While last year’s season finale ranks among the best ever cliffhangers in television history, tonight’s two-hour finale was a little rough along the edges. That doesn’t mean that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse haven’t done it again, because they have, and the proof is in the number of “holy crap” moments that took place throughout the final twenty minutes of the episode. Instead of deconstructing the entire episode, however, I’ve decided to mix things up by focusing my attention on six events that everyone will be talking about tomorrow morning.
1) Sayid, Jin and Bernard’s sneak attack on the Others
I actually thought that Ben would radio his team to warn them of a possible attack after he discovered that Juliet had betrayed him, but the attack went off without a hitch. Well, sort of. Both Sayid and Bernard hit their targets dead-on, killing five of the Others, while Jin’s aim was a little off. He did manage to kill two more with his pistol before all three survivors were captured by the remaining Others: Ryan, Tom and some random dude.
2) Locke is still alive
This was a bit of a given, since we all know that Locke plays a major part in the good vs. evil dynamic between him and Jack. Of course, I wasn’t expecting a vision of Walt to be the thing that motivates him to live on, but Locke still seems to believe that he has a purpose on the island and he’s not about to give up now. On a completely unrelated note, I totally forgot how bad of an actor that kid who plays Walt is. It’s probably a good thing that we don’t have to see him on a weekly basis anymore.
3) Charlie talks to Penny
This is definitely one of the biggest revelations of the episode. After punching in the code to disarm whatever was jamming the radio signals, Charlie receives a video transmission from Penny. Not only does she know that Desmond is on the island and alive, but she also knows that the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 are there as well. This will no doubt lead to the arrival of the “real” rescue team later in the show’s run. (More on this later)
4) Charlie makes the ultimate sacrifice
This one hurt the most to watch. I actually believed that Charlie was going to make it out alive (especially after him and Desmond found diving equipment for the both of them), but then that damn Mikhail had to foil our hero’s plans yet again (is that guy made out of metal or what?). When he discharged a grenade from outside the station, I actually said “What the fuck?” so loud that it woke my girlfriend in the other room. Of course, Charlie could have easily saved himself by running out of the transmission area and closing the door behind, but as we’ve learned from other season finales this week, sometimes the writers would rather make a ridiculous sacrifice instead of just being reasonable. And so Charlie, one of my favorite characters, is no longer. It won’t lead me to stop watching the show (especially now that we know only three more seasons remain), but it is enough for me to hold a three-year grudge against the writers of the show. Shame on you for killing Charlie; especially when it appears it was all for nothing. Well, I guess it wasn’t for nothing. Desmond knows that Naomi’s boat isn’t the rescue team they believed it to be, but will he relay the message to Jack and the other survivors in time?
5) Hurley the hero
Gotta hand it to the guy. Dude saved Sawyer and Juliet’s lives; not to mention the other three (Jin, Sayid and Bernard), who were being prepared for execution by Tom. When he rode on to the beach in that VW van and smashed into Ryan, it left me with the biggest smile on my face. It only got better as Sayid snapped that random dude’s neck with his legs, and then Sawyer shot Tom point blank in the chest. “That’s for taking the kid off the raft.” Classic stuff, and I’m glad that Sawyer finally seems fed up with giving these assholes countless second chances.
6) Future Jack wants back
I was saving the best for last as this is most likely the “rattlesnake in the mailbox” that Lindelof and Cuse were talking about during an interview earlier in the week. Styled as a typical flashback involving Jack dealing with some serious emotional issues, he’s driven to kill himself when he finds a newspaper clipping about a death to someone he knows. It’s never mentioned who, but that’s not really the point. By the end of the flashback, Jack calls who appears to be Sarah (his ex-wife) to meet him at the airport, but when the mystery guest arrives, it’s Kate. Yeah, that Kate. It wasn’t a flashback at all, but rather a flash-forward into the future. Jack doesn’t discuss how they got off the island, but he wants to go back. He seems to think they were never supposed to leave the island in the first place (sound a little like someone else we know?), and he’s been flying every week with the hope that he’ll crash again. So, do our survivors really get off the island, or is this future meeting all just taking place in Jack’s head?
The rest of the episode had some other great moments (like Jack beating the shit out of Ben, Kate pondering pregnancy, and Locke killing Naomi with a knife to the back), but none are worthy of serious commentary. Instead, think about this: it wouldn’t be “Lost” if they didn’t actually stay lost for the remainder of the series, so even if they do finally make it off the island in the end, it’s definitely not going to happen any time soon.
