Episodes 617-618: "The End" (Part 1 of 3)

Foreword

So, Lostophiles, we've reached the end, fittingly enough, with an episode titled, "The End." What follows is the first of three parts for my last ever post. In part one, I recap and interpret the end of island story...except for the very end. In part two, I will recap and interpret the end of the sideways story, as well as the final few beats of the island story. Then, in part three, I will look back at the series as a whole, and my experiences thinking and writing about it.

Unlike most of my recaps in the past three seasons, I came up with my interpretations on my own, largely while watching, but also while “sleeping on it.” That said, I have read, seen and heard others, and will call them to your attention from time to time.

So, with that in mind, let's pick up with the island story...(Cue that "whoosh" sound we're all going to miss http://www.losthatch.com/sounds/sound_effects/flashback_strings2.mp3)...

The Island – Jack Qua Jacob

Jack’s hands shake as he takes them from the water, his new life as protector beginning.

Kate watches Jack’s moment, but then it is Sawyer that joins Jack. Sawyer wonders what happened, and Jack says, “that makes two of us.” Jack says he doesn’t feel any different. In one of the great Sawyerisms of all time, James asks, “why don’t you come down off the mountain top and tell us what the hell the burning bush had to say for itself?”

Jack gathers his foursome, and tells them about the light, and the heart of the island, and how Flocke wants to put it out, and that would be “it for all of us.” Sawyer surmises that FLocke needs Desmond. Hurley says Jacob is worse than Yoda in his not saying anything substantive. Sawyer is dispatched to get Desmond, and bring him to the Source. He tells Kate he’d ask her along, but that would take the fun out of telling her she can’t come, and she smiles that she’ll just have to resist the urge to go anyway. Hurley has his second Star Wars moment – “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Aside Number 1 – This opening sequence with four characters who we first met in the pilot offered a quick summary of what was to come, but also a brilliant look back at wh these people were, and their history together. The Sawyer/Kate exchange, in particular, was one of many “for old times’ sake” moments in the episode.

Kate asks Jack why he took the job, and he says, “because I was supposed to.” “Why,” challenges Kate, “because some stranger wrote our names on the wall?” Candidly, Jack admits, “I took it because it’s the only thing I have left. The island is the only thing I haven’t screwed up.” She tries to assure him nothing is irreversible. Hurley silent throughout this exchange, quips, “this would be so sweet if we weren’t all about to die.”

Aside Number 2 – previewing a bit of my final thoughts, it’s dialog like this that hammers home the fact that Lost really was a character-based drama more than it was about the mysteries contained within its plot, and when we look back on the show, I have a feeling our lingering memories will be more along the lines of “oh, that’s so Hurley of you” than “I think I want to deteritorialize ursus maritimus” (bonus points if you get that reference).

Ben spots Sawyer watching Flocke retract the rope that had been lowered into the well, and “invites” him – at gunpoint – to join them. Flocke, smelling his final victory, actually smiles at him. He asks if James knows why he’s here. “I’m guessing you need Desmond to destroy the island.” Flocke is impressed. “That’s absolutely right.” Ben can’t believe his ears (which is odd, given that the last episode ended with Flocke specifically telling Ben he was going to destroy the island). Flocke insists he’s not going down with anything, but James and the other candidates are. James smiles that rakish Sawyer smile and assures him they’re not candidates anymore, then head butts Ben and takes his gun and walks off. Flocke tells Ben he doesn’t need to go after him, and then assures him, despite his lie about leaving him in charge, he would still sail away with him when the island collapsed. Flocke then spots dog tracks.

Aside Number 3 – since we never do get any kind of resolution on this, I’m going to find in this moment further support for my theory about Smokey, and how he works. There was never any evidence that MIB was a particularly exceptional hunter or tracker. That was all John Locke. In case you forgot my theory, it is that Smokey was always down in that Source cave, and MIB actually died at Jacob’s hand. Smokey is not, and never was fully human, at least not as MIB, and instead takes on the personality and characteristics of the dead bodies he copies. In the case of Locke, this makes him an expert hunter tracker, but also someone who refuses to listen to anyone telling him his personal limitations. I’ll discuss the weaknesses of this theory – which I do acknowledge – later.

Desmond awakens at casa de Bernard and Rose. Bernard greets him, and he and Vincent (the track-leaver) go for fish. Desmond asks Rose how long they’ve been living here. “Well, we built this place in 75,” reflects Rose, “and lived here a couple of years, and then the sky lit up again. So God only knows when in the hell we are now.”

Aside Number 4 – in the Geronimo Jack’s Beard podcast for this episode, Jorge Garcia’s girlfriend, Beth (who goes by the online handle “Sidekick 22”) questions if this was an error, since time jumps make things disappear. The answer to that is simple – no. Time jumps only make things disappear when they send you back in time before the current structure was built. Since the last time jump was 30 years into the future (to the present – Aaaaaaaigh!), Rose and Bernard’s structure was still there.

Umm, so then why did nobody find it in the intervening 30 years? First of all, who’s to say they didn’t? Second of all, Rose and Bernard were able to avoid detection during the island’s most populated time in history – the height of the DHARMA initiative. If they stayed hidden then, I see no reason their little hut wouldn’t still be there, perhaps in need of minor repairs, after that last time jump.

Rose levels with Desmond – after breakfast, she’s going to ask him to move on. They broke their non-involvement rule with him. Bernard returns with Flocke and Ben. Flocke greets Rose while pulling out his knife. He tells Desmond, “come with me now or I’ll kill them both right in front of you.” Rose, non-involvement no longer an option, assures him he doesn’t have to go,” and Flocke says, in perhaps his most evil line ever, “I’ll make it hurt.” Desmond gets Flocke’s word he won’t touch them, ever. “Then I’ll do what you want,” he agrees (with, as we soon learn, a really wrong idea about why he has nothing to fear). “Yes, Desmond,” Flocke says with a whole lot of smug self-satisfaction. “You will.” Desmond tells Flocke he assumes he’s being taken to a place with a very bright light. Desmond knows this because, well, “it’s just a hunch.” The walkie goes off in ben’s pocket, but he pretends he hears nothing when Flocke asks about it. Ben subtly turns it off.

Aside Number 5 – Flocke knows from Widmore that Desmond has survived the kind of E.M. bursts that the source will expose him to, but apparently doesn’t know the effect they’ve had on Desmond, i.e. his ability to perceive across time. Either that, or he just doesn’t care about Desmond’s lie about having a “hunch.” It was also great to see Ben’s last connection to his momentary stepping into the light – the walkie set he split with Miles – was still active, and that Ben still wanted to keep that from his new “master.”

Miles, unable to reach Ben, has found Richard. Richard asks if he still has the C4, because they need to go finish what they started.

Sawyer catches up to Jack and his crew. He starts to tell him they need to find Desmond, but Jack says there’s no point in racing to find Desmond, because they’re all going to the same place, anyways. Sawyer, wondering perhaps why he bothered walking into the lion’s den, asks, “what then?” “Then,” Jack says, “it ends.”

Aside Number 6 – I get the sense that at this point, Jack doesn’t so much have any additional knowledge per se abut what will happen at the Source. Rather, he just has a John Locke-level faith that things are supposed to work out, bolstered by his own empirical evidence of having seen some of the island’s miracles first-hand.

Richard and Miles get the outrigger ready. Richard notes a hell of a storm is coming. Miles says, “welcome to the club,” and demonstrates Richard’s first gray hair. Richard smiles, and explains to Miles it’s because he just realized he wants to live. Miles smirks, “good timing.”

Aside Number 7 – I think what we’re meant to take from Richard’s first sign of aging in 141 years is the notion that Jacob’s personal effects on the island and those he touched have been extinguished with his death. What the castaways probably don’t realize is that they are no longer protected by Jacob’s touch, and that Flocke can, probably, kill them all at will now. Of course, they probably never knew to what extent they were protected, so it’s not like they’re going to behave any differently. Kudos to Nestor Carbonell for bringing home this last great Alpert moment. I hope for Richard that the past century and a half have taught him that he’s not necessarily consigned to Hell for the accident that killed the doctor and failed to save his wife.

As they row, Miles and Richard hear debris floating, and see a dead body from one of the sub sailors. They hear a cry for help, and see, floating in a pile of life vests…Frank Lapidus! He asks what they’re doing. Richard tells him the “blow up the plane to prevent Flocke’s escape from the island” plan. “Well,” smiles Frank, “if we leave, that thing won’t have a plane anymore.” Richard asks how, and Frank says, gesturing to his increasingly beat up uniform, “in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a pilot.”

Aside Number 8 – I had held out hope that, since we didn’t actually see Frank die in the sub, he had not. Still, the producers certainly made it seem as though he might have, making Frank’s unsinkable nature that much more fun as a surprise. I want some Lapidus luck. He missed flight 815 by sleeping in. He survived the e.m. attack on his helicopter. He narrowly missed blowing up on the freighter. He survived his fuelless helicopter crashing into open ocean, and was rescued from a life raft floating in the middle of nowhere. He survived the crash-landing of Ajira 316. And, now, he was the last survivor of Widmore’s sinking sub. That said, I’d just as soon never be in any kind of vehicle with the man!

Flocke, Ben and Desmond encounter Jack’s group on a hill – the same hill where Ben once intercepted them on the way to the broadcast station. (Note – I base this on the similarity of the terrain; I’m sure Lost has reused many Oahu locales for multiple locations on the island. Still, I like the notion that this was “the place” for these adversarial détentes on the island). Flocke says, “ is going to be interesting.” Kate, grabbing the rifle Sawyer had taken from Ben, starts shooting (and Ben and Desmond drop and take cover). Flocke walks through it, and suggests she might want to save her bullets. He walks up to Jack, apparently sensing his water-drinking recent past. “So it’s you, huh?” “Yeah, it’s me,” Jack says, in the typical unimaginative heroic retort. “Jacob being who he is,” observes Flocke, “I expected more of a surprise. You’re sort of the obvious choice.” Jack corrects that he wasn’t chosen, and that he’s not there to stop Flocke. Jack says Flocke thinks he’s going to destroy the island, but that’s not what’s going to happen. “What’s going to happen, Jack?” In another in Jack’s long series of threats to island adversaries, Jack responds, “I’m going to kill you.” “How are you planning to do that,” asks the incredulous smoke monster. “That’s a surprise,” Jack says, with a hint of a twinkle in his eye. “Ok,” shrugs Flocke. “Let’s get on with it.”

Aside Number 9 – Another John Locke trait inherited by Smokey is this blind faith that he’s meant to complete whatever his current task is. It’s as though he cannot fathom the potential that he may not survive this encounter, perhaps because he’s lived for thousands of years.

Flocke leads the group. Sawyer asks Jack how he’s going to kill Flocke. The answer: Desmond. But he doesn’t know how, except he assumes Desmond is a weapon (which was why Jacob brought him back). Again - big leap of faith, Doc! Flocke insists just he, Jack and Desmond continue on. Hurley tells Jack, “I believe in you, dude.”

As they walk through the bamboo, thunder claps, and Flocke says, “it’s going to be a bad one.” Flocke sees the cave from which he sprung, and declares, “we’re here.” They both tie a rope around Desmond and a tree. Desmond tells Jack this doesn’t matter, the destruction of the island. Because he’s going to go someplace else, where they can be with the ones they love, and never need to think about the damn island again. Desmond tells Jack he’s there too, and they landed together on 815. Desmond says he thinks he can bring Jack, too. Jack says there are no shortcuts, no do-overs. All of this matters. He already tried this before.

Aside Number 10 - More on this in part 2 of my recap, but as I interpret this, Desmond's future flashes apparently have given him the ability to "see" the flash-sideways. The extra extra sensory perception appears to have been enabled by his Widmore-induced second EM blast. Given those perceptions, Desmond made the same misperception the audience has to date - that the sideways world is a parallel, "better" world, and that, by virtue of having seen it, he knows he will get there. I don't think Desmond would have been so inclined to walk to his apparent doom with such inner peace if he knew he would be compelling Penny and Charlie to live their whole lives without him, i.e. that one literally must die to get into Sideways world.

Ben’s walkie goes off, and Miles says they’re going to fly the plane, and everyone needs to get over there. Claire walks out of the jungle and shoots at Miles, Frank and Richard’ feet. Kate asks what happened, and to talk to Claire, who assumes they’ve been sent by Flocke. Richard tries to convince her they can escape and never look back. Richard says, “you can come with us, Claire,” and Claire says, “no.” And she walks off, in a huff.

Aside Number 11 – per Jorge Garcia on Geronimo Jack’s Beard, Claire and Flocke were supposed to have a scene last week where he cast her aside, but it was cut to fit the episode to time. I think that may have made her reactions here make a lot more sense. Given the whole “Claire is crazy” dynamic this season, I think the producers figured we’d just roll with her acting in a way that, objectively, makes no sense.

Desmond smiles as he says that he knows, when he’s lowered, he should go where the light is brightest. Jack and Flocke lower him down. Flocke talks about how this brings back old times, them staring down a hole with Desmond and electromagnetism in it. “If there was a button down there to push,” Flocke says nostalgically, “we could fight about whether to push it.” Jack reminds him he’s not John Locke. “You disrespect his memory by wearing his face,” Jack says with a certain amount of self-righteousness, “but it turns out he was right about pretty much everything.” Flocke says he was wrong about everything, and Jack will realize it when the island drops into the ocean. They stare down the hole, the duplicate of the last shot of Season 1.

Aside Number 12 – And here it is – the further evidence in support of my theory that Smokey eventually comes to believe he is the person whose form he emulates. Flocke just reminisced about memories that John Locke had had before he died, and he did so fondly, only to be reminded that he thought Locke was a chump. I wonder if his insistence on that point was itself to try to fight off the extent to which Locke’s personality was supplanting his own.

Bear in mind, that approximately 1700 years (give or take) transpired between Smokey’s “birth” in “Across the Sea” and the next time we saw him on the shore in “The Incident” as MIB. That’s presumably enough time for him to have forgotten he was never anything but a smoke monster and completely embraced his identity as Samuel.

Wait a second – what’s this about “Samuel?” Well, according to Kristen Dos Santos at E! Online, in the scripts where man in black appeared, he was listed as “Samuel” in certain drafts. Sure, we never got the name on screen, and even Titus Welliver, who played MIB, never seemed to adopt that name for the character. But somewhere in the Lostverse, MIB was called by some people, “Samuel.”

But then I promised earlier to discuss the flaw in my theory. I’m sure many of you have guessed it by now. If Flocke was really always a smoke monster, and, in particular, one that existed before Jacob became the island protector, then how is it he “became” human enough to kill in this episode? Doesn’t that suggest, Dan, that he had a human form to return to? Hmm...an interesting point. But the same flaw dogs the other prevailing MIB theory – that his soul was ripped from his body and became Smokey, leaving his former body dead on the creek bed. Because if that was his body, then when Smokey lost his Smokeyness, it should have been the cave skeleton, and not Flocke, that became kill-able. And that, my friends, would be the zombie season of Lost.

So I’ll toss out this little extra theory nugget: first, my theory stands, i.e. that Smokey had an existence before MIB and was not his ripped-out soul. I now add to it the following: you can’t really kill Smokey, at least not for all time. Rather, under certain conditions, he takes on the final attributes of whatever human form he’s emulating, and can be “killed” in such a way that he ceases to be a threat...unless and until conditions similar to MIB’s floating into the Source cave exist, at which point the Source recreates Smokey. Given the common theory that “Mother” had some degree of Smokey-ness to her, perhaps her having passed to Jacob the guardianship of the island was, in part, how it was that her smokey-ness became killable by MIB. But she, actually split the two aspects of herself into Jacob (Guardian) and MIB (monster), with the smoke monster only capable of being released after MIB’s mortal death. More on this theory, later, and more on the fact that I can still generate theories like this after the series has ended in part 3 of my finale post-a-pallooza.

At the base of the well, Desmond sees the skeletons of others who tried to get to the light. Then he sees a pool, with a series of aqueducts feeding it. In the middle of the pool is a rock, sort of a plug, from which the energy seems to emanate. As he steps into the water, the E.M. energy radiates, with the humming sound that is so familiar from the Swan station. He lifts out the plug, causing the familiar increased magnetism sounds, which then fade out as the ducts stop feeding the pool. The light fades, too, and the pool disappears. The light goes out, and the glow of lava shines through where the plug had been, with steam pouring out. Desmond screams, no! Flocke taunts Jack, “it looks like you were wrong.” He gets up, and says, “good-bye, Jack” as the ground starts to shake. Jack follows, and when he punches Flocke, they both notice that he made him bleed. “Looks like you were wrong, too,” Jack taunts back. But Flocke grabs a rock and smacks Jack in the head, then stumbles away.

Aside Number 13 – I took Desmond’s reaction, the “nooo!” to indicate that he just realized he was wrong about the flash-sideways, and thus also wrong to not fear death on his return trip to the island. As for Jack and Flocke’s dual mistakes – Desmond’s activity did start the process of destroying the island, but it also did make it possible for Jack to kill Flocke...well, doesn’t that make you think of the typical parental punishment for kids fighting over a toy, i.e. to take it from both of them?

I’m also thinking back to “The Man Behind the Curtain” where young Ben in his class with friend Annie was taught about the volcanic origin of the island. I don’t pretend to understand the science of it all, but it looks like the Source room worked somehow by using the ancient plug to unite water and volcanic energy to generate the “unique electromagnetic energy” found on the island. I guess to ask for more understanding on that is to ask just how it is that the midichlorians make you have The Force...

The quakes intensify, and Sawyer and company are smacked around. Ben pushes Hugo out of the way of a large falling tree, only to have the tree land on him.

Jack awakens in the pouring rain. He goes back into the cave and pulls the rope, calling to Desmond, but gets no response. Jack chases off after Flocke.

Kate assures Ben they’ll free him. She, Sawyer and Hurley struggle to do just that. Another tremor causes Sawyer to say Locke was right. The walkie goes off, and Kate answers. As Richard and Frank repair the plane, Miles tells Kate that Claire doesn’t want to come. Miles, at Ben’s direction, asks how long the repairs will take. Frank says 5 hours, maybe 6, but Richard says they have about 1. Ben says he knows how they can get to Hydra island that fast – Flocke has a boat.

Flocke stands at the ladder over the cliff, Elizabeth in the water below him. Jack finds him, and charges from the higher ground. He fly-tackles his nemesis, and they struggle. Flocke drops his pack, and Jack starts to choke him. Flocke gets the upper hand, but his knife starts to shake away. They dive for it. Jack chokes Flocke as the cliffs fall away. Flocke gets the knife and stabs – right where an appendix scar would be (and where, I'm told, Jesus was speared during the crucifiction). Flocke goes to slash Jack's throat, and starts to cut it. He says, "I want you know, Jack. You died for nothing." But then he gets shot, by Kate, who says, “I saved you a bullet.” Flocke looks up at Jack. "You’re too late," he gloats. Jack kicks him over the cliff face, and he falls, much like John Locke falling out of the window. He lands on a ledge, dead.

Aside Number 14 - Jack's sideways injuries have just been explained. The appendix scar was a red herring we thought was meant to refer the audience to Jack's appendix having been removed by Juliet. And the recurring neck wound was the cut by Flocke's knife.

An interesting story about the shot where Jack got stabbed in the abdomen. According to Jorge Garcia, while they were shooting the scene, Matthew Fox (Jack) experimented with different knife-catching "pads," and in some takes wore nothing. On the final take, he went with a kevlar pad. Meanwhile, Terry O'Quinn (Locke/ Smokey) had both a real knife and a retractable one that he was supposed to grab out of frame before stabbing Jack. On that last take, O'Quinn forgot to make the switch, and stabbed Fox with the real knife. Fortunately, the mistake was made on the same take for which Fox wore the kevlar pad, the only one that would have prevented a real knife from actually puncturing through to his gut!

Finally, a note on the death of Smokey. As cool as Kate's 80's action-movie type line, "I saved you a bullet" was, I kind of wanted the smoke monster to be a little harder to kill than one gunshot and a kick over the ledge. Supposedly, this was the one "big bad" who had menaced our characters from day 1, and his death was so anticlimactic, particularly after Jack had to go through the whole "you're the new Jacob" thing before Flocke could be killed. Of course, the story didn't end here...

Kate helps Jack back from the edge, but he’s clearly hurting. He tells her he’ll be fine. "Find me some thread," they joke, referring back to their first encounter, "and I’ll count to five." The others come. Kate says, "Locke’s dead. It’s over." But then there’s a tremor. Sawyer frowns, "sure don’t feel like it’s over."

Aside Number 15 - apparently, in the pissing match over which of them was wrong, Jack and Flocke failed to consider the possibility that both of them were right. Indeed, Desmond's monkeying about in the Source cave both killed Flocke and destroyed the island. Oops.

Frank resets the Ajira plane's electronics, but there’s something wrong with the hydraulics. He sends Miles to fix them. Ben calls and asks, "what’s going on with your timetable?" "Don’t bother me!" Lapidus shouts, and tosses the walkie aside. "Sounds like they’re making progress," Ben shrugs direly. Jack knows – whatever Desmond turned off, he needs to turn on again. Kate insists he doesn’t have to do this. " Let the island sink, Jack," she implores him. "I can’t," he responds. He asks if Sawyer can get the boat across in time. Sawyer shakes Jack’s hand. "Good luck to you, James," Jack says, one final note of grace for his former rival. "Thanks, Doc, for everything," Sawyer responds. Ben tosses Sawyer the walkie. "If the island’s going down," Ben proclaims, "I’m going with it." Hugo knows he can't go down the ancient ladders, so he’s with Jack. Jack tells Kate to go, get Claire on the plane. She cries, "tell me I’m going to see you again," but he subtly shakes his head. She kisses him, hard. They profess their love for each other. Jack turns and stumbles away, with Hugo and Ben helping him.

Aside Number 16 - Poor Hugo. Already having been consigned to a life of insanity, then the "mis"fortune of his lottery numbers, all because of his weight, at last has his final fate determined by the inability to safely navigate the ladders.

Miles gets the hydraulics patched up. He tells Richard, "I don’t believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape." Sawyer says via walkie they’re heading over, but Frank says they need to leave while there’s still a ground to take off of. James knows – they have to jump for the boat. Kate goes first, and then James follows.

Jack leads Ben and Hugo to the Source cavern. He’s in bad shape. Hugo asks (already knowing the answer) "how we going down there?" Jack confirms, "we’re not. I’m going alone." Hugo protests. "You can’t! Desmond didn’t make it. How the hell are you going to survive?" But Jack looks away. Hugo tears up. "No way I’m letting you die," he whines. "You’re not supposed to die. The island needs you." But Jack corrects, "it needs you. It only needed me to do what I gotta do. It needs to be you." Over Hurley's protests, Jack says, he believes in him (the same message Hurley gave Jack earlier). Hurley says he’ll take it, "but as soon as the light comes back, I'm going to pull you up and give it right back to you." Jack asks for something to drink out of. Ben gives him an Oceanic bottle. Jack soops up some dirty water, and gives it to Hurley. Drink this. Hurley drinks. Jack says, “now you’re like me.” Hugo tries to stay strong.

Aside Number 16 - was there any doubt at all that, when Hurley said in the prior episode, "I'm just glad it's not me," that those would become the quintessential famous last words? And what must Ben think, watching all this, having devoted his life to this island, only to see Hurley, a misfit who just wanted to help his friends, become the island's grand protector? Based on the way Michael Emerson played the scene, I'd say he was in awe, finally seeing in Hugo the same potential Jacob did.

Frank tries to start up, and the engines start to turn. "That, my friends, is pure music."

Ben and Hurley try to slowly lower Jack into cave, but with another tremor, he falls. He unties himself and finds Desmond lying near the source. He rouses him. Desmond says, "the light. I put it out. It didn’t work. I thought I’d leave this place." Jack helps him up. "I’m still here," Desmond continues. "You were right Jack." "Well, smiles Jack, "there’s a first time for everything." Desmond tells him to put the plug back, and insists it has to be him to do it. But Jack says to go home to is wife and son. "What about you, Jack?" Desmond asks. Harkening back to their first conversation from seven years earlier, Jack says, "I’ll see you in another life, brother."

Aside Number 17 - all of this was, of course, foreshadowing to the final reveal of the true nature of the flash-sideways. You have to feel for Desmond, who now doesn't know what to make of his misinterpretation of what he had come to learn about the sideways world. But then again, he presumably survives to return to his wife and son.

James and Kate climb onto Hydra beach, and find Claire. They see another piece of the main island fall into the ocean. Kate collects Claire. They see the plane start to go. Miles hangs out to help Frank spot. Claire says she can’t go. The island made her crazy. She doesn’t know how to be a mother anymore. "None of us do," Kate reassures, "but you’re not alone. Let me help you." This gets her, and the three of them run to the plane. Frank pulls back, then starts to spin it around. Saywer tries to call to them, but Frank doesn’t hear. As he starts to push the throttle, he sees James stumble out in front of them. He throttles down. "Boys, we got some late arrivals. Open the door!"

Jack rolls towards the source. He gathers the strength to lift the plug, and moves it into place. As he does, the shaking continues.

Miles throws open the door, and he and Richard help Claire, then Kate, then Sawyer onto the plane. Miles teases his "boss," "way to wait to the last second." Sawyer smiles back, "good to see you, too, Enos." Frank tells them all buckle in. He pushes the plane forward. Kate takes Claire’s hand. The plane launches up, them turns to avoid a mountain. "Amen," frank whispers. Kate and Claire continue to hold hands. Sawyer looks out the window.

Aside Number 18 - as if to create full and complete symmetry, we now have the "Ajira 6." Of course, only two of the six were on flight 316.

At the source, Jack looks on, feeling that he failed. Then the water starts to flow in from the aqueducts, and the glow resumes. Jack laughs as the sound of the E.M. energy returns. Ben looks down the well, and knows he did it. The light’s back on. Hurley tells him to pull when he feels a weight on the rope. Jack laughs as the glow restores, and Hurley pulls up… Desmond! Hurley calls to Jack, who laughs with pride. Hurley calls – "Jaaaaack."

Outside the cave, Ben tends to Desmond. Hurley stares at the rope and the light. He asks, mostly to himself, "Jack’s gone, isn’t he?" Ben nods. Hurley fights back tears. Ben assures him Jack did his job. "It’s my job now," Hugo sobs. "But what am I supposed to do?" "I think," Ben, finally free of the drama that has so shaped his life, "you do what you do best. Take care of people. You can start by helping Desmond get home." "But how," Hurley asks. "People can’t leave the island." Ben shrugs that that’s a Jacob thing. "Maybe there’s another way," Ben offers, "a better way." Hurley asks him to stay and help. "I could really use someone with experience," he practically begs, "for a little while. Can you help me, Ben?" Ben, truly floored to finally find his destiny, and all due to the grace of a former enemy, responds humbly, "I’d be honored." Feeling comforted, Hurley responds, "cool."

Aside Number 19 - don't look now, Lostophiles, but just about every remaining question about the island's mysteries was just answered, albeit not in the most satisfying way. I think Ben's little aside about Hurley's ability to do things differently than Jacob did is meant to tell us that, if there's something about island physics, or the "rules," that we're left feeling was arbitrary, the explanation is, basically, "oh, that was just Jacob being Jacob." Which is not, of course, to suggest there was no further room for interpretation of what Jacob's rules actually were, and how they flowed from what we know about Jacob's personality and experience. A cop out? Sure, kind of. But come back (whenever it's done) for part 3 of this final recap, for my discussion of this very issue.

Jack awakens outside the cave, washed out by the once-again running waters. He’s no better off than he was before, and, indeed, has sprung the now familiar nose bleed that non-Desmonds seem to get from too much exposure to island-style radiation. But he staggers to his feet, and climbs out of the water.

Aside Number 20. I'll leave this portion of the recap here, since the final final island beats are best summed up in connection with the Sideways ending with which they were intercut. So keep a look out over the next week or so for that very story (which, of course you all already saw...but, given the scuttlebutt on the internet and at water coolers everywhere, you may not have understood, at least not the way I did). Until then, all, Namaste!