An Explosive "Lost" Finale

As the second season of Lost concluded in a brain-bending two-hour finale Wednesday, viewers found answers to some of their questions while others were left unresolved.

(Warning: Obviously, the following article will reference plot points of the Lost season finale. Read no further if you don't want to know.)

Among the major mysteries explained: how Oceanic Flight 815 came to crash on the island; what exactly pushing the button does; and the story behind that guy, Desmond.

Still unclear: why 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42? Who are the Others and what are they doing? Whatever happened to that polar bear? And the monster? Also, how does Vincent the Labrador keep his well-fed figure?

The episode commenced with the revelation that the sailboat that appeared on the horizon at the close of the penultimate episode belonged to former hatch-dweller Desmond, who is found drunkenly holed up below deck after realizing that two and a half weeks of sailing had brought him back to the island.

The finale's main theme centered around Desmond's backstory, which begins upon his release from military prison after his dishonorable discharge from Her Majesty's Armed Forces. As he leaves jail, he encounters the father of his true love, Penelope Widmore, who attempts to pay him off to stay away from his daughter. (Interestingly, Papa Widmore is a central character in the Lost spinoff book, The Bad Twin.)

Instead, Desmond elects to compete in Widmore's boat race around the world in order to regain his honor. He sets off in a sailboat donated to him by none other than the ill-fated Libby, whom he happens to encounter in a coffee shop. Just before he leaves for the race, Penny tracks him down to tell him that she'll wait for him, no matter what.

Of course, he winds up marooned on the island, where he is drafted into his button-pushing mission by the previous hatch inhabitant, Kelvin.

After spending three years holed up together in the hatch, Kelvin reveals an important clue to the island--a crawl space in The Swan station that contained a system termination switch operated via a special Dharma key.

"This is the only other way out, partner," a boozed-up Kelvin tells Desmond. "The fail safe. Turn the key and this all goes away."

Kelvin also (finally) explains "the incident" referenced in the Dharma Initiative orientation video and why the button must be pushed.

"The incident? There was a leak, so now the charge builds up and every time we push the button, it discharges it before it gets too big," Kelvin says.

After finding Kelvin plotting an escape using his sailboat, Desmond kills him, then keeps pushing the button as a one-man team until Locke, Jack and crew burst into his hatch and take over. The last time viewers saw Desmond, many episodes ago, he was fleeing the hatch, apparently making his way to his sailboat and from there, on to the outside world.

Unfortunately for him, his escape plan failed, putting him right back where he started.

"There's no outside world, there's no escape," Desmond cries, as he is dragged ashore by Jack, Sawyer and Sayid.

Upon his unwilling return to the island, Desmond is recruited by the newly disillusioned Locke to help stop button-pushing convert Eko from pushing said button.

After he and Eko watched the orientation video in The Pearl observation hatch, Locke decided pushing the button was unnecessary and became convinced he was merely a puppet in a larger experiment.

Eko, on the other hand, became convinced of the life-or-death necessity of entering the numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42) every 108 minutes. He and Locke come to blows over the button and he locks Locke out of the hatch. But Locke manages to trick him into leaving his post, then locks him out so he and Desmond can watch the clock count down to zero.

In desperation, Eko convinces Charlie to help him find the extra sticks of dynamite used to blow open the hatch at the conclusion of the first season, and uses it to try and explode his way into the control room to enter the numbers. The resulting explosion leaves both Charlie and Eko stunned, but fails to give them access to the button.

Meanwhile, Desmond has realized that the button actually does need to pushed, as he makes the key connection that it was his failure to do so that caused the crash of Oceanic Flight 815 some two months earlier.

Locke remains unconvinced and smashes the computer used to enter the numbers, forcing Desmond to take the only step left--using the special Dharma key to activate the system termination switch. A blinding explosion and deafening sound follow, as the hatch and Desmond are presumably blown to smithereens. Charlie staggers back onto the beach (where he shares a smooch with Claire), but Locke and Eko remain unaccounted for...at least until next season.

Meanwhile, despite being sniffed out as a turncoat by Sayid, Michael manages to succeed in his plan to turn Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley over to the Others in exchange for Walt. The Other calling himself Henry Gale reunites Michael and Walt and turns over the motor boat to Michael, telling him to follow the compass bearing at 325 in order to find rescue.

"Who are you people?" Michael asks. (An excellent question.)

"We're the good guys, Michael," Henry replies. (Not a satisfactory response.)

As the traitorous Michael motors off with Walt, Kate, Jack and Sawyer are left gagged and bound by the Others, while Hurley is freed and ordered to return to camp and let the rest of the plane crash survivors know they are not welcome to come sniffing around.

In a final scene guaranteed to leave Lost fans with something to ponder while waiting for the show's return this fall, two Portuguese-speaking men working out of a snow-bound research station notice a huge electromagnetic abnormality and pick up the phone to make an emergency call to...Penny, Desmond's true love.

"Miss Widmore," one of the men says. "It's us. I think we've found it."

Boom. Roll credits. See you in September.