s2e21: ?

My sentiments exactly. For a late-season episode, this one was surprisingly underwhelming, especially since it spent most of its time doing dramatic reveals on things any smart person should already have been aware of.

I'll ask: is there a person in the world who didn't think the button was an experiment from the very first second? Maybe there is actually more to it and maybe there isn't, but The Pearl was largely a waste; if all we learned was that the button for sure didn't do anything, that hardly seems worth all the question mark trouble.

And if you thought Libby was going to make it... no. She did survive, but not even for as long as the marshal did in Season One, and she got even less information out - the single word "Michael," which naturally was assumed by Jack and Hurley to be an inquiry into Michael's condition and not an accusation.

So that was basically the entire episode. Didn't learn much, did we? I imagine this sets the table to some degree for the next two (incidentally - only 23? Or is the finale two hours?), but still. For a mid-May, late-season episode, this felt dangerously close to filler.

Next week: Sayid is smarter than everyone else, and we appear to get another on-island flashback episode in which we see what Michael was up to for... what was it, a week and a half of island time?