LOST - No Place Like Home part 2 & 3

In a blog post at latimes.com, the writers talked about their use of the "F" word to denote intensity within the scripts. So, in the same spirit let me FUCKING say that last night's season fucking finale was un-FUCKING-believably AWESOME!!! The night long LOST extravaganza started off with the re-airing of part one--with additional scenes and subtitles in which we learned:

1. Boone, Libby and Charlie were the additional survivors in the concocted story about who made it off the plane and onto the island. Along with Kate, Hurley, Jack, Sun and Sayid that would be the Oceanic Eight. Their deaths plus Aaron's birth gives us the Oceanic Six. Why those three were chosen as part of the lie, we don't know yet...

2. Aaron is supposed to be 8 weeks old, but as part of the lie he is being represented as only 5 weeks old. He looks bigger than 5 weeks--he looks bigger than 8 weeks--but that's because it's difficult to use actual infants while filming.

3. When Ben flashes the mirror he's communicating with the Others, not Jacob.

4. The device on Keamy's arm was in fact a detonator for the C-4 explosives on the freighter.

5. Kate learned to track from her stepfather, the military guy. I'm glad we got that little factoid--it was frankly bugging the @#$% out of me...

Part Two started out where the now famous first flashforward scene left off (which was three years after the Oceanic Six got off the island): a drunken, drugged out Jack calling after Kate, "We have to go BACK!" Very clever way to start things off. We learn that the man in the coffin was "Jeremy Bentham" which at first seems to be a new character but in fact we find out at the very end of Part Three that it was John Locke. (Alternate endings--obviously filmed to fake out the cast and crew to keep the secret unspoiled--had Sawyer or Desmond in the coffin. Now we know Kate would have gone to either of their funerals, so out of the three, how could anyone NOT figure that one out?) So how and when did John get off the island? Especially after Ben moved it? And more importantly, why?

With Ben out of the picture, Locke was the new head of the Others--but apparently he came back as "Jeremy Bentham" to convince Jack and Kate to return. Especially Jack, who tells Ben that John told him that bad things happened after he left, it was his fault and he had to back. Before getting off the island, Jack and John had a final showdown where John attempted to convince Jack to stay telling him, "You're not supposed to go home...You know you're here for a reason." When Jack refuses to stay, Locke tells him, "You're gonna have to lie...It's the only way to protect it." So it appears Season Five may be about Jack and Ben attempting to convince the rest of the Oceanic Six to return to the island. Ben told Jack, "The Island won't let you come alone...All of you have to come back." Apparently when the Island says ALL it means ALL as Ben tells Jack--in reference to the now deceased Locke laying in the coffin, "We're gonna have to bring him, too."

The episode included a heckuva fight scene between Sayid (who unfortunately did not get a chance to use his famous breakdancing move...) and the seemingly indestructible Keamy. Just when it appeared the Keamy would strangle Sayid, he was shot in the back by Richard Alpert who had masterminded a plot to rescue Ben. For Kate and Sayid's assistance, Ben allows them to leave the island. But Keamy rises again--much like Alexander Godunov at the end of Die Hard--courtesy of bulletproof armor. But before he can capture his quarry again, Ben jumps out and slits his throat. Unfortunately, the detonator on his arm has a heart rate monitor--Keamy's heart stops and the freighter blows up. John is furious with Ben saying, "You just killed everyone on that boat!" Ben's cold-blooded response: "So?" With Keamy's last breath, he tells Ben "Widmore will find you." "Not if I find him first," Ben counters.

With Keamy out of the way, Ben continues with the plan to move the island. Locke is concerned after having watched the infamous Orchid video--"You mean time traveling bunnies?" says Ben. Apparently there's a warning NOT to put any metallic objects in the vault--which is exactly what Ben does. The metallic objects blow a hole in the vault (an allusion to Alice in Wonderland and the rabbit hole that takes her there perhaps?) and before Ben enters it, he suits up in the same parka he was wearing in the flashforward scene in The Shape of Things to Come telling John, "I'm going somewhere cold" and "Whoever moves the island can never come back..." When he goes down the hole, he injures his arm--which we saw again in The Shape of Things to Come--and lands in an icy cold room (Which reminded me of the scene where Lucy exits the wardrobe and enters Narnia...). Before he turns the giant frozen donkey wheel, he says "I hope you're happy, Jacob..." A screeching noise is heard on the island and then a flash of blinding light and then the island--disappears! Right when the chopper with the Oceanic Six and Frank and Desmond are trying to crash land on it!

Before the island moves, Daniel attempts to convince Miles and Charlotte to get on his next Zodiac run. Miles says he's staying, but Charlotte is about to leave when he says to her, "I'm surprised you want to leave...After all that time you spent trying to get back here." So has Charlotte been to the island before? She explains to Daniel that she's staying because she's still looking for where she was born. Daniel is worried that if she stays it will be for forever but she tells him, "Nothing's forever..." Also left behind on the island with Charlotte and Miles and Locke and the Others, are Juliet and Sawyer. Sawyer bailed out of the helicopter to lighten the load, but not before whispering something (perhaps regarding the favor she does for him in Something Nice Back Home?) to Kate and giving her a passionate kiss good-bye. (Did you love how he managed to lose his shirt on the swim back to the island to provide us with some eye candy as he emerged from the water? Yummy.) Juliet, who planned to get off in the last Zodiac ferry, was sitting on the beach, drinking rum. When Sawyer asks her what she's celebrating, she replies, "I'm not celebrating..." and nods towards the spot in the ocean where a billow of smoke is all that is left of the exploded freighter.

Killed on the freighter were the Losties that Daniel ferried there in the Zodiac. We know that Michael finally bit the bullet--as right before the C-4 exploded Christian appeared and told him, "You can go now, Michael." What was confusing was in the flashforward, Walt visits Hurley in the Santa Rosa mental institution and asks him why he never came to visit him when he got off the island. "Do you know who did come to see me? Jeremy Bentham," he tells Hurley and asks why they're all lying. Hurley replies, "We're lying because it's the only way to protect everyone who didn't come back." "Like my Dad?" Walt asks to which Hurley replies in the affirmative. Except Michael isn't on the island--he was killed in the freighter explosion. Why wouldn't Hurley tell Walt that?

It looks like Jin died in the explosion as well--although there's a chance he was able to jump off the ship before it blew up. Sun was in hysterics and Jack was certainly convinced that he died. But the best news is that Desmond survived and was reunited with Penny! Yay! (Lindelof and Cuse promised us one spectacular kiss on the finale, but gave us TWO--and a shirtless Sawyer! Thanks Carlton and Damon!) That had to be the highlight of the show. Not quite the stand up and cheer moment that Hurley careening out of the jungle in the van to save the day was last season, but definitely a satisfying emotional moment. We saw how the Oceanic Six story was concocted and it looks like Oceanic had nothing to do with it. Penny's freighter, which tracked Desmond down due to the call he made in The Constant, picked up the Six plus Des and Frank from the lifeboat after the chopper crash and dropped them within several miles of the island of Membata. As Desmond and Penny say their good-byes to the Six, Jack tells Des "See ya in another life, brother..." I hope we get to see Des in next season!

We don't know what happened to Daniel or the other Losties he was ferrying to the boat before it exploded and the island disappeared. I didn't see them when the helicopter crashed into the ocean, so perhaps they got sucked into the island relocation vortex. I also wonder if Rose and Bernard survived? Claire is appearing to Kate in nightmares telling her, "Don't you dare bring him back!", Hurley is playing chess (and winning!) with Mr. Eko, Sayid is in assassin mode and busts Hurley out of the nuthouse, Sun is forming alliances with Widmore and Ben and Jack are teaming up to round up the Losties and go back to the island. Season Five premieres in February 2009--Aaaarrrghhh! That's NINE months from now--I can't wait!

Check out the recap at Lostpedia, screencaps at Dark UFO and Celebritology's Dueling Analyses.