I’ve been a bit too nonchalant with my LOST recapping/theorizing.  Partly because I’ve been busy, and partly because I don’t know where to start.  Each episode this year has been excellent, a step above the off-focus season three.  Season three did move the story, but we’ve come along way since the first bonfires on the beach with the huge fuselage.  The finale did tie some strings together, and also unwound a bunch more knots in the Gordian bundle of Lost mythos.  The rest is long and distinguished, but may be spoilerish, so read under the fold only if you’ve seen the finale.

Let’s start with some groupings:

Alive – Off Island somewhere: Jack, Kate, Aaron, Sun, Ji-Yeon, Sayid, Hurley, Desmond, Frank (does he count as an islander?) Walt, Ben

D.E.D – Island time: Jin, Michael, Keamy et al.,

D.E.D. – Post Island: John Locke (aka Jeremy Bentham)

Alive at time of Island poof but not seen on Island: Daniel Faraday

Alive at time of Island poof and on Island: Locke, Richard et al., Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Charlotte, Rose, Bernard (assumedly), Vincent

Limbo (in a totally non-purgatory way, not that there is anything wrong with that): Claire, Christian, Jacob

Notable absent from the finale: Matthew Abbadon

The wrangling of getting the Oceanic Six together in one place was fairly manifest.  I had worked out a rough timeline of how they got together two weeks ago, the tricky part of that wicket was Sun and Aaron, since the other four were in or approaching the Orchid Station as the first part of ‘There’s no place like Home’ ended two weeks ago. 

ASIDE — As a shout-out to the Wizard of Oz (a recurring theme of Lost) having three hours of LOST recorded on the PVR listed as a three-peat of the title, that is the ultimate red-shoe-wearing-heel-clicking homage without having to put on a blue gingham dress and put your hair up in pig-tails — but I digress.

Also it was a fairly common theory that Keamy’s device was tied to the mound of C4 on the hold.  I’ll suspend some belief on why that secondary protocol thought that would be a bargaining chip with Ben, and write it off as a dull Keamy tactical blunder.  Seriously, Ben pretty much gave up his daughter, why would he even blink with nameless ‘enemies’ in his book. 

Losing Michael, the poor tortured soul, was a given, though I’d talked myself into believing that he was in the coffin. Being sent off by a Christian Shepherd Doppelganger I think allowed for a bit of peace, he’d made is amends. 

Jin’s demise was a sad but not unforeseen occurrence.  Though they could end up pulling him out of the water in Michael Faraday’s zodiac, but that would then leave two people floating in the middle of an islandless sea, which I’m not sure has a point.  A good 10 Oceanic red-shirts got blown to smithereens though.  Has anyone done a head count of the plane survivors?  Three got offed in the Otherton massacre, so how many faceless survivors are there (including the tailees that have joined Richard’s group)?

The final scene (just as last years final scene) sets up next years romp (a mournful 8 months away) rather well.  We have the vector of the off-island story — Collecting the various people (including a mummified John Locke) to make a return to the island.  While including Locke in the morbid team was mystifying, the entire collection is a bit blurry.  The six for sure, then do we need to count Desmond and Frank?  What about Walt?  Does Sun’s son need to return to an island he never set foot on, or is he doomed to island inhabitance because he was conceived there? 

Regardless of the composition, Sun would appear to be the most unwilling to return, since she seems to have some Jin vengence in mind.  Or is she willing to return to the island if it means being able to serve up a nice serving of Ben with fava beans and a nice glass of Chianti at the island luau?

We’ll also be treated to the chaos of a moved island (the donkey-wheel deus ex machina was a bit reality suspending, but really a whole island (chain?) going poof is much more of a jump).  We know that the equal and opposite action sent Ben reeling into the future in Tunisia.  Is a similar in extremis situation what sent the doomed Locke (aka Jeremy Bentham) forward to get the wayward six (plus?) back to the island. 

The finale hinted that old John/Jeremy was visiting all his old homies (including Walt) to induce them to go back. Putting some of the breadcrumbs together, was the appearance of Locke what finally tipped Jack into freakout-zombie-oxycot-addled mode?  Did Locke’s request to Sun (if he visited her) start her down the path of vengence against her father and the other person she holds responsible for Jin’s death.  I don’t think that second person is Jack, Jack has a tendency to personalize everyone’s blame.  I think Locke tells the whole story to Sun, and Sun starts on a Ben hunt, including aligning with Charles Widmore if that gets her closer to Ben’s scrawny neck.

On island, when we return we’ll have the Miles, Sawyer, Charlotte, Juliette fearsome foursome as the alternate to John Locke’s collective.  Was Charlotte Ben’s young friend when Dharma was active?  Miles seems to like being able to see and talk to ghosts (Claire?) so he’s fine on island.  The only one of that group that would want to leave would seem to be Julie, but she also has times of resignation that she’ll checkout, but never leave.  OMG, the Island is in California: Alcatraz? Catalina? 

Will there be tension between the group of natives (Richard’s group) and the rag-tag foursome?  Did Daniel make it back to the island to make the poof, or is his zodiac turning lazy circles in the middle of whatever ocean they were in?  If Daniel is off-island, then does he get included in the group that needs to make it back?  If Daniel made the poof, then did any ship board survivors get poofed as well (Jin!)

Let the theorizing begin!