23 Questions About Lost Episode 616, "What They Died For," Answered!

Is there anything funnier than Hurley running through the jungle, chasing a blonde kid who stole his Jacob ashes?

Not this week! And that lead us to the very important Jacob line, "You should get your friends. We're very close to the end, Hugo." Indeed we are. [A beat, as we stare out into the distance.] Indeed we are.

No? It wasn't funnier when Miles took every possible opportunity to say he'd much rather go hide in the jungle than get murdered by a rampaging Smokey?

Fine, we'll call it a tie between Hurley running and Miles doing his best Shaggy impression.

Is Richard dead after getting blasted into a tree by the Giant Black Smokefist Of Straight-Up Coldcocking?

We need to believe that Jacob smokeproofed him as part of the process of becoming his eternal sidekick. Cuse and Lindelof have to know there can be no satisfying finale without a touch of Guyliner.

Whose outrigger is that at the dock?

[Please say it belongs to the people who shot at the other canoe, then FINALLY TELL US who those Outrigger Marksmen were!!!]

Damn, it's just Widmore's. How about a nice glass of lemonade to wash down your frustration?

Why does Smokey bother walking when he can fly around everywhere, or slice open the throats of foxy geophysicists when he could more easily smite them with his Smokefist?

He likes his feet on the ground, or his knife slicing through a carotid artery; it reminds him of when he was a regular-walking, throat-slashing human being, just like you.

OK, Jacob's finally decided to come back for a visit and unambiguously answer some questions around a Ticking Clock Campfire. What are you going to ask him?

a) Why did you think you could mess with our lives, which were so great, you strangely godlike jerk?

b) Why did you cross Kate's name off the wall?

c) It's clear we need to kill Smokey. Is that even possible?

d) Who are you going to pick as your replacement?

e) Why did your magic telescope only point at Los Angeles?

Great questions! Now what are the answers?

a) Hold on, Shirtless McThousandCrunchesADay. Were your lives really so great to begin with? Or were you all lonely and flawed? Did you ever stop to think that maybe you needed a higher purpose, and that you needed the island as much as it needed
you?

b) Freckles, can he call you that? Hey, it's just a line of chalk in a cave. It's not some kind of mystical Candidate Cancellation ceremony. He just figured you suddenly had better things to do, like be a mom to that baby you stole from Claire.

c) He hopes so! Cuz he sure as hell is gonna try to kill you!

d) Oh, come now. Isn't it obvious he's all about free will? Sure, Jacob will pluck you from your lives, crash your plane on his island, and refuse to answer any questions until the penultimate episode of your adventure, but in the end, you have to choose to be the Protector of the Golden Light in the Magic Cave at Heart of the Island. So who's up for it? [Jack's hand immediately shoots up.] Great! This will complete your arc from inept, God-complex-addled, wannabe leader (shut up, Sawyer, we know) to humble, self-sacrificing light-keeper. Poof! You're so much more likable now.

e) Because L.A. has the highest density of lonely, unfulfilled people grasping for immortality on the planet? Seems obvious.

How long is Jack going to have to do this Protector Of The Golden Glow gig?

Remember that crusty Knight of the Templar who spent centuries guarding the Holy Grail in that cave protected by elaborately deadly puzzles in the third Indiana Jones movie? Jacob used to change that guy's diapers. But let's just say, "As long as you can," so that Jack doesn't suddenly back out with the finale in, like, four days. We don't have much time to trick someone else into taking the job.

Where's the Decanter Of The Wine Of Immortality that Jacob drank to become like Mother? What's up with this tin cup and water bullsh*t?

Don't you see? It's not about magic wine. It's about the choice to sacrifice oneself for the sake of humanity. The liquid and the vessel are just symbolic. (It gets a little lonely being the Eternal Security Guard Of The Golden Lightbulb. Let's just say that sometimes it feels like that jug o' godjuice is your only friend, and then one day you look down and realize you've polished it all off, so you'd better come up with a story about the wine not being important.)

It looks like Homicidal Ben is back. He's not really going over to the Smoke Side, is he?

Ben had some score-settling to do with Widmore, so pumping him full of lead while he tried to save Penny from Smokey's wrath was a necessary, if personally satisfying, way to deceive him into thinking Ben wants to join the Smoketown Crips. At least that's what we'd like to think. Dr. Ben's so cuddly and redeemable in the flash-sideways (for Jacob's sake, he cried because Rousseau said Alex sees him as a father figure! Isn't that heart-wrenching?) that we can't bear to think he'd go back to killing and lying and general-slippery-weasling just to get the island all to himself. Or would he?

How much does it take to buy off Ana Lucia Cortez: Crooked Flash-Sideways Cop?

$145k, and not a dollar of Hugo's lottery winnings less.

Is Desmond the "last resort" or the "failsafe"?

He's Widmore's last resort and his failsafe, an electromagnetism-resistant magic bullet that the inscrutable billionaire hoped to fire into Smokey's heart if all the precious candidates were killed. But! Smokey's now going to use Desmond to do what he could never do on his own: DESTROY THE ISLAND! [Fifteen uninterrupted seconds of maniacal laughter, growing in intensity from "amused cackle" to "unhinged bellowing," cut to LOST logo, cut to Bad Robot title card, roll end credits.]

More dangerous to the world: Smokey with the cork out of the bottle, or Michelle Rodriguez with the cork out of the bottle?

See you after the finale, everybody!

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