Is the fourth season of Lost really over? It’s hard to believe, but it is. And Damon and Carlton have placed the final pieces of the Oceanic Six puzzle, answering most of the mysteries that Lost fans have been trying to solve since last year’s mind-blowing finale. The downside to so much explanation is that the new mysteries posed in this year’s closer aren’t quite as compelling the ones that made many fans question if they could survive nearly a year without a new episode of Lost. I don’t feel quite so anxious for more this time.

Spoilers follow.

Please forgive me a brief tangent, but it will make sense in a moment. About ten years ago, DC Vertigo published a great, but little-read comic book series called Deadenders written by the extremely talented Ed Brubaker. Poor sales lead to its cancellation, but Vertigo let Brubaker finish out the story in one extra-length issue. That meant cramming several years worth of stories into about 64 pages. Although the finale of Deadenders answered most of the questions readers had, there wasn’t a lot of time for the character beats fans had come to expect. This year’s Lost finale is very similar to that — the strike-shortened season has forced the writers to focus on plot over character. As a result, the last two hours of “There’s No Place Like Home” seem to speed by a little too quickly.

The episode opens just as last year’s finale ends. Kate is driving away, leaving Jack at the airport doped out of his mind and completely lost. However, she stops the car and comes back. One hopes that she’s going to take Jack and promise to help him, but that isn’t to be. Instead she let’s out all her frustrations on him.

We learn the name of the man in the coffin — “Jeremy Benthem,” though not his significance. Kate tells Jack that when Benthem came to her, she knew he was crazy — but Jack, for some reason, believed whatever it was he told them. What Benthem said is unclear, but apparently he revealed the only thing that would allow Jack to keep Kate and Aaron safe. The ensuing conflict between Jake and Kate over Benthem’s message seems to be at the heart of their split.

Just thinking about this makes Kate even angrier — she doesn’t like having to explain to Aaron why Jack’s not there. The scene ends with Kate telling Jack that she’s spent the last three years trying to figure out all the horrible things that happened on the day that they left — how dare he ask her to go back.

With that, Kate climbs into her car and drives away, leaving Jack alone and stoned once more.

Back in the past, Sawyer and Jack find Hurley and John at the Orchid station. Keamey and his men have left with Ben, and John is trying to figure out how to get into the secret station beneath the ruined greenhouse.

On the Freighter, Desmond, Jin and Michael try to figure out how to deal with the massive C4 bomb in the ship’s hold. Desmond, who takes a moment of exposition to remind us about his military training, says that there’s enough C4 there to blow up an aircraft carrier. It’s hooked to a receiver with a remote trigger, and has so many redundant wires and cables and fail safes and booby traps that there’s no way they can disable it.

Cut to commercial.

At the Orchid Station, John tries to get Jack to talk to him about moving the Island — but Jack doesn’t want to hear what John has to say. Hurley then reveals that Ben was taken by the “Rambo guys,” to which Jack wonders why Ben would let that happen. Ben always has a plan.

Speaking of Ben and his plan, Keamey and his goons have him tied up and are marching him through the jungle. Keamey asks him why he’s so important, but Ben doesn’t give him much of a response. When they reach the chopper, Kate emerges from the jungle and tells them that she’s escaped captivity by Ben’s people. Keamey has his men form a perimeter around the chopper while Kate is taken prisoner. Gun shots are fired, and some of the Others silently dispatch Keamey’s men ninja-style. At one point, a grenade ends up at Keamey’s feet — he kicks it over to his buddy Omar to save himself. Omar doesn’t survive the blast. Farewell Mr. Omar, we hardly knew ye.

Then things get really interesting. Kate and Ben escape into the jungle with Keamey in hot pursuit. Sayid bursts out of the underbrush where he’s been hiding and tackles Keamey. A huge fight ensues — possibly one of the most complicated and exciting of the series. Let’s just say that Keamey isn’t as tough as he seems, and Sayid gets the honor of kicking his ass.

Well, mostly kicking his ass. At the end Keamey gets the upper hand, and as he’s choking Sayid to death, a gunshot from off screen takes him down. It’s Richard Alpert. With Keamey apparently dead, all the menace I was expecting to plague our heroes through the finale suddenly deflates. Or does it? What was the deal with that device on his arm in the last episode, anyway?

We soon learn that Richard made a deal with Kate and Sayid — if they helped the Others free Ben, they would be free to leave the Island. Ben agrees to honor this arrangement.

Cut to commercial. Hitch actually looks pretty cool — and Jason Bateman is a huge and well-deserved star now. I can’t believe that it was Arrested Development that revived his career …

In the future, Hurley gets a visitor in the mental hospital — and I’m not talking about ghosts. Walt and his grandmother have come to see him. Big Walt to be precise — now that we’ve jumped three years ahead, there’s no need to CGI Macolm David Kelley’s younger face on another boy’s body, they can use the real thing now. It’s an emotional reunion — Walt is sad that none of the Oceanic Six came to see him when they got back from the Island. However, Jeremy Benthem did appear to him, just as he visited Jack and Kate. And Walt doesn’t understand why the Oceanic Six are lying about what happened to them. Leaning in close, his voice a hushed whisper, Hurley explains that they’re lying because it’s the only way to protect everyone who didn’t come back from the Island.

“Like my dad” says Big Walt, suddenly understanding.

“Like your dad,” Hurley agrees, with some hesitation. Does Michael survive, or is it that Hurley doesn’t have the heart to tell Walt the truth about his father’s fate?

Back in the past, Hurley and Sawyer eat crackers while John and Jack talk. The faith versus science conflict returns as John asks Jack to stay on the Island with him.

“You just stay here in your little greenhouse, the rest of us are going home,” says Jack.

John tells him that he’s not supposed to go home — and that the knowledge of that will eat Jack alive back in the real world until he decides to come back. The poignancy of all this is that we know this is indeed what will happen to Jack — and when John says he’ll be eaten alive by the knowledge, he doesn’t understand that this means Jack will become addicted to painkillers, listen to the Pixies really loud, and grow an insane unkempt beard. John tells him that if he does leave, that Jack will have to lie about the Island to protect it.

Protect the Island? Jack is incredulous.

“It’s not an Island,” says John. “It’s a place where miracles happen.”

“There’s no such thing as miracles,” says Jack.

“Well,” replies John, “we’ll just have to see which one of us is right.”

And just like on the X-Files, the audience already knows while many of the characters do not. Or at the very least, Jack and Agent Scully, two television leads who suffer from denial as a central character trait.

It’s at this point that Ben appears and shows John how to get to the elevator into the true Orchid Station. Ben impresses on Jack the importance to get on the boat as quickly as possible. As Ben and John enter the elevator, John tells Jack to lie to the world. If he does it half as well as he lies to himself, John says, the world will believe him.

Ouch.

Cut to commercial.

On the freighter, Sun corners Michael on the deck of the boat as he works to move a tank of liquid nitrogen down to the bomb. Sun reveals that she’s pregnant. For a moment, I wonder if the child is Michael’s, but that’s completely preposterous.

A few moments later, Michael explains that spraying the battery with liquid nitrogen will stop the bomb from going off if it receives the signal. But with only one canister, they won’t be able to stop it for very long.

Farraday returns to the beach for another load of survivors. Pulling Miles and Charlotte aside, he tells them that they have to be on this run back to the Freighter. Miles refuses. After Dan walks away to prepare the zodiac boat, Miles says to Charlotte that he’s surprised that she’s leaving when she tried so hard for so long to get back to the Island(!). Does this mean that Charlotte was part of the Dharma Initiative? One of the Others? Or something else entirely?

In the Orchid station, John watches a Dharma orientation video while Ben starts filling up a strange chamber called “The Vault” with metal objects. Apparently, as many fans have surmised, the Orchid was where Dharma conducted experiments centered around time and space. Apparently metallic objects should never be placed in the Vault.

Just as we seem to be getting somewhere, Ben notices that the elevator is starting to ascend to pick up a visitor. “You expecting someone?” John asks.

“Can I have my weapon back?” Ben says.

Cut to commercial. Incredible Hulk doesn’t look too bad. Edward Norton is no Robert Downey Jr., though. Even though he doesn’t ever seem to age …

Hurley, Sawyer and Jack meet up with Kate, Sayid and Frank at the helicopter. Sawyer notices the dead mercenaries and asks Kate which one she killed. He soon finds himself putting his con-man skills to work by helping remove Frank’s handcuffs with a hacksaw. The group takes off in Frank’s chopper, seemingly to freedom.

Back in the station, Keamey emerges from the elevator. Apparently he was just playing possum when Richard shot him — apparently the Others didn’t recognize that he was wearing Kevlar body armor. Maybe they really are survivors of the Black Rock?

Still, Keamey is wounded pretty badly. He limps through the dark corridors and barks some threatening things at a hidden Ben, while explaining supervillain-style about the strange electronic device strapped to his arm. It’s a deadman’s switch that connects him to the C4 back on the freighter. If his heart stops, then the bomb will explode. Uh oh.

Ben continues to hide in a dark closet, while John steps from the shadows and offers to have a discussion with Keamey about what he wants. “I have no conflict with you,” John says. It’s at this point, that Ben pops out of his closet, knocks Keamey down, and begins stabbing Keamey in the neck. “You killed my daughter!” he shouts as he gives Keamey a mortal wound.

The transmitter begins to beep along with Keamey’s rapidly diminishing heart rate.

“You just killed everyone on that boat!” says John.

“So?” says Ben.

Cut to commercial.

On the beach, Charlotte explains to Dan that she’s decided to stay. He tries to convince her to leave with him, but is not successful.

“Would it make any sense if I said I was still looking for where I was born?” Charlotte asks him.

It doesn’t make sense to Dan, but to the audience it does. Perhaps Charlotte was a child of Dharma?

The two part ways tenderly — they almost kiss, but their affection appears mostly platonic.

Juliet tells Dan that she’s going to stay on the beach until everyone else is off the Island. As he leaves, they notice the Freighter off on the horizon.

Back on the boat, Jin, Michael and Desmond try to figure out how to deactivate the bomb. The liquid nitrogen is getting too low. Michael tells them that they have to get everyone off the boat.

Meanwhile, the helicopter crew is having their own problems. Bullet holes from Keamey’s gunfight with the Others has created a leak in the chopper’s fuel tank and helicopter fuel is quickly pouring out of the leak. With the chopper rapidly running out of fuel, it looks like their only option is to return to the Island. Jack won’t have it, though — he wants them to reach the Freighter. So they start throwing any unnecessary cargo overboard in an effort to lighten the load.

“If only we were two hundred pounds lighter,” says Frank.

The camera cuts uncomfortably to Hurley, who clearly weighs more than two hundred pounds.

But fortunately, they won’t have to throw him overboard. Ever the self-sacrificing con-man with a heart of gold, Sawyer whispers something to Kate and kisses her goodbye. He then dives into the ocean. Something tells me that Sawyer weighed a bit more than two hundred pounds. As the chopper flies away, Sawyer surfaces and begins to swim for the beach. Kate cries.

Cut to commercial.

Back in the future, Sayid asks a man sitting in a car for the time. When the man gives it to him, he shoots him dead. The camera pans to reveal that we are outside of Hurley’s mental hospital. Inside, Hurley is playing chess with an empty chair.

“I think visiting hours are over, dude,” Hurley tells Sayid.

Sayid explains to him that they’re being followed, and that he has to take Hurley some place safe. Also, he tells Hurley that Jeremy Benthem is dead. Perhaps this episode should have been called: “Who is Jeremy Benthem?” By this point I have my theories — Ben is the most dominant, but I also wonder if it’s John Locke. Locke, as many know, was the original suspect fandom had last year.

Hurley doesn’t take much more convincing. He agrees to leave, but first he has to make his final move on the chess board.

“Checkmate Mr. Ecko,” he says.

Back on the helicopter, Jack assures Kate that they’ll go back for Sawyer, but she doesn’t look so sure. Then, they spot the freighter.

Down in the Orchid Station, John tries to save Keamey’s life, but just like most things in John’s life, he doesn’t have much luck.

“Wherever you go,” Keamey says to Ben, “Widmore will find you.”

“Not if I find him first,” says Ben.

Keamey lets out a death rattle. The transmitter sends the signal back to the bomb that Keamey is dead. Time to blow.

On the Freighter, Michael sends Desmond back up on deck, while they use the last of the liquid nitrogen to prolong what they now know is the inevitable destruction of the boat. The receiver light switches from green to red.

It doesn’t take Desmond long to reach the deck, and when he gets there, the chopper begins its descent. He tries to wave them off to no avail — Lapidus can either land on the boat, or land in the ocean.

Meanwhile below, Michael runs out of liquid nitrogen. With no other choice, he sends Jin to rejoin his wife and escape.

On deck, they have successfully patched the bullet holes on the chopper with duct tape and refueled it. The Oceanic Six, plus Frank and Desmond takes off just as Jin makes it on deck. Unfortunately, it’s too late. There’s no way they can go back for him without risking blowing up in the blast.

As the bomb is about to detonate, Christian Shepherd appears to Michael.

“You can go now,” he says.

“Who are you?” Michael asks.

Kaboom. The Freighter is enveloped in flame and begins to sink, while Sun cries out in grief.

Cut to commercial.

The helicopter circles the wreckage of the Freighter, but rather than look for survivors, Jack urges them back to the Island. This makes Sun very upset.

Flash forward. Sun walks along the embankment of the Thames in London. A call on her cell phone lets the audience know that her daughter Ji Yeon is safe at home in Korea. Sun notices Charles Widmore leaving a building and moves to intercept him.

She introduces herself to him as the managing director of her father’s company.

“Are you really going to pretend that you don’t know who I am?” Sun asks him.

She tells him that she knows that he knows who she is and that the Oceanic Six has been lying. She proposes an alliance based on their common interests.

“We’re not the only ones who left the Island.”

“Why would you want to help me?” Widmore asks.

Sun doesn’t reply, instead, she turns to walk away. Her look suggests that she may not want to help him at all — this may just be part of her plan for revenge for her husband’s death. Or maybe revenge against Ben. Or Jack.

In the Orchid Station, John tries to get Ben to explain why he let the people on the Freighter die. Ben explains that sometimes bad emotional states sometimes get in the way of executive decisions. Maybe John will do better? he says. Of course he won’t! It’s John Locke.

He switches on the Vault causing an explosion. This time no one dies.

“I’d better change,” he says.

On the beach, Juliet watches as Sawyer swims ashore. She’s been drinking a bottle of Dharma Rum.

“What you celebrating?” Sawyer asks.

“I’m not celebrating,” Juliet replies, motioning to the plume of smoke off shore.

“Is that our boat?” Sawyer asks.

“It was.”

Although he doesn’t say anything, it seems pretty clear that he thinks Kate and the others are dead.

Cut to commercial.

Ben dons the Orchid parka we saw earlier in the season. He explains that Jacob told John to move the Island, but didn’t tell him how to do it. That was a message to Ben that he would have to move it, himself. Apparently, the consequences of moving the Island force the person who makes the move to never come back. Ben sends John up to the surface where he will find the Others, who Ben says will now follow John’s every word.

Jumping ahead a short amount of time, John arrives in the Others’ camp.

“Welcome home,” Richard says. Like we didn’t see that one coming.

Back in the Orchid station, we see that Ben’s explosion blew a hole in the vault wall, revealing a pre-existing tunnel. He follows it down to a ladder, and hurts his arm when one of the corroded upper rungs crumbles under his weight. In the icy bottom of the tunnel, he comes to a strange chamber with a wheel mechanism embedded in the wall. After chiseling away at the ice, he’s able to get the wheel to turn, albeit slowly.

On the surface, John and the Others, Juliet and Sawyer, Farraday and a zodiac filled with Oceanic 815 survivors, and the helicopter crew all notice a mysterious sound that is enveloping the area.

As Ben pushes the wheel, he’s slowly enveloped in a bright light that eventually covers the Island. When the light disappears, Jack notices a strange circular wave where the Island used to be. It’s like the water is filling the vacuum left behind when the Island moved.

With nowhere to land, the helicopter begins to run out of fuel and begins dropping toward the ocean. Apparently rotary-wing aircrafts can’t glide.

Cut to commercial.

Luckily, Lapidus packed a life raft — which is good, because otherwise, our heroes would all die. It looks like Desmond may have drowned, but Dr. Jack Shepherd saves him with CPR.

In the future, Kate wakes up suspecting that someone may have broken into her house. The phone rings, and she hears clicking and a strange voice on the other end. Tina and I try to play back what the voice is saying, but we can’t make it out — maybe someone out there on the Internets will have better luck? Nervous, she pulls a gun from her closet and heads to Aaron’s room, where she finds Claire looking in on her son. And when I say “her” son, I mean Claire’s own son.

“You can’t bring him back, Kate,” Claire says. “Don’t you dare bring him back!”

Kate wakes up. It was all a bad dream — she goes to check in on Aaron, and find that he is sleeping safe and sound in his bed.

On the life raft, Hurley says he can’t believe that Locke moved the Island.

“No he didn’t,” says Jack. Of course not, Agent Scully. You just keep telling yourself that you didn’t just give birth to a clone of yourself.

Frank notices a boat nearby. They begin shouting for it, and lights start coming on it. In some ways it’s a callback to the end of the season one finale when Jin, Michael, Sawyer and Walt first encountered the Others. But with the Island moved, it can’t be the others.

Jack makes an impassioned case that they’ll all have to lie about how they survived. Fortunately, they’ll have some time before they have to come up with a coherent story, because this boat actually belongs to Penny Widmore. She used her arctic tracking station to track Desmond’s location from his phone call in “The Constant.” At long last, Desmond is emotionally reunited with his love!

If they didn’t have to cram so much plot in, the reunion may have been longer, but I’ll take what I can get. I didn’t expect Penny and Desmond to get back together so soon.

One week later, Penny’s boat drops the Oceanic Six in a zodiac raft off the shore of a South Pacific island where they will begin their life of deception. Before they leave, they say their goodbyes to Desmond, Penny and Frank — Jack jokes that he hopes he won’t see Frank again. However, as an audience member, I hope we do — Frank has been one of my favorite characters this year. Jack’s parting with Desmond is more bittersweet. Desmond and Jack have been entwined in each other’s lives for awhile, now. “Until the next life, brother,” Jack says.

I’m going to miss Desmond if this is indeed the end of his story. But something tells me it isn’t.

Not long after, the Oceanic Six come ashore on the island, and the story comes full circle. They’re about to go home.

Back in the future, Jack breaks into the funeral home for another look at Jeremy Benthem’s corpse. But he’s not alone — Ben is also there.

We learn that some horrible things happened on the Island because Jack left — and now he has to go back to set things right. Only he can’t return unless he brings all the Oceanic Six with him. This includes the newly deceased “Jeremy Benthem.”

The camera pans down to reveal the body in the coffin — it’s John Locke! I suppose his leadership gig with the Others didn’t work out quite as he expected.

Lost.

As I said before, this episode was largely spent answering the mysteries set up in last year’s finale. The new mysteries — such as how John got off the Island, took the identity of Jeremy Benthem and then apparently committed suicide — aren’t quite as compelling as the shock of last year. Also, after so much build-up, Keamey was dispatched too easily. I suspect this was due to the strike-shortened season, but it seemed like he was set up as the menacing big bad, only to be turned into a device to blow up the freighter.

I suspect that the group Jack gathers together will include Sayid, Ben, Kate, Aaron, Sun, Hurley, Desmond and Walt — everyone who left the Island. I also have a strong feeling that Jin is not dead — there’s a reason why Dan was out in the ocean with a boatload of Oceanic Six survivors, and my suspician is that he will pull a very alive Jin out of the water.

As satisfying as the resolutions are, I feel that the rushed plot hurt the episode. Also, the need to know how the Oceanic Six got to be where they ended up isn’t the same as real danger. We know that they can’t die in the past, and that they get off the Island. That knowledge greatly diminished the overall sense of peril we were supposed to feel. The show did everything it was supposed to do, but I wanted more — this is Lost, and they should always be upping the ante on the audience. Also, I had an issue with how easily everyone — even Walt — referred to John Locke as “Jeremy Benthem.” It seemed awkward and false to me — particularly given the strong feelings everyone had about Locke. The only reason they didn’t use his real name was to keep the audience in the dark. This makes it artificial, and in my opinion, they could have skirted around the issue by not naming him at all.

With so much going on and so little time to stop and feel what our characters were going through, I’m afraid I’ll have to give the season four finale a solid, but somewhat disappointing (for Lost) 3.5 out of 5 Walts: