Lost is(n't) On: The Shape of Things to End

I've been a bad, bad boy. I skipped out on Ab Aeterno (a fantastic episode) because my internets would not work properly. I didn't post a review of The Package either, but I have a reasonable excuse for that: I was on vacation. There were obviously more important things than Lost. And I guess that's what we're all going to have to remember in the coming weeks - this show will be over soon, and we'll have to go back to worrying about things like how to avoid watching Dancing With the Stars or baseball. We'll have to entertain ourselves in new ways midweek, and I doubt we'll be watching V. So just remember: there are plenty more important things.

So what did I think of Ab Aeterno and The Package? Solid episodes. Ab Aeterno got us a lot more places than we've been before, but The Package was still very appealing to me. I *loved* the flash sideways, and I thought that both Sun and Jin had captivating performances. And of course there was the return of one of my favorite characters to hate, Mikhail. Keamy was back too, but we already knew what part he had to play (getting shot in the chest) and he's pretty one dimensional. Mikhail seemed a lot darker and more mysterious this episode with the little screen time that he had. Oh, and the scene between Smoke/Locke and Widmore was spot-on brilliant. I wish it would've never ended. Desmond was no surprise, but really...are we surprised by anything anymore?

This show has given us twists, turns, spills, thrills, deaths both expected and surprising, alternate universes, flash forwards, twist endings, irony, subversion, callbacks, pop culture references, classic literature references, historical references, biblical references - I mean you freakin' name it. If this show is anything, it's a look into everything that makes us human, from the greatest of our personal struggles, of good vs. evil, all the way down to the little things, like what books we'd like to read before we die. It takes huge ideas like time travel and boils it down to "Well, that was weird", and communicating with dead as a parlor trick. The relief here also is that no one is a vampire. In the end everyone we care about is mortal and fallible. Rarely has a show about so many mysterious and surreal things seemed so down to earth and human. This isn't the Twilight Zone. It's not the last episode of St. Elsewhere. It's the universe we live in, filled with extraordinary things located in an extraordinary place, with extraordinary people connected by fate, or physics, or whatever you want to believe.

That's why this show is fantastic. It's like we know what makes us human, now let's go deeper. Let's test our human subjects and press their loyalties and their morals. Now let's give them the car keys. Let's give them the bomb, or the button, or the gun, or the knife, or the code, or the tazer, or the boat, or the whatever it is, and let them decide the rules of the game. Let them decide what is good and what is evil. Don't forget free will. Never forget free will. Destiny may play a role in this show, but let us never forget that our characters always have the right of choice. Maybe that's what this show will come down to: the power of choice.

So who will make the good decisions? Who will be good, and who will be evil? Or will all the lines remain gray?

Tonight's episode will be covered on tomorrow afternoon, at which point normal weekly updates will resume.