That sound you heard was my jaw hitting the floor

"We made a mistake, Kate."

So. Lost. The season finale. "Through the Looking Glass."

If you're curious, I won the bet, but only because of a prearranged tiebreaker. We each got exactly one death right.

But the episode...my god. Two of the most extraordinary hours of television I think I've ever seen. Charlie the hero! Ben the...good guy? Maybe? We don't know! Walt's back (or is he?)! Locke the even-more crazy man! You can't kill Patchy! "Good Vibrations" is the key to rescue! Hurley saves the day! Sawyer goes all dark and evil (more than usual)! Jack admits his love for Kate! Alex finds out who her mother really is!

Wow.

And that was all before the big finish -- the last five minutes, which Lindelof and Cuse have been calling their "rattlesnake in the mailbox," for how quickly and completely it changes everything about the show. How unexpected, how cunning, how evil it is.

And they were not kidding. Not at all.

In the space of a single conversation, a simple exchange of words with two characters we already know, they turned Lost inside-out. Sent it "Through the Looking Glass," if you will.

Wow.

But it's being ruined by stupid people who are reading waaay too much into a comment Jack makes, in one of his flashbacks -- erm, uh, "off-island" scenes. A comment that's perfectly understandable, considering that he's drunk and on drugs and emotionally distraught.

He tells someone to go get his father, "the chief of surgery," and that if Jack is "more drunk than he is..." at which point he trails off. Of course, Jack's father is dead, and so can't be "gotten" from anywhere, and is probably not drunk.

Jack said this, of course, because he's drunk, on drugs, and emotionally distraught.

But not to hear Lost fans tell it. Most of them understand, but some are quick to jump out and start spinning theories about time travel and wormholes and alternate universes.

Guys: calm down. You're ruining this beautiful moment. And you're going to be disappointed when the truth turns out to be far, far simpler than you think.

Man oh man, what a spectacular finish to the season. How long until season four?

...February? Seriously?

...Huh.

*looks at watch*