In my previous review I've already said how perfect the episode was. It is, without a doubt, my favorite 2 hours of Televison, and possibly the best piece of entertainment ever. I don't want to keep on saying this... there's no point. Literally everything in the episode deserves praise, so I won't go through all that. Instead... I'll give you some theories, speculation and of course, analysis.

Warning: LONG review... wall of text. But hopefully it's worth a read.

There are many "epic" and "important" scenes of the show. There are a very few shows where you can recall certain scenes. Lost is one of those - in this show, there are game changers. Scenes that make you reconsider everything you saw up to that point. The introduction of the others, the hatch, learning that the others are civilized, Desmond time travelling, Jack and Kate on the airport in the flashforward, and the list goes on... And yesterday, a couple of new scenes joined this list. Let's see them.

1. The cold open. Okay, so... Usually finales have the big "reveal" and the big "twist" at the end. Yet Lost had this very moment right in the beginning. A flashback to a couple of hundred years ago. Seemingly two friends sitting on the beach, talking. Felt like a calm scene, but they were actually discussing things that DEFINE the entire show.

One of these man was Jacob, and the other, well, let's call him Nemesis. Jacob's agenda seems clear to me. He brings people to the island; Black Rock, Oceanic 815... Of course, the question is, what for? What is he trying to prove? It's clear that he wants to prove Nemesis wrong, but why? Nemesis believes that every time people come to the island, they fight and destroy. They ruin. And since Jacob is bringing them, Nemesis wants to kill him. But he can't do it himself - he needs to find a loop hole.

Now, let's try to clear this up. Basically, these two men are challenging eachother?! Are they... playing a game? And what are they anyway? GODS? Because, that seems very likely. And as Nemesis walks away, the camera pans around the beach, to reveal where Jacob lives.... under the statue, which is either Tawaret, or Sobek. Or the combination of the two, since Lost's mythology is not canon, of course. So, the entire show has been literally "casued" by these two? Jacob, who brought them on the island in the first place, and Nemesis, who tried to exploit the losties to find a loop hole? And, look at Ben and Widmore now. They are playing their own little game, but can you really compare them with Jacob and his Nemesis? Lost suddenly got bigger. MUCH. Bigger.

2. Jacob meeting the losties in their life. We had a couple of flashbacks.

Sawyer - when he was a kid, and his parents died, he was writing his famous letter to the real Mr. Sawyer. As he was writing, his pen ran out of tint. Jacob was there to give him a pen.

Jack - Jack was on his first real surgery. He screwed up, but he managed to succeed. He counted to five and let the fear in(this is the scene that he describes to Kate in the pilot). After that, he wants a chocolate from the machine, but it doesn't seem to work. Jacob, however, makes it work, and gives Jack the chocolate. "Sometimes, you just need to give it a little push", he says.

Kate - When Kate was little, she and her friend Tom wanted to steal a lunch box. She got caught, but Jacob paid for it, and then touched Kate's nose and told her not to steal anymore.

Sun and Jin - They got married, and Jacob congratulated them, and touched both of them. He said ther love was something special.

Sayid - Jacob was asking directions from Sayid, as Nadia progressed walking across the road. And then she got hit by a car. Just when Sayid was about to run to Nadia, Jacob touched him on his shoulder.

Locke - Locke just got pushed out of the window by his own father. Jacob walked to him, touched him, and he instantly woke up.

Hurley - Jacob told Hurley that he might not be cursed, but he is actaully blessed. Jacob gave him his guitar.

Ilana - They made absolutely no contact whatsoever, and Jacob was wearing gloves. Ilana seemed to know Jacob.

Juliet - Jacob wasn't in Juliet's flashback at all.

It seemed to me that this was Jacob's way of recruiting people. Making contact also seemed crucial. The camera often focused on the touches, and Lindelof also described the flashbacks "touching", in a literal way, or giving something to the survivors that was previously touched by him. And him not touching Ilana and not being in Juliet's scene is very important, in my opinion. Juliet's scene not including Jacob may pretty much indicate that, she's dead, even though the others survived. But more on this later. The point is, I believe we saw Jacob recruiting the survivors, and also described some of them. Jack needed a little push -- him going from the man of science to being the man of faith, Sun and Jin desperately wanting to find eachother, because they belong together and telling Kate not to steal anymore, which is pretty much a straight reference to the flashback where she faked a bank robbery just to get the toy plane, which was shown in the flashback too, by the way. Hurley's an interesting one. I guess Jacob's point here was that Hurley should be happy with his ability, and reassured him that he's not crazy at all.

3. The actual incident.

Juliet fell into the incident hole, and detonated the bomb. This was an epic game changing scene, despite of what's happening next. There are many reasons. First of all, I have not really "felt" the chemistry between Sawyer and Juliet before. They were cute in LaFleur, but after that, I felt neutral. However, the scene where Sawyer was trying to save Juliet was more heartwrenching than the phonecall between Desmond and Penny in "The Constant". And then, the ultimate sacrafice - Juliet in the hole, helpless, seriously injured, with her last breath, sets off the bomb. If someone asked me now, what I think is the best acted out scene in Lost, I'd say this one. Elizabeth Mitchell's performance was simply something else. Beyond spectacular. My tears just have dried up from the previous scene between her and Sawyer, and then this... so heartbreaking, so amazing. And as she set off the bomb, everything gone white. And on the white background, appeared the black text; LOST. This is the usual end episode LOST-inverted. Normal Lost is black background and white text. The balance of black and white. Dark and light. Remember the pilot? Locek to Walt: "There are 2 players, 2 sides. One is Light, one is Dark". The entire show has been about this balance. Jacob was in white clothes in the beginning scene, his Nemesis was in dark. With Jacob's death, everything changes. Or was it Juliet's action that changed everything? Not likely.

In my opinion, the timeline won't change. We saw Chang's arm get stuck, and if you remember, in the Orientation video for Swan, one of his arms were prostetic, and Richard was nowhere near the Swan site. He probably just saw a huge explosion from the distance. Moving on. Juliet is dead. She died, because Jacob didn't touch her. But the rest of the survivors timetravelled to 2008, which is who Jacob referred to when he said "They are coming". Although Juliet's actions were similiar to Desmond's, when he turned the key, and time travelled, I have my doubts about this. I think she's dead, but I would really like if she wasn't, and had an experience similiar to what Desmond had in "Flashes Before Your Eyes". In any case, this was a gamechanger.

4. Jacob is killed, his Nemesis found his loophole.

I already talked about Jacob's death in my previous point. His death changes everything, even if he was expecting to die. Locke came back from death in "Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham", but he was not the same. He had his memories, his usual mannerisms, personality, but he knew things he didn't before. And he did questionable things. He was gone for a half hour when Ben called the monster. He knew when he would flash to the beechcraft, and he wanted to kill Jacob.

And, dead is dead, as Ben said. Even Richard was surprised. And so, the reveal that Ilana's group was carrying Locke's body in their box, was extremely logical. But then, who is pretending to be Locke?

...yes. Jacob's Nemesis. He found his loophole. Locke. Locke always wanted to be more. He always wanted to belong somewhere, and he was extremely easy to convince of anything. He became a slave to the island. He did everything, just so he could serve it. And he was rewarded - he became the leader of the others... for 5 seconds. "You're going to have to move the island" - Christian Shephard

Christian is not Jacob's messenger. Christian is Mr. Nemesis. Christian is essentially what evil-Locke is. He had his memories (say hello to my son in "This Place is Death"), but he wasn't himself. Christian had evil purposes, and moving the island was his way of creating a loophole, using Locke.

When Ben moved the island, he was greatly disappointed, because Locke was still on the island... this is why he wanted Locke, himself, to move it. And, him dying, was the key to the game - he died, not serving the island, or his friends. He died so Jacob's Nemesis can take his place, and get to Jacob.

Why did the smoke monster not kill Ben? Easy.

The smoke monster belongs to the Nemesis. He might actually *be* the smoke monster, but I prefer the theory that the smoke monster is his "pet", so to say. The smoke monster only kept Ben alive, to have him follow Locke. Ben, the master manipulator, the puppet master got manipulated into killing Jacob to help the evil forces.

Even though Ben most likely realized there was something wrong when Jacob and fake-Locke met "Have you met before?", he killed Jacob anyway, for all the years Jacob didn't seem to care about Ben.

So, what about the cabin scene in Season 3?

This is very easy to explain.

In "Man Behind the Curtain", Ben takes Locke to the cabin. Ben believed the cabin's empty, but Jacob's Nemesis was actually there. To further manipulate Locke, he made his presence known by saying "help me", which makes alot of sense now. "Help me to kill Jacob".

After Locke got shot, he appeared as Walt, to tell him, that, he has work to do. At this point, all Locke was full on faith. All the visions, dream sequences, smoke monster attacks are literally explained. It wasn't the island's will. It was Jacob's Nemesis trying to exploit the survivors - find a loophole. So who is on whose side?

Good question.

One's for sure - Ilana and Bram are the good guys. They are, because they are directly serving Jacob.

- What lies in the shadow of the statue?
- Ille qui nos omnes servabit.

Translation:

He who will protect/save us all.
So, the answer in short is Jacob.

The rest of the loyalties is a good question. Richard seems to serve Jacob, hence him knowing the answer to the question. However, Widmore? Widmore made sure that John would be on the island for the "war" coming. Eloise and Widmore seemed to work together - they made sure that Locke would be on the Ajira Flight.

Widmore might have made a pact with the devil - and so, Eloise helping Ben at the same time she's in contact with Widmore doesn't seem so weird anymore. She helped Ben, because... there's something much bigger than the conflict of Ben and Widmore here. Much, much bigger. Which is why she even sacraficed her son.

And now, here's the biggest question. What the war will be about?

Let's assume the incident sends the losties back to the present, and Jacob was referring to them. If this is so, then the war might be between Jacob's Nemesis, the smoke monster and all the others and losties. I am not sure that Nemesis has any other follower - (there's Widmore as a possibility of course, but he's off island), but that might be a huge twist for season 6.

Unfortunately, this episode also concluded the story of the most tragic character ever on Lost. 2 weeks ago I said this character was Daniel Faraday, but no. It's Locke. He suffered. His entire life was a failure. He got conned by his father, his girlfriend left him, he was used. And when he finally thought he found his purpose... he got double crossed, and killed. And his death? It helped the enemy. This is almost too tragic...

And finally, I'd like to say a few words about a scene, that wasn't game changing, but... it was the most heart warming thing in the entire show. Bernard, Rose and Vincent living in peace - not caring about anything, just loving eachother and letting things to their own way. Simply mesmerizing.

So, in conclusion...

It's almost impossible to conclude the amount of answers we were given, and I don't even want to. I am sure I left out many, many things, but my fingers already hurt from all the typing. I hope you really enjoyed the finale. If you enjoyed it as much as me, the 8 month wait won't be so long. I am fully satisfied, and blown away. And now, some pictures of the most memorable moments.


The two players...

The Statue, Jacob's sanctuary.

Rose and Bernard living in peace.

Someone else's been using the cabin...

Don't you leave me!

Dead is dead.

Jacob's down... but not out.