LIVE "Greatest Hits" Discussion and Season 3 Finale Spoilers

[Listen to this episode!] [Subscribe to the MP3 feed via iTunes]

Here are the show notes for the live post-show discussion of "Greatest Hits," including some additional commentary, theories, and spoilers as of today.

• Karl is back, goes to warn the crash survivors on the beach
• In the live podcast, Amanda pointed out that it's strange that Karl had to take a boat—we don't know of any characters that are still on the "Alcatraz" island
• pretentiousgoon in the live chat suggested that it might have been faster to travel around the same island by boat than to go by foot
• Did it really take Karl 6 hours to travel around the island?
  
• We find out from Alex's conversation with Karl that she suspects that Ben is not really her father
• Amanda pointed out that when Sayid was chained to the swing set in "The Man From Tallahassee," he told Alex that she looked like her mother, which obviously surprised her and perhaps made her start to question her parentage
• We find out that Danielle Rousseau got the dynamite from the Black Rock to help Jack and Juliet with their plot to attack The Others
• Why is Danielle risking her life handling dynamite for them? Does she think that attacking The Others will help her rescue Alex from them?
• Rousseau's dynamite test was ridiculously loud and a huge waste of the limited amount of dynamite available to them—not to mention that The Others may likely have heard the explosion or seen the plume of smoke ascending, thus being tipped off that the crash survivors were making preparations for war
• Why put so much dynamite in each tent? A single stick was enough to completely disintegrate Dr. Arzt in the Season 1 episode "Exodus, Part 2."
• Josh suggests that perhaps the survivors still have the impression that The Others have superhuman strength, which many fans speculated early in the show based on scenes like when Ethan fought Jack—although Josh admits that this theory is very speculative
  
• Jack said, "We're going to blow them all to hell"—a great line, but will Jack get his wish? (More on that later.)
• Naomi told Charlie that after the outside world thought that he died, a Driveshaft "Greatest Hits" album was released
• If Naomi's telling the truth, this is kind of strange since we only know of one hit, "You All Everybody," from their first album, and the band's second album didn't sell well
• Naomi's comment inspired Charlie to write down the "greatest hits" of his lifetime (more accurately, his fondest memories)—the night he met Claire being #1
• Sayid has a Dharma binder containing blueprints of The Looking Glass station (presumably Sayid retrieved this binder from The Flame in "Enter 77")
• This is a completely underwater hatch (as opposed to The Hydra which is partially underwater), thus fully vindicating Jack from the Jay and Jack podcast, who has long held that the cable that Sayid found on the beach in Season 1 led to an underwater hatch
• A caller theorized that when Locke went downstairs to get the C4 explosives, he may have found a manual for the submarine, which would explain a lot of things
• Locke seemed to know his way around the sub when he entered it, and when we saw him on the pier later he was soaking wet, which has led many fans to speculate that Locke hid the sub, swam ashore, and blew up something else instead
• "The Looking Glass" is a reference to the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and more specifically its sequel, Through The Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
• This week's episode, the season finale, is titled "Through The Looking Glass"
• Something at the station is allegedly jamming communication with the outside world, preventing transmissions from both Rousseau's radio tower and Naomi's satellite phone, which use very different technologies
• Desmond claims that in his "flashes" he saw Charlie seeing a yellow flashing light, flipping a switch, and then drowning, and Desmond asserts that if Charlie does this, another flash will come true: Claire and Aaron will be rescued in a helicopter
  
• Will only Claire and Aaron be rescued? Or did Desmond only see the two of them get in because only a couple people at a time can fit in the helicopter?
• Is Desmond really sure that the person with the helicopter is going to save them? Maybe in the flash, Claire and Aaron just think they're being saved. In "The Man Behind the Curtain," Mikhail seemed interested in retrieving Naomi's helicopter, so we might see him flying it in the future
  
• How does Charlie's flipping a (supposedly communications-related) switch directly correlate with a helicopter being able to reach the island without crashing like Naomi's did?
• We find out from Karl that "They're coming right now!" as opposed to the following night as they presumed.
• Did Ben distrust Juliet and put this plan in motion to spite her?
• Kylene pointed out that since Ben knew the tape recorder was missing, he probably assumed that Locke had brought it to his fellow crash survivors and tipped them off
• Ben claimed that Jacob told him that they should move up the attack, but it seemed apparent from "The Man Behind the Curtain" that Ben can't actually hear Jacob, so Ben is probably lying
• In a Charlie flashback, Liam gives him the "DS" ring and explains that D.S. originally stood for their ancestor, Dexter Stratton, and they co-opted those initials when naming their band Driveshaft
• The only Internet reference I could find to a Dexter Stratton was in Wikipedia's "Clan Straiton" article, which mentions a Dexter as a supporter of the Scottish Straiton clan (Stratton and Straton are given as alternate spellings of Straiton)
• Charlie left the ring in Aaron's crib to sort of pass on his family tradition, assuming that he wouldn't come back alive
• In the live podcast, Amanda suggested that the ring Charlie had in part two of the Pilot episode was different, and she posted a comparative screenshot so you can judge for yourself
  
• In another Charlie flashback, the woman he saved from getting mugged was Nadia, Sayid's love (not Naomi as one particular spoiler suggested)
  
• She called him a hero then—and if he dies in the process of flipping the switch in The Looking Glass, he'll die a hero as well
• Josh suggested in the live podcast that Charlie playing "Wonderwall" in the same place as it started raining validates Desmond's time-travel flashback, because Desmond couldn't possibly have imagined the exact same scenario where Charlie actually had been in real life
• Josh suggested that this Charlie flashback was from the original timeline, before Desmond went back and changed time
  
• However, and this wasn't mentioned in the podcast, some have claimed that the outfit Charlie was wearing was different from Desmond's time-travel flashback, so the events must have taken place on different days even though the scenario was almost identical (same musician, same street corner, same song, rained just after the song ended)
• Some also suggest that since Desmond wasn't seen in Charlie's flashback, this means that Desmond wasn't really there that day, but this makes a lot of sense if Charlie was wearing different clothes, meaning it was a different day
• There was a shot where the camera was underwater and the whole screen was solid blue, and the camera came up out of the water to show Desmond and Charlie rowing toward the station. This may have been a reference to a Blue Screen of Death, foreshadowing Charlie's impending doom
• Charlie's #1 "greatest hit" was the night he met Claire, and as Charlie handed the note to Desmond and was about to jump in, Desmond suggested that he should go instead, and maybe the way he could stop the flashes would be to go in Charlie's stead
• Charlie didn't buy it, and knocked out Desmond with a paddle
• Josh suspects that if Charlie had let Desmond go in his stead, Charlie would have died soon anyway without any warning
• Obviously, the hatch wasn't flooded like Juliet said it was
  
• Was Juliet lying when she said that Ben told her the underwater hatch was flooded? Or was she telling the truth, but she was just misinformed?
  
• The brunette in the hatch looked a lot like Cassidy, and Josh joked that the blonde could have been a time-shifted Clementine
• They're not, however, characters who have been on the show ever before (as mentioned in my last blog post, the ABC press release for the episode listed their names as Greta and Bonnie)
• Desmond's flashes about Charlie's fate didn't come true the way Desmond described them
• Was Desmond bending the truth to convince Charlie to go for some reason?
• Was Desmond out-and-out lying? What reason would Desmond have to lie to Charlie (other than to eliminate the burden of having to save Charlie's life over and over again)?
• Were the flashes wrong?
• Did the future change because Desmond told Charlie what would happen? Case in point: If Charlie hadn't yelled out in shock and excitement about being alive, perhaps the Amazonian hatch women wouldn't have known he was there until after he flipped the switch
• Did Desmond simply not see this part of the future in his flashes? Maybe Charlie will still flip the switch and die after all
• Josh recapped Thursday's special, "LOST: The Answers," with credit to Lostpedia
• Josh mentioned a theory from the LOSTCasts podcast that The Looking Glass station is the way The Others leave and come back to the island, (perhaps via teleportation or some other means) which would explain why they need a sub to get off the island
• Josh commented that he wondered if Alex knew that Juliet had been working with the crash survivors, because Alex didn't seem concerned about sending Karl until she found out that Ben was going to move up the attack
• On the Black Rock Podcast, an interesting theory was suggested that after Alex talked to Karl, she may have gone back to free Locke. This makes sense because after Ben returned (without Locke), he handed Alex the gun that she had given to Locke, so obviously Alex knew that Ben left him behind; perhaps she went to see if he needed help
  
• The remainder of this post may contain spoilers.
• From the preview for next week:
• The Other named Ryan Pryce and his men quietly raid the camp with guns drawn
• There's an explosion in a tent and at least two people go flying through the air (so at least part of Jack's plan worked)
• Jack and Rousseau lead the exodus from the camp, and as they're walking, Ben nonchalantly stands there in their way
• How did Ben know precisely where they would be? Did he utilize some randomly-placed jungle cameras (e.g. like the ones Juliet used to track down Alex, Kate, and Sawyer when they were on Alcatraz)?
• Sayid, Bernard, and Jin (the three shooters who stayed behind at the beach) are all tied up in a kneeling position on the beach, very similar to when Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley were all tied up on the pier in the Season 2 finale
• A woman from The Looking Glass punches Charlie as he's strapped in a chair
• There's the yellow blinking light Desmond predicted
• Desmond holds a long-barreled gun (apparently inside the station)
• There are a few frames of Mikhail, who appears to be hiding in the shadows, and then the camera cuts back to Desmond holding the gun again
• How in the world did Mikhail know to go there? Does Ben have a hidden microphone on Juliet, did she voluntarily phone home and tip them off, or something else?
• Moreover, how in the world did Mikhail even get there? The Others no longer have their sub, it's an awful long way to swim, and there wasn't a boat floating over the hatch when Desmond and Charlie showed up. Perhaps someone could have taken Mikhail there in a boat and dropped him off
• There's a shot where someone is swimming with a gun (perhaps it's Desmond a little earlier in the episode)
• The final scene: Jack says "I love you," apparently to Kate
• The entire ABC synopsis for the two-hour season finale, "Through the Looking Glass," is as follows: "Jack and the castaways begin their efforts to make contact with Naomi's rescue ship, on the season finale of 'Lost.'"
• The list of guest characters from the press release is a bit more revealing: Tom, Alex, Richard Alpert, Karl, Mikhail, Jason (a minor Other), Penny Widmore (Desmond's girlfriend), Rousseau, Ryan Pryce, Naomi, a funeral director, a pharmacist, a customer, and a doctor (some of which make sense since the episode is supposed to contain Jack flashbacks)
• It will be really interesting to see how Penny Widmore is connected with the episode. Carlton Cuse has stated that Desmond and Penny's story will be significant in the season finale episode
• This is an even bigger connection with the Season 2 finale
  
• It has been suggested that Jack's flashback might possibly reveal a darker side of his history
• Is it possible that Jack could have killed someone? There's a funeral director in the episode, after all, but it really seems out of character for Jack
• Back on January 18th, Carlton Cuse told Ausiello from TV Guide that "I think Penny and Desmond's relationship will become something that will be a part of the season finale."
• Kristin from E! Online said that "sources" told her that the producers had been considering bringing back Michael on the show in the finale, but apparently the actor turned them down
• Co-executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz revealed in LOST - The Official Magazine that "Hurley will be playing a central part in the finale."
• On April 18th, Cuse told Ausiello: "Let's just say the end of the season features a showdown between Jack and Locke—a showdown long anticipated and a showdown with an extremely significant outcome for the future of the castaways."
• Interestingly, Carlton Cuse revealed this before we saw Ben shoot Locke, so there was an early hint that Locke isn't dead just yet
  
• Spoilerfix revealed on April 24th that the LOST crew was casting for a 40-year-old flight attendant, which character might appear in this episode
• Kristin from E! Online said on May 9th that "The game-changer involves Jack and someone else. A fan favorite will sacrifice himself for the good of the rest of the Losties."
• Who is the "fan favorite"? Charlie probably could be considered one at this point, especially after last week's episode, although many fans have disliked Charlie off and on
• Charlie dying would also fit with the theme of "resolution followed by death" on the show
  
• This wasn't the case with Libby, but it was the case with Ana Lucia, who (despite having murdered a guy named Jason in her past) changed her mind at the last moment about whether she should murder Ben
  
• Of course, Ana Lucia gave the gun to Michael when he asked to kill Ben, which is almost as bad. I'm not sure whether it's significant, but this parallels Locke's recent story, where he found himself unable to murder his father with his own hands, but he didn't have a problem with getting Sawyer to murder him
• In the May 21st Official LOST Podcast, it was revealed that if Jack's plan to fight The Others with dynamite and shooters at the beach was to work, it would have major repercussions. The executive producers also reiterated that the plot line involving Desmond's future-flashes about Charlie will be resolved in the finale, and that the shark will not make an appearance in the finale