"Everything will be very different."

The wait ’til February 7th is gonna be interminable.

But we have no choice but to wait until February 7th as tonight brought us the “Fall season finale” of Lost. Only Lost could give you a huge cliffhanger right in the middle of their season, as we close with a anesthetized Ben laying on the operating table with a bleeding kidney and his life in Jack’s hands. Jack finally turned the tables on his captors, and even on Juliet, by diverting from her plan to take out Ben. Jack seems to be holding all the cards at this point, but he shouldn’t get too comfortable.

The overall focus of tonight’s episode, however, is on Kate and her coming to terms with committing to something or someone instead of running away once again. She’s been on the run ever since “blowing her father up,” and she’s been running away while on the Island as well, albeit in the emotional sense. She’s been afraid to commit to Jack or Sawyer, and was among the first to try and get on the raft outta town in season one. By the end of tonight’s episode, she’s finally stopped running, committing to stay with Sawyer and Jack instead of taking the chance to escape Hydra Station. Ironic that her finally staying put will make for less-than-ideal circumstances for Jack and Sawyer.

But she can’t run anymore; she’s made the decision to stay, something she couldn’t do with the doctor she loved and got killed, or with her husband, Kevin. I’ll have to check some other sites for this, but I’m relatively certain we’ve seen Kevin in a past episode at some point, but I may chalk that up to it being 11:46pm and my being exhausted. Regardless, he’s just another notch on Kate’s belt of abandonment.

The other significant character development lies with Jack. After having seen Kate apparently content in Sawyer’s arms, he no longer feels an attachment to her, shedding himself of what might be the last vestige of commitment to staying on the Island and fighting. He now just wants to go home, as he makes clear in his demands to Ben before the surgery. He sounds like he’s no longer concerned with leading the castaways or fighting the Others or figuring out just what the hell is going on with the Island. I think we could see an interesting dynamic next year if Jack does indeed get off the Island and back to the real world.

There are some brief scenes away from Hydra Station with the rest of the castaways, but the only real observations we can take from them are Locke’s reading the inscription on the now-deceased Eko’s Jesus stick.

No doubt a set-up for the next part of the season, I’m curious as to just what that phrase means to Locke. Perhaps he’s found some new purpose on the Island. His mentioning of not knowing why Eko died, but knowing “he died for a reason,” seems to be Locke’s way of saying he still has the utmost faith in the powers of the Island, and will take every opportunity to serve the Island’s will if he gets the chance. I’m not sure that bodes well for the rest of the castaways, something Sayid seems to have a feeling about when he insists on accompanying Locke into the jungle. Set that on the back burner for now.

Not too much to over analyze aside from that stuff, so we’ll get right to the bullet points.

Quick Hits

• Kevin is an officer on the Miami-Dade police force, as we see on his squad car. Wasn’t Sawyer imprisoned in Florida? Kevin also mentioned to Kate that he was working on a “fugitive recovery” report. One wonders if Kevin might’ve been involved in Sawyer’s capture. Or maybe it’s just the writers’ way of pointing out the irony of Kate, a fugitive, marrying a police officer who goes after those running from the law.

  

• Rousseau’s daughter Alex makes another appearance, going all Bart Simpson with her slingshot in an ill-fated attempt to free Kate and Sawyer.

  

  The other Others seem to have taken her boyfriend (remember Carl?) away, likely permanently. Pickett later tells Ben that Alex has been “taken home.” One wonders if that means she’s dead. I guess it could also mean they just took her back to Othertown on the main island. And yes, that was Alex’s voice on the intercom in Jack’s cell.

• As Pickett leaves the operating theater, he mentions that “Shepherd wasn’t even on Jacob’s list.” I’m guessing that list consists of the castaways the Others viewed as “the good guys” who they took early in the first season (and second season for the Tail section survivors). But, anyway, who’s Jacob, and why is he the one making The List? Ben’s not on top of the food chain no more, methinks.
• Charles Widmore seems to have the market cornered on home pregnancy tests. Kate was using the same type of pregnancy test that Sun used last season.

  

  I now wonder if it was Kate that brought the extra test Sun used on the plane with her, or if it’s just another in a long line of Lost coincidences.

Other Stuff from Other Sites

• One mention of a Jacob comes from the Hanso Foundation website, which lists a Jacob Vanderfield on its board of directors:
  

  He was sentenced to four years for taking bribes from a Chinese cigarette smuggling syndicate. He served only six months of the sentence, and according to Persephone did it at a “federal country club” (probably a minimum security prison). Persephone speculates that Peter Thompson may have helped Vanderfield get out of prison early. Thompson was, at the time, the attorney for Vanderfield’s fellow board member, Lawrence Peck.

  Sounds a little too low on the Hanso chain-of-command to be the Jacob Pickett referred to, but it’s worth noting. Then, of course, you can always refer to the Bible for name origins as well:

  On route to Haran, Jacob experienced a vision in which he saw a ladder reaching into heaven with angels going up and down it, a vision that is commonly referred to as Jacob’s Ladder. From the top of the ladder he heard the voice of God, who repeated many of the blessings upon him. According to Rashi, this ladder signified the exiles which the Jewish people would suffer before the coming of the Messiah. The angels that represented the exiles of Babylonia, Persia, and Greece climbed “up” very high before falling “down,” but the last exile, that of Rome/Edom (whose guardian angel was Esau himself) kept climbing higher and higher into the clouds. Jacob feared that his children would never be free of Esau’s domination, but God assured him that at the End of Days, Edom too would come falling down.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob

• Show creator Damon Lindelof and producer Carlton Cuse confirmed–again–that the security system/Cerberus/monster is not made up of nanobots. Rubbish!
• One-Eyed Willie is not Radzinski. Radzinski is dead. Also, it’s not Ron Pearlman; it’s Andrew Divoff.