What I learned from the Season 4 DVD, Part 1

One of the best special features on the 2 “extras” discs of the Lost Season 4 DVD is called “Course of the Future: The Definitive Flash-Forwards,” and it is exactly what it says it is. After a brief introduction by the cast and crew, all of the flash-forwards from Season 4 (and the handful from the Season 3 finale) are edited together into a single feature. It runs almost an hour in length, though I was a little surprised to find that several of the scenes are abbreviated. The crucial stuff is all there, but there are some grace notes that I miss, like the Oceanic Six reuniting with their families in Honolulu.

Anyway, this feature has all of the crucial flash-forward scenes, and the best part is, they’re in chronological order. Not the order in which they were aired, but the actual order in which these events unfold in the show’s storyline. If you’re curious to find out just exactly how all of the flash-forwards unfold, click through for a convenient list.

Here’s the proper order of the flash-forwards:

• Oceanic 6 rescue
• Honolulu Press Conference
• Sayid reunites with Nadia
• Sun buys her father’s company
• Christian Shepherd’s funeral, Jack finds out about Claire
• Hurley’s birthday party
• Sun gives birth to Ji Yeon
• Ben teleports to Tunisia (October 24, 2005)
• (Nadia is murdered — happens off-camera, referred to later by Sayid and Ben)
• Sayid begins working as an assassin for Ben
• Ben visits Widmore
• Hurley runs from the police, is recommitted to mental institution
• Hurley meets Matthew Abaddon in the institution
• Hurley talks to Dead Charlie
• Hurley plays basketball with Jack
• Sayid kills a man at a golf course, then meets Elsa
• Kate’s trial, Jack doesn’t want to visit Aaron
• Jack changes his mind and visits Kate & Aaron, moves in with them
• Jack visits Hurley again, Hurley tells him he’s “not supposed to raise” Aaron
• Jack & Kate get engaged
• Jack sees his father, begins to drink and take drugs
• Kate does Sawyer’s favor, Jack confronts her, Kate kicks him out
• Walt visits Hurley
• (“Jeremy Bentham” dies — happens off-camera, referred to later)
• Sayid removes Hurley from the institution
• Kate sees a vision of Claire in her home
• Sun meets Widmore in London
• Jack finds out Bentham has died from an obituary he sees on an airplane
• Jack tries to commit suicide but causes a car accident instead
• Jack goes to the funeral home
• Jack is confronted by a fellow doctor about his drug/alcohol use
• Jack calls Kate and asks her to meet him
• Jack meets Kate at the airport
• Jack returns to the funeral home and encounters Ben

Seen together, the flash-forwards tell a much more cohesive story than one might expect, dovetailing together in surprising and elegant ways. It’s almost an episode in and of itself. Little comments the characters threw out in the actual episodes now make more sense that we know the whole story of who all got off the island. It’s truly impressive how it all works.

Image: Copyright 2008 ©Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.