But the ultimate object of the Alternaverse was the transference of consciousness into The Light, which was at the heart of The Island (and which, it was implied, was the source of The Island's many spirits. The Alternaverse was explicitly artificial (a work of human artifice, that is); Dan said something like he had…

I think Princeton was joking. But I wasn't nukes for the coasts; tiny American flags for the rest of us. And attractive women folks what with to have the fuckin's.

I think the point is that the people on The Island helped each other move on, and thus were paired in the Alternaverse. It didn't mean they would spend eternity as couples. It meant that they could help each other transcend connection to their memories of life. I think that in The Light, there aren't necessarily…

I think that Smokey carried part of The Light in him. He was physically tied to The Island unless that light was released and became diffuse, at which point his humanity would be restored. However, to release The Light would swallow up the entire world in some kind of Hell. Smokey was so obsessed with the idea of…

There you go, reminding me again why we should nuke the coasts off this country.

I think so, Fritzy. I like that they don't even suggest where that bizarre device might have come from.

Maybe those characters wound up in the Alternaverse, too, but just "weren't ready," like Ana Lucia, to move on.

Noel has done a fantastic job over the years, especially this one.

A little over a week passed between Ajira taking off from L.A. and it setting back off for Guam or environs.

I loved Jack's line (paraphrased): "You are not John Locke and you mock his legacy by wearing his face." For me, there's nothing more satisfying in the series than Jack's conversion to Locke's way of thinking. It makes one of the major themes of the series the notion of the legacy of a human being who seemed to fail…

I don't believe in Heaven, and actually kind of resent the idea of it. If The Bible was true, I would concur with The Saint of Killers.

It was beautiful to think of Richard having a life outside The Island. And who better to forgive Ben than Hurley? Hurley cared about everyone he knew. Even when he was scared of Ben, he never hated Ben- or anyone else.

But the numbers, the Casimir effect, all of that… That's science fiction. One of the major intellectual themes of this series is that science fiction is a kind of space-age mythology. In the end, the sci-fi conceits of the show became part of its mythological foundation; they were shown in the story to be a kind of…

What you didn't know is that Miles's mom married MacGyver.

They created this rich and elaborate mythology because the show was and will always be an analysis of mythological storytelling using the tropes of science fiction, fantasy, and myth to attempt to summarize the meaning of the stories it's based on.

Guess who considers every one of those songs among his very favorites in the world?

The point was that relationships are all that matter. Jacob said that the candidates were all very nearly irreparably broken when he called them to The Island, and that it was by the connections they formed with one another that they managed to free themselves from their suffering (and that's why people tended to die…

That was just Vincent, at the same age we saw him at when he was with Rose and Bernard. I'm not really a crier, but that shot nearly got me. I have a dog, and there is little more comforting in the world than one that is friendly toward you. It was beautiful.

LOST ends at the gateway to Heaven and Hell. And that's where a story about God should end, I think.

Or, God, The Devil, and LOST. Fans long ago hypothesized that The Island was Purgatory, and that its primary function was to keep strong the boundary between Heaven and Hell. This is apparently the case. What is The Light? The energy that spills out from their nexus. But what are Heaven and Hell?