WHAT HAPPENED?!

Last night's LOST was so unbelievable that I don't even have a jewelry tie-in to go with it.  Spoilers abound in this post.  If you haven't seen it yet, go watch and come back after to discuss. 

I work at home.  For the most part, I love it.  I don't miss the office politics, fighting traffic, deciding what to wear and all that stuff.  The one thing I do miss, however, is gathering around and discussing groundbreaking television moments.  Last night's LOST episode was one of those moments.  So, I'm doing a public service for those of us who have nobody to discuss LOST with and opening up this blog for discussion.

Most importantly to me, what was going on with the two different scenarios - life as if the plane never crashed and life on the island after the explosion?  What's your take on this?  I read elsewhere that the plane not crashing stuff was a parallel universe.  I'm not so sure about that.  I mean, where was this parallel universe before the explosion?  Did the explosion create it or was it always there?  If it was always there, why haven't we seen it before and what's the meaning of showing it now?  I'm thinking that it's more of an alternate story, like this is what would have happened if the plane didn't crash.  Notice how the characters still interacted with each other, both on and off the plane?  Seriously, how many times are those kinds of connections made in real life?  You sit next to someone.  Maybe you talk, maybe you don't, but once you get off the plane, the other person is pretty much forgotten.

Next subject for discussion:  Locke (or faux Locke).  He's the smoke monster?!  Is he also the man in black?  In Locke's body, he has a sense of humor - "Sorry you had to see me like that."  But he also seems a bit malevolent or at least not terribly nice.  So what's the story here?  Opinions please, because I don't know what to think.

So nice that Juliet got a proper death scene and burial.  So sad for Sawyer.  So weird that her last words, well to Myles anyway, were "it worked."  How exactly did it work?  Is the whole strangers on a plane scenario the reality now and the island thing is life after death?  But then how could Juliet die if they were all already dead?

Speaking of dead.  Love that Hurley sees dead people and isn't the fazed by it in the least.  Jacob:  "I died about an hour ago."  Hurley:  "Sorry Dude.  That sucks."  Hugo/Hurley is my favorite LOST character with Charlie being a close second.  It was great seeing Charlie on the plane and I hope we get to see more of him.

Who else knew that Sayid wouldn't stay dead?  Who else thinks that he's now Jacob?  Who else really really really wants to know what was on that piece of paper that was inside the ankh from the guitar case?  (Loved Hurley's response when asked if he'd looked inside the case.  "Um. Maybe?"

There's a ton of other stuff I haven't even touched on, like why wasn't Claire on the plane (or was she?), where did Desmond disappear to, where is the body of Jack's dad?  Why wasn't the water in the temple spring clear and did it look kind of bloody to you?  What exactly is this temple and who are these other others?  Why was the island under water in the non-crash story? 

I was hoping for some answers but got more questions instead.  Not that I'm complaining.  I loved it.  At some point I stopped trying to figure it out and just went along for the ride.  It was a fun and interesting ride.  But Sayid summed it all up for me with the last line of the night.  What happened?