Before I saw this episode, my friend told me it was amazing and it would blow my mind. Well, it was good, but I’m not sure it lived up to those high expectations that I had. Here’s why, in the usual question/answer form.
WARNING: SPOILERS
How do the Six get off the island? I’m glad that this episode clarified who the six were, for those who weren’t astute enough to count themselves (Jack, Sayid, Sun, Aaron, Hurley, Kate). We flashed forward to the homecoming, which was particularly poignant since Kate had no one to greet her. Also, it’s notable that Sun didn’t hug her father, particularly since the “You kill mah baby daddy, now I take ur company,” scene appropriately came in this episode. But no, we still don’t know how these particular six get off… or why them and not the others.
Why was everyone lying to the press? It’s actually possible that every single word out of everyone’s mouth was a lie. There were only eight survivors of the crash, they were in the water for a day before they got to the island, Jin didn’t even make it to the island, Kate gave birth to Claire’s baby – all lies, every single one. What are they trying to conceal (possibly Dharma) and why? Is someone making them do this, or is it just Jack?
What happens to everyone who isn’t the Six? These people include Jin and Claire, the ones I’ve asked about before, but for whatever reason I neglected to ask about everyone else. Do all those nameless extras perish? What about Locke? And we know that Ben gets off the island, but he wasn’t on 815 — do the press even know about him? Do they actually succeed in moving the island, do some people stay?
Why does Hurley’s connection to the island seem so much stronger than everyone else’s? He’s the one who sees the numbers everyone and ends up being called crazy and hallucinating. He’s the one most unable to move on with his life. Remember earlier, when the flashbacks first started, how the general consensus seemed to be that they should never have left the island? And Hurley, of course, still being haunted by it years later, believes this the most strongly. Will the island eventually pull everyone back, through him?
Answers we got this episode: Some good ones, actually! Finally, we have the “Claire is your sister” reveal — from the look on Jack’s face, it’s apparent that they know what happened to her even though we, the audience, have no idea. It also lends an interesting layer of knowledge to the relationship between Jack and Kate from a couple episodes ago – was Jack only trying to be fatherly toward Aaron and loving toward Kate because he knows that Aaron is his nephew? We also learned how Sayid and Nadia were reunited – although seeing them together and happy at Hurley’s party only made the knowledge of her eventual murder all the more heartbreaking. The next episode, solving the multiple cliffhangers of this one, should be absolutely fantastic.