LIVE "Through the Looking Glass" Season 3 Finale Discussion, Part 1

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Here are some notes from the Season 3 finale post-show live discussion. We talked for approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes, so I'm breaking this up into 3 podcast episodes, of which this is the first. Stay tuned for the other segments!

• It's very clear after seeing this episode that Juliet is truly on the crash survivors' side and is totally against Ben
  
• Ben admitted to Richard that he lied about the station being flooded
• Ben found out for certain that Juliet had tipped off the survivors on the beach thanks to Charlie's big mouth
  
• During The Others' raid on the beach camp, none of them seemed to have any suspicions when they didn't see anyone at all—nobody sleeping or walking around outside a tent, etc.; Kylene says this shows their human side
• In spite of the fact that Bernard, Jin, and Sayid were captured, their attack on The Others was fairly successful up to that point considering that the 3 of them killed 7 of their enemies
• Bernard blabbed about where the other survivors were going, putting his own wife's life at risk (not to mention everyone else's) just to save his two fellow captives' lives—this was a really bad move strategically, but Bernard didn't have the courage to sacrifice a couple of lives to save the lives of many (quite the opposite of Jack later in the episode)
  
• Charlie similarly gave away information to Ben too freely; sure, he knew he was going to die after completing his goal, but he didn't have to volunteer information such as Juliet's new allegiance
• Ben tells Richard to take everyone to the temple
• We don't learn anything else about this in the episode, so presumably this plot point will resurface in Season 4
• The word temple implies antiquity, an ancient structure built for the worship of a deity, so perhaps it was built by the island's original inhabitants
• Who are the ancient inhabitants of the island, anyway? Richard Alpert's ancestors? Richard himself, if he truly doesn't age (or ages very slowly)?
• Sawyer said to Kate "let's hope you're not [pregnant]" when Kate suggested that she might be
• On the surface, this seemed like a very cold and heartless response, as though he didn't want any children (which fits with what we saw in his prison flashback when he found out about his daughter, Clementine)
• However, perhaps Sawyer didn't mean that he didn't want children; he may have only been saying that because he knew that Kate being pregnant implied that both she and the baby would die on the island
  
• Juliet kissed Jack right in front of Kate (how rude!), and Kate naturally was jealous
• While watching this, Josh thought what a total double standard Kate has: she sleeps with Sawyer to get back at Jack for spending time with Juliet, but then she's upset when another woman gives Jack a brief kiss! Jack and Kate have never even had an official relationship! Not to mention that the last time Jack kissed Kate, she ran away—what's the guy supposed to do?
  
• Juliet lied about there being a secret cache of guns; she just wanted to help with the attack on The Others at the beach for karma, or so she told Sawyer
• When Mikhail shot at Desmond from the beach, Desmond had no choice but to dive in the water
• Desmond apparently had Charlie's "greatest hits" love letter to Claire in his pocket—will it have gotten ruined? Maybe since it was written in permanent marker it will still be intact
  
• Back in the Season 1 episode "White Rabbit," Charlie said he couldn't swim, but he seemed to be a decent swimmer in "Greatest Hits" and a flashback in the latter episode showed Charlie learning to swim as a child
• We found out how Mikhail got to the station without a submarine or a boat: he had scuba gear
• Mikhail didn't know that Greta and Bonnie were in the station—he thought they had been reassigned to Canada
• Mikhail was pretty upset when Ben told him that Jacob didn't want there to be communication with the outside world. Mikhail had good reason to be angry about this because he had been trying to reestablish communications and Ben had kept him out of the loop
• Is Ben really telling the truth about Jacob this time? He seemed to have been telling the truth about Naomi later in the episode
• Ben tells Mikhail to kill Charlie and implies that he should kill Bonnie and Greta, too (strangely, Mikhail didn't say anything to Ben about Desmond being in the hatch, too)
  
• Juliet explained to Sawyer that she didn't know the real reason why Sawyer and Kate had to break rocks when they were being held captive in the first several episodes of the season
• Juliet joked that they were building a runway for aliens, and Sawyer almost believed her. In the chat, Spivvy suggested that it was for the Battlestar Galactica to land (some fans have been hoping for tie-ins with BSG)
• As an aside, Josh pointed out that there has been at least one Heroes tie-in; the same Gannon Car Rentals brochure has shown up in both shows (Gannon is a fictional company)
• When Hurley showed up, Sawyer tried to hurt his feelings to make him go away (presumably to keep him from physical harm, like Charlie did in the last episode)
• Alex asked Ben an important question, "Why won't you just let them leave [the island]?" and Ben responded with the non-answer "Because I can't, Alex."
• On the recent "Answers" LOST clip show, it was revealed that when Walt showed up in the jungle with water dripping from his mouth in Season 2, it was an appearance of the smoke monster. Was the "Walt" who appeared to John Locke in his moment of despair also the smoke monster, the island, or perhaps Jacob taking a familiar bodily form to communicate with Locke?
• In John's sweat lodge vision in "Further Instructions," Boone told him "Clean it up, John." In this episode, "Walt" told John "You have work to do"
• Josh says that even if this Walt is really the smoke monster, this does NOT mean that Walt is dead; Carlton Cuse made it very clear in an Official LOST Podcast a while back that Walt is "fine"
• The LOST execs tried to get Harold Perrineau, who played Michael, back on the show for this episode, but the actor was unable to. Perhaps Michael and Walt would have both appeared to John
• However, Amanda points out that John and Michael were not very friendly with one another, so the scene might have played out differently had Michael been there
• After Jack told Kate that Sawyer was acting the way he was because he was protecting her, Jack told Kate that the reason he was sticking up for Sawyer was "because I love you"—this is the first time Jack has said this to her (the timing is kind of funny since he and Juliet kissed in front of her not long before that)
  
• Even though Naomi doesn't seem to know anything about Ben, Ben seems to know who Naomi is (or at least what her company's intentions are)
• When Jack's camp met up with Ben and Alex, Danielle Rousseau was on the front lines with Jack. Danielle and Alex were right there near each other, so it was no surprise at that moment that they'd meet soon enough, but what's interesting is that earlier in the episode Ben told Alex he was taking her to her "new family"—which consisted of her real mother
• Before Bonnie dies, she tells Charlie that the code to disable the jamming system is the Beach Boys song "Good Vibrations," and she said that the person who programmed the code was a musician
• It seemed like this was Charlie's destiny
• Amanda thinks it's ironic that it was such a positive, happy song, even though Charlie would die shortly thereafter
• When Jack and Ben go off to have a private discussion, Ben tells Jack that Naomi is lying and that she's part of a team that's been trying to find the island, and that it would be a big mistake to let her communicate with her team
• Jack basically says he doesn't care what Ben says, they're going to make the call and get off the island
• Through his walkie, Ben gives the order to execute Bernard, Jin, and Sayid. Gunshots are heard over the walkie, and we are left to assume that the three of them were killed. Jack is enraged and distraught and beats up Ben
• Jack did what he felt he had to do to save the lives of more people than just the three, but he was angry at Ben for putting him in that decision
• When Jack drags a bloodied up Ben back to the rest of the survivors, Ben introduces Alex to Danielle, saying "Alex, this is your mother." Then the first thing Danielle says to Alex is "I'll help you tie him up;" their first mother-daughter bonding moment is to tie up the guy who's been posing as Alex's dad for all these years
• Back at the beach, Tom tells Ryan Price that Ben has "lost it" and that "Instead of putting three bullets in the... sand, we should have killed them for real." On the surface, this seems a little bit out of character for "Mr. Friendly" compared to what we've seen of him this season, but clearly he was upset that 7 of his friends had been killed and wanted revenge, or perhaps what he perceived to be justice
  
• Maybe Tom wasn't really the nice guy that he sometimes seemed to be
• As Sawyer and Juliet lamented about their lack of guns and being outnumbered by the Others who were holding their friends captive, out of the blue a Dharma bus came hurtling toward the beach, driven by Hurley, who saved the day by taking out Ryan and catching the remaining Others off guard
  
• Sawyer shot Tom in the chest with Ryan's gun, even though Tom surrendered, and said "That's for taking the kid off the raft" (meaning Walt in Season 1).
• Sawyer was also fulfilling the promise he made after Tom held Kate hostage in the Season 2 episode "The Hunting Party," when he told Tom "You and me ain't done, Zeke"
• When Hurley said to Sawyer, "Dude, it was over. He surrendered," Sawyer replied, "I didn't believe him." If Sawyer overheard Tom's conversation with Ryan (which may or may not be the case), then he would have had good reason to not believe him

To be continued...