...And Found

I've written about the Lost season finale the past two years. I'd hate to break tradition, so I might as well do it again. Oh, and if you haven't seen it yet, you might not want to read this.

As usual, we get answers but we also get a ton of questions. It may not be tied up in a nice little package, but it sure is fun. Are you ready? Let's jump right in. (BTW, don't expect much coherence. I just finished watching.)

So, we know now that at least Jack and Kate get off the island. But whose funeral was it that Jack thought Kate might go to, but that made her ask "Why would I go to the funeral?" "He" was going to be wondering where Kate was when she went to meet Jack. Could that "he" be Sawyer? For that matter, why isn't Kate in prison? What has happened to make Jack go off the deep end? Why do they need to go back? I guess that's the point of the remaining 48 episodes. And please tell me that Jack was speaking metaphorically when he made reference to getting his father "down here and if he's not more drunk than me..."

Charlie finally fulfilled his destiny, but he did it heroically. He managed to not only turn off the jamming mechanism, but to save Desmond from drowning and to relay that the boat off shore is not Penny. The final scene of Charlie crossing himself was a wonderful end to his character who we have seen go from the good religious boy to amoral rock star to desperate addict and then all the way back. While we're on the subject of the Looking Glass, what does it take to kill Mikhail? Shove him in the sonic death fence and make him bleed from the ears, shoot him in the chest with a spear gun, it doesn't matter. I won't be too shocked if he managed to survive the blast. (Would he now be down a hand and an eye?) Too bad for the girls in the Looking Glass. They only got two episodes before getting killed by their own kind.

The love triangle quadrilateral is still going on. Jack loves Kate. Kate loves Jack. Sawyer loves Kate. Kate loves Sawyer. Juliet and Jack kissed, and they probably love each other. Joanie loves Chachi and Everybody loves Raymond. Now everyone in the various island romance factions is happy and not happy. Kind of how I feel about watching the season finale and knowing that Lost won't be back until 2008. (For the record, I'm rooting for it to turn into a love dodecahedron.)

Seven Others were killed in the raid, followed by four more. Hurley, who finally got sick of being told he'd be in the way, took out a couple of them with the van. That might have been the coolest way any of them were killed if not for Sayid who, though still tied up, tripped on of the Others and then snapped his neck with his feet. Surrounded, Tom surrendered, but Sawyer shot him anyway, telling him that it was for kidnapping Walt. I guess he wasn't kidding when he said, "You and me ain't through, Zeke."

Other than the big reveal of Jack and Kate in the flashback forward, the biggest surprises came from Locke, who while thinking that he was paralyzed again was preparing to kill himself when he was stopped...by Walt! (MDK has grown so much and his voice has even changed some since last year's finale when he and his dad sailed off into the sunset or wherever heading 325 lead them.) Walt informed him that he was not paralyzed and that he had work to do. Apparently that work involved throwing a knife into Naomi preventing her from making the call to her boat. Unfortunately for all involved, she had been lying about who she was and why she was there, and Locke couldn't stop Jack from making the call.

Oh and did I mention that Danielle was finally reunited with Alex? Could they have crammed anything else into this episode?

What else are we left to wonder until February of 2008? Just a few quick questions:

Who are these people on Naomi's boat? Penny didn't know about it, and Ben claims they will kill everyone.

If Naomi wasn't sent by Penny, why does she have a picture of Desmond and Penny? How did she know him?

Did Locke kill Naomi because he knew that she was not who she said or was it just because he doesn't want to leave?

Of course there are still the big issues of the island itself that weren't even really involved in this episode: Jacob, healing on the island, Smokey, why can't people find the island (I'm still voting for Brigadoon), what's up with the statue? And on and on the list goes. Hopefully some of this will be resolved when the Others get to the Temple where Ben told Richard to take them.

And there is the big question, what happened to make Jack snap and feel that he has to go back? Personally, I'm thinking it was the overwhelming irony that the one time Ben told the truth, Jack didn't believe it, but that's probably just me.

In case you're curious, here is my list of questions from the season 2 finale. They've done a better job answering them that many people give them credit for, but we've still got a long way to go.

48 episodes to go, and I can't wait.