Time travel, Egyptian symbolism, and a dead man walking - those are only a few of the themes fans are discussing after the Lost season five finale last week.  As per usual, the season finale was jam-packed with plot twists and turns as well as spectacular special effects that put us on the edge of our seats and left us questioning what we actually saw.

The two-part finale started out with probably the most shocking teaser of the show so far.  Two men are talking on the beach as a ship (theorized by fans to be the “Black Rock”) approaches.  The first man is dressed in white and the other in black.  The black-dressed man (Titus Welliver) tells the other that he wants to kill him and will eventually find a loophole.  He calls the “man in white” Jacob (Mark Pellegrino).  Then the camera pans to the statue, which we finally get at least a somewhat better view of.

If you are a fan of Lost, then it is easy to see why the teaser was so exhilarating.  This is the first time Jacob has ever been seen on the show.  In fact some believed that there was no Jacob or that Jacob was the smoke monster and had no form of his own, but Jacob indeed does have a face.  This scene helps to set up the theme of white and black, or good and evil, in the finale.  As for the statue, fans have been waiting since the season two finale to see what the statue looks like (after only having seen it’s four-toed foot).  Although, as with everything on Lost, it has definitely raised more theories as the statue is not that of the Egyptian god Anubis, as many had thought, but rather that of the Egyptian goddess of fertility, Taweret.

As with previous episodes of the season, there are two timelines we see unraveling simultaneously – that of 1977 and that of 2007 (the show’s present).  The main event happening in 1977 is with Jack (Matthew Fox), along with Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Richard (Nestor Carbonell), and a young Eloise Hawking (Alice Evans), trying to put into motion the detonation of the hydrogen bomb, because he thinks it will stop “the incident,” and therefore Oceanic flight 815 from ever crashing.  Kate (Evangeline Lilly) finally convinces Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) to leave the sub to try to stop Jack.  Upon reaching the beach they find Rose (L. Scott Caldwell) and Bernard (Sam Anderson) (along with Vincent) and find out that they are safe but unwilling to leave the haven.  Although apathetic, they do point them towards the barracks to find Jack so they can try to stop him.  Meanwhile, Miles (Ken Leung) is the only one who finally questions if it is possible that this action could actually cause “the incident.”  Sayid helps Jack to remove the plutonium core from the bomb so they can transport it out of “Dharmaville” and to the drill site (and future location of the Swan Station).

Meanwhile, in the present, Locke (Terry O’Quinn) is leading his people (now the Others and some of the members of the Ajira crash) to see Jacob.  However, we find out that he doesn’t really want to just talk to Jacob, or to thank him like he tells Richard, but rather to have Ben (Michael Emerson) kill him.

The other main event happening in the present is with the other people from the Ajira crash.  Ilana (Zuleikha Robinson) is telling Bram (Brad William Hanke) that she thinks Frank (Jeff Fahey) may be a candidate (though we don’t learn for what) and that he should see what is in the crate.

In the episodes we also get flashbacks, many dealing with the main cast and them unknowingly meeting with Jacob at important moments of their life, such as Kate (and Tom) stealing a lunchbox (the same lunchbox that she and Tom would late use as a time capsule containing the toy plane), Sawyer at his parents funeral when he starts writing his letter, Sayid with Nadia (Andrea Gabriel) when she is killed by a hit-and-run, Ilana hurt badly when Jacob asks for her help, Locke when he becomes paralyzed, Sun (Yunjin Kim) when she marries Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), Jack after his first surgery, and Hurley (Jorge Garcia) when he decides to return to the island.

Back in 1977, Sayid is shot by Roger (Jon Gries) during their escape from Dharmaville; however, they eventually make it to the drill site.  There is a shootout between the Losties and Radinsky (Eric Lange) and his men.  However, Kate and the others have changed their minds and join the fight.  Jack eventually gets the bomb, now altered to explode on impact, down into the pit at the future Swan Station, down which the Dharma Initiative has been drilling.  After a moment of nothing happening, the drill hits the magnetic energy pocket and it starts attracting everything metal (as we saw previously before “the hatch” was destroyed).  As this happens the drill tower falls on and smashes Chang’s (Francois Chau) hand (and Miles helps him out), Phil (Patrick Fischler) is impaled by some flying debris, Jack is knocked unconscious when hit by a toolbox, and Juliet is caught by a chain which pulls her over to the pit.  Both Sawyer and Kate struggle to pull Juliet out, but the magnetic pull is too strong for them.  Juliet tells Sawyer she loves him before she falls down into the pit.

Meanwhile, in the present, Richard brings Locke to the remains of the statue – Jacob has been living under the foot (someone else, assumingly the black-dressed man, possibly posing as the dead, has been using the cabin).  Locke enters with Ben, even though Richard tells him he must go alone.  Ilana, Bram, and Frank approach, as Ilana has been looking for Richard.  She asks him the question we have been waiting so long for an answer to, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” and he replies in Latin what translates to “He who will save us all.”  Satisfied, Ilana reveals to him and everyone that it is Locke’s body in the crate.  If that is the case, then who is with Ben?  We learn his true identity inside when Jacob says that Locke finally found a loophole.  Locke is the black-dressed man.  “Locke” tells Ben to do what he was told (kill Jacob), and Jacob tells Ben that no matter what he has a choice, but when Ben wants to know why Jacob is finally acknowledging him and questions, “What about me?” Jacob only replies “What about you,” so Ben stabs him.  After whispering to him that “they’re coming,” “Locke” pushes Jacob into the fire.

The scene changes once again to 1977 and we find out that Juliet is still alive at the bottom of the pit.  She sees that the bomb has not detonated.  She smashes it with a rock and eventually it appears to go off as the screen flashes to white and into the show’s logo.

Did the bomb go off, or is it possible the white flash was a “bloop” to the future/present, bringing those in 1977 back to 2007?  Is the seemingly very powerful Jacob really dead?  Is it possible that the “man in black” is the smoke monster and has been posing as the dead, guiding everyone (like possibly posing as Alex to get Ben to listen to Locke and kill Jacob) to do his bidding to find a loophole in order to kill Jacob?  We can only wait until next season to find out these answers and more with the return of Lost in early 2010.