Uncharted Island

The previously unseen footage from There’s No Place Like Home (Part 2) told us who the mysterious “other survivors” of the plane crash were. Boone supposedly died of massive internal injuries soon after the crash. Libby supposedly also died in the first week, also suffering from head trauma and memory loss. Charlie was said to have made it until a few weeks before they left on the raft. At least they stuck with the part where he drowned.

I guess it makes sense that not everyone who survived the initial crash would also survive being stranded on a deserted island. (As the castaways well know.) But why did Jack choose Boone, Libby, and Charlie?

The easy, most obvious answer is that they are actually dead. Confirmed dead. They won’t be popping up in the future to cause trouble for the Oceanic 6, because the members of the Oceanic 6 know for sure that they are dead. They couldn’t say that, for instance, Sawyer initially lived, but then died before they were rescued. If Sawyer suddenly waltzed back onto the mainland in a few years, there would be pointed questions about the Oceanic 6 story.

Sure, Sayid told everyone at the press conference that there was no chance that any other survivors of Flight 815 would be found. But that was speculation on his part, and it would be considered another miraculous marvel if another crash survivor popped up. No one would wonder why Sayid lied, because he wouldn’t have necessarily known.

But why these three specifically? There are plenty of other “survivors” that are known to them to be dead: Shannon, Ana-Lucia, Mr. Eko, Nikki, Paulo, Arzt…

If anyone has any theories, I’d love to hear them.

Okay, I needed more space! It’s the commercial break immediately following Sawyer’s plunge into the ocean.

Another Sayid hit. Long hair is quite becoming on him, even though he is a hitman.

“I think visiting hours are over, dude.”

What circumstances have changed? Bentham’s dead, two days ago.

Sayid stopped Hurley from saying who Bentham really is. Guessing that it’s Ben seems too easy, too obvious. Bentham? They wouldn’t do that, would they?

Hurley was playing chess against Mr. Eko. Does Hurley get to talk to everyone who died on the island?

Keamy’s last words. “Wherever you go, Widmore will find you.”
“Not if I find him first.”

And there’s the red light.

That was too tense. I couldn’t type at all until this commercial break. Sun watching Jin run up onto the deck of the ship as they pulled away on the helicopter… Oh my God. It’s a miracle they were able to keep her from jumping. They would’ve had to hold me back, in her place.

And Christian showing up to bid Michael farewell? A nice touch. “You can go now.” So I was right. The island was done with him. He was allowed to die. So Hurley did know that Michael was dead when Walt came to visit him in the mental hospital. Desmond would’ve been able to tell him that Michael stayed behind to give everyone else a chance to get off the boat.

I suppose it is possible that Jin could’ve survived. He was on the very edge of the deck when the first explosion occured. He could’ve jumped…

Who is the second man that Sun blames for Jin’s death?

Sun is meeting Mr. Widmore in London. Curious. She’s calling him on his knowledge about the island. Is she going to be able to make him an offer he can’t refuse? “As you know, we’re not the only ones who left the island.” Is she talking about Ben?

“If I were you, I’d duck.”

Is Ben moving the island? Jack told Frank to go back to the island. Moving it would be a good reason for that not to happen.

“Is that our boat?”
“It was.”

Good reason to be drinking DHARMA rum, Juliet. But isn’t it odd that they can see the smoke from the wreckage of the freighter from across the island’s border protections? I think it’s odd.

Right now, Sawyer is just wondering if he made a great decision that just saved his life, or a terrible decision because he left Kate to die while saving his own sorry hide.

Ben’s going somewhere cold. Jacob didn’t tell Locke how to move the island because he didn’t want Locke to suffer the consequences. Whoever moves the island can never come back. This is when Ben ends up in Tunisia. He loses the better part of a year.

“You’ll find your way, John. You always do.” He told Locke how to assume leadership of the Others. Whoa.

Richard Alpert knows. He was expecting it. “Welcome home.”

Ben had to destroy the Vault to get behind it through the hole in the wall, hence all the metal. He’s got a crowbar. Quite the tunnel through there. To a chamber of ice. A broken ladder. Jacob’s ladder? That’s how Ben hurts his arm.

There’s a big friggin’ wheel. Frozen.

“I hope you’re happy now, Jacob.”

Ben seems like way too much fo a wuss to be able to turn that big ol’ wheel that moves the whole island. Is the sky about to turn purple again?

There is a bright light emanating from this wheel. And Ben just got pixellated like Hurley did earlier.

Wow. That was a bright light. And… whoosh. It was gone. That was pretty cool. Except that it sucks for everyone on that raft Dan had, and for the people in the helicopter who were hoping to get back to the island. How do you hold onto a baby when your helicopter crashes into the ocean?

This underwater sequence is too freaky and disturbing.

Desmond… is he okay? He can’t die!He has to get back to Penny! Come on, Jack. Oh good. The island may be gone, taking with it its magical healing powers. But CPR is still CPR.

They keep changing the type of film they’re shooting on. It’s very distracting.

Is Kate about to start seeing dead people in this flash forward? Backward talking on the phone?

OMG. It’s Claire. She came to see Aaron. “Don’t bring him back, Kate. Don’t you dare bring him back.” She dreamt it, but she’s started seeing dead people, too. Only she’s not being told to go back to the island. She’s being told not to bring Aaron back.

Why is Kate telling Aaron she’s sorry?

“I can’t believe he did it.”
“Who did what?”
“Locke. He moved the island.”

“If you’ve got another explanation, man, I’d love to hear it.” Awesome, Hurley.

There’s a boat. This is such a reflection of the season one finale.

“We have to lie.”

This is where the lying starts. Kate doesn’t think they can pull it off, but Jack thinks they can, if they let him do all the talking.

The Searcher. IT’S PENNY’S BOAT!

I’m so happy for Penny and Desmond that I’nm crying. That kiss may be even better than the one Sawyer gave Kate tonight.

“How did you find me?”
“Your phone call. I have a tracking station.”

If they’re going to lie about everything, I guess Penny Widmore is the one who can help them pull it off.

Octagon Global Recruiting. What was that ad all about?

One week later. Membata. Penny’s going to help them stage their fake rescue. “Just long enough to give you a nice, convincing sunburn.”

Well, that explains how Desmond and Frank don’t have to be explained.

“Don’t let ‘em find you, Desmond.”

“I’ll see you in another life, brother.” Nice turnabout.

At least they got a nice week to relax on Penny’s boat before having to start living their life as a lie.

Jack’s flash forward, back at the Hoffs/Drawlar funeral home. He’s gonna break in. To look in the coffin? See if Betham is really dead? The coffin is much bigger now, I think.

Ben is talking to Jack. Alive? “Did he tell you I was off the island?”

“He told me that, after I left the island, some very bad things happened, and it was my fault for leaving. And I had to go back.”

“The island won’t let you come alone. All of you have to go back.”

Ben has a few ideas.

Dammit. Everyone who said that Locke was in the coffin was right. Dammit. Dammit. DAMMIT!

Locke is Jeremy Bentham.

Here it is! I’ve got butterflies in my stomach!

Tiny coffin in the previous scenes… do we learn who was in it?

Kate’s backing up… from the end of last season’s finale! Jeremy Bentham? “You believed him? Him, of all people?” To keep Kate and Aaron safe. Kate’s reaming Jack out pretty good… I’m not getting all of the exposition.

Three years. She’s been trying to forget all the horrible things that happened the day they left for three years. That makes it the end of 2007 or the beginning of 2008 here.

“Of course you’re fine. You’re always fine.” Sundance. LOL.

Is Hurley peeing on a tree? Ha!

Meanwhile, back on the freighter…

Desmond did six months of explosives work when he was in the army. I’ll have to grab exact wording of that quote later. It was awesome. And he does seem to know just about enough to keep from getting blown up. Jin catches on quickly about the “boom.”

Wait… this episode shares the title from last week?

Okay, so Ben gave himself up so that Keamy and his team would leave the Orchid and head back to the helicopter so that Locke could find his way into the Orchid.

Kate is leading Keamy’s team into a trap, I think. Uh oh, whispers. It’s a traaaap!

Taser darts. Nice to see them again. It’s just another lovely ambush by the Others.

Keamy just kicked the grenade at one of his own guys. Nice one, boss.

Nice tackle there, Sayid. Action Sayid is definitely a good Sayid. And Richard Alpert to the rescue, shooting Keamy in the back just before he crushed Sayid’d windpipe.

“They help us free you, and we let them off the island.”
“Fair enough.”

“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”

Huh. It can’t be as easy as that.

I’m going to have to submit this after one hour and start a new one for the second hour. It’ll be way too long, otherwise!

Flash forward to Hurley in St. Rosa’s. “Are you Hurley? Are you dangerous?” It’s Walt’s grandma. And Walt is there. Wow, he’s gotten big. He’s a man now, with a man’s voice to go with it.

He was waiting for someone to come see him, but no one did… except for Jeremy Bentham. Will we learn who that is before the end of tonight?

Hurley says that lying is the only way to protect everyone who didn’t come back. Like Michael. So Michael is definitely not the man in the coffin. My money’s on him getting blown up on the Kahana as of right now. Would Hurley know Michael’s fate? I don’t know if they’ll make it back to the freighter.

Locke wants Jack to reconsider leaving the island. He wants him to stay.

Locke is the one who tells Jack they have to lie.

“Just wait until you see what I’m about to do.”

Here’s that whole man of science, man of faith thing again.

LOL at Ben shaking the flowers that Locke couldn’t identify to get into the Orchid.

Nitrogen? Cryo-Cyl? What’s that Michael has there? Oh, it’s supposed to take care of the C4. Hmm. So they can freeze the battery for a short time, but only until the tank runs out. Then they’ll have a warning before the whole thing goes off. Who’s going to stay behind and sacrifice themselves by spraying the battery until it runs out, so that the others can escape on the raft? It’s gotta be Michael. Desmond wants to get back to Penny. That’s when the island will let him die, when he makes up for what he did on the island.

“You’re very dire. But I’m still going to stay.” That’s great, Miles.

Miles knows that Charlotte has been on the island before? “What do I mean?” Cue the mysterious music… dun dun DUN!

“How deep is this station?”
“Deep.”

“Is this the magic box?”
“No, John, it’s not.”
The look on Ben’s face was hysterical.

Orchid video… becoming canon? No way!
*happy dance*
We are witnessing history.

Negatively charged exotic matter in the Vault. Highly volatile and unpredictable. But Ben is placing a number of metallic items in the vault… that must be how the island can be moved.

“Is he talking about what I think he’s talking about?”
“You mean time traveling bunnies? Yes.”

The elevator is going back up.

“You expecting someone?”
“May I have my weapon back?”

Oh man, here they are. The rest of the Oceanic 6… and Sawyer. Sawyer looks jealous as Kate inspects Jack’s wound.

Hacksaw for the handcuffs. Ha.

The film looked odd when Hurley mentioned coming back for Claire. He looked… pixellated.

Keamy’s not dead. I guess they should’ve buried him first. He was stabbed and shot in the back. Good body armor, although he certainly is limping and leaking blood.

Ah. His dead man’s trigger is connected to his heart rate. That makes sense.

“You just killed everybody on that boat.”
“So?”

He is so cold. Good thing the battery is, too…

Yay for the Pushing Daisies promo!

Charlotte is going to stay. For now. “Nothing’s forever.” She was born here. She can’t be Annie, can she? She’s too young. Unless she’s… slowed. Or halted.

Daniel seems to know he’s not going to get back to the island again. And he’s taking a raft full of Redhsirts. They’re going down.

I wonder how the time anomaly works with Keamy’s trigger.

Gunshots are not good for helicopters. I wonder what all that stuff is that they’re tossing out.

“Just do it, Freckles.”

Sawyer bailed on the helicopter so that there would be less weight and enough fuel to get back to the freighter. He told Kate what to do about Clementine, gave her one hell of a kiss, and then dove for the ocean and swam back to the island. That was his choice. That’s the choice he made. I knew it wouldn’t be a long-thought-out decision. He wouldn’t rationally choose to leave Kate and stay on the island. He sacrificed his return so that the others could make it.

Sawyer’s a changed man. It makes it that much sadder that Kate can’t be with him.

So now is as good a time as any to apologize for using “Keamy” and “the captain” interchangeably. I didn’t realize that the guy Keamy shot was the captain. Oh, and the internet ate my first draft of this post up to the first commercial break, so I may have left some things out that I thought I said when I tried to retype it all… Rawr.

The return of the Oceanic 6 is a flash forward. Hmm. Aaron is an awfully good baby, sitting there quietly in the cargo hold of that rickety old plane.

I’m all teary-eyed. Watching them walk off the plane to their families… And no one there to greet Kate or Sayid.

So Keamy’s headed to the Orchid. I wish I’d paid more attention to that TLE orientation video for the Orchid. Daniel knows about Keamy’s secondary protocol, but Charlotte does not. And Daniel knows that they need to get off the island, or they will be torched along with everyone else. How can he torch the island from the Orchid? I have no idea, but I’m sure some of the diehard TLE people already know. But FINALLY some REAL tie-in with TLE!

Sawyer just called the barracks New Otherton. Yes!

“Hold up! You don’t get to die alone.”

Press conference. Membata, in the lesser Sunta islands. Day 108 brought them a life raft which allowed them to get to the island of Sumba. Kate’s baby, which she gave birth to on the island. Eight people left after floating on the cushions. Jin never made it off the plane. Aaron is a little over five weeks, which would’ve made her six months present at the time of the crash.

And Nadia was outside waiting for Sayid! I want the screen cap of them standing together by the police car.

Ben says that the Orchid is a greenhouse. And it’s possible to move the island from there. Moving the island is dangerous and unpredictable, a last resort.

Hurley’s happily noshing on 15 year old DHARMA Saltines. Ben’s communicating with some of the Others with a mirror.

Daniel is taking Sun, Jin, Aaron, and some Redshirts on the raft. I’m confused. I guess that’s the point. They can’t make it back to the freighter like that. But the raft can’t capsize or anything, because Sun and Aaron have to survive.

That’s an awful lot of stairs for a pregnant woman to climb at Paik Industries. Mr. Paik was berating his businessmen about a corporate takeover… and Sun was the one who bought controlling interest! Booyah! Take that, Daddy! That was awfully smart of her, using five banks to buy the shares.

Hurley’s driving his old clunker, with a bag of chicken from Mr. Cluck’s. There’s a coconut on the floor. And whispers in the mansion. It’s a surprise birthday party. Although why they thought an island theme would be appropriate, I’ll never know.

Sayid and Nadia look awfully happy together. “Interesting choice of theme.” Great minds think alike, Sayid.

Hurley’s dad fixed the car after Oceanic 815 crashed. 48151.6 on the odometer, with 234.2 on the trip odomoter. Doh.

Keamy’s team is already at the Orchid. Oh snap.

Oh this can’t be good. The raft DOES get to the freighter… which means that Jin and the Redshirts are probably going to die, along with whoever else comes back on the second raft.

Michael got the engine working. And found himself face to face with Sun and Jin. Yikes.

Frank dropped the phone so Jack could find him, but they cuffed him to the copter so he couldn’t run off the the jungle.

Jack’s finally delivering his father’s eulogy. It’s a bittersweet memorial service for his mom; her husband is still dead, but her son is not. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“I believe I’m the reason he was in Australia when he died.” OH MY GOD! Claire’s mom woke up out of her coma! And this is how Jack found out the truth about Claire being his half-sister. Talk about getting blindsided.

And we got a quick summary of how Michael got back to New York with Walt.

…And that’s a whole lot of C4.

Richard Alpert and his merry band of Others seem to have Kate and Sayid surrounded.

“How many times do I have to tell you, John? I always have a plan.” Plans don’t work so well when you get knocked unconscious… although I suppose Ben has a plan for that, too.

That is an evil, evil place to leave the end of the episode.

I’m just sitting here watching All My Children - yeah, it’s cheesy, I know - and they’ve had two promos already for tonight’s episode of LOST. It’s got me all choked up and on the brink of tears.

Just thinking about the Oceanic 6, what they must be thinking and feeling as they’re about to return to the “real world,” it’s a bit overwhelming. I mean, they’ve been on the island for months now. And look at everything they’ve survived to get here.

And we don’t know the circumstances surrounding their island escape yet, either. Sayid comes back for them in the boat… but then what? Sure, they want to get off the island, but they’ve also formed relationships with people they have to leave behind. Kate and Sawyer. Jack and Juliet. Hurley and Sayid have to leave the bodies of Libby and Shannon behind. And let’s not forget Sun having to leave Jin!

I’ve already got a cold that has me going through Kleenex almost as quickly as I’m going through beverages. I’m going to need another box to watch tonight’s episode.

Jack’s not looking so hot. Hey doc, you got a bit of sweat… all over there.

Those were some pretty little red panties. And… a Millennium Falcon? “Yankees bludgeon Red Sox in Series Sweep.” My baseball history is a bit off, but I’m sure someone else already knows the exact date by now.

Is that… Juliet’s voice from the shower? They always try to do that “husky voice” thing to mask an identity until we see the person’s face. Whoa wait… Kate? And they’re… smooching?

Oh my. This is not a happy day for Skaters.

Jack’s reading to Aaron. Aww! Nice moon and stars mobile above that big boy toddler bed. (My son is almost three and still in his crib.) I’ll need a closer look at the screencaps later because I was typing; did Aaron look

Jack’s referring to his dad in the past tense. He was a good storyteller. So hopefully that will put those “Christian is still alive” theories to rest that cropped up when Jack went all crazy back in the first flash-forward where he went off on the Chief of Surgery about seeing if his father was drunker than he was.

What did Jack change his mind about? Kate is so glad he changed his mind. She’s so glad he’s here. And… a nice little panty shot for the hot-blooded males out there.

Miles heard some ghosts. Danielle and Karl’s ghosts. He found their bodies. Dammit. Danielle really is dead. No flashback. Poor Claire… she looked like she was going to be sick.
I give her credit for not throwing up all over the place. A few months on this weird island still wouldn’t prepare me for the sight of an unexpected shallow grave containing the decomposing bodies of people I’d talked to a few days ago.

Juliet has a great solution for not being able to trust Dan and Charlotte. Give Jin a gun and tell him to shoot them in the leg if they try to run. Because he will.

Sawyer’s funny, warning Miles off of Claire. Restraining order! LOL! “What are you, her big brother?” He was all protective about Hurley last week, and now it’s Claire.

It would really suck needing to have surgery on the beach. And Jack wants to be conscious to watch the surgery and talk Juliet through it? And he wants Kate to be there with them, holding the mirror. Yikes.

Whoa. Jack just saw his dad walking through the lobby. And Dr. Stillman from Santa Rosa called him about Hurley’s refusal to take his meds. Oh dear.

Hurley’s convinced they’re all dead and never got off the island. The voice of some fans with a theory! Ah, that’s what he changed his mind about… Kate. Or not Kate, but Aaron. Because that’s why he didn’t want to go see Kate for more than just coffee. After the trial. So this flash forward takes place sometime between “Eggtown” but before “Through the Looking Glass.”

Hurley was happy until he saw Charlie. And apparently Charlie keeps visiting him and sitting with him on the bench. Charlie knew that Jack would be stopping by, and gave him a message. “You’re not supposed to raise him, Jack.” Oh dear. “You think he means Aaron?” I hope he doesn’t mean it as a warning against necromancy and his father… who will apparently be paying him a visit soon. Because Charlie said he would.

Dan wants to go in first, to “make sure it’s safe.” Was that code? Or was he all nervous like that because, like Sun and Jin said, he likes her?

Frank Lapidus! “Keamy’s coming back, and if he sees you, he’s going to kill ya.”

The birds were very helpful, deciding to start chirping just when Aaron started to fuss. The Island at work! And Frank really does have the best interest of the castaways at heart.

“So it looks like I’m going to be your nurse.” “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

That was a weird angle for that shot into Jack’s car window. Waiting for Charlie? And he’s worried about if he’s “good at this,” being a dad. And… he just proposed. He’s got a ring. It’s pretty! I’m guessing that’s platinum, not white gold, since the Oceanic 6 are loaded. And Kate said yes.

Will we find out what goes wrong before the end of this episode? I mean, something has to go wrong for Jack to hit the bottle and call Kate to meet him in a secluded place instead of just talking to her at home.

I knew she understood them. I knew she did. She’s an anthropologist. I didn’t need to see her smile when Sun and Jin were talking about her to know.

That was a tense surgery scene.

What’s that beeping? “St. Sebastian Neurosurgery Group.” It’s the smoke detector. I hate when that happens. It’s always in the middle of the night!

And… Christian’s kicking back on a black leather couch in the lobby. Who is that woman, Erica? Thanks to my husband! Jericho. She was Hawkins’ wife. And she just wrote him a scrip for clonazepam. That Klonopin is good stuff for anxiety, and sleep.

Kate was on the phone with Maureen, one of the moms from the park. Huh. This from the woman who said she doesn’t do taco night.

Hey, uh, Jack… chasing two of those pills with a beer can really mess you up. I guess this is the beginning of the end for his happiness.

WHOA! Was NOT expecting Claire to wake up and see Christian holding Aaron! “Dad?” Yeah, now Claire sees dead people. She just doesn’t know he’s dead… just that he’s not supposed to be there.

Bernard’s pretty handy to have in a makeshift operating room, even if he’d only ever performed dental surgery.

Uncomfortable girl talk. Juliet’s telling Kate about how Jack kissed her… and that she doesn’t think he meant it for her, but to prove that he doesn’t love Kate. Sigh.

And Jack was awake to hear it.

Jack is trashed on the couch. He’s paranoid and suspcious about why Kate stayed out late. “I’m going to ask you to trust me.” Sorry, Kate, but what kind of an answer is that? What are you hiding?

“I was doing something for him. For Sawyer.”

Sawyer chose to stay. Sawyer chose to stay on the island, and Jack chose to come back with Kate to save her. Sawyer doesn’t die. (Phew!) At least not before the Oceanic 6 leave.

“Your son? You’re not even related to him!” Does Jack know, then, that Christian was Claire’s father, too? Oh… Aaron heard him. And was clutching a stuffed Shamu toy.

Miles told Sawyer that Claire walked off with someone she called Dad.

That is just a weird picture… dirty, scruffy Sawyer with a gun on his back, in the middle of the jungle, holding Aaron in a blanket.

The preview for next week… Was that Ben’s dad talking to Locke? Or someone else who was gassed in the Purge?

Pardon the all caps title. But the post-episode promo clearly showed that Aaron is counted among the Oceanic Six. Period. End of story. I was right. Nanny nanny boo boo. Can we stop that silly little debate now?

So we finally see Regina, and she’s pretending to be reading outside the room holkding Sayid and Desmond.

Lima beans. Yummy. I would gag on every bite, but I guess that would be better than starving.

Sun doesn’t want to pick a name for the baby until they get off the island. I can understand that. “Deal.”

And Sun does get off the island. We “knew” that. But she makes six. And the fact that she has to call for an ambulance just confirms what that means… Jin doesn’t get off the island.

Wait… Jin? Jin! He wants a panda for the baby. So… Aaron didn’t count in the Oceanic 6 then. Fake out!

Oh look, a note! “DON’T TRUST THE CAPTAIN.” In very boxy letters, like a kid had written it.

Is the captain the guy who talked to Frank at the beginning of the episode? (Incidentally, I needed to hear him say la-PEE-dus. I thought that it was LAP-id-us.) He looks familiar to me, and I don’t know why.

Sun’s doctor is away at a conference. I don’t trust that to be the truth. We’ve already seen Hurley being manipulated by Abaddon. I think this replacement doctor is somehow connected to Widmore. Or is otherwise shady and trying to get his hands on the baby. I don’t think he’s on the level.

Poor Jin, lost his panda and his cab. What’s the deal with the panda? Does it have some sort of significance in Korean culture?

Not a good time, Bernard. Well, maybe they can have a man to man talk. Ha… Bernard babbling about marriage. “We must be the good guys.”

Is that Morse code being banged on the pipes? Even though I’m a fan of Jericho, I still know nothing of Morse code.

Regina just jumped off the side of the boat wrapped in chains. Um… wth?

I just used IMDB to check up on the captain. I have no idea why I recognize him.

And the good ol’ captain just confirmed that Ben wasn’t lying. The boat is Charles Widmore’s boat. Unless, of course, he’s in cahoots with Ben. But I doubt that. Oh… and we just got a good rundown of exactly what went into staging the fake wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815. Widmore didn’t do it, Ben did?

Wow, Sun is a champion pusher! She took less time pushing to get her baby out than I did!

Johnson. That’s totally Michael. Kevin Johnson, huh? Not a big surprise. But I did just hear the collective sigh of hundreds of LOST fans who had hoped against hope that Michael wasn’t going to be Ben’s man on the boat. The only thing I’m surprised about is that we saw him before the last five seconds of the episode. I thought his face would be revealed right before the end credits rolled.

“I made dinner.” Aww. Jin really has changed. Although I wonder if he’ll need to use his old skills to commandeer the helicopter when it comes back.

Whoa… it was a flashback and a flash forward. Weird!

Crap. That means that Jin doesn’t get off the island?

Okay, I’m crying now, and trying to type through my tears. Hurley came to see little Ji Yeon. Sun was just completely out of it when she asked for Jin during labor. And they went to see Jin’s grave stone…

The stone said that Jin died on September 22, 2004. The date of the plane crash. Jin doesn’t get off the island. But is he actually dead, or is he just… still on the island?

A number of people on the fan forums seem to be confused about Abaddon’s conversation with Naomi about her mission and the fate of Flight 815. After Abaddon briefs her about her team, she asks several times what she should do if she encounters any survivors of Flight 815. He replies, several times with increasing firmness, that there are no survivors of Flight 815.

This is a key scene for several reasons.

Despite having seen all of the reports about the discovery of the wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815 at the bottom of the ocean near Bali, Naomi seems to think there is a real possibility that she’ll encounter survivors. So she knows that the plane in the trench is part of a cover-up. Why did she tell Desmond and company about the fake wreck when they found her in the jungle? Most likely to mess with their heads. She’s covert ops. We can trust anything she’s said about as much as we can trust anything Ben’s ever said.

I was never confused about Abaddon’s insistence that there were no survivors. He’s aware that the wreckage was a cover-up. He may have even helped fake it. By insisting to Naomi that there were no survivors, he is instructing her to ensure that there are no survivors. Everyone who parachuted in by helicopter had a gun because they don’t intend for any of the Flight 815 survivors to survive. In this, Ben was right. A massacre is quite possible.

However, I think that their mission could involve a “simple” extraction of Ben Linus from the island. Swoop in, grab Ben, and leave. Shoot anyone who makes trouble or tries to stop them, but there’s no need to kill everyone if they have no other way of leaving the island anyway.

Obviously, this is not what happens. Naomi is the only actual member of the military on the mission who knows the whole deal, and she’s dead. (I do not agree with people who are trying to say she’s not dead, but I may be proven wrong. That’s for another blog entry.) The fact that the “Oceanic 6″ exist means that the “no survivors” part of the mission failed.

There are two possibilities here, as I see it. Either the castaways end up killing all of the freighties and Sayid pilots the helicopter off the island, or any surviving freighties are sympathetic and take as many of the castaways as they can carry - the Oceanic Six. Due to the conversation about leaving Naomi’s body behind because she’s only “meat” now and they can’t spare the weight, I’m leaning toward the freighties all ending up dead.

Or a third possibility that just occured to me, that the freighties end up as castaways, too. I can see Charlotte deciding to stay on the island. As an anthropologist, we’ve already seen her fascination with the island. She may want to stay because this is her equivalent of giving a kid the key to a candy store. Frank may think he was meant to be there, since he was supposed to pilot Flight 815. Dan’s a little off, so anything’s possible with him. I can’t think of a good reason for Miles to stay behind, so I think he may just end up dead.