Sun's Rise, Sun's Net.

That's right folks.

Now that the finale has percolated in my little brain for a few days, I've picked out what I think is the most important element.

Desmond and Penny doing everything but breaking into Peaches and Herb's "Reunited"?

Sweet, but no.

The Frozen Donkey Wheel?

Please.

Nope. It was that almost throwaway scene with Sun and Daddy Widmore.

More inside. Everybody put an extra cushion on the chair. This could take a while.

Before the first scene, we're treated to the usual run of "Previously on LOST"s. This time, the final "Previously" ties seamlessly into the now. The previously ends with Kate peeling away from Jack as he yells after her that they have to go back. The now begins with her brake-lights lighting up and her tires squealing as she decides she has a little more to say to Jack. She backs the car up and flies out ready to rip Jack's beard...er, head off.

"We have to go back? We have to go back?"

Jack tries to respond, but she cuts him off.

"Who do you think you are? You call me over and over again for two days straight, stoned on your pills. And then you show up here with an obituary for Jeremy Bentham? When he came to me and I heard what he had to say, I knew he was crazy. But you, you believed him. Him of all people."

"Yes, Kate, I did because he said that was the only way I could keep you safe. You and Aaron."

Was I the only one who cheered when someone finally slapped Jack?

Kate doesn't want Jack to even say Aaron's name. She's pissed that he's not there to read to Aaron and figures that he doesn't even have the right to utter the name. Personally, instead of forbidding certain syllable utterances, I would have just slapped him again. And maybe kicked him until he cried some more.

"I spent the last three years trying to forget all the horrible things that happened on the day that we left. How dare you ask me to go back?"

Jack has no answer as she drives away.

When Jack and Sawyer arrive at The Orchid, before they can start thinking about a plan, they hear a noise.

It's Hurley's fly.

Give me a break. That's probably the only time I'll ever have reason to type those three words together in my whole life.

Sawyer almost gets a patented BSMH (Big Sweaty Man Hug) from Hurley. I'd like to think that the big guy holds back because he hasn't had a chance to wash his hands...

Speaking of Hurley washing his hands, there's that awkward moment of seeing Jack and both of them trying to ignore that Hurley picked Locke's plan over Jacks. It's not pretty, and there's no BSMH's on the menu.

At this point, we see a curious development. Despite the fact that the only reason Jack and Sawyer are in the jungle is to find Hurley and bring him back to the chopper, Sawyer asks Hurley where Locke is. The three men head into The Orchid with Jack in the lead. The same Jack who just last episode was ready to get on the chopper and leave Locke to whatever fate had in store for him until he found out that Hurley was with him. I'm normally not one for tallying up plot holes, but this one's a doozy. It simply doesn't track with what we saw in the previous episode, which technically is the same episode we're watching.

Locke seems unsurprised when he hears Jack call his name.

Back on the boat, the gang is assessing the massive pile of C4 blocks connected to a rig that looks slightly less complicated than my dvr connection.

"There's enough C4 here to blow up a bloody aircraft carrier. When I was in the army I did six months explosive ordinance disposal which, as the saying goes, is just enough time to learn how to blow yourself up."

Desmond explains that the complicated rig is a radio receiver that allows the bomb to be detonated remotely. Jin asks the appropriate question:

"So can we... turn off?"

Desmond examines the set up a little closer.

"This is a...this is a trip wire. Move it and...boom. This is dummy wiring. If you cut the wrong one...boom. This is multiple firing systems. You disable one, the next one...boom. Um, this...battery's the power source. If you disconnect it..."

"Boom." Jin. Just enough English to get the point across.

Back at The Orchid, Jack is wondering why Locke is there.

There's a...a DHARMA station below us, and, um, I'm looking for a way to get in."

Locke tries to have a private conversation with Jack about what he's doing, but Jack suddenly remembers that he doesn't care about Locke or Dharma or any of it. He came for Hurley and now they're leaving.

"...What I need to do is to walk back to the chopper, get on it, and get the rest of our people off this island."

"Uh, dude, probably not the best idea right now. Those Rambo guys are taking Ben to that helicopter. He surrendered himself to 'em about an hour ago."

Sawyer wonders why the hell he would do that.

Out in the jungle, Ben's probably wondering much the same thing as he walks along with Keamy and the Keamettes.

"So tell me something, Ben. What is it that makes you so important, hmm? I'm curious. I'm curious as to why Mr. Widmore would pay me so much money just to come out here and capture you and bring you back alive."

Ben does the "answer a question with a question" thing. "Charles Widmore tell you to kill my daughter?"

Before Keamy can decide whether to answer Ben or bust him in the chops for answering a question with a question, they come upon the chopper and Frank who has somehow managed to get a hold of the toolbox.

Keamy doesn't like anyone handling their tools around him without his permission.

Before Keamy is able to get Frank to tell him who handed him his tool, both of them get distracted by the bush.

Tools, bush...I suddenly feel the need to...garden.

It's Kate!

"Why are you running"

"I'm being chased...by his people." Ben's folks. The ones with all the eyeliner.

Keamy sends his men out to cover the area. He motions for Kate with his tool...er, gun.

"Come here. Get on your knees."

Apparently, Keamy is feeling the gardening urge too...

Suddenly, the area erupts in chaos as the Others attack. Keamy's men go down and it turns out that Kate wasn't running from the Others at all, but improvising an escape for Ben. She gets him running and the two of them haul ass out of the crossfire with Keamy hot on their trail. At least, he's hot on their trail after punting a grenade to his buddy Omar. Omar's not so good at hot potato. He go boom.

As he catches up to them, out of the underbrush flies Sayid. A very cool knifey, kickey, punchey, rolley, chokey, shootey-the-baddey-in-the-backey fight ensues, ended by Richard putting a bunch of bullets into Keamy's back.

(*Nobody's getting the Emmy for Best Direction for this episode sidenote: Was I the only one who got nauseus during the gunfight? Would it be too much to ask to have the camera stay still for more than a second at a time? It was a little better during the knife fight, but the first 15 seconds or so of this scene nearly had me reaching for the Dramamine.*)

"Thank you for coming, Richard."

"My pleasure."

Ben asks Kate to use the bloody knife to cut him free. The thought of adding a second blood type to the blade seems to cross her mind, but she cuts him free instead.

Ben learns that Richard bargained with Sayid and Kate for their help in exchange for their ticket off the island.

"Fair enough. The helicopter is yours. You and Sayid have a safe journey back."

"So we can go? Off the island? That's it?"

"That's it."

In Santa Rosa, a familiar older woman approaches Hugo. "Are you Hurley?"

"Yeah."

"Are you dangerous?"

Turns out that Walt's Grandmother has brought him to see Hurley and she's got the reasonable worry that the institutionalized man with the crazy hair and unkempt beard might do something unpleasant to him.

"I won't do anything crazy."

"Hey, Walt."

"Hey, Hurley."

"Gettin' big, Dude."

And that's enough of the small talk.

"You know, when you came back, I was waiting for one of you to come see me, but...nobody did."

"I'm sorry."

"Do you know who did come see me? Jeremy Bentham. I don't understand why you're all lying."

"We're lying...because it's the only way to protect everyone that didn't come back."

Like Walt's Dad.

I have my issues with this lie, but we'll get into that later.

Out in the jungle, while they wait for Jack and Locke to sort out their issues, they share some 15 year old crackers.

"Thanks for coming back for me."

"Ah, you got it."

"Claire and the baby okay?"

All Sawyer can do is look away.

In The Orchid, Jack has been sucked into John Locke's world of weird. Locke wants him to stay on the island.

"You'd like me to stay."

Jack has a few reasons not to be willing to do whatever John asks. "You threw a knife into the back of an unarmed woman. You led half of our people across the island and got most of them killed."

"Well, Jack, you put a gun to my head and you pulled the trigger. I was hoping we could let bygones be bygones."

Locke figures that it's their destiny, as he once told Jack.

"You know, Jack. You know that you're here for a reason. You know it. And if you leave this place, that knowledge is gonna eat you alive from the inside out... until you decide to come back."

"Good-bye, John."

Locke stops him with a simple statement. "You're gonna have to lie."

In order that the island be protected, Jack has to lie about what's gone on since the crash.

"It's an island, John. No one needs to protect it."

"It's not an island. It's a place where miracles happen. And...and...if you...if you don't believe that, Jack, if you can't believe that, just wait till you see what I'm about to do.

Jack, like a good man of science, doesn't believe in miracles.

"Well...we'll just have to see which one of us is right."

Ben chooses that moment to show up. Jack has the same thought that Kate had, but he has a gun.

"Nice to see you, too, Jack."

Ben brushes past Jack, dismissing his presence out of hand. He knows that Locke couldn't find the anthuriums as instructed.

"I don't know what they look like!"

Ben facetiously picks up a potted anthurium and gives it a shake before lifting open a door behind it.

Jack is curious about what Ben is doing.

"Didn't you tell him?"

"I tried."

Ben again dismisses Jack, only this time he's more explicit about it. "Sayid and Kate are waiting for you at the helicopter. I understand that your people from the beach are being brought to the freighter even as we speak."

"What?"

"I'd love to fill you in on everything you missed, Jack, but you, Hugo, James, you need to get moving. If I were you, I'd want to be on that boat within the hour. Good-bye, Jack." He then directs his attention back to his new subordinate. "Let's go."

Locke reinforces his directive to Jack, imploring him to lie about island events. "If you do it half as well as you lie to yourself, they'll believe you."

On the freighter, Sun sees Michael carrying a tank and asks him if he can turn off the bomb.

"It isn't even on yet. But, yeah, if what's in this tank does what it's supposed to do, we're gonna be okay."

As he heads back into the superstructure of the boat, he tells her that he'll send Jin up.

Sun chooses this moment to tell him that she's pregnant. Michael gets a large goofy grin on learning the news.

"Congratulations, Sun."

Yeah, if I hadn't already seen Ji Yeon, the paternity would seriously be in question.

Inside the freighter, Michael explains that using the liquid nitrogen in the canister he's brought, he can freeze the battery that powers the detonation devices and keep the chemical reaction that creates the power from being generated.

"And what's the catch?"

"The catch is we only have one canister. We use it up, we're right back where we started."

Freezing the battery will buy them some time. Desmond figures they should wait until the light turns red, but Michael doesn't agree.

"If we see that light turn red and the battery's not already cold, that is the last thing we will ever see. Either way, at least we'll have a warning, buy ourselves some time."

Can someone explain to me why Michael needs to explain this to the guy with ordinance disposal experience?

Desmond and Jin start tracing wires in hopes of finding a way to defuse it while Michael goes to work freezing the battery.
Juliet meets Faraday at the beach after his run to the freighter.

"Did you get them all to the boat?"

Um...the only other option is that he tossed them overboard.

1) He weighs like 80 pounds and he's already soaking wet.
2) If he HAD tossed them overboard, he wouldn't actually tell you, dumb ass.

He explains that the boat is going to come as close to the beach as they can, which will speed up the shuttling process. He heads up the beach to get some water while she gets the next group ready to head to the boat.

Up at the kitchen, Rose and Miles discuss his nuts.

Faraday comes up to the kitchen and rounds up Miles and Charlotte.

"I'm leaving in ten minutes to take the next group of people to the freighter. You need to make sure that you're with me on that raft, all right?"

Miles inexplicably wants to stay and Faraday tries to convince him that the situation is...dire.

"Oh, no, you're very dire, but I'm still gonna stay."

Faraday gives up on Miles and reminds Charlotte that he leaves in just ten minutes.

Miles is surprised that Charlotte wants to leave the island "You know, after all that time you spent trying to get back here."

"What do you mean, get back here?"

"...What do I mean?"

Locke and Ben descend into the depths of the island together. John asks childish questions and Ben answers him with the thin patience of a parent until he can take it no longer. He then does what all parents at the end of their ropes do. He parks John in front of the electronic babysitter while he does his grown up stuff.

"Why don't you watch this very informative video that will answer some of your questions."

The long and the short of the video that John watches is basically that doing what Ben is doing, that is putting metal objects in "The Vault" is bad. Somehow, the properties of the "Negatively charged exotic matter" that sits behind the vault don't react well with inorganic material.

On the video, Haliwax continues to explain. "In our first demonstration, we will attempt to shift the test subject 100 milliseconds ahead in four-dimensional space. For the briefest of moments, the animal will seem to disappear, but in reality... "

"Hey. Uh... was he talking about what I think he was talking about?"


"If you mean time-traveling bunnies, then yes."

"You do know that he said specifically not to put anything metal in here."

Before Ben can do much more than eyespeak the words "Are you, Mr. "Blow up every fucking structure I enter" seriously asking me if I know what I'm doing?", the two men hear the elevator mechanism start up again.

"You expecting someone?"

"May I have my weapon back?"

At the chopper, Hurley graces Sayid with a BSMH (Which is strange, since the last time Hurley saw him, he was worried that Sayid might use his ninja feet on him) and Kate seems happier to see Sawyer than she is to see Jack, although she does seem worried about the lobotomy, er...appendectomy patient.

Sawyer notices one of the dead mercenaries. "He say somethin' to tick you off, Freckles?"

"Didn't kill that one."

"Well, which one did you kill?"

Note to self. It apparently takes about 100 days to go from civilized human being to finding the violent death of a human being to be something to casually joke about. Good to know.

Once he learns that the baby is okay, Sawyer turns his attention to Lapidus and his handcuffs. I just assumed he'd be taking over the lock pick and show his skill, but he chooses a hacksaw instead.

Jack asks Sayid how he got back, wondering if the freighter is safe for them, considering the body of the doctor washing up on the island.

"It's safe now."

Once Sawyer cuts him free, Lapidus is gung ho to get airborne. He enthusiastically rallies the group to board the helicopter and starts the power up.

Hurley worries about who they've left behind. "After we drop everyone off at the boat, we can come back and look for Claire, right?"

"Absolutely."

Lapidus yells, "Hands and feet inside the vehicle! Let's go for a ride!" and it's up, up and away.

Back under The Orchid, Keamy limps out of the elevator. He taunts Ben, hoping to draw him out into the open. He should be careful. Ben's a fucking ninja and if I know one thing about fucking ninjas, it's that they don't like to be fucking taunted.

"I know you're down here, Ben. Crouching in the dark, just waiting to take a shot at me. Well, you better aim for the head, Ben! You know, like your boyfriend who shot me in the back like a coward! This body armor's, um, been known to take a bullet or two in its time. But before you take your shot, Ben, let me tell you about this.

Keamy takes off his body armour, exposing the mystery device that poor exploded Omar strapped to his bicep back on the freighter.

(*I can only wish sidenote: If I had written this scene, I would have included Hurley, just so he could say "Dude? You got some Omar on you."*)

Keamy explains that the mystery device will set off a big, big bomb on the freighter, killing a lot of people and making a lot of sharks very, very happy. He finishes off his explanation with an extra taunt.

"If you think I'm bluffing, need I remind you of, uh... how your daughter looked as she bled out? Face-down in the grass?"

A noise spins Keamy around, coming face to face with...Locke!

Not who Keamy was expecting.

"My name is John Locke, and I have no...conflict with you. And neither do the people on that boat. So, why don't you put your knife down? We can talk about this."

"Well, John Locke...I've never really been one for talk."

Ben sees this as the best moment to put his fucking ninja skills to work. Out of the shadows, he explodes, beating Keamy first with his "Didn't I tell you? I'm a fucking ninja" baton and then grabbing his knife and finding lots of new places to sheath it.

"You (fucking) killed my (fucking) daughter!

"You (fucking) killed my (fucking) daughter!

Ben! (fuck!) Ben! (fuck!) Ben (fuck!), stop (fuck!)! No (fuck!), no (FUCK)! Stop (FUCK!!)!

"Ben, what did you do?"

Okay, I officially nominate that as the stupidest question ever asked on this show. And that's saying a lot.

"You just killed everybody on that boat."

The heart monitor continues to beep, but it doesn't look like it will for long. Ben seems remarkably unimpressed.

"So?"

Charlotte meets Daniel at the beach.

"I'm gonna stay, Daniel. For now, anyway."

"Charlotte...there is no "for now". If you don't come with me, "for now" could be forever."

When he asks why, she has a cryptic answer.

"Would it make any sense if I told you I was still looking for where I was born?"

Faraday has no idea what she means, but does at least get a hug out of it.

(*WTF Sidenote: So...Charlotte thinks she was born on the island. That has implications in the whole "Get pregnant and die" scenario that drew Juliet to the island, not to mention the fact that it makes you wonder where she was during the purge.*)

Speaking of Juliet, she's not coming with Faraday either. She promised that she'd stay until everyone was safely off the island. Faraday sees that he has no chance of convincing her and loads up his group of redshirts. With their help, the Zodiac takes off into the surf.

Back on the boat, Desmond is about to cut some wires when Jin stops him with some urgent Korean followed by "No good."

Desmond's not even very sure that Michael's freezing the battery is doing anything.

"We'll know if that light turns red and we're still here."

"How much stuff do we have left?"

"We got a quarter tank."

As they realize that they might not be able to deactivate the bomb, they decide on a course of action that they should have started ten seconds after finding the mountain of C4.

"We better get everybody the hell off this boat."

In the chopper, the passengers are relieved to be in the air. Lapidus isn't so happy. He sees that the fuel is significantly lower than it should be and dropping rapidly.

"We have a fuel leak! A bullet must have pierced the tank! We gotta find a place to set her down!"

Jack warns him not to head back to the island, since "There's no fuel on the island! We've gotta get to the boat, or this chopper's useless!"

"I'm telling ya, I don't see the boat!"

"Well, then keep looking!"

On Lapidus's instructions, they toss everything they can out of the chopper in an effort to lighten the load.

"I'd feel a hell of a lot better if we were a few hundred pounds lighter!" If I were Hurley, I'd punch the camera man in the chops for panning immediately to him when Lapidus said that.

"Well, if we don't make it, we're still close enough to ditch it on the beach."

"Hey! Do not go back to the island!"

"We might not have a choice, Doc."

Sawyer looks long and hard at the ocean. He leans over and whispers something to Kate.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Probably, because when you do whatever he asked and don't tell Jack about it, Sawyer will have the satisfaction of pissing off the Doc one last time...

A long lingering kiss, a final "Just do it, Freckles," and the chopper is about a hundred and eighty pounds lighter.

Outside Santa Rosa Hospital, Sayid asks a man in a car for the time. Actually, he already knows what time it is. As the man reads his watch, Sayid puts three bullets in his chest. Now we'll never know what time it is!

When Hurley realizes that the figure standing in the shadows is Sayid, he points out the obvious as only he can.

"I think visiting hours are over, Dude."

Sayid wants to take Hurley "Somewhere safe."

"And why would I go anywhere with you? I haven't seen you in, like, forever."

Sayid wants Hurley to come with him because two days ago, Jeremy Bentham died. Apparently, that means that Hurley might no longer be safe at Santa Rosa.

"What happened?"

"They said it was suicide."

"What do you mean, they "said" it was suicide? And why are you calling him "Bentham"? His name is..."

Before Hurley can utter Bentham's real name, Sayid cuts him off, warning him that they're being watched.

"Dude, I've been having regular conversations with dead people. The last thing I need now is paranoia."

"I just killed a man who's been perched outside this facility for the last week. I'm finding paranoia keeps me alive."

Hurley is worried that they might be going back. Sayid reassures him that they aren't. Strange. Not long ago, Hurley was telling Jack that he should never say "never" about going back to the island and he seemed to be thinking that it might not be a bad thing back then.

As they go to leave, Hurley holds them up to make a final move on the chess board that sits near where he was sitting. "Checkmate, Mr. Eko."

In the chopper, the gang can't find the boat and they only have four or five minutes of fuel left..."Unless somebody else wants to jump."

Jack reassures Kate that they'll go back for Sawyer as soon as they get more fuel from the freighter. She looks unconvinced, not even giving Jack an acknowledging nod. Before the conversation can go any further, Hurley spots the boat.

Of course, no one on the chopper has any way to know that the boat is carrying more little blocks of C4 than it is people...

Under The Orchid, John tries to get Ben to help him keep Keamy alive, but Ben's made his choice on that score. Keamy knows it and tries to taunt Ben one last time.

"Wherever you go...Widmore...he'll find you."

"Not if I find him first."

Despite Locke's pleading, the beeping of Keamy's heart monitor slowly gets less and less steady and finally stops.

On the freighter, the red light comes on. It seems that Michael's frozen battery worked after all.

"You two need to go now. Get everybody off the boat. We have maybe five minutes left in the tank. Go! You go. Go."

Desmond leaves, but bizarrely, Jin chooses to stay. Michael douses the battery with what's left of the liquid nitrogen.

On deck, Desmond sees the chopper coming in for a landing and desperately tries to wave them off, but he doesn't have any way to know that they're out of fuel and have no other choice but to land. Lapidus sets it down.

Desmond fills them in as quickly as he can and the gang leaps into action. Duct tape to the rescue!

Lapidus patches the bullet hole and barks instructions for them to patch the other hole and pump the gas. They load a life raft (What, you don't trust the duct tape, Frank? It was good enough for the guys on Apollo 13...)

Kate spots Sun heading towards the bomb. She stops her and convinces her to get on the chopper with Aaron while Kate finds Jin.

Down below, Michael tells Jin to leave and go be with his wife. It looks like he'll atone for his sins the hard way after all.

Lapidus gets the gang into gear, pushing them to hurry into the chopper, but Jack wants him to wait. Lapidus doesn't much care what Jack wants.

Jack hustles Kate into the chopper over her protests that they need to wait for Jin. Jack, perhaps because of his training in triage, realizes that there simply isn't any time and they have to save those that they can, including themselves.

As they get airborne, Jin comes up on deck.

Sun tries desperately to convince them to go back for her husband. They simply can't. If they do, they'll all die.

Back inside the freighter, Michael hears faint whispering. When he looks around, it's Christian Shepherd.

"You can go now, Michael."

"Who are you?"

The answer never comes, as at that moment, the battery's chemical reaction restarts and the explosives do what explosives do.

Sun watches in horror as the freighter goes up in flames.

I have to say, if anyone from the Lost cast gets an Emmy this year, it should be Yunjin Kim for this scene. Watching her anguish at seeing her husband vapourized before her eyes was some of the most believable acting and compelling television that Lost has provided in four seasons.

"Lapidus! Fly us back to the island."

"You got it."

After a brief conversation over her cellphone (The roaming charges alone on that call between Korea and London would bankrupt me.), Sun sees the man she came to meet.

"Excuse me. Mr. Widmore?"

"Yes."

"I'm Sun Kwon... Mr. Paik's daughter. I'm the managing director of Paik Industries."

"Yes, of course. How is your father?"

"Excellent, thank you."

"Quite the golfer. I believe I owe him dinner after our last game."

"Are you really going to pretend that you don't know who I am?"

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, Ms. Kwon."

"Yes, you do know, Mr. Widmore... just like you know we've been lying all this time about where we were and what happened to us there. You and I have common interests. When you're ready to discuss them..."

Sun hands Widmore her Paik Industries business card.

"Call me. As you know, we're not the only ones who left the island."

Widmore calls after her as she strolls confidently away.

"Ms. Kwon? Why would you want to help me?"

(*Most important scene of the season sidenote: I really believe that even more than the fact that the island is somehow mobile, the fact that Sun comes back to the real world carrying a whole bag full of whoop ass is the most significant development this season. She has rocked the two richest, most powerful characters on the show back on their heels in rapid succession and it looks like she's just getting started. She has a plan and as my title indicates, she's casting her net and she's going to catch someone big in it. My bet is that Sun will turn out to be the "dark horse" of the whole show. She was almost ignored in the first three seasons, but look at her now. If I were planning this show from the beginning, I'd want a character of her magnitude to be the one on which the whole bloody thing turns and I think that's exactly where we're headed. This scene was understated, but important enough to fly Yunjin Kim halfway around the world to film it when the dialogue could easily have been rewritten and shot as a telephone call. What does that tell you?*)

Locke demands to know why Ben killed Keamy, knowing that it would mean that everyone on the freighter would die.

"Well, John, I really wasn't thinking straight. Sometimes...good command decisions get compromised by bad emotional responses. I'm sure you're gonna do a much better job of separating the two than I ever did."

(*Hero-building sidenote: You think that no hero would do what Ben did? He is that much more human because he let his emotions cloud his normally clinical judgement. The best heroes are flawed and Ben's flaw is laid bare here. He actually, despite his protests to the contrary, has a heart. And it's broken. The building of a hero from the ashes of a villain continues.*)

Ben continues doing what he's been doing, ignoring John, despite the fact that he's just crowned him his successor in the previous moment.

"What are you doing? I asked you a question!"

"If I were you, I'd duck."

Something goes "kablooie" in the Vault.

"I better change."

As Juliet does her level best to polish off a bottle of Dharma hootch, Sawyer emerges from the surf. Obviously, Juliet's been at the bottle for a bit, as she seems to doubt the evidence of her eyes until the apparition of the half naked man speaks.

"Nice day for a swim."

"What are you doing here?"

"Decided to take a dip."

Sawyer spots the bottle.

"Whatcha celebratin'?"

"I'm not celebrating."

She looks pointedly over his shoulder and he follows her eyes, turning to see a plume of smoke on the horizon.

"Is that our boat?"

"It was."

(*What do you wanna bet sidenote: Sawyer has gotten caught in a net with A.L., a bear cage with Kate on closed circuit tv...I'm putting even money on him putting the moves on Juliette and/or Charlotte between now and season six. Probably in some kind of leg hold trap or maybe a live webcast...*)

Back in The Orchid, Ben zips up his parka. Locke is understandably confused about Ben's choice of outer-wear. Ben explains that he's going somewhere cold.

"Then where is mine"?

"You don't need one because you're not going with me."

Locke protests that Jacob told him what needed to be done and he needs to see it through, but Ben cuts him off.

"He told you what to do, but he didn't tell you how because he wants me to suffer the consequences."

"What consequences?"

"Whoever moves the island can never come back. So I'd like you to get on the elevator, John, and go back up. Richard and my people will be waiting 2 miles east of the Orchid."

"Waiting for me?"

"Ready, willing and able to share what they know. And then they will follow your every word. Good-bye, John. I'm sorry I made your life so miserable."

The two men shake hands and Salieri passes the torch to Mozart.

"What do I tell 'em to do?"

"You'll find your way, John. You always do."

Out in the jungle, Locke finds Richard exactly where Ben said he would.

"Hello, John. Welcome home."

Now we come to the scene. Ben's going to move the island. Will he use a computer? A big outboard motor? A jet engine? Three hampsters and a treadmill?

Nope.

It's a Frozen Donkey Wheel.

(*I'm gonna say "I told you so" sidenote: During production, this episode was referred to by the code phrase "Frozen Donkey Wheel" which of course leaked like knock off Pampers all over the net. Everyone speculated on the metaphor and what it might mean, disecting each word, looking for clues, anagrams or any indication of what might happen in the season finale. So, at the end of all that, what's the payoff? The most obvious possible answer. Not a metaphor. Not an anagram. A. Frozen. Donkey. Wheel. From now on, when faced with a question on this show, pick THE most obvious answer.*)

"I hope you're happy now, Jacob."

As Ben moves the wheel into it's new position, a blinding light seeps out from behind the wall. The light grows and encompasses the island, briefly blinding everyone, including the folks on the chopper. When the light fades, the island is gone.

(*Once again LOST fails fluid dynamics 101 sidenote: Assuming that the island isn't floating on the surface of the ocean, but is in fact the top of an undersea mountain as every other island on the face of the earth is, the sudden disapearance of that much land mass, even to a depth of only say ten or twenty feet, would create a void that the surrounding water would rush to fill. The ensuing gyser as the roughly circular wall of water found the center of the void would shoot dozens, if not hundreds, of feet in the air and cause a much more violent wave front than what we saw. Granted, the special effects might have been too expesive to make such a wave, but if that's the case I'd prefer it if they had simply cut to a calm sea rather than trying to show that the island's sudden disappearance caused wave action.*)

"Where's the island? Where's the island? Where the hell's the island?"

"It's gone."

"Where the hell am I gonna land this thing?"

"There's another smaller island close by they took us to!"

"I got news for ya, Doc. There's nothing but water in every direction!"

(*If they want to bring back Faraday sidenote: It would be easy to write Faraday finding the other island if they want. It might also allow them a way to rescue Jin and put he and Faraday somewhere where they might find some fish biscuits and maybe some communctions gear. Or not. I just thought it was very pointed that they had Jack mention the other island so emphatically.*)

"Doesn't matter now. That's it, people! We're out of fuel!"

As the group prepares for another crash (that's GOT to suck), Sayid has the presence of mind to toss out the life raft before they hit the water. If he doesn't do that, they all drown.

And...blamo!

The gang slowly regroup, finding Jack, getting Aaron into the life raft and finally locating Desmond. Jack has to perfom CPR on him, but he finally sputters back to life.

"It's okay. It's okay. We're alive." Thank you Captain Obvious.

In her own bed, Kate wakes up. She is startled by the phone ringing only seconds later. All she hears on the other end is indistinct whispering. Suddenly she hears something less indistinct and it's in the house!

She grabs a gun and does the Kate thing, silently stalking into Aaron's room, where she sees a figure in shadow.

"Don't move. Don't you touch my son!"

The figure turns to the light. It's Claire! "Don't bring him back Kate."

To reinforce her statement, she gets up and faces Kate.

"Don't you dare bring him back."

Kate wakes from the dream (dreams that start with you waking up from a dream are the worst!) and rushes in to check on Aaron. He's sleeping peacefully. She goes to him, clasps his sleeping hand and begins to cry.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

On the raft, Hurley asks if the little guy is okay.

"He's fine. It's a miracle."

Um...Kate? Five out of six of you survived with barely a scratch, Desmond took only the briefest of BPR (Baywatch Pretend Resuscitation) to revive and you're in the life raft that the smartest guy on the show remembered to toss out before hitting the water. That's not a miracle. That's crashing into the ocean from a slow moving helicopter that wasn't too high in the air in the first place. A miracle would have been crash landing on a second freighter that just happened to be in the area, transporting an open air cargo load of pillows to Guam.

"I can't believe he did it."

"Who did what?"

"Locke. He moved the island."

"No, he didn't."

"Oh, really? 'Cause...one minute it was there, and the next it was gone, so...unless we, like, overlooked it, Dude, that's exactly what he did. But...if you've got another explanation, man, I'd love to hear it."

Just at that moment, before Jack can offer his alternative hypothesis, Lapidus spots something. It's a boat!

The boat seems to see them and be heading toward them.

Jack seems less than excited. Finally, he lets himself whisper what he's thinking.

"We're gonna have to lie."

"What?"

"We're gonna have to lie."

"Lie about what?"

"Everything, all of it, every moment since we crashed on the island."

Lapidus is understandably confused. "Jack...now I know I'm new to this group and everything, but isn't this the place where everybody starts jumping up and down and hugging each other?"

"Your freighter...those men came to the island to kill us, all of us. You said that our plane was discovered on the bottom of the ocean. Well, someone put it there. Someone who wants everyone to think that we're dead. So what do you think's gonna happen to us when we tell them that that wasn't our plane? What do you think's gonna happen to the people that we left behind?"

"Jack, we can't. We can't pull it off."

"Just let me do the talking."

(*Here's my issue with this "lie" sidenote: Okay, so they're going to lie to protect those that were left behind. As far as Jack knows, the island is GONE. He never bought Locke's line about protecting the island, and even if he does buy it now, how is their lie protecting anyone? Those that are looking for the island (Widmore, Ben maybe others) seem to be aware that the island isn't gone, and that there may be people still alive on it, so who is the lie protecting them from? The media? They haven't even figured out that the plane is 5,000 miles from where it should be. More mercenaries? If Widmore found it once, he'll find it again. Obviously Widmore knows they're lying. Why would they lie unless they had reason to? If anything, lying like that tells Widmore EXACTLY what they are trying not to tell him. Playing along with the "815 in a trench" scenario changes the intent and abilities of the major players by a factor of exactly zero. It just complicates the Oceanic Six's lives without protecting anyone or anything in any significant way that I can see.*)

As the boat pulls up, the deckhands call a familiar name. "Ms. Widmore!"

"Throw them a rope! Take them 'round to the stern!"

Desmond recognises the voice. A heartfelt reunion. Aww.

"H...how did you find me?"

"Your phone call...I have a tracking station."

"I love you, Penny...and I'll never leave you again."

As they get out of the liferaft, Desmond introduces them to his lady love. Jack is last.

It's nice to meet you, Penny."

"Hi."

"But we need to talk."

A week later, the group is getting ready to embark on another journey.

"Why are we doing this, Dude? Sailing 3,000 miles to another island?"

"Because it's the only way to keep them safe."

I respectfully disagree.

Jack asks Lapidus how long until they get to land.

"Well, if the wind's not too brutal...eight, nine hours. Just long enough to give you a nice, convincing sunburn."

"Well...it's been a pleasure, Frank. I hope we never see each other again."

"Roger that, Doc."

Jack takes his leave of Desmond, asking him if he's sure of what he's doing.

"As long as I've got Penny, I'll be fine."

"Don't let him find you, Desmond. I'll see you in another life, brother."

"Aye. I guess you will."

Using improvised plank paddles, the gang heads off one last time. Eventually, they reach land and return to civilization.

I gotta say, I would honestly have been fine with the show ending right there. The slighly slow motion landfall would make a fine end point, even though a ton of questions would be left unanswered. It really felt like an end point there.

Jack is once again driving to some serious rage music. This time it's The Pixies' "Gouge Away". I never would have pictured Jack sharing my musical tastes...

Sleeping on your belly
You break my arms,
You spoon my eyes
Been rubbing a bad charm
With holy fingers
Gouge away
You can...

He pulls up to the Hoffs/Drawlar Funeral Home. He gets out of the car, crosses the road and tries the doorknob, but it's locked.

Not one for subtlety, Jack uses a chunk of brick or cement that he finds nearby and smashes off the doorknob. I guess funeral homes don't have alarms, because none goes off as he does this.

Inside, he locates the coffin that he's looking for and opens it.

"Hello, Jack."

Ben. Jack didn't see him there in the shadows. Because Ben is a fucking ninja.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." Bullshit. You don't sneak up on a guy in a funeral home and half whisper his name behind his back unless you mean to scare him. Hell, I nearly had a stroke myself and I knew he was going to be there.

"Did he tell you that I was off the island?"

"Yes, he did."

"When did you speak to him?"

"About a month ago."

"And Kate?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he came to see her, too."

"And what did he say to you?"

"He told me... that after I left the island, some very bad things happened. And he told me that it was my fault for leaving. And he said that I had to come back."

"Yes, I heard that you've been flying on passenger planes... hoping that you'd crash. It's dark, Jack, very dark."

"Why are you here?"

"I'm here to tell you that the island won't let you come alone. All of you have to go back."

Jack is amused by this. None of the Oceanic Six are likely to be willing to go for coffee with him these days, let alone back to Mystery Frickin' Island.

"Perhaps I can help you with that. This is the way it has to be, Jack. It's the only way. You have to do it together, all of you."

As always, Ben has a plan. Which, incidentally, probably means that Sayid was lying to Hurley when he told him he was taking him somewhere safe and not back to the island. That'll have consequences.

"Jack...I said, all of you. We're gonna have to bring him, too."

The camera slowly pans over the coffin to reveal that "him", Jeremy Bentham is none other than...Locke!

As one of my forum regulars pointed out, as unlikely as the concept is, it'll probably be a lot of fun watching Jack, Ben and Hurley "Weekend at Bernie's" Locke's body onto an airliner...

I know that last year at this time I promised to fill in the gaps in my recaps and do season two and didn't follow through. Life sometimes doesn't line up with your intentions. That's often the case for this small business owner. I get pushed and pulled in a lot of directions at once, wear a lot of hats and often find myself out of time on unpaid projects like recaps. This summer I really want to get season two recapped and then revisit my season one recaps to update some of the forward thinking elements that were planted way back then.

Please feel free to join me at greybishop.com and check out the next LOST summer.

To all of you who posted encouraging and interesting comments, my sincere thanks. You make all the work worth it.

Have a great summer and I'll see you all for season five!