Besides, Christian stated it quite clearly: "These people are *real*, everything you went through was *real*, it all *really, really happened*, so, please, irate fen...keep thy flame e-mails to thyself."

Paraphrasing, naturally.

I have a happy thought that Hurley planted them through the universe once he was all Jacob-like.

Bad Wolf! I like that idea too. Hee.

if it meant the Sideways World was just a weird group Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

All right, now that I have had this century-old short story spoiled for me, I must track it down and read it.

Done. Oh snaaaap.

I seriously do not understand the number of people who think that the finale said that everyone died in the crash and the Island was Purgatory. I thought it was pretty damn clear that the Island story was real; THAT WAS THE POINT.

Once again, you and I are as one.

The recap show from last night is free on iTunes, and we didn't watch it, so I'm DLing it right now. Mostly I want to see the montage of Ben getting beaten up.

All day I've kept flashing on the final shot of Jack and Vincent and tearing up. This is partly because I need my antidepressants adjusted (for realz), but partly because I WAS FINE UNTIL THE DAMN DOG CAME OUT. Pulling the canine card is NOT FAIR.

The only thing that confused the point for me were the shots of the wreckage over the end credits. However, since none of it was smoking, I assumed it was just the leftover wreckage.

I've read elsewhere on the Interpipes that since the show made it fairly explicit that the island stuff was real, that means that the people who survived did *actually* survive, and that that final shot of the wreckage was kind of a "here's what started it all" message from the creators.

Although there are people elseweb who are adamant that the wreckage was the Ajira plane. Which I really don't think so, because I think we're meant to understand from Kate's "I have missed you for so long" to Jack that she got back in one piece and lived a good long life. Which would mean that the Ajira plane didn't crash.

Tangentially related to the Ajira plane, I loved when Frank barked out that someone needed to fix the hydraulics, and did either Richard or Miles have any mechanic skills. All I could think was, "I'm a ghost whisperer!" "I'm from the 1800s!" "FIX THE DAMN PLANE!"

Hence the duct tape.

If that were Ajira, there would have been smoke. I didn't take that to mean anything other than a callback to the pilot episode.

It's interesting what the finale did to the concept of "if we don't live together, we're going to die alone." Well, Jack *did* die alone (sorry, Vincent!).

But then...he *didn't,* in the end. (Yes, technically everyone in the church was already dead, so it's more like "live together, die alone, work out your issues in a purgatory of your own design, and then proceed on to the next level of the afterlife together." But, for all intents and purposes, "die alone" doesn't really apply, even though Jack did.)

Which was cool.

All right, someone just pointed out that it was Miles who said that Juliet's last words were "It worked." And that's what she said in the Sideways world after Sawyer reset the vending machine. She wasn't referring to the nuke at all! Huh.

Locke said it too in the hospital bed. "It worked."

Weren't we talking about that upthread?

We were, which is why I brought it up. The fact that it was actual bit of dialogue from Sideways-Juliet didn't come up, I don't think.

I was amused as all hell that the container that Jack used to give Hurley the Drink of Island Protectorship was an old Dharma project bottle.