I'm going to agree and disagree with Mark Podolski and his previous posting about the season finale of "Lost." Then again, he and I have been disagreeing about it for a few weeks (he had some crazy theories about alternate universes and the creation of more alternate universes that I don't even think he understood himself). Again, don't read this if you haven't yet watched the final episode of the fifth season. And if you haven't, what are you waiting for? How can you just let that sit on your DVR?

- I can go along with Mark's idea that Jacob and his nameless nemesis have had an ongoing battle that our plane crash victims got caught up in. I'm also kind of annoyed that it took five seasons to get to that point. I really hope the sixth season wraps it up nicely and ties everything together from the first few seasons -- including characters like Mr. Eko and his brother, Libby, Anna Lucia and Boone. There have been a lot of characters that have just been brushed aside since they started focusing on the Oceanic 6, and it's not that I am heavily invested in the fact that we haven't heard about them, but I'm hoping the series doesn't end with everyone scratching their heads as to why we had so much screentime for these people who didn't matter. A lot of time was wasted on that in the first three seasons, so it would be nice to feel some vindication for that next year. I was originally hoping that Jacob would be a character we had already met because I was worried if they would get the casting right (which I believe they did a good job with) and worried that it would be too difficult to tie in a new character's story to everyone else (which I'm still worried about). So I'm super invested in watching the rest of the series, but also anxious that I'm going to be disappointed. I don't know if I've ever actually been disappointed in what the show has done, but after so much build up, the last season had better be darn good.

- Mark says Locke is dead (which I can agree with) and that Jacob's nameless nemesis is occupying his body (which I can agree with, except that I'm not sure if it's actually Locke's body, seeing as how we saw Locke's body). Did the nemesis also occupy Christian's body?

- Mark also says Jacob's dying utterance, "They're coming," refers to the plane-crash-turned-Dharmavillians coming back into present time. I agree with this, but I have no idea how it's going to happen. Is it going to be like the previous flashes where they just appear in another time period? Did the explosion do anything? Is the hatch going to to still be built? Is everything going to happen the same way it already did?

- I don't know if Juliet is dead, so I'm going to disagree with Mark here. I'm kind of a Juliet-hater, but I was in tears when she fell down into the hole. Maybe it was a hydrogen bomb explosion, but maybe it was a time-traveling flash. It reminded me a lot of the end of season two, when Desmond turned the key, causing the Swan to explode. But he didn't die. Maybe Juliet will just have a Desmond-like time-traveling experience, so she'll have to find her constant so she doesn't die. But who would it be? Sawyer? Jack? Ben? Her sister? Jacob?

- While Mark mentions Hurley was touched AFTER he left the island, he doesn't mention that Sayid ALSO was touched after he left the island. Another co-worker suggested that maybe Jacob sought them out to touch them because they had no intentions of returning to the island.

- And I disagree with Mark's "safe bet" that the smoke monster is the nemesis occupying Locke's body. I like the idea of it, but I think a lot of people are forgetting that Locke was with Ben when he took him to be judged by the smoke monster about Alex's death. How could the smoke monster have been with Ben when Locke was there too? Lostpedia.com mentions that Locke knew where to find the smoke monster, that the smoke monster took the form of Alex, and that Alex instructed Ben to listen to everything Locke had to say. Are the smoke monster and the nemesis related? Yes. Are they the same entity? I'm not so sure about that. Although, it seems the smoke monster can take the form of something else ... maybe only a dead body?

- I'm kind of sad that Locke is actually dead. His character was kind of starting to annoy me, but I liked the old optimistic Locke much better than his repossessed form.

- Are we going to see Walt again? I had a theory a while ago that Walt would be the next Locke -- the next "leader" of the island. Locke had told him he was special, and he seemed to have a sixth sense. But it seems like the writers have just dropped him after Locke visited him early in the fifth season. Again, Walt is another character I don't want to just disappear without any explanation of what his purpose was.

Any other musings from fellow "Lost" addicts?

-- Cheryl Sadler
CSadler@News-Herald.com