'Lost': A Moving Ending

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It is now 4:10 a.m. Pacific time as I write these words, and I am denying the East Coast early birds the chance to get on these boards and start discussing. So let's blow through the rest of the episode quickly:

THE CREEPY KATE DREAM (?) SCENE

According to a sound file sent to me by reader Russ Boyd, the backward voice on Kate's phone said, ''The island needs you....You have to go back before it's too late.'' The dream encounter with Ghost Claire — who told Kate, ''Don't bring him back'' — suggests that each of the Oceanic 6 is getting a ghost to haunt him or her. Kate and Aaron get Claire; Jack gets Christian; Sun would get Jin (though I hope not); Sayid would get (?) (he's clearly the flaw in my theory); and Hurley has Charlie and...

''CHECKMATE, MR. EKO''

My other favorite line of the night — even Sayid seemed to smile. In Hurley's second flash-forward scene, Sayid killed a mystery man keeping tabs on Hurley and persuaded the troubled castaway to come with him to a safer location. Hurley asked him if he was taking him back to the Island. Sayid said no. Was he telling the truth? Unresolved Season 4 Hurley Mystery: In the season premiere, Hurley told Jack he wished he had stayed with him instead of going with Locke. Now that you've seen all of season 4, if someone asked why Hurley felt that way, how would you respond?

HERE COMES THE SUN KING

The season finale included two great Sun moments: her out-of-her-skull hysteria over watching Jin's apparent death and her attempt to form an alliance with Charles Widmore in the flash-forward future. (We finally got confirmation: Mr. Paik and Widmore are buddies. How much did Sun's dad know about the Island before his daughter crashed there?) The anguish clearly established a lady with desire for vengeance — but who is she really after? Widmore? Ben? Jack?

THE LIE

After getting to the freighter for fuel, and then following the most suspenseful gas-pumping scene in recent pop-culture history, the Oceanic 6 (plus Lapidus and Desmond) took to the sky to escape the soon-to-explode freighter, then watched the Island disappear in a flash of light, and then crashed into the water. Everyone survived, thanks in large part to Jack. Repeating his lifesaving from the pilot, the good doc revived a waterlogged Desmond. Later that night, amid yet another conversation about miracles in which Jack flat-out denied the extraordinary event his two eyes had beheld earlier, the Island's disappearance (this guy is as stubbornly scientific as Dana Scully), Lapidus spotted a boat approaching, evoking the Others' tugboat advancing on the raft at the end of season 1. The castaways would soon learn that the boat belonged to a much friendlier entity, Penelope Widmore, setting up an emotional, smoochy reunion between the two time-tossed constants. But before that happened, Jack came around to Locke's way of thinking: They would have to lie. About everything. The plane crash, the Island, their friends. I had a little trouble following the logic. The primary motivation for covering up is to protect their friends. But how can they even be sure if their friends still exist? I just wish Jack had rallied around the best, simplest argument for lying: No one would ever believe the truth. Of course, there's a whole psychological theory for why someone like Jack would concoct this lie — but that's analysis for another day.

THE COFFIN

Why is Locke in it? Why is he calling himself Jeremy Bentham? How did he get off the Island? Did he really kill himself? What happened on the Island after he left? How are Ben and Jack going to motivate their friends to go back to the trippy tropics — with a dead body in tow, no less? What are Ben's ideas? And was it me, or did Ben did look unnaturally Alpertesque young? Do ex-Islanders start aging backward once they leave?

My mind, as you can tell, is now mush. I'm going to let it congeal, then think anew and return next week with more cogent analysis. It's been a blast TV Watching with you this season; I hope to see you again in this space in eight months.

Until then, a prediction: I'll bet you 20 bucks that either the teaser or the final scene of the season 5 premiere episode will feature one character — I'm betting Sawyer — renewing one of the oldest Lost mysteries by repeating the iconic question of the pilot episode. As they wrap their minds around the riddle of their mysteriously displaced Island, Sawyer — or someone — absolutely must say:

''Guys...where are we?''

BONG!