^{Freud visits the Island}

Turns out, the cheap thrill of seeing C.J. "The Jackal" Cregg bludgeon Jacob's mom to death with a rock wasn't enough to keep legions of Lost fans from moaning about how much last week's episode sucked. But for me, "Across the Sea" -- which explored the relationship between Jacob and the (still-unnamed) Man In Black/Smokey -- was one of the high points of the season so far -- which is saying something, considering that we're only one episode away from Sunday's hugenormous two-part finale.

... And we're now officially more than halfway through the final season of Lost. That went by quick, no?

After last week's Alpert Explained episode, a few of us Phoenix Lost-watchers were talking. Specifically, we were talking quite about how it seemed like there was basically nothing to talk about after each of these episodes.

Prior to his voyage on the Black Rock, Richard Alpert took part in some amateur crime-fighting.

Last week's Lost ... what happened again? Something about Sawyer and Charles Widmore and Miles and Claire and Charlotte and Smokey's mommy issues? Plus some new woman who's apparently the key to the whole show (more on this in a minute)? I seem to remember thinking it was pretty good at the time, but as with a surprisingly large number of episodes from this season, I didn't find it particularly memorable.

^{Illustration plucked from Nedroid's amazing Lost gif bin}

Maybe it's just because it had an unusually high Ben Linus/Everybody Else ratio, but last week's episode, "Dr. Linus," was (in my humble opinion) pretty awesome. To briefly recap: In the Sideways Universe (also known as "Degrassi High: The Alternate Timeline"), disgruntled history teacher Ben -- initially egged on by Sideways Locke, no less -- tries to blackmail Principal Reynolds in order to claw his way to the top, but aborts mission when it threatens to ruin Alex's shot at getting into college.

Last week's episode of Lost, "Sundown," continued a string of solid, mostly enjoyable episodes. Yet still, it's hard to shake the feeling that this season is still finding its footing. We're a third of the way in now, and it feels like almost the entirety of that third has been spent strategically moving actors into different locations, all to presumably set up for the events of the rest of the season.

Last week's Lost was not a bad little episode; we got some nice character moments getting to know a not-excruciating parallel version of Jack, and we got to see that mirror device thingie, which may or may not be important going forward. The hot theory right now based on that episode is that, far from the savior everyone thinks he is, Jacob is actually the show's bad guy, and Locke/Smokey is the real hero.

So here we are: Tonight's the night we Lost fans have so feverishly been waiting for: the premiere of the show's final season, which will hopefully answer some of our most burning Lost questions. What is the smoke monster? Who are the Others? Why is Walt doing ads for Tyson chicken nuggets?

Join the Phoenix's crack team of Lost pundits, as we testily and fanboyishly dissect Season 6.