S4Ep12 - There's No Place Like Home (Part 1), by Erika

Here is this week's recap from Erika Olson (aka "e") from LongLiveLocke.com .

Imagine this scene: I'm at the Cancun airport... gate C24, down at the far end of the terminal, to be exact. The sounds of revelry from Jimmy Buffett's Air Margaritaville restaurant are in the background... smells of tourists who've had one too many shots of tequila are in the foreground. It's 11:15 AM on Sunday, May 18th, and my husband and I are crouched over my laptop, each with one iPod earbud in our ears, as we prepared to watch "There's No Place Like Home." (For those of you who read my last post, I was able to download the latest episode off of iTunes (though it took 3 hours because of my slow connection) before I headed back to Chicago.)

Little did I know that just a mere few minutes later, tears would be rolling down my cheeks with such abandon that I would be scrambling to pull out ratty Starbucks napkins from my bag in order to dry off my face, as other travelers waiting at our gate stared at me with a combination of concern and amusement. Then I heard a woman nearby whisper to a friend, "They're watching Lost."

And all was understood.

From the little bit of board-surfing I've done in preparation for this post, I was astonished by how many people thought this episode was just "mediocre." Saaaaay whhhaaaaattt?!?!! I couldn't disagree more... The first hour of "There's No Place Like Home" is firmly in my "Top Five Favorite Episodes of All Time," and it made me fall in love with Lost all over again.

I'm going to switch up how I normally attack these posts and cover the flash-forwards first. (A note for new readers: roll over the pictures for captions...)


'CAUSE I'M LEAVING
ON A JET PLANE
DON'T KNOW
WHEN I'LL BE BACK AGAIN

How freaky was the opening scene when the Oceanic Six were waiting for the plane to land in Hawaii? I know that Sun said that they were all in shock, but I think they looked straight-up drugged or brainwashed or something. There were just so... despondent. It was eerie. Except for Jack, of course, who was suspiciously hyper and rah-rah about the group talking to reporters like they had "agreed" to do. (And for the record, I don't think there's anything to the "mystery man" also shown behind the O6.)

When the gangway was lowered and the slo-mo kicked in and that sad-as-hell music started playing and Hurley ran out to hug his mom... well... I totally lost it. I was seriously sobbing my head off and my already-crumpled-to-begin-with napkins were soon in tatters as I tried to wipe away the flow of tears. It was reminiscent of when Vincent began swimming out to the raft in the first hour of "Exodus" at the end of Season One... that's how hard I was crying.

While I've read that many people thought it was tragic that Kate had no one to greet her, I could've sworn that after she glanced around to see if anyone was going to come up to her and then saw no one, that a very quick and very faint smile flashed across her face. This is not a woman who wants to be found, remember. I personally don't think she was sad at all. Though I did find it really weird that the man who raised her, Sam Austen, didn't show up.

I was also dying that Nadia wasn't there for Sayid. I actually think I said something out loud, like "WHERE IS NADIA?!?!" -- which I'm sure made the people by me think I was even crazier than they already did. But to see Hurley introduce Sayid to his parents warmed my heart.



WE GOT THE BUBBLE-HEADED BLEACH-BLONDE
WHO COMES ON AT FIVE
SHE CAN TELL YOU 'BOUT THE PLANE CRASH
WITH A GLEAM IN HER EYE

Ah, the much-awaited press conference with the Oceanic Six. A little hostile, don't you think? Asking Sun about her dead husband, questioning Hurley's ability to still be huge, bringing up Kate's murder rap -- geez! Yeah, WE know their story is a sham, but you would think everyone else would've been a bit nicer. Damn media.

There were a few things I got out of the press conference besides a reconfirmation that reporters have no shame when it comes to getting their story. First and foremost, I sensed that Oceanic, as a company, was not "in" on whatever went down with the O6's rescue. The Oceanic representative wasn't acting shady... if anything she was like "you guys don't need to talk if you don't want to." Something happened to the group before they got in that jet--they must have been instructed or threatened by someone else about what to say before Oceanic and the Coast Guard came to get them. That's not surprising, since we've known for a while that The Six have been lying about what happened during the crash and their subsequent months on the Island. But what was surprising was that they arrived back in the United States not too long after the present time on the Island.

If Wikipedia's timeline estimate is fairly accurate, then the actions on the Island during "There's No Place Like Home" took place on Day 100, or December 30, 2004. During the press conference, it was stated that a raft washed up on the shore of "Membata," where the O6 were said to be hanging, on Day 103. Then on Day 108 they used said raft to reach the real-life Indonesian island of Sumba.

Assuming that the press conference was held not too long after Day 108 (or else a comment about Hurley's weight wouldn't have made sense), there wasn't a heck of a lot of time for the O6 to be "briefed" by whomever/whatever it was that made them devise their cover story (knowing that, one way or the other, they did get off the Island shortly after Day 100, even if it wasn't by a monsoon-delivered raft). And yes, I'm figuring that someone else pushed for the fake story, as I don't see why any of the O6 would have the personal motivation to build a web of lies once they were back home.

I had always thought that there would be a longer period of "missing time" between when the O6 got off the Island and their return home. As in, months. Whoever got to them did so quickly and thoroughly before releasing them back to their pre-crash existences.

Other questions that arose from the press conference include:
1) Why didn't anyone ask about the location of the plane crash? It wasn't in the path that a plane would take from Sydney to L.A.

2) Weren't there witnesses in Australia who would've known that Kate wasn't six months pregnant when she left? Like that old farmer dude she was working for? I guess whomever is behind the cover-up could've made sure he was "silenced." And I think TPTB don't want us thinking too much about it, either, as the reporter's question about this same issue was shot down quickly by the Oceanic representative as "off the table." (I just have to mention one other bizarre side-note here... in re-reading the script for "Tabula Rasa," where we met Ray, the guy Kate worked for in Australia, I was reminded of the fact that he had a fake arm. There are a lot of people with missing limbs in this show... Farmer Ray... Montand... the guy from the Dharma videos...hmmm.)

3) Why are they saying that Aaron is only 5 weeks old, when he is really over two months old? If they were already going to lie about Kate being his mother, why also lie about Aaron's age? One possibility is that the O6 (and/or the people who forced them to lie) have learned that Aaron is "special," and that he will be in danger if his true identity is revealed.

4) Who were the other two people who, in the cover story, supposedly survived the plane crash but then died on the island? (The producers have claimed that this wasn't important in the past, but it's still weird that it was brought up again.)

5) Others have thought it was strange that Sayid answered "Absolutely not" when asked if there could possibly be other survivors, but I thought it fit perfectly. Remember, they're lying! On purpose! They don't want anyone to know about the rest of the survivors, or the Island. The question is... why?

6) What's up with that picture they showed of when the O6 supposedly arrived on the shore of Sumba? It's either completely doctored, or whomever is forcing the O6 to lie actually did set them off on the raft and ensured they washed up on that populated island. (Note that the zodiac in the picture is black, whereas the one from the freighter is bluish-white.)



WE BOTH ARE SO EXCITED
'CAUSE WE'RE
REUNITED
HEY, HEY

Charlotte and Daniel? Don't see it.
Charlie and Claire? It was sweet, but now he's dead and she's... zoned out in Jacob's shack.
Kate and Jack or Kate and Sawyer or Juliet and Jack? Couldn't care less.
Sun and Jin? I still hope he's not really dead.
Penny and Desmond? Love them, but at least we've gotten to see one awesome pseudo-reunion scene of theirs already.
Karl and Alex? We know how that one turned out.
Rose and Bernard? Cool, but they're together and in the background for now.

But Sayid and Nadia? Now that's a couple I adore, and I was therefore ecstatic when she showed up at the end of the press conference. (I personally felt that I had somehow willed her presence, since I was shouting about it minutes earlier.) I wish their reunion scene had lasted longer, but it's probably a good thing that it didn't, because I once again started bawling my eyes out when Sayid just stood there, stunned, looking at her.

D'ah! My eyes are welling up again even now just thinking about it!



WITH MY MIND ON MY MONEY
AND MY MONEY ON MY MIND

In the next flash sequence, we see a very pregnant Sun walking in on the end of a tense exchange between her father and some of his employees. After her dad asks how her pregnancy is going, Sun cold busts out with a tirade about how he hated Jin, and how she holds him (and one other person) responsible for Jin's death. She then revealed that she purchased a controlling interest in Paik Heavy Industries, and her father fell back in his chair, shocked.

At the end of their argument there was one word, and one word only, that I could think of:
BOO-YA!

I knew there was a reason why I've always liked Sun. She rocked in that scene.

From what I've heard and read, most people think that Sun pooled her Oceanic settlement money with the rest of the O6's in order to buy enough shares to pull off the take-over deal--hence the businessmen talking about "five different bank accounts" when Sun walked in (the O6 minus Aaron). Once again, the question here is, "why?"

Here are a few different theories:
1) She simply wanted revenge and knew that this would hurt her father, nothing more. In this case, I doubt the rest of the O6 would be involved, and don't think it's worth trying to theorize how Sun would've gotten enough money to pull the move off.

2) Paik Heavy Industries may be key to getting back to the Island. Sun would only care about doing so, however, if she knew or thought Jin was still alive. So she would want to be in control of the company... but that doesn't completely explain why any of the O6 would help her out in such a large way. Right after they returned, none of them seemed like they wanted to get back to the Island, much less even talk about it.

3) Paik Heavy Industries may be key to getting back to the Island, Sun knows/thinks Jin is still alive, and somehow Ben helped her out with the money. We know he has access to a lot of cash, but I'm not sure why he would want to help Sun return.

I don't think any of the theories above have nailed it 100%, but I do think there's something more to Sun's business move than simply making Daddy Dearest extremely mad. And I think the mention of "five different banks" was too prominent to have that piece of information NOT figure heavily into the equation.

But what I care more about is whether or not Jin is really dead!?! If he is, then I think we will see it go down in the remaining hours of the finale. I'm starting to get a little more worried about his fate, however, since he IS in the room with all of the C-4 right now, and we did see Sun and Hurley looking sad at his grave site, and Sun did blame her father for his death. BUT... if we don't get complete proof in the finale that Jin is gone, then hope springs eternal for our favorite Korean badass.

(And if he is dead, who is the other person responsible for his death? Does Sun hold herself accountable? There are simply too many other people to speculate on until we know if/how Jin dies.)



MY MIND IS PLAYING TRICKS ON ME

Next up, we have Hurley's birthday party. I was covering my eyes as he crept through his mansion... that lone coconut on the floor when he first entered scared the crap out of me. I was positive that we would see the first of his off-Island visions of Dead Charlie.

Alas, it was just a surprise party, complete with a DJ spinning Geronimo Jackson tunes. (I was disappointed that DJ Qualls, who plays Hurley's friend Johnny from his pre-crash flashbacks, wasn't at the turntables flexing his Hustle & Flow skillz.) Kate and Aaron were there, as were a glowing Sayid and Nadia, now betrothed (Sayid was sporting a wedding ring).

Hurley's father took him to see his refurbished Camaro, but once "the numbers" were spotted on the odometer, Hurley was outta there faster than you can say "Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack."

The odometer was by no means as freakish as, say, Dead Charlie reappearing in the flesh, but I do believe that it was the first of many signs that would come to haunt Hurley enough to drive him back to the mental institution.



GONE DADDY GONE

Jack's turn at the flash-forwards...

Ten months after his death (?!?), Christian Shephard finally got a funeral. The first thing I thought was, "What took them so long?" Am I missing something? Let's say the O6 were gone a full four months. Why would the Shephard family wait another half-year before holding the ceremony? I really don't understand. To add to the confusion, why would Jack's mom say, "I'm so glad you're home" to him when she left the church? Hadn't he been home for a full six months by that point? Odd, very odd.

At least Jack's utterance of "ten months ago" allowed us to place this scene at July 2005.

But the timeline stuff wasn't really the point of this scene, now was it? I think the point was to show us how Jack found out about his blood relation to Aaron. Claire's mom (not dead after all...) showed up at the wake to tell Jack about his connection to Claire, his half-sister who was also on Flight 815. After getting a look on his face like his non-existent appendix was rupturing again, Jack teared up and just stared after Claire's mom as she came face-to-face (unbeknownst to her) with her grandchild.

Many people wondered if Kate overheard their conversation. I feel like she did, because she had a "Oh, crap!" look on her face after Mrs. Littleton walked away. Either way, I do think Kate eventually finds out the truth, because she and Jack seem to have an understanding about it in "Something Nice Back Home." I'm also assuming that Jack's shock and anger at his father's affair is what leads him to avoid Aaron from that point on (which is kind of lame--it's not Turniphead's fault!).




And now, to the Island and freighter...


GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY NOW

Was it or was it not like a game of Hot Potato with Aaron in this episode? Poor kid... Claire walks off with Zombie Dad and leaves Aaron under a tree, then Sawyer has him for a little while before handing him off to Kate, who hands him off to Sun... who we know at some point gives him back to Kate. Since it is just a show (I need to keep repeating that in my head), I'll allow myself to chuckle at all of the over-the-top Aaron-passing.

Kate sure didn't seem too concerned about his welfare since she almost threw him at Sun before trotting off after Jack again, now did she? Future Kate, the doting mom, has really done a 180...


HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

... as has Future Jack. When we first see Jack on the Island in this episode, he is explaining to Juliet (once again) about "the promise he made to those people" to get all of them off the Island. But as we know from the first moments of "There's No Place Like Home," he's the one coaching the rest of the O6 about sticking to their story. And from other flash-forwards, we know he doesn't want to go back to the Island until he is driven insane by drugs and Zombie Dad visions and the pain of maintaining that ghastly hillbilly beard. I am very, very, very intrigued by Jack's about-face. All I can figure at this point is that either 1) he truly thinks everyone on the Island is dead, and so he doesn't have any reason to want to return to "save" them, or 2) he's trying extra hard to convince himself that he did the right thing by leaving and lying about the situation.

But in the present time on the Island, he's hell-bent on finding the chopper, and so, despite Juliet's pleas for him to stay put, he runs off into the jungle with Kate. I couldn't help but wonder if Juliet's "Don't bleed to death, Jack!" would be the last words she would say to him. And I still maintain that something's got to go wrong with his surgery stitches.

Once in the depths of the jungle, Kate and Jack encounter Miles (who I really hope has a bigger role to play in the duration of the finale), followed by Sawyer and Aaron. I have to admit to getting choked up a THIRD time when poor Sawyer emerged from the trees... Man, did he look spooked! The look on his face was just heartbreaking. Luckily, a few moments later, he was vowing sarcastically not to let Jack "die alone."

I was happy to see the two frenemies working together again. They quickly freed Lapidus and then set off to save Hurley from certain doom. One of my favorite scenes of the night was Sawyer remarking, "Hugo's with Ben..." and then Jack, looking utterly defeated, sighing, "Son of a bitch."


NOW I DON'T KNOW...
I DON'T KNOW...
I DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY'RE A-GONNA GO
WHEN THE C-4 BLOWS!

Sayid makes it back to the beach and learns that Jack and Sawyer have run after the evil freighties. Cue another "son of a bitch" moment, although Sayid is not one to voice his frustrations with such euphemisms. I was really hoping that Sayid would get a glimpse of Dead Doc Ray, but it was not to be (I really hope he sees him at some point in the rest of the finale, though). Instead, he and Kate take off in hot pursuit of the two Alpha Males, leaving Daniel in charge of ferrying people to the freighter.

Daniel, after having heard the freighties talking about the Orchid Station (courtesy of Frank's dropped phone), is desperate to get off of the Island, so he gladly takes on his new responsibility. I was really surprised by the fact that he was aware of the "secondary protocol"... I guess the helicopter team knew a little bit more about the mission than we originally thought. (Though the Plan B still revolved around finding Ben. I don't think they knew about "torching the Island.")

In Daniel's notebook, he had a page dedicated to the Orchid station, and there were a bunch of scribblings about "space like factors" on it. As we're all assuming (after learning about the "Casimir effect" in the Orchid station video), the Orchid is the location from which some sort of time-shifting, either of the Island, or of people on the Island (or both), can be enabled. How does Daniel know about it, though? Even if he had read the secondary protocol, his notebook seemed a little more in-depth... with pictures of light cones and equations and whatnot. Many are speculating that Daniel has actually been to the Island before.

Either way, Daniel has reason to believe that the Orchid Station can only mean bad news for everyone on the Island. Perhaps he knows that the Island is going to "move," so that's why he's so desperate to get away before being trapped there indefinitely.

The only problem is... after Daniel dropped the first load of people off on the freighter, he turned back before 1) refilling the gas tank and 2) learning that the ship was packed with enough C-4 to blow them all to smithereens. Seems like the freighter isn't the safest place to be, either. The C-4 is blocking transmissions, so Captain #2 can't move it. And I would bet that the device we saw strapped to Keamy will detonate the explosives on the ship if he should die. And now Michael (who tried in vain to explain himself to a suspicious Sun and Jin), Desmond and Jin are faced with the problem of disarming the C-4 (if that's even possible... I'm not MacGyver, so I have no idea. I doubt they do, either. Where is Sayid when you need him? Oh yeah...)


I KEEP REMEMBERING ME
I KEEP REMEMBERING YOU
DÉJÀ VÛ

Kate and Sayid don't make it very far into the jungle when Kate realizes that the set of tracks she's following are NOT Jack and Sawyer's. (Is it just me, or has the "doubling-back set of tracks" thing tricked Kate at least 3 other times?) Before they can say "bushy eyebrows," Ageless Richard appeared and was like, "Yo, drop the guns." It was totally hilarious when Sayid and Kate were trying to threaten him, and then lo and behold, about ten bazillion triggers are cocked from behind the surrounding trees. All hail the return of the Circle Of Others! It made me miss poor Zeke. And Sayid's look when he let his gun dangle off of his finger? Priceless. I knew that when the Others finally chose to reappear it would be cool, and it was. They're still rockin' the pirate hillbilly frocks and I would bet good money that they're all barefoot again.

But I think that this time, they have no ill will for their captives. In fact, I think it's going to be a big ol' Lostaways/Others Loveapalooza as they all team up together to save the Island from the freighties.



I'M STARTING WITH THE MAN IN THE MIRROR
I'M ASKING HIM TO CHANGE HIS WAYS

Truth be told, by the time we finally saw Ben, Hurley and Locke trudging along in the jungle, I had completely forgotten about them. But my man's gots ta move the Island! As usual, Ben was being completely unforthcoming about how they would go about doing so. All he would reveal was that moving the Island was dangerous and a "measure of last resort." Hurley also brought up the point that I had been thinking... wouldn't the bad guys still move with them? But Ben assured his fellow questmates that he had everything under control.

After walking past a group of rocks, Ben back-tracked and moved them to reveal a hidden box containing some various items... most importantly, a mirror that was used to signal up to the top of a mountain (did anyone find it suspicious that Ben passed the spot at first? I did.) I initially thought Ben was communicating with Jacob, but then when Richard & Co. appeared in another scene, I realized that Ben must have been signaling them. The most likely scenario is that the Others were on their way to help Ben out at the Orchid when they came upon Kate and Sayid, who were in turn trying to catch up with Jack and Sawyer, who were in turn trying to find Hurley.

What struck me about Ben's mirror-flashing, however, is that he was really snotty to Locke when asked about what exactly he was communicating. "That's none of your business, John," he snapped. If I were Locke, I would've plopped down in the grass right then and there and refused to move until Ben expounded (though whatever he said would've probably been a lie, anyway).

Instead, the group reached the Orchid and found Keamy's crew already there. Ben told Locke how to get inside the station, and then literally "passed the baton" to him. You know, that strange black baton that everyone had been assuming was an ASP baton. I still think that's what it is, but it was kind of weird that Ben gave it to Locke before marching off to certain capture. Will Locke need to use it somehow? And why did they specifically show Ben with it in both Tunisia and London? And... most importantly, is this the same device, lying near Jack in the PILOT episode? (Some people think it is, some people think it's too big, some people think it's dark bamboo. I agree that the producers probably weren't thinking that far ahead when they filmed the pilot, but it does look awfully suspicious...)


HOW'S IT GONNA BE?


The episode came to an end with another slo-mo montage that didn't bring me tears, but did bring me chills. How in the world are the O6 going to be brought together again? I'm starting a new theory: A disembodied hand comes out of the sky and plucks them from their current positions and deposits them all in some as-of-yet-unknown location, where they will be briefed on their cover story before being turned over to the Coast Guard. There you have it: The Disembodied Hand Theory.

I kid, I kid... but seriously, wouldn't that be awesome? Just a big huge fist appearing out of nowhere and grabbing Sayid? I love it.

Somehow, some way, Kate and Sayid are going to leave the Others (and Kate will talk to Sawyer once more in order to get instructions for the "future favor"), Jack is going to leave Sawyer, Hurley is going to leave Ben and Locke (has the thing Hurley regrets about going with Locke happened already or not?), and Sun and Aaron are going to leave the freighter. And Ben is going to escape from Keamy... for now.



While we knew (and still know) a lot of what will happen to our beloved Lostaways from the myriad of flash-forwards this season and from last season's finale, I think that knowledge surprisingly served to heighten the tension for me in this first hour of "There's No Place Like Home." While I agree that much of what we saw was a set-up for the real drama in the remaining two hours, this episode really felt like "old-school Lost" to me, and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I hope that the rest of "There's No Place Like Home" keeps the same pace and the same mix of action and emotion that was served up in its first hour. And you can bet I'll be crying at the end of it all... if for no other reason than the fact that we'll have EIGHT MONTHS to wait before the show returns.


BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE

(Jack and Kate draw their guns and spread out)
(Miles emerges from the forest)
MILES: Hey, long time no see.
(Aaron crying)
(Sawyer & Aaron emerge from the forest)
SAWYER: Hey, who are you talkin' to up there, Genghis?



(Jack storms off into the jungle.)
SAWYER: Hold up! You don't get to die alone.

HURLEY: Well, if you could move the island whenever you wanted, why didn't you just move it before the psychos with guns got here?
BEN: Because doing it is both dangerous and unpredictable. It's a measure of last resort.
HURLEY: Awesome.

(Locke opens the box and tosses a package to Hurley. Hurley opens it up and and proceeds to begin eating the saltine crackers inside.)
BEN: May I have that mirror, please?
(Locke hands him the mirror.)
BEN: (To Hurley) You know, those are 15 years old.

HURLEY (raises statue as if to strike): Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? (opens door)
ALL: Surprise! Happy birthday!
HURLEY'S MOM: Hugo, what are you doing with that?
HURLEY: I don't know. I thought there might be a prowler or something.
HURLEY'S MOM: Jesus Christ is not a weapon.




SAWYER: Cut yourself shavin'?
JACK: Juliet took out my appendix a couple of days ago.
SAWYER: You kiddin' me?
JACK: Nope.



LAPIDUS: --and I could fly you outta here. So why don't you do me a favor and get that back compartment? There's a toolbox. See if you can find something to get me outta these things.
JACK: You heard the man.
SAWYER: Well, alright. Can I get you boys a nice, cold glass of lemonade while I'm back there?



LOCKE: OK, I'm sorry, Ben, but maybe I missed the part where you explained what I'm supposed to do about the armed men inside.
BEN: I'm gonna take care of them.
LOCKE: And how the hell are you gonna do that?
BEN: How many times do I have to tell you, John? I always have a plan.



A FEW NOTES FROM e

- Unbelievably, I will be traveling again on May 29th. Luckily, this time I will remain in the U.S. and have arranged my flight so that I should have plenty of time to watch the rest of the season finale from the comfort of my hotel room. That being said, however, I will not be able to start my write-up until the following week, so my next post will not be up until a few days afterward -- I would hope by Friday, June 6, at the latest.

- I will mention this again in my final post of the season, but for those of you on Facebook who would like to keep in touch over the eight-month hiatus, you can add me as a friend here. Please write a few words with the add request so that I know you read the blog and don't think you're a random stalker...

- Below is my recap of the last Season Four podcast with Lost producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. I took out their silly banter and anything that I thought might be spoilerish, but the very last question they cover is quite significant. I don't think it's a spoiler because the idea they discuss has been covered in my recaps before, but they basically confirm one theory. So if you don't even want to know that, then don't keep reading... but do know that they are going to re-air the first hour of "There's Not Place Like Home" at 8 PM EST (with added footage) so that we can watch all three hours back-to-back.


(Have you read my disclaimer in the paragraph above?)

FINAL OFFICIAL PODCAST DEBRIEF

This podcast aired on the 19th, and they were still working on parts 2 and 3 of the finale and said they would finish it this weekend.

The first few questions they asked each other:

Q. Why did the Oceanic Six decide to lie?
A. Well, that's really the big question going into the finale, isn't it? Oh, and if you watch all three hours on May 29th, you will see an expanded press conference. We had so many questions for them... like "who were the other two survivors from the plane" that will be shown in the extended footage that we couldn't cram into it the first time around. At the end of the first hour of the finale, everyone is in such disparate locations across the Island and the freighter, it's hard to see how they will all come together again. It was really meant to be a three-hour viewing experience.

Q. It would appear that a huge bomb is in the freighter...
A. By the end of the finale we will know what it is for and who put it there.


Q. Then we have the Orchid... this place Ben is taking Locke to "move the Island"...
A. I'm curious to see what the Orchid looks like... there have been glimpses of it in the Orchid Station video that we showed at Comic-Con last year... so we may even see that Orientation video. That's like the longest-running set-up ever for a show... we knew the Orchid was going to feature prominently in the finale, so we played that video at Comic-Con all those months before the season began.

Then they moved on the fan questions:

- There was a LONG discussion about Star Wars and whether or not "bad guys" (like Stormtroopers) know they're bad or not. They said that Keamy IS bad.

Q. My question is about antipodes... points on the Earth that are directly opposite each other. Like Tunisia's antipode is in the South Pacific. Is transportation off of the Island therefore happening through antipodal means through the center of the Earth? If so, would this explain how Yemi's drug plane from Nigeria ended up on the Island... through the antipode in Tunisia?
A. I would say that the antipode theory is very intriguing, but conclusions drawn from it might not be entirely correct.


Q. What's up with Walt? Will we ever learn more about why he is so "special?"
A. We will probably be seeing Walt again. And he is special.


Q. Is it safe to say now that Abaddon is working for Dharma, or an umbrella corporation that's part of Dharma, and that he's perhaps AGAINST Widmore?
A. You are meant to ponder who Abaddon really works for. But we can't say more about that right now.


Q. I've noticed that you guys tend to write more of the major episodes. Are there certain episodes that get more praise than others? Are there characters that you each identify with most?
A. As far as the writing goes, except for the premieres and the finales, which we usually write, we don't usually know who is going to write what. The Season 1 and 3 finales, and "The Constant," are our favorite writing experiences. Carlton also liked this year's finale (Damon, apparently, didn't as much. He just said, "Yeah, it's cool.") Carlton's favorite character is Sawyer. "He's all the things I'm not in real life." Damon's is Jack. "At the end of the day, Jack is driving everything that is happening on the Island. He is the one responsible for getting them off the Island. His approval rating is low right now, but being a leader is tough."

(This is the question where they confirm a theory)
Q. We saw in Michael's flashback that Tom told him that the Island won't let him die because he "still has work to do." Is the Island doing the same thing with Jack--is that why he didn't jump off the bridge? And is that also what's happening with Ben and Widmore--the Island won't let them die?
A. Well, well, well, well. You saved the best for last. That's exactly right. This is one of those things that we started setting up in the show a while ago. When Jack tried to jump off of the bridge, there was a cosmic intervention of fate that wouldn't allow him to, in the form of the car crash. With Ben and Widmore's scene, we know that there are obviously some sort of rules, but what those rules are and how they were explained to them is yet to be revealed. But they know that until the Island is done with them, they cannot be killed.



At the end, the producers had these final comments: We will be back at Comic-Con in July... and we will do a few more podcasts before the show comes back in January. But we'll be in radio silence for quite a while now... thank you for all of your support this season and for being crazy enough to watch this show. We also appreciate your patience and perseverance during the strike and the hiatus. And we hope you enjoy the finale... we are very proud of it.


Until next time,
- e