The Finale

It's been a day and a half, so I suppose I'm rested and recuperated enough to provide my thoughts on the finale. It would be an understatement to say there was a lot going on, so I suppose this will be more of an overview than an in-depth analysis; expect plenty of rambling posts over the next few days.

The Season 4 finale was a lot of fun. That's almost a given. After watching it, though, I can understand why everybody was hyping it as more of a straightforward action-adventure narrative than last season's finale: we got action and suspense and lots of running around, but the structure wasn't as cohesive as last year, and the many loose ends seemed more like a result of time constraints than actual planning.

For example: we still don't know whether or not Jin's dead? And did Faraday disappear with the rest of the island, or not? And what was with the out-of-nowhere Charlotte intrigue? And why did Sawyer bother whispering his request to Kate before jumping out of the helicopter? (Reason: because otherwise Jack would've heard him, and his future split with Kate wouldn't have made sense.) And why did they set up Michael's return like it was the Second Coming only to have him appear in four or five episodes and then get blown up?

These are all nitpicky but collectively add up to a finale that was all over the place - one that resembles Season 2's fractured finale way more than Season 1 and 3's tightly focused odysseys. That's not to say it wasn't enormously enjoyable; it's just, well, harder to write about.

There weren't too many flash-forwards, but whenever they did happen, they were almost uniformly excellent. The whole Jeremy Bentham thing provided the only through-line in the entire episode and gave us some really cool moments, particularly Sayid's late-night appearance at Hurley's mental hospital. Mr. Eko's "cameo" was the perfect button to end the scene on, too.

Speaking of Eko, we met another person from the past, too: Walt, or rather, Holy Crap Is That Walt? It was great to see the young man again, and now that the flashforwards seem to have caught up with the real-life present, more or less, it would be even greater to see Walt join the gang on their trip back to the island.

We also saw Claire, even though she, too, was reduced to a cameo. Which sucks. Okay, we've all figured out she's dead by now, but either keep her on the show or give her a proper send-off. And speaking of which, it's all but confirmed that the writers have completely forgotten about Desmond's premonition of seeing Claire getting on a helicopter with Aaron. Which sucks even worse because, unless they pull something out of their butts in Season 5 or 6, it's a massive, massive, massive, massive plot hole. Massive.

On the island, Keamy was disposed of rather quickly - twice - and the fight between him and Sayid was pretty spectacular. Also terrific was Locke and Jack's final on-island argument - we've seen plenty of variations on it, and it never gets old. Perhaps EW's Jeff Jensen has the reason why:

I have often made the mistake of articulating the ideological conflict between these two in ways that suggest Jack and Locke are exemplars of their respective stances. That's wrong. Rather, I think Lost has used each to dramatize the limitations of adhering dogmatically to either worldview. Jack is a humanist who believes solely and foolishly in his own agency, while Locke submits himself to an external, exotic agency he doesn't even understand. I love how Matthew Fox and Terry O'Quinn don't play the heady ideas but rather the desperate, murky psychology underneath them.

Jack and co. soon left - with Ben's full, surprising blessing - and it was down to business with Ben and Locke in the Orchid. While I'll have to watch the exact sequence of events again - why did putting all the metal stuff in the pod allow Ben to go underneath? and why was it so cold down there? - the answer behind the island's disappearance lies in the orientation video: if you stick a bunny in the time machine and send it into the future one millisecond, the bunny will appear to blip out of existence for that one millisecond. That's exactly what the island did - it's just going farther in the future than that. Possibly to October 24th, 2005, about ten months later. That's the date Ben, in his Dharma parka, woke up in the desert in "The Shape of Things to Come" - the obvious implication being that he time-traveled and woke up there immediately after turning the wheel. If that's true, it's logical to assume that the island also jumped to that date.

What am I forgetting? A lot, I guess - will Frank still be on the show? What should we make of Sun's correspondence with Widmore? - but most of all, the reunion between Desmond and Penny. That's a plot line that will carry into Season 5 - Ben's promise to kill Penny. Since I assumed Ben would be in the coffin - Locke was my distant second choice - I figured they would wrap up that storyline.

And yes, Locke ended up in the coffin (although that fake alternate footage was fascinating). Before the island went poof, Locke fulfilled his destiny by officially - or, as officially as we're going to get - becoming the leader of the Others. It will be interesting to see what he, along with Richard, does with the group - and of course, what kind of "terrible things" happen on the island after the departure of the Oceanic Six. Terrible things that propel Locke to leave the island, beg once more for the Six + Walt to return, and end up dead - possibly by his own hand, but probably not. That should make for an exciting Season 5.

TAGS: Recap, Season 4 Finale, Theres No Place Like Home
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