I don’t think this one was resolved.
Brian
Yes - this!
This was a huge improvement over last week. And I’m even willing to accept stuff like “saying magic words over a drink makes it give you powers and [presumably] the knowledge of how to protect the light,” and the little joke about Kate’s name and so forth. But why is this all so important?
“I lie. It’s what I do!”.
Ben hasn’t gone evil. Let’s keep in mind that before he rats out Widmore and Tina Fey he had Miles in the room too. Miles is safe. I think it was all done to protect Miles.
It annoys me that Richard got such an ignominious death.
-Joe
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I agree Ben has not turned back to evil.
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Are we absolutely sure Richard is dead? Have the producers confirmed this?
I really doubt Richard is dead. We saw him get slammed by Smokey, that’s all. And he’s relatively immortal. Watch for him to crawl desperately somewhere and raise a trembling hand to do something vital on Sunday.
I sure hope Ben is shamming - they did such a good job redeeming him, it would feel like a cheat to have him instantaneously turn evil again.
Count me in as enjoying the hell out of smooth Desmond. I even understand the reason why he’s not explaining his purposes to people, which is refreshing!
I thought Miles took off?
He and Ben have a walkie-talkie link now, don’t they?
Not sure if this is for good or ill…
One aside: It was freaking awesome to see Mia Furlan/Crazy French Lady again. She is a fabulous actress—just that little of reaction in her kitchen as Alt-Ben is tearing up was brilliant. I really regretted her non-sideways death…there’s so much more that they could have done with her*. Of all the second-banana characters, she’s probably my favorite. (She was great on B5 too–she could even make the occasionally…um…overblown 
dialogue sound fantastic)
Nope. Got ten minutes?
The final deal was for 48 episodes over 3 seasons, not 40 over 2. The producers knew the exact end date before they started season 4. I see they even named the first episode of season 4 “The Beginning of the End.” heh. Though I think they had to deal with the writer’s strike in season 4, meaning they only got 13 episodes instead of 16.
Still, it’s fair to say they knew the end date halfway through the series.
A good episode.
Was there a mystery surrounding her inhaler? I thought that was just a through back. I thought Sawyer had it all along. Had she lost it and he had someone else’s? I’m a diehard Lost junkie and I don’t see a mystery there…
I liked it too.
Other than the most positive latino character in the history of television!
I think so. But when they didn’t show his body, it made me mad that they are still pulling that game.
This is Jack. Jack doesn’t ask questions!
I got the impression that him going into the cave of light was in the works as it would not turn him smokey.
If Ellis Dee (and I’ve only recently gotten the humor in your name) is keeping his chin up despite all evidence to the contrary, I’m remaining optimistic as well.
I’m just glad you didn’t quote my post from last week’s thread. Those were dark times for me!:smack:
I would guess that Richard, having been granted immortality by Jacob, can only die by a hand that is not the Smoke Monster’s.
…
I got your joke and was trying to make one of my own.
So if your joke was flat, what does that make mine? 
Wait a sec: Of the four remaining candidates, we were told that they were picked because, like Jacob, they were all “flawed” (and by “flawed”, I assume he means mommy/daddy issues)
How does Hurley fit there? His “daddy” issues are so mild that they were mentioned like…what? twice? (Dad left. Boo-hoo. It’s certainly not in the “My dad shot and killed my mom and then himself in front of me” category). His only other issue had something to do with him being fat and that causing something to break or something (can someone refresh me on this bit?), killing people. But even then, he’d seriously gotten over that by the time the show started. Frankly, Hurley’s the only more-or-less well adjusted person of anyone who’d ever been on the island.
No, but it fits with the flash sideways, I think. I remember earlier on in this season we see the island underwater, which could be essentially destroyed…
Which would make them flash forwards? I don’t think so.
One thing bothered me about this episode, and maybe it’s trivial, but why didn’t Jacob give Jack[-ob] some of that wine instead of just water? Makes me wonder how real his conversion is. Maybe it’s just sort of temporary conversion so he can “end it” and let Jack go back to his normal life. Just a wild thought…
I don’t think Richard is dead. But I just laughed at the idea that Widmore thought he could hide from Smokey in a “closet”. Farcical!!
I’m a little perplexed as to why people are saying this episode is so much better than the last one. And I guess the fits, since I was perplexed at why most here people (who are rarely ever very critical of the show) didn’t like that one. That was a fluke, and this is just returning to the norm. Not sure why though.
Stuff happened, but none of it really had meaning. I mean - Ben vs Widmore was a huge conflict for 2 seasons of the show, it was mysterious yet important. How was it resolved? Ben just went ahead shot Widmore for no apparent reason. He claims that he didn’t want to give Widmore the chance to save his daughter, but obviously Smokey has no reason to go through with his promise to kill her if Widmore is dead. Besides all that, Ben is supposed to be prevented by the mystical rules of the island from killing him anyway. It seems like Widmore’s arc is resolved, yet we really have no idea what Widmore’s intentions were this entire time and he’s been a major player for most of the series. As a nice touch to rub in the arbitrary and unexplained nature of it all, the audience doesn’t even get to hear Widmore’s last words, which might shed some light on his intentions.
Ok, so Jack is the new Jacob. That was… perfunctory. Jacob basically says “hey, magic light needs to be protected, who wants this shit?” and Jack said “yeah ok whatever, I will take on this indefinite responsibility where I become a magical mysterious asshole on this weird ass island I’ve been trapped on without an explanation. That’s how I roll, son.” He doesn’t bother to ask what this “light of the island” Jacob just brought up for the first time is, or what he’d have to do, or any questions about the nature of the island. He just goes ahead and accepts it.
The explanation as to why they were candidates was pretty unsatisfying. Yep, you have unmet needs in your life. That makes you a very unique human being! That’s what I brought you here!
Sorry, I just can’t see what’s good here - things were resolved more or less arbitrarily, not in a way that’s enlightening to us. Now you might say you’re holding out for the final episode to give more satisfying explanations, and that’s fine, but I still don’t get why that makes this episode so much better than the previous one. I suspect a lot of the resolutions in the finale will be equally perfunctory as the ones here.
You know, I’m starting to wonder if Flocke is actually the Smoke Monster. I mean, we never actually see him turn into smoke - and Lost surely has the budget to do that effect if they wished. Moreover, they sort of hung a lampshade on this in last night’s episode - Flocke’s claim that he only walks because he likes to remember he was human doesn’t really hold water. Sure, I can understand walking around under other circumstances - but this is the endgame now, Flocke’s in a hurry, and the Island is a big place.
I think the reason Flocke doesn’t turn into smoke and fly is that he can’t - either because the Smoke Monster is an entirely different creature, or because he doesn’t actually have control over what he does in smoke form.
I wouldn’t assume they have the budget. Have you seen most of their SFX? Pretty terrible looking, really.
I was going to post that my view seems directly opposite to the crowd here: I defended last weeks episode and felt frustrated by this one. Then SenorBeef came along and beat me to just about everything I was going to say.
Still, I’m holding out for an awesome finale. They had better not let us down!