Last night, season five of "Lost" ended in a vacuum-packed rush of electromagnetic something-or-other, a loophole of whatnot and wherefore, and the possible destruction of a multilingual guy named Jacob who was in all the right places - until, alas, it seems he wasn't. Indeed, it may take us months, perhaps even until the show's return in early 2010, before we can make full sense of the incident-filled two-hour finale called "The Incident."
Certainly, though, the episode was "Lost" at its most vigorously entertaining, as the action leaped from Jack, Sawyer, Kate, and the gang in 1970s Dharmaville, Ben and (what appeared to be) Locke in contemporary times, and a variety of character backstories, all of which included the presence and the touch of the mysterious and unaging Jacob. "Lost" has the uncanny ability to be riveting even while it is being mind-bendingly complex, and so there wasn't a dull moment right up until the explosive end, when the doomed Juliet detonated the bomb that may undo the crash of Oceanic 815. Jack's last words to Sawyer included: "See you in Los Angeles."
Among the night's major developments: Jacob, played by Mark Pellegrino (he was Rita's abusive husband on "Dexter"), has a nemesis (played by Titus Welliver) and they talk of a loophole in the finale's opening scene. The man who gets Ben to stab and kill Jacob - and Jacob was surprisingly easy to kill, wasn't he? - may not be Locke, since Locke's dead body is still afoot. Maybe he's a shape-shifter taking the form of Locke? Sayid gets shot, and Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet return to the island to stop Jack from detonating the bomb but wind up helping him.
There were a number of emotionally charged scenes, of course, relating to the "Lost" love quad. Sawyer and Jack had a heart-to-heart, with Jack confessing his love for Kate: "I had her and I lost her." And, in the night's most excruciating scene, Sawyer and Kate fought to keep Juliet, wrapped in a chain, from getting sucked down the electromagnetic chute. "Where do you think you're going, Blondie," Sawyer said, in an epic suspended moment during which they held on for dear life before she fell.
The final moment - a flash to white - leaves next season wide open. Will we see what happens if the original flight doesn't crash? Will these people never meet? What did it mean when ABC asked us to return in 2010 with the teaser "Destiny Found"? It's definitely my destiny to be there to find out.
