This week I turn my attention to one of the most shocking and sad moments in the history of Lost. It was a huge turn of events, particularly for the character of Ben. It was nothing more than a simple “held at gunpoint” scenario that has been used many times before. However, this time it would be different. It was such a great moment because the writers and creators of Lost decided to buck all the conventions regarding the cliched scenario.

That’s right, I’m talking about the standoff between Keamy (from the freighter) and Ben that included Alex being held at gunpoint that was featured in the fourth season episode “The Shape of Things to Come.”

For me, this was truly one of the more shocking moments from the show, eliciting an actual gasp from me when Keamy pulled the trigger and killed Alex execution style. I certainly didn’t see that outcome coming. Ben didn’t either, as he was calling Keamy’s bluff (or so he thought). What made the event even more tragic was the fact that Ben was calling the bluff by announcing how little Alex meant to him, hoping that the lies would make Keamy let her go. Instead, Alex’s final moments were full of hearing the man she considered a father saying how much he didn’t love her. Ouch.

Even though the moment was especially cruel to both Ben (not normally a very sympathetic character) and Alex, you have to give credit to the writers. By exploiting a cliche from TV and the movies, they were able to create a very powerful episode.

Alex’s death was a real turning point for Ben’s character. It was the culmination of his battle with the freighter folk (as sent by Charles Widmore) and marked the end of his time of power on the island. Ever since Alex’s death Ben has been a broken man and has gone from evil mastermind to struggling weasel. Sure, he still is constantly trying to manipulate and outsmart people, but Ben is no longer in a position of power. Instead, he is constantly trying to claw his way back into the island’s good graces.

While Alex’s death may have been one of the sadder moments of the series, it has set up Ben’s character for a great final season. I can’t wait to see what the writers have in store for us.

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Okay, I will admit up front that the title of this post is most likely an overstatement, but look at Ben. He’s very sad, and do you know why? It’s because the final season of Lost is not going to be shown uninterrupted as last season was. Instead, it will be broken up by the winter Olympics that are scheduled to occur in the final weeks of February. Ben, and I, are both unhappy about this turn of events.

I suppose it’s not such a big deal, but when I was told the news, I was a little pissed.

I understand, and appreciate, that the Olympics are a big deal. It’s great to see the world put all of our differences aside and come together for a couple weeks of spirited athletic competition. It really is. On the other hand, I love Lost way more than I like the Olympics. Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of Olympics. Sure, I love the spirit of the Olympics, but watching hours upon hours of cross country skiing and ice dancing just isn’t my bag (full disclosure: four years ago I did become a little obsessed with curling. It’s fascinating).

I would understand the whole thing a little more if ABC were broadcasting the Olympics, but they’re going to be on NBC. I would think that there are a lot of people that would appreciate a little counter-programming during the two week sporting event. Having said that, knowing myself, I will probably get caught up in the Olympics and end up watching them constantly, even after stating otherwise. I know it happened last summer.

I know it’s not really a big deal in the scheme of things, and two weeks isn’t really going to kill the momentum of what is hopefully going to be an amazing final season. It just seems like a curious and unnecessary decision on ABC’s part.

What do you think? Are you more excited for the Olympics, or the final season of Lost?

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I hear so many people say that they gave up on Lost during the third season. I will admit that the short block of episodes that opened the season was probably the lowest point in Lost’s history. The entire Jack, Sawyer, and Kate in cages story line just didn’t work. However, once the season got going it turned out to be just as great as the rest of the show, culminating in an amazing season finale.

Yes, I talked about “Through the Looking Glass” in my column last week, but the episode did include more than one great moment. After talking about the flashforward twist last week, this week I want to turn my focus to Charlie’s death.

Through a lot of season three, there was a big will-they-won’t-they dynamic going on with Charlie’s fate. Desmond was having visions of the future, with the vast majority of them ending in Charlie’s death. Every time Desmond changed his foretold events to save Charlie, he would have another one predicting Charlie’s demise. After so much build up, we pretty much knew that Charlie was going to drown. Heck, even Charlie knew that he was going to drown in the Looking Glass station, even if everyone was hoping that he wouldn’t.

The knowledge that Charlie was most likely going to meet his death in the episode didn’t take away from the impact of the scene at all. Like Penny and Desmond’s phone call in season four, I think the production of this scene was just perfect. The quiet music that played as Charlie frantically wrote on his hand in slow motion, trying to get the message to Desmond set the mood perfectly. Each little touch really worked well.

It was hard to say goodbye to Charlie, but at the same time it was great to see such a satisfying story arc completed for the character. To think that Charlie started the series as a selfish washed up rock star junkie and ended up being, most likely, the purest hero of the series is pretty incredible. In a show filled with flawed characters, Charlie’s sacrifice for the rest of the 815ers underscored how good of a person Charlie really was.

If Juliet’s sacrifice at the end of last season actually worked, perhaps she and Charlie will both get different (and hopefully happy) endings.

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The long offseason continues to march on. With each passing day and week we get closer and closer to the final season of Lost. We still have months to go, however, which is a bit discouraging. To help us get through this Lost lull, I’ve been recapping some of my favorite moments of the show. Indeed, there have been many, but this week’s was perhaps the most shocking.

Yes, this week I want to talk about the finale of season 3.

To say that the twist ending of “Through the Looking Glass” was a game-changing moment on Lost would be a great understatement. Up until that episode, the show had a very well defined storytelling structure. Virtually every episode that came before it featured flashbacks that focused on the lives of the characters before they found themselves on the island. There was no reason, then, to suspect that the finale should be anything different.

However, while watching the episode I couldn’t help but wonder where this crazy, wildly bearded version of Jack came from. Where did this episode in his life fit in with the rest of the flashbacks that we had seen? I didn’t give it too much thought as the episode went along, as I was far too enthralled with what I was seeing on screen. I think this episode was one of the most intense viewing experiences I’ve ever had. I was just mesmerized by my television.

The payoff came at the end of the episode when Jack finally met with an old friend. The car door opened and the audience saw… Kate! How could this be? What did this mean? Well, by now we all know that what we had been seeing during the episode was a flashforward, and not a flashback. It was a genius, inspired move by the writers of the show, throwing the whole Lost universe on its head.

In one brief scene so much information was divulged: people had made it off the island. The island really was just an island somewhere on Earth. All the completely far out theories involving purgatory, or other planets, or any other really hard scifi ideas were pretty much tossed out the window. A world of infinite possibilities had just been whittled down considerably.

This plot twist really did change the face of Lost, with the familiar storytelling formula being tossed out the window. It may have also been the greatest instance of a show toying with their audience, and if you’re anything like me, you loved it.

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I would be remiss to talk about my favorite moments of Lost and not discuss Ben and Locke’s trip to Jacob’s cabin in “The Man Behind the Curtain.” For so long, we had wondered about Jacob, details trickling in slowly (very slowly) over time. Heck, we didn’t even know his name for a few seasons. Then finally the moment came late into season three, when Locke had had enough and insisted on seeing this mysterious “Jacob.” The results, having been built up for three years, were spectacular, making for one of the best moments in one of the best episodes of Lost.

The entire scene in Jacob’s cabin was a huge moment of Lost weirdness. I can remember pouring over every shot and every prop in the cabin, wondering if any of them held significance to the larger Lost story. There was no shortage of interesting things in and around the cabin: an old painting of a dog, jars of unknown liquid, a curious rocking chair, a circle of ash surrounding the small wooden building.

Of course the best moment came when, for a split second, someone appeared in Jacob’s chair. At the time it was assumed that it was Jacob, but that is up in the air after the season finale of season five. Most likely it was Jacob’s nemesis, who was trapped in the cabin with the circle of ash, but that’s really only a theory at this point. I remember when I first watched the episode. I was so enthralled that I did notice the figure in the chair, but it was so quick it didn’t settle in my brain, and by the end of the episode I had completely forgotten about it until I rewound to watch the scene again.

Aside from the contextual elements, it was a really expertly crafted scene, too. The mood surrounding it was downright creepy, the interior of the cabin just light enough to make everything look slightly scary. Everything is scary in the dark. The scene built up perfectly, with Ben talking to the empty chair. Was he just pulling one over on John? Did he really see someone? Why couldn’t Locke? Then it happened: Locke heard a voice say “Help me,” turned on his flashlight, and all hell broke loose.

There’s no doubt this was one of the finest moments of Lost.

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As I continue exploring some of my favorite moments from the past five seasons of Lost, this week I get to the moment that is probably my favorite of them all. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the more polarizing scenes in the show.

I’ve never considered myself a shipper at all, in regards to just about any program, but with Lost I seem to have found my one exception: Desmond and Penny. For me, they really are the heart and soul of the show. While Kate and Jack and Sawyer and Juliet (and Ana Lucia) have spent five years playing relationship musical chairs, Desmond and Penny’s emotions have never wavered. They were always meant for each other. Even when her father orchestrated Desmond’s exile onto the island for years, they were still committed to each other.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you then that one of my most favorite moments of Lost came at the end of “The Constant,” when Desmond was finally able to reach out to Penny and talk to his long lost love, fulfilling a promise made in his altered past.

In “The Constant” we saw Desmond jumping back and forth between the present and the past, a consequence of the island’s wacky mojo. In order to stop this, he needed to contact his “constant,” the one thing in his life that existed in all his time periods and that he cared deeply about. There was never any doubt that this would be Penny.

Throughout the episode we saw Desmond changing his past, trying desperately to get back to Penny whom he had broken things off with out of desperation and weakness. Finally he reached her and begged for her phone number, promising to call her on Christmas Eve in 2004. She was skeptical and pretty much brushed him off, giving him her number just to get rid of him.

Finally, however, the moment came when she picked up the phone and it was Desmond on the other end. For me, it was perfect, the acting, writing, the music, the whole production, it all came together to make an epic moment in Desmond’s story arc. I’ve embedded the scene below for your viewing pleasure.

It’s been my experience that people were either blown away with the scene, like I was, or they think it was a little overdone and bordered on cheesy. I suppose being so invested in the characters helped me, but I honestly don’t understand how people couldn’t have been moved by the phone call. Rewatching even now I still get goosebumps, and my heart is usually a shriveled little ball of ice, so that’s saying something.

In any case, as the series comes to a close, I am very curious to see what roles Penny and Desmond will be playing in the end game, if any. They pretty much got their happy ending last season and I would hate to see that messed with. At the same time, though, I would still like to see the characters on the show in some capacity. With Sonya Walger anchoring FlashForward, I’m not sure Penny will be appearing in the final season or not, but I can’t wait to find out.

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Last week I began talking about some of my favorite moments of Lost with a piece on the first big reveal of the show: Locke being in a wheelchair. This week, I turn my attention to the second season of the show, specifically the Eko-centric episode “The 23rd Psalm.”

Since the pilot episode, viewers knew that there was something living in the forest on the island. We had seen it knock down trees, eat the pilot, and try to drag Locke into a big hole, but we had never really seen the monster. In this episode, though, everything changed….

Yes, we did get a glimpse of the monster in the season one finale, but that was fleeting and ambiguous at best. In “The 23rd Psalm” we got to see the monster up close and personal as Eko stared it down in the middle of the forest. It was an outstanding moment and a great reveal for the smoke monster. It was a real step change in terms of what the audience knew of smokey. Not only did we get a great view of it, we got to see that it was showing Eko images from his past, seemingly judging him.

Even now questions remain about the nature of the monster, but we know that it does indeed judge people, as it judged Ben last season. Clearly, it was doing the same here with Eko. As we later found out, Eko was not shown the same mercy that Ben was shown, as the monster killed him early in season three.

There have been other great monster moments throughout Lost. When Ben summoned it to take out the invading freighter crew, the aforementioned judging of Ben in the temple, and when it was repelled by the sonic fence stand out as some memorable appearances. The first good look that we got at the sentient smokey cloud, however, still stands out as one of the best moments of the show for me. It was definitely a water cooler moment and I can remember heading into work the next day, eager to discuss it with some of my fellow Lost lovers. I’m not sure if we will ever know the exact nature of the monster, but hopefully we can get at least one more great smokey moment like this in the final season.

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With the final season of Lost approaching (ever so slowly), I’ve been getting a bit nostalgic. Add to that the fact that I have many weeks of columns to fill before we can start digging in to the final mysteries of the show, and I thought it was the perfect time to look back at some of the best moments of the show. Each week, when there isn’t any big news to discuss, I’ll be writing about some of my favorite moments on the show.

To start us off, I want to talk about one of the earliest jaw-dropping moments on the show, and there have been several over the years….

Of course, I’m talking about the final moments from the first season episode “Walkabout,” when it’s revealed that John Locke was in a wheelchair before landing on the mystical island with the rest of the castaways. “Walkabout” was only the fourth episode of the show, and for many, this was probably a Blow the Hatch moment, even though that whole phenomenon was named after the hatch blowing at the end of season one. If you ask me, I don’t think Lost had a Blow the Hatch moment at all, I think it was stellar and fascinating from the opening scenes.

The scene definitely added a whole level of intrigue and mystery to the show, however. Sure, the monster had already been introduced at this point in the show, and it was clear that there was some crazy, unexplainable stuff happening on the island, but when the camera panned out at the end of the episode, revealing an angry Locke, bound in his wheelchair, yelling at the tour guide who wouldn’t let him go on the walkabout, the game changed. It’s like the writers threw down the gauntlet and told all the viewers that they should hold onto their seats. Anything could happen on this show, and boy howdy, just about everything has happened on this show.

Locke has been a pivotal figure on the show throughout its run and this revelation set up so much about his character. It was a great twist ending, and informed the character moving ahead, as well as moving back in flashback episodes that would explore his relationship with his father. I think this was pretty much the quintessential Locke moment, and definitely one of my favorites in all of Lost.

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Well, everybody, a lot of our favorite new shows are premiering this month. Unfortunately, Lost is not one of them. We have to wait until early 2010 to dig into the final season of Lost. I know I’m eagerly waiting for it, and the return of new television on the networks just makes me all the more anxious.

Luckily ABC knows that we Lost fans can get pretty rabid, so they usually have a little something for us to occupy the time between seasons. This off season is no different.

This year, as in years past, the bonus summer material is covering the always mysterious Dharma Initiative. There are a series of videos beings streamed from the ABC Lost site (as well as Hulu) that feature a fictional television show from the ’80s: Mysteries of the Universe. The first three episodes are already available online, with the remaining episodes coming out over the next two months. Finally, all the videos, plus additional footage will be released on the season five DVD set.

I’ve checked out the first three installments and I have to say, I’m not that impressed. I feel like the dead horse that is the Dharma Initiative has been beaten enough. After spending a good part of last season exploring the inner workings of the organization, I’m just not as intrigued with it as I previously was. Moving forward there is probably going to be very little Dharma stuff as the focus shifts to old school island mythology (or that is my assumption, at least).

If these videos were revealing any new information or tying up loose ends I think I could get into them, and maybe they will with the remaining installments. As of now, however, there is nothing new in the videos. It is simply rehashing how mysterious they are and giving shout outs to characters (Olivia the school teacher) and locations (the church where Eloise was) that we’ve seen on the show.

What I do like is the presentation. I think it was very clever to dig up this fake documentary from the ’80s, complete with grainy picture and cheesy graphics. I’ll plan on keeping up with them just to make sure nothing important comes out of it.

Have you checked them out? What do you think of them?

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Lost in Lost has been absent for a while now during the very quiet off-season, but with San Diego Comic-Con in full swing this previous week, radio silence was broken and a ton of little spoilery tidbits have been rolling in. If you’d like to go into the final season completely fresh then stay away. Certainly, there isn’t anything Earth shattering in this information, but they are spoilers none-the-less. I am, however, dying to talk about some of them.

If you haven’t seen any of the Comic-Con panel videos, you can head over to DarkUFO, where they are collected. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are certainly entertaining, as anyone who listens to their Lost podcast already knows. The Lost panel was very entertaining with jokes, bits, pre-recorded videos, and lots of special guests (make sure to head over to www.damoncarltonandapolarbear.com).

Jokes and fun aside, there were some very interesting details that were spilled. First, the producers said that the final season was going to mirror the first season in many ways, capturing the feel of the first season and featuring characters that we have not seen since season one. Entertainment Weekly is also reporting that Boone (played by Ian Somerhalder) will be back on the show in the final season. It was also revealed that Faraday and Juliet will appear in the upcoming season, and with Dominic Monaghan’s surprise appearance at the very end of the panel, I have to wonder if we will see Charlie again too.

With all these appearances planned, it leads me to believe that history was rewritten with Juliet’s actions in the finale. (As a side note, the producers certainly made it seem like that bomb went off, no big fake out there, thankfully.) Whether or not the past was changed, I think they certainly want us to believe that. As part of the panel they showed a clip from a fictional episode of America’s Most Wanted featuring Kate on the run.

My theory on the final season: the past was indeed changed, but the 815ers are still going to find themselves on the island in the exact same situation. So much of this show has been billed as “fate” and “destiny” that I think no matter what happened in their lives, they are supposed to be on the island. So, some smaller details may change along the way (like Boone being alive, perhaps; or Juliet never coming to the island), but all the events surrounding Jacob and his enemy will still be in place. I think that we will see flashbacks in the new season filling in the changed details in the lives of our favorite characters.

If I’m right, I have to say it’s a very risky move. To try to rewrite a lot of the history that we have seen over five seasons, with only one shortened season left, is a highly ambitious task. Lost has excelled in virtually everything leading up to this moment, so I have faith that they can pull anything off.

Well, only about six months left until the final season premieres. Not that I’m counting the days or anything….

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If the title of this post wasn’t hint enough for you, be warned that spoilers for the final season follow. Well, to be honest, Matthew Fox’s comments from the Monte-Carlo Television Festival, aren’t all that spoilery, and I’m not even sure how trustworthy they are. Not that I’m calling him a liar, but I don’t put it past the producers or any of the actors of Lost to keep things close to the vest and put out false information in the name of keeping things secret and surprising.

With all that being said, let’s talk about what Fox had to say….

The part that I found most fascinating was that he said that the two timelines that were followed last season (1977 and 2007) were going to be brought back together about a third of the way through the season. Hmm … What the hell? That would seem to indicate that our characters are going to find themselves still stuck in 1977 when the season begins. T0 me, that says that the future wasn’t changed. It says that whatever happened (whether the fade to white was the bomb going off or some other event) didn’t push the characters into the future. So what the heck did happen? I think it speaks strongly to the hypothesis that whatever happened at the end of “The Incident” always happened, and nothing changed.

Fox also said that the beginning of the season is going to be confusing to the viewers. Awesome. With only one shortened season left, do we really needed a handful of episodes just to get our bearing? I’m sure it will be good; I have faith in the show runners. To be honest, half the fun of Lost is being confused. For all the speculation that I love to do regarding this show, I am most tickled when I’m surprised.

Fox went on to say that he knows how the series is going to end. I’d be a little surprised if this were actually true. What would be the point of letting one of the actors know? Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. I don’t really know. All he said about it was that it was going to be a big conflict. Jack vs. Locke? Widmore vs. Ben? Jacob vs. the other dude? Maybe all three? Maybe something completely different.

Regardless of how the series ends, I’m excited to get there. After six seasons, though, I think I can safely say that this has been a wild and crazy ride, and with most things the journey is far more exciting than the destination.

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As each week passes we get closer and closer to the final season of Lost. Alright, so it’s still about eight months away, but I have to keep going somehow. It’s just too depressing to think about Lost ending, let alone the fact that I have to wait the vast majority of a human gestation period just to see a new episode.

This week I thought I would take a little time to reflect on some of the characters that we lost in season five. It was a bit of a brutal season with a few main cast members meeting their ends. I know that I will miss the majority of them, but I’ve gotten used to death on this show, as the list of dead characters seems to grow with every new episode.

While doing a little research for this article, I headed over to Lostpedia. I thought it was pretty hilarious that, on their page of main characters, only four are listed as alive and well (Ben, Sun, Desmond, and Walt). Every other character is listed as either unknown (our losties back in 1977) or deceased (the other twelve characters listed as main players). I guess I had underestimated just how much this show loves to kill off characters.

Anyways, here is a look at this season’s major casualties:

• Charlotte: I know that she wasn’t the most popular character, but I thought there was a lot of potential for Charlotte. She had a fascinating backstory, having been raised on the island in the Dharma Initiative for a good portion of her young life. Aside from that she had an awkwardly cute relationship going with Daniel Faraday. Though in retrospect, that didn’t matter so much, because the twitchy little physicist is on this list too….
• Daniel: His death was so poetically tragic that it’s hard for me to really feel bad about it. In my opinion it was one of the highlights of the season. If Ben thinks that destiny is a “fickle bitch,” I can’t even begin to imagine what Daniel would have to say about it.
• Juliet: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that she might not be dead, and I hope that she’s not, but I want to talk about her anyway. Juliet has been one of my favorite characters since she was introduced at the beginning of season three. She was really a tragic figure on the show. Always “the other woman,” she finally found some happiness with Sawyer, even if Kate did manage to screw it up in the end. I feel like Juliet was always just trying to do her best, and unfortunately it wasn’t enough to overcome her bad situation. I see her death, if she is dead, as being very similar to Charlie’s. It will probably amount to a noble sacrifice for the betterment of the group. Only time will tell for sure, though. I’m still holding out hope that she’ll be back in some living capacity.
• Jacob: Another death that I don’t quite buy is Jacob’s. Are the writers really cruel enough to tease us with a character for three seasons and then kill him off in the same episode in which they finally reveal him? I think they are, but I hope that his burning corpse doesn’t mark the end of Jacob on Lost. After all, it’s become clear that Jacob has some serious power, are we really supposed to believe that Ben and a knife can kill him so easily?

What are your thoughts on the major deaths of this season?

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Well, we’ve all had a few weeks to digest the finale of Lost now. I was hoping that in that time I was going to have some sort of incredible epiphany and have all the answers for you about next season and what it was going to look like. That didn’t happen. I do think enough time has passed, however, that we can start to toss around some ideas about what next season is going to entail. Here are my thoughts….

I’m still not quite sure what’s going to happen with the changed or unchanged future. As has been brought up by some commenters, we can’t even be sure if the bomb went off (though I would bet that it did). What I think makes the most sense is this: when Jacob said, with his dying words, that “they are coming,” I believe that he meant the 815ers that were trapped back in 1977. I believe that those folks, more so than anyone else on the island, are key to Jacob’s plan, whatever that may be. Jacob visited most of them in the past (I believe Miles is the only one who didn’t get a visit from the J-man). I believe that they will be key in the final events on the island, breaking whatever cycle that Jacob and his enemy discussed hundreds of years ago on the beach.

How that all marries up to the bomb going off (or not), I don’t know. I’m as frustrated as anyone with how the producers/writers decided to end this season. I would like to think that instead of changing the future (and rewriting the five seasons of this show that we’ve all been so invested in), the blast somehow pushed the characters back to the timeline that they are supposed to be in (i.e. back on the island with fake Locke and the rest of the Ajira 315ers).

Of course, I could be completely off base; there’s just no telling with this show. Maybe the bomb did go off, maybe it had always gone off. Maybe that is why the Swan station was buried in cement and hazmat suits were needed when walking around it. Who knows? Maybe the future has changed. If it has, I would imagine that somehow destiny would prevail and the characters that we have grown to love will find themselves back on the island by some means other than Oceanic 815.

In any case, I need to look for clues. With that in mind, I believe I am going to start a rewatch of the the first five seasons before season six begins in early 2010. I’ll be posting regular updates (most likely in the same format that we’ve been using for our Virgin Diaries), and I urge you to join me. The more eyes looking for any little spec of information, the better. Plus, it should be fun. I haven’t rewatched a lot of the early episodes in a long time. It will be nice to see Shannon again….

What are your theories on next season?

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I was talking with my brother this weekend at a family cookout and we inevitably got to discussing the Lost finale. He’s almost as obsessed with the show as I am. The focus of our conversation was on the big question that came out of the finale: where the hell is this show going? With the way they ended this season (the big bang)  the show could go in so many directions. The crux of the matter really comes down, however, to whether or not Juliet was successful in changing the future. Here is where I begin to blatantly steal all of my brother’s ideas.

My brother is convinced that the future was changed when Juliet blew up the nuke. His argument is that Juliet is the human variable that Daniel was going on about before his mom shot him in a cruel twist of fate. Daniel indicated that all his previous beliefs (whatever happened, happened) didn’t take into account the variable effect that a human can have on the outcome of things. Juliet seems to be a variable in all the actions on the island. If you recall, it was Ben that brought her to the island, not Jacob. With all the flashbacks of the various characters that we saw during the finale, Juliet’s was the only one that did not feature a visit from Jacob. This couldn’t just be coincidence, right?

Perhaps Juliet was never “fated” to be on the island like the rest of the characters that we have met along the way. Because of this, maybe she was able to affect the outcome of things and change the future. Through doing this, she may have begun the series of events that will break the cycle that Jacob and his enemy had discussed before the Black Rock crashed on the island.

With all that being said, I still have no idea what this show is going to look like next season. If my brother is right and Juliet did change the future, does that mean Oceanic 815 never landed on the island? I just can’t believe that that is the truth. All the work and intricate plotting that we saw from Jacob’s enemy (and the show’s writers) would be for nothing. I just can’t bring myself to believe that would be the case. I’m very curious to see how they are going to marry the story of the nuke going off and the events that we saw on the island with Jacob and “Locke.” For that, however, I’m going to have to wait eight months. Awesome.

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The scene in question, of course, is the one between Jacob and Jacob’s as-of-yet-unnamed enemy, watching the Black Rock heading toward the island. The scene was cryptic, as only Lost can be, but I do think there are some things worth discussing.

The one  passage that really interested me the most between Jacob and his buddy was the following in reference to Jacob bringing the Black Rock to the island:

“They come, fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.” – Jacob’s enemy

“But it only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.” – Jacob

It would seem that Jacob is speaking of some sort of predestined event, this “end.” I have to believe that this is the endgame of the whole show. What, exactly, will be ending is still a big question, however. Is it the end of the island? The end of the world? The end of fighting, and evil in the world? Time will tell.

What’s clear is that Jacob and his enemy seem to have very different beliefs about this issue. It seems that Jacob is naturally optimistic, believing in the honest, good nature of man. His enemy believes the opposite. He may not be wrong, either, as we have seen his prediction come true: people coming to the island, fighting, corrupting, participating in shenanigans of all types. We saw it with the Dharma Initiative, and we saw it with the Oceanic folks. Heck, we’ve even seen it already with the people from Ajira 316.

It would seem that some sort of cycle of events continues to occur on the island, or at least that’s my best guess. I think the end game will see the characters we have gotten to know so well end this cycle somehow. Rewatching the finale, I wonder if Jacob’s death is somehow key to the ending of these events. He certainly didn’t fight for his life very hard. I think he was even goading Ben a little bit into killing him, basically telling him that he wasn’t special at all. (”What about you?”). Perhaps Jacob knew that he had to die in order to change the outcome of things on the island.

As for the nature of Jacob and his friend, it would appear that they are slightly more than human, perhaps even deities. As I see it, they represent opposite ways of thought. It might be good and evil, though I hope not. I think those ideas are simplistic and too absolute. I would like to think that it is more of a yin and yang relationship, the light and the dark (as not so subtly illustrated by their white and black shirts). How that will play into the story moving forward, I’m not so sure.

What is clear is that the final season will be focusing on “destiny.” It’s only nine months, away right? That will come sooner than we think… right? Right???

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This past week’s episode was the typical penultimate episode of Lost. There was a lot of positioning our players to get them into the right spot for the big poop to hit the fan. Judging from “Follow the Leader,” some huge things are definitely going to go down. Most of them seem to be centered around two characters: Jack and Locke. Both of them seem to be up to their old tricks, and both of them are complete and utter morons.

What struck me, after thinking on this week’s episode a little more, is how Jack and Locke have become so similar. They are both convinced that they are doing the right thing, no matter how insane it may seem. For Jack that is blowing up “Jughead” the leaky H-bomb, in hopes of changing the future and preventing 815 from ever crashing on the island. For Locke, it’s hunting down “Jacob,” the mysterious, possibly non-existent leader of the others, and killing him. To both these goals, I must ask the question: Are these two guys idiots?

Now perhaps they are both in the right, I’m accepting that as a possibility, but to me, it seems like killing Jacob and/or blowing up an atomic bomb both seem like horrible ideas. Let’s look at each separately:

Blowing jughead:

Jack, Jack, Jack. Throughout the run of the series, it seems like he’s always made the wrong decision. Why should we believe that his newest obsession is any different? After all, this is the guy who saw the island go poof right in front of his eyes and then denied that Locke moved the island. Plus there was that whole thing with letting the freighter people onto the island, and leaving the island…. Suffice it to say, the guy doesn’t have a great track record. I would like to say that this time is different, but I just don’t see it.

For a “man of science” he’s certainly putting a whole lot of faith into Daniel’s crazy ramblings. Let’s face facts: Faraday was not the most stable of individuals. If he came around ranting about time travel and nukes, I think I would pat him on his hairy head and send him on his way. Not Jack though, he’s completely on board, so miserable in his own life that he’s willing to risk it to change his future (and past, I suppose).

My prediction is that Jack will end up blowing the bomb, in a tense crazy, faith-based standoff reminiscent of Locke and Ecko in the Swan station at the end of season 2. My feeling is that this season Kate will be playing the role of Ecko, begging Jack not to do it. Ironically enough, I think the bomb going off is going to end up being the catalyst for the “incident” that leads to the button pushing in the Swan station, which will lead back to that exact scene between John and Ecko thirty years later. Fun how that works out.

Killing Jacob:

There is a whole lot more mystery surrounding Locke and Jacob. The entire nature of Jacob is still unsettled. I hope to get a little more information from this week’s episode and then write a post about possible answers to the Jacob mystery. For now, though, my best guess is that “he,” as I don’t really believe he is an actual person, is a personification of the island and all of its powers. If that is the case, wouldn’t John be doing an incredible amount of harm by killing him? Isn’t the island the one thing that Locke loves in this world? Does he really think this could be a good idea in any way, shape, or form?

Is Lock still convinced that Jacob is some fake entity that Ben and Alpert made up to control the others? This can’t really be true, can it? I mean, Jacob spoke to Locke. He saw him rocking in that chair back in “The Man Behind the Curtain.” My guess is that he is not intending to actually kill the entity, but instead kill the idea of Jacob (as a commenter “captain ron” pointed out), breaking the control of Alpert and Ben. To this I ask, simply: why? Is Locke so arrogant to think that he can come in to a society that has worked one way, successfully, for many, many years and completely change it? Are the others really clamoring for a change? Is he that arrogant? I fear that he is….

In any case, I think both of these events are going to play into each other. Once the bomb blows, I believe that the time displaced characters will find themselves back in 2007, most likely walking right out of Jacob’s cabin to meet Locke and the others.

What do you think?

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The big question that seems to be lingering is whether or not the castaways in 1977 will be able to alter the future and, therefore, their own lives. Will they be able to prevent the original crashing of Oceanic 815?

As the season plays out, I think the losties are going to be debating whether or not to follow through on Daniel’s plan to attempt to alter the future by blowing the atom bomb, “Jughead.” Whatever does happen with the bomb, I’m guessing that it’s going to play a big part in “the incident” of Dharma Initiative fame. As an aside, I have to say I love that the characters we’ve known for so long are going to be playing a role in an event that we’ve been wondering about since season two. I love this show!

Let’s talk about the two options:

• You can change the future: This would certainly be a monumental game changer for the show, which is why I think it won’t happen. Time travel can get really sticky, and with as much faith as I have in the writers of this show, I don’t think they could pull off the complete reversal of events. Let me be clear: I don’t think any writer could handle the intricate plot questions that would come up. Where would the show pick up? Would any of our characters know each other? What would be the point of even having a season six? This seems like a much better option for an end-of-series, not end-of-season episode.
• You cannot change the future (”whatever happened, happened”): We’ve been having this drilled into us since the beginning of the season, since the castaways started jumping in time. With the exception of Desmond, nothing in the past can affect the future, or so we have been lead to believe. Personally, I think that Daniel was desperate to change the future; I don’t think he believed it could actually happen. I think he still hadn’t gotten over the loss of Charlotte and was willing to try anything to prevent her death. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the future can’t be changed, but I think we’ll find out for sure before the season ends.

The last couple episodes are sure to be interesting. With Lost winding down its run, I can’t wait to get to season six.

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This week we were “treated” to a new clip show instead of a new episode of Lost. I don’t understand who the target audience is for these clip shows, which ABC seems to be in love with. Are they targeted to serious fans of the series? If that’s the case, I don’t get it, because we don’t need clip shows to tell us what’s going on. Is it supposed to be for new or returning fans of the show? If so, I still don’t get it. Who in their right mind is going to decide that the best time to catch up on a program is right in the middle of the season, with only a handful of episodes left? It makes no sense, particularly in this day and age when DVDs of popular shows (as well as online viewing) are so prevalent and easy to acquire.

Usually, I don’t mind the clip shows. Honestly, I don’t. I find them to be somewhat helpful at the beginning of a new season. Occasionally, they can even be insightful when Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof host them. This week’s clip show was neither enlightening, insightful, informative, nor even entertaining.

It would have been one thing if the clip show focused on some of the more interesting, and confusing, aspects of the season so far, such as the time travel elements. I would have loved to have heard Cuse and Lindelof talk about the time traveling that was happening in the beginning of the season and discuss the “rules” that they have set up. I think that could have made for a clip show that was worth watching.

Instead, we were forced to put up with an hour of retelling the story of the Oceanic Six, perhaps the most boring part of this season. Whose idea was that? I think I would have preferred to just get a rerun of one of the previous episodes from this season. The show is complicated, we know this, and I think I could have gotten more out of rewatching one episode, start to finish, than I did out of this clip show. Just cut it out, ABC, there’s no need. Save yourself the trouble and give the clip shows a rest.

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I’m just wondering what the link between the island and Egypt is.

We’ve seen Egyptian themes in many places on the island:

• The countdown clock in the Swan station contained hieroglyphics.
• The secret room in Ben’s New Otherton shack where he summoned the monster had them too.
• Those suckers were all over the temple when Ben went there to be judged.
• The statue certainly looks Egyptian in nature. If I’m not mistaken, it was holding an Ankh.
• The frozen wheel chamber was covered in symbols too.

I’m sure I’ve left some out, but the real point of this post (and yes, I have one) is to talk about possible reasons why the island is rife with Egyptian imagery.

My first thought has to do with the Tunisian desert. It’s not that far from Egypt. If the island likes to spit people out in Tunisia, then it isn’t such a leap to think that it might be possible to get to the island from the Tunisian desert. If it were that easy, though, I think Charles Widmore would be on top of it, but maybe back in the days of ancient Egypt the door was open.

Perhaps the island was visible in the past and it was off the coast of Egypt. This could explain the hieroglyphics, as well as the statue, which clearly looked Egyptian. If this were the case, I would be really interested in why the island started moving and why it disappeared.

With the new group in the picture, looking for “what lies in the shadow of the statue,” I’m hoping that we’ll learn a bit more about the ancient civilization that was on the island before this season is over.

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Lost

This week it was Caesar who met his untimely end, at the hands of (who else?) Ben Linus. Oh Caesar, we hardly knew you. I know that I, for one, thought that Caesar would be sticking around a little longer, but Ben had other ideas. Oh well, no real skin off my back, but it did get me thinking of some of the great minor/recurring character deaths that we’ve gotten on Lost. Here are some of my favorites:

• Leslie Arzt: Dr. Arzt, the poor guy, never really stood a chance. He was the classic red shirt, going off on a dangerous mission with some of the main characters, only to blow up while handling a stick of dynamite. It was a classic Lost moment, not soon to be forgotten, and spawned the awesome Hurley quote: “Dude, you’ve got some Arzt on you.”
• Nikki and Paulo: The viewing public can be a cruel and unforgiving populace. The writers wanted to see if they could introduce some of the background survivors into the show late in the game. Turns out they couldn’t. People hated Nikki and Paulo. It did, however, lead to a couple great deaths, as the two greedy diamond hunters were bitten by paralyzing spiders and then buried alive. Fun!
• Tom the Other: Tom was a great antagonist early in the show, particularly through seasons 2 and 3. Having seemingly masterminded many of the difficult situations that the 815′ers were put through, it was fitting that Sawyer plugged him at the end of season 3. It was a surprising and brutal death.
• Anthony Cooper: Cooper was a slimeball, there’s no way around it. His death, at Sawyer’s hand, was pretty spectacular though. It also gets bonus points because it was totally the Jabba the Hutt death: strangled by a chain on a boat. If I ever have to get brutally murdered, that’s the way I would want to go too.
• Jason the Other: You probably don’t even remember who Jason was. I had to look him up to find his name. However, if I said “the guy who Sayid killed with only his feet in the season 3 finale,” I think you would remember him. It was just further proof that Sayid is a total badass.
• Frogurt: He was mentioned more in passing than we actually saw him, but Frogurt went out with style. Yes, he was annoying and he tried to weasel his way between Libby and Hurley (as seen below), but does anyone really deserve a flaming arrow to the chest?
• Mikhail: What was really noteworthy about Mikhail’s death was that it happened three times … at least. His brain was fried by the sonar fence, he took a javelin to the chest, and then he detonated a grenade in his hand. I think that one finally did it.

What are your favorite deaths on the show?

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