. Michael didn’t die on the island, neither did Richard’s wife Isabella. Are the ghosts that Hurley sees different from the ghosts that create the whispers?? And really guy? You’ve been hanging on to this “Not Purgatory” thing for year now, and you just threw it out of the water.

-Ilana exploding: Did anyone else see that totally coming? I mean, the way she was handling that dynamite was pure Arzt. Seems a shame, though. She seemed to have such a purpose and such a calming voice that I want to fall asleep to. In Ilana’s tent lies a copy of Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground in Russian. I guess we finally know what her accent was. The novel, “… deals with the conditions of existence of the individual and their emotions, actions and responsibilities principally attempting to validate free will as opposed to determinism.”

-What’s up with the creepy boy in the woods? A Lostpedia Theorist (one with an actual clear thought) says, “The Mysterious Boy only shows himself to candidates; that’s why Richard wasn’t able to see him, whereas Desmond did see. That means Desmond is The Last Recruit (the title of this weeks episode) and new candidate to replace Jacob. “

-What’s up with the creepy well?

-What’s up with Desmond hitting sideways Locke with his car? Revenge for the well bit in the real world? Will it make him walk? Will it shove real John Locke consciousness into MIB? Theorists suggest that he will now be taken to Jack for surgery, where the two of them will experience similar revelations.

 For further reading (aka if you’re up for the crazy) Take a peak over to Doc Jensen and Vozzek69.

So we knew a kooky Des episode was coming up. I mean, Mrs. Hawking TOLD him the island wasn’t done with him yet. So Des wakes up in the Hydra infirmary and believes that he is still in the hospital after his encounter with Ben (Ben who got SCHOOLED in that encounter, if you recall). Doc Jensen points out that it’s yet another “Eye-Opening” episode start: “An iconic Lost motif, metaphor for epiphany, enlightenment, spiritual awakening, and the restorative power of… uhh… blinking? So many episodes have conspicuously doted on an eye pop, and typically when we get one, the sleeper awakens on his own. This wasn’t that kind of eye pop story.” After Des realizes that it is Widmore who dragged him back to the island, he righteously flips out. But yet again, Widmore reiterates the motto of his old flame: “The Island isn’t done with you yet!”

While Des is calming down a bit, Widmore decides to show Jin the “experiment” that they’ve been planning for, much to the chagrin of Zoe, who claims that it’s not ready. As Zoe leads Jin outside they pass generators, capacitor equipment, major cabling, and one large central piece of equipment shaped like a cube. Upstairs in the control room of the Hydra Station, preparations are underway with laptops, monitors and electrical controls. Oh! And a cute little numberless white rabbit, who seems to be the next test subject. The rabbit’s name is Angstrom, which can be of two references. 1) Harold C. “Rabbit” Angstrom: the main character in five of John Updike’s novels (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit at Rest; Rabbit Remembered). The novels follow the human themes of life, death, and redemption. Or 2) Anders Jonas Ångström: (1814–1874) Ångström was a physicist from Sweden. The ångström, a unit of measure (1 Å = 1 x 10 E−10 m) is named after him. His initial studies were in terrestrial magnetism. After a few hitches, and one dead red coat, they stick Des in the machine. The dead red shirts name was Simmons. Doc Jensen is well…he’s going crazy in these last days of Lost. He says, “EXTRA CREDIT! The Simmons Theory Challenge! Did you think Simmons referred to: A. John Simmons, noted philosophy professor and author of such pieces as The Lockean Theory of Rights and On The Edge of Anarchy, or B. the character Simmons from Red vs. Blue, the sci-fi animated series with Lost-esque themes and tropes (long con conflict, existentialism, ghosts, disembodied minds and spirits, electromagnetic hoo-ha) set within the world of the Halo videogame series?” Doc…you know I love your recaps every week, but when your 11 pages and growing entries include the following: ”Pennay!” he called. (Penne?) (Mmmmm. Pastaaa….)” it’s time to get back on track. I know EW is probably paying you by word.

As he shoves Des into the chamber Widmore says that if what he has heard about him is true then Des should be fine. Desmond is tied to a chair between the solenoid coils. Widmore tells Desmond that once the experiment is over he will ask Desmond to make a sacrifice. Desmond cynically asks Widmore what he knows about sacrifice. Widmore tells him that his son (known to us to be Daniel) died here for the sake of the Island, that Penny hates him and that he hasn’t even met his grandson. He adds that if Desmond won’t help, it will all be for nothing as everyone will be gone forever. In the control room Jin demands to know what is happening. Widmore explains that Desmond is the only person known to have survived a catastrophic electromagnetic event and that he needs to know that Desmond can do it again “or we all die.” They then lock him in, and turn the sucker on. Des is surrounded by crazy electro-flames and then…

…in a flash before your eyes, Des is back in LAX after Oceanic 815. He stares off into the monitors, staring at his reflection, like a mirror. Hurley informs him that their luggage is on carousel 4, and Des sort of snaps back into it. At baggage claim, Des encounters Claire, who needs a bit of help with her luggage. After a short chat, Des offers her a ride. She declines, but as she walks away Des calls out, assured, “It’s a boy.” Doc notes: “She also told him she didn’t know the sex of her baby. (And yet in a traumatic moment during ”What Kate Does,” we heard Claire declare that her son’s name was Aaron.”

I saw Fisher Stevens on the cast list during the opening credits, so I wasn’t at all surprised to see our dude George Minkowski as Des’s driver. Des is dropped at Widmore’s office where they great each other with smiles and affection. This is NOT the Widmore and Des of the Island world. Des is somehow Charles right hand man. Desmond looks at a sailing ship model as Widmore speaks on the phone, instructing the person on the other end to “Get him arraigned and get him out of there.” Charles goes on to tell Des why he’s in LA. He explains that his son, Daniel is a musician. Ah so…Mrs. Hawking didn’t have to force Daniel to quit the piano in this sideways world. No island means no crazy activity means no Daniel being a physicist? Apparently, Daniel wanted to combine classical music with rock at a charity event that Mrs. Widmore (aka Mrs. Hawking) is hosting. Their hired rock, the bass guitarist for Drive Shaft, overdosed and was arrested. He asks Desmond to babysit our man Charlie and get him to the event; otherwise Mrs. Widmore will “be angry.” After their agreement, they share a good sip of MacCutcheon’s fine whiskey. Doc notes: “We should talk about the painting, shouldn’t we? On the wall of Widmore’s office there was a canvas featuring a balanced scale, one side holding a white rock and the other side holding a black rock. Assuming the painting means something (historically speaking, this has not always been the case), we could interpret it to mean that in the Sideways world, the opposing powers represented by Jacob and the Man In Black are balanced. I might argue that what the scale represents is the tension between the Dionysian and the Apollonian — the timeless conflict between chaos and order, passion and reason.” So is sideways world a place where good and evil are equally balanced?

Charlie is not to keen on being babysat by Des. He practically ignores him and heads into a bar. Over a drink, Charlie asks Des if he is happy, and when Desmond reels off evidence of his material success Charlie says that what he is talking about is “spectacular, consciousness altering love.” Charlie tells a story about how he saw a blonde woman in a vision while he was about to die from choking on the bag of heroin. Charlie says “I’ve seen something real. I’ve seen the truth.” Hmm, what woman might he be describing eh? Could I be Claire? Doc thinks not, “Many of you are placing bets on who Charlie’s dream girl could be. I’m guessing most people will be saying Claire. My pick is more cynical. If Sideways Charlie was truly tapping the memories of his dead Island counterpart, then I say the rapturous blonde beauty he beheld was his season 2 Island temptress: the heroin-stuffed Virgin Mary statues. The painted hair? The color of sunshine. The robes? Sky blue. It just makes sense. Go back and watch Charlie give that speech: he looks stoned out of his mind.” Yet by the truth does he mean the original timeline? When Des finally gets Charlie back in the car, the drive is pretty short. Charlie declares that he’s going to show Des what he’s talking about. He then grabs the wheel and causes the car to drive over a pier, sinking into the water. Des manages to escape the car, grab some air and dive back down to save Charlie. What he see’s, however, is a familiar site.

Charlie, covered in water, his hand touching the glass window, it’s deja vu. A sign or a confirmation that whatever happened was supposed to happen, and will. It triggers something in Des. Not a flashback but a flash…sideways? What he sees is exactly the image from “Through the Looking Glass”. Charlie locked in the Looking Glass communications room, on his hand is written, “Not penny’s Boat.” Des doesn’t know what it means or why he sees it. Once it passes, he breaks Charlie free of the car and swims him to the surface. Vozzek of DarkUFO says, “This is a FIRST. It’s also huge moment for LOST. It verifies that people outside of the ‘game’ – people who’ve died or gone over to the other side – are somehow in the know about things. Up until now, we’ve only seen these people permitted to push or nudge things in the right direction, the way Charlie did to Hurley during The Shape of Things To Come. Here however, Charlie wipes his ass with the rulebook. His flagrant foul gets called later on by Hawking, but at this point I’m not so sure Charlie even cares. He sits back in his seat, satisfied that he conveyed his message, expecting to die as he knows he’s supposed to. And for one last time, Desmond saves him.”

At the hospital, a doctor examining Des asks if he’s been hallucinating at all. Des is startled, and confused, but decides not to reveal to the doc what he saw. The doc recommends and MRI. Yet once inside and the flashes of the MRI get to him, Des sees the underwater image of Charlie yet again, and hits the technician’s panic button. He abandons the MRI and sets off to find Charlie. On his way, he runs into Jack, whom he recognizes from the plane. Suddenly, Charlie runs by in his hospital gown. Desmond gives chase and when Charlie is cornered, he says he is running because no one at the hospital can help him. He denies trying to kill Desmond but instead says that he was trying to show him something. Desmond wants to see his hand. When Desmond has a bizarre response, Charlie realizes that Desmond must have seen something. Desmond asks “Who is Penny?” Charlie doesn’t know, but says he is not going to perform because none of “this” matters. What does Charlie understand that the rest of the Oceanic passengers don’t yet? He seems to be under the impression that he is supposed to die. The way he ignored traffic, his Grand Theft Auto stunts, and his disregard for “this” life. Perhaps Charlie is tuned in as well. Vozzek asks, “Does this mean the LAX timeline doesn’t matter? Not at all. Charlie’s telling Desmond that he’s barking up the wrong tree. He advises Desmond to stop worrying about rock concerts, Widmore’s errands, and inconsequential bullshit. This is exactly the same as when Rose and Bernard told Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet to stop worrying about bombs, guns, and time travel. Penny is what matters. Love is what matters. Realizing that you have everything that you ever really wanted right there in front of you? That’s what matters.”

At the event site, Desmond has the unfortunate job of informing Mrs. Widmore that Drive Shaft will not be playing. Se is sweet and unaffected by the news. When Desmond asks if she’s angry, she says, “Not at all dear; what happened, happened.” As Des is exiting the tent, he overhears someone say the name “Penny” read from a list of guests. When he tries to see the list Eloise intervenes sternly and takes the list from him. She takes him aside and tells him to stop, that, whatever it is that he thinks he is looking for, he should stop looking for it. She says that he should not need to look for anything, that he has the perfect life and has attained the thing he wanted more than anything: the approval of Charles Widmore. Vozzek notes, “The idea that she would know this seems to span both timelines, because it’s within the island-based universe that Desmond sought Charles Widmore’s blessing. It also shows a serious error in judgment in thinking this was the one thing Desmond wanted “most of all”. That honor goes to Penny, but these chumps haven’t figured that out yet.” She adds that it is, in fact, a violation. When he presses her about the list she says that he can’t see the list because he is not “ready” yet. Hmmm, is that what the sideways world is about? Achieving that which one has always wanted? Vozzek continues: “So let’s deconstruct this for a moment. The fact that Desmond’s pre-LAX needs have been taken into consideration seems to indicate we’re seeing a manufactured reality. Someone or something has constructed the LAX universe based upon what it thought Desmond – and possibly every other character – would want. Just take a look at Daniel, now a musician. Certainly his mother would remember her young son’s only desire was to play the piano, and now we see him placated by having grown into a talented pianist. The only problem is that Daniel is not happy or placated, because running into Charlotte has reminded him of his past life. This causes him to go physics-happy all over a perfectly good notebook, prompting an investigation of his own. So who created this new universe? We’ve always assumed it was Juliet, setting off Jughead with that rock. Yet someone has definitely stacked the deck here. Someone with intimate knowledge (or scanning?) of our main characters has tried, in a very Matrix-like way, to create the perfect utopia for each and every one of our heroes. In a careful, calculated manner, someone has been trying to give our LAX characters exactly what it thinks they want, but at the same time, keep them completely in the dark about what happened in their previous, island-based lives. They’re using happiness to suppress past memories, but love is the one thing that wasn’t counted on. It is so often the case; Love overrides everything else, spoiling the plan.” Let’s think about it for a minute. Has Jack attained the one thing he wanted? Is being a good father what he was lacking? Kate doesn’t seem any different. Sayid doesn’t seem to have that which he wanted more than anything. Hm, maybe this theory doesn’t hold up.

Desmond sits in his car, having a drink and chatting with Minkowski when there’s a knock on his window. I could have guessed it, Daniel Faraday, er woops, Daniel Widmore. I knew he’d show up somewhere in this episode, considering earlier in the episode we saw a mysterious man playing Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor. They sit and chat and Daniel asks Des if he believes in love at first site. Daniel tells of his love for a redhead (we can assume Charlotte?) who works at the museum. He says when he saw her it was as if he already loved her. He states that on that same night he woke and wrote in his notebook. I half expected it to say, “If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant.” But no. He shows Desmond the notebook entry and explains that a mathematician friend said that these were advanced quantum mechanics equations which would need a lifetime of study to understand. He tries to explain to Desmond that it is as if something catastrophic had been about to happen and the only way to stop it had been to release a huge amount of energy, like setting off a nuclear bomb. He rhetorically asks whether this life was not meant to be and whether there had been another “life” in which, for some reason, “we changed things.” Desmond looks concerned. I’d be too; if some kooky musician guy with a book full of math equations said he needed to set of a nuclear bomb. But Daniel reassures Des and says that no, he doesn’t need to. It’s just that…he thinks he already did.

Desmond, still confused doesn’t realize what any of this has to do with him. But Daniel assures him, and tells him that the girl he’s looking for, Penny is actually his half sister, and Daniel tells him exactly where to find her. We return again to a stadium, presumably the same one where Jack and Desmond met years ago. We find Penny Widmore doing the same tour de stade run. Desmond approaches, amazed and it seems already in love. He asks if she is Penny. She confirms, and they shake hands and suddenly…

 …we’re back on the island and Des is waking up inside the chamber. Widmore asks how he is, and Des, after taking a quick self inventory, claims that he is fine. Widmore states that his talent is vital to the mission and begins to explain why, but Desmond interrupts and says that he understands and is ready to begin doing that which is required. Uhm…huuuhh? Now, did what we just see as a flash sideways actually connect with this Desmond here? I.e. did e see exactly what we just saw, or did he see something entirely different? Des seems pretty content and willing. While Zoe and two others escort Desmond back to their base, Desmond explains his cooperativeness by saying that a lot can happen in twenty minutes. Then Sayid leaps out of the bushes, quickly clobbers the two escorts and points the gun at Zoe, telling her to run, which she does. Sayid says to Desmond that “these people are extremely dangerous” and that he and Desmond need to go now. Desmond cooperatively answers, “Of course; lead the way.” Hm, now he flip flops. He’s content also to go with Sayid. It’s as if he knows his mission, and is able to do it, no matter what side he is on. He’s kind of like Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen. Ever omniscient and knows the path of things, not choosing a side.

THEN, though no consciousness seems to change, Des wakes up, back in the stadium with Penny. She claims that he fainted, laughing that she must have that affect on him. They make plans to meet for coffee later. Alright, alright I know Penny is the love of his life but, come on girl, some random dude in LA approaches you in a stadium at night and faints and then asks you out and you don’t even inquire as to how he knew your name??? Girlfriend, get some mace. Desmond returns to the car, smiling and chats it up with George, who asks if he can get Desmond anything else. Desmond with a kind of creepy look on his face asks for the Oceanic Flight 815 manifest. When George asks why, Desmond claims, “I just need to show them something.” Weiiiiirrrdddd. What does it all mean? A Lostpedia theorist says, “At the end of the episode it was strongly hinted that Desmond was aware of the flash-sideways universe. It is likely that the EMP caused the same reaction in Desmond as when The Hatch was destroyed. Desmond will act as a messenger between time lines.” I highly encourage you guys to go read some of these Theories on Lostpedia’s Theories site. Especially the “Near Death Experiences” and “Eloise-The Timeline Keeper” sections. There are so many points that I just cannot get to in one entry. Yet another commentator claims that Desmond’s minds have completely switched places, that, “When the EM Incident was over, the conscious part of Desmond from the alternate universe settled in the Island timeline, while Island Desmond went to the sideways universe. The demeanor of Desmond on the Island now is that of the confident fix-it man for Charles Widmore, and the demeanor of Desmond in the sideways is now that of the love-struck, bumbling Desmond chasing after Penny. That is why Island Desmond is now so willing to help out who he views as his long time boss.” Hmmmmm, interesting. I kind of buy that. It did seem that the Des meeting Penny was the Des we know and love and the Des waking up to Widmore was a little odd. Was it Penny’s touch, her being Des’s constant, which caused the consciousness shift? Will Des now find each of the Losties and show them exactly what Charlie shoed him? They are already having weird déjà vu/mirror moments. Doc Jensen’s final theory was, “”I think [Desmond's] job is to pull a John Locke/Jeremy Bentham and offer each castaway a chance to cross over into the Sideways world. I do think that’s the direction of movement — Island to Sideways, “which apparently caught a lot of flack from readers. In his Friday post, however, he reiterated his point: “I agree, the Sideways world does feel like some slightly phony ”happily ever after” land, albeit one where bad things can happen (see: Jin and Sun). But I feel it can be made more real if the Sideways characters were imbued with the minds and experiences of the Island world characters. It feels to me like the directional flow modeled by Lost’s fantasy lit touchstones like the Chronicles of Narnia and The Wizard of Oz. The Sideways world is the ”ordinary world.” The Island world is the magical ”otherworld.” The adventures and lessons learned in the otherworld are meant to improve life and living in the ordinary world. Lost has tweaked and played with the formula, for sure, but I think the conventional rules still hold. I also think Lost is challenging our conception of what we define as ”the world” and ”home.” For the Island castaways, ”world” and ”home” are defined by communities of people. As I see it, the castaway migration to the Sideways world isn’t about individual escape; it’s about collective survival and flourishing.” Will Des have to bring the Losties consciousnesses together to be complete? And what will have to be his sacrifice? (Doc goes into that a bit in the Friday post, but I don’t buy the theory). Vozzek seems a bit disappointed with the episode’s science: “Electromagnetism has always been a part of LOST, and that’s okay. I just hope it gets used sparingly, and not as an excuse to strip away the awesome mythology and mystique they’ve taken six whole seasons to build. I have no problem with introducing some science to counteract all of the recent faith… but if they start going all Lamp Post calculation and Valenzetti Equation on us, I for one will be sorely disappointed.” I find that interesting, considering for the past few episodes I myself was saying to myself, “This is all cool, but what about all of that awesome and confusing SCIENCE?”

So I guess us viewers are of two sides as well, those of science and those of faith. Which one are you?

Until next week Losties!

Well we’ve finally got it, the long coveted Richard Alpert back story. For all the anticipation and hype, not much happened in this episode, though we did get a few answers (aka more questions).  According to Lostpedia, “The title of this episode, Ab Aeterno, is Latin for “from eternity.” The phrase is used to mean “since the beginning” or “for long ages.” Let us begin!

We begin with a mini-flashback of Ilana, as we saw her when Jacob visited her in some sort of hospital. She is bandaged and afraid, yet Jacob is her comfort. Jacob tells her he needs her help; that there are six people on his list that she is to protect. He explains that this is what she has been preparing for; that these six people are the only remaining candidates. Vozzek69 over at DarkUFO points out, “There’s one small problem with Jacob healing Illana in that hospital, and it involves him not touching her. From what we’ve seen so far, Jacob’s touch has been required to manipulate or bring about change, and by the end of this episode we even watched him physically bestow his gift upon Richard. In the Illana scene however, we’ve known since The Incident that Jacob wore gloves. This seemed an obvious precaution against him touching her, even by accident. So how did Illana get healed? We don’t see it, but I don’t think the healing is the important part. Maybe Jacob left Illana untouched because he needed her unmanipulated. Maybe he needed her pure and unbiased so that – in his own words – she could decide for herself what was right and wrong.” When she asks what she should do after she has brought “them” to the Temple, Jacob tells her to ask Ricardus. Ricardus after all, will know what to do next.

On the island in the present time (for a short while) Ilana relays this story to some of the Losties; Jack, Frank, Sun, Ben, Miles and a wandering Hurley. When she finally poses the question of what to do next to Ricardus, he laughs at them all, explaining that he has no idea, and was trying to kill himself. He says that everything Jacob has ever said was a lie. Jack asks for an explanation and Richard says he will reveal a secret that he has known a long time. He says that all of them are literally dead and that everything around them is not what it appears, that they are not on an Island but they are in Hell. Now, I think we’re all a little skeptical of this. I don’t know about this Hell/Dead business. Vozzek doesn’t buy it either. He says, “..: the way Richard looked specifically at Jack when he said “You’re dead”? I happen to think that was tremendously important. If anyone did die during the plane crash, maybe it was Jack. Maybe that’s why he woke up so far removed from 815′s wreckage. Maybe that’s also why his tattoo says “He walks among us (i.e. ‘the living’), but is not one of us”. Maybe that’s what Achara saw in him back in Thailand that scared the shit out of her. So maybe, just maybe, when Richard said that Jack is dead, he hit the nail right on the head… without even really knowing it.” Richard says it’s time to stop listening to Jacob and to start listening to someone else and he takes a flaming torch and heads into the jungle. When Jack asks who, Sun suggests Locke. Now this was a nice moment here. For a minute I forgot that there are a few people who don’t know the MIB lives inside Locke. It happened a few episodes with Kate, she had a nice “Whaaaaaaaaaat the….?” face going on. This time it’s Jack turn to give the face, though he seemed less concerned than someone who just realized that their adversary Man of Faith is kind of a possessed demon.

Jack approaches Hurley to dig deeper, and we get a little bit of “Hurley having a moment with the dead.” He’s caught speaking Spanish, and the conversation is:”Ok.”, “What can you do?”, “Yes, I can help you.”, “But, I don’t know how to find him, if I don’t where he went…“, Anyone who speaks Spanish (not moi) probably caught on to that, I had no idea what was going on, but assumed that Hurley was speaking to some member of the Black Rock clan. Hurley refuses to answer Jack questions and both storm away, while Frank and Ben discuss Richard and Ben reveals that he’s known Richard since he was twelve years old. Since Ben was twelve that is. He points out that Richard has never aged. And thus we whoosh to:

The Canary Islands, 1867. Doc Jensen’s : (FUN FACT! Tenerife is known for its ancient pyramids believed by some to be a link between Egyptian and Mayan cultures.)

Richard vigorously rides a horse through the woods and arrives back at his home where his sick wife, Isabella, suffers in bed. She is feverish and coughing up blood, so we as audience members assume tuberculosis. Richard decides that he will ride to the nearest doctor and bring back help, and Isabella gives him the cross from around her neck to serve as payment. As he departs, he promises Isabella that he will save her, how very Jack Shephard. Doc notes their monetary loyalties, “The difference between Ricardo and Isabella was where they stored their treasure. Isabella kept it in Heaven; Ricardo kept it on Earth. The chasm would prove significant.”

Richard finds a doctor, though thoroughly offends him by dripping rainwater on his floor. The Doctor, after some apathetic mumbles, finally says that he has medicine that will help Isabella, but that it is expensive. Richards few coins and the cross apparently don’t even qualify as a deposit and the doc throws the cross onto the floor. That’s when Richard get angry and when Richard get angry Richard SMASH. Well, the doc’s head that is. After a struggle for the meds, Richard accidentally cracks the doc’s head open on a table and then flees back to Isabella. Too little too late it seems, as Isabella has passed away. Richard is given only moments to mourn and is then arrested for the murder.

Later, in jail, Richard is visited by a priest, Father Suarez, who has come to hear his confession. He comments on Richards Bible, wondering why it’s in English. Richard informs him that he taught himself, since he dreamed of moving to the New World with his wife. Interesting bible chapter he’s reading there. “We saw him reading Luke chapter 4. In this chapter: Christ’s temptation in the wilderness by Satan; Christ beginning his public ministry; Christ citing the proverb ”Physician, heal thyself!”; the story of Christ healing the sick and casting out demons.” After hearing his confession, however, Father Suarez denies Richard absolution, saying that murder is a mortal sin, and can only be made up through a life of penance. Considering that Richard is going to hang the next day, it doesn’t seem like he’s got the time, sorry he’s going to Hell. Doc says, “I found myself thinking this theory-thought: If only there was some second-chance place somewhere in the land of the setting sun, where you and other last-chance souls can band together and fight smoke monsters and prove yourself to cryptic gods and successfully score a seat on a flight or sub to Heaven. Could that be a viable theory of The Island?” Well, I guess so Doc, but wouldn’t that be basically the same thing as Purgatory, something the producers have been saying the island is not since season 1? Yet, the next morning, right before his execution, Richard is tested on his English by an officer named Jonas Whitfield. After some hesitation, he passes, and the officer congratulates him. He is now the property of Magnus Hanso. HANSO!

We next see Richard chained aboard the Black Rock, which itself is in a terrible storm. A fellow captive peers out a crack in the ship and claims that he sees land. Yet, He also see our now famous Statue of Taweret and cries in fear that the Devil guards the land, and they’re about to enter Hell. Through the violence of the storm, the black Rock is lifted on a wave so powerful, it crushes the statue and Lost dorks everywhere rejoice that we finally now know why the statue fell! Here’s a question. I mean I suspend disbelief but, how the hell does a ship leaving from the Canary Islands end up shipwrecked in the middle of the Pacific? I mean, weren’t they headed to the Americas? Were they headed for the west coast around South America and just… kept going??

The next morning, Richard and his fellow captives beg for release from officer Whitfield. Instead, Whitfield decides to stab them through one by one to prevent an uprising or, more likely, prevent their suffering. Just when Richard was about to die, we hear the familiar taxi-cab-receipt-printing clickety clickety clickety of the Smoke Monster. Smokey wastes the entire crew, but stops at Richard, in an Eko like moment, and lets him live.  After a few ins and outs and a moment with a boar, Richard is woken up by his love, Isabella. Now, the trained Lost watcher is of course, skeptical. We assume that she is, in reality, MIB/Smokey. She tells him that they are both dead and are in fact in Hell. Why doesn’t Richard question why Isabella is in Hell anyway? Ah well, maybe she was a whore? Haha, who knows?  Anyways, as they hear the sounds of Smokey (that should be a CD, huh?) Richard orders Isabella to run, only to hear Smokey chomp her to bits and Isabella scream to death. To death? But wait, aren’t they already dead and in Hell? Richard sure is gullible about Hell!

Later, MIB reveals himself to Richard. Of course he introduces himself as a “friend” and offers the poor thing water. He also affirms Richards assumption that they are in Hell and that the Devil got to Isabella. He offer Richard his freedom in exchange for his promise to help him, and once he unlocks Richard shackles he says, ever so Terry O’Quinn like, “It’s good to see you out of those chains.” MIN goes into further detail, explaining to Richard that the only way to get Isabella back would be to kill the Devil. So now Jacob is the Devil eh? Doc’s still into the whole idea that Jacob and MIB are Cain and Abel: “Cain was punished to wander the world as an immortal entity because he murdered his brother. He was also given a dark mark to scare away anyone who’d want to do him harm. I’d dare say that Earth-bound immortality qualifies as a kind of body-nullifying, dehumanizing curse — and that being able to convert into black smoke and change shape can qualify as some kind of protective-spooky defensive mechanism. Abel’s final fate is more on-the-nose with Lost: Wikipedia cites an apocryphal Biblical text that says that Abel now resides in a ”netherworld,” an ”awful man” who is tasked with judging all creatures, and examining the righteous and the sinners.”” Sounds close I guess. MIB then gives Richard a dagger and goes on to give Richard the same instructions that Dogen gave Sayid: That he has only once chance to kill the Devil, that he must not let him speak but drive the dagger straight through his heart. It’s interesting that both the MIB and Jacob use this argument against the other. That each of them is so persuasive that their minions cannot hear their opposition speak, lest they be convinced to join. Richard realizes something’s fishy (finally!) and forces MIB to out himself as the Smoke Monster. Yet MIB weaves together his story, claiming that the Devil betrayed him, stole his humanity and that the Devil took Isabella, not the Smoke. Again, Richard is exceedingly gullible, and heads out to do the deed.

Richard approaches the statue, now in pieces along the shore. His dagger is in hand, he is ready to kill this so called Devil. WHOOPS! Devil aka Jacob seems to have gotten to him first. Jacob tackles and disarms him. When Richard demands to see his wife, Jacob knows the jig. He assumes that Richard has been swayed by MIB and convinces him that he is alive by submerging Richard into the ocean a few times (aka Baptizing him) until Richard finally cries out in foreshadow, “I want to live!” On the beach, Jacob explains that he is not the Devil, and that he brought the Black Rock to the island for a reason. Here, Jacob has a wonky shaped bottle of wine. Doc says, “Wine was one of several religious symbols of the Catholic-Christian stripe that ”Ab Aeterno” employed and subverted. I was reminded of the cryptic Last Supper images that ABC released prior to the season, particularly the one in which the castaways were seen serving and sipping the wine at Fake Locke’s Passover table.” Lostpedia summarizes the wine allegory nicely: “Jacob uses a bottle of wine as a metaphor for the Island. The wine is evil, malevolence; the bottle is containing it, because otherwise “it would spread.” He explains that the cork represents the Island, holding the darkness where it belongs. Jacob says that the Man in Black believes everyone can be corrupted because it is in their nature to be bad and that he, Jacob, brings people here to prove the Man in Black wrong. When Richard asks what happened to the people brought to the Island in the past, Jacob replies that they are all dead. Jacob says he wants people to know the difference between right and wrong without being told. Richard says that if Jacob won’t help these people then the Man in Black will step in. Jacob thinks a moment and offers Richard the job of being his representative, an intermediary to the people he brings to the Island. When Jacob can’t or won’t intervene, he proposes Richard can step in on his behalf. When Richard says that in return he wants his wife back Jacob admits he cannot help and neither can he absolve him of his sins. However, he can help with Richard’s third wish which is to live forever and never die. Jacob touches Richard on the shoulder.” Doc points out, “Interesting: MIB’s m.o. was all about helping people to their feet. Jacob’s m.o. was all about making people do it themselves. Physician, heal thyself!”

Ahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Of course, it’s kind of what we expected. Jacob gave Richard the gift of immortality, though at this point in his life, it doesn’t seem like much of a gift. Richard returns to MIB and hands him a white rock, noting that it is a gift from Jacob. MIB is obviously disappointed in him, but promises that his offer will always, always stand, and he gives Richard Isabella’s cross. After MIB disappears, Richard buries the gross beneath a stone. Doc has nice connections to last week’s Sawyer episode. He notes, “It’s interesting to note that last week, Lost re-introduced into the narrative mix three of Sawyer’s favorite books: Watership Down, A Wrinkle In Time, and Lancelot. To varying degrees, all three books deal with corrupt leaders, false messiahs, and wickedly dark spirits that rise to power when a culture lacks a strong, truthful moral agent guiding it. Take Lancelot, whose narrator fancies himself a righteous knight determined to purge the world of corruption. In truth, he’s a tragically damaged, deeply disturbed potential psychopath who is locked up in a mental institution and should stay there. At the end of the book (SPOILER ALERT), he comes to a six-point conclusion about the world. Pay close attention to Number 5. ”1. We are living in Sodom. 2. I do not propose to live in Sodom or to raise my son and daughters in Sodom. 3. Either your God exists or he does not. 4. If he exists, he will not tolerate Sodom much longer. 5. If God does not exist, then it will be I not God who will not tolerate. I, one person. I will start a new world single-handedly or with those like me who will not tolerate it. [He then goes on to say his new world order will also include... genocide against the Russians and Chinese, America's main ''enemies'' during the books mid-'70s setting.] 6. I’ll wait and give your God more time.””

Jacob and MIB enjoy their little meetings, it seems. Their friendly little chats that hide their inner hatred and MIB’s desire to kill. During this particular chat, Jacob remarks about the stone, which prompts MIB to warn Jacob not to gloat. When Jacob asks why MIB sent Richard to kill him MIB says he did it because he wants to leave the Island and asks Jacob to let him go. Jacob tells MIB that, as long as he is alive, that won’t happen. Hint hint. Yet Jacob claims that if he dies, someone else will replace him. MIB responds that he’d just kill them too. Hence Smokey’s killing of so many candidates on all of our years of Lost, Pre-Emptive strike Smokey. Vozzek says, “The dark man has been equally busy destroying Jacob’s potential candidates – if not physically, by at least corrupting them enough that they’re no longer suitable to inherit Jacob’s job. As The Others would put it, they’re no longer one of the “good” ones.” Jacob doesn’t argue with MIB, but gives him the wine bottle he had used to describe the Island as a gift to pass the time and leaves, saying that he’ll see him around. The Man in Black says to himself “sooner than you think” and smashes the bottle.

Back in the present, Richard has finally arrived at his destination, the spot where he buried Isabella’s cross necklace. After digging it up he screams out to MIB, saying that he’s changed his mind, that he was wrong and wants to join up on his side. Hurley finally appears, much to Richard’s chagrin and claims that it was Richard’s wife, Isabella that sent him. Aha! That’s who Hurley was talking to on the beach. Good thing Hurley 1) talks to the dead and B) knows Spanish. In an angst filled scene, Richard and Isabella have their cute moment. With Hurley translating, Isabella explains that it wasn’t Richard’s fault she died, and Richard expresses his guilt and how much he misses her. After their cute ass reunion, Hurley relays another message from Isabella: Stop the Man in Black from leaving the island or we all go to Hell. Meanwhile, Flocke looks on from a distance, obviously having heard Richards cry. But what now?  I have to admit that all of this who is really the bad guy is starting to drive me bonkers, but I’m sure we won’t know the answer until the end. I think the roles may end up being reversed, or maybe reversed back? Doc has some nice final insights: “I accept The Cork. The Cork makes sense. But I wonder if Jacob is wrong about the wine. I get the sense that Jacob isn’t keen on death. His only super-power is the one that Satan has: Fall into his clutches, and he gets to keep you forever. I’m not saying he’s evil. But I am saying that in so many heroic stories, the real, necessary reality of death is often mistaken for evil. So what if the wine in Jacob’s bottle = all the souls that have come to The Island and lost the wager with Smokey? What if all those souls are trapped on The Island because Jacob refuses to let them go? In fact, what if the terms of the wager are akin to one of those Old Testament bets that God would make with his prophets, whereby a while wicked city can be saved if one ”good soul” can be found? Maybe Jacob has been holding onto all those souls who’ve lost the wager because he’s holding out to find that one good man that can give them all a second chance at life? And maybe Smokey thinks that’s fundamentally wrong or unnatural, which is why he’s so desperate to just end this whole damn redemption game, so everyone can move on to whatever afterlife they deserve — including himself. Breaking the bottle doesn’t release a toxic cloud of evil — it just sets the prisoners of Jacob’s purgatory free.”

Until next week Losties!