Completed: 3-21 Greatest Hits, 3-22/3-23 Through the Looking Glass. 31 episodes left, 57 days to go. As you know, I don’t know anything about the show that is to come. I use to think they got off the island but I think the flash forward I just saw got me off the hook of that spoiler.
Flash Forward!?! Now there’s a wrinkle. Recap: Desmond sees a flash forward of Charlie turning off a blinking light and then drowning. At Slingshot’s (Alex) request, Carl goes to the beach to warn the survivors that The Others moved up their previously scheduled kidnapping appointment a day early. The survivors break into 3 teams: Charlie (dead ppl get more respect) & Desmond go off to knock out the jamming signal at the underwater hatch, Sayid, Jin & White Bernard stay at Camp Survivors to shoot the dynamite planted in the fake identified tents, and Jack leads the rest of the survivors to disable Frenchy’s (Danielle) S.O.S signal at the radio tower which is also jamming the satellite phone. You know what happens next…the dynamite boys kill 7 of the 10 Others before being captured. Not to worry because Hurley saves the day with Other Ben’s father’s truck and between the truck, Sayid’s legs and Sawyer’s gun they kill the 3 Others (including Tom, check!). At the underwater hatch Charlie gets captured by Others guarding the hatch but is rescued by Desmond. Charlie uses previously un-exhibited manipulation skills to find out there is a jamming code and to convince one of the dying guards to give him the code. Charlie disables the jammer and talks to Penny but sees Left Eye (Mikhail) pulling a grenade in an attempt kill him and Desmond. As Desmond rushes to talk to Penny (who now knows Desmond is alive), Charlie closes the watertight door and with his last bit of life lets Desmond know the ship 80 miles off shore is not Penny’s (very sad check). At the radio tower the survivors rejoice when they learn Sayid, Jin & White Bernard are OK and Other Ben attempts one last time to convince Jack not to phone home because Bi-ling (Naomi) is from a group trying to destroy the island and claims her crew will kill the survivors. Locke shows up and kills Bi-ling with his knife throwing skills (after a “hey you damn cripple get up and walk” speech from a mid-puberty-voiced Walt) and implores Jack not to phone the ship. Jack doesn’t listen and phones the ship and help is coming at last! Time for the series to end except…Jack’s flashback was really a flashforward and he’s using his Oceanic gold pass in hopes of crash landing back on magic island. Future Jack tells future Kate that he made a mistake and they have to go back. Clearly Future Jack is having rescue remorse…
I really beat up on Charlie a lot in this blog. I called him boring, the hobbit and I even dreaded his flashbacks. I’m feeling really guilty because Charlie redeemed himself in the end. I thought the “5 best things of my life” flashback was one of the most powerful flashbacks to date (connection: Charlie saves Nadia from a mugger in an alley). Charlie showed up as a hero when it counted most and it was hilarious to watch him toy with his 2 Others guards because he knew the future and the future said he was going to turn off the yellow light. The only good thing that can come of all this is that Penny knows Desmond is alive and maybe she can now rescue the survivors. Left Eye killing Charlie was quite poetic since Desmond let him go free when Charlie wanted to kill him. Charlie, you grew on me and you will be miss. Long live Drive Shaft…
All 3 of my favorite characters got to kill some Others together: Sawyer, Sayid & Hurley. Poor Hurley, no one wanted to pick him in gym class but he showed everyone the why the fat kid shouldn’t sit on the bench. Despite the fact that I liked Tom, I LOVED when Sawyer killed him in cold blood for taken Walt. Guess that thing between them is finally finished. Back at the radio tower, I only have one thought…Other Ben could you PLEASE just explain things. Maybe if you did then Jack wouldn’t have phoned the ship filled with new bad guys. Or if you didn’t pretend-kill Jack’s friends! Arrrg. Maybe Jack was really Other-Ben-whammied because Other Ben really wanted Jack to phone the ship (unlikely). Either way the Others future isn’t so bright since most of their best warriors died (save Left Eye) and the survivors captured their guns. Throw in the fact that Other Ben’s leadership was already shaky and you have the makings for a revolution. Maybe Locke will take over now to help combat the new threat. Well at least Slingshot got to meet her mom, I’ve been waiting for that for like 3 seasons…
Now the flashforward. Just when I’m think I’m getting out…My biggest question is can the future change or is that future set in stone? Based on Desmond’s flashbacks one would think the future is set but the future seems too grim to definitely happen. Jack seems like the last person to want to get involved with all the island mumbo-jumbo so something big must have happened for him to want to go back. Who was in the coffin? The most obvious guess is Sawyer since he has no one and Kate would certainly care, but I suppose it could also be Locke. And who is Kate going back to and how did she get out of her legal troubles? I love that the survivors got gold passes, and I would think they are famous now. I think this flashforward really sets a new tone for season 4 and it will be much different than the previous seasons. Before I started season 3, I was told that season 1 was about the survivors, season 2 was about the hatch and then I was asked what I thought season 3 would be about. I guessed The Others and I think I was right. My guess is that Season 4 is going to be about the people not on the island but who are pulling the strings. We’ll see…
Next on Finally Lost…I’ll review the poll (last chance to vote), tally my abysmal prediction record and make my season 4 predictions.
Finally Lost 
glad you were surprised by the flash forward…one of the best moments in tv….was worried it might have bee spoiled for you since you knew that the end of the finale was a game changer and since you knew they get off the island at some pt. You’re being rough on yourself on the predictions, I think you were pretty on this season.
PS did you pat attention to “Hoffs Drawler” funeral home. try scrambling those letters a bit.
Nit picks I can tell you about now:
1) In one of claire’s earlier flashbacks, when she finds out shes preggers she says “my moms gonna kill me”…but this season we find out mom was in a coma, so claire mustve thought this news would be so shocking her mom would awak from the coma and kill her.
2) Back in season 1, when someone was drowning, charilie said to jack “i don’t swim”. yet we learn his dad tought him to swim, and now he is such a pro he can swim down to the looking glass to fulfill his destiny. I chose to reconcile this mistake by thinking charlie meant ‘i don’t swim when im in withdrawal from heroin’
ps – your sentiments on charlie were very much like everyone elses….hed become annoying and useless, yet that episode made you sad for him.
For the sake of the anagram, I’ll nitpick Franny a little bit and let you know that the correct spelling is “Hoffs Drawlar.”
haha, I’m a terrible speller 🙂 Didn’t bother to check that the letters would make sense.
Flash Forward!! How the hell do people figure this shit out?? You know it’s funny I wondered about both mistakes. I remember thinking I wanted to re-watch Prego’s first flashback to check the timeline and I remembered Charlie something about Charlie not swimming but couldn’t remember what episode that was.
I was most proud of my Mr.Eko & Tom predictions because I thought they were really off the wall. When White Bernard stayed back to shoot the dynamite I texted Brian that I was pissed because I was debating over predicting his death because I thought all the tailgaters would die. I just couldn’t do it to Rose though…
Charlie did do good for himself in that episode. But I don’t miss him. He dragged down the story quite a bit.
BTW, I doubt many people actually knew for certain that it was a flash-forward. I had a suspicion, but it was because of Jack’s phone, I knew that phone was released a long time after 2004. I attributed it to bad props. So in a way I thought it was a flash-forward, but I can hardly take credit for knowing.