At this point, I’ve got to feel a little gratified, because show I like has managed to make it to a third season. Granted, I know that a lot of shows like that have lasted as long, a little longer, and I still feel a little cheated, for one reason or another, but with ‘Fringe,’ something strange and wonderful has happened. All the potential I saw in the beginning, gradually, critics and audiences have come to embrace as well. The world is beginning to understand that this thing is fascinating. The third season looks like it’s only going to grow more fascinating still.

When we left off last season, we had finally made the momentous trip “over there,” the alternate reality Walter Bishop (John Noble) once visited when he realized he could have a second chance at saving the life of his son, Peter (Joshua Jackson). Much of this backstory is reiterated via clips to open the season premiere, so if you were a little fuzzy on that, it’s okay. But the real problem, and what occupies most of the episode, is that when our characters made that that trip, Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) was kidnapped and replaced by her double. When Peter went back home, he inadvertently celebrated with the wrong Dunham.

There’s a few scenes with Peter and Bolivia (as the alternate Olivia is apparently being referred to, off-camera, just as alternate Walter, on-camera, is distinguished as Walternate, which Peter himself references during a debriefing), but mostly, “Olivia” is all about Olivia, stuck in the alternate reality, setting up the working points of the season, or at least the starting points.

What’s immediately fascinating about the setup is that until now, I hadn’t realized how closely it resembles how the third seasons of ‘Alias’ and ‘Lost,’ two other shows begun by J.J. Abrams (which I often reference in these reviews, as counterpoint) started out so similarly. You’ll recall that in ‘Alias,’ Sydney Bristow had woken up in Hong Kong, her memory and a significant period missing from her life. It was the first unpopular move the series made, and in a sense, it never fully recovered from it. In ‘Lost,’ Jack, Sawyer, and Kate all became hostages of the Others, a situation that contributed in making that season the most consistently uncomfortable and unpopular year of the show, which like the same season in ‘Alias’ almost torpedoed all interest in it.

I don’t mention these facts to suggest ‘Fringe’ has done something similar and will suffer a similar fate (though it’s certainly possible), but again, for contrast. Unlike the other shows, Olivia seems to gain a certain measure of power within the first episode, a sense of control, which even if undermined by the end of it, still gives a measure of satisfaction to the viewer. She is not completely powerless; her undoing is deliberate and adequately explained, and helps set up more and perhaps more interesting developments for later episodes. That Walternate has her conditioned to believe that she is actually the Olivia that is indigenous to the alternate reality is pretty fascinating, like the Mirror Universe episodes from Star Trek, when we could follow two different versions of the same character simultaneously, but with the added complication that even the constant, the personality we’re supposed to know, won’t be acting that way. It’s all about sympathy. As long as audiences can keep it straight, they’re be rooting for the “right” Olivia, right from the start. They’ll be looking for the moment that she breaks free from the control she’s been put under, because in essence, they’ve seen her do it once already, no matter what the facts may suggest to Walternate and his cronies.

While she’s fighting it here, we already get some extraordinary moments. Olivia has a knack for making the right connections at the right times (as she did last season with Sam Weiss, played by Kevin Corrigan, who will be returning this season), and she does that again during this episode. While she’s briefly on the run and in full command of her faculties, she runs into a cabbie who ends up being the audience surrogate, the character who will make it easy for new viewers to understand what’s going on, and old ones to build the needed sympathy that will sustain her in later episodes. Olivia uses some strong tactics on him early on, but gradually builds some real trust, so that eventually, the cabbie realizes that he knows exactly what she’s going through. She ends up not needing the leverage she’s been holding against him to earn his continued cooperation. As a one-off character, the cabbie, played by a familiar genre veteran, Andre Royo, last seen in ‘Heroes’ (the “villain” who could create miniature black holes), and lends a lot of his backstory from vague illusions to that past performance, is spot-on.

The alternate Charlie Francis (the one that’s still alive), is given a lot more sympathy during this episode than his appearance at the end of last season as well, another clear as to how navigating this season is going to work. We also meet Olivia’s mother, Marilyn (Amy Madigan), who in our reality is dead, but in the alternate reality is alive and kicking, and inadvertently helps put Olivia back into the hands of Walternate. But there are signs that she may hold the key to Olivia’s salvation.

Speaking of salvation, viewers from last season really should have guessed it all along, but those who had been hoping for some swift and handy resolution to Olivia’s situation probably spent the whole episode expecting that she’s made a quick trip back home, only to discover that, for all intents and purposes, she’s stuck there. We’ve known it isn’t a simple matter to cross between realities, but basic instinctual hope, and a need for the status quo (which both ‘Alias’ and ‘Lost,’ as I’ve suggested, both unsuccessfully exploited) made some viewers hope against the facts. But ‘Fringe’ has a chance of making this familiar gambit succeed, because in essence, it’s got two versions of more or less the same reality going on, the same characters, the same actors. To create some differences that don’t have to do with temperament and visuals, some new characters have been introduced, including Marilyn Dunham. But Charlie has a new partner, Lincoln Lee, who happens to be portrayed by one of two brothers cast for the season, Shawn and Aaron Ashmore, who introduce a whole new level of duplication to matters. Lincoln has been badly scarred, leaving him pretty distinctive, so rather than a nice set of twins, right there in the alternate reality, there’s a problem of fractured facades, complications that need to be worked out.

“Olivia,” to my mind, is a terrific way to start out the third season, clearly echoing history while also making history work for it, in a strong and confident way, much as the series has been progressing from the start, always keenly aware of what it’s trying to do, and attempting to make it as interesting as possible. ‘Fringe’ is not a show like ‘Alias’ or ‘Lost,’ where there’s a single story that weaves through the back- and foreground, moving in an obvious direction. It’s been working twists and turns, gradual and deliberate revelations all along, combining what worked well for both its immediate predecessors, and potentially creating something that could exceed them. A lot of that potential became more obvious in the second half of last season, and it appears that the third season hasn’t slacked off from the increased momentum. We’re up for a pretty interesting ride.

I tried for years to understand what kind of writer I am. I knew from early childhood that I was destined in some sense to be a storyteller, but it wasn’t until years later, when I took my first stabs at writing long fiction, that I wrote best and most easily when I focus most of it on reflective thinking. This was a problem, I realized, because very few people write that way. Except on television (and in my favorites, film, which might explain why my favorites look so different from a lot of other people’s). I had been a fan of Star Trek for most of my life, but my favorite series grew to be ‘Deep Space Nine’ and ‘Enterprise,’ both of which drew heavily on their backstories. ‘Andromeda,’ a show that never quite reached the levels Kevin Sorbo had previously experienced in fan communities as his ‘Hercules,’ was at its best when its characters looked back as they fought onward. I’m not talking about impersonal events, the kind that littered ‘Babylon Five’ or ‘Battlestar Galactica’ (arguably, though as I’ve talked about in HYGOTS both shows had their merits I would come to admire), but what weighed heavily on the minds of ‘Dark Angel,’ ‘Boomtown,’ ‘Defying Gravity.’ ‘Fringe’ is one of the most heavily-laden reflection shows I’ve ever watched. ‘Heroes,’ when I finally gave it another chance, turned out to be one, too. ‘How I Met Your Mother’ is all about it, too. ‘Prison Break’ had the specter of the past hanging over its present perils.

But ‘Lost’ spent its entire run exploring a massive cast of characters, right to the end, and that’s what ultimately defines that conclusion, beyond all wildest expectations.

You might almost have seen it coming, when earlier in the season the flash-sideways, the glimpses into the lives of the castaways if “the Incident” never happened and Oceanic Flight 815 actually landed at LAX, with the island sunk on the bottom of the ocean. After all, Smokey/Man in Black/Locke Monster/Adam made it clear during the final episode that he meant to escape by destroying the island, a plan Desmond helped to facilitate after he was lowered by Jack & Locke into the cave of light at the center of the island (not far from where Jack first woke up at the start of the pilot) and essentially unplugged it. Before Christian showed up at his own funeral and revealed to Jack and the audience that the flash-sideways represented the afterlife, it was confusing enough that these side stories were being told at all, that everyone had been reset back to the first episode but still looked like they did in the present (notably Jack, anyway), how it meant anything at all. But “The End,” in the end, was more about this apparent tangent than the final moments of island life.

Here’s a very rough version of the finale: Jack, having become the new Jacob, becomes the primary target of the Man in Black, but everything converges in two events, the trip to the cave and the launch of the Ajira plane. Jack and Man in Black have it out, but not before Jack replaces himself with Hurley, because he realizes his purpose was to save the island, not be its guardian. Hurley was always the far better companion everyone could count on, and Ben turned out to find his redemption in finally trusting someone else, becoming the new Richard Alpert. Alpert, meanwhile, leaves the island, along with Lapidus, Kate, Sawyer, Claire, and Miles. Desmond is sent back home, too, having completed his own journey. In the sideways, all the characters complete converging on each other, first for a concert, and then for a funeral, and finally to move on.

What ‘Lost’ ultimately accomplishes is completing the story of its characters as they find themselves; the island really is basically a metaphor, because it is through the experience of coming to this island and everything that happens to them because of it that allows them to finally accept themselves, and find acceptance in others, which is the note “The End” ends on.

“The End” resonates beyond just being the final episode of a series I have grown to admire greatly, one that ranks among the great conclusions. I thought at one point about another Star Trek, ‘Generations,’ a movie that struggles to define the meaning of the Nexus, an energy ribbon that floats through space and occasionally transports people into their own private dreams, their own afterlives that allow them to exist in their perfect realities. On its own, “The End” is like a revision of that film, of just how much work really would have been necessary for audiences to accept everything it attempted to do.

“The End” helps complete the ‘Lost’ saga, in the same way revealing Darth Vader to have once been Anakin Skywalker redefined just what exactly the Star Wars films were all about. ‘Lost’ famously made a lot of references to books and movies, and Star Wars was one of favorites to draw on (Hurley, in this episode, even gets to say “I have a bad feeling about this”). For anyone still wondering whether flashbacks, flashforwards, and flash-sideways were really necessary, there’s your answer. It was always about the characters, not the mysteries. “Across the Sea,” two episodes ago, spelled everything still essentially necessary out, as far as what everyone watching for that reason. “The End” was another version of the second season finale, just as the fifth season finale was, for that viewer.

“The End” was like Neo realizing at the end of ‘The Matrix Revolutions’ that his story wasn’t about waking everyone up, but getting everyone to be comfortable with their own versions of reality. All those gathered in the church had grown comfortable, hadn’t been stuck on the island, as Michael was, or presumably, even Mr. Eko, other familiar faces we didn’t reunite with. If there was any disappointment during the two and half hours, it was that we didn’t get to see everyone again. Because anyone who had been watching from the start, and who kept watching, couldn’t help but appreciate how it ended with Jack, lying back down, closing that solitary eye.

Alpert realizing that he’s aging again, Vincent lying down with Jack, Rose & Bernard sticking to their guns, Jack standing up like Locke at the end of “Walkabout,” the calm inevitability of the episode, Shannon showing up and demonstrating that Sayid’s happy ending wasn’t with Nadia after all, “I’ll see you in another life, brother,” corking the island, all of these were nice touches.

It was the first season finale that didn’t feel frantic; everyone and everything was busy converging throughout the episode. Everything felt right. If you thought some characters had some uneventful final arcs on the island, they were better served in the sideways. I won’t go into what specific characters did; I suspect that’ll be talked about elsewhere.

The night itself was pretty awesome. ABC spent the first two hours recapping the entire series. Target had some pretty clever commercials, including a smoke detector for the Smoke Monster. An hour after it ended, many of the cast members reunited with Jimmy Kimmel. Because I’m a fan of ‘Survivor,’ it felt to me exactly like the reunion shows that round out each of those seasons (one of three gag “alternate endings” even included Jeff Probst, which of course I thought was genius). It was great just to spend some time with these actors, and Kimmel was a genial host, probably the only person who could have done it with just the right tone.

“The End,” as I’ve said, is one of my favorite series finales. It reminded me of “What You Leave Behind,” the last episode of ‘DS9,’ which also asked its audience to embrace some bigger thoughts and broader ways of saying goodbye than is typical (but among the best things ‘BSG’ did was its own conclusion, “Daybreak,” which took exactly the large view I was always hoping for). It was the best way to end what was arguably a perfect television experience, at least in my view, something that, as many have already said, will be nearly impossible to duplicate. It was the most reflection possible in a series that had already staked most of its existence on reflection, pulling a fast one that inverted all expectations but was the most obvious and appropriate, at least in hindsight, move possible.

Now really, what more could you possibly ask for?

LOST began with a simple premise.  A group of people crash on an Island and are forced to survive.  I remember the first time the I read an article on the show, and it sounded so interesting.  And one of the things that made it interesting was the fact that this wasn’t an ordinary Island.  There was a polar bear on a tropical Island, and a man who found his paralyzed body instantly healed.  And don’t forget about that spooky monster with the mechanical noises.  And as the show evolved, we learned more about the mysterious Others, the haunted numbers, and dozens of other Island mysteries.

And the mysteries were the icing on the cake.  They were the part that got people talking, got people thinking, and got people to pass the show around.  Don’t get me wrong – LOST isn’t the show it is without the mysteries and the mythology.

But it was just the icing.  The substance part of the cake were the characters, and it was like that from day one.  While the mystery of the Island would come and go, episode to episode, the show was trying to train you to care about the people.  Not every episode dealt with the Monster or the Others, but every episode featured a flashback.  Every episode dealt with one of our characters, telling us who these people are and what led them to the Island.

It seemed like it was simple enough – the flashback would usually tie into the character’s current predicament.  Charlie’s failed relationship with a woman would deal with his current status with Claire.  Jack’s inability to let go of something connected with his inability to let Boone die.  Sawyer’s troubled past was connected with his inability to let anyone close to him.

But this season let us know something else.  We got three years of flashbacks to teach us how flawed these people were, and how much they needed the Island.  They were all scared, all damaged, and all alone.  John Locke repeatedly told them that they were brought to the Island for a reason, but none of them realized that they were all the same.  Only the fans, who could put their stories side by side, could see the connections they all had to each other.

And it made the show so rich!  You would see characters from one flashback (say, Nadia) appear in someone else’s flashback (she appeared in a Charlie flashback and a Locke one), and it would make you smile.  The show wouldn’t come out and say it – it would just let you see it.  If you got it, you got it.  If not, it was no big deal.

And the flash sideways became one big Easter egg.  The finale reveals that the flash sideways was created by the survivors so that they could be together again.  Call it Heaven.  Call it Purgatory.  Call it a bubble universe.  Call it the afterlife.  Call it whatever you want because the show makes no statement about anyone’s beliefs (the stained-glass window in the church was evidence of this).  Whatever you believe is okay, and you can find a way to make it fit.

For the whole season, we’ve been debating on what the flash sideways meant.  We thought that there was a chance that the two universes would meet – that perhaps one Locke could defeat the other.  Or maybe everyone would get the choice between living in one world or the other.  Would Jack decide to live as Jacob or as a father to David?

Instead, the flash sideways universe showed us the true souls of these people and what they wanted to be.  Kate Austen spent her life trying to rationalize what she’d done to get herself in all that trouble, and yet in the flash sideways, she continually proclaimed her innocence.  Sawyer saw himself as a good guy who made the wrong choices – so this time, he made the choice to do things on the right side of the law.  Jin and Sun went from a loveless marriage to a uncommitted relationship full of love.

And Jack Shephard, the cowboy with all the daddy issues, got to prove his own worth as a father.  After alienating his own son for most of the boy’s life, Jack does whatever it takes to make his son believe in him.  And by being a father to David, Jack was able to exorcise all of the demons brought on by his own father.

And none of this is possible if we didn’t know these characters as well as we did.  As well as we do.  We wouldn’t recognize the subtle changes, and we wouldn’t have teared up at the sight of all the reunions.

Looking at the two and a half hours as a whole, it’s pretty simple to see why some people loved the finale more than others.  If you wanted answers in the finale, you weren’t going to get any.  The biggest question that was answered was “what is the significance of the flash sideways universe?”

Did you want to know more about Jacob?  Sorry, he didn’t appear.  Want to know more about his Monster?  Unfortunately, he’s still nameless.  What about that mysterious light?  It’s still as mysterious as when we first saw it.

In a lot of ways, the “mythology finale” was “Across the Sea.”  Outside of a few words from Jacob in “What They Died For”, there weren’t really any answers to go around.  This finale was about closing the book on the characters, and that’s really what I tuned in for.

Did I want some answers?  Sure.  But knowing that Locke was able to find redemption in the afterlife was much more important than finding out the Monster’s true name.  Seeing Claire and Charlie reunite was much more important than finding out why the Dharma food drops were still coming after all these years.  And, honestly, seeing Christian at the church was more important than seeing Walt.

But, at the end of the day, there will always be more questions.  This show proved that you only bring up more questions when you answer one.  Remember when our biggest concern was finding out what the Others were all about?  Remember when we had no idea what the Monster even looked like?  Remember when we had no idea who the French woman was?

Last night, there were two Others in the main cast (Ben and Richard).  Not only was the Monster in the main cast, we got to meet him in his very own flashback.  And the French woman died so long ago that it was a treat to finally see her last episode.

And we kept looking for answers from people.  We all remember what it felt like when they had Ethan cornered in season one.  This was one of the Others, and we were all so furious with Charlie for killing him before we got anything from him.

Then came Henry Gale.  The writers tortured us with the question of whether or not he was “one of them.”  And when he finally revealed his true nature, he spoke in mysterious riddles to the point where we never really understood.  And when season three shed light on Ben’s real identity, we realized that he didn’t really know that much in the first place.

As soon as we learned that, there was Richard Alpert.  The man seemed to be ageless, and he was an Other when Ben Linus was just a kid.  Surely, when his brain was properly picked, we would get all the answers we were seeking.  And, yet, we finally get a flashback of Richard, and it turns out that he was just a laborer who ended up on the Island by mistake.  Sure, he’d seen a lot, but he didn’t have the answers we were desperately seeking.

But there was Jacob.  The man behind the Others who we didn’t meet until the season five finale – even his death in that episode couldn’t keep us from the answers.  But just like Ethan got his answers from Ben, Ben got his answers from Richard, and Richard got his answers from Jacob – Jacob only received his answers from the mysterious “Mother” character played by Allison Janney in “Across the Sea.”

Every question raises a new one.  Ethan to Mother, the answers always came from somewhere else.  And I think that was the point.  If we were given a flashback of Mother, it would have been the same thing.  Maybe we would meet her Father, who simply got answers from someone else.  It would take flashing back all the way to the beginning of the Island to get the true answer.

And, honestly, that answer probably would have been – “This is a very powerful light.  I must protect it.”

Because at the end of the day, that’s all it is.  It’s a light that gives off magical properties.  It protects certain people, heals certain people, and turns certain people into living smoke.

I remember an interview back in season one where the producers said that they would always have  a scientific base.  I believed it, and I preached it for a while.  But Arthur C. Clarke said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  Maybe it’s some form of electromagnetism.  Or maybe the same aliens that built Mayan pyramids set up the Island as some form of experiment.

Because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.  I listened to the Official Lost Podcast, and the writers basically told the fans that, if they wanted some big explanatory scene, they needed to go watch The Matrix Reloaded.  In that movie, the Architect (Jacob?) tells Neo (Jack?) the truth behind the Matrix.  And instead of answering everyone’s questions and leaving them wowed, it’s regularly made fun of.  The Matrix sequels are constantly ridiculed.  Is that really what you wanted from LOST?

I tried to ask people, going into the finale, what questions needed to be answered by the finale to be considered a success.  The flash sideways question seemed to be the big one, and that was answered.

Another one seems to be about the pregnancy topic.  I’m not entirely sure how people anticipated that question would be answered in the finale (was the Monster going to tell us all about fertility issues?), but I have a relatively easy explanation for it.  Mother basically said that people don’t belong on this Island.  That man would continue to accidentally land there, but that it would have to be by accident.

The Island is invisible to modern technology to keep man away.  Wouldn’t it also have some sort of defense against the people that decide to live there?  And that’s where the pregnancies come in – if you try to have kids on the Island, you can’t.  The Island doesn’t let you.  If you bring a kid, it can’t stop it from being born, but it won’t let you conceive on-Island.

I think that explanation makes a lot of sense – would that answer have made the finale any better for anyone?

At the end of the day, the finale did for me everything that it needed to do.  I secretly hoped that John Locke would find redemption in some way.  His character is tortured in every way up until he reached the Island.  And when he finally made it to the Island, he gave everything to it – only to have his image stolen and used by the Monster.  And Locke died the way he lived – completely betrayed by someone that he thought loved him.

And when Locke smiled as he walked into that church, you knew it was okay.  That despite all that had happened to him, Locke was at peace with everything that had happened.  And despite all the hardships, you get the sense that he wouldn’t done it all the same way if he’d been given another chance.  That, despite knowing the truth, he still would’ve believed in something greater.  And that’s just really cool.

And there’s Ben, the man we all love to hate.  The flash sideways showed that he was a good man at heart, and as he sat outside the church, afraid to go inside, he begged John for forgiveness.  And John, in a way only he could, smiled and let Ben off the hook.  And Ben was humbled by it.  Particularly when we find out that, as the final scene takes place in Infinity (or “out of time”), that Ben has probably had dozens of years to think about all the mistakes he’s made.

There’s Hurley, who after years of ridicule and following, gets the chance to be the leader he believes he can be.  The soul of the group (and of the show) is given the most important role on the Island, and it just feels so right.  I loved when Hurley saved the day in the season three finale, and I was so happy for him in the finale.

There’s Sawyer, the man who just couldn’t seem to get off the damn Island.  And after years of trying, he finally gets his wish.  Kate, torn between Jack and Sawyer for the entirety of the show, chooses Jack, only to leave the Island with Sawyer.  Claire is finally able to accept herself and move towards finally embracing her role as Aaron’s mother.

There are the characters of Richard, Lapidus, and Miles.  Afterthoughts to some people but important characters in their own right.  Miles and Lapidus were comedic characters who we cheered for.  And Richard, who I feared died last week, got to leave the Island with his first real love of life in a long time.

A lot of people will argue, even if you love the characters, that the show short-changed us.  That we never even got to see the Ajira plane leave the Island.  We didn’t get to see Claire and Aaron reunited.

Well, that’s because of Jack Shephard.  At the end of the day, LOST is about Jack.  Plain and simple.  The end.

The show started with him.  He received the most flashbacks of any character.  He was the first to be seen in a flashforward.  And he was the first to be seen in the flash sideways universe.  Of all the off-Island connections, Jack seemed to be the most inter-twined.  In a truly ensemble cast, Jack Shephard was the star.  It started with him, and it ended the same place.

It started with Jack lying next to Vincent following a plane crash.  It ends with him lying next to Vincent following a plane taking off.  It’s the kind of cyclical story that I assume LOST would do.  And the kind of symmetrical beauty that I expected to get from it.

Jack, who started off as the man of science and ended up as the man of faith.  The man who spent so many years trying to please his father only to see the man die before he ever got any true acceptance.  It’s no coincidence that Jack’s life truly began when Christian died, and it’s no coincidence that Jack found no life off-Island without his father.  It felt strange to see Jack emulating John Locke these last couple of seasons, but it makes sense.  More than anybody, the Island was drawing Jack close.  Jack was always afraid to admit it, but he was happy on the Island.  And it was only in the last couple of years that he truly realized it.

And, in the end, Jack died a hero.  And, in a way, he also died alone.  If I might steal one of his catchphrases.

And that final scene at the church was all about Jack.  The survivors of Oceanic 815 realized that the best part of their lives was on the Island with each other.  Together.  And even their “happy” lives were interrupted by the idea that they could be reunited with these people one more time.

You might ask why more people weren’t at the church.  Why didn’t Miles or Daniel show up at the church?  Why didn’t Ben go inside?  Where was Richard or Lapidus?

And my answer is that they didn’t belong there.  Richard was with his wife.  Daniel and Miles were with their families.  Lapidus was doing whatever it is that he did.  These people had loved ones in their lives that mattered to them.

But Jacob’s whole point in bringing Oceanic 815 to the Island was that these people only had each other.  None of their family bonds were strong enough to matter.  At the end of the day, they had each other and no one else.  And if they were going to move on to the next phase of existence, it was going to be as one big family.

And Christian explained everything perfectly – it all happened.  Everything on the Island was real.  And, yes, everyone in the church was dead – but they all died at different times.  Hurley died after years on the Island.  Kate and Sawyer probably died years after lives off-Island.  That’s why Jack (who died in season six) was able to visit with Boone, who died three years earlier.  They all died at different times but showed up to the church together.

And they were all happy there.  Despite all the pain and heartache, they all ended up happy.  The ones who died and the ones who made it, all together.

If you loved the characters, it was a great moment.  If you didn’t, it was either sappy or boring.  Either way, I hope you enjoyed the finale as much as I did.  And I hope you enjoyed the series as much as I did.  This was a show that brought so much joy to my life, and I’m truly going to miss it.  I have all of the seasons on DVD, and I’m sure I’ll be buying the whole series on Blu-Ray soon enough.  People argue that the show has little re-watching possibilities, but I disagree.  I look forward to watching it all again, looking for Easter eggs as I go through.

If you watched the show for the characters, go back and try to find the answers you might have missed.  And if you watched for answers, try to watch for the characters.  The show kept a delicate balance, and I thought they finished off about as well as possible.

There will always be more questions.  But if a series can get you to love the characters, I think it’s done it’s job.  And, to me, that’s what LOST was always truly about.

What happened to that show?

Watching the series finale of Lost last night I was reminded of how much the show has changed in the six years since it premiered. The puzzles and confusion of those first few seasons now seem somehow quaint. Wondering about the function of the DHARMA stations? Questioning what pushing the button every 108 would actually accomplish? Arguing about the meaning of the Numbers? That’s nothing compared to the epic battle between Jacob and that other guy who always dressed in black over control of the golden river at the center of the island.

Lost fundamentally changed at the end of Season Three when the flashbacks became flash-forwards and then again when the flash-forwards became flash sideways (flashes sideways?) at the start of Season Six, and perhaps not for the better. I recall, back when Season Three was at its most frustrating, thinking about how neat it would be if someone took all the scenes on the island from Season One and edited them together. Minus the flashbacks, would Lost still work? Would it still have dramatic heft?

Now that the show is over, the mysteries solved and the questions, for better or worse, answered, I find myself thinking about the simpler times when watching Lost was about the DHARMA Initiative, the Others and the Numbers. It seems strange to think of Lost as simple but part of me longs for the days when the Blast Door map led to a few answers but so many new questions before the introduction of an overarching (and perhaps retroactive) theme of good versus evil and the epic/eternal struggle between Jacob and that other guy.

At the same time, Lost has always had its fantastical elements, so quibbling about the so-called “Heart of the Island” and its bright, golden light might appear trivial. Maybe it has to do with the passage of time or maybe I’ve just become tired over the years. But you can’t tell me that those first few seasons, when the mysteries of Lost were fresh and exciting, weren’t somehow better or at the very least more exciting than later seasons. (You also can’t tell me that the producers/writers had the show planned out from the beginning, but that’s neither here nor there. Much like the final moments of the finale, in fact.)

Lost is over now. It’s been a thrilling ride, one filled with equal parts excitement and irritation. I was never the biggest or most involved fan. I never participated in any of the alternate reality games. I read some magazine articles, talked about the show at a few message boards, chatted with friends and family about the most recent episode. There’s no use wondering now what might have been. What’s through the looking glass, so to speak. No real use, that is, but I’m sure fans will spend the summer arguing about how the show ended and then, when the new television season starts in the fall, lament the fact that Lost won’t be coming back.

Personally, while I don’t really understand what the finale meant, I can’t say it wasn’t enjoyable. I also can’t say I plan on rewatching all six seasons any time soon. I actually don’t know how much repeat value the show will have, knowing how the show ends and knowing that so many questions remain unanswered. Maybe I’ll just watch the first few seasons and try to forget the ending. For me, Lost was at its best when it was about a bunch of people on an island, with a few strange twists thrown in for good measure.

I still want to know why that statue had only four toes.

On the message board here at Lowerdecks.com, I posted a question asking what questions were left unanswered going into the finale.  The big question seems to be “what is the significance of the flash-sideways universe?”  In addition to that, there’s still the question of how Desmond fits into everything – he’s been referenced as being able to destroy the Monster and also destroy the Island.  We’re also still not sure who David Shephard’s mother is, but I’m still fairly confident that it’s Juliet.

And outside of that, we already have a lot of the big answers.  What is the Monster?  Answered.  Who are Adam and Eve?  Answered.  Why was Oceanic 815 brought to the Island?   Answered.  Who is Jacob and why is he special?  Answered.

We even have a relatively vague answer to the question of “why is the Island so special?”  A lot of people might not like the “magical light” reasoning behind the Island’s significance, but I think it makes sense.  A while back, the writers and producers of the show promised a scientific explanation for everything that happens on the show, and they still have the “electromagnetism” card in their deck that they could play.  But as far as all that goes, I’m willing to forgive them for a couple of things.  The show has been about “science vs. faith” since the very beginning, and I’m okay giving “faith” a chance.

The big question answered in this one is by Jacob, who finally explains to the remaining 815 survivors why they were brought to the Island in the first place.  It’s been a long time coming, and I thought it was a great explanation.  For three years, the show gave us insight into these people’s lives, and Jacob is exactly right.  All of the people that we’ve met from Oceanic 815 were broken people before the Island.  All of them were tortured by their pasts – Jack had his daddy issues, Sawyer was consumed by revenge, Hurley was saddened by the infamous deck collapse, and Kate was running from her big crime.

But what I loved was the idea that they needed the Island as much as the Island needed them.  And if you think about it, Jacob was right about that too.  Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley are all better people because of the Island – Jack has become a confident leader, Kate has escaped her past, Sawyer is a better person after (literally) killing his demons, and Hurley conquered his inner demons.  Even the unlucky people who died were better off at the time of their deaths.  Charlie died a hero saving Claire – combining two of the greatest moments of his life.  Sayid was able to redeem himself with his sacrifice.  And Sun and Jin, after a very troubled marriage, decided that they’d rather die together than live apart ever again.

It’s odd that Jacob suddenly was able to show up to the rest of the survivors, though.  I think we’re supposed to assume that it had something to do with “young Jacob” took the ashes and threw them into that fire.  Like with the Island, we might have to file this under “magic” – but it’s odd that Jacob was able to present himself to everyone.  Because, outside of the inability to age or die of natural causes, Jacob has been confined within the boundaries of being human.  And appearing to Hurley has been a part of that.

But Jacob appearing to everyone seemed a bit strange, and the idea that he’d just show up at a campfire and explain everything to Jack and company seemed a bit easy.  That being said, I can’t think of another way that they could have done it.  We needed an explanation, and we needed it from Jacob.  We didn’t need it from Jacob via Hurley as a translator.

And then Jack chooses to replace Jacob.  It wasn’t exactly a surprise, and I’m really glad that they got it out of the way before the finale.  It was a strange road for Jack, but it also makes a lot of sense.  Jack spent most of his life trying to impress his father, and now that his father is gone, he doesn’t have a lot of reason to live off the Island.  He was able to do a lot on the Island, and it’s probably where he’s been the happiest.  And if he can somehow convince Kate to stay with him, I think he’d argue that it’d be as close to Heaven as he could ever expect.

I thought the scene where Jack gets “crowned” as the new Jacob was odd.  Was he supposed to be turning the river water into wine, or was he simply blessing the water?  If it’s the former, it might be the most Christ-like move for Jacob.  And it’s been hard to tell if that’s something that they’re trying to stress or not.

And that’s where they left us going into the finale.  Jack is now Jacob, Jacob is now gone, and the three remaining characters are almost left with nothing to do.  They’re no longer candidates, and it’s hard to tell if they are still protected from the Monster (if, indeed, they ever were – another potential question).  Other than helping Jack or just getting in the way, I’m not sure what role they play going into the finale.  I expect that we might lose a couple of them, unfortunately.

On the other side of the Island, we finally find out what happened to Richard, Ben, and Miles.  They arrive at the Barracks to get explosives, but they’re immediately met by Charles Widmore and Zoe.  Widmore suggests that they team up, but Ben doesn’t want anything of it.  Widmore hides in Ben’s house, Miles runs off into the jungle alone, and Ben and Richard decide to try to talk to the LockeMonster as he arrives.

Richard decides that he will talk to Locke first, since he knows that he’s always wanted Richard on his side.  What Richard doesn’t know, unfortunately, is that the Monster isn’t in the business of recruiting people anymore.  While in smoke form, he swiftly grabs Richard and smashes him against the tree.

Is Richard dead?  It’s hard to say.  I would like to think that, if Richard is going to die, he deserves a better death than that.  And, like with the candidates, we don’t even know if the Monster is capable of killing Richard (who was also touched by Jacob).  That all being said, it doesn’t look good for Richard – who was never mentioned or referenced after the Monster threw him into the jungle.  I would bet that he’s dead, but I’m hoping that he survived the attack and makes one final heroic appearance.

Then the Monster decides to talk to Ben, who immediately gives away Widmore’s location.  Locke walks into the secret room and kills Zoe to prove that he’s not messing around.  The Monster wants to know why Widmore came back, and he promises to kill Penny if Widmore doesn’t tell him.  Widmore explains that Jacob had invited him back to the Island, and he was told to bring Desmond back with him.  Desmond is Jacob’s “fail-safe” plan in case everything else fails.

And, before Widmore can say anything else, Ben shoots and kills him – finally getting his revenge for the death of Alex.

When it first happened, I thought it was strange that Ben was evil again.  He’d spent the last few years trying to prove that he’s not a bad guy, and he’s made a lot of effort to help out the group.  But, at the same time, he’s a survivalist, and he’s always much more concerned with his own life than the lives of others.

Also, as Ben arrived at the Barracks, Miles came across Alex’s body.  I think the feelings of watching Alex die all came back, and Ben simply decided to side with the Monster to side against Widmore.  And, now, Ben’s simply doing what he needs to do to survive.

And it’s just a lot of fun when Ben is the villain.  He’s a guy you love and hate at the same time, and I firmly believe he’s one of the greatest characters in television history.  Michael Emerson is such a great actor, and it was such an amazing find for LOST to get him in the first place.  Without Emerson or Ben, this show wouldn’t be nearly as great as it is.

And so Ben and the Monster, having killed almost everyone at the Barracks, decide to try and find Jacob’s “fail-safe” – only to find that he’s already been rescued from the well.  But the Monster doesn’t seem concerned, especially when he reveals that he wants to destroy the Island once and for all.  And, like I said earlier, he seems to think that Desmond will be able to help with that goal.

Over in the flash sideways universe, Ben has a run-in with Desmond when Mr. Hume shows back up at the school.  Desmond beats Ben up, but it all seems to be a message to Locke.  Desmond tells Locke that he needs to “let go” – and that’s exactly what Jack told Locke to do at the hospital.  Alt-Locke’s “fate sense” kicks in, and he decides to let Jack perform the surgery on him.

Elsewhere, Ben comes across Alex, and he’s introduced to Danielle.  The crazy French lady doesn’t seem as crazy off-Island, and she invites Ben over for dinner.  She offers up one of the best lines of the show, telling Ben that they’ll kidnap him to bring him to dinner if they have to – a funny revelation considering the on-Island connection between Ben and Rousseau.  And, by the end of dinner, it seems that Ben and Danielle have hit it off.  A cute couple, but it’s definitely odd to think about considering their on-Island history.

At the police station, Desmond turns himself in (for the assault of Ben and the hit-and-run on Locke) to get himself thrown in the same prison transport as Kate and Sayid.  Desmond pays off a cop (Ana-Lucia in a guest spot) to let them off at a dock, and Hurley assists in the escape.  He agrees to take Sayid, and Desmond offers Kate a dress to go to a concert.

The concert seems to be the key to everything.  This seems to be the same benefit concert that Desmond was helping to plan in the first place, and we already know that Daniel, Charlotte, Eloise, and Charles Widmore will be there.  Miles has been invited because of his father, and he’s already agreed to take Sawyer.  Jack and David are going to go, along with David’s mysterious mother.  With Desmond and Kate also going, you have to think that something big is going to happen at the concert.  Maybe getting all of these people back in the same place is going to set off some kind of event that affects both universes.

I also thought it was cool that Hurley was able to recognize Ana-Lucia – which makes you wonder how much Hurley is able to remember of the other universe.  Does he remember everything?  Does Desmond?  Because Charlie seemed to be the first one with his eyes truly open, but he didn’t seem to have the ability to remember everything.

But I’m pretty confident that everything about the flash-sideways universe will be explained, and I’m almost certain that it will have something to do with the endgame.  Desmond is extremely important in both universes, and he’s the only one that (seemingly) traveled between the universes.  Or, at least, his consciousness did.

So there we are.  On-Island, almost everyone is dead.  The Monster and Ben are competing with Jack’s group to find Desmond.  Claire and Miles are somewhere in the jungle, and let’s not forget about Rose and Bernard…who are still somewhere out there, enjoying their “retirement.”  It would certainly be funny if they played some kind of part in the finale on-Island.

It’s all coming together, and by Sunday night, it will all be over.  I’m definitely going to be sad when it’s over, but it will also be nice to know everything.  I can’t believe that the finale is almost here, but it’s certainly been one Hell of a ride.

Let’s start with the thing that everyone seems to be talking about – what is the Man in Black’s true name?  It’s something that’s bothered people since he was introduced (and not named) in the season five finale.  He’s been called Jacob’s Enemy, the Man in Black, MiB, the Monster, the LockeMonster, and a handful of other monikers.  And we all assumed that, since we were going to get an entire episode devoted to Jacob and his apparent brother, we’d learn the guy’s name once and for all.

Nope.  In a way that only LOST seems to be able to do, we never learn his name.  In a way of teasing the fans, Jacob and MiB’s mother claims that she only came up with one name (Jacob) and doesn’t name the other baby.  And when the Mother character (also unnamed and played by West Wing alumna Allison Janney) kills Claudia (their biological mother), any chance of getting a name seemed to fly out the window.

The explanation that seems to be coming out of this is that the Man in Black simply doesn’t have a name.  It seems strange, but we’re talking about an Island where only three people exist.  There’s simply “Jacob” and the other boy.  It’s not like there would be a lot of pronounal confusion going on, especially since they all seemed, as they were growing up, that they were the only humans in existence.

Now would he have been given a name while he was living in that civilization?  Probably.  But the writers decided not to tell us, and I’m guessing they’re never going to tell us.  And, honestly, if “what is the Monster’s name?” is the biggest question that is left unanswered, I think we’ll be in great shape in two weeks.

That all being said, we did get a lot of stuff answered.  Let’s break it all down.

Is Jacob human?  Was the Monster human?

The answer to both questions is an obvious yes.  Jacob is in charge of the Island simply because he was born in the right place at the right time.  He’s not omnipotent or omnipresent, and he seems to simply be ageless as much as Richard was.  This power seems to have come from his mother, and considering what’s happened, she can only assumed to be human too.  After all, both were killed relatively easily (and in the same way).

The Monster was also human, but that question is a bit trickier.  We know that Jacob killed his brother by throwing him into that mysterious cave (more on that in a moment).  And we know that as soon as he fell into the light, the Smoke Monster emerged from the cave.

However, we aren’t really able to put two and two together to say that Jacob’s brother is the Monster.  I know we’re asking more questions in the answer, but we can’t say that definitively.  Because we know that the Monster is capable of mimicking the dead – how do we know that the Monster is regaining his old form and not simply choosing the right form to fight against the Island’s protector?  He’s done it before by mimicking John Locke – he does whatever he needs to do to escape.

Maybe the Monster is a completely different entity that simply escaped when Jacob’s brother was thrown into the cave.  Of course, maybe they’re the same creature.  There’s really no way of saying one way or the other is right at this point.

With LOST, every answer brings another question.  Mother was right.

Who are Adam and Eve?

This one is a pretty big one.  Adam and Eve were forgotten for most of the show, but they were always significant to the people that matter.  I read an interview once that said that Adam and Eve were clues that the writers threw into season one to let us know that they had a plan all along.  That, when it was all said and done, Adam and Eve would connect season one to season six.

And there were tons of theories that people had about them.  Even before time travel came to the Island, people assumed that Adam and Eve were Jack and Kate.  That they were Sun and Jin.  That they were Rose and Bernard.  These theories were played upon earlier this year when Hurley suggested that they might travel through time again and end up as Adam and Eve.

But, no.  Adam and Eve end up being the Monster and his mysterious adopted mother.  When we first saw them way back in season one, we wondered if we knew the identities of Adam and Eve.  Well, the answer is “yes” – although, it was also a lot more complicated than we originally thought.

What’s so special about this Island?

This is another one that we “kinda” answer.  Apparently, the Island is the source of the “light” in the universe.  That it’s the source of life, death, and everything in between.  It all feels a little bit Star Wars-ish, and it turned off a lot of people who don’t like the supernatural side of LOST.

So apparently this light is very important and has to be protected – that explains the role of Jacob’s adopted mother, Jacob, and his eventual successor.  Why does it need to be protected?  Man’s greed of course.  And since men keep ending up on the Island accidentally, someone has to make sure they don’t try and steal it.

What do I think of that whole premise?  I think it makes a lot of sense, story-wise.  A magic light would certainly explain a lot of the crazy things that have happened on the Island, and the scientists can explain away the “magic” side with some kind of technobabble about electromagnetism.  At the end of  the day, I don’t think it really matters.  I was hoping that the show would lean a little more towards “science” than “faith” because I’d read an interview that said that all the crazy stuff on the Island could be explained scientifically.

But the whole show is based on the idea of science versus faith.  Why is it so bad that the show straddles the line between science and magic?  After all, someone once said that science, at a certain point, becomes indistinguishable from magic.

In addition to those questions, we still have a lot of questions…mainly stemming from the characterization of Jacob.  He’s not painted in the best of light here, as he’s a bit of a momma’s boy, and he has a heck of a temper.  He attacks his brother twice in the course of the episode, and he ends up killing his brother as an act of revenge.  Not exactly “godly” works from the perceived deity of the Island.

But what’s odd is that the villain, the Monster, doesn’t fight back either time.  He seems to love his brother enough not to try and hurt him in any way.  Even when Jacob drags him to his death, the Monster never makes a move to fight back.  He does kill his adopted mother, but that’s about the only violent thing he does in the entire episode.  Most of the time, he’s simply trying to get home.

Then there’s Jacob’s view on people.  In the flashback, he seems to be anti-people.  His mother teaches him that people are trustworthy, and she even uses the same exact words that the Monster used to describe people in the season five finale.  It’s the brother who goes to live with people, although he has less-than-great things to say about them after living with them for a couple of decades.

And by the end of the episode, there’s not a whole lot that happens to change either of their minds.  The brother goes crazy when he finds his people slaughtered, but Jacob doesn’t really seem to care that their mother killed them all.  In fact, he makes almost no interaction with the people at all.

And, yet, years later, Jacob is bringing people to the Island with a huge faith in them, and it’s the Monster who kills most of them with no faith that they’re anything but violent monsters themselves.

What changed?

It’s hard to say, and I’m not even sure we’ll get the answer.  Maybe he softened on people at some point between this episode and the arrival of the Black Rock.  It’s possible that, after a couple thousand years of people arriving on the Island, he realized that we’re not all that bad.  And I guess the Man in Black, after his transformation into the black smoke, started seeing the dark side of everyone and everything.

I’m sure the last three and a half hours of the show will continue to delve into the motivations of both Jacob and the Monster.  But I think it’s safe to say that these aren’t your stereotypical depictions of good and evil.  Jacob is probably good, and the Monster is probably bad.  But I think they’re both capable of either – after all, they’re both human.

One of the things that kinda bothered me about the episode was the flashback to season one and the discovery of Adam and Eve.  This show has, for the most part, done a pretty good job of respecting the intelligence of the audience.  There have been hundreds of connections and continuity items that have been subtly done over the course of the series.  And, for the first time, the show really went out of its way to shove down our throats that these were the same Adam and Eve that we met.

And I just didn’t think that was necessary.  The people that remembered Adam and Eve on the show were almost certainly going to get it, and the people that didn’t remember probably wouldn’t have cared that much in the first place.  It just didn’t seem like LOST‘s style to be so obvious, and it felt a bit out of place.

Although the nice little subtle stuff was the idea that Jacob and the Monster both lived in the caves when they were growing up.  So when the Monster drew Jack to the caves, he actually drew Jack to his own home.   And to his own body.   That’s a pretty cool little connection, and it continues to slightly alter what really happened way back in season one.

And there you have it.  A unique episode that really showcased Jacob and the Monster, just in time for the last true hour of the show.  I can’t believe that’s all that’s left, and it’s really starting to feel real now.  Pretty soon, it will all be over, and that’s honestly a really strange feeling.

They’re no longer playing around.

I’ll be honest.  After six years of watching the show, I watched Jin, Sun, Sayid, and Lapidus die without shedding a tear.  When it was happening, three beloved characters (and a fourth main character) were killed in a matter of minutes, and it all made sense.  Sun and Jin were able to die together in a nice display of love, and after spending most of the season enveloped in the Dark Side, Sayid was able to prove himself to be a “good person” and sacrifice himself for the greater good.

But then they all reached the beach, and Hurley started to cry.  And it finally hit me.  Jin and Sun were dead.  After spending three years working to find each other, crossing through time and space, from the Island to the Real World and back again…they were dead.  Ji Yeon is left as an orphan.

And Sayid was dead.  The man who spent all this time trying to tell the world that he’s a good man – trying to tell himself that he’s a good person – and trying desperately to find happiness – finally had to sacrifice his life for all of that.  Sayid had become one of my favorite characters in years because he seemed to be the most tortured and the most complex.  And despite everything, Sayid was always willing to put the group ahead of himself (until he became “claimed” and everything changed).

Hurley has always been the soul of the show, and he simply expressed the thoughts of the group.  Three original cast members and more than a fifth of the season six main cast killed in one act of the show, so it was okay to cry.  It was okay to be sad.  Even though the deaths “made sense” and weren’t as tragic or surprising as others in the show’s history, it was still emotional to watch.  As always, it’s a good idea to follow Hurley.

Now why did they do it?  Interviews with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse explained that they needed to show the fans that the Monster was the villain.  This, of course, throws out any idea that the Man in Black is simply a misunderstood guy trying to get home.  No matter what his motivations are, the guy has done unforgiveable acts, and he’s someone who needs to be stopped.

And with only two episodes before a super-supersized finale (it’s up to two and a half hours now), it’s nice of them to go ahead and tell us that this guy is someone we should hate.  And killing Sun and Jin (Sayid was pretty much a goner either way) was the right way to do that.  They’re huge characters who have an emotional hold on fans but much smaller significance to the mythos itself.  No one ever figured that Sun or Jin would figure into the endgame so, as a writing move, it made sense to kill them off as further motivation for the fans and the characters themselves.

So where do they go from here?  The rest of the characters are probably going to side with Jack at this point, I assume.  With Kate shot and Sawyer unconscious, there’s probably not going to be a lot of complaints.  But considering how quickly the Monster was able to get through Widmore’s defenses, you have to wonder how anyone is going to be able to combat the Monster’s attacks.  How can he be stopped?

Which leaves me with two questions.  The first question is what happened to Widmore?  He had his pylons arranged around the Island to protect himself from the Monster – how was Sayid able to get through?  We know that the pylons are not only lethal to the Monster but also to humans (okay, so it didn’t kill “Patchy” Mikhail, but the characters certainly thought it did), and it didn’t look like there was any way around them on the beach of the Hydra Island.

And Widmore left some defenses around the Ajira plane (although apparently he didn’t inform them that the Monster couldn’t be killed by bullets – when are people going to learn?), but he left the sub pretty much unguarded?  It seems like Widmore’s plan involved Desmond in some way, but it doesn’t seem like he had any sort of backup plan.

And my second question is why can the Monster kill certain people (Eko, Nikki, Paolo, the Pilot, the whole crew of the Black Rock, etc) but not others (the candidates, it seems)?  It would certainly explain why certain characters (Locke and Jack) were able to miraculously escape from the Monster certain times, but what makes the candidates so special that the Monster can’t kill them?  Was it Jacob touching them?  And, if that’s the case, how is the Monster going to try and kill them now?  His “good boy” routine is obviously no longer going to work.

It definitely makes for an interesting last stretch since the On-Island cast is significantly thinned, and everyone seems to know the score at the moment.  But we certainly have a lot of Monster/Jacob/Island questions that have to be answered before we can move forward, though.

We still have Desmond out there in the well somewhere, and apparently the Richard/Ben/Miles expedition to blow up the Ajira plane didn’t work (or hasn’t arrived yet).  Because I don’t think they’re the ones who put the C4 in the plane because I don’t think the Dharma barracks had that kind of ammunition.

Two episodes left?  Even with a 150-minute finale, there seems to be a lot left to deal with.

In the flash-sideways universe, we got a bit more.  Jack is able to save Locke’s life, and Jack is even able to come up with an experimental procedure (that Locke is a “candidate” for) that could save Locke’s ability to walk.  But Locke refuses to let Jack do it.

This, of course, doesn’t sit well with Jack, who goes off to discover what makes Locke so unwilling to take a “leap of faith.”  And from alt-Bernard to alt-Anthony Cooper, Jack slowly discovers that Locke blames himself for the accident that took his legs, and Locke doesn’t want to get off from the injury that he feels is his punishment.  It’s a twisted and depressing counter to the “main” Locke’s feelings on destiny – alt-Locke seems to think that it was his destiny to be paralyzed.  So there’s no reason to fix that.

We also learn why Locke and his father are on good terms in the sideways universe.  Instead of being pushed out a window by Cooper, Locke was paralyzed in a plane crash that Locke caused.  It smelled a little bit like Boone’s accident (that crushed Boone’s leg) based on the cause of the accident and the method of it.

But it does leave the question of what happened to Anthony Cooper – we know through officer Sawyer’s investigation that Cooper was still the main suspect in the death of his parents.  So we know that, at some point, Anthony Cooper posed as Sawyer.  And if Cooper was a con man before, did he stop being a con man to be on good terms with his son?  Or was Cooper still planning to con John but didn’t get around to it?

And I’d still like to know how John and Helen met if it wasn’t at the anger management meeting.  And if it was, did John actually forgive Cooper for stealing his kidney?

We probably won’t get the answer to a lot of those questions, but it’s still fun to speculate.

The big question brought up by the sideways universe is why Jack and Locke aren’t able to see the “other” universe.  Charlie was “converted” simply by looking at Claire.  Faraday had the same thing happen when he saw Charlotte.  Desmond had to nearly drown in order to see things, and it took a kiss from Libby to change Hurley.

It seems like people who died on the Island are more easily “awakened” to the changes in the timeline, but living characters (Desmond and Hurley) have also been changed.  Heck, Sun was able to recognize Locke relatively easily, and she was also alive at the time.

So what gives?  It doesn’t have to do with living or dead characters, and it doesn’t seem to have to do with candidates or non-candidates because Hurley (candidate) and Charlie (non-candidate) were both awakened.  Jack noticed the scar on his neck, and he forgot about his appendix surgery.  He also recognized Kate at the airport, but all the interactions he’s had with Oceanic 815 passengers hasn’t really opened his eyes quite yet.

Awakening Jack and Locke is probably the key to all of this, and you have to think it will happen sooner rather than later.

So we’re closing in on the finale.  It’s going to be a bittersweet next couple of weeks, but I look forward to seeing what’s going to happen next.

This episode felt like part one of a three-part finale to me.  There isn’t a whole lot of action, but a lot of action is set up.  Almost like a game of chess, pieces are moving into place, and we’re simply waiting for one side or the other to make their first move.  The episode is also multi-centric, adding to the “finale” feel.

So after everything that’s happened in this show, everything’s going to take place on the Hydra Island?  That seems wrong to me for some reason, almost like the action is happening off-Island.  I know it’s technically the same place, but I hope that things move to the main Island before things are said and done.

It’s also odd that the confrontation seems to be between the Man in Black and Widmore, moreso than any of our main characters.  When this show first started, I assumed (and I imagine several others did the same thing) that the final confrontation would be between the survivors and the Others.  At this point, the survivors are almost bystanders in the conflict between Widmore’s men and the Monster’s men.

Of course, our main characters will obviously play into it somehow.  Sawyer’s plan to escape while the two sides are fighting doesn’t seem to be working, and Jack has hurled himself back into the middle of things.

I’m going to begin my analysis with Jack, who seems to have come out of his awkward transition from “man of science” to “man of faith” completely.  I’ve mentioned it before, but I haven’t really liked Jack’s character after he left the Island because it’s just so strange to see his character evolve so much.  The three-year jump was a lot of it, but I think they’re finally to a point where it doesn’t feel wrong anymore.

I really like the idea, though, particularly since the “science vs. faith” and “fate vs. coincidence” arguments have been around since the first season.  To see Jack picking up where Locke left off might be weird, but it’s certainly fitting for what the show has established.

And maybe it will happen later, but it’s odd that no one else had the same transition.  Despite all the crazy stuff that’s happened on the Island, no one else really has followed in John’s footsteps.  Everyone else has decided to leave the Island behind.  Even Claire, who might be the most changed is okay leaving the Island.

But you do have to wonder about Jack.  Because the episode begins with Claire telling Jack that he decided to be with the LockeMonster as soon as he let him talk (something that’s been said of both the Monster and Jacob), and it ends with the Monster saying that Jack is “with” him.

If that’s true, it paints the “get off my boat” scene a bit differently.  Because if you take that scene at face value, Jack is going back to “confront” the Monster.  Because, he’s right – if the Monster is truly evil and he wants everyone to leave…shouldn’t they stay?

But if Jack was “convinced” or “turned” or “claimed” or “recruited” – then maybe he said that but didn’t really believe it.  And maybe instead of becoming the next Jacob, Jack might be destined to become the next Monster.  Wouldn’t that be a strange twist?

So now that Desmond was “stolen” from Widmore, he sends Zoe to send the LockeMonster a message.  And that message is…we have missiles.

And I couldn’t help but laugh at that.  The guy is the smoke monster, and as far as we know, he cannot be killed by normal means.  He’s been stabbed and shot already, and he’s no worse for wear.

You can’t say that Widmore doesn’t know what he’s dealing with because he set up the sonic pylons around his base of operations because he knows the Monster can’t travel through them.  So it seems like Widmore knows exactly who he’s dealing with, and he still decided to use the missiles as some kind of trump card.

Taking out the idea that the missiles might be “special” or “magic”, is there a chance that the Monster isn’t allowed to leave alone?  So maybe Widmore’s backup plan is simply to kill everyone on the Island and leave the Monster all by himself.  Because outside of that, I just can’t believe that Widmore thought the missiles would have any effect on the Monster itself.

So now Sawyer’s group (which includes Kate, Sun, Lapidus, and Claire) is at Hydra Island, but they’ve been taken prisoner by Widmore’s men.  It’s interesting that Widmore would back out of his deal with Sawyer – not because it was backed out because Widmore can’t be trusted but why he backed out is interesting.  Did they assume that it was some kind of attempted invasion?  Or did they assume that Sawyer showing up meant Desmond was dead?

Like I said earlier, we know where the Monster and Widmore stand, but we don’t really know the role of our main characters.  We will obviously find out soon enough.

Speaking of Desmond, he begins the episode in the same well that the Monster threw him in last week.  And ever since coming out of the flash-sideways universe, Desmond has had a strange sense of calm.  Zoe even threw out the theory that their device had fried his brain because of the way he was acting.

When Widmore wanted to go ahead with his plan, Desmond smiled and went along.  When Sayid wanted to take him to the other Island, Desmond smiled and went along.  And even when the Monster took Desmond to the well, he simply smiled and went along.  The Monster questioned him on his lack of fear, and Desmond responded that there was no sense in being afraid.

And I figured that Desmond has some kind of flash about what was going to happen.  That he knew the end game and all of the stops along the way, and that explained why he wasn’t worried about anything.  He knew he’d be kidnapped, knew he’d be taken to the Monster, and knew he’d be thrown down in the well.

But when Sayid comes to kill him, Desmond isn’t calm anymore.  He seems sad and/or worried as he questions Sayid about what he’s about to do.  It could possibly be that Desmond is simply playing his part in this (and that he’s supposed to be scared), or it’s possible that Desmond wasn’t as much “scared” as he was “injured.”  Either way, he didn’t seem like a guy who knew what was about to happen.

Did Sayid kill Desmond?  I doubt it.  Desmond is much too important to just kill off, particularly off screen, and he’s still going to have a role in the end game.

But I couldn’t believe that the Monster simply took Sayid’s word for it when he was told that Desmond was dead.  Here is a guy who can potentially throw the Monster’s whole plan off – Widmore’s secret weapon – and the Monster doesn’t want to check?  I couldn’t believe that, especially since the Monster can just turn to smoke and cover great distances in just a few seconds.

Now there does seem to be some kind of issue with actually killing Desmond.  Because if the Monster wanted Desmond killed, he could’ve easily done it himself.  Unless there’s some kind of rule against killing certain people – and remember that the mysterious boy told the Monster that he “can’t kill him.”

The only story that was left off this week was Richard’s small group trying to blow up the Ajira plane.  I wonder if they’ll go back and follow that team to the Dharma Barracks, or if they’ll just show up on Hydra Island with explosives.  As I’ve said, we’ll know it all soon enough.

In the flash-sideways universe, everyone seems to be coming together.  Like I said earlier, this was a multi-centric episode that focused on the different “candidates” ending up in the same place.

- Sawyer ends up with Kate at the police station.  They flirt, and Kate tries to bargain her way out of going to jail with the information that Sawyer was in Australia.  So far, it doesn’t work.  Sawyer then goes and arrests Sayid, who will also probably end up at the police station.

- Sun, Jin, Jack, and Locke (and maybe Ben, who came to the hospital with Locke) all end up at the hospital.  Three of the six main candidates end up in the hospital, with Jack doing surgery on Locke and Sun recovering from her gunshot wound.

- Claire and Desmond end up at the law office of Ilana, who is in charge of settling Christian Shephard’s will.  Two notes – Jack finds out that Claire is his half-sister in the flash-sideways universe and we still haven’t seen John Terry (the actor that plays Christian) this season.

The only unaccounted-for person is Hurley, who is presumably with Libby somewhere.

So everyone is coming together, and we get another glimpse of the “main” universe when Sun sees Locke with a terrified look.  It’s unknown, at this point, the significance of the alternate universe, but you have to think it means more than simply showing people that fate was supposed to bring them together.

Also, with Jack about to work on Locke, it paints a slightly-less malicious picture of Desmond’s hit and run.  Jack should be able to save John, and there’s an odd chance that Jack will correct John’s spine entirely.

What’s funny about it is that Desmond is acting a lot like Jacob in the other universe.  Desmond’s encounters with the other survivors are brief but meaningful, and they’re similar to Jacob’s meetings with the survivors in the original timeline.  I wonder if Desmond has replaced Jacob in the flash-sideways universe, and if so, is he a candidate in the main one?

And before I leave, there were two big events in the episode.  The first is that Jin and Sun are back together after three years apart.  Unfortunately, Jin and Sun have already had a meaningful reunion (after Jin returned from the disastrous raft trip), and this didn’t seem to have the same impact that it should have.  But it’s still nice to see them together again.

Then there’s the revelation that the Monster was Christian Shephard all along.  It’s not a huge revelation because we already knew that he’d portrayed other dead people.  It’s still nice to finally have official confirmation that Christian Shephard is dead and probably has no connection with the Island outside of being Jack’s dad.  That also might be why we haven’t seen him.

It doesn’t bring up the question of how Jack saw Christian off-Island after the rescue of the Oceanic Six.  Was that just a vision, or did the Monster find a way to show himself to Jack?  If that’s the case, is that something he can do while still “trapped” on the Island?

So just three episodes left, and the lines are being drawn.  It’s almost over, folks.  Enjoy it while it lasts.

When the show first launched in the fall, I wasn’t all that aware of the book, both because I don’t read a lot of sci-fi and because, let’s face it, until the show, the book was pretty obscure. ABC didn’t set out to adapt a beloved classic. But I was curious, and figured I could string along reading the book pretty much throughout the first season of the show, to see how similar or diverging the experiences would be. I quickly learned that the cast of characters and the basic narrative scenario were different indeed, though most of the elements were necessarily the same, from the blackout and visions to a central character learning that he was destined to die.

Where the series has increasingly relied on an extensive cast and an unfolding mystery, the book quickly set about explaining how those responsible for the event had to resolve its consequences for themselves. Set at the labs of CERN (seen in the movie ‘Angels and Demons,’ for those better versed in pop culture than science), we follow the exploits and guilt of Lloyd Simcoe and Theo Procopides as they attempt to confirm their responsibility for the blackouts, and then the decision to replicate the experiment that made it possible. The book follows and tracks the consequences of the original catastrophe a lot more directly than the TV show, which seems more interested in the human impact (hence the increased emphasis on things like the Mosaic Project, which exists in both versions, and the larger cast) and seeing just how mysterious the mystery can be (which is not to concede Mineart’s point, but rather to assist in my greater argument).

Eventually, since most of the book consists of a few days immediately following the blackouts as everyone scrambles to figure things out, the science is confirmed and causality begins to be explored a little more fully. Lloyd has a marriage he commits to after everyone begins suspecting the future they saw is mutable, thanks to such developments as Theo’s brother killing himself rather than continue with a life he wasn’t pleased to see a glimpse of (another ripple between book and TV versions, which was a key development for the show that made me a fan, but in the book, reads a little too deliberately). Like the title and like what ABC must have been thinking, thanks to ‘Lost’ (where “flashforward” became a hot term a few seasons ago, conveniently enough, but in vastly different context), the book takes a leap into the twenty year in the future (rather than a few months as presented in the show) and sees how some things have fallen exactly as “predicted,” such as the end of Lloyd’s marriage, and even Theo’s murder, except that much is avoided after still more complicated science is explained. Let’s just say Sheldon Cooper from ‘The Big Bang Theory’ would either really love all this theoretical physics, or hate it. Probably love it.

Sawyer writes like a proper descendent of Arthur C. Clarke, whose ‘Space Odyssey’ books were among the last real sci-fi that I read, about six years ago. He focuses more on science than he does characters, about the possibilities and scenarios. Though he spends a lot of time on Lloyd and Theo, they never really leave reaction mode. It all feels fairly static, which is no real surprise when he moves into ‘2012’ territory (the movie, not the predictions we’re all going to laugh about in a little under two years), very briefly and in cursory fashion, when he allows us a glimpse into the future as only a textbook can describe it, as only fans of “hard sci-fi” would appreciate it, the same people who look at global warming and see it as an unavoidable catastrophe, who fail to see the variables in the experiment where constants are important, but not everything, not what we’re all investigating, the thing called life.

None of this is an actual failing on Sawyer’s part. It’s an easily readable book, and certainly relevant to those watching the show that it inspired, which has taken any number of detours from the original plot. Like ‘Lost,’ the point isn’t just to explore a mystery, but to explore its impact on people. ‘FlashForward’ as a show was intended to capitalize on the craze ‘Lost’ inspired, but it was also a reaction, a “mystery” show with serialized content that wants to give the audience a chance to keep pace while at the same time leading them along. ‘Heroes’ was an attempt to do that, and at first quite successful at it. ‘FlashForward’ as a TV show, with the knowledge that it has also been a book, is a little more transparent, at once declaring itself as a mystery, but also representing a fair amount of known content, no matter what diversions take place.

Having made the decision to finish the book well in advance of the season finale, I know what a second and third replication mean, what’s learned in one version and where the story goes with the overall narrative, to fairly expansive speculation that isn’t seen all that often, either in books (so far as I know, or care) or, certainly, television, ‘FlashForward’ is a big idea, no matter the version, in much the same sense ‘Lost’ has been. The show isn’t just an attempt to cash in on a trend, because it was a book first, and it’s this strange, almost unprecedented nature that helps to set it apart.

At the end of the book is an eventuality that readers could easily have seen coming, which is almost a disappointment, but it is never represented as a direct consequence of the titular event. It is, whatever else it is, a nice surprise for two of its central characters, one of whom has survived any number of convoluted circumstances to reach it. It is a happy ending, and one that has nothing to do with a sci-fi gimmick. In that sense, it reflects exactly on what the series made of the story.

I’ll start my review with the death of Ilana, and then I’m going to move on.  Why?  Because that’s basically what the show did.  It felt like Ilana got less respect than Nikki and Paolo, and that’s saying a lot because those characters were universally despised.

Because Ilana never got her own episode, with her brief flashback (shown twice) only being shown in others’ episodes.  And her death didn’t even come at the end of an act, and heck, it didn’t even come right before a commercial break.

She blew up, and the story continued.  The only eulogy she got was a few sarcastic remarks from Ben, who still hasn’t found his place in the new group.  You have to wonder if he’s reconsidering the Monster’s offer at the moment.

See, I’ve already moved on.  But to give Ilana her due, I’ll say that I never minded her character.  I’m still intrigued by Ilana’s people, who seem to follow Jacob without actually being on the Island.  I’d like to know more about this group, but with Ilana dead, all of them are most likely dead.  I guess there’s still a chance of a flashback, a sighting in the flash-sideways universe, or an appearance to Hurley.  But, for the most part, their story is basically closed.

But Ilana’s death was just one of three pretty big WTF moments in the episode, and it wasn’t something I was expecting from a Hurley episode.  But after years of tagging along, Hurley is given a chance to lead.  And he gets the respect of Jack, which goes a long way to affirming his new role on the Island.

I’ve heard a lot of people claiming that Hurley will end up being the new Jacob, and it seems to be going that way.  Jack seems to be the logical choice (his name is even similar), but Hurley is definitely the dark horse.  For most of the series, he’s straddled the line between believing in the power of the Island and not believing.  And while a lot of bad things have happened to him, Hurley is one of the better people on the Island.

Then there’s flash-sideways Hurley, who a lot of people claim acts very Jacob-like.  He did help Locke get a job almost immediately, and he helped Desmond find his luggage.  There’s a thought that Hurley is visiting the other survivors (like Jacob did), but this episode doesn’t really support that.  Because, for the most part, Hurley spends the majority of his time completely in the dark.

I’ve been so impressed by this season, but one of the best things they’ve done is use guest characters correctly.  Whether it be Daniel or Charlotte or Charlie, I just think they’ve done a great job bringing these characters back in the right way.  Because while it’s definitely cool to see Michael and Libby come back, having them come back in the right way makes things so much cooler.

Because I’d forgotten that Hurley never got to deal with Michael about the death of Libby.  Michael escaped into the jungle before Libby’s body was found, and Hurley never made it to the freighter upon Michael’s return to the Island.  So, even though it happened four seasons ago, it’s still something that was never resolved.  And I thought it was so great that they were able to get all those feelings back, from the shock of the double murder to the joy of seeing Libby and Hurley together again.

And it seems like the one thread above all in the flash-sideways universe is love – it’s the love between Charlie and Claire that opened Charlie’s eyes.  Desmond’s love for Penny and Daniels’ love for Charlotte opened their eyes, and Hurley’s love for Libby did the same for him.  Kate and Jack, who had their own love affair, also recognized each other – meaning that something as strong as love is the only thing powerful enough to bridge the gap between the universes.

It was definitely nice to see Libby again, and I liked that she and Hurley were able to get together again.  But I guess the whole point of the other universe is “what if?” and that’s a great one to explore.  We also get to see more of Libby in the mental institution, getting us towards the answer to one of the bigger questions that were left unanswered.

Then, there’s sideways-Desmond, who picks up right where he left off.  He’s able to visit Hurley in the middle of the episode, doing for Hurley what Charlie had done for him.  It leads to Hurley’s awakening, and I’m really glad that the writers touched on this.  Because I thought that was a really cool little idea they were going with.

But then there was the ending to the episode, where Desmond tracks down Locke.  You see Desmond waiting outside the school (after a small scene where Ben basically accuses him of being a child molester), and you just assume that Desmond has found his next target.

But then he speeds up and hits Locke with his car, leaving John seriously injured.  In fact, if you look at it, Locke looks almost exactly the way he did at the beginning of his first centric episode (“Walkabout”).  And, you should know by now, that’s not a coincidence.

Why did Desmond do it?  I have a few theories, and I’ll go over them quickly before we move to the events on the Island this week.

My first thought is that Desmond was able to see the Monster in Locke and took action.  I’m guessing he saw flashes of Locke on the Island (as the Monster), and he knew he had to get rid of this person for the good of the world.  He even could’ve seen the Monster throw him down the well, and he was doing it to get even.

The other idea is that Desmond has been “claimed” or maybe even taken over by the Monster.  We know that the Island is at the bottom of the ocean, and that could mean that the “wine bottle” has been broken.  If that’s the case, the Monster could be released on the world and anything could be possible.  Desmond could’ve tried to kill Locke so that the Monster could take over again.

The other idea is that Desmond was trying to heal Locke – that, somehow, the hit-and-run would do what the Island did and heal Locke’s spine.  The only reason I say that is that it’s so similar to the opening shot of “Walkabout” – which signified Locke’s healing.

I guess we’ll find out, but it definitely makes Desmond seem more mysterious.

On the Island, as I’ve already discussed, Hurley takes steps to take command of Jacob’s group.  In a lot of ways, it makes sense because Hurley is Jacob’s new version of Richard – a go-between for him and the other survivors on the Island.

Hurley struggles with this at first, particularly because it’s not something he’s used to doing, and people don’t really expect it from him.  But I think he’s suited for the role, and I’m glad that Jack, Sun, and Lapidus went with him.

I was also really glad that Hurley finally blew up the Black Rock.  It was becoming a bit of a “deus ex machina” because they’ve gone there for dynamite so many times.  Arzt and Ilana both died because of it, and it’s the way that Richard chose to kill himself.  I leaned over to my friend during the show and said they need to stop doing that before everyone dies.  Hurley finally makes sure that’s no longer an issue.

But it also splits the group in two, as Ben and Miles go with Richard to find other explosives to blow up the Ajira plane.  Hurley decides to lead the rest to the LockeMonster to talk things over.

And that’s a huge victory for the Monster, who now has almost every candidate on the Island.  The only person he’s missing, now, is Jin, and I’m sure that’s what next week’s episode will deal with.  As Hurley’s group arrives at the LockeMonster’s camp, he gives a wicked little smile because his plan is working.

He’s probably also smiling because he thinks he’s taken care of his biggest challenger.  Sayid brings back a captured Desmond, and the LockeMonster is intrigued by the idea that Desmond has been shot up with electromagnetism seems to worry him.  I’m not sure if the Monster already knows Widmore’s plan, but he quickly takes care of him by throwing Desmond down a well.

I thought the scene with Desmond and the Monster at the well was a strong one, and I continue to be very impressed by Terry O’Quinn’s acting this season.  If he doesn’t get Emmy consideration, I’d be very surprised and pretty upset because I think he deserves it.

So where does all this leave us with only four episodes to go before the finale?  The Monster has almost everyone to go, and with the only remaining person in the care of Charles Widmore…you have to think that the confrontation between those forces is coming up pretty soon.

Widmore, meanwhile, has lost his secret weapon, but he’s still heavily armed and defended with his sonic pylons.  And Richard has Ben and Miles with him as they travel to the Dharma Barracks to continue their quest to blow up the plane.

It seems like it’s all going to go down pretty soon on Hydra Island, as the pieces continue to fall into place.  We’ll see soon enough.