This week’s episode of LOST, like the earlier Richard-centric episode, was entirely a flashback. I don’t think we saw any of these kind of episodes during earlier seasons so it’s pretty neat to see two in the final run. Like Richard’s episode, “Across the Sea” did a lot to move the good vs. evil plot forward and reveal to us a bit more of what the island is really about. Do we come away really knowing anything new? I don’t know, I’m still on the fence about that. But it was a solid episode with lots of information and a lot of intriguing developments. An enormous 2,200-word essay is below the break…

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Someone I was talking to last week predicted that LOST would end with a twist. The twist would be that there was going to be another season. How I wish that were true! With only two episodes remaining before the 2-hour 2.5-hour season finale, I feel like we’re wringing our hands in desperation, wondering what to do next, once our beloved television program ends. I think maybe we’ll join a cult.

But in all seriousness, LOST has become more than a mere television show for those who have remained faithful through all six seasons. It’s become this wild journey, this all-consuming mystery—it’s taken on a life of its own. I remember sitting on the bed with Maria, my wife (then girlfriend), in her dank basement apartment—student housing!—in Waterloo going through the first season of LOST on DVD. She was sick that weekend and we had nothing to do so we watched LOST, which we heard from friends was good. The apartment was later gutted after being plagued by plumbing and mold problems and I did develop a significant mold allergy later that year but was it worth it? I’ll leave that to you to decide.

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Damon Lindelof, one of the talented writer’s for TV’s LOST sat down with The Hollywood Reporter this past week to talk about the show’s 2-hour finale. The full text and video interview can be found here, and I thought I’d spend a few minutes going through the cliffnotes, and adding some of my own ideas and wild theories.

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This is one of those episodes of LOST that moves so quickly you barely have time to catch your breath, and when our normal LOST viewing party was canceled at the last minute we rushed already breathless to plunk down in front of our TV, just in time. I don’t think we ever really caught our breath until the credits rolled. Despite a pattern of only answering approximately zero to one question per episode, the pace of this week’s “The Last Recruit” was indeed staggering, and a lot went down even if we didn’t learn a whole lot about the over-arching plots.

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Last night’s LOST was an absolute mind trip and I loved it. For the purposes of time—it’s tight this week—I’d like to completely skip the recap aspect of my review and get right down to the cold hard theory.

My thesis: The flash-sideways timeline occurs between the time that Juliet sets off the hydrogen bomb, and the survivors wake up, on the island, in the present day (2007) timeline.

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Tonight’s episode is going to be about Desmond. We know this from the bagpipes in the preview and can surmise it from the fact that Desmond arrived on the island as the “package” last episode.

I thought, first of all, that Desmond was going to be an important chess piece in a game that Charles Widmore was about to play with Jacob’s Nemesis. Remember, to leave the island the Man-in-Black needs all of Jacob’s candidates to go with him. Or, possibly, he needs them dead. Desmond is a candidate. But, there’s more to it than this, I think.

Remember, Desmond recognized Jack on the flash-sideways Oceanic flight. That means that Desmond has some kind of memory of knowing Jack previously. That means that perhaps Desmond is aware of the real timeline going on simultaneously. Why? Because Desmond has had flashes like this before and perhaps he’ll recognize this flash-sideways for what it is.

The previews for this week’s episode have talked about a “path” being found. Putting two and two together, in an episode about Desmond perhaps the path that’s found is a result of Desmond doing, or remembering, or realizing something. If he figures out what the flash-sideways is all about and if he somehow figures out how to right it all, then there’s our path. Poof.

The writers did say that sometime, about half-way through this season, the two timelines would merge about become one. Could we perhaps see that tonight? And does Desmond have something to do with it. I think quite possibly, yes.

Not only is Desmond important to Widmore as a bargaining piece, and something to prevent the Smoke Monster from leaving the island, but perhaps Widmore also knows what’s going on with the two timelines and needs Desmond to make things right. Then again, perhaps I’m completely off-base, but that’s half the fun of LOST: making these wild predictions.

The path, of course, could be something entirely different but at this point in the season, given what we know about the two timelines merging, I’d venture that this is what we’re up for.

If last week’s Richard-centric flashback episode was a different kind of LOST, and it was, then this week’s “The Package” was a lot of the same old, same old. But for a show that, by last estimate, was drawing over 10 million viewers per episode, the same old is clearly working well.

This week’s episode moved along the Jacob/Man-in-Black plot quite speedily while still, in true LOST fashion, revealing only scant details surrounding the billion other questions that fans have.

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