First, a couple miscellaneous comments:
Season finales are always exciting, but sad as well, with another long hiatus ahead. And this time it's even worse, since this is the last time we'll ever go into the summer with a ton of things to analyze and ponder.
Yet here we are, so we may as well enjoy it. I'm going to try to take a stab on what will happen in the finale below, but first, it's always good to review previous finales for guidance. The summaries are not in precise on-screen order as I'm doing them from memory:
Season 1: "Exodus"--Unlike later finales, the frentic action has not already been set up prior to the start of the episode. The raft is on the verge of leaving and Boone has just died, but other than that, things are as peachy as they ever get for the Lostaways. Then Rousseau arrives and drops the bombshell that the Others are coming, and the creepy-awesome black smoke appears, and all hell breaks loose. The raft is launched and the trek to the Black Rock begins. The Monster strikes scaring the crap out of Arzt. We see that the Black Rock is a slave ship! Rousseau slinks off to kidnap Aaron. Arzt blows himself up. The Monster strikes again, attempting to pull Locke into a hole (would he have ended up at the altar?). Rousseau kidnaps Aaron, and as Sayid and Charlie catch up with her, we see that the black smoke may have been nothing more than a rouse. But then she tells us "They're coming for the boy". And sure enough, on the raft we see our first non-Ethan Other as Tom kidnaps Walt.
The secret scene: "The Bagel" is the scene in which Walt is taken...A+ twist.
Best moment of the finale: I think the reveal of the Black Rock as a beached ship is unbelievable. I didn't see that coming.
My episode grade: A- (you'll see, I really love finales). The only disappointment was that we didn't see what was in the Hatch, but seriously, did you expect to? What a perfect summer cliffhanger.
Season 2: "Live Together, Die Alone"--The dramatic return of Desmond aboard the Elizabeth enables Sayid, Jin, and Sun to comprise the most unlikely B-team of all-time, as Michael's handpicked A-team of Kate, Jack, Sawyer, and Hurley set out to kill the Others (I still can't believe Kate and Jack didn't deduce they were being played, but whatever. Sure, Jack knew through Sayid that Michael was a double agent of sorts, but even with Sayid's backup plan, they never would have been able to take the Others). Locke is obsessed with NOT pushing the button, and enlists Desmond's help to lock out Mr. Eko. Who tries to blast his way in with dynamite and only screws himself up, never to fully recover. We learn about Desmond and Penny's lost love in his flashbacks and we meet a certain Mr. Widmore for the very first time, while we also learn that the Elizabeth was named for Libby...which never is mentioned again, but oh well. Sayid, Jin, and Sun spot the four-toed statue, but are powerless to help as Sayid realizes they've been conned. Michael leads his A-team into a trap at the capsule dump, and they all get shot with tazer arrows. Desmond realizes that his failure to push the button on September 22 crashed 815, but Locke is beyond reason and insists on letting the countdown expire, which unleashes a massive amount of electromagnetic energy. Desmond turns the failsafe and the sky turns purple. The Others let Michael go as we realize that "Henry Gale" is their leader, and he declares "We're the good guys". They also let Hurley go to warn the other Lostaways not to come after Jack, Kate, and Sawyer.
The secret scene: "The Challah" is the Portuguese guys in the tent, which seemed like a non-sequitur at first. They detect and electromagnetic anomaly and phone...Penny. "Ms. Widmore, I think we found it." This gets a B- from me, as it was not particularly surprising that Penny was trying to find Desmond (as she told him earlier, "With enough money and determination you can find anybody.") But it is important as we for the first time are off-island, post-crash. The world still exists out there.
Best moment of the finale: I have to go with a tie here. The four-toed statue creeps even Sayid out and reveals the existence of ancient civilization. But equally creepy is the capsule dump, as you realize that the Pearl was the experiment and the Swan was real.
My episode grade: A. Season Two may have been weaker than Season One, but they brought it in the finale.
Season 3: "Through the Looking Glass"--Most of the camp sets out for the radio tower as Jin, Bernard, and Sayid stay back to shoot dynamite and blow up the Others. Charlie is being interrogated by Greta and Bonnie in the Looking Glass while Desmond sits knocked out in the boat. Bernard and Sayid hit their marks, but Jin misses and the few surviving Others capture them. Jack keeps everyone moving towards the radio tower as Sawyer and Juliet return in a rescue attempt and Ben sets out with Alex to intercept the larger group. He orders a mock execution of the captives which only sends Jack into a rage and intensifies his resolve. Walt appears to a suicidal Locke, telling him he still has work to do. Desmond is forced to swim down to the Looking Glass by Mikhail's rifle, and Ben orders Mikhail to kill the women. He does so, but also appears to be killed himself, and not before Bonnie can spill the fact that the jamming code is "Good Vibrations". Hurley saves the day at the beach by taking a DHARMA van and running down Others. Charlie turns off the jamming equipment and makes contact with Penny, who tells him that the freighter is not hers. But Mikhail was not dead after all, and he sets off a grenade, flooding the radio room. Charlie drowns and writes "Not Penny's Boat" on his hand as Desmond watches helplessly. The jamming equipment off, Naomi attempts to call the freighter, but Locke knifes her in the back before she can. Jack goes through with it, despite Locke's threat to kill him too, and rescue seems imminent.
Oh yeah, Jack's flashbacks seem off. He's split from his wife, torn up by a newspaper obituary, pondering suicide, and downing copious amounts of booze and pills. When on earth did this happen in his life? Then he has a clandestine meeting at the airport with...Kate? Wait a second, this isn't a flashback. It's a flashforward.
The secret scene/Best moment of the finale: They're one in the same here..."The [Rattle]snake in the Mailbox", as it finally is fully revealed that the episode was a flashforward, is the greatest moment in LOST history...A+. I knew there was something off about the flashbacks, as I couldn't place when in Jack's life all of this would have happened, but I have to admit that it wasn't until the final installment that I figured it out. It didn't take Kate coming out of the shadows for me to realize it, at least; it was when I saw that Jack had maps of the Pacific strewn all over his floor. Suddenly it was clear to me that he was trying to find the Island.
Episode grade: A+. The greatest LOST episode of all-time. The on-island action didn't expose a lot of mythology, but it marked an explosive end to the Lostaways v. Others as the primary conflict of the show, and it was satisfying to see the Others finally get their heads handed to them. But what really puts this episode over the top was the flashforward, which changed LOST forever. No longer was it primarily a story about a group of survivors trying to escape an island; it was a story of a group of people inexplicably and inescapably drawn to The Island.
Season 4: "There's No Place Like Home"--This post is long enough as is, so I'll limit this to the events of Parts 2 and 3 (Part 1 aired two weeks earlier as a standalone episode).
Faraday is ferrying people from the beach to the freighter, but Charlotte and Miles want to stay behind. Kate and Sayid are forced by the Others to help spring Ben, which works as they apparently kill all of the mercenaries. Ben allows them to leave the Island on the chopper, much to Kate's amazement. Jack and Sawyer arrive at the Orchid, where they find Hurley safe and sound, but Locke has been unable to find the elevator to go down to the station. Jack and Locke have a typical Jack/Locke chat, with Locke talking about destiny and Jack looking at him like he's a fool (he is). Locke says the Island is a "place where miracles happen" and that those who leave the Island are going to have to lie.
Meanwhile, Frank, Sayid, Kate, Jack, Sawyer, and Hurley take off in the helicopter. Jin, Desmond, and Michael desperately try to stave off the dynamite explosion on the freighter by freezing the firing mechanism with liquid nitrogen. Locke and Ben descend deep into the bowels of the Island to the Orchid, and to stop Locke's obnoxious questions, Ben has him watch the orientation video for the station in which Dr. Chang (or whatever pseudonym he's using) talks about the station being built near a pocket of "negatively charged exotic matter" and time travel. But the elevator eerily ascends back up and when it returns, a not-dead (thanks to some amazing body armor) Keamy is on it. Ben loses it and stabs him, and as Keamy's heart stops, the light on the bomb turns red.
The helicopter's fuel tank had been damaged in the shootout with Keamy's crew, so Sawyer jumps to save fuel and swims back to the Island. As the helicopter lands, Desmond warns about the dynamite and everyone scrambles to get the chopper ready to fly and collect Lostaways from the freighter. In all the chaos, Jin gets caught on the deck below, and the helicopter takes off without him, but now with Desmond, Sun, and Aaron. Christian Shepherd appears to Michael, telling him "you can go now", and the bomb explodes, killing Michael and (presumably) Jin, sinking the freighter, and causing poor Sun to shriek like a banshee.
Down in the Orchid, Ben blows a hole in the time travel chamber and puts on a parka. He instructs Locke on where to find the Others, of whom he is now leader. Ben enters an icy chamber with hieroglyphics and a donkey wheel. Struggling to turn the wheel, he looks up and says "I hope you're happy now, Jacob". As the wheel turns, the familiar purple sky and electromagnetic hum return, except this time, the Island vanishes. The helicopter has nowhere to land, so they crash in the ocean. Everyone survives and they float until nightfall, when they see a boat. As the boat approaches, Jack realizes that Locke was right and says they need to lie. The boat is called "Searcher", and Portugese men are aboard and...holy crap, it's Penny's boat. Everyone's favorite couple gets their happy reunion. A week later, the Oceanic 6 disembarks from the boat in a raft to make their way to the island of Membata, with cover story in place.
In flashforwards, we see all of the Oceanic 6 talk about "Jeremy Bentham" at some point or another. We see Walt visit Hurley; Sayid subsequently kill a man outside Santa Rosa and whisk Hurley away (from his chess game with Mr. Eko); Kate have a dream in which Claire says "Don't you dare bring him back"; and Jack go back to the funeral home, where Ben is waiting for him with a plan to get back to the Island. And they peak in the casket to see that Jeremy Bentham is John Locke.
The secret scene: "The Frozen Donkey Wheel" is not the actual frozen donkey wheel scene earlier in the episode, but the reveal of John Locke in the coffin. I give this a B...the name Bentham was a huge hint towards Locke, but I thought Ben's fake passports as seen in "The Economist" and "The Shape of Things to Come" set up a nice headfake, leaving me to believe that it was Ben in the coffin. Prior to the episode, I thought the three candidates were Michael, Ben, and Locke. However, once Michael got blown up and Ben showed up at the funeral home, it was no longer much of a mystery to me, although it was jarring to see Locke lying there.
Best moment of the finale: Relationship fans will always love the Desmond/Penny reunion. I prefer the Island moving, but no one scene stands out. This episode is gold from start to finish.
Episode grade: A. A very good episode, with the mythological meat (the Orchid, the frozen donkey wheel) that "Through the Looking Glass" lacked.
So, if history is any guide, we can expect:
1. An awesome episode
2. A solid secret scene
3. A generally negative outcome for the Lostaways (I would file only the events of "Through the Looking Glass" as positive on the whole)
Leaving history aside, we know that this episode will be steeped in mythology, as both Locke's quest to kill Jacob and the Incident are in play. The episode title, in fact, is "The Incident". We first heard Marvin Candle talk about this in 2x03, and now we will actually get to see it go down through the eyes of our characters. We also know that the secret scene will be called the "fork in the outlet", a name that we can probably assume is not particularly meaningful on its own as it was chosen by fans on the podcast. It does however conjure up images of electromagnetic disasters, which is probably the point.
I am going to take a wild stab at guessing how the finale will play out. Don't worry, the only spoilers that have gone into this are the episode title and secret scene codename. This prediction will likely be surely off-base, but here goes:
Richard will convince Eloise to consult with Jacob, or get Charles to stage a coup to prevent the detonation of Jughead. Eloise will leave the Island in some way. Perhaps she will be exiled, perhaps she will be made to turn the donkey wheel (perhaps after learning of the sub evacuation, the Hostiles will take this as an opportunity to throw DHARMA for a loop; with a large number of their people gone, the time it will take to re-find the Island will cripple the DHARMA society left behind). This will explain how Daniel had never previously been to the Island. Jack and Sayid will be somehow subdued.
Miles, Jin, and Hurley will work with Dr. Chang to attempt to prevent the Incident. That group will go to Horace and explain the truth to him, leading to Horace calling the sub and ordering Sawyer, Juliet and Kate returned to the Island. They will be dropped off and the sub will continue on its merry way. Radzinsky will be sent to his precious Swan and made to be on hand personally when the Incident occurs. However, the Incident will not occur due to any sort of DHARMA drilling accident.
The Incident will in fact be triggered by the actions of John Locke in 2007. His group will reach Jacob, but they will be intercepted by the Ilana/Bram group, who in fact work for Jacob. They will have arrived from Hydra Island in one of the outriggers (as seen in "The Little Prince"). There will be a showdown between these two groups, and somehow the fabric of space-time will be ruptured. This will manifest itself in another purple sky event, which will result in all of the Lostaways currently in 1977 (and perhaps, inexplicably, a few DHARMA folks--Amy, perhaps) being flashed back to the future. At this point, Claire will emerge, seemingly unscathed, from Jacob's cabin. The DHARMA folk left behind will attribute this to the electromagnetic energy (which does in fact exist, just not in the exact form of the Incident) and set up the button pushing system. The secret scene will be a meeting between Jacob and the leader of his group (Ilana? Bram? Some other person) in which at first his voice will be heard as he plots his war strategy against the Hostiles/Others. The camera will pan back to reveal that Jacob is Desmond, the "miraculously special" character who has a propensity for becoming unstuck in time. LOST
Alternatively, Jacob is Ray Shepherd, which will explain why Christian speaks on his behalf and why Claire was of particular interest.
Will a main character die? Yes. Sayid will die, possibly sacrificing himself. He was always motivated to leave the Island and find Nadia. He did, but now she's dead and he's broken. He was brought back against his will and is cool with the Jughead plan because "at least it would put us out of our misery". Not healthy.
Will we see the Monster? No.
Will we see Jacob? "See" is a relative term with Jacob, but yes, in some respect.
Will we see the statue? Yes.
Will we hear whispers? Yes.
Will somebody say "don't tell me what I can't do"? Yes.
Will we see Walt? No.
I look forward to seeing how wrong I was about all of this in just a few hours. "Dreadfully" is the optimistic estimate. My comments on the episode will be a lot sparser than usual as I am not going to sully my finale viewing experience with notetaking--I'm gonna enjoy this for all it's worth. See you on the other side.
