In lieu of the two-hour Lost extravaganza "Through the Looking Glass," here's a highly-structured, highly-researched article. By the way, I'm going to pretend I waited this long to write this on purpose: you need something to tide you over for the presumably loooong wait until Season Four.

By the way: this was written in two lengthy stretches and was not at all proofread. Sue me.

THE TOP TEN MOMENTS OF THE TWO-HOUR SEASON THREE FINALE:

10. Alex meets Danielle.

This was a nice payoff. It was thrown into the end of the episode a little haphazardly, but we've been waiting for it ever since Alex first showed up in Claire's second season flashbacks. Like most big events on Lost, it tied up one loose end while opening the door to others: what will become of Alex's relationship with Ben? Will Alex and Danielle live with the castaways?

9. Sawyer kills Tom.

Sawyer gets his edge back with a vengeance by killing the helpless, surrendered Tom. It took me aback after the kinder, gentler Sawyer we've been getting forever, but he had his own morality behind it: "that was for taking the kid off the raft." That's right, all the way back in Season One, the fake-beard clad Tom was the first Other we met, and the one who uttered that classic, ominous line: "The thing is...we're gonna have to take your boy." Since then, Tom has been alternately threatening and almost jovial, but apparently, the Others' more vicious actions -- that they'd like to have the castaways forget about -- really do have consequences.

8. Explosions!

The brief but exciting battle -- Sayid, Bernard, and Jin versus the crack team of 10 Others - was almost a relief. Seasons-long lead-ups and semi-confrontations and foreshadowings lead to some good old ACTION. Of course, it was also nail-biting: Sayid and Bernard's bullets hit home, while Jin chokes but almost immediately redeems himself (somewhat) by shooting two of them. They then get captured, but seven out of ten ain't bad, right? (I also liked the perspective on the battle from the majority of castaways heading to the control tower -- I didn't expect them to be able to see what was going on, but it was a nice touch.)

7. Hurley flies in with the bus.

Poor, down-trodden Hurley, getting crapped on by everybody from Saywer to Charlie lately, finally gets his moment to shine with his rescue mission in the big van once belonging to Ben's dad. Good job, big guy. I cheered.

6. Charlie trash talks the crap out of two lame chicks.

Yes, remember, there was another plotline happening deep underwater, in the Looking Glass hatch. A captured Charlie behaves like maybe the seventh or eigthth coolest guy on the planet by sticking it to the man -- well, actually, two women essentially acting as clueless sheep of Ben's -- and behaving in the face of possible defeat like a gleeful little jackass. "I came down here in my invisible submarine." He does let some important knowledge slip out -- that Juliet has defected, which Ben hears about -- but it would be really lame if that ruined the whole dynamite-in-the-tents plan, so luckily it didn't play like that.

5. Locke shoots that scumbag Naomi.

Has anybody really ever trusted Naomi? Oohh, look, I have a really technologically advanced phone, that must mean I'm telling the truth. No, turns out you're a stupid liar who wasn't sent by Penny -- and yet she still knew who Desmond was -- but instead is working for a shadowy group trying to find the island and use it for their own purposes. Specifically what those are we have no idea, but Ben was telling the truth, and she just seemed vaguely sinister. So it was with a surprising sense of glee that suddenly she finds herself with a knife through her chest, courtesy of the newly-enlivened Locke. (Nope, not dead -- more on that coming up.) Seems like Locke has found his way again, although he hasn't lost his good-guy status either -- he's ultimately unwilling to shoot Jack, his former friend/rival, even though he knows he's about to do something stupid. I can't wait to follow Locke into Season Four.

4. Sayid snaps the Other's neck.

In general, when I think of who my favorite character is, I flirt with the possibility of Sawyer, Locke, and Jack, but I always end up with Sayid. Why? Because the guy's the man. He's just way cooler than everybody else he's constantly surrounded by. It was unfortunate to see him play such a minor role in the first half of the season, but he was in prime form in the finale. First he blows away either two or three Others by shooting the dynamite. And then, HE SNAPS A GUY'S NECK WITH TWO HANDS LITERALLY TIED BEHIND HIS BACK. You really can't get any more awesome than him. Don't even try.

3. WAAAAALLLLTTT!

Walt returns. Somehow, through some blessed twist of fate, I didn't notice Malcolm David Kelly's name show up in the opening credits of the show, so his sudden appearance was purely and beautifully shocking. He is, of course, a hallucination (right?) but it's great to see the kid again.

2. Charlie's death sequence.

One of the most meaningful scenes on Lost was also slightly marred by the sketchy logic surrounding it. Exactly why did Charlie have to close the door? Follow me through this: he inputs the correct code (with some spot-on musical skills - "Good Vibrations," nice). Penny appears on the screen (also odd, but whatever) and reveals that she has no idea who Naomi is. Mikael knocks on the window with a grenade. Desmond runs over after hearing Penny. Charlie, realizing the inevitable, shuts the door. The grenade goes off (and hopefully taking the weaselly Bakunin with it). Charlie writes "Not Penny's Boat" on his hand, shows it through the window to Desmond, and then slowly drowns.

It was a great scene that was overloaded with both information and drama. But why exactly did Charlie have to lock himself in the room? Surely he could've gotten out in time, and surely it would've taken a heck of a long time for the entire hatch to flood. I have, however, come up with a solution that makes me rest a little easier, and it lies with Charlie's state of mind. He was prepared to die and was ready to follow Desmond's premonition -- if he didn't, his fear was, the future would be changed and Claire wouldn't get rescued. Additionally, he had just had to deal with the shocker from Penny, and he wanted to make sure he kept Desmond out of harm's way. So. Based on its strengths rather than its logically shaky staging, it was an amazing sequence.

1. The final twist.

Every single theory of Lost I've ever read or heard about hinged on one bit of logic: if they get rescued, the show's over. End of story. So this utterly brilliant twist blew the entire show wide open. Turned out nobody had any idea where it's going...except the writers, that is, who proved they know exactly what they're doing. And even though hindsight is 20/20, it really does amaze me that I didn't figure it out more quickly (I finally guessed it only about two minute before it was revealed.) C'mon: they always do something big with season finale flashbacks. The first season finale featured flashbacks from the whole cast, and ended with the poignant everybody-getting-on-the-plane montage. The second was the big Desmond flashback extravaganza. So the third - Jack. WITH A GIANT BEARD. Doing lots of stuff that would be uninteresting if it wasn't so curious. Turns out...it's a flashforward. He was rescued. So was, at the very least, Kate (who, for reasons we will hopefully find out, is not in jail). And he thinks it was a huge mistake. "We have to go back." The show doesn't end with the castaways getting rescued - as it turns out, that's just somewhere in the middle of the story. Amazing, amazing, amazing.

BIG QUESTIONS EITHER RAISED OR STILL UNANSWERED:

Who's in the coffin?

The obvious question from the finale that the writers clearly want to be a catchy watercooler topic: who was in the coffin? I completely geeked out on this and attempted to grab screen captures of the article Jack had torn out to decipher what it said (you can almost see it right before he enters the funeral home). I think I actually did get a vague clue, but I won't reveal it here in case anyone considers it a spoiler. Here are the real clues:

-The guy at the funeral home asks "Friend or family?" Jack answers, "Neither."
-Jack asks Kate why she wasn't there. Kate says, "Why would I go to the funeral?"
-The funeral home was in a run-down, predominantly African-American neighborhood.
-Jack is torn up about it to the point of almost committing suicide.

I have two main guesses: Ben or Michael. I've also heard people guess Locke and Juliet, but I consider mine greater possibilities. Here's why:

Ben: Jack definitely doesn't consider him a friend. He lived (almost) his entire life on the island, so no one would come to the funeral except people from the island, pretty much none of whom liked him. And if Ben's ultimate intentions turn out to be honorable, Jack still wouldn't like him considering their history together, but his devastated reaction would make perfect sense: Ben never wanted to let them off the island, and it turns out, to Jack's utter surprise, he was totally right. (This also works for Locke, who credibly had no non-plane crash contacts, but you'd think at least some of them would go to the funeral.) He wants, needs to go back. Ben is the tragic figure who was right all along, who was taken off the island when he didn't want to be and didn't survive in the real world.

Michael: He betrayed all of the castaways. He turned out to be a pathetic figure who sold his friends down the river just to get off the island with his son. His ex-girlfriend is dead, and one can easily imagine a falling out with Walt once Walt figured out what his father had done. So no one showing up to the funeral is entirely plausible, as is Jack not considering him a friend. The run-down area of the funeral home might be stretching it, but it's been clearly established that Michael never had much money, so it's something. And his death, of course, would bring back a flood of painful memories on the island for Jack, who wants so desperately to go back there.

Who are Naomi's people?

They realize that the island has strange properties involving magnetics and healing. They've been trying to find it. And finally Jack makes contact with them. But who are they? We know so little about them that I would feel a little overwhelmed even attempting to form a cohesive theory. But now we do know that there's more than one group searching for the island (Penny Widmore's team is the other). I doubt they're governmental. And was Naomi telling the truth about the castaways' bodies being found? I'm inclined to believe most of what she told them, because she didn't care about them; it was happenstance that they were there in the first place. She's just using them to get the radio tower working so her crew can find the place.

Um...who are the Others?

I think the writers of Lost have done a brilliant job of revealing answers little by little, and introducing new ones. I know I'm one of a select few on this planet who think so, but just so everyone knows? All you whiners who want all the answers are wrong. And you'd ruin the show if you had your way.

That said. I'd just like to squeeze in a reminder to everyone that we still don't know who the Others are. We don't know who they are or how they got there or what they want. We know that they're trying to figure out the nature of the island; we know Ben has a connection to the mysterious Jacob, who seems to represent all the mysteries of the island; we know they're doing experiments on fertility and conception; we know that Ben was once a member of the Dharma Initiative; and we know the Others were there before the Dharma Initiative. That's what we know. But the Others were the main focus of this third season, and we still don't know their true nature.

A COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL PREVIEW OF WHAT'S TO COME:

-The flash-forwards take the place of the flashbacks. This just seems to make sense, and also reveals the genius of the writers: just when their device is getting a little stale and everyone’s back story is set up properly, they turn the tables on us. I’m not saying we can’t have any more flashbacks – I’m still waiting for Danielle’s, and maybe another of Ben’s – but the finale seemed to clearly set us up for this.

A side question: was the flash-forward set in the present day? Right now on the show it’s roughly December 2004. (They crashed when the show debuted, in September ’04, and have been stranded for roughly ninety days.) So did we see Jack in May 2007, or just sometime in between? My guess is sometime in between (for the sake of the writer’s sanity in the construction of the timeline of this whole thing).

-Alex, Karl, and Danielle all join the castaways for good. Well, Danielle’s always been a bit of a rolling stone, but Ben plainly told Alex he’s leaving her with them, and it looks like Karl’s sticking around, too.

-Kate is finally revealed as pregnant. Because after what Juliet said about sperm counts on the island, it’s really pretty unlikely that she isn’t.

-Here’s a BIG variable that could screw everything I just wrote up: what if Season Four begins with them being rescued? The above hypothetical scenarios all hinge on the fact that the castaways will still be stuck on the beach for a bit. But Jack clearly made contact with people at the end of the finale, and clearly he gets rescued. How soon will that happen? Who will go? Will everyone be forced to go? If the main timeline of the show (i.e. not flashbacks or flashforwards) takes place off the island, that would be pretty bizarre (and I imagine would include subplots with Locke or Danielle or the Others still on the island).

-Jack’s final line – “we have to go back” – sounded to me very indicative of the show’s future. This is not a show about people who get stranded on an island, lost and are finally rescued. Instead, this is a show about people “lost” in their personal lives, who find meaning on a mysterious island, get rescued, realize they need to go back, embark on a quest to return to the island, and find purpose or peace once they return.

-I’m afraid for the following I’m about to reveal how many remaining seasons are planned for Lost, so if you happen to bizarrely consider this information a “spoiler” (and who knows why anyone would, right? What a loser)…stop reading. The writers have said they view each season of the show like one “book” in a short series; that is to say, each season has a specific focus. The first season was the introduction and the castaways realizing that they’d be staying for a while. The second season was about the hatch. The third season was about the Others. We’ve got three more sixteen-episode seasons left, and it seems to make sense to me (for reasons outlined above) that the final season will see Jack’s (and whoever’s) return to the island. That’s when we’ll find out the biggest answers, to the questions of the nature of the island itself, namely the monster and Jacob. The true antagonists at that point will not be the Others – the show is just plain begging for the Others and the castaways to eventually align with each other – but the group that Naomi was aligned with. (Or maybe that group will wipe the Others out?)

Working backwards, that makes the fifth season detail Jack’s attempts to return to the island. This will be the big in-the-real-world season of Lost, as Jack will reconnect with not just Kate but everyone else who was rescued (if anyone else, in fact, was) and we catch up with Penny's efforts. And so…what of the fourth season, the one we have coming up? Well, for the sake of this whole theory I’ll suppose that the rescue doesn’t happen with the snap of a finger; it takes a little while to orchestrate it, and over the course of that, Desmond has to reveal that Naomi was a liar, Ben has to continue in his efforts to get them to stay, we have to find out a lot more about Naomi’s people, and plenty of people, I imagine, will stay on the island. So: season four is the rescue, five is the time on dry land, and six is the return.

Of course…if we have flashforwards to the time on dry land during season four, that kind of shoves my plans for four and five into a single season. Back to square one…