“The Constant” is one of the best hours of television you will ever see.

Brilliantly constructed, “The Constant” involved so much information and specifics for the future of LOST, all wrapped up in a heart-warming love story between Desmond and Penny.

On the way to the freighter, Desmond’s consciousness jumped back to his time in the military.  Similar to the situation in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” Desmond’s mind jumps to his past, 1996 to be specific.

Only this time, Desmond’s mind jumps back and, suddenly, in 2004, he does not remember Sayid, Frank or the Island.  This caused Desmond to freak out and Sayid had to restrain him to prevent Desmond from doing something to crash the helicopter.

Once on the freighter, they took Desmond to the doctor.  There he met another person who was suffering the same fate as Desmond, George Minkowski.  Minkowski was the communications officer on the freighter until he went a bit mad.  He was strapped down to the bed.

With Frank’s help, Sayid got a hold of a phone and called Jack, who put Faraday on the line.  Faraday appeared to know what was going on and he asked Desmond what year he thought it was.  1996 Desmond said, 8 years off.  Faraday told Desmond to go find Faraday at Oxford in 1996 and to convince him that Desmond was sent there by Faraday himself.  Faraday gave Desmond some numbers and some hints that would help convince himself that this was true.

Desmond’s next flash was at Oxford and he found that time period’s Faraday, who did not believe him at first.  Desmond convinced him and he told Desmond that the reason he was stuck was that his mind did not have anything familiar in both time lines.  He needed a constant to balance the variables.

Faraday also dropped some of LOST time travel rules, most importantly, the future cannot be changed so there would be no Back to the Future time paradoxes.

Desmond knew who his constant would be…Penny.

Flashing back to the ship, Desmond told Sayid that he needed to call Penny.  Problem- communications were sabotaged by someone.  Sayid would try to fix it, but Desmond needed the number and he did not have it.

Next flash, to an auction where a journal from and a painting of the Black Rock were for bid.  Charles Widmore purchased the journal written by one Tovard Hanso.  Desmond begged Charles to give him Penny’s new address and Widmore did it, expecting his daughter to kick Desmond to the curb.

Back on the ship, Minkowski died in Desmond’s arms as his mind could not get back to the future.  Blood started coming out from Desmond’s nose as well, indicating that time was running out.

Flash back to Desmond going to see Penny.  He wanted her phone number and he said he won’t call it until Christmas Eve 2004.  She couldn’t change the number and had to believe him that he would call her then, and if she ever loved him, she would do this.  Penny gave him the number.

Back on the ship, the phone is ready, Desmond remembered the number and they called Penny.  Sayid warned Desmond that the battery would not last long.

After several rings, Penny answered.  This is one of the most joyous phone conversations I have ever seen on screen.  Every bit of chemistry and connection Penny and Desmond have came through during this conversation.  Penny couldn’t believe that he had called her.  She had been searching for him.  They swore their love for one another just before the phone died.  Desmond thanked Sayid by name, indicating that he was okay again.

Henry Ian Cusick and Sonya Walger were masterful in this scene, which was the perfect end to this episode.  I have said it before, but the one couple on LOST that had to wind up together was Penny and Desmond.  If that did not happen, then there was just something wrong with the show.

Wonderful television.  Just perfect.

Flash Forward:  The Trail of Kate Austen.

Kate has been running for years.  Ever since she crispy fried her step-father (who was her real father) in the house fire, Kate has been making a life out of moving form one place to another.

However, something has made Kate face the music, wanting to be able to stay in one place.  Her son.

Her son?  When did Kate give birth?  We wonder this the whole episode.  Was she pregnant from her time with Sawyer and gave birth after they were rescued?  Since we do not know the time frame from the flash-forward, that was a possibility.

Kate has been a fairly consistent character in that as soon as rescue comes close, she takes off or does something really stupid to try and get by.  This is no exception.  She stayed behind at the barracks with Locke because she saw an opportunity to find out from Miles what the freighter people knew about her.

However, Locke did not let her talk to Miles so she had to do something drastic.  Conning poor Hurley, Kate found out where Miles was being held and she went to talk to him.  He refused to tell her anything unless he got one minute with Ben.

Kate enlisted Sawyer for help and worked it so Locke would be out of his house (Ben was now in Locke’s cellar).  She brought Miles to Ben.  Miles basically said that he would tell his boss that Ben was dead if Ben gave him 3.2 million dollars.

After the meeting, Kate found out that Miles and the freighter people knew all about Kate’s legal problems and he suggested that she stay right here on the Island.

Locke caught her and banished her from the barracks. She spent the night with Sawyer, but they did not have sex.  Sawyer asked her about it and Kate said that she was not pregnant and that she was going back to the beach.  Sawyer was upset and lashed out verbally at her.

Kate said she was not pregnant so how does she have a son in the flash forward?

More details that everything isn’t 100% okay came when Jack (without the crazy beard or obvious painkiller addiction) took the stand in Kate’s trial.  Under oath, he told a story about the crash that was mostly a lie.  He said that only eight passengers survived the crash.  They crashed in the water. Kate helped take care of the other six.  The Marshal died int he crash and he never spoke to him.  Kate told him about her fugitive status on her own.  Jack, the one known for being heroic and honest, was committing perjury all over the place.

Why are the Oceanic 6 lying?  Hurley, in the season opener, made a reference to telling and this is what he was meaning.  They have set up a cover story. Why?

Kate cut a deal with the prosecutor after Kate’s mom refused to testify against Kate and she was free.  She agreed to not leave the state for 10 years.  She claimed she had no where to go with her son.

Then we find out the piece of info that makes this all make sense.  She goes home and see her “son.”  It is Aaron, Claire’s son.

Why is Kate raising Aaron?  Does this count as being raised by another?  What happened to Claire?  We do know that Aaron makes the 5th of the Oceanic 6.  One remaining.

With the murder charge out of the way, Kate seems as if she is ready to settle down with Aaron and live a normal life.  Is running more about Kate or more about the charges that had been hanging over Kate’s head?

The Constant is next.

Jarrah, Sayid Jarrah.

The Economist flashes forward to Berlin where Sayid Jarrah has found himself as a super spy.  Well, maybe more of an assassin.  Sayid has himself a list and he has to kill everyone on the list.  We see Sayid dispatch a guy on a golf course as the cold open.

Along the way, he falls for a woman named Elsa, who works for his next target.  However, Elsa is playing Sayid as well.  Too bad.  Sayid is much more dangerous and she winds up dead.  Sayid regrets having to kill her as he had developed feeling for her.

Sayid’s boss was unhappy with that.

Sayid’s boss?  Ben.

Yep, Ben Linus is in the flash forward giving Sayid instructions on murdering people.  Of course, Ben says none of these people are good people, but who can believe one word that Ben says?  Ben has something on Sayid, making it so he has to work for him.

Sayid does admit to being a member of the Oceanic 6.  Now that makes Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid.

On Island, Sayid takes Miles and Kate and goes to the barracks to try to negotiate a release of Charlotte from Locke’s people.  Locke’s group gets a drop on them and separates them from each other.  Locke comes to see Sayid and Sayid wants to have Locke give him Charlotte.  Locke says, you think I should just give you Charlotte for nothing?  Sayid responds with no, I never said for nothing.  Instead, he swaps Miles for Charlotte.

John tells Sayid that Ben claims to have a spy on the freighter.

Kate decides to stay at the barracks.

After Sayid returns with Charlotte, Frank takes Sayid and Desmond in the helicopter and heads to the freighter.

There was a cool scene where Faraday did a scientific experiment dealing with the time discrepancies on the Island.  This will be setting up the time travel aspects for later in the season.

The second episode of season four takes a look at our four new cast members and their trail that brought them to be aboard the freighter off the coast of the Island.

Daniel Faraday, Miles Straume, Frank Lapidus and Charlotte Lewis weer the four person team put together by Matthew Abaddon to apparently capture Ben Linus.

We went back to the flashbacks for these four, but each one had a short little introduction.  Frank saw footage of the Oceanic 815 crash and recognized that the pictures showing the pilot was not showing the pilot.  Frank was supposed to be flying Oceanic 815.  Charlotte went to an archeology site at a desert in Tunisia where there was a polar bear skeleton found. Daniel was crying when he saw the news report of the recovery of the Oceanic crash victims.  Miles was someone who could speak to ghosts and hired himself out for money.

Meanwhile, on the Island, Locke’s group found Charlotte and made her go with them.  Ben stole the gun from Carl and tried to kill her, but she had a bullet proof vest on.

It is amazing that Ben is still alive.  You would think that they would just get tired of his lies and manipulations and just kill the guy.  He is constantly working the verbal tricks trying to keep himself valuable enough.  This episode alone, Carl, Sawyer and John nearly killed him, but he continues to live on.

Frank was able to land the helicopter on the Island without crashing it so he is getting ready to start taking trips to the freighter.  Frank seems to be more honest than the other three.  Perhaps he has less of a part of the overall mission outside of flying the helicopters.

These four new characters are very interesting and are an exciting addition to the cast.

Season four starts off strong with us learning that Hurley is another one of our Oceanic 815 survivors who have made it off the Island. In fact, they are kind of celebrities, with Hurley calling himself a member of the Oceanic 6.

Hurley, Jack, Kate….

But Hurley has been having trouble on the outside, winding up back in the mental institution (although he does not seem sad about that).  He has been seeing dead Charlie, and Charlie tells him that “they need him.”

Jack also stopped by, alive of course, and wanted to check on Hurley.  Hurley asked him… are you just here making sure I haven’t told anyone.”  So the Oceanic 6 apparently have a secret to share.

And another man named Matthew Abaddon came to see Hurley pretending to be a lawyer working for Oceanic.  He made Hurley very nervous, so much so that Hurley made a big deal about getting away from him.  Abaddon is an intriguing looking character that is one of the most disappointing character to debut.

On the Island in present time, the survivors have a decision to make.  Word of Charlie’s message has gotten through to the group and the idea that the people on the freighter are not who they claim to be is weighing on them.  Jack and Locke are at serious odds, but Locke said that he is going to the barracks and any one who wants to go with him can do so.  The questions over Charlie’s message caused Hurley, Sawyer, Claire, Alex and Carl among others to go with Locke.

Another parachutist arrives on the Island.  This one is named Daniel Faraday.  He’ll be one of the best characters to arrive.

In fact, the people on the freighter are more impactful, successful and interesting as characters than anyone from the tail section.  Of the “tailies,” only Bernard remains (although Cindy is still with the Others).  The freighter will bring us Faraday, Frank Lapidus, Miles Straume, and Keamy, who all have major parts of the story.

The first episode serves as a kick off for the final 48 episodes LOST is going to have and this does a great job of setting it up.

Plus, when Hurley tells Claire about Charlie, that is one of the toughest, most emotional moments in the show’s history.  I said it before but when Hurley cries, we cry.

LOST season three has been completed in my re-watch of the series, and this is one of the seasons that really was all or nothing.

The first half of the season had several episodes that were pretty weak to downright poor.  The recognized worst episode of LOST, “Stranger in a Strange Land,” is from this season. However, the last 6-8 episodes are as good as you get.

There are several episodes that are hated by most that I actually love.  Two immediate examples include “Tricia Tanaka is Dead” featuring Hurley and “Expose” featuring Nikki and Paolo.

It was during this season where the creators of LOST were able to convince ABC to give them an end date for the series so they could begin working towards the conclusion of the story.  Because of that, you start seeing a couple of things.  One, some of the flashbacks are really weak because there just is not enough to make them matter.  Two, the writers begin to experiment with the format of the flashbacks, like in “The Brig” where the flashbacks are all on the Island and just tells the story in a different manner.

We got some major questions answered such as Who is the original Sawyer?  What happened to the Dharma Initiative?  Who is Alex?  How do people get to the Island?  How did Locke wind up in the wheelchair?

Best Episode:  Through the Looking Glass.  Completely changed the landscape of the series moving forward, flash forward even.  Charlie’s death. Ben and Jack.  Locke returns from seeing Walt.  Called the freighter and they had a lock on them.  Blowing up tents.  So much excitement and drama and the biggest twist of the series.  Runner-Up:  Flashes Before Your Eyes.

Best Flashback:  Flashes Before Your Eyes.  Desmond’s story does play with the format of the flashback, introducing time travel and its rules into the LOST mythos.  Fan favorite character Eloise Hawkins is introduced as well.  Runner-Up:  The Man from Tallahassee

Best Performance:  Terry O’Quinn, The Man from Tallahassee.  Terry O’Quinn is spectacular in this episode where we find out how Locke gets in the chair.  O’Quinn had to go through so many different emotions in this episode, he is truly awesome.  Runner-Up:  Henry Ian Cusick, Flashes Before Your Eyes

Biggest Jerk:  Anthony Cooper.  No contest.  This guy this season throws his son out of an 8th story window, may have killed his fiance’s son, bad mouths John on the Island, runs his mouth to Sawyer.  If anyone had coming what happened to them, Anthony Cooper is the one.  Runner-Up:  Ben Linus

Best Death:  Charlie Hume.  This is another no doubter.  Charlie’s death is one of the best deaths on television ever and it is sad to watch today.  He is a hero in the end, warning Desmond that it is “Not Penny’s Boat.”  Runner-Up:  Mr. Eko

Biggest Surprise:  “We have to go back!” Flash forward to the future instead of flashbacks.  This shift in narrative makes a huge change in the story of LOST and was something that you just did not see happening.  If you watch it again, you can see the hints, but the reveal was just so well done.  Runner-Up:  Nikki and Paolo are paralyzed, not dead.

Funniest Moment:  Sawyer teaching Jin to speak English.  This whole section including Hurley calling Sawyer “red-neck-man” and Sawyer being impressed was just beautifully written and the laughs flow directly out of the characters.  Runner-Up:  Jin telling the campfire story

Best Moment:  “Not Penny’s Boat”.  Charlie takes the time to write on his hand a message to Desmond to tell the rest that the freighter was not sent by Penny was poignant and heartbreaking.  Runner-Up: John Locke pushed out of an 8th floor window

Most Developed Character:  Desmond.  Desmond’s flashbacks were perfectly done and it gave him more layers each time.  The connection between Desmond and Penny is the stuff to drive the rest of the seasons.  Runner-Up:  Jack Shepherd.

Best New Character:  Juliet.  I hated her, but there is no doubt that she is the best new character.  Both Ben and Desmond were introduced in season two, so they are not new characters.  Juliet is important through the entire season and helps the Oceanic 815 survivors come as close as they have so far to being rescued.  Runner-Up:  Mikhail.

“Kate, We have to go back!”

With those words, LOST completely redid its narrative for the remaining seasons of shows.  We knew one thing for sure.

Jack and Kate made it off the Island.

The entire two-hour run of the finale, “Through the Looking Glass” I kept wondering where this Jack flashback fit in with continuity.  It did not seem to make any sense. Even when Kate first stepped out of her car, I’m like, wait…what?

When it dawned on me that this was not a flashback, but a flash-forward, the world of LOST was reborn.  They were on the path to the conclusion and, if it was going to be anything like this episode, the ride was going to be epic!

This was some of the best television I had seen in ages.  Seeing Jack so crushed, so out of control, was heart-breaking.  There were plenty of hints in the flash forward, but none of them made a lick of difference to me at the time.

And then, there was Kate, looking at Jack with such a disbelief, a pity in her eyes.  This was a man she had once called “perfect” breaking down in front of her.  He had developed a painkiller addiction, been riding airplanes to Sydney, Japan, Singapore hoping that it would crash… very un-Jack-like behavior.  What could have possibly caused Jack to crash this hard after escaping the Island?  Jack was very confident and in charge on Island as we see him leading his people to the radio tower, preparing to call to Naomi’s freighter.  How could there be such a difference in the man whom have gotten to know over the last three seasons?

The flash forward would have been enough in this episode, but there are a bunch of other magnificent threads weaving together to make such a brilliant finale.

Charlie in the Looking Glass is being tortured by the two women he found there.  Desmond, who just now wakes up, is being shot at by Dmitri and he swims down to the station as well.  Desmond is able to hide but Dmitri showed up.  He gets orders from Ben to kill everybody down there.  Fortunately, Desmond shoots Dmitri with a spear gun before he kills them all.

Of course, he needed a second shot to the head.  Double tap, as Zombieland would put it.

Charlie gets the jamming device shut off as Desmond is working on getting diving gear.  A message comes through the station and Charlie takes it.  It’s Penny!  They’re excited, he mentioned Desmond and Penny is excited.  Charlie mentioned the boat and Naomi, but Penny doesn’t know who Naomi is.  Then, Charlie saw the still not-dead Dmitri outside the station through a port hole and he had a hand grenade.  Charlie slammed the door just just before Dmitri blew the hole in the side of the room, letting the water into the room.

Desmond’s vision was coming true. But before Charlie drowned, he was able to write on his hand “Not Penny’s Boat.”

Charlie’s death is truly one of the biggest heartbreaking moments on LOST and is one of the best deaths on TV.  Why does Charlie sacrifice himself?  Couldn’t he have shut the door and Desmond and he use the scuba gear to get away?

Personally, I think it goes back to the original vision.  Charlie knew in order for Claire to be on the helicopter, he had to drowned and he saw this as that moment.  He also could have been saving Desmond’s life after Desmond had saved Charlie’s life three/four times.  With as poorly as Charlie’s character was treated in season two, this was an epic way to go out in season three. Charlie certainly was the hero of the story.

Another hero of the finale was Hurley.  Poor Hurley only wanted to help, but his offer to Charlie was rebuked because Charlie said he couldn’t fit into the boat and his offer to Sawyer and Juliet, who were heading back to the beach to try and help Jin, Bernard and Sayid, was rebuffed as Sawyer said “Look at you, what help can you be”.  In both cases, the characters were being mean because they wanted to protect Hurley.  Fortunately, Hurley did not take the insults and he continued on his own and he got his car from “Tricia Tanaka is Dead” and made an entrance, running down one of the Others.

Prior to this, Ben had intercepted Jack’s people and wanted to talk to Jack.  He got five minutes.  Ben warned Jack that the people on that boat were not who they said they were and that he needed to take the sat phone and destroy it.  Jack refused so Ben called Tom at the beach and told him to kill Jin, Bernard and Sayid in one minute unless he called him back.  Ben asked Jack to give him the phone or Tom would kill them all.  Jack would not do it and you can hear three gunshots over the walkie.  Jack jumps into savage mode and beats the crap out of Ben.

No doubt about it, one of the best things that Michael Emerson can do on LOST is get the crap kicked out of him.

After Hurley’s drive, Sayid put on a display of his fancy foot fighting, as he takes down and breaks the neck of one of the Others with his hands tied behind his back.  How do you break someone’s neck with your legs?  You have to be a bad ass Iraqi I guess.  Sawyer gets a hold of a gun and winds up basically executing Tom Friendly, who had given up.  No hesitation this time, as there was when John had wanted Sawyer to kill “Ben” (which turned out to be Anthony Cooper in “The Brig”).

Hurley used the Walkie talkie to communicate with Jack to tell him that everyone was safe.  The signal on the sat phone started working.  They shut off Danielle’s message.  Ben, laying on the floor all battered, introduces Alex to her mother, Danielle.  Mother and daughter tie Ben to a tree in a weird bonding activity.

Everything seemed to be going great… until Naomi started to call to the freighter and… John Locke showed up and killed Naomi with a knife to her back.

John, who was last seen in the mass grave of the Dharma Initiative, came to and was preparing to shoot himself in the head when he saw a vision of older Walt.  Walt told John to get out of the hole and get to work.  I guess Walt meant go and kill Naomi, because John does that.  John then threatened to shoot Jack if he did not give up the sat phone, but Jack called John’s bluff.  Despite Ben’s shouts for John to shoot him, John backs down and leaves.

Jack calls the freighter and they make contact.

What a fantastic episode and a brilliant season finale.  The flash forward would have people guessing and wondering until season four and the drama of the death of Charlie was as melancholy as can be.  Everybody had something important to contribute to the story and it sets up beautifully the next phase of LOST storytelling.

The penultimate episode of season 3 was another fantastic one.  This time, we focus on Charlie and the fact that he has been dodging death for the last half of this season, thanks to Desmond.

Charlie has come a long way from Dark Charlie from last season.  Here he has volunteered to swim down to the Looking Glass station to shut off a jamming signal that blocks any messages off the Island.  He does it with the knowledge that Desmond had seen him do it and drown, but it led to Claire and Aaron getting on a helicopter to leave the Island.

Charlie was compiling a list of his “Greatest Hits”, the top 5 memories of his life, which were out flashbacks for the episode. This is another creative way to include the flashback in the story.

Desmond tries to convince Charlie to let him take his place, swimming down to the Looking Glass which is supposed to be flooded.  It sounded like a suicide mission, but Charlie knocked him out with the oar so he couldn’t do it.  Charlie was determined to get Claire off the Island no matter what happened to him. This is a totally different Charlie who was more concerned with his drugs or his jealousy over Locke.  This was a hero.

Of course, once Charlie finds his way into the Looking Glass, he realizes that it is not flooded after all.  One more lie from Ben.  There are even two armed women down there who have their guns trained on Charlie.  (One of the women will be the Evil Queen on Once Upon a Time).

Meanwhile, the trap for the Others have to be sped up because Carl arrived and told them that the Others were coming sooner than they thought.  They recruited three shooters (Jin, Sayid and Bernard) who would shoot the dynamite in the marked tents when the Others went inside expecting the women who were pregnant and, as Jack said, “Blow them all to Hell.”

Jack has become a much stronger leader than we have seen for awhile.  Jack is going to lead the remainder of the group to the radio signal so they can shut off Rousseau’s message and signal the freighter.

This was a great episode, but a lot of it felt like they were setting up for the finale.  Through the Looking Glass is the final episode of season three and it is a huge episode.

Jacob.

This is a great episode that gave us some specifics about Ben’s background, the Dharma Initiative and the Island’s true ruler.

Well, there are more questions than answers in true LOST tradition.  Still there are a bunch of things we learned.

• Ben was not born on the Island as he said.  He came as a child.  He was born early and in Portland by the side of the road.
• Ben’s father was Roger “Work Man”, the skeleton discovered by Hurley in “Tricia Tanaka is Dead”
• Richard Alpert does not appear to age.
• Ben saw his mother in the jungle of the Island even though she died giving birth to him.
• Roger was an asshole who never got past his wife, Emily’s death and blamed Ben for it.  No wonder he turned out as he did.
• There was a volcano on the Island.
• Only Ben has ever seen Jacob.  This may be questionable since Ben is a liar.
• Ben murdered his own father – a reason why he was so insistent on John doing the same?
• The Dharma Initiative was murdered by the Hostiles with help from Ben.  Ben dumped all their bodies into a pit.
• Juliet is a double spy, having already told Jack what she was doing.  Instructions from Ben allow the 815 crew to know when the Others are coming.

This episode featured a great performance from Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson.  These two scene partners seem to be better every time they are together.  Ben is clearly jealous of John and seemed surprised when Jacob spoke to John.

When Ben shoots John at the Dharma mass grave, he demands to know what Jacob said to him.  “Help me” responded John.

The whole cabin in the woods vibe of Jacob’s cabin was really spooky and well done.  At first, one wondered what was going on and if Ben had just been playing with John, but then the scene went crazy and we see the eye and the quick glimpse of who we think is Jacob.

For a season that started out shakily and uncertain, season three has truly hit its stride.

One of the big questions gets a confirmed answer in “The Brig” as it is revealed that the wicked con man Anthony Cooper, the father of John Locke, is also the “Sawyer” who was involved with conning James “Sawyer” Ford’s parents which led to the murder-suicide by James’s father.

We had pretty much figured this out by this point, but it was nice to have the confirmation from LOST.  Plus, we had one of the most satisfying confrontations in the show’s history.

When John realized that he was not going to be able to actually murder his father, even with the horrible things Anthony had done to him, he had to come up with something else.  The suggestion came from Richard Alpert, as he gave Locke a file on Sawyer.

John took Anthony to the brig on the Black Rock and then went to get Sawyer from the beach.  Locke lured Sawyer to the Black Rock with the story that he had captured Ben and wanted Sawyer to kill him. Sawyer refused, claiming not to be a murderer.  Locke reminded him of the man in Sydney and then said that all Sawyer would need to do his hear what Ben had to say and he would change his mind.

Once they arrived at the Black Rock, Locke locked Sawyer in with Anthony and waited.

The scenes between Sawyer and Anthony were brilliant, especially since they never shared even one moment of screen time together.  The dialogue between Sawyer and Anthony, and Sawyer and Locke from the trip, really popped this entire episode.

Another one of the popular theories of what was going on here was explored a bit.  Some people believed that the Island was actually Hell and that they were all dead.  Anthony believed this.  He gave a story about being injured by a car in Tallahassee and being loaded on an ambulance and then waking up to his dead son.

Anthony confirmed the story that the parachutist (Naomi) had told that they found Oceanic Flight 815 at the bottom of the ocean.

Kevin Tighe, who played Cooper, was just tremendous as the unrepentant Sawyer/Cooper/con man.  Even when James was making him read the letter he had written as a child, Cooper was almost laughing through it.  He was truly a low life and he deserved what fate had in store for him.  Even still, you could see how much regret Sawyer had after he strangled the man with the chains.

Locke thanks Sawyer.

The flashbacks this week were actually all on the Island and told the story of John and his father from the end of “The Man from Tallahassee” until when he got Sawyer.  It was a different manner of flashback this episode and I really liked it.

Meanwhile on the Island, Hurley, Desmond, Jin and Charlie returned to camp with the parachutist, but they were nervous about telling Jack because they did not trust him any more.  Instead they went to Sayid.  Naomi said she was from a ship off the coast of the Island and she had been commissioned by Penny Widmore.

Eventually Kate found out and she went to Jack.  She did not want to tell Juliet, but Jack insisted and so Kate told him and said the reason his friends did not trust him any more was because of Juliet.

New people are coming…

Sun has that fierce lioness fighting for her cub feel and I, for one, would not want to be on the wrong side of her if push came to shove.

We see more of fierce Sun in this episode as she finds out the truth about pregnant women on the Island.  If they have conceived on the Island, they die  Juliet said that she had lost 9 women over the three years she had been here.

So she decided to take Sun to the medical station for an ultrasound to determine the date of conception of Sun’s baby.

This is made more tense for Sun since she had cheated on Jin prior to coming to the Island with Jae Lee and she is uncertain if Jin is the father.  In fact, since the doctor had told Sun that Jin was sterile, she was certain whose baby this was, even if she hadn’t spoken it out loud.

Sun did not trust Juliet, but the temptation of answers overcame her and she went to the medical station with her.  There is an ultrasound there and Juliet checked her over, determining that Sun got pregnant around 53 weeks ago, which makes it on the Island.

Sun begins to cry, and Juliet misunderstands.  Juliet believed that the tears were for a death sentence, but instead, they were tears of joy that the baby was Jin’s.  Everything else could be fought for by the Lioness, but, had this been Jae’s child, there would have been nothing Sun could have done about it.

Sun told Juliet that she had delivered good news, which was meant to comfort Juliet who had stated earlier that she missed the days when she could tell a woman she was pregnant and it was greeted as joyous news.

Of course, as Sun waited outside, Juliet left a recording for Ben updating the situation.  She has been getting samples from the women and she hopes to have Austen soon, she said.  After shutting off the tape recorder, she looks at it and said , “I hate you.”  Juliet has been pulled in a couple of ways lately and this was the first indication that she may not been 100% Others.

The other major story going on involved the parachutist, who happened to have a branch that punctured a lung.  She was dying (and she repeated that in several different languages).  Who would come along?

Mikhail.

Yes, the same Mikhail who was killed by Locke when he tossed him into the sonic fence.  Apparently, he wasn’t quite dead the last time.  Mikhail is captured by Jin, with an awesome spin kick, and he is brought back.  He said he was a medic in the Russian army and he could help the mysterious woman, but only if he is allowed to leave after.  Desmond agrees.

Mikhail saves her, tries to steal the sat phone, but gets caught again.  Charlie wants to kill him.  Desmond is having none of it.  Desmond shows how good a man he is by sticking ot his word even though it may come back and haunt them at a later date.

The parachutist comes to and asks Hurley where they were.  Hurley told her that they were survivors of Oceanic 815 and they were on an Island.  She was confused because the crashed Oceanic 815 had been found and there were no survivors.

Hurley put it perfectly as the scene went to black,

“What?”

Desmond-centric episodes are always great.

Now, I will say that “Catch-22” is not quite up to the other Desmond flashback episodes, but it is still a fine and engaging hour that keeps you guessing the whole way.

Desmond has had another of his psychic future seeing flashes of Charlie’s death, something Desmond has prevented three times so far.  However, this time is different because Desmond sees an ending to this vision that he desperately wants.  A woman arriving on the Island whom he believes is Penny.

The problem is if they change any of the pieces prior to the arrival, everything could be changed.  Does Desmond have to let Charlie die this time?

Desmond is pretty insistent that everything follows exactly as he saw it and that meant recruiting Hurley, Jin and Charlie to go with him.  But Desmond could not tell them about it because if they knew it ended with Charlie’s demise, they never would have gone for it.

The episode is great as these four actors moved across the Island, with wonderful dialogue and clever writing to slowly follow through with Desmond’s vision and the viewer has to wonder the entire time if Desmond was going to let it happen.  Finally, it was happening and Desmond could not let Charlie die.  It was a great moment of potential sacrifice by the Scotsman to save one of their own.

The woman who fell from the sky, from a helicopter that crashed in the water, turned out to not be Penny, but another woman who knows Desmond and has a photo of him and Penny in a Portuguese version of the novel Catch-22.

Desmond’s flashback was seemingly fluff, but then it turned into a perfect example of echoing what was happening on the Island, and it showed us the first ever meeting between Desmond and Penny.  These two actors have such an easy charm and unbelievable chemistry that you just see it on the screen.  Penny and Desmond are absolutely the couple to root for on LOST.

There was some Jack-Kate-Sawyer stuff too as Kate saw Jack and Juliet together and felt hurt and so she went to Sawyer for some lovin’.  I read a review at IGN that stated that this was revenge from Kate but I disagree totally.  When Kate saw Jack moving on with Juliet, she was hurt because Jack was always the ideal person for her in Kate’s eyes.  He was someone she did not believe she was worthy of.  So when it looked like their possibilities were over, Kate returned to Sawyer to lose herself in what he could offer.  It was to quench Kate’s pain, not to get revenge on anyone.  Just like Kate always does, she was running from the pain.

Was there any wonder why I hated Juliet so much at first?

This episode spent the entire time humanizing her, making the viewers connect with her plight, making us feel for Juliet’s sister and Juliet’s wish to just go home…something we all feel at some point.  They throw her into the beach group so there is isolation, another feeling that we have all felt.

And then they toss the whole thing away by showing that she is a spy for Ben.

One also has to wonder why Jack is such a supporter of Juliet.  He certainly was a first hand witness to her manipulations and he even called her on it to the Others.  It’s one thing to want to give someone a second chance to earn your trust, but it is a whole other thing to blindly forget everything you knew about someone just because you have something in common.

Both Jack and Juliet want off the Island.  That seems to be the only thing driving Jack to believe in her.  That does not seem like enough.

The great scene where Juliet is confronted by Sawyer and Sayid is a perfect example of the differing views.  These Others have tormented and terrorized the survivors for months, but then claim to be the good guys.  When confronted, Juliet slams Sayid and Sawyer with what they had done before the Island, judging them very harshly.  The Others do not subscribe to the theory that the Island is a clean slate and that everyone gets a new life on the Island.  The Others can justify any number of rotten to cruel things because they see themselves as above the survivors.  They are Jacob’s chosen.

Implanting something into Claire that will make her sick unless Juliet can ride to the rescue is just the latest in a long line of atrocities the Others perpetrated against the survivors.  Ben or Juliet probably would justify it by saying Claire was going to give up Aaron anyway so it is fine.

The Others’ claim that they are the “good guys” is just delusional.  This is just one more example of it.

I have expressed my dislike and mistrust of Juliet before.  This episode does not make it any better.

Juliet is a liar and a schemer, just like Ben.  She is responsible for handcuffing herself to Kate and taking the pair into the jungle.  And why?  Because she didn’t want to be left behind again?  That does not seem very likely.

Juliet has not built any trust with anyone but Jack.  She had the key.  She knew the Smoke Monster, but she kept lying about it.  And if I remember correctly, she’s not done with her lies.

I thought the flashbacks were interesting this week as Kate tried to see her mother and find out why she turned Kate in for blowing up Wayne.  That wsn’t the real interesting part though.  It was the girl buddy thing happening between Kate and Cassidy.  Kate helped Cassidy get out of trouble and the two bonded over their trouble with the law.

Meanwhile on the Island, Kate was handcuffed to Juliet.  This is an interesting juxtaposition as Kate is with Sawyer’s old flame in flashbacks and Jack’s potential new flame in the present.  The dynamic with the three women was fascinating to see,

I enjoyed watching Kate and Cassidy working together to get Kate to her mom.  Cassidy confided in Kate about her pregnancy (by Sawyer, though Kate does not know Sawyer in the flashback yet) and Kate told Cassidy her real name.  It was almost like Thelma and Louise.

The Others took off, leaving the Oceanic 815 folks behind, except for John Locke, who decided to go with them.  The Others gassed them and left the community.  We do not know where they are headed, but John is anxious to stay with them.  There was no mention of Anthony Cooper from the previous cliffhanger.

Back at the beach, Hurley tried to make Sawyer nicer so he could be the temporary leader.  He does this by conning Sawyer that the group was going to banish him.  This was a nice little story that did not have much story behind it.  Still, Hurley and Sawyer make an entertaining team.

Here is another episode that many people hated that I absolutely loved.

When LOST decided to cast two actors as new characters but say they had been on the Island with the survivors for the entire time, the fans rejected the idea.  Nikki and Paolo were the characters and they received a ton of heat for being there.

I never knew what cause people to hate these two so much.  I mean, let’s face it, even though they were here, it is not like they were heavily used.  They were background characters who received a line or two an episode.  It is one thing if, because of Nikki and Paolo, other more popular and long term characters got pushed to the back burner, but that did not happen.

So when the decision was made to kill of Nikki and Paolo, few people were upset.  However, many seemed to be bothered by them getting an entire episode devoted to them to tell the story of their demise.

Maybe it was where it fell in the season.  The week after the magnificent “The Man from Tallahassee” was on may bot have been the ideal place for the show to air.  However. if you give it a chance, Exposé works big time.

First of all, it is a mystery.  We don’t know what has happened to Nikki and Paolo and some of our favorites (Hurley, Sun, Sawyer, Charlie) tried to figure it out.

Second of all, the way they did the flashbacks were awesome.  Not only did we get a cool cameo from Billy Dee Williams, but also got several key moments from the series re-shot with Nikki and Paolo involved.  The initial airplane crash, Jack’s “Live together or Die alone” speech, the Pearl Station, the waterfall were all shown from Nikki and Paolo’s POV.

Third of all, the episode allowed us to see some old favorites reprise their roles.  We got Boone.  We got Shannon.  We got Arzt.  It was really fun to see these characters once again in different manners than we had seen them before.

Fourth, the pay off is one of the best single moments of the series.  Nikki and Paolo were not dead.  As the fought over the diamonds that they had stolen, Paolo and then Nikki were paralyzed by the bite of a Medusa spider.  But they looked dead, so Hurley and Sawyer and the rest buried them alive.  LOST rarely got this dark and I loved every second of it.  I couldn’t believe that they were going for it and I was sure something was going to happen to stop it.  But it didn’t.  And to make it even worse, Nikki’s eyes popped open at the last second so she would have known what was happening.  By the way, Vincent knew what was going on as he was trying to uncover their not dead bodies.

And come on… “Paolo lies” instead of “paralyzed”… that is just some creative stuff right there.

There were several fun self-depreciating meta humor here too.  When Nikki was on the Expose set and the creator of the show, Howard Zukerman, suggested that Nikki could come back next year, she joked that she was only a guest star and everybody knows what happens to guest stars.   Boone and Shannon were fighting at the airport and Nikki said to Paolo, “Promise me we won’t end up like them.” Of course they do, both dead and buried on the Island side by side.

I really do love this episode and I will defend it to the end.  It is a dark, humorous mystery (almost noir) that is a perfect send off to two of the most disliked characters on the show.