That makes two very good season finales this week. Lost was more plot-focused, while Heroes was more character-focused.
And we learned some very interesting things about the fate of the islanders.
Spoilers follow.
.
.
.
So, this season we learned:
- How the Others are connected to the Dharma Initiative
- How Locke was paralyzed, and why he can walk again
- Some of what the Others are doing on the island, including why they kidnapped Claire
- The father of Sun’s baby
- The identity of the real Sawyer
- The fate of (most of) the Dharma Initiative
- We know at least some of the castaways will return to the outside world.
We also saw the resolution of a number of conflicts: The Kate/Jack/Sawyer triangle finally resolved into Kate/Sawyer. Rousseau and Alex finally met, uniting mother and daughter for the first time since birth. Charlie came to terms with his life (which, unfortunately, seems to be the kiss of death on this show). Penelope knows Desmond is on the island, and the islanders contacted the outside world.
Some unanswered questsions:
- Who was in the casket? I’m betting on either Sawyer or Locke, going by it being someone clearly important to Jack and Kate.
- What’s Naomi’s group really doing? Why is Ben afraid of them finding the island? And how did she end up with the picture of Desmond and Penny?
- What is Jacob? A ghost? How is he connected to Locke, Ben, and the Island? What’s his agenda?
It’s a shame to lose Charlie, but his death was at least handled well. He went out a hero, saving Desmond’s life and leaving him a message.
It was great to see Hurley save the day. I was also really worried about Bernard and Jin (not so much about Sayid). Think about it: You’ve got, what four couples among the group (assuming people know about Kate and Sawyer), and you stick three of the men on the dangerous missions? (I kept thinking of the “let us not waste lives” line from Les Miserables, when the students realize that no one is rising up to join the revolt, and Enjolras sends away everyone who has family.)
We both had the flashes pegged as possibly future pretty early on. I think the beard was the first clue, followed by Jack apparently being well-known already. The RAZR phone clinched it for me, and Katie ran the name of the funeral parlor against the anagram server and came up with “flash forward.” Then there was the structure: it actually felt like the island scenes, or at least the ones with Jack, were flashbacks from the city scenes.
That seems to be the “game-changing” element to the episode: We know they’ll get home (and possibly very soon). More importantly, it opens up the format. They can mix flashbacks with flash forwards. They can run a parallel narrative of the time on the island with future Jack and his companions trying to get back. They can even pick things up in the future (well, more likely it’s our present), and flash back to the island.
7-8 months until next season. *sigh*
Great season finale! Definitely some wicked mind games. Haven’t quite figured out where they are going, so it has accomplished it’s goal. That is -keeping me tuned in when the next season starts. I liked the end. I have been reading that the castaways are in some kind of weird time loop maybe. Because remember when Charlie heard that the computer was programmed by a musician? Like some kind of weird Deja Vu? Also, I heard somewhere that Charlie had his contract extended till the end of the show. I don’t know if that means anything, and what we saw last night might not be the end of the story for Charlie?
From the newspaper clipping, it looks like the dead person’s name begins with a ‘J’, but their last name seems to end with “-antham.”
This could be a pseudonym, but since I’d prefer for both Sawyer and Locke to survive the entirety of the show, I’m hoping it refers to someone we haven’t met yet.
For all we know, they’ll be spending plenty more time on the island before the events of the flash forward… plenty of time to introduce J. -antham…
More unanswered questions:
-Surely the dharma initiative had contacts (at the very least within the Hanso foundation) off the island. What have they been up to since the purge?
-Does Naomi’s group have any relation to that?
-Jack mentioned to Kate that he’s “sick of lying.” Is this related to the apparent lie about everyone aboard 815 having died? He’s still using his own name to pick up prescription drugs, so he’s not keeping his survival secret, and the new doctor at his hospital said he was a hero “twice.” Was that a reference to the number of people he pulled from the car, or to his leadership on the island?
The more I think about it, I suspect that Locke will refuse to leave when rescue finally comes.
And there’s clearly some faction of Dharma still active. Someone’s continued the supply drops, and unless Kelvin was an Other all along, they kept the Swan station running. Though depending on when the purge happened, it’s likely the Swan was just isolated enough that the Others didn’t worry about them, and Dharma couldn’t contact them.
My take on the “sick of lying” line, and Jack being a hero twice, was that the world knew the basics—they survived the crash, he led them in both staying alive and finding a way to contact rescue—but there were significant details that they had agreed not to tell anyone. The nature of the island, or the conflict with the Others, perhaps.
Nice take on the final episode.
Biggest mystery is how the Others got all those weapons and how they got their military training.
Juliet, for example, did not seem able to throw a punch when she got onto the island and yet 3 years later was as proficent as a Navy SEAL.
And who are the original Others (the guy from Suddenly Susan et al.) and why were they on the island in the first place. They all speak US-accented English. Are they Americans?