Well, Lost does season finales very well, and I’ve always enjoyed that the finales seem to change the entire premise of the series. That’s certainly the case with this finale too. So let’s deal with those major events first.

JULIET NUKED THE ISLAND

I’ve always enjoyed Juliet — and Elizabeth Mitchell’s performance — so it saddened me to see her do something so hopeless and sorrowful. As disappointed as I was to see her plummet down the chasm, it was even more heartbreaking to see her wake up at the bottom. At first I thought, “Oh, good. She survived.” But … well, you know the rest. Jughead meet rock. Ka-boom.

So, sadness aside, we’re left to ponder what this means for the future of the series and our beloved heroes. We know that the DHARMA Initiative remains on the island — as do the Others — after the incident, so the radiological impact may have been contained to the area around the Swan station. That would seem to spell doom for Jack, Sawyer, and the rest, and jibes with Richard Alpert’s claim that he saw them all die. That would certainly be a game-changer as far as the sixth season is concerned.

And yet, we know there are otherworldly forces at work on the Losties. They survived a plane crash, got sucked out of a another plane, and traveled back in time thirty years. So I’m willing to accept the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they’re not dead. Call me crazy, I know. But there have to be consequences, right? It’s not fair to use the nuke to, say, jettison our heroes back to 2007. There has to be more to it than that.

Juliet’s — well, I think it’s fair to surmise that she is dead — her death removes the lame Sawyer-Kate-Juliet triangle and reintroduces the also lame but tried-and-true Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle. I did think it was interesting that Juliet’s flashback didn’t include Jacob. I suppose that should have been a sign that she was doomed in some way.

(We’ll get to Jacob momentarily).

Earlier, Miles finally offers up some voice-of-reason wisdom when he suggests that the detonation of the warhead might be the fabled incident, rather than the electromagnetic core breach. It appears that he was right, since other than grabbing everything metal within a hundred foot radius, the release of the magnetic energy didn’t really seem all that destructive. Yeah, I’m sure I’d have a different take on it if my DHARMA Initiative Volkswagen bus was parked too close to the drill, but it’s hard to see how the rest of the island would have been all that affected. So maybe our heroes failed miserably in their quest to change the course of time.

But we won’t know the answer to that until next winter.

LOCKE ISN’T REALLY LOCKE

I considered this possibility when we first saw a resurrected Locke sitting on the beach this season. And to his credit, I don’t think Jason Kramer ever believed Locke was really himself after arriving back on the island. But I wanted to believe it. I adore Locke. But it’s interesting to find out the number of ways he’s been manipulated (along with everyone else) for a long, long time.

But let’s back up. The episode begins — brilliantly, I thought — by showing us Jacob preparing a fish breakfast for himself while watching a ship (presumably the Black Rock) slowly sailing toward the island. Another unnamed man wearing black questions Jacob about why he brings people to the island when it always ends the same way. Jacob retorts that there’s only one end; everything before that is progress. This is the kind of fun philosophical wordplay you can imagine God and Satan having back in the day. Which I suppose is the point.

The Man in Black tells Jacob that he will kill him someday, once he finds a loophole. And eventually, after taking the forms of dead people like Christian Shepherd and John Locke, he finds that loophole in Ben. Unless I’m missing something, the Man in Black isn’t allowed to kill Jacob himself. But it’s okay for someone else to do it.

So it’s easy to assume that every time we’ve seen an apparition of some kind on the island — or maybe even off — it’s been this figure. Christian, Locke, Alex, maybe even Claire — it’s been this sinister island force. Locke’s whole connection to the island and the Others has been a sham! But that does beg the question — is Jacob actually a force for good? He keeps Kate from getting caught shoplifting, encourages Sawyer to write the note to the con man whose fake name he’d adopt, and helps Jack get a candy bar, which will be terrible for his teeth and skin. Maybe it’s all a game, and Jacob is just as bad for our heroes as the other guy. Or maybe the other guy is actually good.

Note that all the personal property Hurley received back when let out of jail were essentially the very things Jacob gave to the other people.

Naturally I rooted for Ben to not stab him. His entreaties to Hurley and Ben that they have free will make it easier to side with him than a spectral entity that takes on the forms of dead people. And his dismissive response to Ben’s pleading — “What about you?” — not only plants him firmly in the camp of martyrs, it also makes it clear that Jacob fully expects to die. Whatever happened, happened. What’s destined to be is destined to be.

This doesn’t bode well for the future of Richard Alpert, who we learned is kept young by the intervention of Jacob.

So we’ve got the Others blindly following what appears to be an evil spirit masquerading as a prophet, a deposed leader striking down the figure he’s blindly followed most of his life, and a small group of “good guys” with cold hard facts (Locke’s corpse) trying to make everyone less blind. Oh, and the 1977 group is dealing with their own issues of predestination. Religious ideas abound.

In any case, it now seems that the Man in Black — whatever he actually is — will be free to run rampant over the island and bend it to his will. Assuming the nuclear detonation hasn’t actually changed time, I’m excited to see what changes in the final act. If the balance between good and evil has been destroyed, what will an all-evil island look like?

The season of Lost has been really uneven, but “The Incident” was eminently satisfying. And it left me just as off balance as every previous finale. I don’t know much about Egyptian mythology, so I can’t comment about the statue or the images in the temple. But I’m just as hooked on the series as I’ve ever been.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Rose and Bernard! And Vincent! I’m so glad to see you guys. Though I’m afraid we may now know whose skeletons those are in the cave.

Before I get into dissecting this week’s offering, I want to take a moment to explain a theory I’ve been developing about the nature of the island and its many inhabitants (and would-be inhabitants). In particular, I’ve been wondering about the significance of all the Egyptian imagery and considering the possibility that the island exists within the realm of Egyptian mythology. But the more I think about it, the less I’m able to discount all the allusions to other religions and philosophies. Christian Shepherd. The DHARMA Initiative. Rousseau. Locke. Locke dying and being resurrected three days later. Jacob. Benjamin. The Virgin Mary statues. Locke sending Boone on a vision quest (and then taking one himself). And when you get right down to it, the central conflict between Jack and Locke: science vs. faith.

Miles speaks with the dead.

I’ve begun to wonder if — at least on an allegorical level — the show is about opposing spiritual ideas fighting over ownership of paradise. Who has claim over the Truth? Christianity, Buddhism, science, New Age mysticism? Man, that’s sure an eternal struggle (and like the island, a constantly moving target). And the island both saves people and kills people. It separates them into different groups. Some try to harness its power. Others defend it against…the impure? And lastly, some unfortunate souls have been cast out entirely.

 I toyed with the idea early in the series that the island was actually the Garden of Eden. And though I’m not prepared to rule that out completely, I’m now more attracted to the idea that the island is religion incarnate. Maybe those are the same thing.

I also came to the conclusion a couple of weeks ago that Jacob — mysterious man in the cabin with an unexplained relationship to Christian and Claire — is actually our own Jack Shepherd! I don’t know how Jack (which is usually a nickname for John, but I suppose could also be one for Jacob) becomes the apparent ruler of Mystery Island, or what brings him to go back in time again and enter that strange, alternate plane of existence Jacob seems to be on. But I’m going to spend the rest of the series looking for clues that back up my theory. And as Jason Kramer pointed out to me when we discussed this, it would be wonderfully ironic if prototypical “man of faith” John Locke had actually been putting his faith in Jack all along.

As for this week — I wasn’t really waiting with baited breath for a Miles episode. I suppose it’s necessary sooner or later to explain what the hell he’s doing on the show, and I found the episode entertaining enough. I suppose there are two noteworthy revelations I should mention:

1. Pierre Chang (aka Marvin Candle) is Miles’ father. Duh. We figured that out months ago. But I think we can also infer at this point that Miles will have some role in separating his father from his mother (and infant self). Whether he does this to protect them or for some other reason, I don’t know. If nothing else, we know now that being in the same vicinity as your past self does not cause the space-time continuum to rip apart.

2. The guy who was with Ilana when she clocked Lapidus in the face tried to stop Miles from going to the island aboard the freighter. This guy is decidedly anti-Widmore, but it’s hard to believe he’s working for Ben. So how many sides are there to this thing?

I think we’re about to start barreling toward the season finale. Roger is going to want to know where his son is, and someone is going to discover that Phil — and by the way, I can’t get past the fact that Jimmy Barrett has apparently quit doing comedy to work for the DHARMA Initiative — is missing, along with one of the security tapes. As Juliet said, “Here we go.” Things are about to fall apart quickly for our Losties.

And the return of Daniel means…? If nothing else, he’s probably the only person who will be able to get our beloved castaways back to their own time. Or at least get everyone back in the same year.

There were some tense moments this week — I was impressed by Matthew Fox’s subtly growing menace in his scene with Roger Linus — but all in all, this seemed to be about setting up the end of the season. Not a whole lot to talk about, except, “Oh my God, what do you think is going to happen when they find out about … ?” My favorite moment by far, however — and probably the funniest of the season — was Hurley writing The Empire Strikes Back. You know, to make it easier for George Lucas.

Did you know that Empire is all about how parents and children should talk rather than fight with each other? See, with Lost you get action, suspense, laughs, and insightful critical analysis of beloved motion pictures.

Comment away, but please no spoilers for future episodes.