Things are being set up for the big season finale.

This is the opening salvo of the finale, setting details into motion and putting pieces into place, like on a chess board.

We see how the Oceanic 6 arrived back in the US and was reunited with their family.  It was sad to see no one there for Kate.  They held a press conference where they lied through their teeth for some reason.  Then we saw some clips from their lives.  Sayid and Nadia reunited.  Sun took over controlling interest in her father’s company and stuck it to him.  Jack had his father’s funeral and found out that Claire was his half-sister.  Hugo had a surprise birthday party and those pesky numbers popped up again.

Meanwhile on the Island, the members of the Oceanic 6 all started heading in the general same direction and Faraday started ferrying people from the Island to the freighter.  Sun and Jin were the first to head out, along with Aaron.  Kate had passed Aaron off to Sun and she went after Jack and Sawyer.

Unfortunately for Kate and Sayid, they were captured by the Others, led by Richard.

Sun and Jin saw Michael and questioned him on his working for Ben, but they were interrupted by Desmond who brought them all down to a room where he found a ton of C4 wired to blow.

John, Ben and Hurley arrived at the Orchid and they saw that the mercenaries were already there.  Ben gave instructions to John on what he had to do to move the Island and Ben went ahead to give himself up to the mercs.

The finale is two-hours and split into episodes 13 &14.

Hurley is such a good guy.  Sharing his Apollo bar with Ben.  Now that is sacrifice.

John, Ben and Hugo were in search of Jacob’s ever moving cabin, and it took another weird dream for Locke to find the proper location.  It was a dream featuring the return of Dharma Initiative member Horace Godspeed, who pointed Locke in the proper direction.

Ben was fairly docile most of this episode, but I did not trust that.  Hurley, however, seemed to be forgiving.

When they found the cabin, only John wanted to go inside.  Inside he found Christian and Claire.  Claire was very much acting differently, and, of course we know that, Christian is dead.  Is this the Smoke Monster?  It is not Jacob.  Either way, Christian tells John what he has to do.

Move the Island.  Easy-peasy.

I guess if anyone could do it, it would have to be Locke.  He was special.  In flashbacks this episode, we saw some important points in Locke’s life including when he was born prematurely after his mom was hit by a car.  And there in the hospital stood Richard Alpert, looking no different than he did in the present.  A few years later, Richard visited Locke in his foster home and asked him which of the objects here already belonged to John.  Richard seemed unhappy when John chose the knife.  Richard’s interest in Locke is a fascinating story that will be covered next season.

Martin Keemy.  He is the head mercenary from Widmore’s freighter and it appears that he and his merc buddies (ex Omar) are the real trouble on the freighter.  The captain was a pretty decent fellow in this episode.  Too bad he was short for the world.  Martin Keemy is something that we are not used to on LOST.  He is a villain who is not a shade of grey.  This guy is downright monstrous.  Ben has been our villain for the last year or so, but he has his good moments.  You could even make an argument that he really was the “good guy.”  He certainly believed that he was the good guy in the story.  I am sure that Keemy had absolutely no question that he was the bad guy.  It’s kind of nice to have someone to completely cheer against.

It is why Alex, Karl and Rousseau died at his hand.  He had to be a threat.  In this episode, he showed his strength and his evil to the people on the boat, especially Frank who did not want to fly them back to the Island with the arsenal they were loading up.  Keemy slit the doctor’s throat and threw him overboard (we already knew he was dead last episode) and he shot the captain to death.  He is a bad man and he is coming for Ben.

Thankfully, Frank sees the truth here and is there to help with what he can.

Keemy could not over power the Island though as he tried to execute Michael “Kevin Johnson” Dawson, but Keemy’s gun would not fire when he pulled the trigger.  The Island was not done with Michael yet.

Before his demise, the captain got Sayid the ship’s zodiac raft and Sayid took off for the Island (on the proper bearings) to start moving people to the freighter.  Desmond stayed on the ship saying that he would never step foot on that Island again.

This is an excellent episode that will directly lead us into the two part finale for season 4 (which was shortened by the writer’s strike).

We flash forward this week seeing how Jack and Kate got together, got engaged, and broke apart all in like a day.

Meanwhile, on the Island, Jack needed to have his appendix taken out. Not much concern for whether or not the operation will be successful.  Juliet operates.  Kate holds the mirror so Jack can watch, but they end up knocking Jack out with chloroform.  It just shows Jack’s control issues once again.

Sawyer, Miles, Claire and the baby are on their way back to the beach after leaving Locke, Ben and Hurley.  Sawyer was doing his best big brother imitation when he saw Miles eye balling Claire.  He told Miles that there was a 20-foot restraining order.  It is kind of funny to see how Sawyer has changed over the seasons as well.  It was not that long ago that Sawyer didn’t care anything about Claire.  Last episode, he was running through gunfire to save Claire, pulling her out of the destroyed building and now he is in full protective mode.  Unfortunately, in the middle of the night, Claire is visited on the Island by Christian Shepherd. He has Aaron in his arms and she said, “Dad.”

The next morning, Sawyer wakes up and finds out that Claire is gone.  Miles told him she was with her Dad and they went off into the jungle.  He said he would have followed but there was a restraining order.

We saw Frank Lapidus come across Sawyer’s group and he helped them hide from Keemy.  Each episode goes out of the way to show Frank in a different light than even Faraday, Miles and Charlotte.  Whereas Faraday and Charlotte are always exchanging glances with each other and then obviously lying, and Miles is just obnoxiously straight forward, Lapidus seemed to be a good guy who just wants to help people.  He helped Sayid and Desmond on the boat, was respectful to the other survivors, got Sawyer,Claire and Miles to safety and even helped distract Keemy when Aaron made a baby noise.  Frank is quite a guy and it is easy to like him.

There really wasn’t much to this episode.  Lots of little things but certainly not like last episode did.  It felt like one of those filler episodes that brought a bunch of things to the forefront to prepare for the finale.

And where is Claire?

It is amazing that Ben can literally go from monstrous villain to quasi-hero and back again within the stretch of the episode.  You can identify with Ben only to realize that he had been lying to you the entire time. One second he sounds sincere and the next he is putting the gun to your neck.  He is the most complex character on LOST for sure and Michael Emerson played him with such vigor and layers that you never knew what to expect next.

What a tremendously emotional episode.  There was one point where the truth came from Ben.  It was the moment after the remaining members of John’s group scattered and Ben told John that he had to go say goodby e to his daughter.  At that moment, you saw the real Ben Linus, with true emotion.  The baby girl he took from Danielle and raised as his own, a baby girl who Ben allowed to die because he did not come out from the house.

Of course, Ben believed that Alex was off limits.  He immediately said that he broke the rules.  When Ben said “he”, he meant Charles Widmore.  The pain and disbelief, the shock, was all over Ben’s face. Michael Emerson really was amazing in this episode.  To then take that pain and turn it into straight hatred, Ben showed us all that he can summon the Smoke Monster, and the Smoke Monster came in with a vengeance, which was one of the most amazing scenes of the series.

In the flash forward, we see how Ben can go into the other direction.  He manipulated Sayid in his grief over the death of his wife, Nadia, to become his assassin.  Ben, then, showed up in Widmore’s apartment and threatened to kill Penny, Charles’ daughter.

However, there is less of a question about Widmore, because mere seconds after Ben threatened Penny’s life, Widmore was talking about how the Island was his and that Ben had just stolen it from him.  He did not say anything about Penny, which was the threat that meant the most for me.  Charles was not much of a father, it seemed.

Back to Ben, we see this guy who was introduced to us as a weak, little man captured in a net, but the truth is Ben is a man who uses people for what he wants.  He is a dangerous man, as those two poor Tunisians found out as they found Ben in the Sahara Desert.  He is willing to kill anyone for what he wants.  He is willing to sacrifice anything for what he wants.

With Alex gone, the one remaining tie to humanity Ben had, maybe things will get worse.

One interesting thing that happens on the beach is when the freighter’s doctor washes up on shore with his neck slashed.  When Faraday hooked up a way to communicate with Morse code with the freighter, he asked what happened to the doctor.  The freighter responded, “What do you mean?  The doctor is fine.”  Faraday lied about the message, but, surprise… Bernard knows Morse code and Faraday is caught.

Well, we know that Michael is Ben’s spy on the freighter.  This is how he got there.

There are a lot of weird things introduced in this episode that was very unexpected.  The first thing that comes to mind is that the Island has the power to prevent someone from dying if it is “not through with you.”  The episode showed us this by having Michael try to kill himself twice in New York.

Tom Friendly arrived in NYC to recruit Michael to be Ben’s spy on the freighter.  He showed Michael how Charles Widmore rigged the wreckage that was discovered in the Indian Ocean, which spoke to an unbelievable amount of effort to go to.  Tom told Michael that Widmore intended to kill everyone on the Island and they needed to stop him.

Then, Tom realized that Michael had told Walt about what he had done.  You could see how disgusted Tom was about Michael telling a 10-year old boy that his father was a murderer because he couldn’t handle the grief.  This actually fits right in with the character of Michael as it has always been about him.  Everything that happened was about Michael.  He needed to tell Walt to ease his own conscience not even considering what it would do to Walt.

Even the attempted suicides are more about Michael than anything else.  Michael is not considering how his suicide would affect his son or his mother.  All he can think of is relieving the guilt he feels as an individual.  So when Tom offered him a chance to redeem himself, Michael took it, again not thinking about anyone but himself.  Michael is still one of the biggest assholes on the show.

Sayid certainly agrees as he listened to Michael’s story and promptly turned him in to the ship’s captain a a traitor.  Sayid had been burned by Michael too many times to take a chance now.

Speaking of assholes, we get a little more about Keemy this week.  The end of the episode sees Karl and Danielle shot and apparently dead, as they accompanied Alex to the Temple, which is supposed to be the only safe place on the Island.  Ben insisted that Alex go there and that her mother would keep her safe.  Not so much.  Alex saved herself by crying out that she was Ben’s daughter.

The time line of LOST seemed to be all over the place as it feels like Michael was able to accomplish quite a bit during the short time that he would have been off Island.  I mean, season three did not take that long to progress.  There have been other questions of timing in other flashbacks that if you sit down and really examine where these things fall into line, there would be some big time discrepancies.  I suppose you could make an argument that time on the Island is all wonky and that any chance to align it to the outside world is not useful, but it seems like other times the timing matches up perfectly.  I guess it is just one of those things you have to accept as unexplained.

This is a perfect example of the misdirection that LOST likes to throw at the viewers work brilliantly well.  “Ji Yeon” is both a flash-forward and a flashback and the viewers did not have any idea.

We see A very pregnant Sun start to go into labor and go to the hospital.  We see Jin rushing to the hospital, trying to buy a stuffed panda.  During her difficult labor, Sun was calling for Jin.  It all made perfect sense.

Then it wasn’t .

Jin was rushing to the hospital because a business associate of Mr.Paik had a daughter giving birth and the panda was a way to strike the connection between the businessmen.  Sun was just delirious when wishing for Jin.

Sun is the sixth member of the Oceanic 6- Sayid, Jack, Kate, Aaron, Hurley and Sun.

And we found out that Sun believed that Jin was dead.  Sun and Hurley brought Jin’s newly born daughter Ji Yeon to see his tombstone.

I loved the twist at the end and it was very emotional to hear Sun speak to the tombstone, telling Jin about his daughter who he will ever get a chance to meet.

Back on the Island, Juliet told Jin about Sun’s affair to keep them from going to Locke’s camp.  I remember gasping the first time I saw this and just wanting Juliet to go away.  Sun eventually comes to understand why she did it, but it was just one more strike for me against her,

And on the freighter, we saw a crew member, Regina, wrapped in chains, jump overboard and drown while no one on the ship helped.  It was as if they had seen it happen before, which is a creepy thought.  The Captain told Sayid and Desmond that the ship belonged to Charles Widmore and they met Kevin Johnson…who turned out to be a face they recognized.

Michael.

If I remember correctly, we knew that Harold Perrineau was coming back for season 4 so, when Ben started talking about having a spy on the freighter, most people had made the guess that it was going to be Michael.  But just because it was known, doesn’t make it a bad choice.  Bringing Michael back gave the chance for some final justice.

But that is still ahead of us.

After one of the best episodes of LOST ever (and an hour of television as good as you get), “The Other Woman” is a serious step down into B-level science fiction and craszy stalker level rom-com.

There just seems to be a lot of plot points that are confusing.  Faraday and Charlotte know about a power station on the Island, the Tempest, and are going to do something with the dangerous, killer gas.  They are super secretive and the misdirection is that they are trying to help.  Just…if you are really trying to help and not have ulterior motives, then why not tell people what you are doing?  Why hit Kate over the head and leave her alone in the jungle where Smoke Monsters or polar bears could get her?

And Juliet deserts Jack when they find Kate so she can go on and do what?  She keeps that info to herself as well.  She later tells Jack that Ben had told her to kill both Charlotte and Daniel.  Again, why are you keeping this to yourself?  Might be an important piece of data to know.

The whole Jack-Juliet kiss after this was just out of place.  I still do not trust Juliet and won’t until the past comes along.  Why would Jack?  I never understood the fascination he had with Juliet.

The whole flashback to Otherton with Juliet and Goodwin was fine, though psycho wife was weird, as it was for her to show up at the beginning of the show.  Is she dead and was that the Smoke Monster?  That might make some sense.

Ben whole Stalker routine with Juliet is another thing that has come out of nowhere.  I would have liked some hints about that earlier than this because now it feels a little wrong.  I think a lot of the reactions make sense if you drops some hints earlier, but hey were not there.  The relationship with Goodwin came out of nowhere either.

And why in God’s name would John trust anything Ben has to say?  Hasn’t he learned yet that Ben is a total liar and cannot be trusted at all?  Does anybody really think that file about Charles Widmore was Ben’s last piece of info.  I don’t think so.  Why John consistently lets himself get manipulated by Ben shows a weakness in his own character.  I’m also getting a little tired of despot John as well.

“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.