*cries*

*sob*

*sniffle*

The death of Jin and Sun was absolutely traumatic and yet beautiful.  Jin refusing to leave the side of his beloved Sun even one more was heartbreaking.  The imagery was gorgeous and yet horrible as the last picture we had of these two were being pulled apart.  Ji Yeon is now destined to grow up never to know her parents.

Wow.  I remember never expecting this.  After so much time apart, doing everything imaginable to reunite with one another, the show gave us an episode to see the Kwons together only to literally blow them apart.

The Kwons’ death tells us one thing.  The Man in Black/Locke is not the hero of this story.  He is ultimate evil.  He planned out getting all remaining candidates together on the submarine so they could kill each other.  The bomb was the perfect way to do it.  Jack knew that nothing was going to happen, but everything this season was leading to this moment.

We already saw dynamite fizzle away with jack around it back with Richard.  Jack totally believed that this bomb would be no different.  He had complete faith that the Island would not let them die…or that Locke was unable to do it himself.  Jack inferred, reasonably and correctly so, that if Locke could have killed them all, why hadn’t he done it already?  I have no doubt that the bomb would not have gone off if they had let it run down to 0:00.

The problem was that Sawyer had his hands on the wires, and the last time he trusted Jack with a decision of this magnitude, Juliet died.  Sawyer went ahead with Jack’s crazy scheme with Jughead, and it cost him the love of his life.  Sawyer wasn’t going to do that again.  By pulling the wires, Sawyer effectively was the person killing the candidates, not Locke.  Technicality but it feels like technicalities are vital to the Island and to Jacob’s rules.

Sawyer’s actions do give Sayid a chance to redeem himself from his trip to the Dark Side.  Sayid’s noble sacrifice reminded us all of one thing.  Despite the terrible things that Sayid had done over his lifetime, deep down he was a good man.  It is something that Sayid has been trying to reach since day one on the Island and with his final sacrifice, he was purged of his wrongdoings.

Remember, Sayid had not chosen to go to the Dark Side.  He had been shot and dipped in the Temple pool, which had been corrupted by Jacob’s death.  Sayid was literally infected by the Man in Black and it took him a long time to find his way out of the darkness.  Sayid’s choice was not, “I’m going to sacrifice myself and then I’ll be redeemed.”  Instead, it was “I am expendable because I am already dead inside” and by that, he becomes a hero again.

Jack, Hurley, Kate, along with an unconscious Sawyer, wash up on the beach in the lowest moment for all of them perhaps in the entire series.  They feel defeated and are grieving the loss of three friends (Lapidus is not dead yet!).

Such an emotional powerhouse of an episode that showed us the true extent of the characters, especially the Man in Black.  Last post I talked about how the Man in Black was honest and forthright and hated secrets.  Well, toss that all out the window because he is the monster that we always thought he was when the first sounds of the monster echoed across the beach.

If only we had an episode that told us the origin of the Man in Black…..