The penultimate episode of Lost sets the stage for what promises to be a pretty damn epic finale.  After a season of bringing two storylines to a head, the switches are ready to be thrown to send both plots (and both worlds) full steam ahead to their respective culminations, which may very well be one in the same.

Once again I need to congratulate the decision for the first half of Season Six to focus on small groups of people at a time in setting up the elements of the endgame.  There was a lot of deliberate precision and focus put on each piece, strengthening things in the viewers’ mind so that everything would stick and not get lost or jumbled.  Now that the pieces are in place, though, after a little backstory, they show is able to set everything in motion at once, and we’re all the more able to follow it now, despite the complexities that still remain.

Last week’s episode, “Across the Sea,” shows just how important it is, in retrospect, in that it explains a lot of how a lot of the elements of the show’s mythology are going to work as the resolution comes.  We see that Jacob has powers, yes, but that he was once a normal man, just like Jack, his new inheritor.  Likewise, the origins of the Man in Black, while still clouded in some mystery, at least show us and reinforce that he too was once human, and while he may be evil now (and while we may hate him for killing characters that we’ve grown to know and love), he’s not just mindlessly malevolent, and he too once had human reasons that have since faded over the centuries.  Neither of these people were inherently supernatural beings; that aspect of them is something that was granted to them later in life.

And that means there’s a whole lot of potential brewing for everyone who’s still on the Island.

After what feels like far too long, we finally get to see Benjamin Linus and his crew again.  An otherwise very serious episode gets some helpful levity from both Ben and Miles, but things never get silly; the tone remains solemn throughout, certainly in the original timeline.  It feels like we have characters that are finally being pushed to the very edge, and there’s some good drama that comes out of that.

I am a bit surprised that Widmore didn’t live to make it to the finale.  Not so much with Zoe.  Both deaths, however, had a narrative elegance to them, with the Man in Black offing Zoe with casual disregard to call out Widmore’s bravado, and Ben’s absolutely chilling declaration that Widmore “doesn’t get to save his daughter.”  I had thought that Widmore would be the last big wild card in the final battle between Jacob and the Man in Black, but it looks like that role rests with Desmond now.

Really, Desmond is the wild card in both universes, at this point.  In the flash-sideways timeline, he’s almost like a prophet, acting on divine inspiration to do… well, something.  Everyone from that universe is all converging on the same spot now, however, so whatever it is, it’s sure going to be big.

The part of me that loves fanservice was delighted to see Rousseau appear again, even if it was just a quick and minor role (though the scene between her and flash-sideways Dr. Linus, where the latter begins to cry, was quite touching).  To a lesser extent, seeing Ana Lucia again was fun, too (she always was my favorite bitch), especially in regards to her interaction with Hurley.  Desmond’s remark that she’s not ready “yet” makes me wonder if she’ll not be back in the finale, too.  Also, with all of the other reveals being what they are, I’ve got my fingers crossed (and should probably put down $20 or so) on David Shephard’s mother being Juliet.

In retrospect, there are a lot of subtle things about the episode that I really liked.  Jacob’s line to Kate about her name being crossed off the list just being a line of chalk in a cave grounds things slightly more in reality (as opposed to immutable cosmic forces), and adds to Jacob’s fallibility as demonstrated last week.  Jacob also refers to the Man in Black exclusively as a “monster” when talking about him to the candidates.  The nature of Jack and Locke’s argument about fate versus coincidence in the flash-sideways timeline has very strong echoes of their opposition in the original timeline, but it’s polite and civil and comes to an agreeable conclusion.  Hurley’s “reluctant leader” position finally shows how reluctant it truly is when he states outright that he doesn’t want to take over for Jacob.

Questions of fate on a smaller scale still exist.  Is Richard still alive after being attacked by the Monster? (Probably.)  Is Lapidus still alive? (Yes.) Will Miles get his hilarious-yet-cowardly ass killed this Sunday? (Sadly, probably so.)

And the big question is: will the finale wrap everything up satisfactorily?  I’m leaning towards yes.  I’m sure there’ll be some unanswered questions, sure, but on the whole, it feels like, since Season Four, the show’s known what it’s been building towards, and after this week’s episode, it feels like we’re ready for a finale.  Actually, I’m anticipating the show doing something ballsy with its final resolution, akin to the finale of Life on Mars (the U.K. version, mind, not the rubbish finale they had for the U.S. version).

Either way, I’ll be there, and unless they cock up the last two and a half hours something fierce, I think I’ll be able to look back on most of Lost with happy and fond memories.