So Season Three of Lost is finally over and the finale was definitely a mind-bender.

I've complained about Lost here at Screen Rant for a long time, but I have to admit that in the last half dozen episodes or so it seems that the producers/writers have responded to viewer complaints about the show and it's improved considerably, getting back to the quality level of the first season. During the first half of this season Lost was looking like it was losing it's momentum, especially with the painfully drawn out, go-nowhere captured Jack/Kate/Sawyer saga. But once they dumped that storyline and got us back to the beach, the show took a turn for the better.

Spoilers follow, so if you haven't seen it, I would recommend you stop reading.

Here are the highlights from the season finale (and there are many):

Ben discovers that Claire has betrayed him and "the others."

Ben discovers that his daughter (if she is indeed his daughter) has betrayed him and he plans on leaving her with the Flight 815 survivors.

Rousseau finally meets her daughter.

Locke gets a visit/vision from Walt (Michael's son, who with his dad has left the island), who tells Locke that he can't die because he has a mission to complete.

The ambush of the others on the beach almost works, killing seven of the invaders but not all of them.

Ben is captured by Jack.

Charlie succeeds in disabling the radio interference and dies in the process.

Hurley gets a chance to be a hero.

But the really big deal in this episode was the fact that a number of Jack-centric flashbacks scattered throughout the finale where he is disoriented, suicidal and addicted to painkillers turn out to be flash-forwards showing him after they have apparently returned from the island!

It's a huge revelation, and shows him throughout the episode desperately trying to get in touch with someone who turns out to be Kate. He is desperate to get back to the island but Kate, who apparently is now with someone else (Sawyer?) has no desire to return.

Quite the jaw-dropper episode and a great finish to the season as opposed to the weak final episode of Heroes. BTW, over at Freeze Dried Movies they have a very interesting theory concerning the entire story arc and where it may be heading.

Overall a really great episode, although there are still those odd unexplained issues floating just out of site (smoke monsters, Walt's seeming powers, etc.). The one thing that made me say "C'mon!" in this episode was Charlie's death: It seemed to me that he had time and the opportunity to get on the other side of the hatch and then lock it. By the time the grenade went off, he had already shut down the transmitter. That just didn't make sense to me at all. Or am I missing something?

Anyway, we've got a very long wait until next season and although I think another 48 episodes is WAY overkill and far too many, I'm still looking forward to next season, at least for the moment.