The Lost crew produced their best season finale to date with a breathtaking double header that as always provided more questions than answers, 2 major deaths, 2 unconfirmed deaths, violence, humour and terrific action.
As expected the likeable Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan) drowned in the Looking Glass Station just as Desmond had predicted. This was apparently a double death as eyepatch wearing Other Mikhail was surely decimated in the process after letting off a hand grenade on the outside of the station. I say 'apparently' because we have seen the dogged Russian perish before only for him to make an unexpected comeback.
Therefore the first major question from the finale must be: Is Mikhail really dead? If we had to bet on it then I would say 'yes' but you just never know with Lost.
In fact Desmond was the only character to make it out of The Looking Glass alive after Mikhail also wasted fellow Others Bonnie and Greta after getting the order from Ben.
One other who definitely won't make it to season 4 is that lovable rascal Tom (the only Other to appear 'alive' in all 3 seasons so far). Sawyer finally got to fire a bullet into 'Zeke' after a remarkable surprise attack from Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes. To recap, Tom and two of his renegades had Sayid, Bernard and Jin tied up on the beach (Sayid's ambush predictably didn't work) and were in the mood for revenge after Sayid and co had taken out and impressive 7 of the 10 Others with the old dynamite trick (the third stick didn't blow which led to Tom's survival). Sawyer and Juiliette had returned to the beach sensing the plan hadn't worked and had previously told Hurley he wasn't welcome. While Sawyer and Juiliette hid in the bushes, Hurley steamed in driving the Dharma edition VW Camper and killed Ryan Price while Sayid took care of the un-named other with a leg sweep and subsequent neck break. That just left poor old Tom who surrendered. Sadly his reign of terror over the Losties came to an abrupt end as Sawyer decided to put a bullet in him anyway. Sawyer made it clear that his bullet was revenge for when Tom snatched Walt.....
Speaking of which....
Walt (pictured above left) has not been seen since season 2 when he and Michael secured safe passage off the island. Well all that changed in the finale as we got a glimpse of the youngster with those seemingly special powers. John Locke (who you remember had a affinity with Walt in Season 1) was lying in the pit of corpses about to commit suicide after being shot by Ben. Just before Locke could fire his last bullet through his own brain, up popped Walt looking over the shallow grave at John. Walt ordered John not to pull the trigger and reminded him that he had 'work to do.'
With that Locke dragged himself up and headed off into the jungle. This was a pretty special moment for Lost fans because one of the few season 3 complaints has been the lack of Michael and Walt. We're pretty sure that we'll see more of Walt and maybe Michael in the fourth season.
Which leaves a few more questions. Was the Walt we saw a ghost like creation of the smoke monster (we've seen this before in S2)? Or was it the real deal and if so, did Walt and Michael really leave the island?
On the trek to the communications mast, Jack was leading the rest of the survivors to safety where he was confident that he could secure rescue. Just as Jack and co were in spitting distance of the mast they were headed off by leader of the others Ben and his daughter Alex. Ben was confident he could talk Jack out of communicating with the outside world and urged him to hand over Naomi's satellite phone. After Jack refused to oblige Ben staged the shooting of Sayid/Jin/Bernard over a walkie talkie conversation with Tom (Tom fired the bullets into the ground). This final play backfired, as Jack, believing his friend's had been murdered, proceeded to beat 7 shades of shit out of Ben.
What followed was another magic moment as Ben confessed to a shocked Alex that Rousseau was in fact her mother (Alex previously believed her mother was dead).
As the group reached the mast, Ben begged Jack to reconsider stating that Naomi could not be trusted and that her 'rescue party' had other motives. Just as Naomi established contact with her crew she received a knife in the back from an injured John Locke who caught up with the group - we were then left with another classic Jack/John stand off where Locke threatened to use his final bullet on the good Doctor should he establish contact with the outside world. Jack called his bluff though and Locke couldn't go through with the shot. Interestingly John's objection was that Jack's phone call 'wasn't meant to happen' - had Walt told him so, had the island spoken to him or had John seen into the future??
By this point we had also established that there is more to Naomi than meets the eye. Back in the Looking Glass Charlie had made contact with Penny Widmore (Desmond's lover) who confirmed she had not sent a rescue team - Charlie managed to communicate this to Desmond before his death. This revelation gives more credence to Ben's words but still leaves us wondering what Naomi's motives really were and unless she survives a John Locke knife throw we may not find out anytime soon.
The on-island action finished here as Jack established contact with Naomi's boat whose captain confirmed they could locate the island thanks to the satellite phone.
What happened next was the real kicker - the flashbacks throughout had been of a bearded and suicidal Jack who was clearly very troubled. The final flashback actually revealed that we had been watching a 'flash-forward' all along with Jack's story set in the future. The season finished with a jaded alcoholic Jack breaking down to Kate confessing that they should never had left the island, implying there had been a cover-up of sorts and that he was desperate to return to the island. Kate didn't seem the see it the same way and was keen to return to her unamed partner.
This was a very powerful end to the season and seemed to show us that Jack's decision to find rescue will eventually be shown to be a fatal error.
The flash-forward also raised two huge questions: Whose funeral did Jack try to attend? During all this Jack was pre-occupied with a funeral he found out about in the newspaper. He found the funeral parlour but the priest revealed he was the sole mourner. It was made obvious that Kate also knew the deceased which makes it almost certainly a Lostie or Other. Hot favourites are John Locke, Ben Linus and Michael Dawson.
The second question? Is Christian Shephered alive? Jack referred to his father in the present during the flashforward which implied he may be alive. Despite this potentially shocking twist, we think that Jack's comment about his father was a sign of his messed up frame of mind at the time.
All in all an amazing season and finale. If you have any theories then please leave a comment.
Smashing news from Comic Con as the Lost producers unveiled Harold Perrineau to Lost Fanatics as it was announced the character of Michael Dawson is coming back as a series regular.
