The Sci Fi Guy

Well, ABC’s Lost has had some cliffhanger finales in the past, and this one is defintely on par with the previous two.

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen the Lost Season 3 Finale, you might not want to read the rest of this post!

To backtrack a little, we have essentially 3 simultaneous stories to follow coming in to the finale: Jack & the main group of survivors heading up to the radio tower to disable Russo’s message, Sayid, Bernard, and Jin staying back to ambush the Others that are trying to kidnap the women of the island, and Charlie & Desmond’s quest to disable the radio jammer.

The finale began with Jack on an airplane, sporting a beard to rival George Clooney’s in Syriana. He is obviously shaken up and trying his hardest to get another drink, when the stewardess hands him a newspaper. He reads a headline that obviously affects him, although there’s no revelation of what that headline is. He touches down in Los Angeles, and drives around, eventually reaching a bridge (which, to me looked like one of the Long Beach Port bridges, but perhaps that’s just my affinity to Long Beach). He makes a phone call, and then gets out of his truck and stands on one of the sides of the bridge - about to commit suicide. Suddenly a car screeches behind him, and an enormous accident occurs - to which Jack runs to help.

Returning to the island, the characters are all essentially rip roaring ready to go on their adventures. Charlie is getting beat the hell up by the two women, who break their “radio silence” with Ben to communicate Charlie’s appearance. Apparently, all the Others thought the Looking Glass Dharma Station was flooded, and as Ben has to admit the situation, it becomes apparent that his leadership is based on quite a few lies and mysteries to his force of Others. He send Mikhail to the Looking Glass to stop Charlie and to regain control.

Meanwhile, we get some more flashbacks, including Jack in the hospital being stitched up and his ex-wife showing up in the ER. His ex-wife is pregnant, and when he asks for a lift home she says it “wouldn’t be appropriate,” and Jack carries on without her. It was a strange cameo, to say the least - I’m not sure if we were supposed to infer anything more from that interaction.

On the island, the ambush of the Others goes 70% right and 30% wrong. Unfortunately, they needed 100% success to pull it off, and Jin, Sayid, and Bernard are now the unhappy hostages of the 3 others that they weren’t able to kill. One thing about this episode, it actually reinforced some of the characters’ strength. Sayid tells Jack earlier that he’s willing to die to ensure the rest could be rescued from the Island, and Charlie even admits his acceptance of his future watery-grave to his captors.

As the main contingent of survivors walks towards the radio tower, Kate decides she wants to head back to help rescue the hostages (even though they don’t know for certain that rescue or help is an option). Sawyer, meanwhile, has obviously been a different man since he was given the opportunity to kill the real Sawyer (Locke’s “father”). There’s a lot of tension between Kate & Sawyer, and finally he approaches Jack in an effort to return to the beach to attempt a rescue. Juliet chimes in that she can show him the way to a cache of firearms, so she invites herself along too. Kate tries to come along, but both Sawyer and Jack won’t let her. Shortly the clearest answer yet from Jack emerges. When Kate asks him why Jack was so quick to concur with Sawyer, Jack responds simply, “I love you,” and walks away. Thank god that cat is finally out of the bag!

Anyways. So, where was I? Right - so Charlie had knocked Desmond out, and Des wakes up on the canoe. Suddenly bullets start whizzing past him as Mikhail is trying to shoot him from the shore; so Des jumps in to the water and dives down to the Looking Glass. When he arrives, the two captors are having a chat behind closed doors, so Des is able to find a hiding place until his chance arrives. Some time passes, and Mikhail arrives in scuba gear. He gets on the horn with Ben, and Ben convinces him to kill the women and keep that jammer running.

So many stories going on at once! So now Ben is walking to meet the main survivors on their way to the radio tower to talk them out of contacting the ship. Sawyer, Juliet, and Hurley are on their way to save the hostages on the beach, and Charlie is still held captive with Desmond waiting for his time to save him.

Returning to the flashbacks, Jack’s job is on the line as his drinking and pain-killer drug use gets worse. He visits a funeral home (apprently in a Los Angeles ghetto?) to respond to whatever he read in the paper. The casket is closed, and no name is provided by the funeral attendant. Jack walks up to the casket, doesn’t reveal a thing! and walks away.

Meanwhile, on the island, Ben intercepts Jack on the island and tries to talk him in to handing over the sat-phone, with the argument that Naomi is not from a rescue unit, but rather part of the “bad guys” that, when they arrive, will kill every “living person” on the island. I don’t know if there was anything to catch in adding the “living” on there, but I caught it anyways. To attempt to persuade Jack, Ben contacts the beach and tells the remaning Others to kill them - and Jack is forced to let the walkie talkie announce 3 gunshots (presumably the death of Sayid, Bernard, and Jin. Then Jack pummels the hell out of Ben, and brings him back to the group and starts getting on the move.

Meanwhile, down at the Looking Glass station, Mikhail had previously gotten the order to kill the women and secure the station for himself. He shoots and kills one of the women, and wounds the other one, and as he’s about to make the kill shot - Desmond emerges and shoots him with a speargun. Now Charlie must get the code to disable the jammer - to which the dying woman states it’s the key-tone combination that creates the notes to “Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys” Interestingly, she also states that it was programmed by a musician, which makes us wonder - as the only certified musician on the survivors, was Charlie’s appearance at the Looking glass even more fate than just Desmond’s prediction.

Back at the beach, Hurley saves the day by driving the VW bus and surprising the Others, letting Sawyer and Juliet rescue the hostages. And Jack and Russo disable her radio signal.

Okay, now the big reveals:

• Mikhail is essentially immortal, as far as I can tell. He disappears from the Looking Glass’ moon pool (after being shot by a freakin spear gun!), only to set a hand grenade outside of the room Charlie was in. However, that’s not before Charlie was able to disable the jammer to reveal: Penny! Desmond’s lady luck is live on the air and she reveals a startling bit of knowledge: The ship off the coast is not hers, and Naomi is not one of her team. The grenade explodes, and Charlie is forced to shut himself in the room - sealing his fate just as Desmond had predicted. But before he can drown, he writes one final message to Desmond - “NOT PENNY’S BOAT”. And then Charlie drowns, trapped in the room exactly as Desmond had envisioned.

• Locke is essentially immortal too! After being shot and lying on the mass Dharma grave, he awakens to find that his legs aren’t working again. He finds a gun and immediately tries to kill himself (second suicide attempt in the episode by the way). Before he can put the gun to himself, he is visited again by a voice and character long since forgotten: Walt. Walt tells John that he has things to do, and that his legs are fine.

Naomi announces that the satellite phone works, and she dials to the outside world, but then is suddenly shot. Lo and behold, Locke has arrived, and aims the gun at Jack as the satellite phone continues to ring unanswered. Locke threatens that he’ll kill Jack, but as Jack picks up the phone, Locke lowers his gun - he can’t kill his friend. A voice answers, and Jack joyfully announces to the person on the other end that they’re the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, and asks if they can triangulate their position (which they respond that they can). Are they truly a rescue? According to Ben they’re not, and Penny had told Charlie that it wasn’t her boat either (even though Naomi had a copy of the famous Desmond and Penny picture, and also knew who Desmond and Penny are).

• And of course, the super-reveal. Jack makes a phone call, asking someone to meet him even though they obviously asked that he not call them. He arrives at an airport, and another car pulls forward. A woman gets out and walks to Jack.
  It’s Kate.
  It’s not a flashback. It’s a flash-forward. These two are off the island.
  Jack tells Kate that he’s been using the “Golden Pass” that he recieved (obviously some form of reimbursement for their crash) to fly out of LA every Friday night to travel to destinations across the Pacific, in the hopes that the plane would crash and he would be returned to the island. Kate tells Jack that she has to get back “to him” - are we left to infer that off the island Kate is with Sawyer? Or someone else? Jack can’t stand the world - he is miserable that he was taken off the island, and yearns to return there. We still don’t know who was in the coffin, but one potential is that it was actually Ben’s funeral. Jack might have been the only one to attend under the circumstances as we see them presently.

So, there you have it. The finale ends with Charlie dead, Penny is alive and still trying to contact the island, Naomi is shot (and presumably dead), Locke is alive, Walt is still in some way on the island (although it could be a familiar form for Locke and the character is actually Jacob), rescue is presumed to be coming, and they have communication abilities. Oh, and lets not forget that we’re being told what future is in store for Jack and Kate.

I was left pretty satisified with the episode. Cliffhanger as it was - it provided a new direction for the survivors and made it very clear that the future of Lost will not be the same as the past. Too many cats are out of the bag - including now the ability to communicate with the outside world. However, there’s plenty of questions left outstanding. My top 5 questions are:

• Does Naomi’s rescue mission mean a new enemy is approaching?
• Is Jack’s fate sealed by the flash-forward that we viewed? Is it a possible future - and not the future?
• Now that Charlie is dead, are Desmond’s predictive powers gone?
• Who was in the casket?
• What is Walt? There have only been a couple characters that have seen visions of other people from their past - as far as I can recall it’s Locke (of Walt), Jack (of his dad), and Hurley (of the guy from the insane asylum).

I’ll be sure to update this post as I find some other information from other fansites - especially the all-important easter eggs.

Edit: For those looking for some of the easter eggs, there’s the great Lost Easter Egg screencap site: http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/

Here’s some of the latest rumors that I’ve been able to find:

Apparently, the newspaper that Jack is handed is a modified copy of an actual LA times newspaper from April 6, 2007 (that’s right - present time). So, it appears that the flash-forward is actually the “present day” of our stories. The contents of the obituary mention seem to have many people thinking that the name mentioned is Jeremy Bentham, a reference to an 18th century philosopher.

Other connections to philosophers include: John Locke (another philosopher’s name) as well as Desmond Hume which might be a reference to David Hume, another philosopher. To make Jeremy Bentham’s connection even more intriguing is the notion that he theorized the Panopticon, “the concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not, thus conveying a “sentiment of an invisible omniscience.” In his own words, Bentham described the Panopticon as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.”

• Was this the creator of the island? The founder of the Dharma institue? If so, the name would be fitting - and Jack would be maddened by the fact that it would’ve been one of the only people potentially left alive who would know where the island is.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 9:50 am and is filed under Science Fiction Television, Lost. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.