the looking glass

(This post contains spoilers for the season three finale of "Lost.")

Okay, for an unexpected, "game-changing" twist, my mind isn't exactly blown right now. The way everyone was talking up this episode, I was sort of expecting some kind of sweeping revelation about where or what the island is, or who the Others are, or that some surprising force or entity was at work, or someone/thing wasn't really the way it looked all along. I did not think the twist would be something as simple and straightforward as they're going to get off the island one day, and it's going to make Jack a raging alcoholic. Frankly, not much of a surprise there.

Okay, so switching out our flashbacks with flashforwards like a Folgers taste test to see if anyone could tell the difference was pretty clever...but not clever enough that I didn't see it coming. In all fairness, my first impulse was that we were seeing an alternate reality in which the plane didn't crash, a la It's a Wonderful Life. I think that would've shown a lot more imagination, but it wouldn't have explained Jack's funky, unabomber beard. Ironically, it was the beard that tipped me off. I couldn't place it in what we know of his chronology, so that was my first clue that this might be post-island. (I take that back. My first clue was in last week's special when the producers disagreed that getting off the island meant the end of the show. My second clue was when they said the show was about where the characters have been and where they're going.) References to Jack's dad as if he were still alive threw me off the scent, but the line "You don't know what I've been through" reinforced my theory. I kind of went back and forth for awhile on whether I thought that's what was really going on, but the scene at his home with all the maps clenched it. Still, "A" for effort. If I hadn't already been anticipating something even more shocking, or I had been unable to guess what they were up to, that probably would've impressed me.

And now we're quite metaphorically "through the looking glass" in terms of the show. We've hit the midway point and we're starting to come out on the other side of the mirror. Instead of looking back to the past (before the island), we're looking ahead to the future (after the island).

Some other thoughts:

I want to like Bernard, but he was a real punk last night. Why did he give up Jack and everyone else's location just to save Jin? Didn't he realize both Jin and Sayid were prepared to die to ensure rescue? Especially as they were both essentially kicking and screaming for him not to tell? And wasn't he concerned that in doing so, he was leading the Others right to his wife that he was trying to protect?

Charlie was a great sport through his interrogation--there were some funny bits there--but he's obviously not that bright. He and Desmond had plenty of time to suit up and swim out before that massive station would've completely flooded. At the very least, he should've thought to get on the other side of that door before he sealed it. I know he was prepared to go, but that was a pretty avoidable death, if you ask me.

Who are these "bad guys" already? I was so hoping the girls in the Looking Glass were from that faction, but they were just more Others working for Ben. Maybe they're on the other end of that phone call and we'll encounter them early in season four.

Well, that's all I can really think of right now. I just had to get out my thoughts on the season finale. Lest you misunderstand, I did enjoy it. There was a lot of good there. I was just hoping for the surprise to be...more surprising.

Speaking of season finales, what was up with "24" this week? It was a pretty decent episode until it totally fizzled out in the last fifteen minutes. Because of the show's penchant for last minute twists, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole time Jack was visiting Audry and having his bittersweet moment of quiet restraint. And then they just faded to black. Lame.