s2e22: Three Minutes

Were the episodes before the two-hour finale this space-filling last season? We got virtually nothing new out of "Three Minutes," if you ask me - we learned for sure what Michael's up to, but it only tells us about 10% we didn't already know. The Eko plot was largely undeveloped. The only thing we really learned about the Others was that, oddly enough, Michael's description of them was largely accurate in terms of what he actually knew. "Three Minutes" is apparently the amount of worthwhile time Michael spent with the Others. Two whole weeks and he was just tied up the whole time? Awesome.

There were a couple nice character moments - Charlie pitching the statues and Locke seeing him do it, and Sawyer telling Jack he's the closest thing Sawyer has to a friend - which, interestingly, were pretty much back-to-back. Also, Sayid is really gunning to take over the #1 spot on the Most Bad-Ass Person on the Island list; Eko's slipping fast and Locke's diminishing faith is turning him back into kind of a wimpy jerk. Oh yeah, and then an obviously not seaworthy boat rolls up.

Next week: a two-hour season finale! Desmond reappears, as does the security system (I'm guessing from the clips). At least some people get onto the boat (was anyone manning it?). The pneumatic tube doesn't go anywhere except to a big pile in the middle of the jungle, so The Pearl is obviously just another hoaxy experiment. The blast doors close again; Locke tries to smash the computer. And according to the voiceover, a number of questions will be answered, including what really happened to the plane. Drew declared that it looked too good to be true, but I'm hopeful. Here's to a few nice answers and a sweet cliffhanger.