Lost: Happily Ever After

I have often considered Desmond and Penny to be the emotional heart of this series. Where other characters have had serious relationship deficiencies, Desmond and Penny have always been the pair I cheered for. With "Happily Ever After", their love seems to be the root that supports the tree of "Lost".

Desmond, off island, has figured out, with a lot of help from his friends, that he is living in a false reality. It would seem that Widmore's plan with Desmond was to get him to break the glamor of the flash sideways. If that is the case, is Smokey the Nemesis the driving force behind this seasons off island action?

Eloise cannot help but scold Desmond. She always informs him when he is breaking the rules of his delusion/situation. He tried to seek out Penny and she pulled him away. She said that his life was perfect and that he should not mess with things. Eloise as always knows more than she is letting on, but how does she have that power in this version of the world?

I love that Charlie knew what was happening way back in the season premier. His near death experience brought him to Claire on the island and that glimpse of true love was what eventually set Desmond on a collision course with Penny. It was great to see George Minkowski again. He was a character that I felt was killed off well before we really got to know him. It made perfect sense that he would play an integral part in Desmond's flash sideways considering he was the first person we met that could mentally time travel.

Daniel Faraday, I mean Daniel Widmore, is a character I have missed a great deal. Of course he became a musician without his mother's constant prodding towards physics! It was nice to see she still bought him that journal and even better to see he is still brilliant even without the Oxford degree. Again, love is what brought Daniel out of his flash sideways coma and made him realize there was something more out there for him.

Sawyer and Kate did not knock sense into each other when they met in sideways land, nor did Jack and Kate. That must mean that Kate is not destined to find true love on this series. Will the sight of Juliet make James realize that he is missing something in this idealized version of his life? Of course Sun and Jin have been together this whole time and they have not realized there is another version of themselves out there. How does this work?

What happens when Desmond and UnLocke meet? Can Smokey hurt Desmond? Will the Man in Black even realize the value of Desmond or ignore him because his name is not on the list? What is the sacrifice that Desmond must make? Does he have to stay on the island as the new Jacob? Where would that leave Jack?