Season 4 Finale

There was a lot of information to digest in the two hour season finale. Therefore, I have divided the hard facts into three separate categories: (A) current events on the Island; (B) current events off the Island; and (C) events set in the future by way of flash forwards. I imagine there might be other ways to categorize the events but this is the method I chose because it helped me get my arms around the finale.

HARD FACTS

A. Current Events on the Island

Keamy & Co. takes Ben to the chopper discovers that someone has been helping Frank trying to escape his handcuffs. Kate steps forward to claim responsibility. She is, in fact, being used as bait to distract Keamy, who does not immediately kill her. The Others take advantage of the confusion Kate caused and a fire fight ensues with the Others using firearms and poison darts to kill all of the mercenaries except for Keamy. Sayyid engages Keamy in hand-to-hand combat and en stabs him but is unable to subdue him. The coup de grace is administered by Richard who shoots Keamy in the chest.

Kate reveals to Ben that the reason she and Sayyid assisted with rescuing Ben was that the Others had promised to let them leave the Island in return for that assistance. Ben ratifies the deal and tells Kate and Sayyid that they are free to leave the Island. Jack after declining Locke’s inbitation to stay on the Island and fulfill his destiny also makes his way to the helicopter together with Hurley and Sawyer. Frank flies the following survivors off the Island: Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Hurley and Sayyid.

Ben returns to the Orchid Station to assist Locke, who has not been able to get past even the most preliminary stages, in moving the Island. Ben takes Locke on an elevator ride into a chamber buried deep underground. Locke watches a snippet of a video narrated by Dr. Hollowax concerning the operation and purposes of the Orchid Station while Ben loads up metal object into a chamber he calls the Vault and observes that all DHARMA did was conduct silly experiments.

Keamy has tracked Ben down to the Orchid Station. Keamy, though clearly defeated, wants to know why Ben is so important to Widmore. Keamy also seemingly believes that he has insurance against being killed by virtue of the dead man trigger which will set off the C4 explosives on the Barge, a process he explains to Ben. Nonetheless, Ben fatally stabs Keamy over Locke’s objections.

After subduing Keamy, Ben returns to trigger an explosion/reaction in the Vault. After that explosion, Ben dons a parka and makes his way to another chamber which is behind and beneath the Vault. Ben declines to take Locke with him explaining to Locke that it is a favor because whoever moves the Island must forever leave the Island and also telling Locke that he is the new leader of the Others. In that chamber, which is cold enough to freeze water, Ben turns a wheel with the purpose and intent of moving the Island consistent with Jacob’s wishes.

Locke emerges from the Orchid Station and makes his way to the Others’ camp. Locke is greeted by Richard who welcome him home.

Faraday prepares to leave the Island on the Zodiac and implores Charlotte, Miles and Juliet to leave with him because of the severity of the situation. Charlotte declines to leave after Miles observes that she always wanted to get back to the Island and after telling Faraday that she is look for where she was born. Miles declines to leave without explanation. Juliet declines to leave in order to fulfill her promise to make sure that all the survivors manage to get off the Island. Some other survivors also do not make on to the Zodiac including Rose and Bernard.

Sawyer swims back to the Island and observes Juliet drinking from a bottle of rum. She was drinking because she was able to see the explosion on the Barge.

B. Current Events Off The Island

On the Barge, Michael, Desmond and Jin are trying to figure out a way to de-activate the C4 explosive booby trap left by Keamy & Co. The do not meet with success and the best they can come up with is freezing the battery with liquid nitrogen in order to delay any reaction. Desmond leaves Jin and Michael to further struggle with the booby trap.

In the Helicopter, Frank discovers that they are losing fuel rapidly because of a hole blown in the Helicopter’s fuel tank during the firefight between the Others and Keamy. They are told by Frank to throw all unattached things overboard in an effort to lighten the load and gain time. As the situation fails to improve, Sawyer whispers something in Kate’s ear, kisses her and jumps from the Helicopter into the Ocean.

Frank is able to bring the Helicopter towards the Barge, Desmond frantically tries to waive him away but given the lack of fuel, Frank has no alternative to landing and re-fueling. The Helicopter land and re-fuels. Sun wants to go fetch Jin but Kate tells her to keep looking after Aaron and that she will fetch Jin. However, before Kate can do so, Jack grabs her and takes Kate back to the Helicopter which immediately take off with the following people on board: Frank (of course, he’s the pilot), Jack, Desmond, Kate, Hurley, Aaron, Sayyid and Sun.

Jin emerges from the booby trap room and tries to make it to the Helicopter. He sees it departing without him and frantically tries to wave for it to return. Frank, backed up by Jack, refuses to do so, over Sun’s frantic screaming and objections.

The red light on the battery goes on. At that time, Christian Shepard appears to Michael and tells hin that the can go now. The booby trap then explodes.

Meanwhile on the Helicopter, the Oceanic Six have witnessed the explosion on the Barge. Frank, nonetheless, makes his way back to the Island. The Island, however, in a flash of light, disappears in its entirety. The Helicopter running out of fuel is forced to make a crash landing in the Ocean. The survivors all manage to climb (or in the case of Aaron, be lifted) unscathed on to an inflatable life raft which Sayyid tossed from the Helicopter moments before the crash landing.

Night descends and in the distance a boat appears which turns out to have been chartered by Pennie with the express purpose of looking for Desmond. Frank and Desmond stay on the boat while the Oceanic Six take a life raft on an 8-9 hour trip to an Indonesian island for the purpose of obscuring the true facts relating to their ordeal. Lying is thought to be necessary for their own protection.

C. The Future/Flash Forward

John Locke, using the name Jeremy Bentham, has returned to civilization and has spoken to the Oceanic Six as well as Walt urging them to return to the Island. Kate has a dream that Claire tells her not to take Aaron back to the Island.

Sun travels to London to confront Widmore who knows her father well. Sun discusses possible common interests with Widmore.

Walt visits Hurley in the mental asylum and discuses Bentham’s visit. Sayyid shoots a man outside Hurley’s mental asylum who Sayyid believe has been watching Hurley. Sayyid comes to remove Hurley who is playing chess seemingly against himself. Hurley mentions hsi paranoia and increasing ability to talk to dead people. Sayyid confirms that his paranoia might not be misplaced. Before leaving Hurley declare checkmate in his chess game against Ecko.

Locke dies and the newspaper obituary attributes the cause of death to suicide. Jack, after a confrontation with Kate over his belief that they need to return to the Island, breaks into the funeral home where Locke’s body is being held. There, Ben confronts him and tells Jack that all of the Oceanic Six and Locke (who is dead) must return to the Island.

DHARMA has once again started recruiting for unpaid positions again under the name Octagon Global Recruiting. See http://www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com/. This appeared as a commercial towards the end of the episode.

ANALYSIS

1. No one associated with the Island can die until their time/mission has been completed. I was mistaken in my prior thesis that the Island affords immunity from death outside its environs to its former residents. That turns out to be incorrect as Michael, after dodging a certain death at least twice in the past, dies on the Barge. The triggering point for his death is that he fulfilled his mission. Not much is left to the imagination in this regard based upon Christian Shepard’s explicitly telling Michael that “you can go now.”

2. Michael’s mission was to make certain that the Oceanic Six, or at least some of them, would not be blown up on the Barge. Christian Shepard’s statement that Michael could go came as the Helicopter was lifting off the Barge. This was the only significant act he performed after Keamy’s gun jammed in attempting kill Michael. Therefore, it stands to reason that this was the last part of Michael’s life mission (from the Island’s perspective).

3. Sawyer is not done with his mission. Diving from a helicopter and swimming miles to shore is not a miracle per se but its not something you do every day either. Add to that his dodging Keamy’s bullets during the attack on Othertown. Sawyer is also alive because if there was any dead person to come back and visit Hurley it would be his good buddy and roommate Sawyer.

4. Claire’s mission was done when she gave birth to Aaron. She’s dead. If she had anything left to do of any consequence, the Island would not have let her die.

5. The Island has an interest in having certain of the survivors return to civilization. Otherwise, Keamy’s threat to Ben that killing him would trigger an explosion on the Barge would be meaningless. The obvious survivors in this category are Aaron and Kate. It is
also possible that Sun falls into this category for upon her return to civilization she will be a single mother raising a child giving her child some similar characteristics as Ben, Locke and Aaron. The alternative, of course, is that Keamy for some reason thinks Ben would not kill any innocents. That, however, does not make much sense given what we have seen to date.

6. The dead people who appear to Hurley died in a state of grace. By a state of grace, I mean that they had done penance for their sins through doing good deeds to counteract their past bad ones and acted selflessly before their death. The dead people Hurley sees are Charlie and Ecko. Charlie acted selflessly in the Pearl Station prior to his death sacrificing himself for the benefit of the other Survivors, particularly Claire. Ecko also disowned his evil past as a drug runner and engaged in genuine pastoral duties with the Survivors. Hurley does not, for example, mention seeing Libby.

7. Locke’s changing his name has some significance. Locke, as almost every high school child student knows was one of the most prominent philosophers or political thinkers favoring natural rights. The American Revolution is said to have been based upon a Lockean consensus (named after John Locke) and, in particular, the Bill of Rights is a manifestation of that Lockean consensus. Bentham’s philosophy, in contrast, opposed the principle of natural rights and advocated, in its place, utilitarianism. Although it is hard to summarize, the core of that philosophy is that actions are moral if they maximize the net expectable utility for all parties affected by a decision or action. The rights of the individual must yield to that of the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

NEW QUESTIONS

1. What has gone very badly on the Island since the Oceanic Six left? And why are things going badly?

2. What happened to Faraday and the other people on the Zodiac heading towards the Barge?

3. What happens to Rose, Bernard and the other survivors who remained on the Island?

4. What role, if any, do Charlotte and Miles play on the Island?

5. Where is Sayyid taking Hurley?

6. Who is responsible for having someone (that guy in the car Sayyid shot) monitor Hurley at the asylum?

7. Did Locke/Bentham really commit suicide or was he murdered by Ben or someone else?

8. Why is Sun seeking (or pretending to) work with Charles Widmore?

9. What did Sawyer tell Kate before he jumped frpm?

10. Why does Christian Shepard keep appearing on behalf of the Island?

11. Where is the Island now?

12. Is Jin really dead?

13. What does Charlotte hope to find on the Island?

14. Why did Miles choose to stay on the Island?