Every Lost season finale can only be described as a bittersweet event. The final episodes of the past three seasons all have offered a sweet, thrilling conclusion to a year of storylines, and set the stage for new ones. At the same time, the audience has no choice but to accept the bitter reality that they must endure many months of waiting before the story resumes. The audience is not alone in experiencing this range of emotions, as the characters themselves also experience both the pinnacles of joy (the Oceanic Six family reunions and Desmond’s rescue by the one and only Penny’s Boat) and the depths of sorrow (the division of the group and the apparent deaths of three classic characters: Michael, Jin, and Locke). The three-part Season Four finale, There’s No Place Like Home, lives up to the daunting reputation of its forerunners on both accounts.
Not surprisingly, There’s No Place Like Home borrows a number of key elements from its three outstanding predecessors. The structure of the episode most closely resembles Season One’s Exodus, another three-hour epic that chronicled the paths of multiple characters off the island. Other references to that first season finale also appear throughout the episode. The thrilling greenhouse showdown between Jack Shephard and John Locke makes a direct reference to the events of that episode, and revives the tone of their classic conversation outside the hatch. The ultimate night-time rescue of the Oceanic Six, floating on a survival raft at sea, provides a roundabout resolution to the raft scenes from the end of the first season, but with a completely different set of characters.
