Lost Season 4 Finale: Frozen donkey wheel

Warning: SPOILERS below
Updated: 10:30 a.m. Friday, May 30

While it didn’t have the punch-in-the-gut impact Season 3’s cliffhanger had, the season 4 finale delivered big and lived up to the hype. Here’s one man’s assessment … enjoy:

Who’s in the coffin?
That was answered tonight — Jeremy Bentham. If you don’t want to know who Jeremy Bentham is (maybe you didn’t watch it yet), then read no further (and don’t look at the photo below).
Jeremy Bentham’s character was named after a utilitarian philosopher who designed the panopticon, a prison that allows the prisoners to be watched without their knowledge, something he described as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.” He also was buried in a coffin for with a glass top for public viewing. Take that for what you will.
We learn in the finale that he visited Walt, he visited Hurley, he visited Jack and Kate and Sayid (not sure about Sun) and told them all they needed to go back to the island. Turns out, very bad things happened to those who survived.
The closing scene shows Jack breaking into the funeral home he was in at the Season 3 finale to see Bentham’s body one last time. Before we see who’s in it, Ben Linus walks in and informs Jack that he can get back to the island, but he needs to do so with all 6 castaways … and John Locke, the man in the coffin.

How’d he get there?
John Locke seemed so sure of himself when he walked up to the Others camp after Linus informed him he’d be the leader. After a life of hard knocks, this is what John had been waiting for his entire life. He was a leader.
So why three years later did he leave the island, and why is he dead? Will getting him back to the island bring him back to life (it cured his “dead” legs, didn’t it?).
We have about 34 episodes of Lost left, and hopefully, we’ll see why things went so wrong. We’ll see what is driving Jack to near suicide. We’ll see why Locke ultimately gave his life to get people back to “save it.”

Desmond and Penny
I am not disappointed that they’re together. I was hoping, however, that their reunion would have been saved for the final season. Doing it now — here — seemed anti-climactic to me. Perhaps it was never meant to be what drove the show. Perhaps having Desmond in the picture will make Ben’s hunt to kill Penelope (to get even with Widmore, who had his daughter killed) will make that storyline better. I’ll trust Lost’s writers on this one.

Quick Hits:
• Sayid and Keamy’s fight: Single greatest fight in the show’s history. It took two bullets in the back to stop Keamy … Sayid finally met his match.
• Sawyer’s sacrifice: He jumped from the chopper so it could save fuel, only to swim ashore and happen upon a drunk Juliette. Oh yeah, they’re hookin’ up. So what did he whisper?
• Michael’s sacrifice: Loved the whispers and Christian Shephard’s appearance before the boom. Loved it. I’m also hoping Jin survived.
• Charlotte and Faraday: Daniel has lost the island (he was on the raft when it was ‘moved’), and Charlotte and Miles stayed on it. Charlotte’s there to find her birth place. Hmmm.
• Checkmate, Mr. Echo: Cool line, and I doubt it was just a throw-away line. The dead live on in Lost, which means even after we learn how John Locke died (probably by Season 5’s end), he’ll still be around.
• We have to lie: Up until the very end, Jack was skeptical. He saw the island vanish, yet he still wasn’t a believer. Then suddenly, right before Penny’s boat saved them, he decides they have to lie to protect the people on the island. I’m thinking Jack felt guilty about all the death that happened up to now, and the last thing he wanted was his conscience eating away at him (which it does anyway, we find out).

From ‘Doc’ Jensen at Entertainment Weekly
• Spooky how Locke was able to see the dark road that lay ahead for Jack. He told his rival that he was going to have to lie about the existence of the Island and the remaining castaways, and he knew that doing so would eat away at Doc Integrity. I also thought this was painfully catty: ”If you do it [lie to the world] half as well as you lie to yourself, they’ll believe you.” Rrrowww! Frankly, it’s that kind of insight — and button pushing — you usually get from Ben. Guess the Other is starting to rub off on John.
• As for Ben, we now know how he wound up in his Dharma parka in the Tunisian desert at the start of ”The Shape of Things to Come”: Apparently, that’s where he landed after he moved the Island. The date: October 24, 2005, or about 10 months from when Ben moved the Island. So…where did the Island go? Nowhere. My guess is that it’s in the same spot where it’s always been — it just rematerialized in reality 10 months in the future, just like Ben.
Click here for the full article

From Lostpedia
• During her flash-forward dream sequence, Kate receives a garbled phone call. When played backwards, the message states: “The Island needs you. You have to go back before it’s too late.”
• Each year the producers have a special name for a secret scene in that year’s finale. This year’s special name turned about to be literal – “Frozen Donkey Wheel”, referring to the frozen wheel Ben has to turn to activate the teleportation of the island.

Other fun stuff
• A commercial for Octagon Global Recruiting aired toward the end of the epsiode. This organization is looking for applicants for the DHARMA Initiative. Their recruitment drive begins in San Diego on July 24th – 27th, 2008. This is the same date as ComicCon ‘08. Click here for the Web site.
• Two alternate endings were aired on Good Morning America Friday. One had Desmond in the coffin, the other had Sawyer. Watch it below: