Lost Episode 3.22: "Through the Looking Glass"
Original Airdate: May 23rd, 2007

Well, then.

So much for complaining that "nothing ever happens on Lost." Cause when something DOES happen, it is a ginormously BIG "something," truly an earth-shattering development. One that has the potential to completely reframe and redefine every detail of this series.

I refer, of course, to Jack’s beard. That is one scraggly-ass tangle of facial hair, right there.

No, I don’t REALLY refer to that at all. I refer, instead, to the episode’s last-minute revelation that all the flashbacks we were seeing took place not in the past, but in the future--hence, they were not flashBACKs at all, but rather, flashFORWARDs.

Masterful. Brilliant. Genius.

These are not words I would have applied to much of Lost’s third season. Looking back, I think history (and by "history," I refer to the byzantine network of Lost fan websites and organizations that will no doubt continue to chug along for decades beyond the show’s end in 2011) will judge season three with relative kindness. Perhaps this will be simply because of goodwill generated by the madly wonderful two-hour finale; perhaps it will be because of the proliferation of quality stand-alone episodes sprinkled throughout the 22 installments. Or perhaps there is a larger picture at work here, and only seeing the complete whole will bring the details into focus.

That’s history, though. From where I sit, in the here and the now, season three of Lost was overall lathered in weak sauce. I’m flipping through my reviews for this past season, and it seems as though my recollection is spot-on--some good flashback episodes, some nice mythology episodes toward the top and bottom of the season, and some flaccid, snooze-worthy installments in between.

Which one could argue is more a pacing issue than anything else, but still: When I sit down for an hour of television, I want that hour of television to be, on some level, GOOD. I don’t want it to be pointing toward future goodness; that’s not enough for me. It doesn’t matter to me that when I sit down in the convalescent home in sixty years and sit watching season three of Lost in one marathon diaper-drenching session, I will see how the pieces fit and forgive any slow or meandering parts.

There were some lousy parts to season three. Some good and great parts, too. And this finale, "Through the Looking Glass"...it brings them all together and effortlessly kicks the show to the next level.

Dedicated viewers have already noticed the ways in which the last several episodes of season three have been setting the stage for this finale, and the execution went off perfectly. Charlie’s arc came to a fitting conclusion. Locke became even more entangled in the island’s mysterious allure. The Others, while not completely destroyed, have been soundly defeated and their leader beaten to a pulp. Thanks to Charlie, the satellite phone was used to call for help, and the castaways are ostensibly about to be rescued.

We never see that rescue, but we know they all leave the island, because the "flashbacks" we’ve been watching throughout the finale are revealed in the episode’s final minutes to have been flashforwards, depicting a devastated Jack Shepard as he stumbles through his post-island existence.

The big kicker, though, has to be Jack’s revelation that he believes the castaways were never meant to leave the island in the first place. Meaning that it’s likely Ben was right--whoever sent Naomi the parachutist had every intention of killing all the rescued survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, only they weren’t going to be killed on the island. They were going to be killed after their return to the mainland.

That’s my theory, at least, and just the fact that I have a theory at all should indicate how great this episode was. Speculating about Lost before this week’s episode was a little like trying to build a puzzle without the picture on the front of the box. Sure, you could cram pieces together and hope they fit, or just make them fit if you push hard enough. You could force ideas like "purgatory" and "virtual reality" and other such nonsense to line up with the limited facts at hand about the island and its inhabitants.

But it didn’t really work, because there wasn’t enough "there" there. Concrete facts were consistently rejected in favor of answers that became questions themselves within seconds of their revelation. Without any true facts to work with, viewers were left simply scratching heads and making blind guesses into the empty void.

After "Through The Looking Glass," though, we KNOW things. We know the survivors eventually leave the island. We know the Others haven’t won (yet). We know Charlie sacrificed his life for the greater good. We know Kate is around in the post-island world, and she’s with someone who’s not Jack. There’s a body in a coffin that isn’t identified, but this body sends Jack further down into the spiral of destructive depression that he’s circled in since returning from the island. And we know Jack desperately wants to get BACK to the island, though we don’t know why.

We can WORK with these details. We can speculate and wonder as we lay awake in our beds each night, contemplating the fates of fictional characters as twilight descends upon our corner of the world.

The Lost producers seem to have finally grasped the essential truth of serialized fiction--knowledge doesn’t limit the imagination of the viewers or the work; it EXPANDS that imagination. It opens doors--when executed well, at least. It doesn’t slam shut possibilities; it creates MORE possibilities.

Lost is finally, at long last, after a turgid season (maybe two turgid seasons in a row; maybe more), giving us something to work with. They’re opening our minds, and it feels good. It feels right. Even with the picture on the box, Lost’s puzzle is still a challenge, but it’s way way more FUN.

iTunes Links:

Lost Series
Lost Season 3
This Episode - "The Man Behind the Curtain"

Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He’s been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.