What makes you guys think Jinn and Sun are going to be rescued? I haven't seen anything yet to hint at that, and I can't say I share your gut feeling...

Let's see who the candidates are for #6, assuming they actually had to be ON the plane:

Sun
Jinn
Claire (although I doubt it because she'd have kept Aaron)
Locke
Sawyer
Michael
Walt
Rose
Bernard
One of the random background players that the writers refer to as "Socks" (just like your socks, you need them, and they're there in the drawer, but you don't pay much attention to them)

Of all of those, the biggest potential for storytelling drama comes from Locke being rescued. Maybe against his will, maybe as some sort of deal to protect the island or the other survivors, he's returned to his home and his wheelchair and his job at the box company as a noble martyr to the preservation of the island...

I suspect that Penny's coming for Des, and that she'll sneak him off the island separately.

The only reason I would assume this is because of the teaser for next episode. However, I think it would be Sun that got off, not Jinn, and certainly not both of them.


This would tie up the funeral, seeing as how the first letters of the obit seemed to be "Jo". And why no one showed up to the funeral.

Isn't he already on Daddy Widmore's boat? Would he return to the island, or does she rescue him from the ship?

Ah. I never watch the teasers--not as a matter of policy, I just hit "stop" on my DVR when the last "LOST" card comes up. This week's episode is named "Ji Yeon", so it's clearly a Jinn/Sun episode.

Doesn't need to be soon. We've got like 30 more episodes. I imagine that Des and Sayid will go back to the island before too long. I'm just predicting we'll see a Daddy/Penny showdown over Des before the end.

Good calls. Would Locke count if he was DOA? If not, then we could have Locke +1.

Quick thoughts upon just having watched "Ji Yeon'...

1. Oh, those clever, sneaky producers. I really should have picked up on the fact that both a flashback and flashforward were being shown in this episode. I picked up on the "year of the dragon" remark but went off on the tangent that somehow Jin and Sun were either back in 2000 or in the future in 2012. i should have known better... Plus, there's the fact that no one recognized Jin as someone from the plane.

2. I wonder how Jin will die ... I mean, he's gotta be dead from the way Sun's character is acting at the graveyard (i.e. it's not like he's still on the island or something), but with the tombstone's date being the date of the crash, I wonder what sort of shenanigans are at play.

3. So it's implied that Ben has the resources to stage a fictional plane crash, I'm assuming in order to prevent anyone from stumbling upon the island as they look for the flight.

4. Geez Juliet, way to be a total bitch telling Sun about the affair. So now he knows that his wife cheated on him, and he's gonna die before he gets to see his daughter. Sad.

Jin Nooooo!!!!

I think it's FAR more likely that Jin is alive and on the island. I think that monument is a tribute to him designed to reinforce the story they're all telling rather than him actually being dead.

I'm kind of frustrated that they basically wasted our time to trick us, though. Lost, certainly, loves its plot twists, but I never remember them actively spending time on some which has no purpose other than to create a twist. We learned NOTHING about Sun or Jin or the greater mythology from seeing his flashback. Its sole purpose was to make us think he was coming to meet with Sun and then to pull the rug out from under us. Unless the vagaries of my memory have resulted in me simply forgetting, but I really don't think they've done something like that before. It's annoying, but whatever.

As much as I love Jin and Sun and as nice as it was to finally see all 6 of the Oceanic folks to get back, I think next week's episode will be fantastic.

I concur. Since they were married and he didn't make it back...it would look suspicious if Sun didn't have some sort of funeral/memorial for him.

I caught on to the fact that Jin was a flashback pretty quickly.

Agreed.

Regarding Michael on the boat: I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT! HA HA ON EVERYONE WHO'S NOT MEEEE!

But it turns out y'all's gut hunch about Sun being rescued was right, in spite of my skepticism.

I didn't twig to the different-era flashing until the very end. I did think that Jinn looked awfully spry in his flash-whenever, but I figured it was just a matter of having a shower and a decent suit. I didn't realize until the end that they had younged him up in the makeup chair. I found the final scene with Hurley to be very powerful.

What do you make of the captain? Don't trust him? So far, everything he's said checks out against what we know but Sayid and Des don't...

I disagree. Perhaps I am taking what I see too much at face value, but the way Sun's character acted at the graveyard, it just seemed too authentic for it to mean anything else other than Jin actually being dead. I just don't think it's plausible that she would act that way at the graveyard if deep down she knew that he was still alive on the island.

So in my opinion, it's more likely that Jin dies sometime soon, before the Oceanic Six get rescued, and the date of the plane crash is there on the tombstone to protect everyone else on the island.

I'll happily stand corrected if that means there's a happy reunion for the new family somewhere down the line, but I'm not convinced.

Anyway, next week's episode is going to be FANTASTIC. I can already feel it.

I think if she was unsure if she would ever see him again...being upset at the cemetery would be perfectly realistic because he may as well be dead. That's just my take on it :)

The flashforward/flashback thing had me confused for a minute, but as soon as he left the panda in the car and ran after the guy and dropped his antique looking cell phone, I knew. Especially after running to get another panda. I don't think a father who didn't think he could be a father would miss the birth of his baby for a stuffed toy.

As far as the captain goes...he seems like a jerk but that's about it.

So...is Michael Ben's man on the boat? Is he pretending to not know who he is, or does he have amnesia or something?

I sometimes think I'm way to gullible to watch LOST--I thought it was weird, obsessive behavior, but I didn't twig to a storytelling trick. I like to suspend my disbelief with this show, it rewards trust.

Oh, I think absolutely he's Ben's man on the boat. Why would Ben have kept it a secret otherwise? If it's not Michael, there's no point not telling. "I have a man on their boat." "Who is it?" "Remember that guy who hasn't aged in like 15 years? The one who recruited Juliette? Him. But I'm not going to tell you--it's some big secret." Naaah. Had to be Michael.

I going to say that Jin is dead!! Sun just seemed to hurt for him to simply be on the island. I think if that were the case then she would be more enraged than hurt like she was.

Anyone have any ideas how Ben was able to create a plane full of passengers to sink? I'll start out by saying (going way out on a limb here) that they could possibly be the bodies of the first islanders that he gassed.

Seems plausible to me... though in my opinion I don't really think you'd need to account for every body. Not exactly a marine biologist here, but wouldn't something deep in the ocean take care of eating some, if not all, of the passengers? Like I would think that Ben could get away with putting, say, 50 bodies down there with the plane, and the world would reasonably believe that everyone on the plane died.

Hmm... actually, that's a very good point.

Some questions to ponder:

What does the date mean on the LEFT side of Jin's grave marker? It was something when he was around 6. Any ideas?

Why would the Captain be carrying around the flight recorder? They're not going to be hauling it around on the off chance they run into Losties. What other value could it have, or did some folks on the outside know that there were survivors all along?

So we've got either all of the Oceanic Six or are still missing one. Jack, Kate, Hurley, Said, Sun and maybe Ben or maybe Claire's baby (who's name escapes me at the moment). Any thoughts on that?

Last week the preview said "The final Oceanic Six member is revealed", so it would stand to reason that the 6 are Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Sun, and Aaron (Claire's baby). I seriously doubt that Ben would have expended all of the resources implied to remain hidden, only to announce himself as a worldwide celebrity.

I want to know WHERE he got the flight recorder...aren't black boxes located in the cockpit? The cockpit part of the plane crashlanded in the trees...

Also...where is Walt? Is he pretending to be someone else too?

Spoiler: Who do you all think is going to die next episode? Personally, I think it's Claire. Her story has no where else to go now that Charlie is dead and there has to be a reason that Kate is taking care of Aaron.

That flight recorder is the fake flight recorder from the fake crash with all the bodies which the captain alleges that Ben planted somehow. The real flight recorder was not actually recovered, unless the others or the Losties snagged it at some point

Your point about the possible death is well taken. If it's a "main" character, s/he seems like a good candidate. It could also easily be one of the freighter people or a side character. Who knows.

That's simply Sun's date of birth. The tombstone is a family tombstone so that Sun will eventually be buried next to her husband.

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I always assume those "Someone.... Will.... DIE!!!!!" teasers are talking about a side character.

The question is whether the captain is really telling the truth. That black box could have come from anywhere, or could be a fake. Widmore would have the resources to get a spare or decommissioned black box, I think. And having it on hand would be helpful in convincing 815 survivors to help out against Ben.

The crew seems to have some issues with him--the doctor, who CSI fans will refer to simply as "Eckley" said, "He tells it like it is, but don't make him mad."

Well that was something of a disappointment overall. I think we might have just found out part of what Ben was referring to when he told Sayid that his decision to trust "Them" caused people to die. Maybe not, but it seems possible. I think the hatred of Michael may have caused him to make a serious error in judgment. Guess we'll just have to see where things go from here.

The end of the episode was VERY strange, because it suggests that there are yet more people on the island that we don't know about and have never heard anything from before now. Unless the people who shot Rousseau and Karl were Others instructed to kill them by Ben (which I suppose is as possible as anything else), then it's either Losties from Locke's camp (a long shot) or people from the freighter that have been mysteriously not mentioned previously or....I don't really know. On second thought, this may have been the "errand" that Frank was sent to do, though he didn't really come off as the assassin/kidnapper type.

Either way, some weirdness. And now we have to wait a LONG time for new stuff. SIGH!

Okay, so Carl and Rousseau. Rousseau hasn't been central since Season 1. I'm glad to not have her standing to the side gawping at Alex.

BTW--Alex is a hottie! And it's okay to say that because, according to IMDB, the actress, Tania Raymonde, turns 20 tomorrow, 3/22!

I TOTALLY didn't expect that Michael made it all the way back to New York! That whole fractured home-scene suicide-attempting thing was a complete surprise to me. And... The island won't let him kill himself!? Holy crap!

The ending raises questions that we have to wait until my birthday, more than a months from now, to answer. Who's shooting? And what are they shooting with? Must have been a sniper rifle, since we couldn't hear the gunfire. I don't think we've seen any sniper rifles so far on the show.

We know Frank flew back to the island. We don't know he didn't fly an assassin or two out there. Nobody said he went alone. I'm assuming that the shooter flew in from the freighter a day or so ago.

Rousseau (who is a lot more interesting how that she's not Minbari) bit it. I must say I'm disappointed. It was an anti-climactic end to an interesting character.

Yes, Alex is gorgeous.

I'm hedging that Rousseau is only wounded and can come back when it's convenient. As for Carl? He had Redshirt written all over him.

The killers could be remaining Others: Carl was a traitor and Rousseau is a threat so why not take them out to secure Alex? A wilder scenerio places a new group on the island. It could be Widmore's "B" team, or Dharma or Hanso or...

Is it me or did the Captain seem unfazed when Sayid spilled the beans about Michael? I'm guessing he already knew, either through Widmore's resources or thanks to Miles. If there's any common thread to Michael's existence, it's that he's a pawn.

I was pleased to see Libby make an appearence, if only as a hallucination. Hugo's been languishing lately and if she can represent the spirit of the island, it'll spice up his storyline for sure.

Random thought: Perhaps the Island has a split personality, with Libby representing the good and Jacob the bad?

I really wasn't that excited about Michael coming back. I guess I just never had a fondness for him.

Fresnelly...I think you might be right about Rousseau. I have a feeling she may just be injured and not dead. If she really is dead...what a way to go after spending 16 adventure filled years on the island.

I knew I should have been worried when Michael showed up as a janitor at my work under an alias and with a big black bag.

Hmm, pretty interesting episode.

With this whole "the island won't let you kill yourself" thing, doesn't that imply magic of some sort?
If so, that makes for a bit of a letdown, if you ask me.

I want there to be scientific reasons explaining all of the anomalies that have happened over the seasons.
Not some deus ex machina.

Anyway, I had a quick laugh when the bomb failed to go off and the note popped up.
It took me back to the Roadrunner cartoons with ol' Wile E. :thumbsup:

Overall, I was a bit disappointed with this episode. I was thinking that this run of episodes would end with a killer cliffhanger, and the ending was just a standard LOST ending, in my book. I wonder who is shooting at the Rousseau/Alex/Karl party... it seems reasonable to think that it's part of the freighter crew, but perhaps the remaining Others are responsible somehow.

The "island prevents you from killing yourself" idea is interesting... provides a whole lot of fuel into the fate vs. free will debate. Somehow the island does something that locks everyone into a path toward their eventual fate.

Exactly. She's tough as nails and a survivor by nature. If Locke can come back from a chest wound on a pile of corpses, I'll bet on the same for Rousseau. She certainly deserves a better send off than this episode.

I don't think the writers are going down that magic road, but all consuming scientific explanations can be just as underwhelming. Let's say that all of the Island's effects are due to Hallucinagenic gasses emitted from a seismic rupture*. Booorring.

It's more fun if it's a little more open ended. Personally I'm hoping for a crashed and buried spaceship from the future. :thumbsup:

*See Oracle at Delphi.

The writer's strike prevented the crew from filming any episodes after Thursday's, so it wasn't supposed to be anything other than a normal ending. The episodes that start up again in April will be the remainder of this season, with a typical LOST season-ending cliffhanger.

Right--this whole season was meant to be shown in one solid, 16-week piece.

FYI there's a new episode airing tonight! Hooray!

Oh god, I am so giddy with excitement... w00t!

Damn. Hell hath no fury like a smoke monster scorned.

Fantastic episode last night, but I'm still reeling a bit from just how Alex was killed. I was not expecting to see that at all. The final scene really sets up the rest of the series well, but it was really interesting how relatively civil the dialogue was considering how these two men are each other's nemesis.

Another point: So I guess Ben can really summon the monster, if needed, as was lying to Locke when he said he didn't know what it was. It's also great how there's a secret room/passage in the secret room.

A delightful return to form for Lost, with all the "shock and awe" I could ever want. It's kind of...anticlimactic, I suppose, to have Jack getting sick, though, since we know he comes out relatively unscathed and gets off the island.

It was delightful to see how they're going to keep Ben still opposed to "the good guys" even though we now know that Whidmore is "the bad guy" by having Ben go after Penny. I can't wait for the Mexican standoff between Desmond, Whidmore and Ben. It's going to be great.

That episode kicked all kinds of ass but damn, that was cold.

I wonder if Ben can't summon the monster so much as release it. It seems to have an intelligence and morality of its own. What a great comeuppance for the paramilitary squad.

WTF LOST! Quit killing off my favorite characters!

Alex was one of your favorite characters? She never struck me as anything more than a plot device.

Does anyone here think Claire is going to die of internal bleeding due to the fact that the hostiles blew up her house with she was still in it and some how survived with minor injuries?

They can't kill Claire. At least, not yet. I think she's going to die in the finale, when she will hand Aaron to Kate to take off the island and raise.

And... Alex. Sigh. It was only last episode that I noticed how freaking cute Alex is. The actress turned 18 right around then, and suddenly I'm noticing that she's very very pretty, and next think she's sucking lead. Just my luck.

Yes, I liked Alex. That girl played Cynthia on Malcolm in the Middle. Much hotter now imo :)

As for other characters, Anna Lucia, Charlie, hell they even killed my favorite Other, Tom.

Well, it didn't have Ben or Desmond, so last night's episode didn't really matter to me a whole lot. On top of that, it was all about Kate and Jack and Sawyer, who I probably care least about amongst the main...11-ish characters. The best reasons to watch it were 1) seeing how we move from relatively normal and happy flashbacks to psycho crazy Jack from "Through the Looking Glass" and 2) Evangeline Lilly wearing nothing but a button down shirt and panties and showing off her scantily clad ass and legs.

I was VERY sad to see how little damage the commando team sustained from the smoke monster. I expect more from old misty. Also, I want those guys to die painfully. I'm looking forward to seeing what Christian Shephard's ghost manifestation thingy has in store for his children. I kept expecting us to get...more...from him in this last episode but it never quite panned out. Hopefully that's forthcoming.

Spoiler: I am REALLY trying to remember which guy it is who appeared in the trailer for next week saying "I've been dead for 12 years." I'm almost positive it's someone we've seen before in one of Ben's Dharma flashbacks, but I can't quite put my finger on who exactly it is. Looks promising and cool, though.

I think the dead guy in the preview is Ben's Dad, but I am not 100% sure.

So Hurley thinks the Oceanic 6 are in heaven and nothing else exists and then freaks Jack out to the point where he becomes a raging paranoid alcoholic who wants to go back to the island.

I wonder where Dr. Shephard took Claire? And do you think Dr. Shephard is Jacob?

Negative. I'd have recognized Roger Workman/Uncle Rico. I didn't recognize that guy, but I presume he's Dharma or one of the Hostiles.

See, Jack doesn't do well with happiness. He's got to have problems to fix. And he's got the residual Island spookiness hanging on him--there's still this big question in the back of his head about whether Christian is still alive out there on the island somewhere. Until this episode, we hadn't really touched on it since Season 1 when Jack went to recover his body and only found the empty coffin, but it's still there.

Here's the question I was left with: When Miles saw Christian... what was he seeing? Guy sees ghosts. He didn't seem too freaked out when he told Sawyer about it, though, like it was just some guy. But he SAW him. So it wasn't a figment of Claire's imagination. And it wasn't like "Claire walked off with a ghost". It was a GUY. So... either Christian is another 815 survivor, riding down in a coffin in the hold, and has been fending for himself on the island (in a suit) for the last several months, or something even weirder than that is going on.

Hmmm, I'm not very concerned by that question, at least no more so than I have been the entire time we've been seeing dead people on the island. This happens to be the first time that multiple people have simultaneously seen someone there who, otherwise, shouldn't have been there, but I don't think it's any different phenomenon than before.

I'm pretty sure I've heard the producers say (via the LOST podcasts) that Christian is dead, though in a way that we don't yet fully understand. So Christian is a ghost on the island, and now Claire can see him, along with Jack.

As for the DHARMA guy seen in the previews (i.e. the one that said that he's been dead for 12 years)... the first thought I had was that it was Jacob.

Last night's episode was quite interesting.

I don't have time right now to post more thoughts on it other than this regarding the ending line of the episode.

I don't think that Jacob wants the island to move in space. Oh, no... I think he wants to move it in time. I think it's pretty evident that there is a time shift between the island and the rest of the world already... so now the island's masters need to do it again to save the island somehow.

I like it, yellowmac. I was thinking the island would move in space, but in light of the doctor washing up on shore dead before he was ever killed, this makes a lot of sense. There's a lot to digest in this episode, though, thats for sure.

Well, that got even weirder last night, didn't it?

They sent that message like two or three show-days ago! I assumed that the message got sent back in time to a time when the doctor was not yet dead, that they were interacting with somebody on the freighter in the past. But NO, it went FORWARD in time a few days... and the doctor STILL wasn't dead. Somehow his body will drift BACK a few days as it washes up on the island!

I was really hoping that the pilot was going to blow up the helicopter as it flew towards the island. Take out Keamy and the whole team with one heroic sacrifice, but it was not meant to be. If I have to guess, I think the thing on his arm is some sort of detonator or explosive device set to go off if it stops reading a pulse or some other vital sign. Either that, or it's some sort of amazing thing to make him superhuman and 3v1l.

Pretty solid episode last night. Very different sort of flashback than we've seen previously, but a nice look at Locke's roots and yet more mysteries relating to Abbadon and Richard Alpert. I don't really know what the Claire/Jacob/Christian thing is, and I'm not sure we're likely to get a good explanation of it. Guess we'll just have to see where things take us.

Moving the island through time seems like it makes more sense than moving it through space, but even if the people ON the island aren't there when Whidmore's people arrive, the island, presumably, will be. I've always assumed that he's after some immutable characteristic of the island itself rather than needing the people on the island, in which case, it doesn't do them much good to move the island through time. Cool stuff, though. This season continues to shine.

It's like they crammed an entire season of awesomeness into one episode. Fantastic finale.

I'm amazed how well they tied up loose ends and cleaned the slate for next season. I can't wait!

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS. I'M NOT PUTTING IT BEHIND TAGS. DON'T WANT TO KNOW, DON'T KEEP READING!

Uh, yeah, that pretty much sums up my feelings on the episode. I really hope that's not the last we see of the Freighter Folk. Here's hoping the island moved them and the people in the raft when it moved and they're safely....somewhere. It was great to see Walt again and they handled it surprisingly tactfully. I was worried his re-introduction would feel forced or cheesy, but it worked perfectly for me.

The set up for factions is tantalizing for the last two seasons. I did not at all predict that Sun would seek out Whidmore, but I think that'll be an interesting twist in loyalties, particularly for us as viewers to try to struggle with who we're sympathizing with and rooting for. I'll never know if we're supposed to love or hate Ben, but he's probably my favorite character in the show, so if Sun's against him, guess she's on my bad list now. And how could you not love to see Penny's boat picking them up. Little trite, but wonderful nonetheless.

I guess we're just left to wonder, can the island bring Locke back from the dead...again?

i'M NOT HIGHLIGHTING ANYTHING EITHER. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED, JUST MOVE IT ON DOWN THE LINE.

Agreed. He's grown about a foot and his voice has dropped two octives. When Hurley said, "you're getting big." I laughed my ass off.

That's not how I took their conversation. I felt like she was threatening Witmore with Ben. Plus, when Witmore asked why she would want to help him, she just walked away. I took that to mean, "Who said I was going to help you?" In my mind, Sun is just as dangerous as Ben or Sayid.


I can't believe Locke is dead. Nor do i completely believe Micheal and Jin are dead. Nobody really dies on that island... except Nicky and Paulo. :thumbsup:

**SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN THE LAST PART OF SEASON 4**
This was the best season imo, by far. There are a lot of questions left but there was a kind of culmination of plot that happened during the last episode. It was so good.
I really think Yunjin Kim is a terrific actress. She's convinced me of raw emotion several times, particularly giving birth to Ji Yeon & during the last episode when we saw her on the chopper freaking out about Jin. She made me cry, I'll admit it.
And wow, what about Sawyer jumping & swimming back. That was B. A. Could anyone else hear what he whispered to Kate? I couldn't really tell, but I assume it was about Aaron. Any thoughts?
When does season 5 start? I'm ready!!

Holy cow what an awesome episode. It wasn't as good as the time travel episode with Desmond but it was probably 2nd best of the whole season. It really reaffirmed how much I love the characters of Desmond, Benjamin Linus, and Jin/Sun.

I am SO THANKFUL that the writers finally gave in and admitted that Lost is a sci-fi show instead of covering up every secret season after season. Linus moving the island with that giant wheel thing is just pure awesome sci-fi.

I also really enjoyed the characters and actors/actresses introduced in season 4. Asian ghost guy, Faraday, Charlotte, Frank the copter pilot, the military freakshow guy that had the heart monitor, all of these characters added to the show tremendously.

Never before seen deleted scene from season 4.

Enjoy.

Man I love Ben. After Locke says "You just killed everyone on that boat!" he just says "so."

This was the best season of LOST so far. No question about it. Man, the sheer brilliant mind-fuckery of the flash-forwards...

I've been under the assumption that return of the Oceanic Six was what happens at the end of the whole series, and that those not among the Six are going to be left on the island for good. Now it turns out that was just a sub-plot, and we'll have next season TWO concurrent stories--one of the goings-on on the island (including Jeremy Bentham's "bad things" that happen after Jack leaves), and the story of Jack and Ben wrangling the Six (plus the late Jeremy Bentham--have to keep saying that name to myself so I remember to call him that!) back to the Island. Events on the island are happening in 2004 (actually, lostpedia says the Six-plus-Frank-and-Des were rescued on new years eve day 2004, so the next episode is new years day 2005), and the "going back to the island" business is happening toward the end of 2007.

I wonder: do they need to bring Walt too? He's the only other 815 survivor to have escaped the island.

Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher who, among other things, was outspoken against the French revolutionary discourse of Natural Rights, which was championed by the philosopher John Locke. This implies a major shift in philosophy for the LOST character in question! Bentham also designed the famous prison structure "The Panopticon", which was designed for constant surveillance of the prisoners, to generate an experience of paranoia. He argued that the ability to suffer, not the ability to reason, was the true measure of a human being, pointing to infants and disabled people as evidence. This comes from Lostpedia.com.

So I haven't chimed in 'cause I had to go out of town right after the finale (and still am), but here are some quick thoughts...

-thought the finale was interesting, but the "reveal" at the end was good, but not great. At first I almost thought it was going to be Jack himself in the coffin. Yeah, I can't explain that other than the show making my mind think that absurd things are completely reasonable on the show.

-I'm glad that Penny and Desmond found each other. That plotline can just end there and I'd be happy. Even though Ben now has Penny in her sights as revenge for Alex being killed, the show could easily not revisit Penny/Desmond and I'd be happy with that.

-I think Sun is laying a trap for Widmore. The "common interests" thing implies that perhaps Sun wants to go back to the island in order to reunite with Jin (assuming he's still alive). But I just don't think that's plausible--I think Jin is dead.

-Will be interesting to see how Jack can get the Oceanic 6 back to the island. Especially with Claire 'threatening' Kate on not taking Aaron back. Seems like everyone else could probably go fairly easily.

-according to lostpedia, sounded like Sawyer whispered something about trying to find his daughter to Kate.

-I really, really loved how the first scene of the finale cut right to the end of the season 3 finale, with Kate braking suddenly and getting out of her car. That made me jump up and sit up straight on the couch, and I was hooked.

can't wait for january...

Oh YEAH! That was SO great how they used the "previously on" to set up the first scene! Masterfully done.

Cool insight Rat!

When I think of Jeremy Bentham, I think of his Utilitarianism philosophy; that we should aim in all things for the "greatest good for the greatest number of people.

I think this philosophy ties in nicely to Lost and sounds like a good mandate for the Dharma initiative. More interestly however is how such a philosophy can be twisted in practice.

Let's say you find a cure that will cure hundreds of thousands, but it will kill hundreds. Utilitarianism (or at least a bastardized version of it) says to go ahead and make the sacrifice because a greater number of benificiaries means the greater good. It's all just numbers. You know, like 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42.

Bent Utilitarianism can justify political assasinations, pre-emptive wars, you name it.

It remains to be seen what truly motivates Widmore or the Others but obviously both have their own ideas as to what constitutes "the greater good" and how possesion of the Island can bring it to pass.

If you reduce society to numbers (