I grumbled to myself early in the season, complained openly at midseason, but for some reason never canceled my Tivo season pass and kept catching up on each episode of Lost.

Okay, I was wrong. It's still stupid not to know the difference between Thai and Chinese, but I'm ready to give the creators the benefit of the doubt even at that point. There really is more going on here than meets the eye. I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say that what I took to be a "filler" episode was actually part of an elaborate set-up. In fact, the structure of each episode of all three seasons of the show have been a set-up leading us to this season-finale payoff.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I won't rehash the plot or talk about who died -- we all knew that was coming, anyway. Hugo had his finest moment, ever, coming to the rescue in his VW van. The previews showed us who Jack was saying "I love you" to, but it was still a surprise. I assumed the preview was giving us clever editing to fake us out. Nope.

Of course, the big clincher was the "flashback" sequence which turned out to be a flash-forward. Or maybe it's the real time sequence, and everything we've seen on the island has been a flashback. Either way, wow.

Here's a question to work on over the summer...whose funeral did Jack go to? He said he was "neither a friend nor family" yet he seemed pretty upset when he found the death notice in the newspaper. Kate seemed surprised that he would even consider the possibility that she would go to the funeral.

Was it Michael? Locke? Ben?

Also, who was Kate with? "He's waiting for me." For some reason, I'm thinking it isn't Sawyer.

Anyhow, I'm intrigued once again. And I look forward to getting answers to some of these questions...years and years from now.