s3e22: Through the Looking Glass

The plan doesn't work quite so dynamite (ha!), and Bernard, Jin and Sayid are taken prisoner by the three Others who aren't killed (Tom, that guy, and then that other guy). Ben catches up with Jack and the rest of the gang and informs him that unless Jack stops trying to make contact with the boat, Ben will have his guys shoot Jack's guys. Jack refuses to give in, so Ben does, except that he really doesn't, which Tom lets us know in the clumsiest bit of dialogue that's ever appeared on this show. Either Ben is not as cold-blooded as he seems or something else odd is going on, not that we're going to find out what anytime soon, if so.

Ben allows Alex to tag along, revealing that he knows she betrayed her. (This is due to Bernard the big fat blabbermouth giving up the details of the plan with Jin held at gunpoint.) After Jack thinks his friends are dead, he beats the hell out of Ben, then drags him back, at which point Ben reveals to Alex that Rousseau is her mother.

Sawyer and Juliet head back to the beach, although not before Juliet gives Jack a big ol' smooch that has only been set up for 22 damn episodes. They're not sure what to do when they get there (good bit of banter: Sawyer: "There's only three of them and four guns!" Juliet: "And there's two of us, and no guns."), until Hurley - previous recipient of the double brush-off for being too fat to help anyone - comes flying in with Roger Linus' van. He runs over one Other, a tied-up Sayid breaks another's neck with his feet - Jesus! - and then Sawyer, in the last we see of him, shoots Tom in virtual cold blood after the latter has surrendered, saying, "That's for taking the kid off the boat." Uh, damn, Sawyer! Weren't you all messed up about killing Locke's dad ten minutes ago?

Hurley radios back to let the Others know what happened, but Jack has the walkie, and everyone hears that our heroes are all alive.

Oh, but then there's Charlie. He's been in the Looking Glass getting his ass kicked. The women there radio Ben, who sends Mikhail over. Mikhail seems kind of perturbed since Ben has been doing a lot of lying. Ben swears that he is not lying now, not to Mikhail, and tells him to kill everyone. Mikhail kills the women, but then Desmond pops out of the back - where he'd been hiding after being forced to swim down when Mikhail first arrived at the beach - and shoots Mikhail with a spear gun. Bonnie, the blonde one, stays alive just long enough to inform Charlie that the code to turn off the jamming device is the tune to "Good Vibrations." Um, okay. Kind of corny there, show, but I guess I'll allow it. Charlie taps out the tune and the light goes off. And then... a transmission comes in! And it's Penelope! And she apparently reveals that she didn't send any boat and that she doesn't know anyone named Naomi. (Although the latter part doesn't necessarily seem odd, since didn't Naomi just say that her company was hired?) And then Mikhail shows up outside the porthole with a grenade. Man, that guy is like Michael Myers! Penny catches that Desmond is there, but then Mikhail blows the window, and Charlie shuts the door to conform to Desmond's flashes, even though he probably could have survived easily. Frankly, I'm a little annoyed with the writers on this one - Charlie was kind of an annoying, crap character for most of three seasons, and then he was suddenly made into a great, noble guy, naturally just long enough to kill him off. I actually liked the Charlie of the last two episodes. Oh well, it probably would have been more annoying if they hadn't done it, and it was a poetic ending to that chapter.

Locke is about to kill himself in the pit when Walt appears to him and tells him that his work isn't done. So motivated, Locke climbs out of the pit, and just as Naomi is about to contact her boat, *spluh*, she takes his hunting knife to the back of the head. Locke threatens to shoot Jack, but Jack uses the phone anyway, and Locke - surprise! - can't pull the trigger, despite Ben's exhortations. Ben continues to claim that Jack is making a mistake and everyone will die if the boat is contacted, but Jack does it anyway. The voice on the other end of the phone tells Jack that the boat is on its way.

And then we cut to the final flashback, where we find out that the episode's flashbacks have actually been flash-forwards. (Drew correctly guessed this fairly early on.) Jack, with a big beard, has read about a death in the LA paper. (Freeze-framing tells us it's a man, found downtown, but no more is given.) Jack is about to jump off a bridge when a car crashes behind him. He saves the woman inside and is lauded as a hero, but Jack has gotten hooked on oxycodone and is all kinds of messed up. He keeps calling someone, though we never hear a voice on the other end. He attends the viewing of the person who died, but no one else has shown up. Finally Jack convinces the person on the phone to meet him at the airport. The low harp string of ominous occurrences informs us of their arrival and... it's Kate. Jack has apparently been bothering her quite a bit, and she doesn't like it. She leaves, saying "he'll wonder" where she went, but not before Jack says that they have to go back. They shouldn't have left the island.

Season.

I mean, great episode. First of all, loved the flash-forward. Second of all, loved they ended it in such a way that there are clearly lots of unanswered questions, but not on a ridiculous cliffhanger that would make me spend the next eight months going "Hurry uuuuuup!" I have no idea where they're going next, and that's not a bad thing.

Things we need to know now:

* If Penny didn't send Naomi, who did? And why were they looking for Desmond? The guys in the listening station last year seemed to suggest that they were working for more than one person ("They're gonna kill us!"), even if we only saw them calling Penelope. The Widmore Corporation, maybe?

* Who is this grave threat to the island? Again, Widmore? The Lost Experience, which I believe is considered canon, drew a connection between Widmore and the Hanso Foundation, which is connected with Dharma... Ben describes the threat as greater than any the island has faced in years, and given Ben's history, Dharma was probably that last threat.

* If Locke really believes, as Ben does, that the island needs to be saved from exterior incursions, why does he just walk away? He was "man enough" to kill Naomi.

* Who died off the island? Could it have been Sawyer, or is Kate supposed to be still with him? Locke? (Jack seems to almost feel responsible for the death, and if he was responsible for getting Locke rescued, and Locke ended up back in a wheelchair and killed himself, I can see why Jack would be so messed up.) Are we likely to see more flash-forwards in Season Four?

* Richard doesn't age and Mikhail doesn't die. Reasons? Also, Jacob is still hanging out there.

* Jack keeps talking like his dad is alive, and certainly no one corrects him when he makes the claim at the hospital, where assumedly they would know. Is this a different timeline? Is Jack just delusional?

* What conclusion does future Jack come to that make him realize they shouldn't have left the island?

Okay, I lied: I can't wait for Season 4. Or 5 or 6. But at least we have a lot to chew on between now and then.