by Megan Bailey, Staff Writer

Season two ended on a big cliffhanger—Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) were all taken by the Others, and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) ends up blowing up the hatch with Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Locke (Terry O’Quinn), and Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) inside. This season begins with Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), getting her take on the iconic LOST season-opening scene, as she prepares for book club with the Others. This scene is our first indication that we’ll learn a lot more about the Others over the course of the season.

Along those lines, there’s a lot of table setting this season. We learn more about The Others, including Richard (Nestor Carbonell); Jacob and his list; and the freighter. The flashbacks tell us more about the passengers’ lives before the crash, as always. And of course, there’s nothing more iconic than the flash-forwards, which are used in the season finale to show us Jack after he’s gotten off the island.

Before the third season ended, it was announced the show would end after three more seasons. Seasons 4 through 6 were planned to have 16 episodes each, though this would get messed up with impending the writer’s strike. With a confirmed end date, the writers could finally start heading toward the ending they had in mind. To come back to Javier Grillo-Marxuach’s “Lost Will and Testament” once again, there was some kind of planned ending, though perhaps not a fully formed one. With shows like Game of Thrones completely whiffing their planned ending, I think it’s important to mention that having only a loose ending in mind isn’t a crime. But I’m getting ahead of myself!

The first half of the season has some great episodes, but there are some clunky ones too. The episode showing Jack getting his tattoos in Thailand is…certainly an episode. But things really start to come together in the back half, and I can guess that it’s because the writers now knew the end date and could work backward from there. And notably, Juliet’s flashback episodes and the two-part season finale are particularly compelling.

The showrunners are definitely toying with the audience this season. We’d been told at this point that the survivors on the island aren’t in purgatory, a popular fan theory at the time the show was airing. But we’ve got multiple characters on the show suggesting that they are dead and that this is some kind of afterlife.

Of course, if Jacob, Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), or the island powers-that-be wanted to keep the island from being discovered, Oceanic Flight 815 would have to be “found” in some capacity. If a whole plane went missing and was never found, there would be a lot of news coverage. So, we find out from Naomi (Marsha Thomason) and Locke’s father (Kevin Tighe) that the plane was found with no survivors. In reply to a question about whether they’d end up in heaven or hell, Locke’s father even says, “It’s a little hot for heaven, isn’t it?”

Another big storyline this season is the love triangle between Jack, Kate, Sawyer, which keeps on trucking this season and even expands to include Juliet. She’s first introduced as a love interest for Jack—and they kiss in the season finale—but her final pairing is much more interesting. However, she gets points for responding to Sawyer asking her if she’d slept with Jack yet with a “have you?”

I think it’s important to mention that Evangeline Lilly had a horrible time on set during season three, especially while shooting the intimate scenes with Josh Holloway. She should not have been put in this position, and I’m glad she was able to fight for herself in later seasons. No actor should be forced to shoot scenes, especially sex scenes, in an unsafe environment, and with intimacy coordinators becoming more common, I hope this is starting to become less of an issue in film and television.

This season focuses on destiny. The survivors are destined to be on the island, which seems to have plans for each of them. Locke can’t die after Ben (Michael Emerson) shot him because, as a vision(?) of Walt says, he has “work to do.” Charlie is destined to die, even though Desmond repeatedly tries to keep his visions from happening. And when everyone’s destiny does come together—Charlie dies to turn off the signal jammer in the Pearl station, Locke shoots Naomi to keep Jack from getting off the island—it’s not, perhaps, all it’s cracked up to be. Because as Jack insists to Kate when they’re both in Los Angeles, after they’ve left the island (say it with me now), “We have to go back!”

I want to end this month’s column by talking a bit about Nikki and Paolo—universally hated characters at the time the show aired. I vaguely remember fans being annoyed when they were introduced as having been on the island the whole time, which is interesting since it’s happened before with other characters (for just one example, Dr. Arzt, who got blown up in season one). But they don’t actually appear in the show that much before their bottle episode, “Expose,” where they’re killed off at the end in a pretty morbid way. So, what gives?

I have to assume that it’s because their final episode came after a major cliffhanger: Locke’s dad is on the island??? How? Why??? But even then, “Expose” is a great episode that I don’t think got its due when it aired. I encourage anyone starting a rewatch to give Nikki and Paolo and “Expose” a fair shake.

Notable episodes:

“I Do” — the beginning of Jack’s ploy to save Kate and Sawyer, good stuff.
“Exposé” — hilariously, the only episode I didn’t watch during the show’s initial run. I think it’s a fun standalone episode.
“One of Us” — Juliet’s episodes are a standout of the season, and I really like the double-crossing going on here.
“Through the Looking Glass, Parts 1 and 2” — once again, these folks know how to do a season finale.