Desmond shepherds Christian's coffin, Kate pushes him for answers

At the church where the Lamp Post station was located in the original timeline, Kate sits in Hurley's Camaro as a Oceanic delivery van pulls into the parking lot. Desmond approaches the Oceanic employee and signs for Christian Shepherd's coffin, telling the guy that he works at the church. Desmond asks the guy to take the coffin around the back.

Desmond returns to the Camaro and she asks him who died. He tells her that it was a man named Christian Shepherd, and she laughs and asks if he's serious (the name is fairly funny when sitting in front of a church).

As Desmond is about to start the car, Kate stops him and asks why he's doing what he's doing. He says "No one can tell you why you’re here, Kate... Certainly not me." Kate objects saying that he brought her there and Desmond says that he's not talking about the church, "I'm talking about here."

Desmond introduces himself and tells Kate that even though she doesn't know it, he's a friend and all he wants to do is leave. When she asks where he wants to leave to, Desmond says "Let me show you."

Christian Shephard's coffin arrives at LAX

As the series finale opens, we see Christian Shephard's coffin arrive at LAX and gets removed from a plane and placed in a van.

While this happens, we see Jack in his office looking at Locke's x-ray. Ben is making himself a cup of coffee, his arm still in the sling. Locke is being wheeled off to surgery on a gurney and looks at his empty wheelchair. Sawyer prepares for another day at work and looks at himself in the broken mirror he punched in "Recon."

This sets up our characters as we enter the finale. I'll include the island shots from this montage in the next post.

Jack & Hurley find Shannon's inhaler, visit the caves, Adam & Eve skeletons & Christian's coffin

As Jack and Hurley make their way through the jungle, Jack steps on something that was pivotal to the season one plot. It's none other than Shannon's missing inhaler.  Jack looks up and realizes that they are at the caves which were last seen in the season two episode "Adrift."

They go in the caves and Hurley examines the "Adam and Eve" skeletons, which had only been seen once before in the season one episode "House of the Rising Sun" when Jack discovers them. Hurley comes up with a theory that the survivors time travel to "dinosaur times" as he calls it, died and were then laid to rest in the caves.

Meanwhile, Jack is staring at Christian Shephard's coffin which he destroyed in the season one episode "White Rabbit" after he discovers Christian's body is not inside. He tells Hurley the truth about how he found the caves, since everyone originally thought he stumbled upon them while looking for water.

Hopefully this scene is going to lead to an answer to both of these big questions in coming episodes. Exactly who are the skeletons, how did they get there and when? And then, what exactly happened to Christian's body and is it somehow tied to the body's disappearance in the new timeline?

Alternate ending screens

Here's a screen from each of the alternate endings that were shot to keep spoilers at bay. We see both Sawyer and Desmond in the coffin instead of Locke.

Jack visits Locke (aka Jeremy Bentham) at Hoffs Drawler, Ben follows

Jack returns to Hoffs Drawler funeral parlor and breaks in to see Jeremy Bentham's body. He finds the body release form on the coffin which is not filled out, presumably because there is no one with any legal standing to claim the body. Then who should appear but Mr. Ben Linus.

During Ben's inquiry, we find out that Jack spoke to Locke about a month ago and Locke told him that Ben was off of the island. Locke also spoke to Kate at some point. Locke told Jack that after he (Jack) left the island, "some very bad things happened" and "that it was my (Jack's) fault. Locke also told Jack that he had to come back.

Ben tells Jack that "the island won't let you come alone. All of you have to come back." Jack says that he doesn't know where Sayid is, that Hurley is insane, that Sun blames him for something (most likely Jin being left behind) and that Kate won't talk to him anymore. Ben says that he can help with that and "this is the way it has to be" and "it's the only way." When Jack asks "How?," all Ben says is "I have a few ideas." Jack nods in agreement and begins to walk towards the door when Ben stops him and says "We're going to have to bring him too," referring to Locke in the coffin. This is the point in which Locke is revealed to be in the coffin.

Now we wait until season 5, or at least until the new hiatus game launches.