What terrible things were happening on the island? As soon as it settled into one year instead of flipping back and forth through time, everything was pretty mellow. Then Jack, Kate, and Hurley show up, and everything gets weird. Then Sayid pops up, attempts to kill young Ben, and things go from bad to worse. Why why why did they have to go back? For instance, Sawyer and Juliet were in love, now she's dead. It just seems that things were cool and now they are screwed up.

Why would any of the people who went back want to prevent the crash from happening? Kate was going back as an arrested fugitive, Jack was coming back to LA with his dead father (and plenty of baggage about that), and Sawyer had just killed the wrong man. They will be back in the lives that they were struggling in before, and will not have all that good settlement money to help them set up thier lives (OK I know that Sawyer did not have settlement money as he didn't go back, but why would he want to go back? TO things just like they were before, with him hustling people and a child on the way from a long con). Why would they help Jack possibly prevent the crash?

The only ones that went back that made sense were Hurley, as he was sick of lying, Sun went to find Jin, Sayid went only because he had no choice.

I am very unhappy with the finale. I am on edge. I hope that JJ and Damon make the last season good, as it's gonna be tough to end this well.

They had to go back because they were needed...by Jacob or by Darky. But the reason the real Locke thought they had to go back was to stop the Losties left on the island from jumping through time...which would have killed them.

You sure are assuming a lot. We don't know Juliet is dead. Or if the Losties theory about changing things will work. Highly doubtful in a storytelling sense that they'll do that since we only have 16 episodes left to finish up the whole story.

I think that Juliet's death is a foregone conclusion-when she hit the nuclear device with a rock and it is shown exploding (as a bright flash of light at the end), that's pretty clear. I think that they really pushed the "survives a terrible explosion" story with Jin's survival. And even though Sawyer seemed to be a new man and in love with Juliet, with Kate back on the island, it made for an uncomfortable situation.

I don't know how the conclusion will work.

And will or won't Desmond be back? Very bummed that he never showed up on the island-I don't think that Ben was able to kill Penny successfully. He's HOT!

Well, Juliet may or may not be dead, but since 'stabbed Jacob' said, "They're coming!" - I feel that he was referring to the Losties in 1977. I think they were flashed away to present time right as the bomb blew... whether Juliet survives or not remains to be seen.

Just my two cents!

On a personal level, if I were one of the O6, I would feel so awful for leaving some of my friends behind on the island to just be 'forgotten'. It would eat me up inside - I wouldn't be able to live 'happily ever after' - I'd have to go find a way to get back to the island and rescue my friends. Of course, the real reason they went back was because of Dark Man and/or Jacob, but on a personal level, I would be wanting to go back anyway to try to rescue my remaining friends on the island.

I agree about feeling bad about leaving the rest of the people behind. Not like the O6 had a choice-that island just vanished! And Jack did try to get back by flying back and forth to AU repeatedly.
Since ALL of them were supposed to go back (as Eloise kept saying to Ben) but Aaron didn't because Kate left with Claire's mum, his real grandmother, maybe Aaron will be Jacob reborn, kind of like how Locke is actually now the guy that wanted to kill Jacob. I think that Aaron is going to factor in somehow.
I also wish that they still had Walter still in the show with his "abilities" that he seemed to have.
And I have always been sad that Mr. Eko was killed off, too (I know-that was ages ago!)--he was shaping up to be the most interesting person on the island.

One more thing:
Who is "Darky" or "Dark Man" to which people are referring? It's possible that I missed a major point or twist along the way...!

In the very first scene of the finale, Jacob was eating fish on the shore with the Black Rock ship in the distance, the darked hair man that spoke with him is the one we're talking about.

Darky is significant because he told Jacob in that scene that he wanted to kill him and one of these days he would find a 'loophole'. Then, at the end of the finale, when Jacob was stabbed, he turned to "Locke" and said, "Well, I guess you found your loophole."

OK, I thought so.
Yeah, when Jacob said the loophole line to John/Dark Man, I gasped! Boy what a creepy twist! Then there is John's 2nd body, dead! WTF??? And I liked John Locke!

Again, we didn't see a bomb go off, just white light. The same white flash we saw every time they time jumped. No death is a foregone conclusion. Everyone was pretty certain Jin died last year

Desmond and Penny's story isn't over.

Indeed. I think what Ben unintentionally accomplished was uniting Whitmore and Desmond to a common cause.