The "Lost" Finale: An Incident To Remember (Major Spoilers)

I almost gave up on this season's "Lost" finale.

Yes, I was shocked and surprised to actually see Jacob (Mark Pellegrino) in the flesh.  Yes, I was I was stunned and pleased to see Rose and Bernard.  Yes, I was thrilled and excited by the rock 'em, sock 'em action.

But nearly two hours of all that walking on the beach with Locke and Richard and Sun and Ben and the Others was making me nuts! 
Until the payoff.

The thing that made all that walking and confusion and frustration worthwhile.  Remember how at the end of last year's season finale, I said it didn't eject me out of my chair?

Well man, what a difference a year makes!  When those New Others opened up that trunk and dumped out John Locke's body, my own body flew out of my chair as if propelled by a rocket.

Wow!

Here are some more incredibly wonderful and startling things/questions/observations about this season's finale:

• Someone give Josh Holloway an Emmy nomination and then submit that scene of him trying to hold onto Juliet as she's being sucked into the Swan magnetic pit.  She was wonderful, he was wonderful and I was nearly sobbing like a baby.  Great, great scene.
• Just when I'm ready for someone to poke a sharp metal stick into Ben's brain, they make him almost, kinda sympathetic again.  That scene where he's like a jealous little boy, accusing Jacob of ignoring him in favor of John?  Really good stuff from Michael Emerson.
• All that going back and forth by Kate, Sawyer and Juliet:  "Should they stop Jack?" "Shouldn't they stop Jack?" "They're stopping Jack." "They're helping Jack."  God, it was just as bad as popping in and out of time!   I was getting a nose bleed.
• What was so fabulous though was Jack thinking the bomb was going to change things and Juliet, Sawyer and Kate thinking the bomb was going to keep them the same. It seems Miles got through to somebody. They all wanted the bomb to go down the pit, but I'm pretty sure they expected different outcomes.
• Who the heck is that Ilana chick and how did she get her face bashed in?
• Notice how Jacob touched Kate, Sawyer, Jack, Sayid, Hurley and Locke when he met them off the island?
• Notice how Sayid and Hurley were the only Oceanic survivors Jacob approached after they returned from the island?
• Notice how Jacob saved Sayid's life, but not Nadia's by keeping him from walking into the street?
• The book Jacob was reading before Locke came slamming to the ground was "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by American novelist Flannery O'Connor.  And I'll admit it, I've already ordered the book from Amazon.  The publisher couldn't have asked for a better plug.
• "What lies in the shadow of the statue?"  According to Lostepedia, Richard responded in Latin, "Ille qui nos omnes servabit." Translation:  "He who will protect/save us all."
• What do we call Locke now?  Locke 2.0?  Fake Locke?  Evil Locke?  Island Locke? Lively Locke?
• Hearing Jin actually speaking English all season long.
• Miles saving his own father's life.  Hee, hee.
• Rose and Bernard living happily ever after.  If they don't get blown up.

It's a horrifying thought but next season is the final one for "Lost."  So in honor of that, here are some final season predictions:

• Jacob ain't dead.
• Sayid is dead.
• Real Locke is dead.
• Juliet is dead.
• Claire will return and reclaim Aaron.
• Ben will die in the very last minutes of the next to the last episode.
• Jin and Sun will live happily ever after.
• Desmond and Penny will live happily ever after.

Love, love, love this show!

Photos courtesy and copyright ABC