Be warned: this is long. With only 2 more hours of LOST until 2010, I’m getting all my theories and thoughts out here right now.

Great episode. I have absolutely no idea where this season is going in the final two hours, and I love it! Is Jack really going to detonate an H-bomb, causing an entire reboot of history? Is Locke actually going to find Jacob and kill him, as he promised? And how are they going to get Juliet, Kate, and Sawyer out of that sub? Great stuff going on here.

I’ll deal with the Jack / Kate / Eloise thread first. Looks like I was wrong about Farraday; he’s dead. At least for now. Maybe he’ll come back to life if Jack is able to reboot time or whatever. But for now, he’s gone. As Ben says, “dead is dead”. The Comicon video was what I was basing my thoughts on; in the video, you clearly hear Farraday talking to Chang. But the producers have come out and said that this is simply a continuity error. So there goes that. Frustrating, but what are you going to do, watch Criminal Minds? Please.

Jack picked up the torch from Farraday and seems utterly determined to blow up the Island. While I doubt that this will actually happen (I mean, how are they going to blow it up? More dynamite from the Black Rock?), it’s nice to see Jack with a purpose again, misguided though it may be. Did you catch Charles touching Eloise’s tum-tum when she told him she was taking Jack to the bomb? Looks like little Dan may be alive after all, albeit in utero.

I’m wondering if what we witnessed in this episode was an irreparable rift in the Jack / Kate relationship? Did you see how wounded she looked when he said he wanted to wipe the slate clean? Earlier this season, she told Jack “I’ve always been with you.”; now, for the first time in their time on the Island, it seems as if Kate has completely given up on Jack and his “plan”. And who could blame her? My favorite moment of the night was when Sayid emerged (minus the ghastly purple shirt) to protect Kate from Nameless Rifle-Bearing Other Minion #1. I actually did a little fist pump when the camera panned to Mr. Jarrah. It’s about time, I say.

I suppose these underground tunnels help explain what we saw earlier this season when Richard circumvented the sonic fence and infiltrated Dharmaville. For the record, I don’t trust Eloise and her willingness to help Jack rewrite history. I know she’s saddened by the fact that she killed her son, but I’m not convinced. Remember, Farraday said she couldn’t be trusted. Granted, he was talking about the 2007 version of his Mum, but then again, she’s the one who sent Jack back to the Island with all this “destiny” talk. I guess we’ll see next week.

Meanwhile, back in 2007, I’m totally loving Locke 2.0. The scene with him “seeing” himself and telling Richard what to say could’ve been pretty hokey, I think. But it worked and I’m not exactly sure why. Suffice it to say, it made me remember the mystery and wonder I felt during Season 1 and after 100 episodes, any time a show can make me feel that way again, it’s noteworthy.

Locke’s comment to Sun was a poignant one: “We haven’t done all of this for nothing.” I hear in that comment a word from the producers to those of us who are worried about Jack’s effort to re-write history and, more importantly, 4+ seasons worth of gripping narrative and character development. In the grand scheme of things, I can’t see the producers leading us down this path for nearly 5 seasons only to pull the rug out from under us. The bottom line is that these characters have found redemption on the Island; they have been changed by their experiences here. And so, even if there is some sort of reboot and Flight 815 does happen to land in Los Angeles, I have a feeling that these characters will somehow retain an awareness of these shared experiences and the ways in which they’re all better people now than they were before. Even characters like Michael and Shannon, characters who have already died, if they were suddenly “resurrected” in a new, alternative timeline sans Island, they would re-emerge as changed individuals. Again, I hear a great deal of reassurance here: we haven’t done all of this for nothing.

And ultimately, that’s what makes this more than a television show for me. It’s a show that is trying to make a statement about life, about our quest to find meaning, about free will, about fate, about the forces that are at work in our lives whether we realize it or not. What other show has the ability to make us reflect on our experiences, both good and bad, and consider how those experiences have helped shape us for better or worse? What other show is willing to delve into this kind of narrative with implications at the meta-level, at a cosmic level? What other show is asking these kinds of questions about the nature of reality and human existence? More than anything else, this is why I love this show.

I’ve been saying for the past few weeks that I’m going to reserve judgment re: Season Five until I’ve been able to view it in its entirety. I think that’s only fair, even though portions of this season (specifically the time-travel stuff) have been, as the wizened sage Randy Jackson would say, “just a’ight for me. Just a’ight.” But in light of what I’ve written in these past few paragraphs, there’s a legitimate chance that this could end up being my favorite season of all when it’s all said and done. If nothing else, my hat is off to the producers for giving me a show that, 101 episodes in, is causing me to reflect on a pretty deep level about my own life and the way my life intersects with the lives of those around me. More than that, this show renews my hope that these intersections aren’t merely random and meaningless, but rather they are all a part of a much greater mosaic, greater than I can even realize at the moment, but one that I can still be aware of nonetheless. It would seem that Locke’s “out of body” experience from this episode is a metaphor for how this show would cause each of us to view our own existence.

OK, so sorry for the multi-paragraph diversion into the uber-philosophical! The other action in the episode centered around Sawyer & Juliet. Did Sawyer really sell out the location of the Others to save himself and Juliet? I think not. But maybe this is a foreshadowing of where we’re going with all of this. Sawyer is a con man, he finds redemption (and love) on the Island, becomes a heroic leader, only to throw it all away to save his own skin. Hurley still believes in him (“Sawyer always has a plan,”), but judging by his “Good riddance” comment when he boarded the sub, I don’t think he has any plan to stage a rescue operation on behalf of his pals. And how about when Kate comes down the steps of that sub, interrupting Sawyer and Juliet’s sweet-nothings talk? Awkward! Fearless prediction: Sawyer follows through on his threat to kill Phil in next week’s finale. But I also have a bad feeling about Juliet and Sawyer’s long term relationship. I hate it, too, because I’m rooting for them to stay together. But I don’t think it’s in the cards. I hope I’m wrong. But given my theory about the irreparable rift between Jack and Kate, I’m thinking this is bad news for Juliet.

Another fearless prediction: Sun will step to the forefront and play a major role in whatever happens in the finale. After letting the boys take center stage in the 2007 timeline of “Follow the Leader”, I fully expect Sun to step up and do whatever it takes to be somehow reunited with her man. Season 6 then becomes Sun & Jin’s quest to return to the mainland for the sake of their daughter. Once she realizes that Locke has no interest in reuniting the castaways, look out. It’ll be on like Donkey Kong.

That’s enough for now. I’ll have a pre-finale post next week, as well as a full-fledged recap on Thursday. Until then…Namaste.