LOST: The morning after "Through the Looking Glass"

Lisa and I woke up and the first words out of her mouth were that "it's hard to sleep with something like THAT on your mind."

For the first time in a long time, it could honestly be said that television history was made last night.

I am not that much of a television person. Never have been. The number of shows that I've actively kept up with during my life could be numbered with my hands. And it took me awhile to "get into" Lost. I'm sorta like the Amish when it comes to TV: I have to fully trust it before I invest my time in it. But Lisa's mom kept saying how this was a really good show, so I gave it a shot.

And I've never been so glad that I did than I am after last night.

"Through the Looking Glass", the Lost Season 3 finale, is the most beautifully orchestrated and mind-blowing single episode of a television show that I've ever seen. My brain still hasn't stopped reeling from what we saw last night. Remember the twist ending that we saw in The Sixth Sense? Well, "Through the Looking Glass" was ten times that "HOLY (your choice of exclamation here)!!!" that we felt at the end of that movie. Ever since the return from the break in February Lost has consistently been some of the best fiction that I've seen in any medium. This final episode for Season 3 raised the bar across the board for everything, especially for TV (either network or "premium" channels like HBO). On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give "Through the Looking Glass" a 27.

There was only one thing that bugged me about "Through the Looking Glass". That was when Locke saw Walt (or whatever the heck that really was, since I'm sure the real Walt is still on the boat with Michael after last season's finale). Walt looked and sounded old enough to buy cigarettes. Guess that couldn't be helped: Malcolm David Kelley was, what, 10 years old when the pilot episode was shot? Looks like puberty kicked in bigtime since last season's finale. But since that obviously wasn't the real Walt, I guess this can be allowed to slide. If they ever do show the real Walt though, there'd better be a darned good explanation for his ultra-fast growth spurt (but this being Lost, anything could probably be made to sound like it makes sense :-).

The most powerful moment of the whole show (after that "JEEZ LOUISE!" shocker of a final scene) was the last time we saw Charlie. We literally had to hold back the tears. I don't think that could have been handled any more poignantly. And I'm trying as hard as I can to not be too "spoiler-ish" for anyone who hasn't had the good fortune of seeing this show yet.

Sayid showed us once again last night that he is the baddest mothe-"shut yo mouth" on TV right now (or ever). Did you see what he did to that guy... with his legs?!?

Of all the moments that Hurley has had, this was his biggest moment to shine. It's funny: last week I found myself wondering about whatever happened to the DHARMA van. The scene where Hurley charges the beach in it, pedal-to-the-metal with that look of "I'm coming to get YOU!" on his face... just awesome! I've said this before and I'll say it again: Hurley is the real leader of the Flight 815 survivors. He's gone way out of his way to provide for his friends, to give them a good time... and to stand by them when they need it most. What he did last night just affirmed it that much more.

Did anyone else get the craziest feeling that for all of Ben's lies and manipulations and orders to kill people... that maybe there really is something we don't know about yet that he's very much in fear of? After last night I still think Ben is one of the most hated TV characters ever... but now there's a weird sense of sincerity about him. Still didn't keep me from cheering when Jack beat the living snot out of him.

By the way, I loved how Ben is fast losing control over the Others. It's like the last bit of Stephen King's The Stand when things began going bad for Randall Flagg and no matter how hard he tries to control things, they keep spinning out of control.

If that's not Penny's boat... then who is it? The only thing I can think of is that it's DHARMA... but if DHARMA is still active, then they must already still know where the Island is, since they're still dropping groceries onto it. That's probably the biggest question that I can think of to take us into next season.

Now as for "that thing". You know what I'm talking about if you watched it last night. Lost is notorious for setting things up so that you have to watch an episode more than once, sometimes two or three times even. I think that last night's episode is going to be the most dissected and analyzed and hypothesized two hours of television. I keep thinking about how all that time people were calling Jack a "hero", and it seemed like they were referring to what happened with the car crash. Except it turns out that they called him a hero for something else entirely. And then that final scene where the car pulls up and Jack talks with a certain someone: as I said right after the show, that scene made the synapses in my brain misfire while trying to figure out just what the heck was going on. And then Lisa tells me. If she hadn't figured it out I would have probably been wrestling with that all night (or at least until I read about it online). That one was hands-down one of the biggest shockers in either a TV show or a movie... or a book for that matter (I really hope that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will have a shocker just half as sad and pure loco as what Lost was last night).

So... who's in the casket? Four or five people come to mind. One in particular. But like I said, I'm trying hard not to be too spoiler-ish.

Man, if I were a drinking man, I would have needed some serious hard liquor after last night's Lost. That was definitely better television that we deserve.

Amazing. Just bloody amazing. Now we have to wait until next January (at the earliest) to see how and where... and when... this story progresses from here.