LOST Season 3 Finale - Analysis

"Through The Looking Glass"

Ok well I am still reeling from this episode. The way I see it we have four real storylines going through out this whole two hour episode. We have

1.) The Underwater Station

2.) The Beach

3.) The Hikers and Radio Tower

4.) The Outside World

I'm going to break my analysis down by each of the catagories because that seems to be the only way to seperate the gigantic amount of info we recieved during this show.

The Underwater Station:

As we saw this section of the show circled around four people to start but then five when patchy joined in. Despite the small amount of screen time this group had, I had many questions filling my head about why things had to happen like they did.

Let's recap what happened.

-Charlie swims to the station and is instantly captured

-Charlie is interogated by Bonnie and Greta

-Charlie spills the beans about what they had planned with the hike and turning the jamming off.

-Ben admits to lying about the underwater station to Mikhail and sends him to clean up the mess

-Desmond wakes up to Patchy shooting at him and swims down to the station where he hides

-Patchy joins them in the station where he finds that Ben lied again he then goes on a rampage killing the girls. However Desmond shoots him with a harpoon first and frees charlie.

-Charlie turns off the station and dies

Ok so here are my thoughts about why things had to happen just like they did. Also I think I now realize why Charlie had to die and how Patchy lived through yet another attempt on his life.

All through this show there has been a question as to just how much of what has happened has been coincidence and how much has been fate. I'm starting to lean a little bit more to the fate side with how we see that no one but Charlie could ever have turned the station off and saved everyone. It was programmed by a musician and only a good musician could have known what the tones would be for each number based on where Bonnie told charlie to start. The irony that "Good Vibrations" was the song that ended it all for Charlie was pretty dark. He went in and tapped out the tune and much to his surprise the station didn't flood and kill him instantly. He was feeling pretty good about himself he had saved the day overcome his captors and not died like Desmond had seen and then BAM that switch starts flashing. I believe we could actually see him calculating whether or not to hit that button but his curiosity got the better of him.

The chance that Penny would be the one sending the transmission had to be sooooo small unless she somehow has discovered the frequency Dharma used when they were still in charge. Charlie at this point became a hero again, when Patchy blew up the window Charlie knew that unless he was able to lock the door that Desmond would go back in there regardless of the danger to speak to Penny. That door only locked from the inside and Charlie had been saved five times now by Desmond, he could have easily shut it from the outside and it would have stayed shut but Desmond would never have left if he could get back in.

It was very fitting that despite all Desmond could do fate did "course correct" and killed Charlie even though we had all grown to love his character. The thing still up in the air for me is whether or not Desmond will still have flashes since they started when he whacked his head and circled around Charlie, maybe they ended when Charlie hit him with the oar or when Charlie died.

Points to Ponder:

- Who is Naomi? Did Penny simply not know who she was because she hired a company to find Desmond, and she couldn't possibly know every employee of that company? Or was Naomi lying? I suppose it is possible that Penny's dad found out about Penny's search efforts and started his own to stop them from ever getting back together.

- How did Patchy survive? I think that somehow the dive vest he was wearing took most of the damage from the harpoon. However I am pretty sure he's dead since he was holding a grenade as it went off. I figured that some sort of Charlie/Patchy showdown was going to happen ever since they met him in the woods when helping save Naomi. I never expected it to happen like that.

- Patchy said that he thought Bonnie and Greta were on assignment in Canada. We know that Richard and Ethan have been to Miami, Florida and Portland, Oregon but what would they have been doing in Canada? Recruiting? Just how far reaching is The Others power?

The Beach:

The three shooters to me were a very big surprise when we found out who they were but now it makes sense. Sayid choose Bernard and Jin out of all the people who could shoot because they had family on the island and he wanted them to be motived enough to do the job so they could all survive and go back to their wives. However what I don't think he took into account was if under pressure could they do it.

Jin missed his mark and Bernard ran away, if Bernard had not been in the group and someone with a few less morals had been, like Sawyer, then that person would have stayed and helped shoot it out with the rest of the attackers. Instead though they got caught which ended up moving the show forward much faster than a successful battle would have.

Somewhere between them getting caught and tied up Ben and Ryan set up a plan to manipulate Jack by making him believe that he was responsible for the deaths of his friends. Ben never imagined that a rescue team would dare go back and try to save them, especially a rescue team without weapons.

Hurley's decision to go back was not because he wanted to be brave and it wasn't because he was tired of hiking, I think Hurley went back because he was worried about Charlie. I still suspect that he knows deep down that Charlie never planned on coming back but he couldn't give up hope. It is going to crush him when he sees Desmond come back alone.

Plus Hurley has always considered himself to be cursed because of the numbers well we have seen him face down death twice now and both times were in the Dharma Van. He seemed so happy because I believe that he has hope again that he isn't bad luck.

Points to Ponder:

- Now that we know the Island healed Rose's cancer and since Bernard did not die. Do you think they will leave the Island?

- Sawyer must trust Juliet now or he would never have gone with her. Also he did not trust Tom even though from what we have seen Tom helped Jack out quite a bit.

- Sayid killed that man with his legs. I imagine he broke his neck but I just never saw anyone move that fast. Wow.

The Hikers and Radio Tower:

The rest of the group had to hike what seemed to be quite a distance and I can't imagine it was easy carrying their luggage and stuff but I don't really think they went that far. The went up hills and were slow moving and stopped at night so I think at most they went like fifteen miles.

It was pretty interesting that Naomi decided to show only Jack how to use the phone. While it made sense to teach the leader of the group, from a story telling perspective it makes Jack feel like anything that happened after that phone call is his fault and responsibility.

The hike itself was pretty uneventful with not much to discuss but Ben and Alex had their own hike which was a little more interesting. Ben was bringing Alex to the Losties to give her away because she had betrayed him when all he wanted to do was protect her from getting pregnant and dying. He is such a master maipulator I think he even made Alex feel a little guilty. That was until he introduced her to her real mom.

I got such a good laugh out of Rousseau when the first thing she said to her daughter after sixteen years was "Will you help me tie him up?" and Alex did. I doubt Ben was going anywhere after the beating that Jack gave him but it couldn't hurt. So now that Jack got them to the radio tower and Charlie turned of the jamming and the beach squad survived we get to see Naomi call for them all to be rescued. Well that is until Locke shows up and tags her in the back with his knife. I'm pretty sure that every single main survivor has killed somebody now.

The show down between Locke and Jack was pretty weak, Jack stood up to Locke and he backed down. I think he just realized that he didn't have enough bullets to kill everyone or the desire to kill them either. Locke turned and walked away into the bushes I find it hard to believe that Locke went home with them but I bet you ben did.

The Outside World:

Now this was a very calculated part of the show to keep us off balance. It seemed that Jack used to be a lot more like his dad than we used to think, we see him as a suicidal drug addicted alcoholic who everyone pities, not the Hero and Leader we have come to know. First we see him on a plane drinking so much the flight attnedant cuts him off but she does give him a paper to read. He sees an article that makes him pull over to the side of a bridge later and get ready to jump off.

Just then a lady sees him on the ledge and gets in a car wreck because she was distracted, suddenly Jack has a purpose again he rescue's that woman and her son and commits to operating on them only to get shut down by the Chief of Surgery who assigns it to someone else and thus once again Jack loses himself in drugs and alcohol.

Through out the show he keeps calling someone who I thought was probably his ex-wife and I assumed she was getting married again and I thought I was right when we see her later at the hospital and she's pregnant with someone else's baby. BUT I was wrong. Jack was calling Kate and when he told her he had been flying alot because he wanted the plane to crash I was floored, they knew each other before the crash they didn't just cross paths they had secret meetings! It seemed that they were part of the much fabled scheme to bring a certain group of people to the Island but only for a second because we find out that none of these flashbacks are flashbacks, they have all been flashforwards through this whole episode.

Jack's phone call home got them off the island, Charlie turned off the jamming, they shut down Rousseau's message and called the ship and went home. As I mentioned in my instant thoughts that I believe this show is now going to shift dramatically to where we see our survivors after the rescue and the flashbacks will now be to the Island. I think I might be wrong now.

What if the storyline continues on the Island but the Flashes are shown so we can see what one of the possible outcomes is. We have been led to believe something is wrong with time on the Island but we have never seen it. So what if this is a possible timeline but not the one our survivors will choose. I'm not sure what the purpose to that would be though so I guess I'm stumped here.

Points to Ponder:

- Who was mentioned in the article that Jack saw? Why would he want to kill himself over whoever died? The casket that Jack saw was not small like a child's casket but it was smaller than something a man Jack's size would have needed. So who was it? Ben? Michael? Locke? Juliet?

- Here is the best translation of that article that I have been able to find.

"The body of John Lantham of New York was found shortly after 4 am in the 4300 block of Grand Avenue. Ted Worden, a doorman at the Tower Lofts complex, heard loud noises coming from the victim's loft.Concerned for tenants' safety, he entered the loft and found the body hanging from a beam in the living room. According to Jaime Ortiz, a police spokesman, the incident was deemed a suicide after medical tests. Latham (sic) is survived by one teenaged son. Memorial services will be held at the Hoffs-Drawlar Funeral Home tomorrow evening."

If this is a real clue to the show then who is John Lantham? Did one of the people we know change his name? Is this a person we haven't met yet? Or is this just a prop to be defined later?

- OK so I had a very very odd idea. The flashforward showed us two of our Survivors and possibly a third was mentioned. Now get this if all of the three Jack, Kate, and Sawyer are the three mentioned then they all became their parents in a way.

Jack became a raging Alcoholic just like Christian Shepherd

Kate seemed to be afraid of whoever the mystery guy was, just like Kate's mom was in a destructive relationship with Kate's stepdad. Yet even after Kate "freed" her from her stepdad her mom still felt she didn't deserve any better.

Sawyer (if it was Sawyer) could have became just like his dad from what we saw. A overly jealous man who had a wife who was afraid of him and maybe just maybe he's become the sort of man who could kill his own wife. That may be why Kate had to meet Jack in secret because while on the island Sawyer and Jack had a mutual respect for each other maybe now that they don't have to live together Sawyer is tired of being in Jack's shadow.If this theory is true then I wonder what happened to all the rest of our survivors.

I'm not sure about Kate being afraid of whoever she was with now but it's a thought.

Everything Else:

I know there were a lot of other things in this show but I'm only going point out a few more thoughts that occured to me.

- The Doctor that Jack met was the Chief of Surgery. That is the same job that Christian Shepherd had in Jack's flashbacks. I believe Jack was just messed up which is why the Doctor looked at him funny when he said go get my dad. I seriously doubt that Jack's dad is alive.

- I also believe that Jack was so adament about not being called a hero because the last time he was a hero he got everyone rescued from the Island which now he clearly believes was the wrong decision. He doesn't feel like a Hero he feels he ruined all their lives.

- Jack had maps and world atlases all over his floor in his house. He is really invested in getting back to the Island. He even told Kate that he had been flying every week in hopes of the plane crashing again.

- I loved Rose saying that she was gonna punch Jack in the face if he said that live together die alone comment again.

- What is the Temple that Ben told Alpert to take The Others too?

- Walt appearing to Locke was a little bit wierd especially since he has been gone so long that the actor went through puberty. However if all the episodes from now on are in the future then that would make sense that Walt was older. Regardless of how or why Walt appeared to Locke somehow he gave Locke the power to walk again or at least the power to believe in himself again.

Ok guys I'm going to end it here since I need to get this posted and I'm already almost a whole day behind where I'd like to have been.

Please post your comments below. I appreciate your visits to my site and hope to see you in the future. I'll post my thoughts if I come up with any other good ones. Thanks.

-Jason